Devils and Angels, Chapter 5

Ochanoko: lol Yeah. Sorry to disappoint you with the KK, but thank you! I'm so glad you like it! And you won't have to wait long for the next chapter, cause...well, here it is! lol Please keep reviewing! I enjoy reading your reviews!

Silent Tears of Agony: :-P

Mika: Heh heh yeah lol.

Kitsune KeNsHiN: lol Yeah. Thanks. lol Thanks, I hope you like the ending just as much.

Devils and Angels

Chapter 5

Soujiro opened the door and walked in to the interrogation room, shutting it tightly behind him.

"Good morning, Mister Yukishiro."

Enishi just glared at him. Soujiro set a tape recorder down on the middle of the table, then sat down across from Enishi.

"Were you aware of Kaoru's feelings toward you?" Soujiro asked.

"Yes."

"Did you return those feelings?"

There was no answer.

"Your wife told us..."

"She's not my wife."

Soujiro blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, Tomoe is not my wife."

Soujiro thought about this for a moment. "Then...who is she?"

"She's my sister."

Soujiro sighed and stood, walking over to the pitcher of water on the table in front of the one-way mirror. He knew Kenshin was on the other side, watching and listening. He looked at the mirror and rolled his eyes before pouring himself a cup of water and drinking it all down. He sat the cup back down and turned back to Enishi. "Mister Yukishiro, would you be willing to consent to a polygraph test?"

There was a long silence. Finally, Enishi spoke. "I think I want a lawyer."

Soujiro frowned. This was not good. "If you have nothing to hide, a lawyer would just complicate things. You could be out of here much sooner if you would just take the test."

Enishi looked straight into Soujiro's eyes. Enishi's eyes were cold. The only emotion Soujiro saw in them was anger. It was a feeling Soujiro was all too familiar with.

"I want a lawyer." Enishi's voice pierced the heavy silence and the staring contest was over.

Soujiro sighed. "Very well." He picked up the recorder on the table and headed out of the room.

"We should interrogate the sister, or wife or whatever she is again. Maybe we'll luck out and she won't lawyer up." Kenshin said after Soujiro closed the door.

Soujiro nodded. "I'm starting to get a feeling that the pictures weren't entirely Kaoru's idea."

Kenshin nodded. "So am I."

Both Kenshin and Soujiro sat across from Tomoe in the interrogation room.

"Your brother told us what's really going on." Soujiro said.

Tomoe looked slightly surprised, but said nothing.

"Is that why you didn't mind that Kaoru was in love with him? Because he really isn't your husband?" Kenshin asked.

Again, Tomoe said nothing.

"Why did you pretend he was?"

Tomoe sighed. "Social services would never consider a brother and sister as prospective foster parents."

"Why did you want you want to be foster parents?" Soujiro asked.

"For the extra money. The state pays you well when you care for a foster child."

"What really happened with Kaoru?" Kenshin leaned forward and asked softly.

There was a long silence as Tomoe studied the tabletop. "She...she was a very good girl. She studied hard, she was obedient. She was an older child, and older children were often more difficult to place. She had hopped around from one home to another...and...and some of her previous foster parents had...had done things to her. She had problems because of it. She knew Enishi and I were really brother and sister. She said she wouldn't tell because she was afraid of being taken to yet another home. She said that we treated her better than any of the others had."

"What went on between her and Enishi?" Soujiro prodded.

Tomoe sighed. "She...well, after a while, she began to...to have a crush on Enishi. Just a schoolgirl's crush, fawning over him and whatnot. I hear it's often a puberty thing, when hormones start kicking in, girls tend to fall for older men because they think boys their own age are immature, and I suppose it's true. Girls mature faster than boys. But pretty quickly, the crush turned to love. She would do anything to be with Enishi. It didn't take long for Enishi to figure it out. At first he got a kick out of it, he thought it was funny. He...he sort of led her on. Then, one night...she must have misread his actions, and thought that he genuinely returned her feelings. She started coming on to him...you know, sexually. He..." She shook her head and started shivering. "I...I told him we could all get in to trouble for it. They didn't care. She was in love with him, to him she was a good time, available whenever he wanted her. After a while things started getting out of hand...so we moved. Social services began getting wise to us. I'm not sure who tipped them off. So we moved out of state. We came back two months ago. I wanted to stay behind, but they insisted I come back with them. Those pictures were taken about a week ago..." She shook her head. "Enishi was getting tired of Kaoru. He wanted to find a way to get rid of her. You see...she was getting older, and had begun to bug him about marriage. He didn't want to get married, and certainly not to her. So...he suggested this idea about the pictures to her, and she agreed to it without a thought, and when he got finished...he chained her there."

Soujiro and Kenshin looked and each other in amazement.

"Where is 'there'?" Soujiro asked.

"I don't know. They didn't tell me. I didn't want to know."

"How do we know everything you just told us was the truth?" Kenshin asked.

"I...I would repeat it all on a lie detector test. I just...I just want this all to end." She said the last part in a near whisper as she raised her hand and wiped away a tear. "I'm tired of all of this lying."

Kenshin stood and walked out into the hallway, calling one of the young officers over to him. "Officer Honjo, get a polygraph set up for Miss Yukishiro."

"So do we have -any- leads on where Kaoru might be?" Soujiro asked as he stretched in front of his desk, surveying all of his notes that were tacked to the cubicle walls.

"Well..." Kenshin thought for a moment. "...When we searched the house, Enishi said the pictures were taken on an old battleship."

Soujiro shook his head. "They couldn't possibly have snuck on board a naval battleship. There aren't even any around here. The closest one is docked up in Oakland, it's sort of a floating museum."

"How do you know?"

Soujiro shrugged. "I like ships."

Kenshin glanced at his watch. "We'll have to do some research on that. I expect to get a call from Enishi's new lawyer this afternoon. In the mean time, I've got a meeting with the captain."

Soujiro smiled wryly. "Careful he doesn't eat you."

Kenshin stifled a laugh. It was an inside joke within the department. Captain Saito was one of the most feared members of the Monterey Police Department-everyone agreed he looked like a vampire. (A/N in chapter 3 (at least I -think- it was 3) I called him Captain Hajime. I have since found out that Hajime is his given name, and Saito is his surname. So, I apologize for the inconsistency. From now on he's Captain Saito. (That just sounds so strange lol.)

"I'll make sure he's had lunch first." With that Kenshin left. Soujiro smiled and shook his head, but the smile quickly faded as his mind returned to the case on hand. They had to find Kaoru.

But how?

When Soujiro returned home that evening, he was in a very bad mood. The lawyer had gotten Enishi out on bail. They were no closer to finding Kaoru than when the investigation had started. Tomoe had told them the truth...

And frankly, it all pissed him off.

He had become a police officer to protect the innocent. To protect the weak, to protect people like Kaoru.

To protect children like himself. When he was a child, no one had been there to protect him. Now, he wanted to be there to protect others.

But he wasn't there for Kaoru.

And she could die because of it.

The anger welled up inside him as he took off his coat. He just couldn't stand it anymore.

With a cry he turned and slammed his fist into the wall, wishing it was Enishi's head. He took a step back, realizing what he had done.

Oh, their landlord was -NOT- going to be happy about that.

He looked down at his hand, which was already bruising rapidly (apparently their apartment was built better than he thought), then back up at the hole in the wall.

Yumi stopped dead in her tracks as she watched the display. She had never seen her husband so angry.

And it scared her.

[Begin Flashback]

Shishio Makoto stood over the debris of what had been a curio cabinet (till he got through with it). He looked at his hands, bruised and bleeding, and smiled. He didn't care about the pain. It made him feel powerful to destroy things.

He heard some rattling to his left and turned to see his wife approach from the other room, carrying a tea tray.

Yumi took one look at what was left of the curio cabinet and the look on Shishio's face and began to back away.

Shishio turned and began to walk toward her.

"Oh, please don't..." Yumi begged softly. "Please no..."

Shishio lunged, Yumi dropped the tray and tried to run, but he was too fast for her. He grabbed her by her neck and threw her against the wall, pinning her there with his own bodyweight. She was shaking from fear. She knew what was coming.

[End Flashback]

"Yumi?"

Yumi jumped as she was brought back to the moment by Soujiro's soft voice. She blinked, trying to clear her mind. She was a bit startled that her husband was so close to her now. She hadn't realized when he approached her.

He stepped forward and gently caressed Yumi's face, though his hand was now throbbing. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." He whispered. He could tell he had scared her when he hit the wall; brought back memories of her first husband. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her towards him. Yumi leaned against his chest and sighed as he stroked her hair.

"I'm sorry, Yumi. I'm sorry."

"We could get him for statutory rape." Soujiro mused to Kenshin the next morning as they looked over their notes.

"What did you think we were going to try and get him for?"

"Well, I mean, we could arrest him right now. We didn't charge him with statutory rape when we brought him in the first time. We have enough evidence for that now. We can always tack on the other charges later."

Kenshin thought for a minute. "Do you really think Tomoe would testify against her brother?"

"Maybe if we let her plead to a lesser charge. Maybe offer her a reduced sentence. I don't think she had very much to do with this, other than keeping her mouth shut about it. I figured we would go for Aiding and Abetting, with minimum time served."

Kenshin nodded. "We could try."

"It would be better than having that man wandering around on the streets."

Kenshin nodded. "I'll get the warrant. By the way, what happened to your hand?"

Soujiro hesitated before answering. "The wall hit me."

"The wall hit you?"

Soujiro no nodded solemnly. "The wall has a grudge against me."

Kenshin rolled his eyes and left on the trail of the arrest warrant. Soujiro smiled. Well, at least his hand wasn't hurting -too- badly.

lol I know, it's another short one. I apologize, I never intended to make Kaoru out to be as perverted as I did in the first few chappies. I'm currently trying to make her out to be a misguided young girl. Am I succeeding?

I'm gonna try and wrap this story up within the next two chapters, just to let everyone know. But I intend to write a sequel! In fact, I intend to write a whole series! I'm really looking forward to it. So keep your eyes open for 'Cruel and Unusual'.

TTYL

The Monster