Umineko Fanfic

Prologue: A Self-Indulgent Prologue
This is a story about a story.

More accurate to say, this is a fanfiction about a story about a story.
To be more accurate still, one might even go so far as to say this is a fanfiction based on a certain interpretation of a story about a story.

At the risk of being blunt: This is a story about the Rokkenjima Incident.
Or perhaps…

This is a story about what happened after the Rokkenjima incident.
But it is not a story about Ange Ushiromiya, or Eva Ushiromiya.
It is not a story about Beatrice, the Golden Witch.
Nor is it a story about Amakusa, or Duncan, or even the ever-ominous Okonogi.

This is a story about a criminal.
This is also a story about a man.
And I suppose it is also a story about tuna fraud and tax evasion, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Now, as for who the criminal is…
Well, you’ll have to keep reading if you want to find out.
But I have to warn you – this is merely a fanfiction.
Do not expect the highs or lows you would get when reading other accounts of the Rokkenjima incident.

Do not expect ingenious locked rooms, or sweeping revelations that will shock you to your core.
Certainly, do not expect magnificent music to accompany each scene.
But if your interest remains piqued –
If you have even the slightest desire to read a tale that is by all means meaningless.
To read a tale with characters who have only the most tertiary connection with the characters of Umineko no Naku Koro ni that you know, love, and hate.

I invite you to read Umineko no Naku Koro ni Batsu.
Batsu – not Chiru.
For I don’t feel like this story will provide much, if any answers – but, to me at least – it can be seen as an “epilogue.” A “post-script” after Chiru’s period.
And so, let us begin the story that takes place far after the story’s end.

Chapter 1: Sonambullshit

Special Agent Jack Harigand was not a morning person.
He wasn’t really that much of a “person”, period, but he especially wasn’t a morning person. From the moment he woke up at around five thirty in the morning, to his third cup of coffee at nine, he felt like he was sleepwalking.
He wasn’t actually sleep-walking, of course. He had full control of his body. His body just didn’t see fit to kick things into second gear for the first few waking hours of consciousness. Jack Harigand knew what real sleep-walking was – and in his experience, it was more of a sprint.

Usually, it was proceeded by a dream.
The dream’s locale varied from time to time – sometimes he was on a dock, sometimes he was in a ornate lobby – and hell, sometimes he was in the bathroom of a Chik Fil-A. But the events of the dream were always the same.

There was a bright, terrible light. A light which – beyond shine resplendidly – just seemed to cackle at him. And in this dream of his, Jack would bumrush towards the light – seeking to squash it like he would a moth, a fly, or a flea.
But every time – without fail – right as he was about to squash the insufferable light – his face would be smacked by the luminous equivalent of a two by four.

That… was a wall. In reality, what would smack Jack in the morning – once a week without fail – was a wall. His wall. His wall that was about fifteen feet away from the dilapidated mattress he called a bed.
So Jack Harigand didn’t sleep walk, exactly, - he sleep sprinted.
Into a wall.
Weekly.
Which may or may not have explained why when Jack looked in the mirror, what he saw was a gray haired, slightly more ugly version of Adam Baldwin with a scar down the middle of his face.
“Ran into the wall again?”, a cheery, youthful voice asked.
“No.”, Jack lied.
“We all have our quirks.”, the cheery, youthful voice responded.
The cheery youthful voice belonged to a young blonde girl – who honestly looked fourteen if she did fifteen.
She was Jack’s roommate.
She wasn’t Jack’s daughter.
Jack wasn’t a pedophile.
It was complicated.
It was complicated in the sense that due to a variety of reasons, Jack lived in Section 8 housing, and that due to a variety of other reasons, Section 8 housing didn’t have a lot of room for the type of people who needed to live there.
The young girl’s name was Sayo. At least, that’s what she called herself, and Jack didn’t really tend to care about people’s names to begin with. On the few occasions he did address his underaged, out-of-place roommate, he called her “girl”, or “you”, or “kid.”
Sayo was weird, intrusive, but for the most part helpful. For one, she was a decent cook, which was good since Jack couldn’t make a pot of Rice-a-Roni without burning the apartment down.
Also, she was decent at patching Jack up when he was hurt – and Jack got hurt often. Not just from his sleep-sprinting.
Most importantly, Sayo could drive.
Jack, a thirty-five year old, couldn’t.
Jack had a driving license, in the same sense that Mclovin from “Superbad” had a driver’s license.
In other words, Jack had a fake license.

Fakeness was Jack’s forte – but unfortunately, pride was his… opposé de forte. So when some lanky blonde kid the age of 25 asked if he was a good forger, Jack put his hands on his hips, smiled broadly, and said he was the best.
The blonde kid held up a hundred dollar bill and said prove it.
Jack made a fabrication in under two hours and said “Proved it.”
The blonde kid took the bill, smiled, and said “You’re under arrest.”
And that’s how Jack Harigand became an FBI Special Agent. Not through hard work, devotion, or brown-nosing, but through a little backdoor process known as a “plea bargain.”
So it wasn’t that Jack wanted to pick up his razor cellphone when he saw that “Lucas” was calling that morning, it was that he had to.
“…Yeah?”, Jack grumbled, flipping open his flip phone.

There was a slight chuckle on the other line, followed by a question:
“Ever been to Japan, Jackie?”