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Kay was a strong girl.
That was a fact that Tyrell Badd could not deny as he looked down at the sleeping girl the night after the death of Byrne Faraday. The prosecutor partner of the shaded detective had been murdered while he was working a trial, betrayed by the final leg of the Yatagarasu that both of them had come to know so well. It was a cruel twist of fate and a stab to the stomach that nobody could have expected. Byrne was leaving behind his daughter with his untimely demise, but luckily for him, Kay was a strong girl.
Badd stood over Kay's sleeping form. She hadn't even been able to pull herself off to her room, instead electing to curl up on the couch. Badd knew the true reasoning behind Kay resting here of all places. When Byrne had worked a long day at work and didn't want to go through the full process of getting ready for bed, he simply collapsed onto the couch and allowed himself to slip away into slumber. The couch still smelled like him, an odd aroma that Badd never quite knew how to describe but recognized regardless. Of course Kay would want to attach herself to that. After all, it was one of the last traces that remained of someone who she had loved so dearly and infinitely.
But Byrne was gone, and that caused questions to arise. Kay's next destination was the primary inquiry that pressed itself into the back of Badd's mind, and he found that his first response was immediate: he could look after her. He had been there throughout all of Kay's childhood, looking after her when Byrne himself was unable to. He had clung to her when there were no others to look after her, more than glad to take care of someone who brought life into the dreary existence that came with being a homicide detective. Badd understood her better than many others, and he would do everything for her if he was given the reasoning to do so.
However, there was something wrong with this idea, and Badd knew it despite his wishes to deny the truth. Yew was still out there. Damn that woman to hell. Yew was alive (the way that Byrne should have been) with the blood of two men on her hands and a laugh festering in the back of her throat. She had left Kay as an orphan and torn apart the Yatagarasu without even bothering to hesitate, too focused on her own selfish desires to bother thinking of the consequences. Worse, she could have been aware of the repercussions but followed through with it anyways. Either way, the idea of her made Badd want to punch something until his fingers and knuckles were bloodied and numb.
Yew.
If there was one thing that Badd had come to learn about Yew over their many years of working together, it was that she was nothing if not thorough. She knew what she wanted and how to get it done. She would have gotten away with murdering Byrne if not for the interference of the disciple of von Karma too, always knowledgeable about what to do and how to do it in order to reach the goals that she had stationed for herself on the other side of bloodlust and vitriol.
Yew was thorough. Byrne's murder had been orchestrated because of how thoroughly devoted she was to her true purpose, and nothing mattered to her but following through with her twisted ideals of the righteous. She would do anything to ensure her own security and escape, including pulling a gun on people who could have been made into a secondary set of victims. She knew what she was doing, and she wasn't going to lose such a trait just because Byrne was dead.
Kay could be next.
Badd had been running from the idea ever since Byrne's body was discovered and the truth was revealed. Yew had killed Byrne specifically because of him being a thorn in her side, and there were no promises that she wouldn't go after Kay next to try and get her hands on any extra information that could have been hiding within the walls of the Faraday home. The difference between a child who was thirteen and ten wasn't that large, and Yew hadn't hesitated to threaten someone of the older age out of the two to ensure her escape. Yew was black-hearted and vile, and Kay could have been next.
The idea of Kay staying with Badd was out of the question, in other words. Yew could return for him if she wished to defeat the other remaining leg of the Yatagarasu with that painful laugh ringing in her own ears, but Badd was able to handle himself. Kay was a child, and he refused to put her at risk. Byrne would never want something like that, and the last thing that Badd wanted to do was bring ruin to the last relative that Byrne had left.
The relations of the Faraday family had been explained years ago to Badd, back when Kay was just a young child and Byrne was starting to gain that haunting quality to his smile when he allowed melancholy reminiscence to get the better of him. Kay's mother, Akina, had been gone for well over eight years by that point. Byrne hadn't ever gone into details, just saying that Akina was gone and wouldn't be returning. She had walked out on them for some reason or another despite Byrne's belief that there were no blatant issues between them. Akina had left, and Byrne was all that Kay had. Byrne's parents had passed away at some point before Badd met him, and Byrne chose to not speak about them except in passing as a way of keeping his own grief at bay.
The only relatives that Kay had left were Akina's parents, though Byrne had hardly ever spoken fondly of them. Every once in a while, Byrne still met with them despite the disappearance of their daughter since the one thing that they all had in common was a wish to support Kay. These encounters scarcely ended well though because of how prone they were to igniting arguments with Byrne. Badd had learned over a glass of alcohol after one late-night case that Akina's parents were of the firm belief that they would be the better caretakers for their granddaughter, citing the open bisexuality that Byrne had long since stopped trying to hide as creating an unfit home for Kay to grow up in. Badd had remembered the way that his expression twisted into a snarl at those words from Byrne, suddenly coming to detest people that he had never met with as much acidity as his body and mind could handle.
Badd continued to look down at Kay's sleeping form, her cheeks still stained red from tear tracks as she tried to hold back open sobs over the death of her father. Recollections of the past reminded him of a fond memory of Byrne from after one of Kay's choir concerts for her elementary school. Byrne had chuckled under his breath with a shake of his head when he told Badd that Kay had declared proudly that she had a crush on a girl in her class with all of the earnest honesty that could only be found in a young child. When Byrne asked her about it later that night, Kay's eyes had lit up with all of the excitement in the world, and Badd had struggled to suppress a smile over her bright ramblings.
Sending Kay to live with her grandparents was bound to be a recipe for disaster, and he was fully aware of such a fact. Badd doubted that he would be able to keep her even if he wanted to. With Byrne dead, Akina's parents were bound to try and claim the granddaughter that they had tried to find custody over so many times over the past decade. Badd was bound to lose the ensuing custody battle, and even if keeping Kay was an option for him--which it wasn't as long as Yew remained at large--they were bound to shatter everything to take her to their home hours away from everything that she had ever known. Hours away from Badd.
He sat down on the couch next to her, one hand rising to his face as he tried to keep his rage from bubbling over once again. He was mad at Yew for taking Byrne away and putting Kay in danger. He was mad at himself for being unable to protect either one of them. He was mad at the faceless grandparents who were going to take the light out of his life with their cruel jabs of righteousness.
Kay was going to be miserable with them. Byrne had said that she was never comfortable around her grandparents when they did have a family gathering, always seeming to pick up on the tension that hung in the air when they were present. Badd knew that this was an omen of disaster, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Akina's parents were going to take custody of Kay, and Badd was going to have to let them if he wanted to ensure that Yew didn't clip the wing of a growing Yatagarasu before she could take to the skies.
Little Thief was hiding in its regular place under the lamp sitting beside the couch, tucked away in the alcove found beneath the fixture's base. Badd reached over and took it before staring down at the small device that had done so much for the Yatagarasu over the years. Perhaps it was some twisted sense of hope that perhaps Kay would find a way to fly the way that Byrne had been unable to, but he allowed his fingers to curl around Little Thief in full as he thought of a new plan. He was going to find a way to send Little Thief with Kay when she left by packing it in some dark corner of her things. It was a way for her to hold onto her father whether she recognized it or not, and it would keep the device out of Yew's hands. After all, Yew had never known Byrne's daughter well, and she wouldn't recognize Kay when push came to shove. It was the perfect plan from a technical standpoint.
But from an emotional viewpoint, Badd just felt sick to his stomach, and the wish to punch something returned to him a few moments later. He hated the idea of Kay being forced to go somewhere that would hurt her in the long run, but it was better than Yew driving a knife through her chest the same way that she had done with Byrne.
Badd was going to make sure that Kay found her way back to him one day though. With a bit of planning and interference in the packing process, she could send a few of Byrne's most precious items with her, and when the time was right, she would find a path to come back to Badd. Kay was a determined and passionate girl, and he knew that she wouldn't fail him.
Letting her go with all of this in mind was the hardest part though. Byrne kept Little Thief in one hand as he reached out and took Kay's fingers between his own. She didn't even stir, too exhausted from her grief to notice the shift in her environment. Badd watched her with somber eyes, wishing that it had not come to this. However, yearning for something different would not change the truth of the matter, and all he could do was adapt and find a way to spare the life of the young raven sitting before him. It was a final action in the name of Byrne Faraday. It was a final action in the name of the Yatagarasu.
It was a final action in the name of his own desires, and he was going to follow through with it, Yew and everything else on the planet be damned.