The phone call at 3 a.m. had left Kiba in something of a panic, but then again who can stay calm when they had just been yelled at by their older sister? Hana told him to get out of bed and down to the hospital asap. Growing up on a Marine base had left her with a few idiosyncrasies that Kiba had missed out on.

Buttoning up his shirt as he walked in, Kiba passed the elderly receptionist with a wink and made his way upstairs to Moegi's room. Security began to approach him, but a flash of his badge got him a wave and an open door to the critical condition wing.

"Room 302," Kiba reminded himself as he walked the halls before arriving at the open door, "All right Hana what's the emergency…?"

Hana was sitting in the visitor's chair, completely composed and in control. The man on the floor was bruised, bloody, and chained to the underside of the sink in the bathroom.

"I figured it would be best to give you a call before the rest of the force," Pulling a Rubix Cube from her pocket, she began to toy with it, "I also called Shino, he's doing a background check on this guy's ID. Seriously though, what kind of idiot brings their actual ID along when they're trying to kill somebody?" She nodded in the direction of the man in the bathroom and rolled her eyes.

"With the white coat, he looks the part. How'd you figure?"

"He smelled wrong. That and his name wasn't on the list the hospital staff gave me so I twisted his arm and took the vial he was planning on injecting into the girl's iv." From the look of the kid, Hana did more than just twist his arm, a shattered mirror in the bathroom and a knocked over cabinet told the rest of the story.

"Was he lucky enough to even get in a shot at you?" Kiba jested.

"They all try sport, they all try." Putting down the solved cube, Hana stood up and made her way to the door. "I'll leave him to you. I'm going down to the cafeteria. You want anything?"

"Glass of milk and Salisbury steak if they have it." Rolling up his sleeves, Kiba went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet next to the suspect. Opening his cigarette case, and remembering it was empty, he offered one to the man on the floor. "Smoke?"

"Sure, why not?" Apparently the man's head was just starting to clear, from the lump on his head, Kiba was surprised he didn't have a concussion.

"Too bad, I'm fresh out." With a loud snap, he shut his case and put it back in his pocket. "Did my sister read you your rights already?" The man shook his head and Kiba sighed. He never liked being the one to give Miranda Rights. Police liked to talk about the pursuit of justice, but so many things slowed down the chase.

"What's the punishment for attempted murder?" The man was clearly nervous and a bit shaken up.

"Oh that crime is mostly treated exactly the same as regular murder." Keeping his tone of voice level, Kiba knew he couldn't match Shino's psychological game, but he has his own, casual style for dealing with people. "But we've been known to cut deals for people who know how to deal." Reaching over to the vial on the counter, Kiba picked it up and took a closer look at the label. "Potassium Chloride… this is what they use in lethal injections right?"

He was starting to show a hesitancy to speak, but something told Kiba it was less out of nervousness and more out of shame. "This girl has had a rough week. First her friend is killed with a lethal injection, then she is given a dose too, and now someone comes to the hospital to finish her off. You don't have to give me the 'why' I can read it in your face. Even if Hana wasn't here you weren't going to go through with it." Something about the kid started to wake up, a small light of hope, but it was enough to get him back into the conversation from the dark place his thoughts had wandered to.

"I knew them, both of them from school. We were all in the pre-med program at Konoha University." The confession started slowly as he fought back tears.

"What's your name?" Kiba asked as he took out his keys and took off the kid's handcuffs.

"Tanzo." Rubbing his wrists he adjusted his position and sat against the opposite wall.

"Who sent you down here Tanzo?"

"Professor Akado." Hiding his shock that the interrogation got to this point so quickly, Kiba got up from the toilet and sat down next to Tanzo.

"You look like a good kid; I'm not going to make any judgments about you. Likely the Professor made you some promises, guarantees if you went through with this. Do you know what this is all about?"

Tanzo shook his head and grabbed his legs; he seemed more confused than anything else. "Professor Akado is working on a big Hepatotoxicity study, chemical damage to livers. He's working with hundreds of liver samples from around the country. There's funding from a major pharmaceutical firm and even government grants for what he's working on."

"What was he like before the study?" Good men don't suddenly turn bad because they get a big influx of resources. More likely Akado was a scumbag before.

"He was always a bit of a womanizer. It's known that he slept with students from time to time, but nobody ever made any big deal about it. Mina was the most recent I knew of, but he never showed her any special favors so… when she dropped out of school a few of us started asking questions, until she said she was working on something special for the Professor. The last couple of days just started going so fast I can't…" Tanzo was starting to shake, and by this time Hana was walking in with Shino, who was holding a tray of food.

"Give this kid the steak. Shino, you're with me."

The drive down to Akado's house was a quiet one, Shino didn't like being up this late either, but somehow he silently understood the scale of their case was much bigger than they had originally thought.

"A College Professor with a beachfront house, we're in the wrong business partner." Shino cleared his gun from his holster and watched from the side as they approached the door. a few loud knocks and couple of doorbell rings have no response. Shino pointed to the side of the house, where there was some light coming from a side light. Hopping the fence, they found it wasn't the side light but the light from the back of the house facing the beach. Out on the sand was a dark, lonely figure.

Akado's face was visible when he turned his head and saw two police officers staring at him. He let out a laugh followed by a sigh of resignation.

"It's not easy, you know. Going through life, thinking you're meant for greater things but always missing out on them. Then when you are finally given your big chance it turns out to be more than you can handle. Do you know what that does to a man?"

"If you're talking about the study, my opinion is that you were bad before that even came your way." Kiba motioned to Shino to holster his gun.

"A couple of vice cops, we're in the same business you know. I study the effects of drugs on the body, you study their effects on the mind, how they influence decision making. Last time I had a hit or did a line was back in '69. Those were the days."

"Kiba," Shino's voice was low, "Look at his hands." There was a shadow of something in his hands, barely visible in the moonlight.

"Why are you here detectives?" Akado seemed stable, but situations can change quickly.

"We caught Tanzo at the hospital." Kiba announced, slowly moving to get a better view at Akado from the side.

"Oh? And what was he doing there?" A response that open ended still left plenty of room for him to slip his way out, deny any involvement.

"Moegi's awake." Shino added. "We have the files." Kiba quickly turned his head to Shino in shock. It was a bold-faced lie, but Shino's poker face was flawless.

"I see…" Kiba's head turned back at the sound of the gunshot. Akado fired a bullet into the sand before throwing his gun onto the beach. Shino came forward with a pair of handcuffs and took him inside. After a call, a squad car came to pick Akado up and take him back to prison.

"What was that?" Kiba shouted at Shino when the squad car was out of sight.

"While you spent your time pointlessly following him around town, I was talking to former colleagues and students. He had been passed over for so many promotions or other opportunities that he was already suicidal. Do the math Kiba, he was sitting alone on a beach with a gun in his hands. Chances were that the attempt on Moegi was going to fail, and when she woke up it would be the end of his case. He was contemplating suicide already, I just gave him something else to think about.

"And you didn't think to try to talk him down?"

"It was a 50/50 shot he'd either kill himself or come quietly. Those are better odds than we usually get."

"And what about Moegi? What if she doesn't wake up?"

"I told Hana to page me if the girl's condition changed." Shino took out his pager and tossed it to Kiba. The time of the page was about the time they had arrived at Akado's house.

"If her condition changed? What if it got worse?"

"Like I said 50/50 chance." Shino shrugged his shoulders and sat down in the passenger side of the car. Gritting his teeth, Kiba sped back to the hospital, finding that the girl had woken up and was in a talkative state.

"Between your poker face and your knack for playing the odds, remind me to never bet against you again." Giving Shino a slug on the arm, Kiba sat down in the hall and rested his head against the wall.

"You care about the rest of the story?" Shino asked. Inside Hana was writing down everything Moegi was saying, from Mina's affair with Akado, to the drug dealing, to taking special liver samples for the study, to Mina's addiction and paranoia, and the files detailing all the work Mina did for Akado in a safety deposit box.

"The rest of the story?" Kiba pondered a moment and let his eyes drift up to the ceiling, "Nah, I'll leave that to Paul Harvey."

Author's note: If you don't know who Paul Harvey is, please look him up. Very important radio personality of the 20th Century. Always gave a calm and reassuring perspective on the news of the day (which during the cold war was something people really needed). And while modern commentators would take issue with his associations with J. Edgar Hoover or Joseph McCarthy, I would have you understand that there is a lot to admire in his 50 years in radio and his personal life.