AN: Hello everyone, before you get to the chapter I will begin by apologizing for deviating from my updated order and jumping to this fic. I was stuck with inspiration for this fic and could not work on anything else. Before you get to the chapter I also wanted to let you know the timeframe of the events happening here. I will begin with what happened last chapter to put things into clearer perspective Feilong's non-date with Aki was on Sunday. Asami went to see Aki that Sunday afternoon/night at that same time Miko is having her disgusting and very sick phone conversation with the scientist. Monday afternoon Miko gives her father medicine and goes to kill Ume (the artist). Between Monday morning and Tuesday morning Aki gets a break in his investigation and spends the rest of Tuesday staking out the maid's place, when he gets home that night he finds Kirishima at his door and they have dinner and a talk. This chapter picks up on that same Tuesday night right after Kirishima leaves Aki's apartment. Most of the chapter though happens at various times on Wednesday (Aki has been busy) and the last section with Miko is on late Thursday morning. I hope this helps you put the story into a time frame.
************************You can skip this if you want**********************
In another note I am finally growing up (25 years… took me long enough…) I am finally moving from my collection of katana's, Medieval swords, Spanish sable's and a Conan the barbarian replica sword (the original movie with Arnold Schwartzenegger) and finally getting myself a gun to take to the shooting range, in addition I am getting a hunting bow and some razor edge arrows in preparation for hunting season when I hope to kill something and bring its carcass home like a proud Amazon warrior or something along those lines. The hubbie and I are excited at the prospect of roughing it out in the wilderness for a couple of days and hopefully not coming home with our hands empty.
Also after months of wait my daughter started calling me mama instead of just calling both her father and me dada… I guess she finally knows the difference and the first time I heard it my heart pounded and melted at the same time. She has teeth now so she is biting (which I have no idea what to do about) and is also walking… seems like everything is happening all at once with the little one.
I should probably stop boring you with the details of my hardly eventful life and let you move up to the story…
Thaks to Ashida and Rekishichizu for betaing.
I do not own Finder Series
*******VF*******
My Fault Chapter 6 – The end of it all, Part I
The bespectacled secretary hurried into his boss' private suite at Park Hyatt hotel. He had told Asami he was giving that woman too much freedom to roam about his private home as she pleased, but his boss would not listen. He wanted nothing to do with Honjio Miko, which apparently included watching what she did every moment of the day. Guilt did strange things to his boss, mainly make him sloppy, Asami had forbidden him to bring up that woman unless it was absolutely necessary, and Kirishima could only guess it was because he did not want to be reminded of how bad he messed up and how seriously fucked up the situation with Takaba was because of it.
If this particular bit of news was not considered something absolutely necessary, then Kirishima had no idea what was, so he knocked on his boss's door and entered the suite as soon as he was given permission to do so. Asami had made many mistakes in the past few months, and Kirishima considered it was high time for a wakeup-call, there would be no more ignoring that woman and leaving her to her own devices, even if Asami told him not to, he would go against orders if necessary and have someone watch her at all times.
Kirishima placed the food on the table before Asami and let the man dig in. The golden eyed man had indeed lost some weight lately and the secretary wanted to allow the man to enjoy the home cooked meal he had been looking forward to all day before addressing the more worrisome matters.
He only took a couple bites and was about to get up to put the rest away in the small fridge when Kirishima's voice stopped him.
"He said to make sure you eat it all."
Asami chuckled lowly and sat back down to finish his dinner, soon after he had emptied the container of food and indicated Kirishima to sit down with him at the table. He had noticed his loyal secretary seemed like he had something to say and frankly he was also tired of the man just standing there watching him eat, at least right now he would just like someone to sit at the table while they talked, it was yet another thing he missed about not having Akihito around.
Asami saw his secretary's face and his eyes immediately focused on the almost imperceptible worry lines edged there. He gave Kirishima a slight nod, indicating the secretary could present to him the details of whatever situation had him in such state.
Not wasting a second in thinking it twice, Kirishima got to the topic of tonight's discussion.
"Asami-sama, Takaba-kun has informed me of something rather alarming."
At the mention of Akihito and it being paired with the word "alarming" Asami looked into Kirishima's eyes, giving him his undivided attention. Seeing this as a signal to continue, the secretary wasted no time.
"The exact words were 'I was wondering why Asami let a hired gun with no affiliation or loyalties to him come and go from his home as he pleases.' When I asked him to elaborate on this, he said there has been a man walking in and out like he owns the place. I had informed him you were no longer living there and he suggested that regardless more attention should be paid to who comes to your property. Asami-sama I fear the boy is right, I understand that you want nothing to do with that woman and only allow her to live there until our business with her father is done and you can dispose of her, I understand why you do not even want to hear her name spoken or anything related to her... I apologize for being so forward sir but that needs to stop, if there is a killer for hire coming into your property and you are not the one there then that leaves only one person to be the one using his services, the only person currently living in your home, Miko-san herself."
"How did Akihito find this killer for hire?"
"He said he did not find out because of anything related to you, but that something else led him to your condo. Sir, you know that Takaba is like a hound, when he sniffs the trail of a good story he won't let it go and will follow the trail wherever it leads until he has that story. I believe that there is something going on that we need to become aware of before we are all dragged into whatever that woman is planning, which to be hiring a killer, we can safely guess includes the murder of someone."
"Find the killer and question him, then get rid of him. Have Miko followed at all times, if she is planning something against me directly or something that could potentially hinder my business, make her disappear."
"Yes sir." Kirishima got up from his chair and walked out of the condo already on the phone passing Asami's orders to his men.
The next day, they had found who the hired gun was, a man named Kobe Shouichi, however the man was highly trained and managed to escape, killing four of Asami's men in the process and injuring seven others with a rudimentary bomb set as a trap in the man's home. The rest of the week they had searched all over for the killer but it was quickly obvious the man had gone into hiding.
At the other side of Tokyo the day the hunt for the killer began, Miko's phone went off, she had received a text and the screen of her phone displayed the name KoShou. She grunted, annoyed to be contacted by the man when she had clearly told him to lay low and wait for her to contact him, then she read the message and was momentarily taken by fear.
KoShou:
My identity has been compromised, Asami is on my trail. I will go into hiding for now until things are safe.
She quickly typed a reply and sent it to the man.
Stay hidden until I contact you about your next job.
****VF****
Wednesday that same week Akihito had gotten tired of waiting around for the maid's friend to show up, so he decided he might as well just break into the place and see if he could find some useful information or some sort of clue. He had been crouching in front of the door making use of his tool kit and lock picking skills – courtesy of his friend Sumewari Jun – when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"Young man, would you care to explain what you are doing?"
Of course the maid's friend would choose the moment he was currently in the middle of breaking and entering to finally show. This whole thing going on without something stupid happening would be some real lucky shit and life couldn't just have that could it? Nope, no lucky breaks for Takaba Akihito, he had to go through some embarrassing shit at least three times a month or his life's quota would not be met somehow.
Slowly he turned around and paced the small woman wearing a navy blue and white maid's uniform. 'Well,' He thought. 'at least I finally got to see the woman.'
"You better scram before I start screaming about a thief trying to break in and this place gets swarmed by neighbors, surely one of them will call the cops and you will be arrested."
He was standing before her by now and waving his arms apologetically in front of her.
"Wait, please, I am not a thief I swear. I'm a reporter, here is my card."
"A reporter? Then why were you trying to break in?" she was still looking at him suspiciously while holding his card, but by some small mercy of life she was not screaming bloody murder. She was still listening to him.
"I am so sorry about that, I am investigating the death of the person who lived here and wanted to see if I could find some information in her place."
"Why would you be investigating an accident, she accidentally dropped a hair drier into the bathtub while bathing. It was a stupid thing to have plugged in while you bathe but it happens. There is nothing to investigate about it."
"You see ma'am, it's my belief that her death was not an accident but it was set up to look like one."
"Oh good heavens, you think someone killed her? I always told her she worked with weird people…"
"Would you be so kind as to tell me about your friend? What did she tell you about the people she worked for? Was she in any trouble? Was there something she thought strange happening at her place of work?"
"That is an awful lot of questions Mr…" She let the sentence hang between them, indicating he should provide his name and comparing it to the one printed on the card.
"Takaba" He supplied and she looked somewhat less suspicious.
"Mr. Takaba, how about you accompany me inside and I answer your questions there. This is no place to be talking about such things and if she was indeed murdered as you think, I feel like her soul would know no rest until she has justice."
From what the woman was saying, Akihito learned that the maid, Tanaka Rika, was one of those women who liked to gossip and spy on people to fuel her information sharing hobby. Sadly the woman worked such long hours at the Honjio Main house that she barely had any friends to share her gossip with other than Hirakawa Makio, another fan of gossiping and the woman currently telling Akihito down to the kind of underwear Tanaka-san favored.
Apparently, they had worked for the same rich household but Tanaka had been caught spying on the wife having sex with her step son and been fired before she was able to do some damage. Soon after she applied for a job at Honjio's house and with the recommendation of the wife – who was being blackmailed – got the job as a maid.
She had been working for Honjio over three months when she resumed her activities as a 'researcher of rich people's behaviors and seeker of juicy secrets' as she liked to refer to herself. She shared plenty of disturbing things with her friend Hirakawa-san, who advised her to leave that job and seek one with less eccentric bosses. From all the stuff Hirakawa shared with Akihito, there were some that particularly caught his interest.
The family dynamics in the Honjio family were, to put it mildly, fucked up.
The father adored his younger daughter, this in and of itself wasn't that strange, parents usually were more affectionate with their youngest child, it was the fact that he was openly scornful with his older daughter for apparently no reason that he found strange. The older daughter in turn pretended to love her father and sister, but when no one was watching looked at them with hatred and envy. Apparently she did not do that much of a good job of hiding her true feelings while at home, because many of the employees were aware of her feelings toward the rest of her family.
Then it was the matter of the affair, Honjio Miko had been fucking her personal bodyguard constantly according to Tanaka. Tanaka-san commented to Hirakawa-san that she thought Honjio-san was aware of the affair and that she thought he did not want shame to come upon his household because of an illegitimate child, because the man had ordered her to give pregnancy preventing medicine to his daughter in her tea.
Tanaka-san told her friend that she had spied on them several times in the middle of their carnal activities and had thought about blackmailing them, but she never got to as she died three days after making her decision to blackmail the eldest daughter.
Or so Hirakawa-san thought, Akihito on the other hand was almost certain that she did try to blackmail the eldest daughter but got a rather terminal visit from the man Honjio kept around to do his dirty work. The maid had been killed to shut her up, but in the end killing her had not worked to silence her as the woman's blabbering to her friend had provided Akihito with valuable information.
The following days had been almost as productive as the day he learned about the affair with the bodyguard… almost. He had found that the man who 'fell' off the flight of stairs, a recently unemployed curator in a gallery, had not as much fallen as being pushed, however that was as much info on the matter as he could find out, so he moved on to the next victim.
The OBGYN who committed suicide was the same one who took care of both Honjio daughters' womanly issues, this was as much as he could get on the woman, but his theory was that maybe Honjio-san had paid the woman to do an abortion for his daughter to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy. It certainly fit the bill of "kill anyone who knows she has been screwing the bodyguard." After all, he could not throw her at Asami's feet's if she was already pregnant. It would be a stupid idea to try to pass any baby as Asami's, the man could easily bribe the OBGYN to perform a prenatal paternity test regardless of the risk these fetal samples and their collections pose to both the mother and the fetus.
He had no idea what caused the death of the younger Honjio daughter, but after reading the report on the 'accident' he was suspicious of it all… there were way too many 'accidents' happening around the Honjio family.
****VF****
He had finally made the decision to clean the disgusting mess that his apartment had become, mainly because somewhere something stunk like an animal may have died and he needed to figure out what and get rid of it before the smell chased him out of his home.
Half of the place was already cleaned up when he decided to tackle all the shit accumulated on top of the table. Underneath all that random stuff he found something he had honestly forgotten about, Kunao's package.
Curiosity won his short internal struggle about whether or not to open it, he finally ripped the brown paper around the large manila folder and took its contents out laying them on the floor for him to examine.
There was a CD marked as Sheraton Miyako Hotel security footage and pictures of Kunao with the rich bitch he was supposed to protect but ended up screwing despite Kenta's constant warnings about shitting where you eat. Between the pictures he found a letter and after opening it, he found the letter was addressed to him.
Kenta,
If this letter gets to you it means I am dead… bummer. I went to see a friend of mine in Fukuoka and told her she should mail this if she did not get a call from me at midnight every day. I knew something like this might happen and I am sorry I did not tell you but to be completely honest, I did not want to get you involved. You were right man, I should have listened to you and not gotten involved romantically with Miko-sama.
I was blinded by love or was it lust? I guess it doesn't really make a difference now does it? I began to fear she was using me, to what purpose? I did not know, but suddenly she started getting obsessed about getting pregnant, I did not know why. She thought I did not realize it but I saw the tests on the trash several times and found all this crazy supplements that are supposed to help a woman get pregnant.
I realized she did not love me and was suspicious of a man named Kobe hanging around her. Then a maid caught us in the act and tried to blackmail us. Soon after she was dead and I feared I was next.
I have a date with her in five days at a café. I will tell her I want it all to end, that I will not say anything to anyone about our affair or the child. Oh yes, I am going to be a father, I found out she is pregnant with my child but I suspect that now that she has what she wanted for whatever crazy purpose she has in mind, she is going to have me killed.
If things go sideways and shit hits the fan I want you to deliver this things to the police and have them take my child away from her and give the baby to my mother in Osaka. Please take care of my family in my stead and make sure that bitch pays for my death I only have you to count on.
Kunao
Kenta took the CD and put it in his computer, it was security footage showing Kunao and Miko entering and leaving a room at the hotel on different occasions, judging by the different clothing they wore in the clips. He must have gotten the footage and made copies of it before she got to it… clever Kunao, though not clever enough not to think with his dick instead of his brain or to listen to reason.
One hour later, Kenta was drunk and mourning his best friend with renewed fervor, in his hazy mind he decided that before he handed the presented the insubstantial evidence that would be ripped apart by the rich bitch's lawyers, he would at least confront her about it, so filled with anger and conviction he left his home to pay a visit to the Honjio household.
****VF****
Jun sat behind some bushes directly in front of the Honjio state, he had been ordered by Kirishima to keep an eye on this side of the house while the other men were stationed in other strategic locations. He much preferred 'Takaba duty' but since the boy had broken up with his boss and moved out, he had not been able to see his friend often, the situation was much too awkward and even though he wanted to know what happened, he made a conscious decision not to bring it up, it pained him to see his friend suffer.
He was contemplating the statistics of death by boredom when he spotted movement in the branches on one of the trees near the main gate, yet outside of the range of any cameras and almost laughed hard enough to give his position away when he saw that the person he had moments before been thinking about, was currently holding on for dear life to one of the branches as he seemed to have slipped and on the verge of falling off the tree.
Leave it to Akihito to find the most dangerous perch to set himself upon. Takaba, after some major shuffling, managed to pull himself up to the branch and laying on it used the lens of his camera to spy at the inside of the estate.
Jun chucked at his friend's antics and continued to watch both Takaba and the gate. Thirty minutes later there was a young man trying to get into the estate but the security men pushed him out and locked the gate before him, that is when the man started shouting.
"You bitch! You fucking murderous bitch, you killed him, you killed him and I am going to make you pay for it. He was a good man, an honest man and you killed him! Come out you fucking whore! Come out and face me you murderous bitch! I know you are there, come and tell me to my face why you did it."
The young man was obviously drunk and the screaming went on for several minutes until finally one of the security men came out and pushed him away from the property. Jun had his phone in hand and was about to call Kirishima to report the incident when he caught sight of Akihito approaching the drunk man, so he called Asami directly instead.
"Asami-sama, there has been an incident at the main gate of the Honjio state, there was a drunk young man shouting about a woman killing someone."
"Why are you bothering me with this instead of calling Kirishima and reporting to him?"
"I thought about doing that sir, but Takaba is here and is currently approaching the man and I thought the man might be dangerous. What would you like me to do?"
"Go to Akihito, keep him safe and in the mean time find out what is going on. I expect you to report to me directly."
"Yes sir."
Jun hung up and keeping himself out of the view of the very lazy security guards and the cameras, approached Akihito before he got to the man.
****VF****
Akihito was on his way to the guy who had been screaming his lungs out at the main gate when for the second time that week he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. Considering where he was, he thought it might not be someone friendly so he freaked out and turned around to deliver a punch to whoever was behind him but his fist was caught effortlessly. The person now standing before him was someone he definitely did not expect to see here, Sumewari Jun.
"Jun! You asshole, what the fuck? You almost gave me a heart attack."
"Shhh, you are going to get the attention of the guards if you get any louder."
"What are you doing here?"
"Same thing you are doing from what I could see. By the way your climbing skills have gone south a bit, you need to be hitting the gym or something."
"Agh I can't believe you saw that… oh, fuck he kept walking." Said Akihito as he watched the young man continue to walk away in his drunken haze.
"Mind if I tag along, I want to hear what all that was about."
"Sure, I don't see why not."
They ran to catch up with the young man, Akihito made his voice as non threatening as he could as he talked to the man, he did not want him to freak out and run away or something.
"Hey, sir?"
"What?"
"Could we talk to you for a bit? We would like to know what you are so upset about."
The man looked at Akihito but his eyes were not really focused on him but looking past him.
"That bitch, she killed him, she made him think she loved him and then killed him. Who? Honjio Miko." Akihito and Jun looked at each other eyes and then the man started to talk again. "I know… he was a good man, he was my friend and I know she killed him!" He was screaming now, and both Takaba and Jun were glad they had gone a good distance from the estate.
"How about we go somewhere else and you tell us what happened? Maybe we can help you find justice for your friend."
The man agreed and forty five minutes later, the three of them sat at a ramen bar where the young man who had by now introduced himself as Kenta, was attempting to sober up enough to make a coherent sentence. About ten minutes later, he was finally ready to talk.
Kenta revealed what he found inside the package Kunao had his friend send in case she didn't hear from him every day. He related the info about the affair which Akihito already knew, but when he spoke about the baby both Akihito and Jun went rigid at the implications.
"Is there a chance that the baby is not his?"
"Kunao was very certain it was his baby, he said so in the letter."
'It makes no sense, if the baby is not Asami's then how did she get Asami to believe it was his? Maybe that is why the OBGYN was killed she must have had an abortion and her father had the woman killed to cover it up, then Miko must have gotten pregnant with Asami's child. Still the timing just doesn't add up so it must be the same baby, which means Asami is not the father.'
He looked at Jun and could tell his friend had more or less reached the same conclusion.
Kenta kept talking and told them that Kunao had discovered Miko had been talking to a man named Kobe and thinks he is the one who killed his friend. Akihito was almost certain that this Kobe had to be the one who killed Kunao.
Akihito told Kenta he needed to disappear until things are safe. Jun had taken a moment to make a call and Akihito could only imagine he was calling Asami to let him know about what they had just found out. Jun was already sitting down when Kenta started to plead with Akihito.
"Takaba-san, where do you want me to hide from these kinds of people? I have nowhere to go that they will not find me, these people have the money and resources to make me disappear like I never even existed"
"Do not worry about that, by telling us about your friend you have made my employer a huge favor and he has agreed to let you stay at a safe house of his." Said Jun.
"Do you trust this man?" Kenta asked Jun
"Yes I do." He answered
"How about you Takaba-san? Do you trust him?"
"With my life."
Minutes later Jun was leaving the ramen bar with Kenta, they would pick up the man's personal effects and then Jun would take him to one of Asami's safe houses where he would personally –by Akihito's request – make sure that Kenta is safe.
Later that day, Akihito had a meeting with his cop friend at that same ramen bar so he decided just to hang out in the place for the couple hours until the meeting.
When his friend finally arrived he delivered more information to Akihito about Kunao's death. The detective had been digging around and found out from one of the witnesses that Miko was very calm when her bodyguard was killed by the sniper, almost as if she knew it would happen.
He began to wonder if she was the one to set it up, or if she already knew her father was going to have Kunao killed and just let it happen.
****VF****
"It appears that young man has not come back." Said a maid to another while they dusted around the hallways.
"Oh, I am so glad. All that shouting and screaming at the gate was very scary." Answered the second maid.
Miko who was just walking by, heard the conversation and decided to ask about it.
"What are you talking about? Who was shouting at the gate and when?"
"A young man Honjio-sama just the yesterday while you were at the auction house. He kept shouting about someone in here, it was a woman I think because of the kind of filthy things he was shouting about her."
"What was he mad about, did you hear it?"
"Oh, he kept shouting 'you killed him! Come here and face me you murderous… ahem… I better not repeat that word, but it was things along those lines."
"It was very frightening ma'am." said one maid.
"Yes very." Confirmed the other.
"Well at least he has not come back, you too keep doing your job, I have things to look into."
"Yes ma'am." they shouted in unison, bowing to her.
Miko went to the security room and after instructing the man there to wait outside, she looked for the recording of the camera by the main gate on the day she was out at the auction house. The man she saw there made her seethe with anger, it was Kunao's stupid roommate, she had thought that by getting rid of Kunao she had cut all loose ends on that side, but apparently she needed to get rid of this idiot as well.
She quickly called Kobe and instructed him to kill the young man. One hour later Kobe called her to inform Kunao's apartment had been emptied and all of Kenta's clothing was gone, the young man had gone into hiding. Miko decided to take care of Kenta when she doesn't have other more pressing matters at hand, besides sooner or later, he would have to come out of hiding and she could have him disappear then.
Miko was exiting the security room, she was still angry that Kunao's nosy friend had escaped her man. The little weasel was probably hiding under some rock in fear. It did not matter though, after her plan is complete, she will have all the time and resources to ferret him out and get rid of him.
*******VF*******
Again, I apologise for deviating from my update order and jumping to this fic but to be honest it is the only one of my multi chapter fics that I have been motivated to work on at the moment. I will probably take a short break from updating my other ones and finish this one and post some oneshots here and there. Before you leave please comment on this chapter, your comments and reviews as well as constructive criticism help me grow as a writer.
Setsuna