Doushin Shikanoin is on official leave.
“What do you mean Doushin Shikanoin took two weeks off??”
The station secretary just shrugs, putting back Shikanoin’s file into a shelf by her desk.
“It says so right here. He filled in all the necessary paperwork and he’s been due for leave anyway with all the paid time-off he has stocked up, so his request was approved.”
It wouldn’t be a problem— it shouldn’t have been a problem— if Uesugi had not just been assigned an especially stumping case about some serial thief taking women’s slippers straight from their doorsteps and only small, blue women’s slippers.
It could be nothing. Just some strange individual with either too many feet or too much time. It could also be the emboldening start of a depraved fetishist prone to escalate.
Exactly the kind of exciting, intriguing case he’s been craving, a chance to prove himself.
Nevertheless, the trail goes ice-cold quick with no new leads and no new information turning up because who would really follow up on a report about missing slippers of all things?
Which led him here, at Doushin Shikanoin’s frontdoor. The air is still cold, the sun just beginning to stretch over the hills, and if Shikanoin traveled overseas for his vacation, he would have had to fill in a different set of forms to inform the station of his whereabouts, and not even Shikanoin Heizou’s exceptional abilities can exempt him from filing proper leave of absence paperwork.
So, Uesugi is fairly certain that Shikanoin is at home, at least for the meantime. Yes, he is on leave, official one at that and when has Officer Shikanoin ever bothered to ask before he takes, but surely once he catches wind of this most peculiar case, he would make an exemption and allow Uesugi to consult with him—
“Yes? May I help you?”
Senior Officer Shikanoin Heizou is not the one who answers the door on this lovely early Sunday morning, no.
It is Kaedehara Kazuha.
The wanted posters were mostly accurate. They got the streak of red hair interspersed through the white. They got the injury on his hand, though treated and dressed now rather than open and raw.
They missed the ruby gleam of his eyes in the morning light and the dimple sitting at the corner of his mouth when he yawns.
This is the man who had stolen from a god. Who escaped from under Her watchful, attentive, all-seeing gaze and survived. Who parried with Her Almighty’s blade with only his bare hands and a blunt sword and lived .
That man is here, hand on the door of his senior’s home, barefoot and hair down at six o’clock on a Sunday.
“You must be one of the detective’s colleagues, I take it?” Kaedehara Kazuha says after a long moment of silence stretching between them, quietly stepping out of the way.
“He isn’t home at the moment but you’re welcome to come inside, if you’d like."
Uesugi has questions.
Numerous, pervasive, perhaps a little invasive questions.
What are you doing here? Where is Officer Shikanoin? How did you escape Inazuma after fleeing Tenshukaku? Did you really wield two Visions at once, did you really block a blow from the Almighty Shogun Herself? If you did, can you teach me?
He remains perfectly silent, though, cherry blossom tea cooling in a cup beside him, as Kaedehara Kazuha busies himself with something at the counter.
“I wasn’t aware you two were close.”
YOU ARE READING
Kazuscara (kazuha assassin AU) Love of the assassin
Fanfictionthis is an alternative universe in which the kaedehara clan is a family of assassins and samurais in which there only known for being a noble clan nobody knows there assassins please dont judge i just think of this pls dont hate it
