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Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Gin crouched in a low spot ideal for cover from gunfire and waited for his targets to pass into range. He stood and took aim as two projected figures overlaid a pressure sensitive wall calibrated to register his shots. He dispatched them cleanly and slipped back to his small corner of concealment as their projections dropped and blinked out into the deep shadows of the training course.   

He had been out in the open only briefly to take the shots, but it was enough for the program to triangulate which projections could have located him and recalculate their strategy. Their behavior to that point had been organized, similar to the tactics of a small, seasoned militia, but not to the degree of any elite marshal squad. Likely, the program would allot a six-second delay before adjusting the remaining projections to its new strategy as well. Serving in place of the time it would take for new orders to be issued. Gin used this delay to his advantage, making ground while keeping out of sight of the few projections that might have spotted him. He chanced by three different figures in his withdrawal, all stopped as if listening to new orders over coms. His estimation of the group’s experience level lowered with each opponent he easily picked off.

The six-second window closed, and Gin paused in a new hiding place, high rather than low this time. He watched the darkness below from his new perch to piece together the strategy the training program had adjusted to now. It might be running a seasoned commander leading green troops. Or a mixture of experienced and inexperienced combatants. A few movements shifted in the blackness, but nothing solid enough to shoot squarely.

Gin wiped condensation from his eyes and continued to monitor the shadowed walkways below. The lighting of the simulation was meant to mimic the minimal light of a waning moon, and the air had been made thick with moisture and bitter frost. It pressed a chill into his skin, working him up to a cold sweat. The uncomfortable type he usually only felt with illness. He was here to sweat out the toxin to which he was trying to build up an immunity. It was a particularly nasty one that tempered with his normal reserves of stamina as well. Gin had been counting on the rush and strain of training to distract him from the toxin, but it likely only worsened his condition.

Footsteps rounded a corner below, somewhere out of sight, but he was reasonably certain he knew where. Still, knowing the opponent he battled was a computer program made him consider everything twice. It was obnoxiously devoid of error. He was never sure if the footsteps it provided were ones he was supposed to follow in a genuine mimic of human error, or the program running an opponent setting a trap.

He dropped down and slinked after the sound regardless. Then whipped around a corner, gun trained in the direction of the footsteps. Down the barrel of his beretta was his real life subordinate Vodka. Or rather, a projection of him on his knees with a gun pressed to the scruff of his neck.

Gin schooled his reaction, keeping a level head. Letting his sharp rage reflect only in his eyes, now leveled with the clunky and distorted face of his frequent field partner, who had apparently gotten himself captured. It was a believable scenario; this was exactly the type of situation Vodka wouldn't think through and would get himself captured in. Facial likenesses to codenamed members, however bastardized, was not information that should be stored at all, much less used for trivial matters like training simulations. Someone had to have entered that data into the system. 

He terminated the simulation, but not before he was faced with the image of a bullet ripping out the front of his subordinate’s neck in a rather tasteless execution.

The training course zone blinked back to its maze of white walls and flood of stage lights. The course of walls then sunk into the floor, leaving only Gin standing in an expansive empty white space. The ceiling was three floors up, with the primary observing window at the height of the second floor. Gin wouldn't have been able to make out a face from that distance, even with his impeccable sight, but he could tell who it was. Her slim sexy legs were crossed, and she had a hand tucked up under her chin, making her posture look villainously amused. If Vermouth wasn't that person's favorite, she wouldn't still be alive with all her games.

He caught a glance at the figure of another older woman in the shadow of the observing room. Brandy? He guessed.

Gin fired the last two training bullets at the ground as if he were standing over a dying person's body. His eyes never leaving Vermouth’s ever amused figure behind the observing window, even as he reloaded with live rounds, and walked toward the exit.

The training simulation room opened up into a foyer. It was usually rather barren, and they had done little to disguise the fact that it was in a warehouse. The walls were dull metal sheets, and unlike the insulated training room that could control every aspect of the atmosphere from air pressure to moisture content, the warehouse trapped whatever weather the Kanto region was experiencing and amplified it.

Today it mirrored smog and the stale warmth of cloud cover. Though he couldn't fault the warehouse entirely for the clammy heat likely produced by the mass of people crammed into it.

It was highly unusual to see more than two other members at a time. Even when collaborating they kept their numbers small. This made the crowd of just seven black clothed persons in the foyer of one of their training facilities feel as if it may as well have been a thousand.

There was an eighth person in the foyer, but she was not in black at all. Instead, she was adorned with a white coat and remarkably foreign red-brown hair. With a pencil tucked behind her ear, pulling back some of her short hair from her Japanese features she was a startling puzzle to Gin.

Her shoulders and waist made her look almost too small to be an adult. She was so slender and frail, so easily breakable. Indeed, she seemed like a feather from a dove that had found its way into a roost of old crows. She made quick work in dispelling his notions of her fragile state however, as he heard her speak.

"I cannot disclose the nature of this trial until you are all debriefed at its conclusion." She addressed the entire group, although it sounded as if she was responding to a particular complaint.

"Tch, I didn't sign up for any of this. I'm leaving." A man with a strong jaw and wide face pushed past the others. This would have been quite a task for anyone not of his stature in present company.

"The test group needed to be randomly selected from the syndicate's members, otherwise it would not be an accurate portrayal of the group as a whole." She wasn't backing down.

Gin's gaze was drawn back to the bulk of a man as he shook the bolted steel door in its hinges. He banged the side of his fist into the metal door a couple more times and shouted for the presumed people on the other side to unlock it.

No answer.

He turned back to the woman in the white coat. "Open the damn door."

"I'm not in control of the door. I assume you will be released upon completion of the baseline tests."

"You tell them to release us."

"I can't do that yet." She had folded her arms around the clipboard she was holding, and her eyes didn't stray down to it or to the floor, nor any level below that of the eyes of the man she addressed.

With less than two strides he was towering over her, grabbing at the collar of her lab coat. He hadn't gotten around to verbally threatening her before he jerked back in surprise.

There was now a bullet hole clean through the young scientist's collar where the man had been pulling it out away from her skin. The brutish man turned his attention to Gin who was tucking his Beretta back into concealment.

"You arrogant little prick."

Gin's cold eyes were the only retort he offered. His assailant came at him with a hammering fist. What ensued could not be called a real fight. All in one fluid and minimalistic movement, Gin redirected the punch while dodging, and threw the other guy off balance before delivering a sharp strike to the back of his neck. The man fell to the ground, swiftly immobilized.

"I suppose this is the bit where I'm expected to thank you." The young scientist addressed the victorious Gin. "And you graciously offer to fix the hole you've put in both my coat and my test group."

Gin smiled, if only briefly, at her reaction, intrigued. She was as bold and poised with him as she had been with that brute, and there was something about her that compelled him to respond to her remarks rather than brush her off, as was his usual inclination.

"You're naive. Life doesn't play out in beautiful, neat little scenes."

"And still, you play the aloof hero: meeting the girl as he saves her from harm."

Gin scoffed. "What foolish romantic notions."

"Say what you will," she dismissed. "I'm simply pointing out the obvious parallels you've created."

"Gin." His superior, Brandy called from the landing of the stairwell behind him. "The observing room, now."

"Well then," he gave a tilt of his head in a mock bow to the young scientist, as if conceding a match, before proceeding up the stairs after the woman who had interrupted their conversation.

Gin shut the door behind him coming in. Brandy hadn't bothered to sit down as per usual and had her resting impatient face. Vermouth had already left it seemed, which was smart on her part because Gin hadn’t forgotten about her little joke and wasn’t entirely sure he would be content leaving his response at merely firing a couple training bullets at the floor.

Brandy had been present for their exchange, but she likely wouldn’t mention it now. Although she was his superior, she was not the type to scold him for his and Vermouth's behavior, instead she predictably cut right to the grit of his next assignment.

"It will be Kyoto next. There's a professor there that the syndicate has been keeping tabs on, and on occasion purchased research from. He's gone quiet the past few days and has been acting suspiciously as far as the syndicate is concerned. We are to look into it, with the high likelihood of termination. We leave immediately."

"Understood," Gin said.

She got to the doorknob and paused, "Also, we'll need that scientist girl to collect his research. We believe what he's hiding is a potential breakthrough, maybe even the one we've been looking for."

"Breakthrough?"

"Never mind, the train leaves in an hour."

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

"Bodyguards? Is that a joke?" The young scientist looked up from her clipboard to address the pair of trench coats. "I know the syndicate has a variety of divisions, but you're not really trying to get me to buy you two work security. Though I suppose it fits that protector role in more classic romance that you're so keen on replicating, Gin."

Gin was uncomfortable with the fact that she knew his code name and he did not know hers. He let it slip unwittingly into his expression.

"I suppose I'll be handing this off then," she said, capping the pen and handing it to one of the men in white lab coats who had arrived when Gin and Brandy had been in the observing room. "If the syndicate thinks Dr. Kurage's research will help the development of Silver Bullet I'd be the right person to go to, as head of the project."

Gin looked to his superior in surprise, half skeptically; she looked so young, too young to be at the head of anything. Reading his unspoken question Brandy said:

"She was a child prodigy and was working within the ranks as a scientist by thirteen."

"Huh," Gin regarded the young scientist in a new light for a moment. Cut short by his own realization he’d been goaded into it. "We're wasting time." He interjected starting toward the warehouse door.

...

The mountains stood as a steady backdrop to the blur of fields closer to the tracks. Gin's own vague reflection on the window came to focus before the young scientist's behind him. He turned to face Brandy across from him in the booth, her face much more lined with age than the girl to her right. The skin of her hands was also thinner and clung to the veins strung on the back of her palm almost like an instrument. She was pulling out a couple of folders from her case.

"Here we are." She handed Gin one of them, and he scanned the contents for the young scientist's name, or code name, or anything to give him back an edge. Nothing, not one document on her or her project Silver Bullet.

Those weren't the only papers the folder seemed to lack. He had extensive records of this Dr. Kurage's movements, but nothing on what his research was actually on.

Each page within the folder looked like it had been photocopied. There were logs of hours spent at the university lab, bank statements, phone records, several other records the public wasn't supposed to have access to, each highlighted and annotated linking connections and holes. More money than usual had been withdrawn in the past few days, hours at the lab were irregular, and he was in constant contact with a couple of numbers that he hadn't ever called before a week ago.

There were also extensive records on the local underground regarding any recent large purchases. Hitmen, bodyguard services, escorts, drug purchases, large quantities of chemicals, acids, explosives, exotic animal markets, the file went on. There was even a list of thieves, grifters, and hackers suspected to be active in the area. He glanced over at the girl, who was thumbing through her own set of documents. "He's the only scientist in Japan who's been able to keep them stable and alive?" She asked Brandy.

"The only scientist in the world who has been able to keep them this long," Brandy said.

"Impressive," the girl mused. "And they really are able to-"

"-Yes," Brandy cut her off and looked up at Gin who was staring at the two converse. The young scientist looked up at Brandy and then at Gin whom she was staring at.

"Ah, what level of clearance is Gin at within the "security division" exactly?" the girl asked.

"A rung too low I'm afraid," Brandy said.

"And what of our young scientist?" Gin prodded. "Codename-?"

"I assure you Gin you will not need to know, and we'll leave it at that." Brandy straightened out her papers and closed her folder preparing to stand. "Please excuse us for a moment, Miss." Brandy started toward the dining car, and Gin followed suit.

Once they were between cars, she stopped to address him. "There are only two things you need concern yourself with on this mission Gin: determining whether Dr. Kurage has or intends to betray the organization, and ensuring that our scientist back there, the head of an important project I’ll remind you, remains unhindered in her mission to retrieve Kurage's research intact. Everything else is above your pay grade. Understood?"

"Understood."

The train had been slowing down and had now come to a complete halt at one of the stops along their route. A small group of passengers walked between Brandy and Gin. A woman in her early twenties in a pair of tight short-shorts and a baggy jacket that nearly covered up the fact that she was indeed wearing shorts, and two businessmen in work suits made their way to the other car. They waited awkwardly on either side of the small room between cars for the group to pass. Gin started to walk back to the car they'd come from when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"As for our ‘young scientist’, as you call her, she needn't know anything about the potential of Dr. Kurage's demise.”

"Is that all?"

"Yes, for now, and don't make there a later Gin." Brandy squeezed the bridge of her nose between her ring finger and thumb.

"After you," Gin opened the door to the car with their seats. Their booth had been toward the middle of the passenger car, and he could see the reddish-brown back of the young scientist's head unmoved from where they had left her. Across from her though was the woman who had passed by them earlier in a coat twice her size and form fitting shorts.

His sight was drawn to the back of the car with a flash of metal. At the other end of the passenger car, the two businessmen hadn't taken their seats despite the fact that the train had started back up again. They were mostly turned away from him, but one of them looked back over his shoulder and then jerked his head forward suddenly.

"Something's going on," Brandy whispered back to Gin. "You check on our young scientist and her new admirer. I'll take care of the two suits." With that, Brandy launched into pursuit like a bird of prey taking flight, and the two men started to make a run for it.

Gin drew and cocked his gun holding it just inside his coat while running up to the booth. He slowed at the last few paces seeing the barrel of a gun poking out the twenty something's massive coat. He made it past the back of the seat and saw that the scientist girl had her own weapon trained on the girl across from her, hiding behind her folder.

"Don't move," the girl said under her breath, sporadically moving her aim from Gin to the girl in the lab coat now that they were both an equal threat.

"Relax," Gin said, revealing empty hands. "Just calm down," he took a seat beside her, casually wrapping an arm around her back. Before she could protest Gin slid a blade from his sleeve which he quickly turned on her throat.

"Now, lower the gun," Gin waited for understanding to reach her eyes. "I don't think I have to tell you you're outgunned in this matter. I'm sure you can feel the steel on your neck, and of course, there is that lovely woman across from you which can't have escaped your attention. But what might have escaped your attention, and what also might be overkill is the second gun pointed at your side from within my jacket. Now I don't really need any of this as I could snap your neck quite easily from this position.” 

She maintained the erratic look of someone only capable of hearing sections of what was said in their fear but had pulled her shaking finger away from the trigger. 

“I’ll ask this now that I trust your situation has been made clear to you, what can I do for you?"

"You're the crows, right? The organization all in black?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not." Gin continued easily. "Regardless, I myself am very interested in what you want with these crows."

"He said they were coming for him; said they would think he'd outlived his usefulness." The girl stumbled over her words. "Look I know when a job gets to be more than I was paid for, and I don't owe this guy any loyalty, so his cash isn't worth this much to me-"

"Get to the point." Gin tapped the end of his gun on her shoulder.

"I don't know, he sounded like some paranoid delusional, and I felt bad for taking his money, but my partners were all for it so I-"

"The point, to be clear, is what you were paid to do. Understand?" Gin moved the knife along the skin of her neck, not cutting into it but gliding at an angle as if he were shaving.

"Right, he was going on about how they're all dead, and he's dead cause they're dead and- none of what he was saying made any sense. He just wanted us to intimidate the organization in black into leaving him alone see, that's all I was hired for and-"

"Any of this mean anything to you?" Gin asked the lady scientist who looked deep in thought.

"Yes, actually." She broke from her pose, releasing her chin and focusing again on her seated companions. "It's all very surprising. I'm interested to see the circumstances of course. Did he say anything else?"

"Just that they were all dead." She said as if she were a shell of herself. The imagery of her small frame in the large coat only perpetuated the idea. "Creepy right?"

"Hand over the gun." Gin said unmoved emotionally by the entire ensemble.

She slipped it out of her jacket and to Gin who slid it into his own trench coat as if it already had a designated place within. He patted her discreetly down and found no other weapons.

"Go lock yourself in the bathroom where you will remain until the next stop, where you will leave the train and never look back. Understood?" 

She nodded and Gin released his hold of weapons trained on her. The scientist girl, however, kept her gun on the woman until she saw her close the bathroom door.

"Do you even know how to use that?" Gin asked skeptically.

"Wanna find out? I'll shoot you in the coat collar. We can have a matching set."

"So, what is 'they're all dead' about?" Gin asked.

"I don't know, Gin. Did your clearance level randomly rank up in the past few minutes without me noticing?" She said, blatantly lauding the fact that she knew his code name and he was not allowed to know hers.

"Well if whatever they are, are indeed all dead, hasn't this trip been a waste?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not." She continued easily. "Regardless, I myself am very interested in what Dr. Kurage's research has to tell us."

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

Brandy tailed the two suits through car after car, both parties gaining speed as the number of passengers dwindled. By the third train car, there were only three passengers and one employee tending a snack cart. The tally of collateral had inched close enough to acceptable, and Brandy dashed forward. 

One of the suits glanced back as she picked up the pace, and then collided with the snack cart. The other turned back, toppling the whole cart into the aisle and pulled his companion to his feet at once. She had to jump over the back of a seat in order to get around the knot of people helping to pick up the fallen cart’s wares, and they gained some distance on her.

By the next car, she’d lost sight of them. She stopped in the small room between cars drawing her gun. Leading with her gun she entered the next car, expecting to be shot at when she passed through the doorway.

She made it through without any sight of them, and she scanned the car in line with her ballester-molina’s iron sights, ready to fire.

A blade sliced down across the back of her right hand, and she dropped her gun. Her attacker kicked it away, and it skid into the room between cars. At the same time, he swung out with the blade, a stroke that would have sliced into her shoulder and across her collarbone.

Brandy was already out of reach. She rolled over her shoulder back into the small room grabbing her ballester-molina and landing solidly on her feet in a crouched position. Pivoting while still crouched she shot with her left hand under her right shoulder. 

Her aim was off, sparking at the metal door way around where the two men were entering. They both made a movement that was half duck half flinch at the shots.

She tucked the gun back away in frustration and pulled a knife of her own from her trench coat.

She sprang at them, taking off from the ground like a runner at the beginning of a race. One of them blocked her advancing knife arm, slashing his own blade down at her chest. Brandy grabbed his advancing arm, twisting it until she’d extended his elbow to its breaking point. She’d swung into him doing so, almost as if she were twirling in a dance. Only in this deadly dance, his arm was now extended over her shoulder, where her back was turned to him. She fell with her weight to pull down his arm, bending his elbow the wrong way and breaking the bone. 

Brandy then spun back out and grabbed his shirt just below the collar forcing him down and kneed him in the ribs. She turned him around to face his partner, twisting his broken arm behind his back and holding her blade against his throat with her gashed right hand.

“Who are you?” She demanded, though the look of horror on the partner’s face said he’d like to know much the same of her. 

“Hired strong arms, Geez lady.”

“Who hired you?”

“Some crazy professor. I don’t know.” His eyes were wide, focused on her blood soaked hand that seemed to have little trouble holding a knife to his partner’s throat. 

Brandy twisted his partner’s broken arm further into its unnatural position. “Ahhhh.”

“Your partner doesn’t seem to like “I don’t knows” very much.”

“He’s the quack professor at Kyoto Universit-” the man in her hold gasped out in more pain without finishing his sentence. 

“I asked your partner,” Brandy cut in. “I need someone with a clear head to answer me.”

“Dr. Kurage, okay?”

“I thought as much.” Brandy said, tucking her knife into an empty sheath in her left sleeve while still holding the suit’s arm in a tight lock behind his back. She slipped a zip tie from the same sleeve and tossed it at the other man. “Lock yourself to the bar there, and your friend here too with his good arm.” She released her grip on the partner and pushed his shoulder, shoving him toward his companion. After each of the men had a hand secured to the bar Brandy walked over and zip tied their other hands as well. 

“You should probably know the good professor knew you were outclassed when he hired you and sent you on a suicide mission.” She tightened the last tie securing the wrist of the broken arm. He winced. “Serves you right though, thinking you could take advantage of the crazy bloke.” 

She reached over to the other man searching his person for a concealed weapon. His partner had come here with a knife, and it stood to reason this one would be armed as well. There was a colt defender in the small of his back, but no blades. She slipped a hand into his inner coat pocket and felt a hard leather rectangle. It could have been a wallet, but it wasn’t. She flipped open the police badge. “FBI, not my first guess.” 

She continued to feel through the interior of his suit coat. She found a camera, but no SD card. “Take any good pictures lately?” She asked, pocketing the device. 

She quickly searched the other and found nothing of interest. In fact, it was the lack of something that was interesting. “A knife isn’t exactly standard issue, where’s your badge?” She asked the injured one after her search. He didn’t answer, only glared at his partner. 

“He’s not a Fed,” the other of them answered her. “He didn’t know I was a Fed. He really was just hired by the professor.” 

“In that case.” She pressed the barrel of the colt up underneath the jaw of the FBI agent and fired. The non FBI agent strained against his binds away from her, breathing heavily, intensely watching every one of her movements.

“The Crows,” he managed with some effort. “They weren’t supposed to be real. That’s who he said was coming for him. He sounded so crazy. He said they had earned that omen of death. They would kill anyone who ceased to be useful.” He was pushing himself into the wall he was backed up against, his voice a near whimper. “He was crazy. He was supposed to be crazy.”

Brandy was busy cutting the zip ties off the now dead agent as the man tied next to her descended to some degree of madness himself.

She cut him off, “He took pictures of us with the camera, yes? Where is the SD card?”

Panic reached his eyes, “It’s not in the camera?” He stared at the bloodied figure of his former partner as if realizing that all the secrets the man had kept from him was only killing him faster.

She had searched the now dead agent thoroughly before, he hadn’t had the card.

She brought down the handle of her knife toward the broken arm of her captive but stopped just short. “Okay, okay, okay. He just took them, he didn’t have time to give them to someone outside the train. The only person he’s even touched was that snack vendor whose cart he tripped over. That’s gotta be it!”

 “If it is not,” she sheathed the blade and stepped back. “We will torture you until you realize a quick death is a mercy and that paranoids, like the dear good professor, aren’t always delusional.” 

She gave a mock salute and walked off down the train in no apparent hurry. Soon she ducked into a vacant bathroom to make a private call.

...

They were only five minutes out from Kyoto and Gin hadn’t heard anything from Brandy. She’d never come back from when she ran off down the train after the two businessmen. Following the incident with the girl the train ride had been silent; the young scientist opted to study the contents of her folder leaving Gin to do the same. 

He had, at one point, tried utilizing the reflection on the train’s window glass to read her files. As if she sensed someone reading over her shoulder she looked at Gin almost immediately and caught him in the act. She then propped the folder up so the reflection didn’t catch it.

Gin didn’t feel like he had gained any more useful information by breaking each document down and closely examining it than he had skimming it. Though he had been rather entertained by the odd variety of exotic animals people were smuggling in and out of Japan. He couldn't see any real reason the document had even been listed among the logs of notable illegal activity. Unless the professor planned to smuggle himself out with the ever-popular Japanese snow monkeys, or the rare type of jellyfish native to only Mediterranean and Japanese waters. Or if he just wanted a baby panda bear for companionship.

These options were so laughably impractical he was left with only the conclusion that the information scout was being overly thorough. That was the point Gin was at with the information: thinking himself in pointless circles, when his phone rang.

He recognized the number as one Brandy said he should pick up if he was ever called on.

“Gin, this is that person. Can you hear me clearly?”

“Yes, I can hear you.”

“Good. Brandy’s status had been compromised for this mission, however, it is very important that it go successfully. I’m led to believe you have handled this mission discreetly thus far, correct?”

“Yes, this is correct.”

“Gin, I’m officially promoting you and raising your clearance level so you are able to complete this mission on your own. This mission will serve as a probationary period in order to determine whether you are well suited for the position. However, if you fail this mission and do not maintain your new position you will be eliminated as a precaution as you will know too much secret information regarding our organization. Understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“From now on you take your orders directly from myself or act on your own with my approval. Your orders for this mission remain much the same as they were previously: collect Dr. Kurage’s research, and eliminate him for his actions taken against the organization. As for the organization scientist you boarded the train with, she is a particularly valuable asset in our possession, and not easily replaced, code name: Sherry.”

Gin found himself smiling and also staring in the direction of the lovely young scientist. She gave him an odd look as if to say ‘what?’ He shook his head and mouthed ‘nothing’ in a shrug. She looked back down at her papers, but also let a trace of a smile briefly warm her lips. 

“Her late parents were also scientists, and she took on their project Silver Bullet upon their death. Silver bullets, as you may know from lure, are a weapon used to kill the unkillable. We take its meaning to say the only thing that can take out the organization. In other words, that project’s completion is crucial to our goal, and without it there is no need for the organization to exist to fund its research. A successful completion of the project is a silver bullet to the organization.”

“Arrived in Kyoto," the overhead announcer called out, "please be sure to collect all your personal items before departing.” 

“It appears we will have to continue another time Gin,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Sherry should be able to fill in the most important details. Until next time, and hopefully in numerous times to follow.”

...

Sherry watched Gin finish his call with curious eyes, the folder in her lap forgotten. He had been smiling at her again, and she couldn’t say she minded except it left her feeling like the last to know a particularly interesting secret. It was the expression in his eyes at the time that had made her feel that way, it had been decidedly victorious. 

She realized, in studying his eyes this close, that they were lighter than the typical Japanese black, perhaps even slightly green. She added this mental note to her growing hypothesis of Gin’s mixed race. Like her, a mixed ethnicity had lightened his hair and eye color, though his features remained predominantly Japanese, if a little longer and more angular in Gin’s case. 

Her suspicion of this had started when they first met of course. He was unusually tall, and his hair was entirely too light a color to be wholly Japanese. It wasn’t just that as he could have simply bleached it several dozen times to achieve an ash blonde. The strands were also incredibly fine, like thin metallic thread, not at all the thick and nearly coarse texture of Japanese hair. She’d only seen hair that fell like his on little blonde-headed children during her time in America. 

This forming hypothesis had really only snagged at her attention then because he hadn’t tried to hide his obviously foreign hair in the slightest; he kept it long. It was that fact that had amazed and intrigued her. He had to have been teased for it as she had, not enough Japanese or Caucasian to belong in either country she’d been raised. She’d always kept her wavy auburn hair short and styled, as if it were a choice of fashion.

The overhead announcer startled her and she realized how long she had been staring at Gin as she studied him. She looked back down at the folder in her lap, hoping she hadn’t been caught. 

Gin closed his phone. “Let’s go.”

“Where’s Brandy?” Sherry asked, looking up from her folder and glancing around. She’d only managed to reread a single line somewhere in the middle of what she’d read before. 

“I assume she got off at another stop earlier on,” Gin said, not overly concerned with her whereabouts. He moved to grab Brandy’s case from where she left it at the foot of her seat. Sherry reached out to pull it from him, but only managed to clasp her hand over Gin’s.

“What do you think you’re doing? I can’t trust you with that, it’s Brandy’s.” She turned as if to walk off with it, but the case remained firmly within Gin’s grasp beneath her own, cementing her arm to where Gin stood. 

“I don’t see Brandy around do you?”

“It’s just the two of us then,” she said, hearing the less than subtle smile in her own voice only after the fact. She remained turned away from him, willing the heat rushing to her cheeks not to make them too obvious a red as she continued tugging on the bag.

His voice was low, teasing and somehow reminded her of the smile from the phone call before. “Do not mistake tension for sexual tension, Sherry.”

She turned as his lips released her code name. It was as if he had abruptly pulled tight on a leash she hadn’t even known he’d had on her. 

“We’re going to miss our stop at this rate,” he said as if to drag her along, but she had already let go of his hand on the bag. If he had been told her code name the tables had turned and she had no right to hold him from the bag.

Chapter Text

“Hi, I’m here to see Professor Kurage.” Sherry leaned up against the counter, resting her elbows on it and shifting her weight to one hip. He realized that it was the first time she had seemed her age, still just barely growing out of her teenage years. Her posture up until then had always been straight and professional, and her actions distant from that of a teenager.

“His office is in 118L, down the hall on your right.” The lady at the staff office desk barely looked up from her computer screen.

“Thank you.” Sherry pushed off from the counter and walked back to where Gin was waiting in a dark corner of the office.

 “That easy?” Gin said, peeking out from under the brim of his hat. “Just walk up with no student ID and get pointed in the right direction.”

“You can’t tell me I don’t look like a student of the science professor. Could it be you’re not used to being mistaken for anyone but who you are, with your heavy trench coat and shady looming presence I can’t imagine why. Besides, we arrived in Kyoto in time to make his office hours,” she shrugged. “People often see what they expect to see.” 

Gin wondered if Sherry realized how naturally her mannerisms had aligned to just what they were expecting to see or if the shift happened without conscious effort. 

“I suppose you think you’ll just skip right into his office and strike up a friendly conversation.” He mocked as they started toward the hallway.

“Well, I was going to walk there. I never was the type to skip even as a child. Besides, it’s markedly less conspicuous.” Sherry said, responding in kind. “He’s expecting someone who looks like you. Black clothes, shady demeanor, angry about his failure to keep his testing subjects alive. By the time he knows who I’m with he’ll also know all I want is for him to share his research and findings.”

“Or he could not be there.” Gin pointed out. “Because smart people don’t hang around where they’re expected to be when they know a dangerous crime syndicate is looking for them.”

“His obvious trail of suspicious actions thus far leaves no such indication of intelligence.” 

He was reasonably certain that had been a joke, but she hadn’t delivered it as a joke and so he was simply left wondering about it as they passed by rooms 144 A through G.

“I don’t expect him to have left valuable research behind in his office for us to find ransacking the place either,” Gin said.

“Entirely deleting or destroying every copy in every place where it was stored on short notice would be quite the achievement. It would be stupid not to check anyways.”

“Suit yourself.” He yielded, following her lead around the corner, only to be struck by a wave of heat. The cry of alarms was not long to follow. 

Gin ran for the flames bursting out of the room at the end of the hall, and Sherry darted after him. She jumped onto him, dragging her weight down as much as she could. It might have been a full tackle if she had been any bigger, as it stood, she only managed to stagger him a moment and cling off him from where her arms wrapped his chest.

“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’m reasonably certain your trench coat isn’t fireproof!”

“He’s burning the research.” Gin tried shrugging her off of him but couldn’t manage it from that angle without injuring her. “If he is using fire there has to be copies he knows he didn’t get to.”

“Or that’s what he wants you to think so you’ll run into an explosion! Fires that get that big without setting off alarms until now got big fast, and they don’t do that without an accelerant.” She strained against him, her feet finding a bit of traction, yanking on him to turn back. “If you go in there, you will die. If he was burning research that would be the first thing he doused, it’s long gone by now.”

“Dammit,” Gin stopped trudging down the hall. The fire blazed before them, the orange light bathing their skin, casting dramatic shadows across their features.  Gin turned back toward Sherry. She was using his body more as a shield than pulling against him now, her hands knotted in the fabric of his trench coat. 

 “We need to go!” Sherry shouted over the cry of alarms, and the surprisingly loud roar of the fire at the end of the hall. “This is too dangerous!” The smoke billowed and thickened around them, stinging their eyes; Sherry squeezed hers tightly shut and wiped tears from her cheeks. 

Gin grabbed her wrist and began running away from the fire, they veered off down a hall and slipped out of an emergency exit. The alarms were already wailing so using it didn’t bring any unnecessary attention to themselves. 

A growing crowd of university students poured out into the courtyard creating a steady murmur of gossip as to the location and cause of the fire. Gin and Sherry slipped easily into the ocean of people. 

“Unless that was a suicide, he’s probably out here somewhere,” Sherry said behind him as he cut a path through the middle of the crowd in a straight line. He still had a hold of her wrist, but was more focused on intercepting the professor on the far side of the staff office building. 

After finally securing a path out of the mass of students, Gin thought to respond to Sherry. “Assuming he is acting according to a plan, he’ll want to get away as soon as possible, probably out the other direction than the fire would force us to go.” They passed under a sky bridge connecting two of the university buildings. “He’s been taking the train to work, and I don’t recall anything about a car registered to him, so he’s either going to get on public transportation, or call a taxi. That’s only short term of course.”

Gin stopped a second where the passage under the skybridge let out to look in both directions. To the left was the front of the University staff office building and beyond that was where campus met the main road. Gin resumed tugging Sherry along as he made his way down the wide paver-stone paths that ran between campus buildings, and up the gradually cascading levels of stairs. 

“Gin, wait.” Sherry stopped at the base of the third level of stairs, yanking back her arm. He released her wrist immediately upon discovering he was still clutching it. “What if they aren’t dead and he only said they were so we would look for him assuming he didn’t have them to lug around?”

"I have been wondering about that group of amateurs he sent after us; if their purpose was to relay the message 'they are all dead' or something else." Gin looked down at Sherry standing a few steps below him in contemplation. "If we were assuming he had to take them with him we'd rule out public transportation and wouldn't waste our time searching there." Gin continued up the steps, even more sure now that he needed to get to the road where a taxi could be waiting for Dr. Kurage.

“That’s not what I meant,” she chased after him. “They’re too delicate to run with. No self-respecting scientist would plan out an escape where he would have to run with them in tow.”

“Not every scientist holds lab rats with the same high regard as you.” Gin slowed his pace to a speed walk but didn’t stop again to speak. 

“Lab rats? No, not the rats; he could easily replace rats. The jellyfish. If he was running with them, or even rolling them in a case while running they’d be sloshed around too much and end up dead, which would-”

Gin stopped and Sherry nearly ran into him. “Jellyfish.”

“Yes, jellyfish. Scientists don’t choose the animals with amazing capabilities, we just study them.”

“That aside.” Gin took a deep breath. “If they were such a hassle he would have left them behind to make his escape, or maybe he was talking about them when he said they’re all dead. Either way, we’re losing our window of opportunity to catch him while he’s still here.”

“You’re right. We are losing our window. He’ll probably use a truck to transport them straight from the lab, and make it out in the chaos the fire caused.” Sherry started to run back toward the center of campus. 

Gin looked back at where she was already making decent progress down a flight of steps twenty feet away, then up toward the constant flow of cars on the street ahead of him. Either of them could have been right, but she had still run off of her own accord against the will of a senior member.

She was too damn important for her own good. The fact that it was basically even odds as to where the professor went meant that she could just as easily run into him. She had a gun and did seem to be able to handle herself, but she was running after the guy who just set his own office ablaze.

Gin darted after her, a steady stream of curses flowing through his mind. That person had been clear that failure of this mission was not an option, but had also made a point to stress the importance of maintaining Sherry as an asset. Perhaps he should have asked which of the two was more critical if he could only manage one. No, it was obvious, wasn’t it? And the reason he was running now. 

He caught up to her as they both reached the courtyard, still buzzing with students. Several fire trucks had been parked along the red curb of a distant parking lot by the office building at the far left end of the courtyard. A black smudge of smoke was streaked across the sky stemming from the building. 

“The loading dock will probably be on the other side of that building.” Sherry pointed to one of the buildings directly across from them; the characters for “science department” were printed across the red brick. Sherry then weaved her way through the crowd, quickly but gracefully. Gin attempted to follow her but found it much like attempting to follow the path of a leaf floating atop the ever-changing currents. He eventually gave up on her path and forced his way to the other side.

They ducked through an alley between buildings, soon finding themselves on the other side. A few extra emergency vehicles were parked along the lot back there, and they were all teaming with firefighters and paramedics.

Gin grabbed the brim of his hat reflexively, further serving to cover his face. 

Sure enough, there was also a nondescript gray van backed up to the loading dock of the red bricked building. The windows were tinted black and it was idling. One of the trunk’s doors was swung open still, but it was on the side closer to them so it blocked the view inside. 

There was a sudden commotion among the emergency personnel as they all went from somewhat stationary to rushing into their vehicles. Car doors slammed all around them, but they did not miss the fact that the door on the van's trunk was one of them. Like the emergency vehicles, it immediately took off.

Gin knew there were too many men in uniform around to apprehend the van and so did not unholster his gun and attempt to shoot its tires out. He was surprised however to see Sherry slapping his shoulder for attention as she ran past him toward the van.

"Putting a tracker on," she said rapidly as she took off. She had not said it so loud he thought anyone but him would hear it though.

He was further surprised when instead of slapping the underside of the bumper with a tracker she instead leapt onto the tailgate and swung a thin blade into the seam between the van’s doors at the same level as the handle to pop the door open before jumping inside. 

He was then treated to the image of her slamming the door closed in front of her as the van sped out of the lot, and though Gin chased after it to the end of the lot, out of sight. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

No sooner had Sherry closed the van door than someone slammed her head into its hard metal surface. She’d been perched on the very end of the trunk in order to lean out and close the door behind her, which had not made for the most balanced of positions. She lost what little balance she’d had with the collision of her head against the door and was swung easily into a corner as the van hit a hard left pulling out of the parking lot.  

She felt the vibration of metal resound through her skull, so much that even her vision had gone shaky. The hand that had forced her forehead into the door found the back of her head again, pulling it up by the root of her hair. Sherry pulled herself onto her weak elbows from the slumped position she’d been slung into.

“I’ll take that,” a gruff voice said, yanking her head in the direction opposite her knife hand. Sherry hadn’t noticed the thin cut along the base of her fingers until he’d pulled the slippery blade from her grasp. She’d still been holding the knife when she was flung onto the van’s floor, and the blade had slid down when she’d flattened her hands to brace her fall. 

She reached out with her cut hand as if she had realized in slow motion that he was disarming her. Her head was still held back though, and she wouldn’t have the length she needed to reach it. She pulled back her wounded hand, clutching it against her chest.

“Alrighty,” the man tossed the knife to the other side of the van. There were no seats apart from the driver’s and a single passenger in the front so it skid easily across the grooved plastic floor to just under the driver’s seat. “Why don’t you sit on up.” He had released her hair and was struggling to pull her up from under her arms.

Two slightly translucent versions of him were swinging back and forth in Sherry’s eyes as she pulled her head upright; they were like two pendulums that were just off from cross-crossing perfectly and so one looked like it was following the other. 

“She hardly looks like a crow,” a voice that sounded slightly less like scraping rocks and more like a dentist’s said from the front seat. 

“A crow?” She feigned ignorance, “Is that some sort of slang for old lady?”

“What?

“Like crow’s feet,” she said, becoming very timid, almost losing the last consonant as she appeared to have lost the will to speak up halfway through.

“No.”

“Oh,” her face flushed, and she tucked her head in close to her neck raising her shoulders. She looked down at the floor close to her knees. The new angle of her face made it easier for the blood from the wound on her forehead to trickle down to her cheekbone and not run into her eyes. She curled her wounded hand in even closer to herself, almost tucking it into the collar of her lab coat.

“Why don’t you explain what you were doing with that knife,” he said, his voice still almost immediately over her. 

She peeked up at him, checking how closely he was watching her, only to squeeze her eyes shut and tuck her head back down after meeting his eye. “It’s not mine,” her voice was a mess of mumbled words, “it was with the lab equipment, I- when I- I just-” her face was burning a fierce red and she was trembling slightly. 

“Give it a rest. Do you really think that girl is capable of hurting you now?” The gentlemen in the driver’s seat interjected. 

“Are you really going to ignore the fact that she jumped into this car herself, while it was moving, and locked?”

“I’m hardly saying that.”

“I suppose you’d believe a story about her breaking in by mistake, or perhaps accidentally. Hell, perhaps she was concerned that a hilt of a knife was caught between the doors and didn’t want it to fall and get lost since she denies ownership of it.”

“Um, it’s just-” Sherry broke in, though still rather timidly, “weren’t you two- ummm- stealing?” She squeezed her eyes even more firmly shut after suggesting this, as if she expected to be smacked. 

No immediate response came, and she dared to open her eyes. Both men exchanged looks of confusion; whatever excuse they expected her to invent it wasn’t that one. 

“Stealing?” The driver’s bafflement only now let the word escape him. “Look little girl, I’m a-” he looked as if he were going to say professor at the university but thought better of it considering his position and involvement in the battering of a young woman. 

“Well, you are the arsonists, aren’t you?” The man in the front seat raised his eyebrows at this, and the man glowering over her narrowed his eyes, but neither offered an answer. 

“You were in such a hurry to get away, and well, you’re at the loading docks. And, you shouldn’t have been pulling onto the road with all those emergency vehicles and the sirens. I had this feeling... like I knew something was wrong. I don't know what possessed me, and I found myself jumping into the car. what- what was I thinking? and now, and now-” tears choked her words.

“Look, you shouldn’t chase after criminals, that’s the job of the police.” The professor reprimanded her like he might scold a child. 

She nodded fervently, looking on the edge of sobbing.

“And just like that she’s gone from threat to completely innocent,” the man leaning over her scoffed. “I’m not willing to believe that.”

He was very close to her now, using proximity as an intimidation tactic. Sherry had finally reached the pendant hanging from her neck, as if in a habit of comfort-seeking she clutched her wounded hand around it, squeezing until its small glass shell broke.

“Honestly, are you really so afraid of a little girl?” The professor kept a watchful eye on them through the rearview mirror. “Look at her. Are those tear-stained eyes the ones of a cold-hearted assassin?”

Sherry’s head whipped toward the direction of the driver upon hearing the word assassin her wide eyes confused and afraid. She looked quickly from one man to the other. Her breath quickened as if in fear, and she loosened her grip slightly on the fine dust and stinging shards her necklace had become in her hand. Her breath let them disperse into the air, joining the dust floating freely around the van.

“I am looking at her,” ironically, he looked back at the driver for a second to say this, but soon turned back to Sherry’s face, which she had gone back to hiding in the collar of her lab coat, only inches from his. “I was also looking at her as she calmly broke into your van as it was speeding away. You hired me to protect you from threats, are you now asking me to ignore them?” 

“I didn’t hire you to scare the shit out of little girls. You’ve taken away the knife, what threat can she really be from where she’s cowering on the floor? Besides, like you said, I hired you and now I’m telling you to back down.”

The man took a second to glare at the back of the driver’s seat before backing away and sitting down against the wall across from Sherry. 

...

Gin riffled through Brandy’s bag, looking for a receiver to the tracker Sherry had mentioned. There wasn’t anything.

What was she thinking? Was she even thinking?

The car took off too fast after closing the door of the trunk to have only one passenger, and she started with her back to them. Those were terrible odds, especially considering she couldn’t possibly be half as proficient as he was in combat. Sure, she could properly maneuver a few weapons, but she was no mercenary; she was a scientist.

She better not have just gotten herself killed. 

Gin started running to find the nearest bus stop, there had to be a few around the university. Gin reasoned through their next course of action while running. They’d want the fastest way out of the country, which had to be air travel, but there wasn’t an airport in Kyoto. The one in Osaka was closest, but no longer had anything but domestic flights. The next closest was Kansai International. They’ll probably continue there in the van, which meant Gin should be able to beat them there on the express train. 

If they were traveling by car through, they’d have every opportunity to get rid of Sherry along the way. If she was now dead, they’d have to adequately dispose of a body, being sure to not leave any evidence tying them to it, which would take too much time. If they foresaw that she probably wasn’t dead. The smartest thing for them to do would be to drug her and either leave her in the van asleep, or leave her drugged in a public restroom, or motel if they had more time, somewhere along the way, somewhere out of the way so she wouldn’t be found or wake up and go to the cops before they got away. 

There were too many possibilities of where to look for Sherry to justify trying to find her first. He’d have to just hope they were smart and didn’t plan to put her anywhere before the last possible second to reduce the amount of time she could be discovered before they could get away. 

Gin caught a departing bus just in time, heading for the train station. 

...

It had been nearly half an hour and the van had fallen silent for most of the drive. There were no windows other than the windshield, and the two side windows in the cab, so the only light in the van poured in from the front, in beams crowded with dust. 

The dust from her pendant had long since dispersed into an amount thinned out enough that it would no longer be harmful to breathe in, and Sherry, siding with caution, only just moved her face from her coat collar that she'd been breathing through.

She'd blown the concentrated amount directly into the man's face when he was leaning in to intimidate her, and since the sleeping drug was airborne, he should have breathed it in. It would have taken full effect fifteen minutes ago, but again she aired on the side of caution.

Sherry moved silently up from her seated position and advanced toward the front of the van. She drew the gun Brandy had handed her when they first left for this assignment from an inner coat pocket.  Just before the cab was a blocky shape covered in a tarp. She peeked under the covering just a little to confirm before testing the lid on the aquarium and taking a seat.

"Say, professor," Sherry said, catching him off guard. "Do you suppose it's bad luck to kill something that could have been immortal?" She sat on top of the small, covered glass tank just behind the passenger seat and tapped the glass with the heel of her shoe. He turned his upper body to face her, keeping only a hand on the wheel to stabilize the car's path.

"What are you-"

"Eyes on the road professor." She pointed the gun at him, and he obliged. "Maybe it's good luck, releasing all that potential life into the air, like a perfume of eternal youth."

"You sound crazy."

"Any crazier than the professor who set out to study jellyfish that can live forever and decided to sell his idea of bottling the fountain of youth to a dangerous shadow organization, believing that it would never work. Thinking he could string them along, getting money for information that truly had little value. Only to actually discover something. But what now? You can't very well hand some shady crime syndicate what is potentially a very dangerous discovery. I suppose you have some moral qualm with that. Or is it that you are truly foolish and intend to bid the information for a higher price?"

"It's none of that."

"Oh?"

"I didn't find the secret to life, only death."

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

"How poetic," Sherry used her left hand to tap against the glass of the case in rhythm with the phrase. Each syllable ringing with the pang of glass behind it. She dropped the cover which she had bunched up at the top of the aquarium's side and ran her hand down it as if to smoothen out the tarp. "But science cares very little about the poetry of it."

"Science you say?" he took the time to ponder, flaring the dramatics of the action. "From a suspected crow to claiming ignorance. Then from playing the misguided vigilante to shielding yourself with helplessness. And on further from our hostage to the one calling the shots. Now you claim to be a woman of science, but you’ll have to forgive me if I can only ask what purpose this mask serves.”

"I suppose you are continuing to be poetic: avoiding death."

"Ah, suppose I am. But you did notice the poetry of the situation, now didn't you? How avoiding death in our conversation aligns with avoiding my own death. It was all very clever of you." The professor clicked his turn signal on in order to merge toward the freeway off-ramp.

Sherry tapped his temple with the barrel of her gun. "We're not ready to get off the freeway just yet, there are still so many questions you're avoiding."

"If you shoot me while we're driving we'll crash. But you won't shoot me, not before you have your answers, even if I drive right off that ramp I'll get there alive."

"Alive, missing a few fingers, I suppose if it's all the same to you."

"Torture? No one ever gets reliable information with torture." He continued with more of an air of amusement than nervousness. "Don't you know reverting to empty threats only reveals your true weakness?"

"Are you trying to teach me to be a better captor?" Sherry laughed, standing up and pulling the cover completely off the aquarium. The dusty light shining in from the cab danced across the water that had looked black before. "Don't confuse me with one of your students, professor."

The light illuminating the aquarium revealed half a dozen darting bell shapes within. They were all a nearly transparent electric blue, with a red-orange center. Sherry slid the lid off, and it clattered to the floor.

"For all your talk of death, these jellyfish don't look very dead." She set a foot on the top edge of the glass, tipping the tank slightly forward. "But they will be if you get off this freeway. And I assure you that was not an empty threat."

The professor turned off his turn signal with a sigh. "Are we just going to keep driving until we reach the end of Honshu then? I never did like road trips."

"All I want is your findings."

"Oh? Well then, the experiments were a failure. No outstanding discoveries were made.

"I seriously doubt that," Sherry said rummaging through a duffle of aquarium supplies. "Why would you run were that the case, knowing full well we'd think it meant you'd discovered something."

"How long do you think they'd put up with me not finding the answer they're looking for?"

"It's been six years for me, and more than two decades of my parents before me."

"And where are your parents now?"

Sherry didn't answer this, treating it as if it were one of the many rhetorical questions his speech seemed to tend toward. "I won't believe you haven't discovered something professor. Not while you planned your escape taking the jellyfish with you."

"And what if I had? Do you think I'd tell a girl who doesn't even look like a crow?"

...

The bus was nearly silent. None of the passengers spoke and other than the usual hum of the bus, only the occasional tap of a pencil against a notebook could be heard. The off-rhythm tap was coming from a middle-school-aged child a couple of seats behind Gin who had earbuds in and bounced his pencil along to music only he could hear.

Public transportation was always like this, but this time, it was different. The silence was tense. The thin fabric of custom and courtesy was pulled taut between Gin and the two police detectives who took their seats just slightly off from across from him.

Gin turned up the collar of his jacket in an effort to further obscure his face. He felt something hard and plastic graze his fingertips, a small bead-like object attached to the jacket's thick collar.

He tugged it off to more closely examine it and recognized it immediately.

It was the make of tracking device Brandy proffered. Though it couldn't have been Brandy who put it there. It was too obvious a place for one, plus he had turned up his collar since the time he'd left her and he hadn't felt it then.

Sherry. The audacity of that woman, behaving as if she was the lead and he was the tag along she'd simply need to find later.

He pulled the compact laptop from Brandy's bag. Earlier he had only been checking for Sherry's own receiver. It would have been foolish to assume Brandy had handed over her set of tracking chips to Sherry or had her using ones on the same system. Apparently, it wasn't as foolish as he first believed.

He clicked open the program and the map slowly rendered streets and buildings onto its grid. One dot blinked into existence and inched along on the road he knew the bus was following.

Only one? He knew Brandy kept at least four, and apparently, none of them were still in her bag.

No other dots seemed to be appearing in Kyoto. He zoomed out, cursing every represented mile that rendered and turned up nothing. On the outskirts of town, two weak dots stood stationary.

He checked a much broader area for the last one, and instead found four blinking in what at first had seemed like the same spot. Zoning in on them, however, revealed they were all in separate locations in a distant city, one of the small cities they'd passed through on the train. It was too far out and in the wrong direction to be Sherry.

He returned to the two weak spots on the outskirts of Kyoto. He was actually closer to them than he first thought. Zooming in he found they were stopped at a rest stop. One of the dots was in the parking lot and one in the convenience store. Though that could be unreliable locators, off by twenty or so feet. He would be cautious either way once he was there.

...

Gin had hailed a taxi from the bus stop and to his surprise, the two weak dots had not moved from their place in the quarter hour it took him to get there. This should have been helpful but in fact was only worrisome.

The taxi made one of the last turns in the route, and Gin watched the rearview mirror as they rounded the corner. Sure enough, a dark blue car with lights resting dormant just inside the windshield flipped on their turn signal.

The last thing he needed right now was a tail. Let alone a police one. It couldn't be helped, he could hardly have told the taxi driver to maneuver to lose a tail.

He exited the taxi a block away from the convenience store and made the remaining distance on foot. Sure enough, the van he'd seen zipping from the university lot was parked along the small strip in front of the store.

No doubt the detectives were still on him and picking the van's lock would be impossible to do and not look suspicious.

His best bet was that the professor had left Sherry passed out in the van, so detectives or no he was going to check. It was also possible that he had ditched both van and tracking chips here, or maybe even left Sherry dead here in the van.

That last option would get very uncomfortable with the police watching.

He recalled how Sherry had commented that she wasn't surprised he was never mistaken for anyone but who he was because of how he looked and acted.

Gin wasn't exactly sure what had earned him his police tail, surely the police had better things to do than tail suspicious characters around the city. They were probably looking for someone in particular, though Gin couldn't imagine there were a great many people fitting his physical description wandering the streets of Japan. He was extremely tall for a Japanese man and had long ash blonde hair.

Gin pulled his phone from his pocket and put it to his ear. "Hey, did you say you left the keys in the cab or the back?"

He left a pause as if he were listening. "What do you mean you don't remember?" Gin took care to look annoyed giving him an excuse to raise his voice to a volume his police tail would hear. "Of course you didn't mean to lock them in the van. Just- give me a second-" He pressed the phone against his jacket as if to cover the speaker. "Damn women."

The van was an old enough model that it would be easy to pick. Gin pulled out one of his more primitive lock picking tools, one he hoped the detectives would see as a makeshift one.

There weren't any windows in the back and he couldn't see anything unusual looking in through the cab, only the back doors really. Gin popped open the back as Sherry had, lifting the latch.

The door swung open to reveal a slumped figure against one wall, their dark pants clearly darker in certain spots.

All in one glance, he took in the sight of the unnaturally slumped person, the wide pools of liquid and large pieces of glass shattered across the van's dark floor. There were also small red stains speckled across the white van's walls that could only be blood.

He didn't have time to check for a pulse, his show for the cops was clearly over.

"Hey you, stop right there."

Gin ran for the convenience store's glass doors. The small bell on the entrance door rang softly, and he shut out the shouts of officers behind him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7

In an instant everything seemed to close off behind him. The last sound was the weak chime of the bell hanging on the door, and then, nothing. From chaos, and brightness, and shouting, to an eerie absence of it all that was almost deafening. Walking into the shop had been almost like walking through a visible wall of light and dark, cutting off the blinding sun and slamming the darkness in his face. The front windows had been papered and the only light came from three uncovered fluorescent tubes flickering as if with their last breaths. It seemed as if all the dust had been settled before he entered and his coming had caused the ghost town of a shop to heave a sigh at being disturbed.

The illusion faded as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting; the shop wasn't half as dusty as he first thought. A long trail of water was sloshed across a white tile floor. Gin reasoned that the liquid on the floor of the van was also probably water, but he hadn't been able to tell until he saw it on something lighter than the van’s black matting. He followed it as it jagged a diagonal path through the aisles to the back corner of the shop. The puddles were littered with shredded plastic bags and on occasion small drops of blood. Some of them didn't seem to splatter like the others and looked unnaturally round. It wasn't clear in the dimness, and he had no time to investigate.

A small hall led off to the restrooms and a number of employee-only doors. It was the darkest corner of the shop, and Gin did not trust all the black shapes to be mere shadows.

He quieted his steps and held his hand just above his holster. He was listening for breathing and waiting to see if a shadow shifted.

Loud as a gunshot, three bangs on the window glass broke the silence.

"This is the police." The voice was muffled behind the closed walls.

The officers had apparently mustered up the courage to pursue him. Of course, he had dead-bolted that entrance, so the threat they posed was slightly less than the unknown threat before him.

He had been watching the shadows and nothing seemed to startle at the noise, which he took as a green light to enter the hall. He got into a firing stance and swung open the bathroom door. The door hissed at him as it scraped across the concrete.

The first thing he noticed was Sherry, a bloody wound swelling on her forehead and a trail of dried blood hugging the curves of her face almost too perfectly, like a decoration she had been careful not to smudge.

He had feared the blood trail was from her, but this discovery was ultimately undercut by the second thing he noticed: she was not only alive and well but appeared to be in control of the situation. She held both a gun and the top of a plastic bag filled with water in one hand and a knife pointing to the bag in the other. Blood had run down one side of the bag, its source likely from the palm of her hand.

The man in between them turned back to face Gin, starting to speak before Gin came into sight.

"Please, call the police she's-!" the color drained from the professor's face upon meeting Gin's cold and unsympathetic eyes. "My luck is shit."

"I see you were right about the jellyfish." Gin holstered his gun and nonchalantly leaned against the door frame. The flowing transparent shape in the bag looked almost like a living bubble with a red sphere inside.

"Turritopsis Dohrnii, not the most beautiful Jellyfish, but nature can't give all the best traits to a single variety." The thin layer of blood coating the far side of the bag made the background a light sickly red. He doubted anything would look its best in such conditions. "You may have just saved his last one."

"Last one?" Gin smirked. "I take it your previous attempts at information were unsuccessful."

Sherry ignored this and turned her attention to the professor. "Well, you can't deny who I'm with any longer now can you?"

"That much is true." Gin heard defeat in the man's voice, but something was slightly off about it. It wasn't admitting defeat to his captors, but resignation to something else entirely. "There is very little I value over my own life, I just didn't realize this was one of them."

The professor leapt toward Sherry as if to attack her, but superficially, like he hoped to trigger Gin into shooting him to stop the attempt. Gin saw it coming and had soundlessly crept up behind the man during what he had believed would be his last words. At his first sign of action, Gin had wrapped an arm around the professor in a chokehold restricting blood flow to the brain.

The professor flailed around for a while before going limp. Gin lowered him to the ground.

"Tape." Gin was crouched over the professor, one hand on his chest, the other outstretched. Sherry grabbed a roll from a nearby aisle and cut her knife through its plastic casing as Gin continued speaking. "There are a couple officers out front. I'm sure backup won't be long now."

"What?" Sherry was tucking away her knife and nearly dropped it. "You led the police here! You let them follow you?"

Gin pulled out a long section of the tape making a loud sound similar to ripping fabric. "You left a van with a body, shattered glass, and blood in the parking lot." He had not picked up the same elevated state of agitation as Sherry and was more occupied securing the professor. "They may have been mildly interested before, but it was the van with the dead guy that got them invested I'm sure."

"He's only unconscious, and I wasn't the one who led them to the van," Sherry said while Gin was ducking out into the hall and looking at the various ceiling tiles. He pulled a step stool from behind the door with employees only in print and set it up just outside the bathroom.

"I'm going to create a distraction on the east side of the building and shoot out some tires.” Sherry had started down one of the aisles as he spoke and he trailed after her. “I assume you can start up a car."

She scanned the labels of several bottles in the alcohol aisle, evidently looking for something in particular.

"What about the professor?" She asked, her voice sounding preoccupied with the task before her. They had left him duct taped to the handicapped bar in the bathroom and had mere seconds before he was due to regain consciousness.

"I'll take him out when I go.” Gin answered, his tone equally distracted by whatever she was doing. “What are you looking for?”

She shoved a couple bottles against Gin's chest, immediately reaching for more. “We need something with a reasonably high alcohol content.”

"Do we now?" He stressed her inclusion of him in that ‘we’. A few more bottles clinked together as she added more to his arms. "How presumptuous, or risque rather."

She had already started grabbing something else from the end cap of the aisle, but turned her head back to meet his eye at that comment. “The higher percentage is more flammable, which will work well for that distraction you’re planning. As for any other occasion where it might be appropriate, I should hope a corner shop isn’t the first place you think of for a tryst.”

She smiled to herself, her eyes returning to her task. “I'll be honest, I was hoping for a nice park or cafe to meet up. Convenience store doesn't exactly fit with a romance story now does it?"

She had managed to say it casually, but he had walked up to her by the time she’d finished it and now she was avoiding catching his eye, a rather obvious gesture of embarrassment when they were so close. She threw a couple of touristy shirts at him before they made their way back to the small hall.

"They do have a curiously strong presence in the action genre however." He said, leading the conversation to resume the light-hearted banter on romance he was sure she had intended. He placed the bottles and shirts down on the top of the stepping stool a moment to heft the loose square of ceiling that led to the attic.

Sherry let a beat too long sit in the silence of bottles clinking together as he lifted them into the attic before adding. "Romance plots are usually better when paired with another genre anyways."

He stopped to respond to this. "Surely you can’t mean that egregious trend of tacking on romantic interests?”

“How could I possibly think an afterthought is better? Especially when it comes to romance?” She jibed, her quick wittedness returning.

He only smirked at her, not bothering a response.

"And would you get up there already. They are going to barge through that door and then where will we be?" She said, and then sprinted toward the back door.

He watched her go, she stopped with her back to the wall next to the exit. She darted a look out of the wire laced window set in the door, flattening back again to the wall with a speed that spoke either of having great practice at it or being startled. She nodded to reassure him.

Gin climbed into the attic without further prompting. In the attic, Gin crawled toward the east most corner. A small cool breeze blew in from a vent in the bottom corner of the attic. It was a building regulation he had been counting on. He dug out the insulation to get a clear shot out through the vents under the building's eaves.

He pressed a cheek against the floor and peered out the grated vent to the parking lot below. The angle between the attic floor and the convenience store's eaves cut off the back half of the lot from his sight. He counted six officers that had come in and out of his range. There were three patrol cars and an ambulance. The ambulance was the only vehicle he could see completely, and he only had a good shot at the patrols' front tires.

Gin used one of his lock picking tools to unscrew the metal grate on the vent. The holes in the grate weren't quite big enough to push his fingers through to pull it up, so he was grabbing at the corners trying to lift it slowly up into the attic when it slipped through the hole and down to clatter against the store's front walk.

The officers were in instant commotion, and three came up closer to look up at where the metal grate had come from.

Gin had to act fast, he wrapped a shirt around a bottle and then poured nearly another full bottle over it. Match at the ready, he watched as the officers inched closer to where the grate had fallen. When he judged they were close enough, he threw one of the full bottles of alcohol down to shatter against the ground at their feet, followed by the shirt he’d wrapped around a bottle and then doused and lite on fire.

The flaming shirt, weighed down by the bottle, dropped to the ground and ignited the spilled alcohol. At the same time, the bottle within the shirt shattered upon impact, adding more fuel to the wave of fire spreading to the edges of the spilled alcohol.

As if in sequence with the wave the officers jumped back from the area and soon took cover behind the patrol car doors with the others.

He threw another bottle at the flame. This time, it exploded in a large ball of color. He used the confusion to mask his next three silenced shots at the patrols' tires.

With three cars flat he scrambled backward and down into the hall.

"Alright talk fast, you've made this choice once and I've a feeling you may wish to change your answer now. Will you die a traitor, or give up the research the Organization funded?" He pulled the tape from the professor's mouth.

"The truth dies with me." The professor moved the barrel of the gun up toward his head with his bound hands.

"And so it does."

Chapter Text

The alley that ran along the back of the convenience store was narrow and would offer little in the way of cover from police fire. Its intended purpose was probably to take the trash to the dumpster located on the side of the building where there was actually room, however the carpet of cigarette buds told a much different story of how the employees had been using the space. The other wall of the alley was a hedge that appeared to have swallowed a fence some years ago.

It was that hidden inner structure that Gin gambled on now as he left the protection of the doorway and leapt onto the hedge. He heard the satisfying clink of the chain link fence as his feet kicked into holds.

The shouts of officers were quick to drown out the chime of metal as he scaled the fence. He was unarmed as far as the police could see and so they couldn't fire at him.

The two watching the alley sprinted into action; one darted after him and attempted to climb the hedge, while the other took off the other way to get around the fence where he'd come out.

There was a van parked up against the other side of the hedge, and Gin jumped on top of it. He then fired a few warning shots at the top of the bush he knew would make the policemen think twice about peeking his head over.

Gin dropped down. He was on a stretch of pavement that ran behind the shops and was used for unloading new supplies. It wasn't long after he started sprinting along the back of the strip mall that a white car zipped into the loading strip.

A car door flung open just as the officer that had thought to go around the fence rounded the corner of the building. She had a gun out and ready.

"Stay where you are! Lower your weapon!"

Gin had his back to the officer and was holding the brim of his hat in his right hand. He shot a quick side glance at Sherry before he shot his gun, sparking the pavement at the officer’s feet. She jumped back in surprise and fired off her own shots. The low pang of the bullets hitting the car door sounded as Gin ducked into the car.

The car yanked backward in a hard reverse almost before Gin had taken his feet off the pavement outside. His shoulder was slung against the dash with the momentum.

“Where’s the professor?” Sherry asked, backing the car around the corner and then suddenly forward along the main road. The jerk forward slammed Gin’s door shut.

Gin shook his head. “Back there, I’m sure the police have found him by now.”

“I thought you were going to take him with you.” She hit a hard right flinging him into the door.

“Just wasn’t in the cards.” He said, finally adjusting himself properly in the seat. “He destroyed his research. We weren’t going to get anywhere with him. He wasn’t worth the risk of bringing along.”

“Wasn’t worth the risk!” Sherry took her eyes off the road for a moment to glare in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea the kind of breakthroughs he had to have made? How much losing that will set us back?”

“Sherry,” Gin was louder than normal, his voice more firm. “We were never going to get what he learned from him. It was already lost.”

She was scowling at the road now, jostling the car about with every move of the wheel. There was silence between them that sat uncomfortably as she slowly began to drive more normally.

It was Gin who broke it, “We need to lose the car, the police will be looking for these plates.”

“You’re right,” she admitted. “Let’s cut our losses and head back.”

...

The familiar rhythm of the tracks hummed beneath them as the train whirred them out of Kansai. The sound reminded Sherry of her father and the smell of book pages.

Gin had slouched back across from her with his hat tipped over the top half of his face. He had seemed exhausted. Even more amusing, he had seemed resentful to be exhausted. Sherry had noticed him scowling a long while until the tension in his muscles loosened and he fell asleep.

They had booked a private booth for the return trip and she doubted Gin would have fallen asleep had they not been able to lock the door. Sherry was glad for the relative quiet. She pulled the plastic bag from her padded bag and up in front of her face. She’d lied to the professor of course and in fact had three remaining jellyfish. She’d been planning on keeping two regardless of how many she killed in front of him.

“What secrets do you hold?” She asked it watching the natural light run across its many hair-thin translucent tentacles. She sat observing it for a time, giving her eyes something to study while she thought of how best to find the answers this creature supposedly held. She placed it back in the aquarium bag with the others. She’d taken out the supplies it had held and put them in her coat pockets so the bags with the jellyfish would not be punctured.

It was some minutes later when her phone rang.

“Hello?”

“How goes the study of things of which I cannot pronounce?” It was her older sister Akemi, in a pleasant mood as always.

“Good,” she breathed out a laugh. “How are things in the fairy tale?”

“I’m hardly living a fairy tale, Shiho.” That much was true. Akemi was the most normal person in her life. The only normal part of her life. She was practically only in the organization by default and in name. Her parents were and she knew so she was in their grasp, albeit dormantly so.

“A rom-com then?” Sherry suggested. “It has to be something; you hit him with your car.”

“That was nearly three years ago!”

“Three years and still no ring, they’re going to start calling you Christmas Cake soon.” Sherry teased. “Weren’t you about my age when you two met?”

“Humph, I was in fact. Guess that means you should drive a little more recklessly yourself.” Sherry could practically hear her sister wink.

“I have work to do.”

“Even dad stopped working at the lab long enough to date mom.”

“They were both scientists,” Sherry argued light-heartedly. “I get the feeling they just went together.”

There was a very loud sigh on the other end of the line. “Anyways, about what I called you for; I am back in town and was thinking it would be nice to meet up and have dinner. You know when your face isn’t stuck observing various vials of colorful liquid.” Sherry laughed at this conjuring images of what her sister must think she does. “Besides, it’s been three years and you still haven’t met the guy. Which is silly and irregular and I won’t stand for it.”

“Oh, dinner with Dai.”

The overhead announcer echoed the name of a stop along the route across the train, drowning out what Akemi had said.

“Sorry, what? There’s a lot of noise over here.”

“Doesn’t matter, how does Tuesday sound?”

“Let’s see...” as Sherry was delaying there was a knock at the door. “Hold on a sec.” She peeked through the peephole to see Brandy standing in the hall.

Sherry turned to look at Gin who was up and at alert from the knock.

“Who is it?”

“Brandy,” Sherry said sounding slightly confused. She picked up the phone to speak to Akemi once more, “I’ll have to get back to you, bye.”

She opened the door to see a disheveled Brandy who slipped her way inside and found a seat. Sherry thought she probably looked confused, but Gin, on the other hand, looked downright bewildered.

“Glad to see you both well,” Brandy said simply.

“And you.” Gin said cautiously. The light spray of blood splatter on her pants did not escape anyone’s attention, as Sherry was sure the scabbed area on her head and her bandaged hand had not escaped Brandy’s. 

The drone of the train’s purr filled the silence between them. Gin and Brandy seemed to be having a silent conversation of subtle facial expressions and Sherry could not read a word of it.

Chapter Text

Darkness had long since fallen over the sky by the time they were back in Tokyo. Sherry now found herself cursing the very silence that she had been grateful for at the beginning of their journey. It wasn’t restful or comforting as it had been before, only agitating.

The confusion sitting stale in the air needed to be cleared; there were words that ought to have been exchanged and no one was speaking them. The train slowed and came to a halt at their stop. Brandy and Gin stood and she knew if she didn’t speak now their answers would remain behind unsaid in that cabin.

“Where do we go from here?”

“Well, I assume you have the tools you need to pursue Kurage’s research further.” She motioned to the bag Sherry had not unstrapped from her shoulder in the whole time she’d spent on the train.

Sherry nodded. “I suppose I do.”

“Then we’ll leave you to your research Miss Sherry.” Brandy opened the door and began to walk through.

“But what of you and Gin?” She said trying to catch her before she left.

“I’m afraid that’s not something you’ll need to know,” Brandy said without turning back, giving a dismissive wave of the hand.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and realized she was blocking the doorway.

“Something about clearance level.” Gin smirked, bringing back memories of a similar exchange the last time they were on a train. “I’m sure you understand. The Organization has a great many secrets and only one person who knows them all.”

“That person,” Sherry heard herself say.

Gin shrugged and ducked past her. “Goodnight, Sherry.”

...

Over the next few days, Sherry gathered as much information about the professor’s three jellyfish through tests and studies as she could. She also ordered in several groups of the same immortal jellyfish from different vendors and set up controls to catch any variation in the professor’s jellyfish from the species.

She was in the middle of one such study when she received a text from Brandy containing a location and a time. Brandy was her handler for the project Silver Bullet and as such was the executive member Sherry worked under. Mostly it just meant hers was the email address where she forwarded all her lab reports. In person meetings had always been rare, and it was only recently that she actually seemed to pay attention to what Sherry was saying. Those had been the last meetings before Brandy had sent her to Kyoto. Now it was three days since they’d seen each other on the train and already she wanted to meet up outside a cafe.

Brandy usually gave a week’s notice before every planned meeting, but the time she’d sent had been in less than an hour. Sherry had overestimated the time it would take to drive to the location and was ten minutes early.

Brandy was already there wearing a large white sunhat and a black knee length dress with a portrait neckline that ran along the line of her collarbones. She was sipping at an iced tea sitting at one of the outdoor tables.

Sherry almost hadn’t recognized her. Brandy was typically very precise, arriving exactly on time, so she hadn’t really been looking for her, but mostly she’d nearly slipped Sherry’s attention because she’d never seen her without a black coat. She had assumed that it was an unofficial uniform of sorts. Though now it occurred to her that it was likely just ideal for hiding weapons. The sleek dress Brandy wore now did not offer many places to conceal much of anything.

She took a seat across from her.

Brandy wasted no time with formalities. “I was reading through your findings on a test you performed. One on the toxicity of the jellyfish venom.” Brandy was looking at a few loose papers she held in a folder. “It’s extremely lethal. Its lethal dose is uncommonly small and fast acting.”

“Yes, I actually have a theory as to how it developed such uncommon toxicity. I believe the proficiency of its toxin may stem from already having the knowledge of how to very effectively trigger widespread apoptosis, that is cell death, in its genetic material.”

“Why would it already know how to trigger cell death more effectively than any other animal?”

“The reason this species of jellyfish is nicknamed the immortal jellyfish is because they can revert back to a younger stage of life, before sexual maturity an indefinite number of times. As part of that process it would need to trigger the death of cells it no longer needed very quickly.”

“So it would be a very unique toxin then, yes?

“I suppose it would be,” Sherry answered cautiously.

“One the screens for common poisons would not pick up and be able to identify.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” Brandy hummed pleasantly, sliding the folder across the table to Sherry. “You know they are developing so many tests these days. They can trace what type of gun and bullets you used just by evidence at the scene. Sometimes they can trace the type and location where the poison you used came from. Killing people is becoming a very dangerous game, and we are falling behind.”

Sherry had been scanning the pages in the folder. Everything to do the venom’s efficiency had been highlighted. The next pages were comparisons to common poisons, and their lethal doses.

“This isn’t what I do.” Sherry closed the folder and put it down on the table.

“You research what the Organization tells you to, and go where that research leads you.”

“I won’t continue this one.” Sherry pushed the folder away from her, off to the side where it was no closer to Brandy than it was to her.

Brandy was watching her carefully as she took a sip of her drink, her actions were measured and precise as she placed the glass down.

“This idea of free will you have is an illusion, it always has been. I think you know that; you’re a very smart girl.”

“I will not develop a poison, nor any weapon the organization would have me construct. That was never the intention of my research.” Sherry’s words were harsh but quiet, keeping in mind the public location of the meeting.

Brandy stirred the ice around in her iced tea with the straw. It made a perfect circle around the glass, and then another.

“The Organization would have you pursue this line of research wherever it may lead until the end. Anything short of that is to disobey orders from that person. Thereby, you’d be betraying the Organization and endangering all that you hold dear.”

Brandy stood up and walked around the table. “Think about your sister, she’s graduated college now, has fallen in love.” She slid the folder back in front of Sherry. “A year maybe two for this and you’ll be back to your research. Maybe you’ll even discover something you can use to complete Silver Bullet.”

Sherry glared up at the woman standing behind her. The late afternoon sun badly backlit her, making her face hard to see. “You can think on it,” she continued, tapping her fingernails against the folder, drawing Sherry’s attention to it. “I wouldn’t want you to miss that important dinner with Akemi’s boyfriend.” Sherry whipped back toward her, but the woman was already retreating into the blaring light, her silhouette even more black than usual.

...

The sun had just set so the sky was still a bright blue, but everything else appeared to be cast in shadows as Gin was about to get in his Porsche.

He stopped when he heard a voice call out for him, “Gin, wait.”

He hadn’t seen Brandy in the three days since they’d left the train station. She was jogging over to him from her car where she had just pulled in.

“You didn’t put another tracking device on me did you?” Gin left his door open talking over the roof of his car at her.

“Another?” Brandy looked confused, but at the same time rather amused. “I haven’t ever bothered to put one on in the first place. I figured you’d be here because that person has a particular liking for the restaurant in this hotel. That’s unimportant though.” She got into the passenger seat of his car. Gin got in and closed the door after him.

“Don’t assume you can invite yourself in my car.”

“You left it unlocked, practically an invitation in itself.” she excused half-heartedly.

“I was getting in when you pulled up.” Gin said not taking the matter as lightly.

Brandy cut to what she had gotten into the car to ask. “Do you recall how the woman on the train presented herself?”

“They just seemed like amateurs hired for a job they didn’t fully understand.” Gin said agitation still in his voice.

“That’s the impression they left me as well. At the time it occurred to me that we might be looking at a rival organization, someone powerful enough to dare try and pull this stunt on us without fearing retaliation. That was, until I found an FBI badge on one of them. They claimed only one was law enforcement, but I’ve never known FBI to work without a partner and team. And yet, he hasn’t contacted any sort of FBI team, only limped back to his group of common thugs. With cover blown and his alleged partner dead he would have every reason to be pulled from the field, if he had been an agent. I believe it can be inferred then that the group sent after us on the train was not an FBI cover, but legitimate.”

“Curious, what were the FBI doing infiltrating a group of amateurs then?”

“I believe Professor Kurage had a rather nasty contingency plan in the event of his death. I’m under the impression he both hired the group to threaten us, and then sold the FBI the opportunity to obtain information on the identities of a couple of highly ranked Black Organization members.”

“Mainly us.” Gin finished for her, signaling his understanding of the situation.

“I’m in need of your skills. Now the FBI won’t be able to do anything with their information on us until they receive permission from the Japanese government. In the past few days, I’ve learned that there is going to be a secret meeting between the two during a large police conference here in Tokyo.”

“You’re looking to intercept the evidence they collected before the conference. Won’t they have already uploaded copies to their database.”

“Hacking into the FBI database won’t be that much of a problem. It’s the physical copies of anything we need to destroy.”

Gin thought for a second that she was testing him with this. Achieving the rank of an executive agent within the organization meant that Brandy had gone from Gin’s superior to his equal. It was a completely level tier which he was told paid no mind to seniority. Without the command of the boss behind her, she didn’t have the authority to enlist his help. It took a moment for him to realize she had been asking and not instructing him.

“Does that person know about this?” Gin asked coming to realize that if this had been an official mission at this point this conversation would have included the boss.

“That person can’t.” Brandy burst out in a way that Gin had never seen her do before. “Gin you know as well as I what good an agent of a secret organization is when their identity is blown.” She turned very serious. “We destroy those pictures of us from the train or we’re as good as dead.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

The view from Akemi’s high-rise apartment ought to have been spectacular. It was on the fourteenth floor and would look out over the glow of Tokyo lights. The windows in the apartment however were minimal and all that could be seen through them was the side of another high-rise. Sherry found herself staring out of them in habit.  

"Dai actually spent a few years in America like you." Akemi was saying. Her natural state was rather cheery, but today her smile stretched a little farther and her words were more manufactured.

“Really? How did you like it?” 

“It was as good as anywhere.” Dai looked to be thinking back; glancing up at a patch of ceiling. “Very beautiful. I spent as much time as I could outdoors, exploring nature parks. My job was in the city though, so I’m afraid I didn’t see as much as I would have liked.”

As good as anywhere? Sherry thought that his response was somewhat strange and non committal. As if he were setting the stage for not having an answer if she asked too specific a question. She’d been expecting the typical answers and pleasantries of this type of conversation. -That he was surprised by how diverse the population was and how outspoken and loud the people were in comparison. To make no mention of the obvious cultural differences was unusual; skipping a step in the social dance. 

“I don’t think I ever remember leaving the city myself,” Sherry said, shifting so the reflection on the window glass caught Dai’s face. 

“How unfortunate.” He did seem genuine, if a bit off set from social expectation. It wasn’t that he was stiff, if anything he was too casual. Although it wasn’t anything excessive. Just like he was sidestepping the script for this occasion. But was it intentional or from awkwardness? Perhaps she was overthinking .

“It might be nice to get away for a day or two,” Sherry turned back to the room, “the city can be a bit much sometimes.”

“We should plan a trip!” Akemi jumped in, just as Sherry knew she would.

“I’d hate to impose; I’m afraid I don’t really have any equipment for that sort of thing... it might be expensive if we’re doing rentals.” She hemmed. “What gear are we looking at anyways, are you more into backpacking and camping Dai, or is it outdoors sports; mountaineering, kayaking, and the like?”

Sherry’s line of inquiry was cut off with an abrupt knock at the door. Any visitors without the code had to be buzzed in at the entrance, and the three people with knowledge of that code were sitting in the apartment already. Akemi slid off her bar stool to check the door. 

“What are they doing here?” she muttered stepping back from the peephole to unlatch the chain. Sherry had been feeling something electric in the air, and it ran down her spine as she turned to face the opening door.

“It’s been years,” Akemi said, tucking her arms in to hold her stomach. 

“I’m Brandy,” she said as if already short on patience. “In case you may have forgotten in that time.”

“I wouldn’t have.” Akemi was standing in the doorway, blocking entry. “I’m not familiar with him however.” 

 ...

Gin was stuck out in the hallway, feeling all too conspicuous.  He was growing tired of the women’s exchange. The girl was borderline insolent to her superior and Brandy was not helping their cause. 

“It’s Gin,” He placed a hand on the door’s edge. “And the rest cannot be said so out in the open.” 

There was a moment where it didn’t seem like she was going to move aside. “Of course,” she said eventually.  

He took a scan of the room. There was a bar cutting off the kitchenette from a small unfurnished carpeted area beyond, and very little on the walls. Gin hadn’t realized he was looking for Sherry until his gaze rested on her sitting on a barstool by the window. The lights in the adjacent high-rise made the fray of her red hair glow in a pleasantly distracting manner. She was not watching him in return, instead, her eyes were aimed just behind him, at Brandy.

“Sorry to interrupt this gathering,” Brandy said, sounding anything but polite. “We need to speak with the both of you, privately.”

“The both of us?” Sherry said, taking a moment’s glance to check on her sister, before returning to her unyielding watch of Brandy. Something happened between the two of them, between the time we were all together and now . He could read it in the cues they left, and in every line of Sherry’s posture. She was more frigid now than professional and the air between her and Brandy was sharp and untrusting. 

“I’m sorry,” Dai cut in from where he was sitting at the bar. “I’m afraid we haven’t met. It’s Dai Moroboshi. Is there something going on?”

“It’s a rather sensitive matter, we can really only speak with Akemi and Shiho.”

“Dai,” Akemi wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind. “Wait for me in the other room would you.”

He glanced up at her, uncertain, but walked out all the same. Gin thought his eyes were unusually intense for someone who had never seen combat; a little too sunken, a little too dark. 

The door to a back room snapped shut and Brandy was quick to start her explanation of the situation with the FBI. Gin took up a listening position behind the counter. He could monitor the entire room from it. Even with Akemi’s futile attempts to subtly block her sister from their view. Sherry, for her part, bided her time while Brandy spoke. She did not seem pleased at Brandy’s words, although she looked like she understood the weight of the situation. 

“You need Akemi because she is a fresh face,” This was the answer Sherry had been looking for throughout the whole explanation. “Someone the FBI doesn’t now have on file.”

“Yes,” Brandy had been reluctant on this point herself; she hated the idea of relying on someone as inexperienced as Akemi. She’d wanted to pull it off with just herself and Gin, though that was unrealistic. The problem was who they could enlist help from. Anyone in the organization was a risk because they couldn’t have the boss knowing about it until they’d pulled it off. Sherry offered the unique position of being just as deep as they were, which made her and her sister the only viable option. 

They were all forced by circumstance and all bitter about it. Gin didn't like acting intentionally without the boss's knowledge. His initial instinct told him that they should not be attempting a mission they knew that person would not risk. 

But to not act was a dead end. There was more merit in fixing the problem while something could still be done than getting the three of them killed as a precaution. 

“Why does my little sister have to be involved in this?” Akemi asked. She had been taking in the explanation with an unreadable face, like a skilled poker player or lawyer, and was now set to negotiate terms. “Surely we can manage with three. Besides, it would be more risky to have one more recognizable face in play.”

“What would be risky would be to have one less person than we need to pull this off.” Brandy snapped.

“It would be in our best interest to find someone else,” Akemi was careful not to snap back. “It’s a big organization with plenty of faces that are not going to be blown up on projectors at this meeting. Unless you can’t utilize the Organization’s resources for some reason?”

She had them and she knew it; a smile cracked from beneath her poker face. This woman was dangerous , he would have to be more cautious in future dealings with her. 

“It is not just our identities at risk here, Miss. Akemi. Your sister is at risk herself. She has just as much reason to act as we do.”

“I’d bet money the organization had something to do with her identity being compromised in the first place. It’s your fault we’re here, I won’t put my sister in harm’s way to fix your mess.”

“Watch yourself. You’re walking a dangerous line.”

There was a sound from the corner of the room, a door snapping shut. Dai Moroboshi had reentered. Gin guessed something like this was going to happen when he’d only been sent to the other room. This did not make his actions any less aggravating.  

“I’ll take Shiho’s place,” Dai said, resting a hand on Akemi’s shoulder. “You were looking for a solution weren’t you?”

Gin had already pulled his gun and had it resting just below the counter. He was sure Brandy had a feel on one of the blades up her sleeves as well. “Your boyfriend seems to be looking to get killed.” Gin said.

“I’m offering to help.”

“We don’t work with outsiders,” Brandy said. She was still, though not passively so. Her body was taut like the string of a bow just before an arrow was released.   

“So I’ll prove my worth on this job and work under your Organization. You knew I'd be eavesdropping and would have to deal with my knowledge of the organization eventually. This way I can protect Akemi, and keep her little sister from harm and you won't have to silence me. Everyone wins."

Gin watched the man with narrow eyes. "And have two wild variables on the mission? No."

Brandy raised a hand to silence Gin. "You will take Akemi's place since you so insist on joining. I’ll warn you that you're gambling with your life, and theirs."

"But-" Akemi tried to cut in.

"If I change my mind at this point, Miss. Akemi I assure you it will not be in your favor." Brandy's words were sharp and quick, silencing the room. 

It was clear Brandy intended to take the lead for the mission. She probably hadn’t thought twice about it, and Gin had allowed it until that point. But they were by all rights equal within the organization now, and he would not take her more questionable judgments as law.  

Gin started for the door and bumped into Brandy, holding the side of her jacket to pull her ear close. "We'll need to talk." She gave a curt nod and let him by. 

“We’ll contact Shiho, she’ll contact you.” Brandy addressed Dai on her way out. “We only give orders just before acting, and don’t expect to know any more than your piece. And do well, for her sake.”

Akemi was seated at the bar, her hands knotted in the fabric of her skirt. Gin thought that if she’d had something in her hands she would have thrown it at the door once it closed. Though he did not hear a thud as they walked down the hall.

...

Out in the night air Gin found a place with less passing ears in a stretch of a local park where the street lamps were older and cast less light. The dim shapes of bushes were lined with more silver light from the moon than the yellow of the lamps. They walked along the cobblestones, their footsteps filling the evening’s quiet.  

"Why are you trusting him?" Gin asked, breaking the silence but keeping the same pace.

"I'm not,” Brandy said. “Using him? Certainly. But most importantly keeping an eye on him. You had to notice how he held himself. He was forcing his poor posture a little too much, wouldn't you agree? He's obviously had some sort of training that he's consciously trying to mask. For now he's likely to use that to our advantage because our motivations align.”

“A strategic move.” Gin shook his head. “You’re gambling with too high of stakes.”

“The stakes are always high,” she brushed off. “It was a simple move, simple and ideal. In essence, all I did was switch out one untrained wild card for a trained one." 

“Huh. You’d be foolish to believe that is all that will come from this.” 

“You’re overly cautious; it limits your moves, makes you predictable, easy to outplay. Kill him if you think it is our best move,” Brandy said with a dismissive wave.

“It’s not,” Gin admitted, “not now at least.”   

Chapter Text

Chapter 11

The hotel bar was alive with the buzz of laughter and conversation. This was the hotel the majority of law enforcement officials coming in for the conference would be staying at. The bar was the obvious place for the conference attendees to meet up in a casual environment while they were all in town. Sure enough, it was swarming with groups of them. 

Brandy sat alone in a dark booth with a paperback book and a half empty whiskey glass in front of her. The ice cubes and solid glass bottom caught glints of the bright wall of bottles behind the bar counter. She found herself staring at them as she listened to her earpiece. She turned the page in her book, took another sip, and glanced around.

The booth was perfectly positioned to be unnatural for anyone else to glance back at, but to have a full view of the room. She found Dai mingling with a group of three men at the bar counter. 

She was testing his learning curve, and how he fared in social situations. His goal was to find out which men were in town for the conference, and then procure a pass to the conference from one of them.  

Dai was new to pickpocketing, but his marks appeared to be rather drunk, so she had little to fear from the learning experience. She was more concerned with Gin and Sherry who were supposed to be doing much of the same, and at the same time working out the kinks in their ability to work as a team. Instead, the pair had disappeared. Their mics weren’t picking up any noise either, which led Brandy to believe they had both turned them off. 

Before, while their mics were still on, they had spent equal time arguing and flirting, and no time successfully completing the objective of the exercise or making any headway of how they would function as a team in the future. 

The audio from Dai’s mic caught her attention. 

“Excuse me for a minute gentleman,” one of Dai's drinking companions said.

“Woah, careful there,” Dai said immediately following. Brandy looked up from her book to see the man having drunkenly swayed from his stool only to have Dai support him. She was sure Dai’s hand could have ventured to the man’s inner jacket pockets in the exchange. 

“Thanks,” the man said hoarsely, straightening out his jacket.

“Sure,” Dai said before returning to the group’s conversation. He had either been unsuccessful, or he was smartly waiting for a more natural time to leave the group. Brandy returned to glancing at the book pages with empty eyes, soon turning another page to keep up the charade.      

   ...

“Normally I’d say the girl makes a better distraction but...” Sherry trailed off looking Gin up and down. 

It was not the first time Sherry had scrutinized the organization’s choice of black clothes and heavy coats. She seemed to like bringing the same points back around as if building slowly on them would make them funnier. Gin had never cared for running jokes. 

“I doubt you could pass unnoticed; the bar is mostly men.” Gin pointed out.

“But there isn’t a police officer who doesn’t watch you like a hawk. And as that’s who we’re targeting.”

“They’re still men.” Gin said. “And you’re too beautiful and young not to hold their eye.”

She turned away slightly but he could still see a light flush of red on her cheeks. “So, we’re at a loss then. Neither of us is suited for the role of pickpocket.”

“I’m guessing this was just an opportunity for Moroboshi to prove himself anyways. We won’t need more than one pass.” 

They continued down the hotel’s hall. They had left the bar a while back. That was after Brandy had said that since they made an effective team, she was having them work together. This caused them to get into an argument over their last mission. They may have accomplished the goal of the mission, but they were closer to a dysfunctional team than an effective one. 

Gin had been mad that she had acted recklessly and undermined his authority by running off on her own. Sherry had been mad that she was right, had handled the situation, and he was still mad about it.   

“New idea,” Sherry said. “We play into both of our target’s conceptions of us. I play the touchy-feely drunk girl and see if I can’t find the pass, and then you play the shady boyfriend with a temper that roughs up the guy and see if you can’t find the pass.”

“You forgot to factor in who your mark is,” he said. 

"Surely that’s not the only fault you can find in that scenario." She said in that way that always made him wonder if that was a joke. 

They had come to a door with an exit sign over it. He opened it gesturing for her to go through. It let out into an alley not too far from the main road. 

“This is going to make Brandy even more frustrated with us,” Sherry said, stepping out. He shrugged and let the door close behind him. 

“We shouldn’t be spending any more time around the police than necessary.”

They walked out onto the busy Tokyo street. No one was paying attention to them; they were just two more people in the crowds on the sidewalk.

“So where are we going then?” She asked, huffing to keep up with him. 

“To scout out the location of the police conference. Brandy wants to keep everyone’s part separate and secret. That’s fine with Dai, but if we’re going to be working as partners, I’d rather you have the whole picture.” 

It wasn’t long before they came to a tall building that Gin stepped into. “The restaurant and lounge here overlooks the area with the conference tower,” he told her.

The lobby was immaculate, grand and yet cohesive in design. Gin sensed the hesitancy in her steps as she started to trail just behind. He didn’t let up the pace; if they stopped in here, they’d get held up by one of the many well-meaning receptionists. But, if they maintained the air of already being about their business, he could limit the exchange to a polite greeting. Thankfully, Sherry didn’t get overly caught up staring and they were shortly within the elevator. 

Amusingly, Sherry took a moment's time in the privacy of the elevator to smooth her already well laid dress, and fiddle with her already styled hair. It seemed to recenter her, because she stepped out of the elevator suddenly self-possessed, now entirely at home with her grandiose surroundings. 

She did, however, pull him in by the arm to whisper in his ear as the hostess approached to greet them. “Gin,” her uncertain voice at odds with her demeanor, “this seems like the kind of place you need a reservation for.” 

He looked down at her with a smirk, she was blushing again. Gin placed a business card in the hostess's hand, and she immediately had them seated.

The tables here were more spaced out than a typical restaurant layout, and even the interior tables had a spectacular view of the city.

One side of the restaurant was entirely glass with an unbroken overview of the city and the water beyond. The sun was just above the building tops, so it was still too early for a sunset view, but even still the view was stunning. 

“I feel as though I should be irritated with you for something, but I can’t really put my finger on the reason.” She confessed once they were left to themselves. “It probably would have felt rather patronizing if you had stopped to warn me the restaurant in question was high end and to behave myself, and still-”

“Ah,” that explained her slight pout then, “I was feeling pressed for time. It wasn't my intention to leave you in the dark.” He said in a way of apology, “the purpose of this meeting is the opposite in fact, as I stated.” 

“Right,” she confirmed, “the project overview.” She gestured openly for him to proceed. It was such a charming way to frame the situation he was taken aback just a moment; Three organization members taking a series of insane risks, including involving an outsider, all to save their own necks, summed up like a simple work detail. 

“The police conference is going to take place in that building.” He pointed to a structure more closely resembling a work of modern art than a skyscraper. It was made up of four tan inverted pyramids hoisted up on glass and metal stilts. “The Tokyo Big Sight Conference Tower.” 

“You are pointing to that one, right?” She said tilting her head to the side as if to look around it.

“Yes, the main police conference is taking place on the seventh floor, and that is what Brandy is having Dai get passes to now.” Gin said. 

“That building doesn't offer a lot of easy escape routes if this goes south." She looked at him with concern in her eyes.

"We'll just have to make sure it goes to plan then."

... 

After going over the plan, and a second and third round of drinks, where their conversation steered quite a bit away from the plan, Gin called Brandy to say that they were on their way back. It had been a bit longer than he’d planned to step away. Her voice rang with a calm yet angry tone telling them to meet her outside the hotel. 

They walked back over but she wasn't out front yet. Gin had opted to wait in the alley rather than conspicuously waiting around out front after catching the eye of one too many people.  Sherry had argued that they should wait where Brandy had said to meet, but eventually gave in walking back the way Gin had gone.

Gin leaned back against a cinder block wall that had been painted an off-white, just a few shades lighter than yellowing paper. The sunlight beaming into the alley cut a line diagonally across his chest, leaving him squinting into the brightness of the sun setting. He might have stepped further into the alley but didn’t want to severely limit his view of the entrance, or limit his potential points of exit. He was already slightly more than buzzed from the alcohol, he didn’t need more to compromise his response to any potential threat. Sherry stepped in front of him and were she anywhere near as tall as him her shadow might have blocked out the sun from his face.

“Did you know you always grab the brim of your hat when you’re nervous about being seen?” Sherry reached up and ran her finger along the brim of his fedora as if she were brushing a loose strand of hair from his face. She started to take it off, but he snatched a hold of her wrist.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t you want to see how it looks on me?”

“Why would I want that?”

“Isn’t that one of those things; liking how your dress shirt or hat look when I wear them?”

Gin couldn’t help but conjure the image of Sherry in a loose button up shirt, wearing it as if it were a nightgown. His mind calculated precisely where on her thighs it would cut off in an instant.

“One of those things huh?” Gin, still having a hold on her wrist, flipped their positions pinning Sherry up against the wall. Her arm was now bent over her head and pressed between Gin’s forearm and the wall’s cool surface. “Isn’t this one of those things as well?” He smirked. 

He hadn’t spoken that loudly, but his phrase seemed to bounce off the confined space between them. Gin could feel her pulse quicken in her wrist. 

“I suppose it is,” her voice seemed to smirk back. “And in the interest of fairness-” She snatched the fedora from his head and tucked it on her own. The back of her head was still pressed against the cinder block, so the hat tipped slightly over her face. She used this to her advantage, peeking a seductive look out from under the brim, up at Gin. 

“I still don’t see the appeal in stealing my hat.”

“Well, the idea is to make me look more similar to you, so you unconsciously like me a little more. You see we have a tendency to trust people who look like us, but I suppose trying to imitate your inherently untrustworthy appearance is somewhat counter-intuitive.”

“Huh, you’re still a long ways off from my so-called untrustworthy appearance regardless.”

“Oh?”

He brushed his free hand along the side of her neck and swept her hair out of the way. The back of her neck was now exposed to both the cool touch of the wall and the hot touch of his hand. 

Sherry startled when he gave a firm tug at the collar of her jacket. He yanked it out from where it had been pinned between her shoulders and the wall. From forceful to gentle again he slid his hand along the rest of her collar, smoothly turning it up. 

“Your collar, your hair, those can both cover your face when you need them to.”

“But we don’t need to cover them now, do we?” Sherry used the hand not pinned above her head to fold down Gin’s upturned collar, running her hand across his shoulders as she flattened the thick fabric against him. 

As if he felt a shift in the surrounding air, Gin sensed the presence of another person drawing closer. His muscles tensed and he froze, straining to hear. Sherry must have noticed the sudden tension in his shoulders and stopped moving her hand. A voice sprung into existence, and Sherry turned her head to face the corner of the cinder block building. 

Gin recognized the voice of a certain police detective that he’d first run into on a rather uncomfortable bus ride in Kyoto.

“Turn your head.” Gin whispered, barely giving notice before tucking his head into the crevice of her neck. The back of his head now faced the incoming voices. Sherry had obliged, straining her neck the opposite way. She’d heaved a small gasp in doing so, playing into the charade. The sound of it in combination with the close scent of her skin stirred a heady feeling in him, despite the danger.

The two detectives turned the corner, the other one laughing at whatever the first had said before. Gin felt the tension and minute adjustments in her neck as Sherry kept the men at the bottom most corner of her line of sight as they climbed the three steps to the back entrance of the building. The door swung open and snapped shut, and the small amount of fluorescent light that had graced the alley closed in on itself. 

Sherry moaned out a hum, vibrating the surface of her neck where Gin had pressed his cheek. Not expecting the sensation, he jerked his head back. 

She was smirking. If there was truly one aspect of him she had imitated flawlessly it was that half smile. He was glad to see it adorn her lips. 

“Were you even raised in the syndicate?” Sherry teased. “You seem so jumpy and obvious around law enforcement; green almost.”

“Because I hide my face?” Gin scoffed, releasing his hold on her and taking a step back. “Clearly, you’ve never lost someone who couldn’t hide theirs well enough.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 12

Just as Gin had predicted Brandy didn’t have any trouble locating them in the alley. The click of her shoes rounded the corner without a pause to consider which way she should look for them. Gin and Sherry had moved apart, back to their respective sides of the alley, the scare with the detective effectively dispelling whatever lapse in judgment had possessed them.

“I take it Moroboshi received a passing mark then.” Gin said, leaning his shoulders against the alley wall once more. 

“He’s no Vermouth, but he’ll play the role we need him to decently enough,” Brandy answered. Gin doubted anyone could play Vermouth’s part better than Vermouth herself. There was a reason she was the boss’s favorite. Whether that was a product of her skill or in recognition of it was beyond him.

Brandy walked over to where Sherry had taken up sitting against the wall across from him. The tension he’d noticed between them before had seemed to defuse somewhat, though traces remained in Sherry’s watchful gaze.

“I had hoped to get more than one pass to the conference in case they weren’t uniform.” Brandy said placing the accusation on Sherry, as if Sherry had been assigned as lead in their partnership.

Gin was growing more irritated with Brandy all the time. Her disregard for his rank had gone too far. It was becoming insulting. He wasn’t just above Sherry's rank; he was on equal ground with Brandy and would not be reprimanded by her. 

“The less these officers see of us the better,” Gin cut in. His voice was partly a reminder of the authority he was due and largely a warning. “Two separate teams for such a simple task would multiply the risk unnecessarily.” 

Brandy turned back toward him, and their eyes met. She seemed to consider rising to his challenge for a moment. She broke it off with an air of nonchalance.

“I would appreciate it if you could inform me before you make changes to the plan in future.”

“That sounds agreeable.” Gin said, letting the issue rest for now. It was as if they had been tossing a red coal back and forth and had only just managed to drop it back into a bed of embers before their hands were too badly burned.  

 “While we’re discussing a slight change to future plans. You’ll need to be the one to retrieve the badge from that tech guy. I won’t have the time. My first appointment was pushed up, and I have a second one which conflicts with the remaining time I could still get it from him.”

He knew she had planned to meet up with the counterfeiter just after she’d gotten a conference pass, so he’d have enough time to get the remaining passes made. He guessed her other appointment was with a weapons dealer. 

“He gets off in just over an hour, correct?” He asked. 

“Yes,” Brandy turned back toward Sherry. “Why don’t you tag along, make sure you two won’t have any problems working as a unit tomorrow.” Brandy reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. Sherry flinched away, and her body was suddenly all hard lines again. She was quick to recover composure and it became clear that any release in the tension between the two had only been a mask. Gin felt something in him jerk forward as Sherry flinched away, as if they had been connected by threads. He realized his feet hadn’t actually moved, and the protective reflex had only been internal. This shocked him. It had almost been too intense not to be physical.

Brandy’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air, and she withdrew it. “We all have places to be.” With that, she left the alley, her shoes clicking in the silence they left as she went. 

... 

Gin let Sherry tag along more to humor Brandy than anything else. He believed their previous complications working together had stemmed from one of them having access to more information than the other. He had resolved this already, and frankly, he didn’t know what Brandy thought was going to happen in the space of a single small-scale mission.

He pulled t he car into a quiet neighborhood, now fighting less traffic than on the main roads at the height of rush hour. Since leaving the alley by the hotel, he had felt the weight of eyes on him every so often. It wasn’t strong enough to spawn the belief that he had an active tail, but just a feeling of something being off. He suspected his nerves were on edge from being around so many police officers before, but he knew it was unwise to cast off his instincts so easily. 

He parked along the curb across the street from the house they’d been driving toward. The street was lined in the long shadows of the sun just as it touched down on the horizon. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary and decided whatever he’d been feeling before posed little threat to them now. Even if it did, their window of opportunity was rapidly closing. 

One of the windows out back had been unlocked, and it wasn’t long before they were inside the house. Finding what they had come for would prove to be the most difficult part. 

They were in the house of a tech support temp hired out to help fill in shortages in the conference tower’s staff. The conference tower had to bring in more people during their busy season, so it had only been a matter of finding someone with a new enough position that replacing him for an hour wouldn’t draw too much attention, but at the same time had been there long enough to have a pass that opened doors. Currently, he was at his other job, so his uniform and badge for the conference tower’s tech support team should be in the house. 

Gin had no luck finding it in the closet or the hamper and was growing frustrated with the state of disarray of the bedroom. It was Sherry who ended up finding it; three or four shirts down on a stack of laundry that had been piled on a chair in the corner of the room there was a button up shirt with a plastic card pinned to the front. She handed it over, and he carefully slid a razor blade along the back freeing the magnetic strip from the card. 

It wasn’t two minutes later that they were gone, and the house was as it had been before. They’d adhered a new faulty magnetic strip to the back of the ID card and placed it back into the stack of clothes. As far as could be visually determined, nothing had been changed. It wouldn’t be until tomorrow when he tried to have his card scanned that he’d have a problem, and even then they would assume that the strip had come too close to another magnet and had been ruined.       

...

As they were driving away, Gin spotted the first solid piece of evidence to indicate they were being watched. Just as they turned the corner, a car started from the side of the road a few houses down from where they had been parked. He had noticed the car when they came out of the house because it had not been there before. The same car leaving so soon after coming was suspicious, though not entirely unexplainable by several possible normal events. The timing was also suspicious, though it could be chalked up to coincidence. What was most odd was that the car hadn’t bothered to turn on their headlights. Dusk had started to fall in the time they were in the house, and the fading daylight warranted the use of headlights.

Not turning on the headlights was something you did when you were trying not to catch the corner of someone’s eye. This on top of everything else had convinced him of the driver’s malicious intent.  

“The blue Lexus that just pulled onto the street behind us, can you read its plates?” The car was lagging the space of at least four cars behind, although the road was empty apart from them.

Sherry squinted into the rearview mirror for a second before trying to look back over her shoulder. This didn’t seem to prove any more effective, and she eventually unfastened her seat belt and turned around, leaning over the back of the seat. 

“It doesn’t have plates yet. The papers it ha s in its license plate holder are the ones it had when it was sold. I can’t read the numbers on the paper on the windshield from here either.”

“That will work fine. Just watch to see if it continues following us, or if it shows up again.”

“Sure,” she said, slipping back into her seat. 

The Lexus ended up turning right on one of the streets they passed, and despite driving around aimlessly for half an hour they didn’t see it again. 

... 

He drove Sherry home, and it wasn’t until he was back at his own apartment that he saw the blue Lexus again. It was parked in front of his building. Relief flooded him as he walked up the steps to his floor.

As he had suspected, there was a woman with blonde hair sitting up to his table and sipping at a glass of wine. He hadn’t seen Vermouth since she teased him at the training facility by setting the system to show him his subordinate being executed. Though he was starting to wonder if he might just be wrong about how long it had been. 

“That’s not your usual vehicle.” Gin said conversationally. “I thought it might be the police detective from Kyoto when you started following me earlier. But it was probably you in the alley as well, wasn’t it?”

She looked quite amused by this. Vermouth often slipped on a different outward appearance. Ranging from simple to unrecognizable; she wouldn't be seen for herself unless she wanted to be. He was sure she liked it that way, and she used her mastery of disguise to taunt him. 

Part of her game was seeing if he could tell it was her before she revealed herself. Catching him off guard amused her almost as much as she reveled in how it forced him to study her. Most recently, he found a constant in the pattern of her step and now he was afraid she may have finally discovered this and adapted. 

“You ran into a police detective from another city in an alley?” She asked. He wasn’t sure if she was feigning ignorance or not. “It was me in the Lexus of course. But what I’d like to know is what you’re doing with one of the Organization’s scientists.” She said in a way that implied that she had her strong suspicions as to the answer to that question. Something told him that whether she had been masquerading as the detective or not, she had seen him and Sherry in the alley. 

She’d been swirling the remaining wine in her glass around, and when he didn’t say anything she stopped abruptly as if she hadn’t actually wanted confirmation in what she’d been implying.

“Conflicting loyalties,” Vermouth placed her wine glass down. “That’s the only place I see that going.”

He gave her a questioning look, and she returned it with a knowing one.

“She’s reckless, you see it.” She took another slow sip.  “It’ll break you, when it happens.”

“If.” 

“No.” A devilish smile graced her wine-stained lips as she shook her head. “When.” She walked around the table to hover just in front of him. Her hips took extra care to sway with each step. 

“You need someone more stable,” Vermouth pushed his hair back out of his eyes, grazing her fingertips across his cheek. “Someone who knows exactly what they want most.”

He swatted her hand away. “Stop.”

“I didn’t say it was you I wanted.” She giggled and he narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“What did you come here for?”

“To give you fair warning.”

“I wouldn’t let a woman compromise my loyalty to the Organization.” he said with certainty.

“I wasn’t called in to examine the state of your loyalty. Or even Sherry’s for that matter. So, for now, my comments on that matter are without consequence and end with us. I just needed you to know I’d be poking around. I can’t have you identify me when it would be inconvenient.”

Gin had never realized that her little games had given her a weakness. She didn’t know how he could identify her despite her change in appearance. 

“You just don’t want me to interfere with your reconnaissance mission.” He clarified. 

She smiled in acknowledgment. “As far as anyone is concerned today you were just spooked by that detective in the alley.”  

He gave an exaggerated shrug. “Precaution doesn’t need an excuse.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 13

Dai swiped the plastic card over the black scanner box near the employee entrance. A small red light in the box blinked twice before the lock of the door clicked open in front of him. 

“Head to the seventh floor, and lock yourself in one of the dressing rooms to await further instruction.” Brandy’s voice echoed in his ear.

He’d been told that they were only going to give him instructions just before acting, but he had expected they’d at least have a brief meeting beforehand to relay him a set of instructions. Not so. He was handed a uniform and an earpiece and was left following step by step directions. 

He had been hoping for enough intel that he could piece together the overall plan. If he didn’t use this opportunity to prove his worth to the Organization, he likely wasn’t going to get another chance at its inner circle. That would put him back three years. 

Once he was in the dressing room, he made a quick check of the uniform for a tracker. He needed to know if she was able to follow his movements or was relying on him following her instructions. 

He pulled out the earpiece to check it too. He knew the model and it didn’t have a locating feature. A thought occurred to him, and he pulled off his beanie flipping it inside and out. He was always wearing it, and hadn't even bothered to take it off when putting on the uniform, so it made an ideal place to keep a tracking chip. The hat didn't have anything attached to it; he was clean then. As he was pulling it back on, a small voice started from the earpiece, and he put it back in. It wasn’t Brandy speaking now, it was Shiho. 

“Will you stop shifting like an adolescent girl in a bath towel? You’re not exposed, you’re not even the one in the pencil skirt.”

So,  they were slipping into the crowd, Dai guessed Gin and Shiho were doing the bulk of the groundwork for the mission then. 

“Dai, move a channel over please,” Brandy instructed, and he did so. “Let me know when I'm coming through.”

“I can read you.” He confirmed.

“Good,” she huffed, obviously irate. “There's no end in sight once those two get into it, and we don’t need the distraction at the moment. Now, in the Southwest corner of the building, there's a hall that leads off one of the lobbies, you’ll meet Gin there from the staff side of things. I’m jumping to the other channel; please wait until I jump back for further instructions once you get there."

“Copy,” he said, finding the lobby door quickly and then checking beyond it to see where he was granting them access. Small meeting rooms lined the back hall, some with glass walls exposing conference tables, others offering more privacy.

“You’ve gone too far,” Brandy's voice came through again. “It was your first right before.”

So, Brandy did have some sort of visual on his movements. Dai took a quick visual scan of the hall as he doubled back, finding a security camera tucked into a corner of the ceiling. He thought it was most likely that they had tapped into the system. He slid the employee card by another black box on the wall, and the door to the lobby in question opened. 

Gin and Shiho slid through, and Gin pressed a briefcase against his chest. With that, they walked past him and were soon out of sight around the corner. Gin was griping about something to do with not having his gun, and Shiho looked close to sighing with exasperation. 

Dai was worried for a moment that access past the locked door was all they had needed from him, and this opportunity had been wasted. Something about watching the retreating image of the man with the code name Gin left him with a sense of dread edging into the corners of his mind. 

Gin was all his team had to go on when they started this operation three years prior. Information they had been leaked told them that a person with the code name Gin was the bridge to the heart of the Syndicate they'd need. If they could reach Gin, they could reach the Boss. It was what made watching him slip by and out of arm’s reach so frustrating.

“Alright,” Brandy’s voice was back in his ear. “You’ll need to take that briefcase to the monitor room.” She relayed a set of directions to get him there and warned him of incoming people in time for him to slip out of sight. 

His employee badge did not gain him access to the video surveillance room. The black box gave a sharp chirp, and the door remained firmly locked. He’d had to lie his way in, saying he’d been sent to fix an issue with the feed. This would only buy him so much time; a single phone call would inform them that he’d been given no such permissions.

Brandy started listing off what he’d need to do to loop the feed on the cameras in the rooms and hall when Gin interrupted, jumping into their channel. “Is it clear yet? They’re getting ready to start in here.” 

Hearing this, Dai noticed the discrepancy almost instantly. The rooms 702 and 701 that they wanted him to loop the feed on were empty as far as the monitors were concerned. “We’ve been beaten to it,” he said “the feed for those rooms is already looped. They look empty.”

“At least we know that meeting was really supposed to be a secret.” Brandy’s words were drawn out like she was thinking of her next move. It made him think of chess, and how people keep a finger on top of a piece until they are truly sure that is the move they want to make next. 

The problem she now faced was that the FBI could still be confiscating the feed. It was not that it didn’t exist, the FBI likely just cut it off from the building’s own surveillance system. 

“Get out of there Dai,” Brandy said, settling on how she would revise her strategy. “I’ll issue further instructions once you’re clear of the building.”

One of the guards in the room was on the phone now, listening and nodding along. “Is everything in working order then?” The guard asked, breaking from the call. He seemed more familiar than before, less suspicious of him. This was the opposite of how he ought to be acting.  

“Yeah,” Dai said, grabbing the bag to go. Whoever was on the phone had likely made him, but curiously enough was also letting him go. 

Before he left he saw an unnatural jump in lighting on a scattering of the monitors. The natural light from the windows had been dimmed by a cloud in one frame and brightly pouring in the next. Clouds didn't behave this way, which led him to believe more than just the feed from the two rooms had been looped. It had been sloppy though, and the timing that led him to see it had been too ideal. He was being signaled, and if it was by his team he knew just where to find them. 

...

Rows of chairs faced the front of the room, and only a few people had already taken their seats. Bunches of government officials and FBI agents stood and talked in small groups passing the time before they were due to start. They were all dressed in formal business attire but were easy to tell apart. The men here on behalf of the Japanese government were middle aged and their faces looked to be made for the stern expression they always wore when they weren’t called upon to smile for the press. Whereas the FBI agents were a mixture of Caucasian and Japanese faces anywhere from their early thirties to late fifties. 

Gin found himself being grateful for the classroom type set up of the room. It was easy to lose a face in this sort of crowd. It would have been difficult to pass unnoticed had this meeting been set around a table. 

He and Sherry had not stayed close to each other upon entering the room, but he kept a close eye on her from where he stayed toward the back. 

Sherry tucked her hand into her purse as if searching for something and came out with a thick bracelet around her wrist. She had waited until it was absolutely necessary before putting it on, and he didn’t blame her. If her wrist was caught between the magnet on the bottom of it and a sheet of metal, the bones in her wrist would easily be crushed with the force. 

Near the front of the room, the speaker was on a laptop getting the presentation synced up with the projector. A figure hurried into the room with the pace of a man that needed to inform someone of urgent news, but not so urgent news as to raise the alarm of everyone in the room. He reached the man on the laptop, and they exchanged fast words before he set his laptop down on the podium and followed him out. 

That was Brandy’s work he knew, and the speaker’s reaction had been exactly what they had been counting on. Sherry’s piece was next; she slipped through the clusters of people in that way he’d been fascinated by before, with all the easy grace of a cherry blossom petal fluttering on the breeze. She soon found her way to the front of the room. 

He admired her skillful execution of the job. The trick of it was confidence; She did not look for a second like she was getting away with something she shouldn’t be doing. With all the simple elegance of going about another mundane task, she opened the laptop and ran her fingers across the keys for a few breaths. She bobbed her head side to side as if waiting for a screen to load and then snapped it closed again. 

With luck, both the hard drive and the card in port had just been wiped by the magnet in her bracelet. Her task done; she left the room. When they discovered the damaged drive, it was best the woman who had been seen on it just minutes before the meeting was long gone. 

Gin remained in a back row of chairs and waited for the meeting to start. They needed to make sure the meeting fell through. Without their bargaining chip, the FBI shouldn’t have the intel to trade in order to gain access to operate on Japanese soil. He had to be sure there were no further surprises that would grant the foreign law agency permission to come after the Organization here in Japan. 

The speaker returned, agitation in his posture but no trace of anything wrong on his face. He began the meeting, and the audience quieted, the last of them finding a seat. When it came time to bring up the promised pictures on the projector the speaker pressed the small white clicker in his hands. Nothing. 

Gin smiled. The man clicked it again to no avail and soon apologized, going to the laptop. He squinted at the screen with narrow eyes for a few seconds, tapping his fingers impatiently on the side of the podium.

The speaker gestured for his companion to come over. Gin didn’t recognize the man, but in his hand, he held a very small SD card. It was then that Gin lost his smile. 

...

The steady flow of police officers here for the conference was still winding its way into the main conference room on the seventh floor when Dai found his way back there. The room sat 1,000 people, and it felt as if they had wanted to test those limits today. He was simultaneously grateful and ungrateful for the hoard of men as he slipped into their numbers. 

He knew Brandy had some way to track his movements, but she couldn’t be using the security cameras, as he guessed before, because they had already been looped by the FBI by that time. He was free of tracking chips as well. This left him with one final theory.

She had to be following his heat signature. It was why she had known where he was at that time but couldn't find the location of Gin and Shiho in the crowd. This would also explain how they had located the secret meeting place; Brandy had likely followed the path of the government officials through the conference tower. 

Dai was ushered through the doors with the others. The massive conference room opened up before him; the ceiling stretched up at least another floor and lights shone down through the  glass, framed in the same pattern of triangles within triangles that was echoed throughout the building.  Blocks of rowed seating faced a stage that was centered between two huge triangles that stretched to the ceiling. 

He was about to take a seat when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. 

“Excuse me,” the person said as if he had simply bumped into Dai by accident. The gray-haired gentleman tapped his own ear in a question. Dai nodded and pulled out his earpiece, wrapping it in tissue. 

“What are you doing here?” Dai asked. The aging man who had stopped him was the head of his team, James Black. He shouldn’t be in the main conference room; as head of the unit within the FBI targeting the Organization in Black in Japan, he should be at the secret meeting in 702. At very least to keep up appearances. 

“More importantly,” he motioned for them to walk further toward the left side of the room. “What have you gleaned about the rest of their plan?”

“They have a sniper on the roof with a heat scope, and the man with the code name Gin as well as Shiho are in the meeting as we suspected they would be, but other than that.” Dai shook his head.

“I see,” he gave the information solemn consideration. “I trust you have a plan, and I’ll leave you to it. Is there anything you’ll need from us?”

Dai gave only a slight pause before laying out the bones of how he planned to spin the operation in order to gain favor with the organization. He was almost finished when he felt the tissue, he wrapped around the earpiece buzz with the vibration of sound. He raised a hand to silence an upcoming question of his companion and placed the piece back to his ear. 

He came into the last half of a sentence from Brandy “- to get out of there. Why have you gone up to the police conference, Dai?” 

This stopped him, he darted his head around looking for someone who had seen him who might have informed her. He should have been lost in the crowds to her, it would just look like a blur of colors from all the people. Had that deduction been wrong? Was she not watching the conference tower through a heat scope at all?  

“I got caught in the mass filing into the police conference and thought it best to not raise suspicion by acting unnaturally,” Dai said. Earlier she had to have been using a heat scope, there wasn’t another person in the hallway at that time to have informed her. There wasn’t another member of their team besides. How had she kept track of me when I joined the crowds then? He was off to the side now, so his heat signature would look like an individual person. But the heat from one person was identical to another, wasn’t it?  

“Fine, just find an opportunity to leave before-” Brandy’s voice was cut off, though her speaker was still letting sound through. The voices were more distant, and he strained to hear what was said. 

“Vermouth,” this was Brandy, she had sounded startled and then only annoyed. “Don’t interfere in the organization’s affairs that you weren’t assigned to.”

“That’s not in my nature,” This was another woman, presumably Vermouth. “However, we both know calling this an official mission of the organization would be a lie. Isn’t that right?” The sound from Brandy’s mic cut off immediately following. 

There was a long period of silence, but straining to hear was no use. She must have switched it off entirely. 

It was another three minutes before another voice came on.

“We have a problem here,” Gin said.

No one answered him. 

“Brandy?”

 More silence.

“Damn.” 

Chapter Text

Chapter 14

The thick heel of Vermouth’s boot came down on the small ear bud, smashing it into the hard pavement. Brandy was still lying on the ground, her body in line with the sniper rifle which sights rested on the distance, off the edge of the roof. She strained her neck to look up at the woman who had just cut off contact with her team during an active operation. 

Vermouth was pointing her pistol casually in Brandy’s direction. The barrel of it barely extended past the trigger; it was so short. All told the pocket pistol probably weighed less than a pound. But Brandy knew not to underestimate Vermouth’s marksmanship regardless of the weapon or the nonchalance with which she handled it.  

“Before you do something rash, you should know I’m here on that person’s orders.” Vermouth relaxed her aim further, slinging her hand up by her shoulder. “Or does that not matter to you anymore?” 

“That person is questioning my loyalty then?”

“It would seem that person was not far from the mark.” She gestured along the length of the rifle, the pistol in her hand a forgotten prop. 

“Am I to die for working without that person’s knowledge, even if it was in the Organization’s best interest?” Brandy asked. 

“Those actions were reprehensible, but if keeping a secret from that person were a death sentence I would have died for it long ago.”

“What then?”

Vermouth gave a playful shrug. “Nothing has been decided yet, but from what I’ve seen here it doesn’t look good. That person is recalling you back. Unless you have something more pressing that would keep you from following a direct order.”

“I don’t suppose if I did you’d have license to end me here and now?”

Another shrug graced her shoulders. “Disobeying direct orders from that person is something not even I have dared attempt.”

Brandy considered her options. She had two basic choices: eliminate the threat to the Organization by seeing this job through, or following that person’s orders. Both were motivated by the same loyalty to the organization. Not choosing one would unfailingly get her killed, not choosing the other could potentially see everyone else in the Organization killed.  

She sighed, feigning resignation and pulling herself slowly to her knees. 

Then, like a viper striking, her leg fanned out sweeping into the backs of Vermouth’s knees. The woman's slender legs folded beneath her and she was soon lying with her back to the pavement and Brandy’s knee digging into her shoulder, the blunt edge of a knife at her throat. 

“I resolved to be willing to die for loyalty long ago,” Brandy said, pressing off of Vermouth. She had fled from sight before Vermouth had a grip on her gun once more, and never saw the smirk the blonde had not bothered to hide

...

Gin was at the far end of the room, but he could still tell the small object in the man’s hand was an SD card from a camera. This was in part because a piece of him knew everything had gone too smoothly and he was expecting a turn for the worst. That untrusting part of him was waiting for another copy of the photos of their faces to present itself. 

The small black rectangle being handed to the speaker now was as dangerous as any weapon and meant this mission was far from over.

The same untrusting part of him that had been watching for this possibility had also been considering what steps to take if it became a reality. Considering the room of FBI-trained personnel, his lack of gun, the fact that starting a fire fight in a room of government officials was incredibly unwise, and not only that but would likely render the goal of this mission - to stop the FBI from gaining permission to act on foreign soil - obsolete, he settled on a less direct plan. He would need the rest of the team to pull it off though.

“We have a problem here,” he said into the mic on the second channel. He needed to get Brandy on board with his plan. She didn’t answer. “Brandy.” He tried again but was answered only with more radio silence.  

“Damn.” Where was she? Something must have happened to her. The idea of this whole operation being a set up to capture highly ranked operatives of the organization was becoming a disturbing possibility. He started spinning a plan of escape in the back of his mind alongside the plan of attack. 

“Sherry,” He called into the mic on the first channel. 

“Yes?” Hearing her voice was a relief.

“Would you switch over to the second channel?”

Gin tested the second channel once again, “Moroboshi?” 

He got an immediate response. “Yeah?”   

“And Shiho, did you make it over?” He asked, the sound of Sherry’s given name sounding unnatural to him.

“Of course.”

With only Brandy gone they still had a good chance of pulling it off. The thought of a separate unit slowly hunting down and picking off the members of their team made him wary, but he didn’t have enough evidence to pull them out of the operation because of it. Especially considering the repercussions of abandoning this one.  

“I’ve lost contact with Brandy and will be taking command of the operation.” Gin said. “What are your current locations?”

“The police conference on the seventh floor,” Dai said, followed by Sherry. 

“The West Exhibition Hall, in hall two.”

Gin relayed the plan to them while watching the unfolding events at the front of the room. They weren’t trusting the laptop, fearing that putting the SD card in it might fry it. Gin gleaned that the SD card was the original from the camera that had taken their pictures, and was also the last remaining place where they were stored, due to a recent cyber attack. As such they were extremely cautious with it. They sent for another laptop which bought them some time.

Before another laptop arrived the emergency landline for the room rang. One of the FBI agents answered it, and his face soon grew serious. “We need to evacuate immediately,” He said, gesturing to the others. “There’s been a massive chemical spill in one of the exhibition halls and it’s gotten into the ventilation system. It’s airborne and extremely volatile.”

With this, government officials and FBI agents alike were on their feet. Gin had to say he was rather impressed by Sherry in this. He’d instructed her to cause them to evacuate, and he had expected her to pull a fire alarm.

Fire alarms, although effective at getting everyone to evacuate, leave people prone to much eye rolling. Fire drills and constant false alarms have desensitized people to their wail. The chemical alarm that now echoed through the tower was by contrast, strange and terrifying. People acted more immediately to alarming situations they didn’t fully understand. Additionally, the foreign alarm made the danger seem more real. Anyone could pull a fire alarm, but this alarm meant the threat was real.

Or at least that’s how it had seemed. He was starting to wonder how she had staged this, or if she had actually caused a chemical emergency. Either way, he would be breathing through his coat sleeve for a while. 

The men here for the secret meeting filed out of room 702 and joined the milling mass of a thousand police officers pouring out of the conference room. That group would soon also join the thousands more here for the various conventions Tokyo Big Sight was hosting today. 

That was their first priority down, to stop the meeting. Next was to get the SD card before it slipped away. 

Every passageway teamed with people, and being caught in the crowd was unavoidable. Even in the massive corridors, men were packed like a subway car in the height of rush hour. Shoulders brushed into each other on every side. It was the ideal environment for picking someone's pocket. 

It would be their best opportunity to obtain the photos, and would cause the least damage of all their potential plans. Gin had been tailing the FBI speaker that was currently in possession of the SD card through the river of men. The speaker had undoubtedly seen Gin’s face on the pictures from the presentation he was about to give, so Gin picking his pocket would be a near impossibility. 

He needed Dai and his fresh face. He had been watching for Dai’s beanie in the crowd and had yet to spot it. It was when he felt a hand on his shoulder that he realized that Dai was now next to him, but without his beanie. Gin chastised himself inwardly for the oversight.  

He gestured at the figure of the speaker, some five people ahead of them, to Dai. Dai nodded and pressed forward, further into the crowd. Gin watched as Dai meandered around the speaker for a time; he bumped by his left shoulder for several paces, then fell behind him and soon brushed by his right. 

It wasn’t long before Dai was back at Gin’s side.

He shook his head. “He’s clutching it in his hand.”

It didn’t matter what mastery of sleight of hand a person had acquired, a person consciously pressing something in their fist was a near impossible mark.

It was as Gin feared; the speaker was too suspicious by far to slip the card from his possession without him noticing.  

“We’ll move to the second plan we discussed then.” Gin said into the mic. He soon parted with Dai as they each started on their way.

...

According to Gin’s plan Dai was supposed to acquire a heavily fortified car and sit in wait at one of the intersections along the route between Tokyo Big Sight and the hotel that had been booked to host a majority of the police officers coming in for the conference. He was going to T-bone into the side of the speaker’s car. The airbags would, at very least, render him unconscious for a few moments and Gin would then get the SD card from the car. 

It was a plan hinged on the timing of several hard to predict factors. This was not Dai’s main objection however. Even if the car crash could be executed perfectly it risked injury, and at worst it risked the lives of innocents. He could not go through with it.

Instead, he found himself running in the direction of a plan with an even slimmer chance of success. 

While still back in the conference tower, Dai had calculated where Brandy would have needed to be in order to see the entire tower from the sights of a sniper rifle. He had ended up reasoning that she had in fact been using the heat scope on a rifle. It was after Gin had relayed his plan that Dai had a brief conversation with James Black in which he figured out how she had found him. The problem was that Dai had never had the opportunity to see his own image in heat vision. Cloth, as it turns out, blocks some of the heat radiation of a person’s body; so where the exposed skin of the face and neck may be a bright yellow, the chest that is covered in a shirt is often a minutely darker color like orange, or if a material is very thick, purple. She had been able to pick out which figure was Dai because Dai’s beanie blocked out just enough heat radiation that his head was a slightly darker shade of yellow than anyone else's in the room. 

Dai relied heavily on the soundness of his reasoning now as he headed to the high-rise he had singled out as the only viable option for where Brandy had been. 

He knew Sherry’s part in Gin’s version of the plan was to delay the speaker from the meeting from getting to his car too quickly. This had originally been so Dai would have time to boost a car and set up the trap. Now, he was stretching that time thin in trying to get to the roof of the high-rise.

Dai was able to beat the crowds out of the tower by slipping back out of the employee entrance. Already ahead of the masses that would hold the speaker at a slow pace, Dai just needed to run to his destination. All told, it took him fifteen minutes, but he was finally on the top floor of the high-rise. 

Dai waited impatiently for the elevator to come to the top, and then ran up the last flight to the roof. The vantage point gave him a clear view over Tokyo Bay, and more importantly the buildings on the bay. He came around to the side that would give him the best shot at the conference tower. 

There, sitting with her back to the knee-high wall that edged the corners of the roof, was a woman whose dark stained lips formed the most wicked smirk he’d ever seen. She held the sniper rifle he had come here in hopes of finding. The long barrel of it ran along the lines of her legs, its tip resting on the pavement. 

If he had snapped her picture in that moment she would have fit seamlessly alongside magazine covers and calendars of scantily clad women posing with deadly assault weapons for the sake of sex appeal. This remained true in spite of the fact that she remained fully clothed. 

Her seductive aura was as natural and effortless as breathing.

“Vermouth.” Dai addressed her. Placing her as most likely being the woman he’d heard talking with Brandy.

Her lips parted, and the corners of her mouth drew back in a grin. “Moroboshi, Dai, yes?” She said in answer. “A pleasant exchange of false names if I’ve ever heard one.”  

He drew in a breath, his hand finding a grip on the gun he’d hidden in the small of his back. Vermouth was quick to bare empty hands, and he drew his hand back from behind him without a gun. 

“If I had come for that I would have chosen a more suited weapon.” She looked down to the long range firearm resting in her lap. 

“What do you want then?” Dai said.

She laughed at this. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you wondering on that one.” She stood, hefting the rifle from the middle. “For now, to give you this.” She offered him the weapon.

He looked at her cautiously, unmoved. 

“You’re awfully hesitant to accept my help. We’re on the same team, aren’t we?” Vermouth placed the weapon in his hands and started past him, leaving him to wonder which team exactly she had meant by that.  

Chapter Text

Chapter 15

It wasn’t three minutes after Vermouth had left him that Dai heard Shiho’s voice come on over his earpiece. 

“Well, he’s not having anything to do with needing to stop for a medical examination to make sure he hasn’t inhaled harmful chemicals before he goes.” She reported. “He’s bypassed the medical checkpoint, and is headed your way. An all-black Toyota Crown.” She read off the license plate.

Dai had lined up the shot already, and it was now only a waiting game. From where he was, he would see the Crown come head on through the intersection. It was not the most ideal angle and would not be an easy shot. However, he knew he wouldn’t have enough time to set up a better position, so where he was would have to do. 

“He’s coming up fast, you better be in position,” Gin warned. Dai knew Gin had to be waiting near the intersection because he was the one who was going to retrieve the SD card after the crash.

The black car came zipping into the intersection. Because of the straight on and high angle Dai was looking down at the car from, and because of the model of the car, there was no tire at all visible to shoot out. Though, that had not been his plan.  

“Where in the hell are you?-” Gin was in the middle of saying as the Crown flew through the intersection unobstructed. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the car swerved off to the side of the road, airbags already deployed before the car struck a traffic light pole.

Dai had shot out one of the headlights, and the impact to the front of the vehicle had caused the airbags to release. Dai watched through the scope as Gin wasted no time running to the site of the apparent accident.

“Got it.” Gin said. Upon hearing this Dai’s sniper’s sight wandered across the roads in his view, finally settling on a road where several cars were parked along the curb near Tokyo Big Sight. He found a van with blacked out windows. 

That was likely where his team in the FBI had set up their base of operations. As if on cue, and in some terrible coincidence of fate, the windows of the van blew out in great balls of flame that expanded out in a flash of orange light. 

He darted his sight around the area, soon finding a figure all in black that had ducked behind another car to shelter from the explosion. 

“It seems you didn’t take much longer than she did to find the FBI’s surveillance van.” A voice from his immediate surroundings startled him: Vermouth's voice. He soon found a speaker button that had been pressed to the side of the gun. Upon closer examination of the gun, he found a tiny camera in line to watch the view from the scope’s sight. “As a test of your loyalty would you mind shooting Brandy? She’s been causing too many problems lately.”

Dai centered his aim on the black figure retreating away from the van of men and video equipment she’d just blown up. 

“No wait,” Vermouth continued, a smile in her voice, obviously pleased by his immediate compliance to her command. Dai’s aim strayed from Brandy's figure. “In the leg will do, I just need help bringing her in.” Dai barely took any time at all before finding her moving figure in his sights again and firing a shot that would graze her calf. Brandy went down and soon another woman in black clothes was standing over her. She looked over her shoulder in Dai’s direction. 

“A perfect shot,” Vermouth said in amazement through the speaker. There was something else in her voice, something deeper that seemed to him to say instead. I’ve found you.    

...

After they had completed the mission, the plan was to meet up at the waterfront park in front of the Hotel Trusty on Tokyo Bayside. The exact meeting place was the corner of the park where the man constructed land jetted a perfect ninety-degree angle into the water. It was there, on the path that ran along the bay, that Gin waited for his companions. 

He could see Tokyo Big Sight in the distance and heard the wail of several ambulance sirens not too far away. They weren’t coming for the car accident he and Moroboshi Dai had staged; at least not all of them. Smoke rose in a black pillar from somewhere in the area around the inverted pyramid conference tower. 

He remembered hearing the explosion shortly after he’d retrieved the SD card from the speaker’s car. Moroboshi had told them over the earpieces that he thought he saw Brandy fleeing from the scene of an exploding van. 

Had she been any earlier she could have compromised the whole objective of the operation. Gin had no idea what she was thinking, or why she had severed contact with them.

Brandy was only one of his problems. Moroboshi had taken it upon himself to change the plan without telling Gin as well. And both of them had changed the plan so evidence of foul play was rampant at the scene.  

Sherry was the first to arrive at their meeting place after Gin. 

“Did Brandy really cause that?” She eyed the blackening spot of sky behind her.

“That’s what we’re led to believe,” he answered simply. Sherry's expression scrunched briefly, but she seemed to think better of the spitfire response that no doubt rose to mind. She must have heard something in his voice that told her it would be unwise to press further. 

Gin did not trust what he couldn’t confirm with his eyes; certainly, there had been an explosion, and certainly blowing up an FBI van fit within those actions Brandy would take, however Gin had no evidence to connect the two other than Moroboshi Dai’s word.

They were not left waiting for Moroboshi long. He came into view shortly after Sherry, his knit beanie on his head once more.

“Why did you change the plan?” Gin confronted him immediately.

“It worked better than a two-car collision,” Moroboshi said with an easy confidence. His apparent lack of concern only deepened Gin’s anger.

“It was more conspicuous.” Gin said, hard and flat. “That was supposed to look like an accident, but the evidence you left will point investigators away from that possibility entirely.”  

“The FBI would have suspected foul play because of the missing SD card regardless of how the crash was caused. This way less damage was done.”

“But at what cost to the objective of the mission? We were erasing tracks left by the organization, we could not afford to leave more.” 

“And at what cost of human life did the first plan come?”

The two men glared at each other, both with looks of disgust. “You put the organization at risk-”

 Gin stopped abruptly, reaching into his coat. 

Gin kept a particular tone for messages from the boss now that they were in frequent contact.

You, Sherry, and Moroboshi Dai report to me immediately.

Vermouth had acted more quickly than he had anticipated. The fact that the boss knew they were all together, much less knew about Moroboshi at all, did not spell well for them. 

Both Moroboshi and Sherry looked at his phone curiously. 

“We’re being called in for a meeting.” Gin answered their unspoken question.

“Dai as well?” Sherry asked.

“Yes,” Gin said, forcing his grimace to smooth into something more solemn at the turn of the news.

The pained look on Sherry’s face told him she understood the weight of the boss having that knowledge as well. 

“Come on then,” she placed a hand on Moroboshi’s shoulder, turning him to go. 

Gin took one last glance at the foreboding black mark smeared across the sky before starting on his way after them. 

...

Brandy sat on the open floor of an office building tending to her wounded leg. The bullet had only grazed her, but that did not lessen the pain much. The large room was empty of office cubicles or chairs and stretched the entire floor unobstructed apart from a walled off room or two and access to the stairs and elevator to one side.  

It was not a bad place to die. It was clean at least, and sunlight filtered in through the windows.

The Organization often rented office spaces like this but never kept the same one for more than a few months. They were mainly used to ground the dummy corporations the Organization used to avoid prosecution for tax evasion. As such, they remained unoccupied more often than not. 

The elevator doors opened, and the boss walked in. That person was promptly greeted by Vermouth, who had been resting her shoulders against a nearby wall. Brandy stood, using a wall for support, in an attempt to maintain at least a shred of her dignity.  If she was going to die for loyalty to the organization, she would do so on her feet. 

The now scared over gash across the back of her right hand snagged at a corner of her attention. It had been over a week, but she was still not entirely used to seeing the wound there. Perhaps she’d only noticed its presence because she was feeling vulnerable.

“You ran a mission deliberately without my knowledge.” This was not a question. It wasn’t an angry statement either. That person had always struck her as the type that was too busy calculating to exhibit immediate emotional responses. In that way, it made the boss’s emotional state cool and deliberate rather than hot and quick burning.  

“Yes.” Brandy answered. There was no point in denying it. 

“Why?”

“The FBI got their hands on photographs of several codenamed members of the Organization. I wanted to contain them before they were leveraged by the FBI to gain jurisdiction.”

That person nodded, coming to an understanding of her reasoning. Taking steps in favor of precaution versus a timely manner of execution was a point on which they often disagreed and discussed.

 “Did you?”

“As far as can be discerned,” Brandy said. This was almost an unwisely honest answer. Again, that person nodded in response. There was something in that person’s expression that Brandy could not quite read, and it was bothering her. 

“Were you able to ascertain where the FBI acquired their intelligence into the Organization?” 

“The late Professor Kurage arranged for the FBI to take the pictures of the organization members that came for him on the train into Kyoto.”

“And you took Sherry on that excursion as well.” The boss responded with this more quickly than with the others. It wasn’t an emotional response, instead, it reminded Brandy of when a person has found the last piece of the strategy that will bring them victory and they speed up their pace. 

“Yes, “Brandy confirmed even though she knew that person already knew Sherry had gone to retrieve Kurage’s research. “Kurage’s research was likely relevant to her project.”

“And I approved that mission,” that person waved this off as unimportant. “However, her identity was among those compromised. You were entrusted to protect and oversee Sherry’s completion of Silver Bullet. It would be an understatement to say this is our top priority. This means that any necessary action made to ensure her security already has my approval.”

Brandy let out a breath. She almost didn’t trust herself to be relieved; she had been so ready to die here. The change from the expected outcome left her feeling dazed.

She looked to Vermouth who appeared entirely apathetic to the situation. Vermouth had been the one to pull her mid-operation, risking its success. It was only now that Brandy thought on the strangeness of her timing. If she had figured out enough of their plan to know where she would be at that time, why hadn’t she stopped her before they started? She was pulled from her thoughts as that person began to speak once more.

“That being said.” Brandy felt her stomach drop at these words. At the same time, she recognized the implacable expression on the boss’s face. It was disappointment. “Because you chose to act without my knowledge you had to use the very codenamed members whose identities had been compromised. Namely Sherry.” What happened next was the closest Brandy had ever seen that person get to a hot-tempered reaction. There was venom in the boss's voice that seemed to strike out and run a poisonous course through her veins. 

“How dare you risk the life of one of the most important people in this organization on a job she did not need to be on in order to protect yourself.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Vermouth roll her eyes. This hardly registered to her though. Brandy was surprised this was what the boss was most angry about, and perhaps it was because she had underestimated the importance of the project Silver Bullet that she had ended up here.

“I’m stripping you of your codename status,” the boss said before turning to go. That person stepped onto the elevator, and it was as the large metal doors closed that the now former member Brandy left the organization forevermore. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 16

Gin had been sitting in wait for what felt like an hour. The boss had said they’d hold the meeting at a training facility the Organization had in a warehouse. Upon arriving at an empty building, the three of them had taken a seat in the foyer. It was the same place he and Sherry had met, and he had rather expected Sherry to make some comment to that effect. She hadn’t, and for the hour they were left waiting they remained silent. 

The steel door opening broke the silence, and Vermouth stepped in. She was alone and wasn’t wearing a disguise. Interestingly enough, he noticed a sense of recognition in both of his companions. 

“You two are supposed to go in,” she said, opening the doors to the training simulation room. Gin watched Moroboshi and Sherry slip past her into the room. “You’ll wait in there until the meeting is over.” 

She let the weight of the door close itself and walked to the stair landing. She went about all this in an almost uncharacteristically cheery manner, as if these were all the mundane tasks she had to accomplish before she would get something she wanted that she knew was coming. 

He stopped her halfway up the stairs with half a mind to ask what had her in such high spirits. Though he didn't feel like having one of her ambiguous conversations at the moment. Instead, he asked, “Where’s Brandy?” 

“She’s left the Organization,” Vermouth said, her tone revealing she thought the information to be as trivial as the instructions she'd just given out. It wasn't Brandy’s execution that had pleased her then. He was certain Brandy had been executed; there was only one way a code named member left the Organization. 

Gin followed Vermouth up the stairs and into the observing room. The boss was already there, silhouetted against the bright glass wall that overlooked the training room. The observation room was dark and the glass had the slight tint about it that meant the one-way glass was in place.  

“Did you succeed?” That person asked, still standing at the glass and looking down on the room below. The already white room was washed in bright light. Gin stepped closer to the glass and found where Sherry and Moroboshi Dai stood in the empty room. 

“We did,” Gin pulled the SD card from his coat. “We destroyed the copies that had been uploaded to the computer for the presentation, the copies on the FBI database, and procured the last remaining and original copies from the SD card of the camera that took them.”

That person took the SD card from Gin. 

“You believed this task was in the best interest of the Organization, and for your purposes it was, so we will not be discussing more on that topic.” That person was already decided on this point. Gin found the way the boss seemed to think when they talked very similar to his own way of thinking; that person was very logical and did not waste time on what they both already knew.

Though it occurred to him that the boss may well simply have a deep understanding of how each of the Organization’s operatives think and communicated in the most effective manner accordingly. This only made that person seem all the more clever to Gin.  

“You won’t ask what misstep Brandy took, but I need you to know nevertheless.” The boss said starting in on the explanation. “I told you once that the entire Organization is framed on the completion of a goal that the project Silver Bullet works toward. Brandy was trusted with the task to oversee this project. Her mistake was risking the head of the project on an unrelated and dangerous task. This is a mistake I do not want to see repeated. I’m placing the responsibility of overseeing Silver Bullet on you now, and with it, you must know that absolutely nothing is more important than its successful completion.”

Gin looked down into the room at Sherry. Her white coat nearly blended into her surroundings, but this only made her reddish brown hair stand out even more. Strangely his first thought in seeing her and hearing this news was regarding what quip Sherry would say if she knew his romanticized role protecting her had just become a reality.  

“Now, regarding the one you contracted in for that mission.” That person said, leaving a pause after.

“Moroboshi Dai,” Vermouth joined the conversation. “I’d say he’s the most intelligent potential operative we’ve seen since Gin. He certainly demonstrated a considerable amount of skill, not the least of which was as a sniper.” 

Gin saw through her use of flattery as an attempt to get him to agree with her. 

“A skill he would not have had the opportunity to flaunt had he followed instructions. He was supposed to stage a simple car accident, instead, he left evidence that a military grade weapon was used.” 

“A car accident with civilian casualties,” Vermouth took to arguing with Gin. He knew she had to have said this for the point of argument; unlike Moroboshi, Vermouth had shown herself to care very little for the human cost.  “That would have brought more attention to it. Police attention. As it is, the FBI will just want to cover it up. It was a better plan. Perhaps you’re just angry because you feel challenged by someone just as skilled as you.”

She was trying to get him off topic by attempting to discredit him. He would not be baited. “It doesn’t matter what skill he did show. We can’t trust an operative that can’t follow orders.”

“He got the intended outcome, a better outcome perhaps. He also followed my orders when it was clear I was a high ranking member and aided in apprehending Brandy.”

“The only reason he is following orders at all is because he bargained his way into the organization to protect Akemi.” Gin was fully turned back to face Vermouth in their argument and so was paying little attention to the boss who was watching them with calculating eyes.

“Enough,” that person said, silencing them both. The boss turned back to face the glass. “I’ve reached my decision.  Dai will be granted the codename Rye.” Gin watched Vermouth as she pulled on a smug expression. It was soon undercut however with the boss’s next words. “He will be put under Gin.”

It was a compromise that would have left them both grinning at what they had won, had they not been too busy being resentful over what they had lost. Each of them looked as if they would protest to the compromise but thought better of it. The boss had the last say, and it was not their place to question judgments that person made. 

Gin’s mind turned to his next move. He couldn’t go in open defiance of that person’s wishes, but the task of dealing with their newest member had been given over to him, which left what he was to do with him up for interpretation. 

Vermouth seemed to anticipate his mental shift in gear and was watching him closely. When Gin left to welcome their newest member into the ranks, she was not far behind.

...

The bright white color of the massive training room’s walls and floors only made the space seem bigger. Sherry had never seen this room in its blank state before, and it reminded her of a type of torture she’d once heard of where the subject is placed in a white room and given only white food and they start to hallucinate from the lack of stimulus.  

She found comfort in the square patterns of the floor. It gave her mind something to study in the time she was left waiting. The squares formed a great labyrinth across the floor, and she could find no repeating pattern in it as she had expected to find. It was customary of patterned floors to have some point of repetition, but the floor was closer to a tetris board in its design. 

Dai did not seem to share her interest in the floor tiles. When he first entered the room he seemed to take a quick study of all the mirrored surfaces that now only reflected the blinding white light of the room. It didn’t take him long to settle on one mirror in particular, at the height of the second floor. 

The door of the white room opened and Gin stepped inside, followed by Vermouth. 

“You’ve been accepted into the Organization,” Vermouth said before Gin had a chance to say anything. He shot her a sharp look. 

“That person believes you have earned the codename Rye, and so you have. You still have much to prove however.” Gin tossed Dai a flip phone, the clear resentment behind his words making the gesture seem every bit as rude as it was intended to come across. “I’ll be contacting you.”

That was all Gin said before leaving again. Sherry was both relieved at the good news and confused at Gin’s anger. 

Her confusion must have been clear on her face because Vermouth responded to it. 

“You don’t truly understand what having a codename means do you?” Vermouth was more annoyed with her than in a helpful mood. “Perhaps because you grew up in America and were too distanced from the organization. Or maybe it’s because of your sister.”

“Akemi?” Sherry said, a slight question forming in the corner of her brows.

“The only people that matter have codenames. Perhaps you were given yours too young and you underestimate its importance. That one little title makes you one of us, a part of us. But even then you are just a part. No one person is more important than the whole, and that loyalty is essential for all codenamed members to have. At least, that’s what you don’t seem to understand.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Sherry asked, growing annoyed herself. Vermouth always managed to both treat her like a child and like an adult who should have known better. 

“You mean why am I helping you? Who can say. Perhaps I am simply tired of your ignorance, or perhaps I only wanted Rye to overhear because it would be disrespectful for me to address him directly as if I believe Gin had not done a proper job. Then again, when have I ever cared about that?” This was rhetorical of course. Vermouth liked to pretend she was more of a mystery than she really was, or at least that was what Sherry had decided. 

...

Moroboshi Dai had arranged to meet with James Black, his boss in the FBI, at the FBI van three days after the conference. Those plans had been arranged before the explosion, but he still found himself standing on that street at the specified time. 

He stood at the base of the traffic light and waited for the crosswalk light to come on across the street. The flow of cars blocking his view of the other side of the street finally stopped, revealing James Black on the other curb. He walked over with the change of the light. 

“I’m in,” Dai said, slipping something into his superior’s pocket as they passed by. “My codename is Rye.”

James Black tucked a hand into his pocket. “The pictures? But we had planned to have them destroy the originals.”  

"They would never believe they had completed the mission without destroying the original SD card. So we had to give them the opportunity." Dai explained. “Having only a copy of their faces is enough for our purposes.” Dai crouched down in front of the base of the traffic light pole, pulling his nondominant hand from behind his back. He set a bouquet of flowers at its base by an already arranged memorial display of candles and a flower wreath. 

“Was Jodie-?” Dai started. He hadn’t seen her since he broke off their relationship when he and Akemi got serious. He didn’t want that to be their last encounter.

“No, she’s not even in Japan right now.” James’ voice came from behind him. She must have left after he broke it off. He couldn’t shake the fact that this could easily have been her instead of those agents who had lost their lives here; that those agents meant every bit as much to their loved ones as Jodie had once meant to him.

“Let’s get these guys,” Dai said, looking down at the memorial a moment before rising to his feet.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17

Four days after the events at Tokyo Big Sight, Gin arrived at his office to find a package the size of a hat box sitting on his desk. This was highly unusual as Gin always retrieved whatever tools he needed from their supply warehouses directly, or had Vodka pick them up, but never in shipping boxes.

Gin wasted a considerable chunk of that morning trying to determine if the box might be a bomb, or perhaps some other lethal device. In the end, a small note inside the box held the explanation. It read:

For the times a bath towel just won’t do.

Inside the box was a sleek kevlar vest, made to be worn covertly under your clothing.  

He sank back into a slightly crooked chair, and wondered if giving him a heart attack was a piece of why Sherry found this funny, or only an oversight.

 How she’d pulled it off was another matter, there was a concerning amount of information she shouldn’t have been party to, not the least of which being that he had an office here.

A lengthy postscript had been crammed onto the back of the note.

P.S. This is perhaps the most effort I have ever expended toward a joke, and were it not for my inability to take to heart the merits of the cost sunk fallacy, it might never have reached you. I’ll not trouble you with the details, but I’ll not spare you the knowledge that completing this task came at no small expense to my patience. Surely getting an item from stock delivered is not supposed to be this difficult.

The scare had been unintentional then. Well at least breaching his security hadn’t been too easily done, but it still troubled him it was possible.

The vest was very high quality; surprisingly lightweight for its protection level, which could be raised further with the insertable plates. It was a good reminder to take precautions, more than she knew.

...

This was it. Their one and perfect opening to strike at the Organization. Dai looked down at the text message Gin had just sent him on the burner phone. It listed a place and time for his first job as Rye. 

Everything his team in the FBI had been doing in Japan for the past several years all led to this single vital opportunity. Their efforts and agents lost would not be in vain. 

He had his suspicions that this would also be their last chance using Rye to draw Gin somewhere. Gin would want to test Rye’s loyalty to the organization at the first opportunity, meaning this first mission was more than likely to perform a hit for the organization for no other reason than Gin knew he would not go through with it.  

The FBI’s only move then was to set up a sting at the meeting place. Dai called James Black to make arrangements. They would be hard pressed to get the agents they needed to replace the ones they’d lost in only a few hours, though he was sure James Black had already called in for transfers to fill in the gaps. 

By that evening they would have the man with the codename Gin that they had received a tip concerning all those years ago. If they could get at Gin, they could get at the Boss. That was at the heart of the message that had brought them to Japan, and now finally they would have the opening to do just that. 

...

Several days had passed since anything major had happened, and so Sherry was back in the lab. She had always enjoyed the work; it had a certain rhythm to it that was comforting and familiar and that coupled nicely with the thrill of discovery and innovation. 

Of course, she understood the draw of the adrenaline-fueled missions, but lab work had its own appeal of steady progress and accomplishment which made the two hard to compare. 

Sherry moved one of the mature jellyfish into a separate cylindrical tank. Jellyfish have a tendency to ride the natural currents of the water and so will likely end up stuck in the corners of a square tank. She’d had the scientists, she’d been given to assist her, order in and move the jellyfish to proper tanks while she was away.  

She watched the single jellyfish flow through the tank, riding the currents they’d put in place. She’d had her suspicions as a girl that jellyfish would move with the elegance of a dancer’s ribbon because of their thin bell-shaped bodies. Now, she thought that their movement was more relatable to watching someone blink; every so often they contract, and then are still, and then contract again. 

She’d separated this one in order to extract its toxin. 

Jellyfish don’t hold their venom in a particular sac, as snakes do, but on a cellular level where the amount is minuscule. The best way to get it then was to get them to sting an object she could then extract the venom from. When it stings, the cells holding the venom shoot out barbs to get past the protecting skin of whatever they are stinging. So given the right object she gave for the jellyfish to sting, the venom would not be lost in the water. 

She’d extracted the venom from several already, but was having a particularly difficult time getting at this one. She placed the object in with the jellyfish, but it wasn’t taking the bait as the others had. Even after she had prodded the jellyfish, and presented the object as a threat the jellyfish only moved to swim away, its body blinking in that way she’d observed before. 

It was then she noticed that the body of it had started to deteriorate. She recognized the signs that it was beginning to regress against the flow of its life cycle. It was over very quickly. Soon only the jellyfish, in its first stage of life once again, remained in the tank. 

It must have responded to the stress of moving tanks and then being threatened. Stress was a triggering factor then . Sherry was fascinated. This was the unique ability for which the immortal jellyfish had gotten its name. She had just watched this creature bypass death, effectively running against the stream of time, and it had happened almost between one blink and another.  

...

It hadn’t taken long for Gin to plan out how he would spin the compromise put in place by the boss in his favor. Or rather in the organization’s favor. It would not do to have a codenamed member with a questionable stance on loyalty in the Organization. 

The newly named Rye would either have to prove his loyalty or face the consequences of insubordination. 

Gin waited in his car, more than a mile away from their meeting location. Precaution at the forefront of his thoughts, he had sent a scout to check the meeting location; an unassuming old man that could be written off as senile by anyone who thought he shouldn’t be wandering about by the warehouses. 

Waiting for him would end up making Gin late according to the time he’d sent Rye in the message, but late was better than being caught unaware. Besides, Gin was testing their new member’s patience as much as his loyalty. 

Gin saw the old man making his way back to him in his rearview mirror. His progress was slow. The aging man was as ancient as he looked. He wasn’t tied to the Organization in any real way. The Organization had hired him out of a homeless shelter several years ago, and he understood little about the jobs he was hired on to scout out. 

Gin would have sent Vermouth for this task, because of her ideal mastery of acting and disguise. However, she had an unnatural interest in seeing Rye join their ranks, and he was wary of a potential conflict of interest.

The man made it to his window and shook his head. “The man with dark eyes and the cap was standing inside, like you said. I stood inside, like you said. He ignored me, and it was quiet. Then, a man who was hiding came out to warn me it was dangerous there. He wanted me to leave, so I left. He was wearing a navy-blue jacket, with yellow letters in English.” The man paused a moment before adding. “And a foreigner’s face.”

Gin hadn’t expected this blatant betrayal from Rye. Did he think the best way to protect Akemi was selling out the Organization for FBI protection? Or perhaps he had been an FBI mole all along and Akemi has only been a way in. He couldn’t say it didn’t make sense.

“You did well,” Gin said, giving the man his payment. “There is extra, for your observation.” The old man took it, bowing his head down to the window and backing away with haste. 

Gin would need to move fast; his top priority was to get Sherry and her sister out of the FBI’s reach now that the danger of their situation had become evident. The FBI should be caught up in waiting for their ambush to go down for at least a few hours, and it would buy him time. Although it would be unwise to rely on that. If Akai’s goal on learning of Akemi’s situation with the organization had been entirely to protect her and her sister, he might have already hidden them away. But if his priority was to strike at the organization and they were only a means to an end, he wouldn’t have risked tipping Gin off by doing so.

Gin took off into the darkness that was rapidly falling over the city. 

...

Sherry had just gotten home from her day at the lab when she heard several heavy knocks on her door. It was Gin. He looked determined in that way he only was while already in the rush of a mission, and this alarmed her.

“You’re in danger,” he said, pushing past her into her apartment. “Grab your coat, we need to go now.”

She felt her heart rate spike, and she slipped her coat and shoes on without question. She grabbed her purse, and they were out the door in seconds. 

“We’ll have a team come to pack up your belongings, but you’re not to come back here again.” He said on his way down the stairs. 

“What?” She said fairly out of breath from chasing after him. “What’s going on?”

Gin unlocked the passenger side of his car manually for her before running around the car to the driver’s side. “Moroboshi Dai is an FBI mole who used your sister to get close to the Organization.”

“Where’s Akemi? Is she okay?” Sherry demanded before even closing her door. Gin reached over her, shutting her door before taking off. 

“There is another team securing your sister as we speak.”   

“Good,” Sherry said, relief taking some of the edge off her nerves. 

She’d suspected Dai of hiding something, though she hadn’t expected it to be this, to be using her sister from the beginning. 

They ended up driving a while before they pulled up to another apartment building. Gin’s manner had made nonessential conversation seem like it would be unwelcome or inappropriate to her. It wasn’t until the door, of an apartment Gin already had the key to, closed solidly behind them that the tension left. 

“Sorry,” Gin said as if suddenly aware of his brisk actions. “I needed to get you out of the public’s eye. This was the closest safe place.” 

Sherry looked around. The apartment was clean and well styled, but was still obviously a bachelor pad in its dark solid colors and masculine design. In any other situation, Sherry would have blushed at the realization that Gin had taken her back to his apartment, but this wasn’t the time for those emotions. 

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Gin pulled out his phone. “I need to call the other team to make sure your sister’s been taken to safety as well.” 

“Yes, of course.” That had already been the most pressing concern on her mind, and she would welcome news on that front. It didn’t take long to get it, midway through the call Gin had connected her to her sister on speakerphone. Akemi was secured at a safehouse, and although she sounded annoyed at the disturbance, she didn’t sound like she knew the situation with Moroboshi Dai yet. 

The conversation was brief, and soon Gin hung up the other line. Sherry wished they had been taken to the same location, though she knew the Organization was too cautious for that. The FBI had already used Akemi to get close to Sherry and then the Organization once, they would not risk the possibility that they planned to follow Akemi to Sherry once more. 

Though Sherry did have another question that popped into her head as Gin hung up the phone.

“Why did you come for me and not Akemi? She’s at more of a risk; he’s been to her apartment, knows the code. He’s much more likely to try and make contact with her as well.”

“You’re more important.” Gin stated simply.

“Don’t give me that. If something were to go down, it would happen there, that’s where you should have been, for the good of the Organization as a whole.”

“Do you not realize how important you are to the Organization, Sherry?” Her codename was a sharp reminder, whether he had intended it to be or not. Her life mattered to them more than her sisters because Akemi didn’t have a codename. 

“I don’t want to hear this lecture again.” She snapped. Vermouth had said quite enough already.  

Confusion seemed to wash over him for a moment, but he looked like he decided he didn’t want to press the matter after all. 

“I’ve also been made the new overseer of your project.” He admitted this gently. it occurred to her that he had probably never heard her snap at someone before. 

“Brandy-?” Sherry started in question.

“-went around the chain of command and put the wrong priorities first. What she did threatened the whole Organization. Made us vulnerable to this infiltration. Never again.” That last part Gin seemed to say to himself. 

Sherry thought of touching him; perhaps to comfort him or simply distract him, but hesitated. There were so many thoughts passing behind his green eyes, and even the one he’d spoken seemed a promise only to himself; intimate. 

“Have you eaten?” she asked instead. 

He shook his head slowly before answering, “Not yet.”

“Good,” She offered him a smile. “It seems like a poor night for eating alone.”

The following night was relatively uneventful. They passed the greater part of it in quiet companionship. Still there existed an underlying restlessness; a fear of what-may-be hovering like a tune stuck in the back of her mind.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18

Gin woke from his place on the couch several hours before dawn, to a text message chime from the boss finally responding to his request to brief that person on recent developments and seek further instruction.

It contained a meeting place, with no time frame. That meant he was due as soon as he could get to the location. He took the time only to stretch the stiffness from his muscles and check in on where Sherry slept before leaving. 

Their meeting was not long, but would necessitate immediate further action from Gin, making it unlikely he would have time to sleep again until the end of the day. It was better that he accepted the fact now and put it from his mind. 

The boss came to the same conclusion that Gin had deemed most likely; Rye had been an FBI mole from the beginning. Which meant that the FBI already had an operation active in Japan, and Tokyo Big Sight had all been a ruse to further entrench their mole. It made their next priority and Gin’s next assignment clear. 

“Find what brought the FBI to Japan and eliminate traitors.”

Gin felt this was some sort of unspoken chance the boss was giving him to prove himself after he had made less than ideal choices as of late. 

He had an idea of where to start looking for the answers the boss wanted him to find, but would ultimately need Vermouth’s help despite his better judgment using her on matters concerning Moroboshi and the FBI. The boss agreed that use of her particular skill set was warranted. 

Gin called her as he was leaving the meeting place and was somewhat surprised, she actually picked up. 

“How soon can you be at the northeast docks with your kit?”

“I’m not meeting you anywhere at 4am.” She mewed, hardly sounding like he’d pulled her from sleep at all. “2am is my hard cut-off time for accepting invitations to kinky excursions. Try again tomorrow.”

“It's for official business.” He said, his tone flat. 

“I don’t doubt it.” she answered in that you’re-no-fun way she so enjoyed deploying. “And just as soon as I check my messages from that person in the morning to verify you were authorized to enlist the aid of members of the same rank, I’ll be sure to lend a hand.”

“It’s a matter of urgency; the boss and I just parted ways.”

“Then it sounds like expediting that permission should have been on the agenda before you did so.”

“You’re being obstinate.”

“Yes, and?” her voice purred. “If you want me to get moving on the presumption official orders will come through while I’m on my way, that would qualify as a significant favor to you. Especially given the hour. I’ll do it, but you’ll owe me a favor in return.”

“An unknown favor to be named at a later date?” Gin asked.

“That’s right.”

“I’m not going to agree to that.” He hesitated in his car, not turning the key to start it just yet. He considered whether he might catch the boss if he went back. He also considered how ridiculous he would feel doing it. “The boss already said I was permitted to use your skills for the endeavor, if you insist you need to hear it from that person directly it would only be a matter of a simple phone call.”

“If you think that sounds like a good idea, go ahead.” She dared, suddenly all thorns. “But I’d advise you not to issue threats more harmful to yourself than the party you're threatening in future.”

“What do you want?”

“To go back to sleep,” Gin thought he could hear her stretching as she said it. “I thought that would be obvious.”

“Would you do it for a bottle of wine? You can have your pick of my collection.”

“You imported those bottles from France just to bribe me, didn’t you?” 

“Well?”

She sighed in resignation, “What disguise do you need prepped?”

...

He had Vermouth disguise herself as a male FBI agent of mixed Japanese and Caucasian descent. The scout he’d sent to watch the team of FBI left waiting to ambush him said that they were still there despite it being morning, but they looked like they were packing up to go. He and Vermouth intercepted one of the vans as it approached the site and he’d had Vermouth slip in as the driver for the FBI as they left for a new location, in order to hear the topic of conversations.  

Gin left a listening device on Vermouth’s jacket. This was more so he wouldn’t have to rely on her word than anything else. 

To his disappointment, not much was said in the main group of men coming back from their failed operation. Vermouth had tried poking the bed of embers a couple times, but they didn’t respond in any useful way. 

Finally, as they all got off the transportation where they were all crammed together, side conversations sprouted. These men would not speak ill of a failed mission or place blame where they could be heard by everyone, but it seemed with freedom to gossip privately came the answers Gin was looking for.

One man said something along the lines of three years being wasted on the mistake of an agent that was too green to their mission and their team, and he shouldn’t have been there. Gin attributed the three years to the time Moroboshi first started pursuing Akemi; this information wasn’t entirely useful. Another man responded that it had even been longer than that since the tip that had brought them there had been from a year before they started. This was only to be corrected and one upped yet again, when a third man said that in the tip speaking of that Gin guy the informant said that he had been holding on to the information for nearly a decade. This led to the first man to ask for clarification, and the third explaining that the Gin guy was supposed to be very high ranking and would have-. It was at this point that a blunt smacking sound of the man being knocked upside the head, followed by a sound of pain, stopped their conversation. 

Gin recognized Dai’s voice. “Have some consideration.”

That was the end of any useful information, but enough had been said. 

Gin himself hadn’t been very high ranking at all more than a decade ago. The man who had the codename Gin before him, however, had been at that time.

The only problem was Gin had no idea what the man was doing fourteen years ago, or who he had been working with in the Organization then that could then have given his name to a foreign law enforcement agency all those years later. It couldn't be his immediate suspect, given the timeline, she would have been dead by then. It had to be someone close enough to know the boss could be reached through Gin, but far enough removed from him that he hadn't known the man was several years dead by the time he sent his tip to the FBI.

...

Sherry woke to an unfamiliar doorbell. After checking the apartment for Gin and not finding him, in which time the doorbell had rung another four times, she elected to answer it. 

There were a couple of sealed cardboard boxes on the doorstep, and she made out the figure of a man in a mover’s uniform making his way back to the doorstep with another box. She recognized the man as one of the lab technicians that had been employed under her. 

“Good morning,” He greeted her. “There are a few more boxes, but then that should be it. Where do you want them?” 

She hesitated, looking back into the apartment and then up at him. Gin wasn’t there, and she had no idea what the plan from here was as far as moving her to another safe house. 

“In the corner against the wall should do.” She stepped inside thinking that it was better not to leave a chance for a sighting of a girl matching her description in the area. Soon the boxes were against the wall and the Organization’s lab tech left.

She was due for a change of clothes, and a shower, and so she started going through the boxes. In the first one she’d found a few folded quilts, the second held an assortment of beauty products and a few towels in the bottom. The third had some clothes tucked in the top, and she found as she dug deeper into the box some of her clothes had been used to pack in the more delicate knick knacks and her glassware. Everything had been packed methodically, so each item was snug and safe just so. The next box had more clothes and was enough to complete a new outfit. In the bottom of it there was her small collection of books. It was among those that she found a leather-bound journal that she didn’t immediately recognize. 

It was her father’s, and she hadn’t picked it up in years. It smelled gloriously of that scent that only old books had, and brought his memory sweeping into her mind. Her parents had died in a car accident when she was young, and there was very little she remembered of them, but the longing for them remained despite the vagueness. The memory of her father, that only certain scents, or sounds, or images could bring, was more of an emotion that she held onto rather than an image of the man. She couldn’t remember his voice, but she heard the steady constant of the tracks running underneath a train when she tried. She couldn’t picture his face, and it was the image of a lab report with its even printed lines crisp on a fresh white sheet, only to be scribbled over and edited without mercy by several multi-colored pens that were his to her. She couldn’t imagine what his shirt might smell like. Perhaps cologne, or sandalwood, but it was the smell of both freshly printed books of newly minted ideas and old books of time-tested wisdom that evoked the thought of him. And all these things felt warm to her memory, like a hug or a comforting hand on your shoulder when a person just wants to remind you that they are there, and would always protect you. 

She opened the journal. 

She’d always felt it was more of a codebook than the scientific documentation of his work on Silver Bullet. The pages were pressed with words running in knotted sentences meant to evoke a certain memory of his own. He might have drawn a person who sat across from him one day at a cafe, simply because the wrinkles on his forehead made him think of the wave-particle duality of light, which related to some odd other represented thought, that tied a net of thoughts that might or might not eventually lead somewhere. The journal was a tangled spider web that someone designed a road network out of and that was constantly stuck in gridlock. It was designed so only he could interpret what was written in it, and despite her many efforts it remained mostly a mystery. 

The journal, along with many other personality quirks that spoke of finding an answer in self-inflicted chaos had contributed to her father gaining the nickname the Mad Scientist within the Organization. He had always been called that or his given name which led her to believe her parents hadn’t had codenames in the Organization. This only left her wondering why she had needed one in order to inherit the project all those years ago. 

She got to her feet, book in hand, leaving behind the change of clothes for now. It had been several years since she last tried to interpret the journal, and she knew more about the project than she had previously. It was worth another look.

Chapter Text

Chapter 19

Gin didn’t intend to leave Sherry alone and unprotected for too long, and he headed back to his apartment as soon as Vermouth reported back to him. He arrived to find the fragrant scent of women’s shower products permeating the space, and the slightly muffled burr of a blowdryer running in another room. A tidy row of boxes had already found their way inside. He hadn’t expected them to pack her things up so quickly and had thought he would make it back in time to receive them. The fact that she had obviously answered the door despite the current situation played a mildly annoyed note in the back of his head. But he had learned she was plenty headstrong and independent only a short time after meeting her, and so her actions were not entirely surprising. 

Some of the boxes had been cut open, but the objects inside had been left neatly packed within. Even the shampoo and other bottles she’d clearly just used had already found a place back into the top of a box. Gin read from this that she hadn’t been comfortable settling down, or even moving the items she would need out to a more accessible place. She likely didn’t expect to stay here long. 

The only item that had taken up residence in the living space was what appeared to be a book. Propped open on the ottoman was a book of pre-lined pages inked with nearly incomprehensible scribbles and sketches. He stood over it, not quite daring the intrusion of thumbing through the journal, but still curious.

 Some of the words were English, some Japanese, still others seemed to be Latin, or strings of abbreviations intermixed with numbers, and they all ran into each other without warning. They did not follow the lines of the page either. A small passage in Japanese came down from the right corner in columns in the traditional style, reading right to left and top to bottom, but there was another passage with Japanese characters intermixed with Latin that read in rows just slanted from the lines of the page halfway down. The sketches ran wildly across the page in the same manner as the words had. Some had lines labeling the parts of a picture leading to a stray word or paragraph. They were like diagrams in this way, only the passage often did not make sense with the part of the image depicted. Many of the images were scientifically accurate, still others were distorted or cartoony.

In short, the journal was a mess, and could most accurately be described as the ramblings of a mad man. It was not at all the notebook he’d expect from the professional and organized Sherry. He heard the low hum of the blow dryer click off in the adjacent room and moved to step away from the disturbing little book. However, the draft of his movement eased up the page from laying perfectly flat, revealing a portion of the next page over. 

Before he had fully turned his attention from it, the sketch of a face caught the corner of his eye. It was in a more realistic style, shaded in with cross-hatching, and struck a striking likeness to a face Gin hadn’t seen in more than ten years. He snatched up the book, turning fully to the page.

“What is this?” He demanded from Sherry who had just reentered the room. 

“My father’s journal for the Silver Bullet project?” She said, her question as to why he cared plainly in her voice.

Gin studied the riddle of a page in question, finding little more cohesion than the previous one. But there was a date in one of the corners. This had been drawn the year the man in the sketch had died. Typically, Gin did not bother to remember the faces of people who were now dead. In his line of work, it meant that now irrelevant faces didn’t cloud his thoughts. There was only one notable exception to this rule, and it was his likeness that Gin recognized inked onto the page. 

“What was Gin doing with the Miyano couple back then?” He asked aloud, though he had not intended the question for Sherry. 

“A different Gin?” She asked, walking up and lowering the angle of the journal page so she could better see it. The woody floral scent of freshly washed hair wafted over with her, it was punctuated with some sort of zest or spice and was distractingly alluring. 

“Yes,” Gin pointed out the image of a man lighting up his cigarette.

“Different man, same hat.” She chided. The man in the drawing wore a homburg, though the drawing did not make the distinction clear and Gin wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t seen it in person before. Arguing this would have been childish besides. 

Regardless of the type, the hat in the image shaded his face slightly. This might have obscured the features of a different man, but that was exactly how he remembered him. How strange it was to recall his face so perfectly. It hadn’t been intentional; he simply would not be forgotten. He had somehow remained important to Gin despite having died, and that didn’t really make sense to him. 

“It’s not a coincidence, is it?” Sherry asked, a little too gingerly for his liking. He had been caught staring at the portrait too long, not responding to her gibe. 

“I was not the first owner of the code name Gin,” he started in explanation. “The organization dates back at least half a century, so I doubt even the man before me was the first either. He was somewhere in his thirties when he died, and I took the opportunity to ask for a legendary code name.”  

“You really asked for a specific codename?” Sherry said in disbelief. It simply wasn’t done in the Organization; that person always assigned them. Gin had heard of members who went as far as regarding the naming as somewhat prophetic, although he didn’t take stock in such nonsense. 

“It shocked everyone that the boss actually granted the request, given how brash it had been. The previous Gin was an executive member, near the center of the Organization’s innermost circle, and the smartest man I’ve ever met.” He cleared his throat. “I was coming up on sixteen,” Gin added as if this explained everything. 

“I beat you to it by three years then,” Sherry beamed. 

“Is that what Brandy meant about you joining the ranks of scientists at thirteen?” It was a bafflingly young age to be given a codename. Before he had fought to be granted one a fifteen, he had never heard of a member being given one before they were in their late twenties. This was yet another reason why his demanding one had been so presumptuous. That had been ten years ago, and since Sherry was nineteen now, she would have been given hers six years ago. So technically he had gotten his first, but she’d gotten hers younger. “That’s even more impressive than she made it sound at the time.”

“Not as much as you might think,” she admitted. “I had to have one in order to inherit my parents’ project. Both my parents died, so to complete my education, the Organization sent me to America for school. I had what I needed to get started by thirteen, so that’s when I came back and was given my codename: Sherry.” 

 She sounded like she was cutting around the truth, bearing only the least revealing of details. Both of her parents dying at once sounded suspicious, and it made him wonder if he had sounded just as transparent when giving his explanation. He found himself being peculiarly loose lipped when he was around her, a dangerous habit to be certain. And yet... it felt right. 

“You’re probably the only one who would say graduating with several advanced degrees at thirteen makes that less impressive.”

“Just the one at thirteen;” she corrected, “that was the Bachelor's. The other’s I earned concurrently with my work, one at fifteen and seventeen.”

“A pedantic distinction.”

“I prefer to be praised accurately.” She smiled, self-satisfied, and took a seat on the ottoman in a falsely demure manner. 

“I’ll make a note of it.” He said, quietly enthralled with her playful behavior.

 ...

“Well, what else is on the page?” Sherry asked, hoping to steer the conversation back to what Gin had said in passing before. What had Gin’s namesake been doing with her parents the year they died?

Gin sat down on the couch across from her and regarded the open journal page yet again. His eyes could take on such an intense focus, it was fascinating to watch, and made her pulse jump whenever it was directed at her. She’d be looking at the page upside down, but seeing how she had studied the page before she thought the new perspective would be more helpful than not. 

Across the top of the page was what appeared to be a line graph. It steadily rose to a peak, then fell a short way, only to rise and fall in another smaller peak just after and decline to the level it started on. The x and y-axis were not drawn in, much less labeled. She was sure her father had known what it measured, or on what scale; she didn’t. The only clue was its title. Written in Japanese kanji was mermaid. What he could possibly be measuring about a creature that didn’t exist was beyond her. Of the codes she’d partly been able to decipher she’d found the labels to be related in some obscure way. Knowing this had led her to research many random facts about strange items drawn or mentioned. From that time, she had learned about a Chinese story of a mermaid that cried pearls, many about people falling in love with them, but mostly lure concerning the bad luck of running across a mermaid. They were said to be bad omens of storms, or even the cause of storms and shipwrecks. There was also the Japanese folklore that told how consuming mermaid flesh or bone could lead to a long life or even immortality. 

Before, she had decided that it was some graph relating to Silver Bullet, because of the constant of immortality. This also made sense as the myth and the word were Japanese. Having decided it was important only made not knowing what it measured all the more frustrating. 

Gin seemed to be having a difficult time with the passages with lines drawn to the picture of his namesake. Those were ones she had already been able to crack. 

“It’s a joke,” Sherry said, pointing to the end of the chain of passages. “Those are scientific equations that deal with the composition of cigarette smoke and how it would react in the body. That last part is Latin.” She ran her finger along the phrase reading it aloud. “‘mors certa, hora incerta, nisi si...’, which means ‘death is certain, its hour is uncertain, unless...’.” She smiled. “The first two parts are a common Latin phrase, the last I’m sure he added.”

“A self-inflicted short life,” Gin said unamused. “Is everything in this journal so maddeningly unhelpful?” 

“What was that thing you said before?” She mused. “Oh, yes: ‘I’m sure you understand. The Organization has a great many secrets.’ Which means that the most sensitive of those, the ones that have to be written down for consistency of research, shouldn’t be left so just anyone can read them.”

“Fine,” was all he said to this. He looked down at the page in an annoyed sort of fixation. “What can you tell me about the mountains?”

“Mountains?” 

“At the top, it looks like a mountainous island. Have you cross referenced that profile with any nearby islands?”

“No that’s a-” she stopped herself. Maybe it wasn’t a line graph at all . “Mermaid island,” she said, testing the phrase aloud. “Is there such a place?”

As it turned out, there was a small little-known island the locals referred to as the ‘Isle of Mermaids.’ It had recently earned a spot in the gossip about local legends circulating around Japan when a storehouse on the island burned down and they found the burnt corpse of a mermaid in the ashes. 

The profile of the island matched the sketch, if from a lower angle, which led Sherry to believe he had pressed the page up to the window glass of a ferry in order to trace the line. 

If her father had seen the view of the island from a boat and Gin’s namesake on the same day, it stood to reason he had accompanied them on the journey. What was so important about that island that her parents were accompanied by an executive organization member for the journey?

Chapter Text

Chapter 20

Getting that person to grant them permission to look for clues on the Isle of Mermaids had been easy. Gin found the arguments for the benefits of the mission overwhelmed any possible negative outcomes. 

It would give him the opportunity to dig into the previous Gin's affairs from a decade ago, looking for clues on who the FBI got that tip from. Sherry would be able to decode more of the Miyano’s lost research which would help the progress on Silver Bullet. Plus, Sherry would be out of Tokyo, away from the danger of being seen and used by the FBI and on a remote and little-known island. 

They were packed and setting off for a long rest of the day traveling within the hour. It would be six hours by train in addition to more time by boat once they got to Wakasa Bay, and Gin was determined to sleep for at least some of it. Unfortunately, the trains for their first two connections didn’t have sleeper cars so it would have to wait. 

The first of these he and Sherry spent talking about small things: whether they might have time to stop by one of the more famous beaches in the bay before getting on the ferry, western Japanese cuisine, and what books they brought to read on the trip. By the second, Sherry had settled in with her headphones and a contented smile, watching miles of forest and Mt Fuji pass by out the window. A light rain had started, dappling the light that played across Sherry’s face. He tried not to let himself get distracted by it. 

He intended to take some time reviewing his own memories for clues; there might be something useful in the small details he remembered from back then. There could be information he didn’t understand the significance of at the time, or at the very least it would be helpful to have the information fresh in his mind to contrast against the association puzzle that was the Miyano couple's journal. 

 Gin had known the man for more than five years before his death, and they had spent almost an uncomfortable amount of time in each other’s company during that period. Surely he had to have overheard something; he had a very sharp memory, which was why he had to intentionally discard useless information. He wanted to be thorough, and so he started at the beginning of what could potentially be relevant and systematically shifted through the information. Their first meeting then, at his parents’ house.

Gin’s parents had been important figures in the Organization, though he wasn’t actually supposed to have that information as a child. He was prone to eavesdropping, and from that habit of his youth he had learned that his father was a spy for the Organization in the Japanese Government, and his mother ran in political figures' wives' circles with the express purpose of gaining blackmail material on government officials. His family hosted many events and meetings, but the interesting information was rarely gleaned out in the open. 

His father held private meetings at his home office, and closed doors only spurred his curiosity. 

He had a favorite spot for such occasions; one he had half found, half created. On the second floor, above where the office was on the first, was a bathroom. This bathroom had a floor vent. Although, even as a small child crawling through normally sized air ducts was an impossibility. What he had discovered was that if he removed the first section of the duct, there was an open space where it had been that went into the hollow wall and down into the wall of the floor below. He’d had to widen the crawl space a small amount and push back some of the insulation, but eventually he’d cleared a space to suspend himself in the wall alongside the air duct that ran down into another vent in his father’s office. The spot was just big enough for his preadolescent body to slide into. The remaining drywall still left too much of the noise out of his range, so he’d ended up having to make a slit so he could hear. He’d decided the best place for it was where an opening already existed; he widened the hole in the wall where the office vent’s grate was secured, to make it look like the hole made for the vent had simply been cut a millimeter or two too large. After all this was done, he’d completed his perfect eavesdropping spot. 

After many months, Gin had gained a plethora of interesting knowledge. Most fascinating to him was the monthly visit of a person he now knew as the boss of the Organization; those visits were when he had discovered his father was infiltrating the Government and keeping the Organization informed. 

It wasn’t eavesdropping on one of those meetings that had wrenched his life in a vastly new direction however. The meeting in the office he overheard that changed everything was between the boss and a man Gin had only just seen for the first time an hour before. A man he would one day take a codename after, in his honor.

The man had caught his young imagination immediately, a figure at odds with the flittering brunch crowd; the way he held himself, the precise measure of his every movement, conveyed strength. The young Gin had been in awe; keeping at the edges of whatever room the man occupied. He’d been watching when the boss approached the man, and the two walked to his father’s office. 

He darted immediately upstairs and slid into his spot with a practiced efficiency. He came in on the last half of the boss’s sentence. “-and because it would do you good to train the ‘little brat’.” That last phrase had an inflection to indicate they were quoting back the other’s words. 

“I don’t see how.” The man’s voice was deep and had a rasp to it. 

“That much is obvious, however I’m not giving you a choice in the matter,” that person said. This wasn’t how he was used to that person talking. When the boss talked to his father, they spoke like two friends who were bored in a meeting and were quietly mocking the whole affair behind the others’ backs. It was peculiar to hear the same voice take on such a different manner. “You’ll not be going on any missions until you feel he’s ready to tag along, and then you will not go on any alone.”

“You’re punishing me? That little brat is barely ten, he won’t be ready for groundwork for years yet.”

“Perhaps by then you’ll be able to work with a team.”

There was an audible scoff in reply, and then the sound of a door snapping closed.

“Kid.” the other man called out, shouting over his shoulder in the direction of the wall Gin was hidden inside. “You’re not the first person to think of eavesdropping, so don’t expect to have a monopoly on the idea. Get down here.”

He had been stunned. Surely this man hadn’t found his hiding spot. Gin couldn’t see the man, so it was a surprise when he heard a knock on the other side of the wall. “Get out of there, right now.”

Gin didn’t respond, hoping to call a bluff. 

“Fine, first lesson kid,” he said, exasperated. “If you can hear them, they can hear you.”

He offered no response again. This man couldn’t really believe his father and that person had known he was listening all this time. Surely they wouldn’t continue to let him do so for so many months. Would they? 

“Second lesson,” his voice was a wry smile. “Drywall means relatively little to bullets.” There was a loud metal sound of the man cocking a gun. 

“Wait, don’t!” Gin called out in haste. “I’m coming.” 

“I look forward to it.”

It was an odd sort of memory for Gin. To think there was a time before he knew his mentor, when so much of who he’d become originated with him. What might he have been without such a pivotal influence. A political spy, like his parents? He couldn’t imagine it. His parents had been such distant figures in this life; to be shown absolute deference, but not to be bothered. He had never longed to be like them the same way he had admired his mentor, envied his commanding presence. 

But it had been a drastic change for his mentor as well. It was an easy thing to overlook as a child. What had he done that made that person pull him from missions like that? It had to be a downfall of not working well with a team. Some mistake, something that made an ally an enemy perhaps. His mentor fell prey to treachery in the end; Gin might have believed this was another piece of it excepting that bothersome issue of the timeline. Besides, that alone wouldn’t explain the issue of jurisdiction, so perhaps the two were unrelated. 

He didn’t know how the island played into things either, or the Miyanos and their research. It was a strange place for his mentor to be so close to the eve of his death, to that moment of betrayal. 

He’d been mulling over the question as they continued their journey; trying to see if he couldn’t sort what things were related and what weren’t, when Sherry surprised him by asking exactly that. 

 They’d been having an unrelated discussion, on why savory had been such a late addition to the primary taste groups, when she’d interjected the thought. Gin had started the discussion on umami by accident, as they received their lunch, only to find Sherry was unexpectedly well informed on the subject.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Had been her only lead-in to the sudden change. “The previous Gin, your namesake, was he the executive level overseer of the Silver Bullet project when my parents were heading the project? I was wondering what he might have been doing at the island with them, and it seemed the most straightforward answer.”

The trolly attendant who’d brought them their ekiben had left just before her topic change, the private cabin door fully sliding closed behind her. Still, he couldn’t help taking stock of their surroundings as soon as registering what she’d begun to ask.

“I don’t believe it’s likely.” He answered, finding they were, of course, alone in the luxury sleeping car. Their only companion, the wide picture window and passing mountain view. “The project was under Brandy before, and I don’t know how long she had it, so it might be possible he had it for a time before her. But, he wouldn’t have had it during the year of the sketch.”

“You seem pretty confident of that.” She challenged, taking a bite just after as if to play it off more nonchalantly than she’d first said it.

He considered how he might convey how he knew the information without getting into details; he considered not offering an explanation at all. Ultimately, he decided they both had information coming into this investigation, and this wouldn’t work if they hoarded what they knew.

“The previous Gin did something to earn the boss’s displeasure five years prior to the date of the sketch; he was assigned to mentor me as a punishment.”

“Ah,” She seemed to take a moment to process the information, likely adding it to the things he’d said before concerning the man, but snapped back to the conversation as a new thought came to her. “Wait, he told you that? That you were his punishment? That’s pretty brutal.”

That wasn’t at all what he’d assumed she would say next, and it caught him off guard. It was fair to say he and his mentor had not had the best relationship starting off. Their first interactions had fostered a strong mutual dislike that Gin didn’t get over for the first year or so; he thought it probably took much longer than that for his mentor to stop despising his existence.

“He probably would have,” Gin admitted “but there wasn’t a need. I overheard it happen, and he caught me. I had a fair amount of time on my hands as a child, limited supervision, and a natural curiosity.”

“A dangerous concoction.” She smiled, then looked pensive and let it slowly fade before saying. “I can’t recall much from when my parents were alive, not of Organization members at least. There might have been people dressed in black around back then, but I didn’t understand their significance. My earliest vivid memory of Organization members is after their deaths, with Brandy. But she never seemed to take much interest in the project, so it made me wonder-”

She trailed off, not completing the thought. He couldn’t guess it.

“I think,” Gin said, “there may be some merit in waiting until we have more pieces before we run ourselves around in circles with the pieces we do.” He stood, beginning preparations to take advantage of one of the cabin’s twin beds.  

“Did you want me to close the curtains?” She asked, still content in her spot by the window.

“No need to ruin your view on my account” He settled in; he could certainly do worse than a plush bed in an incredibly lavish train suite, daylight or no, and besides, Sherry had been watching out the windows in such awe of their surroundings. It really would be a shame to ruin that.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21

The ferry that made a daily circuit to the small island hosted a fair number more passengers than Gin would have liked. The fact that the destination warranted a daily ferry alone was worrisome. Gin made the majority of passengers aboard out as tourists. The ferry company seemed to be turning a nice profit by marketing the island as having been on national news the prior year. 

He noticed the boat was not in short supply of pamphlets to that effect. A few described a local festival, another covered the fire of a storehouse the year before which revealed the charred bones of a so called mermaid, another told of an elder on the island who was rumored to have gained a long life from eating the flesh of a mermaid. Gin did not examine these past their titles. 

Besides the overabundance of tourists on the covered level of the ferry, Gin had spotted men with small notepads and the professional look of reporters. He steered out of sight of these men. This led him and Sherry to be standing at the rail of the boat as it drifted into the island’s small port. 

The ferry glided into its spot where a half circle of posts jetted out of the water in order to correct the course of the vessel as it pulled up to the pier. The aggravated water churned in whirlpools dancing around the posts, as the ferry displaced the previously settled dark blue waters into a stunning jade color that made the movement of the water easier to follow.  

From the deck, Gin could see the first of the ferry passengers step off onto the pier below. He recognized the reporters among them and grabbed the brim of his hat in reflex. This only brought the thought of Sherry and her previous comments on his habit to the forefront of his mind; the feel of her pinned beneath his arm, that look she gave him that was all desire, the buzz of her throat on his cheek as she moaned. He longed to hear that again, but in earnest this time.

He couldn’t let himself get distracted here, not with the looming threat of reporters. He grasped her arm just below her shoulder and pulled her back from the rail a few steps, in order to get her face out of view of the men below. The reporters were met by more members of a news crew waiting for them just beyond the pier. The group of men shifted and intermixed much in the same way as the water in the bay had. 

“What?” Sherry said, twisting back to face him. The motion made him realize he’d left his hand fixed to her shoulder. He let his grasp fall slack, only to find a hold on her wrist directing her after him as he started back toward the ship’s stairs.

“We’ll want to get out of sight before they start filming.” He gave in explanation. 

They slipped into the wave of tourists washing up onto the small island’s shore. There was a main road running along a small collection of buildings that composed the town. They were met by an even heavier flow of tourists walking among the trinket shops and street vendors than there had been on the ferry. 

The small quiet island they had come in hopes of finding was nowhere to be found. Instead, they were assaulted by a flood of people’s voices, colorful street cart banners, and the aroma of sizzling meat, sharp and tangy sauces, and spun sugar that wafted out into the crowds.  

Gin’s hold on Sherry’s wrist held fast as he cut a line to the local inn, ducking out of view of the men pulling out large cameras and other filming equipment from their bags. 

The inn’s door shut out the majority of the crowds and noise behind them. There was, however, a group of four men at the counter. Their thick leather boots and somewhat muddied jackets made them look like hikers rather than more of the festival tourists clogging up the small island. 

“Don’t suppose you’d know where they keep the arrows.” One of the hikers leaned over the counter, to keep his conversation with the clerk close. “I’d be willing to pay for information of that sort.”

“I’m sure,” the man at the counter said. “Unfortunately, I rent rooms. You can pay for one of those, or you can leave.” The man looked past the group at the counter to Gin and Sherry at the door. “Welcome. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

The hiker pushed off from the counter. “Why don’t you go ahead of us.” He addressed Gin. “My friends and I still want to sort out the- sleeping arrangements.” The group of them pulled off to the side of the room and seemed to start arguing in hushed tones. 

“There are quite a lot of people in town,” Sherry said, making conversation. Gin imagined she thought it beneficial to come off as nice to the locals. 

“This is nothing compared to the news crews that swarmed the place when the warehouse burned down. National news, can you believe it.” The man’s eyes smiled at them. “This is just the crowd here for the one year anniversary and the official burial of the bones.”

“Oh, so they’re just here for the event,” Sherry gave a sigh of relief. “I was afraid it was always like this.” She wrapped herself around Gin’s upper arm leaning her head against him. 

Gin was very conscious of where they now touched; the soft press of her. Barring the odd occasion, their physical interactions to that point had been at Gin’s lead; he was the one to pull her to him. This contact felt different, unexpectedly charged by her initiation, and not just because he’d already been thinking of her sexually. 

But, there was also a slight feeling of alarm; his training told him to be wary of someone so close to where he kept his gun. 

“You’re not here for the festival?” the clerk asked. 

“Not originally, but I’m not against the idea of going.” She said with a cheery tilt of the head. “We plan on staying a while longer than just the festival. The island has an interesting history. Is there some place we could rent for a longer period of time? Maybe somewhere a little more private. We were looking for more of the remote appeal of the island.” Sherry said, every bit the part of a blushing newlywed. He was sure she intended to use the facade to manipulate the locals. It hadn’t taken her long to pin down which story would be most effective.

He made a point of keeping his hands in his pockets. Whatever the explanation she intended to fabricate as their reason for being there, probably somewhere between a lover’s retreat and a honeymoon, he made a point not to contradict her implications. 

The man behind the counter turned to look through the drawers of a filing cabinet. “The mermaid lure of the island does have a certain romantic appeal doesn’t it. I wonder if we won’t see more of your sort now that the island has spent so much time in the media. Better than the unsavory type of attention it currently seems to attract.” He made a point of raising his voice so the so called unsavory characters would hear his comments. They didn’t seem to pay him much mind. They were more occupied questioning a local girl who worked there about the arrows they had inquired after before. 

The clerk found what he had been rifling through the filing cabinet to find and shut the drawer. “I don’t mind the tourists so much as the fortune-hunting type the media attention has brought us. We did see tourists before the bones they found went and made our island famous, but we never saw their type until the news story made the festival’s arrows seem so much more valuable. It was actually a couple not unlike yourselves, who were interested in the mermaid lure of the island, who built the cabin off in the woods more than a dozen years ago that I think you might be interested in. I thought for sure they would end up staying year round eventually, but they ended up leaving it to me to rent out not two years after they completed it. You remind me of the woman. Elena I think it was.”

“Elena Miyano?” Sherry jumped on the opportunity to ask, perhaps hoping to cut into the long winded man’s speech before he started up again. 

“Yes, you know her?”

“My mother.”

“Strange. I feel like I should have known. You’re so much like her. She was a sweet soul.” The man’s eyes gleamed with a remembered joy. “Though I would have thought they’d have brought any kids in later years if they had any.”

“They passed away more than a decade ago, probably not long after you last saw them.”

“My condolences. I’m sorry to hear that, they were good friends.” For once the clerk fell silent, his flowing monologue turning internal and sorrowful. 

“The cabin?” Gin prodded hoping to spur the exchange back to its original purpose. Ever aware that the camera equipment would only take so long to set up. 

“Right, it’s very isolated if that’s more what you were looking for. Although I’d be careful walking about that area in the dark because of the sharp drop off of the gorge. That’s why I don’t normally rent it out to tourists or the fortune-hunting like.” He handed them a key and a rough map of the island that outlined the paths that lead to the cabin. “I would give you directions, but really it’s safer with the map.” There was an unspoken implication that he didn’t want to say the directions aloud where the fortune hunters could listen in.

“Thank you,” Sherry said as they started on their way out. 

“I almost forgot.” The clerk’s voice caught them just before they were through the door. “You can sign up for a chance at the arrows in the festival if you’d like.” Gin, impatient at the delay in getting out of sight of the cameras that the wordy man had already caused, nearly did not stop at the door. Sherry caught the edge of his jacket. She gave him a knowing look as if to say it would be unwise to be rude to this man. The clerk had not stopped speaking. “They’re a charm for keeping bad spirits away. Err- well it’s supposed to aid in giving you a long life. Anyways, you needn’t worry about what I said about the arrows being more valuable nowadays. Signing up for the drawing is the same as it’s always been. And that’s not very much. I’d hurry and see if there’s still an open spot for the drawing. I don’t think too many of the tourists know it’s only five yen since we see mostly more of the affluent type heading to the shrine.”

“Thanks, we better be on our way then,” Sherry said, finally managing to get through the door before the clerk found something else he wanted to say. They were out in the crowds once more, being careful to both blend in and face away from the large cameras that panned across the festival’s crowds. 

“The long-life charm can’t be a coincidence,” Sherry said, the cheery newlywed manner lost. “We should sign up for one and see if we can’t find the connection. The locals would probably discourage the filming of the festival’s ceremony itself so it should be safe to go.”

Gin nodded, still holding close to her as they made their way to the edge of the crowd and then out of sight of the cameras covering the event.

Chapter Text

Chapter 22

A couple hours had passed since their arrival to the island, and it was only a matter of minutes before the festival was due to start. The sun had long since left the sky dark, and the night air bit at Sherry’s nose and cheeks.

Crowds of people clustered in front of the shrine in anticipation. Though, Gin and Sherry held back further down the road. They could still see the crowds outlined in torchlight and heard the clamor of tourists from there, but they were far enough back to not even be considered on the outskirts of those attending. Gin's excessive precaution had expanded to envelop her as well, since they’d arrived at the island. The protectiveness might have been charming, if it weren’t so irritating as well. 

Sherry held the numbered marker that represented the slot she held in the raffle for one of the festival’s arrows. She’d ended up signing her real name on the records given that she had already indirectly revealed her identity to the local hotel clerk. If Gin had realized her intention, he would have discouraged this. But just before, she’d asked him to retrieve one of the hairs off the village elder, Mikoto Shimabukuro, who had been at the shrine. And, ever since he’d seen the guest book, he had been acting a bit terse with her.

Truthfully, she knew better. But Sherry felt a strange sort of connection to the people on this island; as if she was already a distant part of it. Her parents had been friends with the locals, not an easy feat unless you were practically one of them. Would they have brought her and Akemi here when they got a bit older? Introduced them to the locals, and showed them around the festival? 

She squeezed the wooden marker tightly against her bare skin, having pocketed her glove earlier in the evening. How many times had her mother held a token like this one, waiting with the crowd for the raffle to be drawn? Why hadn’t they brought her - she should have a memory of sitting on her father’s shoulders, eating a candied fruit, and waiting for the drums to start. But what would that really change, it would be just one more fragment fading away from her, no matter how hard she clutched after it. Like a slowly drying sandcastle she could do nothing to repair.

“Did you end up getting the hair?” She spoke at a normal volume to Gin. She had little to fear in the way of someone overhearing them. Everyone on the island would be at the festival, and they were far enough from the crowds so not to be overheard.

Gin held out a fist above her hand, and dropped the strand when she opened her own. Sherry had to pocket the marker first, but caught the white strand.

The festival’s arrows were originally for keeping bad spirits away, but the reason they were also said to prolong a person’s life was because the arrows were made with the hair of the elder who was rumored to be unnaturally old.

 Originally, Sherry had wanted a strand of the hair in order to examine it for unnatural changes or properties that might give clues about the elder’s long life. However, the elder’s hair had looked strange to her when she saw it in person at the shrine, and she now had a hunch.

She ran her fingers along the strand, sighing inwardly at being proven correct. 

“Well?” Gin asked as if expecting her to perform some feat of magic ‘science’ that would tell them something immediately helpful. She had found something, but it was the implication that science worked in that way that was irksome. If she’d wanted it for the original reason she had thought, she’d have been able to learn next to nothing at this stage.

“The hair is synthetic; this whole festival is just a production. Real and synthetic hair behave differently. Pinch a strand of your hair between your fingers and run them down the length of hair. Then pull back up. With real hair, there is resistance going against the way it grew, with synthetic it is smooth both directions.”

“It’s not like we were expecting her to really have gained immortality from eating mermaid meat.” He dismissed, his almost mocking tone stoking her already heating irritation. 

While it was true that they had expected this to be a sham, they both knew immortality was possible. They had seen those who never grew any older than they had always been to them. It was why the organization chased after a salve for immortality so aggressively, because they knew it could be achieved. 

“I thought they may have a wig of human hair at first, but one that looks realistic costs more than this production would profit them. What doesn’t make sense is the hair they wrap around the arrows. They’d have to be reasonably confident they wouldn’t be found out for a sham with such powerful people signing up to get one. Perhaps those are human hair, even if they aren’t from the so-called elder.”

“Is it really worth checking, if we know the elder is just a costume?” Gin said. Gin was perhaps too quick to rule out possibilities he saw as impossible. She figured that it was useful when making the on his feet decisions his work often required, but also left room for oversight when situations were more complicated than they first appeared.

“There are still questions I want to look into. They said they were burying the bones tonight.”

“Of the woman they are calling a mermaid?” His skepticism was all but insultingly condescending. “You want to see them, don’t you?”

“The folklore mentions both the flesh and the bones having the power to grant immortality. I just want answers, Gin.” She snapped at him. “You could say I’m just as suspicious of everything being chalked up to superstitious locals as you are to believing in their alleged supernatural causes. There has to be something about this island, or they wouldn’t have kept coming back.” 

He seemed to accept this, or at least realized he’d irritated her and let it be. 

There was a crashing sound behind one of the nearby buildings that caught their attention. Had someone been spying on them. Before it had really registered to her Gin had already run after it. She chased after him, though he had stopped at the back of the building, and no one was nearby. 

A fishing net had gotten caught over a couple of boxes, and the boxes had been toppled like someone had gotten their foot caught in the net. 

They hadn’t said anything that unusual or sensitive considering the bones were probably what everyone on that island was gossiping about tonight, but she didn’t like the idea of being spied on, and neither did Gin from the look on his face. 

...

Gin scanned the brush behind the buildings for movement. He and Sherry had been standing in the dark long enough for his eyes to have adjusted to it. Even still the black outline of plants at the forest’s edge did not sway like someone had just cut through there. Meaning whoever had knocked over the boxes had not retreated into the treeline. 

Someone had obviously just gotten their foot caught in that fishing net and caused that noise, but they must have run back between the buildings and slipped into the crowd at the festival.

The thunderous pound of drums started a short distance away, covering any chance of Gin hearing the retreating footsteps of whoever had just been spying on them. For the person to have made it far enough away that Gin hadn’t spotted them when he made chase meant they must have left just before Sherry finished speaking. What had made them run? Surely something triggered their desire to stop eavesdropping and move away.

Gin started along the other side of the building, following the direction he guessed the other person would have gone. The path between buildings let out at the edge of the festival’s crowd. The tourists had quieted, but the festival’s drums still covered any suspicious noises he might have followed. 

Sherry tugged at his sleeve. “Take my arm.” 

He did, taking up the manner of a couple out on a night walk rather than a man in pursuit. They blended into the edge of the festival’s crowd. Everyone was standing with their sights on the front of the shrine. Sherry had been correct before in assuming that the festival’s ceremonies would not be filmed out of respect. He found where the news crew was standing in the crowd without their heavy equipment. A couple of them held wooden markers for the arrow raffle as well.

He continued to glance around the crowd, looking for anyone acting strangely. A wise man would stand still like the others. But, having already made the mistake of knocking over those boxes human nature made whomever he was chasing likely to look back for someone following him. 

No one was darting glances back at the crowd though, all eyes were glued to the shrine where the elder had emerged. He didn’t care about the festival’s ceremony and so looked away for a moment only to have his eyes drawn back to the front of the shrine when the amount of light coming from that direction increased. The elder had lit fire to the paper screens of the shrine. Numbers emerged blazed in fire. One by one the short elder moved the long end of a pole, that she must have lit the end of in the large torch in front of the shrine, to three of the front screens on the shrine. Three numbers burned in light before the crowd, and the three corresponding people in the crowd exclaimed in excitement. 

A woman explained that traditionally they would now ask those who had won an arrow to meet at the base of a waterfall, but this year they would wait until the burial ceremony was over to hold that event. 

For the next half hour, the service for the unidentified woman took place. There was no mention of the rumors that the bones had belonged to a mermaid. Gin could tell which adults in the crowd were locals and which were tourists. The tourists remained just as fascinated as they had been by the fire and drawing for the arrows. This was just another spectacle to them. The locals were in contrast now entirely respectful and somber. This wasn't simply an interesting event, it was a funeral, even if the bones did not have a family to attend it and perform the more traditional rituals.

The bones did not look inhuman at all, they were simply missing the bottom half. They probably would not have been mistaken for a mermaid at all were it not for the existing lure about them tied to this island. Gin remained convinced that whatever they might find on this island it likely wasn’t tied to the festival or the bones. 

“Satisfied?” he turned to Sherry. Her eyes were wide, and she wasn’t responding to him. He realized in shifting to look down at her that she had been clutching his arm more tightly than she had been originally.

“Sherry?” He grabbed her shoulders on either side, trying to get her to look at something other than the burial before them. Her eyes didn’t focus on him and seemed somewhere far away. She was compliant in looking up at him though. As if slowly floating to the surface of consciousness she blinked and came into her surroundings again.  

“We should go,” she said, staring into the blazing torch light a moment before starting away from the crowds.

Funerals were symbols of grieving, and were supposed to affect people emotionally. Even if a person wasn’t connected to those who had died personally, the ritual of it pulls people back to a time when they had lost someone. Gin was aware of this, but at the same time felt somehow exempt from the social convention. The Organization did not hold funerals; did not dwell on death. Sherry did not maintain that same emotional distance, that was clear.   

They walked back to the cabin in the woods in silence. Both of them had already memorized the way there and left the map in the cabin with their belongings. Sherry didn’t seem obliged to talk about her behavior at the funeral and Gin had no intentions of forcing her. Still, he kept a close watch of her, making sure she didn’t zone out again, ensuring she walked on the inside of the path next to the gorge.

They made it back to the cabin without incident and found the cabin to be nearly as cold as the night air. They hadn’t started a fire before they left and that was the small cabin’s primary source of heat. Gin got one going, but it wouldn’t warm the interior for hours. 

That first night was cold and was made even more so by lingering thoughts of death and grieving.  Watching Sherry pulled back to that place led his own thoughts to wander back to when he was fifteen, now without a teacher when he needed guidance most. He’d been unable to rest, so grief stricken and burning with anger. He’d thrown himself into any work he was assigned for the organization. Sought assignments out. From the moment he’d been told that the only person that had ever mattered to him had been killed, there wasn't a part of his brain that wasn't entirely dedicated, and more importantly occupied, with the work. He had a single-minded drive to achieve his goal, and he knew he would need to prove his worth to do it. It took him a year before he all but demanded the codename of his lost companion from the boss. And even by then his anger had not cooled enough to see how insane that had been. This remembering was perhaps the same social convention he had considered himself exempt from, this shared mourning. 

They both laid out on the floor in front of the fireplace to sleep, and Gin found Sherry staring into the flames more often than he found her asleep when he woke up periodically to tend to the fire.

Chapter Text

Chapter 23

Gin was up early to get the fire going again. The cabin had warmed up considerably, but he didn’t want it to lose too much heat while they were out and leave the place cold when they got back again.  

He knew it was much too soon after arriving to start digging for information from the locals. Sherry had made a good start on getting them to trust her, but it would be weeks or perhaps months before they could get the sensitive answers they wanted. Certainly, it was too close to tourist season to get decent answers. Plus, they had the question of who had been spying on them still unresolved. It would be a good day to search the physical island for clues, and get a general feel for who belonged where among the locals, but he wanted to wait for Sherry to start and he didn’t expect her to be up for a while yet. 

He left her to her sleep and took a walk to survey their immediate perimeter, letting his mind wander to his childhood memories once again. Gin wasn’t overly optimistic there would be any clues as to why his predecessor came to the island with the Miyano’s. In the years Gin had spent under his mentor’s tutelage, the man had been utilized more as a fixer than for project oversight. Whenever there was a situation in need of decisive action he would quietly, or not so quietly, set things to rights. And although his mentor often walked him through how he conducted each of these operations, Gin was not so naive to think there weren’t more than a few deemed too important for him to know of their existence. 

He figured he might have slightly more luck in discovering a connection to the spy within the organization who sold his mentor out. Although, he couldn’t think of any more direct references the man had made to the time before they met off the top of his head. He did consider the fact that what the man was most conscious of may have bled into his training. What he most highlighted may potentially have to do with safeguarding his student against mistakes he had made himself. Mistakes that may have led a spy or turncoat know that his name could lead to the boss. 

If someone would have asked Gin’s younger self what he had been taught by his tutor anytime during the first several months of his training he would have responded, quite bitterly, that he hadn’t taught him a single bloody thing. This was, of course, untrue, he was in the middle of his first major lesson for that entire span. He wouldn’t see that until the end of those months, and wouldn’t appreciate his tutor’s brilliance for many years after the bitterness had faded. 

The lesson had started on the first day when his tutor had taken him to an organization training facility and run him through a moderately difficult simulation completely untrained. He had programmed the system to chart several metrics of his performance and calculate a percentage against the expected level of proficiency. Essentially producing a score that would print out on a fax in his office. He then told Gin what score he would have to achieve before he was given a gun to carry on his person. He also told him that if he hadn’t achieved that score by the time he was thirteen he would never train him at all. 

The man went about all this with an air of disinterest, making it clear he had little faith in Gin’s ability to accomplish the goals he set for him. He’d given the impression that when Gin would inevitably fail at this that he would be absolved of his charge to train him. 

That first day was the most he spoke to Gin in that entire time period. He made no further efforts to instruct him at all. Gin was quickly fed up with this laissez-faire style; he wasn’t just letting him teach himself he didn’t expect him to succeed at all.  

He was mad for a few days, then that triggered his natural propensity for defiance. The same streak of defiance that had led him to eavesdrop so much in his youth before then. That, in turn, made him determined. He was worth training, and he would prove his tutor wrong; he’d force his hand and make him train him if he had to. 

He set out studying how to hold and fire a gun. How he was supposed to stand, and how to improve his aim. He went to the training facility he’d been taken to before on his own and worked through the different difficulties of the simulations from the beginning levels. All the while set on the idea of surpassing the goals his tutor had put above him.

Occasionally he ran into his tutor in the lobby of the training facility, and would ask him a question, trying to prod him into acting like a real teacher. He would give simplistic answers, some more helpful than others, but never said more than he was asked. 

After several months of this, he was ready to confront him about the gun. It was a week after he had decided this before he saw the man again in the lobby of the training facility reading something Gin couldn’t see the face of, set inside a folder.

“Here’s my score.” his younger self held up the paper at the same level of his face, his expression determined. It far exceeded the score his tutor had said he needed to get. “Now you owe me a gun.” 

The man looked up, only marginally less disinterested than before. “Good, now you’re not liable to shoot yourself in the foot, and we can get somewhere.” 

Gin’s feeling of triumph played across his young face as if it had been written there. After months he had finally done it. He had proven his tutor wrong, he was worth training, and had shattered the man’s low expectations for him.

His tutor watched him with an underlying expression of guilt, though Gin had not placed it at the time. His tutor paused for a moment before deciding something. 

“What do you think the point of this exercise was?”

“The point?” Confusion washed over him. “What exercise? You’ve been ignoring me for months when you should have been teaching me.”

His tutor’s mouth formed into a pursed smile before continuing as if Gin hadn’t responded. “The first real lesson you needed to learn is that fighting isn’t all about combat. You need to be aware of when someone is manipulating you. Also that it is always more beneficial to them.”

Gin sat down on the floor cross-legged, resting his jaw on fisted hands. He didn’t know what the man was talking about, but he had worked this hard for the man to teach him anything and wasn’t about to throw that away now. 

“As you are, you are a very easy target.” The man informed him.

Gin scowled up at him, thinking of protesting. The man was saying he had actually done what his tutor had wanted him to do all along? If he’d wanted him to train he should have just instructed him in the first place. There hadn’t been a need to get him to try harder or take things seriously. He hadn’t been a bad student that first day, he had tried his best, and shown respect even though the man had been awful to him. 

“I wanted the gun, that’s all.” Gin said in open defiance. He wouldn’t let this so-called tutor pretend like this is what he planned all along, and steal his victory from him.  

“No, I don’t think that’s it. You had never wanted a gun before then, did you? And I wasn’t really stopping you from getting one.” 

Gin’s scowl continued. 

“So what did you really want?” The man posed the question.

“To prove you wrong.” 

“Yes, in a way.” He gave an amused laugh. “but deeper than that.”

There wasn’t anything deeper than that! That was the thought that Gin had in his head every time he had strained his body training these past months. His tutor didn’t think he could do it and he would prove him wrong.

Gin rephrased to appease him. “To prove myself.”

The man took up that wry smile of his. “To whom?”

Gin considered this for a moment, finding the answer but not wanting to say it. He’d wanted to prove himself to his tutor, the same man he had been despising all that time. 

“You wanted my approval because I made you feel I was above you by showing you your shortcomings and denying you acknowledgement.” His tutor explained. He was right, and Gin hated him for it. He hadn’t won anything at all, he’d only been manipulated into thinking he had, manipulated into behaving exactly as his tutor had intended. 

It had been a hard first lesson to learn, and experience would always be a better teacher than being told outright. Still, it had been a harsh way of driving home a point to someone as young and alone as he’d been; to twist that sliver of innocent admiration and budding need for approval that must have been so obvious, simply to point out that very thing made him vulnerable.

  So the first real lesson his mentor gave was a warning to guard himself against the manipulative influences of others. It wasn’t what he might have expected of a first lesson, especially when having an obedient and respectful student would have been much easier than one encouraged to think through the intentions of others. Its unusualness only made him wonder what had happened in the man’s past to see it as such a priority.

A thought occurred to him in passing; if his mentor hadn’t thought of teaching him to guard himself against manipulative people he probably would have fallen prey to Vermouth’s wishes ages ago. He still wasn’t sure if his interactions with that woman left him entirely unswayed to her will. She was a master of her craft and their every exchange seemed a battle.

He shrugged this thought off, trying to think of clues as to what his mentor’s bad experience with being manipulated in the past might have been. 

...

The soft morning rays woke Sherry when the sunlight on her skin from through the window became hotter than the fire in front of her had been. The firelight now seemed dim in comparison. 

She’d spent so much time mesmerized by that flame. The torchlight at the burial made her think of crematories, and car crashes, and the last time she’d seen her parents before their accident: the day they left for a trip they’d never return from. Then that day a month later when she left for America, and everything changed. 

She stood, brushing the ashes from last night’s fire from her clothes, and looked around the room. It was much more welcoming now in the daylight. This cabin had belonged to her parents, but it felt too neat for them; a hybrid of traditional Japanese and minimalist western design that tried to take advantage of the limited space with low lying furniture that could be arranged according to function and stored away when unneeded. She shook the blankets and folded them along with the other items in the futon set before placing them back into the drawers of the dresser and storage closets built along one wall. If only because Gin had done the same.

She found Gin outside sitting on the bench at the edge of the gorge overlooking the drop. 

“That seems like a terrible place to put a bench.” She said to get his attention. “Though I suppose my parents were never ones for safety precautions.” She had crossed her arms in front of her stomach because of the cold. Really that little cabin had retained the heat quite well once they got the fire going.

“I’d say it’s the opposite, it reminds you it’s there,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We should go into town and get some food.”

“It would be helpful to meet more of the locals too, get them used to seeing us.” She made a quick detour to get her coat before she started into the forest towards town. 

Upon arriving in town they found several locals out in the street and in uproar, and a small crowd of remaining tourists watching from a distance. There was a rough half circle of men with arms folded and cross expressions. They were circled around the area where the mermaid bones had been buried the night before. Even from that distance, she could tell the dirt had been disturbed. 

“Why would-?” Sherry started in utter disbelief coming closer to the site. 

“Grave robbers,” one of the younger men said before she had formed any sort of question. “Damn them.”

The grave had been dug up in the night and a few of the bones were missing. The men around the site grumbled words of anger, checking if anyone had seen who had done it. No one had. 

Sherry backed away after giving her own exclamations and pulled Gin aside. She made sure she was truly out of earshot this time and whispered directly into his ear. 

“How much do you think mermaid bones would go for given the right buyer? Mermaid bones rumored to have already granted someone an unnaturally long life.”

He gave her a strange look, this was not what he had been expecting her to say. 

“The fortune hunters.” He said coming to an understanding.  “You don’t think what you said before-” 

She gave him a look that stopped him from finishing that thought. That was exactly what she thought; mentioning the bones were just as valuable as the flesh of a mermaid that had been burned and lost in the storehouse fire had led to the bones being stolen.

Chapter Text

Chapter 24

Sherry swallowed down an uncomfortable feeling of guilt at being partly responsible for the desecration of the mermaid grave. She couldn’t allow that to cloud her mind now. Not when this mission was at such a precarious tipping point. 

Handled correctly the situation with the grave robbing may be just the event to pull them closer to the locals. Such an atrocity held the power to bring people together in their shared status of witness and ability to empathize. 

The opportunity was monumental, but at the same time, it made her feel manipulative and sick at using it. This couldn’t be better in the way of accomplishing their goals than if they had planned it. But having caused it- to first cause such a devastating event and then take advantage of it by empathizing with the locals over it.

It felt wrong. 

She couldn’t let herself keep thinking about it this way. Surely her guilt showed on her face. If they misstepped at such a fragile time for the island they’d lose everything. The community was wounded and would soon pull together. They could either be in that group, or be excluded. If they handled this poorly, they would be iced out of the small island’s community forever. They’d be no different than tourists that simply stayed past their welcome.

Despite the nausea it caused her she whispered her thinking into Gin’s ear. He was quick to agree. Now was the time to act. Act, or accept this mission as a failure. 

They walked up to a group of mostly local women standing back a ways from where the majority of men stood around the grave site. The men that had come out to deliberate around the grave site would be to set on wanting to act in some way to fix things this morning for it to do any good talking with them past expressing their shared anger. They likely would pay little attention to anything not pertaining to finding the perpetrators or otherwise fixing their current problem. 

Today their efforts were best spent among those that hung back. Sherry bet it would not be long before this group started working to emotionally contain the situation. If anyone would remember their efforts to empathize and console it would be those who thought to do likewise. Sherry came up to a middle aged woman she’d seen working in some sort of restaurant or cafe the day before. It was likely a place only open during the tourist season, but still it put her in more of a serving position than the others.     

“Can we help by cleaning up last night’s festivities, or perhaps getting something warm for people to drink, since everyone seems to be up anyway.” She had carefully crafted this question. Instead of simply offering help that could be answered with a yes or a no, she offered two options to choose from. The woman might still refuse both, but it was slightly more likely she would pick one instead. It didn’t really matter what they offered to do helpwise. The idea was getting the locals to do something to busy their hands and occupy their minds.

“A good idea.” The woman gestured for a few others in the crowd to come aid her, instantly forming a committee. “It’s a rather cold morning. I’m sure everyone will appreciate something warm to hold.”  

Gin and Sherry soon found themselves delivering steaming cups with the others. This made a good segue to meeting a great number of locals all at once. The immediate gift also lent itself to being more easily accepted and trusted, especially considering they could attribute that gift to the group of women doing likewise, making it less suspicious.

Other islanders took their cue from the group that had started moving about and soon found helpful tasks to busy themselves with rather than remain standing around gawking. 

...

They had a good starting point now, and worked themselves into the tasks of the locals, all the while remaining helpful and empathetic. This would continue for the next few days. As the small community recuperated they made sure to make their presence felt. They consoled, and empathized with them, essentially cajoling the locals into liking and trusting them.

Gin had wanted to spend some time exploring the island, but they put it off, opting to remain where the locals could see them during daylight hours. She figured this would help put any doubts the locals had about them at ease. People you knew where to find a majority of the time were markedly less suspicious than those you were not used to seeing. 

After those first essential days the tone of the island shifted back towards normal life. They continued to remain prominent members of the community, hoping to secure a place of trust before withdrawing. 

...

They had been at the act of the good couple for several weeks before they managed to be invited to dinner for the first time with one of the families. Which isn’t to say they hadn’t already been working to build the folklore enthusiast reputation. At every opportunity, Sherry entertained with legends about mythological creatures, easing into mermaid legends. Mermaid sightings had been documented in Japanese histories since some of the earliest written records, and she memorized a fair collection of these stories to pull from. She also shared a scattering of fictional trips she’d taken, or intended to take, with Gin to other historical mermaid sites in Japan. It was the most organic way to let everyone know they’d welcome any legend someone would be willing to share, without demanding the information outright. 

Gin, for his part, was shockingly well versed in these types of small social dances. Sherry had been mentally preparing to have to work around his standoffish nature. But found it entirely unneeded. He played a complementary role, always creating openings in conversations for her, showing her off, and encouraging the interest in folklore with the deft hand of a supportive lover. And yet, the act still felt like Gin somehow; with his typically commanding yet reserved air of competence on full display, but it was almost as if he gave it less teeth. 

She nearly worked herself up to bringing up the topic of his usually dormant social prowess in more than just the occasional questioning glance by the time they attended their first dinner party. But the nature of the game changed that night, and by the end of it, Sherry had sworn off any attempts to derive truths about the two of them from the faces they put on for the locals. It had all gotten confused; the desire she pretended for him, and the desire she felt. She could have sworn he’d done it on purpose. And that was, by point of fact, the problem. 

It had started the same as all their pretending had. A simple avenue for her to begin telling fables and legends so they could work around to the topic of mermaids and local lore. But the way he spoke of her, praised her, he wasn’t talking about the fictional storyteller and folktale enthusiast she was playing. It was Sherry’s brilliance he admired; Sherry’s manner of speech and a thousand little bits of knowledge waiting with an answer before he even knew the question.

And it was the way he touched her. A firm hand at her back, a brush at her neck. Not even for display, not even when others would see. They had been keeping their public displays of affection to a chaste minimum to that point. Taking each other’s arm, and whispering in one another’s ears, comprised the bulk of it. But, the way he doted on her that night and looked at her when she was telling a story was anything but chaste; he managed to appear so totally enthralled, like the only thing keeping him from ravaging her on the spot was that they were in the company of others. It had caused her to become distracted and flushed on several occasions in the middle of her storytelling, which their hosts found riotously funny and had been strangely effective in getting people to lower their walls. 

And that was the crux of the matter: exciting those emotions in her had furthered their goals. It might have been a means to an end, part of the act. Even those private touches, and those words meant only to be understood by her. Sherry’s reaction to Gin’s attention sold their story and endeared them to the locals more effectively than anything they’d done to that point. And still it seemed a poor trade.

The local legends that they uncovered were not particularly unique. The island had always been a hot spot for mermaid sightings and had a long history of ships being lost at sea. The local fishermen had strong superstitions and preventive measures to ensure the creatures were not dragged up by their nets. And there was a scattering of stories, or all broken pieces of the same very old story, of a local man who caught one that he didn’t let go quick enough and it caused a devastating storm that destroyed much of the village at the time. Curiously, the elder eating mermaid flesh for a long life was not mentioned often, and only once by anyone older than thirty, and even then, only in passing.

... 

On the evenings without a dinner invitation, which in fact was most evenings, Gin spent time away from her drinking with the men of the village, under the presumption that men were more likely to talk about serious matters without a woman around. This turned out to be a fair assumption, as Gin came back with regular updates on town affairs, though often did not have the chance to share until the next morning.

“The elder wants to move the burial site, but doesn’t want anyone to know where it will be this time.” Gin began without prelude. “She doesn’t seem to trust anyone.”

“Even locals?” she asked. They were long since out of range of overhearing ears so they spoke frankly.

About a month in, they had started taking daily walks to explore the island and gradually disperse the time they had spent in town to more useful activities. Taking care to begin their withdrawal slowly, since they didn’t want to stop showing up all at once. By this point they had explored everything but the far side of Bikuni Island, and its rock lined bay.

He nodded. “The men she has been having look over the bones say they’ll only be responsible for them for a few more days. They seem to have given up on finding the handful of bones that were stolen as well. The general feeling is that it was concealed in luggage and taken off the island weeks ago.”

“But the elder obviously doesn’t feel that way, if she’s not telling the locals the new burial site.” They walked at each other’s side, not holding arms like they would have closer to town. It would have been cumbersome to do so at this incline besides, and Sherry found it just as enjoyable. More so even, since they felt wholly themselves on these walks, free to air out their thinking. Even if they disagreed more often than not. “She may not be as old as her appearance would like us to believe, but is she really so young she could bury them in secret herself? The locals don’t question how long she’s been around and the very youngest I’ve heard is ninety, but most are saying closer to 130. She also has a great granddaughter, Kimie, in her mid twenties. Is it possible Mikoto achieved some form of extended youth, and is only disguising herself to look her real age?’

“Unlikely,” Gin said, ever the skeptic. “An easier explanation would be that everyone is lying. They’re in on it to maintain tourism.”

“Sure, they could be in on the sham now, but were they always? It’s such a strange tradition to have sprung up from nowhere.” The path narrowed as they climbed higher, now too narrow for two. 

The hike up this side was supposed to give a good overview of the ocean at the end. But, currently a canopy of trees, thick with leaves only just settling into their first tentative breaths of autumn color covered any view out that way and shaded the path they were on. Sherry stepped ahead, driven by the questions and potential answer tumbling about in her head. “Mikoto Shimabukuro was a real person, with living descendants who maintain the shrine; when did they switch from Mikoto holding ceremonies to someone playing Mikoto doing it?”

“Could be that the elder was too sick to hold the ceremony, but they wanted to keep a good face. Then since they’d already been pretending, they carried on after she passed.” 

 “But, when did she die, where was she buried? Why didn’t they mourn her, why keep pretending she’s alive at all? They could have passed the tradition on to the next shrine maiden. It couldn’t have been to continue the tradition of the long life charms. The charms weren’t originally made to do that. That myth originated from the long lived elder, not the other way around.” The path switched back, and Sherry caught the way he’d been watching her. He hardly looked like he was engaged in a disagreement at all, but it was hard to name the expression in his eyes. Not pleased specifically, appreciative maybe. 

“They had a couple generations lost a sea, could be they thought keeping the elder figure helped secure the shrine in their family.” He offered casually. 

He was playing devil’s advocate on purpose. Voicing the opposite side of whatever idea she posed as a matter of discussion and not because he always thought she was wrong, or he knew better. She nearly tripped over a root as the thought came to her.

“Those lost generations are even more suspicious, not less.” Sherry continued. “That’s two more Shimabukuro women presumed dead, without a body to prove it. That could be evidence that the elder is playing her own descendants, using the great granddaughter as her alternate.” She stopped a moment as they reached the end of the tree cover. It made her think of Vermouth. She’d heard a rumor that Vermouth had played the descendants trick in order to maintain the fame of one of her aliases, an actress that had made it big. This hypothetical woman was even more similar to Vermouth because of the skill in makeup she would have to have in order to pull off the elder. “She has been playing through each generation to explain her youth.”

Sherry watched Gin think through this possibility, and nod to himself in acknowledgment without saying anything to that effect. How many of those little acknowledgments of the validity of her point had she missed?

“Let’s hope that’s not the case.” Gin started up the mountain side again, “Women that have been around that long are... difficult.” 

Sherry stifled a laugh and followed after him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 25

Gin came to the overlook sight slightly ahead of Sherry, trying to shake the thought of potentially having met another unaging person without knowing it. He ought to have a keener sense for it, but if Sherry’s theory was correct, his instincts had failed him in sniffing her out. Kimie, the elder’s great-granddaughter was twenty-five, ostensibly. Her face was very youthful, with wide round eyes and smaller face shape overall. She might have passed for even younger frankly, and it was eerie to conceptualize 100 years of living with a face that childlike.

Sherry arrived not long after Gin, cursing his long legs and endless stamina.

He gave her a moment to catch her breath before asking, “So, why are we here?” 

“Straight to business I see,” Sherry said, glancing up at him from where she’d ducked her head, her hands braced on her thighs. Her face was appealingly flushed, along with what he could see of her neck, raising the question of how far the rosy hue spread down her chest. 

“Unless you had other intentions? I suppose being on the opposite side of the island from everyone else would afford us some small privacy.” He brushed an errant lock of her hair behind her ear, leaving his hand to linger there, drawing slowly along the edge. Her eyes closed as she breathed in the contact.

“Gin, I don’t think-” She started, and he withdrew before she could shoo him away. 

“I thought it might be a loophole in your little self-imposed rule,” He lied, watching her fight down the longing that’d bloomed across her face. She wouldn’t accept any advances from him while they were at the cabin when they retired in the evenings, despite the desire so frequently evident in her behavior. Not here , she had told him, and he doubted she had meant merely to encompass the cabin in that. 

It seemed a bit fickle by his estimation. She had been the one to invent their facade after all and had been using it to push boundaries with him. Only to pull back as soon as he’d used it the same way. 

“All I meant was you didn’t really stop to take in the view.” She tilted her head as a means of gesturing behind him to the overlook. It was true enough, he had turned back to watch her walk up as soon as he’d arrived, only noting the view beyond in passing. He did so now at her behest, leaving room for Sherry beside him.  

The overlook sight offered a clear view out over the tree line and to the ocean.  They had enough vantage to see some distance over the ocean and even beyond the sandbar, before the waves broke into white peaks.  This particular overlook was at the highest elevation you could reach on the island without climbing gear and still see the ocean, and Sherry had had them wait for a day when the waves were large, and had timed it so they’d be here at the hour of low tide. Sherry sighed contentedly and he was unsuccessful in not letting her pull his attention from the view once again.

After a time, she pulled out her father’s journal. “There is kind of a distorted mushroom shape with a jagged line through the stock right before the cap. Anyways, I think it's a diagram of a rip current breaking through the sand bar. I figured the diagram may serve as a reminder of something else he could see from the view where you could see that particular rip current, and we’d have the best chance of finding it here.” 

Gin eyed the jagged line she’d referred to on the page and compared it against the rocky outcropping that cut into the bay off the edge of a peninsula. He settled on a set of rocks with a distinctive gap between them around the same time Sherry pointed in that direction, frowning.

“Can you see anything between those two rocks?” Waves smashed into the rocky shapes from the seaword side, throwing water up into the gap between the two, which was curious, because on the bay side, leading all the way up to the gap, there was a break in the waves in an unnaturally smooth channel through the water. This was a deceptive calm, however. That would be the rip current Sherry came here to find. 

An undercurrent that stopped the surface water from breaking the waves into white peaks, unlike everywhere else where waves rolled over themselves until they crashed onto the shore. Under that patch was what essentially acted as an underwater river that flowed out from the shore and passed the break in the sand bar. The problem was the ocean waves crashing into the gap right where the neck, the strongest portion of the current should be. 

“No.” He drew out the word as he peered more intensely at the curious spot in the water, but the surrounding rocks shaded it too much for him to tell much. “Not from here anyway.”

“I think there must be something blocking the flow of water under the surface where we can’t see it. The undercurrent seems to kink off to the right, rather than pass between the rocks that the diagram suggests. Something that wasn’t there before? Or was the point that he drew it wrong in the first place? Whatever’s there must be of some importance.” She said thinking aloud.

The peninsula that cut out into the ocean by the rocks would offer a closer view of the water in question, so they went to investigate the break in the rocks from there. It took more than two hours to climb down from the overlook and out to the furthest edge of the peninsula. And they had nearly finished the bottle of water Sherry had thought to bring on the excursion by the time they got there. Most of this time was spent carefully navigating the bay side of the rugged, occasionally slippery, rocks that comprised the formation. 

It was slow going with Sherry, and she had multiple near slips and times where she’d simply stop and hesitate before a significant step she’d need to take. Despite the delay, he’d ended up glad she wasn’t overconfident in her ability to traverse these rocks when they drew closer to the spot that the gap in the rocks became visible. It meant she’d not follow him for the more dangerous bit at the end. 

The water running below the surface was churned a bright shade of jade green just visible under the water’s dark surface. Sherry had been right. Between the rocks, just where they expected to find it, was a large shape not quite the same shade as the other rocks. It was blocking a large portion of the channel the undercurrent must have run along before, and a portion of the jade water split off to the right and disappeared somewhere in front of the rock on the other side of the gap.

“A boat?” Gin guessed aloud considering how smooth the object appeared. Still, he would think it would be a bit more reflective if it was a boat hull he was seeing. They were so often painted white or brighter colors.

“There’s not a port on this side of the island.”

“The storms around here are known to throw boats into cliff rocks.” He pointed out. Evidence of shipwrecks supported what the locals said about a history of people being lost at sea. It also was a strike against the elder lying about her family being lost to storms. 

“Stay here a minute,” he instructed her as he began to climb further down the rock toward the deceptively calm waters just below.

“I feel I should mention diving into that riptide would be an effective, but by no means painless, way to kill yourself.” She called after him. “Especially when it sucks you under those rocks on the right there and into a channel much smaller than your body.”

He was dangerously close to the smooth jade surface now, clinging to rocks stained darker from where the water usually rose to cover them, the sound of rushing water echoing about him. “I’m not getting in the water.” He said, glad she’d settled back at the top of the rock and not followed. “I should be able to see the boat’s name. If it’s jammed in there like I think it is.”

He scaled along the rock further into the gap, which narrowed even more than they could tell from above. It made it clear the boat was jammed into the gap from the bay side and wouldn’t have even been able to pass the gap from the seaward side. If the boat had sunk from being thrown against the rocks in a storm, it didn’t make sense for it to be on the bay side of the rocks. But that was besides the point, because it was clear from the blackened scorch pattern radiating from the extensive damage on the vessel that this boat hadn’t gone down simply due to being punctured or battered on cliff rocks. He surveyed the damage in detail, despite the growing ache in his muscles from clinging to the rock face, making several mental notes of blast origin and direction. He found the boat's name as well, still intact. 

“Ningyo Maru,” he informed Sherry as he reemerged from below. “Why would anyone name their boat that?” It brought to mind all the lore concerning mermaids being bad omens of storms and the cause of shipwrecks.

“Irony, black humor,” Sherry offered him the water bottle.

“Bad taste,” Gin put in, taking it with a nod of thanks. 

She rose to her feet, brushing a gritty layer of salt that had had a moment to dry against her clothes. “It is a bit like naming your boat number four.”

“Now I quite like the ring of that one; quite imposing.” 

Sherry smiled at him and shook her head.

Gin considered what the boat wreckage might mean in the larger context of their investigation as they walked back, hesitant to loop Sherry in just yet. He couldn’t say with certainty the age of the shipwreck, but it seemed unlikely it had nothing to do with the previous Gin’s presence on the island all those years ago given that the severity of that explosion wasn’t something found in civilian circumstances. 

...

The journey back to shore felt shorter than their trek out. Perhaps because Sherry had already traversed each of the obstacles before, or because her mind was too occupied with the rising tide and the sunken vessel to worry quite as much over each step along the way. 

Back at the cabin, Sherry set to work researching news reports of a missing or sunken boat called Ningyo Maru in the past decade. Sure enough the name was flagged in an article:

Bikuni Island Locals Lost at Sea During Major Storm: 6 Presumed Dead. 

Among those names were a Mr. and Mrs. Shimabukuro as she had expected to find. Names she had not expected to find were those of her parents. A Mr. and Mrs. Miyano. 

Her parents had died in a car accident when she was young. There was no doubt about that. They couldn’t possibly have also been lost to the sea during a storm, and it gave credence to the idea that the Shimabukuro generations lost at sea were fabricated deaths.

Sherry remembered the day she’d been told her parents were dead vividly. It had been a terribly foggy morning. A woman in black she would soon know as Brandy came to their door. Sherry kept asking question after question, unable to accept the loss. Akemi had been silent, stunned perhaps. Brandy answered everything she’d asked, maybe even giving too much information to children that had just lost their parents when Sherry pushed for it. 

She explained that while on their way home from their trip they had gotten into a terrible accident on the freeway. Several cars had collided, and their parents' car had been caught in the chain reaction. They swerved into oncoming traffic trying not to be caught up in it. Sherry would not believe this could happen until Brandy had explained the fog had made it very hard to see and the cars were going very fast. Sherry had looked up reports on the accident and found the news video of the crunched and scorched metal frames of vehicles from that morning, along with pictures closer to the time of the crash. Pictures of thick black curtains of smoke rising above flaming cars. Their parents' car, barely recognizable. The news anchor explained that once a fire has started somewhere in the crash the spilled gasoline quickly spreads the flames to the other cars involved. 

No, there had been no doubt her parents were dead. 

A funeral had been held that day. She remembered screaming when they cremated the bodies. Screaming that they had been burned enough already; traumatized by the pictures she had looked up. She hadn’t known most people in Japan were cremated. Until the burial on the island, it was the only funeral she had ever been to. The Organization generally did not hold them for their members. Or at least she’d never seen one held for any other member, despite knowing several that had passed. Black was a grieving color, but she had the feeling more than just syndicate members had been there. This supported her theory that her parents hadn’t had alcohol codenames.   

Akemi had been too young to take over as Sherry’s legal guardian at the time, and the Organization shipped her off to America to go to school. 

“The article’s information is false, part of the fabrication for the faked Shimabukuro deaths.”

“Oh?” Gin had been reading over her shoulder. He must have seen her parents' names there; she wouldn’t have to say the words. 

“That’s not how they died.”

Gin, despite his long habit of challenging her information or theories, didn’t question this. Instead, he asked, “What’s the reporter’s source?” 

She scrolled through the rest of the article. An island local had given a statement to the reporter researching the incident. He confirmed that six people had departed in the morning and that they had received a distress signal over the marine radio from the boat minutes before it was believed to have gone down. 

She recognized the name. It was the hotel clerk who’d known her mother, who had rented them the cabin. He had acted like he hadn’t known her parents were dead when they first arrived at the island, hadn’t he? His stories didn’t add up. 

“Do you think he’s in on the immortality cover ups?” She asked Gin.

“He knows more than he’s saying, certainly.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 26

They wasted little time now that they had their first solid lead into events from the previous decade. Stopping only to straighten up before heading into town together.

Taking Sherry’s arm as they approached town came so naturally these days. It wasn’t even something he thought about consciously doing anymore. He’d had to adjust to it at first, nulling the alert that came with allowing her to be so close all the time. Now he found they were locking arms before he was truly aware of it.

And perhaps, if he had been acting more cautiously with her, he might have noticed the determination on her face before they entered the small inn. The clerk had been just where they expected him, leaning forward at the counter reading a faded yellow paperback book. Gin looked down at Sherry, to confirm they were proceeding, and only then noticed the lack of false smiles and doe-eyed glances back at him. 

It occurred to him that perhaps they ought to have waited until Sherry was less emotionally charged to do this. But that realization came much too late. 

“You knew my parents were dead.” She stated flatly, abandoning all the subtlety they’d cultivated in the past weeks. 

“I had wondered when you’d come to ask.” He closed his book and looked up at them, a heaviness weighing down the smile that usually creased his eyes. "Toshimi," he called to someone in the back room. “Would you go see if your father and the others are back with the day’s catch yet? It’s a bit windy today, they might need some help guiding the boats in.” The local girl emerged shortly after he called, seeming as if she would say something, but deciding against it when she noticed they had customers. 

He waited for Toshimi to leave before speaking. “Yes, I knew. I just never knew they had children.”

“Is that why you lied about my parents leaving you the cabin?” Her tone was ice cold, demanding. Gin found it captivating; it made him want to stand back, see how she handled the situation. He could always take control later, and watching Sherry do so now was perhaps too tempting to pass up.

“No, they did leave it to me at the beginning of that year.” The clerk answered, then quietly added. “I never understood that. I always felt Elena knew they were going to die; like she was preparing for it. And that couldn’t make sense because it was a terrible accident-” He choked a bit on the word.

“Accident?” Sherry’s voice didn’t warm, despite his display. “You told reporters they were lost at sea.”

“They were, but not in the storm like I said.” 

“Why lie?”

“I was protecting someone at the time.” The clerk hesitated, rubbing a thumb back and forth across his palm. “But, I guess there’s no point ‘n that now. I was the confidant of the sole survivor of the sinking. She wanted to pretend to perish with the others.”

He didn’t immediately elaborate, and Sherry didn’t press verbally, but her silence demanded enough on its own. Not just her tone then. It was also in her bearing, Gin decided, a part of whatever made her so powerfully alluring when she behaved like this. Just the way she set her shoulders and took in her surroundings. The same attitude that always made him want to challenge her. 

“Miyuu,” the clerk whispered the name with such reverence and tenderness, as if he stroked a lover’s cheek. “Miyuu Shimabukoro survived that accident but only barely. I guess there’s no harm in telling you now she’s dead. Fire took her just like it took the others. Even a decade later, it still-” His arms shook as they grasped the counter. She gave him a moment alone with his grief, waiting, her expression softening just slightly, her tone warming expertly. 

“The warehouse fire,” Sherry guessed. “She didn’t leave the island, so then how-?”

There were the smallest visible lines of red in the whites of his eyes when he looked up at her, perhaps only visible because he didn’t squint his eyes in a smile as they’d grown accustomed to seeing. “She’d been dressing up as the elder, even before the incident, carrying on the tradition for the festival. After the boat went down, she hid as the elder full time. I suppose Kimie must have known as well, since she picked up the mantle after...”

“If the sinking was due to an accidental fire, what was she hiding from for ten years?” Gin asked. Considering the burn patterns on the vessel, there was no chance for that to be the case. 

“I always suspected survivor's guilt, and the burns. She hated them, and wouldn't let me look at her outside of the disguise. She confided in me, but only so much. We lost our good friends that day, she lost her husband. It was too painful to talk about.”

Gin met Sherry’s eyes briefly, knowing she’d take that as a point in her favor on the immortal disguise theory. 

“You mentioned a distress signal from the boat.” Gin pressed, “from just before the boat went down.”

“Ah yes,” his eyes flashed to a filing cabinet against a distant wall, so brief it might have been easily missed. “Miyuu sent one out, it was how I knew where to rescue her.”

“You have a recording.” Gin stated, his tone allowing for no argument.

“I-" The clerk’s shoulders dropped, "yes." He walked to the unassuming filing cabinet, and retrieved a handheld cassette player. The clerk attempted to shield it from sight as he quickly unwrapped the corded headphones from around the device and removed the cassette tape. 

He turned back to them and held the tape for them to see. A date stood out against the black, a set of three white numbers, slightly earlier than the date in the article. The clerk looked to Sherry, as if to ask if she was sure she would be okay hearing it.

“Play it.” She said without hesitation.

He sighed and bent down to pull up a large radio from below the counter. He brushed the dust from its surface with a sleeve and inserted the cassette tape. 

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday." A woman's voice. “This is Ningyo Maru, repeat this is Ningyo Maru, Ningyo Maru. Mayday! Ningyo Maru, one, one, Echo, Lima. In the bay on the south side of the island. There's been an explosion on board, the boat is on fire and sinking. Immediate assistance required. Five people on board, likely in critical condition or already dead. I'm in the water and badly burned. Over." The recording seemed to start over, but Gin noticed a slight change in the timing. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday-" The clerk shut it off. 

“By the time I got there, I found her ankle deep in the bay, dragging in a life preserver ring and the handheld marine radio.” He snatched the cassette tape out of the radio, pocketing it. 

“Did she ever tell you anything else about what happened?” Sherry asked. “How she got out when the others didn’t? Is it possible...?” 

“Oh, child. They-” He shook his head, and looked at her with a terrible pity. “She told me the others were below deck. They were anchored. Even the captain, along with Miyuu’s husband, your parents, and their friend. She’d gotten sea sick from being jostled by the waves while at anchor, and was above deck. The way she described it I thought she was blown out into the water by the backdraft when she opened the door to the lower cabin. I’m sorry, there’s no way...”

Their friend? This caught Gin’s attention. Does he mean...? The time frame matched up, that date on the cassette was within the span of days it had happened. Then if that were the case Gin already knew who was responsible for the attack on the boat; who was responsible for his mentor’s death. 

“It’s alright.” The words fell hollowly from Sherry’s lips, pulling him from the tumbling rush of his thoughts as questions found their answers and new questions formed. “I’ve known they were dead for more years than I knew them now. I overreacted by coming here. I’m sorry for bringing this all back up again.” 

“You had every right to want to know about your parent’s accident.”

She gave him a nod with the look of a person holding back tears. “Thank you.” She left, not waiting for Gin.  The recording must have thrown her off balance; He should definitely go after her, but he had a question or two for the clerk before he went. 

“The friend of the Miyanos, do you recall his name? The article didn’t say.”

“I’m not sure we were ever formally introduced.” The man rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I think it may have started with a Ji- sound. Jinsei, or Jinya maybe. This was more than a decade ago mind you. I only knew him for a summer.”

“Sure.” Gin waved it off as if it was unimportant, then stepped to the door, noting where Sherry retreated up the mountain paths in the direction of the cabin, before pulling it fully closed before him and barring it. He turned back to the room, expression serious, dark. “What else is on the recording?”

“Nothing, it repeats.” The clerk offered it casually. To the man’s credit, he wasn’t too easily intimidated. 

“Not precisely.” Gin let malice eek into the quirked corner of his mouth. “It continued, but different.” He stepped closer, looming over the clerk; leveraging his considerable stature. 

“Not the recording, her message.” Gin could hear the man swallow dryly, but otherwise he didn’t cower. “She repeats it.”  

“Hmm.” 

Gin studied the sun spots and smile lines of the man closely, dismissing the possibility he was an unaging person. Not likely to be a Mr. Shimabukoro then. 

“Who was Miyuu to you?”

“What?” The clerk was taken aback by the question. “A friend.”

“Only just?” Gin asked, to which the man furrowed his brow, and Gin continued. “Not by your choice.”

“What’s it matter now?” He darted his eyes away.

“Indulge me.” Gin said, relaxing back by a degree, finding a seed of respect for the man. “You cared for her, and were waiting for trouble that day to reach her so quickly. The bay is quite a ways from here after all, by foot or boat.”

“And?”

Gin shrugged. “You knew the Miyanos for years. What were they doing way out on the south side of the island with Mr. and Mrs. Shimabukuro?” 

The clerk smiled wanly. “The Shimabukuro family is the oldest on the island. The Miyano’s were recording mermaid legends they knew and visiting historical sighting spots, of course.”

“Really?”

“No, I don’t think so.” He admitted. “But that's what they said. I suspected he was trying to rekindle something in their marriage... took up the Miyano’s offer to take a small couples’ cruise or the like-”

“Must have made you jealous; that’s why you were so close to the bay.” Gin stated; a forgone conclusion. The perfect bait, demanding a proper defense.

“He didn’t care for her the way she deserved.” The man muttered, taking it just as expected. “She came to live on the island after her mother died, to help Mikoto with the festival since she was too old to do everything herself. But she was already unhappily married by then, and pregnant with Kimie. If only she hadn’t been raised away from the island, if only she came back sooner, before she met him.”

It painted just the picture Sherry had guessed, only a generation off. It seemed more and more plausible that Kimie's mother, Miyuu had been the unaging one, playing the generations since Mikoto, not Kimie. Unfortunately, she was the Shimabukuro woman who’d died last year. And to Sherry’s earlier point, those were bones they had seen; undeniably human, undeniably deceased. 

Gin continued to goad the man, like twisting a knife into an obvious wound. “You blame him for her being there, for getting burned.” 

The clerk stared down at his own clasped hands, venom in his voice when he asked. “Wouldn’t you?” 

“I’d be furious that I couldn’t kill him myself, all over again.” 

Gin thought of Cachaça as he said it; the traitor who sold out his mentor’s identity and location to a rival syndicate.

The man nodded his agreement. “Every time I got a peak at those burns; every time that she shooed my hand away-” rage broiled just under the surface of his skin, jumping the veins in his face. 

“The recording is all you have left of her, isn’t it?”

The clerk didn’t respond, his silence answering for him.

“I need to hear the other distress calls,” Gin said.

“You’re sure to be disappointed.” The clerk sighed and placed the tape back into the large radio. “I thought it was a bit gruesome for the lady.”

There was only one repetition of the same message before the clerk’s voice responded. After that there was some back and forth between them as Miyuu described the fire fully consuming the boat, and the sinking, and seeing no other people surface. Intermixed with Miyuu's desperate wails, hyperventilation, and the clerk’s futile attempts to calm her from afar.

“You were right to stop her from hearing that.” Gin said as the soft click of the play button releasing marked the end of the recording.

“She must be into the mermaid stuff because she heard her parents were, huh?” 

“I suppose.” Gin looked back toward the door as if he might see her still walking away. She’d be most of the way back by now. “I better go catch up to her.”

The clerk settled back into his book behind him, muttering to himself. “Funny people can’t really seem to make up their minds whether mermaids are good or bad luck, when it seems so obvious nothing good has come from pursuing them.”

Gin briefly considered the man once more before leaving, apprehensive of a double meaning there. Perhaps he did have an inkling about the Miyanos’ research after all, or the true nature of the Ningyo Maru’s end. Although, it was likely he referred only to the lure the Miyanos had said they were pursuing, and Gin lingering on the comment would only be suspicious.

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

Gin wouldn’t catch up to Sherry before she made it back to the cabin, but perhaps she had wanted space besides, considering how she left. If he was being truthful, his own pace as he wandered up the twisting mountain path was slower than normal, delaying that moment. 

He didn’t know what Sherry thought she knew of her parents’ deaths, but she had seemed very certain of it before hearing that tape, and rather shaken after. He also wasn’t certain what effect knowing they’d been killed in a strike against the Organization might have on her, and he had to consider his larger responsibility to maintain her progress on the project. Would it be necessary for her to know the full truth of those events to decode the journal? Gin doubted it. But would it really be detrimental for her to know? Likely the previous handler of the Miyano children had believed it would be if they’d been fed another story. But that might come down to their age at the time, and their lack of a proper need to know. Gin couldn’t say with certainty whether one existed now, weighing the idea back and forth as he continued ever closer to the cabin.

He heard the rustling of undergrowth a ways down one of the diverging goat trails along the way. Animals native to the island didn’t usually make that much noise, and other people venturing up through these paths were rare, especially now that they were coming out of tourist season. Cautiously, he followed the noise down the path. As he approached, a different set of noises started. One sharp, followed by a low showering sound. Someone was digging. 

The goat trail connected onto one of the more substantial paths. There he found the elder’s great-granddaughter, Kimie Shimabukuro, shoveling dirt out of a hole. This was the woman Sherry had correctly deduced was behind the elder disguise. 

She gasped seeing him, jerking with the surprise of having not noticed him until that point. She stepped slightly closer to a wooden sign laid across a few ferns as if she might grab it.

“I’m sorry.” Her cheeks were burning a bright red, evidently embarrassed at her outburst. “I didn’t expect to see anyone so early. Did everyone finish with the fish already?”

“Couldn’t say, I wasn’t with the others. I have a cabin nearby and heard the noise.” He was looking for a distraction, more like, though he was not entirely willing to admit this outright to himself. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, it’s fine, umm...” she fumbled conspicuously with the shovel. “Just putting up a danger sign... because of the drop-off, of the gorge.” She was acting much more nervous than she had been at the shrine. People who were genuinely happy a majority of the time made the worst liars.  

Digging a hole to put up a sign might have made sense if it was placed solidly in a bucket of concrete she planned to bury. This danger sign was not. Instead, the end of the sign was pointed, only meant to be stabbed into the earth. Her excuse for putting up the sign might have worked to explain her leaving for the forest to the people in town, but seeing her there the lie fell apart.

“You’re burying the bones, aren’t you?” He asked, and she only turned more fidgety. There was no way this woman could had lived 120 years as a twenty-five-year-old; he was sure now that his first assessment of that had been correct. And he wondered at the fact he’d ever questioned it. It was surprising she even managed to pull off continuing her mother’s tradition of disguising as the elder without everyone knowing.

“Please don’t tell anyone!” Her eyes pleaded. “I don’t want it to happen again.”

“I don’t want to see any more grave robbers either,” he said darkly. The unanswered question of who had been spying on him and Sherry when they first arrived resurfacing. Perhaps the danger of events in the previous decade hadn’t passed: supposing the Miyanos had been more than collateral and the mermaid bones in the warehouse fire had drawn attention back to the island, only for them to step in it at just the wrong time. Sherry had announced who she was twice that day. Anyone who’d been in the inn, or had seen that arrow raffle log was suspect. 

“You’ll keep it a secret? I’ll know it was you if anyone disturbs it.” Kimie announced with the certainty only the young possess. 

“I’ll keep an eye on it.”

“Thank you.” She beamed, starting up digging again. 

Gin left her to it, correcting course back to the cabin. He’d made enough of a detour, and had run out of excuses to delay any further.

...

Gin spotted the reddish brown back of Sherry’s head over by the gorge as he approached the cabin. Did sitting at that spot out by the gorge suggest she still wanted space to think, or wanted him to join her? She had left the inn without a thought towards him, not saying one way or the other. And he had let her walk back on her own, and wasn’t sure how to act now. He found himself walking towards her despite his uncertainty.

She was sitting on the backless bench at the edge of the gorge overlook, facing the view. Her legs dangled off the edge of the drop-off. 

"Don't you feel like you're going to fall, sitting like that?" Gin said, taking a seat, but keeping his legs on the grounded side of the bench. He angled his body sidewards, so as to still face her. She was sitting exactly as he had been on their first morning on the island. If she caught the underlying humor in his statement she didn’t respond to it.  

"Not particularly. I'm being cautious. Besides, only an idiot falls off a cliff they should have known was there." The subject of her words was not so different from her usual remarks, but her delivery made her thoughts seem elsewhere. Somewhere distant, and melancholy.

So she had put the pieces together on her own anyways, or at least some of them. He was wary of responding directly to her implied meaning without a better idea of where her head was at now.

"I suppose this is a good place to think about life, at the edge of death," he offered instead.  

She snickered at this, "Something like that." She paused, staring off across the gorge before asking. "And what if you're thinking about death?"

Gin did not have an answer for this. He pointedly avoided thinking about death as a whole. And he wasn’t prepared to be the one to address the second layer of conversation either. Instead of responding, Gin placed a hand on her shoulder in a way of comfort. 

She turned to glance at him a moment at the new pressure on her shoulder, perhaps trying to gauge if he were only touching her suggestively once more, but soon resumed fixing her eyes to the steep walls of the adjacent side. Her face, pensive on matters that saddened her, raised a hint of a smile at his gesture.

“It wasn’t an accident, my parents’ death.” She said at last. So she had figured out the crux of it after all. He watched her forlorn profile fight off several emotions, as if she were a bucket of rainwater trying not to overflow in a downpour. “I feel like I’ve always known that somehow, just didn’t want to say the words.”

“And now that you have?” Gin asked.

“I want to know why.” Her eyes were somewhat downcast, and Gin followed her line of sight to what she’d fixed her eyes on. There was a trickle of a stream in the bottom of the gorge; it was a chilling thought to see what something that seemed so small and weak could do to the landscape unchecked for such a long time. 

“And what if that is unknowable?” Gin said. He still didn’t know why the traitor Cachaça had betrayed his mentor to the rival syndicate who had orchestrated this strike. The question festered at him still. His knowledge of the incident had been limited to what information he’d been able to weasel out and overhear. Gin hadn’t been a full member at the time, and so not involved in the investigation. 

Learning only that the previous Gin had been killed in retaliation for a strike against a rival syndicate he’d led some years prior. That a traitor named Cachaça had betrayed him to them, and been double crossed, recklessly getting both killed. 

There was nothing that so much as whispered at a motive in all the digging into the traitor he’d done. She was half Brazilian, half Japanese, which likely accounted for her odd codename, which didn’t fit with typical naming conventions for women, being a spirit rather than a wine. She’d been loyal for several decades. She spoke very little, was an extremely lethal and effective agent, and apparently got along with different members than would be expected. Although Gin never found out what the person who had said this meant. 

Holding on to what she couldn’t know and couldn’t change would only hurt her.  

“I don’t suppose you have an answer to your own question.” Sherry asked.

“No, I don’t suppose I do.” He ran the hand he had resting on her shoulder along the length of her arm, down to cup over her hand where it was gripping the edge of the bench seat. He then slid his hand gingerly over her fingers, soon pulling back up, interlacing their fingers together. “But, I may know who was behind the attack.”

He wasn’t sure why he had said it, he still couldn’t say whether the information was strictly necessary for her to advance with her project. Perhaps because they might still pose a threat to her, perhaps because he’d become so accustomed to bouncing ideas between the two of them. 

She didn’t say anything; she hardly seemed to breathe, suspended like she was afraid she might startle him away. “The Organization operates in secret, but still has enemies, rivals to our interests or objectives. The M.O. of the attack matches one in particular.” 

“Rivals to our objective...” Sherry tested the words. “They meant to stop our research then, destroy it. That would explain it.”

“It seems plausible.” He agreed. 

“But they didn’t get everything,” Sherry said, as she slid her hand out from beneath his and took out the journal. It didn’t bode well for them if that damned journal wasn’t even a documentation of the project itself, only a scribbled copy of related notes. Simply all that remained. But it would explain why they hadn’t made any headway on decoding it. She brushed her hand along the worn leather of the cover but didn’t open it, suddenly hesitant again.

She held there just long enough for him to worry. “Sherry?”

“Your namesake,” she said, barely audible. “I was going to turn to the first of the island pages and I realized the drawing of your namesake was there, and the clerk mentioned... I’m so sorry. My parents’ research, it...” 

“Ah,” he understood. Surprised to find she’d been worrying over such a thing. And after he’d failed to mention his namesake’s role in the incident too. “You shouldn’t blame them; blame the ones who did it.”

She nodded slowly, “Do you think the Shimabukuro couple were targets as well? I’ve been thinking they might be why my parents returned to the island year after year. To get close to them. It surely wasn’t for the festival, with it being so obviously a sham. They were here to study another unaging person, two maybe, to see if they could pinpoint the source of the change. Compare them to the others.”

It would explain the previous Gin’s presence there: in case confronting the couple with their suspicions went poorly. 

He nodded his agreement. “That seems the most likely answer. Lines up with some of the other things the clerk said as well, for Miyuu and her husband to be playing the generations. If that’s the case, does it help clarify anything in the journal?”

“Nothing comes immediately to mind.” She thumbed through the pages, “Individually the content of each page can be made to make sense within itself, but the information still seems pointless and unconnected overall.” He recognized the tone she got when she was thinking out loud. They had become much more comfortable doing that sort of thing around each other in the past weeks. “For four pages in a row there is a pattern to how they are organized. There’s always a central hub on each page right, and the surrounding passages work as spokes. It’s the picture of the previous Gin smoking on the first of the relevant pages, then the rip current diagram, followed by a cartoon of a palm tree which is not native to this area, and the last one is a sandwich.” She turned each page as she described them giving him a good view. Though he had spent just as much time as she had staring at them in the past weeks. 

“You know you’re turning the pages backwards.” He noted dryly. “It should have been first the sandwich, then the tropical tree, then the-”

She waved this off. “It reads like a western book, left to right.” 

“So backwards.” He’d expected her to glare at him, but something seemed to click in her head. He watched her eyes as she made a sudden realization. 

“What if they were working the problem backwards?” She flipped back to the picture of his namesake. The scientific equations that explained how cigarette smoke would break down in the lungs ran along the curling trail of smoke. He remembered what she’d said the Latin at the end of the passages had meant. Death was certain, its hour uncertain, unless... It was a joke about shortening your life by smoking. Sherry ran her finger along it now. 

“It has the opposite meaning than I thought,” she mumbled. “They were looking for a cure against death, and so were looking at what natural processes they would need to reverse or trigger in the body. They were working backwards from the different ways to administer medicine. Smoking represents inhalation.” She turned the page. “The rip current diagram would be intravenous. Administering the cure straight to the bloodstream by the veins.” She thought to explain this to him, showing him the inside of her wrist and the faint blue veins there. “A blue undercurrent. Then he probably thought topical sounded like tropical, which would explain the palm tree and his use of English on that page. So that covers absorbing the cure through skin. Lastly there is oral administration, the sandwich. They stop checking methods there, but that’s probably what got them into this line of thinking to begin with, the legend of gaining immortality by eating mermaid meat.”

Gin noticed she had cheered up considerably, giddily piecing all the parts together. Even eagerly showing and explaining each discovery to him in her excitement. He was glad. He enjoyed the passion she had for her work and watched her in a warm daze.

At the same time, a worry started in the back of his mind. They were in the same position the Miyanos and his namesake had been back when they were killed and all their research was lost; closing in on Silver Bullet, publicly looking into the mermaid lure of the island. If the Miyanos truly had been targets in their own right, for their research, then Gin and Sherry announcing themselves just as they had should catch the attention of the ones who’d killed them. But perhaps it had already, the first night they were here, and they’d missed their chance to draw them in that way. Suppose they’d done nothing more than steal the bones because Sherry had seemed interested in them, were would that leave them.

“Would you be able to learn anything from those mermaid bones, about changes to Shimabukuro’s body?” He asked abruptly, interrupting her focused examination of a dizzying section of cross writing.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “There’s a next to zero chance I’d learn anything of use.”

“You’re not just saying that because you don’t want me to dig them up?”

“The fire would have deteriorated any DNA that might be pulled from them except maybe in the most trace amounts, even then, not a guarantee. Not to mention, warping and fracturing from the heat would have corrupted their structural integrity.” She answered with an even monotone. “Isotope analysis would be the most likely to find something interesting. I might be able to determine how accelerated her bone remodeling rate had been by comparing a bone with a faster turnover against one with a slower turnover and comparing to the typical ratios between the two, not that they’re constant, so I would have to extrapolate to get an estimate of what it should look like at that age, since there wouldn’t be existing data.” She mused, shaking herself from the train of thought. “Interesting perhaps, but useful?” She shrugged doubtfully. 

“So it’s a dead end.” Gin said, trying not to sound overly hopeful. If the rival syndicate found nothing in the bones, they may come back here looking for them once again.

“In all likelihood yes,” She answered disinterested, looking back down at the journal before her. “But you’d have to consult a forensic anthropologist to be sure, which I am not.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 28

Since the initial break through with her father’s journal, Sherry had been having a successful couple of months unraveling the greater part of the journal’s major through lines that had eluded them before. The journal served predominantly as a testing ground for different ideas for the project, so it was a matter of narrowing down which threads ended and which continued on to affect other categories. 

Gin insisted they continue to take walks daily, although they’d long since become familiar with every trail the island had to offer and investigated every site with a possible connection to a journal sketch.  Logically, she knew taking in the greenery and getting her blood flowing had substantial benefits to her wellbeing, even if she doubted she’d be able to commit to the habit without Gin’s intervention. She was usually thankful for him prying her away from work and out into the crisp autumn air about midway through it.

Overall, their time on the island steadily profited them with just the answers they’d hoped at the outset, more even. She tucked a hand into a coat pocket, and ran her thumb over the wooden drawing marker she’d left tucked away there. Her parents would have been proud, wouldn’t they? Her progress was thrumming along better than anyone could have hoped. 

So then, why did she have this underlying dissatisfaction? Like an empty stomach clenching after she’d neglected to feed it too many meals in a row. 

She eyed Gin on the path ahead of her as they walked back from town on a supply run, studying the back of his head, certain he’d have an answer for her, if only she could settle on a proper question. The dappled light caught the scattered metallic strands in his hair, a bright silver among the cool blonde tones, and the deep vibrations of his voice permeated the paradoxically close space of the forest trail. He was speaking about music in a way that made her wonder if he played an instrument, but perhaps it was simply the natural certainty of his tone. Still, it brought to mind the strangely appealing notion of Gin’s hands moving in clever practiced patterns. A distracting thought that made her ache somewhere a bit lower than just her stomach. She pulled away from the feeling, setting the thought aside.

 Music seemed so random a topic to stumble upon, and she tried to trace the origin back to which of them had steered the conversation here. She couldn’t recall doing so, but it seemed an odd subject for Gin to introduce when he so infrequently wasted time on subjects without a purpose, unless it was something she brought up first. That thought felt familiar, like she had come to this question before. An ordinary subject that she could only conclude had originated with Gin and, just like the walks they still took, lacked a larger purpose.  

He wasn’t one to enjoy the sound of his own voice just for the sake of it. Gin was typically a very disciplined person; strict with himself, organized to a fault, always acting or speaking with intention. It was why she couldn’t fault him for dropping those overbold flirtations now that they had learned all they needed from the locals. She had been right not to conflate the act they put on with her reactions to him. Or, if not that, perhaps she had refused him often enough to fully dissuade his interest in her. 

And yet, she couldn’t help but remember those stolen touches, his carefully phrased double meanings, that all consuming look, full of hunger and promise.

The irrational desire to feel the full weight of his gaze on her once again crashed over her, like walking into a house just as dinner was ready, the scent of it overwhelming to the senses. She tried to push it away as before. She tried again, and again, and again, as they arrived back, and cooked dinner, and tended to their individual tasks. 

The presence of him in the cabin was making it nigh impossible, just the smell of him, the occasional shift of him. Worse when she actually hazarded a look his way, and the focused set of his brow as he worked at a problem on his screen set her heart racing. 

He went to drink with the men in the evenings less frequently these days, but she was almost glad for the reprieve of it when he left this time. She was unbearably aroused, and despite several attempts at fogging the small cabin’s window, she was unable to rid herself fully of the heightened state. 

She began bargaining with herself, questioning if Gin’s interest in her had really ever been in service of their goal. If she had rebuffed him for nothing after all. But his advances had eased after they stopped searching out information from the locals. That much was true. Then again, she’d set a boundary with him; he’d called it something like that, a self imposed rule. Which was it, respectful or disinterested? 

The frustration gnawed at her, egged on by the memory of his gaze, intent on her. Just the idea of being under it again set her skin on fire. She needed to feel it when she wasn’t playing someone else. Then, everything would be clear.

She would do something provocative, not directly related to all their island flirtations. Something that evoked the time before. It came to mind in an instant. She prepared quickly, not giving herself a moment to second guess the decision. She relieved herself of her outer layers of clothing, dawned one of his discarded collared shirts, and found a cozy spot by the fireplace, bold as brass. 

She probably wouldn’t have held the resolve to remain there very long. But in the end, she maintained it just long enough to still be there when Gin’s footsteps approached the door. Her pulse echoed a throb in her palms as she squeezed them into not quite fists. 

Gin paused in the doorway as soon as opening it, somehow aware something was different before he even looked over to her. And then he did, and her heart jumped for it. An already predatory glint in his eye as he tracked down her spot in the room. 

Sherry stood, suddenly unwilling to be on the ground in addition to being so vulnerably dressed. It was a mistake to do so as fast as she had, or perhaps the mistake was how she’d buttoned the shirt earlier, not enough at the top so one of the overly large shoulders began to slip when she tried to straighten the front over her exposed legs. 

He moved so quickly, his hand taking hold of the falling collar before her own could reach it. He clutched it there, not moving it back, nor pulling it down. He stood very close to her, but besides the tension of the shirt where it pulled across her chest, she could feel nothing of him. And yet, he breathed her in, his eyes caressing every inch she’d bared to him. It was intoxicating to feel so desired, to see plainly how much he wanted her. 

“I suppose you already know the appeal of stealing this one,” Sherry said, somehow managing the cheeky line when she could hardly breathe. 

“Heh,” Gin shook his head, his expression unreadable to her now. Keeping one hand fisted in the shirt, his other ghosted up to hers moving her from where she’d grabbed the falling shirt herself, to back down at her side. His thumb teased the soft skin of her inner wrist before leaving it there. “But, do you?” He asked. And then, so smoothly she barely processed what he was doing, his knuckles swept across her collarbone brushing the other side of the shirt free of her shoulder.

She twisted away, not having time to grab the shirt before it exposed her bra fully. The shoulders of the shirt were returned at once, but he didn’t step away, holding either side of the collar so it pressed against the nape of her neck. His eyes were directly on hers now, searching. The green in them was the same jade of the riptide; dangerous, relentless, and utterly entrancing.  

“What have you been doing in my shirt?” 

Sherry crinkled her brow at the question. “Waiting.”  

“Impatiently, I’d venture.” He smiled wickedly at her, leaned in, hovering as if with the promise of a kiss to her temple. Her skin hummed with the potential of it, and at the heat pooling at the back of her neck, brought to sharp attention by the press of the shirt’s collar against it. “A few drops of blood in the water to incite frenzy.” He mumbled into her hair. “Always so forward, looking to be devoured…” it was almost a question, like a small quirk of the head. But his tone was too predatory to truly be asking permission. “I should take you up on it.”

She realized what he’d been referring to embarrassingly late, the sound of his deep inhales finally clueing her in. She ducked her head a bit, as if she’d be able to hide the heat flushing up her face, but this merely closed the small remaining distance between his skin and hers. She thought she felt him grin against her before tracing down the traitorous scarlet path to her neck, his touch feather light, finally stopping to press a kiss below her ear. She couldn’t help the slight catch in her throat as little shivers of pleasure followed, like skipping stones rippling out from where he breathed against her. 

“But I’m not going to.”

“You’re not?” She said, breathless.

“No.” His shoulders shook in laughter. “You didn’t mean to break your little restriction with this. You were only curious; didn’t think it through.” He stepped fully back from her. “You would regret abandoning your sanctuary so impulsively.”

She wanted to protest, she was certain her face scrunched in full on indignation. At the same time she thought she understood. He’d concluded she had drawn her line in the sand because she was scared of not having somewhere to retreat to if she needed it. Did he think she was so afraid of him? Perhaps she should be. He was right after all, she hadn’t planned to initiate that sort of encounter, but he’d drawn her in so effortlessly, she would have been right there with him, if he’d continued. How far, she couldn’t say. 

“Still playing the protector even in this...” She huffed, inviting a more lighthearted mood. “There will be no changing your mind then.” 

“Not tonight,” he confirmed. Despite the rejection and her own uncertainty, hope sparked a kindling flame in her chest.

“Just tonight?” She asked, to which he nodded seriously, like a warning. 

“I won’t be the only one keeping to that silly rule of yours a second time. If you make this sort of invitation again, I will assume you are aware of its implications, and are decided on the matter of your intentions.”

He didn’t wait for a sign of her acceptance, only understanding, before stepping into the bathroom to prepare for bed. She really should be more afraid of Gin; he could be dreadfully intimidating when he wanted to be, to say nothing of his towering build and lean athletic muscle. And yet, even that spoke of his discipline, his control. 

He really did want her with that startling intensity, and still had been respecting her boundary, ensuring she felt safe with him. It warmed her chest, made it ache and flutter in a way that would have her clutching a pillow against herself and tossing side to side if she were more inclined to such dramatic gestures. 

Instead, she found herself clutching that sensitive spot on her neck, as if she’d be able to press the giddiness back down from where it came. Could she really do this? Leap headlong into this unfamiliar territory simply because she wanted to, wanted him. Could she really stop herself? Perhaps, there was some merit to Gin’s point. They had too much access to each other on the island. If they crossed that threshold here, it would escalate quickly. There were no natural periods for her to cool off and assess rationally at each step, and precious few avenues to retreat. They still had work to do on the island after all, what if it became too much for her? 

She shook free of her frozen pondering, and made her own evening preparations. But even in her attempt to dismiss her conflicting desires, that small warm thought persisted. Always waiting for her to turn about and notice it again, whispering negations to her worries, setting her heart skittering, even as she washed her face, brushed her teeth, set out the futon. Gin had held the opportunity to take things further, and still handed the decision back to her. Insisted the pace was hers to set in that regard. How strange for a rejection to make her feel this way. Rejection as an act of trust; honoring her intentions. 

And then there was his warning to consider; a promise of pursuit in earnest if only she allowed it, the threshold clear. If she broke her own rule again, he would leave it broken.

Chapter Text

Chapter 29

She wasn’t meeting his eye. They had been awake barely an hour the next morning before Gin found himself well and truly irritated by it, and he had been trying to put it from his mind since. Sherry wasn’t avoiding him outright precisely, it was more like she was trying to keep to his blind spots: as if hovering constantly a hair’s breadth from his back, shifting from view. He thought, at first, she’d only been embarrassed after a night to dwell on their interaction. But, dismissed this quickly, as her movements were more methodical than emotional. As if to ensure nothing mundane would be misconstrued by him.

 If that had been it, a simple unspoken refusal, that would be one thing. Fair given that he’d expected her to regret her rashness of the night before. But, paired with that withdrawal, Sherry had taken to letting her hungry gaze linger on him every time she thought he was otherwise occupied. 

Gin, of course, was acutely aware of the eyes on him, to the point he was having a hard time being aware of anything else. He’d nearly mistyped the key for the encryption to open this morning’s reports, and after, caught several instances of full paragraphs he’d come to the end of and not processed.

It made him consider using the distracting awareness to force the issue of their sudden lack of eye contact. An appealing impulse he very nearly indulged - To simply catch her in the act of her incessant leering and flash her a knowing look that would have her blushing. She always did blush so prettily... but no. He had something else in mind. 

He stepped up behind her as she moved about preparing another pot of coffee. The naked scent of her was intoxicating even now, although the notes of desire had faded to a mere echo on her skin, barely perceptible even when he hovered this close. He’d been careful to ensure she didn’t notice his approach. Letting the brush of his hand serve as the first sign of him, as he swept her hair clear of her neck, exposing that tempting sensitive spot below her ear. 

“Are you wishing you’d left a mark?” Sherry asked, tone cool despite the shiver he watched run up her back. 

“It seems you remember it well enough without one, but if that’s a request...” his fingers laced up through the hair above the nape of her neck, leaving only the barest motion removed from tugging her head back and kissing her wildly.

“Only a question.” Her breaths came ever so slightly faster. “And I thought you were honoring the sanctuary, at least until-”

“Until...?” Gin coaxed, and couldn’t help but smile, a victory half won in her admittance, she hesitated, either in realization or reluctance to put to words what she implied.

He began to massage her scalp in the pause, pulling the smallest moan from her even if it delayed the response he’d asked for by the same action.  

“You’re not playing fair,” she mumbled, leaning a bit more of her head into the support of his massaging hand.

“Oh? Am I affecting you in some type of way?” 

“Gin.” She made his name an accusation, but was almost totally lax in his hold now. 

“I thought you could use a reminder.”

“Of what I’m missing out on?” She managed to keep her tone utterly dry and mocking in spite of her contented demeanor. 

He chuckled, “of what an invitation of this sort looks like, so you can stop fussing over every little thing.” 

“Ah,” she turned to meet his gaze, finally. The dance of emotions that could play across her eyes never failed to stoke something in him. Especially as they iced over, and that teasing bravado returned. “Are you saying you think I couldn’t make an invitation with only my eyes? because that seems like a challenge that- “ 

His grip tightened in her hair, pulling her head back, leaving her lips exposed, slightly parted in shock, there for the taking. 

“Sherry,” his voice ground from the back of his throat, a warning, a plea. If she’d taken even another second to respond his own resolve may have crumbled. 

“Only fair,” she whispered. “It wouldn’t count since you started it. But, if that’s it then, we should return the cabin to a no-touching zone.”

“For now,” he amended her statement, and she conceded; 

A breathy “-For now,” echoing

He withdrew from her slowly, savoring the little pout, and her brief reluctant sort of lean after him as he went.

Teasing Sherry could be a dangerously addictive pastime if he let it. He had certainly enjoyed coaxing out those scattered honest reactions hidden in all her pretending; her easy flush, distracted stuttering, and those delicious little noises drawn out by his barest touch. He rather liked the idea of driving her toward that moment her own desire would overcome her uncertainty; it would be a worthy distraction. 

He had been in need of one lately, something challenging to pick up when the waiting part of this current project proved overly vexing. It didn’t help that the majority of his current work was remote, far removed from his typical style. These sorts of operations were difficult enough to manage in person, but it couldn’t be helped, they needed to maintain a presence on the island for at least a little while longer. He returned to his laptop and the latest reports from the small team running the mainland side of this operation. 

If the information was accurate, it indicated they’d identified their target. Or rather, the pseudonym the organization was using had established contact with their target’s frontman or fence. Although they had reached this point with a number of other prospects only for them to be unrelated to the stolen mermaid bones.

Gin had been unwilling to leave the question of the grave robbers without a definitive answer before he and Sherry left the Isle of Mermaids, and had settled on a plan to secure it around the same time Sherry made her own breakthrough decoding the project journal. Although he had Sherry to thank for his realization as well.  It was Sherry’s offhand remark, on not being an expert in the study of bones, that made him realize just how to get his answers.

She had a peculiar way of mentioning the solution to problems she knew nothing about. Was that uncanny ability what artists meant when they spoke of muses? Gin discarded the ridiculous thought as soon as it came to him. Although, it was exactly the sort of romantic drivel that delighted her, and therefore a shame he wouldn’t be able to share the notion without explaining what he meant by it. 

Determining any sort of information from those bones would require a specific type of expert, one the thieves were unlikely to already have on hand. It was the same issue with fencing gemstones or fine art really. They required incredibly specific experts in the field to verify precisely what they had. A discrete but trusted authenticator was invaluable. 

It created a very narrow funnel through which the grave robbers could be drawn out and identified. Which is exactly how the organization had found the thieves’ movements in the Japanese underworld, and was the ruse they used to establish contact, casting one of their own in the role of bones expert. 

Gin re-examined the account of that expert now, looking for any indication the handful of bones he’d examined might not belong to the set Gin had seen at the burial on their first night here. Nothing stood out: all the pieces he’d examined were from the top half of the skeleton; the bones seemed around the correct age for having been from the warehouse fire; and other indicators corroborated that the bones had been in a fire hot enough to clean the flesh from them. 

Even with these signs pointing toward the likelihood they’d tracked down the right bones, Gin wouldn’t believe they’d truly found their mark until he saw the thieves in person himself, when the plan came to full fruition. 

Gin scanned the other team members’ reports as a final check before typing out his next orders, instructing them to proceed with whetting their mark’s appetite for the remaining bones. It should be simple enough to do from their position - requiring a bone fragment from a larger bone they didn’t have for a specific test, or even mentioning the exponential value of possessing the full set. From the body language analysis included among the reports, it seemed likely that the frontman they’d established contact with was being coerced into acting in their role, so Gin outlined how to proceed to exploit the vulnerability. It would be best if they could flip the middleman on the mark for information. But barring that, they’d have to sow their seeds of information carefully for them to land properly through an unstable third party. 

Gin sent the message and closed the laptop fully to stop himself from rereading his instructions a fifth and sixth time, and adding in more potential pitfalls to look out for than necessary. At a certain point, too many items within a set of instructions were counterproductive for a team like this, and Gin knew he could never foresee and control every way this operation might go wrong even if he was physically there to oversee the details. Still, from this far away, that focused calm that he had always been able to slip into during the heart of a mission eluded him. He wasn’t made to be so far removed from the action. 

But the time for that would come, and Gin needed to remain here to receive it. 

He also couldn’t afford to take his eye off the men of the village. It was almost a certainty the bone thieves had a local contact here, an inside man who had helped them smuggle the bones off the island. It would be one from the group of men who had established a committee to recover the bones and prevent them from leaving the island that first morning. Perhaps it was because Gin had been one of the few men not included in the original group that Kimmie had foolishly made him the unofficial guardian of the new mermaid grave site when he’d simply happened upon her in the forest. 

It was dangerously powerful leverage to have, and Gin intended to wield it. He had one remaining move to make here to lure in the grave robbers and perhaps confirm them as the rival syndicate as Gin suspected, and it all came down to the location of the hidden mermaid grave. 

...

Gin remained quite busy over the next several days, finding the work of slowly seducing Sherry slotted naturally into the bothersome waiting periods he’d previously resented. If he thought he had a rough estimate of her measure from their earlier evenings spent at dinner parties, she delighted in confounding his preconceived notions. And so, he relearned her anew as those shy and flustered reactions became interspersed with a brazen appreciation of her own.

Still, she didn’t let him have his prize too easily. Her resolve was impressive, but ultimately just made him want to fracture it more, coax her to the tipping point. She was nearly there, as much as she relished prolonging this anticipatory stage, she’d cave to her own need for more soon. Gin was quite certain of it. 

However, they couldn’t remain at the Island of Mermaids forever. A nagging thought with several potent reminders; the growing list of items unrelated to this project that required more than remote oversight in Tokyo, Sherry’s increasingly frequent mention of tests she’d be unable to run until she had the proper lab equipment again; and most critically, every day they grew closer to when the bone thieves would spring the snare he’d spent the last several months crafting for them. He’d need Sherry well away from here when that happened. 

He turned the question, of how to approach the subject of returning to Tokyo with Sherry, about in his mind. She’d have to go on ahead of him. Perhaps by several days. As well as accept escort from another organization member to ensure her safety along the journey. The puzzle of it left him pensive on their daily walk, which Sherry had obviously noticed given the curious expression she’d flashed him twice now. 

He should have anticipated that she’d notice. These walks had become their favored dueling ground since the shirt incident, given that they’d established early on touching was permitted on them, expected even. 

If he didn’t offer her some satisfactory explanation soon, she’d start pestering him for it in earnest. He searched for something to say in the rustle and crunch of brittle undergrowth and several seasons of leaves ground to a purplish brown mulch along the trail. 

Finally saying, “It’s going to start getting colder at night, probably more than that cabin’s equipped to keep out.” 

“I suppose you have a suggestion or two on keeping warm.” Sherry quipped, nudging her shoulder into him but not breaking the clasp of their hands.

“I’d say we have about a week remaining before we’ve left the season it’s meant for entirely.” He continued practically, “We should start looking at tickets back.” 

“A week...?” she questioned softly, all but fully stopping in her pace. He slowed with her.

“At most. Really it will depend on how soon we can make sufficient arrangements to return.”

“I see.”

“We’ll need to worry about reallocating resources to the Tokyo labs. Restarting operations without undue attention, as well as-” He paused his train of thought entirely as Sherry’s hand drew a delicate path from his furthest ear, along his jaw, to his chin. A request to look at her not easily ignored. 

“One week,” she repeated, staring openly at his lips as she spoke. “That's not a lot of time. But if you don’t think making all those arrangements will take up too much of it,  I have an idea on how we might spend the rest.”

“Do you now?” He challenged, only to be surprised entirely as she rose up and actually kissed him. It was only a brief kiss, barely more than a peck until he swept up her face in his hands and chased after more. And she was worth chasing; fierce and sweet all at once in her kisses. 

Not long into it, Sherry stumbled a bit into his chest, losing balance from straining up to reach his height on her tiptoes and a higher patch of the trail. He caught her, and guided her up onto a more substantial rise in the path, suppressing the fit of laughter that threatened to escape him. 

“You’re decided then?” Gin asked, taking in the kiss-swollen look of her lips and that flush of hers he had a particular weakness for. 

She nodded, “I am.”   

He ran his thumb over the delicate rim of her ear, pulling in once again, but slowly this time. Deliberate. In that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than this, than her. All the world could have faded to nothing but white noise, should have faded to white noise, and left only them drawn steadily closer. But, a keen sixth sense alerted him that was not the case. 

The shadowed depths of the forest were not truly a private place. As much as they had seemed a world all their own for how rarely any other ventured here. A false solitude further belied with each month that had turned and fallen away, with none but them to witness as the lush canopy of leaves turned every hue from the palest lick of flame to the deepest burning crimson and fell away. Even still, Gin had not forgotten the purpose of these walks, nor had he grown complacent in his watching. 

Someone else was nearby. Moreover, they were intentionally suppressing their steps.

Gin pressed a kiss to Sherry’s temple, then spoke close. “Can you see any movement in the vegetation off the path behind me?”

“You can’t be serious,” she let out a long breath, but still kept the remark low.

“Well?”

“No, so you can stop jumping at every shadow that-” She began only to cut herself off, “Shit, of course, you’re right,” she whispered in his ear. 

“Don’t alert them,” he put in too quickly, sparking Sherry to tug his ear with her teeth in retribution. This in turn sparked its own response, his body still more keyed up to resume their previous activities than focus on the threat. 

“Any other obvious advice?” she hissed. 

“We should take the long way back to shake them. I’ll circle back when you’re secure.”

“So literal...” She deadpanned before pulling playfully from him, raking her fingers down his arm as she beckoned him after her with her eyes, backing further down the forest path. She was determined to torture him, the vicious little vixen. 

They were both familiar enough with the forest trails that losing a tail would be no great feat. It was a side benefit of their frequent walks, which had allowed Gin the opportunity to watch for any signs that someone else was making a habit of searching out the secret location of the mermaid grave site. He speculated that was why their peeping tom had been in the forest when they heard Gin and Sherry and moved off the trail, to wait for them to pass, except they’d taken longer than expected and they must have grown curious, which had been what alerted Gin to them. It was unlikely they’d have been able to follow him for any distance without his notice. Gin hoped that tracking them down would profit him the answer on who among the locals had acted as the grave robbers' inside man. 

Although there was something else he couldn’t put his finger on that had him feeling uneasy as they made their way back to the cabin. Perhaps only a gut feeling that there was more to this than he had reasoned through. 

Erring on the side of caution, Gin suited up when they arrived back, arming himself more heavily than he had bothered since arriving at the quaint little fishing village. 

“That seems a bit excessive,” Sherry commented mostly to herself, not looking up from where she’d settled with her laptop, the fluffiest comforter draped around her shoulders. 

Gin loaded an additional gun, and offered it to her. “Keep this on you, and your earpiece in.” He powered up his own, double-checking both sets were tuned to the same channel. 

“You don’t think it’s the same ones spying on us as before, do you?” Her voice quivered, ever so slightly. He was already at the door, but paused to look back at her. It was the first her manner reflected any acknowledgment of the potential danger.

“No,” he reassured her. “But I don’t like to take chances.”

“So paranoid.” She huffed with a dismissiveness almost convincing enough for him to believe she bought it herself.  

Chapter Text

Chapter 30

Gin cut back to the stretch of trail from before by the most direct route. The weight of eyes had not followed them when they’d ventured beyond the next bend past this stretch, although he didn’t sense any human presence here now either. Gin crept along the underbrush a few paces inside the treeline, searching out the eavesdroppers' perch. 

Just on the other side of a minor bluff, a slightly lower patch of ivy struggled to reestablish itself to the height of its neighbors from where it had been flattened. Leading up to it, etched into the dirt and forest debris, were the telltale diagonal scuffs left by an army crawl. It supported Gin’s previous guess that the spy had inched in for a better view. 

There were also a few partial tracks pressed carelessly into the mud at the base of the bluff. The force evident in their shape suggested the man, man seeming most likely from the width and depth, had scurried back and left in the direction of town in a hurry. Gin disliked the implied urgency of it. 

He continued on toward town after the fleeing man, proceeding as quickly as a healthy sense of precaution allowed. He arrived at the village outskirts without incident or clue on where the man might have retreated to once he reached this point. 

Although there was a certain rhythm that life fell into here that Gin hoped to utilize. After the tourist season passed all those months ago and the community stabilized post-grave-robbing, the people of the island fell back into a steady and predictable routine. Like a pattern intricately set for any who’d grown familiar with it, just as Gin had made a point of doing. Any disruption would misalign those it came in contact with, as though someone had creased that pattern. 

He scanned across the buildings scattered in a small town. He checked faces. Were they familiar? Were they where they were supposed to be at that time? 

There was someone who had stepped outside the pattern. He caught the oddity out of the corner of his eye, a street over, but the figure passed behind a building before he could see them properly. Gin continued parallel to them, watching for them to reemerge. Eventually, she did, kicking her heels in a particularly annoyed sort of boredom. She was the local girl who tended to the small tasks at the inn, Toshimi. She’d normally be there this time of day, if not dusting up then at least pretending to, so she’d not be expected to participate in the hauling and gutting of the day’s catch. 

If the clerk had sent her out without an urgent task to do, he likely didn’t want her around for other reasons. Gin backtracked to the inn, rounding the building and stepping in through the staff back entrance Toshimi hadn’t bothered to lock up behind her. 

The long groan of a distant floorboard, accompanied by the distinctive thumps and snaps of the building settling, spoke of subtle shifting in the adjacent front room. Gin estimated more than four people from the chorus of it, even if the murmur of only two distinct voices could be made out. 

“-don’t be that way,” one was saying. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

The other, answering voice, belonged to the clerk. “I’m not making any more rotten deals with you.”

Gin settled in, pressed to the wall by the interior door. Now, this was interesting, although he wished he’d been able to place the first voice. There were less than sixty grown men who lived on the island, and Gin couldn’t be a hundred percent certain the voice didn’t belong to one of them. Still, his gut feeling was that it didn’t.

“Rotten? Now, that’s hardly fair.” The fall of steps creaked their slow way along the edge of the room, finally settling on the far side, likely at the stairs. “We held our end, you held yours. You got exactly what you bargained for, don’t go blaming us for your remorse now, when you knew the terms then.”

“You have your answer, now clear out. You’ve taken enough from me.”

“I had hoped these rumors of your new disposition were exaggerated.” The swift rhythmic thumps of coordinated movement echoed in unison throughout the room, interspersed with the clatter and thuds of upturned furniture and splintering wood. 

“Hey now! That’s not-” the clerk’s outburst was cut off by his sputtering gasp and wheeze, and the twin thud of what must have been his knees crumpling to the floorboards. 

“I suppose you thought of yourself as a man with nothing left to lose. And while you may be a pitiable old sap, true enough. I am feeling just magnanimous enough to help you find some gratitude for all the things you’re taking for granted.”

The clatter continued on for a few seconds more before cutting off in just as sudden a break as it started. “Hmm? What was that?”

“Fuck. Off. And. Die.” The clerk’s small voice wheezed out, nearly breaking into a cry as he said. “You wretched demons.”

The opposing man sighed and clicked his tongue, “There really is nothing left of you, is there...” He spoke with such familiarity to the clerk. And both alluded to a storied history. Gin couldn’t help but try to piece together answers to the questions it raised. Trying not to let his stronger suspicions color his interpretation; He shouldn’t let himself fall prey to ‘confirmation bias’ as Sherry would call it. Equally as much as he wanted answers, he also was wary of whatever exchange they wanted from him and whether it would ruin his own plans. Gin thought it was probable the clerk knew more than he let on about the Miyano’s research and history on the Isle of Mermaids. Should these men be from the grave-robbing group, it would be best for Gin to silence the clerk before he had the opportunity to reveal information to them. Especially if they had a previous arrangement. Then again, if the clerk knew it was them who desecrated Miyuu’s grave, it would explain his attitude toward them now. Was that the rotten deal they alluded to? Was the clerk the grave robber’s island contact?

Either way, Gin needed to make a decision. Was it better to wait for answers and clarity at the risk that his enemies might also learn it, or act without them ensuring neither side gained new intel? He didn’t like either option.

His beretta sat comfortably in his hand, the metal grip slowly warming with the wait of his indecision. Gin found himself inching toward the doorway opening, recalling the way the clerk had ultimately caved to Gin’s intimidation when confronted before, he’d caved to Sherry as well. If Gin delayed any longer the choice would be made for him by circumstance. His mentor had a saying for that, though he couldn’t recall the particular phrasing. 

  “Just tell us what we want to know so we can leave you to wallow yourself into an early grave.” Gin peered just over the edge of the door frame, scanning the room. It was as crowded as he’d expected. Six combatants, if he included the clerk. Not good in close quarters, even if he could utilize the doorway as a funnel after getting off the shot that mattered. His position was too predictable as well; better if he could shoot from somewhere unexpected. The clerk’s tormentor prattled on, crouched over him now. “Maybe then you can finally be the one lying next to her at last, and it will all have been worth it, eh?”

“Fuck off-”

“-and die?” the crouching man guessed, tone droll. “Yes, I did hear you the first time.” he sighed, and then, moving as if the violence of it bored him, stabbed a blade up into the gut of the clerk hunched before him.

Gin eased back, fully concealed in the adjacent room once more. Ironically more at ease with his options. This could go only one of two ways now, both favorable to Gin’s cause. The first was obvious, dead men tell no tales. The second, was evidently less obvious to amateur interrogators, as this group was rapidly proving themselves to be.

“Now, this little puncture wound won’t kill you,” the man explained, “if I leave the knife in, that is, and you don’t move around too much.” Gin sat back, somewhat amused at the flamboyance of the interrogator's speech. “But here’s the thing. I am quite fond of that knife, and I didn’t really plan on giving it away for free today. But I might be persuaded to sell it to you for cheap. Real cheap since it is you we’re talking about.” 

Dramatic and entertaining though they may be, these mock executions had one fatal flaw. They were notoriously effective at breaking men. Which sounded good in theory, but in reality was counterproductive. Broken men will say literally anything they think you want to hear to make it stop. Effective interrogation involved short-circuiting men’s long-term reasoning capacity; it was a somewhat delicate art, involving the subtleties of threatening violence and implying leniency for cooperation. Subtleties all too easily drowned out by the blunter physiological responses to pain and imminent death.

“Now don’t go and get honorable on me now just to prove me wrong. If you pull that knife out yourself, we're all going to be able to smell what kind of death you’re signing up for, and that’s a fate best avoided.”

And there it was, their methods backfiring. Sooner than Gin had thought, although a predictable enough outcome when they made hastening death the clerk’s most appealing option.

“C’mon, old friend.” The interrogator's voice strained in a way that suggested physical effort. Gin wondered if they were struggling over the knife stuck in the man’s stomach, an absurd turn of events. “Stop pretending you have any integrity left so we can get on with it.” He grit out, then let out a huff of relief, evidently the victor of the struggle in some capacity. “We really ought to pack that wound around the knife, get you to a doctor... just say the word, we all already know you have it in you. Don’t you see? Some actions change the type of person you are, there’s just no going back. A spade is a spade. A cheat’s a cheat. A killer’s a killer. And a man who’s willing to betray all his friends for his own gain,” he whistled appreciatively. “A man like that is always going to do it again.”

Honestly, if the man was looking to ensure he didn’t get the information he was looking for out of the clerk, he was doing an excellent job. But perhaps the information wasn’t his true goal anyway, perhaps he only enjoyed breaking his spirit. Even still it seemed to Gin that getting him to share the information and then reveling in it would have been all together more effective at that as well. Some people just delighted in inefficiencies Gin supposed. 

A text message chime sounded somewhere in that room, its happy bell at odds with the prolonged moaning and rapid breathing of a man in pain that’d come to dominate the quiet moments in between monologues. 

“Huh, who would have thought,” a new voice said, “Badger’s not so useless after all. No need for a map, Says we should meet up at the rendezvous point.” 

There was some shuffling, then a slight pause before a shrill of agony cut the silence and then was swiftly muffled. 

“Take it out whenever you tire of your own pitiful whimpering. I’ll be back for it in a few hours, not that it’ll make a lick of difference to you.” He spat loudly before the group filed out the front. 

Gin padded into the front room just after the last man left, avoiding the fragments of splintered wood and shattered ceramic on his way to the stairs. The clerk did not look up to acknowledge his passing by, hopefully not because he lacked the presence of mind to do so. Gin didn’t like the look of that blood-soaked spiral radiating out from the knife. The way his shirt bunched around the hilt painted a story of how it had been twisted through his guts until the shape of a cyclone formed around it. 

It was too severe a wound to expect he’d be around to answer questions much longer. Still, Gin put it off for the time it took to scale the stairs, find a decent overlook window on the second floor, and watch for which direction that group strayed off toward. 

There were basically only three ways to leave the village proper. The harbor, the upper forest with the gorge overlook, and the lower forest with the waterfall. Eventually, the forest paths all met and crisscrossed as they rounded the island, but they started off on different ends of town. They left town by way of the lower forest.

Back in the front room, the clerk had dragged himself back against the front desk’s inner counter, evidently still breathing from the strained sounds each inhale made. Gin would need to approach this questioning cautiously. The trick would be to come off like he knew more than he did, without narrowing the subject too early. 

“You held out bravely.” Gin sat casually against the wall across from him. “It seems a shame your efforts will be all for nothing in the end.” 

‘Not nothing. Not when I did what she’d have wanted me to, this time at least.” 

“Miyuu cared more for intentions, is it?” Gin asked testing the name to be sure. “Then you’ve honored her memory, redeemed with your last act.” 

“You can’t make her forgive me with your worthless nothings, not her, she wouldn’t, she never...”

“Fine, I won’t bother then.” Gin dropped the facade of rapport, changing tactics; playing to the man’s self-loathing over Miyuu’s remains. “Only fitting a betrayer knows he should be scorned and condemned to his fate.”

“You love her that much, huh? To hate me for her sake...Such passion. I suppose it would be unfair of me to blame you.” The clerk said, almost gently, though his face remained contorted in pain. Gin couldn’t make sense of his words immediately and started to wonder if the fog of blood loss had come for the man’s mind, but understanding crept up on him, cold and unforgiving as the clerk continued. “...unfair to say I don’t understand, considering. For Miyuu’s sake... what wouldn’t I have done? How could I have done otherwise?”

Of course, this wasn’t about Miyuu’s bones. He never would have helped them smuggle those. He wasn’t their inside man on the island, not from this decade at least.

“You betrayed them, the Miyanos, to those men.”  

It hadn’t been a coincidence that Miyuu survived the explosion; it had been his price.

“So would you.” The clerk panted, unable to gain a full breath. “Don’t you see. You’d do the same. Whatever they were tied up in, those gangsters were coming for them, were going to find them, anyway. I had to take my chance, to save Miyuu. Even if... even if it meant making a deal, with those demons. I had to take that smallest hope. You must understand. Surely. If it was your young wife. If it meant, you could have her safe, in the end.”

If he wasn’t already dying a painful well-deserved death, Gin might have gutted the bastard himself. Not only for what he’d done a decade ago, but for evoking Sherry in his appeal. In his incessant begging for someone’s understanding, if not the forgiveness he knew was beyond him. He would have realized he was wasting his final breaths if only he hadn’t screwed his eyes shut with the pain. If he had managed even a peak into Gin’s, he would have seen the futility. 

Unable to deal out a traitor’s fate personally once again, Gin could at least rob him of this last wish to be understood. Gin recalled the clerk’s disdain for Miyuu’s husband all too well; once used to foster kinship between them.

“I suppose ridding her of the inconvenience of her loveless marriage was just a happy coincidence.” 

“No, that’s not-” he tried to deny, his excuses sputtering to nothing as the truth of the matter bled through. More obvious than the bright arterial blood wicking onto his shirt. 

Gin couldn’t stand false justifications made for betrayal; despised the man’s pitiful attempt at veiling his murderous plot as an act of love. Murder was so often simple, but ugly. Miyuu’s husband stood in the way of what the man wanted, and given the opportunity to remove that obstacle, he acted on it. His betrayal was collateral, a means to an end. Merely a method of covering up his motives, his involvement. 

The clerk’s chest twitched and then began to shake. In a laugh, or a sob Gin couldn’t say. There was a euphoria in losing too much blood. It came from the brain lacking the oxygen blood provided. A final high to ease itself to rest. He was out of time.  

“What did they want from you? Miyuu’s bones? Did they think you know where they’re buried? Did Kimmie tell you?”

If the clerk heard anything Gin asked, he didn’t show it. 

His voice rang wistful as he spoke his last, disturbingly lucid compared with his previous strained whimpering. “Why should you, when she never forgave me. Never accused me outright. But, she never let me touch her again.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 31

Alone in the cabin now that Gin had gone to survey the situation, Sherry hesitated to start any task that would allow her to miss a potential transmission from him. Still, she did her best not to let the silence of waiting stretch on into dread. And so, broke up the quiet with the occasional tap of keys on her laptop, as she edited her page of notes. 

Her parents’ research had worked to define a link between the life cycle of human cells and the nutrients the body draws in through the digestive system. Following the lure about mermaid meat. They figured out how a substance a person ate could, theoretically, facilitate a permanent change to the coding of each of their cells. The question they seemed stuck on was how to target senescence, deterioration with age, specifically. In essence, they knew the how, just not the what, of the research into immortality.

Before Sherry had the opposite problem, knowing what could keep the cells of an organism young forever, just not how to administer that change to humans. In theory, putting the two together she would have the complete answer. 

Time drifted by quickly once she fell into a focused state, so she couldn’t say precisely how long it had been before she was startled from it. Not by Gin’s voice over the earpiece, as she’d expected, but by the familiar, yet not quite right, sound of approaching footsteps. They weren't Gin’s. 

She double-checked her mic was on, though didn’t dare make a noise. Methodically, she eased the laptop closed and tucked it into the comforter folded within the chest of drawers, before padding to the wall by the door. Not long after they first arrived at the cabin Gin had pointed out the nook where she stood now, calling it something like dead space. She wouldn't be visible to anyone peering in the window or first entering the door.  

The crunch of steps made a slow circle of the cabin, and she carefully wrapped her hands around the gun, keeping the barrel pointed low, but ready. That even crunch remained the only perceptible sound, as she’d hushed even the slow exhale of her breath.

She mentally traced the steps’ path, as they passed the window, then just behind her, then to the door, pausing. A jostle at the doorknob broke through the silence, a small warning before the door crashed open, slamming toward her but catching on the alcove’s wall. 

She flinched, but managed not to make any startled noises even as the man halted the door on its rebound as he stepped inside.

He didn’t have anything in his hands, at least not anything large enough to be a weapon. He instead shortly occupied his hands rifling through the room. His back remained to her, but those hiking boots caked in dried mud were a familiar sight. Gin would want to question him, if she could simply hold him here until Gin could make it back. Sherry stepped between him and the door, her heel snapping it closed behind her.

He whipped toward her, his hand jerking instinctively to the level of his belt. 

...

Gin followed down the lower forest trail, in the direction he’d seen those men leave town. It was critical that he not engage with them at this point, and so he made his way cautiously, wary of scouts as he drew closer to any potential rendezvous sight. 

They had been lured back here with less prompting, and rather more quickly than Gin had thought logistically possible, should this group prove to be the grave robbers. As seemed most likely, even if that possibility irked him. He hadn’t been planning to put the final lure in place until Sherry was clear of the island. Besides, they still had another meeting with the prospective bone thieves on the books two days from now in Tokyo. 

Even with that being the case, it was still most likely the bone thieves here. Which meant, Gin wanted confirmation on whether it was the rival syndicate as he’d suspected, as well as intel on more practical concerns, like the number of them on the island, and most critically if they had gotten to Kimmie.

She was the only other person who knew the location of the mermaid's grave, so if they had Kimmie, it would explain why they no longer needed a map to that effect. 

It didn’t take long to gather at least preliminary answers. Eight figures were gathered at the base of the falls, none small enough to be Kimmie. Gin had figured the waterfall as the most probable site for their rendezvous, since the roar of the falls would wash out their voices, and had veered from the main path as he approached the clearing at its base. 

He sank down against the damp trunk of a tree at the clearing’s edge, close enough to the falls himself that a fine mist sprayed over him. He could just catch wisps of conversation. He gleaned that the interrogator from before was called Catfish, and held some authority. The group was still waiting on Badger, it seemed, if the chorus of complaints of his tardiness among other colorful insults were any indication. On the one hand, it meant Gin hadn’t missed the opportunity to gather information from this meeting, on the other, the possibility that Badger had secured Kimmie Shimabukuro remained open. 

Gin had never been fully content with that particular loose end within his plan, but allowed for the vulnerability in order to lend authenticity when he pulled the final strings of his snare. Even still, he hadn’t left the weakness entirely open, although the precautionary measure he’d taken to mitigate the risk was minor, to say the least. Merely moving Kimmie’s makeshift grave marker, that danger sign, a small way further down the trail. Just enough to ensure his plans weren’t spoiled in the event Kimmie told someone the grave’s location. Gin didn’t doubt the danger sign had only been meant as a temporary thing until Kimmie had sufficient opportunity to craft something suitable, so his misdirection always had an expiration date. But, if they had Kimmie herself, and not merely her verbal directions, even those measures he’d taken would prove insufficient. In the end, his worrying was wasted on these concerns.

“Badger!” A man from the group shouted out to a single approaching figure. “You were starting to make us sweat. Although, I have to commend your cell service provider for managing to send a message when you were so far out from civilization! Such a fast network speed is a wonder.”

“Shut up, you’re always too fuckin’ loud.” Badger gave in answer. His voice rang surprisingly young compared to the others among this group. 

“By all means, take the floor. We’re all anxious to hear the details.”

“We’re still waiting on Lion-Dog, moron.” 

“Pshh Come-on, stop joking around.” He didn’t relent. Gin placed this voice as the one who’d called Badger useless back at the inn, or not-so-useless rather. “If that old-dog wants to go chasing ghosts that’s his business, but we shouldn’t waste our time waiting around.”

“You really shouldn’t call him that,” Badger corrected. “Convenient you only seem to slip up when he’s not around.”

“Whatever.”

“Besides, aren't you part of the team from the first time around? You’re just saying that guy’s a ghost cause then you wouldn’t have failed, when it’s obvious-”

“That hit was confirmed.” Catfish cut in, putting a swift end to the young men’s squabbling. “And we’re not here for Gin.”

“But-” Badger tried to interject.

“No matter what you think you heard.” Catfish’s tone did not invite argument and Gin wondered as to the factions within this group, and whether Catfish or Lion-dog had more authority. 

Catfish had effectively killed open discussion. But it took only a short time before Gin caught hints at one half of a muttered conversation, not meant to be audible to the larger group and likely only audible to him due to a pair of them splitting off and drawing nearer.

“If anyone’s clinging to what they want to believe it's not Catfish.” The man scoffed. His conversation partner must have responded, because there was a pause before he said, “Nah, if anything Lion-dog just needs it to be true because he never got to kill that bastard himself... He never let it go... More than a decade’s passed, and he still hasn’t. No matter what Catfish says, that’s why we’re here. He’s always been a hair-trigger from-” 

Gin’s attention was pulled abruptly from his strained listening as Sherry’s voice came through his earpiece, loud and steady. 

“Don’t.”

“So young...” Another followed, muffled in static that only seemed to enhance its underlying malice. “Your voice betrays you.” 

If Gin had to guess, it was likely the unaccounted-for Lion-dog.

“I’ll not warn you again,” Sherry said.

“What’s the situation?” Gin spoke low into his headset mic, hyper-aware of the nine men at his back, some of whom stood close enough for him to hear their muted grumbling.

“What are you searching for, a festival arrow, wasn’t it?” She must be trying to clue him into who was there, the fortune hunters they’d met the night of the festival. Although he had figured as much, given the conversation he’d overheard with the clerk. He should have been more specific about what he needed from her. 

“Where has your guardian gotten off to, little fawn?” Lion-dog asked, uninterested in her line of questioning. 

“...I'm afraid we didn’t win the raffle.” she tried to continue, but his condescending lilt kept on, winding over her stumbling attempt, unbothered.

“Were you meant to lie low until he returned?”

Gin cupped his hand over the mic and enunciated clearly. “How many men are there? Who's currently armed?”

Sherry’s voice answered, trying to sound unshaken, but ultimately only pining after confidence. “There is no need to hide away from just one man, at least not when he’s in the line of my sights.”

“Good,” Gin breathed, “shoot him, and get clear.”

His instructions had some competition as Lion-dog spoke at a slight overlap with him. “Don’t be so eager to repeat history, little Miyano. It doesn’t end well for you.”

“Repeat history?” She questioned, stepping into Lion-dog’s lure. Damn, she wasn’t listening.

“No need to have another scientist lost,” Lion-dog went on, “when it should have been him instead. We can let it be only him this time.”

“Stop moving.” Her voice wavered, too vulnerable in her repetition. 

“Only Gin.” He lulled, a gentle tightening of the noose.

“Sherry, shoot him, and get clear now!” Gin ordered, his voice raised a degree too harsh to be considered a whisper, needing to break through to her.

“Gin? I’ve never-” Her words cut away, replaced with the muffled static rumble of a hand grabbing the headset mic directly as it was ripped away from her. 

Damn, she’d wasted her advantage when she had it. Damn, Damn, Damn. He strained to make sense of the cacophony of their struggle, shifting fabric, and strange impacts. 

At the same moment, a prickle of awareness rose across his skin. An unnatural tension stretched the air immediately surrounding him, while the clearing behind him held its breath, all too quiet. 

Moving entirely on that instinct, Gin rolled clear of the tree trunk. Not a second too soon, as bullets peppered the space he’d been just after, spraying ancient carpet-thick clumps of moss up into a fine green mist. 

Gin took in his opponents’ formation in an instant, finding they’d been lazy in flanking him, and dashed through a gap created by a particularly dense cluster of trees and bramble. He paid for the ground he gained in thorns, and the sharp ends of snapping branches. But, he did gain ground, and narrowly avoided being boxed in.

There was a significant difference between concealment and cover however, and pursuing bullets whizzed uncomfortably close. They mostly missed, but their fire burst nearby bark into shrapnel that cut out and stung at him. Piercing through even the substantial thickness of his sleeves. 

Still, he ran on.

One hand vainly pressed over his earpiece, the other found his gun in a reflex almost more self-soothing than practical. Distance and terrain were his only true allies here, so severely outnumbered. 

That and the sleek Kevlar vest, snuggly tucked under his coat. Gin felt as its tight weave at his back saved him from a foolish death in these woods. However, the force still staggered him a moment, as the pair of two lucky shots found their target. No, that wasn’t quite right. Luck wasn’t to blame, it was merely a result of the law of averages. Something that could be factored in, anticipated, controlled. 

Regardless, the vest reduced their impact to nasty black welts he wouldn’t see surface until tomorrow. Assuming he survived long enough to see them. 

Finally, he reached the edge of their range and they had to stop firing in order to pursue. They weren’t well versed in tactical movement, it was obvious from this clumsy pursuit. Or perhaps, it was a lack of command. From the missing Lion-Dog? Or was it the division in ranks and awkward blending of units he’d noted before?

If he was clever about it, he might be able to foster some friendly cross-fire. Plans for confusing their pursuit, splitting them up, and drawing their fire into each other ran in tandem with his finely tuned mental map of the area, narrowing down the best terrain for it. All the while, Gin still strained to hear anything intelligible coming through his earpiece.

The scuffle had continued into clattering, thuds, then a more muted grunting. More words passed between them, too garbled now to make any sense of them. All while he was too far away to be of any use. 

Gin had made it to the patch of trail he planned to use to break up his own opponents when an ear-splitting gunshot rang over the headset. So little sound followed after, a damning quiet and what might have been quick footsteps.  

It was nearly impossible to force himself to follow through with his plans. He wanted so badly to keep running. Knew the fastest path there. Had walked it so many times, that he couldn’t help but visualize the journey. He would already be on it. But. His better experience and training overrode the red in his vision. It would do no good to run there with so many at his back. 

He veered left, where the cabin would be closer on the right, and set the steps he’d charted out firmly in his mind. Sinking fully into that unbothered calm that allowed for absolute focus. He carried out each step cleanly. Paying no mind to the time each took outside of what would be most effective; not allowing their execution to be ruined with haste or indecision. 

More than a third of their number were injured or downed by the time they realized they’d fallen into friendly fire. Catfish called the ceasefire, the first words spoken since the gunfight began. But far from the last.

After losing track of him during the cross-fire incident, they began heckling him. Although obvious that he couldn’t have gone far, it was still a poor attempt at drawing him out that only made him grin and bide his time. Gin watched the fruitless search as they combed the forest floor beneath him. None looked up to where he crouched among the branches. Their tattered morale would be the ultimate death of this chase, and Gin’s best avenue for getting out alive. 

“Where are you, crow?” One of them yelled. The common nickname for organization members caught his ear from among the nonsense shouting of the others. “Come out so I can make you the ghost you’re pretending to be.”

Gin picked out the man from the milling group below. Tempted to rain down pain on his unsuspecting head. Not because of the threat, but because the man had recognized that Gin wasn’t his mentor; because the man was part of the group that killed him. 

A grenade was in his hand before a plan for what came after fully formed, and Gin teetered on the edge of abandoning his better sense of precaution when Catfish wandered into his range. It would reveal his position, but taking their de facto leader out of commission would be worth it. 

He waited for Catfish to draw near enough before chucking the grenade. He didn’t waste time after, scaling down as far as he dared before jumping onto the ground. He rolled over his shoulder and onto his feet to lessen the blow, but still, pain shot up his legs. The return fire he’d been anticipating caught up to him there, one of the bullets tore into the flesh of his arm. An awful searing pain he never seemed able to grow fully accustomed to no matter how many times he’d been shot. He didn’t turn back to notice which of them had managed it, nor to survey the damage done by the grenade. 

Gin only knew Catfish had survived it because he heard him call off the men who had once again started to make chase, but he soon left even the sound of their arguments of protest far behind. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 32

“Sherry, shoot him, and get clear now!” 

Gin’s shout reverberated up her spine, making every one of her muscles tense. 

“Gin?” Her head shook in a strained ‘no’ of its own volition; just the thought of following his directions made her blood run cold.  “I’ve never-”

Stinging pain raked across her ear at the same time as a shoulder bowled into her, slamming her back into the door. The brutal force of it cracked through the ice encasing her, and she snapped back into herself. 

Gun in her hand, intruder pinning her to the cabin door, her arms pressed together and forced straight out from her. She struggled and tried kneeing up at him, but didn’t have the angle. 

“Enough,” he growled, pushing further until her unnaturally compressed shoulders ached and she cried out. “Enough of your nonsense. I won’t be fooled a second time and left with nothing. I know you’re here with Gin, same as your parents.”

“You won’t keep me hostage,” Sherry said, surprising herself with how steady her words came out. She let her weight drop, sliding down the door, but still, her hands remained locked between his iron grip and the gun.

“A hostage? No, of course not. There’d be no point. Not with the Crows.” His voice held an acid humor. At the same time, he dug his knee into the soft interior of her arm, just below the joint of her shoulder, pinning her viciously against the door once more, and bringing him one step closer to pulling the gun fully from her grasp. “I was introduced to your ways some time ago after all. You see, Gin announced the futility of keeping any of your members alive to negotiate over, back when he made it clear that the Crows don’t deal in hostages.”

In her growing panic, Sherry wriggled one of her hands free, and immediately began tugging and pushing against the knee making her other arm go numb. 

“Which is why I’m your best option right now. You see, you can get me something they do value.” Sherry paused her fruitless struggle, letting her eyes go wide and vulnerable, like the helpless doe he’d compared her to before. “How about it then? Hand over the research and we can keep the casualties to just the one who has it coming, eh?” 

She gave it a moment as if thinking it over, before giving a little nod. She used the time to measure one finger length above his knee. There was a nerve there on his thigh that should induce numbness if she jabbed it just right. 

Then, just as he eased slowly back from her, she struck. 

The struggle that followed blurred by in a series of desperate shoving and scrambling. Most of it on the floor. It ended almost as soon as it began. He took hold of her wrist and slammed it against the floorboards again and again, like a squirrel breaking a nut. The gun went off, firing harmlessly into the far wall. But, whether due to the kick, or the battering, or the prospect of losing it anyway, the gun was thrown clear of her hand.

Although, it must have been fairly close. The intruder leaned forward to grasp it, and she had just enough leverage to buck and slide out from under him, finding her feet and the door in no time at all. 

Even then, it still might have been all over for her, except he staggered as he rose to his feet in chasing her, a lingering weakness making his leg wobble just enough for her to clear the doorway before he steadied his aim. 

With little else before her outside the cabin, and only moments before she was once again in his sights, Sherry cut a quick path to the gorge, sliding over the cliff’s edge just as the intruder burst from the cabin door. 

...

Gin huffed up the mountain trails toward the cabin. 

The memory of that piercing gunshot battered against his nerves once more, resurfacing now that he’d shaken his pursuers. He shoved it down with some effort. Gin had thought she was dead once before, and she had proved him wrong. Sherry was surprisingly resilient. He found himself smiling at the notion despite the pressing alarm he felt for her safety. He would need to confirm it with his own eyes before he believed anything. Especially now that she was his charge. 

Not willing to handle the question of Sherry’s wellbeing any more than that until he had more information, a tally of his injuries vied for his attention in its place. His skin was damp with sweat and the moisture of the falls, but now it was sticky in several places as well where dirt and moss clung to his own blood. It had been years since Gin had found himself in such a sorry state after a fight. This was mostly because he made a point to avoid foolish exchanges of poor timing and insufficient information. Careful calculation and patience in those matters were however attributes he’d had to acquire with time and experience. Or rather, a series of painful lessons his initial lack brought about.

The first of these forced its way into his thoughts, as the echo of remembered pain mirrored the shock he’d taken to his leg from landing on it poorly. It was an uphill hike to the cabin, and he had to let his leg take his weight, but… at least there weren't stairs this time. He recalled limping up an extended flight of metal stairs most vividly. He'd forced on through the pain then just the same, although his reasons had been notably less noble. 

He was still training under his mentor at the time, and the fight had been among boys who were similarly learning their craft within the organization, chafing against their place within it. They were older, but this wasn’t immediately apparent, as Gin had always been tall for his age. Still, he hadn’t intended to get into a fight at all. Only warn them off. This would have worked better if his gun had been in the shoulder holster where he always kept it. 

It had not.  

What went down was a much more physical exchange than he had been anticipating. There were two of them, and Gin didn’t know them well. He hadn’t bothered to, rather. They’d infrequently shared the same training spaces, and it hadn’t taken Gin long into observing them to decide they were beneath his notice and he had been content to ignore them. The indifference had seemed mutual enough, although in hindsight, he was rarely without his tutor in those days, and only fools and deadmen trifled with codenamed members, especially of such significant rank. 

To make matters worse, Gin had just started taking a non-lethal dose of a common poison to build up his resistance to it. The first day of taking a new poison was always the worst and it made him particularly short-tempered. He had been in desperate need to shoot something and despite his tutor warning him against too much physical exertion the first day of taking a poison he had gone to the firing range. It was really a bad habit he had never outgrown. He should have let his body focus on fighting against the poison, but he always ended up wanting a distraction and the familiarity of training.

Gin had not reached the firing range before he was cut off by the two older boys. “Well, if it isn’t the esteemed young lord himself.” One of them shut the door just in front of him when Gin had only ignored them and moved to step around the two. “Don’t you think you spend enough time in the firing range? If you haven’t gotten any better by now there’s no point in wasting the bullets.”

The other boy had stepped up behind him and offered a laugh. “Do ya think he’s ever once thought ‘bout the cost of anything? If ya told me his hair was spun of white gold I’d have half a mind to believe ya.” This one spoke in a bastardized Kansai dialect, obviously trying for the thuggish overly casual sound of yakuza slang, and not quite managing. “Must be nice. Do ya think I coulda got special training too? If my folks were high up enough to manage?"

“What good would a personal tutor do you?” The first boy cut in. “You don’t listen as it is.” He turned his attention back to Gin, but still addressed the other boy. “You do have a point though, don’t you? It is a hypocritical system we have here. Oh, the Organization can criticize society for hoarding the wealth and power among those who already possess it, passing it from one generation to the next with no change. And yet. How are they any different? Giving every advantage to those privileged enough to be born to it.” 

“Those are traitorous words.” Gin looked up, murder in his eyes.

“Easy for you to defend a system that favors yourself, you coddled, arrogant, half-breed aristocrat.” The older boy, and de facto leader of the pair, had perhaps two inches on Gin, and used whatever height difference there was to leer down at him.

“Your vendetta isn't against me,” Gin said unimpressed. “You’re speaking against the Organization.”

“Tch, so self-righteous. You think you’re so superior.”

“Do I need to prove my aim?” Gin threatened, reaching for his gun. It wasn’t there. That moment of sheer panic struck him. One of them caught him by surprise, slamming him back against the steel door. Gin had the instinct to let his shoulders take the bulk of the blow. 

The fight broke out immediately following. The leader boy was still close from throwing him back into the door and Gin flipped their positions swinging him so his head bluntly smacked into the hard metal of the door. By the time he had done this, the second had a gun out and pressed into his shoulder. He knocked it from his grasp and found a more favorable position in a maneuver his tutor had taught him. 

Although the other boys were stronger their fighting was unrefined and less coordinated than Gin. The brute strength of their blows made the match more even however, and it would be no sooner than Gin had gained an edge over the one before the other was back to having a decent opening at him. It dragged on for what seemed like ages, and he could feel his stamina running short. The leader of the pair had managed a solid strike against his shin early in the fight which made it hard for him to stand on it. He pushed on through the pain, but the longer the fight stretched on the more difficult each maneuver became. He could feel the icy trickle of the poison eating at him now as well. 

Finally, he’d gained a grip on one of them and knocked him off balance, slamming him to the floor. They wrestled, both beating down on the other whenever they gained sufficient leverage. He’d ended up pinned by the last exchange. His brain rattled in his skull as the thuggish boy landed several solid strikes to his head. 

He noticed in their tussling they were always most off-balance just after landing a blow. It took quite a bit of effort to put any force to bear when you were wailing on someone without the power of your legs it turned out. It was only natural, inexperienced as they were, they struggled to keep center. Gin was just glad he’d managed to put his muddled thoughts together in time to pull his head just out of the way and block off the thuggish boy’s predictable next punch to the side. The follow-through left the boy’s knuckles to scrape across the concrete. He used the boy’s own momentum to leverage their positions, flipping on top. In desperation to end the fight before he ran out of energy, Gin grabbed the older boy by the collar and slammed his head back into the concrete. 

The other was on him fast, taking the easy kick to his chest that sent him reeling off of the now unconscious boy. 

He took another cheap shot at Gin’s jaw while he was still crouched over trying to catch his breath. His head throbbed something terrible, but he gained his feet. Knowing the jaw was one of the most reliable triggers to knock out an opponent and taking a hit just shy of that brought to sharp reality that there were two very different ways to know a thing, and they had little to do with one another.

He dodged several of the leader boy’s next strikes thankfully. The practice of drilling evasion to exhaustion allowing muscle memory to carry him on. But, it was clear the other boy still had much more stamina. If he didn’t end this fight soon, he would lose. A vague lecture on how adrenaline actually worked against you in a fight spun in an unhelpful jumble of his tutor's platitudes. 

The other boy broke his pattern to land another blow to Gin’s gut. Gin staggered back, his endurance closing in and leaving him so shaky that a simple misplaced step back onto a loose object nearly threw him to the floor. Several painful jolts of protest shot up his wounded leg as he stumbled to avoid the obstacle. A gun. It was the gun he’d knocked from the want-to-be-thug boy at the beginning of the fight.

It would allow too much of an opening were he to pick it up. Instead, Gin blinked the sting of sweat from his eyes before kicking the Glock at the other boy’s ankles. It skid across the concrete just ahead of his lunge. The heavy gun struck, weakening the older boy's stance just in time for Gin to bring him down and then quickly twist him into a pressure lock.

“The Organization does not take kindly to those who speak against it.”

“Go die.” The older boy spat. Gin pulled him further into the pressure lock, hearing a small snap in the boy’s shoulder almost like a tap on fine porcelain just before the boy hissed through his teeth. “You don’t have any authority to call me a traitor.” 

“I guess not, but it would seem I do have the authority to break your arm. I would suggest you rethink your stance on loyalty in future.” 

When a response wasn’t immediately forthcoming Gin leaned in marginally, and the older boy gave in at once nodding and tapping frantically for release. Gin pushed him away in disgust letting him stagger a few feet. 

“Tch.” The boy shot him a hateful look but did not aggravate the argument further. He went to check on his friend. Gin kept up a strong posture as he left, not showing the leg it was almost too painful to stand on. He made it past the stairwell door and collapsed against the wall. 

His mind was swimming and his whole body pulsed with pain, like a violent heartbeat. He clenched his jaw hard and limped up the stairs. He was vaguely aware of where he was headed. Shame should have kept him away, at least until he could stand properly on his own. Even still, he came there, injuries untended, and exhaustion weighing down his every move. He had sought out his mentor in that state of delirium. 

He needed - He couldn’t think straight. He opened the door to a study, and snapped it shut behind him with his body weight. 

"Pick a fight?" His tutor eyed his slight limp and the way he clutched his stomach, but continued to sift through papers. "Lose a fight?"

Gin just glared at him. By this time he had calculated at what point he had lost his gun. He knew he had it just before talking with his tutor as he headed to the firing range. Just before he got in the fight. The man had to have slipped it out of his jacket at that time without his noticing.  

"I will need it back." He kept his voice more even than he felt.

“Will you? You seem to have survived. Though I’m guessing you won’t be quite so overconfident for a week or two.”

"I didn't lose, even unarmed."

"Or perhaps not, though I didn't really expect this exercise to manage that." He set his papers down. 

"What was the point of leaving me unarmed like that then?"

"Why didn't you notice when you no longer had your gun?" He asked in that way he only did when he thought Gin wasn't asking the 'right' question.

"Because you picked my pocket. Presumably, because you knew I wouldn’t listen about resting today. Maybe even to teach me a lesson about assuming the relative strength of my opponents. Which didn't take."

“No. Whatever lesson of patience and precaution you take from this is your own doing. My intention was to prove to you that I could.” Gin's tutor pulled out the stolen Beretta from inside his jacket. “And it is the reason why I could disarm you that is important in this case." 

He stood and walked around the desk toward Gin. "I could pick your pocket because you were expecting my presence. It's why crowds are such ideal places; people expect to bump into each other. And why women's flirtations are equally dangerous. If you’re comfortable with anyone touching you, you’re at risk of them disarming you.” 

He was just in front of Gin now, and without even trying he had the intimidating presence that boy had tried for before their fight. He felt in that moment that his mentor could see every bruise and pain Gin was trying desperately to hide from him.

“Your gun," he shoved the Beretta into Gin's chest, the hard metal hitting his tender bruises. "Is your life. If you're not responsible enough to carry it, you're not responsible enough to use it." 

Gin hastily tucked his gun into its holster, still trying not to show how every movement felt like being jabbed with needles. 

“Now get off that leg, kid. Your pride isn't worth making the injury worse.” He sat back behind the desk, picking up the papers again. “Bloody idiot.” This was exactly what Gin had been trying not to let his mentor see, and yet. Oddly, he was glad that he had.

Chapter Text

Sherry clung to the face of the cliff. She was trying, in what felt like a rather vain attempt, to keep her breathing quiet. The rush of wind at her back would probably cover any noise she made sufficiently but the terror of the situation made it feel like every gasp was one closer to death. She didn’t expect the man she’d scuffled with would think she survived the jump, but all it would take was for him to look directly down the cliffside.

The pain also made her want to gasp out. Long scrapes had racked up her forearms and the inside of her calves and stung. She knew catching herself on the ledges of the cliff face wasn’t going to be easy or pleasant, but she hadn’t seen another option. 

While sitting on the bench at the cliff’s edge in the past months she had spent a great deal of time studying the walls of the gorge. Saplings and full-fledged trees were common to see growing out of the rock.   

Trees on cliffs typically grow in the joints, or nearly vertical cracks where the rock is weak, and sand and seeds might fall in. The larger the tree is the more the strong roots in that joint push the now widening crevasse apart. The surrounding joints, or potential crack patterns where the rock is weakest, often break off chunks of the cliff rock creating ledges. 

It was those ledges that she knew she could use to catch herself and then climb back up later.  She found that in practice slipping off the edge of a cliff was quite different from theory. Falling happened so much faster than she could have anticipated. One moment she was sliding over the top edge and the next she was several yards down, her feet compacting the loose soil in the cracks she’d kicked into to support her weight. The moment of falling seemed not to have existed at all; it was so brief. Still, she had managed to flip toward the cliff face and gather a hold beneath her.  

Her whole body was pressed flat to the rock. Looking up she could see the grassy top edge of the gorge. It was a little less than twice her height above her. There were fewer holds above her than she had been expecting, but the soil was probably too loose where she had skid down to make it up that way anyway. She ended up climbing more diagonally then up, making her progress slow. But it was progress all the same.

...

Gin quieted his steps as he approached the clearing with the cabin. Gun at a low ready. He crept up to the side of the cabin, forgoing the wide slow circle of the perimeter that was his habit, in favor of speed.

Whatever violence he’d heard before had settled into a deadly stillness. Eerie and silent. The only hint of movement within the cabin came from a low crumpled shape, billowing slightly. 

He kept clear of the door and windows until he came flush with the cabin’s exterior. Then, singling out the window which allowed for the fewest blind spots, Gin made a quick scan. Finding it empty.

No body, no blood. 

Only the intrusion of a crisp autumn draft, let in by the open door, hinted at a profound wrongness here. It scoured the vacant interior, indifferent to the tableware it set occasionally to clattering, and the snap of cloth, as it blustered through. The crumpled shape he’d seen in passing before turned out to be nothing more than that plush comforter, draped over the edge of a low table.

The lack of any blood trail or splatter was promising, and a small unbidden hope rekindled, despite his resolve to shut out such thoughts. He needed to maintain absolute focus, to ensure nothing critical slipped his notice. To that purpose, he couldn’t immediately locate a bullet hole from the shot he’d heard over Sherry’s com, necessitating a more thorough sweep. 

He considered pacing around to the entrance, but was wary of that alcove behind the door, just large enough to conceal an assailant. Hoping to avoid that unpleasantness, he opted to slip in through the window. And, had just kicked a leg up over the ledge when he felt an all too familiar pressure at his back—a gun.  

Had the gunmen come around the far side of the cabin by the cliffside? That was peculiar. His earlier call to approach directly seemed foolish in hindsight, although he’d have equally scrutinized the decision made the other way if haste had proven to be all-important after all.

In the end, such concerns amounted to nothing. The very idea that he could get to her in time was built entirely on false hope. And the last lick of it flickered out and died as Gin recognized the honeyed poison voice at his back. 

“Why hasn’t he come?” Lion-Dog asked.

“He’s dead.” Gin twisted slowly back to face Lion-Dog but kept his focus low. He managed a peak at Lion-Dog’s freshly mud-caked boots, just past his own shoulder, where blood stained his jacket a darker sticky black. The movement earned him a none-too-gentle prod between the shoulder blades from the muzzle of Lion-Dog’s gun; A warning Gin heeded, at least ostensibly. 

“The man you knew as Gin died eleven years ago,” Gin said, “But I think you already knew that.”

Before Lion-Dog could articulate a response, Gin was well into a maneuver he had perfected years ago, in which he diverted the aim of a gun pressed at his back, and then knocked it from his opponent's grasp. The man’s stance favored one leg. A weakness Gin had noted and now exploited to undermine his balance and drop him flat onto his back in the gravel. 

He had his Beretta trained on Lion-Dog before the man could even lift his head off the ground. Flipping the advantage in an instant. The thrill of triumph was palpable, rolling off him like waves of excess body heat, fueled to scorching by his barely restrained rage.

Lion-Dog must have missed that Gin already had his gun in hand before the exchange. A costly mistake for him, but easy enough to make if he’d assumed Gin was right-handed, and therefore unarmed, as he’d prepared to enter through the window. 

What seemed at first merely an expression of surprise on Lion-Dog’s face, gave way to growing realization, and then abject horror at his mistake. Gin waited for it to settle fully, bearing down on him with eyes devoid of mercy. Reveling in the rush of catching an enemy in error. 

“The girl that was here, Sherry, where is she?”

Gin asked. Not out of any hope he might still entertain, but in a cruel bid to dash the last remaining dregs of Lion-Dog’s own. To ensure the man knew exactly why he was about to suffer a slow and agonizing death. 

Gin was not at all expecting the man to bark out a toothy laugh, but pressure often made men crack in unexpected ways. Although the particular jubilation in this laugh grated at him. 

“She’s dead. And took your precious research out with her. Family trait it would seem.”

Gin narrowed his eyes, and Lion-Dog continued, eager to brag he had still won, even if Gin killed him now. “You’ll have to hike down to the bottom of the cliff if you don’t believe me. She took a dive from it, rather than surrender the research.”

Now that was a little too believable. It took considerable effort to shut out the resulting bluster of discordant thoughts - an already shattered hope, now only an echo of disbelief, then despair, and even pride she’d go so far - all vying for attention, all locked firmly behind the cold exterior he could not allow to break. Like shutters against the storm. 

“Wouldn’t that be convenient for you?” Gin said, maintaining that calm rhetorical tone. “ Don’t think you can convince me the research was lost so easily. You came sniffing back here after all.”

“Well, that’s-” Lion-Dog began, a transparent excuse forming which Gin quickly cut off.

“Lion-Dog.” 

The man quieted at the sound of his name. Partially a reflex, partially in shock that Gin knew it, and then a growing fear of what else he might already know. 

“We can’t have you getting used to spouting off lies,” Gin shook his head scornfully. “Now, I’ll take a guess and say you don’t often find yourself on the wrong side of a gun, so you might be thinking that having managed it once today, you’ll try your luck a second time.” 

Gin locked eyes with the man beneath him, allowing some fraction of his basest rage to shine through, like peaking through a crack in storm shutters. “But, I’ll remind you that last time you fuckers made out to kill a crow, you had the good sense to maintain your fucking distance.”

Sweat beaded on the man’s brow, and the telltale match-stick stench of fear rose from his skin. That was good. Perhaps he’d be more in the mindset to tell the truth now. 

“So then?” Gin prompted.

“She did! She took the research out with her, she must have, why else jump?” 

“Hmm,” Gin waited. Staring down and saying nothing, allowing him the opportunity to change his story.

“Threatening me changes nothing, your victory here will still be hollow! Tantamount to defeat, isn’t that what they say.” He propped himself up on his elbows behind him, apparently losing preservation for his own mortality somewhat. “Shit, it’s no wonder neither syndicate has found the answer in all this time, if we keep destroying research and killing scientists.” He was nearly raving now, affected by a sudden hysterical laughter. “It would seem there's a lot of death involved in the business of looking for a cure against it.” 

Gin could not exactly disagree with this statement considering his role in the Organization. But the growing hysterics of the man were a cause for concern. He was on the brink of snapping, and it made his actions wild and unpredictable. Gin kept his aim steadily on the man, anticipating an attack. 

Lion-Dog shifted awkwardly in the gravel, obviously trying not to draw too much attention, although his mouth scrunched toward one corner in concentration.

Gin fired a warning shot into the ground by his head. Waiting just a moment for the ringing that doubtless overwhelmed the man’s hearing to lessen.

“Stop moving.” Gin’s instruction went unheeded, as the man continued to writhe in pain clutching his ear. “Stop.” This time he stepped on Lion-Dog’s shoulder, to pin him. When the man finally settled Gin asked:

“Out of curiosity, what were you doing here before Badger overheard us at the festival?”

“Badger...” His face paled to a ghostly white, seeming to notice the red dripping down from Gin’s arm for the first time.

Gin’s gamble at guessing the spy’s name paid off. He figured it had to be one among their number not present the decade before, or they would have realized the incongruity of his face to the Gin they’d known before. 

“Yes Badger, young, not well-liked, bit of a stickler for the rules. It’s important you keep up when I’m threatening you.”

“What have you done with-”

“The question, Lion-Dog.” Gin raised his gun-free hand in a ‘stop’ motion to silence him, not that it worked.

“-is he...oh god.”

Gin sighed. “The island, what was your interest with the island?”

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s the same reason the crows were interested in the festival, wasn’t it?” It seemed a guess, that despite his situation Lion-Dog still had a mind to get information out of him. Gin’s expression revealed nothing to this effect, merely waiting for the pressure to build sufficiently to get Lion-Dog talking once more. Although he couldn’t help but notice the minute sifting from before starting up again. And so was not terribly surprised when Lion-Dog started a sentence only to try lunging for him midway through it. 

“We were trying to-” He had started, swinging his fist up toward Gin’s neck. Anticipating the arc of his movement, Gin cracked the heavy black base of his beretta across Lion-Dog’s temple as he came up, leaving him to fall backward to the gravel just as quickly. 

...

Sherry was nearly to the cement base of the bench at the cliff’s edge when she heard a nearby gunshot. Her fatigued body surged with energy. With shaking hands and straining muscles, she finally made it back over the edge. Ignoring the illogical nature of the action, and with the burst of adrenaline quickly failing her, she pulled herself to her feet and made it to the cabin on wobbly legs. 

She folded in the doorway, resting her forearms on her thighs when she saw Gin standing inside. His coat was stained darker in several places and red ran down onto his hands from under his coat sleeves. 

He snapped his phone closed. Was he holding it a second ago? 

“Sherry.” He darted toward her. Exhaustion caught up with her all at once. Her head was impossibly light and heavy at the same time. Her focus was slipping. Was she on the floor? She suddenly had more support and limped to the bed. She was so tired. Swimming in and out of consciousness she was vaguely aware of what Gin was saying. “...injured...said you’d jumped off a cliff...” A flash of pain made her notice he was holding her forearms, twisting them to see the insides of her wrists. There wasn’t very much of her own blood, her injuries were mostly brown where dirt and rock had scraped under the skin. He was talking again and shuffling about the room. “...Can’t stay...packing... worry about that on the ferry... leaving.” He was shuffling about the room, probably packing. 

If they were leaving today he needed to know where she’d tucked the research.

“The laptop, in the second drawer.” She managed to mumble in a sleepy voice. She shouldn’t feel safe here, not with everything that was happening. But, she must have, since she let the exhaustion pull her fully down into unconsciousness, not startling herself out of it this time as she listened to Gin’s steady voice answering hers. The words were lost to the haze, leaving only their familiar and calming resonance. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 34

Gin maintained a determined pace as they passed through town on their way to the ferry. Pausing only when he needed to relay brisk instructions to her. Sherry had learned it was far easier to follow his lead and ask questions later when he was like this. So when he told her there might be more of their rivals about and to stay close, she did. And when he spotted the fishing vessels pull in as they reached the docks, and he told her to wait with the luggage, she did.

Whatever conversation he had with the fishing union head didn't take long, and she wondered if Gin was only making excuses for their sudden departure, or if there was something else she wasn’t putting together. 

Gin didn't bother to offer any explanation for it as he rejoined her, but she figured it must be of some importance if he'd taken the risk of remaining on the island just a bit longer, even if he hadn't let her out of his sight the whole time. Though perhaps that was a silly thought; the ferry wouldn't leave until its scheduled departure time regardless. Surely, she was just antsy from being attacked by that man and her brief and terrifying attempt at free climbing the gorge cliffs. 

She did her best to shake off the feeling once they were safe inside a ferry bathroom, but without the distraction of walking or conversation, there was nothing to stop her mind from reeling over everything from that morning. 

Once he had set out the implements from the medical kit, Gin tapped the open spot on the countertop twice, to indicate she should sit. He then spent the better part of an hour methodically picking microscopic, and otherwise imagined, bits of gravel from her arms and legs.

Sherry considered breaking the quiet several times so they could start reviewing events together. But she wasn't certain of Gin's mood. Aside from his clear focus on the task before him, his silence could be interpreted too many different ways: lingering combat wariness, seething anger, or perhaps that pensive deliberation that was his habit to fall into just before announcing a new course of action.

In the end, it was the boat whistle that marked their official departure from the Isle of Mermaids that burst the silence. 

“That’s it then,” Gin said as the last tone of the whistle faded. “We’re off.”

“You could say that a week turned out to be a rather generous estimate,” she lamented, watching Gin for his acknowledgment of her meaning. It came in a knowing flash of his eyes up at hers: intense and alluring in a way that sent a rush of heat down her neck.

“It is unfortunate.” Gin lifted her leg unexpectedly, and she had to catch herself on the counter behind her when he pressed the sole of her foot flat against his chest. “Might even rank among those bastards’ worst offenses.”

“I don’t know about that.” Her quip came out wrong and hollow. She wanted to laugh it off, not spoil the developing mood, but couldn’t seem to manage. Instead, she continued hoarsely, “They’re the same ones from a decade ago, the ones who... well, he said I was the same as my parents, and he knew the codename Gin. I think he thought you were the same one from back then, you know that man who...”

“Lion-dog.” Gin provided as he began wrapping her leg in earnest. “Their made-men are named after animal-type creatures from folklore, it seems.”

“He did have a weird thing with animals...” Sherry mused aloud. “He called me a fawn.”

“And, I got that as well.” He paused, then clarified. “Not about animals. That Lion-dog was searching for the previous Gin. Although they all knew he was dead and Lion-dog was chasing ghosts.”

“He wanted the research, really,” Sherry said, trying and failing not to wince as the bandage compressed some of the more extensive scratches. “Allegedly, as a bargaining chip to use against us. But still, he knew about it.”

Gin nodded and squeezed the uninjured part of her leg to indicate he was done securing the last tie in place. “Rivals to our objective.” It was an echo of an earlier sentiment, from when he’d first told her about the rival syndicate.

“But it wasn’t just that. He was furious about something that happened in the past, something the previous Gin did.”

“That tracks with what the other members said. He wanted revenge, up close and personal, not like a decade ago.”     

“But revenge for what?” Sherry asked, thinking of how Lion-Dog seemed to imply scientists on both sides had been killed, as well as his claims about the Organization's policy on not dealing in hostages. But that was all conjecture, and fear-mongering from the enemy who had been trying to get her to give in to him at the time. It wasn’t worth mentioning.  

“That is the question.” Gin offered her an arm to hop down from the counter ledge. “Vermouth has been ordered to brief us fully on our history with that group when we return to Tokyo.”

“Oh.” She felt suddenly foolish for thinking she’d had any intel to share with Gin that he wasn’t already party to in the first place. Of course, he had already reported-in on the situation and received orders. “Thank you.”

Starting to feel as if that had been a dismissal, Sherry patted the counter twice before Gin decided he’d rather leave. Her gesture was an exaggerated mirror of the one Gin had made when they first entered. 

“Your turn.”

... 

Gin chuckled darkly at Sherry’s little joke. He wished he’d tossed her onto the counter when they first arrived instead - a fitting response given he'd had to treat injuries she'd sustained in her petulant disregard for his orders. But he doubted he would have managed it without tearing the wounds along his shoulders and back even further. Still, he’d like to see her try to mock that .

The menace in his laughter seemed to give her some pause, and she took a wary step back, bumping into the counter. It only made him want to press in closer, box her in, hear her breath quickening in her chest.

He leaned over her, savoring the way her eyes grew round, straining to look up at him without seeding any more ground. Satisfied, he smirked, and pulled off his shirt, kneeling down in front of the counter so he could rest his arms there and hold steady as she worked.

Gin resisted the urge to glance back at her when she took a moment to get back on task. But soon the small shock of her fingertips met his skin, cold, but smooth and agile in her work.

“Those ones on my back are going to need stitches after all.” Gin admitted, feeling the stretch of partially raising his arms pull at the half-formed seam of each new wound. 

“No shit. I told you they would.” She muttered, finding the edge of one of the bandages she’d tied in place before. She had insisted any wound still bleeding could not, in fact, wait until they made it to the ferry, despite his previous declaration.  None of his cuts were truly critical, and he would have been fine to wait. And of course, none of her injuries had still been bleeding at the time. But it had been faster to let her throw disinfectant and gauze at the problem than argue.

She took her time now, her gentle touch gliding over his skin. If only to hold a wound open while she dug through it for remaining debris, and then to line up each stitch with exaggerated precision. Her lack of efficiency might have given her away as a novice, but her movements lacked the characteristic jerkiness he would expect were that the case. 

She chastised herself under her breath as she worked. Sometimes in frustration at some imagined imperfection in her work, but almost entirely about how she should have insisted he be stitched first instead, when they made it to the ferry. As if that was something he would have allowed. 

It was odd to be fussed over like this, and he wasn’t sure whether he found it irritating or not. Eventually, Sherry stopped fretting and fell into a smooth rhythm, humming and running her fingers along his back more than was medically necessary, and that, he decided, he rather liked. 

His thoughts wandered back over their conversation, over all the things they’d learned about what happened here a decade ago. Of all that Sherry had learned from Lion-Dog. At some point, he realised he kept circling back to the same point. The same thing he hadn’t told Sherry - about the clerk’s betrayal of her parents. But something about it didn’t feel right to tell her, would leave her hollow in a way he was all too familiar with. Knowing they died from a petty betrayal of someone they called a friend. That the reason was actually meaningless, and not a protection of their life’s work. And so, instead of saying all that, he found himself offering something else in its place, as if in consolation. 

“There is one thing Vermouth’s not likely to say, if she even knows herself,” Gin said, finding the words came easier than he thought they would. “The previous Gin was betrayed by a traitor within the Organization, called Cachaca. She gave his likeness and whereabouts to that group.” 

Gin saw her mouth form an o-shape in the mirror, as if to ask a question, but not voicing it. 

“We don’t have to worry about her these days,” he continued as if in answer. “Her betrayal got her killed. Just like it always does.” 

...

Even after accounting for the duration of the ferry ride and the hour beforehand, Gin was still left with over three hours to kill in Wakasa Bay before Vodka arrived with his car. Traveling by train would have been faster, of course, it was why they’d taken them on the way out here. But Gin wasn’t looking for efficiency this time. He craved the open road and the familiar, solid leather grip of his own steering wheel.

If Sherry found their unhurried pace after disembarkment unusual, she didn't question it. Perhaps she trusted that Gin had settled on a solid plan to get them to safety. It would be good for her to reacclimate to the Organization hierarchy; for both of them to remember that she wasn't privy to "upper management" business in everyday life.

In all likelihood though, she had simply been perfectly content with the delay; she seemed to enjoy playing tourist in the Five Lakes area. Which he should have anticipated. They had skipped all the sightseeing on their way to Wakasa Bay after all, and she had more than enough ideas to fill their afternoon.

They ended up at a local bakery when Vodka messaged that he was entering town. Though the bakery's small, private courtyard was usually reserved for wedding cake tastings, the owner had been easily persuaded to let them book the space last minute. Satisfied that Sherry would be secure, Gin left her there to savor her laboriously selected flight of lemon, raspberry, and blueberry filled cake while he met with Vodka.

His black Porsche was a sight for sore eyes. Parked outside a neighboring convenience store with its loud, mascot-forward branding, his car's pronounced curves and classic silhouette presented a striking yet familiar anachronism.

“She handled the journey beautifully, boss. No issues through the mountains to report.” 

Gin nodded and ducked into the front seat, gesturing for Vodka to do likewise. 

Allowing Vodka to drive his car such a long way was a rare concession. A testament to a strenuously field-tested trust, built over many years of shared dangers and proven loyalties. Despite that, Gin still suspected Vodka’s assignment under his wing had been a subtle machination of the boss. It wasn't their habit to poach members from the ranks of other criminal organizations; instead, recruiting specialists established in useful fields, or cultivating their own talent. Vodka, with his Yakuza past, was an anomaly pulled from the smoke as the government crackdowns choked out that way of life. 

Placing him under Gin, with his reputation for caution, functioned as a continual check. Since Gin's trust was never absolute. 

And so, keeping Sherry from this aspect of their business was only half the reason she remained behind in the bakery's courtyard. 

 Gin started in on their meeting as soon as Vodka settled in his seat. 

“Were there any unusual movements from our bone lead? Especially in the last two days.”

“Not at all, their frontman and support team haven't raised any flags. You think it was Tokyo that tipped our hand?”

“We won't know for sure until the scheduled meeting.” Gin propped an elbow on the car door, settling his cheek onto a fist. An old habit born from years of silent calculation. “Hard to say if our authenticator was made. Could be they still haven't made the connection. Even if they have, the meeting could be a useful point of contact.”

“Those rotten crooks blindsided you, appearing at the island so fast!” Vodka blurted with raw, unchecked emotion. 

A flicker, almost a ghost of a smile, touched the corner of Gin’s mouth. Vodka meant no disrespect; he just had a nurse dog’s loyalty. And was always quick to rile.

“That person is concerned about that,” Gin said, his voice a steadying force, bringing the tone back to a level, measured cadence. The unspoken name hung in the air, a reminder and presence all its own. “It will be troublesome if their influence has spread so far to have a chapter stationed nearby. Although, it's more likely this group was here for personal reasons.”

“Did you want me to run clean-up on the island, Aniki?” Vodka offered, his use of the yakuza form of address, a lingering vestige from his past. 

“No, the boss ordered us to pull back. Now that we’ve confirmed the group’s identity, that person wants a full update on how our numbers compare before making a decision on how to engage them.”

“Roger that.” 

“Start with the chapter still on the island. Surveillance only. Maintain distance and monitor the island's port, cataloguing departures. It might take a while for them to pull out entirely. Depending on how messy they’re willing to leave things.” 

“Anything I should be aware of?”

“Outside of their own amateur wet-work, I've left them some complications to sort out with the local fishing union.” A grim satisfaction warmed his chest, and made the stitches in his back ache just a little less. 

“Complications?” Vodka's brow furrowed. Understanding subtlety was a skill more often chased than caught in Vodka's case.

“The villagers don't harbor any trust for outsiders,” Gin explained. “It's been a pain, but should work for us now that I've pointed them in the right direction. The town lives and dies on its reputation and trade, so they don't look kindly on poachers.”

Gin concluded their business and dismissed Vodka to his new assignment. Taking a moment to readjust mirrors and fully assess the condition of his car before retrieving Sherry. 

She brought along the remains of her sweet distraction, neatly boxed, and he wondered how long she'd resist its temptation during the long journey back. He almost laughed when Sherry settled the box immediately on her lap in his passenger seat. Too close for her own good. A sentiment he felt all the more keenly as he sat back into the driver's seat with the soft spread of Sherry's thighs in his peripheral.  Well within reach. The drive back to Tokyo was indeed going to be a long one.