Part 2/2

The night was absorbing Shin. For his friend, he was out here looking for clues to save the leftover opium dealers. Only for his friend. He himself wasn't bothered by a few bad guys killed by someone else. This city has got dark in a way the morning light couldn't fight. Everyone hoped for a bright future back then while fighting for the restauration. True, Ryumas and shin weren't on the winners side, but still, shouldn't it be better than it was now? Absorbed in such thoughts he weaseled through the town. And again he noticed this strange smell. It lend him in a better area of the city. He climbed over a wall, still catching the smell and saw a corresponding shadow running away.

“How can a guy get so invisible?” Shin whispered while shaking his head. Every children of the night, the people operating in the darkness, being up to stay invisible, know how to blacken their clothes and skin, even wearing only black weapons. But soot doesn't last long on a moving body and, more important, it leaves traces. “There is no soot around here…”

He followed the smell in a neatly cleaned building and found a top-ranking opium middleman lying in front of him. Of course dead. Unfortunately, without his help. Shin hurried to look around. The only unusual things were the intense bloomy smell and the little plant in his hand. He found it by the corpse again. “Yeah, there's a little bit dirt on this tiny one here, but, not even enough to blacken a finger, aside from a whole body…“

~~~~~~~

The young girl shivered at the sight of the tall and broad man in front of her. It was warm so she could see all this scars on his naked arms. His hair was really short and as dark as his eyes with which he looked surprisingly kind down on her. “No Mister, I never saw such a flower before, if it's even a flower. It looks a bit like a grain…” The answer was the same regardless how many flower merchants and dockers Shin asked. He had cleaned his trove carefully and was hoping to learn something about it while asking around. So he went down to the harbor to ask the people seeing strange things every day. But, nobody seemed to know this flower.

He was sure it was a flower, not a gain, and this strange smell seemed to come from it. “It is getting more intense as the victims get more important it seems.” Shin told his friend under one of the old bridges near the harbor. They had meet up in the afternoon to share their findings. To avoid the heat of the sun and the snoopy gaze of the people they were now sitting under the planks beside the river. The footsteps of the people crossing over their heads and the sound of the water deadened their voices.

“So, how long do we have till the murderer will get to Mr. Woo?” The policeman asked, anxious.

“Only a few days. He's moving fast.”

~~~~~~~

“please this way.” shin followed the housekeeper of a large residence through long corridors till they stopped in front of a massive door. Behind was a fat man starting whining the moment Shin entered the room. “You have to protect me! And you sure took your time to come over here! But I don't want anyone else, they say you're the best! So, what's your price?”

Annoyed, Shin looked around. He was surrounded by strange things. The large room was crowded with foreign furnitures and other clearly not Japanese things. There was a big long case clock on one of the walls and a unknown animal standing around ready to attack but definitely dead. Other even stranger things irritated his eyes and mind, so shin focused on the only other one in the room he could sense a presence from. Clearly the owner of this residence, the fat guy in front of him, Mr.Woo, was rich and doesn't hide this fact. Even now, with ships arriving every day, it would need an amount of money to collect all this.

“I'm not here for the money,” Shin answered snidely.

The fat man's eyes got wide. “B.. But…”

Even more annoyed Shin sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I'll think about it. I'll give you a answer in a few days.” He said and turned around. Every other man, surpassed the war and not working for the new government, wouldn't hesitate to take this job offer. Guarding one of the richest isn't harder than fighting in the restauration and it would guarantee a decade of a simple but peaceful life. But Shin was different. He strode out through the door while whispering “never will i protect someone like you, not even for Ryuma,” with a fierce look on his face and left the fat, scared Mr. Woo behind, alone.

~~~~~~~

A silent night again. The city was sleeping. The hour of the rat went by. It seemed like only one person was still awake in the big estate. Between all this silent buildings, this lifeless creepy rooms, only Mr. Woo was too afraid to find his peace in sleep. The servants had their own building in the far end of the estate. So in the main house it was only him and his guards. He hired bodyguards, the best he could find. But still, every sound would wake him up, the nerves fried.

Only, there wasn't really any sound, not even a sound of his guards. A smell was the only oddity. It was discreet at first, but, at once intense and heavy. Mr woo got out of his bed and opened the door to the next room, lamp in hand. The formerly bloomy smell turned acrid and he felt a prickling at the skin. Panicked, he looked around, the lamp shaking with him. A crashing sound disturbed the silence. The light was hit by something and burst. With the absolute black and returned silence, the acrid smell enveloped him.

~~~~~~~

“Why didn't you see him? Or more, why didn't you stop this murder!?” Ryuma was screaming at Shin without saying a word, even without his friend around.

The policeman stood beside the others, a scarf in front of the nose, and looked down. He knew Shin had been asked to guard Mr. Woo. But now they, Ryuma and literally the whole policemen of the city, had to stand here, in Mr. Woo's residence.

Almost everything in this room was dotted with blood. It was some sort of meeting room right beside the bedroom of the landlord. There was a group of couches beside an opening wall to the inner garden and a few expensive looking things on tables on the other side of the room. And between these, in the middle of the room, mr woo, the center of a red pattern sprinkling everything around. But even worse was that smell. He, personally, didn't think it smelled bad. Just much too intense. The flowery smell didn't leave space for the blood smell. And, seeing a slaughtering with the smell of flowers… No, that was just too absurd.

The commander used his foot, again, to lift the corpse up a bit and discovered the bed of opium, soaked with blood and the smelling oil made of this foreign flower Ryuma showed him.

~~~~~~~

A bamboo forest just outside the city. The wind striked through the light green leaves. Two people were standing in front of each other. Two children of the night in the early morning.

A high but silent voice could be heard. “It's called lavender. Its oil reduces inflammation and irritation in all forms. Therefore, I'm using it while exorcising the evil from the people around me.” Before Shin stood a black woman. Not only was she dressed only in black like himself and had black hair like himself, but, even her skin had a almost black color. She held out a little bouquet of lavender, dry and strong. After he reached out and touched it she let go of the flowers and turned away from him and the town behind him.

Shin caught the bouquet, but when he looked to her again, she was gone. He stood alone at the border of the forest, again only the wind in the leaves was to hear.

~~~~~~~

A few days later, the city was getting back to normal. There hasn't been any more murder. Ryuma and Shin were out in public, drinking together. A rare occasion between a policeman and a paid murderer. But, they needed the company of each other and words weren't necessarily. So it didn't matter to be seen together. Nobody ever saw Shin doing his work, so, as long as they don't mention it, everything was fine. And they didn't need to mention anything about this case. Everything was clear.

Shin felt guilty for not being able to rescue his friend from the death of Mr. Woo, even if he didn't wanted to save this man himself. It will cause lots of trouble for the police, and had done so already. But on the other hand, Ryuma also knew his friend was incapable of saving such a bad person, and deep down he not only respected this behavior.

Shin was still stuck in this old way of thinking of wrong and right and honor and just this whole samurai stuff. Ryuma on the other hand had decided to follow the new way, the new government. It was difficult to guide the people with peace and egality, and, also for the sake of others, just so totally different to Shins way.

Hours went by while the two men were drank silently and the town folk walked busily by their table outside of an inn. And at the end of the day, both went their own way, still friends.