Chapter Text
It was a perfectly nice and bright March day when Mizoguchi got promoted to full-time caretaker of a four-year-old. He’d never given much thought to having children. They were fine, he supposed. The littlest Leblanc was a precocious child who liked hanging out in her parents’ labs and was smart enough to know what she could and couldn’t touch. He wasn’t even supposed to be working today, but he’d switched shifts with one of the other guards who had come down with a nasty cold the day before. And now he was fleeing France with a toddler on his arm.
He spared a thought for the apartment he’d left behind with the neighbor’s cat that came begging for food every evening like clockwork. It couldn’t be helped. He didn’t know if anyone was still pursuing them and he wasn’t stopping to find out. He drove for ten hours straight with Sherry asleep in the backseat. When she woke up, he risked parking the car at a supermarket to buy food, drinks and a car seat for Sherry. It wouldn’t do to get arrested just because he couldn’t be bothered to secure her properly.
They’d driven all the way through Switzerland and were now somewhere in Austria. He was hoping to making it to Hungary before he became too tired to drive and had to find a secure place to sleep. It’d get harder once they reached the Schengen border. He had all of their passports, but it wouldn’t be advisable to keep traveling under their real names.
Sherry ate and drank in silence, eyes downcast and focused on the plush bear in her lap.
“When are papan and maman coming?” she asked once she’d finished her apple and carefully wrapped the core in her napkin.
“I fear they will not be coming anymore, Milady,” Mizoguchi said.
Sherry was silent for several seconds. Then she said: “Will they come tomorrow?”
How did one explain the permanence of death to a four-year old? Mizoguchi didn’t say anything.
They did make it to Hungary before Mizoguchi’s eyes started drooping too much to still drive safely. He found a motel where the owner didn’t ask any questions about a Japanese man coming in with a French toddler on his hand. He paid in cash, locked and blocked all the doors and windows to the best of his (not inconsiderable) abilities, then put Sherry to sleep on the bed and spent the next two hours calling in every favor he was owed. Transport for the next day secured, he finally settled down with his back against the bed and facing the door.
He debated staying in Hungary. Just slip under the radar and let their pursuers believe that the Leblanc heiress had died in the fire that had been started to cover up the death of her parents. But they were still far too close to France and they stood out far too much. If Mizoguchi could’ve had his way, he would’ve made a beeline for Japan. But Sherry only spoke French and some smatterings of English, Spanish and German that her parents had seen fit to teach her. What right did he have to drag her off to a country where she knew nothing and understood no one?
No, he needed to find out if they were still being pursued. He needed to eliminate anyone who was. And then he’d need to find their base of operations and dismantle it. After that… He glanced at the sleeping girl, a small figure on a too-large bed, clutching the teddy that once saved her life and contained the reason her parents had died. After that, maybe she could have something resembling a normal childhood again.