Ichiro's heart continued to pound as Kumiko stopped shielding him and turned to face the shinigami that had burst forth from their bathroom wall. Her hands curled in rightful indignation while Hideo wore an expression of nervous amusement.

"Greetings." The shinigami gave a half-hearted wave with his upper arm. "I said that I would be back, didn't I?"

"Yes, but not this soon," Kumiko snapped. "You scared us both."

Ichiro remembered his own desire to be her match one day and forced himself to stand so that he wouldn't be seen as a coward. He met Hideo at eye level, then asked the first question that came to his confused mind.

"Why are you here?"

"Don't you remember?" Hideo took a step forward, only to slam against the interior of the bathtub. He shuddered, then managed to clamber on to the floor with briefcase still in hand. "You requested a letter from your sister."

"Oh, right." Ichiro nodded in understanding as Hideo sat down on the bathtub's edge and balanced the briefcase upon his lap. With a practiced flick of his wrist, the shinigami unfastened it as usual, causing a metal structure to spring out with such speed that Ichiro flinched.

Immediate inspection told him that the structure was a cage designed to hold a small animal, though what stunned Ichiro more was the fact that Hideo had been able to store it inside such a compact briefcase.

"How did you do it? That should be impossible..."

"I'm not surprised," Kumiko remarked. "Bending the laws of space and physics sounds about right for a god or goddess."

"You'd be right," Hideo confirmed her assumption. "I was lucky to receive this from Izanami when I was sworn into my position." He lifted the cage up by its handle. "But this is what you should be interested in tonight. Come, take a look."

Ichiro glanced at Kumiko, and she nodded before stepping forward first. She crouched down to stare into the cage, then gasped. "My goodness, what is that?"

"A grasshopper," Hideo said matter-of-factly as if the twitching husk on the cage floor was nothing to be concerned about. "And one of Lady Isa's prized pets that I had to bribe her for. She even named it after you as an act of affection."

"What?" Ichiro gaped at the tiny and deformed creature that had clearly lost its ability to hop. "This is outrageous..."

"Not to your sister. Her only memories of you are from when she was a child, and she says that you were always compared to a grasshopper."

Ichiro remembered the nickname that his mother used to call him because of his scrawny build and felt a pang of sorrow. Chances were that he would never get either of his parents back again, so the best he could do was cling to the sliver of hope in front of him.

"Hello," he whispered, placing his hand against the bars of the cage. He was still a little shaken by the power of the television and wondered if anything was real anymore. "So, you're my sister's pet. I hope she takes good care of you, but judging by your sorry state, I doubt that she does."

Hideo's chuckle startled Ichiro into withdrawing his hand. "Appearances are misleading. This grasshopper is as healthy as an underworld creature can be. It just feels tired in the world of the living."

"Pardon?" Ichiro noticed that Kumiko didn't look very surprised. Perhaps, she had seen this sort of thing before and would have to enlighten him later.

"This grasshopper is technically dead," Hideo explained further. "And, unlike me, its reconstructed body lacks the stamina for prolonged activity."

"So, you're saying that it's a zombie grasshopper?" Kumiko said in an inquisitive tone, drawing confusion from both Ichiro and Hideo.

"I don't know what that is." Hideo glared at her with frustration in his harsh eyes. "I'm fifty years behind."

"It's an undead creature that has lost its mind and hungers for flesh. They appear in some horror films."

"I see," Hideo replied with renewed clarity, though Ichiro was still very much befuddled. He gave Kumiko a pleading look that she hardly acknowledged, which increased his anxiety. He returned his focus to Hideo and watched the shinigami take a rolled piece of paper from the briefcase. "This is the letter your sister wrote. Would you care to read it?"

"Yes..." Ichiro accepted the correspondence and unfurled it with his numb fingers. His stomach churned when he could not recognise the characters. He lowered his head in defeat and passed the letter to Kumiko.

"To my long-lost brother," Kumiko began after straightening the page out. "Let it be known that I bear no hatred for the events of my childhood. We were both small and stopping those men was beyond your abilities." She paused to catch her breath, which allowed Ichiro to process his sister's words. They seemed too predictable, and he suspected that the letter was written by someone with only a vague knowledge of his past.

"People say that time heals all pain. The wretched life that I once lived has become a distant memory, and I look forward to meeting you some day in the future. If your biography speaks any truth, then I'm sure your company will be enjoyable indeed. Take as long as you want to make up your mind. I am a very patient woman."

Kumiko lowered the page and turned towards Ichiro, just as stunned as him. "I only know about your sister from what you've told me. What do you think?"

"I cannot say," Ichiro admitted after mulling over how he had no other reference to compare the letter with. He made eye contact with Hideo. "How can I trust this isn't some kind of forgery? And that grasshopper isn't one you captured by chance?"

Hideo crossed his arms together. "If that were the case, don't you think I would have tried for something more convenient, like a beetle? Catching them is child's play."

Ichiro's eyes twitched as he remembered the horned beetle that he had once kept captive for a month, intending to train it to defeat his friends' insects in a fighting match. The results had been brutal even with his childish neglect, and he'd chosen to release it back into the wild after it had killed a cricket and ant, respectively.

Hideo retrieved the wooden cage and compressed it back into his briefcase. "Anyhow, I shall have to gather more solid evidence next time." He held his hand out in Kumiko's direction and gestured for her to return the letter. "But I have a favor to ask in return. I want you to direct me to Yukari's location so that I can talk some sense into her and make up for my last failure."

Ichiro leaped at the chance to keep the conversation's focus away from him. "That's a good idea. If only there was someone who knew where she lived..."

Hideo's smile of anticipation disappeared as soon as Kumiko protested. "I'm not so sure about that. Something tells me that if she didn't want to see you then, she won't want to see you now."

"And what makes you think that you can speak for my daughter?" Hideo snapped, slamming the briefcase shut with an intensity befitting of a representative of death. "Do you know her personally?"

If Kumiko was afraid, she clearly didn't show it while replying. "Yes, as a matter of fact. I'm aware of her regenerative abilities, and we even watched a movie together."

Ichiro had no recollection of such a thing, so he could only surmise that it had happened when Tsutomu was controlling his body. He listened eagerly for potential details.

"Oh, really? Tell me the name of this movie."

"Return of Godzilla," Kumiko answered coolly, sending Ichiro into the same dizzy confusion he had experienced in front of the television. "It's yet another installment of the Godzilla franchise, and it features a giant reptilian monster, but you would know nothing of this after being dead for fifty years."

Hideo's eyes lit up. "I must see this film. Are they still showing it in theaters?" he asked, looking about ready to throw his briefcase aside before Ichiro lost all capability of intelligent thought and could do nothing but repeat the sequence of the man in the yellow suit over and over again in his mind.

******

A/N: This chapter calls back to an event in The Tour Guide, when some of our characters watched 'Return of Godzilla' in an effort to relax. Tsutomu was indeed occupying Ichiro's body at the time, so you could say that was a missed opportunity.

Fortunately, Ichiro is on his way to catching up now, though television continues to have a hypnotic effect on him.