Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ A Certain Clarity ❯ 6 ( Chapter 6 )

Title: A Certain Clarity (6/30)

Author: Franzi Dickson

E-mail: fdickson@ix.netcom.com

Archive: The SxSAS Archive, fanfiction.net and others (eventually). If you want it on your site, just ask.

Rating: NC-17 for wet dreams, sex, drugs, violence and other badness.

Warnings: m/m sex, lemon, assorted bad things in this part and future ones

Disclaimer: They don't belong to me. I'm just doing bad things with them. Don't sue me.

Saitou examined the package as he walked. He sighed. In the end, the 'mysterious and dangerous remedy' had turned out to be nothing more than a garden-variety cream. He supposed he should take it to Megumi, but he was fairly sure, even without asking that it was neither illegal nor toxic. It had been the same at the other two places he had visited. Certainly, there were other brothels he could try, but he doubted that they would be any different.

And you're tired of pretending to ogle little boys with powdered faces; admit it.

Perhaps there was an element of that as well. He wished he could take the time to change, but it was getting late and he should talk to Chou before he wasted any more of the day, no matter how little he relished meeting Chou with his current appearance.

As anticipated, Chou found his clothing highly amusing.

"Hey, don't tell me you really did have fun. What's with the hair? Did they mess it up?"

He glowered at the other man as he set out the various small jars and packets.

The latter tsked in mock disapproval. "A policeman and on duty too! What would they think if they saw you this way."

"Very funny. You know perfectly well I came in the back way."

Chou looked innocently at him.

It took him a moment to think about it, and he decided it was better not to dig the hole any deeper. He gestured to the so-called medicines littering his desk. "They all claimed to know exactly what I was talking about, but none of them had anything out of the ordinary. I'll ask the lady doctor to examine them, but it won't lead to anything." He brushed the hair out of his face. "Whatever it is, it isn't being distributed that way. What about the drug dealers: have you found anything?"

Chou shook his head. "Nothing certain. I still haven't found any specific mention of our mystery drug, but there's something else going on; maybe something big." The blond man looked worried. "We've got a guy in the cells with one hell of a weird story. He turned himself in for 'protection' if you can believe it. He was babbling something about a big deal. I don't know… I haven't been able to get anything out of him yet, but I have a feeling he's mixed up in something important."

"None of our informants have gotten wind of anything like that. What makes you think he isn't just a crank?"

Chou shrugged. "He seems pretty genuine, and part of his story… It kind of sounds like he had a run in with the rooster-head."

"What?" What had the ahou done this time? "Give me a minute to change."

The man cowered in a corner of the cell. He looked up at them in alarm as they entered, but relaxed on seeing the uniforms. "You gotta help me! They were gonna kill me!"

Saitou looked down at him. "Help you?"

"You gotta! I can help you. Information. Whatever you want. Just don't let them find me" he pleaded.

"Convince me."

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop on them. I just happened to be there. I heard them and I couldn't leave for fear they'd hear me."

"Who?"

"Takeshi (he's my supplier ) and somebody else. I don't know who. Someone higher up maybe." He swallowed. "They were talking about a really big deal. They'd got some new stuff, some kind of opium, and were bringing it in. They were talking about the distribution. Shit. I'm just small time. I don't know about stuff like that."

Saitou sighed. Even if it were a new variety of opium, it still wouldn't produce the symptoms they were looking for. Damn. He could hear Chou shifting restlessly behind him. "Opium isn't exactly a new drug. What was so important about this shipment."

"Well, it sounded like there was a lot of it for one thing. But it's really powerful too; worse even than that spider web stuff from a few years ago. God, nothing would have happened if I'd just kept my mouth shut."

"What happened?"

"I wasn't too scared. I figured they hadn't seen me, so it was all ok, but then last night this guy shows up and starts threatening me. Young, but real tough too. Wearing a red bandanna and a white jacket."

Tough? The ahou?

The man glared. "Stupid punk! So I thought he was one of Takeshi's goons or somethin' (he was dressed weird, you know) and I let it slip that something big was going down. Turns out he was just some idiot passing by. Anyway, I totally lost my head and went running back to Takeshi." A visible shudder passed through his frame. "He freaked. It must have been even bigger than I thought. He kept hitting me. He locked me in a shed at his place and said he'd come back for me later, once he'd cleared up the loose ends. I managed to break down the door though." He looked up. "I figured I was safer here than out on the street. You gotta believe me; Takeshi's a nasty piece of work, but whoever he's in bed with now has gotta be worse. I've never seen him so violent before."

Saitou was very quiet as they left the cell. Chou motioned for the guards to lock it after them. "Make sure to watch this one especially well, guys." They returned to the office. "Boss?"

Saitou felt cold and strangely detached. He began to clear his desk, placing the various samples of aphrodisiacs in a drawer, straightening the piles of papers. They might not have found him. Even based on the dealer's description, they wouldn't necessarily have been able to identify him. They should go and find him. It had only happened last night; they wouldn't have had much time to act.

Just all day.

No, everything was probably fine. Still, they should try to find him. Just to be sure…

"Officer Chou!" A young man burst through the door, his face shining with excitement. "You wanted to know if we heard about anything strange happening last night."

Saitou looked up sharply.

"There was a fire in one of the slum districts. It didn't get too far, but a whole row of houses burned. They're saying it was some kind of hit." His enthusiasm waned as he withered under Saitou's glare. He gulped.

"Thank you, you've been a great help." Chou motioned for him to leave. "It doesn't mean they actually found him."

Saitou wondered if Chou had noticed him acting odd lately. "Let's go."

"Wait, we didn't ask where…"

"I can find it." His voice was grim. If Chou found this statement surprising, he didn't mention it.

Even before they turned the final corner, they could smell the wet, burnt smell. Saitou sucked in his breath. From here all the way to the next corner the houses, shacks really, had been utterly destroyed. Broken timbers jutted out at odd angles from the wreckage. They paused before what should have been the ahou's doorway. The dream came back to him in all of its vividness. What had the ahou been trying to say? His mouth had been moving when he disappeared. What was he saying?… What was *he* saying. He didn't believe in dreams. He moved to help Chou.

"Are you sure this one is his? I can barely even tell where one leaves off and another starts." He poked through the rubble. "Hey, I think I see something here."

Saitou reached down to retrieve the white piece of material. It had been mostly destroyed by the fire. He tried to calm his breathing. He turned it over in his fingers.

Too thick.

"Boss?"

"I think it's from some kind of blanket."

Chou relaxed visibly. "There doesn't seem to be too much else here."

"No." He looked around. "They wouldn't do it like this anyway. It's too public a method if they didn't want to attract attention and not obvious enough if they were trying to make an example of him."

"Why do it then?"

"I don't know. Frustration perhaps. If he escaped them, they might be trying to send him a message."

"Wouldn't that just make him run?"

Saitou shrugged. "The information may be time dependent. It may be in their best interests to scare him off."

"So where is he now?"

"Well hidden, if he has any sense at all." Which he didn't. Damn.

Wedged in the back corner of the shop, Sano ate his ramen thoughtfully. That runty little drug dealer must have gone back to his boss. He wasn't exactly the hardest person to find. He'd been hanging around Kenshin for quite a while now, but he still had his reputation. And damn proud of it! He grinned through a mouth of noodles. What were those goons thinking?

"Zanza, you coming out of there or you want us to come in after you?"

Idiots! Obviously, they hadn't expected him to come out at quite that speed. He smiled at the thought. He didn't like to leave a fight, but with that many of them? Besides, he hadn't wanted anyone else to get hurt.

Nice job, schmuck.

No, everyone would have gotten out all right. The neighbors had woken up fast enough to put the fire out before it got too far, at least that's how it had looked from his hiding place. He still felt kind of guilty for not going back, but with the thugs searching everywhere, he couldn't risk going near anyone he knew. Hell, one of them had even investigated the alleyway where he was hiding. Not that it had done him any good. The tattoo was worrying though. Tattoos meant the thugs were more organized than they seemed. Even if it was kind of a girly one… a stylized yellow flower. And he'd seen it before. It was painted on a whole bunch of warehouses he used to pass on his way to the various gambling parlors. You never know when vice is going to pay off. 'Golden Orchid Imports'; something like that. Hah! Let that show Saitou. He'd go investigate it by himself as soon as it got dark enough.