Notes: This story hasn't been updated in such a long time due to various personal issues. Sorry, all.

Anyway, I'm back writing & will try to update regularly again.

Ga Rei Hime

Seven

The police station at Fuka wasn't especially large. Fuka was pretty much a college/university town, and was a sort of slerepy community. So it had only a moderate sized police force, assisted by volunteers recruited from the university.

Natsuki nodded respectfully to the retirement aged officer manning the front desk as she asked, "Is the Chief in?"

"Yeah. She's not that busy either, go on back," he nodded.

"Thanks," Natsuki waved.

Several Detectives gave Natsuki wary looks, while others looked welcoming. Clearly they still remembered the Entity attack shortly after Natsuki arrived. Art least MOST now seemed welcoming, having seen how useful she could be.

Natsuki knocked on the office door and heard a shouted, "Come in."

Elliot Chandler was a attractive blonde, who looked somewhere in her twenties but was certainly much older. She had a successful career as a cop in Tokyo, then came to Fuka in exchange for the promotion to chief of police.

"Natsuki! Please tell me you're here to save me from this paperwork," Elliot beamed as she waved Natsuki to the empty chair.

"Sorry, I think you're stuck," Natsuki smiled wryly as she sat down in front of her desk.

"Oh poo," Elliot sighed. She brightened as she asked, "What's this I hear about you getting my cute neice drunk?"

"You REALLY shouldn't look happy about that," Natsuki grumbled.

"Talk," Elliot ordered.

With that Natsuki sketched her run in with Rena, Sara rescuing her from being stabbed and then Natsuki's taking them to a bar to talk and accidentally getting both women drunk. By the time she finished Elliot was laughing aloud.

"You TOTALLY missed a chance for a threesome, you know," Elliot teased.

Natsuki groaned. "You do know I'm... kind of a undead, right? You should not be approving of this," she complained.

Elliot looked more amused by the revelation than anything else. "I noticed, yes," she shrugged. "I saw some... interesting shit while working as a cop in Tokyo. You learn to judge people by their actions, not appearance."

"Ah," Natsuki said.

"Besides," Elliot echoed Sara unknowingly, "if you do go full brain eating zombie, we'll just put you down..."

"Yay," Natsuki deadpanned.

"You don't normally just randomly drop in," Elliot prompted.

"There's a fairly big complication that's come up in one of your cases," Natsuki admitted. "You had Sara looking into the disappearances of sex workers."

"Yeah," Elliot asked a bit nervously.

"It's not just sex workers," Natsuki said, "according to several contacts, johns are going missing too. And it looks like it's going unreported."

Elliot blinked, then cursed softly. "Or at least it's not being reported as related to the sex workers," she mused.

"Exactly," Natsuki agreed. "And really, you can't entirely blame the wives, husbands or whatever for not wanting to admit their mate disappeared chasing tail..."

"Going to make investigating this a bitch," Elliot sighed.

"Assign a couple of officers and go through missing persons files for... maybe the last year?" Natsuki suggested. "Look for inconsistancies in the statements and follow up on those?"

"We'll probably have to do something like that," Elliot sighed. "Ugh. Thanks for dropping this in my lap."

"Glad to help," Natsuki offered cheerily.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Well at least it's not Bumfuck, Backassistan," Nao commented as they drove through town.

"Nao!" Mai whapped her on the shoulder moderately hard.

Shizuru sighed. It was actually a quite charming little town. Not the most modern, but it was reasonably large and appeared to be well populated, anchored by the large Fuka Academy. And smack dab in the middle of a supernatural vortex, making it a 'safe zone' for many such creatures to hide.

Reito pretty much said what Shizuru was feeling as he asked, "Did anyone else feel a chill as we went into town?"

"You get used to it," Rena Sayers said dryly as the brown haired woman kept an eye on the road and the large number of wandering students.

"How bad IS the youma situation here?" Mai asked a bit nervously.

"Not as bad as you'd think," Rena admitted. "The ones that tend to congregate around areas like this are the mostly smart ones. They don't hunt humans, generally speaking."

Shizuru got the subtext, "So you leave them alone. You know, the Agency officially would want you to hunt them?"

"The Agency can pound rocks," Rena said dryly, "unless they want to actually give me the resources or troops to actually do that."

There was a beat of dead silence after she dropped that bombshell.

"I like her," Nao said with a grin.

Shizuru was going to say something else as they passed the police station. Her mouth went dry as she took in the tall, black haired woman confidently striding down the steps. Despite the bulky jacket and plain jeans she could see she had a slim, attractive figure. The woman looked up, and Shizuru was struck by the gentle sorrow in her eyes.

Then traffic moved again, and they headed off down the street.

"At least there's some nice eye candy," Nao leered as they passed a cute young man, "maybe I can get laid."

"Nao," Mai sighed. "You are SO crude."

"Don't tell me you haven't considered a round two with slut boy," Nao shot back mildly.

Mai blushed.

"Do I want to know?" Rena Sayers asked dryly from the driver's seat.

"No, you really don't," Shizuru told her.

They reached the hotel, which was new and relatively clean. The Agency had booked rooms in advance, of course, and the youma hunters quickly moved themselves and their supplies in.

Rena and Shizuru were talking in the lobby not long after. "We're making arrangements for another car, but it may take a few days," Rena noted.

"Understood," Shizuru nodded. "We have your number, if anything comes up we'll call."

"All right," Rena nodded. "Now I need to get back to the job..."

As Shizuru entered her room, there was a brisk knocking. With a sigh, she opened the door to see Mai standing there. "Yes?" she asked.

Mai shrugged expressively, "Nao took off, I assume to get laid."

"Oy," Shizuru sighed.

"It's not like I could stop her..." Mai said apologetically.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Nao adjusted her mini-skirt and made sure her make up looked ok in the bathroom mirror. She wanted to balance looking a bit older, but still looking 'hot.' It would have been a lot easier if she could just convince Reito to bang her, but he was apparently scared Mai or Shizuru would cut his 'thing' off.

Which, knowing Mai and Shizuru, was a possibility.

The bar was the sort you found in a college town: cheap-ish beer, lots of young men and women, poorly decorated but kind of homey. Homey if you lived in a trailer park, anyway.

The bartender took her money and poured her a beer. "New in town?" he asked casually.

"Visiting friends," Nao lied cheerfully. "Any sights you're recommend?"

The bartender burst into laughter.

"Guess not," Nao snickered.

Nao turned and sipped her beer, taking in the action. There were a few cute jocks, posing to try to get college girl attention. A couple of hipsters were hanging around a couple of tables reading & trying to look 'deep.' Ha. As well as several college girls in various outfits... at least one of which was checking HER out.

"Hey cutey," a young man drawled as he neared her.

"Did your daddy teach you that line?" Nao scoffed. He visibly wilted.

A amused woman's voice noted. "Now that was just mean."

Nao turned to see a woman had come up to her other side. The taller lady had blonde hair, a attractive smile and, she noticed, a impressive bust. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and was quite muscular. She gave off a 'dyke-y' vibe, but not heavily so.

Nao smiled back pleasantly, "Getting turned down builds character. He'll get stronger, produce better pick up lines and succeed more."

"So you're preforming a public service, shooting him down?" the blonde teased.

"Exactly!" Nao smiled.

The blonde sipped her drink. "I'd ask what a nice girl like you is doing in a place like this," she mused, "But I don't think you're nice."

Nao laughed again, "I'm Nao."

"Haruka Suzushiro," the blonde smiled back. "Care to join me...?"

To be continued!

Notes: YES, that's Shizuru seeing Natsuki for the first time. The team probably has a photo of Natsuki, but it's probably a military ID shot that looks awful.

I'm never sure how much of a slut I should write Nao. If I go too far, tell me? Anyway..