A.N: I thought I'd take a short break from studying to put this up, then I need to stop procrastinating ^^

Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK or Naruto.

Pairings: Established KaiShin, HakuRan, and HeiKazu


Farseeing Eyes: Those of Many Faces

1: Whisper

When the messenger arrived that morning under the pale, predawn light to bang on the door with all the force of a man prepared to knock it down, Shinichi had thrown on a coat and opened the door only to have to duck as the messenger went to continue knocking on his face. Pulling his hand back, the messenger apologized hurriedly before informing him that they had urgent need of a medic at the guard post nearest his house.

"I know you're not on duty right now but you're the closest and—"

"Lead the way," he cut in, stepping all the way out and shutting the door behind himself. The early morning air outside was slightly damp with mist which hung in eerily still shreds over the village's packed, dirt streets. The occasional face peered curiously out of a partially open window as people came to see what the pounding noise had been about, but otherwise Konoha might as well have been deserted.

The patient lay sprawled on the grass mere yards from the guard post. No one had dared move her for fear of agitating her already severe wounds, but one of the guards, who'd had a little more medical knowledge, knelt beside her, carefully attempting to patch up the worst of her injuries. Shinichi shoved his way past the loose ring of worried guards to drop to his knees on the bloody grass beside her, his hands already at work checking her vital signs and examining her wounds.

He knew immediately that it was already too late. The wounds were far too numerous and deep and the woman had lost far too much blood already. But he could at least ease her passing.

Fighting back that terrible, cold feeling that crept up inside him every time he was faced with a patient he couldn't save, he ran through the hand seals for a technique that would temporarily numb her to the pain. He could feel the guard who'd been trying to bandage her wounds slump as he too realized that there was no hope.

"What happened?" Shinichi asked quietly, glancing up at the ring of solemn faces all around him. They shuffled a bit, trading uncertain looks, but it was a rasping voice from near his knee that answered. Startled, he looked down into a rapidly clouding gray eye.

"K…sak…"

Biting back the urge to tell the woman not to strain herself, Shinichi leaned down closer to her face. The least he could do for her now was hear what she felt was important enough to use the last of her strength to say. She seemed to understand this as she shifted her head ever so slightly to free her mouth from where it was half buried in the grass.

"K…do…Yuu…sa—saku…"

The guard still crouching beside Shinichi frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

But there was no answer. The woman's body gave one last shudder before going completely and utterly still. She was dead.

The guard let out a regretful sigh and gently closed her eyes before getting to his feet and turning to offer Shinichi a hand up. But he paused at the sight of the medic's face. The young man had gone pale, staring down at the woman's lifeless face.

"Are you all right?" he asked, laying a hand on the medic's shoulder and wondering what could possibly have drawn that reaction from the boy. Young though he was for a medic of his level, he must have seen plenty worse than this poor woman. So why did he look like he'd seen a ghost?

"She—she said…"

Frown deepening, the guard thought back over the breathy, almost inaudible syllables that had been the woman's dying words and tried to arrange them into something that made more sense. "It…sounded a bit like a name," he said finally. Then realization dawned. "She must have been trying to tell us who did this to her. What did she say again? Doyuu…Doyuusaku?"

"Yuusaku," the medic replied, voice sounding oddly distant. "Kudo Yuusaku."

"Yeah, I guess that sounds about right. We should go report this right away." He turned to do just that but his steps faltered as he caught sight of his fellow guards' shocked faces. They were all still watching the medic. Confused, he glanced from them to the boy and back again. "What are you all standing around for? We need to get a messenger to the Hokage quick—and probably to the other guard posts too. They need to know they should keep an eye out for this—"

He was cut off as one of his friends shot him a look and grabbed his arm to drag him none too gently away from the rest of the temporarily shocked shinobi.

"Have a little tact will you?" she hissed at him the moment she let him go.

He scowled. He was really starting to get annoyed here. "What do you mean? We have to—"

"I know, and one of the others already left to send the message," she snapped. "But honestly, don't tell me you don't recognize that name."

"Am I supposed to? I've never heard of anyone called Kudo Yuusaku—" He cut himself off abruptly as he cast a glance over his shoulder at the medic still kneeling by the corpse. "Hey, wait a moment, isn't his clan name…?"

His companion nodded grimly. "If I remember correctly, Yuusaku was his father's name."

"One of the deserters…"

She sighed. "You get the others to help move the body. We can't just leave her like that."

"What about you?"

"I'll take him home," she replied, gesturing towards Shinichi. "Poor kid looks like he's still in shock."

X

Being a master spy in a time of peace could be boring sometimes. Not, Kaito amended to himself, that he didn't like peace. Only a fool would wish for otherwise. But it was annoying that he was still required to spend so much time away from home when there was literally nothing going on anywhere of any importance. When he said that every report he turned in looked the same these days, he wasn't exaggerating. And he didn't gloss details.

Now however, as he watched the dove he'd taken to leaving with Shinichi take off to return to her post, he remembered that old saying "Be careful what you wish for". It seemed times were about to get interesting again. He was starting to wish they were still boring already. At least then he could choose how things were interesting.

According to his watch dove, Shinichi was currently giving his report and probably wouldn't be done for a while so Kaito turned his steps towards his mother's bakery-turned-restaurant instead. At this early hour the bakery was the only part open but there were several customers there already. As he'd expected, two of these customers were his close friend and former neighbor Nakamori Aoko (who also happened to be a member of interrogations) and her almost-but-not-twin Mouri Ran. They were talking in low voices just inside his mother's rose garden. Both turned at his approach, their expressions a mixture of confusion and concern.

"I'm glad you're back," Ran said the moment he was within earshot, somehow managing to sound both relieved and troubled at the same time. "Have you heard…?"

"I have," he replied, his expression much more serious than either girl was used to seeing it. They traded uneasy looks. "I am, however, a little blurry on the details."

"There's not much to tell," Aoko sighed. "There was a squad sent out a few weeks ago to retrieve an artifact for a client. I don't know what kind of artifact it was, but I do know it was a C rank mission so it shouldn't have been hard, but… Well, they were supposed to be back yesterday morning at the latest, only they weren't. Then before dawn today one of them came back. She died of her injuries shortly after arriving and the only thing she managed to say was…"

"Shinichi's father's name," Ran finished, the corners of her mouth turning down. "Or at least that's what everyone who heard her says it sounded like. I think the general assumption right now is that she was trying to tell us who was responsible for her injuries."

"But you don't think so," Kaito observed.

The kunoichi looked away, her gaze fixed on the roses beside her like they might be able to answer her questions. "I don't know… I knew them both—Shinichi's parents, I mean—and I'm almost positive they'd never do something like—like that to anyone. Not unless they didn't have a choice anyway. I mean, we're all different when we have to fight. But her injuries… From what I've heard, they were rather—excessive. And since she's the only one who got back the rest of the squad were most likely killed. There just doesn't seem to be any possible reason for it. But…at the same time…" She trailed off a moment before letting her breath out in a frustrated huff. "I guess it's just that I never expected them to up and disappear either. I kind of have to wonder how much I really knew about them, you know? Though I still think we can't really know anything from just a name."

The spy nodded slowly, filing away all the new pieces of information for later consultation. "Have you talked to Shinichi yet?"

"No. I went to see him as soon as I heard but he'd already gone to give his report by then and they're still talking to him."

"They should be done soon though," Aoko added. "Like I said, there's only so much information to be had. He should be home by the time you get there if you head out now. I'll go see if I can find out anything else."

"Can I go with you?" Ran asked a bit hesitantly. "I know I don't have any authorization but—"

"Don't worry about it." Aoko offered the other girl a reassuring smile. "Just stick with me. We'll let you know if we find anything," she added, turning back to Kaito.

He smiled. "Thanks. I'll see you two later then."

X

Walking up to the house he shared with Shinichi felt a little surreal after the news he'd heard that morning. It felt like it should have been different somehow, but it wasn't. Then again, he supposed, that was just the way the world worked.

Well, he was glad to be home, no matter the circumstances.

Slipping silently into the house, he made a beeline for the study upstairs where he knew Shinichi would go. It seemed to be the medic's favorite room whenever something was bothering him.

As he'd predicted, Shinichi was standing by the window, his hands resting limply on the sill. He didn't so much as twitch as Kaito entered the room. From the look on his face, he probably hadn't even noticed that he was no longer alone.

Kaito frowned. He didn't like the lost look on the medic's face. "Shinichi?"

Blue eyes blinked slowly out of whatever trance they had been in but didn't turn to look at him. "You heard…"

It wasn't a question. Shinichi had known Kaito long enough to know that news always reached the spy quickly. It was rare to the point of unheard of for the spy not to be privy to anything known by more than one person.

Kaito nodded anyway, knowing that Shinichi could see the motion in the glass. "How are you feeling?"

Shinichi was silent for a long moment before he let out a sigh that missed the glass in front of his face.

"You know, I was standing right here the last time I saw them…" Raising his hands he pressed both palms against the cool glass of the window and stared out into the street beyond. But it was clear from the distant look in his eyes that he was seeing another time altogether. "I woke up early that morning. I can't remember why… And when I looked outside I saw them. They were standing right there, talking and smiling. I remember thinking how happy they looked and wondering if they'd gotten a really interesting mission. Then they left and I went back to bed. I…never saw them again." He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath and focusing on the feeling of the air filling his lungs. "It was six months before I went to ask if—well, you know, if they'd been killed. I don't know why I waited that long, but that was when I found out they hadn't been sent on any missions. Then more and more people started saying they'd deserted the village. I—I kept telling them they were wrong—that they had to have a good reason, even—even if it was just because they weren't happy here… I mean, Mom was always saying she wanted to see the world, but…"

A warm hand closed on his shoulder and pulled him gently away from the window and into Kaito's familiar embrace. The spy didn't say anything, just wrapped his arms tightly around Shinichi and held him close. Shinichi turned his face into his shoulder and closed his eyes.

"What am I supposed to think now?" he whispered, the words barely audible, muffled as they were. There were so many questions, both new and old—things he had never thought he'd need to ask and thoughts that had haunted him since that day so long ago when he first realized, really realized, that his parents were never coming home again. Since the day he understood that they had left him behind without even saying goodbye. Yet no matter how much he wanted answers all he could hear was silence.

TBC


A.N: Yes, this is a sequel to Farseeing Eyes (reading the prequel isn't really necessary, though it would help), but it's written in a more normal format because, well, I think it fit better for the story. This was spawned because a couple people asked about Shinichi's parents in Farseeing Eyes and I got to thinking…and then this happened. It wasn't what I originally had in mind for another story in this universe, but it just sort of caught my fancy ^^ Hope you enjoyed, and the next chapter should be up in about a week.