Guilty hands.

February 29th, London

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Tezuka took the choice of arriving at the land house earlier then the notice had mentioned. That way, he could perhaps learn a little better about the situation beforehand.

He tried telling himself that he wasn't going to crack Tsubame's plan, but... Well, he wanted to know, yes. Every case up until now had mysteries to everyone.

How did he enter? How did he leave? Basic things like that.

Fuji had tagged along, to Tezuka's disliking. There was not much of trust left for him.

Was he overreacting? Fuji had been free to say what he had wanted about the phantom thief. Actually, Tezuka might be in the wrong for trusting a thief so much.

Tezuka felt stupid for making such a big point out of it. But he couldn't really deny his own feelings.

For now, Fuji was his team mate. Tezuka would have disliked any team mate anyway, since he'd rather enjoy going his own way without restrain. But also as a team mate, he'll just have to live with it.

Fuji was walking ahead of him and rang the doorbell with quite little of restrain.

A man opened the door, quite largely build. He had a mean look on his face. Fuji didn't back off, though.

"We're here for the notice Phantom thief Tsubame has left. We're from the press."

The large man just glared back. It was quite a spectacular sight to see the large and intimidatingly glaring man against the small and cheeky Fuji.

"Teh... Like hell I care. We don't have time for you rats." The man wanted to close the door.

"How is the divorce coming along?" Fuji asked.

The man stopped and glared at Fuji again. How did Fuji know there was a divorce going on?

The young boy threw a cheeky smile towards Tezuka. for a short moment, he pressed against the base of his nose, as if adjusting glasses. Yagyuu? Or perhaps Inui...

In any case, Fuji hadn't been doing nothing ever since the notice had gotten in.

"Akutsu, who is it?" A girl approached from behind the man.

"Theh... just some annoying brats from the press." Akutsu snarled.

The girl's face turned quite pale, but then replied: "I see, you must be here because of Tsubame. I'm Ann, please come inside."

.

The household was clean and bright. it was a beautiful mansion. but the atmosphere was nasty. Everyone seemed nervous.

"I don't believe Tsubame picked a very suitable situation." Fuji whispered. Tezuka had to agree, though Tsubame couldn't have really known of this. tsk, again he was searching for things to righteous Tsubame...

Ann introduced them to the family. Her husband, Shiraishi Kuranosuke was a person, hnn... How should you describe him? At first glance, he didn't seem to be very unpleasant. But little things showed that he didn't think very highly of Ann.

"Whatever it is, I don't really care. I have things to do, so can you lead them around, Ann?" Were the only words heard from him before he left to his office.

Ann just nodded to her husband's wishes. He replied with something vague like 'ah.. Ecstasy'.

"m'am... may I ask what it is that happened?" Tezuka asked carefully. Ann just laughed a little. "My husband is always like this. Don't worry over it. In any case, I'll show you the painting Tsubame's after..." She didn't get the chance immediately, though.

"If one person, then why don't you just blame me, mom?" A boy stood in the door opening. He looked laid back and little cranky.

"Ah, Hiyoshi, don't say that!"

"It's fine, I understand what's going on by now." the boy shrugged.

Ann bit her lip. She called for Akutsu to escort her son. "Let's talk about these things later, neh?" She tried to smile it off. "The painting, the painting... err... please follow me.

Fuji was staring after the 2 men who left, it seemed that the butler Akutsu had caught his eye.

"Fuji?" Tezuka turned to the younger.

"hn? No, nothing." The boy smiled and paced towards the other.

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"This is the painting. It's been in our family for the last 7 generations." Ann pointed them to a large portrait of a red haired sailor in a storm. Stealing a painting of that size, just how was Tsubame planning to do so?

"If you'll excuse me, though, I need to go and have a conversation with my husband about things." Ann left them aswell.

Tezuka sighed. "This household sure wasn't waiting for a visit..."

"hnrr... Something nasty is going on... or is going to happen..." Fuji replied.

"For now, Fuji... please keep an eye on what happens outside. I'll stay in the hall just out this room."

Fuji nodded and head for the door. "Tezuka..."

"Hnn?"

"Be careful..."

Tezuka paused for a moment, then nodded. "You too..."

.

About an hour passed in where Tezuka was alone. Tezuka hadn't enjoyed what happened at the mansion of Mizuki, but the sphere in here felt twice as worse.

'Something nasty is going to happen' is what Fuji had said. Did it concern Tsubame? Was he in danger?

Tezuka hadn't gone to the hall as he had told Fuji. Rather, he was waiting in the room with the painting. Tezuka knew one thing: Where the item is, Tsubame will appear. He had send Fuji off outside, though. hnnr... it would increase the chances of seeing him if they spread out, but... Tezuka didn't really feel like Fuji interfering with Tsubame. He didn't trust him, he was to unpredictable. Besides, that way, Fuji could perhaps keep an eye on the family. And the police outside could keep an eye on him.

As the outage came, Tezuka felt anxious, but he stayed on his place, his eyes sharp on the door. And indeed, a figure appeared. Because of a small window and the pale moonlight, he saw it was Tsubame.

Tsubame however, did not head for the portrait. Rather, he seemed to be more interested in the spotlights that had been lighting the portrait. After going past every of them and removing something, he left.

Tezuka wanted to see what had happened to the lights, but he would have been blinded by the light had he been a little earlier. After that, there was no time to see what had happened. The painting was gone

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and an icy scream filled the house.