3. Trail.

T: For warnings/disclaimers please see previous chapters. (In other words I have lost inspiration as far as the fun warning and disclaimer thing goes!!)

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It had been amusing to learn that Kurosaki had not only chosen to search him out but that, for the moment at least, the other seemed to have no malevolent intent towards him.

When he learns that the child had approached his wife, that the other had not only retained his illusion, but used his precious partner's name to do as such, this amusement deepens into a genuine intrigue.

Thus he does not, as he might otherwise have done, burn the letter once his wife retires to bed, but rather breaks open its seal and pulls free a firmly folded letter and a hotel room key.

The letter is scribed in an ordered, educated, hand that can only belong to the boy and is written more in the tone of one aquantence writing to another, than that of a victim writing a letter of entrapment to he who had perpetrated the crime.

'Muraki,

It has been a year since Kyoto, since the fire and the taint that event has left upon all our lives. I have known that you were alive still from the very instant that I came back to myself…have known this truth and have debated what I should do with that knowledge. I have decided, at last, to do as I have done…to find you and to put an end to everything that lies between us once and for all.

I am staying in the Miyagi-inn under the assumed name of 'Saki', the key will allow you into the room should I be absent upon your arrival.

Kurosaki Hisoka.'

Intrigued as to how the boy intends to 'put an end' to their association, to why the other feels so very confident that he shall come to him, to what has spawned so direct a course of action to begin with and, perhaps most importantly, why the boy has not brought his partner with him, he slips the key into his pocket and, once he has written his wife a note to explain his absence, he heads for the Miyagi-inn.

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Having spent the best part of a week searching every possible location that held significance to his partner and finding nothing he is, unsurprisingly, feeling both aggravated and despondent.

Watari has done all that he can to erase these negative emotions, even going so far as to purchase the small pile of deserts that they are currently eating their way through.

"Maybe he's gone to Kanagawa." The scientist remarks as he extricates a chocolate éclair from the pile.

"Why do you say that?"

"He doesn't want to be found, right, so wouldn't it makes sense to go somewhere that we wouldn't look for me?" The scientist enquires as he takes a bite out of his chosen treat.

The logic is fairly sound and, a terrible creeping certainty making its way into his head, he enquires,

"What if he is not in an unexpected location but in unexpected company?"

For a moment Watari does not seem to comprehend what it is that he is suggesting and then, his manner becoming once more uncharacteristically sober, he enquires,

"You can't mean that he's gone to Muraki?"

"Indeed I do."

For a moment more Watari looks uncertain and then, a soft smile blooming onto his lips, the other says,

"You know that's actually a rather sensible suggestion, Tsu."

"It had to happen at some point." The false levity contained within that comment serves to further improve Watari's mood and his own and, for a brief while, they fall into a companionable silence.

Eventually Watari breaks this hush with the enquiry of,

"So how do we, with nothing at our disposal other than this swiftly reducing pile of deserts, my brains and your charm, manage to do what the Ministry, with all its technology and manpower, can not?"

"We follow his path back, talk to everyone we know he has associated with over the years, ask the sort of questions the Ministry would not wish us to ask and we keep on pushing until someone gives us the answer we're after."

"I'll go back to the Ministry and get us a list of everyone with even the most tenuous of connections with him."

"I'll go and make sure that Hisoka is not somewhere in Kanagawa."

"I'll meet you there then."

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After securing both himself and Watari a cheep hotel room for the night he makes a b-line for the closest pub.

The bartender, a typical middle aged, bolding and overweight, man, welcomes him with the bright enthusiasm of one recognising a 'meal ticket; and, after pouring him a shot of whisky, enquires,

"So what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"A murder."

The bartender breaks into a forced laughter and, his voice sounding painfully strained, he says,

"You've come to the wrong town then."

"Strange, I was certain that the article said that it occurred in Kanagawa." He remarks as he pulls a newspaper clipping from his trouser pocket, "Why don't you look for yourself," he remarks as he passes the thing into the bartender's care.

The gentleman scans the clip, his skin paling considerably as he reaches the more graphic details and his manner becoming less 'welcoming' and more 'suspicious'.

"That matter was over and done with years ago. We've no want for it to be dredged up again," The other responds as he passes the clipping back into his care.

"Yet I need to 'dredge' the matter if I am to get any closure. The woman who died that night was my fiancée, you see."

"Really? I heard nothing of a fiancée in the weeks after the matter and there was certainly no mention of such a creature in that article of yours…"

"Kasama was against our getting engaged and so we were keeping the matter to ourselves until her ill health at last got the better of her…of course I wish now that we had made more of an effort to win her over and perhaps then Yuri would still be with me rather than…" He trails and after making a deliberate show of tossing down his drink and wiping away his 'tears', he says, "I'd thought to come here the day that Yuri died but I was called away to an assignment in America and kept there for four years…time enough, apparently, for the government to cover the matter over and for the locals to learn to plead ignorance every time someone raised the matter."

"So you've come here in the hopes that someone will get off their head enough to chat to you about the affair…to tell you something that will clear away what ever niggling doubt you have in your mind and allow you to lay your fiancée's soul at last to rest?"

"I know it sounds foolish but it's the last hope I have."

"Look there's this guy, Mirani Yamato, who might be willing to help you without the need to ply him with booze first."

"Would you have an address for this individual?"

"Give me a minuet and I'll write you down the directions."

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T: Next chapter up on Sunday! Review?