Back at the police station Dazai arrives back to the room after his short walk in streets. His excuse being that he had something to check out, and said he'd be back. When he comes back to the meeting room he sees that Chuuya and Akutagawa were gone leaving Atsushi in the room looking around nervously. He turns to the tiger after sitting down "Where did the hatrack, and Ryu go?"
Atsushi turns to give his mentor a small smile, hands in his lap "Oh um they were both called in for another assignment, it was of importance and they couldn't skip out on it. Ryu said he would contact me when he's done and the two of us will go to the teashop again tonight. Chuuya on the other hand said that he was possibly stopping by a bar on the way back to his apartment." The tiger leans back slightly in his chair "Did you have a nice walk Dazai-san?"
Dazai nods with a small air of confidence "Yes I did." A sigh escapes his lips "Though I didn't find someone willing to commit double suicide with me."
Atsushi has a sweatdrop form on his forehead his own sigh escapes past his lips "Yep I knew you'd say that." He then gets a bit more serious as he looks back down to his lap. "They should be bringing the victim in soon, the detective sent me back here saying my presence wasn't needed there seeing as it's the same cause of death as all the others."
Dazai nods as he rests his hands on his chin in thought "Was the dead victim male or female?"
"Female in her mid twenties is what the detective told me, apparently the suspects left and didn't take the woman's wallet with them. Her partner is female as well, about the same age range." Atsushi informs his mentor.
"They didn't take the wallet because they knew it would have been pointless. One of the two victims got away, so even if they did take the wallet, the partner could of told the police everything." The bandaged man says just as the door opens and detective Walters walks through the doorway followed by a woman that looked a little over 5 feet, black shoulder length hair, wearing a light blue jacket, and tan pants. Her emerald green eyes slightly puffy from crying, as the light of the room shines off her tan skin, the detective pulls out a chair for the woman as she takes a seat.
The door of the room closes, and once everyone is seated does Walters speaks with a softness in his tone "Miss, I'm sorry for your loss. I know right now is a tough time for you, but we need to know details of the case, maybe you can be the breakthrough that can crack this case wide open."
The woman wipes her eyes lightly with a tissue, her voice low and meek "My name is Asuka Saito. My partner's name was Mai Valero, the two of us were engaged and were planning on getting married next year when the Sakura trees blossomed."
The detective nods shaking her hand lightly as he crosses his fingers together "Again I'm sorry for your loss miss Saito. Now it's very important that we get as much information as possible in your statement. We want to get this case broken open, and justice served for the victims of the case. Now give me the details of what you two were doing before you were attacked, and details as best as you can of when the attack was going on."
Asuka nods a small hiccup coming up her throat as she begins "Well me and Mia, today we both had a rare day off on both of our work schedules so we decided to go hang out together, and go to this popular bar and grill we have always got a drink and a bite to eat at. We went inside about 3 hours ago, and chatted about are upcoming plans in life, our future together, and stuff about how our work was going. The two of us had a good time together, so once we had our fun we split the bill, and went on our way. For awhile as we were walking there was this person behind us that would turn every corner we would, and she never showed her face."
"She? What color hair did she have? How long was her hair? What was she wearing?" The detective is quick to fire off the questions, his brow furrowed and focused. "Lastly how did you know it was a girl?"
The woman eyes go wide at the barrage of questions but then cuts back to the table surface as memories go through her brain at a time "I could tell by the body structure of the person's see I work in the fashion line and I know the body structures of men and women of all sizes. She had brownish red hair that was slightly curly in places but mostly straight that went down almost to her back. She had her hair framing her face sticking out of the hoodie that was over her head. I could tell she had a light tan but mostly white skin, and I estimated about five foot, ten inches tall. On her hands she was wearing black biker like gloves I think, but they were definitely black. Though the hoodie she had on was black with white stripes down the sides and arms, dark red skinny jeans, and tennis shoes." the woman names off very detailed as the detective has a tape recorder going in the room for evidence later on down the road.
"Did she ever show her face? Like the color of her eyes?" Walters questions once again.
"Yes. When the two of us figured out that something was wrong, we tried running, and she gave chase. She had a gun with her, and before we knew it we ran into an alleyway of some of the nastier sides of the slums. There we were at a dead end, when she ran into the alleyway with us blocking our path. It's then I saw her face, and her eyes were like honey." Asuka says as she starts choking up, tears welling up in her eyes at the memory.
"Tell me was this the girl you saw? The picture is outdated but the features in someone's face always stays the same." Walters asks her as he picks up the remote and clicks the screen back on for the woman to see, and the reaction is near instant as a small cry escapes her lips.
"Yes that's her! She took off her gloves, and ran at the two of us. We thought that she was going to shoot us so we tried fighting against her, and we kicked out at her. Though the next thing we knew she grabbed ahold of our wrists. I felt a burning on the inside of my wrist, and she just let go. There were no gunshots, nothing. The next thing I know Mia is clutching her chest, gasping for air, and I tried to help her but she pushed me away and tried to get me to get help….." She's silent for a few moments as she mutters out lowly "I'll never forget the sight of Mia's heart pumping red in that girls hands, smiling gleefully down to Mia. I don't remember how I got away but next thing I knew I was running to a stop in front of a police cruiser in a panicked run. By the time the police came back for me, I knew that Mia was dead."
"Do you remember anymore people with her? Can you show us this mark?" Walters asks gently, trying to comfort the woman as best as he could, knowing she's going through a difficult time at the moment.
Asuka turns over her wrist to show them, on her arm is a black mark that has what looks like a burned heart with a beautiful cursive B in the middle of it. Walters takes out a camera as he takes a photo of the mark for even more evidence.
"Well…" She begins but before she can say anything more her eyes go wide. Her hand instantly reaches up to clutch at her heart, as small gasps of breath breaks through her lips. Walters is alert and on his feet calling someone through the phone for an ambulance. Atsushi is standing back in surprise but not really knowing what's going on. As Dazai notices the mark glowing, with the black heart almost realistically pumping wildly on the girls skin like it had a mind of it's own. In seconds he grabs his hand over the girls wrist in hopes of disabling the mark or ability, but nothing happens.
"Why can't you disable it?" The tiger asks in a panic behind the bandaged man.
The girls lips are turning blue, and not even two second later she stills, and her body slumps over on the table surface. It's then blood starts pouring out from between her lips, her teeth stained red with thick bubbling crimson. Her eyes go dim, the light dying out in her eyes, still wide with panic, as her limp hand slides from her chest and into her lap.
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" The detective is shouting as he runs his hands through his hair in frustration. Atsushi is looking in horror at the now dead woman laying on the table in front of him. There was nothing that he could have done, and since Dazai's ability didn't work on the mark, that meant he would have had to disable the ability user themselves in person while they were using their ability.
He looks over to Dazai that slowly takes the same wrist on the woman from before only to discover that it was gone. "As I thought, the only way to get rid of the mark is death." He says lowly.
"Did she predict this?" The tiger asks once again, eyes shining against the artificial lights overhead.
"Yes." Dazai answers back. "She wanted to kill this woman in front of us, knowing that we would be getting a statement from her."
The detective is on the phone with someone else out in the hallway, ranting a bit as he threw his hands in the air frantically. His eyebrows pinched together, and face wrinkled up almost resembling a prune left out in the sun to dry. Atsushi looks back down at the growing blood pool, that's now dripping off the table in long strides of crimson. The woman's skin ashen in such a short timeframe, as he clenches his teeth. It all happened so fast, he's sure nobody really predicted this outcome.
"That's the end of our session." A man in his mid 50's says as he walks into the room. His greying hair peppered with streaks of silver and grey. A lone beard that looked to be neatly trimmed stood out on his face, as his chocolate eyes looks down to the woman. His coat slightly soaked as he puts an umbrella off to the side of the room, the black fabric knocking off water particles into the sleek basket just for such objects. "It'd be a waste of time to send her body off to an autopsy, since we know the cause of her death. She'll be sent to the same morgue as her partner for funeral preparations once we get ahold of there family." The man takes his eyes off the gory sight to look at Dazai. "You two may go for now, we'll give you a call when we need you to come in again."
"Understood." Dazai says lowly as he stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks to the entrance "Atsushi lets go."
Atsushi nods proceeding to follow his mentor "Yes sir." The two walk out of the police station, a sadness in his heart over the woman. They end up working at the office for the rest of the day, well Atsushi more so than Dazai, said man sneaking sheets of his work over to the tigers desk when he thought no one was looking. Though throughout the day Atsushi's been getting these weird vibes since coming back to the office. It felt like he was being watched as the cackles on his neck raised.
His lilac purple eyes look out a window after getting the feeling again in the copy room, as the papers were copying off, he tries to see what his instincts were biting at him about. Outside the sun was going down signaling almost the end of the office hours before everyone went home for the day. Earlier he got a text message from Aku that he couldn't make it for the tea shop that night, for he got called for another assignment and couldn't skip it. The boss wanted his expertise in the job, so he was in a bind. Atsushi told him not to worry about it, and hoped they could meet another time. Everyone was making last minute assignments as they were fixing to head home. Yosano and Kouyka were about to head out to there shared apartment, the girl having moved in with the older woman a few months prior, leaving Atsushi all alone in that apartment.
A chill came through the tigers body as he cuts his eyes back to the window, breaking out of thought only to see someone staring at him from the shadows in an alleyway of a shop across from the agency building. He could only see the lower half of there face, but he could tell by the cruel but manic smirk across the person face, that there intentions were not good. When they see him turn to look at them the smirk only grows bigger, and as they stand there for a few more seconds, they turned on there heel, and walk back into the darkness.
'Am I there target?' Atsushi thinks his eyes growing wide with fear, clutching the papers with fear. His body slightly shaking 'Should I tell someone? Should I tell Dazai?' The tiger thinks as he looks around the room, moving away from the window. The beeping of the machine finishing with the copies snaps his out of his panicked thoughts. Quickly gathering up the papers, he makes a mad dash back to the main office, and turns in the papers. Dazai, Kunikida, and him are the only ones left in the office, seeing as everyone else has left already.
"Your done for today Atsushi, you may go home. See you tomorrow, and be prepared for any new cases coming into the office." Kunikida says in a serious tone and goes back to finishing the last of his paperwork. Atsushi turns to Dazai.
"Aren't you going to go home as well Dazai-san?" He asks meekly.
"He has a few more pages of paperwork to finish, and only then I'll allow him to go home. I'll be staying here of course to make sure that the bandage waster doesn't slack off." The glasses wearer says pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He sits back down at his desk, and picks back up a pen from a holder on the desk surface. "Go home Atsushi, don't start feeling sorry for someone like him."
'That's not what I'm worried about. I was so hoping that Dazai would be going home, so I wouldn't be walking home alone.' Atsushi thinks frantically. He shakes his head lightly as he nods. "Yes sir." Is his response. With no other choice he walks outside the building, hugging his chest as he walks home in the cool night air.
When he's about a mile from his apartment he leans against a building, looking out into the night. Worry filling his chest like a damn with a big crack while holding back tons of water.
"Are you Atsushi Nakajima?" He hears near his ear. The voice purs out, the breath from the question tickling the back of his ear, as he feels a presence behind him.