Black Phantom:

Chapter 13:

The head of the Sakurazukamori took advantage of Mai's momentary lapse in concentration and pulled her in closer to grip her neck. A cold blade was pressed to her throat.

"Sounds like whoever it is getting close," Setsuka whispered to Mai.

An irate monk came running around the corner. "Get your hands off her, old lady!"

"Let her go, you super old lady!" an out of breath priestess added as she followed after the monk.

"Good afternoon, Inspector Shibuya, Officer Matsuzaki," Setsuka greeted calmly as if she was serving them tea and not holding a knife to their unofficial niece's throat.

"What do you want from Mai?" Bou-san demanded.

"I don't want anything from her; I was about to get rid of her. The Sakurazukamori haven't stayed secret by leaving behind witnesses," Setsuka answered and pressed the knife a little closer to draw blood. "That goes for you two as well. Trying to get hold of Kuro Kaitou has been quite costly in terms of lives."

"What do you want with him?" Ayako asked.

"I don't want him, I want his PK, but he has proved to be quite entertaining..." Setsuka smiled. "I never thought he would try to track me down in the guise of phantom thief."

Ayako pushed past her boyfriend, following the plan developed by Kuro Kaitou himself.

"Would you let Mai go if we gave you Kuro Kaitou?"

Her boyfriend shot her a practised glare and her niece simply looked shocked.

Setsuka tilted her head to one side. "That seems fair. Do you have him?"

The sound of footsteps became discernible and a certain black clothed Police officer walked around the corner of the hallway.

"Let her go, I will take her place."

Mai gasped at the sight of the head of the Kuro Kaitou task force offering himself up for her. Did that mean he was Kuro Kaitou? It couldn't be... She reconsidered her statement. He had to be. There was no other explanation.

It explained why Kuro Kaitou's mouth tasted like Earl Grey, why he sometimes reminded her of Kazuya Shibuya, why he never seemed to do any police work and why he disappeared at heists.

The only question left was, why was he involved with the Sakurazukamori?

"Naru..." she murmured.

She glanced up to see her kidnapper smirking.

"So you do know each other after all. Now that everything is out in the open, who exorcised my Inugami curse?"

"We did. What was the purpose of it?" Bou-san enquired. "It wouldn't have been to your benefit to curse him."

"It was a test. I was expecting it to be detected and removed at some point and it provided a way to gauge of any members of the task force were involved with Kuro Kaitou," Setsuka informed them. "As it turns out, you all are."

"Let Mai go," Naru ordered her, returning everyone to the original subject. "I will go with you if you guarantee her life and everyone else's."

"Of course," she paused dramatically. "What about Eugene? We do have him..."

Gene.

That was the while reason that he had come to Japan. Recently he had been too involved with worrying about a certain brunette female and interacting with new people, that he had begun to lose touch with the very reason that he had become Kuro Kaitou. Gene didn't seem to be a concern anymore, he paled in comparison to Mai was currently trapped in the embrace of an assassin.

He closed his eyes and sighed. "If you really have my brother, release him too."

"I will, once I have you."

Naru stepped past Ayako and Bou-san, ignoring them completely and stopped in his tracks.

"I will not come any closer until you release Mai," he said, as per the hurriedly formulated plan.

Without saying anything Setsuka released Mai and pushed her forward. Mai glanced back at her hesitantly before walking towards her aunt and uncle. As she passed Naru a pale hand shot out and grabbed her.

"Now!" her superior officer shouted and pulled her downwards onto the floor. She heard, rather than saw something fly through the air where her head had been and the beating of wings and the familiar sounds of her uncle and aunt chanting. She squirmed in an attempt to see what was going on, but the arm around her waist would not let her.

"Keep your head down idiot," Naru ordered her, still finding a way to belittle her despite the seriousness of the situation.

"Naru-can! She's lost consciousness!" the monk shouted triumphantly after another few minutes of the Nine Cuts and Nanmaku Sanmanda Bazaradan Kan.

The arm around her loosened and she stood up and looked around to see Setsuka crumpled on the floor with her grey hair askew and a hawk perched on the windowsill. A Shiki, she guessed.

"That's what you get for relying on spirits all the time- you're useless without them," Bou-san commented vindictively to the unconscious woman. "Looks like your idea of a mass exorcism worked out fine, Naru-chan."

Naru nodded vaguely before turning to Mai who was about to demand the truth from him.

"Mai, are there any other members of the Sakurazukamori"

"One more, her son. Dark hair and wears sunglasses. Naru-" she broke off as her superior officer rushed off. "Wait Naru! I have something to tell you!" she hurried after him.

Ayako and Bou-san exchanged looks.

"Should we go after them?" Ayako suggested.

The monk glanced at the hawk on the windowsill. "I suppose we can leave Lin-san's Shiki to watch over that woman until Yasuhara gets here..."


Mai caught up with Naru as he was leaving the house.

"Mai, I will explain everything later-" he began before being interrupted by his personal tea maker.

"You need to track down and destroy the cherry blossom tree that ties the spirits to the Sakurazukamori," she replayed her message from Dream Naru.

Naru stopped and looked back at her.

"Is that what your psychic senses are telling you?"

To make the matter simple, Mai just nodded. Explaining about her spirit guide who had manifested as him would only confuse the situation.

"That will come in useful, once I work out where the tree-"

In unison they both turned to the right and stared at the spacious park in front of them, illuminated by the setting sun and dim streetlights which was filled with a variety of flora and fauna, including a large collection of Cherry Blossom trees, something that the park was famous for.

"Damn," Mai cursed. "It's going to take a while, isn't Ueno Park at least 130 acres?"

Naru racked his brain for a solution. It was winter at the moment so normal cherry blossoms were not in bloom and the tree that they were looking for would be the only one in bloom which made the search significantly larger, but Ueno Park was still very large.

His eyes slid towards Mai. If her psychic senses had told her to destroy the tree, then maybe they had sharpened and she was able to use them consciously.

"Mai," he began. "Can you use your senses to locate the tree? Searching blindly will take us hours."

The psychic opened her mouth to refuse on the grounds that she didn't know how to use her abilities, but she remembered what Dream Naru had taught her on the astral plane and she felt a surge of confidence.

"I will try," she replied.

Her superior officer flashed her a smile that lit up his eyes and Mai flushed at deep red and tried to steel herself. Now was not the time to develop a crush on her boss.

"I can sense something," she waved her arm. "It's not on this side of Ueno Park, it's more central."

She began to hesitantly lead the way through the park, following her senses. Naru walked closely behind her without showing any sign of impatience. As time passed they saw less people and the light began to fade.

Half an hour after they started Mai came to a halt on the path through the middle of a grove of cherry blossom trees. She closed her eyes and turned to the left.

"It's through here."

The location made sense to Naru as in this area of the park the trees were densely packed together, making it hard to distinguish them individually. He tapped Mai on the shoulder to stop her.

"I will go first, you can give me directions," he ordered her and stepped in front of her.

Mai raised her eyebrows at his show of being considerate for once before remembering that if he really was Kuro Kaitou then he had taken her flying around Tokyo to cheer her up and kissed her...

"Go forwards until I say stop."

The narcissist acquiesced and led the way.

"Stop," Mai said once they were deeper into the grove.

Naru squinted through the fading daylight that was steadily turning into dense darkness.

"I think there is a clearing up ahead," he observed and turned to his personal tea maker. "Stay behind me and keep quiet- it's for your own safety," he told her brusquely.

Fortunately for him Mai had grasped the gravity of the situation and simply nodded.

The phantom thief walked between the trees until he arrived at the clearing to find a large blooming cherry blossom tree, sheltering a cigarette smoking assassin. Lying slumped against the tree was someone with the same face at him, dressed in a white yukata.

"Gene," he murmured.


Ueno Park is a park in Tokyo that is famous for its Cherry Blossom trees. Although I have been to Japan I didn't go to this park in particular so I researched it instead and now I wish that I did visit it.

Thank you to everyone who has favourited, subscribed or reviewed so far.