CHAPTER 87

Shan walked down the white hallway for the second time. Dreading the meeting he was meant to have with his brother. This morning had gone better than he thought. Kazu and Emon didn't blame him. Sure, he still blamed himself, but knowing that others didn't helped in some way.

He told them everything. From the fact that him and Nanjiro were childhood friends to that he was meant to adopt Ryoma. The cat's whole adoption had been planned way before the experiments happened and the boy being claimed dead and so on. Shan was Ryoma's godfather just like Nanjiro was to Seiichi. Not that his nephew knew. Seiichi doesn't know about anything before the age of four. Probably a good thing it was then and not later in life. After all no kid really remembers anything from when they were really young.

Sei had nearly died all those years ago. They had just gotten back with Senichi from visiting the Echizens in America. The picture in his wallet was actually taken from that trip. They had just barley stepped off the plane when Sei just blacked out and fell unconscious on the spot. What made it worse was that the three year olds pulse slowed nearly to a stop.

In hospital they had to clean out his whole system and he ended up being in intensive care for a month in a coma. When he had woken Sei had no idea what was going on. He didn't even remember his own name. But what upset the young child the most was that he didn't remember either of his parents faces. With that chance Shan had burnt all photo's of his parents thinking that him and the boy could have a fresh start.

During the month that Sei was in a coma, Shan had investigated all the possibilities of why Sei had suddenly gotten so ill. But every time he did, everything only ended up pointing at Senichi. And every time that happened he would start from scratch.

Sen was Shan's older brother after all. In fact the only reason Shan never went with the first, second or third conclusions was because he was raised by him. Sen was 15 years older than the police officer. When Shan was younger his mother was abusive towards him. So as soon as Sen had turned 20 he had taken Shan away from there.

Their father had disappeared when Shan was only a couple of weeks old so he never met the man and to be honest he didn't want to. He had never realized it when growing up with his older brother but Sen used to experiment on animals a lot. Every time the younger of the two asked why he did it, the only reason he got was that he wanted to create beauty in its perfect form. Shan never asked again after that. Why would he. His brother was the best in his eyes. He was the man that saved him from a life time of hurt. He had fed him and gave him a home. It was one time when Shan was about 10 and he had woken up in the middle of the night to only hear Sen talking on the phone supposedly to their father.

He sat on the staircase and listened in on the conversation. There was talk of Echizen and even he was mentioned. But when he was talked about Sen seemed to of lost his temper. He had told the man that if he even touched a single hair on Shan's head he wouldn't hesitate to kill him. They had finally come to an agreement of waiting for the next generation as they like to call it. Sen even said something about his first born being one of the finale products. With that he had hung up and Shan had come running in asking his brother who was on the phone pretending he hadn't just eavesdropped on the whole thing.

The first time he had met Nanjiro Echizen he was 12 and they were facing each other in a tennis tournament. Of course he had lost, but that didn't mean it wasn't a close game. The score was 6-4 to the samurai. After they had shook hand and just started to talk. In the end they visited whenever either one was free to either just hang out or for a game of tennis.

It ended with Nanjiro coming round nearly everyday and Sen use to ask him different questions. Neither of them really took notice of the strange question and he answered them best he could. So when he went off to America and Nanjiro had gotten married. He found out his wife Rinko was pregnant he felt over the moon, but at the same time complete dread. He knew the woman was only after his fortune and couldn't give two shits about the child she was carrying. So the news that he had a brain tumour had caused his world to crumble. He had contacted Shan and asked if he would adopt Ryoma seeing as he knew Rinko wouldn't look after the boy.

One night when Shan had left Sei at the hospital he had searched around for his brother. Only to find him at his childhood home. Shan still loved Sen at that point and instead of arresting him, Shan had just told him to leave. Throwing a credit card at him and saying that should be more than enough for him to start a new life somewhere. With that Shan hadn't seen him again.

So Shan was meant to adopt Ryoma 2 months before his 3rd birthday. Instead he had forgotten all about the deal and focused on Sei, afraid that his older brother would come back and take his nephew from him during the night. When Sei was realised from the hospital he had taken it to court to make Sei's adoption final. Months went by and it wasn't until he had gotten a phone call did he remember about Ryoma.

But it wasn't the news he was expecting. He had gotten a call from one of Nanjiro's friends in America telling him that Ryoma had died in a fire a month ago. He had packed as soon as he could. Dropping Sei off at Genichiro's house, he booked a flight for the next day.

When he had gotten to the Echizen house hold, Rinko had answered with a smile on her face and a new husband standing behind her. Shan had demanded where Ryoma was. She had actually told Shan the truth.

"I've sold him. I only needed him so I could keep the fortune and the house." Shan shrived at the cold voice. It was void of all emotion and it scared him.

"Who?" All Rinko did was laugh. One arm holding onto the door frame and the other on her stomach.

"Oh, you should know. You did give him a second chance after all. You're so blind Shan. Seiichi wasn't the only one that was being targeted from the day he was born." That was all she said as she closed the door in his face.

And so his search began for a boy who might already be dead. He had gone back to Japan to see if he could find anything there. As his search went on. He found it was much more complicated than it looked. He couldn't really go anywhere since he had Sei to think about. It was when he had discovered that it wasn't just Ryoma. There were children all over the world going missing. Years later when he realized he couldn't cope with it all he had ask Genichiro's grandfather, Gen'emon and from there it grew to a search and rescue team. Until finally they had caught Sen.

Two months... That was how long it had taken them to realize that the mutterings of his Beauty and so on was actually about a human. Shan had managed to get his older brother to tell them where the children were and the reply he got surprised him.

"There are no children, only Beauty. My beautiful baby boy." Sen had been in a police cell since they caught him. Interrogating him everyday until they got an answer. "It's all your fault. If he starves it'll be on your hands."

"Then let me look after your beauty." Shan spoke softly. Hoping he would just give them the location and he did. Their work had finally paid off. When they had entered the place Shan was expecting to find a one year old little boy curled up in a corner somewhere. It was only when he saw the child in a cage looking broken did Shan finally realize that people grow and people change. He had forgotten that Ryoma was only two years younger than Sei. He had left it for so long that Ryoma had grown up without a childhood. He knew it was Ryoma from just the stare he got from him. He kept quiet as he watched the boy reach out of his hat. Feeling a weight on his head he saw the boy's lips twitch upwards at it.

Shan felt that it was only right to start a new beginning with this boy in front of him. It was the only way he could apologize to the child for forgetting about him. "Do you like it?" Shan asked seeing if the boy would respond. Hearing no reply the blunette took the police hat off and placed it on the boy's lap. "Hey, Guys!" He called to the others. 'A new start...' Shan thought. 'Yeah, I'll spend the rest of my life living just for him and Sei. I'll give them both the family they deserve.'