[WIP]
More tentatively... some Yagyuu. Niou's POV for this practically writes itself. Yagyuu's... does not. This is difficult. But needed. I'm not sure if this is right or going to make it into the final version. I'm also not sure how the whole thing should be structured, fit together... heh.
So basically, it's a mess and this feels clumsy. Have another thousand words. Still worksafe. (Newly edited to clarify some stuff.)
Yagyuu knows the case will be an unusual one as soon as he is recommended to take up work on it. Yukimura likes to challenge people.
Still, dealing with fraud is something he is good at, so this is not an especially strange assignment in and of itself.
He agrees without having to think about it for long.
The next thing he knows, he is being called to join a team to investigate a tip-off
"As good a way to start as any. And maybe it will be over sooner than you think," Yukimura says with a quick smile, although if it was likely to be that simple then Yagyuu would not be involved at all.
+
He does not know whether he should be shocked at the incompetence of the men on the scene or impressed at the way their target eludes them, so he settles for a combination of the two.
"Not everyone is like you," Marui points out, but he doesn't sound impressed.
People are going to be in trouble later. Or maybe the irritation is purely directed at Yagyuu for taking over the case which was entirely his before. Probably not, though; working on fraud is still a punishment to Marui.
+
Their man has been known by various names. Sometimes one name may relate to more than one identity, sometimes a new one is assumed, but there is a loose thread of continuity of method, if you look closely enough.
Yagyuu has rarely seen someone so close to achieving true unpredictability, though.
There is very little personal information about the suspect in the case file, only information about personas. That's the first thing that strikes Yagyuu. All of these things people assure him have been done by the same person, but who that person is? That's a mystery. Yagyuu is fond of mysteries, but only when he is able to find the solution. He is very good at it. That's why he's here, after all.
"How long has this case been under investigation?" he asks, mild disapproval in his voice. He knows the answer, of course. Marui's eyes narrow.
"What, you think you could've done more in the time?"
Yes. He does.
He does not precisely have a problem with Marui, but his tactics are... not always every bit as effective as he believes them to be. Brilliant he may be, but suited to this sort of painstaking case he is not.
"Perhaps. Have you attempted to find where this person came from, who they are?"
"Of course," Marui says. "Who the fuck d'you think I am?"
Yagyuu politely refrains from comment. "And?"
"And nothing. The guy just came from nowhere."
"I see."
No-one comes from nowhere, Yagyuu thinks. No-one with this sort of talent and creativity, especially; there will be something to find, if he can trace their mystery man's activities far enough back.
He thinks he has seen the man; knows what he looks like, or what he was choosing to look like at the time. That may help.
+
It proves difficult. He expected little else. He would, on some level or other, have been disappointed if someone of this sort was careless about their past, about giving anything away; of course it would be good. It would make his job easier.
But it would feel far less satisfying.
He does not know exactly what he expects when he rings the doorbell. If he is right, he is about to meet the man's parents - the Niou family. He is, he realises, already referring to the man as Niou in his mind. Foolishness. He could still be wrong about this. He does not think so, though.
"I don't understand," the woman who answers the door says. "I thought this was all settled. We have nothing more to do with him."
He was not wrong.
+
The photograph of Niou Masaharu that she gave him is an old one, from when he was perhaps sixteen years old. He should be in his twenties now. (I don't have a more recent photograph, she'd said. I'm not certain why we still have this one.) The boy in the photograph has wild, bleached hair, a smile which edges close to a smirk; but it's the eyes which Yagyuu notices most. There's something both disconcertingly strange and eerily familiar about them, even in a small image like this, battered and torn a little at one corner.
He has a name for their man now, and a face; even the beginnings of a story.
Very interesting.
+
This is Niou's story, as Yagyuu has been told it - incomplete and biased, but a beginning all the same.
He was born in Kanagawa; his father is an architect (away on business at the time of Yagyuu's visit, or so he was told - something seemed off there, at the time), and was for a time a very successful one at that. Niou Masaharu, the oldest son, represents something of a black mark on his record. It is not, Yagyuu suspects, the only one.
Supposedly Niou was never a terribly normal child, although that statement had carried hints of bitterness, an attempt to explain away a failure. He was unruly, rebellious, didn't try at school although he was intelligent enough to get away with it; but he played tennis, which his parents had hoped might calm him down. Something of a failed experiment.
He'd played tricks at school, cheated, stolen in a small way, almost as though he wanted to see if he could; at the age of sixteen he was excluded, and at the age of seventeen he managed to have an especially violent row with his parents which led to his effective disownment.
What Yagyuu can't understand yet, because Niou's mother couldn't understand it, is what made Niou behave the way he did in the first place, pushing at every boundary he could find until he'd crossed one too many.
+
It takes shape more easily in his mind with an identity there, a person to place behind the string of events affecting three Japanese banks, one from Hong Kong, a handful of other minor ones; a law firm in Tokyo; maybe other companies they haven't linked in yet. He views things better in a narrative manner than as facts and figures; otherwise they have little relevance in his mind.
Marui doesn't ask how he does it, but he can feel the question there, lurking unsaid, all the irritation stored up and vented to Jackal when Yagyuu is out of the office. Marui thinks he doesn't know. Yagyuu does not care to disillusion him.
So basically, it's a mess and this feels clumsy. Have another thousand words. Still worksafe. (Newly edited to clarify some stuff.)
Yagyuu knows the case will be an unusual one as soon as he is recommended to take up work on it. Yukimura likes to challenge people.
Still, dealing with fraud is something he is good at, so this is not an especially strange assignment in and of itself.
He agrees without having to think about it for long.
The next thing he knows, he is being called to join a team to investigate a tip-off
"As good a way to start as any. And maybe it will be over sooner than you think," Yukimura says with a quick smile, although if it was likely to be that simple then Yagyuu would not be involved at all.
+
He does not know whether he should be shocked at the incompetence of the men on the scene or impressed at the way their target eludes them, so he settles for a combination of the two.
"Not everyone is like you," Marui points out, but he doesn't sound impressed.
People are going to be in trouble later. Or maybe the irritation is purely directed at Yagyuu for taking over the case which was entirely his before. Probably not, though; working on fraud is still a punishment to Marui.
+
Their man has been known by various names. Sometimes one name may relate to more than one identity, sometimes a new one is assumed, but there is a loose thread of continuity of method, if you look closely enough.
Yagyuu has rarely seen someone so close to achieving true unpredictability, though.
There is very little personal information about the suspect in the case file, only information about personas. That's the first thing that strikes Yagyuu. All of these things people assure him have been done by the same person, but who that person is? That's a mystery. Yagyuu is fond of mysteries, but only when he is able to find the solution. He is very good at it. That's why he's here, after all.
"How long has this case been under investigation?" he asks, mild disapproval in his voice. He knows the answer, of course. Marui's eyes narrow.
"What, you think you could've done more in the time?"
Yes. He does.
He does not precisely have a problem with Marui, but his tactics are... not always every bit as effective as he believes them to be. Brilliant he may be, but suited to this sort of painstaking case he is not.
"Perhaps. Have you attempted to find where this person came from, who they are?"
"Of course," Marui says. "Who the fuck d'you think I am?"
Yagyuu politely refrains from comment. "And?"
"And nothing. The guy just came from nowhere."
"I see."
No-one comes from nowhere, Yagyuu thinks. No-one with this sort of talent and creativity, especially; there will be something to find, if he can trace their mystery man's activities far enough back.
He thinks he has seen the man; knows what he looks like, or what he was choosing to look like at the time. That may help.
+
It proves difficult. He expected little else. He would, on some level or other, have been disappointed if someone of this sort was careless about their past, about giving anything away; of course it would be good. It would make his job easier.
But it would feel far less satisfying.
He does not know exactly what he expects when he rings the doorbell. If he is right, he is about to meet the man's parents - the Niou family. He is, he realises, already referring to the man as Niou in his mind. Foolishness. He could still be wrong about this. He does not think so, though.
"I don't understand," the woman who answers the door says. "I thought this was all settled. We have nothing more to do with him."
He was not wrong.
+
The photograph of Niou Masaharu that she gave him is an old one, from when he was perhaps sixteen years old. He should be in his twenties now. (I don't have a more recent photograph, she'd said. I'm not certain why we still have this one.) The boy in the photograph has wild, bleached hair, a smile which edges close to a smirk; but it's the eyes which Yagyuu notices most. There's something both disconcertingly strange and eerily familiar about them, even in a small image like this, battered and torn a little at one corner.
He has a name for their man now, and a face; even the beginnings of a story.
Very interesting.
+
This is Niou's story, as Yagyuu has been told it - incomplete and biased, but a beginning all the same.
He was born in Kanagawa; his father is an architect (away on business at the time of Yagyuu's visit, or so he was told - something seemed off there, at the time), and was for a time a very successful one at that. Niou Masaharu, the oldest son, represents something of a black mark on his record. It is not, Yagyuu suspects, the only one.
Supposedly Niou was never a terribly normal child, although that statement had carried hints of bitterness, an attempt to explain away a failure. He was unruly, rebellious, didn't try at school although he was intelligent enough to get away with it; but he played tennis, which his parents had hoped might calm him down. Something of a failed experiment.
He'd played tricks at school, cheated, stolen in a small way, almost as though he wanted to see if he could; at the age of sixteen he was excluded, and at the age of seventeen he managed to have an especially violent row with his parents which led to his effective disownment.
What Yagyuu can't understand yet, because Niou's mother couldn't understand it, is what made Niou behave the way he did in the first place, pushing at every boundary he could find until he'd crossed one too many.
+
It takes shape more easily in his mind with an identity there, a person to place behind the string of events affecting three Japanese banks, one from Hong Kong, a handful of other minor ones; a law firm in Tokyo; maybe other companies they haven't linked in yet. He views things better in a narrative manner than as facts and figures; otherwise they have little relevance in his mind.
Marui doesn't ask how he does it, but he can feel the question there, lurking unsaid, all the irritation stored up and vented to Jackal when Yagyuu is out of the office. Marui thinks he doesn't know. Yagyuu does not care to disillusion him.