[Fic] Nobody's Fool 9/10 (Kingdom Hearts 1930s AU, Axel/Sora)
Title: Nobody's Fool (9/10)
Author: harukami
Prompt: Kingdom Hearts 1930s AU
Pairing: Axel/Sora, Axel/Roxas, some others indicated
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1984 of total 14948
Summary: A hard-boiled detective gets hired to do a job for a girl who's worried about her sister.
A/N: In ten parts. I'll be posting them twice a day until complete. Almost done -- thank you everyone for your patience with my desire to do this as a serial.





The next few days were filled with a certain amount of hard work; I kept Demyx busy and myself worse until the last of the situation fell into place.

From there, there was nothing to do but have out with it -- make sure I was right, and act on it. The situation was bad, things were going to be close, and there was no room for errors.

These were all the things in my mind when I called in Saix and Larxene.

From the moment they entered the office, the situation was tense; Saix had his hands balled in a fist and a glare on Larxene, and Larxene had a bright, nasty smile on her face when she looked at either me or Saix. I drew a deep breath and reached in my pocket.

"I believe you're both looking for this," I said, and held out the key.

I hadn't held it out for longer than a second before I was yanking it back and pulling out my gun with my other hand; a good thing, too, as Saix's hand whipped through the air where the key had been a moment before. I tsked and gestured between them both with the gun.

"Oh? And what will that do?" Larxene asked. "You can't take us both down."

"You're right, I can't," I said. "But you can't tell which of you I'd be willing to shoot, can you, and you aren't willing to let the other get the key."

Her smile turned a bit sour.

"Now, you understand, between the two of you, I've got some reason for concern as to who is the rightful owner of this thing," I said. "You? Saix? Neither? So, I've been thinking things over and I wanted to run the situation by the both of you. You know. So I don't end up doing anything illegal."

Now they were both glaring at me instead of each other. Great. I took a deep breath and continued anyway.

"It took a bit of digging up, but I managed to piece together the date and the ship's name to figure out what was on it. You wouldn't believe some of the false records I had to dig through -- or maybe you would," I said dryly. "Tell me, are either of you surprised to discover that the key is to an extremely solid chest that was being shipped by sea from one country's leader to another, only to vanish when the ship stopped for supplies in Twilight Town?"

Neither said anything.

"Inside this chest," I said, "was an ancient king's treasure -- a gigantic gold heart. It was being shipped kind of quietly, because neither king wanted what happened to happen. This would be the treasure beyond measure that your friend Marly was talkin' to me about, Larxene."

Her lips pursed, irritably.

"So here's what I think happened," I said, gesturing in the air like I could draw the threads together. "Marly somehow heard of this deal -- it's just up his alley, this kind of thing, and it's not the first time he's done some smuggling; in a port town like this it'd be almost a crime for a guy like him not to, huh? Anyway, I digress. You'd been working for Marly then, Larxene, and had been charged with bringing it to him. Only, the thing Marly hadn't been expecting was for some foreigner to have got the same idea he had and who would send his gunsel to try to take the chest. Obviously, in straight hand-to-hand combat, you're at a bit of a disadvantage, as our friend Saix here has already shown."

Although Saix had been making a bit of a face at the slur, his expression at that last comment turned into a faint smirk, and as I nodded to him in feigned politeness, he nodded back. Mind, his politeness was equally feigned, but it wasn't bad for a guy at the wrong side of a gun.

"Anyway, I'm not sure if you pretended to be working with them or just ran off with the key when he took the chest, but I'd guess you acted like you'd been acting alone, and ended up pretending you were on their side for a while," I told Larxene, "given that he viewed you as a traitor, anyway."

She snorted, irritable. "As if I'd really side with someone like him," she said, scornfully. "But, sure, it was a way to keep my eye on the goods."

"However," I said. "You weren't able to take the chest back from him, and you weren't able to convince him -- or seduce him, am I right? -- to coming back to Traverse Town with you."

Her lip curled at me. "It's not my fault he has bad taste," she crooned playfully, the tone at complete contrast with her expression. "And you're one to talk; I've got bad luck with your kind, don't I?"

"Never asked you to try, honey," I said, mocking. "So instead you ran off with the key, on the basis that they couldn't open the chest without it. Probably you figured that if you got the key back safely to Marly, he could open up negotiations with Saix and Saix's master back home, and all would be well. What you didn't expect was for Saix to find the slip so early and send the chest on home without him, chasing after you on the very next ship."

Saix gave her a very unpleasant look. "She thought I trusted her more than I had."

"Clearly!" I agreed brightly. "So, the Nobody's Fool was held up at sea, and your ships ended up getting into port here at Traverse Town at about the same time. Larxene disembarked and you caught up to her on the docks. There was a fight, and she fled, thinking she still had the key safe and unaware that the fight had made her lose it. Saix also thought that she'd gotten away with the key, and you holed up somewhere in the city until you could get word back to your master. In the meantime, a docks kid found it and made the mistake of mentioning that he'd found a nice key to a few people."

"I expected whoever found it to try to sell it," Larxene said bitterly. "Not to keep it. It's useless to itself."

"To a docks kid who's never known freedom? The thing was probably half a pretty trinket and half a symbol of hope," I said, flatly.

Saix's brows lifted. "You sound like you know a lot about that boy."

"It's unimportant," I said. "Larxene, you tried to track Sora down first when you heard about it, because Saix had still thought you'd got the key. I'm betting it was your increased activity that alerted Saix to the fact that it had gone missing?" I directed the question to him.

"Something of the sort," Saix agreed.

"However, your inquiries tipped off the kid--" no point bringing his friends into this. "--and he went into hiding. For a few years, you both tried to find him on your own, unable to just give up and unwilling to admit you were outwitted by a boy. I'm guessing you went out of favour with Marly for a while there, Larxene."

"Hah," she said.

I allowed myself another smile. "In the meantime, Marly and I had our blowup. And I'm guessing he got a thought into his head -- why not hire a PI to do the work for you? Of course, that was a year ago, so I imagine he tried one or two that didn't have the contacts I did, and it didn't work out."

"You're the best," Larxene said. "He was right when he said that your quality made you a complete asshole, though."

"Language," I chided. "There are ladies present." I gave Saix a grin, and waved the gun at him at his aborted violent movement. "At any rate, that didn't pan out, you looked more on your own, and they finally decided to have you come to me. That wasn't the mistake. The mistake was that Marly decided to make a big affair of it. Typical Marly -- can't do anything without it having been a drama. Had you just come to me and said a docks boy stole a key that you needed, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But this whole drama with sisters and fake identities and long lost true love? Put me on guard right away and made me look at it more closely. What was the intention? To make me feel pity for poor trapped Namine so I'd go after Sora with whole-hearted concern? Unfortunately, what you two didn't realize is that I don't feel pity."

"A man after my own heart," Larxene said, darkly.

"Uh-huh. Well, this drama alerted Saix, a bit mistakenly, to the fact that Namine knew something about Sora, which is why, I'm guessing, you were in the Rose that day?"

Saix nodded grimly. "I knew there was certainly something wrong with the whole deal when you were allowed up to see Marluxia and I was told he wasn't in."

"So, in conclusion," I said, "you're all thieves, this entire conversation was recorded, the police are on the way both here and to the Rose, and all's well that ends well."

"Well," Larxene said, "there's one thing you are forgetting."

"And what's that?"

"There are other treasures out there, and I don't intend to get caught," she said, and lunged. What caught me off guard and kept me from firing was that she lunged not for me but for Saix, ducking behind his larger bulk, which stiffened, then sagged a moment later as the brick in her purse hit the back of his head with a crack.

"Using him for a shield?" I asked.

She laughed, high and glass-like. "Not quite!" she said, and with more strength than I'd expected of her, flung his prone body at me and lunged for the window.

I was too slow to get around Saix's form before she was out. I ran and leaned down, watching as she managed to land the story to the ground and was off and running, though with a faint limp.

I hurried out into the main office. "Demyx!" I said, and tossed my gun to him. He caught it and screeched when he saw what he was holding. "There's an unconscious man in my office, but I'm not sure how long it'll be until he comes around. Here!" I stripped the tape off me and tossed that as well. "Keep the gun trained on the guy, and give this to the police when they get here. You know what's going on, so handle it!"

"But this is a gun!" Demyx complained as I continued on, yanking the door open. "You're picking the wrong guy for this!"

I looked back at him. "Try to be the right guy for once," I said, and ran.

By the time I got out, I'd lost her. I searched the few blocks around in the hopes of picking up her trail again, but it was too late; she was gone.

The one reassurance I had about the situation was that she'd never managed to track me to Sora's; wherever she was going now, I was pretty damn sure she was going to drop the case and find something else to chase after for riches. This was too late now, and even her boss was caught; she wasn't going to be poking her head out for a while. But I doubted I'd seen the last of her.

I felt tired, all of a sudden, worn down and lonely and pointless; not the first time I'd felt that way when someone'd gotten away from me, but still not great. I should go back, I know, and handle the police -- but I'd already explained to them on the phone, and Demyx had Saix and the recording. Even he could only screw up a little badly if left to handle it by himself.

I should go back; I didn't.

Instead, I went to see Sora.