Keishichou Tokuhanka 007 and its original characters are the property of Kaji Eiri

Fuyuki groaned and winced as she tried to move—her head was throbbing something fierce, and the slight smell of gasoline was not helping in the least.

"I think I'm going to vomit."

"Here."

Fuyuki opened her eyes to find a bag under her nose, which she made prompt use of. It was only after she finished making a mess of it that she recognized it.

It was the bag of cookies Hina-san had given her that morning.

She blinked, trying to focus on the image of the person kneeling in front of her. "Hiro-kun?"

"Mornin', Witch-chan."

"Hiro, don't be rude."

Hiro snorted. "What's the point of being polite? She's not going to live long enough for me to benefit from it, anyway."

Fuyuki followed the sound of the second voice. Hina-san stood not too far off, but she wasn't wearing what she had been wearing while walking with Fuyuki. She was wearing a familiar green hoodie.

Fuyuki closed her eyes and leaned her aching head back against the post she was tied to. Things were starting to line up, and she didn't like how it was looking.

The figure she had been chasing earlier had been wrong. It was short and stout, where the arsonist was supposed to be tall and lanky…

Hina-san was tall and lanky, and she was wearing the green hoodie now, with a doctor's mask hanging from one ear and sunglasses in hand.

Hiro-kun was short and stout, and he was fingering a lighter with a very ugly smile.

Fuyuki was tied to an old bed post.

She did not like how this was looking one bit.

I've done it again. Kuze is going to kill me.

"Don't be like that, Hiro—Fuyuki is one of us."

"…So this is some cult welcoming ritual?" Fuyuki asked, eyeing Hina-san skeptically.

"No, Fuyuki…" There was something scary about those kind eyes. They didn't fit the scene. "…we're sending you off. Here—read me."

Fuyuki resisted the urge to flinch away as Hina reached out to touch her face.

"How do you know about my abilities?" Fuyuki asked instead. Something was totally off here-nobody volunteers their heart to be read. Kuze was a little strange, in that he didn't mind her touching him at all, but he never told her to read him like this.

"I'm a hacker," Hiro-kun said, smirking.

"And a good one, at that," Hina-san said, sounding fondly exasperated. "But it does come in handy. We needed to know what to do to keep him from being found out. Now, read me."

'None of them wanted us. They all left us. First Father, who ran away. Then Mother, who burnt the house down and died. Then the 'family' members and family 'friends' that played a game of hot-potato with us…and poor Hiro…poor Hiro was angry. He couldn't take it like I could. So he set a fire, like the fire Mother died in, and sent them away the day I was old enough to take him away. Then we were fine. We were fine by ourselves, and would have lived happily together…until HIM.'

Fuyuki's face was blank, her eyes empty, almost as if her consciousness were somewhere else. She was seeing memories, flashes of people and places and flames.

'HE came, without our asking, to and promised to 'take care' of us…he made me believe—made me believe that maybe someone would stay. That maybe someone wouldn't throw us away. But Hiro knew. He always knew that there was no-one who would care about us that way. And he was right.'

Fuyuki saw the memories. The fights that Hina and Hiro had with one another, about right and wrong, but Hiro won, because Hina couldn't let him believe that she would throw him away, no matter how twisted he became. Hiro was the mind behind it all, and Hina just tried to help keep him from getting caught and taken away from her. Playing decoy. Hiding him. She didn't want to kill anyone.

Until now.

'You're just like me—only without your Hiro. I would go, if it weren't for Hiro. Hiro needs me, but no-one needs you. So I'll send you away. I'll free you from this world where no-one wants us, and we'll join you, when Hiro is ready.'

Fuyuki fought to return to herself, but something was wrong. She had gone deeper than she should have…her restrictive bracelets should have kicked in by now… where were they?

"Something's wrong with her, Nee-chan."

The voice sounded like it was coming from far away. Fuyuki was beginning to panic.

Where is my body?

"She really is weird. Apparently these tacky bangles she was wearing were supposed to make her stable, or something. Maybe she can't come back without them? She didn't possess you or something, right?" Hiro-kun said, his voice ringing in the void.

"Be nice, Hiro—she really is one of us."

"Yeah, Yeah—a reject, I know. Glad to see you're still you," He scoffed. Fuyuki turned, growing closer to the source of the sound. "Get going, Decoy-chan. You hate this part, anyway."

He continued, in a mutter now. "…But at least the people around her had a reason to reject her. I think I'll call that cop she's always clinging to, let him get a load of what happens to her. An audience to your execution, eh, Witch-chan?"

Fuyuki followed the sound, hoping that he'd keep talking. She was almost there…

"In fact, I think I'll rig it so the show will start once he arrives. Should I make it happen when he opens the door?"

She was panicking, and it was throwing off her sense of direction. This had been so much easier when it was Kuze guiding her back… his warmth was a much more reassuring compass…

"Or maybe I'll make it happen when he tries to climb the stairs? That way I can trap him inside, and he'll die with you. How does that sound?"

Fuyuki gasped, like a swimmer breaking the surface after too long below.

"YOU LEAVE KUZE OUT OF THIS, YOU SCUM!"

Hiro-kun blinked, and smirked. "I'm glad you're back, Witch-chan. The show just wouldn't be the same without any screaming."

"You're a sad, twisted little boy, Hiro-kun."

Whack!

Fuyuki saw spots in her reeling vision, and her cheek stung.

"I'm getting sick of people telling me how sad I am, you know. Can't you see how much fun I'm having? Pity yourself, Witch-chan. I don't need it," he spat, before standing to walk over to the door. "Now, you be good and await your death while I set up a welcome for your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend!"

After a moment, Hiro stuck his head back into the room.

"Oh—you can scream for help, if you want, but there isn't anybody here but me to hear you," he chuckled darkly. "So if you're going to scream, you might as well sing or something, since the usual 'please don't kill me' gig is kinda annoying."

Ack! He makes me SO MAD!

"Kuze…"

"What is it, Sasaki?"

Sasaki flinched. Kuze had been in a bad mood about something since he arrived. Had Fuyuki given him a hard time about not coming? He repressed the urge to chuckle at that, since Kuze would surely not appreciate it.

"The fire department doesn't believe that this was the doing of an arsonist, and none of the witnesses saw anyone that fit the descriptions of the arsonist that we have received."

Kuze cursed under his breath, pulling out his phone as it began to vibrate, prepared to ignore it if it was the boss. Sasaki could handle reporting this news to the old gorilla without him. Since it wasn't the boss, he decided to be civil.

"Special Crimes Investigation Unit 007, Officer Kuze speaking."

"Ah, do you always have to add the 007? It's kinda tacky."

It was a frequent (and irritating) question, but the voice had Kuze's on high alert. A distortion device was obviously being used, which either made his an elaborate prank call or something worse.

"Who is this? And how did you get this number?"

Sasaki's ears perked. Kuze did not sound happy.

"Oh—I'm a good hack," the voice said, "And an arsonist, if that rings any bells."

"… …Is that so?"

Sasaki shivered at the cold energy roiling off his fellow officer.

"Yep. It's so," the voice said, its distorted chuckle grating on Kuze's ears. "I thought you might like an invitation to the witch burning I'm hosting."

"Witch burning?" the bad feeling Kuze had just got infinitely worse.

"Aw—don't be so cold, Detective-kun," the voice said, laughing again. "You know, the little pretty thing that follows you around? You cops really hit the jackpot when her daddy tossed her into your laps…but it's kinda inconvenient for me, so I gotta do something about it. Are you coming to see the show, or not?"

"If you hurt her, I will kill you."

"Easy there, Detective-kun. Don't tell me this hot-potato is your sweet-potato? She says she's not, so that would make you a reject's reject, if that were the case. That's a pretty sad state of affairs, Detective-kun

"Anyway, if you wanna hear Witch-chan's dying screams, here's the place—the abandoned house at the end of the street two lefts northwest of the police station."

"Anything else I should know about?" Kuze growled.

"Oh…I think Witch-chan got some funny ideas about bringing the house down before you can get here, and she can't really do anything by halves-what with me taking those Taser cuffs of hers—so you might want to bring a shovel to dig her corpse out if she makes it collapse. Bye-Bye."

The line went dead.

Fuyuki pursed her lips and tried again, cringing at the CRACK! That resonated from the floor behind her. she was actually aiming for the bed frame, but without her limiter bracelets, it was so much harder to know just how much power she was putting into her attacks—and her state of mind was not in the best condition for accuracy.

A whack and a slap to the head can do that. So can being tethered to a burning house.

*Cough!*

Apparently Hiro-kun had given up on preparing a trap for Kuze once she started on the bedframe. He hadn't known that the bracelets kept her from taking down buildings by accident.

'Bye-Bye Monster-chan. Rest in peace!' he had said. Fuyuki snorted. Just wait till I get my hands on you, Pighead! I'll—*Cough! Cough!*

The smoke was getting thicker, and it was getting increasingly difficult to breathe. She took one last crack at the bed frame, lunging forward as she came free and the bed fell through the floor with a mighty CRASH!. A torrent of smoke exploded up from the room below. She struggled to hold her breath as she wiggled her way over to the window, hands still tied behind her.

*COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!*

She rolled across the floor, ignoring the pain to her bound wrists, and propped herself up, looking out.

There was smoke blocking most of her view outside, but she though she saw moving forms, and could hear shouts now. Was someone fighting?

*COUGH! COUGH! COUGH—

If she didn't get out soon, she'd lose consciousness. Could she risk jumping from the window? It was so hard to breathe…she was losing…

With a last burst of energy, Fuyuki stood and used her power to shatter the pane.

"Did you catch him?"

Kuze lifted his head groggily at the croaking voice that spoke from the bed.

"Hiro-kun…and Hina-san…did you catch them?"

He groaned and let his head thud! onto her stomach as an improv pillow to resume his nap. "Shut up. You're in a hospital—act like it."

"Wha—" *Cough! Cough!* "—Is that any way to treat a—" *Cough! COUGH!*

"Shut up!" Kuze snapped.

Fuyuki pouted while trying to smother her coughing fit. "You're such a meanie, Kuze."

Sasaki entered the small room with a shy smile "Kuze has just been very worried about you—if he hadn't broken through the firefighters in time to catch you when you fell, your injuries would be much worse."

Not to mention that he hasn't taken a cigarette break since you've been unconscious, Sasaki thought, smiling a little at Kuze's irritated scowls.

"Broken through? So it really was—" *cough* "— fighting I heard?"

"Go to sleep," Kuze growled, his dark aura seething again. Fuyuki squawked in surprise as his hand moved to cover her eyes. "If you'd just obediently gone home, none of this would have happened!"

"If you'd just taken me with you, it wouldn't have happened, either!" she snapped back. "I didn't know they were the culprits when I went to visit!"

Sasaki made his escape before the quarrel could escalate…but strangely, it didn't. It might have had something to do with the slightly suspicious *sniff* and barely audible tremor there at the end. Kuze sat back down in his seat, reclaiming her stomach as his pillow.

"What are you doing, Kuze?"

"You still smell like gasoline."

Fuyuki's ears went hot with embarrassment. "Well then, go find yourself a better pillow!"

"We caught them."

"…How?"

"The sister stuck around to make sure her brother got away, but got caught instead. He turned himself in a few hours later."

"Oh."

I guess he really did care about his sister, after all.

"… …You aren't useless."

Fuyuki blinked a few times, a little startled. Was that... was Kuze apologizing?

She felt warmer suddenly, and lighter, like a weight had been taken off her chest. She giggled and patted his head.

"I forgive you."

He scowled and muttered something about impudent brats and idiots that take on the world as soon as your back is turned.

"Kuze?"

"M?"

"What's a 'hot-potato', anyway?"

[This didn't really ended up being all that 'Mysterious', genre-wise. Practice makes…better…I suppose? Please tell me what you think, and thank you for reading!]