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Poe lost track of time. Seconds, minutes, hours or days do not mean much to him anymore. Time spent with Ranpo is over and now time spent by himself is even more.
He saw it coming.
He gently ran his fingers through Karl’s fur. The only one left. He smiled as Karl lifted his nose to nuzzle into his hand affectionately.
That’s right. He still has Karl. Karl will never leave him. Karl is still here.
Making a sudden notice that his house is low on food and Karl needs some too, he finally got out of his house to end his seclusion once again. After all, he still has his will to live. He is not going to collapse because Karl is still here.
“Let’s go out for food, Karl.”
The raccoon gazed at him in concern. A silent question being asked.
“I’m better because I still have you,” a fragile soft smile spread on his face.
The raccoon only made what sounded like a content noise before wrapping himself around Poe’s shoulders. As it cuddled into Poe’s neck, it seemed to say “I love you” and he could not stop himself from chuckling as he walked towards his door.
“Yah, I love you too.”
All too sudden for Poe, his door crashed at his feet to reveal men at the entrance. His eyes widened and his heart sped up, the world was once again in chaos.
“Edgar Allan Poe! Our leader wants you to come with us!”
Karl growled.
He breathed.
“I…”
It was all too sudden.
Suddenly he was pushed to the ground and Karl was yanked from his shoulders with a screech.
“Karl!” He cringed at the feeling in his throat for not using his voice much.
“Kill that filthy scum. Take the target back. Let’s move, boys!”
He tried to get up but someone pinned him down harder. “Don’t move!” the person had cried.
“Karl!”
The men threw Karl on the floor and kicked him like he was a soccer ball.
“Stop it! Let me go!”
The raccoon cries were brimming with pain. Blood oozed out of its wounds as the men shot his tiny fragile body.
“Karl!”
Their laughter, so evil it made the devil look like a sweet angel. The pained cries of torture mixing in with all the noise, pleading for them to stop. Poe hated how the sounds rang in his ears but echoed louder in his head.
A sudden burst of adrenaline. In their torturing of his friend and making a fiesta out of it, he yanked his arm out and pulled a handgun from his captor’s side.
He did not have to look behind him to fire and the weight on him was gone. He rolled away to hide behind a pillar as someone yelled to open fire. He let out a breath as he closed his eyes for a second before reopening them once again. He pulled out a piece of paper from his coat and left it on the ground. Before running into the one of the many shadows of his house.
The men cautiously approached the corner. Completely unaware as he watched them from the depths of the shadows. “There’s a piece of paper here,” One proceeded to bend down while the others kept on guard.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know. Take a look.”
The others crowded around him as they looked over his shoulder at the innocent note.
“I-”
And then they were all sucked into the note with a startled yell. Suddenly, the space that once held so many men was now empty with no life.
Poe came out from the shadows and ignored the glowing note. He silently thanked whatever had granted him this ability as he hastily made his way to Karl.
The raccoon was whimpering when Poe had arrived. Softly assuring Karl with his voice, he gingerly picked up the injured animal, hoping that he was not too late. Making sure that Karl was secured safely in his arms, he made his way out of his house, still on guard for any more attackers as he hid the handgun he had snatched previously in his coat.
Just now he had taken down 6 men at once, one of them was lying in his own blood in his house but he could not bring himself to be bothered at this moment. He had killed before just not recently. After all, he had left the Guild who had trained him to kill. He could no longer feel the life of the other five attackers in his note. What he had written inside was not meant to deliver a quick death. Afterall, they had hurt Karl. All he could do for them now was to pray that they will rest in peace but he is not so sure if they could if they are going to die in the words he had written. It was definitely not going to be a peaceful death.
Calculating his decisions, he decided that he should bring Karl to the Armed Detective Agency since Yosano-san has the ability to immediately heal anything that is still alive no matter how critical. As much as he does not feel like seeing his ex, he knew that Karl’s injuries were way more important than his drama with Ranpo. He needs Karl and he would do anything to save his longest friend in this chaotic ruined world.
Suddenly, alarm bells rang all over his senses as he dodged. The wall he was in front of now has a bullet indented into it. Registering the positions of not one but 3 armed men, he nimbly turned into an alleyway.
Looking around knowing he has limited time, he spotted a wall with a missing pet poster of a black cat. Thinking fast, he pulled out a pen and traced the letters of the poster hastily before turning the paper over and writing “The Black Cat in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe”. Pulling out a different piece of paper from his coat, he attached it to the back of the poster and placed it back at its original position. He lay Karl down with wary hands in a hidden spot where only a skilled person with a trained eye could find. Reading the word “MISSING” he had traced out in the same ink as the paper that it is almost unnoticeable, he activated his ability and pulled himself into the short story he had written. The original part of his poster acted as a cover and the back as a title page like a book with the single paper he had pulled from his coat as the story. Technically, the word “MISSING” is his own writing as he had written over the word and just by reading it they would be sucked into his world.
Now in his own short story, he was a black cat in a morgue. Amusing himself on how he had named this short story after his own ability, he sat on one of the rare clean tables in the room which is not covered in blood or body parts. Yes, he wrote a horror story in a morgue and he is a cat. Some of the chambers keeping the bodies were opened and many unidentified body parts either dangling from the corpse or just lying by itself. He could hear blood dripping from somewhere in rhythmic drops as he watched the single small lamp flicker inconsistently.
A glow in the room and 3 new men appeared. As they stumbled into the morgue, they all gagged at the stench of rotting flesh. Surrounded by carrion was not the most pleasant situation for sane people and Poe could understand their distaste because he dislikes this place that he had created.
“What the hell is this place?”
“Looks like a blood bath.”
“The cat in the poster is sitting there!” At that phrase, the other 2 heads turn towards him.
He meowed innocently, mischief hidden in his eyes.
An eyeball dropped from a random corpse and rolled on the floor, leaving a blood trail in its wake before knocking against one of the men’s shoes to stop and looked up directly at the men. A scream of shocked terror rang from him as he took a step back from the eerie eyeball.
“Dude, chill man.”
Poe watched the reactions of the men as he stretched his body. The show is going to start soon.
A loud creak from the doors of the morgue halted the noise from the men as they slowly turned around in fear of what they might find. One of the doors was ajar, wide enough for them to see the pitch black darkness outside but not wide enough for them to see anything else. They all paused for a moment, waiting for something they do not even know was coming until one of them took a tentative step forward. Each step from the man was filled with dread of whatever was supposed to come. When he was in arms reach of the door, he hesitantly gave it a gentle push just enough to open it.
The loud squeak from the hinges of the door sounded like a protest, a call that seemed like it was telling him that whatever was hiding behind that door, was not going to be pretty. When the door had fully opened until it gently bounced off the wall, the men collectively let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh, just you wait,” was what Poe had thought as he continued to sit at the same position.
Before the men could continue to celebrate, a black hand with long bony fingers suddenly wrapped itself around the side of the second door. All the men’s eyes widened themselves so wide that Poe was concerned that their eyeballs were going to fall out. They all backed away from the door with alarmed steps as they held their breaths unknowingly.
A head darker than the shadows suddenly popped out like a jack-in-a-box.
Oh, what a dreaded surprise.
The face had no eyes and sharp teeth that were stained red that spread itself across its face as a crazed wide smile. A maniacal laugh came from the dark creature as the hand that was once holding the side of the door left its place, leaving a mark dripping with blood that rolled down the door. It walked on all fours and its long pointy nails screeched against the bloodied floor making the sound of a knife being dragged along across a surface, the sound itself sharper than the creature's nails itself.
Already knowing the fate of the men, he prepared himself to leave. A golden light appeared behind him, alerting the 3 men of his departure. They all turned towards him as they scurried away like mice trying to escape a cat from the creature.
“Wait! Let us out too!”
He only meowed as an apology they probably will never understand as it was in a cat’s language before leaving them behind in the morgue to their demise, ignoring their desperate calls for a savior.
As he returned to the real world, he took in a big breath of fresh air. His nostrils finally relieved from the miasma of the decaying flesh of that morgue. Pulling out the paper he had attached at the back of the poster, he silently hoped that the owner would be able to find their cat before folding the glowing note into neat squares and tucking it into his coat.
Just before he could finally bring medical attention to Karl, he stopped in his tracks as his heart seemed to stop beating. His blood ran cold as he stood rooted to the ground of the dusty alleyway. His eyes expanded and his pupils dilated to the smallest size possible. The spot where Karl was lying was empty with only a pool of blood.
Karl is missing.
His eyes trailed the droplets of blood that created a path to Karl. Whoever had taken Karl had wanted him to find them and lead him into a trap. Poe knows this but he could do nothing but raced to Karl before it is too late. And Poe knows another thing too - whoever took Karl is not going to be as easy to deal with as the previous 11 men he had taken down since this person managed to find Karl in such a well hidden spot.
Wait-
Holy-! He stopped himself from swearing.
He had just taken out 11 men. Well, he is definitely on a roll for not killing anyone the past few months. Well, he was not in the Guild for nothing.
Pushing the thought out of his head, he made his way into the trap set up for him with the only goal in his mind is to save Karl.
After what felt like a millennial, he reached his destination with one hand in his pocket and the other hidden by his coat to give the impression that it too was in his pocket but it was actually resting on the hand gun he had stolen from one of his attackers back at his house. Breathing in, he forced himself to calm nerves down as he observed the sight in front of him.
A man was holding Karl by his neck and Poe had to hold himself back from blatantly shooting at the man for fear that Karl would have to suffer more injuries. Another problem was that the rich looking man seemed to be the leader and the bigger group of armed people would be able to kill him in an instant in this open area with no cover.
“Well well well, look who had arrived late to the party. Welcome Poe-chan~ I did not expect you to take down 11 of my men so easily. I truly underestimated you since you seemed more like the type that does not do the dirty work. Well, you were not in the Guild for nothing even though you are a strategist. You should praise yourself,” the man holding Karl had said as he grinned with amusement making Poe’s stomach curl in anxiety and revolted rage.
He remained silent, not trusting his own voice.
“Ah, a man of a few words I see. I am the executive of the organisation called Shinigami and you can call me Yama. Well, Poe-chan, I will get straight to the point than or else your friend here is going to bleed out.” Poe tightened his grip on the gun. “If you surrender yourself peacefully, I will leave your trash animal here and I won’t kill him immediately. After all, don’t you want a fighting chance for Karl-kun here? If you're lucky someone will find him.”
Poe kept silent as he thought over the offer. He was sure that someone in his neighbourhood had reported the commotion in his house. Gunshots and breaking down of doors is something that has to be reported. The Armed Detective Agency will most likely be roped into this since he also has a dead body in his house with a gunshot wound. They might make it to Karl in time and he knows that they are good people who will save Karl. On the other hand, he does not know what these people from who called their organisation “Shinigami” are going to do with him. But he has to take the risk. For Karl.
“Alright, I accept your terms if you leave Karl in safety and cause no more harm to him,” he spoke just loud enough for Yama to hear.
“Good choice! Take him, we’re leaving boys!” Yama spoke and as promised, he lay Karl down on the ground, not as gently as Poe would but many times better than the men had when they ruthlessly threw Karl on the ground like a ragged doll. Someone tied his hands and blindfolded him and even went as far as to give him ear plugs in case he used sound to track the journey before being shoved into a car. These people are seriously the real deal. Poe hoped Karl would be safe as the car’s door locked him in for a journey to an unknown destination.
______
A call echoed across the office of the Armed Detective Agency as chatter of the members refused to cease. Kunikida picked up the phone to attend to the caller.
“Good Afternoon. This is Kunikida Doppo of the Armed Detective Agency, what’s the issue?”
“Uh um hello sir. My n-name is Tanaka. I-I heard some commotion in my neighbourhood. There was a gunshot and a lot of u-uh disturbing noises. I-I think someone might be hurt, I’m not very s-sure.
My neighbour in the house is nowhere to be seen,” the voice on the other end of the line was shaken as they reported the incident.
“We will be right there, Tanaka-san. Please calm down, we will be there as soon as possible. What is the name of your neighbour?”
“His name is Poe, I-I think.”
Kunikida was silent for a while before the voice of the informant brought him out of his slight shock.
“We will be on our way, Tanaka-san,” he ended the call.
The other members of the agency gave him a look of concern as they questioned him worriedly at his demeanor.
“Poe-san’s house has been attacked and he is nowhere to be found.”
The agency paused for a second. Each one of them has met the shy man from his visits to the agency and they only increased when he started dating Ranpo but they had not seen him in awhile and they knew the reason. They all turned to Ranpo who held a stoic expression instead of his usual cheery one.