Author' Note:

Wow, I can't believe I've made it to 50k words and we're only about a third of the way through the plot O.O I guess its not just time that flies when you're having fun...

Thank you to Kiki, KitsuneSenpai18, Niki1213, Bluebonnet, ImpracticalOni, and Guest for leaving reviews

RedWagoon: Don't worry we'll get there, but they've got some things to work through first ;)

Guest 2: Thank you. I've had fun writing Okita's and Chizuru's interactions thus far, but I can't wait until we can get to the point when I can really start moving their relationship forward.

This chapter has some stylistic things I need to point out. Italic without quotes (blah blah blah) are thoughts, italic with quotes ("blah blah blah") are voices heard over a comm in someone's ear, and single italic words (blah blah blah) are emphasis, though I will try to avoid that to minimize confusion. It was getting hard for me to tell who was physically present and who wasn't.

Chapter 10 - The Bearer of Bad News

Tuesday, December 4th

A heavy silence pervaded the room while they waited for the others to return. For her part, Chizuru felt drained and she struggled to pull her emotions back into some semblance of order. She knew she would be in for a fight if she was going to get what she wanted out of this and crying wouldn't help the situation. If she'd had to hazard a guess as to why Harada, Nagakura, and Heisuke didn't say anything, she'd probably have said it was because they were still coming to terms with the massive amount of information she'd dumped on them. Of all the times people had found out about her past, this had certainly been the worst.

She'd expected Okita and Kondou to be the first ones back, but to her surprise, it was Hijikata who stepped quickly through the doorway, Saito close on his heels. Hijikata hadn't even taken a full step into the room before he started calling out orders.

"Heisuke, I want floor plans for a warehouse in the south end. Saito will give you the address. Harada, Nagakura, I want you to take a look at the surrounding neighborhood. Souji… Where did Souji go?"

"Uh… Boss, we've got a problem."

Hijikata stopped mid-stride and frowned at Nagakura, his expression a mix of confusion and aggravation. "What do you mean by problem? What the hell happened now?"

Nagakura opened his mouth to respond, but was beat out by a rather petulant sounding voice from the doorway. "Hey, I thought I said not to start without us."

Okita walked through, followed closely by Kondou and Gen.

"Will someone just tell me what's going on here? And why are you here Kondou?" Hijikata was clearly frustrated at this second interruption, but the fact that it was Kondou seemed to moderate his reaction slightly.

Kondou rubbed the back of his head as he laughed awkwardly. "To be honest, I'm not really sure. Souji just said I needed to make a decision about something."

"Huh?"

Nagakura awkwardly cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention. "She figured it out."

Chizuru was pretty sure he could have been a little more direct and Hijikata apparently agreed. "Who figured what out?"

"Little slow today aren't we? There's only one 'she' here." Okita grinned as he folded his arms and continued, "Chizuru figured out that we're working to bring down the Syndicate and that you've been lying to her the whole time."

"What?! Who told her?" Hijikata said, his glare shifting from person to person.

Nagakura immediately pointed to Heisuke, "He started it."

"What?! No I didn't!" Heisuke waived his hands frantically in front of him, as if hoping that would fend off whatever kind of lecture he was likely in for. "All I did was mention a homicide case we got! How was I supposed to know the victims were her family?! ...Oops."

Yeah, oops… Instantly everyone's attention was firmly fixed on her.

Hijikata was the first to break the silence, his gaze measured and most of his earlier irritation gone. "Is that true?"

She sighed and nodded. "Yes, it's true, but it's not Heisuke's fault that I found out. The cases I've been working have felt off for a while now. It wasn't until Nagakura mentioned they were looking for connected cases that I realized why. The final piece was that the only way what happened to my family could be connected to the cases I've been working was if it was some kind of mob or mafia. Nothing else has that kind of variety."

While Hijikata sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, Kondou looked genuinely upset. "Oh, Yukimura… I had no idea. I'm so sorry…"

She fidgeted and looked down at her hands. she was grateful, since his sincerity meant that he cared about her, but it still made her feel uncomfortable. "It's all right. Not many people know since it isn't something that's linked to my official record and I don't tend to bring it up."

Kondou still looked upset, but to his left Gen nodded understandingly. "That makes sense, though I'm sorry it had to come out this way."

"Yes, well…" she took a breath before she straightened her shoulders and forced her gaze up off her hands. "Now that I have a better understanding of what's going on, I want to help."

Hijikata immediately gave her a hard look. "Absolutely not. This is too dangerous for you to be involved any further."

She gestured at her computer as she said, "But my software is basically designed to sniff out organized crime! Finding connections is what it does best."

"Fine, then give it to Heisuke and he can use it."

Heisuke glanced nervously between them. "Uh… I tried. I couldn't make heads or tails of the graph I made and the user interface is really wonky…"

She looked at Hijikata hopefully, but he shook his head. "The answer's still no. I'm not going to get a civilian tangled up in this."

That was her opening. If she could just convince him that she was already too deeply involved, then he would have to let her stay. Right? This was the best chance she'd ever had to find out why her parents had been murdered and she was going to fight to keep it from slipping through her fingers.

Oddly enough, Harada beat her to it. "That's the problem, she made a pretty airtight case earlier that she is involved. A bunch of people are probably going to end up in jail thanks to her work on those cases, and as of right now we know that two people know she's involved with them. The secret is out, whether we like it or not."

"Yeah," Nagakura nodded as he said, "Apparently she's also been looking into her family's case pretty extensively over the past couple of years, and it's looking like that might have been a Syndicate hit."

Hijikata still didn't look convinced and she couldn't keep quiet any longer, though she tried to keep the desperate tone out of her voice. "Please, all I want is to help and maybe find out what happened to my family. I know it might be dangerous, but this is something I have to do."

"Hmm, I don't know. Seems like a pretty big risk to me." She turned to find Okita looking at her, his arms folded and gaze calculating. "I doubt the Syndicate would go so far out of their way for just anyone. If your parents were involved with them, how do we know you aren't now? You were the only one to survive and you can't remember what happened? Sounds awfully convenient to me."

She blinked at him, dumbfounded. She'd had a wide variety of responses from people when they discovered what happened to her family, but suspicion was a new one and it was surprising how much it hurt. Did he really think she was working for this Syndicate as some kind of undercover operative? That she would betray them? She couldn't even tell a halfway decent lie, let alone pull off a massive deception like that.

"Souji, Yukimura has never given us any signs of not being trustworthy. She's proven herself to be dedicated and effective. I mean, look what she was able to do in a month!" Unfortunately, other than Kondou, no one else reacted to Okita's statement, which told her the thought had at least crossed their minds. "Toshi, why not let her help if she wants to? I know it's dangerous, but she seems to have almost as much invested as we do, if not more."

Beside him, Gen nodded, his expression contemplative. "I think Isami has a point there Toshi." He glanced at her, "Am I right in assuming you will continue to look into that case regardless?" She nodded. "Then if you don't let her in, it's no different than sending her out blind."

Hijikata seemed to have realized that he'd lost, because he sighed resignedly before turning to her. "Fine, you can stay. But nothing else is going to change. You're still off the record and you are not going out to talk to any more people. If you need information, the others can get it. Do I make myself clear?"

She nodded, and Kondou grinned brightly. "Well, I'm glad we got that resolved. I've got a conference call in a bit, so I'll leave the details to you Toshi."

With that, Kondou and Gen left the room, leaving an awkward silence in their wake. Saito, who thus far had contented himself with quietly watching the discussion unfold, took the opportunity to bring it back to what Hijikata had been trying to accomplish before it had been derailed.

"Commander, the raid."

"Yes, right. Thank you Saito."

What followed was a quick explanation and a series of orders that sent people scrambling in all directions. Apparently Hale had caved fairly quickly in interrogation, but not about his wife. Instead, he'd revealed that a shipment of narcotics was being picked up from the warehouse where he worked later that night. In addition to his regular job, he and several others at the warehouse worked to hide the drugs that were stored there until they could be distributed to the dealers.

While he hadn't admitted it, this new information was enough to cement in her mind that Hale had known and probably set up what happened to his wife. She'd probably found out about her husband's illegal activities and the Syndicate had ordered him to get rid of her.

Within minutes Heisuke had the plan of the building up on the screen and they began discussing entry points and probable locations. She knew she wasn't going to be of any help there, so she resigned herself to sitting at her desk and watching. While she sat, her mind turned over the the major thing that was still troubling her. Could she trust them? They'd deliberately, and thus far without much remorse, lied to her. In their minds it had been a necessary precaution to keep her and them safe, but how could she trust that they wouldn't do it again?

On the flip side, how could she prove to them that she was trustworthy? She knew she had nothing to do with the Syndicate nor had any other secret motive for working with them, but she had no evidence. Okita had been right. Given her recent discovery of the Syndicate, her whole story was thrust into a new and very suspicious light.

She was pulled out of her thoughts as the men quickly dispersed to their separate tasks. They only had about six hours before the pickup would occur and they still had a lot to do.

Before Hijikata could leave the room, she hurriedly asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You can sit there and not cause trouble." With that, he left the room, leaving her as the one motionless island in a sea of activity.

On some level she'd expected his response, but she still didn't like hearing it. She was able to sit there for all of a minute, before she couldn't take the inactivity any longer. There had to be something she could do to help, even if it wasn't with the raid…

It didn't take her long to realize that since the cases were all, at least loosely, connected, the best use of her time would probably be to consolidate all of the cases she'd entered into a single graph. She knew her program could handle it since she'd had nearly that many cases entered when she'd been working on the drug ring back home. Hopefully it would give her a better idea of the scope of the organization.

Once she started to load the files, she quickly realized that there was a key difference between then and now. While the individual load time for a case wasn't bad, doing them all at once was going to be slow at best. The loading bar, which normally only appeared for a brief moment when loading her larger cases, was creeping up at a painfully slow rate. To make matters worse, it didn't display an estimated finish time, so she had no idea how long it would actually take. Do I really have that much data? With a sigh, she settled down to wait, her chin resting on her arms as her fingers absently tapped at the desk.

With an hour until the raid, the guys were long gone and she was left alone with her thoughts and worries, still waiting for the loading bar to creep across the final few pixels. She couldn't help but nervously glance at the clock, praying everything would go as planned and no one would get hurt. The time she'd had to think had made her realize a few things. While they had lied to her, it wasn't as bad as she'd first assumed. Thinking back, no one had actively tried to mislead her. They'd just simply not told her everything and she hadn't pushed the boundaries. In fact, she was surprised they'd let her talk to the people she had, but it had probably been a calculated risk on Hijikata's part. He'd probably assumed the faster they could get her done and out, the less chance she'd be discovered.

She sighed with relief when her screen flashed and a massive web filled the window. Still worried about the raid, the first thing she did was to switch to a topological view and focus in on the address of the warehouse. There was a red node and a line extending from the warehouse itself, and when she hovered over it, she confirmed her guess that it was Hale, but he seemed to be the only direct connection. She zoomed out until she could get a better grasp of all the lines and nodes that ran nearby. What surprised her was the overwhelming sea of blue in the surrounding neighborhoods… and not just the ones immediately adjacent either. The circle of blue dots and lines faded the farther out it got, but she could easily tell where it stopped and other blue circles started. The warehouse wasn't in the center, but it was well within it's boundaries.

Nodes that were red designated cases that were assaults or murders, yellow were thefts and extortion, but blue… blue was drug related and she'd seen this pattern before. Back home, the drug ring she'd helped hunt down had shown this exact structure, but theirs had been nearly a third the size of this one. She began to feel the first flutterings of dread and panic. If they were supplying enough narcotics to support a ring of this size, then she doubted the shipment, and the security that entailed, would be even moderately sized. She'd watched the team make their plan and they hadn't accounted for anything approaching this scale. There was a chance this could be only one distribution center out of many, but with their lives on the line, she couldn't take that chance.

A couple weeks ago, Heisuke had given her the cellphone numbers of each of the team members, telling her that it was better to have them than not, just in case she ever needed to get ahold of them. She was pretty sure most of them didn't know she had their numbers, though she wouldn't put it past a couple to have found out. Right now she was more than thankful that she had them. She saw that she'd missed several texts from Sen, but quickly scrolled down to Heisuke's number and hit the call button.

"Hi! This is Heisuke-"

Immediately she yanked the phone away from her ear, nearly deafened by the volume of what was clearly Heisuke's leave-a-message recording. She looked down at her phone in confusion, still able to clearly hear his voice despite the distance. What the…? She should have at least gotten a dial tone… right?

Ending the call, she scrolled to Harada's number and tried again. Unfortunately she got the same result, though thankfully without being deafened. As quickly as she could, she worked her way through the rest of them. Nothing. Why aren't any of them picking up? ...Actually, it sounded more like her calls weren't getting through at all, since she wasn't even getting a single ring.

She bit her lip and glanced between her phone and the computer screen. They were all excellent at their jobs… even if the situation turned out to be more dangerous than they anticipated, they could handle it… right? But what if they couldn't? What if this information made the difference between someone getting hurt and everyone making it back safe?

She couldn't bear it if something happened and there was anything she could have done to prevent it. Flipping over to her camera, she quickly snapped a picture of the computer screen before she grabbed her purse and took off for the stairs at a run. She didn't have much time.

Souji flicked his head to the side in annoyance as the breeze blew several strands of his hair into his eyes. The night was calm and quiet, but the dark alley in which they were standing had the unfortunate effect of funneling what little wind there was. He shifted his position, folding his arms and leaning back against the cold brick wall, which thankfully brought him at least partially out of the wind. The cold had never bothered him, but the wind's effect on his hair was distracting and now was not a time for distractions.

Chizuru was another distraction he didn't need right then either, but that didn't stop his thoughts from touching back again and again on what he'd learned about her past and its implications. He'd admit that he'd let her in to a degree, but It wasn't like he'd trusted her all that much. Now though… Now she had too many questions floating around her for his liking. For the Syndicate to have bothered with her family in the first place was suspicious enough, but the fact that she'd survived and they'd left her alone all those years was not reassuring in the least. The Syndicate rarely, if ever, left loose ends.

Which begged the question, was she a plant? Her past seemed tailor made to slide her into their good graces. She had a skill that was useful to them, she had a motivational sob story which fit perfectly with their goals… If it wasn't for the fact that he was pretty sure the girl couldn't tell a decent lie to save her life, he would have had no problem believing she was a mole. He was usually pretty darn good at reading people. Sure, Saito could be hard to decipher sometimes, but Chizuru wasn't even a challenge for him, since almost every thought was plainly visible in her expression and posture. Of course she could also just be that good, because in the end there wasn't much of a difference between the truth and a good lie, but he doubted it. Where Heisuke erred on the side of being too trusting, being suspicious just came naturally to him. Yet despite his suspicion, it just didn't ring true with what he knew of her.

He shifted slightly, trying to get an oddly shaped brick to stop digging into his shoulder, and glanced further down the alley, toward where Saito and Hijikata appeared to be going over some detail of the raid. He could hear the low murmur of their voices over the common his ear, but it was too indistinct to make out anything more than the occasional word. He could also hear the Baka trio, but like the others, their voices settled into a dim hum he could easily ignore. The alleyway they were in opened up toward the front of the warehouse where Hale worked. Since they were unsure which direction the people would be coming from, Heisuke, Shinpachi, and Sano were located in a similar alley a distance from the back of the building.

With the discomfort in his shoulder gone, he glanced up and caught sight of the few stars bright enough to penetrate the city's light pollution as they twinkled dimly in the black sky. Was it better not to remember? Did it hurt less? He snorted at the idiocy of his thoughts. This was ridiculous. He needed to get his head in the game, not wonder about what-ifs that didn't matter. Sure he'd lost his parents to a car crash when he was seven, but he was over it. Shit happened and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It was stupid and a waste of time to even consider whether having the happy memories, dim though they were, tempered the pain of loss and betrayal.

He stiffened at the sounds of a scuffle in his ear, but almost immediately he relaxed again when he heard quiet laughter accompanying it.

"Will you idiots knock it off." Hijikata hissed and the noise from the Baka trio immediately broke off.

"Sorry Boss…"

"He started it."

"I don't care-"

Souji immediately stopped listening to the conversation when he heard a second, and far more troubling noise. Footsteps. He could hear the unmistakable sound of running footsteps. They were distant, but clearly getting closer on the street at the end of the alley opposite from the warehouse. Had someone noticed them? The area was almost entirely made up of industrial buildings and this late at night they hadn't seen a single car or pedestrian go by. He glanced back at Hijikata and Saito, who had apparently also heard the noise. At Hijikata's nod, he began to move quietly to the end of the alleyway.

Just as the footsteps reached the opening, they began to slow. Taking the opportunity, he lunged out, grabbing the figure and pinning them tightly against the wall. He blinked in surprise when the person in his hands let out an all too familiar squeak. What the hell is she doing here? If her squeak hadn't given it away, the feel of her against him would have in an instant. There was no denying that this person was none other than Chizuru. She struggled for a split second, but almost instantly relaxed and craned her neck around as far as his hold would allow.

"You have to let me talk to Hijikata! Please, it's important!"

He frowned at her, but didn't loosen his hold. "How did you find us?"

"You made your plan right in front of me! Please, I need to talk to Hijikata right now. If I'm right, this is going to be bigger than you think."

"What's going on over there?"

"Who found us?"

"Did I just hear Chizuru…?"

"Will all of you just shut up for a minute." He snapped.

Thankfully the voices of the others died out, but Chizuru winced and hung her head dejectedly. He let out a sharp sigh of frustration. "Not you."

Her showing up here was suspicious, but it was also clear that she was worried and desperate, and she wasn't faking it. When he let her go and took a step back, she blinked at him in surprise, one hand rubbing at her shoulder.

"What part of 'don't leave your desk' was too hard for you to understand?"

Chizuru flinched, her eyes focusing just beyond his shoulder. He glanced back to see a thin lipped Hijikata striding toward them, his expression dark. Saito followed close behind. A movement at the corner of his eye drew his attention back again, to find that Chizuru had unconsciously shifted slightly closer to him. If this were any other situation he would have teased the hell out of her for it, but even he knew that now wasn't the time.

"Um, w-while you were planning, I was compiling all the cases I'd entered into a single graph. It didn't finish loading until after you left. But," He could see her fingers trembling slightly as she took out her phone and brought up a picture. "I was worried and when I entered the warehouse's location, this is what appeared."

They all leaned closer, and he stared in confusion at the multicolored, but predominantly blue map, their current location highlighted and near the heart of the main blue circle.

Beside him, Saito nodded. "I see. How does the scale of this compare to the one you worked previously?"

"It's about three times as big."

Hijikata glanced between the two of them, clearly just as lost as he was. "Either of you two care to share just what it is we're supposed to be looking at?"

Saito cleared his throat slightly before he said, "I believe the blue are cases of the same type, specifically narcotics, and the radius would indicate the scope of the distribution." He glanced at Chizuru for confirmation and she nodded.

"Yes. The last drug ring I worked had this same pattern, only it was a third the size. If they really are supplying such a wide area, then their shipment and it's security could be larger than you originally thought."

Souji glanced at Saito. "...You read the case report didn't you."

"Of course. The explanations of her work were quite detailed."

He sighed with mock exasperation as he rolled his eyes. "Of course you did."

Hijikata's earlier anger seemed somewhat tempered, but he was still frowning at a fidgeting Chizuru. "Alright, fine. I get why you wanted to tell us this, but it still doesn't explain why you're here. A phone call would have worked just as well, and yes, I know Heisuke gave you all our numbers, so spill."

"But I did try to call! It was the first thing I tried. I only decided to leave when I couldn't get ahold of anyone. Everything went straight to voicemail and I couldn't think of anything else to do." Souji noticed a light blush stain her cheeks as she bit her lip. "I… I would have been here sooner, but I didn't want to give anything away, so I parked a couple blocks back, and well…"

As her voice trailed off, he couldn't resist a snicker. "You got turned around didn't you."

She nodded, her blush darkening.

"Hey, is anyone going to bother telling us what's going on over there? Kinda hard to understand half a conversation."

Hijikata sighed. "No changes to the plan, just a heads up that there might be more security than we anticipated. Saito, take Chizuru to the car and get her a comm." The last bit caused Chizuru's head to tip to the side slightly in confusion and Hijikata frowned at her. "And no, you won't be doing anything. I can't have you wandering back to wherever the hell you parked, so you're going to sit in that car and not move, or so help me I will arrest you for obstruction of justice. The only reason you're even getting a comm is so that if something happens we can contact you. Got it?"

Chizuru bit her lip and nodded vigorously before she hurried after Saito as he headed toward their car parked a short distance down the alley. Once he judged them to be out of earshot, Souji flipped the mute switch and turned to Hijikata, who did the same. Harada could keep things quiet, but Heisuke and Shinpachi were hopeless.

"Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that she was able to find us?"

Hijikata closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his temple before he answered. "No, but she could have not warned us at all. If she's really on their side, she could have settled for trying and failing to get through, but now she's given us the opportunity to call for backup."

"Oh, I don't think she is. I just think it's suspicious."

"Then why did you ask?!"

He couldn't help but grin at Hijikata's growing exasperation. "Because I was curious. So are you going to have someone check up on her story?"

"Of course. Saito will be starting on that as soon as we get back. Or were you just curious about that too?"

"Maybe."

Hijikata pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, "I swear you will be the death of me."

"As if I would be that lucky."

By the car, Saito gestured to get their attention and tapped his ear as he headed back toward them, Chizuru no longer in tow. They both flipped the switches on their comms and Hijikata said, "Go ahead."

"Hey Boss, we've got movement back here. Looks like six black SUVs, all with tinted windows… Oh, and apparently they're loaded with dudes with guns."

"Geeze, you weren't kidding about the extra security… We're gonna call for backup, right?"

Heisuke's question hung in the air for a moment while Hijikata thought. "How many men do you see?"

It was Harada who answered. "I count eighteen, not including the drivers and whoever they've left in the cars. Most of them are armed, but not all."

"Hmph… Don't really have a choice then. I'll get a hold of Kondou and have him put out the call. I don't want to take the chance that they're listening in on the radio."

"Well you'd better hurry. Someone just let the lot of them in the back door."

Beside him, Hijikata brought out his phone, but frowned at the screen. "Damn. Does anyone have service?"

He quickly checked his own phone, but saw the little symbol in the upper corner telling him he had zero bars. They should have realized it sooner, considering Chizuru had already said she couldn't get ahold of them. There was a chorus of no's from the others.

"Yes, I do."

Instantly all three of them turned to stare at the car. Hijikata's eyebrows pulled down sharply as he asked, "You have service?"

"Um, yes… Can I get out of the car?"

He couldn't restrain a quiet huff of laughter. If anyone else had asked that, Souji would have called it sarcasm, but coming from her it was clearly an honest question. Which actually made it all the more humorous.

"Yes, you can get out of the car."

With Hijikata's go ahead, the back passenger door opened and Chizuru slipped out and jogged over to them. She unlocked and held out her phone to Hijikata. TAlong a peek over Hijikata's shoulder, he was able to get a look at her screen. She did indeed have service, but that wasn't the only difference between her phone and theirs.

"I think we need to switch providers."

Hijikata ignored him and quickly entered Kondou's number. Once Kondou answered, he quickly explained the situation and where they needed the backup.

"Fine, fifteen minutes will have to do, but tell them to hurry." After ending the call Hijikata handed the phone back to Chizuru. "I want any passwords removed and it turned on silent with the vibration off. Alright, looks like the soonest anyone can get here is fifteen minutes, so we're on our own until then. We can't afford to wait that long and risk them getting away, so we're going in like we planned."

As Chizuru handed Hijikata her phone and darted back to the car, Souji could start to feel the rush of adrenalin he always got right before a raid. He lived for the thrill of moments like this.

"Alright, move in."

At Hijikata's quiet order, he drew his weapon and easily fell in formation with the two other men as they moved stealthily towards the warehouse.