Daddy's Little Girl

[UndergroundGod]

He watched the man closely, glad for the ten feet of distance between them. It didn't seem like Mamoru was armed currently (of course, it didn't seem like Izaya was armed either), and Izaya was fairly confident in his ability to dodge should the man have a break and lunge at him for some reason. The way he was twitching (the way addicts twitched when they were in need of a fix, which was something Izaya was quite familiar with) made Izaya hyper alert for sudden, extreme behavior—he refused to allow himself to be caught off guard around the man before him.

But he didn't want Mamoru to know that he knew who he was. He didn't want to give the man any reason to be suspicious of him, and already knowing his name, knowing his daughter's name, and knowing precisely where she was going to be at five o'clock today… well, that might set off some bells and whistles in Mamoru's frantic brain that Izaya didn't want to triggered. He didn't need the man growing frantic around him, as the last thing Izaya wanted to do was upset a lunatic, especially one as vicious and tweaked out as Mamoru.

He toyed with the idea of approaching Mamoru right now and slitting his throat where he stood in the hallway. Izaya wasn't almost positive he had the quickness for it… It would create a mess that Namie would have a hell of a time cleaning up, but Izaya almost thought it would be worth it… but something in his head protested letting himself approach the man, so he stayed right where he was and continued with the show.

"If you need to find somebody, you're asking the right person," Izaya replied with a certain air of confidence, his eyes never leaving the man. "But I need to know who I'm looking for first. What's your daughter's name?"

[unicornhunter]

Mamoru grinned, his teeth tugging hard on his bottom lip. His right canine cut his lip, and blood oozed down his chin as he showed off his yellowed teeth.

"Her name is Erika. Erika Karisawa. She should be twenty years old now. Her birthday was a few months ago. When I last saw her, she was wearing a cute yellow dress with satin ribbons in her hair to match, along with embroidered white stockings and sleek little dress shoes. She had just started to hit puberty right around then, and her bosom was beginning to fill the bodice quite nicely."

He bit his lower lip again, the memory of his daughter at the age of thirteen blooming in his mind as though he had seen her yesterday.

He couldn't wait to see her again.

[UndergroundGod]

"Erika Karisawa," he repeated the name as if it were foreign to his tongue and he was trying to remember it, leaving no indication that he had only parted ways with her earlier that morning. He was somehow almost sure that to say he knew her would be some sort of offense to this man. It was best to keep his distance from the knowledge of her until he'd actually had time to justify why he would know about her.

Mamoru's description of Erika as a young girl was the creepy icing on the pedo-rapist murderer cake. Had Izaya had less control, he would have shuddered at the way his voice sounded. It may have been natural for fathers to hold loving memories of their daughters as girls… but not like that.

It didn't help that he bit into his lip then (the way Erika had bit into her lip earlier) and drew blood. It made him look, if possible, more deranged.

Izaya continued regarding Mamoru stoically and spoke in a serious tone, a tone meant to convey he was being honest, because he didn't want the man to think he was blowing him off.

"Off the top of my head, I don't know her, but that's not a problem," he made sure to add that quickly, because the last thing he needed was for the man to think Izaya wasn't willing or able to help him. "I'm an expert when it comes to finding people. If you come back tomorrow around the same time, I'll get something together with all the information I can find and have it ready for you."

He peered up at Mamoru with an appropriate smirk on his face—he hadn't decided exactly what he was going to do when Mamoru came back the following day, that was something he'd end up discussing with Erika later that day, but it was stupid to let Mamoru think this was anything except business to Izaya, so he added, "We can discuss my rates tomorrow when you stop by. If possible, I'll find home addresses, work addresses, phone numbers, and any extracurriculars she might be involved in. Are there any other details you'd like me to find?"

[unicornhunter]

Mamoru started to perspire from excitement as Izaya talked about locating Erika for him. He still detested the thought of Izaya ever setting eyes on his daughter, but it was possible that the young man would never have to leave his computer desk. So perhaps he wouldn't murder Izaya Orihara after he gave him the information about Erika.

"There's one more thing. I need to know if there are any males prominent in her life. Friends, boyfriends, roommates, employers, anything. And I need to know how they treat her."

He'd kill them no matter what, but depending on how they knew her or how they touched her or how they sounded when they spoke about her, he could either do it quickly or torture them slowly before giving the final blow.

But the important thing was that he was getting his daughter back back back back his daughter back Erika back Erika back Erika back Erika back Erika back Erika back ErikabackErikabackErikabackandnothingwasgoingtogetinhiswaynoonenotever -

He took a deep breath and chuckled to himself, as though laughing at a private joke.

**

Erika smiled at Simon and gave him a little wave as she sat down. She held up two fingers when he asked how many people he should expect. She didn't correct him when he assumed that Walker would be meeting her for a date. She ordered green tea and then tried to keep herself calm while she waited for Izaya to arrive. She was a bit early, but better early than late.

She took out a notepad and pen and began writing. She had been wanting to start another fan fiction, so why not write while she waited? Besides, it would keep her mind off of what she and Izaya would be talking about and what it would mean for her. She didn't know if Izaya had done any more research on her father since they last spoke, but she doubted it would give him any more insight. At least, not as much insight as she would be able to give.

She hadn't noticed at first that she was writing down a fictional version of her own story in the notepad. She frowned at it, but didn't have the heart to tear it out and rip it up. So she continued to write about a fantasy-version of Izaya working with a fantasy-version of herself working together to save the kingdom of Ikebukuro from the terrible monster that was destroying the town and killing the young maidens.

She halted her pen as she wondered what she should do with Walker in the story. Should she leave him out? The thought made her sick to her stomach, but she didn't want to be reminded on what she would have to do to Walker after she talked with Izaya.

So in the end, she simply left him out of the story.

[UndergroundGod]

"Duly noted," he assured the man. As if their meeting had needed to get creepier…

Izaya didn't need to ask to have an idea what he would do to any male name Izaya listed for him. He could tell by the look on the man's face that Walker, Dotachin, Togusa, and basically anyone else Erika talked to on a regular basis would be put on Mamoru's list for any number of horrible things he wished to do to them.

As an information broker, it wasn't Izaya's job to care. The man bid him farewell then, passing him in the hall (and Izaya held his breath, watching his casually), and disappearing around a corner. Izaya didn't move until he heard the elevator ding, at which point he headed down the hall and into his office.

Namie gave him a strange look, but he waved her off, and headed to his computer to get to work. He spent the rest of his day rounding up facts and traces histories, pinning down dates and ranges and addresses, and though he had learned a number of trivial things by the time the afternoon was coming to a close, he didn't feel as though it was enough.

The thought of giving Erika up to Mamoru had flickered through his mind during the encounter, but had left mere seconds after it arrived. He was irritated with the girl for being so insolent to him… but even then, he wasn't inhuman enough to give Erika up to the man.

He didn't, however, had a problem making the girl wait for him. After all, she hadn't waited to see if he agreed to the time at all. If she really wanted to talk to him and hear what he could say, she would learn a bit of humility about it. When in a position to ask for help, like she had, he at least expected people to behave with a bit more courtesy.

Especially since he had only been trying to help her. It wasn't like he had been speaking to her with the intentions of being a jerk. He did that pointedly from time to time after all, and he knew the effect that had on people. If he had been trying to be condescending, he could have understood her rude response to him… but he had really only been trying to get her to calm down and breath… and yet, she had just laughed at him, right in his face.

There was a reason, after all, that he kept his distance from everyone. Erika had just enforced it today.

Though he was outside Russian Sushi by five, he had decided to hover there for a while before going in. It was partially to make her wait, and partially to make sure he hadn't been followed, to keep a look out from the shadows of the restaurant. Around six o'clock, he decided to enter the restaurant and Simon directed him back towards one of the private tables. He found her through the cracked opening of a doorway and entered the booth with a standard smirk on his face, and a light, "Good evening~"

After sliding the door shut behind him, he took a seat across from her.

[unicornhunter]

By the time that five thirty rolled around, Erika was getting really, really nervous. What was taking Izaya so long? Was being an information broker really that time-consuming? If it was, why did he mess with Shizuo so much? Or maybe she had made him mad for laughing at him. She hadn't really meant to, and she didn't exactly have her act together at all when she walked off. Sometimes she didn't fully think about the consequences of her actions, but after the fact she figured that the situation would be reason enough to forgive her. Though she'd be lying to herself if she said she hadn't known Izaya had a mean stream. Kadota would often talk about how Izaya was, even in high school. So she should have expected this, probably.... That didn't stop her from fidgeting or writing more on the fan fic to keep her calm or ripping napkins apart.

Simon every now and then came over to check up on her and ask her if she'd like him to get Walker for her. She bit her lip as she found the courage to tell him that she wasn't meeting Walker. Simon looked particularly surprised. She understood why; she had never been in Russia Sushi all by herself before. She had always been flanked by Kadota, Togusa, and Walker, if it wasn't a date between just her and Walker. She didn't answer when Simon inquired about who was meeting her exactly.

At six, she jumped a bit in her seat. She sighed in relief when she realized it was just Izaya. She put her notebook to the side and sipped some of her tea.

"Well thank God. I was starting to worry...." She fidgeted a little more, wondering how she should start this conversation. From the beginning? From the moment she realized what her father was? Or at some other point entirely? "What took you?"

[UndergroundGod]

He grinned lightly as she asked the question he expected her to, avoiding her gaze to instead pull a menu in front of him and scroll over it. If she hadn't said anything, he wouldn't have pointed out he was late, as doing so would make it seem like he had childishly kept her waiting out of spite, specifically for the purpose of making her notice.

… he had, of course, but that wasn't the point at all.

"I had other business," he said dismissively. He didn't really need to look at the menu, either. Izaya had been eating at Russia Sushi a few times a month for nearly nine years now, he knew the menu as well as he knew the back of his hand, but dismissing eye contact with her was part of the game that he wanted to play for a moment longer, just long enough to get across the point that he hadn't liked her behavior earlier.

After ignoring her pointedly for a moment or so, he finally slid the menu away and looked at her; his eyes were serious, but there was a grin on his lips, as if even he was conflicted as to how he should feel about this, and when he spoke, it was in a way that should make it obvious to whom he was referring. "So… I had an interesting visitor at my office today."

[unicornhunter]

Erika pouted a little, but she figured she should have realized that he probably had other people he was working for. And she hadn't exactly stated that she was paying him, so in a way, she was an after-hours "for fun" expedition for Izaya. So she didn't say anything about it. She frowned when Izaya mentioned an interesting visitor.

Before she could respond to that, Simon came up and asked for their orders. She told him her usual. After getting their orders, Simon lingered for a bit and spoke Russian to Izaya. She didn't know if Izaya knew Russian at all, but Erika had never seen Simon's expression look so serious. Was . . . was he asking Izaya what he was meeting her here for? She blushed a little. Despite hanging out with Walker, Kadota, and Togusa, she wasn't actually used to men standing up for her. Even when Walker saved her from her father all those years ago . . . before she got to know Walker, she figured that maybe he only saved her because he liked setting things on fire. . . . And then there was Kadota and saving her from herself that one time. . . . But none of that was really the same as confronting someone about why they were hanging around her.

Her father never questioned, only brutally murdered.

"Um...." Erika said, not sure what to say to Simon to get him to chill out and leave so she could properly converse with Izaya.

[UndergroundGod]

But before Erika could respond to him, Simon popped in, ruining his fun, as always. Simon was one of the reasons that Izaya worked mostly in Shinjuku. Whenever he implemented some underhanded plan in Ikebukuro, Simon would ended up stopping him before anything too fun happened.

At first, he only took their orders (which, Izaya felt, was interruption enough, at least in terms of the way he was building suspense), but he wasn't done after that. He turned to Izaya with a very serious expression, his tone low and scolding as he spoke to him in Russian, "You better not be getting her into trouble."

Izaya continued to smile at Simon, and though he should have merely told Simon to mind his own business… he had too much respect for him (or perhaps he was just too familiar with the consequences of disrespecting Simon) to do it. Instead he explained lightly, continuing to speak in Russian, "Believe it or not, I'm trying to get her out of trouble."

Simon gave him a deadpanned, disbelieving look that almost hurt Izaya's feelings.

"I'm not completely evil, you know," he told him a bit defensively, frowning.

Simon sighed and nodded. "I'm one of the few people who do know this," he intoned, glanced at Erika, then aimed a frown at Izaya, "but you often try too hard to make people forget. Regardless, you shouldn't get others involved in your dangerous business."

"It's the other way around this time, as unlikely as it seems."

Izaya knew it seemed unlikely, after all. He usually was the troublemaker, and since he always denied causing trouble anyway, there was a good chance that Simon simply wouldn't believe him. That was the one downside of being a well-known manipulator; after a while, no one trusted you. Though Izaya supposed he couldn't blame Simon for his reaction, he was still vaguely irritated by it. He had things to discuss with Erika, and having Simon there, babysitting, meant absolutely nothing would get done.

He only had one option left.

"Erika," Izaya said with a touch of exasperation, aiming his gaze at the girl, "please tell Simon that I'm not blackmailing you or trying to put you in harm's way. Maybe he'll believe it if you say it."

[unicornhunter]

Erika couldn't help but look a little taken aback that Simon was going through so much trouble just on her behalf. After getting over her surprise, she simply gave Simon a smile.

"Simon, don't worry about it! As much as I appreciate you filling in the Protective Big Brother archetype, it's not as big a deal as you think it is. I asked Izayan to help me out, and I asked him to meet me here. It's nothing for you to worry about, honest."

Simon gave her a long look, then asked for confirmation in broken Japanese. Erika kept insisting that nothing was wrong, and eventually Simon went off with their orders.

Once Simon was out of earshot, she sighed, and her expression went back to serious. She looked back at Izaya. She liked to imagine that her expression held the same amount of cool seriousness as Yoite from Nabari no Ou, but she had a feeling that she looked more like one of the more tragic characters in Fruits Basket telling the story of their abusive past. Perhaps Yuki or Hatsuharu.... But her thoughts were straying too far off topic.

"Izaya . . . how much do you know about the Baby Doll Murders?" she asked. She'd rather not talk about things he already knew about, but from what he seemed to have managed to psychoanalyze of him, he didn't know nearly enough.

[UndergroundGod]

Izaya breathed a sigh of relief as she finally convinced Simon to leave them. He knew well enough Simon would be back to check on them periodically; once to deliver their food, of course, but if Izaya knew Simon (and he thought he did, to some extent), he expected the man would make up excuses to visit them multiple times throughout the evening, just to make sure that they were really okay.

Erika's expression grew serious then, and she asked Izaya about his knowledge of the Baby Doll Murders.

Too much. That was the first response to occur to him, but it wasn't the one he would give. When he's approached her earlier that day, he hadn't mentioned how much he knew about the case. He hadn't discussed with her at all just how involved he'd been in the case. She didn't know that it was his first real mission as an information broker, she didn't know that it had caused him his first nightmares as a teenage boy… To be honest, those were things she didn't need to know, things she hadn't asked him about, things he wouldn't admit even if she had. It wasn't any of her business what his personal investment in the case was.

So he thought briefly about his answer, deciding what he needed to tell her. The details of the case flickered through his brain as he did so. He'd studied the case so intently that, if need, he could probably recreate the police files. Through the months he tracked the case, he could remember the name of each victim, could remember their faces, could remember the dresses they'd been dressed in and the make up on their faces, the horrified looks on their eyes and the scars left on their young bodies. Each detail was as vivid and horrifying as the day he'd laid eyes on it and he fought back the urge to shudder.

He shook the thoughts from his head and returned Erika's gaze to answer her question as well as he knew how. "I know everything in the police reports," he told her simply, "and probably a little more."

[unicornhunter]

Erika nodded as she took Izaya's answer into account on how much she should tell him. Now the question was: would she tell him everything, or just the things that her father did?

She sighed to herself as she realized that it would be impossible to separate the two. She sipped her tea some more while she collected her thoughts.

"I don't remember my mother. I don't know anything about her, and all of my earliest memories only have my father in them. I didn't have any friends growing up until elementary school. That was when I started becoming aware of what my father was. . . . But I didn't know everything. Or understand it all. . . . After he murdered that boy I was playing with, I simply kept to myself, rarely left the house, and did my best not to get him angry. . . . When my period started, Dad began to prey on little girls . . . often using me as bait. . . . It was the only time I was allowed to interact with other children. So at first I was happy to do it. But . . . ."

Pre-teen Erika covered her mouth in horror as she watched what her father was doing. The little girl was crying, her screams muffled by the gag that her father had stuffed in her mouth. But Erika could make out the syllables well enough to know how badly the girl was trying to scream for her mother. She tried to look away, but for some reason her body wouldn't move.

It was when Mamoru had lustfully called the little girl Erika that she was able to make herself run away from the door and lock herself in her own room - a room that couldn't be more frilly or girly if a professional decorator tried.

Erika had fallen quiet as she remembered. She swallowed hard, staring into her tea cup.

". . . . But soon I figured out what my father was doing to those girls. . . . And I learned that what he used to do to me wasn't what fathers were supposed to do to their daughters. . . ."

[UndergroundGod]

Izaya hadn't asked for any information, but almost immediately it was dispensed to him. Erika began talking to him before he had asked a single question or requested a single piece of information.

It was strange how much this case slid into his blind spot. In terms of how he normally approached situations, on this case, he felt deftly unprepared. He didn't know what questions he should ask; he didn't know what information he needed. When he was younger, all that had been expected of him was solving the case. Shiki had said he would take it from there, as the man hadn't wanted to risk the life of his young protégé when he was still learning to defend himself. The case was solved now, and Mamoru would be at his office tomorrow. The real question was what Izaya was going to do about that, which was a question that couldn't even be asked so long as Erika felt the need to spill her guts to him.

He didn't know how to react to her, to be honest. People didn't willingly hand over their biography to Izaya. That information was usually something he'd dug up for a specific purpose, or it was something he tricked people into spilling. No one CONFESSED to him. No one just willingly told him their innermost secrets.

Especially not something like this.

Externally, Izaya was poker-faced. His eyes were focused on some point on the wall off to the side of Erika's head—that way, he could see the girl, but it didn't seem like he was staring her down.

He didn't allow himself to think, something completely foreign to him. He didn't let his mind wander to triggered memories, he didn't even completely digest what Erika was telling him. He simply couldn't, not without wading into a quagmire of shit he hadn't even thought about in years.

Izaya merely nodded vaguely, listening.

[unicornhunter]

Erika quickly changed course in her story. "I knew what he was doing was wrong.... But he was still my father.... You know? And - and I was afraid that I would end up like those little girls. I didn't want to die.... And part of me still wanted to think that he really did love me...." She swallowed hard as she gathered her thoughts together. She no longer had tears to shed, but the depression from before she met Kadota was starting to return as she delved deeper into her own memories.

"He had raped and murdered twenty girls by the time one of Dad's victims was followed into the trap by her little brother.... He was furious. He destroyed everything he could grab his hands on, raging about how I was never to talk to or have any contact with boys.... He had rushed at me and started choking me, but then an idea occurred to him.... He - he intimidated and sweet-talked me into . . . into killing the boy in - in the most brutal ways I could think of...."

Erika bit her lower lip hard, making it bleed again.

"Between then and the day that our home burned down, I had tortured and murdered seven boys. Most of them were teenagers, but a couple couldn't have been any older than five years old...."

Erika shuddered and took a long sip of her tea.

"All - all the while, my father continued to rape and murder.... In between victims, he'd - he'd pretend that we were married and treat me as though I was the most precious thing in the world.... It took me such a long time to get how things really were straight in my head. Some days, I'd recognize that he was a monster and that I should do something - anything - to stop him. Other days . . . I just wanted to pretend that I had a loving father. Even when . . . ."

No. She couldn't bring herself to describe what her father would do to her. She just couldn't. Besides, that probably wouldn't be of any interest to Izaya, anyway....

"It - it all suddenly ended when I accidentally lured Walker into Dad's trap. It was the first time I had ever met him.... Walker recognized that I was in a tough situation, and he offered to help me.... You probably know what happened after that...."

Erika drank the rest of her tea, waiting for Izaya to say something - anything - or for Simon to come back. Anything to break the tension that was now in the air.

[UndergroundGod]

He continued to listen as she continued to speak, and her tale unwound in front of him, piece by piece. In just a few brief moments, he knew more about Erika than he had ever thought he would know, maybe more than he needed to know, and everything few seconds he would tell himself that it wasn't the same, it wasn't the same, just stop thinking about it, because it wasn't even close and there was really no use in dredging up sore memories.

Izaya didn't often feel sympathy for people, but that wasn't because he wasn't capable of it. For the most part, he just didn't think that most people knew what pain really was. Oh, boohoo, my parents are divorced, my boyfriend of two weeks dumped me, my job is so hard and I didn't get promoted… It was pathetic. These weren't reasons to want to die and as Izaya had tested again and again, none of those people had actually wanted to die, and none of them had known what real pain was. All they were doing was seeking attention and pity and companionship in their misery, so how in the world could Izaya be expected to feel real sympathy for them?

But this was different. Erika knew pain. Erika had been exposed to horrors the likes of which very few people could even imagine, much less survive. And not only was she alive… but despite all the shit she had gone through, she had found a modicum of happiness and was living her life as normally as possible. And, of course, she wasn't telling her story to try to gain some sort of pity—she would know better than to expect something like that from Izaya.

So Izaya was trapped in a very awkward situation… of actually wanting to offer someone else… some sort of comfort. Erika had experienced something truly traumatic and didn't automatically expect to receive comfort, and there was something admirable about that that Izaya wanted to reward…

Unfortunately, the last time Izaya had offered someone sympathy, it had been under the guise of heavy sarcasm. The last time he'd offered sincere sympathy had been years ago, perhaps over a decade ago, when his sisters were still children, and Izaya had still been clinging to an ounce of his normalcy. He wasn't sure if he even remembered what he was supposed to do, or the words he was supposed to use to actually offer someone something like comfort.

In the end, he did nothing. Once her story ended, there was nothing he could do except allow them to sit in awkward silence for a few moments, until he thought of something to break the silence.

"When I went back to my office today, he was waiting for me… You're right," oh my, were those foreign words to him, "he's definitely looking for you. He wanted to hire me to find you."