To JoseSkinner: While I'm nearly sure you would never read this, given how enthusiastic you were about the premise of this story, I feel obliged to answer your review. First of all, do share how precisely you are able to judge the brain condition of others. It'd be really interesting to know how you can guess whether someone has some brain problems or not. You can probably make a ton of money in the field of medicine using your abilities. Also, keep in mind that it seems equally retarded to bash someone because he or she chooses to write something you do not agree with. The first and foremost right of a fanfic writer is to write whatever the hell he or she wants. That's why it's called fanfiction in the first place. Also, I don't know what did you expect from an AU while you do know what it means. Not to mention, if I was aiming to get 'fake publicity' by using F/SN characters, I would've frankly chosen another franchise with a bigger amount of fans/readers- like Harry Potter, the very example you provided me with. So I assure you, no matter how difficult it may be for you to wrap your mind around this, the only reason that not Sirius but Lancer is playing the PI in this fic is just because I wanted to tell a story starring F/SN characters. I could care less about what your opinion is on AU fics and I would've accepted any constructive criticism directed at me and the fic but I can't accept someone bashing it just because they don't like the genre.
P.S. I truly am flattered by you admitting that my writing was decent.
Chapter IV:
Following the Cherry Petal Trail
The Narrows.
The filthiest, nastiest most downtrodden and wretched part of a whole city built upon blood, lies and betrayals. It was the hive of the worst kinds of scumbags and lowlifes, where even some of the other gangs from the city feared to thread. While an outsider would have said that the Narrows, a maze of backstreets and run-down alleys that encircled the whole city, were like a pack of dirty hungry mutts that had trapped the prim and the proper, it was the other way around. The city of sin had the nasty habit of pushing out all its filth into the Narrows, both metaphorical and not. Like some kind of twisted urban version of the dark and gloomy forests from fairy-tales, the Narrows accepted those dregs of societies that even the other carrions from the city would despise. It was the Banished Land- where the gangs sent those of their members who got carried away just too much with slicing and dicing and the whole rape, pillage and burn shtick. It was the place for the kind of crooks who were into 'playing' with little children or too busy knifing their own mothers.
Aye, one could easily say that when the toughest, nastiest, meanest bubs in the city had nightmares, they dreamt of being stuck in the Narrows.
That was why it had been such a surprise when Sherwood had claimed the… neighbourhood as their base of operations. No self-respecting gang would even dare claim such a junkyard as their territory but I and many others had the sinking suspicion that the Greens had claimed it precisely because of what it was. After all, no matter how humiliated and frothing at the mouth with rage the mafia were, they would never even near a place so harsh on their prim and proper noses that were used only to the scent of different perfumes and most definitely not the stench of garbage.
In a sense, by balancing on the rustiest of razor edges, the Merry Men wannabes had found the perfect hideout for when they needed to lay low after their umpteenth hit-and-run against some mafioso's speakeasy.
And while there was enough logic for me to believe why precisely they had chosen the place, there was not nearly enough of logic in the world for me to understand while one Shinji Matou would be sharing that particular hideout with the Sherwoods. I frankly didn't know whether Ryuu had just been scared stiff enough to dig up some info so fast or he and his pals had just noticed them loitering around their territory beforehand. Either way, not even two days after I had… requested the toothless viper's services, I found a very interesting letter in my mailbox. The handwriting was appalling and he had somehow deemed it necessary to omit the g-s at the end of most words and swap them with apostrophes even when he was writing the damn stuff, not saying it.
Why precisely was a mystery I would probably never solve but what was important was that the… mockery of a letter, for the lack of better word, informed me that the Matou had been recently seen in the Narrows with five or so other lads his age.
A rundown ruin of a bar, which maybe a hundred years ago had been a most respectful establishment, was pointed out as their usual hanging spot. The whole thing just raised my suspicions- for a blueblood mafia heir like Shinji to stoop so low as to prowl around the Narrows meant only two things.
He was either very guilty or very scared.
And that was how I found myself in front of the old smelly bar, with right hand buried in my pocket and clutching my trusty revolver tightly. Truth to be told I often forced myself to forget that it had been a present from Archer, the gunslinger that he was, for a birthday of mine years before.
Always leave one empty when loading- for deception.
That had been his suggestion as the best shot on the Force, both back then and now. But at that particular stifling night back in the Narrows, when even the grim clouds above were too damn stubborn to give us folks some cooling rain, I couldn't help but ask myself why I hadn't loaded all six bullets. I may have been a big predator, but even a hound like me wouldn't have been much of a problem for the bigger packs of hyenas prowling around.
Still, I had made a promise to the little goddess (and, in a sense, to Bazett) and there was no turning back.
Not that I needed much of an encouragement really, considering the woman's screams coming from within, loud enough to be picked up from three blocks away. It seemed that I wasn't Shinji's only guest that night but, most certainly, I was the only one crazy enough to be willingly there. The dilapidated double doors didn't take much persuasion to open widely.
One kick was enough.
Fortunately, my grand entrance seemed to have gathered all the occupants' attention. Along with the lad dressed in a somewhat dirtied purple suit, one probably expensive enough for an heir to a mafia family to wear, five other slimy gits were gathered around the pool table.
Which, in and of itself, wasn't a bad thing, if one was willing to leave the half-naked lass pinned down to said table out of the picture.
And even without her pleading hazel eyes, bloodshot from all the tears, I still would've done what I was about to do. At least she didn't seem to have let them get her easily. Most of the Matou's goons sported swollen lips and bruised eyes. One's mouth, noticeably missing several teeth, was still bleeding.
"Now excuse me, lads," I greeted and tipped my hat. "But I've to ask you to release that lass over there. And after you've scampered away from here to whatever shit-filled hiding hole you've crawled out from, I was hopping on having a little talk with Mr. Matou here."
For reasons unfathomable, they didn't seem to be glad to see me. It was kind of a shock really.
"Who the hell do ya think ya are, pops?" blurted out Bloody Mouth, finding some difficulty forming words with his bunch of missing teeth. Or maybe he was just daft like that. "You a copper or sumthin'? Well, too bad fer ya 'cause the law ain't got no place 'ere in the Narrows."
"I'm a PI, folks, so I don't see how that copper problem concern me," I replied with a shrug. Inwardly I wondered who would be the first stupid enough to try something funny.
The one who had been busy with 'massaging' the lass's breasts up until then turned out to be the lucky one. With a loud and grating roar, he raised his fists and apparently thought he was tough enough to knock me out in one hit. It was a pathetic try, sloppy, uncoordinated attack. It was way too easy for me to grab hold of his wrist, break it and then use his own hand to pull him down. I didn't even bother try to pass my expecting knee crashing into his face and probably breaking all of his teeth, plus the nose, as an accident.
"I actually got kicked out of the Force, lads," I said in deadpan and proceed to grind the bones inside the masseuse's fingers into tiny little pieces with the sole of my shoe. No more massaging for him, I decided. "Some shit about police brutality, y'know how it happens. A lad gets frustrated easily when he sees a bunch of shits like you messing around with women, he gets angry, breaks a few dozen bones or so. And then the boss shows him the door. Now, that's when I just get frustrated. If I get angry, angry for real-"
I let them hear the crunch of his bones, snapping like twigs under my foot, to get my point across more easily.
"-You better run, lads."
Shinji, probably thanks to all the private tutors his folks had most certainly paid a fortune to drill some sort of intelligence into his empty head, seemed to take my hint. The blue-haired lad put his hands up in the air and did the relatively smart thing of ordering his goons back. Looking at me as if I was nothing more than a dirty gum stuck to his snake-skin shoe, Shinji Matou plastered the greasiest of smiles on his face and tried negotiating.
He would find later on that I was a big fan of negotiations. The aggressive kind, mostly.
"Now, now, Mr. Detective, let us not be hasty. I and my boys here might have gotten a bit carried away with the dame but there's no need for such brutal violence. You said you wanted to speak to me about something," said the blue-haired lad and narrowed his beady little eyes at me. "What is it?"
"It's about the murder of your little sister, Mr. Matou. It seemed that she disappeared right after you two had a rather nasty argument the other night. And no one seems to have seen you ever since, too. Now, as a smart lad like you can tell, that's rather incriminating. I'd be glad to hear what you've to say for yourself."
A cold laugh filled the dingy bar.
"Oh, rest assured, Mr. Detective, I'm not some boorish… brute who'd kill his own blood," said Shinji and sniggered. "I may have thought that… cheating whore I lesson on what happens when you betray the future patriarch of the family but to kill her? Never, Mr. Detective. I loved her, we've loved each other since childhood and then she'd go and cheat on me with my OWN FRIEND!"
The Matou's little speech was rapidly turning into a spoiled brat's temper tantrum. He was nearly frothing at the mouth at the end.
"Quite the interesting claims you have, Mr. Matou," I said and lit up my cigarette. "But you have to admit that raping your own sister doesn't particularly remove you as the top suspect. Go figure."
"You don't seem to understand," exclaimed Shinji and theatrically buried his face in his palm. "I could care less about who offed Sakura. What's important is that whoever was the one that killed that backstabbing bitch, he was after the Matous. And I'm certain you would understand why I can't let you leave this place, Mr. Detective, when there is someone out there targeting my family. My location is a rather… sensitive piece of information right now."
A beat passed.
"Kill him."
The lad was apparently dead-set on giving me more and more reasons to bash his skull in, heir to the Matous or not. True, I may have gotten carried away for a moment, judging by how one of his goons had somehow managed to draw a gun before I could. Still, in a way that I couldn't have predicated in a million years, things turned out fine.
The knife that zipped past my ears gleefully embedded itself deep into the arm that was holding the pistol. A second blade followed soon after, catching the guy right between the eyes. Shinji excluded, three left.
"The years catching up to you, Lancer, ole' pal o'mine?"
Tossing giddily into the air yet another knife, none other than Ryuunosuke Uryuu, or Plissken as he fancied himself as of recently, casually strolled into the rundown bar. There was not even a sign of the panicky lad that I had found fiddling with stolen cars no more than two days ago. It seemed that even without fangs, the viper could still bite.
Not that I could complain, given the particular situation.
"And what are you doing here, pup?" I asked while still keeping an eye on the rapidly-panicking goons who were still standing.
"Well, we of Sherwood decided that we don't want 'em guys wandering 'round our turf anymore. And I decided to volunteer, considering I knew that my man Lancer was going to be around sniffing as well."
"Don't push your luck, pup," I said and let out a hoarse, bark-like laugh. "And I thought you said you Sherwood folks were doing community services and stuff."
One of the goons decided to seize the unexisting opening and smash our heads open a billiard cue. A spectacularly idiotic move, considering that blood was gushing out of his throat before I could even squeeze the trigger. I may have never showed it, but deep down it almost scared me how light Ryuu was on his feet. The remaining two decided their sorry lives apparently were worth more money than Shinji could give them so they tried to scram out of the place as fast as they could.
Courtesy of my gun, one received free ventilation for his head. Or whatever was left of it. The other got a shiny new switchblade between the shoulders.
The Matou, seeing the tables turned around on him so fast, reverted to the sniveling worm that he was on the inside. However, crawling between the broken tables and trying to escape in the crossfire wasn't the most ingenious of plans one could come up with. Soon enough, we were having a friendly chat over a barrel of rainwater. His head was mostly in the barrel, but still, I tried to be friendly. The majority of his teeth were mostly intact- I needed him to speak after all. I sent Ryuu back to escort the lass out of the Narrows and went out of my way to remind him how a gentleman should act.
I could've taken him in for all the killing he did, but like one of Shinji's mooks had said, the law had no place in the Narrows. So I like to think of it as poetic justice.
"I told you I didn't kill her!" almost shrieked out my reluctant 'informant' when I pulled him out for a breather. "I wouldn't kill my own cousin, dammit! I loved her and we were blood, I told you!"
"That water getting into your brain, lad? She was your little sister, remember?"
"Like Hell! Uncle Kariya knocked up Tokiomi's bitch way back when and took the baby in 'cause the Tohsakas didn't want her. And then he had to unofficially adopt me, or at least pretend to, 'cause there was no way she'd succeed him as the head of the family. And that's why Uncle and Tokiomi hated their guts that much, 'cause of that Aoi bitch and Sakura!"
For unfathomable reasons, my investigation was rapidly turning into a soap opera. I decided to let Shinji freshen up a bit more.
"It must've been the Tohsakas that offed her, I'm telling you! They have all the motives! Not too long ago they tried hiring Emiya's people to kill Uncle! We didn't know why they decided to make their move so suddenly but we had paid a lot of money to Emiya beforehand to be on our side. So the Tohsakas didn't know that they had just outright warned us by hiring his people. Emiya sent one of his elite goons to guard Uncle but he got the damn idea that they needed a decoy so he had that goon kill my own father and ditch him on the streets for the Tohsakas and the whole world to see! And then, after proclaiming that his 'drunkard of a twin had finally done something useful', the bastard went into hiding along with that new bodyguard of his!"
It seemed that there was a whole bloody conspiracy behind all this, with me now playing the unnecessary intruder trying to sort out all the lies and secrets intertwined into one big messed-up web. Never let it be said that this hound's life was easy. The fact that I would need to pay the Tohsaka household a visit later on filled me with rather… uncertain feelings considering a certain cat that prowled there.
"Atta boy! Now, before I go, one last question…" I started before submerging the bastard's head one last time.
It was astounding how accurate information could a half-drowned man give you.
His description of the place's location was spot-on, down to the color of the old mailbox on the other side of the street. Which was quite useful, considering that despite the trade it dealt in, this particular establishment didn't have a red light hanging above it to make recognition easier. And it was no wonder, considering the usual clientele that place must have handled. It may have been in Lowtown, the Cradle of Thieves and the territory of the majority of gangs in the city, but the interior was lavish enough to make even a senator be giddy to visit. And senators had probably most certainly visited that place, but they must had been giddy for other reasons, if my hunch was right.
Good thing that Shinji had been gracious enough to lend me some money, too, because even with knowing the password (Ambrosia), it had taken one considerable greasing of palms for the guard to let someone like me in. The Madame, a stunning young woman with teal hair and somewhat pointy ears, was quite cheerful and welcoming at first. Alas, questioning my target apparently ranked as bad for her business for some reason. Again, thank the heavens for Shinji's willingness to give away money. I ended up being forced to pay for a session so I could talk with this Rider woman.
Even as I obediently followed the Madame down one of the side corridors, I was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on the case. The piercing gaze of a blonde dressed up in a positively criminal schoolgirl outfit felt like peering right into my soul. The sway of the most stunning pair of hips, belonging to a dame in a Chinese quipao with a slit up almost to her breasts, were like hypnotizing. In a side room, a redhead and a raven-haired beauty, certainly too young to be in such a place- both of them dressed in little dresses seemingly from the last century yet showing enough skin to make you go mad- were intertwining their bodies in an endless dance of passion. And to a nose as trained as mine, the mixed aromas of perfumes and exotic aphrodisiacs filling the air were enough to push me on the verge of seeing in duplicate. The velvet voice of an unseen songstress performing a jazz version of some siren's song seemed to come in from all directions. And from behind closed doors came moans of pleasure just loud enough to be heard over the music.
The hound inside me howled in thanks to whatever god had led him to this heaven. The detective in me damned this hell, which had sent my reasoning spiraling down into oblivion.
But no matter how strong a hold this world of lust had on me, it was all gone the second I set foot inside the room meant for me and my… companion for the night.
Even to this day, maybe because I really had been half-drugged back then, I can't accept nothing else than divinity as her origin.
Her purple hair, almost the same color as the little goddess's, was spread over the crimson sheets like silk over cheap satin. Every strand of it seemed to pick up the light pouring from the crystal chandelier above and sparkle like a little star each and every time she moved. A sound akin to that of snakes slithering through fallen leaves filled the room as she stood up from the bed oh-so-slowly. The velvet sheet couldn't fall off her fast enough, instead hugging her curvaceous body tightly and sliding down bit by bit, as if jealous of revealing her body to anyone else. The way her chest- breasts of shape and size that could make even the little goddess green with envy- rose up with each of her wistful breaths drove me crazy. Despite the length of her lustrous hair, not even a strand dared hide the divine view from me. Her skin was like marble- as if someone had created a visage of Aphrodite herself in human form and then breathed life into it. And while she remained hidden from the waist down by those thrice-damned sheets, her eyes remained hidden as well. A silver blindfold hid them from view but to me it seemed even more maddening, as if it was left there to cover a part of her skin on purpose, while everything else was left for me to see.
The ultimate of teases.
Once again the sound of slithering snakes was heard- the sound of the chains shackling her to the bed being moved around.
"And what does the good detective want with me, I wonder?" drawled out the beauty, her voice like velvet. The Madame had apparently warned her about me beforehand.
I'm yet to determine how exactly I managed to snap out of my trance, but the detective inside me somehow managed to reply on time.
"I heard that you were quite close to Sakura Matou. Sadly, as you probably know from the papers already, some freak decided to end her life prematurely. I was wondering if you could help me with the investigation."
A wistful look passed over the goddess's features, even if only for a mere moment. Lying back on the bed, she turned to face me and answered.
"It's true that Sakura and I had a… special connection. She was like a collector, someone longing to savor the pleasures of flesh. Like me. Between the two of us, we could share ecstasy like none that any other man or woman could give us."
A lithe hand cupped her firm breast before sliding down beneath the sheets in search of a certain area between her thighs. Once again the sound of slithering snakes could be heard and the way she arched her back and moaned quietly, biting down on her lower lip, drove a deep wedge in my defense lines. By that time I was certain that not only the case, but my sanity, too, was hinging on my mental fortitude.
"And during all your… sessions, did she mentioning something troubling her? Someone that could want to see her, let's say, in bad health?" I asked.
The ruby lips curved into a smile.
"You aren't just some ordinary sleuth to have come all the way here, are you, Detective?" asked the goddess as she slid out from beneath the sheets, drawing close to me like a snake nearing her helpless pray. The chains stopped her advance a mere meter before she could finally reach me and she was left standing there in all her naked glory.
"Let's say that I'd like nothing more than see this case solved and the murderer caught. A personal interest, lass, if you could call it that."
"Oh?"was her only answer. Deep in thought, the goddess of lust pondered something for a minute before deciding to give me a chance. "Aside from her no-good cousin, whom she knew was too scared of her father to hurt her seriously, there was one other not particularly fond of her affair with Shirou Emiya. Another girl, a cruel and vicious girl who didn't shy from showing her hate to Sakura when they happened to be alone, was infatuated with the boy. And I can't help but wonder, Detective, are you brave enough to walk into the Einzbern's castle and demand to question their daughter, Illyasviel von Eizbern, about this case. Will you cave in before the might of one of the three families?"
I had already shot down the advances of the Tohsaka's scion and had half-drowned the future patriarch of the Matous. What was one more to get a full set?
"Oh, rest assured. That's a triviality to me," I replied with a shrug. I knew what I was getting into from the moment I picked up that case.
Or at least I thought I did.
I was about to turn to leave when her velvet voice froze me on the spot.
"I've been so dreadfully lonely ever since Sakura can't visit me. And I think, Detective, that you can only gain a better understanding of my late lover if you taste the nectar of the gods she has tasted, if you life through all the heavens of pleasure she has experienced so many times."
An extended hand was waiting for me when I turned back to face her.
"Quite poetic, eh, lass? Is there even a single person in this world who can keep such a promise?"
"Oh, Detective," she drawled. "Do not mistake my honesty with being boastful."
Her lips were parted oh-so-invitingly, colored a deep crimson, like a blossoming rose.
And who was this hound to refuse a lady?