Kisuke trailed after Isshin as the man walked, stiff-backed and purposeful, up the stairs of an apartment complex and down the hall. He wasn’t certain who they were going to visit — Isshin had just told him to ‘follow him’ — but he couldn’t sense any traces of reiatsu outside of Kurosaki Ichigo’s in the area.

He still thought the idea of a video game causing the disappearances was ludicrous, but it wasn’t like they had anything else to go on.

(Not that they even had that, really.)

(Three children left alone, late at night? Any number of things could have happened to them.)

Isshin knocked on a door and stood back, hands clasped behind his back and body unnaturally still as he waited for an answer.

“Yes—oh, Kurosaki-sensei!” the woman who answered the door said in surprise, gaze sweeping between them in question. “Is there something I can do for the two of you?”

“Is Tatsuki-chan at home?” Isshin asked.

The woman frowned. “No, she wasn’t here when my husband and I woke up, but we thought she’d just gone out early to spend time with Ichigo-kun and Orihime-chan. They’d been planning on playing Elder Tales together last night, and I know they lose track of time sometimes and just… never go to bed.”

Isshin huffed and gave Kisuke a sharp look before turning back to the woman. “Ah, sorry to disturb you. We’ll check Orihime-chan’s place—”

“Did something happen?” she asked in concern before Isshin could finish speaking. “I assume you’re looking for Ichigo-kun?”

When Isshin hesitated over his answer, Kisuke stepped forward and nudged the man aside. He gave the woman a nod and said, “We’re searching for Kurosaki-sensei’s children. They weren’t at home when he woke up this morning and their computers were still open to the login screen of Elder Tales.”

She gave him a thoughtful look, then arched an eyebrow at Isshin in question. When he nodded to confirm Kisuke’s words, she hummed and stepped back from the doorway, gesturing for them to enter. “Well, I don’t think you’ll find anything, but if you want to take a look at her room then come in.”

“Thank you,” Isshin said as he followed her in.

Kisuke entered last, senses on alert for anything that might stand out. The home looked normal enough: a bit cramped, a bit messy, but nothing out of the ordinary. There were signs of a young teen scattered around, bits and pieces of her life on casual display without indication of haste or trouble.

“Her room’s back here,” the woman said as she slid open a door and nodded into it. “I don’t know what you expect to find, however.”

Kisuke hummed and slid between Isshin and the room before Isshin could take more than a single step, denying the man access with a bland look of reprimand. He knew the sort of chaos Isshin could generate, and he didn’t need the man destroying any evidence on accident.

(Isshin wasn’t trained to spot the smallest detail like Kisuke was, anyway.)

(There was no point in him upending a young girl’s room for nothing.)

Isshin corralled for the moment, Kisuke stood in the door and looked, absorbing the space and everything in it. The bed hadn’t been slept in and Tatsuki’s desk was in slight disarray, a bowl of snacks half-eaten and a glass of water left out. Her monitor was asleep but the computer was not, and the desk chair was in a strange half-way position, neither slid beneath the desk nor moved back enough for a person to stand up.

Kisuke glanced at Tatsuki’s mother and gestured towards the desk. “May I?” he asked. “I’d like to check something.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked as she followed him into the room.

“I’m… not entirely certain,” Kisuke admitted as he jiggled the computer mouse to wake the monitor up. The lock screen was entirely expected, and while he probably could guess her password, he doubted it was worth the trouble. “Any evidence of her knowing where the Kurosaki siblings vanished to, I suppose…” he trailed off with a frown, gaze caught by the phone sitting on a charger. “Does she often leave her phone behind?”

The woman’s eyes widened at the sight of the phone, and Kisuke didn’t need the almost frantic head-shake that followed to know the answer.

“She takes it everywhere with her, especially when she leaves early. Tatsuki-chan knows we’re fine with her keeping odd hours so long as she has a way to get hold of us!”

Kisuke’s lips thinned as he stepped back and took in the desk once more. He didn’t like the picture that he was starting to build. “Does she leave her computer on?”

“Sometimes?” she answered faintly, still staring at the phone sitting on the charger.

“Right. I doubt there’s anything else we can learn here,” Kisuke said after another sweeping look at Tatsuki’s bedroom. He couldn’t spot any of the signs of a hasty exit or a fight, nor anything that looked like Tatsuki had gathered her things and left. It was as if she’d just… vanished.

(Vanished playing a game?)

(Surely not.)

Tatsuki’s mother reached out and caught the sleeve of his shirt before he could leave, looking at him with wide, panicked eyes. “Do you… do you think Tatsuki-chan is gone like… like all those people on the news this morning?”

“It’s… a possibility,” Kisuke reluctantly answered, clenching his jaw at the soft sob the woman gave in response. He had no idea how to deal with grieving family — no part of his training had ever covered it and for good reason — and it wasn’t like he could just fix it. He didn’t even know what had happened, so the idea of ‘fixing it’ was nothing but a distant dream. “I… give me your phone number?” he asked, awkwardly patting her hand as he did. “We need to check on Kurosaki-kun’s other friends before we jump to any conclusions.”

She sniffed wetly and nodded, reciting a number that Kisuke memorized and typed into his own phone in front of her. Once he’d confirmed it, he tucked his phone away and carefully drew her out of the room, giving Isshin a flat stare until the man stepped back into the hallway.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure anything out,” Kisuke said, trying to portray confidence he didn’t feel. With the Kurosaki siblings gone without a trace, and now one of Kurosaki’s friends also missing, he had very little confidence that it was all a coincidence. Whatever had happened overnight, he was becoming more and more certain that the children were a victim of it.

“You know where his other friends live?” Kisuke murmured as they said their farewells to the distraught woman and made their way down the stairs.

“Yeah. Couple blocks over. They both live in the same building but different floors,” Isshin said tightly, hands clenched and shoulders rigid. “The hell’d you keep me out for? I could have—”

“Done nothing but make a mess.” Kisuke shot Isshin a quelling look when the man went to open his mouth again, and continued, “I’m trained in noticing details, you are not. You also know nothing about that girl or how she keeps her room, so there was nothing you could have done there.”

Isshin scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just check on the other two.”

Kisuke had the suspicion that they’d find nothing new there either.

Now if only he could figure out what in the world had happened…

There had to be a way to get the people back.

(There had to be…!)