CLAMP Campus, Tokyo
University Hospital April 10, 2000 — 11:16 [Monday] Hospitals are all the same, Kamui thought grimly as he left the elevator on the specified floor. The small reception was deserted and so he searched down the corridor for the room number Akechi-sensei had given him on the phone. They have pale washed walls, grey linoleum floor with white sideboards, and smell of disinfectant. He'd been in these places too often; for himself, for Sorata. For Subaru. He spotted the right number and knocked. No answer. He tried the door handle. Open. "Ake—?" He stopped. They don't have a whole wall painted with parrots...; chirping parrots even— No. That's— Kamui found himself staring at Akechi. The doctor stood at the open window, surrounded by a swarm of sparrows picking crumbs out of his open hands. Parrots. Sparrows... Kamui gave up. "Are they tame?" If he was insane, he could at least indulge his curiosity. Akechi looked over his shoulder at him, the morning sun outside caught in his glasses; the reflexes obscured his eyes. "No, Kamui-kun, they're just hungry. As always." He smiled and scattered the remaining crumbs across the window sill, before he went to the small sink in the corner of his office. Behind him the window sill disappeared under a fluttering wave of little brown bodies, while he cleaned his hands. "I'm glad you found my office. I was afraid you'd gotten lost." "Um, doctor—" Kamui pointed at Akechi's head where a small brown sparrow clung stubbornly to the doctor's hair. "There's one left." "Ignore him!" Akechi said cheerfully, tossing the towel onto the edge of the sink. "I'm sure he'll leave when it gets too boring. So, how are you feeling?" "Uh... feeling?" Kamui couldn't help staring at the sparrow ruffling its feathers in Akechi's hair. "Isn't that unhygienic?" "Feelings?" Akechi appeared surprised. "Not in the least, it's perfectly normal and healthy to have them and—" "I meant the bird." "Oh that." The doctor shooed the sparrow off his head and finally closed the window. "Better now?" He smiled. "Don't worry about hygiene; I've fed them for twenty-five years now. If anything were to happen, I'm confident it would have happened already." He indicated a narrow hospital bed behind a movable screen. "Shall we?" "As if I have a choice." Kamui unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged out of it, draping it over the foot end. "Please sit down and roll up your sleeve." Akechi put a small steel tray with a rubber thing and vials, needles and bottles on the bed next to him. "I want to make sure there's no hidden infection." He deftly attached a disposable one-way-needle to an orange colored plastic stub with which he connected a finger long transparent plastic vial. Kamui shrugged and pushed his sleeve up. The tourniquet was made of soft yellow rubber and the closing strap creaked as Akechi pulled it tight. "Make a fist, please. Firmly. — Good." Another creak. Kamui felt his pulse under the tourniquet as it pressed into his arm... ...tying him to the broken roof top. Steel cut into his skin, while Subaru fought, suffered. "I don't want anybody else to die in front of me!" Wires sliced his limbs as he leaped. "Subaru!" he screamed and... ...looked at pale yellow rubber dangling harmlessly from his upper arm. The screen had toppled over and Akechi was on the floor a few steps away from him, slowly rising to one knee, watching him cautiously. He was talking, but it took time for his words to make sense. "...all right, Kamui-kun. It's just a blood sample; nobody's going to die here and Subaru-san isn't even here now, but I'm sure he's all right wherever he is at the moment. We can give him a call if that helps you feel better." "I—" Kamui stared at him. The doctor's green slacks were torn over the right knee. There was blood on the skin underneath. Akechi winced when he put weight on that leg. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't want to hurt you. I— I just—" "I understand," Akechi said calmly. He tested his leg again and gave him an encouraging smile. "Don't worry about it. I've had worse in my time. Do you think we can take the sample now?" Kamui ran his hand through his hair, making a face when the scar the Shinken had left in his palm pulled at his skin. "Yeah... I'm fine, I... guess." ~:~:~:~:~ Osaka Itami Airport South Terminal Gate 13 Waiting Lounge 11:22 "You have seat 36C. Boarding starts in twenty minutes at gate thirteen, sir." The young woman at the service counter gave him his boarding card and indicated the waiting lounge. "Have a nice flight." Ameru nodded politely and took a seat in one of the wire chairs arranged around small round tables. Laying his coat over the telescope handle of his hand trolley, he looked out the panorama windows next to the still blocked gangway. It was a sunny day; the light glistened on the tarmac and the white-and-blue airplane at the gate. There were comparatively few passengers, but then it was Monday and Okinawa was still more a holiday and weekend destination compared to Osaka. Or Kyoto. Kyoto. He'd known it meant trouble when he was ordered back to the main house, but the truth was way worse than anything he'd believed possible. He raised his shoulders against the sudden chill. He was glad to return to Naha. Still... It would have been nice to see him in person — at least from afar. Ameru sighed as he took his picture wallet out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. The slim black leather case was worn at the edges and one of its seams had been mended in slightly irregular stitches, but he'd never got around to replace it. Okinawa's sweltering summers had glued the few photos in it to the insides of their plastic sheaths. If he took the pictures out now, he'd risk damaging them. His finger trailed over the snapshot of a young man lighting a cigarette on a busy shopping street in Ginza, unaware of the photograph being taken . It was one of the pictures that shouldn't exist. Ameru knew he shouldn't have gone to Tokyo last spring, but Kamui had been only fifteen, had seen his mother burn to death. It had been impossible not to care whether the boy was provided for. Tokyo had nearly twelve million inhabitants; the chance to accidentally spot Subaru should have been nil, yet there he'd been. He'd appeared sad, resigned. At twenty-five. When had he started smoking? Was that the reason why his clothes seemed to be too wide for his lean frame or was he still such a poor eater? Sachiko had always worried about his lack of appetite... Ameru flipped back to one of the oldest pictures, barely daring to touch the edge of the sheath holding it. Sachiko, laughing, trying to free her shoulder-long hair from the determined grip of her daughter, while her son slept peacefully curled up in her lap. Initially, he'd wanted the four of them in the photo, but then he'd just hit the trigger at Sachiko's laughter. Her face was slightly blurred from his daughter's enthusiastic tugging. The picture was blinded at two spots where the lacquer had stuck to the plastic sheath, still... A few months later the initial tests had revealed his son's gift and the elders hadn't hesitated to demand Subaru's education by the house — exclusive education. He'd protested, but to no avail. Sachiko's tears that morning were etched in his soul, like the angry screams of his daughter. They hadn't been interested in her, but in the end had accepted her as well, because she calmed his son's upset crying... "She'll protect him," Sachiko had whispered in his arms, again and again in the nights that followed, biting her hand. Ameru closed his fist until his hand trembled. He should have fought back then, should have insisted, should have— He'd been twenty-eight; two years older than his son was now. He returned to the first picture. Sad eyes, more grey than green; sad and resigned. At twenty-five. He flipped the case closed and put it safely back into his jacket before he stood and took his trolley to the service counter. "Excuse me, miss. I've changed my mind. My seat number is 36C and I am not going to board this flight." ~:~:~:~:~ Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Division 13:28 "Sumeragi's alibi is rock-solid." Detective Kobayashi Ryusuke , Kono's junior partner, closed the door to their small office, juggling a stack of files and a paper mug. "I expected as much." Kono, after looking up briefly, returned his attention to the file in front of him. "The clearance certificate came in early today, just as he promised." "I was rather surprised that he insisted on performing the spiritual clearance himself." Kobayashi put the mug on his desk opposite Kono's and sat down. "Omi Tono is a certified police adviser and—" "He's the clan head of the Sumeragi, Kobayashi-kun. Their boss." "Exactly." "I think it's probably because of his sister. Ueno Park is where the only trace about her was ever found." "She's missing?" "Most certainly dead since 1991, but they never found her body." "Then how come—" "They found her brother's ceremonial robes soaked with her blood in Ueno Park. Tears in the fabric revealed that she'd been run through with a blunt paddle-like object. Because of lung tissue on the back of the robe and the amount of blood soaked into it, forensics declared it a possible homicide. The case is officially still open, but nobody's working on it. And after almost nine years..." Kono sighed and swiveled around to stare out the window at the busy Sakurada-dori. "Sumeragi never really recovered from it." "A blunt paddle-like object... where did I read that before?" Kobayashi asked aloud, frowning. "In our current case file," Kono said dryly. "Wait a minute, Sumeragi's sister was killed like our victim? And in her brother's robes? Did anybody check his alibi for that?" Kono snorted. "He was in a coma vigil after what his family declared to be a spiritual assault a month earlier. He woke around the time her presumed death was reported." "Which hospital?" "None. His family attended him at home at his apartment in Shinjuku." "Convenient." Kobayashi shook his head, flipping through the file. "I knew him before her death, Kobayashi-kun. He was a shy child, always going out of his way to help people. He'd never have been able to harm his twin." "Still, this is the second time his name comes up with a crime like that. I can't help it; that's suspicious." Kono sighed. "Not half as suspicious as what forensics is trying to feed us." He shoved the open file across his desk towards his partner's. "Apparently, cherry blossoms aren't just cherry blossoms." "Please?" Kobayashi pulled the file close and studied the indicated passage. "'Prunus speciosa'," he read aloud. "I called Tokyo University's botany department about it." Kono nodded towards the phone. "Apparently, what we all know as sakura these days, is actually a hybrid of various older sakura species developed in Yoshino about a hundred years ago. These Yoshino sakura are what grows everywhere across Tokyo nowadays. But the flowers sticking to our victim are from Oshima sakura, a much older variant that's been around since the thirteenth century or longer." "Did you check if there are any of those trees near the crime scene?" "Not personally. But the park department told me the area in front of the station was replanted after the Great Kanto Earthquake." Kono tossed his pen onto the desk. "With Yoshino cherries." "And deeper inside the park?" "They wouldn't rule it out, but even if there are some; the flowers were only around the body." "Doesn't make sense." Kobayashi sighed. "And think of the thunderstorms ten days ago. Yoshino, Oshima, whatever — hanami ended very early this year. So where did those blossoms come from?" "Good question. Another one would be why nobody saw a salaryman being run through with a paddle..." "A blunt paddle-like object," Kobayashi corrected. "According to forensics, it could even be a flat hand if somebody had the strength." "Yeah, and next you'll tell me the Sakurazukamori is wandering around Ueno Park!" Kono snorted. "This isn't the X-files." "I know. Otherwise, I'd have caught Nijyo Menso and—" The phone rang. "Senior detective Kono." He raised his hand, silencing Kobayashi and hastily scribbled something on a notepad. "Got it. On our way, sir." He hung up. "We've got another one. Blossoms and all." "Where?" Kobayashi clipped his badge to his pocket as they hurried out the door. "Kabuki-cho. Shinjuku." ~:~:~:~:~ Shinjuku, Kabuki-cho, Tokyo 19:26 Romiro wiped himself clean and dropped the cloth next to the used rubber between the woman's spread legs, before adjusting himself in his underwear. There was blood on the bed, his purchase still unconscious. He snorted and closed his pants and belt. One should assume Kabuki-cho's professionals were better trained in their job. He took his coat and showed himself out. It was barely after sunset when he stepped down onto the neon-lit street into the early evening crowd of people seeking their own pleasure — or just the thrill of pleasure being around to be had; mere spectators. He suspected Seishiro to have been among the latter, though probably in the district on the other side of the Yasukuni-dori. A waste. Seishiro's former animal clinic certainly lay conveniently close. Romiro crossed through under the red neon arc spanning the street entrance and entered the more mundane area with apartment houses, business complexes, a health center. The yellow police tape still blocked off the sidewalk in front of it, crackling in the evening wind. He whistled to himself. Ueno. Minato. Shinjuku. Three of the five tips of the sealing pentagram were already marked with the dead flesh and spilled blood of those who now served to cloud the spirit world. Two of the bodies had already been found, but that had no influence on the spell; the clouding was independent of the corpses. Once the remaining tips in Koto and Shibuya were marked, he could trigger the spell and Kasumigaseki would be sealed. It held a certain irony that one of the designated locations lay directly in front of one of Seishiro's former hide-outs. The place now offered abortions instead of castrations; cure instead of prevention. Romiro chuckled. In a way, he was going to do the same for the Mori. Seishiro was a fool if he believed they didn't know how to handle a rogue Sakurazukamori. Romiro dug his hands in his suit pockets as the wind tore at his jacket and hair. The shadow of a large crow flitted past him on the asphalt as he walked back to his car; its harsh call ringing out into the falling night. ~:~:~:~:~ CLAMP Campus, Tokyo. House of Akechi Shigetaka M.D. 20:36 Akechi drew a face as he put his cup of tea down on the writing pad of his old mahogany desk and used his foot to pull the desk chair out. He'd treated Kamui-kun and sent him on his way before he closed the laceration on his by then swollen knee with three stitches. He was getting old if such a slip of a teenager got him off his feet that easily. Yes, that slip-of-a-teenager was a 'Kamui', but whatever power the boy had, he hadn't trashed the office in his flashback, had he? Akechi sighed. He sat relieving his aching knee, and blew at his tea before having a first sip. The file lay still open on the desk. The first trace. In over thirty years. And the DNA data was conclusive. He looked up at the worn photo in the chased gold frame under the green-screened banker's lamp. It showed a young man in his twenties in front of the former Dai-ichi Seimei building, holding MacArthur's SCAP headquarters in occupied Tokyo. He stood seemingly carefree in midst of the turmoil of soldiers and diplomats and the destruction of Tokyo, laughing into the camera. Wind tore at his wavy hair, threatening to carry off his daringly tilted felt hat and battering the flaps of his trenchcoat. A handwritten note in the lower left corner dated it "Spring 1946". Ijyuin Shigero, the first 'Nijyo Menso'; strangely, the age of the photo had restored the color of his eyes that Akechi would never forget. Neither he nor his brother had inherited the light amber; his were hazel brown and Shigetoshi's were dark. Akechi trailed a fingertip over the glass covering the picture. He'd been thirteen when his father disappeared in February 1965. He and Shigetoshi had different mothers, even different last names, but they'd been each others support ever since; despite all his faults their father had made sure of that. Seishiro, though, born in April according to his school file, had been left on his own. Akechi's eyes wandered to another line on the plain, type-written file: Mother: Sakurazuka Setsuka (deceased 1981); Father: -unknown-. Ward of the State of Japan from 1981 until April 1, 1985. He thought of the scars he'd seen on his younger brother's body and his apparent dislike of being touched; they would have to be careful about him. He reached for the phone. ~:~:~:~:~ Setagaya-ku, Shimokitazawa-cho, Tokyo. Green Drugstore [business not opened yet] April 13, 2000 Kakyo— no, Kakei, always Kakei — sat on a rickety chair behind the unlit shop window, looking out at the deserted, dimly lit street. A worm of lights chased from right to left across the dark concrete when the first train rattled past on the elevated tracks above the other side of the street. Small, one-storey shops covered in bright graffiti ducked under the railway there, selling conveniences, groceries, liquor and services. The first train. 05:13. Kakei glanced back at the open door to the shop's backroom, where his self-appointed guardian slept noisily on a bed that seemed too short and too narrow for his size. He dragged on the cigarette between his limp fingers, allowing the glowing tip to outshine the streetlamps outside for a moment. One week ago, he and Saiga had left the hospital, disappearing in the chaos of everyday Tokyo, ending up... here. It had felt right. Strange. In his mind's eye, he had seen snow under the small trees lining the broader avenue two side streets from here, had seen a boy on the verge of freezing and a young man picking him up, bringing him... here. To heal. To learn. To... find answers. Here was right, would be right... next Winter. He exhaled the smoke and watched the feathered cloud dissipate in the vastness of the still empty shop. They'd set up the shelves over the weekend. The first goods would arrive next week and once they put up the sign... Kakei chuckled and wondered if Saiga knew what kind of leaf he'd chosen for his drugstore sign. He coughed, releasing more smoke in a thicker, wetter cloud. He probably shouldn't smoke in the first place; his health was fragile enough as it was. Saiga didn't want him to smoke. Not that he cared about that. Kakei dragged at the cigarette again. He was done with caring about others. Outside the first salarymen staggered, still half asleep, to their cars or the train station. The rattle of metallic wheels being pulled over the uneven sidewalk announced the old woman delivering newspapers. Shimokitazawa was waking up. Kakei dropped the rest of his cigarette to the still unswept store floor and crushed the glow under his heel. This had been the third night in a row he'd spent sitting in the shop window after waking up at 2 am. For the third time, he'd dreamed of Hokuto's murderer being stabbed. Either he would warn them today... ...or not at all. Outside, the old lady with the newspapers came around the corner; a small shaggy dog was running around her, yapping. Kakei lit another cigarette. to be continued in Family Matters 15 - Sun Flare Notes: Akechi and the birds: see "Man of Many Faces" book 1, pages 99-104 (Event 4). The snapshot in Ameru's picture wallet is in CLAMP's "X - Zero (new edition)" Artbook on page 101 (upper left corner). Kobayashi Ryusuke is three years older than Nokoru and Seishiro and stars in Man of Many Faces, where he very unsuccessfully hunts the 3rd Nijyo Menso (a.k.a Ijyuin Akira). Ijyuin Shigetoshi is Akechi Shigetaka's older brother, the father of Ijyuin Akira (from the CLAMP Campus detectives) and the second Nijyo Menso (the first one was his and Shigetaka's father, who disappeared without a trace in 1965). He stars in "Man of Many Faces" book 2, pages 85-88 (Event 8).