CHAPTER TWELVE
It was near noon when they began with their first suspect, the big one. He was 6’2” and built like a sumo wrestler. This man-mountain sat impassively at the table in the interrogation room, his eyes following the Demon Vice-Chief and the red-haired woman they had begun to call the Demoness as they came in, but otherwise giving no sign he was made of flesh rather than stone.
Tetsuya looked at Thalia, and they nodded in silent agreement. Tetsuya leaned against the wall beside the one-way glass, one hand casually on the hilt of his katana. Thalia took the chair opposite the suspect, crossing her legs and leaning far back, a look of insolent boredom on her face.
“Well? Come on, Big Boy, you wanted to talk to us,” she said.
“Maybe I just wanted to talk to you,” the suspect sneered. “Why’d you lose your nerve and bring the boyfriend?”
Tetsuya looked pained. “Ah, you shouldn’t have said that,” he murmured, giving the suspect a sympathetic smirk.
“Excuse me?” Thalia said, and allowed just a hint of sharp, nerve-damaging pitch into her voice to make him wince. “Lose my what?” There was faint crackling in the air, like electricity. “Shall I see what I can find in your so-called mind, O Jolly Green Giant?” she asked. “I’m sure there would be enough to keep us all entertained for, oh, at least 3.6 minutes or so.”
“Government whores can’t expect to be entertained any longer than that, I guess,” retorted the human mountain, “so it’s a shame we got off on the wrong foot after all. I could show you what it’s supposed to be like.” He rose slowly to his full height, leering down at her. “In fact, why don’t you bring your sweet ass over here and I’ll plow you like a fallow field right in front of your superior officer. Don’t make me come get you, you cunt.”
“You’re inviting me over? Didn’t your mother ever warn you about strange women?” Thalia mocked him, even as she launched herself across the table and scissor-kicked the giant’s face hard enough to break his nose and dislocate his jaw, then spun into a roundhouse kick deep into his large abdomen that left him on one knee, purple-faced, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.
“Told you you shouldn’t have said that,” Harada remarked as he opened the door so the two officers stationed outside could carry the giant to the hospital ward. “Oi, you two, be sure to bring him past his friends, so they can see what happens to combatants,” he instructed.
“You predicted his psychology perfectly,” Tetsuya admitted when he and Thalia were alone. “Or did you actually read his mind?”
“No, that was just intuition,” she replied. “My Fury shows me guilt in every detail, but I can’t read minds outside of that specialty area. I do read emotion pretty well, but I’m relieved not to have access to thoughts.” He was also relieved at this knowledge, but of course that would go unsaid.
“Either way, you’re keeping the infirmary busy with trauma injuries,” Tetsuya said with a half-smile. “Usually that’s my job. They’ll have to use two beds for that mountain.”
“He gave a far wittier retort than I expected from him with that ‘government whores’ remark,” Thalia pointed out thoughtfully as they awaited their next interviewee.
Tetsuya shrugged. “He wanted to see you alone, and although he’s not as stupid as he likes to appear, he’s also not exactly evil-genius material. He lost his cool because there was another dog sniffing around.”
Thalia laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “He got stupider because it pissed him off to have the competition dynamic. Threw off his whole intention for the interview.”
“You make a good point, though. We should keep him in mind as possibly the real ringleader,” Tetsuya said. “My instinct says he probably banks on his appearance to mislead people about his intelligence – ironic, considering he just got misled by your appearance – and he lets the louder, cockier guy stand as the figurehead while he manipulates behind the scenes.”
Thalia nodded. “That would make more sense. I couldn’t figure out why the supposed leader seems to know almost nothing about anything.”
The next guy was brought in. Thalia was standing now, while Tetsuya slouched in the chair. This suspect appeared average; unlike his predecessor, he would not stand out in a crowd. He’d been unnerved – just as they intended – by the sight of his large colleague streaming blood from his face and unable to walk without the support of two guards on either side of him, joking mercilessly about how he’d gotten his face broken by a woman a third his size.
“That’s because it’s not a normal woman,” they’d all murmured amongst themselves. “She and the Vice-Chief, they’re a pair of demons.”
And now, here he was in the room alone with the pair of demons, both of them eyeing him speculatively. His bladder felt heavy.
“The guy we bought the weapons from is a cousin of our leader,” he said before either of them spoke.
“Name?” Tetsuya asked.
“Ishinaga Taizo,” he replied. “He must work with some big-timers. I’ve never seen weapons like those up close before; they must have been worth a lot more than we could pay, but he needed to offload them and his original customer canceled the order,” he explained, words falling out of his mouth. His eyes were never still, darting between Thalia and Tetsuya. Thalia paced the room, getting a little closer to him with each circuit. He broke out in a sweat.
“What about the dock? Who owns it and where is it?” Tetsuya asked.
“Number 442 at the Pier,” he replied, “but I don’t know the owner’s name. I swear I don’t know it; please don’t hurt me.”
Tetsuya said nothing, but looked up at Thalia. She, in turn, looked into the suspect’s eyes, though he flinched and wanted to look away.
“The worst things in you are laziness and self-pity,” she said. “And those are quite bad enough, having led you to do what you did. Count yourself fortunate this time, but understand this: if we ever see you involved in hurting people again, it will be all the worse for you that we’re showing mercy now. Understood?”
He nodded, his face pale with relief. One of the other officers came in and led him back to the common room.
“That should encourage the ones left that being useful to us really does pay off,” Harada said.
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“Assuming his information is legitimate, that was almost everything we need, correct?” Thalia asked.
“Yes – just the dock owner is still unknown at this point, and we can go about finding that out a few different ways as long as the number is right.”
As it turned out, none of the rest knew the owner’s name; two of them gave a name that matched neither each other nor the information, and it was clear they were pulling things out of their asses to win favor.
“Stop wasting our time!” he shouted. “Want me to kill you? You think this is a guessing game?” The man cowered in terror, but found no safe harbor in the Demoness, who stood eyeing him coldly while the Demon Vice-Chief knocked his chair out from under him and threw him back at the guards to be returned to the common room.
“Ahh, I see a little of where your reputation comes from,” Thalia said, winking at him when the prisoner was gone. He blushed despite himself.
Kato came in, laughing when he overheard this. “You’re getting one to match it, Thalia-san,” he told her. “They’re calling you the Demoness, you know.”
It was her turn to blush. “Such high praise,” she murmured.
“I think you’re done with this,” Kato said. “They don’t have the information, they’re just trying to bluff to gain favor.” Thalia nodded.
“Agreed,” Tetsuya said. “We have more than enough to proceed with for now. I want to deal with the weapons first, so we’ll leave the dock for later today or perhaps tomorrow, unless you think otherwise, Kato-san?”
“No, I agree the weapons need to be top priority. But send Yamamoto to the dock, see if he has any success picking up the name of the owner. Thalia-san, will you be able to go along to the pier?” Kato asked.
“Of course, if you want me to,” she said. “I’m your employee, Chief! You get to tell me what I’m able to do.” Her eyes twinkled at him.
He laughed. “Yes, I do, don’t I?” he said. “But I know you have Daishiro-chan to worry about. We haven’t heard back about relatives yet, by the way.”
She nodded. “I’m late for lunch with Nakamura-san and company, who’ve been watching Dai-chan for me; I’ll ask them if he can stay. See you guys after lunch!” She smiled and turned to depart in a rustle of skirts.
“Nice try, but not so fast, Demoness,” Tetsuya said. She froze.
“Damn,” she swore. “That press conference, right?” Both men nodded.
“Necessary evil,” Tetsuya said on their way out. “If I have to smile and make nice, then you damn well have to do it too,” he said, smirking at her obvious discomfiture.
“Don’t be demonic to the press,” Kato pleaded with them both, worried. “The Shinsengumi has had enough trouble in the past with our public image. Thalia, you should easily improve our popularity, so just smile, please?”
“Stop worrying, Kato-san, I can charm the leaves off of trees,” she replied, winking. So it was that when the trio emerged to where the press was awaiting them en masse, they were all smiling.
Thalia was as good as her word, and the Vice-Commander was always popular with the public despite – or because of – his fearsome reputation.
--Yes, they could confirm that Thalia Cairde was a Lieutenant, the first woman to join the Shinsengumi.
– No, they had not been coerced to hire her, she was very effective and had already earned the position she held.
– Yes, there was significant progress in the hijacking case, which had led to the unveiling of an illegal arms dealer this afternoon.
– Yes, the government would prosecute the case soon.
– Yes, the Lieutenant would have her own uniform shortly.
– No, she was not interested in doing a photo shoot for a magazine featuring powerful women.
– Chief Kato corrected this by suggesting she might think about it.
– Lieutenant Cairde indicated that after further thought, the answer would still be no.
– Vice-Chief Harada explained that it wasn’t what she thought it was, and perhaps she might change her mind.
– Lieutenant Cairde changed her answer to a yes, provided the Commander and Vice-Commander did their own spreads for magazines about sensitive men.
– The final answer was a unanimous no photo shoot.
The press walked away happy, the three Shinsengumi officers went inside with strained smiles, and shortly thereafter the Demoness was heard unleashing epithets at her superiors about sexual harassment in the workplace before whirling off in a huff for her late lunch.
“I can’t decide if she looks better in a kimono or in Western clothes,” Kato said when it was safe. “But we really should get her a uniform as soon as possible.”
Harada said nothing, but thought of her standing on her hotel balcony, the robe slipping off her shoulders, how she looked in the moment before the change; wild, free, dangerous, glowing with life.
“Did anyone call the tailor?” Kato asked, nudging him.
“Yes, I believe there’s an appointment in the next day or so,” he replied.
***
Naomi’s older sister, Kyoko, who often worked with Kirito on his trickier cases, joined them for lunch. Saya lived with the two sisters in their small apartment nearby, since although Saya was Kirito's ward, Kyoko insisted it was improper for her to live with him. Kyoko was curious about the beauty from outer space, she said, especially since the reporters had finally tracked her down that morning outside Kirito’s apartment.
“Is she a ninja? How else could she be so elusive?” Kyoko wondered.
“She was lucky,” Kirito replied.
“Not for very long,” Thalia said from behind him.
“You’re late!” he scolded. “Don’t you know we’re all starving?”
“Aren’t you rude not to make introductions?” she retorted.
Kyoko was not especially fashion-conscious, but when she saw the leather-and-brocade corset with brass fastenings and pocket watch, with the leggings, skirt and ankle boots, she nearly swooned.
“I LOVE your clothes!” she exclaimed without pretense.
“Thank you,” said Thalia, blushing.
“Is that how you all dress where you come from?” Kyoko asked.
“Well, some of us, but it’s not considered proper, or high-class. I don’t care, though – these are the clothes I like, I can afford them, and they’re comfortable – that’s all I care about. If you really like them, we could get you some; my sister makes most of my clothes,” Thalia said, forgetting about introductions. This was the first opportunity she’d had for any girl-talk.
“Is she here also?” Kyoko asked.
“Not yet, although I hear my sisters intend to visit as soon as they can. So until then if we order, it’ll take a few weeks to process and a month to make.”
“I would love some clothes like this! Can you help me design an outfit so it would fit in on your world without looking like I’ve stolen yours?” Kyoko’s big brown eyes shone at the prospect.
“That’s half the fun of clothes, isn’t it?” Thalia said, a similar light in her own eyes. “Choosing materials, patterns, colors, and designing it to your own taste. I can’t sew a single stitch to save my life, though, so I’ve always known how lucky I am to have talented sisters.”
Saya joined in. “I want some of those cool clothes too!”
“Of course, Saya-chan! We’ll all look fabulous together,” Thalia promised.
“And perhaps your sisters will already be here by the time we’ve finished designing,” Kyoko added.
“Ah, now that would be a blessing,” Thalia sighed, smiling. The women beamed at one another, immensely pleased, when Thalia realized she still had not been introduced. “Oh – by the way, I’m Thalia Cairde,” she said, bowing.
“And I’m Hayashi Kyoko, but please call me Kyoko or just Kyo. I’m Naomi’s older sister,” Kyoko replied, bowing in return. “I can see we’ll be great friends.”
Kirito groaned. “I need food, or all this suffering is in vain,” he complained to the room at large.
Daishiro chose that moment to erupt from the other room, where he had been asleep. “THALLY-SAN!” he cried out, his whole face lit up with joy. “You came back! You really did!” he exclaimed.
“Of course I did, sweet one,” Thalia said, lifting him and rubbing noses with him, making him laugh and sneeze. “Were you good for Kiri-san and the others?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, although he looked troubled. Thalia waited.
“I spilt Kiri-san’s melon soda,” he said, looking woeful.
“Is that all? We’ll just get him some more! Twice as much,” she assured him, giving him a huge smile.
“Really?” he asked, his eyes lighting up again.
“He was convinced you’d be upset, though I kept telling him otherwise. Clearly he doesn’t know how much delight you take in my pain,” Kirito said.
“I hear the media is stalking you, Thalia-san, are you okay to be seen out at a restaurant?” Kyoko asked.
“I was hoping you guys would know a good place with a discreet owner and not many people at this time of day,” Thalia admitted. “It’s not earth-shattering if they find me again, though, I’m just tired of them – we had to do a press conference before I came over.” She shuddered just thinking about it.
Kyoko clapped her hands. “Then we’ll make sure they don’t catch up with you,” she announced confidently. “I know a place not far from here.”
“Let’s go, then!” Thalia said cheerfully.