Author's Notes: And thus the plan is set in motion...!

Chapter 13

"Little Agents"

"Tidus, I told you, no. It's classified information."

"Leon, please!" Tidus begged. "This is really, really important!"

Leon's eyes narrowed as he held the phone to his ear. "Is this because of what you heard me saying when we talked? Didn't I tell you not to take me seriously?"

"If you're mentioning it out loud, it must be critical, right? Please, Leon, I'm begging you!"

Leon was finding it a little difficult to turn Tidus down. The boy was implying that he needed Ansem's fostering papers to get to the bottom of what he was doing to Riku, and when that thought crossed his mind, Leon felt he could practically jump for joy. However, the prospect also occurred to him that Tidus and Roxas would be in very great danger if they decided to do this. Ansem was a pedophile. While Riku, Tidus and Roxas were not necessarily younger than twelve anymore, that didn't stop Ansem from wanting to rape them. Riku was proof of that. He still wasn't letting Riku go, and Riku was seventeen years old now. Almost of legal age!

Leon sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Good God, he would so get fired for this if he was caught. Sharing private papers with an outsider. And a child!

"Leeeoooonnnn. Pleeeeease. Please, Leon." Tidus' voice was desperate, full of urgence and pleading. The brunet gave an agitated groan and finally smacked his fingertips against his computer desk.

"Oh, for God's sake. Fine."

He heard an excited gasp and cut Tidus off. "But Tidus Heartilly, I swear to God, if you let out that I've been giving you private customer information and I lose my job, I will hunt you down first. Do you understand? This is so dangerous, it's not even funny. Not to mention you're putting yourself in a dire position just by investigating Ansem."

He could picture all too well the eager nodding of Tidus' head as he responded. "It's a risk I'm willing to take. I'm doing this for Riku. I mean, you even said yourself you've been trying to catch this guy, right?"

Leon wanted to bang his head against the desk for that. Instead he just winced painfully. Oh God, maybe it's ME. I convinced him this was the best road to take. My Lord, Leon, some influence YOU are!

"Hmm," he grunted, running his fingers through his hair. "I'll send you an e-mail with the papers attached. I keep an electronic copy of them on my computer all the time so I have backups to print. You should have it within the next five minutes."

"Thanks, Leon! Do you need my address?"

Leon pulled out a paper and pencil. "Fire away." Roxas gave it to him, and Leonwrote it down.

"Good. I'll talk to you later, Tidus."

"Thank you so much!" the boy repeated. Leon gave another noncommittal grunt and hung up, then started getting to work sifting through all his old files for Ansem's fostering history and the papers to prove it. While he was at it, in the e-mail he left a little message.

Not long after the phone call, Tidus and Roxas were in Tidus' room and the e-mail pinged into the sandy-haired blond's inbox.

"There it is!" Tidus clicked it and opened it up. Leon had left him a request.

I think you're a stupid little brat for doing this. And yet I have no reason to hate what you're doing. In fact I admire it.

But if you get hurt because of the decisions you make, I will slap you straight to Kingdom Come. So I want you to play this safe, and don't do anything stupid. Ansem is dangerous. Be VERY careful what you do, Tidus.

Send me any updated information you find. This bastard has been bugging the hell out of me for YEARS.

-Leon

"Will do?" asked Tidus. Roxas nodded.

"Will do."

Tidus clicked to open the attachment and began to read through all the files to Roxas.

"Two-thousand and two. First child was Annaliese Grimm, age six, female, returned to the agency six months after adoption. Eric Halls, age eight, male, returned two months after adoption. Jason Lewinsky, age twelve, four months after adoption. Two-thousand and three. Mary-Anne Michaels, age nine, eight months after adoption. Alex Kramer, ten, three months…"

Roxas was in absolute awe as they went through the extensive list. It was almost endless. Most of the children Ansem fostered were even as young as six. Boys, girls, all of them within the range of six to twelve years old. Most of them were never kept for any longer than three months. Ansem kept some of them for close to a year, but never hit that peak. As they scrolled through the papers, it finally ended with the only one that both of them were familiar with:

"Two-thousand and five. Riku Lockheart. Adopted on the eighteenth of March. Age thirteen."

"Holy. Shit." Roxas gasped. "Oh, God. I can't believe this guy lives in our cul-de-sac!" He looked at Tidus. "Didn't you say when you met that Alex kid that he was pretty freaked out?"

Tidus frowned, tapping a pencil between his fingers. "Yeah, but now we're at a block. If Ansem's a pedophile, how do we prove it?" He looked at Roxas. "Any bright ideas?"

Roxas stood back and held up his hands. "I'm as clueless as you." Tidus thought for a moment, staring at the screen.

"Well, we could gather up testimonies from all his previous charges. But that's way too tedious, and way too flimsy. I mean, these days, anyone can say they got raped, but that doesn't always make it true."

"Wait! What if we ask Riku?"

Tidus sighed. "I don't think that's a good idea. Riku will probably be just like all the others I've met. He'll deny anything's happened to him, or still is happening to him. He must feel like he owes his existence to Ansem for fostering him. I actually know that feeling, a little bit." The sandy-haired teenager frowned. "When I was with that rich couple, I was blinded to them using me as a test child for a long time because I was so into the fact that someone actually cared enough to love me like my real parents never did."

"But that's sick! He doesn't owe jack-shit to that asshole! Isn't Ansem raping him?"

"Think, Roxas. How do you think Riku got twisted up like that?"

"…I guess," sighed Roxas, "Man, this is tough."

Tidus tapped his pencil back and forth on the desk, wiggling it between his fingers rhythmically as he scrolled through the papers again, and stared at Riku's. Well, they had to do something. He thought and thought. Come on, he said to himself, It's like Pooh Bear. Think, think, think.

"Hey, wait!" Roxas suddenly cried. "What if we gathered up evidence from Ansem himself?"

Tidus' eyes widened. "And just how in the hell do you think we're going to do that? Walk up to him and ask him, 'Hey, are you a pedophile?' "

Roxas fell silent and flitted his eyes about nervously. Tidus rolled his eyes. But then he paused to consider it.

"…Well, it's a good idea, except for the asking him straight-out part."

"Wait, what?" Roxas blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Evidence, Rox, Evidence." Tidus folded his fingers on his computer desk. "I'll bet you if we can find some solid evidence from Ansem's house, it'll make the case a closed book for sure!"

Roxas got comfortable in a spare chair in Tidus' room, arms on the back of it, resting. "What kinda evidence, though?"

Tidus gave Roxas an evil smirk. "They say a picture's worth a thousand words."

Roxas leered at him with a heavily creased brow. "And how the fuck do you propose we get pictures out of Ansem's house? Nobody goes in there except him and Riku."

"You let me work that out." Tidus assured him, "I've got a plan. But first, we're going to have to work on repairing relations with Riku." He paused, then added, "Starting with me and Sora."