Daddy's Little Girl

[unicornhunter]

Erika looked up abruptly. "G-go with you?"

She thought about it for a moment. On the one hand, she didn't want to be around anyone when she dealt with talking with the mental hospital. On the other hand, she didn't want to be alone, either. The whole situation was too frightening for her to really deal with. But this was Izaya Orihara she was talking to. Would he even bother to try to look after her once he was finished gathering the information he wanted? There was no point in going with him if he was just going to get what he wanted to know and leave - or worse, rub it in her face or blackmail her for something later on. As much as she enjoyed shipping him and Shizuo, she knew what Izaya was like. She had heard rumors and knew from experience that he wasn't the most trustworthy person.

But she looked back on what she hadn't accomplished since Walker interrupted her phone call. She had been avoiding the problem all day, and she knew that she'd just manage to convince herself to put it off over and over again until it could be too late. And it would be all her fault if Walker or Kadota or Togusa or anyone else got hurt, simply because she was too much of a coward to look into whether or not it really was her father. . . .

Erika took a deep breath and stepped closer to Izaya. Under normal circumstances, she never would have willingly come this close to another male, except for Walker, but she pretended that she wasn't Erika Karisawa, the daughter of the Baby Doll Murderer, or even Erika Karisawa, the yaoi fangirl dating Walker Yumasaki the otaku ice-sculptor. Right then, she was one of those heroes in shonen anime who would get right up in their opposition's face and go after what they wanted. She was the hero that fought on, no matter what the odds were or who she was dealing with. She needed this fantasy to be a reality right then.

"I'll go with you if you promise to help me hunt him down if it's really him."

She ignored the trembling of her fists as she clenched them, her arms stiff by her sides.

[UndergroundGod]

She initially seemed shocked that he would make such an offer and he supposed he couldn't blame her.

Izaya hadn't specifically interacted with her before, at least not on her own. Dotachin was his real tie to the group, as they'd known each other since high school, and even then, the time he spent with Dotachin mostly involved teasing, or was spent watching him because the man's mild hero complex interested Izaya. He talked to Walker and Erika and Togusa on occasion, but it was mostly for appearances. He hadn't found any of them interesting enough to keep any real tabs on them. In regards to Erika, he knew she was a rather vicious yaoi fan and had heard that she… shipped him and Shizuo together, but beyond that there hadn't been enough intrigue in her past or in her personality to pay her any mind.

This was interesting though. Had he known that she was the daughter of a vicious serial rapist and murderer, he would have sought to involve himself in her life years ago. And it may seem cold to only show interest now, but that was just the way Izaya framed the world. He loved people after all, and loved every expression the human face could make. Certainly, this series of events would be ripe with opportunity to watch Erika's face venture on a roller coaster of complex emotions and he would hate to miss out on it.

Besides, it was painfully obvious she wanted the support. He could see from the fear that had sparked in her eyes that she had wanted to look into this, but hadn't yet, probably because she didn't have the courage to do it on her own… also fairly obvious was that she must not have had the courage to tell Walker, either, or Izaya doubted he would have left her alone like this. Those two always seemed to be joined at the hip and that was without a psycho murderer on the loose that might just want to come after Erika. He highly doubted he would leave her alone if he actually knew.

More than support, though, she needed this anonymous support. Izaya found it strange that people were often more willing to open up and reveal themselves to strangers than they were to be open with close friends and family; Erika was in just such a situation. She was too fearful to tell Walker, or any other of her dear friends about what she was going through. She was probably scared that they would judge her or scorn her or whatever else it was she was afraid they would do (though Izaya was aware of this sort of phenomenon, he wouldn't admit to fully understanding it), but with Izaya… it was easy. He already knew, so there was no painful confession to make, and it probably wouldn't matter to her one way or another if accompanying her affected his judgment of her.

So he needed to quench his thirst for information and she needed someone to walk down this path with; doing this together meant they could feed off one another. It may not have seemed healthy from the outside, but there were numerous symbiotic pairs throughout nature, and they all seemed to do just fine.

Before he could come up with a way to convince her to let him stay by her side throughout this affair… she made the suggestion herself. An impressed smiled moved back onto his lips and he looked her up and down in consideration.

It was rare that someone asked Izaya to stay with them, he had to admit. In the rare cases where someone did stick with him, it was usually because he'd manipulated them into wanting such a thing. Here, he had barely laid down any cards, and hadn't even begun to weave a web of deception, and she was already offering herself into his care.

Well, Izaya had no problem obliging her. He extended his hand towards her, a vague smirk on his lips.

"It's a deal."

[unicornhunter]

Erika accepted his hand and shook it firmly. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. It took her a moment to let what they just agreed to sink in before letting go of his hand.

"I . . . I guess we should head on over there." she said, a very strange feeling coming over her. It was as though she was both calm and numb at the same time, like nothing could affect her now. At least, nothing until she tried to actually deal with it.

She led the way, but only because she didn't really want to behave as though she was just as out of control of the situation as she was. Even if Izaya was just using her to get information, it made her feel better to pretend as though she had intended to meet up with Izaya and take him with her to the mental hospital. Maybe - if her father was still there and not out and about murdering people - she could pretend that Izaya was her boyfriend to the nurses. Not because she wanted to lie about who she was with, but to fit the fantasy of being 100% okay and over it to the few people who were connected to that part of her past.

She didn't really entertain the thought for too long. It was really just a random thought to distract her from thoughts she knew she couldn't handle right then.

She stopped walking once they reached the front of the mental hospital. Her legs started trembling again, and every basic instinct in her body told her to run in the opposite direction.

[UndergroundGod]

When she took his hand, he returned her shake confidently. He didn't have a problem promising to stay with her, as he very much wanted to see this case through to the end.

Because beyond wanting to see how Erika handled this intriguing set of circumstances, this case had always been… the one that got away. He'd solved the case, but not soon enough. Honestly, if he'd been able to present his findings to Shiki in time, Shiki would have just ordered some muscle head to quietly dispose of Mamoru. He wouldn't have gotten shipped off to live in a cozy asylum, Shiki would have seen to that.

It almost meant that if this really was Mamoru… well, part of the blame of that girl's murder fell on his shoulders. Mamoru would have been dead long ago if only he'd been smarter, quicker, if only he'd worked faster. Hell, the number of little girls' lives that would have been saved had he worked faster… He shook his head to himself as he followed after Erika and headed towards the hospital. He'd never let himself think that because Shiki had called him an idiot for suggesting it. Shiki had made it abundantly clear that Izaya wasn't to become emotionally attached to others, which included raped and tortured five year old girls that he could have saved if he'd just done a better job of accomplishing what was asked of him.

Fuck. He was thinking thoughts he wasn't supposed to think and was frankly a little bit pissed that he was letting himself slip mentally like this. Luckily, they arrived at the hospital before he had to work harder at suppressing those thoughts.

Erika seemed to pause outside the door, so Izaya took it as an opportunity to move past her and take the lead, walking into the hospital with purpose, and making sure Erika was following, even holding the door open for her.

He moved right up to the front desk, where a young receptionist (or was she a nurse?) was sitting in front of a computer, and leaned forward against it, offering her a slight smile.

"Good morning," she greeted with a soft and friendly grin. It was the grin worn by those who were trying to be comforting and it was actually quite genuine. She must have been new. "What can I do for you?"

"We're here to visit her father," he said, motioning with his eyes back towards Erika.

The nurse nodded sympathetically. "What's his name? I'll look up his room number for you."

"The name is Karisawa. Mamoru Karisawa."

"Alright, just give me a second here," she told him sweetly, then typed the name into the system. Almost immediately, the smile disappeared from her face and was replaced with a slightly confused look. "I'm sorry, you said Mamoru Karisawa?"

"Yeah, that's it," Izaya replied, his attention piquing. Was it possible that he really wasn't in the system? Was it possible that they were going to find out about it this easily?

"Are you sure you're at the right place? It… doesn't appear as though we have a Mamoru Karisawa at our hospi—"

Before she could finish, an older nurse flew across the room to insert herself into the conversation. Her hand on the young nurse's shoulder is what made her pause.

"I'm sorry, sir," the older nurse said with a forced grin, "Kaoru here is brand new, just started last week. She's not familiar with the nuances of the system quite yet. You said you were looking for a Mamoru Karisawa?" she didn't actually wait for an answer before going to the computer and typing furiously, though it didn't appear she was typing anything at all. "Oh, it says here he was transferred a couple of months ago to our sister hospital in Shinagawa. Did you want us to write down the name and number of the hospital for you?"

But Kaoru was just staring at the screen, as if utterly perplexed because the screen didn't say anything like what the older nurse was telling them.

There was their answer.

"No thank you," Izaya replied with a grin, though he wasn't happy to discover this news. There wasn't a point in getting that hospital's information. Mamoru wasn't there, he hadn't been transferred. If they went all the way to Shinagawa for a visit, they would tell him that he'd been transferred to a hospital in Adachi, and then the hospital in Adachi would tell them he'd been transferred to Setagaya and so on and so forth. It was a wild goose chase, because Mamoru wasn't in any of their hospitals, they just didn't want anyone to find out about that.

He turned on his heel, and as soon as he wasn't looking at the nurses, his face turned into a serious frown. He looked at Erika, a look made to say it was time to go… but immediately noticed that the girl was staring blankly ahead, apparently in shock. So as not to make a scene, he put an arm around her shoulders and carefully led her back out of the hospital into (hopefully shocking) brisk midmorning air.

"Well," he said grimly, releasing her once they were a block or so away from the hospital, "There's your answer. I don't know how he got out, but he's out."

[unicornhunter]

Erika managed to get herself to follow Izaya into the hospital, and she was glad Izaya was asking about her father for her. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to get the words out without looking a bit retarded.

But the moment the young nurse said they had no information on him, she started panicking. Her heart began to race, and she could feel a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead, and she bit her lip again. The cut from before had crusted over in an attempt to heal. But biting it again made it bleed anew.

She didn't believe the older nurse any more than Izaya did. She didn't even need to see the reaction the younger nurse had to the computer screen. She had known it all along in her gut, after all.

She couldn't move. Her mind was blank. It took Izaya wrapping an arm around her shoulders to get a move on. While the morning air did feel cool against her cheeks, it was Izaya's words that snapped her out of it.

"He . . . he's looking for me." she said. It wasn't a question. It was a fact. She had always known that, if he had been able to, he'd make her pay for what she did that night the house was set ablaze.

A different kind of panic came over her. It was the kind of panic that launches a person into frenzied action, that turns a person's thoughts into a train that is spiraling out of control. She grabbed Izaya by the collar of his jacket and pulled their faces much closer than is typically comfortable between acquaintances.

"This is my fault! He's doing this to lure me out and find him! I was the only one he never killed and I'm the one who put him in there in the first place! What am I going to do? I can't go home! I can't put Walker in danger! I can't go to Dotachin or Togusa! But I can't just wander the streets waiting for him to find me! And what am I going to do to stop him?" She was hyperventilating now, but she couldn't calm down.

[UndergroundGod]

His words seemed to resuscitate her, dragging her out of her state of shock… and causing her to quickly turn to panic.

She was immediately convinced Mamoru was looking for her. Izaya was unsure how she drew the conclusion (was it even possible for it to be logic-based? He didn't see how, she didn't have the evidence that he did the caused him to agree with her), but she was instantly dead set on the idea.

Her next movement was sudden and actually surprised Izaya. The girl grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and tugged them face to face; her eyes were wide and wild and her thoughts were obviously frantic. She was blaming herself, claiming that Mamoru was now going to do everything in his power to find her again, even if it meant hurting her friends, which meant that going near them while Mamoru was free was putting them in danger, so how in the world could she could home or go to her friends and she couldn't just stand around and leave herself a sitting duck for her father's attack.

Honestly, Izaya thought it was all bullshit. The very premise of her paranoia was skewed. Mamoru was used to attacking young, vulnerable girls. The girls were almost always alone, and they were young and naïve, they were weak, and they certainly didn't expect someone to come after them. Here, Erika was almost immediately free from attack. First of all, she knew to be cautious. That already gave her an edge most of Mamoru's victims never had. Next, she wasn't some little five year old, she wasn't a fifteen year old. Erika was more capable of protecting herself than most. And really, hanging out with a group of fierce adult males the way she normally did… her chance of being attacked if she was with Dotachin, Walker, or Togusa was slim to none.

Because underneath it all, Mamoru was a coward. He preyed on helpless young girls, and now that his tastes had changed to an older crowd, he was using drugs and restraints. Obviously, he had no confidence in his ability to deal with anyone stronger than that.

So the only thing that would actually put her in danger was behaving like a lunatic and avoiding everyone in an inane effort to protect them.

Before he did anything else, he wanted her to get off of him and get out of his face. He wasn't used to anyone other than Shizuo being this close to him (unless he had been the one to control the distance) and having her in his face made him anxious. He batted her tense hands off of him, inserting a foot or so of space between them, enough so that he could breathe freely again. "The first thing you're going to do is let go of me," he said with a disapproving frown. "The next thing you're going to do is take a deep breath and stop freaking out like he's hiding around the corner."

In regards to what to tell her to do after that… Izaya had to weigh his options. He could tell her that telling her friends what was going on and staying with them was actually her best chance of survival. He could tell her that just remaining alert and be prepared for him was probably more than enough to protect herself… but where was the fun in that?

He wanted to make sure she was calming down before he bothered continuing.

[unicornhunter]

Erika tried to grab Izaya again when he broke her grip, but he stepped back before she could. She felt like she had lost a very-much-needed walking stick when he did that, and she honestly couldn't tell whether the dizziness that overcame her just then was her imagination or real. Was it even possible for her panic to make her head spin? She didn't know, she wasn't a doctor or a shrink.

The calmness of Izaya's voice and the serious look on his face managed to help her get enough of a grip on herself to do as he said. She tried to take deep breaths, to calm down. But when she closed her eyes to do just that, images from her past popped up in her head, as though plastered to the insides of her eyelids.

Erika tried to scream, but Daddy covered her mouth and squeezed tightly, keeping any sound she could have made inside her. "Don't do that, sweetie, it'll draw attention to us." Blood pooled at her feet. She couldn't take her eyes off of the fresh corpse in front of her. The cars honked, and the birds chirped, and the sun shined as though no one could spot or notice them. As though no one bothered to care to wonder what they were doing there in the park.

The lifeless eyes of the boy she had been playing with stared up at her, unforgiving.

Instead of calming down any, she collapsed to her knees and screamed her sobs. Soon, she was hunched over on the sidewalk, crying her heart out. The only intelligible words that could be made out were the same words she had cried that day in the park.

"Why!? Why, Daddy!? Why!?"

[UndergroundGod]

However, his words didn't calm her down at all. Well, no, that wasn't true. For a moment, it did seem to help. She took in a few deeps breaths and he thought he saw a hint of tension disappear from her posture as her eyes slipped closed…

But hardly more than a split second after that, Erika completely fell apart. She dissolved into a series of heavy and loud sobs that was more than adequate to attract the attention of everyone on the street; it was only fortunate that there were only a few people walking around this side of town in the midmorning.

A slight flutter of annoyance tweaked Izaya's heart (or perhaps it wasn't annoyance at all, though he chose to think of it that way), and he frowned harder at the clearly distraught girl. Unfortunately, the last thing they needed was to be seen having a full on panic attack out in front of a mental hospital by everyone in town. Information had a way of spreading, and Izaya was very particular about what information he wanted heard. This was not such a piece of information.

Unsure what else he could do, he swore to himself and did that first thing that came to mind. He grabbed the girl by the arm, swung it over her shoulder, and though he wouldn't necessarily consider himself strong, use some leverage to get her off the ground and drag her around the corner and down a deserted alley, away from peering eyes.

In the alley, he took her by the shoulders, pressed her back against the cold brick wall and commanded in a stern voice, "Get a hold of yourself."

Emotion was fun to watch when it was a show only for himself. This public display of emotion that he hadn't been prepared for only made him feel anxious.

[unicornhunter]

Erika could feel Izaya taking her somewhere, but she was crying too hard to notice where exactly or how much attention she was attracting or anything aside from how heavy her own sobs were, how her chest was straining from the effort, how her head was starting to ache from the excessive crying, and how her legs didn't want to work.

She felt coolness against her back and heard Izaya's words, but calming down was easier said than done. She tried to wipe her tears away and tried to catch her breath, but every time she rid herself of a tear, two more took its place, and her lungs both wanted air and refused to let her breathe.

Soon she stopped sobbing out of pure exhaustion. Her body couldn't handle the expression of emotion anymore, so it left her to hiccup and wipe her eyes. She forced herself to make eye contact with Izaya, and it helped her get a grip on herself.

Her father was out in the world, murderering and raping underage girls again. They may be older than they used to be, but that only proved that it was him. He was still doing it for the same reasons as before.

The question was: would he kill her? Or would he place all the blame on her friends?

She tried to stand up, but her legs hadn't recovered from her breakdown just yet. She hiccuped, her head hitting the wall behind her.

"I - hic! - I can't let him dispose of Walker, Kadota, and - hic! - Togusa like he did with - hic! - my other friends...."

[UndergroundGod]

She cried for another few minutes, and had she remained hysterical, Izaya was prepared to slap some sense back into her. While he could understand why she might be upset, he didn't think it was particularly useful. If she was really so terrified, she should figure out what the hell she needed to do to stay alive. Sobbing like an overgrown three year old wasn't going to help her at all in that respect, so he just didn't see the use for it.

He also had never been able to grasp how someone could cry so openly in front of other people. It was such a vulnerable state to be in, especially in front of someone as cold as Izaya Orihara. Most people refused to cry in front of him simply for that reason, but here Erika was, bawling her eyes out without a care as to who could see her. Izaya honestly thought it was a bit ridiculous.

And then Erika said that she didn't want her father to kill her friends (although, who would want that?), and Izaya had to stop her there.

"Your friends will be fine," he told her in that same hard tone, hands still on her shoulders and pressing her gently against the wall, as if to brace her. "Your dear old daddy made a habit of attacking underage girls for a reason. He's got an inferiority complex and he has it bad. He has to overpower someone to feel strong and he's only confident that he's strong enough to hurt weak little girls. The chance that he'd man up enough to successfully attack someone as strong as Dotachin, or your pyromaniac boyfriend is slim to none, and Togusa always with one of them. Your friends are way safer by themselves than you are, and you'd be much safer with an entourage."

Erika wasn't sure what other friends she was talking about… though that had to have been at least seven years ago, before the arrest, and Izaya was sure that whoever he'd attacked back then had been just as vulnerable and weak as his victims now.

He was obviously trying to reason her out of her frantic state, as it was nothing but hysteria. Dealing with someone unable to listen to reason… it was the very reason he found it so frustrating to deal with Shizuo, because the man just wouldn't listen to anything he had to say. When all the evidence pointed in one direction and someone still chose to go in the opposite… it just boggled Izaya's mind.

"I can't talk to you while you're hysterical like this. If you would just calm down, we can figure out what the hell we're going to do next."

[unicornhunter]

Erika listened as Izaya tried to reason with her. As he was explaining why her father wouldn't attack Kadota, Walker, or Togusa, she started laughing. She tried to suppress it, and for a while it sounded more like her previous sobbing. But the more Izaya said, the more she couldn't help it. She started laughing right in his face.

It wasn't that she found what he said particularly funny. It didn't amuse her at all. But she honestly didn't know how he had gotten it so off the mark.

Her laughter wasn't nearly as big or explosive as her crying had been. But she could have sworn that she could see a bit of Izaya's neutral expression falter. Maybe it was her imagination.

She let her laughing die naturally, and she gave Izaya a look that combined despair, pity, and something akin to amusement - some kind of emotion that one would have when dealing with a particularly stubborn or naive child.

"You don't know anything about him, do you?"

She forced herself to get to her feet and took a deep breath.

"Meet me at Russia Sushi at 5 this afternoon. I'll have pulled myself together by then. Okay?"

Without waiting for a response from him, she started walking away. He had her phone number - or if he didn't, he certainly would know how to find it. He was an information broker, after all.

[UndergroundGod]

As he was talking to her… she started to laugh at him. Instantly, he frowned harder, his eyes narrowed. Her laughing continued and grew louder, and louder, as if he'd said something exceedingly humorous.

He hadn't though. He hadn't said anything funny, or even made an attempt at humor and as her laughing continued, his chest tightened up and he grimaced as the seething sensation of rage flowed through his veins like a raging lave flow. How fucking dare she laugh in his face? She was the one who, two seconds ago, couldn't keep herself together long enough to not cry like a baby in the middle of the sidewalk. She was the one who was trembling like an overgrown child and quaking in fear, and who had needed his help to even go to the damn hospital to figure out was what going on. How… Fucking… DARE she laugh in HIS face like HE was the one driven to the edge of his sanity by all this?

He didn't even stop for a second to think that perhaps she knew something he didn't.

His face was restrained to a grimace—he had more control over himself than someone like Shizuo—but his heart was throbbing at her insolence (and was doing so painfully, because he hadn't been laughed at in years. He'd made sure of that.)

She even went so far as to set up a meeting time without consulting him, as if he didn't have other, more important business to attend to, as if she were the only thing on his schedule, well, fuck that. Izaya hadn't had plans at five, but he was going to make some now, and she would wait for him if she really wanted his help.

His eyes followed her down the alley and around the corner and he stood there seething for a few minutes, until he'd calmed himself down. It took a few deeps breaths, but he managed, and when his heart was beating normally, he left the alley and headed back towards his office. He had some things to look up, and a few things to confirm, plus just because Mamoru was on the loose now, it didn't mean his other business was suddenly halted. He had other information to wheel and deal, and probably had new emails to check. He would keep himself busy the rest of the day, with something other than that terrible series of murders.

This case… he didn't like it at all. He didn't feel anywhere near the normal level of control his other exploits gave him, and that terrified him to a degree he wouldn't even admit to himself. Everything about this was wrong, and Izaya dearly hoped the whole thing would be sorted out soon.

He didn't get back to his office to nearly an hour later, as he'd decided to walk leisurely the entire way and once there, he headed up on the elevator. Namie should be there already, or at least she usually showed up before he did, so at least he would have someone to pick on the rest of the day and take out his frustrations on—

Izaya froze halfway down the hall when his eyes fell on a figure paused outside the door of his office, a man with a face he could remember from mug shots and hospital records and nightmares, and Izaya turned his instant reaction into a neutral expression before the man turned to look at him and Izaya prompted casually, "Can I help you?"

[unicornhunter]

Mamoru's palms were sweating, and he was breathing irregularly, as though he had run a long way to get there. Or perhaps he was just really excited and could barely keep himself together. Much like his daughter had with her terror. Or perhaps it was anger pulsing through his veins. He honestly couldn't keep his emotions in order anymore.

But then again, had he ever been able to?

He chewed his bottom lip as he turned his body so he didn't have to crane his neck so much to look at Izaya.

"You're that information broker, right? The best when it comes to what's what and who's who in Ikebukuro, right?" His breathing became even more jagged. He didn't know if he would be happy to hear if he knew where Erika was or if he'd want to rip this man's throat out for keeping tabs on his little girl. No one but Mamoru should be allowed to look at Erika. No one but him should be allowed to hold her hand or speak her name or call her cute or give her sweet little nicknames like princess or darling or Eri-chan, Ri-Ri, Rika, sweetie, honey bunch, precious, doll, baby, beautiful only he got to call her those things ONLY HIM -

Mamoru cut his train of thought in two. Did he miss something that the man said? He couldn't remember.

"Are you Izaya Orihara?"

~~~

Erika closed the door to her and Walker's apartment.

"Walker?" she called out, hoping to not get an answer. When Walker didn't call back to her, she made a bee-line for her room. She grabbed a tote bag and then stuffed as many necessary things she could think of into it. Pads, check. Tampons, check. Extra underwear and bras, check. Sunglasses, check.

She set the bag on the bed, then got on her hands and knees to get to what was under the bed. She pulled out a long, thick lead pipe, two handguns, a package of matches, a first-aid kit, a switchblade, handcuffs, a bag of salt, and pepper spray.

She put all of it into the tote bag and zipped it up.

She stood there in the middle of the room for a moment. After all this time, she was actually going to face her past, whether Izaya helped her after locating Mamoru for her or not. . . . She calmed her breathing. No. She had done enough crying.

She hated to admit it.

But she had to dive back into the reality of Erika Karisawa, the Daughter of the Baby Doll Murderer - his accessory to rape and murder, and a murderer herself.

[UndergroundGod]

The very sight of the man made Izaya's stomach turn, as if just being in his presence was some sort of physical anomaly. As if he didn't belong in this world at all.

Izaya didn't have trouble believing that.

His face and his body language didn't show a hint of it though. He dealt with hundreds of people on a daily basis. Fooling people with body language and facial expressions was something he'd spent years training on, and it was a skill that wasn't suddenly going to fall through on him now. He looked cool, calm, collected, and slightly intrigued at the man before him. There wasn't a trace of horror or disgust on his face, even though his heart was fluttering strangely.

It was just that Mamoru authentically gave off that same disorienting feeling that Izaya was used to giving. It was a feeling that told others to never know quite what to expect next. It was that uneasy, shifting feeling you got from being around a psycho. There was always an air of predictability around Izaya—he intended it. It kept other at bay, which kept them easier to read.

He knew he wouldn't have such an edge over Mamoru. There was likely absolutely nothing Izaya could do to disorient him and Izaya took that into account as he smirked lightly at him and casually slipped his hand into his pocket.

"Depends," he replied, looking the man up and down in the way he would regard any person that came to him for information. "What do you need him for?"

[unicornhunter]

Mamoru's body shuddered with shivers that crawled up his spine, but it wasn't from any feeling of being cold. Oh no. It was from a combination of twitchy annoyance and excitement. So this man wanted to play a game with him, did he? He'd only give the information to him if he cooperated, would he? Like the cops and the doctors and the nurses, was he? These people, they were all the same, all the same, same, same. Not like his darling Erika, he needed to find Erika, find Erika and protect her from these people, these cold and heartless people, he had to find Erika, find Erika find Erika find Erika find Erika find Erika find Erika find Erika -

"I need to find my daughter. Do you know where she is?"

His muscles were having spasms and he kept jerking his head to the side, it was almost as though he was running low on some sort of drug he was addicted to, which in a way was true, because he hadn't seen Erika in seven cold long years, all this nonesensical involuntary movement would stop once he had his Erika, not those temporary little whores he got his quick fixes off, oh no, his Erika was pure and innocent and if any man dared to lay a single finger on her virgin body he would rip their testicles off and make them chew it while he impaled them on a white hot poker rightuptheanussearingthroughtheirinsidesandhe'dRELISHthescreamsand - !

He took a deep breath and tried to reign his thoughts back in.

No, no. There was probably no need for any of that. Erika was a good girl. She wouldn't let anyone but him touch her.

He didn't blink at all as he stared at Izaya, waiting for him to answer his question.