11. Integrity.
T: It becomes necessary, in this chapter, to have read push at least once. Other than this warnings and disclaimers remain the same.
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The diary had provided with the first glimpses of the story behind Tetsua-san and Muraki's association, as well as a ream of locations and names to 'look into further'. For the better part of a week they'd pursued each of these trails to the very best of their abilities, had pried and investigated every single inconsistency, no matter how trivial, and still they remained as far from the core truth of the matter as they had been at the beginning of the matter.
Certain that, somehow, they were missing the vital something that would push them forward again she'd begun to work relentlessly through the night, had pushed aside all thought of rest or nutrition and focused her mind onto the case.
"You look like death warmed over." Hijiri remarks as he settles down at his desk. She resists the temptation to comment on the odd choice of words, resists also the sleep addled desire to simply snap at the other and instead remarks,
"I'm so close that it's maddening, Hijiri-kun."
"Perhaps you should go home and get a little rest…approach the whole thing with a fresh head tomorrow."
The words push some unknown switch in her head and, her brain in overdrive; she begins to scrabble her way through the piles of paperwork dotted about her desk.
"What is it?"
"An idea…help me find that list of names I showed to you yesterday…" Two seconds later the list is clutched tight in her fingers and a warm sense of victory is flowing through her veins.
"I take it your idea was correct?"
"It was." She responds as she sets the list back onto her desk.
"Does this mean that I should go and get myself ready for some field work?"
"Yes, yes it does."
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"So, what is this place?" Hijiri enquires as he gestures towards the sprawling structure that dominates the landscape before them.
"My family estate," this last comes from their left and, turning in that direction, she is greeted with the words, "it has been a great while since last I saw you, Kakyouin Tsubaki."
The last that she and this woman had met the other had been little more than a corpse given life and now…now she seemed as a woman at the very prime of her life.
"I had not thought to see you so very…agile…Sakuraiji-san."
"Such are the wonders of modern medicine." The other responds before enquiring, "Why have you come here?"
"Tetsua Keigo."
Sakuraiji-san stills for a brief instant after Hijiri has spoken that name and then, a strained smile blooming onto her lips, she says,
"Perhaps you two should come in."
As with the last that she had walked the corridors of this house she is filled with an odd sort of chill which permeates its way down through to her very bones. On that first occasion she had understood that sensation to be caused by her finely tuned intuition detecting something amiss and yet it had not been until later that she had learned, what, precisely, that something was.
Clear in her minds eye she can picture Hisoka's face as he had told her the truth of the children that Sakuraiji-san named her own, can hear the odd note of stress that had been in his voice as he'd informed her that Muraki was keeping them 'alive' but that he did not know how the other was achieving such a thing. At the time the matter had held no bearing on the case in hand and they'd dismissed it as little more than triviality. Now, however, she can not help but feel that the matter of those ghostly children, as well as their 'mother's' improving health, was at the heart of the mystery…was the key to understanding every oddity that existed within this case.
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Silence prevails for a great while after that have been seated, the tension of hidden thoughts and carefully suppressed words, clear in the air about them. Eventually Tsubaki stirs out of the half dreaming state that she has occupied since they crossed into the house and enquires,
"Tetsua-san is the reason that you are now so very well, is also the reason that you 'clawed your way back to life' after you became so very ill, isn't that right?"
Sakuraiji-san smiles an amused smile and enquires,
"So you have learned all there is to learn of my illness, have you?"
"Yes."
"Even now the doctors can not say what was wrong with me, or promise that it has gone from my body completely." She pauses a moment and then, a distance clear now in her voice, she says, "For months I knew nothing other than the pain and the darkness, then Keigo-kun called to me and suddenly all of that suffering simply melted away."
"Yet that is not the only reason that you value him so very highly, is it, Sakuraiji-san?"
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T: Next chapter Sun/mon. Review??