Chapter 2, took a while longer then I expected. It's been a difficult few months so much work, I feel like I'm going to get buried under it all. But finally I got this chapter out. Pain in the arse I tell ya! The mystery deepens, and it will just keep on going.

Beta read by Kuro Mitsu!

Chapter 2: Speculations

Asuma walked down the wide hallways to the medical examiner's office, he had to fill out some paperwork about the crime scene and now he was late for his appointment. Kurenai did not like tardy people. He walked through the double doors and saw a long dark-haired woman standing in scrubs with her back turned to him. She turned when she heard him come in; Yuuhi Kurenai was in her mid-thirties with pale skin and maroon eyes that looked almost red under the florescent lights. At the sight of him her red lips twisted into a frown.

"You're late!" Kurenai snapped.

The detective just chuckled scratched the back of his head, "Aw, come on, cut me some slack. I am your fiancé after all," he said, leaning in for a kiss. But Kurenai dodged him and walked through another set of doors, leaving Asuma to follow her. "No, we have a strict schedule, I still have a lot of work to do."

The morgue was sterile and clean and on the table under a bright light was the victim Yugito Nii, she was covered by a white sheet that covered her up to her face. There were a few metal bowls that Asuma saw held the organs that had been removed before. It seemed Kurenai had separated them. On a tray next to her were sets of medical tools that made the detective sweat, the bonesaw today looked especially sharp and lethal.

"Okay, okay," he conceded. "What can you tell me about her?"

Kurenai picked up a chart, "Well I can tell you that she fought, she had bruises all over her knuckles."

"She was a Tai Chi instructor."

Kurenai nodded, "That explains some of the injuries; she also has a small cut on her neck. I only found it after cleaning her body. It severed her carotid artery which stopped oxygenated blood reaching her brain, but she didn't die instantly..."

Asuma turned her, "So she was still alive then when they…"

"Unconscious, but yes, she would have still been alive for a little while."

The detective frowned, looking down at Nii's face, she did not have a quick death. "The organs…"

"Are hers, I found it odd however how they were removed."

"Odder than the fact that they were removed at all?"

She just gave him a sidelong look. "Yes, while the chest cavity was almost torn open, her ribs were more or less all broken, the actual organs were removed with care. Each cut out carefully. But we do have a few missing."

"Which ones?" he asked curiously, stepping closer to the body.

"Heart and eyes."

"They weren't in the pile?" he asked surprised. Kurenai shook her head and picked up her clipboard. "What could they want with the organs?"

"That's for you to figure out, detective," she said turning to him, holding out a file for him. "I'm only a medical examiner."

Asuma smiled, he reached for the file and before she could react, quickly pressed a kiss against her lips, ignoring the shocked gasp she gave and hurried out of the room. He would probably have to hear all about 'proper-work-environment-ethic ' later, but for now he would think about the tingling sensation on his lips and the heavy burden of the file in his hands. The first thought that came to mind was organ trafficking, corneas could go up to ¥21,000,000, and a good heart could be up to ¥109,200,000. It was a lucrative investment, and using some freak cult as a cover was the way to go.

Finding the organs was probably their best way to find Nii's murderer, but chances were that those organs were already buried in the black market. When he reached his desk Asuma placed the files on the table and slumped down on his seat with a heavy sigh. Forensics was backlogged so he still hadn't gotten any results back from them, all he could do was look over the pictures again and the strange bloody symbols drawn on the walls.

They didn't look familiar, it was not in any known Kanji or hiragana, although the symbols were written in such a sloppy, messy way that it could be just about anything. Asuma looked down at the pictures; the red just seemed to blur together in a terrible mess. With that much blood Asuma wondered if it all had been hers. The average body held about 5 litres of blood, from the messy cut up they did of Nii most of it had ended up around her; there didn't seem to be enough left to cover the rest of the building in writing.

He'd probably have to find some expert to tell him if the writing was real or fake.

He almost jumped when he felt a buzzing in his pants pocket, with a mumbled curse Asuma fumbled inside his trouser pocket to take out his phone. It was Sasuke; with a quick swipe across the screen he pressed the phone against his ear.

"How's the kid?" he asked.

"Not much… we talked for a bit, he had a panic attack so he's been sedated again, what do you have?"

He sighed, "Eyes and heart were missing, think it might be organ trafficking," Asuma replied.

"Hn…" the Uchiha grunted. "That's tricky."

"No one said it was easy."

"Hn…" there was silence on the other line. "Do you need me to come in?" Asuma couldn't help but chuckle, he could already hear the desperation in Sasuke's voice. He must be getting bored of being stuck on babysitting duty.

"No, you're fine. Just stay with the kid; we don't know if those guys are still after him. What information did you get from him?"

"I got his name, Uzumaki Naruto, 22, graduated from Joshiba University. He said that the only thing he remembered was going grocery shopping, then nothing. Got pretty freaked out when I said he was found in a room with a dead woman, that's why he was sedated again."

Asuma grumbled a few curses under his breath as he wrote the rest of the information on his pad, "You just said that all to him there and then? You gotta have some tact…"

"Hn…" was his only reply, and if Sasuke was in his room he could almost imagine that stupid almost smug face. He'd slap him silly if he could. "You better try and fix this, the kid could be in danger still, so try and make him feel comfortable. I'll go check him out and try to find his family."

"Hn," and the line went dead.

Oh, he could kill that boy.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Sasuke turned the phone off with a quick press with a smirk and pocketed his phone. He turned back to the blonde who was still asleep, he should probably take it slow on the blonde next time. The detective glanced at his now cold coffee with a disgusted frown and threw the remains in the sink, letting the water run to clean up the dregs. He then sat back down, taking out his phone to check his messages.

"Hey..."

His dark eyes widened in shock, and with some hesitation he turned to look at the not-so-unconscious blonde. The kid had his head turned to the side, staring at Sasuke with sleepy blue eyes, he couldn't believe it. He should be knocked out for the rest of the day, there was no way he should be awake.

"I didn't hurt anyone, did I?" he asked, his voice thick and raspy with sleep.

Sasuke paused and slowly raised an eyebrow. "Do you think you did?"

Naruto frowned. "No... I don't... but I was found in the same room as her, I also don't remember what happened..." he trailed off, and slowly looked away from Sasuke.

"I think you're a victim, nothing else, "he replied, feeling the urge to keep the kid calm, he didn't want to upset him again.

The blonde gave a slow nod, "I want to call... someone."

"So do you have family, or maybe a next of kin, I can contact?"

The blonde closed his eyes and gave a low hum, "Godmother... Hashirama Tsunade, she's a priestess at Zenkokuji temple."

"A priestess? What about your parents?"

The blonde frowned and looked away. "They're dead, they died a long time ago."

Sasuke paused and nodded, he texted the priestess' name to Asuma so that he could contact her. No reason to push the kid further and drag up more painful memories. "Do you need anything?"

"...some water please," he replied.

Sasuke nodded and reached towards the end table where there was a jug of water and a cup with a straw inside. He poured some in and stood up, watching the blonde struggle to sit up; he hissed suddenly and then touched his stomach. Slowly he pushed the blanket down and pulled his gown aside and a loud gasp escaped him when he saw the spiral tattoo that adorned his abdomen, spiralling out from his belly button.

"What the fuck is this?!" he whispered out harshly. Looking down from his stomach and back to Sasuke. "What the hell is this on my stomach?!" he asked a little louder.

"I'm guessing you didn't always have a tattoo then..."

"Fucking hell, of course not!" he shouted, his restrained hand jingling against the frame. "Shit this hurts!" he hissed out when he leaned the wrong way.

"Just lie back down, I'll get a nurse," Sasuke ordered, he put the cup down and tried to push the blonde back onto the bed.

Naruto shook his head and pushed Sasuke away. "No, no, they'll just stick me with more needles, I don't need that," he replied.

The detective nodded and took a step back to give the kid some space. He still looked down at his stomach in panicked bewilderment. Sasuke had been right about one thing though, the tattoo had been fresh.

"Look, I need to take a photo of your tattoo."

"Why?" he asked.

"It might be evidence, whoever took you marked you; this might lead us to them."

Naruto frowned and looked down at his stomach, "Okay, just hurry up."

Sasuke took out his phone and instructed the blonde to lift his gown a bit more and lean back a bit. He quickly took a few snaps and told the blonde he was going to send them to his partner who would do the search. Naruto hurriedly pulled his gown back down and lifted his blanket up as far as he could. Sasuke felt a twitch in his gut, something he guessed was empathy; the blonde looked absolutely terrified, he tried to remember Asuma's words and be nice to the guy, he was a victim after all.

"Look you're safe here, those guys can't get you here," he tried to reassure, but Naruto turned to him, his blue eyes wide with fear. "How can you guarantee that?" he asked.

Sasuke gave him a confident look. "'Cause I'll be right here with you."

That seemed enough.

It took a while but he managed to convince Naruto to go back to asleep and actually try to rest. He got a text from Asuma saying that he managed to contact the blonde's godmother, and that she was on her way. Kurenai had also sent him Yugito Nii's autopsy report so that he could study it in detail, he had never seen a case where only eyes and a heart had been taken, there were many more vital organs that they had left behind, like the liver and kidneys. They might not be as pricy as a good heart, but money was money. It seemed like such a waste.

Then again, sometimes trying to figure out how the mind of some deranged psychos worked would drive you insane. Sometimes there was no reason for their actions.

He sighed and leaned back against the chair, this was a more difficult case than he could have ever imagined. Sasuke could already feel the weariness setting in; he had been up since 2 a.m, it was nearly 11 a.m now and he had barely gotten any sleep the night before with his nightmares. He was just starting to drift off when he heard loud stomping noises rushing towards their room door, and then he heard some commotion outside.

"Ma'm please calm down, you're disturbing the other patients!"

"Get out of my way, my godson is in one of these rooms!"

"You need to calm down!"

Wide awake now, Sasuke stood up and rushed towards the door opening it, only to stop stunned when he saw an older big-boobed blonde facing off against two nurses. It wasn't a scene he saw often, he would have found it funny if it weren't for the fact that the older woman looked like she was about to tear the two women in front of her apart, her honeyed eyes dark with anger. Sasuke took out his badge, hoping to diffuse the situation quickly. He glanced towards the bed wondering how the kid could sleep through this when everything else seemed to wake him so easily.

He sighed and turned his attention back to the situation. "Wait, I'm detective Uchiha Sasuke, what is going on here?!"

The women stopped and all turned to face him, the blonde woman strode towards him and spoke up. "I'm Hashirama Tsunade, I got a police call from a detective Sarotobi saying that my godson is here, I want to know where he is?!"

He should have guessed that, after all she was still dressed in her priestess garb and a hastily buttoned up coat. "Calm down ma'm, he's just here in this room sleeping."

She instantly calmed down and strode towards the room, her self-assured demeanour crumbling as soon as soon as she saw the sleeping blonde on the bed. Slowly she walked towards the younger man, her eyes landing on the restrains. "Why does he have that on his arm?" she asked, her voice quivering with barely suppressed rage.

"It was done for his own safety, I'll get one of the nurses to remove it-"

"Why was he restrained in the first place?!"

Sasuke paused, "...he woke up panicked and nearly attacked someone."

He noticed the whitening of her knuckles as she walked towards the bed, but she was gentle in her movements, she slowly moved some hair away from his face like a mother would. So he was surprised when he saw how swiftly she moved and slapped him over the head.

"BAKA!" she shouted, nearly knocking the boy out of his bed. He nearly tackled her, but was too stunned to move.

"Waa, obachan, not so rough!" came a whiny voice, and Naruto sat up a little giving the older woman a pained look. "I'm injured here!"

"Not injured enough you gaki, what the hell happened to you?!"

"I-" but she didn't let him finish and quickly turned to him. "When can I take this idiot home?"

"I'll... I'll ask the doctor..."

"Do that detective..."

He didn't move for a while, just looking between the two, worried about if he should leave them alone; and then he slowly turned to leave. Just before he went through the threshold, he saw the older woman engulf the younger in a bear hug. Sasuke couldn't help but smile at the sight, he then left to find the doctor and give them some privacy.

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