Nabiki-- Dark Justice

-----
Disclaimer: The rights to Ranma 1/2 belong to Rumiko
Takahashi and any others that she has liscenced them
to.
Black Hood is the property of Impact Comics
-----

Chapter 2

"Alright, Miss Tendo, let's go over this one last
time.  You and your boyfriend were attacked outside
the auditorium, and then..."

Nabiki was acutely aware of the locker key in her
pocket as she once again repeated her story to the
police detective.  The first thing she'd done upon
arriving in Nerima was to stash the money in a rental
locker at the station.  Her story would be hard enough
to swallow without several million Yen in drug money
to complicate the issue.  

"As I said before, officer, he insisted that we split
up.  He said he'd draw them off and then meet up with
me here, in the Nerima station...  I waited, but when
he didn't show up...  I just know something's happened
to him, I just know it!"  'Careful, girl,' she warned
herself, 'don't overdo it now.'

The detective took a few more notes before responding.

"Well, Miss Tendo, all I can do for now is notify the
Tokyo Precinct of the situation and see if they've
come across anything.  The best thing you can do at
the moment is go home and rest.  With any luck he's on
a later train and will call you when he gets in."

As the detective escorted her to the taxi that would
take her home, Nabiki pondered the last couple of
hours.  Of everything that had happened, what troubled
her the most were her reactions, or rather, her lack
of them.  Her friend Toshi was dead, shot in the head
right in front of her...  One would expect just a
little more emotion than what she was currently
feeling, right?  And yet...  All the really felt at
the moment, was a grin satisfaction that his death had
been avenged.

She cared...  Didn't she?  Yet, here she was, calm as
could be, lying to the police, prepared to lie to her
family as well.  Then again, what else could she do? 
How could she explain her actions in the alley?  No,
better to keep quiet, let it blow over...

Then there was the hood.  Why did she still have it? 
Why hadn't she tossed it immediately?  That still
troubled her...  Time and time again, as she had
waited for the proper time to call the police, she had
been ready to toss it in the nearest trashcan, when
something had stopped her.  Why?  It didn't take a
genius to realize the hood was trouble, trouble she
really didn't need in her life...  Yet there it was,
its' weight negligable, yet strangely reassuring in
her purse.

Shaking her head to clear it, she thanked the officer
escorting her and got into her cab.  Now was most
definitely NOT the time for an internal argument, no,
now was the time for rational thought.  When the cops
found Toshi's body, as well as the thugs she'd killed,
things were going to get messy.

Coincidentally, back in the alleyway where the whole
mess started, someone agreed with her.

"What a fucking mess," mused Detective Takamoro.

Twelve Tong, two cops, one teenager, and an
unidentified gaijin, all dead.  Add to that five kilos
of heroin, that up until yesterday morning had been
sitting in a police evidence locker, and what you got
was the mother of all migraine headaches.  Having all
of this dumped in his lap at what was fast becoming
the ass-crack of dawn wasn't helping matters either.  

Firing up a smoke, he made his way over to the mobile
crime lab, hoping against hope that SOMEBODY had a
fucking clue as to what had gone down here.

"Gimme some good news here, Yoshi."

The expression on the lab tech's face blew his hopes
out of the water even before the man answered.

"No can do, lieutenant, no can do.  The more evidence
we gather, the less sense the whole scenario makes."

Takamoro could feel his day getting worse by the
minute, not that it could get much worse than it
already was.  Well, nothing for it, might as well get
started here.

"So...  What DO you have for me?"

"Well, sir, try this for fun.  You've got sixteen
people, fifteen of them armed with various handguns,
all of which were fired I might add, yet ten of the
folks here did not die of gunshot wounds."

"Well, what the hell did they die of, then?"

"Best I can tell, they died from blows delivered in
hand to hand combat, some, judging from the bruise
size, were courtesy of the gaijin over there.  Who,
incidentally, died of many, many gunshot wounds, a
good number of which, I am certain, were delivered
post-mortem."

"Alright, then.  That much makes a crazy kind of sense
so far.  We've got two crooked cops selling five kilos
of heroin.  For reasons unknown, we have a crazy
gaijin vigilante show up outta nowhere, and start
busting heads.  He's outnumbered, gets plugged, then,
they plug him some more out of sheer pissitivity. 
Then what?  And where does the kid fit in?"

"Well, sir, that's where it gets weird.  I'm guessing
the kid was capped before the gaijin showed, which
might have been the reason he jumped in, but...  Well,
I can't be completely sure without a full post-mortem
in the lab, but the bruises on the majority of the
corpses suggest that they were done in by a rather
petite girl, or a man with extremely small hands and
feet.  Which is well nigh impossible when you take
into account the sheer amount of damage each blow did.
 A man your size would literally need a bat to do the
level of tissue and bone damage I'm seeing here."

Disbelief plain on his face, Takamoro let his gaze
sweep the carnage of the alley before replying.

"There is no way that can be right...  So what you're
saying is that some girl or some punk kid wandered
into a group of pissy trigger-happy hoodlums and wiped
the floor with them?  I dunno, Yoshi, that just seems
kinda hard to swallow.  Tell ya what, gimme a call
when you get anything else, alright?  I've got about a
ton of paperwork to do, and that's BEFORE your full
report filters through."

"Will do, sir."

Heading for the station, Takamoro was certain of one
thing...  It was gonna be a looong day.

Tbc

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