"Ima futari wa de ai, toki wo koete yume wo miru..."

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                          Tuxedo Jack
                             ~and~
             Craptacularly Spignificant Productions
           ~present, with some apologies to Akamatsu~

                      The Kyoto Liddo-Kun
                       Chapter the Second

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See the prologue for the disclaimer.

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It was hard to believe that my aunt would turn me down
when I asked her for help. The few other times I went to
her, she gladly sold me information.

That was the kicker, I guess - I had to have something
she wanted. Apparently, money wasn't it - or the money
I had wasn't enough for her to overcome her fears of the
zaibatsu.

She'd slapped me around, nearly burned out my eyes, and
thrown me into the rain; that was below par for a normal
day for me.

I had figured that she'd give me some information, and that
information would have at least given me a lead on the case.
Turns out that I was pretty much shafted from that end.

There were a few other places I could turn when the yakuza
wouldn't help me. A few of those were old friends. Some were
business acquaintances. One was fairly high-placed in MITI,
and I knew that she might be of help if it really was the
zaibatsu behind this.

I shouldered my umbrella and kept moving through the rain,
tossing the Shinsei cigarette Haruka had given me into a
puddle and stepping on it. Despite my inner emotions at the
time, I didn't want to start a fire with it - I'm in too
much damn debt to afford to be liable for any damages.

The trolley came by again, and I got on board. Despite the
fact that the second person I had to see wasn't but a mile or
so away, it was still a mile in the rain. Besides, I still had
things to think about.

Motoko had given me much to think on - namely, that since Keitaro
wasn't the one who had stolen whatever it was, his friend must have
stolen it. Who was this friend? Naru should have known, but I hadn't
bothered to get a list of his friends from her. Damn.

I decided to skip my next destination - the Five-Tailed Fox bar -
and go straight to Naru's home to get the information.

I pulled out my small cellular phone - they're truly wonderous things,
when you get around to it - and placed a call to Shinobu.

"Moshi moshi, Urashima Investigations!"

"Shinobu, this is Kanako. Can you give me the new client's - Narusegawa's -
address and phone number?"

The girl rattled it off like it was tattooed on the back of her hand. Shinobu
wasn't just a consummate record-keeper, but she took damn good notes, kept
everything neat and clean, and made a damn good cup of coffee, not to mention
that she was _very_ easy on the eyes. I made a note - hire her as my permanent 
secretary after this whole damn thing was over.

The trolley kept moving, and after a short trip, I stepped off at the front 
doors to a _very_ ritzy comdominium complex. Naru must have made serious
money to live here - probably from her parents. _They'd pay for her lodgings
while she went to Todai,_ I thought bitterly as I entered and flashed my ID
to the doorman. My parents didn't do that. I was adopted, and my parents, while
not quite as poor as churchmice, didn't help with my college expenses. One 
would think that after the abuse my adopted father heaped on me in my
youth, he'd pay some out of guilt, but no, nothing. I paid for it on
my own and severed ties with them that day.

The elevator whisked me to a fairly high floor - around twenty or thirty. I
lost count halfway, and I didn't want to look at the display.

So sue me, I like heights like I like men.

That is, I don't hate them, but I'll avoid them if I can.

I stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hallway to the apartment number
that Shinobu had given me. When I got there, the door was ajar, and it looked like
it had been expertly opened with a pick, judging from the scratches on the lock.

It's times like that that I wish guns weren't so damn hard to get here.

Fortunately, I had a can of Mace on me. It comes in handy when I go to bars for
information and men refuse to take the hint that I'm not interested. I pulled it
out, dropped my coat at the door, and slipped inside. Sure enough, Naru was there,
clad in only a towel, and she was being held at gunpoint by a fairly tall man.

A man who was apparently missing his left pinky finger, I saw when I looked at his
gun. That meant yakuza. 

Haruka had lied to me when she said that there were some things she didn't mess
with. She was waist-deep in this one, and there was no way she could weasel out
of it.

Hold on a second.

Haruka never disfigured her lieutenants. She never cut off their pinkies, _ever._
Something was wrong here. These weren't her men.

I kept my shoes on when I entered the condo - admittedly, they might make a bit of
noise, but they're a hell of a weapon to kick with. The man with the gun was clearly
an amateur. He didn't even notice me when I slipped up behind him. When I got there,
I tapped his shoulder, then when he turned around, I Maced him, then cold-cocked him
with a right hook. He went down without a sound, and I caught the pistol he held.

Naru stood up quietly and came over to me. "There's one more in my room," she whispered
in my ear. I nodded and left her there. 

The bedroom was a bit of a distance - admittedly, I'm used to Japanese apartments. 
This one was a Western-style, and as such, it was quite a bit larger. Naru was right - 
the man was there, and he was busy searching through her dresser. He snickered, and
I saw that he'd gone into her underwear drawer. The man pulled out a semi-transparent
panty, and for a moment, my mouth went dry at the thought of Naru in that and nothing
else - and then he stuffed it in his pocket.

That's when I cracked.

"Daisuke, she calm yet?" the bastard said as he turned around. He'd expected an empty
room with no one in there.

What he got was the barrel of the pistol I'd picked up right between his eyes.

The man panicked and tried to draw his pistol, but I Maced him, and he went down.
I grabbed his gun. One pistol is hard to explain away, but two... well, I've have
to ditch them somewhere and hope that I didn't get stopped before I got back to the
office.

Before I left, I pulled the panty out of his pocket and put it in the drawer, then
I kicked him in the testicles.

"Bastard. If she ever wanted to give that to you, she'd have done it herself."

There was no way in hell I was going to leave Naru here to deal with these two men.
Calling the police was out. Motoko would ask me what I'd been doing here, and then
when I told her I'd been following the case, she'd tell me to drop it, since it was
becoming dangerous.

The only thing I could think of was to take Naru with me. I kicked the man once in his
leg for good measure (and to prevent him from following us easily), then ran back to
Naru and grabbed her hand.

"Come on! We've got to get out of here before the Mace wears off!"

I kicked the one called Daisuke in the legs too, just in case the Mace wore off
quickly, and Naru and I ran for the elevator. I grabbed my coat and Naru's shoes
at the door, and we just ran. About halfway there, it sunk into her consciousness 
that she wasn't wearing anything, and she started screaming about it. When we
were safely inside the elevator, I took off my coat, leaving me in just a long-sleeved
sweater and a short skirt. Naru wrapped it around her, and we rode down in relative
peace.

The second the doors opened to the main floor, I saw the last person in the world
who I wanted to see at the moment -

Kentaro Sakata.

"Naru-chan," he said, his voice oozing charm and false sweetness, "I was wondering
if you'd like to..." Then he saw me. "Oh, _Kanako,_ it's you."

I sighed. "Not now, Sakata. I don't have time for this, and neither does Naru."
I pushed past him and pulled Naru along with me. He tried to follow, but another
trolley came by - damn, those things run practically every five damned minutes
in this town - and Naru and I climbed aboard. He tried to follow us on, but the
driver had started pulling away, and he was too late.

We rode off, and Naru finally started shaking.

"What... who were those people? Why..."

I reached into the side pocket of the coat and pulled out a small silver flask.
I unscrewed the top, passed it to Naru, and made her take a large sip. When
she started coughing from the burn of the Suntori, I patted her on her back...
and left my arm around her shoulder.

She didn't seem to mind. She just sobbed into my sweater, and I held her
close to me on that empty trolley. For a few precious minutes, the world
seemed to stop.

Eventually, Naru stopped crying, and she repeated her earlier question.
"Who are those people? Are they..." She lowered her voice. She obviously believed
in that damn taboo on saying yakuza in a normal voice. "Are they yakuza?"

I shrugged. "I don't think so."

"But that man - the one who had the gun on me - he was missing his pinky!"

I sighed. "Naru, that can mean anything. For all we know, he lost it in an
accident when he was a baby."

She moaned. "Then who's coming after me?"

"I don't know," I said. "I came to your home to try to get a list of some
of Keitaro's friends. That way, I could see where he went that night, and
with any luck, I might be able to find him."

The rest of the ride went in silence, and when we got to the block where
my apartment was, Naru was fast asleep in my arms. I smiled down at her.

God, she looks beautiful in her sleep.

At any rate, I carried her to the elevator in my building, then leaned against
a wall, her in my arms, and prayed that I wouldn't drop her before I got her to
my apartment.

After a short walk from the elevator, I made it to my apartment. Through some
miracle, I managed to open the door without dropping the sleeping girl, and
after pulling back the comforter on my Western-style bed, I gently tucked her
in.

For a few seconds, I was tempted to climb in there myself and let myself
fall asleep next to her, but some part of myself said that I'd be wrong if
I did that. I told that part of myself in no uncertain terms to go to hell,
but I pulled out a spare mat and blankets and slept on the floor that night.

The next morning, I awoke to the smell of fresh tea and miso. To my surprise,
Naru was cooking, and it smelled _good_.

"Good morning, Kanako-san!" Naru said from the stove. She'd pulled one of
my nightshirts out of my closet, and _damn,_ she sounded better than breakfast
at that time.

They say men have a problem like that in the morning. I wouldn't know. The whole
world was in front of me there, and I liked it.

"Ready for breakfast?" Naru smiled at me. "It's the least I could do, since you
brought me here after those people took my home apart."

I nodded blearily, and slipped off to the shower. I stripped off my clothes from
the day before, lathered up, and began to scrub my skin. About five minutes later,
Naru knocked on the door and offered to wash my back.

I didn't refuse.

While she was scrubbing, she started asking questions.

"I didn't know you knew Kentaro, too. How'd you meet him?"

I sighed at the pleasure her hands were giving me. "He... he once tried to get
me to go out with him. I thought he was a jerk and blew him off. Ever since then,
he's made it his mission to get into my pants. It'll never happen, though."

"Not your type?"

I smirked. "You could say that."

"Hair?"

"Hmm?"

"Should I wash your hair, too?"

My body would have exploded then if she'd touched me any more. I shook my head,
and she stepped out and let me dry off. We ate silently, and then made the short
trip to my office, her in a borrowed outfit, me in a long black dress and shawl.

It was still raining, and it didn't look like it was going to clear up any time
soon. I sighed, and Naru shivered. I passed her my coat again, and she slipped
it on.

At the office, Shinobu gasped when she saw Naru. I could see why when she 
passed me an envelope containing a note. 

"They found him, but they didn't find his friend or the item. He's dead."

The handwriting on the note wasn't familiar, and it wasn't signed, but I knew 
who sent it. 

How did I know? Simple.

There was a tea leaf in the envelope.

Naru gasped and sat down on a sofa, sobbing. "Keitaro..."

I sat down and wrapped my arms around her, just like I did on the trolley ride
the previous day. She just kept crying for what seemed like hours and hours, and
even after she fell asleep from the effort, she kept shaking from the emotions.

It was personal now. Whoever hurt Naru like this was going to pay. I'd see to it
myself.

I had only two questions: Who did it, and why?

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AUTHOR'S NOTES

Plot exposition. It's fun, isn't it?

And no, Keitaro is only dead for story purposes. In reality, he's off eating
the snacks and drinks meant for the rest of the cast and crew between shoots.
I'll send Craptacularly Spignificant Catering over to deal with that.

Apparently, I seem to be on some kind of writing jag, as evidenced by
the reference guide, two chapters of this, and the chapter of Hinagelion
I put out in only five days. No, I don't use proofreaders, so it goes a bit
faster, and I write in Wordpad, not Word or any of that crap, so .txt format
is very easy for me to do.

I'm staggering the chapters of this and Hinagelion, so you'll get updates
for each series in alternating succession. Next up is the End of Hinagelion,
part 1.

And Kanako-san: In reference to your comments on Hinagelion, I'd much prefer
Kitsune or Mutsumi. I believe Yuki would kill me, and I've not read about 
Antoinette yet (an error which I shall soon rectify), but from your comments, 
I'll assume she's of the same general disposition.

Until the next chapter,

Ja.

J.R. Chiles II
Tuxedo Jack
Tuxedojack@juno.com

users3.ev1.net/~jchiles
Click the Senshi no Eisei logo for my stuff, but check out the other people's
sites, too!

"I'll know the right way when I see it."