Chapter 42 - Dancing with the Devil


"He's really amped up the security, hasn't he…"

Akira had to park his moped outside the school gates near the mail depot instead of the usual bike and scooter parking inside the campus. He'd also spotted a few more surveillance cameras, extra staff and men in suits patrolling the grounds. A a lot of students peppered across the walkways and courtyard, but the corporate clothing stuck out like sore thumbs amongst the mass of school uniforms. It disgruntled him a bit but it wasn't as if he was a student anymore, so it had nothing to do with him.

That's right.

Hayama Akira was expelled from Tootsuki.

He wasn't surprised when it happened because he knew it would sooner or later. The news of his defeat against Yukihira in one of the biggest shokugeki of the season spread like wild fire that even the newspaper club had trouble publishing fast enough to cover the full story. It was like Central had gotten a snowball in the face thanks to him and it had sparked a rebellious flame in him, however it was quickly stamped down because he had to remember his defeat meant it was the final nail in Jun's coffin. Anyhow, the prolonged expulsion gave Akira an X amount of time to get his shit together before the axe hit the chopping block. There would be no way in hell he would let Azami catch him unprepared. If anything, he would be ready to leave this place with his head held high and with promise of retribution for his pitiful extortion when the right time came. Hayama Akira did exactly that. The bridge was burnt so he might as well dance in the ashes. Karma would glass Azami in the face.

Akira shoved his Tootsuki visitor's pass into his pockets. Fuck wearing that.

Walking for ten minutes through Tootsuki was like walking in a wax museum. Everything was fake. A hollow imitation of what a nurturing school should be. The spices, the ingredients, and the condiments smelt the same everywhere he went and it was disappointing. Akira used to liken walking in between classes and buildings to the Night Noodle Markets of Chiba. A famous food festival hosted every Friday night in Jun's mentor's old home town. People far and wide would come to enjoy the fantastic flavours of the special local street food and unique dishes the region had to offer. There would be heady and fragrant mixtures of delicious scents coming from the class kitchens and RS buildings, which were the life essence of the great culinary school. He could walk blindfolded and tell which building he was in simply from knowing the scent of the Spanish RS over here, Chocolate RS over there, Teppanyaki RS about thirty metres away, Don RS around that corner and such. But right now, there were no such diversity thanks to the fascist system put in place by the Azami administration. Despite the smell of five-star dishes from the new practicum classes, Akira inwardly admonished the students.

'Trading integrity for power... this is the world we live in now'

Akira swung the lanyard of his and Jun's old seminar keys in his hands. They told him they hadn't changed the locks yet, so that was one extra thing going for him. There were a few belongongs he needed to pick up to fully move into his new apartment. He smirked. It turned out, one didn't need to finish education at Tootsuki to find jobs in a decent restaurant.

Akira smoothed down his new grey and black plaid shirt. The fabric was a bit stiff and it felt a bit unusual on his skin, but it was comfortable enough. He was far used to his usual short sleeve grand-dad shirts, which he'd worn so many times that the fabric worn thin until it was baby-soft. Usually Jun insisted her job as his adopted guardian was to clothe him, and he of course would try to stop her from mothering him so much. Technically it was her responsibility, but he didn't her too. Not after everything she had already done for him and more. Her money should be used for her own professional development. He could take care of everything else. Akira had youth allowance from the Japanese government after all, since he was made into a Japanese citizen shortly after adoption, and so had bought his own things. But because the youth allowance wasn't actually that much, he used his money sparingly and only on the bare essentials.

With his new job, this was the first time in a while he had bought new clothes for himself.

As soon as Akira reached the old spice seminar building he was hit with a wave of nostalgia. The lingering scent of the old spice and spice plants he used to grow permeated the walls. He had fond memories, he wouldn't lie about that. He and Jun were happy there. It was just two of them when Professor Hayama retired and returned to his hometown in Chiba. He could fill up a notebook of why it wasn't fair that he and Jun were thrown out of their work and home, but it wouldn't change the path that fate and destiny had given them.

His footsteps felt like lead as he stood in front of the door. He ignored the harshness of the reality that this building wasn't his and Jun's anymore, and got the hell on with it. Tootsuki had repossessed all of their scientific equipment except for a few things Jun personally invested in and some keepsakes he couldn't take with him in one trip, so he had to pick them up in person in his own time. He inserted the key and twisted the knob.

It was already unlocked.

That was weird.

Once Akira opened the door, he was met with an even weirder sight.

"Isshiki-senpai? Yukihira? Aldini? What the hell are you guys doing in here?"

Three pairs of eyes turned to him in shock. Akira had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. Isshiki-senpai was sitting in an office wheelie chair in the middle of the empty room. His legs were crossed together and his hands were neatly folded in his lap. His eyes crinkled in a gentle smile. Why was always looking happy?! And not only that, his smiles gave Akira the creeps. Yukihira was sitting cross legged in his own wheelie chair like the fucking peasant he was. His arms rested behind his head as he blinked in surprise at Akira before the golden orbs melted into… what was it… embarrassment? Meanwhile Aldini was leaning against the far end of the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. His blue eyes grazed over Akira's form, not used to the sudden change in his clothing style. Between the three of them was a small box filled with only three ziplock bags and in each of them were just random things. A dirty piece of a fabric, piece of something made of straw and a ripped piece of paper with dirt marks.

"You almost scared us there Hayama-kun" said Isshiki-senpai with a smile.

"Can't be too careful these days. We gotta keep zig-zagging if we wanna throw Azami's guys off our scent" said Yukihira.

"What are you talking about?" Akira wrinkled his nose.

"We've been having Rebel Alliance meetings under Director Azami's nose. We like to 'switch it up' a bit, as they say. Never staying in the same place twice" answered Isshiki-senpai with a placid smile.

"And… you're using the spice seminar room?"

"Azami's men don't come here anymore. They've finished nicking all your stuff…" said Yukihira, gesturing his arms out widely, referring to the sad and barren room.

"Don't tell anyone you found us here, Hayama" said Aldini from across the space.

"Whatever. I came to get a few things anyway" Akira huffed and shrugged his shoulders. He didn't give a shit what they were doing.

Just as he turned away, he caught Yukihira's gaze. He stared at him with beseeching gold eyes as if to ask: 'We're okay now… right?' and that there wasn't any bad blood between them despite everything that had happened… was there? Because when Akira looked at the situation, if he hadn't lost against Yukihira, Jun wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to win an even better job with a better boss. He wouldn't have found a job himself as the assistant chef at a trendy new reputable restaurant in the heart of Karakura honchou to jump-start his own career. He wouldn't be renting his own apartment using his hard- earned savings and new pay cheque and living an independent life style.

Losing against Yukihira in that match was probably the second best thing that happened to him, second to being adopted by Jun.

So no, be stared back down at Yukihira with a light smirk in his gleaming greens eyes. There was no bad blood between them.

Before the moment could get awkward, Akira made his way over to the long cupboard at the end of the seminar room. He tried to pretend none of them were there, but it was difficult when people were suddenly occupying his space, which was in fact no longer his. But he felt territorial nonetheless. He concentrated on teasing out the wooden panel at the back of the cupboard to reveal a stone-cold safety deposit box. The safety-deposit box didn't really belong to him and Jun, it more like belonged to Professor Hayama, his godfather who was also Jun's old mentor and the previous professor of the spice seminar. He and Jun never used it. Honestly, he had forgotten it was every there half the time. However, Professor Hayama suddenly called from his retirement home in Chiba to ask him to empty it for him and send over the stuff. The bald and moustached Professor was also the only person other than Jun who recognise his gifted sense of smell and great potential in him to become a chef. He bestowed him his first real full name.

Hayama Akira

Akira. They believed he would light up the world.

He felt more like a lamp right now.

He blew his silver fringe from his eyes and rolled up his left sleeve to see the combination numbers he had quickly scribbled on his wrist. He twisted the metal knob according to the number, listening to the correct series of clicks until the microwave-sized door swung open.

"How is everything with you, Hayama-kun?" asked Isshiki-senpai.

"Alright for now. Got a job" he replied, his voice sounding louder in the cramped space.

Akira pulled out a stack of documents and folders from the safety deposit box. It was heavier than he expected, so he took is time to carefully shuffle it out the cupboard. It hadn't been cleaned in a while and cringed when his sleeves scooped up some dust and crumbs.

"Oh yeah? Congrats! Where at?" asked Yukihira. He could hear the red-headed chef jumping up from his chair, his feet scuffing against the floor as he walked towards Akira. He was as clingy as a common cold.

"Assistant chef at Zesar. It's a small Middle Eastern place in Karakura honchou" grunted Akira.

He first came across it on his way back from Jun's job interview with the Faculty of Chinese Herbal Medicine at the University of Tokyo. The exotic smell of spices, both familiar and foreign slammed him in the nose. The intensity was unlike anything that ever graced his flaring nostril. The sound of a foreign language, rough and guttural also attracted him to the door. The restaurant was lightly decorated with tasteful Middle Eastern décor mixed with some contemporary art. It wasn't enough to be a restaurant, but it was more than a diner. Then he'd notice a sign asking "help wanted". He immediately inquired because he would regret it if he didn't. As it turned out, they needed an assistant chef. The head chef came out, a huge man from a Middle Eastern descent eyed him up and down, snorted as if disappointed that it was a scrawny kid like Akira, but also impressed that a young student showed initiative to ask for work. His chef's uniform barely fitted across his muscular body, and the muscles in his burly arms clenched and unclenched until Akira could see the veins pop.

The head chef fired him a series of basic questions, which he answered. The small restaurant wasn't opened yet, so the head chef gave him free reign of the kitchen to demonstrate his skills as the final test to see what he was made of while Jun cheered him on from the side.

'I see continental spice is your soul. You come from school. Like blank stone. If want to master spices of your blood country. You come again, sahib'

He called himself Mohammed, a humble but highly disciplined chef of the Middle Eastern and East Asian Cuisine with thirty years' experience. Even though Akira remembered he was from Bangladesh and perfectly assimilated into the Japanese society, he still felt he was a… gaijin… was what people called him from behind his back. There was something about the Middle Eastern cuisine and the spices they had that called to him, that made him feel right. He wanted to learn more from this enigmatic head chef and Jun was more than happy for him to begin his training with Mohammed in Zesar. It was a strange feeling. There was a sense of belonging he felt in that place that was totally different to the sense of belonging he felt with Jun or with Tootsuki. Jun explained to him that it was normal for him to seek connection with something close to his roots.

"Ayame and I've been to Zesar before. She's crazy about their halal snack-pack. She always orders extra garlic sauce" commented Aldini.

"You guys found a place that does halal-snack packs but you don't share? I wanna tag along with you guys next time!" yelled Yukihira.

"I'm not having you third-whe—"

"Congratulations on Shiomi-sensei getting a job at Toudai as well. You must be relieved" Isshiki-senpai cut through the petty slap-fest Yukihira and Aldini were amusingly notorious for.

BANG

Akira jerked in surprise and bumped his head inside the cupboard. He stopped to cuss and rub his scalp.

"H-How did you know that?"

"Arato-san told us"

Ah.

Jun was officially starting next week as a researcher under Dr. Haruno Sakura at the University of Tokyo. That job opportunity for Jun was like crawling on all fours, and then spotting an oasis in the middle of a scorching dessert as soon as he was going to give up on life. He wasn't sure if it was real or a mirage, but he had to hope it was real. That phone call from the mysterious guy with the country twang gave him hope, a sensation he hadn't felt since he first met Jun in the slums of Bangladesh. It couldn't have been a coincident that a miracle presented itself at probably the lowest point in his life in Japan, so he had to pursue the matter until the caller revealed it had something to do with Arato Hisako.

Out of all people, her?

About a week after the phone call, Arato came at him out of nowhere and thrusted a padded envelope into his hands with not so much as a greeting except whispering to open it when he and Jun were in a safe place. She smiled at him, a smile that was full of good fortune before she jetted off, probably to attend to Nakiri Erina's beck-and-call. He didn't even get a chance to ask what the fuck was in the envelope because she'd already vanished down the hallway into a sea of students. So he opened it with Jun in his room. It was the job information pack as the caller had promised. He wondered how did Arato create such connections. He really underestimated her networking abilities.

"Yeah. Jun's in a better place now"

Akira heaved the bounty from the safety deposit box and slammed the door shut with a loud boom. He re-arranged the bundle of documents and folders in his arms. He should've brought a cardboard box, or a tote-bag to carry all this in or something. He had no idea there was that many documents.

"—Namikaze and Terunori-senpai eat halal snack-packs together too. Why don't you join them?" Aldini said firmly to a pouting Yukihira.

What.

Akira's momentary lapse in concentration at the idea of Namikaze and Terunori-senpai eating together caused the documents to slip from his arms. The first folder fell to the floor with a loud smack and slid towards Yukihira. Akira cursed his rare bout of clumsiness and tried to shuffle everything into one arm before the rest avalanched and he had to spend a whole afternoon picking them up and organising them together. Yukihira got to the rogue folder before he did and like the nosy bastard he was, flicked it open to the first page.

"Woah. What's this research paper about chromatography? Does it even have anything to do with food?" asked Yukihira in confusion. That seemed to pique Aldini's and Isshiki-senpai's cuiriosity also.

"These papers aren't mine. They were written by Professor Hayama ages ago, but he left them here because he didn't have room to keep it back at his home. He used to be a forensic chemist before he quit and studied to become a spice researcher" explained Akira in an exasperated voice.

Professor Hayama used to be the forensic chemist for the police in the Chiba prefecture in the Kantou region way before he became a lecturer at Tootsuki. However, events took a downward turn and one particular case ignited Professor Hayama's sudden sea change to entirely quit his profession and do something else. The story as he remembered it, was that one of the police teams were sloppy with their work. They brought back a sample of something that had no identification for him to test and analyse. They seemed to be in a rush and wanted it done immediately so he did it anyway.

It was then he realised that it was a piece of mouldy lung tissue from the body of a young dead girl found at the bottom of a lake from a murder that happened thirteen years earlier.

The police didn't tell him.

He wore no protective gear.

It wasn't the first time the police team treated their forensics lab with disrespect.

So he immediately quit, decided he was out of there and wanted to study food chemistry specialising in spices because it had nothing to do with forensic chemistry, and hadn't looked back since.

Akira looked up.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…What are you looking at?"

Yukihira, Isshiki-senpai and Aldini gawked at him with wide and shocked eyes. Their irises were shimmering as if they were dogs being given their favourite treat. Isshiki-senpai was now standing, his wheelie chair forgotten as it skidded across the room and Aldini had already pushed himself off the wall. The documents laid limp in Yukihira's grasp and Akira easily slipped it out of his hands without him batting an eye. Even their jaws fell slack. Akira was feeling down-right creepy about this. Why the fuck were they staring at him like that?!

"Forensic chemist… like… working with chemicals, blood and stuff?" asked Yukihira. His voice started to sound much too interested for what was considered normal and Akira felt the hair on his arms raise from the intensity of his stare.

"I guess… back in Chiba. He used to identify unknown materials and substances from crime scenes. He still has his equipment and stuff with him in his retirement home. Chromatography was one way of—"

Akira suddenly narrowed his eyes at them

"Cut it out. You guys are being fucking creepy. What's going on?" he growled.

"Oh Hayama-kun… you really are a blessing in disguise" chimed the auburn haired ex-seventh seater.

"Excuse me?" asked Akira incredulously.

"Do you suppose you could give us Professor Hayama's contact details?" asked Isshiki-senpai with palpable excitement. He all but shoved Yukihira out of the way and clasped his arms together in front of Akira, extremely excited and happy for some strange reason. He should've picked another day to come grab this things…

"What for?" asked Akira, his pulsing rising.

"We have a way for dethroning Azami and with Professor Hayama's help, we could make that into a reality"

He gestured his hands towards the box on the floor.

"We need Professor Hayama to test for hemlock poisoning on these items"


Two weeks later

"So Isshiki-san found someone to analyse the evidence!" squealed Ayame-chan.

Chizuru nodded. She was surprised there was more progress. She continued to dust the book shelves in Kojima-san's store. When asking how her day was, Chizuru would say 'Nothing much. Got caught trying to call in sick to get out of long-division. Ended up in detention but boy, the weather's lovely, isn't it?'. However, when asking Ayame-chan or her boyfriend and his brother the same thing, all they ever talked were their plans for restoring Tootsuki to its former glory. There were additional jabs to their usurping Director's character to boot on special occasions. It was pretty exciting news each time, and Chizuru was happy that Ayame-chan was getting a kick out of it, because exciting news was better than boring mundane ones. There weren't other school that could do the things these gutsy Tootsuki students could do. But on the inside she was internally glad that nobody asked for her assistance, except to threaten Kuchiyose-kun to shut up and get into the god-damn suit, because she really didn't want to be caught in the mess if things went south.

It was a sunny afternoon and Ayame-chan wanted to accompany Chizuru to her after-school part-time work and continue to hang-out. Kuchiyose-kun had called in absent from school today and the school soccer team flew into a blind panic over their star player contracting an ailment. He wasn't sick, he was just suffering complications from an anxiety attack. Chizuru texted their wayward friend that he was going to receive a whole team of visitors lugging baskets of get-well fruits and vegetables to pray for his recovery. All Kuchiyose-kun needed was a magical kiss from Alice-san dressed like a sexy nurse and he'll be fine. It wasn't a good idea to talk about Tootsuki related things in Karakura High school, so they kept hush-hush about it until they reached Kojima shouten.

"Who was it?"

"A retired professor who used to lead the spice seminar at Tootsuki many years ago. He lives in Chiba now. Apparently he used to be a forensic chemist! He's so kind to be helping them. What a stroke of luck!" replied Ayame-chan with a lot of enthusiasm.

There seemed to be a plethora of luck going on for them. She didn't want to jinx it for Ayame-chan so she didn't say anything. Chizuru replied with a 'not bad' facial expression which she was accustomed to making when Terunori took her to a decent place to eat after work and the food was to her liking. It was a thing now. After work was snacking around town with happy-go-lucky Terunori Kuga as he jibber-jabbered about his day. Chizuru had already begun paying for her own meals when she accompanied him. It was a tough battle initially because the stubborn jerk would have none of that, wanting to find every opportunity to boast and use his club funds. That was until she beat him to the punch and then he gave up on paying for her meals. What's with boys wanting to pay for everything? Was it a chivalry thing? Oh… that wasn't fair to say, Kuchiyose-kun never paid for her or Ayame-chan when they went out to eat…

Chizuru paused her inner monologue and Ayame-chan continued her merry chatter.

"They found that the stain on the hand-towel was black tea. When tea oxidises, the stains get stronger and tougher, binding any other chemicals already in more strongly That's why it's survived for so long. The professor found traces of coniine in the black tea stain. Coniine is a plant alkaloid found in poison hemlock that gives it its deadly toxicity. It's similar to nicotine. There's five other poisonous alkaloids in poison hemlock, which the professor found, but coniine is the important one"

Chizuru continued to nod and hum in agreement. She found another cicada shell. Better do something about that before it became a pandemic…

"They think that Lady Nadeshiko's tea was spiked with hemlock. Not enough to instantly kill her, but enough to probably prolong her symptoms to make it look like an illness rather than poison. So Director Azami must have been very careful of the dosage"

Chizuru shook her head.

"That's a sick mind right there. How does he watch his wife die a little more inside each day and adjust the amount of poison to get the timing just right?" piped up Chizuru, adding to the conversation.

Ayame-chan nodded solemnly and continued to browse the books, following Chizuru as she made her weaved between bookshelves. Every time she found a book out of place, she pulled it out and placed it in a neat pile off to the side so she could shelve it later. It helped to make it look like she was very busy before Terunori came, it lessened the chances of him taking her out because right now, she wanted to spend more time with Ayame-chan. Ayame-chan's involvement in Tootsuki's affairs were pretty regular, and was taking up more of her time. It was a wonder that her father hadn't confronted her about it, or even looked like he knew anything was happening. Or maybe he did know but he didn't give a shit, because if anything happened he had the power to protect Ayame-chan and cover everything up. Chizuru shivered at the thought. That would be super scary… Ayame-chan was convinced that her father was way too busy with other important cases as the precinct to worry about her. After all, she had proven that she could take care of herself and was able to make her own decisions when he wasn't around.

The light jingling sound of the bell broke the atmosphere. Chizuru looked over to check if it was a customer, but it was only her grubby boss coming back from an izakaya. He snorted in a disgusting manner and wiped his nose on his browning sleeve. He squinted his eyes and craned his neck at the two girls. Once he knew it was Chizuru, he glared at Ayame-chan.

"Ah… it's just you" he grunted, pulling out a used cigarette from his pocket and popping it between his chapped lips.

"Good afternoon, Kojima-san" Ayame-chan chirped and bowed.

"Yeah… I'd love to stay and chat, but you know, I'd rather have type-two diabetes" he grumbled at her.

Her miserable boss went back to completely disregarding the two girls with a vague and dismissive wave before stomping haphazardly towards the backroom He disappeared behind the partition with a great flourish. She couldn't say that was any worse than the other times.

"I think he's warming up to you" sniggered Chizuru.

"… You think…?" Ayame-chan deadpanned, cocking her hips to the side.

While Kojima-san and Terunori got along like a house on fire, Ayame-chan was more placid towards her unreasonable boss. Kojima-san really didn't know what to do with high school girls like Ayame-chan. All respectful, intelligent, quiet, demure, happy smiles and pretty much harmless. It's like his brain just does a memory dump, comes up with nothing that could troubleshoot him to dealing with his employee's friend and ends up trying to ignore her altogether. This time he responded, even if it wasn't appropriate in the slightest, but he was making a semblance of effort in interacting with another human being on his own volition that did not include selling a book. Chizuru guessed he was more used to people who were loud, noisy, had rough exteriors and maybe crude like herself and Terunori. Also Kojima-san and Terunori always had this look on their face as if they were talking about her behind her back and it got on her nerves…

…Then there was the enigmatic and cheeky glint in his sharp eyes whenever the afternoon sunlight caught him in just the right moment…

…The obvious quirk in his lips that made her stomach squeeze in anticipation whenever she ate something of his…

…The dorky way he puffed up his chest with over-inflated pride to try and gain the extra inch off of her…

…The new game he played where he invaded her personal space to block her from side-stepping around him whenever she moved from shelf to shelf…

…The idea that maybe the reason why he came around to the shop so often was because he actually lik—

'Nope! I'm not gonna think about TerunoriNone of that means ANYTHING. He only comes around because he derives egotistical pleasure from annoying the hell out of me. That's right. I'm just his spare time away from Tootsuki. Ayame-chan is wrong, he doesn't like me THAT way. But damn it for planting that seed in my head! It's driving me fucking crazy!'

Thankfully Ayame-chan continued on before Chizuru could accidentally vent her anguished thoughts aloud.

"Also, it turned out that the DNA in the blood sample from the piece of tatami mat was identified as female and matched with the one on the ripped photo. The age of both blood stains matched too. Sixteen years and four months. That was exactly when Lady Nadeshiko died"

"I understand testing for DNA matches, but how do you even tell how old blood is?" asked Chizuru.

She was genuinely interested but her face wasn't showing it because she was annoyed about the over-abundance of cicada shells invading the top shelf. What on Earth was happening when she wasn't around to take of this whole place! She was going to have a word with Kojima-san, preferably before Terunori arrives.

"To answer your question: There are these temporary molecules in our cells, such as blood cells, called messenger RNA or mRNA for short. Their job is to carry out instructions for our DNA. Because you know, DNA is inert. It holds our genetic information, but it doesn't go anywhere or do anything. So It uses mRNA like an errand boy to tell each cell what do, and how to do it according to our DNA instructions, for the enzymes in the cells to get stuff done. Anyway, mRNA molecules degrade at a measurable rate which can be calculated to tell how old a sample is"

"Mhmm" Chizuru nodded with pride "Not just physics in that noggin of yours"

"Ninety-seven percent on that last biology exam" replied Ayame-chan

"Don't rub it in… What about identifying gender in blood samples? How do scientists find that out?" asked Chizuru.

"…fluorescence in situ hybridization using chromosome X and Y centromeric probes…" muttered Ayame-chan after a long pause.

"… and that means…?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just repeating what Takumi-kun said. He told me he practiced really hard to memorise the name of that technique to impress me"

Ayame-chan pressed both her hands to her cheeks and sighed longingly. Oh dear, she was getting that glazed look in her eyes when she day-dreamed about Ezio. It kind of looked the same as the one for tiramisu? She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, making the floor creak beneath the carpet. Clearly, she was filling up with romantic thoughts for her romantic boyfriend. She didn't know any other couple were more into each other. It was gross.

"Once what you find out what fluorescence in hydro-X-Y whatsit, tell me all about it" chuckled Chizuru.

"And guess what?!"

Chizuru halted abruptly when Ayame-chan rounded on her and grabbed her shoulders from the front. She almost smacked her forehead against Ayame-chan's! Excitement beamed from her eyes and her smile was so big it took over her bright face. No wonder why Ezio liked to pinch her cheeks. Chizuru blinked a few times to shed the shock from her system.

"Wh-What?"

"The professor said the blood-stained fingerprint on the ripped photo was actually a thumbprint. It matched another thumbprint sample Alice-san got from Director Azami's iPad screen! So he really was there tearing the photo to pieces, with her blood on his fingers, right before she died just as those maids said!"

"Woah! Hang on a minute! H-How did she get another fingerprint sample? Was there a phase three in this operation, that I didn't know about?" asked Chizuru with zero confidence and one hundred percent doubt. She didn't hear anything about this part of their plans. What gives! Director Azami didn't seem to be the type to leave his many million iPad's lying around for his niece to pick up and fiddle with either…

"I wasn't there when it happened, but Alice-san did it without getting caught and it matched" said Ayame-chan with hyped animation.

She released her deadly grip from the short girl with a small shove and spun off in the other direction. Chizuru sighed and turned up the corner of her mouth as she grinned lopsidedly at Ayame-chan. She gave up asking the small details. She was such a goof. No wonder why Ezio is head over heels in love with her. He was a goof-ball too. They were utter dorks. She continued on her way weeding out books, straightening it up and dusting.

"Hey Chizuru-chan, why do you have a coffee pot on the floor?"

"DON'T TOUCH THAT!"

At the mentioned of the coffee pot on the floor, Chizuru dropped the feather duster, dived out and grabbed Ayame-chan's arm and dragged her away as quick as lightning. She was literally running on instincts. The green-eyed girl shrieked and stumbled over her own two feet, but Chizuru made sure to help right her up again, standing in front of her best friend. The two girls clutched each other for dear life.

"What on Earth was that for?!"

Her best-friend snapped her head in her direction with a severely miffed expression, her narrowed eyes demanding an explanation worthy of the Emperor. Chizuru cringed from Ayame-chan's long midnight-black whip-lashing her across the cheeks. She mustered her best apologetic face. Ayame-chan yanked her arms from Chizuru's protective grasp and crossed it over her chest. Her foot tapped rapidly on the carpet, waiting for an answer like a pissed off mum.

"Okay, there's this… I-It's a… It's a… I don't know. We just call it… the thing…"

"What thing?"

"It lives in the coffee pot"

Ayame-chan's face fell dramatically. She looked back at the Italian style coffee pot and raised an unimpressed brow at it. It sounded so lame right now! And Ayame-chan wasn't stupid enough to buy it. Chizuru wiped her hands on her work apron and fisted them over her eyes. It was so hard to explain because she and Kojima-san had only discovered it a month ago. 'Discovered' was a really loose term because they never actually saw… the thing. Initially, they didn't even know if… the thing… was animal, vegetable or mineral. All they knew was that it moved, it ate and it made noise. Chizuru and Kojima-san decided it was a mysterious creature which somehow decided to inhabit the dirty bookshop a long time ago, and came out of hibernation a month ago. One would blink and miss it entirely. It scuttled and scavenged around, away from human sight into dark corners. Both Chizuru and Kojima-san tried to set up a motion sensor camera for the night to get a footage of… the thing… but all they got were unidentified blurs. One afternoon, they found Kojima-san's old Italian coffee pot sitting in the far corner of the store and none of them remembered ever putting it there. Also none of them could get near it because it began rattling and soft growling noises churned from inside it when they stepped within two feet of the Italian coffee pot. It was really spooky. There was only one explanation for it.

The thing… liked the coffee pot.

Very.

Much.

"We umm… chuck a banana near the coffee pot every afternoon. Keeps it happy. It only takes it when we're not looking and umm… leaves the peel behind"

"What?"

"Look, please don't ask anymore! Don't go near the coffee pot again. Terunori didn't listen to me the first time and I had to take him to the doctor for stitches"

Chizuru was almost on the brink of crying in desperation because she hated to explain things she herself didn't understand in the first place. It strained too much of her brain power. She was sure Kojima-san, herself and… the thing… were almost friends now, and she didn't want anything to disturb the harmony of the place and have a repeat episode of taking Terunori to the doctors again. Ayame-chan blinked really hard and shook her head in disbelief. She raised her arms up in awkward surrender and backed up slowly away from the Italian coffee pot. That's when Chizuru knew she gave in to the madness of Kojima Shouten because there was no amount of science or logic to explain… the thing… Ayame-chan probably stored this highly unusual event in the 'whatever' portion of her mind to deal with in her own time.

"There's another problem too" said Ayame-chan, getting back on topic.

Oh boy. There was always a hitch. This was where the luck ran out right? Chizuru knew there had to be a catch somewhere. Nobody had a winning streak like that. The short girl peeped around the side of the shelf and watched Ayame-chan closely. She was pulling at a loose thread on her beige school vest, and her eyes had a faraway look as she gazed out the shop window.

"It doesn't rule out the possibility of somebody framing Director Azami for poisoning his wife. There's nothing to directly link him to the poison hemlock" said Ayame-chan forlornly.

Chizuru rolled her eyes. So was the whole operation with the spy drone for nothing? Now who the fuck invited the big blue whale into the pool party? Just when she thought everything would be solved and Tootsuki could live happily ever after and Ayame-chan and Ezio could live happily ever after. Why was everybody over-thinking this?

"We need more evidence… more information. We just don't know how to get it" said Ayame-chan. She grazed her finger tips along the spine of the books then let her arms drop to her side.

If Tootsuki didn't fix this up, everyone would graduate before they could make any more headway. This plan was just unravelling in unlikely places and she didn't know how the Tootsuki students could pick up all the pieces together before the whole plan disintegrated before their very eyes. They were only sixteen or seventeen years old. What could they hope to achieve against an army of adult professionals in liege with a mentally depraved man?

"But Isshiki-san knows somebody who does" said Ayame-chan.

"Who?"

"You won't believe it, Chizuru-chan" said Ayame, scuffing the tips of her shoes against the carpet. "Who better to get more information from than the person who buys and sells it"

Chizuru froze.

"No way…"

Ayame-chan nodded. Yes way.

"You're not fucking serious… that guy?! The information broker?! The sleazy motherfucker you told me about who helped Azami fuck Tootsuki over?! But he's a criminal!"

"The criminal with probably all the answers. The one and only… Orihara Izaya"


Satoshi refrained from shivering in his plastic chair. This small and square concrete room was nostalgic, but not in a pleasant way. It had been a while since he'd visited Eizan-kun. But alas, he'd been very busy and he wasn't visiting Eizan-kun this time. The dampness was betrayed by the leaking air conditioning machine bolted in the corner. It hummed long and droning. When was the last time he had sleep? The events that turned occupied his mind like no other. He was always thinking what was the next step? Is there another route? Did he cover all the bases? Surely he wasn't the right person to be coordinating these scheming plans behind Director Azami, but he was the best person the Rebel Alliance had. The evidence that Kanda-san procured the results they needed, but the inescapable feeling of insufficiency was the elephant in the room. The drone operation didn't go to waste, but it was the step in the right direction. Satoshi jigged his knees up and down. He was very nervous. He'd never seen or spoken to the man he was about to meet in person before, but he was ready. He felt like he had nothing to lose in this endeavour.

The rusted groan of the isolated visitor's door finally opened. The clinking of shuffling and chain met his ears and Satoshi was compelled to turn his auburn head towards the guest of honour. Rust-red eyes mocked him and a devious grin invited a sense of doom. His picture did him no justice. His green prison uniform did nothing to make him look less threatening. The guards walked Orihara Izaya, the notorious underground information broker to the seat opposite Satoshi. He could tell the guards were surprised he had any visitors to begin with.

Once Orihara was shoved into the seat, he grinned wide and proud. He never took his eyes off of Satoshi, making him feel anxious even more. The guards bolted the prisoner's hand-cuff chains to the metal table, which Satoshi had only realised now that they replaced the usual metal table with the interrogation one. The police were taking no chances. Kami-sama… what was he getting himself into.

"You must truly be desperate to come to me for help" Orihara sneered.

His black hair had intruded on his face. It had grown longer. However, the glittering malice in those devilish eyes could still be clearly seen peaking beneath the inky strands of hair like a water-beast beneath the murky depths of a loch. His pale and pasty skin glowed like the moon in this dark room, almost haunting. He didn't look human. Not totally. His wide smirk continued to push Satoshi over the brink of composure but he held on tight.

"What makes you think that, Orihara-san?" he asked, making his voice as even as possible.

"Why else would you be here, Isshiki-kun?"

Satoshi bit back a grimace and kept his face painfully neutral. Orihara knew him. Didn't know how, but he did. The back and forth game had already started. The prisoner leaned back and sighed, wriggling his bottom to make a show of getting comfy, but his wrists confined to the table restricted his movements. The chains echoed off the walls. He looked at Satoshi from down his pointed nose.

"Make sure you ask the right question because this is our only chance for girl-talk" exhaled the information broker.

"What do mean?" asked Satoshi, narrowing his eyes.

"They're taking me away. To a more suitable place"

"Where?"

"It's called Goteijuusantai"

"Thirteen… Court Guards?" Satoshi roughly translated the different meanings got for what gotei could mean in his head without seeing the kanji script. He had never heard of such a thing.

"Correct. It's an island. Guarded by thirteen phenomenally skilled individuals and their teams as the name suggests. It's a very secure and secret installation with the sole purpose of trapping the demons beneath the road you humans walk on. Demon's like me.

"A maximum security prison, then" commented Satoshi.

"You couldn't be more wrong" Orihara cackled. "It's built for what the government calls The Un-containables. It's more than a prison or an asylum. It's a fortress built to keep the rest of Japan safe from what's inside it. Heaven may be a fantasy for the credulous and afraid"

He leaned forward onto the table.

"But there is a map reference for hell"

A moment of silence passed between them as Satoshi weighed up this information. If Orihara deserved to be sentenced to that place, then he was far too dangerous to keep around other prisoners. The said prisoner opposite him looked too proud of himself. Satoshi felt sweat building in his underarms and his forehead despite the frigid room. The ex-seventh seater couldn't even begin to fathom the full extent of Orihara Izaya's networking abilities. It was painfully clear that his long fingers stretched deep into the black pool of top secret and highly classified information held by the Japanese government. Not by the Japanese government, the secret part of the government that not even the government itself knew about. Information that could get people killed to keep quiet, and would buy with all the gold in the world. He was a terrible force to be reckoned with and it was no wonder he was able to evade prison for so long. There was no telling what secrets he could spill to enemy countries if the government even breathed in his direction. He was virtually untouchable. But not anymore. Satoshi cleared his mind and forced himself to stay on track.

"I just want you to tell me everything you know about the murder of Nakiri Azami's wife" said Satoshi.

"Why would I know that?"

"You helped him to take over Tootsuki. Therefore, you must know everything about it"

Orihara started chuckling. It was a sinister laugh that sent chills down Satoshi's spine. Orihara was a perfect combination of beauty and ugliness. Trickery and illusions.

"That's a pretty tall order. I hope you can pay up" replied Orihara.

"Payment?"

"Just because I'm in jail, it doesn't mean I do things for free" he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and started pumping his tongue inside his cheek with a wiggle of his thin eyebrows for good measure.

"What do you want…" Satoshi conceded.

"Kobayashi… Rindou…"

Satoshi's breath hitched. His eyes flicked up to the man opposite him and he was already drowning in twin pools of blood, staring with such intensity into his soul. He gritted his teeth until his jaw was sore as anger pumped through his arteries. Ever since Rindou-san came back from her first year stagiare, she was never the same again. A part of her was twisted in some way. Out of place. Disproportionate. Tainted. It wasn't until later he discovered she met somebody in Ikebukuro who she feared and at the same time, was addicted to. She was consumed by him. Orihara Izaya. He found out just before she flew back to New York, when he finally forced her talk about her experiences that changed her. That broke her. As a classmate, he felt protective of her. Rindou-san and Orihara shared a history, dare say relationship together and to his horror it wasn't a good one either. Their relationship was filled with cracks held together by tight and festering stitches.

The way Orihara was grinning at him was purely out of unhealthy obsession.

"You can't have her" said Satoshi firmly. His fingers fisting together against his pant leggings.

"Heh. So naïve. I just want you to give her a message from me"

He leaned forward, his grin growing more maniacal, but his eyes softened just a little.

"Tell her where I'm going" he said.

"That's all?" asked Satoshi.

"Yep"

Why would Orihara want her to know? There wasn't any point. He was going to rot in Goteijuusantai or whatever it was called. Rindou-san couldn't care less what happened to him, not after every cruel thing he'd done to her. She'd probably celebrate until the next year if she knew she was finally free of him and his mind-twisting and mind-breaking games. He would be locked up in a isolated and lonely fortress with absolutely no contact to the outside world until the day he—

It clicked.

"Do you… have romantic feelings for her?" Satoshi asked cautiously.

"Of course I don't. Huh. All you humans think alike" chuckled Orihara, shaking his head as if Satoshi was a five-year-old.

Satoshi relented and raked his hand over his tousled auburn hair. The devil-eyed man was right. How could a monster like Orihara Izaya be capable of emotions anyway.

"I'll let her know. Now it's your turn" said Satoshi.

"Tell me what you already know, and I'll see if I can fill in some gaps" said Orihara.

Satoshi sighed.

"Azami poisoned his wife with hemlock soon after child birth, when she was weakest in terms of health. Enough to cause the symptoms without out-rightly killing her. He used dried poison hemlock because the potency of plant-based poisons in dried samples are lower than in fresh, meaning it's easier to control the dosage. He mixed the final dose in her black tea and that's how she died. We found old tea stains with traces of hemlock in it on a hand-towel in her bathroom to prove that"

Orihara looked like he was enjoying this, but Satoshi pressed on.

"Azami was the last person to be with her because we found his fingerprint on a personal photo he tore up and threw in the waste-paper basket in her room. That fingerprint was stained with the same blood Lady Nadeshiko last coughed up. However, the blood had already clotted and separated into red-blood cells and plasma when he made that fingerprint. That meant Azami didn't get help for his wife after killing her once and for all. He waited between thirty minutes to an hour after she died in her bed before calling somebody because that's how long it takes for blood to clot and separate. So everything points to him, but…" Satoshi could've find the words to complete his sentence.

"But you don't know how he acquired the hemlock in the first place~" crooned Orihara.

That was correct. They had the suspect, the murder weapon, the motive, the opportunity… except the means.

"No. But you do"

"Indeed I do. You see, dried poison hemlock is sold in black market shops around Japan. It's hard to smuggle from overseas, which is where the good stuff are. Hemlock wasn't always used as poison. It's got other medicinal qualities like being an antidote for strychnine poisoning, or as a sedative, or as an antispasmodic"

"What shops? What are their names?" asked Satoshi.

"Let me see…"

Orihara closed his eyes and he seemed to fall into a dozy sleep with his smirk still on his face. Satoshi frowned in confusion. He was humming under his breath and Satoshi didn't know what to make of this. He looked around the room to see if there was anything to prompt this behaviour but it was cold, dim and stuck with the grey colour scheme. Not stimulation. The information broker's head was moving from side to side as if he was looking at something on the table with his eyes closed. So he wasn't asleep. He really was an eccentric and creepy man.

"Ah here we go. There were three major underground places that sold poisonous plants in Japan. One shop in Aizu called Takeda Pharmacy was seized by police twenty years ago, so that's far too long. Another was… hmm destroyed in a fire in Kyotou five years ago. It was an inferno~ Everybody inside went up in smokes. Such a pity. The remains were demolished and replaced by a restaurant called Shirobeko. Ah and the last one… Oh you'd have more luck with that. It still exists"

"What?" asked Satoshi, starting to get a bit impatient with this weird game of his.

"This shop was established more than sixteen years ago and sold all sorts of poisonous plants amongst other things. The front was a chemist or a pharmacy I believe. But then it closed six years later after the man in charge mysteriously disappeared with everything. The police never found him. Two and a half years ago it was bought and re-opened again, picking up where it left off, but minus the poison business. It's completely legit and under a new name and management now. You might want to chat with the new owner to see if they know anything more" said Orihara.

He finally opened his blood-red eyes.

"Tell me the shop's new name"

"Ryuusenka Apothecary"


Somebody needs to make a day trip to our favourite country town to meet up with our favourite side characters again! In other words, Chapter 3 for Medica Materia is the next step in the over-arching story!

Hayama has a job! YAY! Professor Hayama Senior was only featured in a few pages of the manga as a flashback, So I took the liberty in inventing a backstory for him. And also yay for halal snack-packs :) My friends tell me that shit is GOOD. The seasoned meat and garlic sauce are spectacular. Real comfort food.

'The Thing' in Chizuru's work place really has no consequence. It's just an unidentified mysterious creature that lives in the bookstore. Chizuru and her boss keeps it like a pet. Or maybe… The Thingkeeps THEM as pets :O Kuga had lost a battle against it and will keep his distance from... The Thing... from now on haha.

Orihara Izaya. It's been a while...

Let me know what you guys thing and I'll be seeing you again in Chapter 3 of Medica Materia!

Signing off

-TripWire-dono