Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Epilogue

3rd Person POV (nonspecific)

When the detectives walked into the Port Mafia building, they were greeted by the sight of a child that they all recognized instantly, but none - not even Ranpo - had quite been expecting to see.

The child had two tone hair, split down the middle, and eyes with mismatched shapes in them. The clothes were the same that they had always worn - though seemed to be newer and fit the kid better than before - their doll was still stubbornly stuck in the crook of the child's elbow, but Atsushi could tell that there was something different with the teen. He could smell it.

The last time that the weretiger had seen the child before him, the mafioso had stunk of blood, the amount so excessive that the detective had thought that he was going to be sick long before an ability came into play. But now the smell was faint. The same way that people tended to smell as their wounds had begun to heal.

"Ah, detectives," the child greeted, they had a crazed smile on their lips as they looked up at the older detectives before them, the youngest of the group present being the eighteen year old with the tiger ability that the mafioso knew all too much about from Mr. Akutagawa now in the past few days. "Mr. Boss had been expecting you," the child sing - songed excitedly. "This way!"

The teen spun on their heel, beckoning the detectives to follow them as they bounced away. The detectives couldn't help the unleaded feeling that rose up inside of them as they followed after the teen. Even if they were only a child, there was still an air that always seemed to cling to the teen, painting them as something other.

Q led the detectives to the same elevator that Dazai had used the last time that most of the gathered group had been here with him to discuss the joint mission with the Port Mafia boss. Everyone that had been there that day remembered just how that meeting had gone, the things that they had seen and learned. To every one of the detectives within the Agency, that meeting marked the beginning of the downhill slide that had brought them here today, one detective short and an empty desk too many at the Agency. None of them were pleased to be heading back inside of the contraption.

The detectives' emotions however, clouded none of their observational skills.

Looking around the lobby as they moved through the mafia building, they could all see the wary looks being thrown their way, but they noticed that most of them weren't even meant for the detectives themselves, but their guide. The detectives knew that the child had been locked away inside of the Port Mafia building for a very long time, only released when the boss felt it absolutely necessary and worth the cost. Everyone in the building, Agency members included, could remember just what had happened the last time that the boss had felt it 'necessary'.

The guards standing in front of the elevator let the group inside without even having to be asked, keeping a careful distance from the dangerous teen.

The elevator ride up to the penthouse was tense, but otherwise uneventful. The detectives gave the two toned teen a wide berth, knowing that even if they didn't hurt the child on purpose, a simple brush to the perpetually injured arm would be enough. Or at least it would have been before, but Ranpo wasn't going to tell them this, soaking in the entertainment that he could get before having to watch those whole ordeal unfold, and Atsushi just didn't realize that the child was all but completely healed. He could still smell the hint of blood, but that was coming from the blade in the child's purse that they had in case they needed it. A gift from Dazai.

The teen themselves were paying the others around them no mind, far too used to others' caution by now to care, and humming along to the foreign song playing in the elevator. No one else that Q knew and liked was fluent enough in English to understand the lyrics, but Mr. Dazai had translated them once for Q when they had asked in the time since the man had rejoined the mafia and they had made somewhat of a truce. The anger that the teen held for the man was still there, but it was lessened by the information about their imprisonment that they had now that they hadn't before. Q chose to redirect most of it to the detectives standing at the child's back. They were the ones after all that Mr. Dazai had gone running to eventually when the man had got out and the teen had remained locked up like an unwanted pet that no one could bring themselves to kill just yet.