Daddy's Little Girl

[UndergroundGod]

He nodded through her list of tools, taking note of each one… Izaya, of course, had his flickblade on him (he never went anywhere without it), but that was used mostly for intimidation purposes and to mess with Shizuo. It wasn't exactly the most effective killing tool, so he might duck into her bag for one of the ones it held. In his back pocket, he also had a tiny lock picking kit, just in case.

The first part of her plan, he reluctantly agreed with. He hated not being the one to take the lead, but Erika would know how to negotiate with her father far better than he would—and right now Mamoru was pissed at him, so it was better that he stay in the background if not needed. However… she honestly seemed to think that he was just going to take his sister and leave her. Erika thought Izaya was just going to grab what was important and run and just leave her to fend for herself against her psycho murderer father.

But Izaya could do nothing of the sort. Not least of all because it was stupid. If Mamoru succeeded in killing Erika before she could do the same to him… well, that meant Mamoru was on the loose and was going to target him and his family again. It was idiotic to leave without knowing if the job had been completed.

That wasn't why he was going to go back though. He was going to go back to make sure Erika did come out of there alive, to make sure that they were victorious and that they could live on and be happy (at least, so that Erika could be happy, as Izaya had given up on such a state years ago). He was going to go back because Erika didn't even expect him to, because she was willing to sacrifice herself if that's what the moment called for, all for his safety.

He followed her gaze back to the building and told her, "I'm going to come back for you. I'll get Mairu away, maybe to another floor, another apartment, but then I'll be back."

The words weren't spoken but they were heavily implied: You don't have to do this alone.

[unicornhunter]

Erika was torn between smiling a little and frowning. So her mouth contorted itself into a strange wobbly line in compromise. She did appreciate Izaya's offer, but....

"What if he gets both of us and then goes looking for Mairu?"

That's what she was really worried about. She didn't want Izaya and Mairu to get hurt. If Izaya got away, then he'd be able to get Mairu to a safe place and then do whatever it took to get her father out of the way if she failed. As long as she could avoid it, she was going to prevent anyone else from getting involved in this or hurt by this.

She was done with being a coward. Even though she was scared shitless right about now....

[UndergroundGod]

For once, Izaya was dead set against believing her. Where she was able to have hope, he could support her, but… He refused to let himself think something so tragic as that. He was Izaya Orihara, after all. The strongest man in Ikebukuro tried to kill him on a regular basis and here he still stood. From what Kida said, Mamoru hadn't faired so well against Shizuo, which was evidence enough for Izaya that he could take the man.

Izaya had been trained in street fights. He was sure he could hold his own, even against someone as deranged as Mamoru, who wouldn't be intimidated by Izaya's normal scare tactics. If Izaya needed to, he would kill the man. It wouldn't be his first.

Besides, with Jinnai on the loose, there was more to worry about than Mamoru Karisawa. Izaya simply couldn't let himself die if for no other reason than that he was Jinnai's biggest roadblock for taking control of all of Ikebukuro. Izaya wasn't ALLOWED to die here. And if he somehow did, then it meant he was probably never meant to stop Jinnai in the first place. Either way, his sisters would be doomed. As doomed as everyone else, anyway.

"I'll tell you right now," he told her seriously, asserting himself, "if your father kills me, my sisters have a hell of a lot more to worry about then a single deranged serial killer on the loose. This whole damn city is going to hell if I die, so it's not going to happen here."

He turned to her, cracking a soft smile, hoping to give her some assurance that they were going to get out of this alive, though perhaps not unmarred. "Besides, how many people in this city can stand toe to toe with Shizuo Heiwajima and survive without a scratch? And considering I've been doing that for ten years…"

With a firm nod, he told her, "We'll make it through this as long as we work together."

[unicornhunter]

Erika listened to Izaya's reasons for wanting to come back for her. She smiled a little at the end of Izaya's little speech.

"Oh, Izayan, what on Earth do you get up to?" But she dug through her bag and handed him the lead pipe. "Leave this outside of the apartment. That way, you'll have it when you come back."

She was grateful for Izaya promising to be there for her. It made her feel a bit better.... She swallowed hard and looked back up at the apartment.

"I guess now we go in...."

She led the way up the steps and, slowly but surely, she knocked on the front door - only to have it creak open on its own.

Her eyes widened as she saw Mairu tied up beside her father, Mamoru kneeling down next to Mairu, holding her by the hair.

"Listen you little - !" He looked at Erika. Erika looked back, eyes wide and terrified. He smiled. "Erika.... You've come home!"

She forced herself to smile at him. "Yeah.... Yeah, I have...."

[UndergroundGod]

He took the lead pipe as it was handed to him, the weight of it feeling secure in his hands. He imagined for a moment what it would be like to bash Mamoru in the face with it and felt the tiniest touch of satisfaction.

Swallowing as she did, gathering his nerve, the two of them headed up the staircase for the apartment door on the second story. He set the pipe against the wall outside the door, hidden, but ready for future use. When Erika knocked, the door simply swung open, revealing the sight behind it. Mairu was tied up on the floor, either unconscious or simply not struggling. She was bound and gagged and Mamoru's hands were in her hair; Izaya wanted to break the man's fingers one by one for daring to touch his sister.

But for now, he had to stay calm and follow Erika's lead. He forced himself to stay quiet as that terrifying grin spread over Mamoru's lip, lest he just make the situation that much worse by saying something wrong. Mamoru wanted revenge on him, sure, but he probably wanted his daughter back more, and Izaya would just have to trust that Erika could handle her position.

At the sound of a foreign voice, Mairu began to twist slightly against her bonds, murmuring through the gag, though it wasn't going to free her.

[unicornhunter]

Erika resisted the urge to shudder as her father looked her over with that look in his eyes. But she knew what she had to do. She had to get him to let go of Mairu and allow Izaya to take her and get out of there.

"Erika.... Come over here and give Daddy a hug." Mamoru held his arms wide for her - but he still held onto Mairu's hair.

Okay. Okay.... Play it cool. "Daddy, I can't give you a hug if you're holding onto her hair. Why don't you let her go? You need both arms, remember?" She forced herself to laugh a little. It was the most empty, pathetic laugh she had ever made. But . . . .

He bought it. Mamoru let go of Mairu's hair and stepped closer to her. "Erika."

Erika closed the distance between them, and she suppressed a shiver as he enveloped her into his arms. They stood like that for a very uncomfortable amount of time, but then finally Mamoru let go of her. He cupped her cheek.

"Oh how I've missed you.... Now we can go back to how it used to be.... Starting with this girl and Orihara.... Orihara won't get away with keeping you away from me...." Mamoru laughed darkly.

Uh oh. "Um, Daddy? Aren't you tired from looking for me? It must've been exhausting, what with Ikebukuro being so busy and there being so many people.... And Izaya-san is sorry about what he did. He didn't mean to be rude. Right, Izaya-san?" She looked over her shoulder at Izaya, but made sure to keep her face visible to her father. She looked back at him. "Wouldn't it be best to spend some time together? Just you and me? Before we do anything else?"

She watched as her father frowned, wondering about what she was saying and getting a little suspicious. She was starting to break into a nervous sweat, and that made her even more nervous. Please, please work.... Please don't backfire on them....

[UndergroundGod]

Izaya held his breath in the background, until he caught himself doing it and forced himself to breath. It wouldn't do any good to be oxygen deprived if at some point he needed to act quickly.

The scene before him was horrifying though—just watching Erika step forward and receive a hug from her father made Izaya's skin crawl and he thought to himself that he would need to do something to make this up to her. It was his plan that had failed after all, so it was ultimately his fault that they were in this situation. If only he'd been more ruthless and sought to handle the situation himself, the job would be done and they wouldn't be going through all this right now. The fact that Erika was willing to suffer this to save his sister was worth more to Izaya than she could know.

Of course, Mamoru's mind was still on revenge; why wouldn't it be? Gathered here were all the people he wanted, his daughter and his potential victims (though Erika could be included in that too, but perhaps in Mamoru's mind she had never been a victim), so why would he just let go of the people he wanted revenge on?

Luckily, Erika stepped in for potential damage control, and Izaya nodded firmly a few times in response to her question. As much as he wanted to speak, everything in his head told him it would be a terrible idea. It didn't matter what he said after all—he'd already lied to Mamoru once, so in all likelihood, anything he said could be regarded as dishonest. To repeat that he was sorry, to make up an excuse for lying to the man… all of it would be regarded as a falsehood that would only make Mamoru angrier with him. He kept his lips shut and hoped that Erika could sweet talk him into letting them go.

It occurred to him that maybe her best bet would be to suggest a temporary release. She could perhaps suggest that her and her father make a game of it, release them now and give them a few days before they came after Izaya and his sister. Izaya wondered if that was the sort of thing that would entice her father into releasing them, though he couldn't really throw that out as a suggestion.

At the mention of her brother's name, Mairu roused a bit more where she was on the floor, opening her eyes to fall upon her blurry brother on the other side of the room, unsure whether to feel pissed at him or relieved that he had finally come.

[unicornhunter]

Erika could see the wheels in her father's head turning. She bit her lip, not wanting to say anything that could jepordize everything, but she didn't want him to come to a conclusion that she couldn't talk him out of.

Something seemed off.... But Erika wouldn't do anything against his wishes. But taht didn't mean Orihara hadn't put ideas into her head. He honestly didn't know how long Erika had known Izaya or how "close" they were. Orihara could have put any and all sorts of ideas into her head, and maybe this was one big plot of his.... He had to be wanting to have Erika all for himself. Why else would Orihara try to keep her away from him? But Mamoru wasn't going to let that happen, oh no, not at all. Orihara would learn not to touch another man's girl. Oh, he would learn.

"But darling, we can't just let them go. They'll jeopardize the game. You remember the rules, right?"

Oh, that's what was giving him pause. Now that he mentioned it, she did remember what he had considered their father-daughter "game." Granted, she had always remembered it, she had just forgotten some of the "rules."

"Oh, no, I remember, Daddy, I remember. But it's already pretty different than it was before, isn't it? A bit too different, wouldn't you think? It's not as fun this way.... Wouldn't it be more fun if we let them go, then captured them again later? Recreate it so it really would be like before? That way you can rest up and we can go back to how it was before...." Oh, God, she was going to vomit from this bullshit if she wasn't careful. She could feel it starting to bubble up.... "B-besides, I want to spend some alone time with you...."

Don't vomit, don't vomit, don't vomit, don't vomit....

Mamoru thought over Erika's proposal for a few moments. Then he smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "Such a good girl you are. All right, they can leave.... And after we've spent some time together, we can round them back up again. You were always so bright. Just like your daddy."

Erika swallowed hard. She hated it when he compared her to him. But . . . she knew they did have things in common. It was the curse she was given for being his daughter.

Hopefully it would be all over soon.

[UndergroundGod]

Remaining still and silent, Izaya waited anxiously for his cue, for the sign or the words or the look that would give him permission to go to his sister and get her the hell out of here and away from that sick shit. To act before that signal would only make Mamoru attack for sure, and Izaya didn't doubt that Mamoru was probably armed… and while Izaya himself wasn't afraid of getting hit (he knew pain, after all, he'd been stabbed before), he knew better than to think he could duck over there behind the man, free Mairu of her bonds, and somehow get her away when Mamoru was hardly three feet from her. And he couldn't risk making a move that would endanger Mairu as the whole point of this was to keep her safe.

As Erika suggested the very thing Izaya had just considered, telling the man to let them go and stalk them down later, he felt the tiniest bit of peace, just a touch of satisfaction with himself. Just knowing that he hadn't completely lost his touch was an itty bitty relief, though he didn't let himself revel in it. He wouldn't feel okay until this situation was completely over. But there was something about knowing that he could still predict a person's behavior that he found comforting. After all, this whole case (though he was hardly thinking of it now in such a… dissociative term, no, this all had become far too personal for that), had truly thrown him off his game in ways he wouldn't have been able to imagine a few weeks ago. Something about all this struck such a deep, personal chord with him that he felt uncharacteristically rattled by it. Everything about Mamoru was instinctually wrong.

He knew exactly what that something about all this was, of course, but he wasn't willing to think about that, not now. He didn't want to dig up those long buried memories that he had claimed to put behind him over a decade ago. Those memories had been buried for a reason, after all, and he was no more ready to deal with those memories now than he had been as a child—and even if he was, now was far removed from the time or place to deal with them.

After a bit more sweet talking on Erika's part, suddenly and thankfully, Mamoru gave him the subtle permission he needed to go to his sister. Moving quickly, his head down, gaze averted, though watching the psycho in his peripheral just in case, Izaya moved to Mairu's side. He pulled the gag from her mouth, his hand touching her hair softly, comforting her, and her eyes looked up at him. It was clear that she could see him, though her gaze seemed unfocused, as if she still hadn't fully recovered from being drugged.

She mumbled sloppily, "I hate you, big brother."

"I know," he said softly with a faint, bittersweet smile. He flipped out his flickblade to cut though the bonds on her legs first, then the ones around her wrists, freeing her before putting the blade away. "Come on, let's get going."

Carefully but quickly, he sat her up. She wavered a bit, and Izaya knew that she was going to have to lean on him heavily to walk, but he was fine with that. He probably couldn't carry her (he didn't have the upper body strength for that, unfortunately) but he could at least get her out of here. Putting her arm around his shoulders, he stood up and slowly pulled her to her feet.

Izaya resisted the urge to shoot Erika an apologetic look, though it was an intense urge. He wanted to say he was sorry for her having to do this, he was sorry that he had to leave her alone for two seconds with her father, much less the five minutes or more it would take to half-drag Mairu down a flight of stairs to safety before he could return. He truly didn't want to leave the room, but he also knew he didn't have a choice, and though he wasn't sure if there would ever be a way to make this up to Erika, he knew that he wanted to try. Izaya rarely felt indebted to people as he did now, especially when he simply couldn't think of a way to pay back that debt.

He kept his eyes away from Erika, half-sure that looking at her alone might spark Mamoru to attack him anyway, and he helped Mairu out of the room, the door swinging shut behind him.

It was a painfully slow trek down the stairs as Mairu wasn't aware enough to lift or lower her legs so much as shuffle them, which wasn't a particularly helpful movement when it came to stairs, meaning most of the job fell on Izaya. Izaya tried to hurry them along as much as possible without thinking about what may be going on in the room above him, because he knew whatever it was was unfairly horrifying and to focus on that instead of the task at hand would only divide his attention and make what he was doing take even longer to accomplish, which was the very thing he was trying his hardest to avoid.

Finally in front of the door to the first floor apartment, Izaya jiggled the handle, shoved his shoulder hard against the door once, twice, three times, until it burst open. His shoulder throbbed from the effort, but he ignored it and said a silent thank you that the building was in such disuse, he dragged Mairu inside and propped her against the corner, stroking her hair and leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead, a rare display of affection for him, but one warranted in this particular situation. His heart was racing, as he knew where he was headed next and he said softly to his sister, "Just stay inside, okay? I'll be right back."

Without waiting for a response (he doubted she would be going anywhere in her condition), he took a deep breath, then separated himself from the girl, closed the door behind him, and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

For this next part, he needed to be silent though. His greatest advantage would be the element of surprise, as Mamoru wouldn't be expecting his return… He grabbed the pipe he'd set up earlier and reached for the knob, to turn it slowly… but after a slight twist, it would go no further.

The man had locked the door.

Izaya swore silently, but at least he was prepared for this. He set the pipe back down and fished the lock pick tools out of his pocket, kneeling before the lock and immediately going to work.

Over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, Izaya tried to ignore the noises coming from the other side of the too thin apartment walls, tried not to think about what was going on, tried to clear his mind, but found for the first time in years that his head was spinning almost out of control, making it impossible to pick the lock with accuracy, making him fumble and grow frustrated, which only made the job harder. Izaya had picked a hundred locks before, a thousand, but never under this sort of pressure, never under the retching conditions he was working under now, and his lost focus was making the task near impossible, but finally as he heard a nauseating, guttural sound from inside, he felt the tumblers in the lock shifting, the door finally unlocking for him.

His hands were shaking as he slid the tools away and reached for his weapon of choice once again. Taking one final second outside the door (he had a sinking feeling that, inside the apartment, the terrible damage was already done), he placed his hand on the knob and counted down, forcing himself to breath.

3…

2…

1…

GO—he twisted the knob, burst through the door, and in one single, lightning swift motion, using every cat-like reflex he'd ever gained from his bouts with Shizuo, swung the heavy pipe directly for Mamoru's head.

[unicornhunter]

The five or so minutes that it took for Izaya to get Mairu to safety and to come back were the longest minutes Erika had ever experienced as far as she could remember.

They were also minutes that, once it was over, she'd be pretending never happened. They were part of a story that wasn't hers, not anymore. She wasn't - she didn't want to linger on them any longer than she had to. They were happening to someone else, who happened to have her name. This wasn't her reality, it was someone else's. This was a bad dream that she'd be waking up from soon. As soon as she was able to get back to her bag full of weapons.... But it would have to be after this. After this . . . non-happening.

She forced herself to swallow the bile that was building up in her throat. Do not show your disgust. Do not show what you really think. If you want to live, pretend. You're good at pretending, Erika. You've been doing it all your life.

She shut her eyes tightly as her father finished, biting her lower lip to keep her stomach's betrayal from him.

He breathed heavily over her, grinning and reaching out to touch her face -

THUNK!

She pushed herself up and away from her father, then puked onto the hardwood floor. She didn't pause to recover, though. She quickly reached for her bag, stuck her hand in, then pulled out of the first thing she was able to grab. The pepper spray.

THUNK!

Mamoru fell to the ground, his vision temporarily going out, white spots dancing across a blanket of green. What the fuck - !? He staggered to his feet and turned around to see who had hit him in the head and who dared to interrupt his father-daughter time with Erika. And how the hell did they get in?

His vision cleared just enough for him to see the lead pipe and the familiar black jacket with the fur.

"Orihara!"

In a fit of rage, he charged at Izaya - it not occurring to him at all that Erika might have planned this with Izaya all along.

[UndergroundGod]

The pipe made firm contact with the side of the man's head, knocking him away from where he stood over Erika. Izaya saw the girl twist and heave, but his eyes went back to Mamoru before he watched her dump the contents of her stomach onto the floor. The acrid smell of stomach acid reached his nostril, but he ignored it, heaving the pipe back as he waited for Mamoru to struggle to his feet.

He knew the man was injured, the way he was moving, lurching about like he was, meant something had been hurt during his numerous bouts with Shizuo. That whack over the head was good for a concussion at least. Each blow would be further damage, knocking the man's grip on life lose hit by hit until he had no choice but to let go. Izaya had no problem making this a ridiculously painful experience for him.

Izaya had killed before. It wasn't something he'd done often, it wasn't something he was used to, but when the moment called for it, he knew he could call upon that dark urge and do the job that needed to be done when it was his life and the lives of other at stake.

He lifted the heavy weapon, readying himself for another blow and a second later, the man charged at him, screaming his name—it was here that his years of experience with Shizuo paid off, he sidestepped the man by several feet and as the man's force drove him past where he'd been standing, Izaya swung the pipe forward, hitting the man squarely in the back and driving him forward towards the wall.

[unicornhunter]

Mamoru became even more unbalanced when Izaya side-stepped him, so when Izaya hit him in the back with the pipe, the force an his instability sent him flying into the wall opposite him. He hit it face first - and judging from the pain and the blood that was now cascading down his face, the contact with the wall broke his nose. He growled, the pain fueling his anger.

His side still hurt from when Shizuo had broken one of his ribs, and that blond who had kicked him there hadn't helped matters. In anything, that had probably broken another rib. And he probably had a concussion about now. But none of that mattered to him.

All he wanted right then was to kill Izaya Orihara.

But when he turned around to face Izaya once more....

Erika made a quick decision on what she should do with the pepper spray. She got out the matches, then got one of them out of the box. She lit it, then surveyed what was happening with Izaya and her father. She made a split-second decision on when to enact the beginning of her vengeance.

Once her father turned around, she held the pepper spray up to his face, with the match held just underneath the nozzle.

She sprayed him in the face, and the spray caught fire, and soon his face, hair, and head was ablaze.

[UndergroundGod]

He felt the weapon make contact again and watched as the man slammed forward into the wall, just as he intended. The man seemed dizzy as he pushed himself away and Izaya felt a smug sense of satisfaction at the blood gushing from his nose, down over his mouth. He was dazed and obviously in pain and Izaya knew he deserved every bit of it for every little girl he had murdered and touched. Mamoru deserved all of it and more.

Izaya would never consider himself a hero, because right now, beat the shit out of this sick fuck, he felt pretty damn good.

Then Erika stepped up, armed with a match and pepper spray, and Izaya felt a moment of awe at her choice before she let her makeshift flamethrower go to work, aiming the peppery blaze at her father's face. A second later, the man's head was covered in flames and Izaya stood back from the heat of the blaze as he watched the damage that ensued, prepping his pipe for another blow, just in case.

[unicornhunter]

Mamoru screamed.

He was in a world of pain, and he couldn't see or hear or think over the roaring of the flames eating at his head and the red, yellow, and orange flickering that soon became nothing but black.

He rolled around on the floor, attempting to put the flames out with stop-drop-and-roll, though even when the flames did die, it did nothing to quell the pain.

He still couldn't see, and he probably never would. He had been sprayed right in the eyes after all....

Had Erika really done this to him? No, no, she was a good girl, she wouldn't do something as terrible as this....

He loved his daughter, and she loved him back.

But . . . Orihara.

It may have been Erika behind the fire, but Izaya Orihara must've gotten into her head and convinced her of lies. That was the only explanation, as far as Mamoru was concerned.

So even though he couldn't see, he got up off the floor and lunged, his hands grabbing at the first person he could locate. He felt a belt buckle, then a bulge - a boy. Orihara. He gripped tightly to the front of Izaya's pants, groping around with his other hand, hoping that the knife he had set down was nearby.

[UndergroundGod]

Izaya found he was panting as he watched Mamoru flail around, drop to the ground and roll around in an attempt to put out the flames that had consumed his head. He tried for a moment just to catch his breath, his grip on the pipe loosening. This had to be the end of it. The concussion, the broken nose and now this… there was only so much a human being could take, and there were very few who could get back up after such an assault. He looked towards Erika, saw her chest heaving with the effort to breath as well, just grateful that they were both alive.

His mistake was in doubting Mamoru's inhuman ability to get back up.

While his eyes were on Erika, they missed Mamoru's movement in his periphery in the dim room and only saw the man coming for him when it was too late, when his hands were inches away from him—at that point the movement slowed to crawl, Izaya watching the hand grabbing for him in slow motion. He tried to twist at the last second, but it was already too late, and turning just knocked him off balance so that when Mamoru actually made contact, Izaya was unstable on his feet and he fell backward, landing hard and clumsily on his ass as the pipe clattered to the floor beside him and rolled away, out of his reach.

Then Mamoru's hands were on him, touching him, and Izaya felt something inside himself snap. His heart jumped into his throat, his stomach attempted to do the same and tried to scramble away, but Mamoru's grip on him was too tight. He felt panic—PANIC—clutching at his chest and squeezing, painful, his eyes stinging, as he tried to suck in a breath and found the air as harsh on his lungs as a fish removed from the ocean might. His feet began to kick frantically, his heels digging harshly into the man's side, as his quaking hand fumbled into his pocket for his flickblade.