Lonely Thieves

Act IV, Part XIII

Norah's Side (April 14, 11:00 am)

Norah squinted as bright sunlight flooded her vision as she emerged from the sewers. She was still within the borders of the Morning Star district, in an area that was far less populated. The sweeper trio followed her out of the sewers and took a moment to assess their current situation.

"Well, what should we do now?" Robert asked. "I don't think we'll be able to follow them out of the district any time soon."

"Don't worry about it any more," Norah responded listlessly. "It doesn't matter anyhow."

The sweepers looked at each other with worried expressions on their faces. They hadn't been there for the entire conversation, so they didn't know what had been said to Norah to make her like this, but it was clear that it had heavily affected her.

"Do you think... that a revolution in Twilight is possible?" Norah suddenly asked out of the blue.

"I dunno," Maize replied awkwardly. "You'd have to move mountains just to make the politicians make any kind of change, right?"

"Then, was it wrong of me to let them go?"

The sweepers worriedly looked at each other again. They weren't sure what Norah was trying to get at, but it was clear that she was struggling with something internally.

The group began walking back to the main center of the district, with Norah still lacking her usual energy. Eventually, she asked another question to the sweepers behind her.

"Do you think Twilight could survive without the Three Great Families?"

"I wouldn't mind seeing them take a tumble," Maize remarked casually. "You could blame a lot of the problems this city has on them, after all."

"That's easier said than done," David shot back. "Besides, do you know how much of the economy is propped up by those same Three Families? The city would go to hell before anything got better."

"Don't argue about this in public!" Robert said scoldingly. "You aren't amateurs. Anyone could be listening at any time!"

The group continued through the streets of the Morning Star district, passing through the neglected residential areas on the border of the area back to the more crowded central zones. None of them spoke until they returned to the bar that served as the sweepers' hideout.

"Thanks for all your help," Norah said as they stood in front of the bar. "I'll wire your payment to you sometime in the next few days, so don't worry about that."

"What are you going to do now?" Robert asked Norah, who still seemed as listless as before. She didn't answer, and simply walked away without another word.

"Is she going to be okay?" Maize asked, a worried expression on her face. "She didn't look too good."

"Forget about her," David replied with an exasperated sigh. "I just spent several hours hiking through the sewers and I need a drink."

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Norah walked along the streets of the Morning Star district, pushing aimlessly past the crowds as she made her way back to the hotel she was staying in. She wouldn't be able to relax once she got back; her funds were starting to run out and she needed to check out before they charged her for another day.

Eventually, she stood in front of the crosswalk leading directly to her hotel. However, she suddenly had a change of heart and walked off to the side instead. She wasn't really trying to put things off. She just wanted some time to cool her head down.

Her destination was a park in the middle of the Morning Star district, a place she used to visit when she was a child. It had changed quite a bit since the last time she was there, as gentrification changed what used to be a simple park into what could be called a mini-carnival. Still, she wasn't surprised. Nearly everything about her life had changed in some way since her childhood, and this was just another example.

Norah sat down on a nearby bench and watched people walk about town. She'd missed being able to just take a breath like this and do nothing for a while. It seemed like recently every day was her rushing to get somewhere, but now that Hayasaka was no longer able to track her, she could afford to take a moment for herself.

As she continued to watch the throngs of people walking about, Norah's attention was drawn by the sound of a child crying in the park. Almost in an instant, the child's mother appeared and began fretting over her.

"Oh dear, what happened? Did you fall and hurt yourself? Let's go take a look on a bench, okay?"

The mother took her child and walked off. As Norah watched them leave, she thought about her own parents. She hadn't spoken to them in years, and the last conversation they had was about her unceremonious firing from the Twilight Police Department. They didn't listen to her side for even a second and shouted her out of the house. Being fired from her dream job didn't hurt as much as that.

For a moment, she wondered what her life would have been like if she had never tried to blow the whistle on that detective. She'd still be working at the Twilight PD, for one. She'd still be on good terms with her family. She might even have been one of the police officers hunting for the thief that stole the necklace.

Norah shook her head. What was the point of considering such strange hypotheticals? What-ifs were all fine and dandy, but reality was reality. This was her life now, and she had to accept that.

More importantly, what was the value of a life lived knowing that people were abusing the very system meant to protect people? Norah couldn't say that she was all that idealistic, even when she started out as a police officer. She knew that sometimes she would have to blur the line between black and white at times.

Even then, she wanted to bring justice to this broken city in some way. That was why she reported her superior in the first place. Hiding his corruption would have been going against everything she was working for, and she knew it. The safety of her job was nothing in comparison.

Norah looked up at the sky and sighed. She was experienced enough at this point to know that life in Twilight wasn't so easy that such a mentality could last long here. She had become a shady private investigator and even a Night Hunter, and seen the darkest sides of this city. Even then, she still held onto to that ideal, though it was shoved deep into the darkest part of her subconscious.

Norah felt a flush of embarrassment as she thought about her earlier conversation with Megumi. As much as she hated to admit, she was right; working with Ingrid, even under threat of arrest, had given her the comfortably familiar feeling of working as a police officer again. She had given into that feeling and even let her get carried away with it. After all her tough talk about this society being garbage and people being untrustworthy, at the end of the day she was still clinging to such naive beliefs.

Norah let out an amused chuckle. Once she had realized all that, it made everything she'd done so far look ridiculous. She was already willing to be ostracized for becoming a Night Hunter. Why was she so desperate to keep herself from getting arrested? She panicked in a way that was unseemly for someone who considered herself a streetwise adult. Megumi must have thought she was hilarious.

Still, she had no idea what to do now. Megumi was gone, and while she had a good idea of where she might be going, she didn't think she'd be of much help there. The original Night Hunter might be a good lead, but she had no idea how to find him. She was stuck.

Norah yawned. It was still mid-afternoon, but she was exhausted after her trek in the sewers. She looked in the direction of the hotel she was staying at and sighed. Well, she could always borrow money from Edgar anyhow, so what did one more day hurt? She was too tired to think of anything else but sleep.