Author's Notes: CSI shinobi style! Actually, I have never seen a full episode of CSI but I did do two years of graduate studies in forensic science. I tried to keep things simple for this story.
From Konoha's Confidential Case Files: An Investigation into the Death of Gekkou Hayate
The Crows
'Things are not good, not good at all…' Sandaime thought despite nothing disastrous happening since Orochimaru made his threat to Anko several days ago. Yesterday the second chuunin exam had just concluded, as well as the preliminaries to the third chuunin exam. And Kakashi had filed a report alleging that Yakushi Kabuto was a Sound spy after Kakashi had discovered him in Sasuke's hospital room. Planning what? To kill him? More likely to abduct him for Orochimaru's nefarious purposes. Sandaime had a funny feeling about Kabuto right after the second exam when he decided to drop out of the preliminaries. Yes, he was low on chakra and injured, but so were most of the other genin. That was not a good excuse. He could have faced Haruno Sakura or one of the other kunoichi. He would have had a chance against them. And he could have surrendered at any time during the preliminary match. For a shinobi to just give up without trying was peculiar, very peculiar. Kabuto's academic records and mission logs were undistinguished, that in itself was suspicious. What better cover for a mole than to keep a low profile? But at the time Sandaime was not thinking of possible genin spies; he was concerned about Sasuke and Orochimaru.
But if Kabuto were a spy, and Kakashi's report made perfectly clear that he all but admitted it, what about Yoroi and Misume, his team members? Sandaime had sent men to follow each of them. Two of the tails reported their charges were missing from the hospital and could not be found. Hayate had not checked in at all. 'That was not good, not good at all…'
In contrast to Sandaime's dark thoughts and troubled mind, it was another beautiful day in Konoha. The Third Hokage looked up during his morning walk to see a black commotion on top of Kikyo's Tower. The sky was sunny, clear and blue, but there was a disturbing stillness in the air despite the cackling of crows and the noisy flutter of their wings. Concerned by the bad omen, he called to his ever present bodyguard, "Raidou, send a team of Anbu to investigate what's going on up there." 'Has Orochimaru made his move?'
"Yes, Hokage-sama," Raidou said, bowing, before he concentrated chakra to his feet and disappearing in a puff of dust.
'I hope they're just fighting over some litter one of the irresponsible genin left behind,' the Hokage thought, thinking of Naruto as the probable culprit.
Fifteen minutes later, one of the Anbu appeared before Sandaime and Raidou, who were now having their morning coffee in the Hokage's office, to give his report. "On top of Kikyo's Tower we found the body of Gekkou Hayate, cut up and partially devoured by crows." The masked face betrayed no emotion but the Hokage caught the tremor of fury from his voice and hands.
"I see…so it has begun…" Sandaime said warily then added to himself, 'Sigh, in the past, something like this would normally have been investigated by the Uchiha clan.'
But there were no more Uchiha in law enforcement. The current law enforcement shinobi were not equipped to deal with such an important and delicate situation. He would have to call on someone with more experience and analytical eyes. "Bring Hyuuga Hiashi to the tower," Sandaime ordered.
The Anbu raised his head in surprised. "Hokage-sama, no disrespect, but I believe us Anbu should handle this investigation. As you know Hayate's…"
Sandaime cut him off, "That's the problem. With her there would be too much emotional involvement. We need someone objective..." 'And you can't find anyone colder than Hiashi.'
…-…-…-…-…-…
The Body
"Again!" Hiashi shouted at Hanabi as she failed to hit the bullseye with her kunai for the third time, while balancing on one leg on top of an irregular shaped boulder, and with one hand tied behind her back, and with a kerchief covering her right eye. "In battle, you never know when you might lose the use of a leg, hand, or eye, or all three. You must be prepared for anything. Even with your last dying breath you should be able to take down just one more enemy," he instructed coldly.
"Y…y…yes, father," Hanabi said weakly as she teeter-tottered on the rock. 'Damn it! With Hinata in the hospital, that crazy old man's been pushing me even more than usual! If being heir to this crazy clan means going through all this, I'd be happy to hand it all over to psycho-cousin Neji!'
From the back corner of his byakugan, Hiashi saw the approach of one of his servants, or rather an assistant - one of the branch members. "Hiashi-sama, there's a summons from the Hokage," the old man said while bowing low.
"Now? I'm in the middle of training the next Hyuuga heir," Hiashi replied angrily. "You tell the messenger to go tell Sandaime to stick some weed in his pipe and smoke it!"
"Excuse me, Hiashi-sama, but it appears to be an important matter concerning the death of…"
"A death? Why didn't you say so in the first place! Nothing like death for motivation. Hanabi, come with me. It's time you saw death up close and personal," Hiashi said with as much enthusiasm as either the old man or Hanabi had ever heard from him.
"Yes, father," Hanabi sighed. 'Viewing a dead body is no fun, but at least no more physical training for today, I hope. Unless the sick bastard wants me to carry the corpse around for strength training…'
…-…-…-…-…-…
Hiashi and Hanabi immediately followed the Anbu to the roof of Kikyo's Tower where the Hokage was waiting along with Raidou and four other Anbu members. They stood a respectful distance from the body while keeping an eye on the few stubborn remaining crows who did not want to give up their meal.
Hiashi took command as soon as he stepped foot on the crime scene. "Don't touch anything! Did anyone touch anything?" he asked curtly.
Taken aback by his sudden presence and orders, everyone shook their heads. Hiashi frowned and activated his byakugan. 'At least one of them is lying.' They cleared the way for him as he slowly circled the body, studying everything with his white eyes. His world was now black and white with shades of uncluttered gray. Without the distraction of colors, he was able to focus on the shapes and patterns in greater distinctive detail. 'Sandal prints… fresh, faded, partial, overlapping...bloodstains…fairly fresh…round, elliptical, large splatters, tiny drops…bird poop – yuck!' Then he approached the body and reached out to feel its skin. He unclutched the fingers of both hands, lifted the arms, rolled the body on its side, then repositioned the body.
Hanabi stood back with everyone else and watched her father with interest. 'I've never seen him so…intense and excited before...'
Sandaime started to say, "Hiashi, I called you because there is a possibility that this murder is associated with…"
"Stop! I don't want to hear anymore at this stage. I need to form my impressions first before being tainted by your suspicions. My deductions will be pure and infallible."
Annoyed with his lack of respect, Sandaime cleared his voice before speaking again, "Ahem…Hiashi you're the lead in this investigation. If you should need any help, the Anbu here and the shinobi medics at the hospital are at your disposal, but I'm afraid I won't be able to spare anyone else…"
"I don't need those pathetic cretins," he gave the Anbu a look of disdain, "All I need is my assistant, Hanabi."
Sandaime did not need a byakugan to see his troops fuming at Hiashi's arrogance.
"Huh? Me?" Hanabi looked up from the body in confusion.
"Hanabi, tell me what you see," her father ordered.
What Hanabi saw was a bloody mess. Her stomach lurched at the sight but since her father refused to feed her until after training, there was nothing in it to puke up. She tried to study it as her father did, walking around the body, but without touching it. Skin peeled away from the face, hands and feet, where the crows found their easiest meal, revealing muscle and bone. The pants and shirt were torn and soaked with blood. But the heavy duty green shinobi vest had withstood the crows' attack fairly well. "Uh, well, I see a male body, umm apparently dead, age umm, mid twenties. The eyes are missing but the hair is brown…"
"Try turning on your byakugan. Now what do you see?"
"I see lots of sandal prints now and more bloodstains that I did see before…"
"Sigh, you see but you don't observe. How long do you think he's been dead?"
Hanabi shrugged. Her father shook his head in disappointment.
"Listen up," Hiashi said imperiously. "This body has been dead for approximately 8 hours given the current temperature, last night's temperature, and the degree of rigor mortis. He was dead before being consumed by scavengers given the lack of defensive wounds and lack of spilled blood from the holes created by the crow's pecking. Death was fairly immediate and resulted primarily from severing the jugular." Hiashi pointed at the neck and trailed his finger down to indicate the pool of blood.
"Hmmf, well, all that's obvious," Raidou muttered just loud enough for Hiashi to hear.
Unperturbed, Hiashi turned his attention to the rest of the ground. "See this bloodstain pattern? It indicates an arterial spurt. From the size and shape of the blood drops, it appears he was cut down in mid-air." Hiashi looked up and pointed at some ambiguous location above them. "He attacked his opponent from above, intending to deliver a blow to his opponent. At an approximate height of 8 feet, he was cut down. His opponent was standing where I am now."
"How can you tell all that, father?" Hanabi asked as if in awe of his powers. 'Is this just bullshit or is he all he thinks he is?'
"Turn on your byakugan and observe the bloodstain patterns. Take special note of the secondary blood drops and back splatter. When blood is released from the body with force, such as from an artery, it shoots out in a parabolic arch and falls to the ground at an angle of incidence indicative of the source . See this elongated droplet? The size and shape tells us the height and angle from where it originated. Its tail points to the source direction, where the victim was located. The number and size of the smaller secondary droplets also indicates the force at which the primary droplet hit the ground." Hiashi paused and pointed to his feet. "This pattern here is incomplete. That means the perpetrator was standing here and the missing blood is what fell on him."
"Father, you're amazing!" Hanabi gushed. 'Yeah, yeah, whatever, this is getting boring with all the math-physics terminology.'
Hiashi suddenly turned to the Anbu, "I know you lied. This body has been moved. Look at the pooled blood here, it doesn't match the body position."
"I'm sorry," said the masked Anbu girl with long purple hair, "I just moved his arm slightly to take his pulse and to recover his sword. It was a family heirloom…"
"I don't care what your reasons were,"Hiashi interrupted. "You should have shown me the sword immediately to determine whether it's the murder weapon. Your action and deception could have hindered this investigation..."
The poor Anbu girl started to tremble but whether it was from grief or anger no one knew.
"Calm down Hiashi, there's no harm done…" Sandaime started to say.
"No harm? Who knows what else these imbeciles did to obscure any clues. With them traipsing all over, virtually all latent footprints are gone. Hanabi, give me something to mark off this area."
"Umm, I have some bandages, but I don't think it's enough," Hanabi said while rummaging through her belt pack.
"You must learn to make do with what you have. Watch me." Hiashi took the bandages from Hanabi, unraveled the weave and reformed it into a long thin piece of rope, which he placed on the ground around Hayate's body. Then he forced chakra into the rope and an outline of the body appeared on the ground.
Hanabi was visibly impressed. "Father, how did you do that?" 'The demented old guy sure has lots of tricks up his sleeve!'
"I concentrated my chakra into the fabric of the bandages to pull the threads apart and then twirled the chakra around the threads to reform them into rope. Then after marking off the body's position, I sent chakra through the rope to burn the pattern temporarily into the ground. Simple enough." Hiashi returned his attention to the living. "Which of you saw the body first?"
The Anbu girl stepped forward and started to say, "Hokage-sama asked Raidou-san to summon us to investigate…"
Hiashi stared fixedly at Raidou, "Tell me everything you saw and did this morning. And remember, I'll know if you lie."
Raidou flushed angrily and thought, 'Damn arrogant bastard. He drove his daughter Hinata practically to suicide. She nearly killed herself trying to prove her worth to him. Doesn't seem like he treats this daughter any better.' But he swallowed his anger and answered respectfully. "I got up at dawn. My bed faces the window so I don't need an alarm clock. I put on my cloth slippers that I only wear at home. I walked over to the bathroom, pulled up the toilet seat…"
"No, no! I mean this morning after the Hokage ordered you to Kikyo's Tower," Hiashi said impatiently.
"Well, you should be more specific," Raidou retorted sarcastically. "Let's see…I accompanied Sandaime on his walk at 7:30 this morning. He saw a murder of crows congregating noisily on the roof so he asked me to call together an Anbu platoon to investigate. After I sent the platoon I waited with Sandaime for the report."
"So you were not among the first to see the body?"
"No, I…"
"Why am I wasting time speaking to you? Make yourself useful, go get that photographer, the one who takes the ninja registration pictures. He should do," Hiashi ordered then added to himself, 'He took a stunning picture of me for my academy graduation.' " We need to document everything for evidence. Bring all his special filters and lighting equipment. Hanabi, you stand guard over the body while I interview…them," Hiashi turned his attention back to the Anbu.
The Anbu girl walked back to Hiashi while Raidou disappeared in an angry puff of dust to bring the photographer. "I arrived here first with the rest of my platoon right behind me at 7:15," she began to say.
"Remove your mask," Hiashi ordered the Anbu girl since he needed to see her facial expressions and reactions to his interrogation.
She turned her head to the Hokage who nodded his compliance. She pulled the mask off her face and raised her head to look up at Hiashi defiantly. He towered over her.
"My name is…" she began to introduce herself.
"I don't care what your name is unless you committed this murder," Hiashi interrupted. 'I'll just think of her as that purple-hair Anbu chick.' "Just tell me exactly what you saw when you got here."
"As we approached I noted there were about four and twenty black birds all pecking at something. We shooed them away and saw that it was Hayate…"
"How did you approach the body?"
"Damn it, stop calling Hayate 'the body' and 'it.' He had a name. You knew him!"
Hiashi ignored the girl's outburst. "How far from the body were you before you identified it?"
She gritted her teeth and answered, "We had to get close to shoo the birds away. I was right next to the b…Hayate. I knew him at a glance…"
"From which side did you approach?"
She illustrated the path she took by pointing. "I stood by his left side and picked up his sword."
"Let me see the sword." Hiashi stared closely at the blade with his activated byakugan while she held it out. "Have you wiped off the sword?" he asked intensely.
"No."
Hiashi nodded thoughtfully. "There is blood on this sword and some brown fibers. The direction and arrangement of the fibers indicates that the sword was swung down from above. The sword was apparently stuck on whatever it hit, and had to be removed forcibly. Whatever it hit protected the target and little blood was spilled, yet it was not hard enough to damage the sword. Given the height from which it was swung, the strength and weight of the wielder, the material withstood a force of over 600 Newtons. Hiashi turned on his byakugan again to use his microscopic vision. "These are Kevlar fibers, like those of a shinobi vest. It's likely that these fibers are from the shoulder pad. Hanabi, give me a senbon and some paper," he added.
Hanabi rummaged through her pack again and took out a senbon and a blank scroll, "I don't have any paper but I can rip up the scroll."
"That will do fine," Hiashi nodded in approval. He seemed to have calmed down a bit now that evidence was mounting and a theory was forming.
Hanabi handed over the senbon first which Hiashi used to collect fibers off the sword. She then ripped the scroll into 4x4 inch squares, instinctively realizing why her father wanted them. Hiashi grabbed a square and carefully placed the fibers in the middle, then folded the paper to make a secure envelope. Next he used the senbon to scrape the dried blood. "This blood is most likely from the enemy. The hospital can run a DNA profile. Hanabi, take this sword as evidence, hold it by the handle only, and wrap it in something clean…"
"Hey, you can't do that! This sword is a family heirloom…" the Anbu girl started to protest.
"Do you want to see justice done or not?" Hiashi responded, cutting off any further protests. "Now take off your sandals one at a time and let me look at them."
The Anbu all looked at him, then each other, but failed to follow his instructions. No one wanted to go barefoot atop a dirty and bloody rooftop.
"Umm, I can spread out another scroll," Hanabi offered. She rolled her scroll open on the floor as a paper mat.
Sandaime nodded as a signal to the Anbu to follow Hiashi's orders no matter how peculiar or rude.
The Anbu girl glared at Hiashi but took off her sandals and gave them to him one at a time while thinking, 'Damn pervert with his x-ray vision and foot fetish...' Her bare feet scrunched the parchment.
Hiashi examined the sandals one after another, slowly rotating each one in his hands. He used the senbon at times to prod and pick out what appeared to be dirt, which he transferred to another piece of paper. He finally nodded and returned her sandals. "The rest of you, let me see your sandals," he said to the remaining Anbu. Again Hiashi carefully examined each one, prodding and picking with the senbon. He bent over Hayate's body and poked it at various points with his senbon to collect more evidence.
Meanwhile Hanabi took out her remaining blank scroll and carefully used it to form a spiral shaft for the sword. The second Hyuuga heir tried her best to following her father's reasoning. 'Dear old dad must think the sword got stuck on the vest because of the presence of so many bloody fibers. If it were a clean cut, there would be more blood and only a few fibers. If it stuck, then it had to be forcibly removed. If the sword attack was from above, and the opponent was a shinobi wearing a protective vest, then the shoulder pad is the most likely place the sword hit without drawing much blood. I think I'm getting the hang of this!' Hanabi thought excitedly. 'There might be fingerprints on the sword other than Hayate's and that Anbu girl's. I'll have to be careful wrapping this... '
Finally satisfied with his trace evidence collection, Hiashi asked, "Were there any reports of any unusual activity last night?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Then it was a short decisive battle. Guess he wasn't that good," Hiashi scoffed.
"How dare you insult…" the Anbu girl started to say in a dangerous tone, but then the photographer finally arrived and all eyes were pulled toward him.
-…-…-…-…-…-…-
Author's Notes: I started this piece about a year ago and I'm still not sure how to end it. I usually don't like to post stories with no ending in mind but I'm hoping to be inspired to finish it soon.I have 2 more parts right now.