Disclaimer: There’s just something about owning Witch Hunter Robin that just doesn’t satisfy me. Instead of making new episodes, I write fan fiction instead. *grins* One can dream, one can only dream….
Amon: *looks around* They should have come back to bother me by now. Not that it matters.
Kitsune and Puff: *hiding in the hallway*
Puff: I don’t know if we should bother him now or wait a little bit.
Kitsune: I’m not sure. Not that it matters.
Puff: Now?
Kitsune: Sure.
The Joys of Parenthood
Chapter Forty-Four: Two Pieces of the Puzzle
Amon’s dark eyes darted up when he heard the soft rustling of cloth as it slipped onto the tiled floor. He knew that Robin wouldn’t change into the clothes left by Dr. Takahashi out in the open, even if there was a curtain completely dividing the room. Leaning over in his chair, Amon caught a glimpse of the cloth that had wrapped the gift Julian had thrown at Robin before he and his sister left.
“Robin?” Amon said in a questioning tone, becoming slightly worried because the craft user was completely silent and he didn’t know where the fabric on the floor had come from, “Are you okay?” He waited a few seconds before he stood up and pushed the curtain back so he could get a better view of his fellow hunter. She sat hunched over in her soft chair, long blonde hair falling over her face as she stared intently at whatever was clutched in her hands.
“I’m fine, Amon. Do you know what this is?” Robin asked, holding up a small circle of what appeared to be pure silver. She turned it slightly in the bright overhead lights, revealing a complex and tangled pattern engraved on its surface. Amon held his hand out for the odd little trinket and examined it closely after Robin passed it over to him.
“No, I don’t know what this is exactly,” Amon muttered after a moment, surprised at how precisely the pattern had been cut into the metal, “It looks like it came from something larger, though. Like a puzzle of some sort; the lines continue off of the edge.” Robin nodded, brushing her bangs away from her green eyes. She pulled a small leather bound book off of the white table next to her chair and flipped through the almost transparent pages. The infinitesimal letters had obviously been painted in by hand, tiny and extremely delicate curlicues applied to every capital and in every spare space.
“The little circle was tied tightly to this book. I think it’s supposed to give us clues or something, but it isn’t written in any language I’ve seen before,” Robin said with a hinting of annoyance, pushing the tiny manuscript towards her hunting partner. Amon, however, didn’t pick it up. His dark eyes were fixed to Robin’s porcelain face, as if he were trying to silently answer a question without the proper information.
“I’d like to know where you got these things, Robin,” Amon said coolly, his voice almost ringing with an accusation of sorts, “It just seems a little odd that while Sakaki, Javan, and I all suffered somehow, you didn’t. To top it off, you have a pair of little items that seemed to appear out of nowhere.” Amon stopped speaking when Robin looked like she was going to murder him where he stood, emerald eyes icing over with a deadly glaze. Her hand shot out, snatching the small book and the silver disk back from Amon.
“You should stop jumping to conclusions. It may end up getting you into trouble one day,” Robin snapped, knowing quite well what the other hunter was implying with his words, “If you must know, there were two little children that gave this to me. They knew who I was. And they left before you caught up to me. It sounds like an complete lie, but what would I have to gain from lying to you?” She crossed her arms defensively over her chest, not about to let Amon see how deeply he had wounded her. A small sigh escaped her lips as bottle green orbs lost all but the slightest traces of emotion.
“I believe you,” Amon said apologetically, realizing that there was no way Robin could be involved with any organization besides the STN-J without the complex security nets picking up on it, “I… shouldn’t have been so insensitive with my word choice.” With genuine surprise painting her face, Robin let her gaze slip back to Amon.
“It’s understandable. We all have to be careful, given the current situation that we’re all in,” Robin said softly, fiddling with the bottom of one of her sleeves, “We should call the office. Michael deserves to know what happened to Bryton and they all need to know how Sakaki is doing.” Amon nodded, fishing his cell phone out of his pocket slowly. He growled with annoyance when he noticed the small device was flickering in and out of working condition, the inner workings half destroyed by the water that had soaked into it.
“Use mine,” Robin offered, letting Amon pluck the cell phone from her open palm. The other hunter barely acknowledged the gesture, simply blinking his dark eyes once at her before punching in the phone number to the main office.
“Amon, I am glad to hear from you!” Michael said excitedly, happy that he finally got to inform Amon of his discovery, “While you, Robin, and Sakaki were out looking for Bryton, I was putting some of his belongings away for him. When I picked up a coat to hang it in the closet, something stabbed into my finger. I had Karasuma undo a little of the stitching around that area and we found this little silver thing sewn into the hem.” Robin, who had moved close enough to Amon so she could hear the conversation, looked over at the other hunter with pure surprise.
“Tell me about it,” Amon ordered, not wanting to upset Michael with the news about Bryton before he had gotten all the information about the silver trinket out of him, “How big is it? Does it look like it’s important?” He waved his hand at Robin so he could silence her; she had started to think out loud.
“Um, it’s pretty small, actually; little enough to be hidden in the hem of a coat. It has lines engraved all over the surface. Some of the lines end at the edges, but some seem like they would continue on if there were other pieces. It’s mostly square, except for the fact it looks like it has a third of a circle cut out of one of the edges,” Michael explained, carefully examining the item as he spoke, “If there were more pieces, I think it would be important to someone or something. But I don’t think it concerns us at this point. It was probably hidden by Emberli, like a gift, before Bryton escaped.”
“In this case, I believe you are wrong, Michael,” Amon stated firmly, hearing the phone shift on the other end of the line as the hacker adjusted himself in his chair to be more alert, “Robin was given a little silver circle by two children today. The circle came with a book, but it doesn’t seem to be in any language that Robin or I can recognize.” Amon had finally looked at the tiny book and reached the same conclusion as Robin about the lexis being unknown, at least to the pair of hunters.
“You’ll have to show me your piece and see if it fits with Bryton’s. Robin should also describe the children to Bryton, to see if he knows them. I don’t know if he will, though. It almost seemed like the item was hidden so he wouldn’t find it himself; I mean, I had a hard time finding it again, even after it stabbed me,” Michael chirped, his mind working as he began to think about what the silver trinkets could represent and what the book would say if it could be translated, “Since we’re on the subject, when are you going to come back to the office? Where are you?”
“Not for a while; at least not till tomorrow. Robin and I are waiting in a room in the hospital. Javan and Sakaki are in Dr. Takahashi laboratory, having their wounds tended to,” Amon explained quickly, trying to figure out the best way to tell Michael what had happened to his friend. Before the dark hunter could continue speaking, the hacker cut him off.
“Where is Bryton?” Michael asked worriedly, his voice obviously tense as his mind drifted over to the sad truth, “Amon, he isn’t, he can’t be…” He trailed off, handing the phone over to Doujima.
“Tell Michael that we did everything we could to save him, but Bryton was killed by a witch. His body was taken away by the same person,” Amon said slowly, hearing Doujima’s breath catch in her throat, “And that I’m sorry.” Robin tentatively patted the back of Amon’s hand, trying to comfort him without getting too close.
“I’ll tell him,” Doujima muttered, her voice chilled with the shock that ran through her veins, “Goodbye.” She hung up the phone and did as Amon had instructed her to.
“Robin, it seems like we have something new to deal with,” Amon muttered, leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, “It’s too much of a coincidence that on the exact same day that Bryton goes missing and dies, two children show up and give you a gift. A gift that seems to be the match for an item sewn into an article of Bryton’s clothing, that wouldn’t have been found unless he hadn’t been at the office.” He closed his near-black eyes, shutting out the unnatural glow shot out by the fluorescent tubes hidden behind clear plastic panels.
“We don’t know it’s a match,” Robin said half-heartedly, wringing her hands at the very thought that the witches had killed Bryton just so they could torment the hunters further, “Besides, the witches wouldn’t send children out like that. They barely looked like they were ten years old.” She sat down on the bed that was meant to be hers, clinging tightly to the crisp white pillow.
“Yes, they would, Robin. The real matter at hand is why they’re giving us these silver pieces. They must have some significance,” Amon said exasperatedly, clearly annoyed by the simple fact he didn’t have all the answers set before him.
“It isn’t going to do us any good to sit here and comb our minds for information we don’t have,” Robin said strongly, pushing back the blankets on her bed, “Tomorrow, we can go back to the office and start to run the translation programs on the book. That’ll probably help. But, for tonight, we need to rest in case something happens again.” She lay down, adjusting herself slightly before she was comfortable.
“I’ll sit up for a little while. We need to be on our guard,” Amon said resignedly, seeing the pure logic in Robin’s thinking but too tense to even consider sleeping. He quietly flicked off most of the lights, leaving a small table lamp on to illuminate the entire room as it drifted in to silence.
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