Okay, thus begins my next story arch, this one involving Muraki. I don't know how well I will write for him, evil psycho-bastard not being my forte, but here we go.

laustic: I'm glad you like the vignettes. I wasn't sure how well they would go over, especially that muffin one.

Disclaimer: Yami no Matsuei is the property of…not me.

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Neina smiled as she towed Tsuzuki, Hisoka and Watari down the sidewalk. Tatsumi had stayed back at the ministry with a claim that he had too much paperwork to finish. (In reality he was enjoying he relative quiet of them being gone.)

"You know, you guys didn't need to come with me. I'm a big girl; I can take care of myself." Neina adjusted one of her rings meaningfully.

"Well, we just thought you could use the company," Tsuzuki said.

"Yeah, and I want to meet this friend of yours, Doctor…"

"Mafferie. Kelton Mafferie. He's from England. We met him on a job a long time ago. He kind of became the Dark Guard's personnel physician even though he was still in med school. Around the time of the attacks he was a resident in a hospital near the border. It was agreed that if anything should happen we'd all meet there so Kelton could look us over."

They turned the corner and began to ascend the high incline of the hospital steps. By the top Neina was still fresh and bouncy as a daisy, but the others were out of breath.

"Whose idea was it to put this thing on such a high incline?" Tsuzuki asked as he put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "And why aren't you breathless too?" he asked indignantly of the woman.

"Easy. I cheated." She grinned and pushed of the ground with the balls of her feet to hover for a few seconds. "Hardly seems like anything when you do it like this. Use your head, inu-baka." She landed with a small thud. "But, I don't mind doing it the normal way either. I have pretty good endurance. I just didn't feel like it. Now come on, I'm dying to see the look on Kelton's face when he sees me." She bounded through the sliding doors with a grumbling Tsuzuki and the others at her back.

The inside was like any typical hospital. The walls were a pale blue with a white trim, a white tiled floor made to look like marble, and the hum of florescent lights in the background. People were sitting in chairs waiting to hear their name called and a television in the corner was playing a local new channel with the volume down low.

Neina smiled pleasantly as she approached the receptionist, a bored looking girl in her late teens or early twenties. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Dr. Mafferie," she said sweetly.

The girl slapped a clipboard onto the counter sharply without even looking up. "Fill these out with your insurance information and symptoms and we'll let you see the first available physician in order of your arrival. Thank you." Each opening of her mouth was punctuated with a crack of her gum which she chewed like a cow chewed cud.

The blonde's eye twitched but she didn't lose her smile. "No, you misunderstand. I'm not a—"

"Please, ma'am, we cannot treat you without proper reference information. If you do not comply with hospital protocol, I will be forced to call security."

"But—"

"But nothing. The sooner you complete the forms, the sooner you can see a doctor."

Neina did lose her smile now and looked decidedly annoyed. Before she could start telling the woman off however, Watari stepped in between the two of them.

"I suppose I should have introduced myself first," he said charmingly. The receptionist looked up at the new voice and her eyes got round at the handsome man that now addressed her. "I'm Dr. Watari. These are my colleagues, Doctors Kurosaki and Tsuzuki and our intern, Mr. Kurosaki. We are here to have an emergency conference with Dr. Kelton Mafferie regarding research we have done into…"

"The effects of certain pain inhibitors on cells of the nervous system. He asked us to bring our research over as soon as we discovered anything of importance," Neina supplied, picking up on the game quickly.

She eyed them all, a little suspicious. Neina smiled and held out her hand. "I'm sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot." The receptionist took her hand and her eyes suddenly clouded over. "I really don't want you to get into trouble for obstructing research, so if you could just point us to Mafferie's room, we'll go on with our day."

She smiled dreamily as Neina let go of her hand. "I'm sorry, but Dr. Mafferie is at a conference right now."

"Well, that's no problem. We'll talk when he gets back. When should that be."

"Next week. The conference is in London." Neina's face faulted, along with the others.

"London?!"

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"So you're really going?" Hisoka asked. He watched Neina as she packed up all the clothes she had bought by pawning off little trinkets from the jewelry room of their house in Avalon into her new suitcase. "You're going all the way to London, instead of waiting."

"Why not? I haven't been in years and it will be even more of a surprise if I show up there instead of the hospital here." She laid a long sage green trench coat into the suitcase, one she bought after remembering that London was chilly this time of year and was wet most of the year anyway.

Hisoka nodded. "Yeah, I suppose. Remember what everyone asked for, or you'll get an earful when you come back." Neina looked him up and down with a frown.

"You didn't ask me for anything," she pointed out.

He shrugged, trying his best to look indifferent. "I don't really know what's there besides the usual. I've never traveled out of Japan, unless you count a cruise one time." He suppressed a shudder. Personally, that didn't count.

Neina looked thoughtful for a moment before smiling. "Then you're coming with me."

Hisoka almost slid the rest of the way down the wall he was leaning on. "Wh-what?"

"Go home and pack. I'll talk to Konohe and get you out of work for a few days. It's my belief that everyone should visit a European city at least once, and London is a great place to start." She suddenly sobered and fiddled with the scarf in her hands. "That is if you want to come."

Hisoka thought about it for a moment. Before his death, when most of his time was spent locked up, he had dreamed of visiting the places he read about. And London was one of the most prominent in his memories, from books like The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes to Pride and Prejudice. That last one had been harder to understand, marriage and love and all that, but England had still sounded wonderfully open and free compared to his cell.

"I…suppose a few days wouldn't hurt…" he said faintly. Neina's face brightened and inside she jumped for joy that she would get to spend sometime with Hisoka, just him and her.

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Neina stretched her back like a cat, finding relief in the cracking and popping joints. Hisoka followed suit, groaning as his back finally straightened from the half-day he had spent on a plane. They hadn't transported since they didn't have a positive destination and it was likely "that I would dump us into the Thames river or worse if I tried to do it otherwise", she had said. The plane ride hadn't been so bad, aside from a mild case of airsickness Hisoka experienced half-way through. You would have thought flying as a shinigami would prepare someone for that, but life is full of surprises. And then there was…

"Man, that was a long plane ride! I can't remember ever sitting down that long," Tsuzuki whined.

Neina glared at him but spoke to her son. "Tell me again how it is he came with us?" she asked him.

"He overheard us and begged me to come as well. Just be thankful Tatsumi wouldn't let Watari or himself have vacation time, or the flight would've seemed eons longer." She grimaced. Even though she liked the men, a 12 hour plane ride with all of them wasn't high on her list of things to do before she died.

"If Tatsumi wouldn't let himself have vacation time, how did inu-baka get it?"

Hisoka let a wry smile escape him. "Tsuzuki is his one known weakness."

"Oh really…" Neina smiled rather evilly. 'I'm gonna have to remember that.'

"Hey, what are you guys whispering about?" Tsuzuki bounded over.

"Nothing. Let's get our luggage and get to the hotel before jet-lag sets in."

"Okay. Uh, what's jet-lag?"

Neina smiled evilly again. "You'll see," she said mysteriously.

Their luggage was late being put on the carousel so while Hisoka and Tsuzuki sat and waited Neina went and got a paper from the gifts shop. She skimmed through it as she walked, effortlessly weaving around tourists and business, flight attendants and the occasional Hare Krishna. When she returned she plunked her self down in the seat between them.

"Geez! How much happened in the twenty years I was gone?" she shook her head as she turned the page. Hisoka noticed her face grimaced in disgust at something she read.

"What? Something wrong?"

She sighed and held the paper a little further away so they could see. "We picked a marvelous time to come. It seems murder has made it's return into English society in the last few weeks." Hisoka skimmed the words while Tsuzuki blanched at the pictures of decimated young woman laying half out of coroner's sheets. "Evidently someone has been killing young woman of, ahem, ill repute all around the city, especially in the White Chapel district. And because of all this, they're calling him the "New Jack the Ripper." As if he's a celebrity or something." She shook her head and folded the paper under her arm. "Damn psychos," she muttered. The flashing light above the carousel and a loud pulsing buzz hailed the arrival of their bags.

After they got their luggage they hailed a taxi. Or at least Tsuzuki and Hisoka tried to hail a taxi, and without much success. It wasn't until Neina put her fingers to her lips and blew a shrill whistle that a cab stopped right before them.

"Works every time." Their hotel was downtown, just out of the way of Chelsea. It was a respectable three star a bit like the English version of a Ramada Inn. Neina had taken the liberty of reserving two rooms, one for her and one for them. "You guys are used to sharing a room, right? It's a double bed, and there's a door that connects 'em."

"That's fine. I wouldn't expect you to want to put up with Tsuzuki's snoring anyway."

"I don't snore!" Neina chuckled at the outraged look on his face before opening the door to her room. She set her luggage down and then opened the door connecting the rooms.

Hisoka was lying on the bed he had claimed, curled on his side to catch a few moments of precious sleep. Tsuzuki however was sitting cross legged on his bed with a map folded out before him and a guide book in his hand.

"What're you doing?" Tsuzuki looked up and smiled.

"I'm looking up all the best bakeries and sweet shops to visit! But this book is really hard to read."

Neina tilted her head and sweat dropped. "Might help if you didn't have the map upside down." Tsuzuki looked at the map and flushed a little, turning it around with his free hand.

"I knew that…"

Sighing, Neina retreated back into her room and returned a moment later with two necklaces dangling from her hand. "Here. And give this one to Hisoka."

He caught them as she tossed them at his bed. "What are they?" He examined them but they just looked like flat gold disks on the end of silver chains.

"Translator pendants. Hisoka told me you have trouble with English, so I whipped them out of storage back home. And as much as I was looking forward to seeing you flounder the first day…" he pouted and Neina smirked. "I decided to be merciful and give them to you now. When you wear it, you'll be able to speak, understand and read English."

"Wow! Sankyu!" Neina smiled. Considering that was the only phrase he knew in English, it probably was best she gave him that early. "But what about you?"

She blinked before she realized what he was asking. "I'm multi-lingual, I don't need one. My mother spoke English and taught it to me as a child." Tsuzuki nodded and put the pendant over his neck.

"Ha! Now I be blingin'."

"Huh?"

"I thought you were multi-lingual," Tsuzuki smiled. It did feel different, his lips moving in different patterns than he was used to, and yet still making sense.

"Whatever. I'm going to find Kelton now."

"But we just got here," he said, scanning through his now legible guide book and mark in red areas to visit on his map.

"Yeah, but I want to get this over with. I have a feeling this first meeting is going to be awkward, what with me being gone for twenty years and not aging a day. I'm also going to try and get him to come to dinner, that's when we can all sit down and talk." She pulled her green trench coat on again and put her braid up into a coiled bun. "In the meantime, Hisoka has the right idea. You should conserve your strength for the jet-lag."

"Okay, but what is jet-lag?"

Neina smiled as she walked out the door. "You'll know it when you get it."

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The conference hall was large. Doctors were a bound and Neina swore she saw women lurking in the bushes on the hunt for prospective husbands. She sighed shaking her head. 'Knew this wouldn't be easy.'

She walked up to the information desk, hoping that she was better than the hospital receptionist from last time.

"Excuse me, I'm a colleague of Dr. Kelton P. Mafferie, of Japan, and I was wondering if you could possibly direct me to where he would most likely be or page him for me. It's rather urgent," she said in a clear precise tone with no trace of a foreign accent.

The woman smiled but it looked tight, rather distrusting. "Alright, I'll just need to see some identification." Neina cursed mentally but never let her smile drop. She didn't have any form of identification that would be accepted here, and that included her spell of the month club card.

"Oh, what a lovely ring!" she grasped the woman's hand before the woman could protest. Immediately she lowered her shields and sent a wave of calming emotion into her, the same technique she had used on the receptionist before, making her slowly drop her guard. "Now, about Dr. Mafferie…"

She pointed vaguely up with a dreamy smile on her face. "He set up a temporary office on the third floor. Room C12."

"Thank you. Have a nice day," Neina let go, relinquishing the link between her and the woman but allowing her to ride out the pleasurable calm on her own. Her shields were thrown back up instantaneously, blocking out any emotion but her own.

On the third floor she took a deep breath and rapped on the door of C12. "Who is it?" Neina let out the breath, recognizing the voice even now. She opened the door and smiled, recognizing also the curve of those broad shoulder and mess of hair, once died bright red but subdued to a dull grey. It brought back the realization that time had passed while she was gone, but she shook the thought away and marched ahead.

"I said who is it?" he turned impatiently but stopped, mouth agape and brown eyes wide when he saw her.

"Hey Kelton," she said quietly.

He rose from his chair, stumbling once as he walked toward her with disbelieving eyes. "…Neina?" She nodded and he suddenly embraced her in a large bear hug. "Neina! Oh my god, Neina!" He swung her slightly and they both laughed. Setting her back down, he pushed her back to look at her. "My god…you haven't aged a bit. Literally!" She laughed, loud and riotous.

"It's not my fault! Well, not entirely. Time doesn't really apply where I've been."

"And where is that?"

"Sit down, this is gonna be a while."

After she had told of everything that had happened, from the night she came to him with baby Hisoka, to being sealing in the tree, to being freed to now. Kelton stared in silence as he absorbed all of it before shaking his head.

"Damn. I didn't realize so much happened…"

Neina frowned before her gaze hardened. "Kelton, why was Hisoka with them. You know Runa was his legal guardian after us…Unless she…" Neina couldn't finish that last thought but Kelton was already shaking his head again.

"No, Runa made it out. She was already to take care of him, but the Kurosaki's found out about him. Evidently Nagare and Rui had given up on having children of their own and claimed Hisoka on rights of blood relation. We tried to contest it in court, but they won in the end." He looked down, saddened at the memory. "They denied us the right to visit him as well. We never saw him again."

Neina's gaze softened. She decided not to tell him about the abuse of the Kurosaki's and lessen the guilt he obviously still felt. "It's…not so bad. He's grown into a great young man."

"But you said he was a Guardian of Death. Doesn't that mean…?"

She nodded but still smiled gently. "Yes, he died a few years ago evidently. But I've gotten used to the idea. And gods, he reminds me so much of myself it's frightening sometimes. And other times he reminds me so much of Hokuto…I almost cry." She looked Kelton in the eyes again. "Have…you heard anything from him?"

Kelton's eyes were distant for a moment before he sighed. "No. Not since the attack." She nodded and did her best to appear calm and stable.

"Anyway, you're invited to dinner. And by invited, I mean come or you'll be dinner for some nasty beasty. Understood?"

"Crystal clear. Is…he going to be there?" Kelton looked worried but Neina smiled.

"You'll have to face my son eventually, Kelton. Don't worry, I explain what happened. I doubt he'll blame you too much."

"Oh, thanks!" Neina laughed and they stood.

"I need to get back and make sure they're not running up room service. That Tsuzuki consumes enough sugar to sweeten the Boston Tea Party." He nodded and opened the door for her.

No sooner had Neina journeyed into the hall she ended up running smack dab into someone. She ended up on her butt, rubbing her nose where it connected with a pectoral cavity.

"So sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." A hand entered her line of vision and she took it gratefully.

"Thank you, I—" She forgot the words she was about to say. She forgot Kelton. She forgot where she was and why. She forgot all semblance of herself. The only the she remembered was a face framed by red moonlight that overlapped the now.

"Ah, Sakuya, this is Kazutaka Muraki, a fellow doctor from Japan. Muraki-san, this is my friend, Sakuya C. Ku—"

"Haguro. My name is Sakuya C. Haguro," she shook the hand she now realized she still held and released it with as much ease as she could. "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Muraki."

Muraki smiled amiably and nodded. "You as well. But I must be going. Good day Haguro-san, Mafferie-san." He nodded to each of them and swept past them down the hall. Kelton waited until he was a good distance away before turning to the blond.

"Any particular reason you told him your maiden name instead of your married?"

Neina was silent for a long moment, contemplating what she should and shouldn't tell him. "Don't trust that man, Kelton," she finally advised. "Especially with your life."

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And thus I set the stage! Next time, Muraki will be evil and the Team Meifu will have to stop him!

Still taking Suggestions for short story chapters or even story archs.

REVIEW!!!! Feed my ego! Or, in the words of Watari (from Jazi's great fanfiction Veins of Ice) "Stroke my ego! Strokey Strokey!!"