Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Tite Kubo. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.

Ch 25: Blue Heart

It should have been a deterrent, everything she was, everything she had decided she wanted him to be. Really, he should have kept it up, the cold shoulder, and driven her away. But there had been something about her that, for whatever reason, had unmistakably charmed him. It certainly had nothing to do with how she looked. Honestly, there were like to be a million other women in the world who could have outclassed her.

Plainly, he just didn't see it. There was no decided physicality that had drawn him to her, as speculation stated. He didn't know about her reasons, but his weren't quite so base. It had been more of an interest than anything else. The very same drive that brought about the entertainment of peeling flesh from bone.

If he had to give it a set meaning, if there was anything in the wold that could be classified as "beauty," that was it. Interest.

But, really, she shouldn't have mattered. Her existence should have meant nothing to him.

"You're making a mistake."

It was grim, the smile that crept across his face. Of course, Nemu wouldn't speak about his affairs openly. She'd wait until he'd turned his back before trying to convince herself, and Retsu, that everything was certain to fall apart. It would have been quite the show, watching her trying to talk such a headstrong woman out of her decision, but the whole conversation was starting out to be unusually bland. Not at all like the blaze she'd thrown at him.

Mayuri didn't turn to look. He just kept on as he was, feigning sleep.

"You're lucky," she said. "His interest in you is more than just a passing fancy. It's genuine."

The way she was talking, it sounded so... ridiculous. Hell, it sounded like something one would find on a poster proclaiming the arrival of some new romance novel. Some outlandish, pathetic idea conjured up by the mind of a starving artist.

But what could she know, being a child? What could she possibly understand about this?

"Mom made it too, you know," she went on. "She ended up someplace she never wanted to be, and then just... disappeared."

She'd been too young to know what had gone on, how it had really happened. The story he'd told her, however straightforward it had been, seemed to have made no mark. She'd simply believe whatever it was that made her happy. Or, whatever fueled the furnace. Either way, she wasn't going to believe a damned thing he said about the matter.

"I used to think it was me. That I was so inept at communicating... That I was the reason for all the silence and awkward moments." Mayuri could almost see her shaking her head. "It was only later, after her death, that I realized it wasn't me at all. It was him."

He imagined that Retsu was probably stunned by the whole thing. Standing there in silence with the squeaking child tugging at her sleeve. It wasn't too much information to digest, not if one was familiar with it, but knowing that she wasn't, he was certain that she'd start peppering him with questions later. And, of course, that meant that the night's plans would end up six feet under or deeper.

She inhaled deeply, the sound of the child's quick footsteps moving to another room. A pause, and then, "Where did your grandmother go? I haven't seen her all day."

"I don't know. She mentioned something about going out this morning, and didn't come back. I thought she'd only be out for an hour or two."

He stiffened, feeling Retsu's eyes on him. She had to know now that he'd been listening, and was likely expecting him to get up and do something about it. As if he needed to. He didn't need to babysit his mother, and he damn well didn't need her hovering, either.

Still, she didn't say anything.

# - # - # - #

It wasn't satisfying in the slightest that he'd allowed his prime suspect to walk right out into the streets, regardless of the fact that there was no concrete evidence. All he had was speculation and an obvious disdain for the man. But sitting there in that cold room again bothered him. The one across from him sat rigid, hunched over in the chair and chattering as he wrung his hands between breaths.

Based on his records, the man had never done anything wrong. No traffic tickets, no public disturbances, nothing. He'd just turned twenty-five, and had been working in a local coffee house for the last eighteen months, scraping by with minimum wage earnings. Stranger still was the fact that he'd looked incredibly pleased upon hearing the charges read to him. His eyes had especially started to flare when Kisuke Urahara's name had been mentioned.

Toshiro never thought he'd see a more disturbing man than Mayuri.

"Ryota Kato." He spoke the man's name with a sort of reverence, not wanting to wind him up any further. The eyes that had been plastered to the floor looked up at him. "Ryota, do you know why you're here?"

The captain watched him shake again before sitting up straight in the chair. That was it, right there. The very behavior that had the boy convinced that this man was his killer. Ryota was suddenly presenting himself as though he were some sort of white-collar worker, perhaps a high-ranking CEO of a popular company. It was sickening.

"Of course," he said, stiff as a board. "You're trying to interrogate me. To get me to say something you can use to put me away. You want me to confess. You want me to lie. You're looking for ways to get rid of me!"

Toshiro had been afraid of this, having watched the man for a good forty minutes. It could have been some sort of deep-seated trauma, or maybe even a recent accident. Perhaps his run-in with the Yakusoku Gang had left him unhinged. From what he'd seen, it wasn't common for people who ran into Zaraki to completely return to their normal behaviors. They'd always be looking over their shoulders for him.

But, whatever it was, Ryota was clearly on edge. Maybe even on the edge of a meltdown.

A search of his shoddy apartment had shown that he was hoarding illegal substances, and a multitude of other... instruments, inside his mattress. Far too much for him to use on his own, which had lead to Toshiro throwing a drug-trafficking charge into the mix. That one was solid enough, but he wanted to hear the man confess to the killing. That way, they could be certain as to why a set number of bungee cords had been thrown into the furnace.

"I don't want you to lie." Toshiro spoke calmly. "I want you to tell me what's bothering you. You know I'm not here to hurt you, Ryota."

There was a warning going off in his head. A memory of another supposed killer they'd been tailing weeks before. Futatsu Ryogawa. They'd had him on multiple charges. At least until he'd been dropped in the middle of the street with a bullet in him. After Ryogawa, they'd picked up Ichimaru. Following him, it had been Aizen, Nnoitra, and Mayuri. Ichimaru had managed to obtain a solid and reliable alibi, thanks in-part to Matsumoto, and had been released accordingly. Aizen, due to past suspicions and recent proof and testimonies, had been sentenced to prison. Nnoitra had been transferred to Shinjuku where the majority of his crimes had been committed. Toshiro had heard nothing about him since.

And he didn't even want to think about the possibilities, or reasons, that would come his way if Mayuri had a hand in all this. Sorting out murder cases wasn't something he favored, but he'd certainly end up hating it far more if he were forced to go through, and decipher, the hundreds of autopsy records the man had filed over the last seven years.

Finding this "Irooni Killer" was more than just a pain now.

"The shopkeeper..."

His hand shifted, thumb pressed firmly into the recording device he'd taped under the table. Hisagi had, for whatever reason, taken a flavored soda into the recording room, only to spill it over the usual equipment they used for interrogations. And, as such, Toshiro had been forced to send out a request to have it all replaced immediately. Looking to his watch, he realized that the replacement parts should have arrived over an hour earlier.

"Kisuke Urahara, you mean." The boy leaned back, one hand on the table while the other rested on his belt. A precaution.

Ryota nodded, lifting his gaze to the captain. He seemed to pause, his trembling then gone. He hadn't wanted a lawyer, hadn't wanted to call anyone, hadn't even complained when they brought him in for questioning. The man had just kept muttering nonsense to himself.

"What would happen," he said, "if something happened to her?"

Karin...

Toshiro didn't move. Just kept his breathing steady, and his eyes level. He remembered, when Tachibana had dragged the man in, that Karin had been outside talking with Matsumoto, who had been on her lunch break. She'd said that they had run into one another at the market further into the city, and had walked back together. And, if Karin had been there, Ryota would have seen her with him.

"I didn't kill him. You did. Youdidn't stop him from playing games with people. Advertising in the streets, only to turn down offers when customers arrived. Business doesn't work that way. The customer is always right... Always right..."

"Are you saying you killed him, or not?" His patience was waning, and he could almost hear the door of the recording room closing. His officers had likely caught onto the situation based on Toshiro's position.

One hand out of sight. It was the clue when all equipment wasn't functional.

Ryota looked at him, head tilted like that of a dog in waiting. He grinned. "If you need to ask that question... then you people are fucking stupid."

The door opened, two men walking in as Toshiro stood and looked away. It wasn't a cry for mercy that followed as he slipped away, but a threat. The sort that were generally found on drastically over-dramatized television programs and in mystery novels. Bitter, wailing shouts that made him wave a hand in dismissal. He couldn't care less about what Ryota was promising to do to him. He'd heard worse things from the mouths of boys his own age.

He should have been satisfied, having video and an under-the-table recording of the man's confession. It should have warmed his heart to know that, because he'd closed down an extra murder, one unassociated with the main case, he'd be able to fulfill his promise to meet Karin for dinner at her house. They'd be able to talk without fear of duty calling him away.

But it made no difference. There was still something very wrong, and he couldn't figure out what.

Perhaps he was overreacting. Ryota Kato could very well have been the man they'd been pursuing all these months. Even so, it was impossible that he was the same killer as the one that had appeared seven years ago. Though it wasn't unheard of for an eighteen-year-old to have turned into a mass murderer, it wasn't likely in the slightest. Not in the case of this man, at least. His records had proven to the investigation that he'd been living in a southern, rural town when the killings had started, having only relocated to Tokyo after his twentieth birthday.

It was sticking with the captain, the obvious look of satisfaction as his prime suspect had walked right out those glass doors a few nights earlier.

There wasn't truly anything that could be called normal, but abnormal, at least different, certainly existed. It was far and above what went on most of the time. Often things that people didn't see, let alone had the courage to do. In his head, it all fit so perfectly. Socially inept, seclusion, lack of empathy, mildly masochistic tendencies, and a deep fascination with the secrets of the dead, almost to the point of obsession.

Even having admitted that she'd taken it all into account, Retsu hadn't given it a second thought.

"That's how he deals with personal problems, Toshiro," she'd told him. "He studies them."

As if the deconstruction of another person's body could be classified as "personal problems." Now, saying that it were a mental issue was a different story.

As much as the woman meant to him, he couldn't help finding that her so-called reasons for trusting Mayuri were riddled to the bone with errors.

# - # - # - #

"I don't like it..."

She always talked to herself aloud when she was alone. It gave her peace, just hearing the sound of her own voice. Made her feel like, maybe, things weren't quite so real as she knew they were. It made the world feel like the simple background of a painting. Pretty enough, but not of any real importance to the subject that sat within that Golden Spiral. It was simply there, just the way she liked it.

Nanao had seen it. A simple thing, the very sort that Retsu had said that she'd like. But that wasn't the strange part. She couldn't fathom the idea of any kind of commitment being made there. After all, it seemed that Mayuri's sole dedication was to the gruesome grunt work that had been labeled as a career. Overlooking that, and the atrocity that was his obsessive personality, maybe something would come of it.

"Nana-chan?"

"Please, go away. I'm not feeling too friendly at the moment."

It had been a mistake to sit outside, even if the air was cool and calming. Having Shunsui show up, as he had been doing these past few days, was starting to wear on her nerves. Yes, the man had made the same mistake as always, but tolerating his philandering wasn't going to cure him. Rather, it would give him the idea that he could play around and come crawling back into her arms. Well, she wasn't going to take it. He would learn his lesson the hard way, and she'd go without his company.

Not exactly a win-win situation, but she'd survived longer than a few days without him.

His arm wrapped around her shoulders, feigning disappointment. "Aw, is my little Nana-chan upset? Worrying about things that she has no control over?" He smiled. "You know, if you're looking to control things..."

"What part of 'go away' do you not understand, Shunsui?" she hissed, shoving him away. "I'm not trying to control things, I'm not pleased with you, and I am not letting you set foot inside my door until you learn how to behave like a man rather than a hormonally-imbalanced teenager!"

She didn't know if Shunsui had decided to listen, or to just ignore her as usual. She'd quit paying attention to him altogether. For now, he was just another source of frustration. With the dread she was feeling, she didn't need something else to fret over.

Something was about to go wrong.