Disclaimer: The original characters belong to Gosho Aoyama; their incarnations here and the general universe are the consequence of many chats with Ellen Brand.
In an effort to keep from burning out on Promenade, I decided to finally listen to one of the bunnies gnawing persistently on my brain. The roots of this universe are a bit darker than some, but that's part of what makes things interesting. Promenade will remain my main fic, but expect more shorts to follow eventually if response is favorable.
Welcome to the Mythverse, where supernatural and mythical creatures abound.
Exordium
When you're trying to set yourself up in a career dominated by retired Hunters who'd become information brokers with a wealth of experience and contacts to draw from in order to do their job, first impressions mean a lot. Particularly when you're barely fourteen. Saguru'd learned early on that his ability to hear footsteps on the concrete sidewalk outside his tiny one-room office and look up in expectation before the door had opened could be extremely useful in that regard. The chance to pin prospective clients with a professional, inhumanly blue gaze before they could register exactly how young he really was tended to keep them from walking right back out on him.
Most people still typically came to him by referrals from the police department, and it wasn't really cheating to take advantage of the fact that Hunters—human or not—were more inclined to take him seriously once they realized that while Metropolitan Police Chief Hakuba might be entirely human, his son was unquestionably Clan's kin. The tactic worked on the occasional non-Hunter trying to solicit his help, too.
Still, he was accustomed to his clients at least being of legal age. The last thing he expected to see when the door opened was a boy who didn't look older than twelve, with messy brown spikes, a denim jacket over sneakers and faded jeans... and blue eyes too old for his face.
Saguru clamped down on a double take as recognition suddenly flared. That was Kuroba standing in his doorway. They'd had homeroom together since second year of junior high had started five months ago, but they sat on nearly opposite sides of the classroom and he'd never seen the other boy out of school uniform.
Kuroba didn't look surprised to see him, though... not that that meant much. From what Saguru could recall, the brunet had three expressions: impassive, curious, and manic glee. But he didn't smell surprised, either, and it was essentially impossible to fake scents.
The other boy must have seen the flyer he'd put up on the board at school. Saguru had his pride, but even the best had to start somewhere and work upwards. There was no telling who might be a useful person to know... or to have helped in the past.
"So, are you any good at it?"
Saguru raised an eyebrow. "...I have several job descriptions on my door." Well, multiple. Private detective and information broker made two. "To which are you referring?"
Kuroba didn't seem interested in nitpicking; he simply moved to close the door behind him and leaned against it. "I'm looking for an Otherkin. Haven't had any luck in two years, though. Think you can find him?"
"...There are no guarantees, but I have some skill," Saguru allowed after a pause.
He tilted his head, curious. He'd never talked to Kuroba outside of a few classroom activities, though the other boy's occasional outbursts of manic energy during class were impossible to ignore. If Kuroba was using one of the more marginalizing terms for Clan, he obviously didn't think much of this person he was trying to find, for some reason...
"If I may inquire, why do you wish to find him?"
Kuroba gave him an assessing look. "You're the detective, you tell me. I'll be back in a week. If you can figure out who I'm after from what you can dig up of my history... I'll hire you."
He didn't even wait for a reply before turning and walking out, leaving Saguru to gaze at the door's lacquered finish and wonder what, exactly, he was getting into.
Kuroba had unmistakably orchestrated his visit to pique Saguru's curiosity, and to confirm his investigative abilities before committing to any kind of payment. As he took in the picture on his computer screen, Saguru had to admit that Kuroba's strategy was working on both fronts.
After Kuroba had left, Saguru'd closed his office and headed home to the Hakuba family manor, where he had better resources to tackle Kuroba's challenge. His office was a location to meet clients as himself, away from the looming reminder of his father and grandfather's prominent social standings in law enforcement and scientific research, respectively. Home, however, in his study cum research center cum personal lab, was where all the real investigation began.
Saguru hadn't expected an initial, cursory search to turn up anything relevant, given Kuroba's age and the usual associated lack of any newsworthy accomplishments. He'd run one anyway, out of habit, and been surprised to find an article dated seven years ago, containing the right kanji for Kuroba's name paired together.
When he'd pulled up the full article, he'd found that Kuroba's name hadn't turned up in the body of the story. Instead, it was in the caption to the accompanying picture, which depicted a man in a black tuxedo with a pencil mustache and piercing blue eyes over an enigmatic smile. Sitting on the man's shoulders, with an adult's top hat in one hand, a red rose in the other, and a dove nestled among messy brown spikes, Kuroba gave viewers a laughing grin that threatened to split his face.
Caption aside—Japan's #1 magician Kuroba Toichi, 33, and son Kuroba Kaito—it had to be Kuroba. Saguru had never seen hair that wild on anyone else, and the boy's overall facial structure remained recognizable despite the gap of years between this child and the teenager Saguru knew.
He'd simply never seen Kuroba look that... genuinely happy.
After examining the picture a few more moments to ensure he hadn't missed anything potentially relevant, Saguru moved on to the article itself. Kuroba hadn't given any parameters more specific than "his past", and parents made for a good place to start looking deeper.
The piece turned out to be part of a human-interest series: a personal interview with Kuroba Toichi, professional stage magician, who balanced entertaining fans worldwide with assisting the police as a specialized Hunter as well as spending time with his wife and young son.
A young son who, according to the article, intended to follow in his father's footsteps along both career paths.
...No wonder half of Kuroba's classroom distractions involved confetti, playing cards, or sleight-of-hand.
Saguru pulled his attention back to more important matters: namely, that Kuroba's father was a Hunter. That fact opened up several possible connections between Kuroba and a Clan's Blood, including a few worrying ones that Saguru planned to ignore until he obtained more concrete information.
He decided to run a general news search on Toichi first. The best place to find information on Hunters was the police's database, since licensed Hunters were semi-official retainers to the force, but that information was available only to members of law enforcement or Hunters themselves. Admittedly, Saguru could and previously had hacked his way inside without much difficulty—mother had taught both him and Eric how to do things like that, back before... but he preferred to start with the easier methods.
A fair number of relevant articles accumulated in his results, unremarkable given the man's minor celebrity status. Saguru set the list to be ordered by date and skimmed the headlines, starting with the man's abrupt, highly acclaimed entrance into the public eye and then moving on through a growing list of appearances and accomplishments over the next twelve years. Interesting, but not particularly helpful... until Saguru reached a headline dated six years ago and stopped cold.
Japan's Top Magician Dies During Show, Police Investigating.
...Tragedy of the event aside, 'police investigating' was an incredibly ominous phrase.
Before he could look further, Saguru's thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door.
"Young master?" The door opened partway to admit the grandmotherly housekeeper who acted as undisputed mistress of the day-to-day running of the Hakuba household. "Will you be taking dinner downstairs?"
Saguru's gaze strayed back to the computer screen, catching on a second headline slightly lower than the first.
Police Declare: Kuroba Toichi Murdered, Assailant Unknown.
"...Father's working tonight, isn't he? A tray is fine."
Grandfather always took dinner in his personal lab; this was much more interesting than eating alone at the big table or in the kitchen with the manor staff. Saguru successfully ignored the whispering thought that being buried in research during dinnertime was less lonely, too.
She nodded and left him to further investigating the details behind Toichi's death. If the case had remained unsolved, murder by person or persons unknown... Kuroba's drive to find an elusive Clan's Blood fell into distressingly clear focus.
By the time someone brought dinner to the study, Saguru was so engrossed in following the investigation and conclusions of Toichi's death that he barely remembered to eat. Realizing that the press would only have been given a fraction of the relevant details, he decided to save time and access the official case files directly. Father had said to come to him if Saguru ever needed any information for an investigation; it was simply a rather broad interpretation of the Chief of Police's support to cut out the middleman and not bother such a busy man in order to obtain the records...
Cause of death had been determined to be an explosion during one of Toichi's signature illusions, breathing a fireball that dissipated into a dove flying above stage. The idea that a magician of Toichi's caliber, who double- and triple-checked his equipment before every performance according to his assistants, could die performing a routine magic trick... it was absurd. Particularly when several Clan—dragons, kitsune, and naga, to name a few—were capable of generating fire at will, and a determined enough normal human could probably tamper with things during a show if no one seriously expected the possibility of sabotage.
No trace of the possible murderer had been found, although the police had released a sketch of a man with a drooping caterpillar mustache who was wanted for questioning about the event. A note attached to the picture in the case file stated that the eyewitness alleging the man's culpability had also declared his eyes a Clan's slit-pupil gold, but the reported distance between the suspect and witness, combined with the auditorium's relative darkness before chaos broke out, made the accuracy of the report questionable. Clan or not, however, the man had vanished without a trace, and with no other solid leads the case had slowly gone cold.
Saguru sighed, leaning back and massaging eyes strained from staring at a backlit screen for hours, and then pulled his pocket watch out of his shirt's front pocket and clicked it open.
12:27 AM.
He'd done well for only a day's worth of searching—he'd gotten extremely lucky with his search results, having found Toichi so fast. He'd need to investigate what he could of the rest of Kuroba's life, to confirm for certain that this was what Kuroba had wanted him to find, but he was fairly confident he was on the right track.
Under most circumstances he would have decided to continue after a few hours sleep, but he still wanted to check the Hunter database. Toichi's work as a performer was unlikely to be behind his death; any enemies would have been collected from his work as a Hunter, whatever the specifics of that were. The criminal Humans and Clan he'd crossed paths with would be in his Hunter's profile, and Saguru didn't want to have to hack his way in again later. The less times he not-quite-legally accessed the police's secure network, the better.
Suppressing a yawn, Saguru turned back to the computer and pulled up Toichi's Hunter profile. However, before he could start reading it, the link to the previous Hunter in the database caught Saguru off-guard yet again.
Hunters were catalogued according to last name.
The line of kanji, hovering innocuously in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, read: Kuroba Kaito.
Kaito sauntered casually down the street toward Hakuba's self-styled detective agency, hands in his pockets. The detective's trial week was up, and it was time to see the results. Kaito'd noticed Hakuba surreptitiously watching him at school for the past few days, at least, which was a good sign. Hakuba so rarely paid attention to anyone but the teacher—not even to Akako, and the kitsune-girl had the rest of their entire year's male population except Kaito himself willing to cater to her every whim—that the blond must have discovered something new about Kaito that had caught his interest.
Time to hear what that something was, then. Kaito reached inside his jacket to make sure that his currency gamble remained safely intact, then pushed the door open to reveal Hakuba seated behind his desk and looking up expectantly, as if Kaito'd arrived just on time for a scheduled appointment.
"Kuroba-san." Hakuba nodded at the empty chair on the other side of his desk, a combination of carved wood and padded leather that looked more expensive than one of Jii-chan's snooker tables. "Please, have a seat."
Kaito did so without comment, not even on the oddity of being called "-san" by a classmate. Although come to think of it, Hakuba addressed everyone with the more formal honorific, even underclassmen. He was always the most reserved, the most formal, the most... stiff, both in behavior and body language. Though he looked slightly more comfortable here, in his own territory, at school the blond always stood with his back to a wall, and never relaxed so far that he couldn't be in constant readiness for whatever might happen. Kaito'd noticed because, well... after two years of hunting, he'd made a habit of doing the same.
Kaito leaned back and crossed his legs, relaxing as much as he ever did in an environment he didn't control, and raised his eyebrows at Hakuba in anticipation. The blond regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, head cocked to the side in faint curiosity, before speaking again.
"You're rather young to be a Hunter, aren't you?"
Kaito blinked. All right, not exactly what he'd expected Hakuba to start the conversation with, but the fact that the blond had found out that much was promising...
"There's no age requirement, and the physical requirements are geared to let women make the qualification if they're good enough. What they really want to know is if you're good enough to survive against criminals who usually have a lot more natural advantages than you do." Kaito shrugged. "To quote one of the examiners, I'm a devious little bastard."
"...I have no doubt."
"I usually team up with another Hunter, though. A lot of the people I took the exam with liked my style and invited me to join them if we ever crossed paths again. It's worked out so far."
"Yes, it's kept you alive through quite a number of hunts... ninety percent of which had naga for their targets." Hakuba spread his hands. "Tell me, Kuroba-san. Why do you believe your father's murderer was a naga?"
Kaito's heart clenched, hands tightening momentarily on the carved ends of the armrests as memory flooded his mind, rousing crystallized fury from its usually dormant state. He fought it back, forcing himself to relax again and keep his expression carefully neutral.
Remember, no matter where you are... always keep a good poker face.
"That's because he was." Keeping the anger out of his voice was harder. Sorry, dad... I still haven't mastered it yet.
Hakuba rested his elbows on his desk, regarding Kaito over steepled fingers. "Nothing so specific exists in any official documentation. What makes you certain it could not have been someone else—a kitsune, for example?"
"...I saw him."
A light of understanding dawned in Hakuba's eyes. The blond had to have found the police reports somehow; Kaito knew his witness testimony had been recorded as anonymous, since he'd been underage.
"I made a habit of watching the audience," he went on, "when I was in the wings during a show and had already seen the tricks. I was looking right at him at the time of the explosion... he SMILED. Naga are the only ones with fangs that long, when they look human."
"Why isn't his race in the police report, then?" Hakuba probed.
"The police didn't believe my eyes were that good," Kaito replied, faintly curled lip the only outward acknowledgment of lingering rancor over their skepticism. "I was sitting in the wings on the opposite side of the stage from his seat, at least fifty feet away, the auditorium was dark, the flash would have been blinding... I still saw him."
"That is... rather impressive, yes," Hakuba acknowledged. "Your Hunter's records do show evidence of relatively heightened senses, though, for a human... particularly vision and hearing. Did they not test to see if you could accurately give a description under duplicated circumstances?"
"At the time they did, I hadn't slept in over a day." Nightmares, the downside of an overactive imagination, had left Kaito unable to sleep without revisiting Toichi's death in a plethora of permutations, all ending with the same result. He'd stopped sleeping two days after the incident, cleaned out half his private savings for a cache of energy drinks, and made it almost three days before someone noticed and he'd been sedated.
The police's test had been 30 hours in.
"The officer testing me took my protests that my eyes couldn't focus right to mean they were that bad under normal circumstances, and when I objected to the results later, he took it as a personal attack on his expertise."
That had not been a good week. Kaito had been forced to drop the matter fairly quickly; he simply didn't have the authority of an adult, especially a cop. The memory of doing so, of being forced to apologize to the man, still burned.
"I see," Hakuba responded, looking thoughtful. "I suppose law enforcement contains all levels of competence, as much as any other profession."
"Mm."
"That is why you became a Hunter, then? To find the man the police could not?"
"Without much luck. I can do research, and I know a few Hunters in passing, but..." Kaito shook his head. "I don't have a lot of connections to information beyond what I find on my own."
Jii had drawn the line when it came to contacts. He'd trained Kaito after Toichi died against his better judgment, as he always said, because he knew Kaito would try to find a different teacher or even worse, train on his own. But he would not give Kaito access to the information network he had collected in 25 years of hunting, and expose Kaito to more opportunities to get himself killed than he could find on his own.
"What do you plan to do, if you manage it?"
Train of thought interrupted, Kaito gazed at Hakuba impassively for several moments, weighing his answer to the question.
"Once I find him, I'll either catch him and find out why he did it... or I'll stop him from killing again, if there's no other choice." And when it came right down to it... if he had to, Kaito would take the naga out without compunction.
Kaito folded his hands over his stomach. Time to derail the conversation before it went any deeper, since he was already satisfied with Hakuba's level of skill. "You seem a decent investigator. I'm looking for news, rumors, and possible hunts... priority on nagas, but I'll take anything you hear. Interested in the job?"
"Certainly. On what terms of recompense?"
Now for the tricky part. Kaito'd collected a fair amount of money in the past two years from rewards for bringing in marks, but he always cycled most of it right back into information and equipment for the next hunt. A job of such broad scale would be somewhat expensive, and a recurring expense. He'd come up with a viable, alternate payment scheme fairly quickly, but it still depended on whether or not Hakuba would accept it.
Without a word, Kaito reached into his jacket and set a sealed bag containing eight ounces of drawn blood on the desk in front of the blond dhampire.
Hakuba froze in instant recognition and stared, electric blue eyes wide with disbelief. The blond's expression was enough to make Kaito start to wonder if he'd just made some horrific faux pas within vampiric society, but he just as quickly decided that he didn't care.
"I don't have a lot of cash to cover an open-ended job like this. But blood's expensive, and I can spare it." Kaito was too young and small to donate to a hospital, but he knew how to draw blood and could spare a half-pint on a regular basis.
Hakuba kept watching the innocuous bloodpack as if expecting it to bite, mouth opening and shutting a few times before he finally managed a response.
"...I don't even know how to quantify something like this."
"Oh, that's not a problem." Kaito grinned breezily. "The police index of the black market has pure human as fluctuating around 25,000 yen per ounce for the past year. It'd be pretty complicated to try doing conversions for exact payments on a regular basis, though. I was thinking of a flat rate—eight ounces every six weeks, for as long as the arrangement lasts."
Hakuba raised his head, now-wary gaze pinning Kaito in his seat. "But... blood... Humans don't..."
Kaito stifled a sigh. Most humans tended to be rather protective of keeping their blood exclusively inside their circulatory system, unless they were donating to a hospital for the sake of fellow humans. No wonder, really. Feeding without consent—the most polite of the various descriptors used for the action—was the crime that prompted most Hunts within the vampiric population.
"I know that blood exchange usually only occurs between lovers, or close friends, or prey... but it doesn't have to. It's a good business proposition too. We each have something the other can use."
"I..." Brow furrowed, Hakuba looked almost like he wanted to protest again, but after several more moments he just sighed faintly, any evidence of faint unease fading. "Do you plan to continue hunting after you find this naga?"
"Sure," Kaito responded instantly. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, like the chase of a hunt. He doubted he could give it up even if he wanted to. "That snake isn't the only reason why I hunt... just the biggest reason behind why I started when I did."
"Of course." Hakuba's face had smoothed out into an unreadable expression, any previous clues to his internal state of mind brushed aside. "Very well. I accept your proposition... on a trial basis."
"Fine with me. Three months, then a possible renegotiation of terms?"
"That is... acceptable." Hakuba briefly gave Kaito another searching look, but then his gaze was unable to resist drifting down from Kaito's eyes to the bloodpack on the desk. "If there's nothing else, I should most likely return to my work. We can meet next week at the same time, barring accident or illness. Do you agree?"
"Sounds good, Hakuba-kun." Kaito waved at the bloodpack, still sitting nearby. "Here's your first payment, in advance."
"Yes... thank you."
Kaito nodded, then let himself out of the office, leaving Hakuba still watching the bloodpack in contemplative silence.
Even once the initial whirlwind of thoughts had died down to allow for more coherent consideration, Saguru continued eyeing the sealed bag for quite some time after Kuroba had left his office. Contrary to what the brunet likely assumed, Saguru had no idea what to do with it. He'd never tasted human blood, for the very reasons that made Kuroba's blood so valuable: it was very difficult to obtain, and animal blood was an acceptable, if slightly less effective, substitute.
A vampire or dhampire couldn't die of starvation—fire or silver or sunlight, yes, time or thirst, no—but if one went too long without feeding, the compulsion to bite would override all rational functions until sated. Most vampires experienced ill effects beginning after a few days, with dhampires on a somewhat less urgent timescale. A deprived plasmavore, whether abstaining voluntarily or... not... was not a pleasant sight. Saguru tended to put it off as much as possible, but rarely made it longer than a week and a half before one of the house staff sat him down with a wine glass and a bloodpack, citing unreasonable temper.
Officially, human blood was an untradable commodity, impossible to obtain without robbing a hospital or blood bank, spending an exorbitant amount of money on the black market for a steady supply, feeding on humans indiscriminately, or maintaining an arrangement with one or more willing human donors. The first three weren't even worth considering, and Saguru had no prospects for the fourth.
His father would offer if he could, Saguru knew—but dhampires inherited the ability to bind the will of a human they had fed from if they chose, and no one had managed to conclusively prove that the opportunity occurred through only a direct bite, rather than the mere consumption of blood. The political and authoritarian nature of his position prohibited the chief of police from risking any threat to his complete autonomy, even a predominately imaginary one.
Not that it had stopped the man from suggesting it, when Saguru had been ten and could stay stable on less than a pint over an eight-week stretch.
Saguru had refused, grateful for the obvious and logical excuse. He hadn't wanted to explain that from what he knew, human blood wasn't only higher quality than animal blood in effectively sating the compulsion, but also was the equivalent of experiencing a 5-star restaurant's entrée as compared to a fast food meal. He'd seen a vampire forced to make the transition back, once, after losing her husband. She barely managed to force herself to eat, and not from grief.
He'd always wondered what it tasted like, but now, here, confronted with the perfect opportunity to find out... as much as all his instincts were screaming at him to try it, that very fact made him more nervous than anything else. To indulge the darker nature he'd tried so hard to suppress...
What if he liked it too much?
Would a layer of the humanity that he'd worked so carefully to cultivate here in Japan dissolve?
...The worst part of it was, Saguru'd agreed to Kuroba's proposition because the only reasons he'd had with which to refuse sounded weak or foolish, two traits he'd sworn to never show to anyone. Now, he had three choices: throw the blood away untasted and effectively work for Kuroba for free, which was ridiculous from both a business and dhampiric point of view; follow Kuroba's plan the way the brunet had intended, and run the risk of semi-addiction even if it was supplemented by animal blood to make the supply last longer; or try to come up with a more acceptable reason to revise the payment scheme in the next three months, on the laughable assumption that Kuroba had any other resources to draw on when he'd resorted to offering payment in blood in the first place. Nor could Saguru refuse the job altogether after having already accepted it. His reputation wouldn't survive it, being so new into the business.
Saguru sighed, eyes turning inexorably back to the payment on his desk. He had a depressing premonition that when all was said and done, Kuroba was going to get his way in this.
The only question left was that when this 'arrangement' with Kuroba ended—and it WOULD, inevitably, end, the only question was how quickly Kuroba would grow tired of the routine, or think better of it, or else get himself killed...
...What then?
Terms:
Hunter: Semi-official retainers of law enforcement agencies worldwide, who specialize in bounty-hunting criminals of the Clans at all levels of offense. Licensure is regulated and must be maintained after passing the initial exam.
Clan's blood: All-encompassing term for any of the races of supernatural creatures, in reference to the predominant social structure. Most Clan have a natural form, with the ability to shift into and maintain a humanoid form. Used mostly for full-bloods, but can include partial-blood Clan.
Clan's kin: Those with Human and Clan blood. Otherkin
Dragon: Overarching term used to describe western dragons, eastern dragons, and the various related species therein.
Naga: Half-snake, half-humanoid creatures with the ability to shift fully into either form. Flame-wielders.
Kitsune: Japanese fox-spirit sometimes confused with the western werefox, but capable of illusions and tending more towards mischief than anything else.
Vampire: Plasmavoric beings unaffected by time. Their clan-families are few and relatively small, with more living or traveling alone.
Dhampire: Child of a human mother and a vampire father, OR vice versa, as Clan and humans can generally interbreed. Possesses the advantages of being vampire with few of the disadvantages.
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