Chapter Text
Tachihara still didn’t fully understand how he ended up here. He was lucky that he had been taught several different languages while training to be a Hunting Dog. Speaking of which, he wondered how on Earth he ended up in his twelve-year-old body. He couldn’t feel any sign of his routine surgeries as part of the military unit, so that meant that it was his body most likely a few months before he had joined, or at least a few months before his training fully started.
He was now left with several tasks. First task, find out where he was. Second task, find shelter. Third task, find a good source of food and water and other such necessities.
For the first task, he could deduce a few things from what he already knew. The entire reason that he was stuck in who knows where was because of a stupid Port Mafia mission. They had been tasked to capture a man with a transportation ability, and while fully prepared, something went wrong anyways. They hadn’t even meant to get close, but the ability used had somehow forced them into a corner, their weapons (specifically Tachihara’s guns) having all been removed from their persons as anytime the man drew close, they had to sacrifice their weapons so that he didn’t touch them. In the end, Tachihara decided to be and idiot and “take one for the team” by getting close enough to engage in close combat so that his teammates could escape. They just had to catch the ability user and bring him to Dazai, but that could take who knows how long.
There was not much that was known about the ability, but it is known that the ability user can remove their victims from where he sends them to at any time. After the Port Mafia captured one of the very few who was let out of one and escaped alive, they had been interrogated. Apparently, that ability transported you to another world, as in fully functioning separate multiverse, and time moved much faster in the world you were sent to. Tachihara never remembered learning that when you get transported to a mother wild, you become younger. So, while Tachihara technically knew the basics of where he was, he would still have to research the new world he had somehow gotten himself trapped in.
For the second and third tasks, he would need a lay of the land before he could find any shelter. He appeared to be in an alleyway, his sudden entrance scaring off a few rodents, but nothing more. He supposed he would have to peek his head out eventually, and there was no better time than now.
Whatever city he was in was honestly not much better than the alleyway that he had first found himself in. While he had definitely seen worse (he had spent some time trying his best to survive in Suribachi City), it still was not a pretty sight to look at. The clouds were dark and polluted, the people passing by on the street looked miserable, and there were stain of blood or ash nearly everywhere he looked. He could hear distant sirens and arguments, he had no doubt that he would appear as east pret to anyone around him, which reassured him, as he would benefit from being a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If he could garner putt, then he could more easily survive.
Tachihara quickly found out that garnering pity was actually useless. He didn’t even have to put on his act in front of people to see the mass amount of other kids down on their luck that were being downright ignored, not even a sad glance was given to them. He immediately brought up a different persona, that of a tough street kid (a persona he could easily slip into).
He squared his shoulders and bristled at anyone who got near him. After a long walk in which he mainly followed sidewalk traffic, he found a library. As he had walked, he had noticed mentions of a place named “Gotham City”, and it seemed like this was Gotham City. While he hadn’t initially even thought of going to a library, as soon as he saw the building, it it reminded him that there was a free haven of knowledge. If the library was well-funded enough to have computers, then any knowledge he would need would be at his fingertips, and if it didn’t have computers, then Tachihara could do some reading, he didn’t exactly have anywhere to be at the moment.
As soon as he set foot in the library, he felt warmth against his body. He hadn’t noticed how cold it had been outside, which was odd due to the only clothes he was wearing bring his white T-shirt, his jeans, and his shoes. He didn’t know where his green jacket was, it was likely still in that alley though. All of these thoughts at once made him panic and reach towards his chest. His entire body soothed when he realized that the dog tags were still there. He calmed down from that small moment and walked up to what seemed to be the front desk.
The lady at the front desk had ginger hair and glasses, and rather than a chair, she was sitting in a wheelchair. She was dressed in a green turtleneck along with some jeans. Her green eyes filled with warmth when she saw the scrawny twelve-year-old with wild black hair and a hardened expression. Tachihara spoke before she could, making sure his voice was softer, because he could recognized the way she would act towards him.
“Excuse me miss, do you have any computers in this library?” Tachihara’s voice was quiet and soft, and he took on a basic American accent, as he had deduced that that was the country he was in based on the dialects of English being used around him as he walked down the street. He had been taught to hide his accent when speaking other languages as part of his training. It allowed him to blend in better during undercover missions with people who didn’t speak Japanese.
She seemed to notice that something was off with his voice, which Tachihara had internally cursed at himself about. He had never really had a mission where this was necessary yet, so it wa a likely that he was rusty, not that she was perceptive enough to head past the accent that he was putting on. Her face barely moved in recognition, but there was hardly anything you could hide from a boy like Tachihara.
“We do! Do you want me to show you where they are?” She asked in a calm and kind voice. Tachihara mulled over the idea. On one hand, he could tell her just to give him directions to the computer, but there was a possibility that it could suspicious that he would act that way after his primary greeting, and he could get lost or embarrass himself. On the other hand, he could follow her, but she would know where he would be the entire time, and could likely look at the search history, and he was sure that researching everything he could about this would wasn’t exactly inconspicuous of him.
“Yes please.” He eventually settled on the choice to allow her to lead him there, she likely didn’t find him suspicious enough to actually check the the computer’s search history, and he supposed that it didn’t matter either way, as she would know he would be at the computers and easily be able to spot him no matter which spot he was sitting at.
She rolled out from behind the desk and beckoned him to follow her. He complied, albeit with a little hesitation. He knew that he couldn’t trust her just because she was acting kindly, while Tachihara was good at seeing past masks, he still made human errors, and that room for human errors was what gave him very little trust in this woman. Once the computers were in view, he allowed himself to relax a bit. He knew he could only wait while here, so he was in no rush to find a way out or really do anything of the sort, he just had to worry about being able to correctly identify things in this world so that he wasn’t too out of place and keeping himself alive long enough to be saved.
“The computers are right here, you can use them for as long as you want, and the login should be on a sticky note attached to the monitor.” Her voice was amiable as she spoke, a friendly tone, one used to be gentle but not babying.
“Thank you.” Tachihara was respectful, despite it slightly messing with the persona he was putting on. It did, however, make him seem more kind and innocent, which he could use with this woman. Maybe not with anyone else in Gotham, but at the very least it would partially work on this woman.
“My name is Barbara, my friends call me Babs, just holler for me if you need anything!” She seemed to want to do or saying something more, but paused before rolling away back to the front desk. Tachihara didn’t dwell in the motion for too long, he had some research to do.
Searching up Gotham City brought up a lot of news stories about horrible crimes and vigilantes to combat them. The first link that popped up said that Hotham was one of, if not the most crime ridden city in the world. He clicked away and looked to see who these vigilantes were.
He scrolled through a menagerie of posts talking about Batman, Red Hood, Spoiler, Orphan, Robin, Red Robin, Signal, and a few others. Their existence intrigued him and led him down a rabbit hole of discovering that this entire world was full of heroes, villains, and downright insane events that seemed to be commonplace (although, Yokohama was pretty bad in his world). It took him hours to figure out enough information to be satisfied with. By the end of his search for knowledge, he had also made himself a mental map of Gotham with different soup kitchens plotted, as well as different kinds of stores. For now, all he had to do was find a place to stay for the night, and then find somewhere where he could make money. Given the dubious things that seemed to happen in Gotham on the daily, he was pretty confident that he could get a job with less than the legal requirements.
Just as he was closing all of his tabs and deleting the more unreasonable-sounding searches, Barbara rolled up to him.
“Hey kid, the library is closing up for the night, do you have anywhere to stay?” Tachihara checked the time on the computer, 8 o’clock, time for him to start heading out.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ve got it all figured out!” He acted enthusiastically and as if he was completely sure of himself, as if he knew where he would stay. He could tell that she didn’t believe him for a second, but he started to leave before she could say anything about it. As he walked away, he spoke up to her.
“Thank you for letting me use the computers here!”
———
Barbara had seen many different types of people in her life. Her father was commissioner of the GCPD, she was well acquainted with the entirety of the Wayne family, which meant she was acquainted with all of the bat and bird related vigilantes in Gotham City. On that note, the boy that she had just met seemed to be a typical stray in the outside, but was clearly more on the inside. He was a good liar, and had she been anyone else, she would have believed every word he had said. But she wasn’t anyone else.c and she had seen through a few of his lies, though there was no telling what other lies he had spewed to her. That level of ability did not just come from being a kid on the streets, he had been taught to live that well, and she would be lying if she said that it didn’t intrigue her.
After checking the search history, it was clear that he wasn’t from anywhere near here, and based on how young he looked, she wondered if he had a guardian looking after him. It was unlikely, but not impossible. She hadn’t even gotten his name, so she couldn’t properly identify him without having to reference how he looked, luckily, she did have very good cameras along with an entire system that could find matches to his face. He also blended in pretty well, other Han the dog tags that hung around his neck, if she had gotten a good look at those, she could identify a family member and then him. She didn’t necessarily even have to do this yet, but she was concerned for the boy and wanted to milk over her options before her concern grew.
She sincerely hoped that he would come back again, just so that she could make sure that he was alright, just as she hoped any kid would come back so that she could ensure their safety. He seemed to be a little injured, but otherwise alright. His eyes were sharp, intelligent, and cunning, and yet they were carefully controlled along with every movement he made. She couldn’t dismiss any of the bad possibilities because it was not normal for children to act like that.
Somewhere in Gotham City, not too far, Tachihara sneezed.