Naruto's world and characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi.
Chapter Two: Hollow
"Hayashi, take lead on the initial investigation," my father said, then glanced at me. "Go with him. We need a fresh viewpoint on this."
I nodded, grabbing the coat I'd left by the door, and tossing my brother's to him. Mine was unmarked, lacking both the vertically divided white circle which had become the symbol of Konoha's police force and the Uchiha fan which between them declared my brother's place in the world. When my father had re-established the police force, he had been careful to make clear that the clan was a separate entity - not least because he had been a clan of one, and was expanding the police force beyond that, but also because the Rokudaime was very concerned in the wake of attempted coups to avoid Konoha shinobi establishing their own private armies.
An investigation in company of Hayashi and Kajika had not been how I'd intended to spend this morning, but even mother's birthday lost primacy in face of the word 'another'.
"How many?" I asked Hayashi, as we followed Kajika toward the base of Konoha's sheltering cliff.
"This will be the third in a month." Hayashi's voice was uninflected, but I knew he would be far from pleased with the failure that represented. I held back further questions, wanting to view the corpse without preconceptions.
So early in Spring, the chill stayed in the air well into morning. It would keep away the flies, and muted the scent of blood. Kajika led us to the courtyard garden in the centre of the square formed by the hospital buildings, where figures in black waited, their headbands and jackets marked with the white bisected circle of the police. They were turning people away from the taped-off boundary of the garden, but at all the windows above the courtyard there were hands and foreheads pressed against the glass. I felt, tasted at the back of my throat, the angry fear behind all those watching eyes, but fear is a thing I am used to ignoring.
The object of all this interest was lying partially tucked beneath a closely-clipped hedge. A thick-set man, curled away from us so that the most which was visible was his fleshy back. An office-worker, judging from the black trousers and white dress-shirt. No chance of mistaking him for a drunk sleeping off a good night - dried blood caked the sides of the shirt.
"Uchiha-san! Uzumaki-san!" I recognised the officer who saluted, Sensho, and nodded back when he noticed and extended the gesture to include me.
"Report," Hayashi ordered, methodically scanning the entire area before even thinking of approaching. Blood-red eyes, tomoe lazily rotating. Searching for traces of chakra.
"Found by an orderly half an hour ago, sir," Sensho said. "She touched him, trying for a pulse in the throat, but he was cold. Called us straight away, and kept others away. We've secured the area, and Taiko-san is checking on the security arrangements, video surveillance. Hano-san is searching for any other signs of disturbance. Muta-san has been recording visuals of the outer area while we waited." He paused, glancing upward. "We sent for a scene tent."
"Good." The faint approval in Hayashi's voice was enough to make tall, stern Sensho flush faintly. Hayashi has that effect on almost everyone, for all that most of the police force is his senior. I watched, observing without participating, as he paced the perimeter while the assembled officers erected a frame with a simple canvas to shield the corpse.
"How long have you been back?"
Long familiarity let me hear the undernote throbbing in Kajika's voice. Huziiro often said that without him our squad would have been known as Team Ice Queen, but Kajika's usual crisp efficiency could give way to a temper which was far from frozen.
"An hour." I glanced at her, cool profile detached, not a white-blonde hair out of place, violet eyes slowly ticking up to molten furnace. "So you can stay angry for a year."
"Eleven months, one week, two days. Was it too much to say goodbye? Or, damn you, take me with you?"
"I couldn't stop being me if you were there, Jika."
I took several steps away, shifting to get a better view of the corpse as they prepared to move it. One day I hope to be friends with Kajika again, but I still need distance from her. Let her think it was the shadow of Uchiha Itachi which drove me away.
"Turn him," Hayashi ordered, and watched impassively as the curled shape of a man became a grotesquery.
There was only one wound. The white shirt was unbuttoned and trousers loosened, exposing pale chest and belly, faintly shaded with hair. The slash from sternum to groin gaped blackly, opening wide enough for me to see the absence beyond. Hollow. He'd been emptied out like a gourd.
There was no surprise on anyone's face, though more than a little revulsion as the officers stepped back from the figure to allow Muta to record the scene. The man still wore a tie, an incongruous tongue of chequered blue lapping the edge of the wound. I shifted my own sight to search for chakra residue and gazed upward, but there was nothing obvious, and aware of the current limits on my reserves I allowed the sharingan to lapse.
"This is becoming embarrassing, Uchiha-san."
A lanky, whipcord thin man with a bitter cast to his mouth. He was perhaps ten years my senior, though the white of his hair gave him a timeless appearance. There was a long-legged hound at his side, the same pale grey as his eyes, but he didn't resemble the Inuzuka clan or sport their facial markings. The uniform proclaimed him another unexpected new member of the police force, a very confusing one.
"We are trailing badly in someone else's game," Hayashi replied, as ever more interested in solving a problem than covering his pride. "Lend us Yosamu's nose, Hatake-san."
Hatake. I hadn't known any of the Rokudaime's family survived. The newcomer sent his animal forward without any visible command, trotting to within a metre of the corpse, then circling outward, seeking a trail.
"You must be Uchiha Shinrin," the man said. He suppressed his presence well - I'd barely sensed him moving closer. "No-one mentioned your beauty."
It was a double-edged sort of statement, the tone lending a shade of sarcasm. "You have the advantage of me," I said, wondering what kind of point he was trying to make.
"Hatake Kama." He looked down as his hound, Yosamu, bumped against our legs. "I've been told you're even stronger than your brother." He was standing close, a move of dominance, and there was, again, the faintest dissonant note. Challenge? Disbelief?
"Hayashi has always been far stronger," I said, which was true enough so far as I measure strength. The hound was a ninja-dog, most of which were chakra-sensitive, and it seemed Hatake had made a point of measuring mine. Much good that would do him at the moment, or any time. My brother's strength is in invention.
"No result?" Kajika asked, diffidently. I was hard-put not to look sharply at her. Diffidence was not one of Kajika's characteristics.
"Nothing." Hatake crossed to stand with Hayashi by the body. "As with the previous two - no scent trail at all. But no possibility that he died here. Blood on the shirt, practically none underneath him."
"And the body in a location where several hours would pass before it was likely to be discovered, allowing any chakra residue to fade. Yet not truly concealed." Hayashi gazed at the corpse - carcass - a moment longer, then gestured to his officers to transfer it to the plastic sheets spread waiting. Closer examination would take place on the autopsy table. Sensho-san handed him a plastic evidence bag - the contents of the man's pockets - then turned to his particular task of sifting every leaf and blade of grass for any overlooked detail.
"I'll do a circuit of the village," Hatake Kama said. "If only to confirm that again there's no trace of passage. I'll talk to you later, Uchiha-san."
He was looking at me as he spoke, mouth twisted at one corner, but then shifted the expression to a more genuine smile, wryly amused at himself. A nod, and he was gone, Yosamu a shadow slipping at his heels.
"And Hatake Kama is?" I asked Kajika.
"The Rokudaime's son. Perhaps, most likely. Father has accepted him as such, at any rate. He was delivered to us six months ago, so badly injured that even your mother had her doubts of saving him. And claims no memory, a thing which is within the bounds of possibility, if barely." Kajika's voice was dry, but two spots of high colour had appeared in her cheeks and I looked past her directly into my brother's dark eyes to find the quiet compassion he offers to all injured things.
"And then murders start happening? And he is-" There was open disbelief in my voice, and I lowered it, struggling with a sudden reversal of expectations. "And he is part of the investigation team?"
"And makes a nicely obvious suspect," Hayashi said, smiling faintly. "And knows it."
Knows it, resents it, and Kajika plainly had the man far enough under her skin to react as if the edge in his words was directed at her.
"I'd best go report to the Hokage," I told Hayashi.
"Come to headquarters after."
Having bought myself some time to think, my mind did not seem to want to function, so I took the next step in my return to Konoha and went to see the Seventh Hokage.
--
Author's Notes:
Uchiha Hayashi – forest
Uchiha Shinrin – sacred forest
Uchiha Hazakura – leafing cherry tree
Uchiha Kobai - red plum
Uzumaki Kajika – River frog (lit. river deer)
Uzumaki Huziiro – lavender (you see, they were twins, and the first one was a girl, and so Naruto...)
Hatake Kama - scythe (apparently one of the original possibilities for Kakashi's name)
Yosamu - night chill