1 o'clock by: transcendent.
A.N.:Sorry about the grammar and spelling errors once more. My editor and I haven't been seeing much of each other lately ;__; I could have sent this through email to her...but I guess I'm just a lazy ass. This is nine pages long, so be happy. It's past midnight at the moment..so....I'm tired.
Dedication: SilverCaladan - I MISS YOU!
ALL STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY. READ CAUTIOUSLY IF YOU ARE UNDER 13 YEARS OF AGE.
Chapter Four: Martyr He walked with confident steps through the snow deep in the temple. The rocks were black underneath the stars and he could see his breath clashing with the dark sky. Aino Kin knew he wasn't a mere man with handsome features; he was magical. He was like a God trapped inside a human's incapable body.He knew no fear, and he knew no true happiness. The only times he had been happy was when he saw his daughter in pain. He loved watching her beautiful features melt into depression as she saw the girls he killed.
Beneath his burrowed blonde brows he scanned the area, the unconscious blonde haired girl in his arms. All he had done was spilled a Rohypnol pill into her drink. After that she was easily conquered. He had always loved the concept of the 'Date Rape drug'.
Kin had slipped past the bouncers with the simple excuse of her being drunk; it wasn't a long shot. She did have the symptoms of a drunken girl, being dizzy and disoriented. But she wasn't drunk; she hadn't even had any alcohol.
He finally stopped in front of a large oak tree standing in the middle of a small clearing. He had seen his daughter sit in this very spot and cry. About what he did not know, but this spot meant something to her.
That's why he wanted to destroy it. This place would bring up bad memories, not those she cherished so dearly.
Kin set the blonde on the ground, propping her up against the tree. Her head slowly rolled forward, and hung down. She was truly beautiful and innocent. But those damn blue eyes reminded him of Minako too much, that's why she had to die.
However, this girl was also a friend of his beloved daughter. A close friend, actually. Kin grinned to himself, his eyes clearly narrowing and his lips widened to form the sinister smile.
Once he set her down he squatted and removed her coat, skirt, socks, shoes, shirt, and anything else that got in the way. This time Kin wasn't going to rape the girl; he couldn't do it without leaving traces of evidence inside her.
After Kin folded her clothes and placed them aside, he took the small dagger from his belt and slowly cut into her abdomen and chest, creating letters and soon words. He was doing this one differently. He wanted Minako to be scared. Kin wanted her to live in fright for not obeying him.
He lifted up her face in his gloved hands and cut into her slowly paling cheeks. On half of her face Kin created a sad mask, carving a teardrop under her right eye and cutting to make her mouth look dropping downwards into a frown. On the other side, he made her lip curve upward and made lines on her cheeks, forehead and temple; he was making her left eye almost like the sun with lines showing the direction of the light illuminates from the glowing sphere.
Kin moved down to her arms, making a straight line that went from the top of her shoulder down to her wrist before making lines over her fingers. He repeated this to the other arm but dug deeper into her silky flesh. He made small circles, squares, and triangles all down her legs to finish off his masterpiece. But Kin was not completely done. He took the knife to the girl's throat, cutting smoothly across her flesh; he had to make sure she did not survive.
He stripped off his bloodied gloves and stuffed them roughly into the knapsack he had thoughtfully brought along, he did the same with her clothes. He was happy he was finished, but he knew it wouldn't be his last time he killed until he finally got to his own wonderful daughter.
He eradicated his footprints in the soft new snow. He had planned this well. He searched in the snow, digging like a dog trying to find his bone. He knew it was there, the emergency door into the subway. He brushed aside more snow until he found the folded aluminum foil he had cleverly placed between the door and the frame. He gripped the ring that was the handle and opened the lid in the ground.
Below were the dark bowels of the subway and the screaming of a train. He dropped the knapsack inside; his boots rang on the metal ladder as he climbed down. Her father had found out about Usagi. He had taken Usagi's life away like he would have taken hers. This was her punishment. And God, it was the worst she had ever received.
The sudden feelings of remorse, of guild, sadness, hatred, love and care for her dear friend, and revenge had come to her abruptly. These feelings just rushed into her without a care to any defenses that could have existed. She was used to masking it and smiling through the pain, or crying silently in her room. Never had this aching existed; this stinging need to break down suddenly.
She wanted to scream loudly, shrilly, and painfully. She wanted to feel her throat disintegrate with the vibrations of her vocal cords. She wanted to find someone to kill, to push her fists into their heart and tear through the organ.
So why was she just standing there, looking down at her dead friend as if nothing was there?
Minako put her arms around herself to try to control the tremors running through her body. The sting of oncoming tears appeared suddenly and her nose automatically plugged up; the sniffling was impossible to stop.
It was this reaction that made the man next to her give her a look of sympathy.
"You've seen millions of dead bodies before; don't tell me it's finally getting to you."
He knew nothing. "It'll never get to me."
"Aino, where do you want me to put her body?" It was one of the workers in Minako's division.
"Let me take a look at her…then you can take her to the morgue so I can look at her more closely."
"Yes ma'am."
Minako chose to ignore the taller man staring intently down at her with his hands in his pockets. His detective badge on his chest was glaring at her in all its golden glory.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see the anger in his beautiful green eyes. Trowa Barton hated the ferocious killer codenamed 'Yokio'. When he had walked up to her after paging her, she had recognized anger in his bearing and impatience in his stride. Even the power that he carried had become more loudly noticed than before.
"His games are escalating," he said quietly, staring at the body leaned up against the tree. "…Damn malignant genius."
"What kind of shape is she in?" Minako asked, being oblivious to his whisper.
"Frozen," he answered her.
"She could have been out here for days…" Minako mused. "But then someone would have found her sooner than now."
He shrugged, "Winter."
The photographers had stepped away from the body momentarily, leaving the body free to examine. Trowa stepped closer to Minako, their arms touching as if they needed each other for warmth; they had grown close over the years.
The two did not speak as they stepped forward to confront the gruesome view of the girl. The only thing Minako could focus on as her eyes stung once again was the two odangos she used to tease.
"God…" she muttered in a small sigh.
Minako once again felt her emotions reach a stage she couldn't control. She hadn't cried in years and she hadn't cried in front of anyone since she was ten.
"Who found the body?" Minako asked, sniffing once to hold back her tears. Somehow it was getting harder and harder to hold them back.
"Do you want me to call someone else to do this one, Minako?" Trowa offered. Maybe he did know something.
"No, it's okay…" she whispered. She knew it wasn't okay, so why was she lying? Her close friend was sitting dead by the oak tree she always went to clear her thoughts. The oak tree that was cleverly located at her best friend's shrine.
"Aino," Trowa put both of his hands on her shoulders. "If it was okay, you wouldn't be in near tears."
"Sometimes everyone needs to cry," she countered. She didn't pull away from him, however. She liked the feeling of his strong and powerful hands on her petit shoulders. It made her feel stronger, even if she felt half alive.
Minako sniffed once more to find a handle on her emotions. "Did you find her clothes?"
"Not a trace," Trowa shrugged, taking his hands from her shoulders. He was going to play along with her for now, but he'd always be there when she decided to take off her mask.
Minako studied the snow covered ground. "No footprints either."
"We're thinking it has snowed from the time of her death to now."
She nodded.
Trowa went on, an unnatural occurrence for him. "There are witnesses saying they saw the pair leave the Bedrock-"
"A club?"
He nodded. "Apparently she had a few to many and he escorted her out of the bar."
"We'll have to check her alcohol level. I'm pretty certain she would never drink."
"Certain how, Aino?"
Minako's lips moved sideways in uncertainty. "I knew her." She could feel Trowa's curious eyes focus on her own hues. "Who found her?"
"A guy named Chad; he supposedly lives here with the priest."
Minako nodded again. "Who's questioning him?"
"Quatre."
"Aren't you supposed to do that?"
Trowa shrugged again, his broad shoulders lifting up slightly then falling back down, his hands never leaving his pant pockets.
"Let's see here," Minako tried to put some puzzle pieces together. "What it seems is that…He met this girl at the Bedrock, where witnesses say they saw them together. He then gets her drunk, or slips her a drug and she somehow becomes disabled enough for him to take her away with the bouncer's approval. Then he takes her here, carrying her perhaps, then sets her down after taking her clothes off and doing God knows what with them. Then he fucking uses her corpse as his fucking canvas and trashes her body. Then he takes the knife a few more times to make sure she's fucking dead."
"That's the way it appears at this time."
They stood in silence. The two could hear Quatre questioning the tall, feeble, shaggy black haired, old time rock star Chad. They could hear the reporters talking to the audience behind the camera and behind the televisions in skirts and high heels. They could hear sirens, and the two could see red lights flashing everywhere as more cops pulled up and put the yellow tape around the crime scene.
That's when Minako saw the familiar black Porsche drive up, followed by a red Viper. Both pulled up in all their grace, their engines were purring like kittens. The doors opened and slammed shut in near unison. The figures, both dressed in black walked over to the scene.
Minako didn't have to do a double take, she knew who was in that Porsche, and she had a good guess as to who was in the Viper. Minako stepped closer to Trowa, she almost felt restive without being near him.
"Good evenin' toots, the name is Duo Maxwell," Heero's comrade grinned, his eyes unseen behind his dark sleek sunglasses. Heero only nodded as he studied Minako and Trowa, then the body of the dead girl.
Minako nodded back, taking his hand which had made its way to the space between them. "Minako Aino, nice to meet you since I've heard quite a bit about you from Ami."
Duo smiled back.
"Tsukino Usagi," he said murkily. "I thought you said she was under surveillance, Miss Aino."
"Don't ask me questions, Mr. Yuy. It is not my job to make sure she stays in her home," she replied, knowing Trowa's eyes were glaring down at her again in curiosity.
"Trowa, I forgot you were into this crap…" Duo said, he flipped his long brunette braid over his shoulder, breaking the small tension.
This time Minako was struck with interest. "You know each other?"
"We were in the war together," Heero answered. "What was the temperature last night?"
Minako scrunched her nose oddly. "I believe it got down to eleven degrees, wind chill ten below zero."
"And she took off her clothes and shoes?" Duo asked, seemly to himself. "That's …unusual."
"She was unconscious, he did it for her," Minako corrected him.
No one spoke; the four were replaying what could have happened in their minds. They stared at the tree, the picture of the dead girl leaned against it with her chin to her chest and the dead red and orange leaves that had forgotten to fall off earlier falling off around her.
They could see the indentations made by the victim's bare buttocks when her body was positioned. Her blood was as bright as when she had died because it was frozen.
Duo spoke then, the silence broken again. "Why did she let him escort her out in the first place? She should have known it was unsafe."
"Naivety," Trowa shrugged.
"How do you get from the road to here without being scene?" Heero asked suddenly, as if he had an idea.
"Cut through the woods, perchance…" Minako answered; she knew how to get to this spot very well.
"Do you think he erased all of his prints?" Hours later Minako was sitting in the waiting room of Doctor Motoki Furuhata's office. The room was furnished and carpeted in gray, magazines arrange on black tables for the guests. The Japanese couple sat across from her on the couch, tightly holding hands. Minako knew them well; they were the parents of Usagi. When Minako had entered, they had looked up briefly and smiled and then returned their glanced back downwards.
Minako felt heartbroken. They knew she had tried her hardest to keep Usagi safe. But she didn't know how well the Tsukino's knew that Minako felt just as bad as they did about Usagi's murder. Minako wished that they, out of all the few who had lost someone to such a death, could be comforted in knowing who did it.
But the problem was Minako didn't want them to know it had been her father. Even thinking about her father murdering one of her closest friends made her want to hunt him down herself. And in a way, that idea wrapped around her like a warm blanket.
She wished she cold give that warm blanket to the Tsukino's. But giving gifts of comfort after death had never been meant for Minako, even if she could cheer them up with her smile…the wounds would still be open for infection.
Even if Minako had not known this particular family, she knew that the words she could have offered would have been false. Most times when she had spoken to the parents of the murdered, they were never entirely true. For how does one measure the mental anguish of their son or daughter being killed without notice or heresy? How could she imagine what their dearest one could have felt in those last moments of her conscience?
Minako had no idea, even if she had been in positions with a gun in her face. She knew her father had taken off Usagi's clothes to get his message to Minako, and that only reminded her of the unlimited depths of his cruelty and his insatiable appetite for games.
For he knew that her nudity was not necessary. He did need her to telegraph the small message and he didn't need to telegraph the large world message that she had died alone when she could have stayed at home. Why couldn't he had made this easier for her and just pulled out his Glock and caught her unaware sitting at that bar?
An elderly white-hared woman appeared before the couple. "Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino?"
"Yes?"
"I can take you in now, if you're ready."
Kenji Tsukino nodded solemnly as his wife began to shed the tears of her heart's grief.
The two were led in the direction of the viewing room, where the body of their daughter would be carried up from the morgue by a special elevator. Many could not grasp the concept or idea of death unless they had seen or touched it first. Minako could have gone in with them, but despite the many viewings she had witness and arranged over the years, she just couldn't imagine it being someone she had loved dearly.
She didn't even think she could bear that last fleeting glance through the glass at the blonde haired body of her friend.
Minako shook her thoughts away and rested her head in her palm, setting her elbow carefully on the arm of the chair.
"Miss Aino?" the secretary of Dr. Furuhata was standing over her. "You alright?"
"I'm fine, thank you," Minako answered back. She stood up, brushing soft wrinkles out of her skirt. "I didn't expect to see you here, Amanda."
The woman smiled. "I wasn't expecting to see you here today, either, Miss Aino. But things aren't exactly normal right now. I'm surprised you managed to get in without being accosted by reporters."
Minako frowned. "What reporters?"
"They were flocking around here last night," Amanda answered. "I'm assuming you saw the morning Times?"
"Haven't had the chance."
Amanda shook her head. "It's a mess. It seems the man who found the body gave explicit details to the paper. This town does not need this sort of publicity, and the mayor knows it; he called us this morning."
Minako frowned as the started heading down the hallway. She hadn't of thought that Chad would have given anything to the reporters unless it had been Rei, and Rei didn't work for the newspaper.
"He supposedly is one of those nutcase joggers who jog in any weather. He just happens to jog every morning around the woods at the Hikawa Shrine and found the body. He neared the tree, where he always does his typical stretches and found the girl lying dead. He even knew her, from what the paper said. His description of the body was very detailed, and needless to say people are more scared than they should be."
Minako's frown deepened. Chad couldn't have remembered details that would have made anyone necessarily scared. She didn't even think he had ever been in the kind of shape to jog around the shrine.
The two passed through several doorways and finally came to the doctor's office. Amanda opened the door and led Minako in.
"Good afternoon, Minako." He got up from his desk. "Anyone with you?"
"Captain Winner and Chief Barton should be with us shortly."
"Amanda will make certain they are shown the way, unless you'd rather wait."
Minako knew Motoki did not want to wait because there simply wasn't the time. He commanded the largest medical examiner's office in the country, where eight thousand people a year were autopsied on his steel tables.
The two put on their gear—shoe covers, gloves, scrubs, masks, air packs, face shields, and hoods. As they were finishing up Trowa and Quatre came in and pulled their paraphernalia on in silence.
They filed out of the locker room and met steel drawer 392. Mortuary assistants hoisted the body out and set it on top of a gurney. Usagi's dead body was nude and pitiful on her cold, steel tray.
Finally Minako was able to read the message on the Usagi's chest.
A.N.: Minako/Trowa scenes here. The next chapter is focusing more on Ami/Duo, Ami/Wufei, and Minako/Wufei (argumentive). Makoto might show up *shrugs* I don't know yet. I've decided that Rei and Quatre are a couple...and are currently engaged, so it is highly unlikely that Quatre will hook up with Minako or Ami. But *shrug* you never know I guess. For all of you who hate me because I killed Usagi...I'm deeply sorry. It's not like I totally hate her, it was just needed for this story. If you skipped over it or believed it was Relena, then so be it, but if you wish to stop reading this fic because I've killed off Usagi then go ahead.
Oh yes, and please do not give me any crappy reviews. It took me quite a while to write this chapter and I'm expecting you to write a review worthy of my time. Make me feel like this chapter was not a waste of my precious sleeping time...OH, and if you want to flame me for fucking killing Usagi, BE MY GUEST. Like a lot of my friends, I'd enjoy some action in my dull internet life. Now it's off to dream about how many nice reviews I get, let me see my dream come true haha. Transcendent (the damsel not in distress).
P.S. - 15 years old today (Oct. 11).