Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever own Mononoke. I am merely toying with its main character to suit my own fangirl-ish tendencies.

Author's Note: As with the prologue, this chapter is an early draft. I will undoubtedly revise it at some point in the near future. Until then, please enjoy what is here!

Edit 3-8-2011: This chapter has been beta'd! Yay! Enjoy!


Himitsu Shinu

Chapter 1

February 4, 2011

3:21 AM, EST

It was the sound of sirens that woke him. He snapped awake and looked around, wide-eyed, for the source. A fire engine blazed past, lights flashing blindingly in the pre-dawn. He let out the breath he was holding and leaned back up against the wall, breathing slowly, trying to calm his racing heart.

'Pathetic,' the voice in his head growled. 'Frightened by a human creation… Absolutely pathetic.'

'Shut up,' he thought back as he shut his eyes again. Dawn was still a few hours away; more rest would do him good.

'Ignoring me won't work,' the voice snapped. 'We have a contract, after all…'

Much to his relief, the voice faded to the back of his mind for the moment. He got to his feet, deciding that it was no use trying to go back to sleep when his whole body was stiff with cold. He winced as pain shot through his right side.

It was not the first time he had become injured while fighting a mononoke. True, it had become a regular occurrence in recent decades, but injuries were not uncommon for him even when he was at the height of his power.

He put a hand to his side and was alarmed to find that something wet was soaking through his shirt. A large part of him hoped that it was just because some dog decided to pee on him while he was sleeping, but the fact that the outside of his coat was completely dry proved otherwise. He rummaged in his backpack for something to help stop the bleeding. All of his medicines were gone -he'd sold the last of them a few days before- and it seemed as though he had forgotten to buy bandages the last time he had money.

Oh, right, he had used it all to buy that last batch of drugs… and the money he got from those drugs had been squandered on food for the most part. He had planned on saving what he had left, until some idiot went and stole it…

The only things he had in his backpack were his scales, a small container of salt, his rubber-band bound paper seals, the Sword in its box, and his other set of clothes. Not only were those clothes blood-spattered (the pants were also vomit-stained, but he didn't want to dwell on that disgusting memory), but the shirt had a huge rip on the right side where the mononoke had slashed him. That shirt was most likely beyond repair; it certainly was not wearable in its present state.

It would do.

What with it being about three o'clock in the morning, there was no one around. Fortunately, this was one of the emptier parts of the city, which meant it was unlikely that anyone would stumble upon him. He shrugged his coat off and dropped in onto the ground at his feet. As he sat back down on the cold ground, he undid the buttons on his shirt. The shirt joined the coat a moment later. He shivered at the biting cold, but gritted his teeth and ignored it as best he could.

It was difficult to see what he was doing, but the combination of the yellow street light a little ways away and his relatively decent night-vision (he saw better than a human in the dark, at the very least) meant he was able to make out the three long claw marks left by the mononoke.

It had not been very difficult to discover the katachi, makoto, or kotowari (a man had murdered his ex-wife in a dispute over their daughter's guardianship, and, rather than the typical revenge, the woman's spirit desired to spent eternity with her daughter. And "eternity" meant killing the girl. Revenge on her ex-husband was simply a plus). However, that mononoke had been excruciatingly annoying in the way it liked to escape any sort of barrier he put up against it. Even his paper seals -even after centuries, they were still effective, usually- hadn't lasted more than ten minutes. At one point, the mononoke had managed to get close to its target. He had stepped in to protect the teenage girl, and had managed to drive it away for a few minutes, but he had been too slow and the mononoke had struck. It had missed any vital organs, fortunately, but the hours following had been hell, to say the least. Not that it wasn't anything he hadn't had to deal with before.

Still, he would have preferred it if the wound would heal already. It had been nearly two weeks, after all.

As he fumbled with numb fingers, he tore the more decrepit of his two shirts into workable pieces and wrapped the strips of cloth around his midsection as tightly as he could without restricting his breathing. The cloth was slowly darkening with blood, but the wound seemed to be clotting over again.

'You're not going to last much longer like this,' the voice said. 'You're lucky you haven't bled to death already.'

He growled. 'I know that,' he snapped in reply.

'It's in my best interest that you stay alive, you know.'

'Will you just shut up, already? I don't want to deal with you right now.'

'Daisuke…'

"No!" he shouted aloud. Immediately after he said it, he winced at the sudden loud noise. "No… That name… is not mine."

'But it used to be.'

He shook his head, determined to ignore the voice, however futile that idea may have been. He finished knotting the makeshift bandages and reached for his shirt. He pulled it on, grimacing at the coldness of the still-wet blood stains. He continued shivering even after he had put his coat back on.

He got to his feet, slowly, more carefully this time. While the wound complained, there was no sharp pain, no sudden bleeding as before.

After returning his backpack to his shoulder, he started back off down the street, not having any idea as to where he was going, just knowing he would not stop until well after sunrise.


Washington, DC

February 7, 2011

10:00 AM, EST

David Burke was not happy. Already, he had a workload the size of a mountain, and he had had his superior breathing down his neck for the past week about his report on the last case he had taken care of.

And it wasn't even noon yet.

He had no doubt that he'd be able to get all of that work done relatively quickly—probably less that three days to get it all done—but he certainly wasn't looking forward to it.

The paperwork was nothing new; just the usual hoops that he was forced to jump through as per the FBI's regulations. It was just the sheer amount of it that he had to take care of that he didn't like.

His report wouldn't take very long, however. He had more than half of it done, already. Mainly, he just had to tag on his views on how it all ended up.

Just as he turned on his computer to finish his report, the phone rang. Not taking his eye off of his computer screen, he picked up the receiver after the first ring.

"Burke," he said. He held the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he typed.

"Hey," a woman's voice said.

"What is it, Alex?" Alexandra Ortiz, known by most as Alex, was David's partner and closest friend. They had been engaged at one point in time (meaning, about ten years before when they were both still naïve and in their twenties), but they had decided not long after that they were better off as friends.

"I got something you might be interested in."

"Can it wait?" he replied, still trying his hardest to type with his shoulder pressing the phone to his ear. "I've got—oh, crap." The phone slipped out from between his shoulder and the side of his face and fell down into his lap. He picked it back up, this time holding it with his left hand and he continued to type (awkwardly) with his right. "Sorry, dropped the phone. I've got a shitload of work I have to take care of, and McCain's been hounding me for that report like there's no tomorrow."

"Well, that's what you get for taking a week off."

"I know, I know. So what is this thing that you think will interest me?"

"Get down here, and you'll see."

"Alex, come on, just tell me."

He heard a sigh on the other end. "Painted face."

He stopped typing abruptly. Those two words were all it took.

"Another one?" he asked.

"Yep. It's pretty recent, too."

"How recent?"

"Hmm… Looks like ten days ago."

David hurriedly saved what little progress he had made on his report before switching the monitor of his computer off. "I'll be right there."

"Ha," Alex laughed. "Knew I could interest you."

David hung up the phone and practically ran out of his office and down the hall.

There was one string of cases that had captured David's attention for a long time. He had stumbled across them not long after he had started work at the FBI. No two of the cases were exactly the same, but they all had the same three things in common: the gruesome deaths of at least one person, usually more; eyewitnesses in a state of complete shock, though they all claimed to having been attacked by an evil spirit of some kind; and there was always one person that appeared at the site of each:

The man with the painted face.

David had investigated several of those cases, and by then he was sure that the man with the painted face was responsible for each and every one of the murders.

But there were times when he doubted that conclusion.

Eyewitnesses of those crimes almost always said that the man with the painted face had saved them from the evil spirits that had been trying to kill them. Anyone who didn't proclaim the strange man a hero was usually too traumatized to give a statement.

All the more reason for David to find the truth behind it all.

There was one other thing that baffled him, however:

The Painted Face Murders, as he called them, spanned decades, going back as far as any police records he had access to could go, spanning nearly a century, if not more. David suspected that the man with the painted face was an identity that had been passed down from one person to another through the years. Surely, that was the only explanation.

"That was fast," Alex commented as David practically skidded into her office.

"What happened this time?"

"You mean other than the usual claims of vicious ghosts running rampant? I don't have the all the teeny details here, but one of the victims, a man named Justin Destler, claimed that the spirit of his dead wife was trying to kill both his and his daughter."

"Destler… where have I heard that name before?"

"Unless you suddenly decided to see that slasher version of the Phantom of the Opera, it's probably because this guy, Destler, killed his wife a while back over a custody dispute. He was recently released from prison, and had been trying to visit his daughter when the whole ghost business started. It seems the girl was the main target, though."

"Huh. And where does Painted Face come in?"

"He showed up on the scene not long after the chaos had set in. But that's not the best part." Alex pulled up a video file on her computer. "Destler's daughter, Alicia, had been living with her grandparents ever since her father got put in prison. But, when Destler got out of prison, he started trying to visit his daughter without the grandparents knowing. When they found out, they put security cameras up around the outside of the house so they'd know when their crazed son-in-law showed up."

The video was in black-and-white and of mediocre quality, as far as security cameras go, but it distinctly showed a haggard-looking man creeping around the outside of the house near the back door. Or, rather, he was trying to creep through deep snow. At one point, he stumbled, disappearing for a moment below the snow, only to pop back up a moment later, shaking snow from his hair.

"That's Destler." The man moved out of the camera's view. The camera switched to the front yard to show a second man standing in the knee-deep snow. He wore in ragged clothes, and a backpack hung from his left shoulder. It was difficult to see, but the man's mouth seemed to be moving. David could also barely make out a set of odd markings on his face. Alex fast-forwarded the video for a few seconds, and then set it to normal speed again in time to see the man walk towards the house and out of view.

David was excited. This was the first time in about ten years that the man with the painted face had been caught on any kind of surveillance. It was difficult to make sure, what with the grainy quality of the video, but he was sure that the strange man looked the same as he had the last time.

But there was only one way to be sure…

"Where was this?"

"Over in Albany, why?"

"You think McCain will let us take a closer look?"

"By us, you mean you, right? I'll just end up going because I'm your partner and I can't let you get your sorry ass killed."

"Exactly."

"Hmm… he might. Provided you have your report done before you start pestering him. You did finish it, right?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Yes…?" A sheepish grin accompanied his blatant lie.

Alex's hands went to her hips. 'Uh-oh. She's in scold mode…'

"Come one, David. Work, now." She pointed her finger in the general direction of his office.

"Fine, fine," he replied with a grin. She smiled back even as she continued to shoo him away.

Even as he finished his report, David could hardly keep his thoughts focused on the task at hand. Another Painted Face murder…

And this time, he was sure that it would bring him a step closer to finally finding the Man with the Painted Face.


Author's Note: Ok, it's a bit longer this time. Getting closer to my preferred chapter length.

Two new characters have been introduced! Out of the two of them, it is David that will play a more central role in all of this, but Alex will certainly have a decent part in everything.

And all I can say is poor Kusuriuri-san... I'd give him a hug, if I could.

Oh ho, and what is this? A name? Haha, well, more on that still to come!

Next Chapter: David and Alex investigate the most recent Painted Face Murder. As for Kusuriuri-san, well... You'll have to wait and see!

Please review! Constructive criticism is preferred, but feedback of any kind is appreciated!