Warning: Dark stuff, depictions of graphic violence and what not. Really, not for the faint of heart. This warning applies for all remaining chapters of this story.

Chapter Eight

The movement was soft.

Her full skirt was twirling in a waltz she danced alone, had done so for almost 18 months. On the moss-covered hardwood floor lay her shoes, as if kicked aside because her feet hurt after joyous hours of spinning and twisting and turning to the sound of music heard by no one but her. The gloves on her fingers were still white, pure, untouched, even though the nails underneath them were not. Long black tresses of hair almost touched the floor and the record kept playing and playing and playing, broadcasting Minako Aino's voice to those who could no longer hear.

It was true, your hair didn't stop growing once you died. Neither did your nails. Only the fact that she was dangling from the ceiling kept the worms from finding her. The noose was tight around her broken neck and in a final act of cruelty, her heart had been taken from her before its last beat.

Mamoru walked up and down the pavement in front of Makoto Kino's house. It was six o'clock in the morning, and the wind was so icy that it felt as if it was cutting into his skin. The street lights were still on, and the sky was full of dark clouds. It had been raining all night; there had been a wild storm raging over Tokyo, keeping its inhabitants awake and denying them the sleep they craved. The rain had stopped when Mamoru left his apartment half an hour ago, but the roads were coated with a thick layer of ice, and he had slipped once already, finding himself flat on his back within seconds.

Rubbing the growing bump on the back of his head, Mamoru waited for his colleagues to arrive. His ears were beginning to ache as well, and he remembered that Usagi had always made him wear hats and gloves in winter. Without her, he just forget these sort of things and froze his extremities off instead.

A silver car pulled up and Katsurou emerged. He wore his customary trench, and a black suit underneath, an attire more suited for a breezy spring day than for one the harshest days of winter. Mamoru noticed with envy that despite his dress shoes, Katsurou didn't seem to have a problem walking on the frozen pavement - his steps were indecently sure-footed.

"Morning."

The coroner inclined his head in way of greeting. "Shall we go inside and start looking?"

Mamoru shoved his hands deep into his pockets to protect them from the cold, a thoroughly fruitless endeavour. "We can't, Noboru has the key and he's not here yet."

Fifteen minutes and just as many unanswered phone calls later, Noboru was still missing, so Mamoru and Katsurou decided to go to Makoto Kino's old workplace instead. They hurried through the cold, thankful that the café was just down the street. The waitress told them that they usually didn't open until seven, but since it was so cold and they were on her deceased colleague's case, she let them in anyway. The staff had put a picture of Kino on the wall, a small token of mourning and remembrance. Once the two men settled comfortably at a table near the window and ordered some coffee, they began to talk.

"I googled the name Endymion yesterday. It's-"

"Greek mythology. Lover of the moon goddess Serene," Katsurou finished for him. "Now what does that have to do with you?" He wasn't the sort of person that wasted time on pleasantries, and his directness was something Mamoru found both vaguely comforting and somewhat terrifying.

Mamoru sipped his coffee to buy himself some time, ignoring that it was still too hot to drink. His fingers were tingling now that they were warming up, and he couldn't remember the last time he had been this cold. Eventually, he answered, annoyed by his own cluelessness. "Nothing. No idea why Aino wrote it on the photo."

Katsurou shot him an inquisitive look, and drummed his left index finger on the table. "Perhaps it's not about you."

"I'm not following."

"Perhaps it's about your wife. Selene... does that ring a bell?"

Mamoru thought of Usagi: bright, lively, happy Usagi. Her image overrode anything else, and his heart clenched.

"No."

The answer was as brief as it was definitive; it might have been more expansive had it been Noboru who asked, but the inspector wasn't here and while Mamoru respected the coroner, he did not consider him a friend. Katsurou changed the topic. "What do you hope to find in Kino's house? The reports say that it was there you found the picture that connected the victims."

"Perhaps some information about how to find Hino. If she's still alive." Silence settled over the table for a minute before Katsurou voiced a thought Mamoru had entertained ever since Noboru told him that there was no paper trail leading to Rei Hino.

"She might be a victim, she might be a suspect."

"I know. But do you really think a woman could do something as gruesome as that? I'd say we're dealing with a male perpetrator here."

Katsurou shook his head, a grim smile playing on his lips. "Don't underestimate women, they can be just as cruel as men."

"But cutting hearts out? Seems like a crime of passion. I think it's Aino's lover." But then why should Aino's lover kill Kino and Usagi first, Mamoru wondered. Everywhere his mind went, all he could find was dead ends.

"You neglect that two of the victims were drugged first, Mamoru. That might be a sign of compassion, but it might as well be because the perpetrator knew that in a physical fight, his or her chances weren't good. Which again points to a woman, or to a weak man."

Mamoru nodded reluctantly, and suddenly, a question burst out of him. "Why are you a coroner? Why not work as an inspector? You're good at this."

"Your partner would probably disagree."

"I don't think so."

"I'm not good with people," Katsurou stated matter-of-factly and cupped his coffee mug with both hands. "Can you see me talking to a victim's family?"

"That's something you can learn. I only ever met one person who's a natural at this, and that person is Noboru." Smoothing his tie, Katsurou changed the topic yet again.

"Is it often that he's late?" Mamoru thought about the countless meetings Noboru had arrived late to, out of breath and with a huge grin on his face, and more often than he hadn't managed to be on time because he was flirting with some cute secretary in the hallways.

"Yes, but usually no more than ten to fifteen minutes. Let me call him again."

Mamoru dialled his friend's number, but once again, the phone kept ringing without anyone picking up at the other end of the line. Mamoru looked apologetic. "Maybe he had to go the station, and couldn't make it." Katsurou raised an eyebrow, and Mamoru felt the need to defend his partner. "And I know that he's meeting Mrs. Mizuno at 8 to check for the missing picture."

Outside, it began to rain again.

After a day spent mulling over how a white cat found its way into his mother-in-law's house, why Minako Aino was interested in Greek mythology and whether Rei Hino was a victim or a murderer, Mamoru needed some distraction. He found Setsuna in her office late at night. It was one of the things he learned first about her: she was a hard worker, and now that Minako Aino was dead, she had even more to do. Who would have thought that the dead needed managers more than the living?

"What are you doing?"

Setsuna looked up from her desk, and smiled when she saw Mamoru leaning against the door frame.

"There will be a Minako Aino remembrance book - all of her most beautiful pictures in one volume. Limited edition, that sort of thing. I'm selecting the pictures right now. Her mother really likes the idea."

Mamoru bit back a cynical remark and walked towards the woman, coming to stand behind her. If anything, Minako Aino's mother liked the money the book would undoubtedly make. A newspaper he had picked up earlier was full of articles about the singer, speculations about Kaitou Ace and his role in her murder, about her secret life, about the hidden reasons of her death. The public loved a good and gruesome murder, and Mamoru thought it was like Roman arenas all over again.

Looking over Setsuna's shoulder, he could smell the manager's heavy perfume. He knew the smell would only get more intense once it mingled with sweat, and his pants were beginning to feel too tight. Setsuna wore a stunning black dress, tailored exactly to her body's each and every curve. He leaned down, and rested his chin on her shoulder, his breath caressing her ears. From this angle, the many facets of the murdered singer were spread on the table for him to take in and once he saw them, his hard-on disappeared as quickly as it came into being.

There were a few pictures of Aino as a little girl, some glamorous ones taken from a magazine photo shoot, a few depicting the young woman on the stage, and last but not least, some that showed her in the recording studio. It was one of those that caught Mamoru's attention. He reached over Setsuna and picked it up. Minako Aino - dolled up and pretty - was sitting on a large red couch, golden curls framing her face while she wrote something in a red notebook. She looked contemplative, focused. Mamoru tensed.

"Setsuna, this book... is it Minako's?" She took the picture from his hands, careful to brush her fingers against his and examined it.

"Yes, it's her notebook. Most people don't know it, but she wrote a lot of her songs herself. She never went anywhere without this, I think she also used it as a diary. Not that she would ever let me have a look at it, the stupid girl threw a tantrum when I asked her whether I could read some of her new material once. As if I wanted to steal from her." She turned to face Mamoru, a seductive smile on her painted lips. "But let's talk about something else, shall we?"

Completely ignoring her overture, Mamoru snatched the picture, put it in one of his coat pockets and made for the door in a few quick strides, calling over his shoulder as he went. "I'll call you tomorrow, I have to speak to someone."

The door slammed shut behind him before Setsuna even had the chance to protest.

Pounding his fist against the door, harder and harder each time, Mamoru waited for his partner to appear. It wasn't even eleven, and Mamoru knew that his partner never went to bed before midnight.

When the door finally opened, Mamoru was both too enraged and too excited to notice the drawn look on Noboru's face.

"We have to speak to Hisaya Nigoshi again. Now."

Running his hand over his face in a bone-weary motion, Noboru closes his eyes. "Now is not a good time, mate. Can we do it tomorrow?"

"No, we can't, we have to do it now. And where were you this morning? You were supposed to meet us at Kino's house. Anyway: Remember that flashy red notebook Hisaya carries around with him? It's Aino's." He shoved the photo in Noboru's face, waiting for the information to register.

It took Noboru longer than expected.

"What do you mean, it's hers?"

"It's Aino's. Setsuna told me that she used it for new songs, and as a diary. I bet Hisaya stole it when he was in her apartment after the murder."

"What would he want with her diary? If it's about money, he could have just sold the alley shots."

"Exactly. So there has to be some sort of privileged information in there, something that either Aino or Nigoshi wouldn't want known by the public, the police or whoever else would have access to her flat. Remember that Setsuna told us about a fight between Usagi and Aino on the night of the fire? What if Aino wrote something about it in her diary?"

"Wait, let me read between the lines here. You're saying that there might be some information regarding the murderer in here, right? And that Hisaya doesn't want that information out in the open."

"Yes! We might learn something about the murderer's motive from it, some hint as to why Aino was murdered. And that means that Hisaya might know who the murderer is, Noboru! So come on, we have to talk to him, bring him in for questioning."

Noboru turned and walked into his flat, picking up one of his customary lumberjack shirts from the floor. It was then that Mamoru noticed that his partner wasn't wearing a shirt, and more importantly, that his back was covered in angry red welts, some of them were even bleeding. Noboru disappeared into the bedroom.

"Man, what happened to you?" Quickly, Mamoru stepped inside the flat and closed the door behind him.

Noboru returned, a pair of socks in his hand. He sat down on his couch to put them on, careful not to lean back lest his back should come into contact with the couch's rough fabric. "Nothing."

"Noboru..."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"It looks like someone whipped you... You should get someone to look at this."

"Mamoru, I said I don't want to talk about it." The steel in his partner's voice caused Mamoru to shut up.

Hisaya Nigoshi didn't open the door, which wasn't in itself surprising seeing how it was nearing midnight. Mamoru pressed the bell, but nothing happened. It was the second time he stood in front of a closed door, waiting for it to be opened. Noboru stood a little aside, unusually quiet.

"Did you send someone else to meet Mrs. Mizuno at Ami's?"

"Fuck. I completely forgot about that. Maybe Teno went there, I sent her an email about it yesterday afternoon."

Mamoru turned away from the door, frustration tingeing his voice. "He's not in. Nobody can sleep through the sound of that doorbell."

"Yeah. Why don't I call the station and ask to have someone come in for surveillance of the house? Then we can leave, and we'll still know when Nigoshi returns."

"Sounds good."

Noboru placed the call, and the two inspectors left the building. Sneaking glances at his partner every other step, Mamoru plucked up some courage.

"Kinky new girl?"

Noboru took a deep breath. "You might say that. She's a bit intense."

"It it something serious?"

Noboru's face clouded just like the sky above them.

"I don't really do serious, you know that."

"Was she the reason why you weren't at Kino's this morning?"

Noboru nodded, and began to search his pockets for a cigarette.

"Were you at the station today?"

"No, I wasn't, I needed a day off. And now I need sleep. Let's meet in-" Noboru checked his watch. "In six hours at the station, we'll have to talk to the Chief and get you reinstated, okay? And then we'll find Nigoshi."

Their goodbye was brief, and for the rest of the night, Mamoru wondered what on earth had happened to his partner in the last 24 hours.

End of Chapter Eight