I have only a basic idea of where I'm taking this story. It shouldn't be extremly long but, ulike all my others,
This will be first person from Hattori's POV.
I don't know how fast I'll be updating this one ^_^; just to warn you

Story idea requested by Sera-kun the mystery detective

INFLUENCE

Chapter 1: Meeting Fate

...

...

Birds of a feather flock together,
And so will pigs and swine;
Rats and mice will have their choice,
And so will I have mine.
- Birds of A Feather (nusery rhyme)

...

...

I was used ta Kazuha latchin' onta me for one reason or another, keepin' me from leavin' school. I was used ta cases comin' up in the area that were interestin' enough that I didn't want to go back home.

A stern woman with gray eyes lookin' like she was either gonna eat someone or greet them with a friendly smile, waiting for me - that was new.

An' then she started preachin' to me about who she was. I tuned most of it out, instead lookin' her over an' makin' my own judgments. Usually the people who come ta me need help. She did not. It was obvious. She was calm an' most people dealin' with somethin' they needed me fer weren't.

'Cause of all the hell I'd run into with Kudo, I'd noticed a trend of people just usin' me to trick the police. Heck, one of 'em almost got away with it.

At some point during her long drawl on what she thought of me, I interrupted her.

"An' what exactly is it that ya want from me again?"

"Come with me." Okay, nothin' new there. Most people who came to me didn't do it so they could have a look around the classroom. "I know school just let out and you might not have the time, but I'm willing to reschedule."

A raised eyebrow.

"Right. Remind me again what it is ya want with me?"

"I'm an army recruiter, but that's not what I'm here for. Recently I've been having a lot of kids your age come in and it's been nagging at me. Your father and a friend of mine know each other, and I honestly just wanted to see if you were ready for what it is you want to do. It's understandable that, if a detective isn't ready to hunt down killers, I don't think I'd be able to let an eighteen year old prepare himself to go off to war, whether or not there is one in the near future. I've had a lot of them do it for the educational purposes and I think that makes a lousy soldier. So I wanted to see how you handle yourself."

She really did look the part. Her long brunette hair was tied back in a bun, in strict fashion, clothes decked out to look like they just came outta a steamer. Her insecurity felt false, but she was an officer, so it was hard ta tell what was hidden an' what wasn't there.

"So, again, what do ya want with me?"

She shook her head as if talkin' down ta some small kid an' that only made me angrier.

"I just want to look around with you at some of the things that would involve you as you got older and matured into this detective career of yours. The jail house and police station were a few of those I was thinking of visiting"

"I've already seen all that."

"Then let me see it."

With no way of fightin' her, an' not really having any passion to say no to a woman - specifically one who had connections to my old man - I gave. With a sigh I followed her outta the school gates. Kazuha would be mad at me fer leavin' her, but that girl found a reason ta be mad at me for sneezin'. It wasn't like her yellin' was anythin' new to me.

"So, where we goin' then?"

"To the prison. I already asked permission so they'll be expecting us."

Persistent woman. She knew she'd be able ta get to me. If she wanted to draw any more tension between us, she did it.

"Great."

I laid back an' followed her ta her car. It was nice. My bike was pretty up ta date, though I needed a bit more cash to put any finesse into it. She didn't care about price. Her Jag was as decked out as I'd ever seen. The silver metallic finish reflected the sun back inta my eyes. It looked like gravity had been set to three times its pressure with the way the car was huggin' the ground.

"Army must pay good."

"No, parents do. XJ220. My mother had it imported. Even when you're older, parents like to show that they can run your world, each in their own way."

I looked away from her, checkin' out the car. Man, foreign models were awesome. My parents didn't even have close ta this kinda car, an' my mom was one that liked to spend the bucks when she could, though she was more inta the older stuff.

The air conditioning felt nice an' she musta been listenin' ta jazz of some sort, 'cause a trumpet started playin' after she turned the key.

An' we were headin' to a prison in this?

Oh joy. As if I hadn't seen a jail before. Hell, I'd been a witness in more than one crime an' interrogated myself. It didn't have the same effect on me it used ta. 'Cause of dad, I knew mosta what went on before I was old enough ta spell my own name.

But hey, she was a girl, an' I really didn't want ta fight with my old man more than I already did. The guy was my dad, so I respected 'im, but he wasn't the kinda dad that I would say it was love. Loyalty was a different thing, but I guess with cops, it varies.

Okay, so maybe I was lying to myself. The prison was a little new ta me.

I had been in it, an' I really did know where everythin' was, but I hadn't gone further than the front. I eyed the building as we passed it.

She parked the car an' I hated leavin' the cool air. It was hot outside, not that I really expected the temperature ta be lower when we were in the middle 'a August.

"I can't believe I'm back in Osaka," she sighed, shuttin' the door. "It's always cloudy here."

"It ain't that bad."

"It wouldn't be if it didn't rain more than half the year." Another sigh.

Okay, definitely not a way to get on my good side- bashin' my home town.

"So what are ya doin' here? Wanted ta talk to me that badly?"

"Yeah."

She was back in my suspicious category, though I'd never really taken her outta it. I was mostly followin' her at this point to see what her angle was, 'cause I was missin' it.

The black gates in the front were open like spidery wings if I was going for an artistic point 'a view. I couldn't see the building as anymore than a large gray block with windows. Jail wasn't supposed ta be pretty.

"You know, Osaka has the second largest prison in all of Japan."

"Yeah," I smiled. "I know."

She didn't seem to like my pointa view though, 'cause she turned away from me an' kept walkin'. "When most of its citizens are behind bars, I don't think that's a good thing."

"It means the cops are doin' their jobs."

"If you say so."

"You're with the army, yeah? Why don't 'cha think that's a good thing?"

"Maybe I've seen too many people who were sent to ends that didn't match their actions."

I wasn't gonna fight with a woman, let alone her. There was just somethin' 'bout her that kinda scared me, though I couldn't put my finger on what it was. She acted normal enough.

She opened the door an' I stepped in before her.

"Sometimes I don't think that all detectives fully realize what they're doing. Please prove me wrong."

...

...

"Hattori!"

I looked down at Kudo an' shook my head. "Sorry, what'd ya say?"

He gave me that eye he did every time he thought I was actin' stupid. I got angry. It came on so much faster'n it used ta. I picked him up by the back of his shirt, hearin' a surprised yelp, an' plopped 'im down on the table, knockin' over a few scraps'a paper.

"I'm gonna ask you again, nicely. What did ya say?"

"I said that you were an idiot. Now stop spacing out. I need you to help me look up there." Kudo pointed a finger ta the large cabinet in front of him, on the other side'a the room.

"Why?"

There was that eye again, then it turned into something worried. "Hattori, is something bothering you?"

"It's nothing." I picked him up, under the arms this time so I wouldn't choke 'im, an' lifted him up so that he could reach the cabinet. I didn't wanna tell him what was botherin' me an' Kudo kept enough secrets to himself that I didn't really care that I was blowin' him off. His shoes dug into my shoulder as he reached fer somethin'.

Then again, I'd never had somethin' bother me so much before

...

...

"Here."
The woman had a guard open the door in front of us, leadin' the way in as he followed behind me an' locked the three of us in. Nice. Now if someone escaped, we'd be trapped.

"Ya know." I shoved my hands in my pockets, feelin' like an idiot but keepin' it off my face. "I never gotcher name."

"Oh, I'm sorry." She stopped, turnin' to face me an' bowin' to me. "My name is Iizuka Kiria"

"Nice ta meetcha, Iizuka-san."
"I'm sorry. That was very rude of me."

"No big deal." I dug my hands deeper inta my pockets. I thought she was keepin' her name from me on purpose, but that reaction didn't match. "So, what were ya gonna say before I interrupted?"

"This man." She waved her hand at one of the cells in front'a us. Osaka was a big place, so we had a big prison, though this was the first time I was seein' the cells. They had dorm housin' here too, an' that was a far as I got when dealin' with a prisoner.

I looked at the man inside. He had short cut, black hair. There was a darker tinge to his skin like my own, though his eyes held a different shape- speaking of foreign blood. 'Sides a scar long enough to match a butcher knife in length going down his arm, I saw nothin' special 'bout him.

"Yeah, an'?"

"Kumai-san, I've come back. I brought a friend of mine with."

The man opened a green eye an' stared at us. Bein' a guy, I couldn't help it if I felt a little intimidated. This guy had three times the muscle I did.

"I can see that."

"Can you do me a favor and tell him the reason you're here?"

"Why? It's not like it will change anything." The man closed his eye again an' I tried not to let it show that the two of 'em were confusin' the hell out of me. The woman just ups an' takes me ta a prison an' wants me ta talk to this guy? Then he goes an' acts all indifferent to it. I liked mysteries an' all, but a clue here or there would be nice.

"It may not make a difference to you, but this boy is a detective- well on his way to one day joining the same police force that you've been fighting most of your life against. You can be selfish and let it happen again- to someone else."

The man let out a breath. "Yeah? You brought one of those idiots to me?"

"Yes."

He opened both his eyes, turnin' ta face me. I stood my ground, not that it was hard to do with the bars separatin' us an' all.

"Hey, kid. A two second story may not be worth much to you, but the lady says she wants me to tell it, so I'll tell it. Want to know something interesting? I didn't know a lick of Japanese when I got here. I was in the country for about two months with my cousin and we were bunking in... you know, I never could figure out all the names and maps and such, but I do remember our address was in Iburi in Hokkaido. It's been so long since I've been there that I can't remember any street names or even what the apartment looked like anymore."

The guy laughed, soundin' like some old beggar off the street. I wasn't really bothered by it. There were a lot of guys from a lot of places in jail.

"I was born and raised in Khowai in Tripura." The guy raised his head up on one hand an' looked at me. "Know where that is?"

I shook my head. I wasn't so good with geography, though I could pick out the big places well enough that I got a passin' grade.

"It's in India. Me and my cousin always dreamed about going and seeing the world. So, one day, we did. Went to the States, Europe, and then ended up here. Worst mistake of my life, I'll tell you that. My cousin got the apartment, though jobs were harder to come by because neither of us knew more than enough words in Japanese to fit on a sticky-note. We were going, looking around town separately to see if we couldn't find some. I guess there must have been a robbery near the shop I was trying to get to hire me- you don't have to know the language to cook. Some officers saw me, looking for a foreign man with dark skin. I was arrested, and you can see what happened after that."

"Not really. They had ta have evidence ta convict ya."

"I guess not. I didn't have a lot of money, so I got some lawyer who could care less about my case, along with a translator. The lawyer wanted to take a plea bargain, but I kept telling her I didn't do it, so I wasn't going to go to jail for someone else. It ended up happening anyway because someone pointed me out, claiming I was the one that robbed the place. Only during the trial did I even find out this loser killed someone trying to get away. When a witness identifies you, that's it- game over."

"Did ya appeal the case? There's gotta have been some doubt that ya didn't do it, considerin' ya couldn't even speak well enough ta give orders durin' a robbery."

"They said I was faking it. There really wasn't any way to prove I wasn't."

I bit my lower lip as I thought, not aware the army woman was watchin' me until I looked up at her. She smiled sadly.

"There are people like this," she spread her hand down the corridor, "all over the place. Is there anything you can do for them, oh great detective?"

I huffed. "They gotta talk ta the right people, I-"

"You know the right people to talk to. They don't."

I ate the rest of my words. "What's yer point ta all this?"

"Who do you think put innocent people behind bars? If you care to look, there's more. There's an older woman down there who took the rap for her son, there's a woman down there who murdered an intruder on accident as he was breaking into her home- only to find out it was a friend of hers and the jury convicted her of trying to hide the crime. There's a man not much older than you who's here because someone robbed a jewelry store and hid the items in his house. And Kumai-san, who's already been here for twenty two years and looking at life. Who do you think is responsible for looking over so much?"

"It's not like I did it!"

"No, but can you say you never will? That you won't, on any of the hundreds of cases you come across, send an innocent person to jail?" She paused, her eyes turnin' hard. "Are you sure you haven't done it already?"

I swallowed hard. If I owed Kudo one thing, it was showin' me how stupid I was. On our very first duel with one another, I'd pegged the wrong guy- an' he gone along with it. If not for Kudo, the real murderer would'a gotten away.

An' how many cases had I had before I realized what a swelled head gotcha?

"You see?"

"It ain't gonna happen again."

"Even once is too many, and I'm not just talking about you anymore. What if every officer did it- just once? For every officer then, there would be an innocent person living a life they don't deserve, and Osaka has thousands of officers."

It was quiet. I didn't really know what ta tell the lady. I knew how good I was now, an' I'd seen some pretty bad cops out there that couldn't do their job if their lives depended on it.

"I love ya bringin' down my mood an' everythin', thanks. But what was the point ta all this?"

"To show you the truth. I'll be back at the school to see you in a week. We don't have to come back here, but I'd like to talk to you. Would you mind?"

Ya, I'd mind. Get the hell out of my life an' let me do my job without killin' my self-confidence.

"That's fine." I don't know what it was that made me want ta agree to it, but there was somethin' about this woman, or what she knew, that part of me craved to know.

"Very well then. I'll see you in a week."

...

...

"Hattori."

I looked down at Kudo. He stepped away from whatever it was he was doin' an' just stared at me. I frowned at the little guy. "What do ya want?"

"I want to know what's been bothering you all day. We've already found out who the criminal is but we need the evidence. I can't reach the higher places and all you've been doing is standing there. If a case doesn't interest you, I can be sure there's something on your mind that's bothering you- and quite a bit at that."

"Nothin's botherin' me. At least, nothin' that wasn't already botherin' me. I think. I don't know!" I scratched my head. "It's nothin'. What places did ya want me ta check out?"

"Next room over," Kudo tipped his head. "The dresser drawers and the cabinet above the television. We're looking for-"

"Yeah, yeah, the cloth with the chemicals on it. I didn't ferget that." I waved 'im off an' walked outta the room.

"Hattori, you know, you could talk to me if something's wrong."

"I know, man. I know. It's nothing. Really."

I had ta get my head outta the clouds. The father in this case was the murderer. Killin' yer own son. That was low. The brat had it comin' the way he got everyone he'd ever met angry with him, swindling money from his workplace an' his family, but ya just don't kill yer own kid. Ya don't kill, period.

I found the cloth easy enough, though the back of the cabinet had been outfitted with a fake back that I had to remove. I went back ta the first room an' handed it to Kudo.

"Let Mouri have this one. I'm always upshowin' him in Tokyo, so I think he should win one."

Kudo raised his eyebrows. "Give him one and he'll take a hundred. You'll never stop hearing it for the next three days you're here, maybe longer."

"Eh, I can deal with it. If his ego gets any bigger though, we might need ta send out the tanks," I snickered. Kudo's expression let up a bit. The guy was too observant. Even when somethin' small was on my mind, the guy could pick it up like a hound. I had ta get back in the game.

...

...

I was headin' out to Tokyo in a few days, an' I told Ms. You-ain't-ready-ta-be-a-detective, that. Downside, it only seemed ta make her stick ta me like glue. I saw her after school the next week an' spent ages in a courthouse this time. Thing was, that was kinda interestin'. I'd seen the small time courts an' how they like to speak so quiet ya can't even here 'em, where it's pretty much in an' out. I guess it was different when the charges were bigger. I'd seen a few murder trials on TV a lot like the ones she brought me to.

The defense pled their case first, I guess tryin' ta defend couple of teenage gangsters that went around the lower part of Tokyo these past few years, harassin' people until they finally killed a couple on vacation there. They got away with it most'a the time 'cause their base of operations was here. Most of the gang members couldn't be tagged, but at least they got two of 'em.

There wasn't anythin' for them to use as defense except their ages. One'a them was even younger than me. They didn't say how much younger, but I was guessin' somewhere around fifteen. The other was nineteen an' given a tougher sentence, the way it was supposed ta work. The trial wasn't all that excitin', but it did keep my interest. They were both found with guns when the police arrived, used cartridges, gunpowder residue on their clothes, the lot. They didn't know the two people they killed. With gangs, it was like that most'a the time. The sentencin' would come later. Both walked out of the room, hands cuffed ta their sides.

An' I got the chance to have some'a my free time back, now that I went with her an' everythin'.

"Hattori-kun?"

Or not.

"Yeah," I mumbled, walkin' down the steps an' back ta my house. "Whacha want now?"

"A little justice, since I saw none in there."

That made me pause. "What're ya talkin' about? They got the guys responsible."

"The fall-guys? Yes, I saw that. Two innocent kids that weren't even there that night are behind bars. That's not justice."

I lowered an eyebrow. "What'er ya talkin' about? The cops found 'em at the scene."

"How long after the gunfire was over? I've seen this more than once." An' the lady really did look disgusted as she turned back. "They get the children who want to be a part of their gang and set them up for their fall so that the police will stop looking for the people who really did it. You'd be surprised how often that works. As long as someone is behind bars and the news gets to show that someone is being punished for the crime, no one cares if they had nothing to do with it. It's a false sense of security that we wrap around ourselves so we don't have to see when all of our oversights come crashing down around our heels."

"Listen, miss, that's a lot'a speculation. How do ya know you aren't the one readin' this wrong?"

"Hattori-kun." Her eyes pierced me like she thought I was bein' stupid. "What kind of fool would keep the gun they just used to murder someone?"

"One that's scared." I tipped my head back towards the buildin', tryin' to ignore her eyes. "The kid was young, an' gangs are no fun once you're on yer own, but I doubt he knew what he was doin' once he was alone."
"Alone. Exactly. You don't think those two boys were the only ones there?"

"'Course not. That ain't how gangs work."

"Then how are you so sure that these two individuals are the ones who committed the crime?"

"I ain't. They're still part of the gang though, an' they were involved-"

"So they should spend the rest of their life behind bars while the main puppeteers behind this walk free to do it again? What those boys need is counseling, not a courthouse."

I gave her a sideways look but it wasn't like I coulda said anythin' about it. Gangs weren't usually much of a problem in my neck of the woods, so I didn't see them much. I couldn't say I had a good sense for them but I knew, once in, ya didn't get out. Those guys in there weren't the innocent lambs she was makin' 'em out ta be... but I was startin' ta think they weren' the bad guys that needed to rot in jail either. Not that there was anythin' I could do about it.

An' not that the thought wouldn't be naggin' at me while I was at Kudo's either. That guy had a way of starin' at me an' makin' me feel guilty 'bout stuff I'd done years ago. I'd hate to be a criminal lookin' down at the little guy.

...

...

"Ow!"

I grabbed my shin up where Kudo couldn't kick me again. "What was that for?"

"Hattori, what's eating you? Everyone's already left and you keep staring at the room like it's not even here."

"I told ya it was nothin'!" I rubbed my sore leg. "Why are you still here then?"

"Because I was waiting for you, you idiot. Ran's long gone and her dad woke back up about ten minutes ago. It's been just us in here for a while now." His eyes turned serious instead of the boredom they usually showed various amounts of. "I thought you would have snapped out of it on your own."

I yawned. I hadn't gotten much sleep last night, what with jumpin' on a plane early in the mornin' ta get here an' not bein' able to sleep 'cause I was thinkin' on things I shoulda let go of. I grabbed at the excuse. "I'm just tired. When we get back I think I'm gonna pass out in the closet or somethin'. I ain't dealin' with Mouri. Yer right, the guy's gonna be a nightmare."

The little guy grabbed my pants when I tried ta walk passed him, lookin' at me with those eyes again. "You sure this is just you being tired?"

An' I felt like he could see my doubts, everythin' that had been troublin' me the past week. I brushed him off gently, walkin' outta the room so I didn't have ta look at him.

"Yeah, I'm sure."