AN I apologize if there doesn't seem to be any emotional consistency between the 'A' and 'B' stories, but I figure Danny's a master of avoidance and denial so he would compartmentalize his life and his emotions, especially re: cases. I've seen the CSI writers do this quite often, so I'm really just following their lead. Yeah, right, whatever. LOL. I really like writing the banter between Danny, Aiden & Flack, which is probably why I like the 'B' story so much more... Anyway, you tell me what you like!

SpriteSweetheart - thanks for the encouragment! Hope you like this chapter too!
:oP NeverMind

"You are such a liar! Danny, I'm your friend – you can tell me."

He shook his head. "No, Aiden, I can't. Let's finish this case."

Aiden looked helplessly at him as he walked back to the computer where he had been trying to match fingerprints.

The next day, Danny and Aiden were back at the coroner's office.

"Well, here you have it," Hawkes said to them, flourishing as he showed them the boiled white pieces of the skull off their victim.

"I thought there would be more pieces than this," Aiden said.

"So did I, but it turns out that our victim was sliced at an angle. Whatever was used caught the top of his hairline and didn't start cutting bone until just below the brow line. Here you have it," he said, pointing at the pieces. "Brow line to upper jaw and the lower jaw."

"Missed the brain completely," Danny marveled, picking up the pieces to examine them more closely.

"Was it only one cut?" Aiden asked.

"Yes. Phenomenal. The blade must have been razor sharp to cut through the bone like this. No hacking whatsoever, just one clean swipe," Hawkes said, swiping through the air with an imaginary sword.

"So this was no knife," Danny observed.

"No way. At first I was thinking machete, but it seemed way too bulky to have made such a clean cut. That's when I decided to compare the tool marks on the bone to this," he reached under a white sheet and pulled out a long, thin, slightly curved sword.

"It's a samurai sword. Double edged and, if sharpened correctly and applied with the right amount of force, sharp and powerful enough to slice through bone." He passed the weapon to Aiden.

"The tool marks match up exactly. I would say that a sword like this is your murder weapon."

Aiden was holding the sword in her hands and slowly swinging it first down and across and then up.

"Which way do you think the sword cut? Up towards the forehead or down towards the chin?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" Hawkes asked.

"Well, yeah, because look…" she walked over to the biologist's skeleton hanging in the corner. "If you slice downward, you have the force of gravity to help you, right? But would you be able to have the same kind of precision as the cut we see on our vic? How would you get all the way under the chin without cutting his whole head off?"

Danny took the sword from her to continue the reenactment. "But if he were slicing upwards…" he took a slow upward swing at the skeleton's head. "You'd easily slice the face the way we see it without cutting the head off."

"Who would do this kind of thing?" Aiden wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but he would have to have some kind of training in samurai sword play, it would seem," Hawkes offered.

Danny pointed the sword at him. "Bang on. Let's go see if Flack turned up any ninjas in his interviews."

"You're looking for what?" Flack asked Danny and Aiden.

"Ninjas, samurais – you know, Jackie Chan types," Aiden said.

"Jackie Chan's not a ninja or a samurai, I don't think," Flack told her.

"And I don't think he uses a sword," Danny agreed.

"Cut it out, both of you. You know what I mean," Aiden grinned.

"Well, if you mean Asians, yes, I interviewed lots of those. None of them struck me as sword fanatics, though."

"Well, according to my research, there are more samurai swords in the USA than there are in Japan. Apparently, a lot of servicemen brought them back as souvenirs after the Pacific War, during the Japan occupation," Danny said.

"Oo, 'according to my research,'" Aiden mocked him.

He pinched her side.

"Ow!"

"As I was saying – we're probably looking for a white person with a Japan obsession," Danny finished.

Flack grinned. "I know just who we should talk to."