Description: Zach Glenn seems to have attracted some attention in the course of his activities surrounding the Butcher.
Captain Zach Glenn, United States Marine Corps, has had a rough couple of weeks working on the Butcher Case. He had seen several of the places the monster had shown up, seen a few of the survivors, what was left of the victims.
Glenn was not exactly a stranger to violence. As a Marine AND a professional fighter, Zach had seen his share of both combat and fighting. Even so, some of the things this case had made him bear witness to left the man a little weary.
It had ALSO not helped that he had the niggling feeling that he was being tailed. Whoever was following him was sloppy, at best, and clearly not a threat to him. He'd have picked up on /that/ pretty quickly, and dealt with it appropriately.
So Glenn decides to lead his tail on a littl chase, heading for the Sleeping Dragon for a snack. Before he arrives at Jam's culinary paradise, though, he ducks into an alley to see what happens.
The tail had been following him for blocks now, furtively slinking from cover to cover and occasionally popping around it to stare at her quarry even as other people on the street stop or turned in their direction curious as to what was going on. Occasionally having to run openly to try and catch up as it was falling behind and losing him.
The tail that blunders around the corner does so half gasping for breath and looking left and right for him, she can't be more than fourteen or fifteen at the most. A bob cut of strawberry red turning this way and that while a hand is raised to adjust her spectacles with an oft-practiced motion and heavy sigh. Had she lost him again?
Dressed for the weather in an overlarge woolly pink cardigan and a huge plaid muffler woven around her neck and chin she looks anything but a threat, carrying an overlarge sports bag with her petite frame she looks almost swaddled up against the elements and carrying far too much to be out for a casual job, let alone the fact she was tailing a US Captain. Obviously a Japanese citizen though and looking pretty fatigued.
She starts by turning a slow circles and looking up and down the street, store fronts and ends up facing right into the alleyway where -- She squeaks and leaps back around the corner with a thump as her sports bag hits the wall only for half her face and head to reappear moments later peering around the side of the wall and still having not given up or accepted she has been made.
Persistence was the key to victory, fight on.
Zach lets out a sigh as he walks straight towards the young woman. He has a bit of a frown on his face, but is clearly endeavoring to be polite to this clearly young woman.
"Is there some way I help you, Miss," Zach asks in functional Japanese. The usage is barely polite enough for meeting a total stranger, but Zach has not grown up with the culture /or/ the language.
The Marine is wearing street clothes; long sleeve shirt, jacket, jeans, and a nice pair of sneakers. Blonde hair, close cut, hides under a Fatal Fury baseball cap.
"C-c-captain of the US Airforce ... Zach Glenn!"
The girl splutters and squeaks out his out his rank and then name like it were the answer to a particularly hard test question. Her face illuminated by the flicker of an appearing bright light and a rectangle of screen appearing reflected in the lenses she thumbs through a couple of screens and slides a phone into view with the screen turned towards him.
"Three-two-six.."
She pauses as she can't remember the rest to speak it aloud, turning the phone back around in her direction to look at the rest of the numbers involved. Alright! She knows who he is, that's private information she's starting to reel off in a bid to get his attention and it's also something the little shrimp most definitely should not know.
"Nine, nine."
This was her big chance to overwhelm him with the studious extent of her information gathering, despite the fact she isn't even looking at him and is just reading off a tiny little screen at the edge of the street.
"United States Marine Corps," Zach corrects, still polite until she starts reading off his Social Security Number. He smoothly slides a hand between the girl's eyes and the screen. "Please stop," Zach says in a neutral but still poilte tone of voice that suggests that he be obeyed.
"It appears you already know who I am," Zach says flatly, "May I know who you are?"
The girl responds to the flat voice and military man now in close proximity, staring down at her -- by shutting her phone off - along with a weak and twitchy smile as she does so. Pocketing the phone in one of the baggy woollen pockets in her cardigan she swallows hard, adjusts her glasses and stares right back up at him.
"Ayame Sacaaaand I would like to exchange information with you."
Important to establish a first name basis with someone from the West, just speeding that bit along by only giving him her first name only! That's how it worked right? The girl is absolutely dead serious and earnest in her request.
Having tailed him this whole time for information about the Butcher and the mysterious cases the good captain had become embroiled in. She is completely sincere and willing to throw herself at his feet and tackle him if it would get her the information she needs.
She reeks of that desperation, and a faint hint of blood. She could be family of one of the more recent victims, an entusiast or.. a fan?
The girl responds to the flat voice and military man now in close proximity, staring down at her -- by shutting her phone off - along with a weak and twitchy smile as she does so. Pocketing the phone in one of the baggy woollen pockets in her cardigan she swallows hard, adjusts her glasses and stares right back up at him.
"Akame Sa...aaaand I would like to exchange information with you."
Important to establish a first name basis with someone from the West, just speeding that bit along by only giving him her first name only! That's how it worked right? The girl is absolutely dead serious and earnest in her request.
Having tailed him this whole time for information about the Butcher and the mysterious cases the good captain had become embroiled in. She is completely sincere and willing to throw herself at his feet and tackle him if it would get her the information she needs.
She reeks of that desperation, and a faint hint of blood. She could be family of one of the more recent victims, an enthusiast or.. a fan?
Zach frowns. "Okay, Akame No Last Name," he says evenly as he looks this young woman over. He smells the blood on her. Odd. "Information regarding what, exactly?"
Akame quirks her head almost quizzically, glasses sliding askew on her face as big brown eyes blink up at Zach glenn.
"On the Butcher."
Her Tone and voice does drop wisely by a hair but it's not enough to completely avoid being overheard by passers-by. Akame stands up to him despite the clear advantage in size, training and experience and forthrightly offers on her side of the bargain.
"I want to trade what I know about - the butcher - In exchange for what you know, about him or the victims."
Theres no real sympathy or empathy for the victims especially, they're just more pieces to the puzzle, or cards that only Zach has to play since she hasn't gotten close to any of them.
Akame isn't afraid, she's not even vaguely afraid of this mention of the butcher, it's obvious she hasn't caught up with the being herself, and that adds to her desperation. To find and identify it before anyone else does.
Zach tenses up at the mention of the Butcher, and throws a glance over his shoulder to see if anyone /else/ is paying attention. The frown deepens as looks down at the young woman in front of him.
"I know enough to know that it's dangerous," Zach says, his voice still neutral. "Why are you interested in the Butcher," Zach asks, his voice lowered to prevent eavesdropping.
Akame's face closes over as she looks away and considers her options on how best to respond to that without tipping her hand or giving too much away, but.. Alluding to what she has already enough that it had to be intriguing? Hrmn..! Pinching the bridge of nose as she is lost she suddenly raises a finger and her head likewise to reply.
"That's one of my secrets ..."
No? that wasn't any good. Try something else!
"-To find out if it is really the Butcher."
There's a different inflection to the words as she uses them there, a different meaning? Akame for sure does not know if what people around here are calling the butcher is the same thing as what she has information on.
She knows what she knows, confidant but is that enough to hook the good Captain?
"So you really don't have anything," Zach says, the frown still there, still deep. "Look, Miss Akame," he says firmly. "This thing," Zach refuses to think of the Butcher as a person, not after seeing what it does to its victims, "Is not something you want to cross."
Zach turns to leave. He's not about to share information with a young woman who, by all appearances, will get herself killed or worse if she throws down with the Butcher. He won't have that on his hands.
Akame raises her hand, dumbstruck and struggling for what to do or next, following along behind Zach in a quickly escalating panic, suddenly she blurts out far too loudly for the street and time of day.
"This is the first time he's attacked a modern city instead of a rural setting! There usually aren't even victims or survivors!"
She starts running after him blindly and trying to get his attention desperately. People are staring at her now, some of them looking upset as the topic of the Butcher was something of a fearsome boogie man invading the headlines and the news. A boogie man that was prompting more and more dreadful and fearsome tales even for those who had been lucky enough to never cross his path.
"I need to know if it's really the same one."
Low enough in volume and spoken so that only Zach can hear and setting her feet she's grabbing a hold on the back of his t-shirt, unwilling to let him get away now she had finally caught up.
Zach stops short when she mentions the thing about the Butcher attacking cities. This gives Akame her chance to grab the man's shirt. He looks over his shoulder at the young woman, then makes a cool but pointed glance at her han on his shirt.
"Follow me," Zach says quietly before walking into the Sleeping Dragon proper.
Akame retracts her hand as though scalded when she notices the pointed glance and makes a small show of patting his back in the same spot, all better!! She was running out of cards to even play in the game and had gotten nothing out of the military type so far.
Hesitant to nod in response to the instruction to follow she remains rooted to the spot before suddenly overcoming her shock with a mad dash to bound into a puppy-like following and a curious examination of the restaurant upon her entry.
She trails after Glenn, following his lead but at the same time her head on a swivel taking in all the design 'features,' like the burn marks! That boarded up hole in the ceiling, that was a curiousity she lingers on, staring at that one for a while even while still following obediantly.
Did a bit fall off that wierd lizard on the buildings roof? That'd explain it.
Fights tend to happen here. Off-the-wall, over-the-top fights tend to happen here. Jam does the best that she can to keep ahead of the repairs, but it's likely a losing battle.
Zach holds the door open for Akame, and guides her to a booth. He flags down a waitress. "A Asahi Black and," Zach glances at Akame, guessing she's a minor, "A juice for the young lady." The waitress bounces off as Zach gestures for Akame to sit. He waits for the girl to sit down before sliding in across from her.
"You said there usually aren't victims, or survivors. Tell me what you can about the ones you do know about, and I'll tell you if that lines up with what I know."
The girl settles into the booth like almost any kid her age would, strike that! She near bounces in place testing the seat and swings her legs back and forth before turning to watch the waitress taking an order with some interest. wisely only beginning to speak once they're left in peace.
"There are accounts (Mostly myths and legends but she doesn't need to bring that part up) but so few survive 'his' attacks that information is almost non-existent."
Fishing around in her bag she withdraws another smartphone, but this one is a whole lot more expensive and current looking than the one she was using as a phone, She unclips a large paparazzi style flash and slides it out of a case containing a rig for alternate lenses before sliding it across the table toward Zach.
"Most of the time the majority of bodies are gone, there is an assumption that in many of the cases.. Of cannibalism. Some remains are or were recorded partially eaten or at the very least some of the older records mention mutilation, at the very least."
The phone contains everything she has collected to date (that's recent); there are pictures of the interior of an apartment building, what looks like a hospital room, complete with police markings and blood spatter captured in living colour. And there's more: Streets? Back alleys? Even a basketball court, places where more recent goings on have happened.
Akame just props her elbows up on the table and leans tiredly with her chin against her thumbs and propped up by her forearms as she gives Zach time to explore the substantial yet grotesque repository.
"As for victims that have survived and lived to tell the tale time or even years later.. none. The only accounts that were ever left were told to others second or third hand."
Zach moves quick, flipping through the photos with a certain amount of alacrity. "Yeah," he says. "Tell me about those accounts," he says. He pauses, covering the screen with one hand as the drinks arrived. Zach, in an incredibly indelicate moment, guns his beer down and waves for another. He wants his brain to be a little mushy for this.
"It's important," he says a second later. "The murders could still be copycats, but the fates of the survivors will tell us whether it's the same person."
After all, Zach thinks, how many soul rending cannibals could there possibly /be/ out there?
Strawberry pink hair bobs as the girl vehemently nod, she's slow to speak. The cause: a straw hanging out of the corner of her mouth into a frosty glass of orange juice and the contents gradually vanishing. She smacks her lips appreciatively, but then leans her head against her cheek.
"But.. that's one of your cards Captain Zach. You know where some of the victims are? Are they still safe or has he come for them, or killed and taken them? or maybe -- done something else to them?"
Some of these murders could definitely be copycats, not everything could be attributed to the real 'The Butcher' she was hunting and trying to ascertain as to whether it was the real deal. She just keeps driving nails home as she keeps going with absolutely no knowledge really about who and where these victims were.
"There are no survivors to learn from, never an attack on a metropolitan city before, and soon enough he might just disappear and go inactive again. Like -maybe-- he has in the past."
Whatever panic or horrors she might have unleashed for Zach Glenn she tries to regain his interest and keep him at the table by withdrawing a handful of crinkled up A4 papers and sliding them across the table likewise to him. Photocopies of newspaper articles, and newsprint.. The oldest is nearly a hundred years old. Scarily, there are older ones still in the bag she is withholding from him. Things that would strain his belief in her credibility and information gathering skills perhaps.
From real life murders and horrors the petite girl in her dainty red spectacles seems to be introducing a conspiracy theory level of craziness to an already complex problem.
"None," Zach says, gesturing at the photos, glancing over the articles. "You've clearly studied, gathered a fair amount of information." He studies Akame through narrowed eyes as he extends his psychic senses towards the young woman for the first time to get a read off of her. "Who do you work for?"
Akame fidgets under that gaze, its uncomfortable and she doesn't really feel things are going so well but she answers with some spirit in the face of adversity.
"Uhh M-myself really. Its contract work so it only pays anything if it all works out and I deliver results. Otherwise, it's worth nothing."
There was offer of a hundred thousand dollar reward out for information leading to apprehension or locating this Butcher now; there were surely other people out there like Akame trying to track him for reward. She speaks a complete truth but not the entirely of the story associated with it.
Shes feigning more cheer than she actually feels, so tired the fatigue is etched into her bones, hungry and frustrated but still hopeful; this might lead to finding this butcher -- Only then can she ascertain as to whether it's really a target for the Hunters Guild at all.
She displays absolutely no wariness of acknowledgement she knows what Zach is attempting though she does take the time to suckle on the straw and keep emptying the glass.
Curiously though, she is absolutely unafraid, not even remotely scared or upset by the sights she has seen, those images of blood and sudden violent death wouldn't even cause her heartrate to rise, and she took them in person, those pictures of the hospital room look like they were taken from outside a broken window.
Zach's eyes stay focused on Akame, a faint grin on flickering across his face. He waves the waitress over, and orders a second juice before folding his arms across his chest as he leans back in his seat. He thinks things over for a moment.
"You are not at all what you appear to be," Zach says, not in accusation so much as statement of fact. "You're way too collected, given what you've seen," he says as he gestures at the camera. He takes a sip of his beer, then glances away.
"Fine," he says. "Keep your secrets. You need to talk to Agent Daniel Little, from Interpol. He's working on this case, and happens to be one of this thing's survivors." Another swig.
Akame clearly doesn't get it at all. She wasn't really hiding anything, There wass absolutely nothing on that camera that would even remotely give her pause. There weren't even any bodies in most of the pictures, a bit of blood splattered around a bit, an unidentifiable chunk or two here or there but nothing - abnormal or frightening. She responds to his answer about Interpol with a faint frown that blossoms into wide and grinning elation!
"Really?!"
There was still at least one victim still alive! So, all she had to do was be introduced to him and then stick to him like glue until the butcher came for him. Then this whole thing could be sorted out with a phone call, and the guild could post a bounty that might draw half the world's hunters down on this city.
The contract fee alone was probably more money than she could ever conceive of, and she wasn't thinking of the hundred thousand.
Zach grins a bit; the excitement is slightly contagious. "He's..." Zach pauses. "Yeah." Zach frowns, considering. "There's something you should know." She needs to know this.
"The Butcher has a way of keeping tabs on the people who survive. In fact, it's probably fair to say that it lets them survive as much as the victims manage to survive. Sticking around Little is as likely to put you in some serious danger as is it to make the Agent get mad at you."
"You should leave this alone," he says. "This thing is indescribably dangerous, both in the short term and the long term."
The girl ceases her drinking and shakes her head in an forceful denial of even the remotest chances of that happening. She was now too close to give up on a prize like this.
"Then there is something else, and maybe he does come back for the former victims, If I stay close to him I might catch sight of the Butcher and be able to see for sure what it is."
This obviously matters a great deal to her and she actually seems cheery at the result of the talk, though a little anxious and strangely nervous now that she has crossed the threshold onto a genuine lead that might bring her face-to.. whatever, with her quarry.
"It's a good thing there's just the one victim, otherwise I'd never know who to ... them? People?! -- There's more than one?!!"r
Her voice escalates beyond the bounds and reason of polite conversation volume in her shock and earns some looks form the waitress .Big trouble! She -might- stake out one of the victims only to have the Butcher go after one of the others.
Hmn, what to do?
"Yes," Zach says flatly as he finishes his beer. "And no, I am not going to tell you who they are," he says as pulls himself out of the booth. "As much for their protection as yours." Zach pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, and fishes out some yen notes to cover the drinks ordered so far plus a generuos tip.
"Trust me on that one," Zach says as he heads for the door.
The girl sits there with her jaw slack, tightening and clamping her jaw shut and puffing up his cheeks like a kettle building up a heat of steam as he ignores her and counts out money onto the table. Any second now she'll probably start drumming her heels against the seat and demanding answers or but instead.. she remains content at just trying to glare a whole right through him and uncover his secrets that way.
"Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."
As he gets up to leave the frown deepens and ups the amperage on that glare like she was trying to curse him just by looking at him hard enough, seething and boiling frustration and at least a dozen unasked questions but her head of steam just seems to dissipate as he starts walking away.
"I'll watch mine then and you watch yours."
Sheesh it wasn't that hard to divvy up a workload but he was playing his cards close to his chest, she hadn't even known there were any victims, he gave her one.. and withheld all the others LIKE A BIG STINK HEAD.
"What da PHUCK -- Are you done looking babe? Lovers quarrel for your liking?"
The waitress almost stumbles as she makes her way over to take the tip off the table and she instead retreats for now. The gout of crude language was alien and horrifying form the mouth of a dainty fifteen year old schoolgirl in her pink button cardigan, strawberry pink bob cut hair and red spectacles.
But it bought her some more alone time to finish her juice and digest what she'd learned as well as pack up everything.
Daniel Little, Of Interpol. How hard could that be to find.
Log created on 23:32:49 02/12/2015 by Zach Glenn, and last modified on 10:41:29 02/14/2015.