2Drowned the Wrong Twin
Magick. It's the biggest force of will on Earth, but it's viewed as taboo. Most people neither deny it nor practice it, because they don't believe it is even worth the possibility of existence. But when even one occurrence of strange events happens, everyone blames the witch, as though they suddenly realized magick does exist. It doesn't matter how they act, who they were friends with, what kind of family they have. It doesn't matter their skin tone, their eye color, or how beautiful their face. It never matters which circumstance, what kind of magick, nor the purpose. It's always the witch, who runs on his or her own, ever since the coven sank in the dark.
"Robin." The familiar voice derailed my train of thought.
"Oh… Amon." I said, shaking my head of the trance.
"You've been staring into your coffee for the last five minutes." I knew he was prompting me to state what was on my mind, but it wasn't like he really cared.
"Sorry, I was just thinking about the girl from our…" watch it. My conscious told me, detecting a word I knew my 'partner' hated when used in context with him. "…I mean, the STNJ's last case."
"What about her?" He asked, still not looking at me.
"Call me paranoid, but I feel like we didn't really finish with her." I replied.
"You're implying something about her sister, right?" Amon replied knowingly, stirring his black and orange zest tea idly.
"Yes that's it. I have this idea that maybe she'll use her powers to manipulate her sister, so she can attack people again, or use some craft to aid her."
"I can assure you she won't try anything like that."
"How?" I asked.
"Chiisa's sister is dead."
"What?" I asked, numb with the incredibility I felt with this answer. She had been perfectly fine the last time we saw her, 2 days ago on the case of Chiisa's hypnotism of her sister, and serial murders. Amon handed me a newspaper scrap from his inner jacket pocket, so I read over it.
"Tsukisara Aotomi… found hanging by her neck in the shower… And you didn't tell me about this? This was printed yesterday!" I almost shouted, but remembered the indecency of that in public, but I could still feel the warmth of barely restrained flames in my nerves.
"The people are ignorant of and dismissed this case as suicide. I didn't call you and the rest of the STNJ group because the chief won't take us up on a dismissed case unless we have proper evidence to address it."
"But there's nothing in this photo that suggests it was something other than suicide…" I trusted his instincts, the same way I trusted mine, but the others would be skeptical of his theory.
"Look closely at the photo." Studying it harder, I gasped when I saw what he meant. "Recognize anything strange?" He prompted.
"That's a hitogata, right between her feet…"I replied.
"Exactly. The STNJ has records of only one Craft-user who practiced forms of voodoo."
"Who was it?" I asked, very eager to know more. At this, I caught a ghost of a smirk play across Amon's ever stoic face.
"You'll just have to wait and find out." He was teasing me… weird.
"Damn you." I murmured, surprised my hallucination of his smirk was still present.
When we arrived at the team's common work area of the STNJ, Amon gestured everyone into the conference room. Sakaki, Karasuma-san, Doujima, Michael… they all filed in.
"Do you all remember Chiisa and Tsukisara from our last case?" They nodded as a group. "Then I suppose you are all aware that she died yesterday, right?" he finished, sarcastic as ever. Murmuring instantly broke out amongst the four of them, lasting perhaps five minutes before further questioning.
"What's your point?" Sakaki said, arms over his chest. "If she died yesterday it could have easily been a car accident or suicide."
"It was dismissed as a suicide case because the police are too stupid to heed the significance of one thing they found at the crime scene."
"And what's that?" the blonde boy challenged. Aren't we just sour today? I thought, disgusted with his skepticism. Amon then tossed the newspaper segment he'd shown me earlier onto the table, and everyone stared at the photo a moment before gasping in disbelief.
"That's a hitogata…" Karasuma-san pointed out.
"That hitogata is the reason we're opening this case. There's one man in the STNJ's files who practiced forms of voodoo, and he is Chiisa and her sister's father. Another thing; none of them are biologically related." Everyone scoffed at this idea, completely disbelieving of what he was saying. I wanted to burn them all to a crisp! Amon was always right!
"You expect us to believe that? They look more alike than twins, and they grew up with the same mother." Doujima jeered.
"You obviously believe too many of the lies you've been fed." Amon countered. "Tsukisara and Chiisa were playmates in the same nursery home. That was until Tsukisara's mother entrusted her to Aishite. Aishite was Chiisa's biological mother, and she sent them to an orphanage when they were five to escape riots in the town they lived, because she was dying of cancer. The father I mentioned earlier, Ushio Aotomi, adopted them a year later, but he only took Tsukisara because Chiisa refused to be his daughter unless Tsuki became her sister. Are you all following the story?"
"If he took Tsuki, solely to gain Chiisa, it's likely he didn't care about her much while Chiisa was around." Karasuma-san spoke up, and she paved the way for a snap conclusion I'd made while Amon was speaking.
"So in anger of Chiisa being placed in containment after we stopped her murders, Ushio killed Tsukisara, the lesser twin. Kind of like saying "the wrong twin has been drowned." He didn't care about Tsuki, but he didn't want her living life instead of Chiisa." Amon nodded his approval, clapping sarcastically.
"I just have one question." Michael said.
"What is it?" Mr. Emotionless replied, flat as ever.
"How the hell did you piece this case together so fast?"
"I looked into some Government files, got the coordinates to his past home, and did some talking with his former neighbors, still living where he used to. I figured I wouldn't sleep on the news report of it on television until I did something about it."
"How did you sleep after the conclusion you made?" the techie asked, rhetorically.
"Just fine, thanks. You're all dismissed. Robyn and I will present this to the Chief." I'd be lying if I said I didn't admire Amon's commanding presence and one step ahead of everyone style work. Things like that made me anxious with want to know him. I was his partner, after all. Didn't I deserve a chance?
"Robin." Amon addressed me suddenly as the others were leaving.
"Yes?" He took both my hands in his.
"I appreciated your company this morning in the park." He then filed out with everyone else, and I stood in awe, looking at the ash pendant I thought I'd lost two days ago, when Chiisa was sliding a knife across my throat. Lucky for me, Amon had my back that time when he tranquilized her from behind. He always had my back. Maybe he wanted to know me, too, however little he showed it.
