A/N: We start to enter the last third! Let's see what transpires…

Third Avenue Diner, 3 AM

"Thanks for joining me again," Shen yawned and stretched. "Couldn't sleep."

"You're probably still jet lagged." Duo Lon tucked against the wall, his leather jacket creaking against the faux leather of the booth seat. They seemed to have picked a favorite place to sit; in the back, out of the way, where Duo Lon faced the doors and the opening so he could scout the place, but usually far enough away from anyone that they could chat about almost anything. He absently combed the laminated menu with his eyes, wondering what to try next as he fingered the cup of coffee that a tired-looking waitress had slid in front of him.

"Yeah, that shit lasts me too long. I'll probably be over it in a few days, at least."

"Hopefully I'm done by then."

"Yeah." He checked the menu himself. "How's it goin'?"

"I found a few things at the library, at least." He sipped some of the coffee, wondering if he should go with the quintessential middle-of-the-night breakfast these places served. "I went to an arcade first. It seems that it's usually more crowded there. But…"

"People staying home."

"Yes. I got into a bit of a scuffle with some hoodlums after."

Shen blinked, looking at him. "You didn't…" he drew his thumb across his neck.

"No. They were not those types. Just thugs. I do believe they'll need a bandage or two and a few aspirin in the morning, though."

The brawler chuckled. He had expected that; he knew that Duo Lon, while not shirking from the art of death, didn't just kill anyone needlessly. If anything, he knew he disdained people who did, and how much he wanted to catch this killer. "You know, this reminds me of some of the old Shanghai nights at the all-night shops."

"It does, somewhat. Just different fare. And you usually even pulled me into a bar fight beforehand, too."

Scratching his messy blond hair, Shen smirked and flipped the menu. "Gotta be breakfast again." He pushed his jacket off, stuffing it into the corner of his booth.

"I agree." Duo Lon fumbled with the arcade token in his hand, flipping it deftly over his knuckles and back again. He sat it on its side on the table, balancing it perfectly, as he slid his own leather jacket off. The smells of the kitchen grew stronger as one of the doors flipped open. There weren't a whole lot of people here, but there were a scattering of them. The diners had a very distinctive smell, he found; coffee, the leather of the booths, and of course, the quintessential grease.

"You lookin' to maybe get more work done here?" He nodded toward the tattoos.

"I admit, I haven't thought much of it."

"Yeah. I gotcha. Stuff on the mind."

"Maybe as a reward for myself after I bury this." He looked up at the waitress who had walked over, flipping her book open.

"What are you guys having?" she asked.

Roughly a half hour had passed, and the two young men were once again filled with greasy breakfast material. Duo Lon had opted once again for the French toast, which he quite liked, along with the breakfast sausage links. Shen was definitely a pancake guy, plowing through the large stack of them.

Having had their coffee refilled for what seemed to be the umpteenth time, the two eyed the ashtray, with Duo Lon putting his pipe and tobacco to the side.

"So okay. You didn't see anything at the arcade, you whipped those assholes, and then went to the library? What did ya find there?"

"Old newspaper articles," he replied, polishing off the rest of his plate and pushing it to the side. "Turns out this started three years ago."

"No shit," Shen said, blinking. "Are you sure?"

"Similar MO," he said. "While I suppose there is a chance for a copycat…the fact they started, stopped for a short while after a handful, and then started up again tells me otherwise. Copycats usually work at the same time, and the previous killings went rather underreported. They didn't even pick up the similarities in those days. Thought they were just random…but when I noticed where their bodies were all found, I felt otherwise."

"Why did he stop?"

"Might have felt like he was getting too careless," he said. "Then when he had realized the authorities were rather clueless, started up again a bit later. The first ones happened earlier that year. Then it all dried up."

"Huh. Goddamn." He pulled out his cigarette pack as the other man prepared his pipe. "So…what now?"

"I saw something the other night. A person walked out of their home…I couldn't see who it was. They noticed me and went back inside. At least, I think they did."

"Sure you aren't seeing things due to the job?"

"I'm not sure…but I don't doubt my instinct."

"Maybe he knew one of those arcade thugs. And knew what you did to them."

"Perhaps." He took a draw of his pipe as the waitress came to collect any extra dishes, leaving behind dessert menus. He took one absently, wondering if he might not attempt something on it for once. Usually, he skipped out, having a sweet tooth he would indulge once in awhile with a red bean bun, bottle of soda, or some sort of cake Ash would shove in front of him, but he was curious to know what they served. "Still, my gut tells me that I am close, and that I should focus on that neighborhood."

Shen snatched it up, grinning. He had wolfed down the rest of his pancakes rather fast. "You oughta listen, then. That thing hasn't served you wrong." He rubbed the light scar on his neck left from a garrote when he was ambushed one night, early in the pair's friendship. "I should know."

"Going back to bed after?" He looked over the dessert menu, noting that the chocolate cheesecake actually looked pretty good.

"Probably." The brawler already knew what he was getting; the same chocolate cake he had destroyed the other night. He stifled another yawn. "I may have had a few extra to drink the night before."

"You make it obvious." Duo Lon smirked.

Shen flipped him off as the waitress came back, flipping her book open as the young men decided to order their desserts of choice. The assassin figured that he'd be there for a while more, but he'd just make sure to go do whatever it was he needed when he left.

He was responsible when it came to work, but he wasn't one to pass up the chance for a little bit of friendship once in a while these days.

?

The young man pulled his jacket around himself, leftover tokens jingling in his pockets. Yawning-and cursing himself for staying out a little too late tonight, knowing he had a couple of tests the next day-he started taking a few shortcuts through the local neighborhood. It was quiet at this point in time, given how late it was; a few scrapes around the alleys of trash blowing around-or perhaps an alley cat or two-was a normal occurrence.

Zipping his coat higher-it was colder than he remembered-he continued walking as he turned the corner, getting suddenly startled by someone standing by.

"Oh! Sorry," he said, manuvering around the man, whom he faintly recognized, but wasn't quite sure from where. He knew the neighborhood, but didn't visit every single store around regularly.

As he kept walking, the man seemed to follow, having turned around from his previous direction. Rubbing his neck, the young man looked around, sort of wishing, all of the sudden, that this alleyway had some more lights around it. But he knew the neighborhood fairly well; he'd turn the corner, end up on the one small side street, and then from there jog on down to the main street, where he'd sprint to the library for now or something.

Walking faster-he wasn't certain, but he could have sworn he had heard the other man's footsteps pick up( where did I see him at, anyway? ). More nervous now, he quickly turned the corner as planned, knowing this route took him a little deeper into the side streets, but would more quickly open up to the main street once he made it down.

As he moved a little more down, he noticed a trash can that was somewhat out of the way; he went to move it out of the way, only to gasp, yelling out as he stumbled back.

The slashed up and mutilated corpse stared back at him; he didn't recognize him, but he

"Ohhh god," he said under his breath, shaking his head and forgetting his plan. He turned, trying to figure out what to do at this moment; he had left his cell phone back at the dorm, given he didn't want to be disturbed tonight. He absolutely wished he had it now.

Quickly starting to make his way through, he saw the man moving quickly toward him. At first, he started to wave his arms, thinking he would try to catch his attention to run to get help…but then he saw the knife.

"No," he whispered as he tried to grab a trash can lid…but it was too late, he knew, when he felt the blade sink into his kidney.

Third Avenue Diner, 4.30 am

Thankful that his stomach handled large quantities of food well and that it did not affect his swift movement after, Duo Lon had separated from the very tired Shen outside of his hotel and started pondering his next moves.

He decided to go ahead and poke around his drop box…just in case. It didn't take him long to reach the secure area; punching in the code which he remembered-it was long and difficult, but it was no problem for him, and unlikely something that would be hacked by anyone-he turned the additional key, and found indeed something was inside.

It was a simple envelope which had been hurriedly shut and shoved in. He could tell his contact did this rather quickly. Taking it out, he didn't even bother going inside; whatever it was, no one would see it where he was.

"More found. Southeast alley." was all that was scribbled on a piece of paper. The writing seemed hasty; as was the folding. Whoever his benefactor was, he had probably gotten news, went to tip him off, and did it quickly…possibly even before other officers knew about it.

He knew where the southeast was; the neighborhood he had been stalking…where more bodies had shown up recently. Close to the arcade and all of the other places.

The killer was starting to grow bold, careless…or both.

Quickly running home, dropping off his jacket(it was far easier to be stealthy without it, and the cold didn't bother him at all)and heading back out, he moved toward the area quickly, and he knew he would have to hide out of the way to get a good glimpse of things.

Eventually reaching the area, he took to the shadows, almost melding in as he could. There weren't large numbers of people there yet-two police and a coroner, the usual early bunch. They often tried to keep these quiet until the news could announce something, so as to not cause even more panic than there already was. He was well hidden at this point; if Duo Lon wanted to remain unseen, it would be incredibly hard to do so.

He heard some chatting, though it was mostly standard police stuff. A few radios going off. As he crept slowly through the shadows, he noticed the blood and a corpse that was half-covered; fresh, by the look. They found this one quickly.

Was the killer getting careless? Or was he now taunting the authorities?

Creeping around more…he noticed a second body, though he could only see the arm. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the pair wander around the crime scene.

One thing he noticed…the three were not being particularly careful. The coroner didn't even have his gloves on yet, and the police seemed to be moving stuff around. While he did not get the impression they were on the take at this moment, he thought more about how he was convinced that his benefactor is tied to the case somehow…and that he was hired because this police force was making a mess of things.

The more he watched, the more incompetent they seemed. Thinking back to the articles and notes he had read, they certainly weren't put together with the utmost care…at least the later ones. It was almost like they had started to get sloppy.

Closing his eyes, Duo Lon formulated a fast plan. He had to get to those corpses to examine them before even more stuff was ruined, to get his own evidence. He knew what he could do, and it wouldn't even result in any permanent harm to anyone involved.

Waiting for the right moment to strike, the assassin melded into the shadows seemingly supernaturally; within a mere few moments, the three men there were all dropped nonlethally, certain pressure points ensuring that they would be out for long enough for him to do what he had to. They would wake up confused and this would probably end up reported, but he had to get this evidence, and it wasn't like he was leaving any trace at all behind.

Making sure they fell to the ground painlessly-he was able to catch them all easily-if someone had been looking in at that very moment, they may have seen a blur knock the men out cold. He then went to immediate work examining the bodies, knowing he probably had some time before more arrived, as he did not hear any sirens yet. Sirens could be heard from afar, so he knew that would be his signal.

Utilizing some of his strange body control powers to render his fingerprints unreadable-one of the wonderful perks of his bizarre training-he started with the closest body-another college student, a young man like the rest-he examined the stab wounds, which seemed a bit more fevered and hurried than some of the earlier bodies, and were rather violent, seeing larger gashes around, including the one across his face. Noting that, he flipped through the young man's wallet to find some ID-he left some so the authorities could identify the unfortunate fellow-but mostly was looking for any hints and such of his last whereabouts.

Satisfied, he went over to the other body…and stopped.

He immediately recognized him as the young man from the arcade who had been winning much of the evening at the fighting game. The one whom he had spoken with right after. Now, the pallor of death had taken him, with similar wounds on his body. He could not tell right away if the two were both killed near each other(if they had been perhaps walking together), or dumped, but if he had more time he would probably be able to come to a conclusion.

Shaking his head, having to hurry, he did the same with him, and grabbed a few business cards that he had lying around his wallet as well. He saw his name was Shane Davidson, and when he was finished, he took off like a shadow, allowing the others to wake up, groggy and confused.

It didn't take him long to put a lot of distance between himself and the crime scene. Flying over the rooftops after leaping up the walls of an alley, his powerful legs kicking off of them to get him to the top, the assassin dipped around, staying unseen with his small collection of evidence. He would wait to get back to his safehouse apartment to examine it, and then see where things took him from there.

As usual, his busy mind started to turn again…somewhat wondering how the police were going to react to waking up in the alley. Perhaps they would start taking this investigation a bit more seriously if they felt their own were in danger…but he wasn't so sure.

Not that it concerned him; he thought maybe they should pay more attention to their own work and not be so damned careless.

The rest of the trip being uneventful, he headed swiftly back inside, walking in nonchalantly as he always would. He rarely ever saw anyone coming and going; he had picked an apartment that was out of the way and quite frankly not all that well taken care of, but he could live anywhere.

When he reached his apartment and went inside, Duo Lon hurriedly headed toward the table, not even bothering to take his boots off. Digging the evidence out of his pockets, he dropped it on the table, flipping on the light switch so he could look everything over carefully; he only paused to grab the folders that his benefactor had sent him over the course of his stay.

He decided to go after the stuff taken from the wallet of the young man he had talked to, given that was the one he technically, on paper, had some ties to, albeit incredibly small.

Nothing was of note-some odd scraps of paper with assignments written on them, a couple of the same arcade tokens from the place he frequented, though no pictures of the sort or anything like that. An old ticket stub had placed him as living here for a couple of years-he was probably a third-year student.

Around his age, in fact, going by the ID he had seen.

He eventually came across one thing of note; it was a torn bit of a lined note card. The card looked to be worn-probably a couple of years old at least, perhaps picked up from when he had first started school. It said Carlson's, presumably the name of a store or shop of sorts. Maybe a bar.

He wished he could tell, because it was so old that the number and address had worn off, having been written in pencil. Silently cursing his luck, he nonetheless was thankful he had a name to go by. He could start in that neighborhood and perhaps look around for the place; he figured it shouldn't be too hard to find.

The bodega was located on the corner of the neighborhood he had been prowling, and he decided this was as good a place as any to ask.

The old man inside was busily putting a few things on the shelves, a cat winding around his legs before heading off to sniff around the counter. The young black cat-not quite out of kittenhood-saw Duo Lon and went to sniff him, as well, the cat being adjusted to be quite friendly to people. He reached down to scratch him easily behind the ears, noticing how he seemed to not shy away from human touch, even from someone as… off as himself.

He hadn't been in this one before; the reason he was stopping in was because of the card he had gotten. He knew this place had been here awhile, and the owner would likely know where the place was. He had tried and tried, but simply could not find the place; he couldn't even find an old website for it.

"Excuse me," Duo Lon started, relaxing his accent as usual. "Could you tell me where Carlson's is?"

"Carlson's?" the fellow said, stepping away from his shelving and walking over. He squinted at the card in his hand. "That place burned down about two and a half years ago. Vicious fire. Nearly took the rest of the building with it. But they cleaned it up and it's now The Pipe Dream. Tobacco shop not far from here."

Duo Lon blinked at that, hiding his surprise. "Oh. I've actually been there already."

"Was right under your nose. Yeah, it happened late one night. Shop was closed, but I came to work the next day and two fire trucks were there. Might not sound big with only two, but you've seen the place. Gutted that place and some of the building above. Nice to see it was rebuilt fast, though." He scratched his head. "Only took about a year. Prime place to open a shop there. With the library nearby and the dorm a little ways from that, it gets a lot of student traffic."

"What was it before?"

"Some kinda recreation store, I think." He scratched his head. "Wasn't my usual cuppa tea. Maybe sold some comics?"

"I see." Recreation, huh. "Do you remember what caused it?"

"Nah, I don't think they even knew. Some of these buildings are a little older. For all I know, could've had faulty wiring. I do kinda remember the police asking around, though, if anyone saw something. I think they might have suspected arson." He snorted. "One rumor that always goes around is if the owners themselves torch a failing business for insurance money. Definitely not unheard of, but I doubt that was it. As far as anyone knew, the place was doing fine."

"Did anyone die?"

"Curious one, ain't you? That's okay, I can tell you're a student."

"Yes. Came here not long ago."

"They found some remains, yeah. Too burnt up to tell, though. Never could identify them." He looked around, seemingly happy he found someone to gossip with. "If you asked me, it might've been a cover up. Some suggested it even then, but cops insisted it was probably a couple of vagrants." He snorted. "Probably flubbed the case."

"Huh. Weird," he said, his mind now starting to race, thinking of some stuff to buy so he could once again head back to his apartment to piece together a few more things. "I have to admit, I had decided to write a little about the history here for a class. I know I should probably do my own research, but I figured someone who worked around here knows a lot."

"Oh, I've been here awhile, alright," he grinned, patting the cat as he walked by again. "If you need more, just come on by."

"I think I will," the young man replied. He smiled and nodded, heading over to the shelves to buy a few odds and ends to take back to his apartment, glad to have built up a rapport.

After leaving-giving the little cat one more pet before he walked out-he rubbed his chin with his other hand.

So The Pipe Dream was Carlson's, and the dead student seemingly had gone there for some reason. Given it was a place that sold comics, he had little doubt that it sold other forms of tabletop entertainment; oftentimes those comic stores would sell rulebooks and the like.

But what he couldn't piece together was the owners. He assumed the place was sold after it burned, and it was bought up by The Pipe Dream's current owners. He wondered where this Carlson was-if Carlson was even a person, rather than a brand or mascot or something. Or it was a person who had been long dead, and the store had kept the name.

Deciding to go check his drop-box for anything new, he found it empty at the moment; that was fine, as he figured he had almost all of the evidence he needed…though he was still missing a few tidbits that his brain had been working feverishly to put together.

Most of the evidence pointed toward that general neighborhood. He had little doubt that the killer operated at least close to there. Now he thought that it could perhaps be a coincidence that the student had visited the now-defunct store, but something told him that whoever was around there had been actually stalking people from wherever he was.

He had a feeling he may have worked at Carlson's, and still worked around there.

Rubbing his eyes a moment, he muttered a curse under his breath. He had forgotten to ask the clerk something that he really should have.

Standing back up quickly, he turned to head back out and downtown one more time.

Once again, not even fifteen minutes later, he found himself back at the bodega, the cat seemingly happy to see him again. He absently patted the creature as he nodded toward the clerk one more time.

"I had forgotten to ask something earlier," he said.

"Oh! Sure. What's up?"

"Who owned Carlson's?"

"Oh! A fella who knew a guy who now works for the Pipe Dream. He even re-hired a couple of the guys he had working for him. Could ask him more about the place, if you want."

Hiding his feelings well, the assassin nodded and smiled. "Thanks."

"No problem." He turned back around to adjust something.

Absently petting the cat as he walked by-the creature was sitting on the side of the cash register this time-he walked out back into the cold morning. Putting his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, he looked up and down the street once before walking toward his destination, the sun reflecting off of various cars as his breath let out a light mist. Having a cooler body temperature than most due to his ties to necromantic powers, his breath was still warm enough to condense in the cold air.

His brain allowed the last few pieces of the puzzle to settle into place. Tracing things back to the night at the library, he put them in order.

The killings started about three years ago. The initial ones only went on for about six months, and were few and sporadic enough that they couldn't be figured out.

One night about halfway through that year, Carlson's burned down. Bodies were found, though unable to be identified and were thought to have been vagrants by the authorities.

The killings started up again a few months ago…and got more and more bold and slapdash. They had a similar MO to the ones earlier that fell off the radar.

More started showing up in this neighborhood.

He turned the corner and arrived at a familiar block. His eyes scanned the street until he locked onto it.

Narrowing his eyes and looking at the Pipe Dream, he would have some extremely…pointed questions to ask one of the sales clerks after his shift.

He had an idea who, as well.

A/N: Well, well, well. One of those "Hiding in plain sight" moments-though this is not uncommon for this ilk. (Also, as for the early part of the chapter, I started to enjoy having scenes of these two in the diner chatting. Kind of like how a movie might play out or something.) Perhaps there was a little bit of jumping around in this chapter, but things are coming to a head…

As usual, some notes!

-As mentioned before, the timeline this takes place in has smoking in places not completely banned yet, though it was on its way. But diners often had smoking sections for quite awhile up until the almost universal indoor ban that came later. KOF runs in a timeline bubble, but I try to capture the "feel" of each time period(as they do in the games, like using flip phones in XIII, to smartphones in XV, and so on), without actually saying the year.

-Shen's light garrote scar: A headcanon. In Dusk Before Dawn, Shen was ambushed by some underworld thugs who tried to kill him. Duo Lon helped him out and it's where Shen got to see what he truly was. But I don't wanna give it all way, go read the story! (Self-pimping here!)

-The cat being quite friendly and personable was a little bit of a shout-out to the famous Bodega Cat video. "He takes a pet like no problem."

-Chatty old shopkeepers can be a wealth of knowledge and rumors, we all know that much. XD

-Websites and the like tended to get lost a lot easier in this game's timeframe. Remember that this 'timeline' is, once again, in the equivalent of the early-mid 2000s, and things were a lot less 'sticky' online. If a website went down, it often got lost a lot easier than it did nowadays. In fact, given Carlson's burned down about two and a half years before this story takes place, it'd have been possible the store never even HAD a website.

-Another timeline thing; the young man not having his cell phone wasn't weird for this time period. We had cell phones in those days, but they weren't smart devices, and were somewhat less ubiquitous. Sales started to boom around that time, but with numbers in the 500-million *worldwide* in the equivalent of 2003, not everyone in the US actually even owned one then, and even people who did didn't necessarily have them with them constantly.