Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Slant of Light ❯ I. Death, Thou Shalt Die ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Slant of Light
By Clara Grogan
WARNINGS: The following work of fiction contains one or more of the following: OOC, Dark, NC-17, R, Blood, Vampires, Lycanthropes, Witches, Zombies (well, you get the point), Violence, Narcotic use, Tobacco, and situations that might be potentially scarring to the reader. But, as you might've noticed above, this big fat warning might be for nothing. We ain't guaranteeing anything here, folks. This is just an elaborate looking ass-cover. Thank you, and have a nice day.
Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon, R, Supers, SuperStars, and SailorStars are all property of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha Comics, Toei, DiC, CWI, Cartoon Network, AOL Time Warner, as well as all of the other companies associated with distributing its merchandise.
All other characters are property of SilverDragon, Ltd. This work of fiction is not being distributed for monetary purposes and is meant for entertainment purposes only. All the characters in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue, and opinions expressed are products of the authors' imagination and are not to be constructed as real.
* * * *
To those who understand humanity, and kill it anyway.
* * * *

I.
"Death, thou shalt die."
-John Donne

I have lived in this apartment for nearly three years, now, have had innumerable good times in it, raised Hotaru in it, gotten to like Michiru better because of it. I treasure this space as the one place I can go and not be disturbed. It is my haven, my place of tranquility, where I go to love and be loved. It's also where I eat my food, and well, hell, anyplace I eat food in is a good place. But still, it was a place where I could eat in peace.
"God dammit, Ten'oh, where the hell are my clothes?" Did I forget to mention that Setsuna was still living with us and that she happened to be about as much of a morning person as I was? Silly me.
"Somewhere." That's me in the morning, Ms. Eloquent.
Setsuna stopped her rampage down the hallway to glance in at me. I was sitting in the kitchen feebly trying to drain away as much coffee as possible. God, but can that woman glare.
"What do you mean, 'somewhere?'" she said. Her voice had gone from screaming to a deadly quiet rage. Not a good sign. And it was over clothes. The day was looking good already.
"Look. I'll make this real simple for you," since she was giving me shit, I was entitled to give it straight back to her. I only hope she agreed with me.
I was sitting in our kitchenette thing. I say thing, because it's not really big enough for a kitchenette. I kid you not. We were able to manage a small square table, four chairs, a microwave and a stove. We even had to put the refrigerator in one of the bedrooms. Ah, Tokyo living at its finest. As if that weren't bad enough, four people siting and trying to eat, would have to try and eat on each other. And it was all colored in a very, very tacky green and pink theme. I must remind myself to get a higher paying job sometime so that we can move the hell out of here. Or maybe I should just convince Setsuna to stop giving lectures about science and actually get a paying job where she could give lectures about science. Details, details.
I raised myself slightly out of my chair, so that I was about face to face with her. Since she was already bending over me, it put me at a height that was very uncomfortable to maintain since I wasn't sitting or standing. I wasn't even halfway.
"It's not my fault you got your clothes bloody. It is not. So do not give me shit about it. I was kind enough to go to the dry-cleaners for you. They were kind enough to actually wash the things," I growled. Yeah, growled. I can be intimidating if I have to be. For God's sake, I'm Haruka fucking Ten'oh. Of course I can be intimidating. Right.
"You think I want to be on retainer?"

Since Setsuna happened to have a degree in biology, she was the police's civilian retainer. She came in at a murder and assessed if it was guns, knives, or banana peels. Well, maybe not that, but you get the point. Sort of like an on the spot coroner. Apparently it was helpful. The pay was shit. The hours were just about as bad as mine. What's bad, you ask? How about in a week, 7 days, getting about 23 hours of sleep total. Now define what you thought bad was. Yeah, that's what I thought.
I sat back down in my chair with an exasperated sigh. There is a point beyond which it is pointless to argue with a person who is just as pissed off as you are. I had reached that point. Setsuna had too, because she straightened herself, the fight visibly draining out of her face as she wandered to another chair and sat down. There was a mug of coffee waiting for her. I might be stubborn, but I'm not cruel and unusual in most cases.
"Jesus, Haruka, I'm sorry," she said with a sigh. I had to smile weakly at that.
"Yeah, I know." Her clothes that had come in the other night were a literal fucking mess. She had a smock and a pair of overalls, one of which was this cerulean blue, the other of which were dark washed. The overalls had come back totally black. The smock was a delectable shade of royal purple. Boy, did I ever feel sorry for the dry-cleaners.
However angry I had been, Setsuna rarely comes in with that much blood on her. I know she was on a cop retainer, and technically wasn't allowed to talk to me about these things, but hell. We were best friends, you did it anyway. And ever since last night I had been wondering why my best buddy had been a walking blood bath. Now was probably one of the worst times to ask. Being the genius I was, I leapt at the opportunity.
"What the hell happened, anyway? I mean, I would've asked you last night but you looked trashed," The adults in this house did not have a normal sleeping schedule. It was 2 PM in the afternoon, and we were waking up as if it were 4 AM.
"You pick the most opportune times to talk about things, Ten'oh," was her counter. Hell, I couldn't blame her. I'd have said the same thing, except with a few fucks and damns.
"What the hell are you talking about? We haven't even been around food yet. I'm letting you off easy." It was true. I usually waited until I was at least half awake (meaning food) until I asked her about all the juicy tid-bits of her cop runs. Maybe I was just feeling more awake that morning. And Bill Clinton did not get a blowjob in the Oval Office. Setsuna sighed.
"Murder. Someone decided to be real fucking messy about it, too. He must have used a pipe, he bashed the victim's neck out. One quick blow, the spine was fractured, the major arteries were popped, hence the blood. The amount of strength needed for that is inhuman, so I left that up to the copies to decide," she paused for a sip of coffee, and I tilted my head.
"What do you mean he, and what do you mean inhuman strength?"
"The victim was a she. And she'd been raped. And how many people do you know that could take out a human spinal cord and masses of flesh with one blow from a lead pipe?" By this time, Setsuna was looking at me. Her voice wasn't as gravelly as when she had been yelling at me, which meant that she was waking up. Oh, goodie.
"That still doesn't explain the 'he' part. A woman could've raped another woman." Even I heard the smirk in my voice. I knew I was giving Setsuna a hard time, but hell, I wanted to milk it for all it was worth. Lately I wasn't sure how much time I was going to be able to spend with her, one: because she was on retainer, two: she was working on dangerous cop stuff. She could get killed. Not that I was worried.
"It was obvious, Haruka, that it had been a heterosexual rape. Do you need me to go into why, or will you stop being such a pain in the ass?" Setsuna said, not even bothering to glare at me.
"I'll stop, I'll stop," My grin got wider, "For the moment anyway. I suppose it's unfair of me to give you shit for it. I've been getting about as much family time in as you have."
I would've liked to talk to Setsuna some more on the murder. Yeah, it was strictly police business, but as I said before, we did it anyway, and who was I going to tell? The bogeyman? By the sounds of things in town, that was not as empty of a joke as it had been a few weeks back. But then Setusuna's beeper went off.
She took a quick glance at it, then shot back the rest of her coffee. She got up from the table and washed her cup out in the sink. The soap that we have there is antibacterial, but it smells really bad. Somewhere between rotten lemons, cotton candy, and dog shit. They said it smelt like roses. I guess I'm not one for flowers, which is good, since Michiru doesn't get them much for me. We always managed, however, to have a good fresh batch of flowers on the kitchen table in a vase at least once a week. Sometimes more.
Michiru's explanation in a word: fans. Ri-ight.
"That was Cross's cell," Setsuna managed to say over the loud whine of the water. She wasn't even raising her voice. Oh, and Cross, by the way, is the detective she works under. "Which means, I have to go. Which laundromat did you take them to, 24th or Ishida Avenue?"
"Ishida, but don't bother. I went out and got them for you. They should be in your bag."
Setsuna stared at me. I guess I wasn't one to be known to do nice things without ends and strings. In actuality, the cleaners said that they'd give me a discount if I got them before 2:00 PM. That, and I needed to pick up some stuff from an news office that was a block from them and I had needed to pick-up my order from a specialty store across the road. What kind of specialty store? Weaponry. Let's just say my job was one you usually had a chance of receiving bodily harm in. And, no, I did not use what Setsuna and I talked about as cannon fodder for job security. Although, some of the people I dealt with were looking for information, I didn't say anything. As I said, I will not tell anybody. I hope in three months time I have as high morals.
"Your welcome," I stated, and couldn't help but show the amusement in my face. Setsuna just shook her head.
"I don't even want to know why you did that."
"The goodness of my heart?"
"Try again."
I just smiled. When I smiled like that, Setsuna had no idea what was going on in my head. I recommend that every woman who has to live with a friend know how to use that smile. Setsuna placed the mug back on the rack, just as her beeper made another noise. Setsuna muttered some very impolite words.
"What has he got up his ass today? That's twice in less than five minutes," she sighed, and got up to go over to the kitchen phone.
"Maybe it's another one of those murders." Yes, there had been more than one weird murder. Almost always the same end result. Rape, then neck out with a pipe, or wrench, or pole, or lamppost, whatever happens to be handy at the time. The murderer seemed to always take the weapon with him. The only reason we knew it was a weapon at all, was because it was at such a high speed and made such a clean blow, it was an exact match for a weapon death.
"Maybe." And then she went and dialed the number on the phone. Detective Cross was one of the most pushy men I have ever met in my life. Not because he's a pervert, not because he's mean, but because he's so damn impatient. And in a quiet way of his own, he seems to be always condescending the person he's talking to. It always seems like he knows more than you. Hell, maybe he did. Who was I to judge attitudes?
Michiriu was at work. Hotaru at school. My office was at home. My job required me to go places, and it wasn't as if what I do requires or even could have a cubicle with business cards. I'm a bodyguard. Hired muscle. The only reason we still had a membership to a downtown gym was because I took kick-boxing lessons and needed the weights. Usually my job pays-off well. But almost nobody wants a female bodyguard. Biased chauvinist male pigs. But I suppose it did come in handy. Nobody looks at the blonde doll standing next to the important corporate president. That is, until they try to kill you.
I sighed, and went to open the drapes. I like these drapes very much. I think I'll steal them when we switch apartments. They are these nice, heavy, cloying drapes, which manage not to let any light in. This is the reason our electricity bill is so high. This is also the reason that time seems to stand still in our appartment. You never know what time it is. I mean, yeah, we have a clock in the kitchen, but without it one would never know if it were day or night. Unless you went and opened the drapes.
The reason I love these drapes so much is because, myself especially, we in this house have a tendancy to come home late. Today I had gotten up early. But sometimes we come home from work and it's daylight. This way, no matter when we come home, we can go to sleep. It's a kick-ass little arangement, don't you think? I reached my hand inside the drape and pulled back the corner. The sunlight looked touchable, the way it clung to the dust specks in the room, making a solid-looking ray of light. I looked out the window across the narrow city road, to the chain fence basketball courts in the center of our little quadrangle of 25 story apartments. I have a slight fear of heights, and looking out the window makes me realize how high up we are. I mean, 14 stories isn't that high, but it's high enough to make me slightly sqeemish.
I had been right. I was up earlier than I thought. I glanced up to check the exact time, and I had been right in my estimation. 1:34 p.m. I had gotten to bed at about 8:30 a.m. Five hours of sleep. Whoop-dee-frickin-doo. I let the blind fall back into place, the first edges of my early morning grumpiness settling in. It was then that Setsuna came back in. I looked at her eyes, and the first hints of fear settled down in my stomach.
"What?"
She just shook her head, laughing quietly, at some internal joke which had nothing to do with humor. When she looked back up again, there was another look in her eyes. One that I thought I would never see her look at me with. It was suspision.
"What?" I asked again, slightly more irritably this time.
"Where were you this morning and last night?"
I had expected an accusation, not a question. So I granted myself a few seconds of floundering stupidity before I could form an answer.
"Job. Why, Setsuna?"
"Who?"
This stopped me. I never asked for names of her suspects, nothing that confindential from her. She had no right to ask me that question.
"I'm not telling you that."
"Please, Haruka, for once, and if I'm wrong, I'll buy you a new toy, okay?"
Now she really had me worried. She wanted to be wrong about something, but didn't think she was. Setsuna never offered to buy me a new gun lightly. I cocked my head to one side, and said very carefully:
"Oliver Kahn."
"Hn," she said, and motioned for me to follow her out the door. I followed owlishly, slipping on my flip-flops, still in my pajamas.
"Why am I following you?"
"Because," she said, turning to look at me, a totally unreadable expression on her face, "Oliver Kahn's the next victim."
I stopped in my tracks and my jaw fell open.
"And," she continued, "He was killed at 6:20 a.m. this morning, when he was under your protection."
I could only sputter.
"And so, Haruka-dear, you're the police's number one suspect. Now, if you'll follow me," Setsuna concluded turning back to the door. I just stared dumbly after her, wondering just what in hell was going on.
Me? A killer? Not anymore.
And it was then that it occurred to me, why I was the perfect set-up. I ran after Setsuna as fast as I could.