Chapter 10 - No Ide
Cardiff, Wales, 2015
"Where are you?"
a looked around. "Cardiff. I think. Everything smells different here."
"Concentrate, Matsuda!" Aizawa snapped. Matsuda grimaced and nodded.
"Yes, Aizawa."
"Good," the voice on the phone crackled slightly as Matsuda walked on. "This should be a secure phoneline, so all you need to worry about is being overheard."
"Gotcha," Matsuda acknowledged, ducking into an alleyway. He walked on, in the shade.
"We need to find out what's so special about Cardiff. Why Kira's first actions were focused on the city."
"You want me to go spy around?" Matsuda asked, puffing out his chest. He caught a reflection of himself in a steel bin. He winked.
"No," Aizawa snapped. "I want you to find Ide."
"Wha..." Matsuda yelped.
"He said he'd meet you at the..." Aizawa checked his notes. "...Millennium centre."
"I looked there," Matsuda complained. In his office, Aizawa threw a pen, irritably. It bounced from the waste-paper bin and hit the wall. He sat back, sighing.
"Matsuda, wait by the Millenium centre. Find Ide. Then contact me again."
Matsuda hesitated, and then nodded. "Yes, Aizawa-san."
He closed the phone and pocketed it.
Leaning back against the alley wall, he sighed. The Kira case. Again. Last time...he didn't want to think about last time.
He'd been betrayed last time. That was enough.
Aizawa wanted to do well. Wanted to live up to Chief Yagami. Wanted to prove the NPA didn't need mavericks like Near. Wanted to prove he was good enough. Matsuda sighed again.
The Death Note had alot to answer for.
Ide nodded, attentively.
"You're sure this is what you saw?"
The man pointed up at the rooftops, wide-eyed.
"I know what I saw. This big lizard thing jumped up there, and stabbed some guy...had horns, and big claws all over it...kind of like a...a dinosaur or something. But with more claws."
Ide nodded again and put his pen away. "Thank-you for your time, sir."
He turned and walked away. He ignored the man's calls.
Aliens, monsters. The city was more full of conspiracists than all Japan. Mutants in the sewers, drugs in the water supply, sex-crazed gas clouds...he rolled his eyes. Gas clouds. He wished.
He checked his phone. Aizawa had called. Damn. Probably wanted to know if he'd met Matsuda yet. Since Ide was the only one of the two that knew any English, it had made sense that they work together. Ide sighed. Matsuda. He'd been putting off the endless prattle the man came out with. If he made one jibe about his love life...
He turned the phone over and checked the batteries. Not good. He dialled the number.
Holding it to his ear he hummed, patiently.
"Aizawa-san?"
"No."
Ide frowned. "What?"
The figure caught him around the waist and carried him to the floor. Ide gasped, winded, as the first punch came down.
It knocked his head back cleanly, crashing it against the pavement. Ide's eyes flickered and shut.
The figure rose, panting slightly. Someone was showing a little too much interest in the paranormal around Cardiff. The East India Trading Company had a distinct interest for that kind of people.