"Fukai, fukai mori no oku ni, imamu kitto okizari ni shita kokoro kawatte yuku."

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

                      The Kyoto Liddo-Kun
                       Chapter the Fourth

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See the prologue for the disclaimer.

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You'd think that the zaibatsu would give a guy a chance to explain away
the stolen property in his possession before they killed him, but no, they
apparently didn't. Not only that, the guy they whacked didn't even have
what they went after.

And since murders were always solved here in Japan (though usually by the
police), those guys were in it deep.

Not only did I have to deal with a murder and stolen property, I had the
dead guy's girlfriend sobbing against my chest. It wasn't a normal day, believe
it or not.

Shinobu'd slipped out discreetly, and Naru practically cried herself to sleep
before she let go of me. She looked straight into my eyes, and the diamond teards
that were still on her face glittered in the dim light of my office.

"Kanako-san... what can I do? Keitaro's gone, I can't go back to my apartment..."
Naru sighed.

I wiped away the tears from her face and looked straight into her eyes. "If
you stay with me, they can't find you. They don't know who I am, and they
can't easily find me."

She gasped. "Kanako-san, do you mean it?"

I nodded. "You can stay with me as long as you need to." I gently disengaged
myself from her, stood up, and went to the coatrack. I pulled my coat on,
and spoke again. "Stay here. Don't leave the office. They're going to hunt for you,
and there's nowhere that's safer than here."

"But... Kanako-san, there's nothing to keep me safe here!"

"You see that girl at the desk in the next room?" Naru nodded, and I smirked.
"She's got a set of throwing knives in her desk, and there's not much that's
going to get past her if she's determined enough."

I walked out of the room before Naru could say anything, and I turned to
Shinobu on the way out. "Make sure she doesn't leave. If she has to use
the bathroom, you go with her, and you go armed."

I stepped outside and pulled the coat around me. It had gotten rainy recently,
and I didn't want to catch cold. The trolley pulled up - deus ex machina, I believe -
and I boarded. It was time to take up where I left off - the "Five-Tailed Kitsune"
bar. 

After a short trip, I stepped off the trolley in front of the bar. Technically, it
shouldn't have been open yet, since very few people drink before ten in the morning,
and the proprietess wasn't exactly one to spend money where it wasn't needed...
except when it came to greasing the palms of the local authorities. When that woman
did that, she was a master of graft.

Needless to say, Motoko had complained about it when she and I had dated. Come
to think of it, that's probably why she left me - work, work, and work.

I knocked on the bar's doors, and a minute later, a slide in it opened at eye
level. Someone pered out and seemed to take note of who I was. After a short wait,
presumably caused by that someone's revealing to the proprietess who I was, the
door opened, and I was admitted into a long dark hallway.

After a short walk, I entered the subdued atmosphere of the Five-Tailed Kitsune.
The lights were dim, the colors dark and muted, but soft jazz played throughout
the whole place, and in one corner, an empty stage stood with speakers and band
equipment.

"Kanako!" a woman's voice said from my left. "I haven't seen you here in a _long_ 
time!"

I turned to see the smiling face of Mitsune Konno, owner and operator of the
Five-Tailed Kitsune, and smiled back in return. "It certainly has been a while,
Kitsune. Has Motoko been harassing you again?"

"It's nothing that a few packages can't handle," she replied with a grin. "How's
business?"

"That's what I'm here about," I said. "A client of mine mentioned that her boyfriend
went missing, and this is a popular bar among Todai students."

Kitsune's eyes widened, and her smile went even wider. "Oh, a _client_, eh?"

"Kitsune..."

"All right, all right. Who is this guy?" 

"The name's Keitaro. That's all I've got. He's about a hundred and seventy-five
centimeters tall, brown hair, brown eyes, glasses."

I'd expected a response from Kitsune, but not the one she gave me.

"Oh, the ladies' man!"

My eyes narrowed. Naru was _not_ going to be happy about this. "What do you mean,
'ladies' man'?"

"Um... nothing much. It's just that whenever he came in, he seemed to attract every
woman in the bar." Her brow furrowed for a minute. "And one man, too, come to think
of it."

"A man?" Naru hadn't told me that Keitaro was bisexual. That information might have come
in handy.

"Yeah, but there wasn't any romance going on between them. It's like they were old
friends or something."

Damn, there went my theory about Keitaro playing around. "What did they do?"

"Well, they always shooed everyone else away, then they talked for a while, and
every now and again, Keitaro passed the other guy money. The last time they were
in here was about two weeks ago, come to think of it."

Two weeks? Naru had waited that long to come and ask someone for help? Something
was up here. _Very_ suspicious.

"It's weird though, Kanako, since that man's been coming in here every night for
the past week or so."

"He has?"

Kitsune nodded. "He's come in every night around ten, and he doesn't leave until 
closing. The bartender told me that he's been muttering something about Keitaro
and a plushie. This guy's clearly got kinky taste in toys."

I planted my face in my palm. "Kitsune, I'll be back here tonight. Ten, you said?"
She nodded. "Good. I'll be here at nine," I replied. "Keep a table open for me."

As I got up and left, I could hear the sound of a _giant_ sake bottle being
opened, and I remembered that Kitsune had gotten out of a treatment facility
a few years back.

I sighed. Some things never change.

After a short wait, another trolley came by, and I boarded. While returning
to the office, I thought that I had about nine hours to get ready for the
stakeout at the bar, and I figured I'd best be on my guard from here on out.
If Keitaro and that man were dealing in stolen goods, who knows who would
come after me.

I got off the trolley at my stop and went up to my office. Shinobu was there,
cleaning her throwing knives. She smiled at me.

"Hello, Kanako-san!"

"How's Naru?"

She pointed to my office. "She tried to sneak out the window a little while ago.
As per your instructions, I shut it _tight_. She can't get out."

I grinned. "Good. Shinobu, take the day off and get ready. You're coming with us
on a stakeout tonight." I winced at Shinobu's squeal of delight. "And dress nice.
This place is classy."

I knocked on the door to my office, and when no response was forthcoming, I
entered. Naru lay asleep on my sofa, her chest rising and falling in time with her
breath. I took off my coat, sat down in my chair, and leaned back to think.

Three things were certain - 

1: Keitaro had dealt in stolen goods.
2: Keitaro was a ladies' man.
3: Keitaro was very, very dead.

The way I saw it, there were only a few possibilities. One was that the goods he
had attracted the anger of the zaibatsu, and they'd killed him for it. This was
easily the most probable. 

The second was that Naru had contracted out to have him killed for cheating on
her. However, this didn't add up. She had described him as utterly faithful, and
then there was that little phone call the night he disappeared. No, she didn't
do it.

I lowered my head and dozed off for a while. When I woke up, Naru was still asleep
and the clock read eight P.M. I stepped over to her, gently shook her awake, and
smiled when she saw me.

"Hey, Naru, wake up. We've got some work to do."

"We?" she said weakly. "I hired you to do this."

"I know. I need you to come with me and see if you recognize anyone."

She sat bolt upright. "You've found..."

I shook my head. "No. I found a place he frequented, and I thought you might
be able to point out some people there." I refrained from telling her Kitsune's
comment that Keitaro was quite a ladies' man. There was no point in telling her
about that; it'd only hurt her.

"Where are we going?"

"The Five-Tailed Kitsune bar," I said. "You know of it?"

"That... that's where we met," she said quietly. "We met there thanks to
Seta..."

I frowned. "Look, we've got an hour and a half to get ready. Think you can squeeze
into something of mine?"

Naru nodded, and we made our way to my apartment. I pulled on a sleek black dress
with no shoulders, and Naru found a dark blue dress of mine. Admittedly, it was
more of a sheath than a dress, but it clung, and set off her natural beauty. We 
met Shinobu at the door of the bar. I nodded to the man behind the door, and we 
were in.

Kitsune greeted us with a few rounds on the house, and we sat down to watch the
crowd.

"Naru, if you see anyone you know, let me know."

"All right, Kanako-san," she said quietly, as a saxophone player got up on stage
and began to play something out of an old anime - something that Yoko Kanno wrote,
I think. "See You, Space Cowboy," or something like that. I don't know, I'm not
a fangirl. Shinobu nodded in time with it, though, so she knew what it was.

After an hour and a few drinks (which Kitsune kept sending us, despite my
requests to the contrary), Naru hadn't noticed anyone. Another thirty minutes
passed. More music was played, more drinks were drunk, and still no one came
in. Around eleven, though, a man with glasses wandered in, and Naru gasped.

"That's Seta!"

I stared at the man. "Seta?"

"He's how Keitaro and I met. He works for some big keiretsu - Mitsubishi or
Sony or Gainax or someone." She gasped. "The zaibatsu..."

Damn! She figured it out. This wasn't good. I bent over and tapped Shinobu's
shoulder. She leaned back to me.

"Go and get the ash-haired woman at the bar. Ask her if the guy who just walked
in is the one who met with Keitaro every night. If she says yes, bring him back
here. Just do it," I said, and she nodded. She left, and Naru and I were alone 
at the table.

A few seconds later...

"Naru-chan!"

Oh, no, not him again.

"And _Kanako-san_!"

Naru grimaced. "Just play along, okay? We'll get rid of him quick."

Kentaro Sakata wandered over, drink in hand. "Ladies, how are you doing tonight?"
When he saw Naru's frown, he continued. "Oh, my, then." He snapped his fingers.
"Bartender! See that these two ladies lack for nothing!"

"That's not it, Kentaro. We're just not interested in you," Naru said.

"You're not?"

"That's right, we're not," Naru evenly replied. "Kanako and I are here together,"
she said, clasping one of her hands over my unoccupied one.

I believe that I was even more startled than Kentaro at that moment.

"You mean..."

"Yes, that's right," Naru said.

And then she leaned over and kissed me.

She.

Kissed.

Me.

She knew how to kiss, too. Not enough to seem pushy, just enough to make it
seem like your very essence was being poured into the kiss, and... and...
was that her tongue?

Whatever it was, I liked it.

A little too much, apparently, as I felt a twinge begin in me.

Kentaro stumbled off blathering something, and Naru broke away, smiling.
"Good, he's gone." She looked apologetically at me. "Sorry I had to do that,
Kanako-san," she said.

"It's... it's all right," I whispered. "You can do that any time you want."

Naru was puzzled for a moment, and then it hit her. Her eyes opened wide, and
she was about to speak when Shinobu came back with Seta in tow.

"Seta!" Naru squealed and leapt from her seat to hug him. She sat back down,
and Seta pulled up a fourth chair.

"So, Naru-chan, who's this?" he said, tilting his glasses and looking straight
at me. I stared back at him with just a touch of suspicion.

"This is Kanako," she said, without a hint of inflection as to just _what_ I
was. In a sense, I was grateful for that - but I can hope. "She's going to
find Keitaro."

She almost cracked after she said that. Seta was worse off. He gasped.

"You mean he's missing?"

"No," I shot back. "He's dead."

Seta sighed and took off his glasses. He leaned forward, placed his head in
his hands, and moaned. "Are you sure?"

"Very. The person I got the information from is known for her precision."

"Then it's my fault," he whispered. "I killed him, just as sure as I gave it
to him."

Naru started crying again, and Shinobu held her close while I stared at Seta.
"What do you mean, you killed him?"

"I gave it to him," he said. "I who stole the documents from the computers
at NEC. I put them on a disk, slipped the disk inside a Liddo-kun plushie,
and gave it to Keitaro."

"I don't understand," I said. "How could he get killed if you stole the plans?
And what were the plans for?"

"He had the plushie with the floppy inside it," Seta muttered. "They must have
kept logs on who used the copy commands... and now, he's dead..."

"How did they trace it to him?"

"They must have seen me give it to him in here," he said. "But... why..."

"They don't have it, Seta," I said quietly. "They still want it, and they're
trying to kill Naru for it."

That got his attention. "They wouldn't! They're just fixed financial records -
they're nothing special!"

"They're important enough to kill someone over," I said. "You gave Keitaro the data.
What was he going to do with them?"

"He... what we were going to do was blackmail them with it. It's purely financial,"
he replied. "We both needed the money, and this was the easiest way to get it."

"Hard enough for him," I said. "However he died, it wasn't pretty. The men that
the keiretsu sent after him must have been professionals."

"If the keiretsu knows, then I'm as good as dead," Seta said. He put his glasses 
back on, dropped a wad of money on the table, and stood. "Naru, I'm sorry I brought
this on you, and I'm sorry that I got Keitaro killed. I guess it's time that I
faced my punishment too." 

"Don't be a damn fool, Seta," I snapped. "If you die, then all hope of finding the
plushie goes with you. If we don't find it, odds are that they're going to be coming
after us even more than ever."

He walked out of the bar, completely ignoring me.

"Seta," Naru sobbed. "Kanako, won't you..."

I shook my head. "If it's what he wants, I can't stop him."

At least we had a clue now on what we were looking for - a single Liddo-kun plushie
with a floppy disk inside containing proof that the keiretsu Seta had worked for had
altered its financial records. After the collapse of the gaijin corporations Enron
and Worldcom, this would be huge, and potentially enough to topple the company
entirely - certainly enough to kill someone for.

Now all we had to do was find the plushie. Once we did that, we could barter it
for our lives - if we were lucky.

A man approached our table, and Shinobu and I looked at him suspiciously in the
dim light - and then we realized it was Haitani.

"Haruka told me to tell you that they're on to you," he said quietly. "They're
angry, and they think you've got the item they want. She also swears that the
men who attacked Naru are not hers in any way, shape, or form."

"Tell her that we know that. I know she'd never do _that_ to her men, and those
men were obviously not hers. Mention punishment to her. She'll understand."

Haitani nodded. "One last thing. She told me to tell you that she'll use all her
resources to look for this thing you need if you find it necessary. She believes
that she could use it to her advantage when dealing with NEC."

I nodded. "She can look. I want full knowledge if she gets even a hint of where it
is, since there's more on the table now than you can dream about."

He shook his head. "I know. These games are becoming more and more dangerous. I'm
thinking I should take early retirement. Haruka-sama says that she would welcome
my staying at her house."

"You wish," I replied with a dry smile. "Give her my best."

Haitani nodded and slipped out. I hoped he followed Seta. That man was going to
need help soon.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES

Ack, this was off the normal KLK groove. I don't know why;
I'm slightly confused at the moment myself, seeing as it's
two in the damn morning and I've got to get some sleep.

This was conceived and written over three days while
dining on Rice Krispies (raw, no milk), Dr. Pepper, and
a steady audio diet of nothing but opera (Yoko Kanno's
"Ave Maria," Michiru Yamane's "Crucifix of Fate," and
Nobuo Uematsu's "Aria di Mezzo Carraterre," to name a
few).

Why does Kitsune own a bar, you ask? Well, it's Kitsune.
Everyone has to have some dreams, ne?

About Seta: Someone had to be a Random Exposition Thief
in this. I figured that he'd be perfect for the role.

The End of Hinagelion is very near. I've actually been
considering turning it into a Flash movie, so if anyone 
out there desires to be a seiyuu, let me know. My mail
address is in this fic.

Talon and Kebinu: I would like to speak with you as 
soon as possible via IM. I have some private matters
to discuss with you. My ICQ and AIM are on my profile, 
and you can usually find me in #improfanfic on irc.sandwich.net.

Finally, I always have two fics going at once. Once I
finish Hinagelion, my second fic will be either "Cid's
Laboratory," a final Love Hina fusion, or MSMT3K.

Ja.

Tuxedo Jack
Tuxedojack@juno.com
July 2nd, 2003

"Et nomini Pater, et Filiae, et Spiritus Santi, amen."