AN: In case you missed it, chapter 413 was an extra that came out over the weekend. Should probably read that first.
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Mira and I stepped out onto the foggy street, each of us lost in our own thoughts while we slowly ambled back down toward the pachinko parlor. “What are you thinking, Shiro?”
”I’m ready for a nap.” I rubbed gently at my bandaged hand. I really wanted to get out of here and go heal up. Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my hands as much as my mind this time around.
“Me too.” She yawned as if to emphasize the point, and stretched out. The metal brackets along the back of her limbs creaked faintly in the fog. “Sleepover after this?”
“If you want to.” Luna had her own place now, so it was just me at the Crusade apartment once more. “I don’t really care.”
”Yay.“ Mira paused, and her radiant smile immediately dipped into a frown. “Something’s going on up there.”
A moment later, I caught what she heard. A loud commotion from the pachinko parlor caused us to speed up toward the building. Shouting and clattering erupted from within the gambling den. Most of it was in another language, but I picked out a few choice words like ‘idiot’, ‘slag’, and ‘suicidal maniac’.
Mira grabbed a Fang ganger by the arm just as she was about to race past us out into the street. “What the hell’s going on?”
”Hanzo’s gone crazy!” The woman ripped her arm out of Mira’s grasp, and sprinted away while calling over her shoulder, “I gotta get Shinobu!”
”The chef?” Hanzo Nanashi was definitely the chef, chek? Why—no, wait, Detective Bradton said he was going to question the man. Did it go horribly wrong?
Mira grabbed my hand and pulled me further into the pachinko parlor. ”C’mon. Sounds like they’re in the office.”
By the time we arrived, the crime-scene was being absolutely desecrated. A man in a chef’s hat sat at the table ravenously devouring each and every dish while Bradton tried to stop him. The man was heavily chromed though, so his metal arms still moved even with the detective trying to hold him back.
Detective Bradton slipped and fell backward. For an old man, every fall was dangerous. The man groaned, and rubbed at his hip instead of shooting up to his feet. “One of you help me! He’s destroying evidence!”
The chef shouted something in Ukiyonese, and the Fang around the room just stood by without moving. That is—until Mira charged at the man and managed to pull him away. “Useless bastards, can’t you see he’s about to eat the poison?!”
“Aho!” Hanzo tried to shrug her off, but in the contest in strength they were about even. No, he had a slight leg up with his chrome over Mira’s Shift ExoCore. He was slowly pushing her back.
At the mention of consuming poison, the Fang finally started to move. Three of them, including one ‘borged out Kage, pulled the chef away from the table. The entire time, the chef wouldn’t stop fighting against them in his attempts to get free and start eating once more.
The Kage started to calm him down. They spoke in exclusively Ukiyonese, though, so most of what they said went right over my head. I understood a bit, like the man constantly calling the detective an idiot, but not enough to figure out what was going on.
“What was all that about?” Mira moved over to Bradton and stuck her hand down toward him.
”Thanks.” The old man accepted her offer, and allowed her to haul him to his feet. He almost immediately found a chair to sit down in. “No idea. I was questioning the guy when he suddenly went batshit and started eating everything in the kitchen.”
“You insulted his cooking abilities and insinuated he was a murderer.” The Kage spoke up from the other side of the room with a heavily robotic voice. “Hanzo takes his profession seriously, as any professional should.”
Detective Bradton frowned and crossed his arms. “I did not—“
”You accused him of improperly preparing a dish, leading to the elder’s death.” The Kage’s eyes narrowed. “If that is no insult, I do not know what is.”
“Why would you accuse the chef?” Mira asked, and leaned against the main desk of the office.
The detective pulled out his phone and waved it in the air. “Green Pharmaceuticals sent me the tox report while we were talking. Elder Toro tested positive for tetrodotoxin. There were a dozen other medications too, but that alone is enough to raise some brows.”
Mira frowned. ”And that is?”
“Pufferfish poison,” I answered. It was in other things, but pufferfish were the usual suspects. The poison lined up with the other facts. He really did suffocate just as the medical examiners that came to get him said. “Tetrodotoxin blocks the electrical signals in nerves, causing paralysis and halting a person’s ability to use their lungs.”
I’d actually done quite a bit of research on the stuff after one of my kinetic training sessions. I might very well be able to imitate the poison. It blocked electrical signals, and I could control electrical signals, so it might be possible once I had better control. Or I might even be able to completely strip a person’s brain of electricity, causing them to instantly go brain-dead.
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“Right, just as she said. Therefore, it’s only logical that the elder had some bad fish.” The detective pointed at the thrown food on the table. “The chef was the obvious suspect.”
”Why did he start eating, then?” Mira asked the Kage.
The Kage glanced at her, and then started to speak to Hanzo in Ukiyonese once more. After several back and forths, the borg nodded his head. “He says he did it to prove it wasn’t a lack of skill on his part. If he dies of poison after eating the food he prepared, it’d be his own fault and he’d atone with his life. If he didn’t, it wasn’t him. It’s his pride as a chef.”
Except it’d likely take a while for the symptoms to kick in. Not to mention even if he did die from the poison, it wouldn’t prove anything. Yeah, it could’ve been a mistake that led to the elder’s death, but a murder was looking more and more likely with each passing moment.
Was Akane poisoned then? The poison didn't always operate on the same time schedules, and could take up to hours to start its effect. Unless she was the poisoner and took an antidote beforehand…
“Dying for pride. How very noble of you.” Detective Bradton shook his head. “Hey, girl, that fox thing has a chemical analyzer, right?”
”Uh, yeah.” Mira glanced back to me with a questioning look in her eyes and pulled Vox off her shoulder. I covered my mouth and used the Packheart link to walk her through how to set up the chemical analyzer to sweep for Tetrodotoxin.
“Yip!” Once she was set up, Vox hopped up onto the table and started to sniff around to look for the poison.
“Take him to Fugen to get his stomach pumped or whatever the treatment is.” Detective Bradton waved to the Fang. “If he feels confident enough to eat his food right after someone died of poison, then it likely wasn’t him.”
“Pride blinds, though. Could also be a diversion tactic,” Mira muttered. Her voice went even more quiet and she discretely asked me, “what are the odds this was all just one big mistake?”
”Low.” Without even talking about the shooting, which I still couldn’t wrap my head around, it was just too convenient. The very day that the elder’s biomonitor was down was the day he was poisoned. To be fair, stranger things had happened.
”Yip!” Vox froze on the table.
”Wait!” Mira called out to the Fang leading Hanzo away as Vox alerted on the table. Only, she didn’t alert on the food like I thought she would’ve. Instead, she alerted over an empty wine glass. “The wine was poisoned?”
Hanzo chattered off to the side, and the Kage once more translated. “The wine bottle isn’t his. Hanzo doesn’t serve wine, and he wouldn’t use a bottle like that to cook with either. Not to mention Elder Toro wasn’t particularly fond of alcohol."
”Thank you.” Mira waved a hand toward them. “Take him away. And keep a watch on him just in case, yeah? Send someone to Mama Akane to get her an antidote. She might be poisoned, too.”
”Of course. I’ll inform the enforcer.” The Kage nodded to the group, and they disappeared out the door.
“Hmm…” Detective Bradton pulled on a set of gloves and pulled the cork out of the bottle. He then wafted it in front of Vox.
”Yip! Yip! Yip!” She once more alerted on the wine.
“So much for this being an accident.” Mira stared at the wine bottle. “If this bottle didn’t come from the kitchen, then where did it?”
”Akane?” Bradton set the bottle down. “If the elder didn’t like alcohol, it wouldn’t have been his bottle. Maybe we could pull some fingerprints from this? Might help narrow everything down.”
”Maybe.” Mira glanced back toward me and nodded toward Vox. She dropped into a whisper, “she has your print scanner?”
”Chek.” I’d given her a bit of all my tech, actually. Vox was quite literally the pinnacle of all I’d built up over the past year. “Might’ve been Akane. She had reason to celebrate.”
Assuming she was telling me the truth about her book and all of that. Her being the killer just didn’t make sense to me. She needed his help with getting to Yukoto in the first place, so killing him threatened all of her plans. Not to mention she wouldn’t have known about the biomon being out. Even if she did bring the bottle of wine, someone else might’ve poisoned it.
With this being a confirmed poisoning, the biomonitor malfunctioning became one of the primary clues. If it had otherwise been functional, it would’ve not only alerted the elder of the poisoning, but also sent an emergency ping to Medtech. The killer would’ve only went ahead with poison if they knew that the one thing that could foil their plans was out of the way.
No, wait, maybe I’m not looking at this deep enough. If the killer intentionally made the firmware update corrupt, then it could’ve been anyone. They would know that the biomonitor was out if they themselves caused it to go out. I was hoping to start clearing suspects, but we were back to where we started minus the chef.
“Just give me a moment.” Mira opened the back panel on Vox and messed around with the controls once more. After a moment, the panel slid back and Vox walked toward the bottle to start scanning. Just as Vox was about to finish scanning, the runner from before sprinted into the room.
“About time you’re back.” Detective Bradton grumbled softly. “Sure took you long enough. Where’s the enforcer?”
The runner paused to catch her breath for a moment, and leaned against the doorframe. “They found, haah, the gun. Shinobu called for, haah, everyone to meet at the clinic.”
”The gun?” Bradton frowned. “Right, I forgot he was shot. How the hell does that fit into all of this?”
“I, haah, gotta tell the others.” The woman pushed off the doorframe and once more started to run out toward the street.
Mira exchanged a look with me. “Shiro, is it?”
”Yes, ma’am.” I stood up slightly straighter. “What can I help you with?”
”Go ahead and take Bradton to the clinic. I’ll meet up with you once she’s done.” Mira jerked her thumb back toward Vox. “Should only be a couple minutes.”
”I appreciate it… my guide left with the chef.” Bradton sighed and shook his head. “You’ll be able to find us?”
“If not, I’ll just ask around. There’s more than enough Fang on the street.” Mira shrugged. Not to mention she could easily find me through the Packheart Rings. “Don’t worry about me.”
Bradton stood up, and rubbed at his hip. ”Fine. Lead the way, girl.”
Ugh, girl? That made me sound so immature and stuff. I bit back the bitterness spreading through me, and led the old man back out onto Kake Street.
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AN: Oh yeah, I released a new book, too. 10 chapters out already, and more coming out after I get done running Outrun’s stuffs. Here’s the link if anyone’s interested. Probably my favorite MC I’ve written so far. I’m trying to hit Rising Stars, so… check it out? ^^
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/179678/seeking-strays
No, Outrun isn’t ending. It should still come out Monday, Wednesday, Friday around the normal time. Or it would if I could figure out how to schedule things correctly.
As always, thanks for reading!
