It's a good start. There's a few awkward word choices here and there, but this is an AU I can sink my teeth into.
It's a good start. There's a few awkward word choices here and there, but this is an AU I can sink my teeth into.
Chapter II:
The Viper and the Vixen
Like two sides of the same coin, every city has two different faces. One, bright and happy, meant for the gullible tourists and the ads for the next election campaign. The kind of city you see on those TV shows where every house has just the perfect lawn at the front and just the perfect man married to the perfect wife raising their perfect little children inside. The particularly sappy ones add some perfect dog, too. Aye, that kind of wishful thinking is good and all but it makes people forget the other side of the coin.
The true face of the city.
No one tells the tourists about the kingdom of darkness that reigns supreme from dusk ‘till dawn. When all the decent folks hurry back home and lock the doors, those that rule the streets slither out of their hiding holes. One nightly predator after another, they spread out in search for prey, for money, for fame. The fumes rising from below the streets serve well to hide their approach and the never-ending rain that pours out seemingly each and every night covers their tracks. Those skyscrapers you’ve admired just a few hours before are suddenly cornering you from all directions, like a bunch of hungry giants made out of concrete and glass. The pale moon hangs in the night sky like a puppet dangled on a set of strings, peeking a scant few times through the thick grey clouds only to poke fun at the little people scurrying here at the bottom. Only the flickering lampposts shine a light of hope here and there, only to give up on you when you draw near, leaving you at the mercy of the prowlers waiting in the darkness.
And, meanwhile, a whole new economical empire blossoms amidst all the filth and blood washed out by the heavy rain. All over the city, at not so hidden places, clubs and saloons open doors for their shady clientele and street vendors ready their wares, lying in wait for some gullible customer. No vice is left out. Guns, drugs, whores, alcohol, blood- the dark side of the city can offer you virtually everything. And more. Aye, it is as they say.
Turn down the right alley in this city of sins and you can find anything.
In short, it was the perfect setting for this hound to start sniffing and use his charms and skill to find out the killer and make him wish he had never been born.
Since Velvet had oh-so-kindly kicked me out of the case before I could’ve even butted in in the first place, to say that my trail was cold would’ve been the understatement of the year. Hell, come to think of it, I had no trail at all.
Shirou had mentioned the lass having some heated argument with her brother- but while I did have the general idea who that lad might be, he was probably in his mansion. Surrounded by the Commissioner’s people. Who no doubt had been ordered to welcome me fists-first, questions-later style. And while I was always up for a good old-fashioned brawl, I was sure some pansy was going to chicken out when I trashed them all and shoot me in the back. As you can probably guess, not the best way to start an investigation. So, until I gained some info on the places the lad frequented, that option was out.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to contact Shirou until I had solved this case. And I didn’t know where that party he had seen her last at had been so my last option was to learn something from the body. Which was currently locked in some freezer deep under the station, guarded by the Commissioner’s people. And while Velvet had somehow turned into a recurring problem of mine, the one who had examined the body wasn’t. Yet. Hopefully. Frankly, one could’ve never been sure with a lass like her.
Touko Aozaki had started work in the department just a year before I quit. To be frank, she was the best coroner we’d ever had- a bunch of cases were solved thanks to her knowing strangers’ bodies better than they had ever had. And a stunning beauty to boot- she made the hearts of quite a few lads at the station skip a few beats. None had gotten lucky s’far as I knew and back then I hadn’t even cared- I had Bazett. To me, Touko had been just the weird lass who had escaped from her old-money family so she could make her creepy human dolls and cut up corpses. Sure, a dog like me had never passed up the opportunity to tease her a bit. Nonetheless, it hadn’t taken us much to catch on on how she somehow mixed up the corpses with her dolls in her pretty little head. But then again, we all have our dysfunctions. Mine’s a berserker’s temper. Hers… well, I guess ‘overtly affectionate to unliving things’ was the nicest way to put it.
But before visiting Lil’ Red, I had one other place to go.
Information was power and as someone who likes power as much as the next guy, I needed it so I could see that case through to the end, bitter or not. I knew lots of folks on the street from way back when and I guessed that now was the best time to call in some favors for old times’ sake. Whether they liked it or not. And according to one very grumpy parole officer that I had woken up over the phone, that particular sleazy, obviously-illegal garage smack-dab in the Narrows was where my top informant was currently ‘employed’.
“Nice evening, Ryuu. Anything interesting happening ‘round here lately?”
The ‘thud’ that echoed inside the dimly-lit workshop when the ginger hit his head in the open hood of the cabrio was loud enough to wake up every straggler from the Narrows to the Heights. For a moment there I thought even the lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling was about to fall, probably straight on the already bleeding head of my informer. But I couldn’t be that unlucky, could I?
Thankfully, my associate proved to have a head as hard as the glistening concrete currently drenched by the downpour outside. Comparing the terror-struck eyes that greeted me to a deer caught in headlights was not nearly enough. It was more like the look of a crippled skinny stray cornered in dead-end back alley by a whole pack of rabid hungry mutts. The uneven sound of nervous clattering filled the silence between us, pushing back the faraway shrieks of the sirens and gunfights in the background.
“Lancer, my man, seriously, it wasn’t like you think!” blurted out the ginger, putting his shaky hands up and waving them much like a mime who had somehow gotten stuck in his own invisible bear trap. “That creep deserved it for real. He was gonna rape a friend’s sister! You would’ve done the same thing my place, dawg, I know ya! I only castrated him a little. And that rusty wrench was the only thing I had on hand. For realz, man!”
“Can it, pup, I ain’t here to bring you in. I haven’t been on the force for years,” I mumbled as I clenched a cigarette between my dried lips. My internal organs, squirming like a bunch of intertwined slimy eels, reminded me that I was in dire need of a drink. Sadly, I could only afford the luxury of a smoke at that particular moment.
“Please don’t squash my fingers aga-“ the almost teary pleas were abruptly cut off and, peeking behind the makeshift shield of his raised arms, the lad threw me a judging look. A little kid tilting his head and wondering if it was safe to touch daddy’s loaded gun was the closest thing that came to my mind when I looked at him. God, how much could one person change for barely a decade?
“I- I knew that, man. O’course, it’s all water under the bridge, a’ight? Kinda scared me there, showing up like that,” said the ginger and clutched his heart, his heavy breaths finally slowing down to a normal pace. A good performance- almost believable even. “Good. Yep, good. ‘Cause I’ve finally gotten used to ‘em prosthetics Red gave me. I can even operate with little screws and stuff now.”
As if to show off, Ryuu outstretched his hands under the lone ray of light cast down by the light bulb. The twitching combination of plastic and metal that now served as his fingers was frighteningly detailed. What scared me most of all was how advanced Touko seemed to have gotten with turning even living people into a mix-and-match bunch of puppet parts. How much until she had the idea of taking out someone’s heart and brain, shoving them into a plastic body and waiting for lightning to strike to see if it would come to life? I chose not to think about it too much. Frankly, Ryuu’s single worth for now was keeping my mind off such things. The lad’s mouth was running like a brand new engine under the hood of an award-winning sports car.
“’Course, she had me endure the whole thing without even putting me to sleep, man. Not even a shot of vodka! Said I deserved to suffer for what I did to ‘em folks. And y’know what? The chick was right, like, totally! Thankfully, I didn’t need to pay any money ‘cause of that whole police brutality shtick that you pulled when you tore them off.”
Not that I had much time to waste, but I chose to let the lad’s words sink in. Didn’t need to wait much, actually.
“WHICH WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO! I was a really really bad person back then. But not anymore! Oh no, ever since you dragged that half-dead Bluebeard to the electric chair I’m a whole new totally good guy! I even visit the church every Sunday. Ask Father Kirei. Haven’t touched a Necronomicon ever since. And I help other folks now. The other day I helped some grandma cross the street. Totally! And I’m working here at Sherwood, fixing cars and stuff. Even my parole officer said it was better than the furniture factory ‘cause folks can’t be turned into cars. Not that I had thought about it!”
“Info, pup, I need info!” I finally cut him off, adding a low growl for good measure. I’d lie if I said I didn’t enjoy his audible gulp when I walked closer to him.
“Well… word is, there some new kind of drug on the streets- a superdrug, dawg! Hooks you up, like, just by sniffing it once. Folks say you start seeing angels and reapers and shit! Turns out one of our people got hooked, too. And that’s a big no-no ‘cause Robin hates drugs so we tried to, uhm, question the guy and he totally went apeshit on us and tried to claw out Robin’s neck! And that dude was a decent fella! Worked hard to make money for his sick mother or something, he even was in the church choir! Dude like an angel and then- BAM! Some stinky superdrug makes him whacko!”
“I need more specific info, Uryuu,” I said as I ran a hand over the leather upholstery of the cabrio. It was a gorgeous car, colored deep crimson, like a blossoming rose.
“Look, dawg, pal, buddy- uhm, I’d be thankful if you didn’t use that name around here,” said Ryuu even more jittery than before, if such a thing was even physically possible. “Some of my peepz won’t be very happy to hear that name. I might’ve… remodeled some friends or relatives of theirs or something way back when. I go by Plissken now. Sounds better, ain’t I right? Ryuu Plissken?”
“Yeah,” I replied without even listening or looking back. My hands and mind were too busy exploring the steering wheel of that gem of a car and the ginger’s stammered speech had been proven useless already. “Listen, pup, I want you to dig up as much as info as you can on the Matous. Especially on the two youngest. The brother and the sister, got it?”
“Consider it done, my man! Anythin’ for a pal o’ mine like you.”
“Now that you’ve mentioned our long and eventful friendship, I can’t help but notice what a swell car you’ve got here, pup. What’s a beauty like this doing in a run-down garage in the Narrows?”
I could practically see the cogs in the ginger’s head turning, ever too slow to actually think up of a good excuse. Even before having its fangs torn off, that particular viper had never had enough brain to do things right. Frankly, I ain’t got no idea how the pup had managed to cover up what he had been doing before hooking up with that bulgy-eyed freak friend of his.
“We, erm… import them from… abroad? Yeah! From abroad!”
The fact that he actually thought it was believable finally broke through my resolve like a brake-less train speeding down towards a flimsy wall of bricks left at the end of the tracks. My hoarse laughter, which for some reason sounded more like a howl than I cared to admit, echoed around the badly-lit workshop.
“This car ain’t got no plate number, pup.”
“I removed it to… clean it! On both sides! We here at Sherwood work for the common folks! We find them nice cars or money for food and medicine and stuff and we hand it over to ‘em. In their eyes we’re, like, heroes, dawg!”
“Aye, your altruism just brings tears to my eyes. And wasn’t Sherwood the name of one of the bigger gangs that always pesters the mafia and the yakuza with their little hit-and-run tactics? I heard that green’s their color, y’know.”
I nodded towards the greasy green scarf wrapped around his arm. Finally showing some distant hint of actually possessing something brain-like in that thick skull of his, the ginger stopped himself from immediately tearing it off halfway through.
“Nah, man, we are very alt-alt-troumoristic but we ain’t no gang! We just look out for the common folks, is all.”
“If you say so,” I said and shrugged. Frankly, I preferred the smaller gangs who actually looked out for their people than the backstabbing glamour of the mafia or the blood fury of the Yakuza. “Just remember, pup, the youngest Matous, all the info you can find. ASAP.”
Leaving the temporary shelter of the Sherwood, I walked back into the streets. The ice-cold rain didn’t even give me time to shiver before devouring me whole.
The trip to her place- a nice enough flat in a certainly not nice enough place- was uneventful. The other residents of the night could sense I was a tad higher on the food chain, so they mostly kept to themselves. Touko’s place was dangerously close to the Narrows. I pitied the fool who could’ve tried to actually break into her place. It took a lot to get Lil’ Red worked up but then again, it took a lot to make me scared of someone else getting angry, much less if said someone was a lass. The sound of her doorbell echoing in the empty darkness was like a cathedral’s bell declaring someone’s funeral.
“Well, well, well,” dragged out the redhead who appeared on the doorway. Peaking from around the door, she sized me up like a fox evaluating her prey. “Look what the cat dragged in. Or was it a little puppy?”
Once again reminding me of a certain sleek predator with fiery fur, Touko leaned closer and sniffed the air around me.
“Or, apparently, a drunk stray mutt,” she teased.
“It’s a disguise. To blend in more easily with the night crowd,” I deadpanned and shot straight to the point before she could cut me off with her childish comments once again. “Look, Aozaki, I need to ask you a few things about a body they should’ve dropped for examining today-“
“Yeah, yeah, it’s about my precious princess, right?”
She just waved off any of my future questions and went right back in, motioning for me to follow. Even before seeing the overflowing ashtrays that littered the whole place, I smelled the stench of probably hundreds of cigarettes. That lass was probably the only one in the whole city who could outsmoke me and Velvet combined. Hell, the rest of the city combined. Still there was another scent lingering in the background- the all-too-familiar one of various kinds of alcohol, mashed up together in one glorious combination. The day apparently had been tiring for Touko.
“Of course, it is about my precious. She’s all the rage now, isn’t she? Besides, when they brought her he told me you had been lurking around the crime scene.”
“Who told you exactly?” I asked, despite my better judgment. I had a pretty good idea about who was the smart-aleck in question. An idea that Touko confirmed a second later.
“Archer, of course. Who else?” answered Touko as if I had asked the most ridiculous thing in the world. Putting back on her glasses, she reverted to her sterner persona and took the nearest armchair. Positioning myself on the sofa, I noticed that she had left the lights off. That was how I liked it anyway- sometimes I’m a tad too sensitive to the light.
“He misses you, y’know. In his own strange and overly-sarcastic way. Hasn’t been the same since you left,” mumbled the sly fox in human disguise as she lit up yet another cigarette. The tiny flame ended up being reflected in her glasses, like a couple of fireflies lingering in the twilight of the room.
“The body, Aozaki,” I reminded her as nicely as possible. That in my case being a low guttural growl.
“My, my, impatient, aren’t we? And here I thought you were here to see little old me for old times’ sake.”
“I’ve had enough reunions for today, lass.”
With an annoyed sigh, Touko exhaled the smoke and crossed her legs. With eyes like mine, even in the semi-darkness that engulfed us, her business skirt sliding up more and more was inevitable to miss. Had she had such a nice pair of legs last time we met? That particular memory seemed to elude me.
“She was a beauty, that one. I haven’t been given such a doll in ages. Perfect proportions, lovely glassy eyes, silky hair, and nice firm breasts that are just perfectly bigger than my palm. I’d rip apart the bastard who would ruin such a piece of art. The cause of death is total separation of the heart from the body. And not just literally tearing it off. Simultaneously with being pulled out the three main arteries leading to it had been cut off. The wounds from the nails at the wrist joints and the base of her neck are inflicted postmortem. Further examinations proved that she had been raped, too. All in all, the full serial killer psycho routine. Doesn’t look like the cause of a lovers’ spat to me.”
The way she blurted out all the information, the whole disturbing mix of Touko’s admiration for her ‘precious princess’- who just happened to be a corpse- and the sterile way in which she stated the medical facts- it made me sick. It was then, with the deathly glint of her glasses in the darkness proving it even further, that I realized that Touko just might be a mechanical doll capable of loving only her own kind.
Then why did she keep on grabbing my attention again and again? Like a dog in heat, all my eyes could do was roam up and down her curvaceous body. That naughty skirt of hers seemed to be sliding up more and more by the minute and I just kept on noticing how her ample breasts were nearly ready to spill out of her white shirt, the top buttons undone before I had even arrived there. I didn’t know whether to count the fact that Touko apparently preferred to go bra-less as me being one of the luckiest lads in the city or just the opposite.
And I just knew she knew it as well and kept on teasing just because. She truly was a vixen that one- a dirty red indeed. Not that I was man enough to tell her that in the face. The last poor sod who had thought he had been now was widely known as that unlucky guy at the station who’s Ma would never hold a grandchild in her arms. I could feel the sweat trickling down my skin so I tried to keep the conversation on track as much as possible.
“Do you know anything else? Any clues that might lead me in the right direction?”
The old me, from before Bazett and… the rest, he would’ve laughed for how I somehow managed to sound like a love-stricken highschooler with Touko next to me. The fact that I was acting like that when not a single piece of cloth had actually left her body was frankly embarrassing.
“Well, Archer did mention that the last place the girl had been seen was having a spat with her brother at the Babylon.”
The Babylon.
Like little cogs in a machine, the pieces of the puzzle started moving inside my brain. It was the tiniest of leads but it was enough to set me on the right path. The Babylon, if I’ve to speak in technicalities, is a club. But unlike any other club in the city, unlike any other casino or saloon, the Babylon signifies one thing and one thing only.
Class.
And all the money and power that come with it. Owned by the richest man in the city, the Babylon was the ultimate neutral ground. There were neither different sides nor conflicts once one entered through the gold-colored double doors. Only there could one see Fujimuras sharing a drink with Einzberns and a Tohsaka chatting with some Matou. In that tiny little island of power and fame, hidden in the tallest tower that overlooked the city, only one thing mattered. Money.
And as long as you had lots of it and were willing to follow the set of rules that the host had carefully cultivated, you were welcome to stay. If not… well, plenty of time to think on your bad behavior when the grunts sent you the express way down from the top floor.
“I’d need to rob a casino just to bribe the guard to let me in.”
“Maybe,” Touko replied and took one last drag off her cigarette. “Maybe not.”
Suddenly she lunged forward, like a vixen shooting for her helpless play. Somehow her face ended up so close to my own, the tips of our noses even slightly bumping into each other in a twisted parody of an Eskimo kiss. And while my brain was busy comprehending the feeling of her breasts pressed against me, I could feel her straddling me and trying to push me back. Just as unexpected as a lightning strike out of clear skies, I suddenly had the still-lit butt of the cigarette shoved into my neck.
Still too busy processing the touch of Touko’s chest against my own, my brain somehow forgot to register the pain. Either that, or all that whiskey had finally made me pain-proof. The scent of a woman had overcome the stench of cigarettes long, long ago. I could feel her breath caress the burn, her voice seemingly skipping my ears and getting projected right into my overloaded brain.
“Looks like a bad burn. I think I can make it all better again, tho.”
A chuckle.
“Seven o’clock, tomorrow. I want you in a clean suit, driving a nice car. You can keep that ridiculous ponytail of yours but please, darling, no stubble, alright? And I just might get you into the Babylon.”
And just like that the vixen let off her pray and with the walk of a victor, hid herself in some back room that I just knew was the bedroom. The feel of her breasts and the picture of her swaying hips as she left competed in my brain for her top feature along with her scent and that lingering feeling of shame just wouldn’t go away.
The hound had gotten cornered by the fox. And now he had been left to decide whether to turn tail and run or follow his instincts and the predator inside her den.
Chapter 15: Prince VS Pauper
A whole world away from Fuyuki, in a city of mages, a new War threatens to break out. Seven new Masters are chosen and enter a life-changing battle, unknowingly becoming part of a War in which there are more players than the eyes can see...
And this cute little chapter, where did it came from?
Aladar, excuse me but I'll read it tomorrow. Tired eyes...
And Uryuu makes an appearance.
This into reminds me of Mirror's Edge and it makes me sad because there's probably not going to be a sequel. And TOUKO! Excellent.Like two sides of the same coin, every city has two different faces. One, bright and happy, meant for the gullible tourists and the ads for the next election campaign. The kind of city you see on those TV shows where every house has just the perfect lawn at the front and just the perfect man married to the perfect wife raising their perfect little children inside. The particularly sappy ones add some perfect dog, too. Aye, that kind of wishful thinking is good and all but it makes people forget the other side of the coin.
The true face of the city.
Last edited by SeiKeo; August 4th, 2011 at 07:02 PM.
Originally Posted by asterism42
Necrophilia. It's alright as long as you're a hot chick.
I adore how you write Lancer. I truly do.
WHY MUST EVERYTHING UPDATE AT THE SAME TIME?!
MAKES IT SO HARD TO READ!!!1!!! AND WRITE!!!!1!!!
*drools over Stolen Heart's new update*
My Fanfics. Read 'em. Or not.McJon01: We all know that the real reason Archer would lose to Rider is because the events of his own Holy Grail War left him with a particular weakness toward "older sister" types.
^ A drooling Illya?
Teasing the Penguin God!
Uryuu isn't a serial killer? Strange, he would have made a perfect suspect... but I think we'll see him again, he's the perfect henchman for a big bad.
OOOooooohhhhHHHHHhhhhh... SHIT!I even visit the church every Sunday. Ask Father Kirei.
"Yo dawg I herd you like drugs so we put a drug into a drug to make a superdrug!"Well… word is, there some new kind of drug on the streets- a superdrug, dawg!
I'll stop at once.
Why did I think about avenger while reading that?we tried to, uhm, question the guy and he totally went apeshit on us and tried to claw out Robin’s neck
Quick! Somebody calls father Karras! Touko has been possessed by Mike's spirit! (I always knew he was into the Dark Arts...)She was a beauty, that one. I haven’t been given such a doll in ages. Perfect proportions, lovely glassy eyes, silky hair, and nice firm breasts that are just perfectly bigger than my palm. I’d rip apart the bastard who would ruin such a piece of art.
Just joking, Mike, I'd rip him apart too...
Final thought: very well done. I liked Robin's cameo (I hope we'll see him more, I don't know why) and the last scene LancerxTouko was very well written, I liked it.
oh yeah for Gilgamesh next time! *giggle*
Chapter III:
The Den of Kings
“Oh, smile a little for Heaven’s sake! There’s no need to glare at the crowd like you are waiting for someone to jump at you with guns ablazing.”
Touko’s half-teasing remark fell on deaf ears. I would’ve paid my weight in gold to whoever promised to get me out of there on the spot. The stench of Cuban cigars made my nostrils flare up and the persistent chatter of the surrounding crowd was too much to bear. Everywhere I turned- in each and every direction- pompous gits and their dolled-up arm-candies mingled around with vomit-inducing smiles plastered on their faces. The whole charade of masquerading predators was a joke. For all the filth, impregnable darkness and nonstop rain, at least people were honest down on the streets. You went down the wrong alley, you got knifed. Plain and simple.
But not in that den of kings. Etiquette seemed to be the most important thing of all. Apparently you were supposed to smile and bow even when you looked someone in the eyes and inwardly wished for him to end up face down in some gutter by the time the sun rose in the morning. In that god-forsaken club where the crystal chandeliers never went off and top-class martini ran like a river, where even the Devil himself would be ashamed to enter, lurked the deadliest and most treacherous predators in the whole city.
Touko had kept her promise alright. After I had shown up at the right time driving the right car (a certain crimson cabrio borrowed from a certain close ‘friend’), she had dragged me off to some art exhibit of hers. How exactly a bunch of puppets set up in rather… dubious positions could pass as art was something I still had to figure but it seemed that the rich folks thought it was all the rage. And that had been enough to earn her a posh reception at the Babylon of all places. Plus free entry for whoever was the lucky sod hanging off her arm that night.
It wasn’t only her… art that had gathered such a crowd of wealthy gentlemen around her at the reception. A filthy liar was the lad who would say she was anything short of stunning. The glasses were all but gone and, finally out of that ponytail, her fiery hair went down in waves over her bare shoulders. And that red dress of hers with the longest of slits and only two silky pieces of cloth meant to cover up her… assets was the cherry on the top of the cake. Frankly, I was half-sure that she had agreed to let me come only to use me as an excuse to ward off the suitors that didn’t make the cut.
I would’ve been fine if that had been my only role but apparently Touko felt obliged to introduce me to every Tom, Dick and Harry in shoes of snake leather that neared us. Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined that there could be so many people in this world that could make me want to punch them as much as Archer but in the short span of several hours my old partner had acquired unbelievable competition. And speaking of that stick in the mud…
An all too familiar glimpse of slicked-back white hair hidden among the crowd caught my attention as Touko was bugging me to at least pretend to smile and pushing yet another glass of champagne in my hand. I had half a mind of ‘excusing’ myself and going off after him but in that particular moment the crowd chose to go silent.
The momentary pause reserved only for when the sleaziest among the sleaziest entered meant only one thing. One of the bigshots had chosen to be fashionably late and was just now arriving at the party. Parting like the Red sea before Moses, the whole crowd was divided in two before the small entourage that had just entered through the gold-colored double doors. Leading his people like a wolf leading his pack, Kiritsugu Emiya strolled in like he owned the whole place, clientele included. Which wasn’t that far from the truth. As owner of Heaven’s Feel Industries, Kiritsugu was certainly one of the richest men in the city and willing to deal with only those of similar status. It was widely known that important people went to him when they had problems and, like a magician in a cheap magic show, he solved them almost in an instant. How exactly Kiritsugu made those ‘problems’ disappear was still a mystery for the ages. From what the police knew he was as innocent as a new-born pup and, frankly, many lads at the station didn’t want to learn anything more than that.
Apparently the Universe had decided that I had to be her bitch in that particular night because instead of heading to speak business with some of the other sleazy gits, the infamous Emiya chose to head in our direction. Him congratulating Touko for an exhibit well done meant her introducing me, so I somehow ended in a conversation with possibly the most dangerous man in the city. Over two glasses of champagne and a borrowed Cuban. But since wonders never seemed to cease around me those days, yet another well-known face chose to join our little gentlemanly chit-chat.
“And what do we have here? The infamous old friend of mine Kiritsugu Emiya!” was the shout that was seemingly supposed to come off as a greeting. The speaker was none other than Commissioner Waver Velvet. And judging by the condition of his breath that I could pick up from a mile away, the pals at the bar had been busy up ‘till now.
Thankfully for him, Velvet wasn’t alone. A young lass with short black hair was there to keep him from further embarrassing himself but from her looks she wanted to be anywhere but there. That was probably his reporter girlfriend. She was certainly a catch that one- dressed in a baby blue cocktail dress way more conservative than what Touko was currently wearing now. But by the way Waver’s lady was eyeing the girly-looking blond lad with the pony-tail who played bodyguard to Emiya, she wanted nothing more than to have an immaculate black suit like his on. Or just preferred the younger kid to Velvet, not like I particularly cared.
“Commissioner Velvet! And pretty little Maya! What a pleasant surprise,” greeted Kiritsugu much more quietly and lifted his cup at Waver’s direction.
“You two know each other?” blurted out Touko, the reddening of her cheeks showing that she wasn’t nearly as resistant to alcohol as she was to nicotine poisoning. “She interviewed me about the exhibit.”
“In a business like mine, Miss Aozaki, it is a necessity to have… associates everywhere,” said Emiya and took a sip off his glass. The narrowing of his cold black eyes- like a cat toying with its prey- seemingly went unnoticed to anyone but me. Some part deep inside of me was currently glad that alcohol no longer affected me the way it had. A small part, tho, I assure you.
“And good thing Maya was there for poor Velvet when the old Commissioner… passed away,” continued Kiritsugu with a smile. “I don’t think he could’ve survived such tragedy on his own. And to think how he managed to cut away all that corruption that was plaguing the police like cancer just shortly after that… as if you dedicated your efforts to old Kayneth, right?”
For some reason Emiya’s words were enough to sober Velvet up, at least a bit. Narrowing his eyes and clutching his glass to the brink of shattering it, the Commissioner mumbled a curt ‘Indeed’ and dragged off his lass somewhere else.
“So, Kiritsugu, how’s family? Those boys of yours- you readying them to inherit the business?” asked Touko and leaned a bit on me to keep her balance.
“I’ve already given up on Archer. Police’s everything for the boy so I guess I’ll have to make do with his younger brother, reluctant as Shirou is.”
To this day I wonder how I managed not to spit all over the suit of the most dangerous man in the whole city when I heard those two names. My mind felt like being split in half, unable to decide which statement had been more absurd. The fact that my old partner was apparently the firstborn son of Kiritsugu bloody Emiya or that said man’s pup had somehow managed to pull one over me and fool me with a fake name. One thing was certain- the investigation just kept getting more and more complicated…
“Archer’s probably off loitering around with Tokiomi’s daughter again. But if I know my boy she would’ve told him to bug off already. He can’t keep his social life and job separate for the life of his so he is probably interrogating his favorite dame about little Sakura. And you know how those two girls were- like joined at the hip or something.”
… And more and more and more…
In the short span of around a minute I had been given so many clues that I felt the need to go out on the balcony and hope that the fresh air would be enough to get my excuse for a brain to sort them all out. The annoying chatter refused to be left behind but at least the evening wind was there to greet me. It was the wind of the city- with its entire stench and smells that assured a grizzled dog like me that even so high up in the realm of the rich, the streets would never let down one of their own. I could see the whole city from there- a parade of man-made giants of all shapes and sizes stretching as far as the eyes could see, like dominoes just waiting to be toppled over. The lights of the city glittered into the night like some cheap counterfeit knock-off of the stars hanging above.
“Majestic isn’t it? The view.”
To my great fortune or utmost lack of luck, the speaker turned out to be a gorgeous lass. The purple cocktail dress that didn’t shy to show off her naked back was hiding from view a certainly stunning body. The moonlight caressed her ivory skin like a jealous lover and by the way she coyly tucked back one of her twintails, the girl certainly knew her value.
“Archer warned me that you would somehow get in here to question me. Apparently he thinks you are stubborn enough to find a way into the Babylon but he did seem more keen to bet on you charging in here guns ablazing,” said the newcomer and left her wine cup on the railing, turning to stare at me with a pair of dazzling eyes that seemed to cause roots to sprout from the ground and bind you on the spot.
“He has a way of underestimating me,” I replied with a shrug and leaned back on the railing. “So what’s the reason you wouldn’t listen to our mutual friend, Miss Toshaka?”
“Just Rin,” said the girl and her delicate crimson lips formed a smile so seemingly divine, that even I knew only a demon could pull it off. “I would never treat a friend of Archer like a stranger after all.”
Her gaze clawed right at my soul and the way her lips stayed barely apart, as if waiting for a kiss, made my skin crawl and my heart skip a few beats. The cool evening air suddenly was as heavy as the one in Sahara during drought season and each and every fiber of my being screamed ‘Danger!’. The old dog was getting beaten by the kitty before a confrontation had even started. Rin seemed the same age as the little goddess- probably not even twenty and certainly barely legal for Archer to loiter round with her. The fact that I had to remind myself that the same rules applied to me made me ashamed of myself.
“So… Rin,” I started slowly, trying out her name. “What was your connection to the late Miss Matou?”
“Sakura and I were two of a kind. Both heiresses to old and important families, both the same age and bored dead of our lives. She was like the sister I never had,” admitted Rin with a sigh and ran her finger over the edge of her wine glass. I tried not to ask myself how the red lipstick staining it tasted.
“We could be ourselves together, away from the never-ending masquerade that had surrounded us our whole lives. All those secrets that suffocated us- we could entrust to each other. It didn’t matter that there was a cold war between our ‘rival’ families. What mattered the most was that here in the Babylon, we could find a kindred soul.”
Rin’s ruby lips let out yet another drawn-out sigh before finishing off the rest of the wine in a single gulp. The glass was now limply hanging between her lithe fingers.
“So did she mention any… concerns about her well-being? Anyone who could’ve targeted her personally? Has she been distant or… has she seemed scared or spaced-out lately?”
“Not a bit. Well, she was a tad concerned on how Shinji would react on her going out with Kiritsugu’s son now that their father wasn’t there to rein him in but anything else? No.”
I continued my improvised interrogation.
“Why would her brother be angry? Did he have a rivalry with Shirou or something?”
“Not… precisely. He has been sort-of friends with him from what I know but the core of the problem was Sakura. She, well… let’s say that she and Shinji liked to keep it in the family and her big brother apparently wasn’t very happy upon learning that Shirou has been getting some of it as of late. He learned just the other night and after telling her all those horrible things, Shinji stormed out of the place and from what I know, no one has seen him ever since.”
“Jealousy is a strong motive,” I said, dragging out my words to buy time for thinking. Rin had just shattered the pedestal upon which I had placed the little goddess into thousands of tiny bits, as if it wasn’t anything more than a cheap glass pane decorating the nearest convenience store. Why did it have to be incest of all things?
“I know Shinji,” cut me off the raven-haired girl and continued fiddling with the glass in her hand. “He may be a royal pain in the ass, he may be outright cruel and violent sometimes but the… the way Archer told me you’ve found her isn’t his style. Shinji’s rash and cowardly and he’d sooner run away after doing it and not stay there and set up something like that.”
“Do you have any idea who it might have been then?”
“I don’t. But she had… another confidant,” Rin replied after a little hesitation and shot me another one of her judging looks that made you think she was looking straight into your soul. “Sakura certainly wasn’t the saint everyone made her out to be. She had a particular… hunger for earthly pleasures and she had somehow gained entry for a very special club that provided just what she was looking for. One of the girls there was her favorite… Rider or something. From what I gather Sakura told her those family secrets that a Tohsaka just couldn’t pass by without exploiting.”
And once again, with just a few words of those ruby lips, my mental image of what the little goddess had been in her life was grinded into dust and spread to the four winds. Still, a clue was a clue and that one seemed as good as any other.
“Right. Thank you, Rin. Now if you would excu-“
Her gentle arm cut me off before I could even finish, holding me back and using it as an excuse for the black cat to draw a bit closer to her prey for the night.
“Stay a bit. It so awfully boring now that Archer’s away,” drawled out the girl and oh-so-slowly twirled the tip of one of her twintails between her fingers.
“I sincerely doubt an old dog like me can alleviate your boredom in any way, Miss,” I said while trying to keep the sweat from pouring out from beneath my skin.
“Aww, there you go being so dreadfully formal again. I happen to like dogs,” almost purred the girl before leaning closer and whispering in my ear. “And older men.”
“And I happen to know when to play and when to fold ‘em,” I somehow managed to cut her off, my senses fighting to keep the feeling of her scent out of my mind.
“You’re no fun,” proclaimed the raven-haired beauty with a perfectly-faked pout before diving back into the crowd of predators inside. I was left behind with only her lingering scent and the mocking laugher of my old self to keep me company.
“And what do we have here?”
It was one of those moments that one reads about in the books or watches in the movies. The fateful moment when two men meet and from the moment they set eyes upon each other, they know that they want nothing more than to see the other one dead, maggots crawling from his eye sockets. Even before my brain had finished registering that grating drawled-out voice, even before I had caught a glimpse of the unruly golden hair and red eyes of that bastard, my canine instincts had gone and decided that I hated nothing more in this world than him.
That night Archer was forever booted from the top spot in my ‘Guys I Want to Beat into a Bloody Pulp’ list.
“You didn’t answer me, mutt,” repeated the newcomer with an almost casual grunt and leaned on the railing not that far away from me.
“I’m investigating,” I said and kept on staring straight forward towards the crowd, preferring the sleazy gits compared to looking at him in his precious Armani.
“And what, pray tell, would a mutt like you investigate in my club?”
“Just the gruesome death of an innocent girl, Mr-“
“Just Gil. If you are so stubborn as to insist on addressing someone like me in any way, at least I won’t let you stain my family name. Or maybe you would settle for ‘Your Highness’?”
“Not a chance, punk,” I cut him off with a snarl. It was a miracle the glass in my hand still hadn’t shattered under the pressure. “And is there some chance that you would know something about all this?”
“Such trivial matters are of no concern to me,” proclaimed the king of the city and waved off a girl’s death with a casual wave of his hand. “But I know Shirou well-enough. Unlike most people he is open-minded and willing to see the bigger picture. He would never stoop so low as to murder the one he loved, I assure you.”
“And what may that bigger picture be, Gil, ole’ pal of mine?”
Hearing him gritting his perfect pearly teeth from all the way there made me happier than I had been in ages.
“To reality, of course! What bigger picture could there be? Just look at them- the mongrels supposedly reigning over today’s reality,” Gil spat out in anger and gestured towards the still-chatting crowd huddled in his lion’s den.
“Lazy, corrupt, insignificant, betrayers all! All they know, all they can do is drag their fat carcasses around, scheming and backstabbing and just thinking what more they could possibly steal while not knowing that they are already dead! A living plague to society in the form of one big leech that just saps more and more of its life day after day after day! Young and old, they are all doomed. Doomed to be bloodsuckers to the very end, able only to play their little game of stealing and betrayals, passing the torch from one to the other and not even realizing how they have trapped themselves in an endless circle out of their own will. Shirou… Shirou was willing to acknowledge that and break the accursed circle. ‘A Hero of Justice’, he said. Well, I welcome any and all who are willing to sweep the filth off my city.”
“And each and every night you welcome them in your own house despite all this,” I reminded him with a low chuckle.
“And each and every night I restrain myself from poisoning all the drinks despite all this,” he echoed with a smirk of his own.
“Y’know, you aren’t the best of informants, Gil.”
“Get out before I have you thrown out. Off the railing.”
***The drizzle descending from the grey clouds was like a heaven-sent kick in the guts. It made the ground all muddy and all the people sour and jittery. The family had pulled one of their many sets of strings to get the body to be buried as early as possible but Mother Nature seemed hell-bent on ruining the service for everyone involved. Bitch was jealous of the little goddess’s beauty, if you ask me. As any normal person, I hated funerals, even more than I hated hospitals. The constant wailing of the women was making me grit my teeth and the speech of the priest went unnoticed by most, preferring to concentrate on staying dry than paying their respects to someone already not of this world.
Back then was when I realized how the core of the Matous had really dwindled away when only a lone old coot bearing the name was the sole relative present to send her away on her last journey. The majority of the rest was actually members of rival families and that Shirou lad, flanked by the same goons who had guarded his father the night before. He didn’t seem to notice me and I didn’t bother looking for his attention. Both I and the lad knew that out of all those present, there was a big fat chance of someone being the one who had plucked that delicate flower in her bloom. And damn him or her for making me so sappy and sentimental but all I wanted back then was to twist the murderer’s neck and, in a form of poetic justice, dump the body into the freshly dug grave.
A lone woman stood a bit away from the crowd, umbrella limp in her hand and her waist-length purple hair drenched from the rain.
Only she and Shirou lingered on a bit after everyone had used the oh-so-convenient excuse of the rain to slither away in their hiding holes, proud that he or she was now in the morally right ground for coming to the funeral.
A funeral fitting for a goddess?
Not a bloody fucking bit.
But what right did I have to rage at the others when I myself had failed to find her on time? Gritting my teeth even harder in a vain attempt to subdue my anger, I stared at the tombstone that even lacked an epitaph. Pathethic.
“You will get a cold staying here in the rain.”
Frankly, I am not surprised that the priest had managed to sneak up on me, even with an umbrella in hand. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that even a sixteen-wheeler slamming right into me wouldn’t have caught my attention, much less the rattle of the rain on the umbrella. And besides, the old snake had always been too sneaky for his own good.
“It warms my heart to see that you care for me so much, Kirei.”
“Bazett would never forgive me if something happened to you when I could have prevented it,” explained the priest with an even voice and just kept standing there, unwanted.
“Stop talking like she’s still here,” I said and bit my lip as my nails drew blood from the clenched fists hidden in the pockets of my trench coat.
“She loved you enough to forsake her old live, even leave her job with Emiya-“
“Don’t remind me.”
“- she deserves to have left behind more than a drunkard ex-cop who is unable to solve even a single case anymore.”
I prayed to all the Gods that were willing to listen and to all those that refused- to shut him up before I ended up increasing the count of the graveyard’s residents by one. Be it because of some twist of fortune or the git had finally grown half a brain, Kotomine just kneeled before her tombstone, left a single figurine behind and once again vanished somewhere behind the veil of the rain.
Yet again, I was the only one left at a shrine of the goddess, a shrine desecrated before it had even been built.
And only the lone onyx figure of a hooded angel was there to keep me company in my vigil.
Chapter 15: Prince VS Pauper
A whole world away from Fuyuki, in a city of mages, a new War threatens to break out. Seven new Masters are chosen and enter a life-changing battle, unknowingly becoming part of a War in which there are more players than the eyes can see...
It's baaaaaaaaack!
After Kiritsugu's cameo I thought that, when "A Stolen Heart" in finished, you can use the same settle and style in a sort of "expanded universe". Something like... how Kiritsugu managed to enter Einzbern family ("Barry Lyndon") or a "Romeo and Juliet" Archer and Rin or some other noir in the same city (this time with Robin? Archer? Gil's shadow business?)... something like that.
Waiting for the next chapter.
Whoa nelly, talk about your interesting developments.
Sakura's past is still marred with all kinds of badness, so that is pretty faithful to canon in that sense.
Gilgamesh , sorry, "Gil" was certainly one of the more interesting parts of this chapter. That ominous talk about "Heroes of Justice" and approving of Shirou's "path" somehow sends shivers down my spine.
And of course Kotomine is being Kotomine.
My Fanfics. Read 'em. Or not.McJon01: We all know that the real reason Archer would lose to Rider is because the events of his own Holy Grail War left him with a particular weakness toward "older sister" types.
Guh. Just guh. That is all I can say. All that needs to be said.
I feel like I'm reading a cop drama, I just need the saxophone in the background.
"Fate/stay night: not really an eroge, and not really a cooking sim, but actually an RPG wherein everyone’s primary stat is “self-loathing” and the goal is to level it up beyond all the other characters."
How did you know I was thinking of that? Out of my head I say, out!
"Fate/stay night: not really an eroge, and not really a cooking sim, but actually an RPG wherein everyone’s primary stat is “self-loathing” and the goal is to level it up beyond all the other characters."
Big O.
Good times.
My Fanfics. Read 'em. Or not.McJon01: We all know that the real reason Archer would lose to Rider is because the events of his own Holy Grail War left him with a particular weakness toward "older sister" types.
It is what started my appreciation for film noir stuff, also it has the bonus of being one of the anime shows that my parents love and will watch with me.
The others would be Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star. (Considering that my father and mother are 61 and 57 respectively that is quite a feat.)
Whoa.
I'm kind of envious in that regard.
My Fanfics. Read 'em. Or not.McJon01: We all know that the real reason Archer would lose to Rider is because the events of his own Holy Grail War left him with a particular weakness toward "older sister" types.
About what? That they are old folks, or that they will watch anime with me.
Also I didn't include pokemon from when I was younger and my mom's odd infatuation with Tenchi Muyo.
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