The young policeman paced anxiously around the courtyard of the Takani
clinic awaiting the arrival of his superior officer.
He had realized, after the fact, that he had made a mistake by allowing his aunt to remain on the scene and by allowing folks to follow him in.
On the other hand, he had no idea that when they had come in the open gate that they had walked into a possible crime scene. Anyways, he had rectified the situation later by chasing everyone out and making sure to keep them outside. Only his aunt stayed, trying to keep Meg-chan quiet and entertained for the time being.
The little girl after not finding her aunt had cried herself into an exhausted sleep.
"Officer Hatari," Sergeant Kirosawa slipped in through the gate door. After quickly assessing the situation walked immediately over to the side of the clinic. "What do you have to report?"
"Sergeant - the missing person is a Doctor Megumi Takani, the current owner of this property and recently returned from America. Her niece is inside with my aunt, who was the last person other than the niece to see the doctor. Doctor Takani is due to travel and then upon her return move with her niece to a new location."
"I know, I know," the sergeant answered irritably. "Takani-san is my wife's doctor, for goodness sake. I meant - what is your assessment of the situation?"
"Sir! My apologies!" Hatari winced. "The niece saw nothing. She reported playing a game of 'hide and seek' and then fell asleep in one of the trunks. She did not mention anything unusual in terms of noise or people being around. There is no apparent sign of forced entry either, although the gate was unlocked when I arrived with my aunt this morning. The shawl and jar were already on the ground."
"And?"
"No clear sign of a struggle. The ground is muddy and there are tracks in that area, but the tracks could have been tracked in at any time."
"Yes," the Sergeant rubbed his neck. "And all these other tracks from these neighbors certainly don't help, officer. Next time you better identify suspicious things more quickly and keep people away. Have you searched the inside of the house?"
"No sir."
"Alright, we'll do that next. But before we do, what theories do you have and what are we looking for?"
"Various theories include the possibility that the doctor had wandered off early this morning for a visit. However, that theory is not consistent with her behavior. The doctor, with her niece here, would have called one of the neighbors. Two, the doctor would not have left this mess before leaving. Three, the doctor likely would have been seen leaving the clinic. Four, the doctor would have returned by now. Therefore, this theory while possible is fairly weak."
"Next theory then."
"The second theory is that the doctor has simply abandoned her clinic and niece on a whim. Plausible, but again, uncertain. "
"Fine, we'll consider that possibility. What else?"
"Possible abduction. Again plausible, although the evidence is circumstantial. No sign of forced entry and no sign of a struggle."
Sergeant Kirosawa nodded. "Alright, let's go in to the house and talk to the niece and look for anything which might support one of your theories."
As they took off their shoes to enter the small house, Hatari coughed slightly. "Sergeant, I would request that you interview the girl."
The sergeant studied him for a moment before shaking his head. "She refused to talk to you didn't she?"
"Yes sir."
"Alright then." Kirosawa pointed in the direction of what appeared to be a makeshift study room. "Start there, officer." Hatari complied and dutifully began looking at various papers in order to determine what sort of correspondence and transactions the doctor may have been involved with. Perhaps it would reveal something of a clue.
Kirosawa straightened his cap before heading to the kitchen where the elderly neighbor sat on a stool with the little girl on her lap. "Meg- chan," the woman shook her gently to wake her up. "Sergeant Kirosawa is here."
The girl opened one eye suspiciously but as she recognized the man from the clinic opened the other.
"Meg-chan," the sergeant sat down on a low stool, "How are you today?"
"Fine," the little girl answered dutifully, despite the obvious dried streaks on her face which signified that she had cried quite a bit already.
A slight noise caused Sergeant Kirosawa to look back behind him. Hatari had returned from the study. He shook his head slightly to indicate that nothing of note was to be found in the study.
The sergeant acknowledged Hatari's presence but turned back to the little girl. "I wanted to ask you how your day was yesterday too. I haven't seen you since my wife and I came two days ago. Is there anything new?"
"My birthday is coming," the girl looked pleased. "I'm getting presents. They're hiding."
"Really?" The sergeant wasn't sure this was going anywhere. "Do you know where?"
"The trunk."
Kirosawa's eyes shifted back in the direction of Officer Hatari and he again nodded. Hatari quietly withdrew to look in the trunks.
"And what else?"
"I'm going to play horsie."
Kirosawa drew upon years of parenthood to consider this odd remark. He assumed a serious pose. "Horsie is a fun game isn't it?"
She matched his serious look and nodded. "Aoshi-sama is fun."
He paused for a moment. Did children usually name their pretend horses? "Aoshi-sama is the name of your horse?"
"Silly!" She was smiling. It dawned on him then that she was referring to a person. He immediately began racking his memory for any one in town by that name. He looked at the old auntie for a hint. She frowned also and shook her head, signifying that the name "Aoshi" was unfamiliar to her.
"Where is Auntie?" Meg-chan suddenly blinked. "Auntie knows where my present is."
Sergeant Kirosawa bit his lip.
The kindly old woman suddenly spoke up. "Hide and seek, Meg-chan. Your auntie is hiding really well and the Sergeant is trying to find her."
"Ohhhh," Meg-chan looked at him with renewed interest. "Auntie is good."
"Ahh," the Sergeant nodded, not certain of what else to say. Explaining bad news was something that despite all his years of experience he never felt really equipped to deal with. But to a child - well, it seemed to him to be more cruel to say something now when nothing was really known at the moment.
To his relief, Officer Hatari appeared again in the doorway, "Sergeant, if I may have a moment?"
Kirosawa stood awkwardly and then excused himself. He followed Hatari back to hallway. "Have you found something?"
"I found a few letters and papers in the trunks, sir. Mostly from those I assume she was acquainted with. I'll make a list of these persons and try to follow up with them."
"Yes, yes," the Sergeant sighed. "But ordinary letters are not of that much interest. Any letters from jealous lovers, crazed patients, or anything of that sort?"
"I don't think so, sir. But - " Hatari hesitated, turning slightly red. "I found an unfinished letter in the trunk addressed to an Aoshi Shinomori -"
"So we've found our 'Aoshi-sama,' have we now?" The sergeant raised an eyebrow at the officer's red face. "Don't tell me you already read it?"
"Errr." The policeman shuffled a bit in his spot, telling the Sergeant that the man in fact had.
"Well, don't look so embarrassed about it now. It is bad manners to read a woman's letters in the first place, but if you're going to do it as part of your job, you shouldn't stand around with an idiotic look when I ask you a question. So is it a standard love letter?"
"Lo-ove letter?" Hatari looked extremely uncomfortable. "I'm not sure."
Kirosawa made a clicking sound with his tongue to signal his disapproval. "Young men never seem to know much of anything about love letters do they? Bet you have never even written one or received one before."
When the young man nodded somewhat shamefully, his superior officer rolled his eyes. "Hand it over and observe"
As the sergeant took it, he turned the envelope over in his hands. "Good paper. But nothing unusual about it." He gave the officer a pointed look, "No perfume, no pressed flowers, no special embossing -- nothing in here to suggest anything other than this is an ordinary letter." He pointed to the outside of the envelope. "At least you did observe that the letter is addressed to one Aoshi Shinomori. You failed to mention that it was to be sent to "The Aoiya" in Kyoto and tell me whether it was familiar to you."
The young man nodded miserably.
"Does it sound familiar to you?"
The younger man shook his head no and dutifully wrote down the name and address.
"Fine. Note that the letter is fully addressed but not sealed. Perhaps it wasn't ready to go, or the writer changed his or her mind about sending it."
Kirosawa then lifted the flap of the envelope and carefully withdrew the letter that was inside.
He opened up the folded sheet of paper and glanced at it. "Clearly this is from a woman's hand. As the writer refers to Meg-chan, we can safely assume that it is from the doctor's own hand. She mentions coming to Kyoto with Meg-chan shortly. It appears as if they're expected. Next week in fact. Note that please."
He continued to skim down the letter. "She mentions some other names in Tokyo . . . including a Gensai-sensei." He paused for a moment as he considered this, "My wife mentioned that the doctor trained in Tokyo for a while. And I believe this Gensai is her mentor who was her contact when she left for America. Make a note to contact him and tell him about the situation. "
"Sir," the officer had been furiously writing scribbling notes. "What about Shinomori? Should I contact him sir?"
Kirosawa frowned again. Normally he'd answer yes without too much hesitation, but there was something vaguely troubling about this name. He, like many others in this town, was a relative newcomer to the Aizu province. As a result, he didn't know too much about his jurisdiction's residents other than what he was able to find out. But this name was one that he recalled from somewhere. And it occurred to him that it might be for entirely bad reasons. "Don't do that quite yet. This letter was not sent for some reason. Perhaps the writer had changed her mind. Send an inquiry up to headquarters with a request for more information about a possible abduction. Tell them that we found a letter addressed to a person and wanted to investigate his connection to the doctor. If it checks out okay, then by all means, go ahead and send a message."
"Yes sir."
"You're excused, Officer Hatari. Good work. I will continue to look around for more evidence."
Officer Hatari paused in the doorway that led out to the courtyard, clearly wanting to say something.
Sergeant Kirosawa crossed his arms over his chest, "Spit it out, officer."
"What about the little girl?" The sergeant wryly noted that Hatari had forgotten the 'sir' after his question, but Kirosawa forgave him that slip. "She doesn't have any other family."
"For the time being, may I ask you and your aunt to tend to the girl? She seems to trust your aunt and until we straighten out a few things, we're not going to be able to do much. I'll talk to my wife. Perhaps she knows more about the doctor's family."
"Yes, sir," the young man answered somewhat gloomily. "But what should we do when Meg-chan asks for her aunt? The poor thing has already lost her own father. What if-"
"Officer!" Kirosawa's sharp tone caused the officer to straighten up. It was not that he did not feel it appropriate to be sympathetic to the girl, but he did not care to draw the worst possible conclusion at the moment. "Our standing here dawdling is not going to do one damn thing for the little girl, officer. Do what I say and quickly. Send in the request to headquarters. Time is wasting. We'll draw our conclusions later."
~~
Amber eyes narrowed as the Inspector looked at the envelope the recruit held out to him. Normally he would not have been approached with such a mundane task as answering inquiries from the local bureaus, but these days they were short staffed and officers were constantly being deployed.
Requests for information were usually directed towards native officers or officers assigned to intelligence. Normally, a request for information on a Kyoto matter would have gone perhaps to Cho Sawagejo, the ad hoc expert on Kyoto. However, that broomhead was currently out on an assignment for him - one that involved babysitting the other former Juppongatana member who had suddenly reemerged from his wandering earlier this year. The Inspector recruited Soujiro Seta to lend strength to his former Juppongatana comrade in order to tackle some troublesome upstarts. In truth, he was also using the opportunity to keep close tabs on the young swordmaster.
And so, the recruit who had retrieved the message had been sent to find him instead. Fujita Goro made sure to give the recruit a particularly dirty look for tracking him outside and harassing him in the middle of a long smoke.
He allowed the recruit to squirm for a few seconds. "Well?"
The recruit had apologized profusely and stated his business. "Inspector, incoming report from Aizu bureau requesting information sir on possible abduction."
"Abduction? Is this someone important enough to bother headquarters? Or is this another case where some nobleman has carried off some poor prey without paying the family dowry?"
The recruit simply looked bewildered. The inspector smirked. Sarcasm was wasted on most of these young policemen. He took a long drag on his cigarette before he accepted the contents of the envelope and scanned it. When he had finished, he gave the recruit a strange smile. "I'll handle this one myself."
The recruit's eyes widened. It was well known that Inspector Fujita Goro never really dealt with ordinary things like reports. But if the man was in a good mood, he wouldn't dare argue. He bowed and quickly scooted away.
The officer refolded the letter and placed it in his pocket as he considered its contents.
So the doctor had disappeared yet again.
And although he had no personal feeling towards her, it would be unfortunate if the local folks were correct regarding the fate of Megumi Takani.
There weren't many women whose presence he cared to really acknowledge. However, this particular woman's intelligence and flashes of defiance he did admit worth saving at least once. Oddly enough, he had saved her life from Aoshi Shinomori, the man whose name also appeared in the same report, They had not had any contact in over a year - not since the last long-term undercover assignment he had taken.
The police in Aizu were right to make inquiries, but the idea that this man was behind or linked to her disappearance was ridiculous and completely muddled. He supposed he could tell them something of the true history between the two, but he doubt they would be able to understand anything beyond the fact that Aoshi Shinomori at one point was the former captor of Megumi Takani. Never mind that there was more to each of their lives after that point. He knew the Kyoto police would have simply tried to detain the Oniwaban ninja for questioning and probably brought disaster upon themselves.
Given the present set of circumstances, he decided to interfere openly. He'd send out several messages now.
The first would be to the field office in Aizu advising them to pursue other leads. Aoshi Shinomori was simply a man who had retired after the wars in order to become an innkeeper and businessman in Kyoto. He and the doctor were on friendly terms.
The second message would be to his broomhead assistant, who would go canvass the situation in Aizu for him as well as tend to a certain detail which was left unresolved in the report.
And the last message would be to that troublesome innkeeper himself informing him of this rather strange set of circumstances and to tread lightly.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
A/N: Oh my. Sano's friends crawling out of the woodwork, some demanding more Sano moments and bemoaning the Aoshi moments. Well. Aoshi fans are very diligent you know. Anyways, I admire how some of you are making up for it so energetically reviewing. Umm. That said, I doubt there will be WAFF moments for awhile. But there are a few more cameos coming.
As I have no idea when I'll be next run over by the muse, please remember to turn the alert on. Sank you! Sank you! Sank you!
He had realized, after the fact, that he had made a mistake by allowing his aunt to remain on the scene and by allowing folks to follow him in.
On the other hand, he had no idea that when they had come in the open gate that they had walked into a possible crime scene. Anyways, he had rectified the situation later by chasing everyone out and making sure to keep them outside. Only his aunt stayed, trying to keep Meg-chan quiet and entertained for the time being.
The little girl after not finding her aunt had cried herself into an exhausted sleep.
"Officer Hatari," Sergeant Kirosawa slipped in through the gate door. After quickly assessing the situation walked immediately over to the side of the clinic. "What do you have to report?"
"Sergeant - the missing person is a Doctor Megumi Takani, the current owner of this property and recently returned from America. Her niece is inside with my aunt, who was the last person other than the niece to see the doctor. Doctor Takani is due to travel and then upon her return move with her niece to a new location."
"I know, I know," the sergeant answered irritably. "Takani-san is my wife's doctor, for goodness sake. I meant - what is your assessment of the situation?"
"Sir! My apologies!" Hatari winced. "The niece saw nothing. She reported playing a game of 'hide and seek' and then fell asleep in one of the trunks. She did not mention anything unusual in terms of noise or people being around. There is no apparent sign of forced entry either, although the gate was unlocked when I arrived with my aunt this morning. The shawl and jar were already on the ground."
"And?"
"No clear sign of a struggle. The ground is muddy and there are tracks in that area, but the tracks could have been tracked in at any time."
"Yes," the Sergeant rubbed his neck. "And all these other tracks from these neighbors certainly don't help, officer. Next time you better identify suspicious things more quickly and keep people away. Have you searched the inside of the house?"
"No sir."
"Alright, we'll do that next. But before we do, what theories do you have and what are we looking for?"
"Various theories include the possibility that the doctor had wandered off early this morning for a visit. However, that theory is not consistent with her behavior. The doctor, with her niece here, would have called one of the neighbors. Two, the doctor would not have left this mess before leaving. Three, the doctor likely would have been seen leaving the clinic. Four, the doctor would have returned by now. Therefore, this theory while possible is fairly weak."
"Next theory then."
"The second theory is that the doctor has simply abandoned her clinic and niece on a whim. Plausible, but again, uncertain. "
"Fine, we'll consider that possibility. What else?"
"Possible abduction. Again plausible, although the evidence is circumstantial. No sign of forced entry and no sign of a struggle."
Sergeant Kirosawa nodded. "Alright, let's go in to the house and talk to the niece and look for anything which might support one of your theories."
As they took off their shoes to enter the small house, Hatari coughed slightly. "Sergeant, I would request that you interview the girl."
The sergeant studied him for a moment before shaking his head. "She refused to talk to you didn't she?"
"Yes sir."
"Alright then." Kirosawa pointed in the direction of what appeared to be a makeshift study room. "Start there, officer." Hatari complied and dutifully began looking at various papers in order to determine what sort of correspondence and transactions the doctor may have been involved with. Perhaps it would reveal something of a clue.
Kirosawa straightened his cap before heading to the kitchen where the elderly neighbor sat on a stool with the little girl on her lap. "Meg- chan," the woman shook her gently to wake her up. "Sergeant Kirosawa is here."
The girl opened one eye suspiciously but as she recognized the man from the clinic opened the other.
"Meg-chan," the sergeant sat down on a low stool, "How are you today?"
"Fine," the little girl answered dutifully, despite the obvious dried streaks on her face which signified that she had cried quite a bit already.
A slight noise caused Sergeant Kirosawa to look back behind him. Hatari had returned from the study. He shook his head slightly to indicate that nothing of note was to be found in the study.
The sergeant acknowledged Hatari's presence but turned back to the little girl. "I wanted to ask you how your day was yesterday too. I haven't seen you since my wife and I came two days ago. Is there anything new?"
"My birthday is coming," the girl looked pleased. "I'm getting presents. They're hiding."
"Really?" The sergeant wasn't sure this was going anywhere. "Do you know where?"
"The trunk."
Kirosawa's eyes shifted back in the direction of Officer Hatari and he again nodded. Hatari quietly withdrew to look in the trunks.
"And what else?"
"I'm going to play horsie."
Kirosawa drew upon years of parenthood to consider this odd remark. He assumed a serious pose. "Horsie is a fun game isn't it?"
She matched his serious look and nodded. "Aoshi-sama is fun."
He paused for a moment. Did children usually name their pretend horses? "Aoshi-sama is the name of your horse?"
"Silly!" She was smiling. It dawned on him then that she was referring to a person. He immediately began racking his memory for any one in town by that name. He looked at the old auntie for a hint. She frowned also and shook her head, signifying that the name "Aoshi" was unfamiliar to her.
"Where is Auntie?" Meg-chan suddenly blinked. "Auntie knows where my present is."
Sergeant Kirosawa bit his lip.
The kindly old woman suddenly spoke up. "Hide and seek, Meg-chan. Your auntie is hiding really well and the Sergeant is trying to find her."
"Ohhhh," Meg-chan looked at him with renewed interest. "Auntie is good."
"Ahh," the Sergeant nodded, not certain of what else to say. Explaining bad news was something that despite all his years of experience he never felt really equipped to deal with. But to a child - well, it seemed to him to be more cruel to say something now when nothing was really known at the moment.
To his relief, Officer Hatari appeared again in the doorway, "Sergeant, if I may have a moment?"
Kirosawa stood awkwardly and then excused himself. He followed Hatari back to hallway. "Have you found something?"
"I found a few letters and papers in the trunks, sir. Mostly from those I assume she was acquainted with. I'll make a list of these persons and try to follow up with them."
"Yes, yes," the Sergeant sighed. "But ordinary letters are not of that much interest. Any letters from jealous lovers, crazed patients, or anything of that sort?"
"I don't think so, sir. But - " Hatari hesitated, turning slightly red. "I found an unfinished letter in the trunk addressed to an Aoshi Shinomori -"
"So we've found our 'Aoshi-sama,' have we now?" The sergeant raised an eyebrow at the officer's red face. "Don't tell me you already read it?"
"Errr." The policeman shuffled a bit in his spot, telling the Sergeant that the man in fact had.
"Well, don't look so embarrassed about it now. It is bad manners to read a woman's letters in the first place, but if you're going to do it as part of your job, you shouldn't stand around with an idiotic look when I ask you a question. So is it a standard love letter?"
"Lo-ove letter?" Hatari looked extremely uncomfortable. "I'm not sure."
Kirosawa made a clicking sound with his tongue to signal his disapproval. "Young men never seem to know much of anything about love letters do they? Bet you have never even written one or received one before."
When the young man nodded somewhat shamefully, his superior officer rolled his eyes. "Hand it over and observe"
As the sergeant took it, he turned the envelope over in his hands. "Good paper. But nothing unusual about it." He gave the officer a pointed look, "No perfume, no pressed flowers, no special embossing -- nothing in here to suggest anything other than this is an ordinary letter." He pointed to the outside of the envelope. "At least you did observe that the letter is addressed to one Aoshi Shinomori. You failed to mention that it was to be sent to "The Aoiya" in Kyoto and tell me whether it was familiar to you."
The young man nodded miserably.
"Does it sound familiar to you?"
The younger man shook his head no and dutifully wrote down the name and address.
"Fine. Note that the letter is fully addressed but not sealed. Perhaps it wasn't ready to go, or the writer changed his or her mind about sending it."
Kirosawa then lifted the flap of the envelope and carefully withdrew the letter that was inside.
He opened up the folded sheet of paper and glanced at it. "Clearly this is from a woman's hand. As the writer refers to Meg-chan, we can safely assume that it is from the doctor's own hand. She mentions coming to Kyoto with Meg-chan shortly. It appears as if they're expected. Next week in fact. Note that please."
He continued to skim down the letter. "She mentions some other names in Tokyo . . . including a Gensai-sensei." He paused for a moment as he considered this, "My wife mentioned that the doctor trained in Tokyo for a while. And I believe this Gensai is her mentor who was her contact when she left for America. Make a note to contact him and tell him about the situation. "
"Sir," the officer had been furiously writing scribbling notes. "What about Shinomori? Should I contact him sir?"
Kirosawa frowned again. Normally he'd answer yes without too much hesitation, but there was something vaguely troubling about this name. He, like many others in this town, was a relative newcomer to the Aizu province. As a result, he didn't know too much about his jurisdiction's residents other than what he was able to find out. But this name was one that he recalled from somewhere. And it occurred to him that it might be for entirely bad reasons. "Don't do that quite yet. This letter was not sent for some reason. Perhaps the writer had changed her mind. Send an inquiry up to headquarters with a request for more information about a possible abduction. Tell them that we found a letter addressed to a person and wanted to investigate his connection to the doctor. If it checks out okay, then by all means, go ahead and send a message."
"Yes sir."
"You're excused, Officer Hatari. Good work. I will continue to look around for more evidence."
Officer Hatari paused in the doorway that led out to the courtyard, clearly wanting to say something.
Sergeant Kirosawa crossed his arms over his chest, "Spit it out, officer."
"What about the little girl?" The sergeant wryly noted that Hatari had forgotten the 'sir' after his question, but Kirosawa forgave him that slip. "She doesn't have any other family."
"For the time being, may I ask you and your aunt to tend to the girl? She seems to trust your aunt and until we straighten out a few things, we're not going to be able to do much. I'll talk to my wife. Perhaps she knows more about the doctor's family."
"Yes, sir," the young man answered somewhat gloomily. "But what should we do when Meg-chan asks for her aunt? The poor thing has already lost her own father. What if-"
"Officer!" Kirosawa's sharp tone caused the officer to straighten up. It was not that he did not feel it appropriate to be sympathetic to the girl, but he did not care to draw the worst possible conclusion at the moment. "Our standing here dawdling is not going to do one damn thing for the little girl, officer. Do what I say and quickly. Send in the request to headquarters. Time is wasting. We'll draw our conclusions later."
~~
Amber eyes narrowed as the Inspector looked at the envelope the recruit held out to him. Normally he would not have been approached with such a mundane task as answering inquiries from the local bureaus, but these days they were short staffed and officers were constantly being deployed.
Requests for information were usually directed towards native officers or officers assigned to intelligence. Normally, a request for information on a Kyoto matter would have gone perhaps to Cho Sawagejo, the ad hoc expert on Kyoto. However, that broomhead was currently out on an assignment for him - one that involved babysitting the other former Juppongatana member who had suddenly reemerged from his wandering earlier this year. The Inspector recruited Soujiro Seta to lend strength to his former Juppongatana comrade in order to tackle some troublesome upstarts. In truth, he was also using the opportunity to keep close tabs on the young swordmaster.
And so, the recruit who had retrieved the message had been sent to find him instead. Fujita Goro made sure to give the recruit a particularly dirty look for tracking him outside and harassing him in the middle of a long smoke.
He allowed the recruit to squirm for a few seconds. "Well?"
The recruit had apologized profusely and stated his business. "Inspector, incoming report from Aizu bureau requesting information sir on possible abduction."
"Abduction? Is this someone important enough to bother headquarters? Or is this another case where some nobleman has carried off some poor prey without paying the family dowry?"
The recruit simply looked bewildered. The inspector smirked. Sarcasm was wasted on most of these young policemen. He took a long drag on his cigarette before he accepted the contents of the envelope and scanned it. When he had finished, he gave the recruit a strange smile. "I'll handle this one myself."
The recruit's eyes widened. It was well known that Inspector Fujita Goro never really dealt with ordinary things like reports. But if the man was in a good mood, he wouldn't dare argue. He bowed and quickly scooted away.
The officer refolded the letter and placed it in his pocket as he considered its contents.
So the doctor had disappeared yet again.
And although he had no personal feeling towards her, it would be unfortunate if the local folks were correct regarding the fate of Megumi Takani.
There weren't many women whose presence he cared to really acknowledge. However, this particular woman's intelligence and flashes of defiance he did admit worth saving at least once. Oddly enough, he had saved her life from Aoshi Shinomori, the man whose name also appeared in the same report, They had not had any contact in over a year - not since the last long-term undercover assignment he had taken.
The police in Aizu were right to make inquiries, but the idea that this man was behind or linked to her disappearance was ridiculous and completely muddled. He supposed he could tell them something of the true history between the two, but he doubt they would be able to understand anything beyond the fact that Aoshi Shinomori at one point was the former captor of Megumi Takani. Never mind that there was more to each of their lives after that point. He knew the Kyoto police would have simply tried to detain the Oniwaban ninja for questioning and probably brought disaster upon themselves.
Given the present set of circumstances, he decided to interfere openly. He'd send out several messages now.
The first would be to the field office in Aizu advising them to pursue other leads. Aoshi Shinomori was simply a man who had retired after the wars in order to become an innkeeper and businessman in Kyoto. He and the doctor were on friendly terms.
The second message would be to his broomhead assistant, who would go canvass the situation in Aizu for him as well as tend to a certain detail which was left unresolved in the report.
And the last message would be to that troublesome innkeeper himself informing him of this rather strange set of circumstances and to tread lightly.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
A/N: Oh my. Sano's friends crawling out of the woodwork, some demanding more Sano moments and bemoaning the Aoshi moments. Well. Aoshi fans are very diligent you know. Anyways, I admire how some of you are making up for it so energetically reviewing. Umm. That said, I doubt there will be WAFF moments for awhile. But there are a few more cameos coming.
As I have no idea when I'll be next run over by the muse, please remember to turn the alert on. Sank you! Sank you! Sank you!
