Then he saw the message written in blood.
"I'm sorry Tsuki."
"Why...?" he asked, allowing his voice to quiver, but only in the slightest. "Why is my name included in his last moment? What have I ever done to deserve that? Doing the lieutenant's paperwork? That hardly counts. We barely spoke to each other, except for when he gave me an assignment or I was turning in completed files. So why..."
Tsukiro's voice broke off and he threw his gaze away from the captain and to one of the frozen, icy walls.
Kisuke looked to Toshiro then shifted his gaze to Hyourinmaru. "I have to know. What happened?”
Hyourinmaru walked over to Tsukiro, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder and pointing to the earring with the other. Sensing all the turmoil the boy was in, he offered a reply to the shopkeeper, "Ask this boy, he already knows."
Kisuke glanced at Tsukiro but spoke to Hyourinmaru. "How would Tsukiro know what happened in here? He was not here,” he stated. “You were." Kisuke looked back to Hyourinmaru.
"Yet he already understands perfectly, but you do not. Why?" Hyourinmaru asked, turning to look at Kisuke.
“Hyourinmaru, I know what happened in here and I know what you saw, but you also know Kita is the seraph. The seraph is not allowed to kill. What happened in here--” Kisuke paused in his explanation, looking at Toshiro, Tsukiro, Juushiro and Hyourinmaru once again. “Yes. It was Kita’s body you saw. But it was NOT Kita’s mind that was controlling her. I will find out who was and I will deal with them accordingly. I promise you that.”
Kisuke cast his eyes around there surroundings and narrowed in on something by the tomb. There, on the cave floor frozen in the ice, was a sheath to a dagger. Kisuke quickly kneeled down then looked to the others in the cave with him.
“I need to get to that.” He pointed to the sheath in the ice.
An instant later, a flash of red flame lit the ice. Juushiro knelt with the warm ball hovering in his hand. "If you think that can help solve why this happened, then we have no reason to delay." He lowered his hand and the flame to the ice, slowly melting the thick coating away.
Turning to his friend as he worked, he inquired in a low voice, "Kisuke, are you saying - that Kita is innocent?" He couldn't deny the small glimmer of hope that rose in his voice and he pushed more of reiatsu into the ball of flame, speeding up the melting process.
