http://clampfix.fanworks.net/tb-fix/innocen2.txt </head><body><pre>TOKYO BABYLON: "Innocence 2" "She actually said that it was her fault?" Hokuto asked, stealing Seishiro's french fries and munching happily. Subaru nodded sadly. They were eating lunch in Seishiro's animal hospital in Shinjuku (McDonald's, of course, which was what happened when they let Hokuto get take-out), but Subaru didn't feel much like eating. The image of Midori Kimura's despair-wracked face kept floating before his eyes. "Do you know what she meant?" "I asked Mrs. Kimura about her grandson's death. It seems that it was a traffic accident. Midori-san was driving and lost control of the car. I'm sure she blames herself." "Survivor guilt..." Hokuto mused. "It's a terrible thing," Subaru agreed. "Her grief alone is painful enough without taking the extra burden of guilt on herself." Seishiro sipped at his strawberry milkshake. "Is she?" he asked. Then, he added, "Who is Ayaka?" Subaru glanced away, slightly embarrassed at this part of the story. "Keiji Kimura and Ayaka Sato had, apparently, been in love for many years, ever since high school. All of their friends had expected them to marry someday, but when Mr. Kimura met Midori-san at Ueno Park last summer, it was love at first sight." "How romantic!" Hokuto gushed. "Yes, but Miss Sato was completely forgotten." "Oh, that's so sad," murmured Hokuto. "It's like a tragic play, where the lovers are foreordained to eternal separation." Subaru wasn't quite sure which pair of lovers his sister was talking about. "Mrs. Kimura seems to have been very forthright about her grandson's romantic past, Subaru-kun." Subaru nodded. "I think that perhaps she does not like Miss Sato very much." "So, a widow who believes she deserves to be punished for her husband's death, a grandmother-in-law who wants to protect that widow, a scorned lover, and an angry ghost. Quite a fascinating case!" Seishiro summed up. "I put a kekkai (fn1) up around the apartment," Subaru explained, "which should keep the poltergeist from coming back for some time, but I'm not sure how long it will hold. The spirit is steadily getting stronger and stronger, and Midori-san is not helping things with her guilt. It keeps calling the poltergeist to her." "You'll have to lay a trap for the poltergeist next time," Seishiro suggested. Subaru nodded. "I don't think that it is strong enough yet to be a real threat to someone who can use magic, but it is very fast, and hard to focus on." Frowning, Hokuto wondered, "What makes a strange ghost like that?" The question distracted her interest long enough for Seishiro to rescue his last few fries. "It would make more sense if it really was just Midori's own mind trying to punish herself." "That would be an elegant solution," Seishiro admitted, "but too often the world does not like elegance or simplicity. The interaction of people is like a beautiful arabesque, with a thousand turns holding a thousand secrets." "Sei-chan..." "Secrets..." said Subaru, mostly thinking out loud. "A person's hatred is a terrible thing. It can create a spirit all by itself, a spirit that wants to seek out the object of the hatred... "And Midori-san hates herself..." Then he looked at Seishiro, and thought again. It was not, Subaru decided, that simple. Sergeant Nabuo Hironaga glanced back and forth from the letter in his hand to the handsome, almost pretty young man who held his broad-brimmed hat between gloved fingers. Hironaga was not used to people who came bearing letters of introduction from high government officials; he worked in the Traffic division, of all things. That sort of political intervention usually came in cases handled by Homicide, or Vice (fn2). It did Hironaga some good to see that the young man was no more comfortable about it than he was. "Well, Mr. Sumeragi, what is it that I can do for you?" "I'm sorry to bother you, Sergeant," Subaru apologized. The Sumeragi family was on better terms with -- and was owed more favors by -- government ministers and captains of industry than ordinary people. The person Subaru had asked for help was of much higher rank than the situation called for, but he simply did not know anyone to approach at a more appropriate level. It made him very embarassed. "I just need to see an accident report. It happened eight days ago; the car owner's name was Keiji Kimura." "That's all?" Hironaga looked at Subaru in surprise. The young man blushed faintly and looked down at the floor. "That's all," he confirmed. The sergeant began to go through the computer records, shaking his head at the curious behavior of the powerful and influential. In a few moments he had located the correct file, a few more and he was handing a printed copy to Subaru. "There you go; knock yourself out." "Thank you," the young man acknowledged with a slight bow. Hironaga again shook his head in confusion as Subaru left. Sometimes, he thought, this job was just too weird. Hokuto tapped her foot impatiently. Ayaka Sato was taking a long time to get to the door. "Oh, Sei-chan, if she's not home..." "Her lights were on," Seishiro pointed out reasonably. A moment later came the sharp snick of the door latch being turned. Hokuto's impatience caught in her throat when she saw the reason for Ayaka's delay. The woman was in her early twenties, a bit taller than Hokuto, and very beautiful, but there was a harshness about her face that made it appear all lines and angles. She leaned heavily on a crutch; her right leg was twisted savagely as if it had been broken in several places and allowed to heal without setting. The foot of that leg did not reach the floor. "Who are you? What do you want?" she snapped in a harsh voice. Her eyes raked up and down Hokuto scornfully, seeing the green shamrock dress and dismissing it along with its wearer. "Miss Sato, we're..." Hokuto began haltingly, fighting down the flash of annoyance she had felt. "We're friends of Midori Kimura," Seishiro smoothly cut in. The effect of this simple statement was immediate and astounding. Ayaka's face twisted with hatred and grief; her eyes narrowed to slits. Her words weren't just speech; they were attacks. "That bitch!" she snarled. "How dare you come here now? She went all-out after Keiji, fawning all over him, offering him everything. She stole him away from me like she thought he was some toy she could possess! Well, now she has him, the cold ashes of his corpse! Ashes in a grave where she put him!" Tears were streaming from her eyes as she whirled away from her callers. The door echoed hollowly as it slammed. Hokuto felt vaguely nauseous. Part of her wanted to curl up and cry; Ayaka's pain was like an open, festering sore. The depth of Miss Sato's passion must have approached insanity, for her to have burst into that kind of explosion to complete strangers at the mere mention of Midori Kimura's name. Another part of Hokuto wanted to try to comfort the young woman, to help heal some of that anguish. To lose Keiji so quickly, and then to have him die so soon after that... Then, of course, there was the part of Hokuto that was just plain mad. "Well, that was certainly fascinating," Seishiro commented while Hokuto was struggling to sort out her feelings. He led the way out of the apartment building and into the warm afternoon air. A tinge of rain could be scented on the wind, and the skies over Tokyo were turning the same gray as the steel of the towering skyscrapers. Seishiro tapped a cigarette out of its pack and lit it, exhaling a long, thin stream of smoke from between his lips, the looked again at the uncharacteristically silent Hokuto. "Do you know, Hokuto-chan," he told her, "that you look just like your twin when you're pensive like that? It's very becoming." "Sei-chan..." she whispered, biting her lip. "What did you think of her?" "What did I...?" Seishiro slipped his glasses off. It was funny, Hokuto thought, how much that could change someone's appearance. Without the veil of glass over them, Seishiro's eyes seemed so much more intense, deep, liquid, and fathomless. He seemed a completely different creature now, no longer the calm, reserved friend but something wild and unknown. < S E I - C H A N W A Z E T T A I N I C H I G A U > "What did you think of Ayaka, Hokuto-chan?" he asked. He held the cigarette in the same hand that held his folded glasses; a thin stream of smoke trailed straight upwards like a narrow column. "Subaru-kun's gentleness hides things from him, sometimes. There is no evil in him, making it very difficult for him to see evil in others. Your vision is clearer." Hokuto could not look away. She stared into Seishiro's eyes, entranced, captured by them. "I..." "What do you believe, Hokuto-chan?" Hokuto tried to think. She was unsure enough as it was, and this strange new Seishiro did not help her. Or, did he? As she stared into his eyes, she could feel time slowing. Images of Ayaka Sato's face arranged themselves in her mind. "Anger..." she whispered. "She loathes Midori beyond reason..." The first image, and the easiest. "And?" "Pain...she misses Keiji...she wants him back, and knows that because he is dead she cannot ever have the only thing that matters to her..." "So she blames Midori for it?" "Yes...no..." Hokuto shook her head. "She feels guilty about it. She blames herself." Seishiro half-turned away from her. A misty drizzle began to fall, tiny droplets lightly striking Hokuto's face. "Sei-chan..." He slid his glasses back on, and turned a dazzling smile on her. "What is it, Hokuto-chan?" Hokuto blinked. Had she been saying something? "We'd better get going," Seishiro suggested aimably. "Subaru-kun will be waiting for us to pick him up." They darted across the street, hoping to get into the car before the rain picked up. "I wonder what Keiji Kimura was like," Hokuto wondered. "Do you think that he was a good man?" "His death made three women's lives stop moving forward, because of their love for him," was Seishiro's enigmatic response. Hokuto had no answer for that. "Are you sure that this isn't any trouble?" Subaru asked for the third time. "You've spent your entire day doing things on my behalf. I feel badly about taking you away from your own important work." Seishiro neatly guided the car around a turn. "Please don't worry about it." He turned the warmth of his smile on Subaru. "It's a pleasure to do things for those we love." "U-um..." "Besides which, it's 5:30 now..." Subaru glanced at the dashboard clock. The hours were passing quickly today, he thought to himself. "...so it's no trouble at all." The rain had picked up, denying the morning's promise of a clear day. "Your work involves human lives in any case, Subaru-kun." Seishiro glanced at his young passenger. "Shouldn't a human life mean more than an animal's?" he asked. "Your work is important, too!" Subaru protested at once. "People care very much for their pets. Without you, animals would die, and that would make people very sad. Animals love unconditionally, without doubts or reservations. That's very rare to find!" "Except in you." "Seishiro-san..." The car rounded another turn. They were on the outskirts of Tokyo now, moving through the suburban areas. Subaru rarely got to see places like this in the course of his work, with grassy slopes and small stands of trees mingling with the houses, since his life usually played itself out in the urban center of Tokyo. "We're almost to the place where the accident happened," Seishiro told him. "You know Tokyo very well, don't you, Seishiro-san? So much of it is still a mystery to me." "I don't think one can truly appreciate something until one knows its inner heart. If you say you love a mysterious thing, you really love what your own imagination pictures as the truth." Subaru wondered about that. Did that mean his liking for Tokyo was only an illusion? The car made a right-hand turn onto a long strip of road. Just outside Subaru's door, a grassy embankment plunged sharply down over thirty feet towards the back side of a shopping center, separated from the road by a narrow guardrail. "This is the place, according to what you told me," Seishiro said, "along this stretch." "It looks very dangerous," Subaru commented. "It isn't difficult to drive," Seishiro clarified, "but a loss of control could very easily be fatal. Plunging through the guardrail...rolling down the hill...one would have to be very lucky to survive. Like your Midori-san." The police accident report had told Subaru that the Kimuras' accident had not been caused by mechanical failure; there had been nothing whatsoever wrong with the car before it had gone out of control. The road conditions had been perfect also. That was hard on Midori, because it gave her no way to blunt her guilt, no explanation other than her own error available to console her. Suddenly, the world went crazy. The car fishtailed, skidding wildly across the road. It spun three hundred and sixty degrees, careening back and forth wildly. It was a miracle that there were no other cars on the road, yet it had to end badly sooner or later. Subaru's heart caught in his throat. Was this how Keiji had felt, knowing his life was in mortal danger, knowing there was nothing he could do to protect himself? There was a connection there, between the boy and the dead man. Subaru could feel it... ...the connection spanning the border between life and death... ...and he understood. The keening shriek of an eagle went unnoticed. The car slowed. Stopped. "Subaru-kun." Seishiro's arms enfolded him. Subaru made no protest; it was only natural to seek comfort from others after coming that close to death. He turned his head upwards to look at the older man. Subaru's eyes were wide, his face open and pure with concern, not for himself, but for others. Seishiro's smile was brilliant. Dazzling. "Seishiro-san...I...Midori-san, she --" "Needs you." Seishiro reached out and brushed a bit of Subaru's hair, a lock jostled out of place by the wild ride, back where it belonged. "I understand." Footnotes 1: Not one of the "special" kekkai that everyone is concerned with in X, of course, but just an ordinary magical barrier. 2: As should be obvious, I have no knowledge at all about how the Tokyo police department is organized. If someone could clarify things for me, I'd be more than grateful. Hotohori (Hmph. 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