Chapter 4 - The Game is Afoot
Once they were alone, Ryo gave him a savage grin.
"Scale of one to ten, how dead is this guy when we find him?" Rekka asked eagerly. Seiji curled his lip up, baring his teeth in his own nasty smile.
"Twenty-two," he replied in a low, rough tone.
Ryo nodded expectantly. "I figured. Let's go have a chat with Touma," he said, gesturing with a twitch of his head towards Nasuti's office. Seiji nodded, casting a lingering look up the stairs where Minako and Ami had gone before following Ryo.
They passed the newly-finished work out room, where Makoto was engaged in mortal combat with a heavy bag. Ryo flashed her a grin and a wave as they passed, which she acknowledged with a nod, not losing stride.
Rei, Nasuti, Shin, Shuu, and Usagi still lingered around the dining table. They appeared to be engaged in a loud, chaotic game of cards. Rei and Usagi were arguing with each other across the table.
Seiji followed Ryo into the office to see Touma seated at Nasuti's desk, but looking at his own machine. He looked up when they entered, and cast Ryo an inquisitive glance. Rekka nodded at him, and he turned to Seiji.
He threaded his fingers together over his keyboard and rested his chin against the backs of his hands, favoring Seiji with a smug smirk. "About a month ago, Kumiko Takeda "disappeared"," he began without preamble. "At the time, she was the lead in a local community theater production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore – an odd choice for a local, small time theater, especially considering that it's written by the same guys who created The Mikado, but that's not really important," he continued with a lazy shrug. "It's just my opinion. Anyways, Kumiko's father, Ken Takeda, basically funded the entire production – specifically Ruddigore – on the condition that his daughter be strongly considered for the lead role. Strongly. Considered.
"The Production Manager and Director, a Tanaka Kudo, didn't have any problems with that sort of exchange, and so, Ms. Takeda takes female lead." Here, Touma unlaced his fingers, steepling them in front of his lips as he held Ryo and Seiji with his gaze.
"Shit goes downhill from there," he continued. "It's obvious out of the gate that Kumiko Takeda is not an actress, and her obvious….uh…lack of talent begins to upset not only her counterpart, but the entire cast. Kumiko herself doesn't even seem interested or happy in the role she's been granted. But, you know, a deal is a deal, so they go on this way for a couple months.
"Then one day, out of the blue, Kumiko Takeda is gone. Her disappearance drags on for about two weeks before Kudo manages to convince Ken Takeda that they need to select a new lead, and he relents. And that's where Minako comes in.
"The day she agrees to take on the lead role, she finds Ken Takeda stabbed to death in his daughter's former dressing room."
Touma leaned back, crossing his arms and one leg over the other knee.
"So that's a high-level summary that covers what happened at the theater. Now. Onto some of the details I've managed to track down. Here's what we know so far," the blue-haired genius paused, raising his index finger.
"One – On or around the time she disappeared, Kumiko was spotted around town with a tall, slim man – good looking – with white hair. Most of her acquaintances wondered if he was some kind of celebrity.
"Two – According to the sources I tracked down, Kumiko was not interested in taking the lead role at all – that was something her father wanted her to do, because –
"Three – Ken Takeda is none other than the Ken Takeda of Kabuki fame – the guy that got very, very drunk and then brawled with some gang members in that fancy, high-end bar. That guy. His nose is still crooked by the way," Tenku added with a grin, his three fingers poised in the air still.
"Four – Kudo has some debts. The kind of debts that don't show up in your yearly financials – and it's rumored that maybe he took a lot more from Takeda than just enough to cover the production."
Touma crossed his arms again, leaning back in his chair.
"Right now, I'm trying to track down the guy that Takeda's daughter potentially took off with, and man is he difficult to pin down. No one has a name. No one's seen him anywhere else, even though he supposedly looks like he should be a celebrity. And no one has seen he or Kumiko since she disappeared."
He frowned darkly at Seiji and Ryo.
"I'm sure I'm probably not saying something you already don't know, but I don't like this," he added. Seiji nodded, feeling anxiety twist inside of him.
"I'm not sure what happened initially today, but when I got there, her office was wrecked and someone or something was on top of her. I had my sword to his neck but he managed to pull some kind of portal out of his ass and literally disappeared into the wall behind him," he growled. "He wore a dark cloak with a deep hood, and spoke in a distorted voice. And he had red, glowing eyes."
Touma sighed heavily.
"I was really, really hoping this would be a normal problem," he muttered under his breath, leaning forward, fingers clicking furiously against his computer keys. "Why can't it ever just be a normal problem?"
"What're you looking for?" Ryo wondered, bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking like he was ready to fly out a window and start questioning everyone in the city.
"I'm just trying to get some information about the theater, its history, blah blah. Info on all the cast, building owners, the works. Basically, I'm trying to get All The Data," Tenku replied absently.
Ryo huffed out an impatient breath and gave Seiji an exasperated look as Touma's eyes glazed over and his focus shifted entirely to whatever he was doing on the computer.
"Annnndddd we've lost him," Rekka muttered. Seiji chuckled, gesturing Ryo out of the office.
"That's ok. He'll come back to us. And probably even smarter than before," he said good-naturedly. Ryo nodded, stretching as they left the office, shutting the door behind them. They wandered into the kitchen just as Shuu was pulling half a leftover cake from the fridge.
"Does Touma know you're eating that?" Shin wondered around the spoon in his mouth. Suiko dropped the flatware into the sink, taking a sip of what Seiji guessed by appearance was hot cocoa. Shuu scowled at Shin.
"He doesn't own every dessert," Kongo grumbled. "Besides, as her best customer, why shouldn't I help myself?"
Ryo rolled his eyes. "Shuu, buying her out of cakes every day doesn't make you her best customer. Don't you ever get tired of eating sugar?" Rekka pulled a chair out from the table, seating himself across from Shin as he draped an arm over the chair back and turned to observe Shuu setting the cake on the table and getting plates and utensils.
"First of all, of course not, what kind of question is that?" Shuu began, his tone implying Ryo was crazy for even asking. He cut himself a large slice and plopped it on a plate. At least he wasn't eating directly from the platter, Seiji thought. "Second of all, I'm not just buying her out of cakes and shoving them into my face. She now supplies dessert for like five of my families' restaurants. We'd do more but she can't make more than that," he muttered defensively.
Wow. When in the hell did Makoto have time to get all that baking done?
"Has she hired help?" Shin asked, sounding concerned. Shuu nodded, sitting down eagerly and tucking into his dessert.
"Usagi splits her time now between my place and Mako-chan's, but she also has a full-time employee that runs the front and another part-timer. Not sure about the back though. Touma says she's….not really big on working with people in the kitchen," Kongo said around bites. Shin put a hand to his chin thoughtfully.
"I'm sure I could lend a hand with some of the early morning prep," he murmured. "Make things easier on her. I know we work well together in the kitchen – or at least, she's never thrown me out," he said with a good-natured smile. Shuu shrugged elaborately, already finishing off the massive slice of cake he'd carved for himself.
"Doesn't hurt to ask," he said reasonably.
"And in the meantime, I'm just going to run the rest of this to Touma," Shin said, snatching up the cake platter with the remaining cake and grinning. "He's a beast to deal with whenever you sneak leftovers from him."
Seiji nodded.
"Besides, he's working hard in there. He probably needs the calories," he added as Shin dug up a fork and poured a glass of milk, balancing them all on the cake platter and making for the office.
"If he gets chocolate and milk on her desk, Nasuti's going to kill him," Ryo said with a chuckle.
"You're assuming he won't suck up every crumb," Seiji snorted.
Ami appeared then, yawning and stretching as she entered the kitchen. It was hard to miss Ryo's entire face lighting up at the sight of her.
Seiji didn't know how they'd managed to get here, but he was glad they had.
Ami prepared a pot for tea and then filled it from the electric kettle. She seated herself beside Ryo, setting a tray with a pot and mug on the table and began nibbling on some senbe she'd brought over. Seiji helped himself when she gestured at him with the bowl, nodding gratefully.
"How's Mina-chan?" he asked quietly.
"She'll be all right. A few minor injuries, but everything seems fine. In fact, she's already engaged Usagi in some sort of racing game in the other room," Ami said, smiling at him. Rei was next into the kitchen. She grabbed a mug and sat across from Ami, the two of them waiting for the tea to steep. Shin arrived back from the office and took a seat beside Rei as Ami was pouring for the two of them.
Rei seemed to gather herself for a moment, and instead of getting up to sit with Minako, Seiji paused, watching her intently. She stared down at the tabletop and said, apropos to nothing, "I've been having visions about Minako."
Seiji felt his insides seize up.
"What kind of visions?" he asked sharply. Rei cast him an apologetic glance.
"They seem to show that she's in danger, but I can't really get how or why. There's just a tall pale man, and a feeling of darkness. I've warned her to be careful, but I thought it was better if we all were aware," she said quietly. A thick silence hung in the air after her announcement.
"It's been what? A month? A month of peace and quiet?" Shuu growled in a low voice after a moment.
Ami nodded, staring absently at her tea. She smiled up at Shuu.
"Honestly, this is sort of normal for us. There's always something. We always deal with it. We'll make sure Minako is safe, figure this out, and then move on," she said with a shrug. Ryo frowned.
"What if it goes beyond Minako?" he said, staring at Ami. Rei shook her head.
"It doesn't," she replied placidly. "It's just her. It's almost like she's got….unfinished business or something. It's the only way I can think of to describe it. It's connected to her."
Seiji couldn't help but clench his fists in his lap under the table while he tried to keep a placid expression on his face. He couldn't keep calm about this. Whoever this was, they were powerful – a formidable enemy, and they'd targeted her while she was alone in her office, which meant they might know a good deal about her. The theater most probably was part of all this, and that was just too many targets over Minako for his comfort.
He might be giving his new under-instructor much more lee-way than he intended.
He certainly hoped Fujimiya was up to the task.