Night 55: M11 - M20 Hallway
And there was the evening announcement, timely as always, although he could have done without the noise at the beginning. It was still slightly jarring to not hear those mocking tones that he had grown so accustomed to, but he did prefer the more direct announcements that had been rolling in ever since last evening. No pathetic attempts at creating
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And things had been chaotic, that first night, with the change in guard and the conflict between the Landel's crowd and the military. It would have given her a better chance at slipping through the net.
Badd passed the pen from hand to hand, twisting it like a lollipop stick. "Wherever she is, and whenever she is, she's safer than she was here. And she grew up pretty sharp, quick on her feet. I know she'll pull through." He didn't mention that Kay had the common sense of a goldfish and the enthusiasm of a puppy, which had led her astray in the past. When it came to really serious business she knew how to knuckle down and fight her way through.
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But at least Kay was far away from here now. He hoped--no, he knew she had gotten away. She had better be safe, wherever she was now. She had better be safe, Byrne swore under his breath, if they so much as touched a single hair on his little girl's head--
...his little girl?
Come to think of it, how many years had it been, again? Badd had said she grew up pretty sharp. Was she already an adult, or close to it? She grew up already, and he, her father, wasn't there to see it? Wasn't there to watch her graduate high school, wasn't there to teach her how to drive a car, wasn't there to frighten away foolish boys who thought they were good enough to date her? He...he wasn't going to be there to be a part of any of that? Then what, this was it? Was going home his death sentence? Would he be able to change his fate, or was he already dead?
Byrne swallowed hard, gripping the sheets of the bed tightly. Now, more than ever, he wished this were all just a crazy nightmare. "H-how old is she now," he muttered. "How...how has she been all this time?"
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"She found out about you. Not us, just you, she didn't even find out there was an 'us' until later. And she thought the world of you for it, started dressing up and going around calling herself the second Great Thief Yatagarasu. She even had this little pin in the shape of the bird symbol from our cards. I don't think she quite got that the first Yatagarasu made a habit of never being noticed."
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She was running around dressed up in a Yatagarasu costume, wearing the symbol and everything?! After he'd been killed for god's sake! Didn't she realize how big of a target she was to the people who'd wanted him dead?! Didn't she...no no no, easy, easy, easy Faraday, there had to be more to this story. Badd seemed pretty calm about this, there had to be an explanation. But then--augh, hadn't Badd said earlier that Calisto had pulled a gun on Kay?!
"She didn't realize how much danger she was in by doing that? I mean, if the guys who killed me recognized her, don't you think--A-and Calisto, what you said earlier, didn't she pull a gun on Kay--wasn't--I mean--" He was babbling like an idiot, slightly wide-eyed and on the brink of having a parental paranoia-induced heart attack. Obviously Byrne was terrible at this 'taking it easy' thing when it had to do with his daughter's well-being.
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Just accused of murder and taken hostage, but they'd both been resolved.
"And if it wasn't for her and that Little Thief device of yours we'd never have found Calisto, let alone the head of the smuggling ring. Don't worry. Kid knows how to handle herself."
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...Alright. He had to hear this. From the start. Everything. He had to know.
"I want to know everything," Byrne said, finally starting to regain his composure. "Please, tell me what happened again from the start, with my murder. And then about this--what you just said--you really caught the head of everything?" Could it be true? After all of their struggle, they'd finally achieved their goal?
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"After she killed you and Rell, Calisto set up the bodies to make it look like you'd killed each other at the same time. I was planning to investigate it myself, but von Karma decided I needed to babysit his teenager daughter and Miles Edgeworth, the rookie prosecutor they brought in to replace you. Took up too much of my time and attention to let me work on my own. Of course I knew it was a fake too, but it was Edgeworth who pointed it out. He's the one who picked apart the entire mystery, even as a rookie he was pretty smart. Unfortunately when we confronted Calisto she pulled a gun and made a run for it." He didn't mention that Kay had been the room when she'd fired that shot at Edgeworth. Byrne had enough to worry about.
Badd shook his head, recalling the aching regret he'd felt when she'd slipped through his fingers. He'd thought Cece Yew's injustice was the worst, but failing Byrne hit him even harder. "The only thing I caught was another bullet in my coat. Had to take a little time off after that. I kept up with the ring as a side project, legally and illegally, but I didn't get my big break until seven years later...about a week before they were going to forcibly retire me."
He could have gotten a promotion and cushy desk job years ago, or asked for an early retirement. But Badd was adamant that if they were going to take him off the force they had to put him down like a sick dog. The weeks leading up to that final stroke of luck had been agonizing as he realized the only way he could make a difference would be to take the ring down with him.
"If I hadn't gotten it by my due date, I was going to go to the chief and confess everything. At least the information would be out there where the younger cops and prosecutors could use it to keep up the fight. But it didn't quite turn out that way." Almost. But not quite.
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