The officer just shakes his head, a few more officers moving past him to collect evidence from the crime scene. "I can't tell you all the details mam. All we know is that someone called 119 about 10 minute ago. We got the ambulance here as fast as possible." He breaths out a heavy sigh "Can I ask you a few questions mam?"
She shakes her head, pulling her shawl over her shoulders "Yes sir. Anything I can help with."
The man clears his throat, pulling out a pad and paper, ready to write. "Ok first up. Does this man live alone? Did he have any visitors recently, or anyone that comes by his place at times?"
The woman's thoughts go to the four men that went up to the others apartment building. She walked away from that commotion before she could even see if they ever went up to the door. She cleared her own throat, gazing up at the stern yet serious eyes of the officer. "Well not to long ago, I would say less than an hour ago, there were these four men that stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to his apartment building. They said that they needed to discuss something very important with him, and they asked me about him, so I told them. I needed to go at that moment to get something to eat from the soup kitchen nearby, and I left them." She shakes her head still in a mild form of shock, "I just came back from that place to this situation. His name is Tobias Steiner, and he's in his middle aged years, I don't exactly know how old he is."
The officer nodded his head, being sure not to leave out any details pertained to him. He keeps writing down everything from what she explained to the four men from before. At the end he closes the notepad and puts it in his shirt pocket, nodding his head once more. "Thanks for the help mam. Did you happen to remember what these four men looked like?"
She nods "Yes I do sir."
"Do you mind coming down to the station with us and explaining all of this to the sketch artist?" He asks her again.
The woman nodded, walking with the officer as he lead her to the cop car. "Thank you mam, this is a big help to us. We'll track down the guy that brings him his groceries when he comes around, and the landlord over the apartment complex. We can't rule out anyone at this point, for we need to look at this case at all angles."
*Small Flashback with Beatrix*
Tobias is choking on his own blood as Beatrix holds up a still wet and bloody tongue. She gets off of him, and gets off the bed. The knife used to do the gruesome crime, still held between her gloved fingers. The headmaster is limp, breath at a fast rate through his nose, as his eyes are bulged out of his skull. She looks at her marvelous work, excited that the man was still alive.
Cracking a smile she speaks "Theo, you can take your hand off his neck. There is no need for that anymore. He can't scream anymore, unless he wants to drown in his own blood. Take that device off of his head while your at it too."
Theo nods his head, and starts with that work. "What do we do about fingerprints?"
Beatrix waved that question off with an eyeroll. "Don't worry about that, I got that covered. Alena went back into the living room to collect the pieces that we need to pull this off." She shrugs happily "Those so called detectives were here, so that's perfect."
Theo quick with work has the device off the man's head, and puts it on the bed covers to pick up later. He turns to the shorter girl "What about the cables?"
"Take them off as well. They've done their damage, so it's not like he can run away now can he?" Beatrix cackles out lowly, she folded her hands watching Theo cut the cords loose instead of cutting them off completely, cutting some of the tightness away. "That's better, turn him over so he doesn't choke on his own blood, and die before the paramedics come over to patch him up." She claps her hands together in glee "I need him to survive and suffer a whole lot more. He can't die yet, I hold his life in my hands, and only I say when he dies." she says in a menacing, yet honey sweet tone.
"You seem a bit too excited for this boss." Theo hums out as he had turned Tobias onto his chest area, his head slightly hanging off the edge of the bed, and crimson droplets dropping down into a slowly expanding pool of red. "Though that was fun I gotta admit, so how do you plan to get out of this one?" the taller man asks, putting his hands in his pockets.
"I got my way. Just like all the other times in the past for covering my tracks." Beatrix says softly with confidence, her eyes meeting with Tobias, that was still conscious, and looking straight at her. She cocks her head to the side, mocking him. "How does it feel to be sitting there injured beyond repair, always in fear for your life? Yet all the company you've got are the ones that put you in that condition." She taps her finger against the side of her face, as she sees his eyes go wide. "That's how I felt all those times you and your crew used to treat me in that orphanage, headmaster. That's how all those kids that I burned down with the building felt, but that doesn't matter now." She gets up from her spot, and makes the small tread to him, she stops just a bit from him. "I'm going to call for help, but just a warning dear." She says holding up a finger as she brings out a burner phone. "If you somehow find a way to communicate with the law, don't you breathe a word of mine, or the others presence here. Do you understand?"
Tobias just nods, close to losing consciousness, the blood loss closing in on him. Just as he loses consciousness he sees her putting the phone to his ear. Beatrix turns as she had watched the older man lose what consciousness he was hanging onto, turning she sees Alena approach her. The other end of the phone picks up with a woman speaking professionally.
"Hello this is 119, what seems to be the problem?"
Beatrix puts on her glamour, handing the phone to Alena. Alena with her accent would make it harder to track, not being from around here. "Um there is an injured man at the apartment buildings on the east end of the city! The apartment buildings are called 'Yoko Apartments', please come here as fast as you can!"
"Hold up mam, is he still breathing?"
"Yes he's still breathing, I don't know his current condition, I'm afraid of touching the body, and I don't know CPR either." She really put on a show for the lady on the other end, her voice sounding pleading and near hysterical. "Please come here, I don't know what to do! He doesn't look to good, he's bleeding from the mouth, and his limbs are tied with electrical wire!"
"Mam, mam please try to remain calm. We've dispatched help and it's currently on the way. Try to stay on the line, and we'll get through this until the ambulance arrives. Listen is the attacker still in the area?"
"I don't know! I'm the friend of his, and he wasn't answering his door, so I got the door open and found him in his bedroom like this! Please come he-" She goes to say when she drops the phone, and stomps on it. Once she had stomped the phone to pieces does the russian girl drop her acting, she turns to gaze over to the other two. "We should go. They aren't that far away." She points to the device on the bed covers boredly "Take that with us, if we leave it behind it will spell trouble for us."
Theo nods grabbing ahold of the device, as the two girls hold onto the man. Just as the police and ambulance sirens roared into the area, do the three disappear out of thin air.
Not 3 minutes later do a group of policemen bust through the door of the man's bedroom. They look around to see a man from the description the dispatcher told them about, laying on the bed, and quickly order for a stretcher. They split up in the place looking around, for another victim, but in the end didn't find anything.
*Back to the Present*
In a small but quaint cafe owned by the Port Mafia, sits the four men chatting while enjoying some coffee. Soukou and the new Soukou on each side of the medium sized booth, listening to the hum of the music in the background, and the other customers ordering or sitting far off on their computer, or with a partner. Atsushi sighs "I can't believe that guy."
"You telling me, doing something like that to kids that young. It's just sickening." Chuuya says behind the rim of his steaming black coffee. "Though I can't blame the girl for going as far as she did." He says casually taking a sip of the cooling liquid. "Even so she shouldn't have brought other innocent children into the mix, if it was me I would have decked the hell out of that guys face instead."
"When I was in the orphanage, I hated the way the other kids treated me, but I didn't hate them enough to wish death upon them." Atsushi says lowly, having opened up about speaking about is his past with the help of Akutagawa. The two of them would sometimes when they didn't feel like going out for tea or to eat, they would eat in one or the others apartment. Then spend the rest of the night talking about past experiences, and about work. Although he still wasn't very comfortable speaking about his experience to other people out in public.
Of course Dazai and Chuuya knew about them, but for the most part kept their mouths shut. After all, neither of them had very good pasts either. Chuuya nods "Yeah me to, though my style of handling the situation was to kick or punch them really hard, and that taught them never to mess with me again." He cuts his eyes over to Dazai that's sitting near the window "Though one of them never learned to leave me the hell alone."
Dazai just turns to him with a really sweet smile, that was both cunning and sly. "Oh you love me chibi!" He doesn't make it very far in reaching out to touch the redheads arm, does said redhead pull away with a scoff.
"What do you mean? I don't love you, I just put up with you all these years." He then points at the bandaged man nearly sloshing hot coffee in his mug out across the table "Don't call me chibi! I'm 22 years old for god's sakes!"
"Sure say that all you want, but I know you by now. We weren't partners for all those years for nothing after all." Dazai teases the other, making Chuuya nearly slosh coffee out once more, as Atsushi squeaks out in surprise.
"Um Chuuya, you nearly hit me with hot coffee." Atsushi speaks up from the window seat across the table. "I would very much like to keep my skin."
"Oh you would have healed from it, don't whine so much about it." The redhead shoots back, nearly making Atsushi deflate into himself at the sass Chuuya brought to the table.
"Wow great way of caring for me." The tiger says lowly. He turns to see his partner sitting at the table reading a book, glasses perched on the top of his nose. This was his way of ignoring Chuuya and Dazai's bickering the two of them knew would happen one way or another, being in the same vicinity as one another. Aku always carried a book around in his coat, in case for situations like this, or for the simple fact that he just liked to sit and read in a quiet setting, like a coffee shop.
He's tried to get Atsushi into reading but had no such luck, for the tiger was never one to read very many books growing up. He was more watching movies, and simple shows like what he gets on that old box TV.
Atsushi sighs into himself as he tries to take a peek at the cover of the book his partner was currently reading. "What are you reading?" he asks the other lowly, but loud enough to be heard over the bickering of the two older men across from the two of them.
Akutagawa cuts his eyes over to the tiger "Something that wouldn't interest a brain like yours jinko." He turns his eyesight back to the book, and turns a page. He then reaches into his pocket to pull out another book, handing it to the tiger gently.
Atsushi looks at the title to see that it was called 'Doctor Sleep', by a man named Steven King. It was a weird name for someone to have, but of course someone from outside of the country would find his name weird all the same. He looks back up to Akutagawa confused yet curious. "What country was this published in?"
Without taking his eyes off of his own book, he answers the tiger. "In the united states of america as they like to call that country over there. That mans a famous author back in the states, and he's written a lot of different books. I found a few online that were translated into japanese, and decided to try them out. That's one of them, check it out if you want to, it's better than listening to those two arguing amongst each other."
"Is that what your reading?" Atsushi asks him once more, running his hands over the smooth surface of the book cover.
Akutagawa nods "No, it's another book I've been meaning to finish for awhile now. I'll read one when I get through with this one here." He glances over to the tiger "Are you going to read that or not?"
Atsushi jumps a bit as he shakes his head "Oh." He looks down to the book, that doesn't look that thick laying in his hands. "Yeah I'll try it tonight when I get home, if I don't like it, I'll text you and hand it back to you whenever." He puts it in his lap afraid of setting it down on the table surface in fear that the coffee Chuuya is holding in his hands still, threatening to slosh all over the place, would get on the book.
Akutagawa nods his head, his focus going back to his book. Atsushi decides to see how far the argument has gotten for the two older men. Chuuya has one hand on Dazai's throat, while the other is holding the still steaming coffee. The redhead has a peeved look across his face, teeth clenched as he's half trying to choke the life out of his bandaged mentor, and half trying not to spill hot coffee all over himself and the table.
"God damn bandaged wasting bastard! I'll choke the hell out of you if it wasn't for this coffee in my hands!" The redhead half yells out, trying not to draw attention to himself. Though as Atsushi glances around the cafe, he sees that his method of half yelling hasn't been successful, as a man choking the hell out of another man doesn't happen in your everyday cafe. The woman behind the counter up front looks so close to just getting on the phone with the police, looking around awkwardly. Though she never reaches for the phone, she must have been new to the cafe, because all the other workers wouldn't even bat an eye to the commotion.
Another worker walks up to her as she points towards there table, and not even a minute later the worker just rolls their eyes, and with a wave of disinterest walks back into the back towards the kitchen. The girl gives one more glance as a customer walks through the doors, and she proceeds to take the persons order in a professional manner.
Atsushi holds up his hands nervously "Um...wouldn't it be better to dump the coffee over his head instead Chuuya-san?"
Like a lightswitch the two older men turn their attention back to the tiger. Both froze for a second before Chuuya smirks, and Dazai has a horrified look on his features. "Good idea tiger boy." He rears the coffee cup closer to Dazai's face, letting the other see the steam still roiling off the top of the dark liquid. "See this bastard, you'll look like a mummy by the time I'm through with you."
"Dazai grabs his own cup, smirking "Two can play that game chibi."
"I'm not a chibi for the last goddamn time!" Chuuya yells at the near top of his lungs. "You put your cup down."
"Not unless you put yours down first." The bandaged man shoots back, the smirk still ever present on his face.
Chuuya's eyes squint for a second before he says lowly "Ok let's put them down at the same time."
"Gotcha." Dazai replies, and ever so slowly both men put their coffee cups down on the table surface. They both take their hands away from the objects, and scoot apart from each other, like the two of them weren't about to just dump coffee, and hot coffee at that all over each other like little kids.
Suddenly Chuuya turns his eyesight towards the tiger, making the poor boy flinch in surprise "Why did you suggest something idiotic?"
It's Atsushi's turn to give the other a smirk "Just for shits and giggles." A scowl comes across the redheads face at that statement, starting to crack his fists in growing rage.
"You little shit, you thought that would be funny? How would you like a good swift punch in the face!" Chuuya yells out, pointing at the tiger.
"I would heal from it obviously." Atsushi says mocking the other, all the same as getting back at the shorter man for his remark earlier. "As for your question. Yes it would have been hilarious, after all you would have healed from that too."
"Aw yeah you want me to ruin that book on your lap from this coffee of mine!" The shorter man yells out drawing even more attention to himself. The anger in his voice rising as the seconds tick by.
"Please don't. This book isn't even mine, it's Ryu's. He'll kill me if it gets ruined." Atsushi says putting his hands into the air.
"I will kill him." Ryu says from beside him, flipping a page of his book, like he wasn't secretly listening in on the conversation. "I'll kill anyone that ruins a book of mine that I paid for out of my own pocket as well."
That just gets a huff from Chuuya, as he sets back down in his seat. Atsushi decides to back off, for now at least. "Never knew you were into reading books kid?" Chuuya asks from across the table, propping his chin on the palm of his gloved hand.
"Oh well I'm not, but since Ryu keeps wanting me to try to get into reading, I'll try." Atsushi shrugs his shoulders "Who knows maybe one day that connection will click. Maybe I'll find something that I like to read."
"Well I have a lot of books back in my apartment that you could try to read my little protege." Dazai coos out from the window seat, pulling out his book of suicide from that long light brown trench coat.
An elbow is shoved into the suicidal man's side harshly "Like hell he'll be reading those things! Only a maniac does, like you." Chuuya tells Dazai.
A teasing laugh escapes the suicidal man's lips "Come now hatrat. This book has tons of educational facts!"
"Educational my ass." Chuuya scoffs with a roll of his eye. "A pointless kids book has more educational facts than those books of yours ever will in a million years." He then checks his watch "I should be going soon, I have a meeting in a couple hours with sister."
Atsushi perks up as the clack of a book being closed gets his attention. He turns to see Ryu preparing to leave. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going back to my apartment to enjoy a brew of my favorite tea." He stands up from the booth, but not before cutting his eyes over to the tiger, hands in his pocket. "You have a day off today, so come on your coming with me." Atsushi nods his head, standing up to follow Ryu out of the coffee shop.
Chuuya waves them off with a goodbye. "Don't worry about the bill, I'll take care of it this time." The new double black pair nods, and walks towards the entrance of the cafe.
"Thanks for taking care of the bill short stack!" Dazai coos out, going to leave when a hand shoots out grabbing the back of his collar. He turns his head to see Chuuya scowling at him.
"Who said I was going to pay for your shitty coffee bandaged waster?" The redhead resorts.
"Um let me think…." Dazai says pretending to be in thought. He then points at Chuuya with stars in his eyes. "You said you would! You said not to worry about the bill, and that you would take care of it! That means that you meant, you were going to pay for mine too."
Chuuya stops to think for a minute, processing those words. When a realization hits his brain like a bus. 'Shit! I did say that.' He looks Dazai straight in the eye, annoyance over the man and his antics overwhelming in his chest. 'I did say those exact words! He'll never leave me alone until I do as I said I would. Fine! Fine, pay for him just this once, or else I'll be late for my meeting.' He lets go of Dazai, and just turns around to go to the front desk, pulling out his wallet. The new double black pair already long gone out of sight. He pays for the products, and heads to the door ignoring Dazai's questions of 'What am I supposed to do now?'.
To which all chuuya had to say to that was, "Figure it out yourself, I don't care either way." as he walks out of the cafe and down the street.
*A few hours later in the Police Station*
The woman sits in an interrogation room, across from an investigator. They had already had her give a run through of what the four men that were seen earlier that day come to Tobias's apartment, to the sketch artist, and the photo's fixing to be sent out. She twiddles her thumbs together, biting her lip nervously, as she sits at the table patiently. The investigator holds out his olden, wrinkled hands, and shakes her own. He pushes his big rimmed glasses up his nose as he looks through the 2nd statement she had given earlier, immediately after the sketch artist. His blue eyes looking straight at her, and white short hair standing stiff on the top of his head.
"Well you're almost ready to be let go for the evening Miss…." He stops, scratching his head trying to recall what her name was once more.
"Akiyama Juki." She says with a small bow.
"Well miss Juki could you tell me a little bit about yourself? I know you told them a little bit before all of this, but if I'm going to have you for a witness, I want to get to know about you. Just you and me in this interview room." The man says as his badge reads out 'Hagiwara Daiki', and he was a senior investigator in his field. "First off where were you born? How old you are? You know the basics." He says pulling out a pad.
Juki clears her throat lightly as she folded her hands in her lap, and starts to say "I was born in Kobe, Japan. My family still lives there but I decided to go out into the world and explore my options, when I was 18 years old. This year I turned 31 years old, so it's been a good 13 years since I last had contact with my family. I tried going to college at the age of 18 for a little bit, but due to financial issues, I was forced to quit school at 20 years of age. I got a part time job making my ends meet, living in a shabby apartment, and trying to make another day." She wipes a few lone tears from the corner of her eyes at her past hardships, that still follow her to this day.
"Were you living here in Yokohama at that time?" Daiki asks lowly, his eyes soft.
She shakes her head "No. I was living in Hamamatsu between the ages of 18 to 22 years of age. I wasn't doing good in the city, and I then heard people say that there was opportunity to be found in Yokohama. That's what I did, after I quit school, I saved up as much money as I could possibly save up. For 3 years I worked my butt off with 3 different jobs so I could make the move and start fresh in Yokohama."
"Who did you hear that from?" The investigator asks a bit astonished by her answer.
Juki looks up from her lap, having to think for a minute. "I heard it from this boy back in Hamamatsu, he had short black hair, pale skin, and he liked to wear black clothing. He wasn't very sociable either, but he was sweet. He was on the same train as me on my way to my next shift at another job, he was with a young girl. They didn't look related so I summed it up as the two of them being friends." She then thinks of something as she looks the man straight in the eye. "It was weird those two children, it was like they didn't belong in that setting. The girl I could tell wasn't even from this country, she had this german accent."
"German accent?" Daiki raises an eyebrow. "We don't get very many german tourists in this country." He turns back to the woman "What about the boy?"
"He sounded Japanese. His eyes were red like the devil's eyes, and the girl she never took her gloves off even after spilling some of her drink all over them. A normal person would have slipped the gloves off, and tried to dry their hands off, but not her. It was then when my eyes connected to hers, and a chill ran down my spine. It was like looking into the eyes of a killer, but never in my dreams would I have imagined an innocent child's eyes giving off such a vibe before." She says with a shake of her head, the memory still fresh in her brain.
"If I remember correctly, there's an underground crime ring in and around the city of Hamamatsu. My mentor that retired about 8 years ago, told me about it. He said that when he investigated it, the gang mostly consisted of kids. That he didn't get very far into his investigation before he had to bail out of there before they killed him." Daiki explains, his hands slightly slack. "Were any of those two children wearing something with this symbol on it?" he asks, sliding her a photo across the table.
Her eyes go wide in shock as she sees a symbol of a Bleeding Heart, with a beautifully crafted knife sticking out of the heart. The ink black, but it was the exact same symbol she saw that day. "Yes that's it." she murmurs lowly. "They had it around their necks, either tattooed or hanging from a necklace. The two children both had necklaces of the symbol, I had no idea what any of that meant back in the day, but now that I know what that symbol means, I'm in total shock." She shakes her head some more in disbelief "Is there a special symbol or color for the leader of the gang?"
"Not that we know of. The entire time my mentor was undercover in Hamamatsu, he never once heard any of the members mention their leaders name, age, gender, location, nothing about them. Why do you ask?" Daiki asks her interested.
"The girls necklace. Her necklace had the same symbol, but it was the color of red & silver. She looked to be around….her early teens, maybe younger, but she was still a kid. The boys necklace was black like in the photo. When your mentor was there, was this the color of every single members, symbols?" The womans says seriously, pointing at the photo.
Daiki shakes his head "Yes it was. None of them had a red & silver symbol." He is quick to write that information down, "I need to run this all down with my ex-mentor once this meeting is over, don't worry I won't reveal your personal history, is that ok with you?"
"Yes anything to help you with this case." She answers honestly.
"Now one more question, before we cut this short for the day." He says holding up a finger. "After this we'll let you go and call you when we need you to come in again, and answers our questions on this matter." He turns to a new page of the pad "Can you come in tomorrow and give a sketch of this girl and the boy?"
Juki clears her throat "Yes sir. Do you need anymore information of my life?"
"Not at the moment, those we'll be asked at another time. Preferably whenever you come to give a sketch of the two children." He finishes writing down all the information as he tucks both in his short pocket and stands up stiffly. "That will be all for today. Go home and relax, and I'll be calling my ex-mentor up for a meeting in the next hour."
She picks up her shawl, and walks out of the room. "Thank you, I'm happy to help anytime. Can you keep me updated on Tobias's condition?"
"Yes Miss Juki." He turns to walk out of the room himself, and with a wave of his hand he says "Good day to you."
She nods, and in a span of a few minutes shes walking out of the police station, and down the street. She hugs the shawl around her shoulders tightly, the cold wind biting her skin. People cut their eyes towards her dirtied figure, some holding looks of disgust, while others held sympathy for her. For a lot of people she couldn't stand the stares of the many groups of people, from wealthy to poor, that held mixed feelings on their faces. Juki turns her head away from them cutting across into a darkened alleyway.
She goes around multiple corners and curves that she knows by heart after living on the streets long enough to have a few tricks up her sleeve. She's not that far from the apartments, when she hears low whistling from an unknown melody, sounding seemingly from behind her being. She stops short when she hears it coming closer, crinkling her brow she looks around fully alert. 'What is that melody? I know I've heard it somewhere before, but I can't remember where.' She thinks, the winds picking up around her.
Her heart picks up it's wild beating when she feels the breath of someone in front of her, and that's all she needs to pull away and run as fast as her legs will take her towards the direction of her apartment. She hears footsteps behind her, following with just as quick of a pace, her heart is beating out of her chest, it feels like as she continues to run down the soiled alleyways. She didn't see anyone in front of her when she felt that breath, there had to be someone there. 'There had to be! I felt it, I really did! I'm not crazy!' She thought crazily, as she finally breaks out of the one alleyway leading straight towards her apartment building.
Juki almost runs into a wall on the opposite end, but stops herself when one of the other residents catch her in his arms. She's breathing hard as he asks her if she's alright, but she just pushes past him, heading straight towards her apartment building, ignoring the cries from the man behind her asking her if she was alright, or to stop.
After another minute she stops, leaning heavily against the wall of the alleyway filled with other people of all ages, as she gazes around the place, for anyone she didn't know or to be out of place. Though she never sees anyone, when a hand on her shoulders makes her snap around towards the person. It ends up being an elderly gentleman that was in his 80's. A man that she knew quite well, he's leaning against his rickety cane, concern swimming in his eyes.
"Juki are you alright? I was calling your name but you didn't seem to hear me." The old man asks kindly, wiping a bit of blood he had coughed up from the edge of his lips.
Juki is still in shock and fear striking every one of her nerves, looking around for anyone suspicious. She shoots her head back up to look at the old man in the eye, teeth nearly clenched tightly. "Someone was chasing me."
"Chasing you?" The old man does a quick do around the alleyway before focusing back onto the woman before him. "Are you sure it wasn't one of the kids pranking you?"
"I'm sure!" Juki says near hysterically, clenching her fingers together nervously. "There were no kids in front of me when I felt the breath of someone on my cheeks!" She continues to look around crazily, paranoid over the slightest sound "Someone was whistling a tune in the alleyway, a bit before this one."
"Juki the kids whistle all the time, I'm sure it's nothing." The old man says soothingly, putting a light hand on her shoulder, mostly for comfort. "Just go home and rest, you look like you really need it." He takes out a crumpled piece of paper and starts coughing into his fist lightly.
Juki cuts her eyes at the paper, seeing crimson blossom from parts of the parchment. The older man couldn't afford tissues, so he used whatever he could find to collect the blood he had coughed up. It looked like a missing kids poster that he was using, as she tries to see what kid was missing. "Hey, where did you get that poster from?" She asked him gently.
He stops coughing, his breathing slightly wonky. He looks at the now soiled paper in his hands. "Oh this." He cuts his eyes up to her "Someone stapled a lot of them up not to far from here actually, figured there was enough up on that post, so I took one for my coughing fits. I can show you where they are if you want."
She nods not really feeling like being alone after that horrifying experience. Pulling the shawl closer around her shoulders, she motions for him to walk, and starts following him from behind. It doesn't take no more than 5 minutes to get to the location of the posters. The older man was right, the whole light post was covered in those missing child posters, from top to bottom. The kid that had disappeared was at most 5 years old, he had dark hair, with tan features. It said that he had disappeared a week prior, after he went outside to stand at the bus station for school. He never made it to the bus station, that was only a quarter of a mile down from his parents house. There have been no leads so far, but the parents are giving out a reward of 200 thousand dollars for their son's safe return.
Juki felt bad for the parents, though with a reward that high, the kid must have came from a wealthy family. Money like that would be nice, but she would never get anywhere with a case like this. Most likely it was a predator, human trafficker, or someone that knew the kid that would have taken him. With how much time that had passed already, the kid was either dead, or sold off to someone else. She knew that type of trade, back in Hamamatsu kids disappeared all the time. In the underground, it was hard to track anybody, even then by the time the gangs, and traffickers caught wind of someone following their tracks, they would kill the kids, and run further underground. In very rare times only one or two kids had gotten away from their captures, but not without some life changing effects.
Tomorrow she would ask Daiki about this kid, and try to see what she could do to find out all she could about it. With the heartstring murders going on the past few weeks, this kids disappearance could be connected, or it couldn't. It all depended on the facts, evidence so far, and a lot of other factors. Money like that would be really nice to have, and she was willing to get even a small sliver of it. Sure she wasn't an ability user, but she could put in her work as a normal citizen. She turns to the old man after taking a poster for herself. "Let's go. I really need some sleep."
The old man nods as they start walking together back to the alleyway of cramped apartments. "Hey Lin. Do you mind if I stay over at your place tonight? I know you and a few others have a card game tonight."
Lin that was the old man nods, smiling at her kindly. "I don't mind. You help me all the time, so I'll help you anytime you want." He turns his head with a small chuckle "I know we get baths far and few between, but you look like you need one more than me Juki. I have enough water that you can take a semi warm bath back in my apartment."
Juki holds up her hands "No you don't need to do that Jin! I can wait until I can scrape up enough money to pay for my water bill, I've waited longer."
Jin waves his hand lightly in front of him "No I insist. A lady like you is at the prime of your life. Me an old man in his late 80's is at the end of my rope. If I can help you get back on your feet than that will be my life mission until the day I take my last breath. You take that bath, you deserve it."
Juki is almost in tears "Thank you so much Jin! I'll repay you for this kind gesture. How about I prepare you a meal tonight?"
Jin waves his hand around "You don't need to repay me, but if you insist, then the two of us can just enjoy our company together." The two continue to talk down below, heading towards Jin's apartment.
*With Beatrix*
Beatrix's hair whips in the wind, as she looks down at the alleyway where the missing kid poster's sit. Her eyes cut into slits, she hears footsteps behind her. Without turning around she knows who it is. "Did you get any information from the woman?"
"Yes. She picked up one of the posters, which indicates that she's going to look into the case. Should I kill her tonight?" Alena asks from behind her, hands by her side awaiting her orders.
"No. Wait on those orders for now. We need her alive right now for the plan to work. It would just look plain suspicious if she were to die hours after Tobias was attacked." Beatrix says with a small smirk, and a wave of her hand.
"But Beatrix!" Alena goes to shout out, when said girl holds up her hand.
""Be patient. She'll die eventually, as will the old man. The old man due to health issues, he looks like he only has a short time to live after all, coughing up blood as he is right now." She says with a shrug like she's talking about the weather. "I've seen that happen one to many times in the past. I'd say he'll be dead in a few days from now. As for the woman we'll let some things slide for now, who knows what she's talking to those policemen about, that's why I'm giving you another assignment."
Alena is all ears as she asks "What orders are those?"
"Get in contact with Gene. Give him these orders over the phone." Beatrix relays handing over a small sheet of paper to the Russian girl. "Remember to use the coded language we use and a burner phone. Take Theo with you, you'll need him."
Alena nods bowing "Yes mam." She folds the paper up and puts in her pocket. "I'll be going, if you need anything just call us." She walks towards Theo, and both of their images are whisked away into the winds. Beatrix looks back to where the russian girl was standing previously just a few seconds ago.
"Don't worry I won't need any." She mutters out lowly, her red eyes shining in the light, and a wicked vicious grin on her face.