[January 23, 2004 - 1000 local time] [Taki plays hooky, goes... hunting?] [mini start] Taki caught an early train and made her way to the north side of Tokyo, looking for a certain address in Adachi. * Taki gets off the bus that took her to the part of town the address she was given was in. She's wearing her coat, with a black turtleneck underneath and more functional, less baggy black pants along with her boots. The streets here are a mix of recession disrepair and thriving small- business. * Taki checks the map she brought with her again, as she casually walks down the street towards the address. There are a few obvious Yakuza hoodlums on the streets, mingling with the housewives and tradesmen on the sidewalks. * Taki keeps a careful eye out for suspicious looking people. The address she has turns out to be a storefront on the west side of the Adachi downtown. A bridal boutique, now closed down, though still with some oddments of merchandise in the front. Surprisingly, the windows that are not boarded over are still unbroken. * Taki walks past the place casually looking inside. and slips into a nearby empty alley and makes her way up to the roof, bouncing from wall to wall. The buildings here are almost all two-story, with flat, cluttered roofs. * Taki checks the rooftop out for any sort of security or things that look out of place. The bridal store is more cluttered than most, and Taki can see that the building's chimney is steaming slightly. No one is around. A few steps lead down to a door into the upper floor of the building. * Taki carefully makes her way over to the steps, keeping her eyes and ears open for anyone else that happens to be around. The door at the base of the steps looks like it was once padlocked. The section of the door around the lock was somehow cut away from the rest of the door, which was then kicked in. Or maybe just opened - it wasn't going to put up much resistance at that point. * Taki checks the door to see if any sort of trap was set up with it. Just inside, Taki can see some cans - a crude alarm system, but they've been pushed carefully out of the way. * Taki lets herself in the door, careful not to disturb the cans, even more paranoid for others that might be around. The room she enters is bare, but the next room has some relatively well- kept beds, and posters for idol singers. In one of the beds is a naked Yakuza (with that density of tattoos, it has to be) thug. A dead naked Yakuza thug - his throat has been very expertly slit, likely as he slept. * Taki is careful not to disturb anything, as she investigates the room. * Taki thinks to herself, I hope that's not Garter... * Taki looks around for anything shed some light on the identity of the naked man. There are some small weapons around the room - knives of various sizes, an honest-to-gosh wakazashi, and one extremely cheap pistol. On a small table next to the bed is a wallet, but with no ID. * Taki pokes through the wallet, hoping to find some sort of clue. There are a couple of unusually-large denomination bills inside, and a train pass. * Taki sets the wallet back down, leaving the money and pass inside. On the other side of the room are stairs going down. * Taki gives the room a final once over, before moving towards the stairs, as quietly as she can. Although she doesn't hold very high hopes of finding anyone alive at this point. On the walls of the stairwell, wedding dresses are carefully, almost lovingly mounted. Granted, they're cheap dresses, but it adds a charming touch. At the bottom is a closed door. A little light leaks out around it, shifting slightly. * Taki creeps down to the door, keeping her ears open. There is no sound. * Taki sees if she can see anything through the crack of the door. She can't quite position her head to see around the door itself. There is something vaguely familiar about the character of the light, though. * Taki opens the door as quietly as she can to try and get a better look around inside. The door creaks just a little, and Taki immediately sees what was moving - a largish television is on, tuned to a news channel, but muted. It's currently showing pictures of the American Navy ships in Tokyo Bay, and protesters marching on the shoreline for some reason. * Taki peeks in a little further, trying to detect if there's someone actually watching the TV. The room itself seems to be an office. As she pokes her head in further, she can see someone at a wooden desk in back. The TV switches to showing a familiar-looking flooded racetrack. A reporter is doing an interview with a racer Taki doesn't recognize. * Taki tries to see what the person at the desk is doing without being noticed. After a second she realizes that the man there isn't moving. ... * Taki carefully opens the door and moves into the room. The room is filled with various and sundry loot from the Yakuza's activities - none of it too valuable, except some cash lying around. At the desk in back is a man sitting in a high-backed chair. He isn't moving, isn't breathing. A little blood has rolled down out of his hair and onto his face, but it dried long ago. * Taki looks around for papers or anything that might lead her somewhere. It appears, on further examination, as though he died from a small knife punching straight down into the crown of his head. * Taki frowns as she examines the wound. Near his chair is a briefcase, open, empty. A meter away is another high- denomination yen note loose on the floor. * Taki thinks to herself, this is worse than I thought... * Taki checks the body for any identification. There is no ID on the body. He is... was... wearing some expensive- looking rings on his left hand. He has poofy cargo pants on, but no shirt, revealing a funky tattoo - the Western zodiac, surrounding an alarmingly-cute cartoon of a girl in an extremely tight wedding dress. ...and there's a white, frilly garter around his neck. ... * Taki stares at the garter for a moment. "You have got to be kidding me..." * Taki checks the room one final time for any sort of clue that might be useful. There's nothing here that really catches her attention, other than that one bill - you don't see 500000-yen notes very often. * Taki picks the bill up and flips it over and over in her hands. This is really worth killing someone over? * Taki drops it back on the ground after a moment and steps on it. * Taki heads back out the door, looking the store over once more before heading back to the rooftop. * Taki hops back down to the alleyway, and makes her way out of the neighborhood for now. * Taki finds the next train back to her house, and boards it. Riding back to her apartment in silence. It's a peaceful ride back. She gets there early in the afternoon. * Taki sits in her room quietly thinking to herself for a while, before deciding to call Sakura. * Taki picks up her phone and dials Sakura's cell phone. Sakura's number rings four or five times before she picks it up. Yeah? Hi Sakura. It's Taki. Taki, okay. What's up? ...and are you skipping school again? ... Yeah. Taaaaaaakiiii... Um, I went to check out the address that guy gave us. *changing the subject* Oh. You can almost hear the mental shrug. But someone beat me there it looks like. Ah. How lethal? Rather efficiently lethal. No real signs of a struggle anywhere. Just a couple bodies. That's... scary on some levels. Yeah... I'm pretty sure one of them was Garter. Which sorta leaves me with no more leads... Not much point if they didn't get him. I won't say I expected this, but I'm surely not surprised. I wish I could say I was... But at least we know how they feel about failure. Failure? Maybe. Or maybe they were worried about us tracing them. Yeah. Do you think that gunman who got away might cause us problems in the future? Hard to say. One did get away, and he might have seen that you caught, uh, Skate. Up till now it doesn't seem like they've been expecting us at all. How would he find us? He's just a tool, anyway. Not so much that, but they could set up a trap for us, since they know we'll likely be there at their next planned attack. I just don't want any of the girls to get hurt... They've already done that to some degree - beefing up the armament, that second stroke in the Deer attack... I guess they haven't tried an actual ambush yet, though. Mention that to Maya, maybe. Yeah. Okay. I will. How are things going on your end? Taki can hear Sakura take a breath, but there's only silence for a few seconds. That bad? ...so, was there anything else? Um... I... No, not really. Okay. See you 'round. ... Sorry for taking your time. Bye. ...and Taki? Go to school. * Sakura hangs up. * Taki hangs up as well, and slumps onto the floor. [end mini]