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Chapter Eighteen: Blood Test:

July 7th, 1990.

The city clinic in Kobe, Japan opened for the day. Daisuke walked in as his eyes shifted around. Not many people around the waiting room, but he still felt judged.

They can smell that woman on me! Thinking about his mother angered him all over again. The flames danced in his eyes as he could feel his heart pounded up to his throat. The young man closed his eyes and breathed in short circles.

Don't let her break you down again/, he thought. /You are not her toy anymore. Don't do this crap again. Daisuke drew his eyes open again. The smell of disinfectant filled his nose.

"Excuse me mister," someone spoke up. Daisuke jerked his head upwards to see a young nurse staring straight at him. She looked a bit younger than him. Daisuke blankly eyed her.

"Huh?" he asked. "Are… you a nurse here?"

"Yes," the girl said. "Well… actually, I'm shadowing a nurse for the summer." Daisuke nodded with a puzzled face.

"Okay…" he mumbled.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Sure!" the young man blurted out. "I need a…"

"What?" the young nurse asked.

"A blood test," he forced out. The nurse eyed him.

"Okay," she said. "May I ask the purpose of this test?" Daisuke felt his face burn.

"Can I talk to a doctor?" he asked. "You're not helping." The nurse frowned at him.

"You don't have to be so rude," the girl said.

"Sorry!" he said. The girl calmed down.

"Right," she said. The young nurse turned to leave. Daisuke tried to keep it together. She's just a kid. Don't take out your frustration on her. "Hey!" he spoke up. The nurse stopped and glanced over her shoulder.

"Yes?" she asked. Daisuke swallowed his pride.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just a bit stressed out at the moment." The nurse didn't blink.

"Okay…" she said. Daisuke shuffled his feet.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Nancy," the nurse said. "Ikeda Nancy." Daisuke gave her a little smile.

"I'm Kimoto Daisuke," he said.

January 9th, 2010.

Watari set two packets down on his desk. One had the blood sample of the Todai guinea pigs. The other was Daisuke's blood results. Yesterday, Tsuzuki came to him with both.

"What are these?" his friend asked.

"I need you to test the sample here," Tsuzuki said as he handed him the smaller packet.

"Does it pertain to the case?" the blonde scientist asked.

"Yes," Tsuzuki said.

"And the other packet there?"

The other shinigami felt a cold chill go up his spine as he hesitated. "Daisuke's blood test results."

Watari blinked at him. "Why do you have these?"

"Anna got them from Nancy before she died."

"Oh…" Both remembered how that came about. Because of Anna's "job" that night, a woman ended up dead at the hands of an escaped soul. As a result, everyone at Ju-Oh-Cho gave him dirty looks. Despite not talking to her about it, he and Anna didn't want to think about the punishment to come.

"Did they decide what to do with her?" Watari asked. Tsuzuki shook his head.

"She won't tell me," he said.

"And what do you want with the results?" Watari asked.

"What do they say?" Tsuzuki asked. "Please do the blood test first." Watari gave him a weary look.

"What?" Tsuzuki asked.

"You're starting to make the Eda-Kimoto case personal," he said. The other shinigami frowned.

"You're sounding like Hisoka," he mumbled. "Just get the results."

"Alright," Watari said, shrugging. Now, here he was setting up with work. To him, half of it didn't feel right.

/Tsuzuki, you're letting this get to you/, he thought. However, Watari had his own motives. He was curious about Anna's kitsune as well. Maybe, Daisuke's blood results could provide some much desired insight. But first…

"I have to run the Todai blood," the blonde scientist said.

Meanwhile at Haruka's house, the kitsune came together to talk.

"Can you hear her?" Aki asked.

"Yes," the others said.

"She's calling us," Shiroko whispered. "Mother is calling us."

"More like killing us," Kohaku said. "What do we do?"

"Killing us?" Yayoi, Nobu's kitsune, asked.

"Yeah!" Kohaku forced out. "I'm hurting more than ever lately."

"Are you in pain now?" Shiroko asked.

"A little," it said. Shichiro's kitsune took in heavy breaths. Shiroko stroked its back.

"Take in smaller breaths," she whispered. Kohaku nodded through slower breaths. That's when Shiroko remembered something.

"Hey guys," she said. "Have you been feeling a bit strange lately?"

"No," the other two kitsune said. However, another thought came into their minds.

"Now that you mention it," Aki spoke up. "I haven't felt hungry for souls lately."

"Neither have I," Yayoi said.

"See?" Kohaku croaked. "Mother is trying to kill her children!"

"You're going too far with that accusation!" Aki declared.

"But what if it's right?" Yayoi asked. Yasuo's kitsune closed his mouth. They all looked at Shiroko.

"If that is the case, what do we do?" Aki asked. "It's not like we have any true ties to Haruka's family, right? Right?" The others didn't speak as Shiroko shrugged.

"Stay until the end," she said. "If we die, then so be it. It'll be our mother's will."

Meanwhile in the lab, Watari's search and test turned up stunning results.

"No way!" he gasped. The blonde scientist picked up his phone and dialed Tsuzuki's number.

"Oh good, Tsuzuki. I'm so glad I caught you," he said. "You're gonna need to hear this!"