Chapter Two

II

Soubi's head hurt. Badly. It was like a heartbeat, throbbing and never stopping. His last patient had just left and it was only the third one of the day. He hated dealing with kids, especially the extremely disturbed ones. But, he was supposedly 'the best doctor in the hospital' and therefore 'needed to see some patients'.

Kio, one of Soubi's few friends, acted as his secretary and as the person to take over his appointments when Soubi's head began to hurt. Groaning, he dialed his number on his desk phone and waited for the man to pick up.

"I need you to take over for me for the rest of the day," He told him after Kio picked up after two rings. "Can you take my messages for the rest of the day, too?"

"Sure Sou-chan, anything. You need pain meds of anything? Seven suggested that you take some," Kio's voice sounded odd over the phone.

"No," Soubi said. "I just need sleep. Thanks." Without waiting for a reply, he shut off the phone and glanced down at the paper on his desk one last time before rising and unlocking the door to his tiny apartment at the back of his office.

Aoyagi Ritsuka, he thought to himself as he shut off the lights in his bedroom. Seimei said he'd come. Now he's dead but his prediction is coming true.

"We are here today," Minami Ritsu began in front of the rest of the Septimal Moon board members. "To discuss the death of a certain individual."

Soubi glanced over at the empty seat beside him. They were all here, Soubi, Kio, Ritsu, Seven, Nagisa, and Chouma, Kio's little sister. Everyone… except for Seimei who had been found burned to death one year ago.

"'Death'?" Chouma piped up. "That bastard's not dead! All of you know as well as I do that that ass is still alive!" She was only fifteen, but she had off the charts IQ and wonderful insight into people's brain. The only downside was, like Soubi, she could be quite a misanthrope cynical person.

"Chouma!" Kio snapped. "Watch your language!"

Aoyagi Seimei… That's whom they were here to discuss. Soubi didn't necessarily like him. He always carried himself as if he was higher than everyone else. Although, in the last months of his life, Seimei had ignited a sort of relationship with him. Soubi was more fearful of him than anything else, as most people were, but he enjoyed being dominated by him.

"Please defend your case, Chouma," Ritsu said from the front of the table. The six members were seated at a long oval table in a conference room at the top of the main building. The main building held the school, offices, and the conference rooms for the board. Ritsu, being the president, was seated at the head of the table, with everyone else around him.

"Have you guys freaking seen what's been going on around here?" Chouma stood and raised her voice, making sure everyone could hear her. "As soon as we decide that he needs to be imprisoned for illegal experiments he dies? How suspicious is that? And then patients start disappearing out of what seems like thin air and we never find them again, or they come back with deformities. Explain to me how our head scientist 'dies' and things like this keep happening!"

Seimei had been the head scientist at the institution. No patient ever saw him unless they were going in for surgery. He was a dark man, who had turned against the Septimal Moon board recently. They had learned that he had reverted to doing experimental lobotomies on patients. This was a procedure where a patient was strapped down to a table, unable to move and un-sedated. Seimei would take a scalpel and go in through the eye and tweak the nerves of the brain. This surgery had been abandon by psychologists long ago and ruled unacceptable by the rest of the board. Nevertheless, Seimei had done multiple lobotomies and other illegal experiments. He had been kicked off the board and right after he had died.

"Who else seconds Chouma's claim?" Ritsu questioned the rest of the group.

"I," Seven said.

"Please support your case."

"As you all know," Seven stood and glanced at the rest of them. "I am the head of security here. I also have a medical degree and I am a certified medical examiner. I also monitor every door in this hospital. When the claims were made about Seimei performing illegal surgeries, I checked the history of weather or not his door was locked during the times of the accusations. I found that, as suspected, Seimei's door was locked during the times. When he was doing legal procedures, his door was not. This seemed off to me."

"Tell them about the examination," Nagisa growled from beside her.

"Please refrain from interrupting," Ritsu instructed.

Nagisa pouted and crossed her arms again.

"After he was found dead," Seven went on. "I was asked to do the examination of his body. The body, as you all know, was too charred to be properly identified. So, I tested the dental records. They did not match Seimei's."

"Very well then. I believe that we should meet again to discuss this. On to the next topic, then. Soubi came to me with this one. Soubi-kun, would you like to lead this one?"

Soubi glared at Ritsu, hating being spoken to by the blue-haired man. He didn't stand up like the others. He despised speaking in front of others. Sure, he was respected, but he was still anti-social.

"Aoyagi Ritsuka," He said. "Will being arriving at the institution shortly."

His statement was followed by a few short gasps and looks of surprise from everyone but Kio. Even Ritsu had a slightly shocked look on his usually unemotional face.

"Aoyagi…as in…" Nagisa trailed off.

"Yes Aoyagi as in Seimei," Soubi snapped. He had been unusually agitated these past few days, ever since first getting news of Ritsuka's soon to be arrival. The kid was going to be just like Seimei, someone who ordered him around like a dog and thought everything around him to be disgusting. Seimei had kept a photo of Ritsuka on his office desk and often paid more attention to it than to Soubi.

"We're letting what I assume to be his little brother in to the institution?" Chouma shouted. "What the hell could possibly be wrong with him?"

"Chouma…" Kio warned.

"Shut up! I'm on to something here! I bet my job that Seimei has something to do with this! He's obviously not right in the head, so I'm guessing that it runs in the family!"

Ritsu held up his hand to signal her to stop talking. She fell silent and the only sound in the room was Ritsu shuffling his papers and clearing his throat. "Soubi-kun," He looked directly at him. Soubi narrowed his eyes at him, hating him more with every memory that came back to him. "May I talk to you after the meeting?"

"No," Soubi told him. Why did Ritsu have to do that in front of the rest of the council? Most of the members knew of what happened to them eight years ago, and Ritsu's comments just made it more obvious. "If you've got something to say, say it here."

"I want you to take his case," Ritsu said quietly. He then raised his voice to address all five of them. "Board meeting dismissed. I will notify you all if there will be an emergency meeting called sooner than the weekly meeting."

The group filed out in the usual order. Nagisa babbled to Seven, and Chouma dropped to the near end of the group, near Soubi and Kio. Ritsu was always the last out and he called out to Soubi.

"As president I'm giving you Aoyagi Ritsuka's case," He said, coming up to him and giving him a thick manila folder with Ritsuka's full name on it. Soubi grudgingly tried to take it from him, glaring at the older man again. "And you should really get your head checked out. I'm worried about you," He insisted, still holding on to the folder.

Soubi yanked the file from his hands and left him for Kio and Chouma, who were waiting back for him at the door.

"What's your problem with him?" Chouma asked somewhat innocently as she looked up at him.

Kio nudged her, "He hasn't even told me yet."

"You know, I can get you in for an MRI or something," Chouma offered. Despite being only fifteen, she was the head experimental psychologist at the hospital. Unlike Seimei, she conducted experiments through the mind. She was most renowned for an invention that used specific brain waves to create a fuzzy image of what the person being hooked up to the machine was thinking. This helped with numerous diagnoses, because it could also identify the subconscious.

Chouma also sat in with a therapist during a group session. She apparently didn't do any of the therapy, for she was quite callous and cynical, but she would monitor what she had done. Most of the time with group sessions she tested the placebo effect. This was where some kids would be on a medication and others weren't but thought they were. She also studied the memory and the subconscious.

"I don't need an MRI," Soubi grumbled. "There's nothing wrong with me."

"So you're telling me you get headaches everyday just because you're annoyed with kids?" Kio shook his head in disbelief. He glanced down at the folder Soubi held in his hands.

"Ritsu ordered me to take Seimei's little brother's case," He told his friend. He wanted to drop the file and burn it. He couldn't do it. He couldn't take the case. He wouldn't be able to do it. Not after Seimei's death. But he had to, and not just because Ritsu had ordered it.

Seimei had also. A week or two before he had died Seimei had told him of Ritsuka's arrival. Soubi had been in Seimei' apartment, watching him as he studied books. The virgin had looked up at him and Soubi had seen a dark smile playing on his lips.

"Ritsuka will be coming," He had said, moving towards Soubi and sitting on his legs. "If I'm gone… You will take care of him. You will love him."

You will love him. Those words reverberated in Soubi's head now. How had Seimei managed to know when he was going to die? It was quite suspicious, but Soubi still couldn't believe that he was alive. He was dead. He had to be.

"Tell Ritsu no! He doesn't have any say in what your cases are! Hell, he knows I take half of them! That kid's bad news, Sou-chan, I can feel it!" Kio was being his obnoxious self again, always loud and exaggerating things. Sometimes it was as if the things he said didn't even go through his headfirst.

"Actually, Ritsu can tell Soubi what cases to take," Chouma pointed out.

Kio frowned at her, "You're really buzz kill, you know that?"

You will love him. Soubi's mind went back to the day again, reliving it again. Seimei had sat on his lap and kissed him for a long moment. He had been kind, not biting or anything. Soubi had closed his eyes, wanting to give himself to the other. He liked it until he felt a sudden stab in his arm and fell into unconsciousness.

Soubi didn't know what happened after that. He had woken up on the floor of Seimei's lab in excruciating pain and with a raging headache. There was blood on his torn clothes and deep cuts on his neck. He preferred not to think about it, fearful of the truth of what happened.

That had been the first time he'd had a headache like that.

It was also the last time he'd seen Seimei alive.

The second chapter!

I really like writing this fic. I'm trying to make it AU but also in-character. Am I doing a good job?

And the mysteries start!

Review this chapter and if you have time please read some of my other stories!

Oh and thanks for the current reviews!

~Wolfie