Summary:Some pieces of the puzzle start to fill in with the discovery of the earliest victim.
The mission with the new double black went by fairly smooth in the span of an hour, as they had recovered the missing files and had managed to not kill any of the other gang members. With the last of the gang members cuffed and brought out of the warehouse, Atsushi turns to his partner, a smile playing across his lips. Akutagawa has a thin trail of blood running down the left side of his cheek from having a surprise punch earlier, though the man that hit him made it out of the scuffle with a broken arm rather than skewered.
It made Atsushi proud that Akutagawa wasn't killing people anymore, and that the man had calmed down from his deep obsession of Dazai for months now. No longer did the dark haired man desire to make his old mentor proud, but he had a different goal to impress Atsushi by not killing anyone. The way the grey-haired boy's long strand of hair softly waved in the wind, to the way the loose part of his belt swished behind him like a tiger walking along the jungles. Everything about Atsushi made his heart pound, and his stomach flutter with what seemed like a thousand butterflies.
Akutagawa loved spending every waking minute with the other, though he didn't know if Atsushi held the same feelings for him. For now, he would stay silent about what he felt as he gazed up to the other, only for the younger boy to look away with a slight blush on his face. These feelings started coming up after the third month of working together, and that's when his obsession for Dazai slowly fizzled out like a dying flame.
Atsushi looks away from the other after meeting his dark eyes. 'Why am I feeling like this?' The boy wonders as he straightens back out the best he could manage and takes a deep breath to turn back to the other. Rubbing the back of his neck he speaks "So um I guess we should get going to Dazai-sans location."
Akutagawa straightens out his face as he nods, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. They both start to walk to the entrance of the warehouse, the only sound between them they're light breathing and clacking footsteps. Atsushi had debriefed the taller man earlier on the way to their mission point about what Dazai was supposed to be investigating. Atsushi looks over to the docks they had just passed after exiting the warehouse pretty quickly.
"So what do you think about the case me and Dazai-san are working on?" The grey-haired boy asks the other, curious of what the others answer would be.
Akutagawa sighs for a low minute, mulling the words around in his head. He looks up at the darkened evening sky, the lights of the city glimmering in the background and The sounds of eerie boat horns blowing gives a chill to the light breeze. Yokohama was the most beautiful this time of day, more glamorous at dark. "It doesn't sound like a normal person is killing any of these people." Atsushi hears as he snaps his head back over to gaze at Aku.
"If the hearts were all burst inside the chest with that much force, with no exit wounds or bomband chemical residue. Then surely it must be an ability user. Although I've never heard of such an ability, and anyone that has an ability like that in this city can be considered dangerous." The taller man goes to say, a hand on his chin in thought. "Considering also we have no idea who it is, or what they look like. Especially how their ability works."
"Do you think they were committing those crimes alone, or do they have help?" Atsushi asks the other lowly as to not draw any attention to themselves. He looks down, a grim look painted across his face "It's scary to think that someone like that is walking the very streets that civilians do, including us. We don't know who they are or what they might look like." he rambles out, squeezing his hands together nervously.
A sigh breaks from Aku's mouth as he reaches over and pats the others head lightly "Calm down, I'm sure we can handle ourselves. We have so far, with Rashoumon and your ability, we can take them down." Those words were a bit more reassuring to Atsushi as he tries to calm down. Just as he's about to say something else a hand drops on his shoulder spooking him.
A screech escapes past his lips and hops away from the hand fixing to activate his ability when he stops in light shock. Blinking stupidly he thinks 'Huh? I can't activate my ability.' A revelation then goes through his head as his shoulders drop 'I know only one person capable of doing so..' With his mouth set, he sneaks a look back to his mentor that's smirking like an evil scientist.
Akutagawa is just giving the other a dull look like a light but a rough cough escapes past his throat "I assume you're here to pick up, Jinko?"
Dazai smiles with a nod of his head. "You bet. We need to get through this mission quick. I just recently acquired a new suicide book that I want to try out!" The coo that comes from the bandaged man is like nails on a chalkboard.
The grey-haired boy sighs, rubbing some strands of hair out of his face "Let's just get this over with." He proceeds to walk forward, eager to go to a tea shop as soon as possible. "That woman that was killed last night. Where are we supposed to go?" He asks only for Dazai to grab his wrist and pull him back. When Atsushi looks back to his mentor, instead of finding a mischievous look he finds a grim one.
Akutagawa notices the change of the atmosphere, raising his brow up in question "What is it? You just went quiet."
Dazai slumps as he gently says "Another victim was found an hour ago."
Like a lightning strike, Atsushi and Aku give each other crossed looks as they look back over to Dazai. "Attacking in broad daylight, now?" The younger boy asks horrified at the prospect. He gives his mentor an equally grim look "Who was the victim this time?"
"The victim was a 26-year-old female from a rich family located in Germany. Something must have spooked the attacker because they took the wallet with the ID and money, but didn't notice that the girl had another ID, one that was expired. The cops looked into her, and have informed the family. They said that she had just arrived in Yokohama this morning for vacation." He looks up from the notes he had taken previously. "The best part of all of this…" He draws out as he takes out a tape with a slight smirk.
"A videotape, but how?" Atsushi asks bewildered.
The smirk on the older man's face widens "The woman ran into an alleyway that just so happened to be controlled by a business, that just so happened to have security camera's in that area." He giggles as his eyes sparkled with a glint "They messed up this time."
Atsushi smiles happily "Does that mean me and Aku can go to the teashops? We'll have this case wrapped up in no time with that tape!"
"Hopefully, this case is eating up my time," Dazai says as he shoots a hand out and wrangles Atsushi against his chest with a surprised squeak. "But no, we have to watch this tape, and find out who the killer is back in the office." As such the annoyance by the name of Dazai starts to drag the unwilling Atsushi back to the ADA office.
An hour later sitting in the darkened office, sits the three bored men watching the hours of clips the security camera held. Clip after clip of dull footage, the hope for a break, in this case, seemed less and less hopeful. Thumping his head against the desk, Atsushi rubs his tired eyes and stands up with his stomach growling. Dazai shares a rare sympathetic look to the tiger, as he runs a hand through his hair as he pauses the footage.
"Why don't you and Akutagawa go to get something to eat at the teashops." He glances back at the open laptop a small pout in his lips "It seems like there's nothing going on, and a high chance nothing will happen. This was a possible lead, a lead that hasn't been checked out yet."
Atsushi bows, thankful to his mentor "Thank you so much Dazai-san!" Standing back up he shares a look to Aku "Let's go Akutagawa."
Dazai watches the two young men disappear behind the door, as he's left alone in the darkening office. Unpausing the footage he continues to watch for another half hour until something interesting comes across the screen. A woman that had been killed earlier today runs crazily past the alleyway, obviously looking for a place to hide. The shop was closed for the day and thus couldn't provided safety for the woman. She looked around, eventually running into the alleyway where she was found.
Going out of screenshot, nothing happens for about 5 minutes, in the corner of the screen small flares of red appear as though a gun had gone off. It had matched up with the woman as she was found with a gun. So she was shooting at something or someone in that alleyway. Three more shots are fired before everything went still once again. An hour passes afterward and no one has yet to emerge from the alleyway.
'What had spooked the attackers though?' He mentally questions as he rewinds the tape, and finally sees a police cruiser drive by for a few seconds before going out of sight, it was barely in the sights of the camera. He keeps rewinding, going through the footage, trying to figure this whole thing out but nothing was showing of any attacker. Right as he's about to throw in the towel, he sees a small puddle of water in the sights of the camera.
Leaning forward with his brow scrunched together, his focus completely on the puddle. He stops the tape after the gunshots go off, skipping a few minutes after the police cruiser goes by. He notices that the water rippled. 'Wait, what? What was that?' He thinks as he continues to replay that part 'That ripple didn't look like a raindrop; it wasn't raining today. The sky was clear, so why?' Something then clicks in his mind as he thinks out loud "Oh my god…"