Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Murder My Heart ❯ The Second Murder ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any Bleach affiliates.

 

(A/N: Hey peoples, a new chapter for you all. A few small notes: I've never heard of POSO but when I looked it up I was horrified, I'm really, really, really, really, really sorry if I offended anyone. I was just trying to make the murder of Byakuya Kuchiki really gruesome. I didn't mean to allude to anything in particular. Another thing, yes, Hitsugaya will have a part, but later in the story, he won't be showing up for another couple of chapters.

I really appreciate everyone who has reviewed so far!

Also, plot development first, sex later. Just so you know. ;)

DON'T FORGET TO REIVEW!!!)

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

Two months later.

 

Ichigo Kurosaki looked at the clock on the corner of his desk and realized it was three in the fucking morning.

 

He ran his hand through his hair and sighed dejectedly. This was going nowhere.

 

Three days after the Murder:

 

“Hey Hanataro,” Ichigo called from across the room. The nervous man jerked his head from his desk and glanced quickly around the room, looking to see who called him. Ichigo snorted and waved his arm, “Come over here for a second, would you?”

 

“S-Sure,” he said squeakily. He rose from his chair and slowly made his way over to Ichigo, his hunched form bumping into seven other people in the twelve foot trek. “Did you need something?”

 

“Yeah,” Ichigo answered, holding the file the young man had given him hours ago, “Did you leave anything out of your report?”

 

Hanataro shook his head, “I didn't leave anything out. It's all there, well, what we could find anyway. There was hardly anything left in the rain.”

 

“I know…” Ichigo muttered, biting the bottom of his lip and rifling through the papers, “But are you sure there was nothing there?”

 

“Positive,” Hanataro sighed, “No weapons, no fingerprints, no footprints, no car tracks… nothing really.” He shook his head and leaned forward a bit, pointing to paragraph in the report. “But I also added the part about the body being disturbed by the victim's sister.”

 

“Yeah I noticed that,” Ichigo said wearily. He nodded at Hanataro and shrugged, “Alright, thanks.”

 

“We've got some of the dirt from the scene in the crime lab,” he supplied, “But I doubt we'll get anything more than the vic's blood and street dirt.

 

“Yeah…” Ichigo paused for a moment and then tapped his pen against his cluttered desk. Hanataro, seeing that he really wasn't needed any more, began to slink away.

 

But Ichigo's voice stopped him, “Hey, Hanataro…” he began, pausing until the timid man was back by the side of his desk.

 

“Yes?” He squeaked.

 

Ichigo began to tap his pen against the desk in earnest, beating the poor plastic prison against the fake wooden veneer. He bit his lip and furrowed his brow. How could he phrase this without seeming… curious?

 

“How did Rukia Kuchiki act,” he started slowly, “When you first met her?”

 

Hanataro was silent for a moment before he answered carefully, “She seemed… solid, I mean, I guess, that would be the best word to describe her. Well, she seemed genuinely… concerned after she threatened me and disturbed the body.”

 

Ichigo nodded, “Thanks, Hanataro.” He offered him a small smile and sighed heavily, “I'll call you if I need anything else.”

 

“You got it.” He murmured weakly and began to slump away.

 

Ichigo sat at his desk, the clock taunting him, telling him that it was well past time to be home. He groaned and finally stopped the torture on his pen, which had been successfully beaten for the past nineteen hours.

 

It was just this case, not to mention the people it involved. He didn't want to make this girl, this woman, Rukia Kuchiki, think that he was an incompetent louse at his job. He had told her that he was going to solve this case and he was definitely going to do it. Just when he saw her eyes—those red rimmed eyes filled with inky heartbreak—he knew that he had to give her the conclusion she was craving.

 

He just didn't think he would be able to.

 

Four days after the Murder:

 

Ichigo Kurosaki made his way down a flight of steps, with each one the temperature in the room became colder and colder. He was one his way down to the M.E.'s office. It was not a place he liked to visit frequently, but today he needed something—anything to get his feet back on the ground with this case.

 

He opened the door to the chilled habitat and called out, “Orihime? Are you here?”

 

A clatter of metallic equipment fell to the ground with a bang. “Oof!”

 

“Orihime?” Ichigo called, a bored tone overtaking a worried one, he knew that Orihime was such a klutz that this kind of thing happened daily. “You okay?”

 

“I'm fine!” Called a squeaky voice from behind the examining table. A moment later there was a small grunt and a bright, cheery, red-head popped up, attempting to settle a few wisps of her hair. “Hi, Ichigo!” She bubbled.

 

“Hey,” He muttered with a significantly less amount of enthusiasm. “Please tell me you have something for me.”

 

She blinked and cocked her head to the side, “Huh?”

 

Ichigo sighed and lowered his head a bit, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “The body, Orihime. The dead detective, Byakuya Kuchiki, do you have anything from his autopsy report?”

 

“Oh!” She cried, giggling loudly and knocking her hand against her head, “Sorry! So many dead people in here I forgot!”

 

Ichigo nodded and sighed wearily, “That's okay.”

 

She laughed softly, “Just let me get the file!”

 

Ichigo nodded and leaned up against the counter, waiting for her as she flitted around the room in search of the file.

 

Inoue Orihime had been in the morgue for only a year and a half but was already the chief medical examiner on board—something about cut backs and multiple resignation letters, but that wasn't the point—it was mostly because of her skill with dead bodies and figuring out what killed them.

 

When she joined the squad she told everyone that she had always planned on being a detective—putting scumbags in jail and setting the innocent free, “all that jazz” she called it—but when she reached high school she realized she had more talent in forensics than the actual tough guy, detective, routine. She ended up plowing through medical school, even graduating a bit early, and starting a job in the three one immediately.

 

And she was good. No doubt about it, she was one of the best medical examiner's in the country… a little absent minded but still good.

 

“I-chi-go!” She called, cutting up his name and warbling them delicately, “I found the fi-le!”

 

“Excellent,” he muttered, wishing she would stop singing, “What did you find out?”

 

Orihime came back from the file room and dropped it on the examining table; smiling brightly at him she beckoned him forward. “Come on, I don't bite.” She grinned and watched as Ichigo approached her slowly.

 

“Okay,” she said, her voice turning from one of happiness to one of seriousness, “This is what I found out: The victim had no defensive wounds on his body, which means he was slashed across the throat first and died because of it. The seventeen stab wounds were inflicted post mortem. But the cut in the throat is deep so the perp was standing relatively close to the vic—”

 

“Which means that they must have known each other.” Ichigo interrupted.

 

Orihime nodded, “Or that they were making some sort of deal; maybe the detective was undercover and the perp made him.”

 

“Not likely,” Ichigo muttered, rifling through the papers, “Byakuya Kuchiki was one of the best at the two eight.”

 

“Maybe he was a dirty cop,” she suggested, “A deal went bad, threats were exchanged, the perp got him before Kuchiki could.”

 

Ichigo shook his head, “No, Kuchiki wasn't a dirty cop.”

 

Orihime sighed and shrugged, “Alright, if you say so.”

 

Ichigo glanced at her and found that she was staring at him, “Anything else?”

 

“Hn?” She murmured quietly, “Oh! Yes!” Her eyes dropped down and she rifled through the rest of her sheets, “The blade that he was cut with… I wasn't able to identify the cut marks but there was a strange residue on the incision in his throat.”

 

“What is it?”

 

Orihime looked at him and shook her head, “It was rusted steel.”

 

“Steel?” Ichigo asked, “Then shouldn't you be able to trace it by the type of blade manufactured with that steel?”

 

“That's the thing,” she continued, reaching over to a counter and pulling a small Petri dish from a shelf. “I carbon dated the steel and found out that it was over six hundred years old.”

 

Ichigo turned to her and raised both of his eyebrows, “Are you serious?”

 

“Yep! No doubt about it, the thing that killed Byakuya Kuchiki was a 600 year old blade.”

 

Ichigo shook his head and muttered in disbelief, “Well there shouldn't be too many of those out there.”

 

Ichigo turned back to his notes and looked them over again. There were only two places in the city where you could purchase swords that old. One was a very respectable museum-like establishment that took applications before interviewing potential buyers. Ichigo's gut didn't even tell him to check out the place—he knew that the criminal he was dealing with wouldn't have left identification anywhere. If he was smart enough to murder someone in the rain where no evidence could be found then he was definitely smart enough not to go and leave his ID at some fancy collector's museum.

 

The other location that sold ancient cutlery was a far less prestigious place directly on the brink of the slum/suburb divide. The place was called Urahara's Pawn Shop and was infamously known throughout the precincts for being the first place to look for stolen or seized property.

 

Five days after the Murder:

 

The car pulled into a worn-down space directly in front of Urahara's Rough Pawn Shop and Detective Kurosaki killed the engine. He sighed dejectedly and exited the vehicle; needless to say he was not all that thrilled to be having another meeting with Mr. Urahara Kiskue.

 

Mr. Urahara was a frequent guest of the three one mainly because he would buy and sell any property presented to him. He had been collared a few times for possession of stolen property, selling defective stuffed animals to children, and providing falsified tax documents to the government. All in all, his business dealings were a bit shady, but the guy himself wasn't half bad.

 

He was a sprightly type of man, always smiling and laughing with his three employees: a young and timid girl with large eyes and a surprisingly strong punch, a boy with red hair and a cocky attitude, and a giant of a man who enjoyed shoving remedies for God knows what at Ichigo's face whenever he entered the store. Although a couple people Ichigo worked with said the guy was off his rocker—he would whisper cryptic messages about death and the afterlife to anyone who would listen—Kiskue himself believed that Ichigo was some type of bonafide death god bent to save the world from destruction.

 

Sometimes when Ichigo had to come into this store he wished he had a tranquilizer gun.

 

He opened the door to the car and smoothed out the wrinkles in his jacket, feeling the hard bulge of his gun underneath the soft leather of his coat. Ichigo allowed himself to smile for a moment, most of the time he was glad that he was armed.

 

Ah hell, he was glad he was armed all the time.

 

The door to the shop tinkled as Ichigo made his way inside.

 

“Ah, Detective Kurosaki, how are you on this fine winter's morning?”

 

Ichigo looked up to see Urahara Kiskue leaning against the cash register, wearing his trademark white and green striped hat and old-fashioned clogs. He was casually twirling his habitual cane as he fiddled with the cash register.

 

“Doing just fine Mr. Urahara,” he answered just as casually.

 

“Do you need something?” He asked suggestively. “I just received a nice shipment of lion plushies from a desolate housewife in the slums, or perhaps you would be more interested in a classic collection of bunny-shaped pez dispensers, in very good condition too.”

 

“No,” Ichigo answered, “I'm not buying anything today.”

 

“Won't you ever buy anything from me?” Urahara sighed hopelessly.

 

“Only if I'm forced,” Ichigo replied sassily, he shook his head and continued, “No, this time it's police business.”

 

“Oh?” Urahara asked lightly, “What about?”

 

“I need to know if you've sold any of your exceptionally old katana's lately.” The detective asked, taking a menacing step forward.

 

“My katana's?” Urahara quirked, twirling his cane around his fingers, “I haven't sold one of my katana's in over seven years.”

 

“Are you sure?” Ichigo asked hesitantly. He had known Urahara to lie before. “You're not lying to me?”

 

The shopkeeper gasped in fake horror and pressed a hand to his chest, “I would never Detective! How could you think such things?”

 

Ichigo shrugged, “Not hard to. But just to be sure I'd like to see all of your receipts for the past year.”

 

Urahara sighed thematically, “Alright… if you must…” he beckoned to the side and called forth his helper, Ururu. She scuttled forward, clutching a box of receipts in her unsure hands.

 

She handed the box to him and softly murmured, “Here you go.”

 

Ichigo sighed and shook his head at the mass of leafy papers all jumbled and confused inside the box. “You're just trying to make my life difficult, aren't you?”

 

“Of course not my precious little Shinigami!” Urahara cried reassuringly, he came forward and patted Ichigo on the back, leading him towards the door. “I'd never do anything to make your life difficult!” He shoved him a little closer towards the door and even opened it for him.

 

He sighed and exited.

 

All of the receipts had been clear—messed up, but clear—and didn't have anything about selling ancient katana's. As far as Ichigo could tell, it was another dead end.

 

Wearily, he went through every dossier in the past five years that contained anything about ancient swords—nothing.

 

He even looked through an entire century of police archives for any cases dealing with missing and ancient swords. There was nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. He couldn't find anything that would connect a six hundred year old sword to Byakuya Kuchiki.

 

Eight days after the Murder:

 

The apartment on Byakuya Kuchiki was neater than any apartment Ichigo had ever seen in his entire life.

 

There were four rooms—a kitchen, a bedroom, a living room, and a bathroom. As Ichigo walked through the place he felt as if he was in some sort of alternate dimension. The hallways were spotless, all of the walls were white, and the not a single piece of furniture was out of place.

 

In the kitchen there were three copper skillets hanging artfully from the wall, there was a single set of knives, a toaster, a microwave, a stainless steel refrigerator, and a very modern stove. Nothing was out of order, the food was labeled and organized inside of the fridge, there was not even a single crumb left outside of the breadbox.

 

“OCD much?” Ichigo mumbled to himself as he continued to inspect the house.

 

The bedroom was just as immaculate. The sheets were a dull shade of beige and were pressed without a wrinkle against the mattress. There was nothing in the dressers but immaculately folded pants and shirts arranged by color and garment. There was also bedside table with a lamp and a novel on it by none other than Plato.

 

Then there was the bathroom. One toothbrush and one hairbrush and one tube of toothpaste and one bottle of shampoo and one bar of soap. Only one of each, only what was needed, only one.

 

Ichigo whistled softly and wondered if the guy had even possessed a social life. Lightly, he pulled out the drawer of the nightstand and saw Kuchiki's policeman's badge and gun, but nothing else was missing. Truth be told it was so clean Ichigo was starting to get hives.

 

The living room was bright and white. It had intelligent pieces of dull art neatly arranged on the white walls, the white furniture was decorated with striped pillows, and a glass coffee table gave the room unneeded class. In the room there were two built in bookcases filled with philosophical novels, biographies by Nobel Prize Winners, and a couple of photo albums.

 

Curiously, Ichigo pulled out a photo album and began to flip through. There were images of the victim as a child—didn't need to see that—with proper and extreme looking parents, as a young boy with intelligence boosting toys, as a school boy wearing a uniform, as a high school student, and a young man at college graduation. The only thing Ichigo found rather creepy about these pictures was the fact that Byakuya Kuchiki wasn't smiling in any of the photos—not even as a child.

 

He continued to flip through the album. He was about halfway through when he saw a rather surprising woman standing next to Kuchiki. His eyes widened and he bent his head forward and scrutinized the picture a bit more effectively. It took him another minute to realize that it was in fact not the ball-busting detective he had met seven days ago but someone who looked astonishingly like her.

 

“Jesus…” Ichigo murmured softly, running his fingers over the frozen image.

 

It was a tired-looking woman almost identical to Rukia Kuchiki, small and fragile but older and sick looking. But she was standing next to Byakuya Kuchiki and he was actually smiling—a barely visible smile but still a small one. He had his possessive hand on her small shoulder. Frowning, Ichigo examined the photo a bit more and noticed an expensive ring on his finger… and then another one on hers.

 

“He wasn't found with a ring,” he mused softly.

 

Curiously, Ichigo turned a few pages in the book and saw a couple more pictures of the woman and her husband, they looked happy together—they looked like they were in love. The pictures only continued for three pages before they were replaced with blank sheets. Ichigo turned back one and noticed a short newspaper article.

 

He read slowly, “Hisana Kuchiki died Tuesday at the age of thirty two from complications of a long battle with cancer. She leaves behind a legacy of kindness and a good works. She is succeeded by her husband, Byakuya Kuchiki, and her younger sister, Rukia Kuchiki.”

 

“Damn…” Ichigo murmured softly. “She was young.”

 

He replaced the album in the shelf and made one last inspection of the apartment.

 

There was nothing to even suggest dirty dealings or grudges or any type of disruption.

 

Ichigo left the perfect apartment glowering.

 

He was running out of options.

 

The clock on the side of his desk was now blinking past three. He wasn't going to get out of here tonight… not that he had anything to get home to, but that wasn't the point. He needed sleep. He could think better with sleep.

 

Ichigo jerked his head up and shook it violently. No. No sleep until he had gone over all the angles, the buzzing in his head was just something to be ignored. Groaning, he got up from his desk and rushed over to the coffee machine. He poured the last coup of gritty and cold coffee and swallowed it in three gulps. Disgusting.

 

Frustrated, Ichigo returned to his desk and ran a hand through his spiked hair, slowly, he reached over to the side of his desk. He pulled out a file, reached for the photos of the crime scene, and glanced at the surrounding areas. He needed a more thorough canvass.

 

Nine days after the Murder:

 

He walked around the edges of the crime scene, his feet making indentations on the muddy ground. It had been only a couple of days since the death, the rain, and the female detective with an attitude, but the poor sanitation of the slums meant that the water would stay there until it was splashed away or evaporated.

 

The yellow tape was still there but it was stretched and ripped. Apparently, the people of this part of town stayed away from anything having to do with the police, not that Ichigo would blame them anyway—most of them dabbled in too many felonies to want to even stand ten miles from a police officer.

 

Ichigo's feet squelched on the ground and smacked off with a sickening squeal. He toed around in the mud, knowing that there was nothing left to find but hiding out for anything. He shook his head and ended up squatting near the ground, poking the soft ground with a gloved hand.

 

He lifted the finger to his nose and sniffed gently. Just dirt. Everything else was gone. Lost in the thunder of the rain.

 

Ichigo sighed and placed his head in his hands. He didn't want this to become a cold case. He wanted to solve this. He needed to solve it.

 

The look on her face… not the one that had threatened him, but the one that had showed him such pain and suffering… He needed to take that look off of her face permanently. But how was he supposed to do that when he didn't have a single lead?

 

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered despairingly, running his dirty hand through his orange locks. “What am I going to tell the Lou?”

 

Drearily, he moved back to his car and started the engine. Taking one last look at the desolate place he turned around and drove away.

 

The only things he could see for the next hour were the pain-filled eyes of Rukia Kuchiki…

 

Damn, he couldn't start feeling guilty. Not now. Not ever. Right now there was nothing else he could do. There just wasn't any evidence available to finish this case.

 

Sighing, Ichigo shook his head and closed the folder in front of him.

 

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

 

The Corner was dark at night; it was the only time Matsumoto Rangiku felt truly in danger. The daytime was treacherous enough but at least there was light to see by. But at night, when the broken streetlights fizzed silently in the dark you couldn't see a black gun, a hidden knife, or a crowbar stuffed in a jacket. During the day there was less hostility between the girls—women, mothers, beaten wives, who were doing just about anything to earn a little money. But during the night, they would scratch out each other's eyes just for a ten minute job in the backseat of a car, they would yell, scream, and kick just to earn the fifteen dollar blow job or the thirty dollar fuck. During the night there were rapists, whackos, and murderers who would do anything just to jack off into some unsuspecting woman.

 

That was what made Matsumoto so passionate about her work. She had a duty to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. She had been working this stretch—parts of it anyway—for almost two years, and each one of those days she inspired the working girls to go into the city, find a real job, and start living clean. She told them that they were worth more than thirty dollars a pop, they had brains and they had an inner strength that was stronger than anything, or anyone, else. Day after day she handed out condoms she had gotten from the precinct, instructed women on how to go and get HIV tests at free clinics, how to say no to different types of drugs, and how to defend themselves against rapists. She told them that if they had to use drugs they shouldn't share needles, she told them that if it ever got to be too much they should just come to her and not try to fix their problems with stimulants, alcohol, or the rusty edge of a knife.

 

She was their friend and in turn, they were hers… and when she needed help they were right there to give her any information she needed.

 

She passed under the only working streetlamp on the destroyed sidewalk and ducked her head down. She didn't want to be seen tonight, not with what she was carrying.

 

Her footsteps became more insistent as they hit the dark gray concrete, she needed to go faster, she needed to get this to Kuchiki as soon as possible and then get back to her post. She promised Setsuki she would talk to her about the best way to go about a pregnancy.

 

Matsumoto heard stones crunch behind her, her heart jumped unwillingly in her chest and she quickened her pace even more. She was almost thirty feet ahead when she heard a click and she immediately knew that it was the sound a .22 cocking and getting ready to shoot. She instantly covered her head with her hands and dodged to the side. The shot never came and she sprang out from her hidden crag—running this time. Her heels—her hooker heels—tapped hard on the sidewalk and she sprinted forward, a bag clutched in her hand. Kuchiki needed this bag and she needed to get it to her!

 

Matsumoto only made it a few more feet before the overly expensive heel on her left foot cracked off, her leg jerked to the side, and her ankle snapped in half. She bellowed in pain as she fell to the dirty ground with a painful crash, the skin ripped off her knees with an agonizing screech and her nose crunched back into her face as she fell directly into a pile of rancid water and cigarette butts. Her scratched hands began to ooze blood and her nails chipped off as she grappled at the rough sidewalk and tried to pull herself up and out of the way.

 

The footsteps behind her were getting louder, pounding on the sidewalk one at a time. Closer and closer. Matsumoto felt the tears fill her eyes, the pain in her ankle was intense but the pain in her chest was worse—she was letting down her girls, she was giving them to any man who told them they were only worth what he wanted to pay, she was letting Kuchiki's only chance of closure slip through her fingers—she needed to get up, she needed to fight.

 

Swiftly, her damaged hand reached down to the inside of her thigh, grasped the butt of her gun and yanked it out of the holster. Swinging around she cocked the gun and attempted to fire.

 

The bullet hit her brain before she even had the chance to pull the trigger.

 

Matsumoto Rangiku's body fell to the ground.

 

Meanwhile, the stranger lowered the gun, walked forward, grabbed the small bag from the dead woman's hand, tucked it inside of his jacket, murmured, “Happy Birthday,” and walked away.

 

Matsumoto Rangiku's body wouldn't be found for three days.