End at the Beginning
Jan. 11th, 2009 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
contract_starAuthor: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quirkypeanutblu
Character/Fandom: Hei/Darker than BLACK
Prompt: 12. press play
Word Count: 5,358
Summary: Hei saw the two women who caused the train accident; and unfortunately, they saw him as well. Now they’ve come to shut him up, but things take a turn for the complicated.
Author Notes/Warnings: Violence, language, Crowley-hate, tl;dr, LESBIANS.
The unfortunate thing was that he’d been grocery shopping. He was carrying two paper bags full of food; he’d been hoping to make a wok tonight, at Yin’s request. But now he was being followed. The groceries would likely end up either abandoned or destroyed.
He should have known better by now than to ever make dinner plans.
They were good. Well-trained. Hei was pretty sure there was more than one of them. He didn’t think they were using a Doll; he’d have noticed that by now. Hei wasn’t sure what he was going to do if they were Syndicate. He’d barely arrived in Sapporo, and for all intents and purposes had escaped the Syndicate for now. That they could find him that quickly... And it couldn’t be PANDORA--after the mess he and Diva had caused, it would take them weeks just to figure out what had happened, and months to get back on their feet. The news on it had been minimal; PANDORA was likely trying to keep as much under wraps as they could.
It could be the Syndicate following him. It could also be muggers or thieves hoping for an easy score. Hei would have to flush them out. And if they truly were Syndicate, well...he would deal with that when he came to it.
He turned a corner, heading away from his apartment toward the factory district, where there would be fewer people and more open ground if this came to a fight. The sound of their footsteps behind him changed as they moved to follow him. There were two of them behind him, but who knew how many others were following him from the roofs, or were moving to head him off?
The streets thinned out and gave way to wide factory yards, smokestacks looming like dead trees. Most of the factories in this area had been abandoned in one economic crisis or another; the streets hadn’t been plowed and there were very few streetlights. There wasn’t a soul or a car in sight. It was some time after sunset, and the light was quickly fading.
Hei angled for the nearest factory and slipped inside through a door locked with a rusted and easily breakable chain. Snow began to trickle from the sky, flakes drifting in through shattered windows or a couple of holes in the roof. Hei set his groceries down under a stairwell and disappeared into the shadows of an ancient conveyer belt to wait.
He heard them reach the door only a few minutes later. There was a rapid, muttered exchange on the other side of the door, but he couldn’t make out the words. Then there was silence again. Hei listened hard; what were they doing?
The door creaked open, pushed open by a handgun. Once whoever was holding the gun was convinced they weren’t going to be instantly ambushed, they pushed the door open wider and stepped through. It was a woman. She was probably Hei’s age and a Westerner; her hair was blond and wavy, with deep blue streaks. She carried herself like a fighter and her stance was smooth, allowing her to react in a split second. Her eyes were scanning the darkness, searching for any signs of movement, and her gun was at the ready.
Behind her came another woman, shorter, thinner and younger than the first. She had dark hair and skin; probably Mexican, Hei thought. She was carrying a gun as well, though she looked slightly less sure of herself than her blond companion.
Hei gritted his teeth. These were the two women he’d seen on the train, right before it crashed. Contractors, there was no doubt about it. Were they Syndicate, or had they simply come to silence him? More than that, they had guns, and Hei didn’t have his bulletproof coat. It was still being repaired after his adventure inside PANDORA.
Once they were fully inside, the Mexican woman pushed the door closed behind them. She looked over at her companion and said something in what sounded like Spanish. The blonde answered, her eyes narrowing into a frown. Hei grumbled to himself internally. He could understand Portuguese rather well, but it was different enough from Spanish that he could only pick out snippets.
The blonde started moving along the wall in Hei’s direction. Instead of splitting up, the Mexican woman followed, whispering something to the blond. It was odd that they were staying together, but it made them into a single target, which was much better for Hei.
The Mexican woman suddenly grabbed the blonde’s arm and hissed something at her. Hei saw the blonde smirk, and then suddenly her outline was glowing blue. Hei drew a knife as the blonde sidestepped and…disappeared through the wall.
Hei had a moment to be surprised before the woman was reappearing through the wall, only inches from Hei, and was thrusting the gun at his face. There was no time to think. Hei went into a back handspring, kicking upward at the woman’s wrist. She didn’t even bother to dodge, and Hei’s foot went through her wrist as though it wasn’t there.
Intangibility. Wonderful.
She fired a shot at him and Hei dove to the side behind a piece of machinery. He heard the bullet ricochet off the floor where he had just been standing. The Mexican woman was coming at him now, shouting something at her companion in Spanish. She hadn’t used her ability yet, assuming she too was a Contractor. Best to take her out before she had the chance.
Hei darted around the opposite side of the machine and launched a wire. She couldn’t see it coming in the darkness and let out a cry as the wire wrapped around her wrist and gun. Hei’s outline shone blue, but the blond woman was already rushing forward, looking almost frantic. She grabbed the Mexican by the arm, and then both of them were glowing blue. The wire dropped to the ground, slipping right through the Mexican’s wrist, and sparks leapt uselessly from the end. Cursing inwardly, Hei yanked the wire back into his belt and took off running across an empty section of the factory. The two women were already on his tail.
There was a walkway that ran around the outer edge of the factory, leading into offices on the second floor. Hei threw a wire, latching it around the walkway railing. He was yanked upward just as the two women started shooting again. Hei felt a bullet graze his ankle and he winced, landing badly on the walkway and going into a roll to regain his balance. He dashed down the walkway, taking a flying leap over a patch of ice beneath one of the holes in the roof. The women ran along the floor below, shouting things at each other.
There was a flash of blue light from below. Hei looked down. The blond woman took a step upwards into the air and--stayed there, as if she were standing on a ledge in midair. Hei stopped short, staring as she climbed upwards through the air as easily as if she were taking a staircase. This wasn’t gravity manipulation; this was an ability he had never seen before.
She landed nimbly on the walkway, a few feet ahead of him, and grinned toothily.
“Surprised?” she asked in perfect Japanese. She had an American accent.
“Not as much as you might hope. What do you want?”
“Simple. To kill you.” She took a step forward.
“You might find that difficult.”
“I like a challenge.”
“Azure!” the Mexican woman below called, also in Japanese. “We don’t have time for you to play around!”
The moment she said that, Azure was all business again. Her face went blank and she raised the gun, at the same instant that Hei threw a knife. Her blue eyes sparked red and the knife passed harmlessly through her middle. Hei grabbed his wire and jumped over the edge, but not before she got a shot off. Pain blasted through his shoulder, but the bullet had only clipped him.
He landed on the floor and the Mexican woman swung a kick at his head. He dodged and kicked out as well; she yelped as his foot connected with her chest and was thrown backward.
“Verde!” Azure cried from somewhere overhead; Hei’s head snapped upward and he saw her running down her invisible staircase again, heading right for them. Hei took a step toward Verde, who was picking herself up off the floor and searching for her gun. Azure fired at him the second he moved.
They’re protecting each other awful closely...
It was unusual, but Hei didn’t have time to give it much thought. Azure came sailing through the air at him, aiming a kick at his face, and Verde was raising her gun again. Hei dove to the side as Verde fired and scrambled under the conveyer belt, throwing a knife at Verde as soon as he had his balance again. Verde dodged and the knife grazed her arm, causing her to hiss in pain.
Azure made a sound like a snarl and followed Hei, simply stepping through the conveyer belt. Hei was trapped between the conveyer belt and what looked like some kind of canning machine. He drew another knife and slashed at her, but it passed right through her chest, shining blue as it connected where her flesh should have been. She smirked and pointed her gun at him.
He dropped a split second before she fired and immediately swung his leg around, trying to trip her. This time she didn’t have the opportunity to go intangible and his foot connected; she went down with a cry. He raised the knife to try and stab her, but she was rolling away from him beneath the conveyer belt. Hei darted around the huge machine and disappeared into the shadows again before either of them could react.
There was another conveyer belt closer to the wall, and Hei hid himself behind it, pressing his back to the wall and scanning the factory for any sign of movement. He had lost track of them. The light had completely gone by now, casting the entire factory in almost impenetrable darkness. Hei could hear nothing but silence.
This was a bad situation. How were you supposed to kill someone who couldn’t be touched? Azure was fast, almost as fast as Hei himself was, which was surprising in its own right. Hei had met intangibles before, but Azure was different.
It’s like she can control what she touches. Or what she doesn’t touch.
Azure’s one weak point seemed to be Verde. She had gone out of her way to protect her before. Verde herself had yet to even use her ability, and Hei was starting to wonder if she was a Contractor at all. She could be a Doll; that would explain how she had known exactly where Hei was and where to send Azure. But if that was the case, where was her specter?
There was a clank from somewhere far away and above, and a grinding sound to the side. Hei heard someone mutter in Spanish.
Then every light in the factory came on at once and all of the machinery groaned to life. Hei hissed and covered his eyes. He tried to peer through his fingers or hear anything over the roar of machinery, but it was no use. A brilliant move; he wished he’d thought of it first.
Something hard connected with the gunshot wound in his shoulder. He went down with a cry and rolled under the conveyer belt and out into the open factory floor. He was back on his feet in an instant, but then Azure was dropping onto him from above. Hei twisted around and jammed his knife backward, feeling it pierced flesh and scrape off of bone. Azure grunted and gasped a little. From somewhere close by, Verde screamed something in Spanish.
Time to end this. Hei’s outline glowed blue and he reached back to grab Azure. But then there was a strange sensation at the back of his neck and—
—his entire body simply stopped working. Hei crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll.
What...what the hell?!
He tried to pick himself up or even just roll over, but nothing was working. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs, and for some reason even breathing had become difficult. There was movement in the corner of his eye and suddenly the world spun around, violently. Azure had kicked him over onto his back. He hadn’t even felt it.
Paralyzed...dammit, she must have gotten my spine...
He couldn’t turn his head, but he could see Azure standing over him, grimacing as she clutched at a wound in her side. Verde came running over, looking scared and grabbing at Azure to check the wound. Azure shook her head and muttered something in Spanish; Verde answered softly, her voice shaking.
Hei felt a tingling sensation in his toes. He tried to move them, but nothing happened.
Azure turned back to Hei, glaring down at him. She crouched down beside him with a vicious smirk and grabbed his head, turning it so he could look at her better.
“You like that, Syndicate trash?” she growled, switching to Japanese. “Amazing what just a little flick to the spinal cord will do. You’re lucky you’re even breathing. Don’t worry, it’ll probably only last another minute, but that gives us more than enough time. You’re pretty fast, you know? No one’s ever managed to stab me before. Hafta give you credit for that.”
Syndicate...they think I’m in the Syndicate.
He tried to speak but all that came out was an incoherent mumble.
Azure looked up at her companion.
“What should we do with him, Verde?”
Verde stepped forward. She was hugging her arms and staring down at Hei with black eyes. Hei thought he saw hatred there.
“What we always do with Syndicate trash.”
“And what do you know,” Azure said, smiling as she looked over at the conveyer belt. “We’ve got us a trash compactor all good and ready for us.”
Hei could still feel his heart, at least, so he noticed when it started to pound. From this angle he could just barely see what they were talking about. The conveyer belt led directly to a packing machine of some kind. Hei didn’t know what its name was exactly, but its purpose seemed to be crushing things into very small spaces.
Not exactly a trash compactor, but it would do the job.
The next thing he knew he was being levered upwards. He could feel their hands on him this time, vague as if through a Novocain haze, but no matter how much he tried to move his limbs he couldn’t make them respond. He felt himself dropped onto the belt and then the world was moving again.
If I die like this, I will never hear the end of it.
Hei was nothing if not resourceful, and he had one last trick that the two women didn’t know about. He thought of the Plane.
In the next moment, he had stopped moving and was staring up at the stars and galaxies of the Astral Sky.
He let out a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was wait, and hope that Crowley didn’t see him like this.
-------
To Azure and Verde, it was as if nothing had changed. Hei was still lying on the conveyer belt, heading toward crushing metal death. He had enough feeling back by now that he could roll over and get both hands on the metal belt. Azure shouted something in Spanish and he thought he heard them running toward him. The packing machine was only a few feet away, and Hei didn’t have the strength to push himself off the conveyer belt. There was no time.
He closed his eyes and sank deep into his power. He felt himself brush the surface of that deep, hidden power within him, but no—not that, not today. It would either kill him or leave him completely useless against the two women. He focused instead on his electricity, submerging himself in it, wrapping himself in it until he could feel every current in the building, almost see them in his mind’s eye. Power spread out from his hands as he found the currents he was looking for, and he saw a blue glow filter through his eyelids.
There was the high pitched wine of a generator overloading, and then several pops as lightbulbs exploded. Several machines crashed to a stop so quickly that parts of them blew out, sending metal in all directions. Hei felt the conveyer belt slow and heard the packing machine wind down, much closer than he had thought. He opened his eyes and saw the metal crusher come to a stop only about two inches from his face.
Hei let out a sigh of relief.
Then someone was grabbing him and hauling him off the belt. He felt himself slammed up against the packing machine; Azure had him by the front of his jacket with one hand and was raising her gun with the other. Hei pulled out a knife and slashed upward, hitting the barrel of the gun and forcing it upward, away from his head. They strained against each other, but Hei’s strength was slowly trickling back.
There was a strange look in Azure’s eyes as she glared at him.
“How did you do that?” she demanded, switching to Japanese again. “That was electricity, wasn’t it? Who the hell are you?”
“Could he be...?” Verde whispered, coming to stand behind her.
“Impossible,” Azure cut her off. “There’s no way. BK-201 is supposed to be in Russia.”
“He didn’t get that far,” Hei said, meeting Azure’s glare.
“Don’t talk like you’re him,” Azure snarled and her outline shone blue. The gun passed down through Hei’s knife and came to rest at his forehead. The lack of resistance caused his hand to shoot upward and the knife to go flying uselessly across the room. His other hand curled around the barrel of the gun the second he felt the cold metal against his head. His own outline sparked to life, but he didn’t release the electricity just yet. The situation had changed.
“Stalemate,” Hei said coldly. Azure was looking daggers at him, but there was a hint of fear there.
“El Diablo Negro...” Verde whispered. That one Hei could understand.
“It’s illogical. Why would BK-201 be after us?”
“You attacked me,” he snapped.
“Then why were you on the train that day?” Verde asked, her voice level.
“I was coming from a job interview.” He narrowed his eyes at them. “You’re on the run. You left the Syndicate, and now they’re hunting you.”
They both stared at him. A tense moment passed in silence.
“Azure. Let him go.”
Azure abruptly backed away, slipping the gun away into a jacket pocket. Hei blinked, surprised. He grabbed the side of the conveyer belt to keep from sinking to the floor; the strength in his legs hadn’t quite come back to him yet.
“What are you doing in Sapporo?” Azure said, her voice only slightly less murderous than before. “The rumors are that you’re in Russia.”
“I never liked Russia,” Hei muttered, keeping his eyes on them. They didn’t seem to want to kill him now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to change their minds.
“Is it true?” Verde asked softly. “About what you did? The Gate...”
“Depends on which rumors you’re listening to.” Hei actually wondered just what was going around about him. More people seemed to be talking about him and the incidents in the Gate than he was particularly comfortable with. The Syndicate Contractor who had helped him when Yin was kidnapped--TN-145--had mentioned something like this too.
“The rumor is that you turned the Syndicate on its head.” Azure was watching him carefully. “That they were planning to kill us all but...you stopped them.”
“Right,” Hei snapped. “I’m a real hero. I’m leaving now. I’d like at least a headstart before you tell them where I am.”
He pulled himself experimentally upright and tried walking. His legs seemed almost back to normal, though his movements were still sluggish. He stepped around the two women, heading for where he was pretty sure the entrance was.
“We won’t tell the Syndicate anything,” Azure said before he’d gotten far. He came to a stop and glared at her over his shoulder.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The logical decision would be to turn me in. They’ll forgive you whatever you’ve done if you do.”
Azure glanced at Verde and Hei thought he saw a spark of regret in her eyes. Regret, in a Contractor? Impossible.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she said. Verde wasn’t looking at her.
Hei stared at them a moment, then shrugged and continued on his way. He didn’t particularly care about why they had left the Syndicate or what was so “complicated.” They had tried to kill him; he owed them nothing.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“Amber,” Verde continued, and he heard her following him. “Where is Amber?”
“Amber is dead,” Hei said as he came upon his groceries. The bags had been impaled by broken pieces of machinery. One of the bags was sopping wet from crushed eggs. Hei couldn’t help a sigh.
“She’s...but that’s--”
“She’s dead,” Hei cut Verde off, turning toward the door. “That’s all there is to it.”
A small brown hand grabbed his arm.
“Wait,” said Verde, staring up at him with an unidentifiable expression on her face. “Por favor.”
He stared back at her for a moment before jerking out of her grip, though he made no move to leave. Verde looked down at Hei’s ruined groceries.
“Let us buy you dinner.”
“...What?”
“Verde...?
“You’re the only EPR member we’ve met who is still alive,” Verde said, staring up at Hei again.
“I was never with the EPR.”
“But you were there.”
“Verde. Let him go. He has no reason to help us.”
Verde grabbed Hei’s arm again.
“Please. Let us buy you dinner. We’ll explain everything.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You honestly expect me to help you with anything?”
“Just let us buy you dinner.” Verde smirked suddenly. “We’ve heard stories about your appetite. It’s just a free meal. Hear us out and then you can decide.”
Hei considered the offer. This wasn’t a trick, he knew that much. They had no reason to trick him now, after they’d already let him go. Even if this was all some kind of elaborate act and they were agents of the Syndicate sent to capture him, why hadn’t they contacted their superiors the moment he’d been paralyzed? It occurred to him that he was starving, and that with the food destroyed dinner tonight would be instant ramen.
It was just a free meal...
“Fine,” Hei said, looking back at them both. “But I’m bringing someone with me.”
------
They had told him to order as much as he wanted, but clearly the rumors about his appetite had underestimated him. The three Contractors and Yin, who had been summoned from the apartment, were sitting in a corner booth at a local ramen place that Hei favored. Hei’s food covered half the table, and Azure and Verde were looking from the spread to each other with somewhat shocked expressions.
“You have until I finish this to tell me your sob story,” Hei said between bites, looking across the table at the two women. “And don’t expect it to take as long as you think it might.”
The other two exchanged looks and Azure cleared her throat.
“Fine, then,” she said, and paused as if wondering where to start. “We’ve been on the run for about a year now. We were on assignment in Okinawa and just never reported back in. We came to Tokyo to try and join the EPR, but we arrived too late, after the Hell’s Gate event.” She paused again, giving Hei a pointed look. He ignored her and kept eating.
Azure stifled a sigh before continuing and dug into her pockets, searching for something. “We have our reasons for wanting to fight the Syndicate. See, I met Verde on a PANDORA assignment two years ago. Was supposed to smuggle her out. It was a bitch, but we got out.” Azure found what she was looking for—a pack of cigarettes--and pulled them out, along with a lighter. She glanced up at Hei. “Wanna know why she was in there?”
Hei had an idea, but he didn’t particularly care so he said nothing.
“She was an experiment,” Azure continued, and Hei heard some of that murderous anger creep back into her voice. Not befitting of a Contractor, but Hei wasn’t one to talk. “You remember the experiments a few years ago, when they were trying to figure out how to force normal humans into Contracts, how to take a Contract away, that shit? Verde was part of that. She was a Contractor when they caught her.” Azure paused again, for long enough that Hei couldn’t help glancing up at her.
“Now she’s a Moratorium.”
Hei stopped eating.
“That’s impossible.” He shot a look at Verde. She wasn’t eating at all and was looking more subdued than she had before. “How is it that you’re stable?”
“I’m not,” Verde said in that soft voice of hers. “Rather, my ability is not. I am mentally stable, but I have no control over my ability, and I make no obeisance in exchange for it. I can sense other Contractors and Dolls, but the ability comes and goes, as well as its scope and accuracy.”
“You can see why the Syndicate wanted her out,” Azure says, lighting a cigarette. Verde watches and reaches over to grip Azure’s shoulder as Azure takes a long drag on the cigarette. She then lays her other arm on the table, palm up. Hei watches with morbid fascination as Azure braces herself and then presses the glowing end of the cigarette to the soft flesh just below her wrist.
Azure’s face screws up and she hisses in pain, crumpling the cigarette in her other hand and dropping it into the ashtray. Verde scoops an ice cube out of her drink and presses it to the burn mark on Azure’s arm.
“My obeisance,” Azure says thinly. “It’s not as bad as some I’ve seen.”
There’s a long silence. Hei eventually goes back to his food, which is now half gone.
“So you left because you found out PANDORA had turned her into a Moratorium. But that should come as no surprise. Everyone knows PANDORA has been experimenting on Contractors for years.”
“That’s not it,” Verde says, giving Azure’s shoulder a squeeze. Azure reaches across and twines her hand in Verde’s. She looks up at Hei.
“We’re in love,” she says.
Hei stares at them. This is as impossible if not more so than Verde being a semi-stable Moratorium. Nothing is more illogical than love. Nothing is more requiring of emotions and a soul. But Shihoko had loved Huang; had given her life to protect him. And Amber had done the same for Hei.
“Not very logical, is it?” Azure concedes.
“But it’s the truth,” Yin says, speaking for the first time since she’d arrived. Hei looked over at her; Yin was watching the two Contractors as if she could see them. Azure looked back at Yin and nodded.
“We were surprised too, when we found out.”
“We denied it for a long time. But...” Verde shrugs and smiles a little. “You can’t help who you love.”
Huang had said the same thing, just after handing Hei the gun.
“The Syndicate made a deal with PANDORA,” Azure went on. “She was too valuable a specimen; PANDORA wanted her back and the Syndicate agreed. We weren’t going to let that happen.” Azure gave Verde’s hand a squeeze. “So we ran. We headed north, hoping to join the EPR, but we arrived too late. We kept traveling.”
“Met a lot of people on the way, Contractors connected to the EPR,” Verde said, picking up the thread. “There are a lot of them still out there. Most of them believe that Amber is still alive. They’re waiting for her to come back, rally them again. Things are changing, and not just in Japan.”
It was what Amber had said inside the Gate. The Contractors, the Dolls, they were all changing. Waking up. She had said that everything that had happened in the last ten years, everything from the appearance of the Gates to the events a few months ago, were the beginning of something much, much bigger, something that wouldn’t be concluded for hundreds of years. Hei had only half-believed her at the time, despite everything he’d seen. Now it seemed that things were changing faster than even Amber had foreseen.
Hei looked over again at Yin, almost forgetting his food. What did that mean? What did that mean for Yin--for him?
“What exactly happened on the train?” Hei asked.
“The cop was a Syndicate member. He recognized us, so we killed him and crashed the train to destroy the evidence.”
“You could have killed hundreds.”
“The cop was the only one who died. The alternative was our own deaths.”
Hei looked between them. They were still holding hands. He sighed and went back to his food in time to see Yin steal some of his tofu.
Waking up, huh.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, devouring the rest of the tofu before Yin could get at it.
“We likely won’t be in Sapporo much longer,” Azure said. “There’s rumored to be some EPR sympathizers in Shanghai, so we’ll probably head there next.”
Shanghai. China.
“Since the three of us would rather avoid the Syndicate, it would be to everyone’s benefit to work together, for the time being,” Verde said. “You scratch our back, we scratch yours, as they say. And you were connected to the EPR. Rumors about what you did are flying, but the only thing that’s sure is that you saved the Contractors. If you put in a good word for us...”
“You try to kill me and you want me to put in a good word for you?”
“That was a misunderstanding and was nothing personal. You should know that,” Verde pointed out. “All we are asking for is your support.”
“I don’t generally exchange phone calls with what’s left of the EPR or send new recruits their way.”
“All we need is to be able to say that we met you, that you helped us, and that you are willing to help other Contractors in our situation.”
“I never said I would help,” Hei said, draining his last ramen bowl. “Why the EPR? The sunspot cycle is over. PANDORA and the Syndicate can’t destroy the Contractors anymore.”
“The Syndicate needs to be brought down,” Azure said, fierceness creeping into her voice again. “They’re crumbling, but all the signs are saying that they’re just going to become a legit part of the world governments. The big wigs will end up keeping their jobs in intelligence and foreign ministry, and they’ll just make their actions public instead of keeping it secret.”
Like what happens in Misaki’s world. So it really is going in that direction…
Hei set his ramen bowl down and got to his feet. Yin got up as well.
“Well, BK-201?” Verde prompted, fixing him with an intense stare. “Will you help us?”
He pulled on his coat. “It’s Hei. My name is Hei.”
Azure and Verde looked at each other.
“Verde. LU-866.”
“Azure, FN-189.”
Hei took Yin’s hand and started walking out of the restaurant.
“Hei,” Verde called after him. “You didn’t answer the question.”
He stopped and sighed a little, then looked back at her.
“Stay in Sapporo for now,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”
Then he turned and walked out of the restaurant with Yin.
quirkypeanutbluCharacter/Fandom: Hei/Darker than BLACK
Prompt: 12. press play
Word Count: 5,358
Summary: Hei saw the two women who caused the train accident; and unfortunately, they saw him as well. Now they’ve come to shut him up, but things take a turn for the complicated.
Author Notes/Warnings: Violence, language, Crowley-hate, tl;dr, LESBIANS.
The unfortunate thing was that he’d been grocery shopping. He was carrying two paper bags full of food; he’d been hoping to make a wok tonight, at Yin’s request. But now he was being followed. The groceries would likely end up either abandoned or destroyed.
He should have known better by now than to ever make dinner plans.
They were good. Well-trained. Hei was pretty sure there was more than one of them. He didn’t think they were using a Doll; he’d have noticed that by now. Hei wasn’t sure what he was going to do if they were Syndicate. He’d barely arrived in Sapporo, and for all intents and purposes had escaped the Syndicate for now. That they could find him that quickly... And it couldn’t be PANDORA--after the mess he and Diva had caused, it would take them weeks just to figure out what had happened, and months to get back on their feet. The news on it had been minimal; PANDORA was likely trying to keep as much under wraps as they could.
It could be the Syndicate following him. It could also be muggers or thieves hoping for an easy score. Hei would have to flush them out. And if they truly were Syndicate, well...he would deal with that when he came to it.
He turned a corner, heading away from his apartment toward the factory district, where there would be fewer people and more open ground if this came to a fight. The sound of their footsteps behind him changed as they moved to follow him. There were two of them behind him, but who knew how many others were following him from the roofs, or were moving to head him off?
The streets thinned out and gave way to wide factory yards, smokestacks looming like dead trees. Most of the factories in this area had been abandoned in one economic crisis or another; the streets hadn’t been plowed and there were very few streetlights. There wasn’t a soul or a car in sight. It was some time after sunset, and the light was quickly fading.
Hei angled for the nearest factory and slipped inside through a door locked with a rusted and easily breakable chain. Snow began to trickle from the sky, flakes drifting in through shattered windows or a couple of holes in the roof. Hei set his groceries down under a stairwell and disappeared into the shadows of an ancient conveyer belt to wait.
He heard them reach the door only a few minutes later. There was a rapid, muttered exchange on the other side of the door, but he couldn’t make out the words. Then there was silence again. Hei listened hard; what were they doing?
The door creaked open, pushed open by a handgun. Once whoever was holding the gun was convinced they weren’t going to be instantly ambushed, they pushed the door open wider and stepped through. It was a woman. She was probably Hei’s age and a Westerner; her hair was blond and wavy, with deep blue streaks. She carried herself like a fighter and her stance was smooth, allowing her to react in a split second. Her eyes were scanning the darkness, searching for any signs of movement, and her gun was at the ready.
Behind her came another woman, shorter, thinner and younger than the first. She had dark hair and skin; probably Mexican, Hei thought. She was carrying a gun as well, though she looked slightly less sure of herself than her blond companion.
Hei gritted his teeth. These were the two women he’d seen on the train, right before it crashed. Contractors, there was no doubt about it. Were they Syndicate, or had they simply come to silence him? More than that, they had guns, and Hei didn’t have his bulletproof coat. It was still being repaired after his adventure inside PANDORA.
Once they were fully inside, the Mexican woman pushed the door closed behind them. She looked over at her companion and said something in what sounded like Spanish. The blonde answered, her eyes narrowing into a frown. Hei grumbled to himself internally. He could understand Portuguese rather well, but it was different enough from Spanish that he could only pick out snippets.
The blonde started moving along the wall in Hei’s direction. Instead of splitting up, the Mexican woman followed, whispering something to the blond. It was odd that they were staying together, but it made them into a single target, which was much better for Hei.
The Mexican woman suddenly grabbed the blonde’s arm and hissed something at her. Hei saw the blonde smirk, and then suddenly her outline was glowing blue. Hei drew a knife as the blonde sidestepped and…disappeared through the wall.
Hei had a moment to be surprised before the woman was reappearing through the wall, only inches from Hei, and was thrusting the gun at his face. There was no time to think. Hei went into a back handspring, kicking upward at the woman’s wrist. She didn’t even bother to dodge, and Hei’s foot went through her wrist as though it wasn’t there.
Intangibility. Wonderful.
She fired a shot at him and Hei dove to the side behind a piece of machinery. He heard the bullet ricochet off the floor where he had just been standing. The Mexican woman was coming at him now, shouting something at her companion in Spanish. She hadn’t used her ability yet, assuming she too was a Contractor. Best to take her out before she had the chance.
Hei darted around the opposite side of the machine and launched a wire. She couldn’t see it coming in the darkness and let out a cry as the wire wrapped around her wrist and gun. Hei’s outline shone blue, but the blond woman was already rushing forward, looking almost frantic. She grabbed the Mexican by the arm, and then both of them were glowing blue. The wire dropped to the ground, slipping right through the Mexican’s wrist, and sparks leapt uselessly from the end. Cursing inwardly, Hei yanked the wire back into his belt and took off running across an empty section of the factory. The two women were already on his tail.
There was a walkway that ran around the outer edge of the factory, leading into offices on the second floor. Hei threw a wire, latching it around the walkway railing. He was yanked upward just as the two women started shooting again. Hei felt a bullet graze his ankle and he winced, landing badly on the walkway and going into a roll to regain his balance. He dashed down the walkway, taking a flying leap over a patch of ice beneath one of the holes in the roof. The women ran along the floor below, shouting things at each other.
There was a flash of blue light from below. Hei looked down. The blond woman took a step upwards into the air and--stayed there, as if she were standing on a ledge in midair. Hei stopped short, staring as she climbed upwards through the air as easily as if she were taking a staircase. This wasn’t gravity manipulation; this was an ability he had never seen before.
She landed nimbly on the walkway, a few feet ahead of him, and grinned toothily.
“Surprised?” she asked in perfect Japanese. She had an American accent.
“Not as much as you might hope. What do you want?”
“Simple. To kill you.” She took a step forward.
“You might find that difficult.”
“I like a challenge.”
“Azure!” the Mexican woman below called, also in Japanese. “We don’t have time for you to play around!”
The moment she said that, Azure was all business again. Her face went blank and she raised the gun, at the same instant that Hei threw a knife. Her blue eyes sparked red and the knife passed harmlessly through her middle. Hei grabbed his wire and jumped over the edge, but not before she got a shot off. Pain blasted through his shoulder, but the bullet had only clipped him.
He landed on the floor and the Mexican woman swung a kick at his head. He dodged and kicked out as well; she yelped as his foot connected with her chest and was thrown backward.
“Verde!” Azure cried from somewhere overhead; Hei’s head snapped upward and he saw her running down her invisible staircase again, heading right for them. Hei took a step toward Verde, who was picking herself up off the floor and searching for her gun. Azure fired at him the second he moved.
They’re protecting each other awful closely...
It was unusual, but Hei didn’t have time to give it much thought. Azure came sailing through the air at him, aiming a kick at his face, and Verde was raising her gun again. Hei dove to the side as Verde fired and scrambled under the conveyer belt, throwing a knife at Verde as soon as he had his balance again. Verde dodged and the knife grazed her arm, causing her to hiss in pain.
Azure made a sound like a snarl and followed Hei, simply stepping through the conveyer belt. Hei was trapped between the conveyer belt and what looked like some kind of canning machine. He drew another knife and slashed at her, but it passed right through her chest, shining blue as it connected where her flesh should have been. She smirked and pointed her gun at him.
He dropped a split second before she fired and immediately swung his leg around, trying to trip her. This time she didn’t have the opportunity to go intangible and his foot connected; she went down with a cry. He raised the knife to try and stab her, but she was rolling away from him beneath the conveyer belt. Hei darted around the huge machine and disappeared into the shadows again before either of them could react.
There was another conveyer belt closer to the wall, and Hei hid himself behind it, pressing his back to the wall and scanning the factory for any sign of movement. He had lost track of them. The light had completely gone by now, casting the entire factory in almost impenetrable darkness. Hei could hear nothing but silence.
This was a bad situation. How were you supposed to kill someone who couldn’t be touched? Azure was fast, almost as fast as Hei himself was, which was surprising in its own right. Hei had met intangibles before, but Azure was different.
It’s like she can control what she touches. Or what she doesn’t touch.
Azure’s one weak point seemed to be Verde. She had gone out of her way to protect her before. Verde herself had yet to even use her ability, and Hei was starting to wonder if she was a Contractor at all. She could be a Doll; that would explain how she had known exactly where Hei was and where to send Azure. But if that was the case, where was her specter?
There was a clank from somewhere far away and above, and a grinding sound to the side. Hei heard someone mutter in Spanish.
Then every light in the factory came on at once and all of the machinery groaned to life. Hei hissed and covered his eyes. He tried to peer through his fingers or hear anything over the roar of machinery, but it was no use. A brilliant move; he wished he’d thought of it first.
Something hard connected with the gunshot wound in his shoulder. He went down with a cry and rolled under the conveyer belt and out into the open factory floor. He was back on his feet in an instant, but then Azure was dropping onto him from above. Hei twisted around and jammed his knife backward, feeling it pierced flesh and scrape off of bone. Azure grunted and gasped a little. From somewhere close by, Verde screamed something in Spanish.
Time to end this. Hei’s outline glowed blue and he reached back to grab Azure. But then there was a strange sensation at the back of his neck and—
—his entire body simply stopped working. Hei crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll.
What...what the hell?!
He tried to pick himself up or even just roll over, but nothing was working. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs, and for some reason even breathing had become difficult. There was movement in the corner of his eye and suddenly the world spun around, violently. Azure had kicked him over onto his back. He hadn’t even felt it.
Paralyzed...dammit, she must have gotten my spine...
He couldn’t turn his head, but he could see Azure standing over him, grimacing as she clutched at a wound in her side. Verde came running over, looking scared and grabbing at Azure to check the wound. Azure shook her head and muttered something in Spanish; Verde answered softly, her voice shaking.
Hei felt a tingling sensation in his toes. He tried to move them, but nothing happened.
Azure turned back to Hei, glaring down at him. She crouched down beside him with a vicious smirk and grabbed his head, turning it so he could look at her better.
“You like that, Syndicate trash?” she growled, switching to Japanese. “Amazing what just a little flick to the spinal cord will do. You’re lucky you’re even breathing. Don’t worry, it’ll probably only last another minute, but that gives us more than enough time. You’re pretty fast, you know? No one’s ever managed to stab me before. Hafta give you credit for that.”
Syndicate...they think I’m in the Syndicate.
He tried to speak but all that came out was an incoherent mumble.
Azure looked up at her companion.
“What should we do with him, Verde?”
Verde stepped forward. She was hugging her arms and staring down at Hei with black eyes. Hei thought he saw hatred there.
“What we always do with Syndicate trash.”
“And what do you know,” Azure said, smiling as she looked over at the conveyer belt. “We’ve got us a trash compactor all good and ready for us.”
Hei could still feel his heart, at least, so he noticed when it started to pound. From this angle he could just barely see what they were talking about. The conveyer belt led directly to a packing machine of some kind. Hei didn’t know what its name was exactly, but its purpose seemed to be crushing things into very small spaces.
Not exactly a trash compactor, but it would do the job.
The next thing he knew he was being levered upwards. He could feel their hands on him this time, vague as if through a Novocain haze, but no matter how much he tried to move his limbs he couldn’t make them respond. He felt himself dropped onto the belt and then the world was moving again.
If I die like this, I will never hear the end of it.
Hei was nothing if not resourceful, and he had one last trick that the two women didn’t know about. He thought of the Plane.
In the next moment, he had stopped moving and was staring up at the stars and galaxies of the Astral Sky.
He let out a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was wait, and hope that Crowley didn’t see him like this.
-------
To Azure and Verde, it was as if nothing had changed. Hei was still lying on the conveyer belt, heading toward crushing metal death. He had enough feeling back by now that he could roll over and get both hands on the metal belt. Azure shouted something in Spanish and he thought he heard them running toward him. The packing machine was only a few feet away, and Hei didn’t have the strength to push himself off the conveyer belt. There was no time.
He closed his eyes and sank deep into his power. He felt himself brush the surface of that deep, hidden power within him, but no—not that, not today. It would either kill him or leave him completely useless against the two women. He focused instead on his electricity, submerging himself in it, wrapping himself in it until he could feel every current in the building, almost see them in his mind’s eye. Power spread out from his hands as he found the currents he was looking for, and he saw a blue glow filter through his eyelids.
There was the high pitched wine of a generator overloading, and then several pops as lightbulbs exploded. Several machines crashed to a stop so quickly that parts of them blew out, sending metal in all directions. Hei felt the conveyer belt slow and heard the packing machine wind down, much closer than he had thought. He opened his eyes and saw the metal crusher come to a stop only about two inches from his face.
Hei let out a sigh of relief.
Then someone was grabbing him and hauling him off the belt. He felt himself slammed up against the packing machine; Azure had him by the front of his jacket with one hand and was raising her gun with the other. Hei pulled out a knife and slashed upward, hitting the barrel of the gun and forcing it upward, away from his head. They strained against each other, but Hei’s strength was slowly trickling back.
There was a strange look in Azure’s eyes as she glared at him.
“How did you do that?” she demanded, switching to Japanese again. “That was electricity, wasn’t it? Who the hell are you?”
“Could he be...?” Verde whispered, coming to stand behind her.
“Impossible,” Azure cut her off. “There’s no way. BK-201 is supposed to be in Russia.”
“He didn’t get that far,” Hei said, meeting Azure’s glare.
“Don’t talk like you’re him,” Azure snarled and her outline shone blue. The gun passed down through Hei’s knife and came to rest at his forehead. The lack of resistance caused his hand to shoot upward and the knife to go flying uselessly across the room. His other hand curled around the barrel of the gun the second he felt the cold metal against his head. His own outline sparked to life, but he didn’t release the electricity just yet. The situation had changed.
“Stalemate,” Hei said coldly. Azure was looking daggers at him, but there was a hint of fear there.
“El Diablo Negro...” Verde whispered. That one Hei could understand.
“It’s illogical. Why would BK-201 be after us?”
“You attacked me,” he snapped.
“Then why were you on the train that day?” Verde asked, her voice level.
“I was coming from a job interview.” He narrowed his eyes at them. “You’re on the run. You left the Syndicate, and now they’re hunting you.”
They both stared at him. A tense moment passed in silence.
“Azure. Let him go.”
Azure abruptly backed away, slipping the gun away into a jacket pocket. Hei blinked, surprised. He grabbed the side of the conveyer belt to keep from sinking to the floor; the strength in his legs hadn’t quite come back to him yet.
“What are you doing in Sapporo?” Azure said, her voice only slightly less murderous than before. “The rumors are that you’re in Russia.”
“I never liked Russia,” Hei muttered, keeping his eyes on them. They didn’t seem to want to kill him now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to change their minds.
“Is it true?” Verde asked softly. “About what you did? The Gate...”
“Depends on which rumors you’re listening to.” Hei actually wondered just what was going around about him. More people seemed to be talking about him and the incidents in the Gate than he was particularly comfortable with. The Syndicate Contractor who had helped him when Yin was kidnapped--TN-145--had mentioned something like this too.
“The rumor is that you turned the Syndicate on its head.” Azure was watching him carefully. “That they were planning to kill us all but...you stopped them.”
“Right,” Hei snapped. “I’m a real hero. I’m leaving now. I’d like at least a headstart before you tell them where I am.”
He pulled himself experimentally upright and tried walking. His legs seemed almost back to normal, though his movements were still sluggish. He stepped around the two women, heading for where he was pretty sure the entrance was.
“We won’t tell the Syndicate anything,” Azure said before he’d gotten far. He came to a stop and glared at her over his shoulder.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The logical decision would be to turn me in. They’ll forgive you whatever you’ve done if you do.”
Azure glanced at Verde and Hei thought he saw a spark of regret in her eyes. Regret, in a Contractor? Impossible.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she said. Verde wasn’t looking at her.
Hei stared at them a moment, then shrugged and continued on his way. He didn’t particularly care about why they had left the Syndicate or what was so “complicated.” They had tried to kill him; he owed them nothing.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“Amber,” Verde continued, and he heard her following him. “Where is Amber?”
“Amber is dead,” Hei said as he came upon his groceries. The bags had been impaled by broken pieces of machinery. One of the bags was sopping wet from crushed eggs. Hei couldn’t help a sigh.
“She’s...but that’s--”
“She’s dead,” Hei cut Verde off, turning toward the door. “That’s all there is to it.”
A small brown hand grabbed his arm.
“Wait,” said Verde, staring up at him with an unidentifiable expression on her face. “Por favor.”
He stared back at her for a moment before jerking out of her grip, though he made no move to leave. Verde looked down at Hei’s ruined groceries.
“Let us buy you dinner.”
“...What?”
“Verde...?
“You’re the only EPR member we’ve met who is still alive,” Verde said, staring up at Hei again.
“I was never with the EPR.”
“But you were there.”
“Verde. Let him go. He has no reason to help us.”
Verde grabbed Hei’s arm again.
“Please. Let us buy you dinner. We’ll explain everything.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You honestly expect me to help you with anything?”
“Just let us buy you dinner.” Verde smirked suddenly. “We’ve heard stories about your appetite. It’s just a free meal. Hear us out and then you can decide.”
Hei considered the offer. This wasn’t a trick, he knew that much. They had no reason to trick him now, after they’d already let him go. Even if this was all some kind of elaborate act and they were agents of the Syndicate sent to capture him, why hadn’t they contacted their superiors the moment he’d been paralyzed? It occurred to him that he was starving, and that with the food destroyed dinner tonight would be instant ramen.
It was just a free meal...
“Fine,” Hei said, looking back at them both. “But I’m bringing someone with me.”
------
They had told him to order as much as he wanted, but clearly the rumors about his appetite had underestimated him. The three Contractors and Yin, who had been summoned from the apartment, were sitting in a corner booth at a local ramen place that Hei favored. Hei’s food covered half the table, and Azure and Verde were looking from the spread to each other with somewhat shocked expressions.
“You have until I finish this to tell me your sob story,” Hei said between bites, looking across the table at the two women. “And don’t expect it to take as long as you think it might.”
The other two exchanged looks and Azure cleared her throat.
“Fine, then,” she said, and paused as if wondering where to start. “We’ve been on the run for about a year now. We were on assignment in Okinawa and just never reported back in. We came to Tokyo to try and join the EPR, but we arrived too late, after the Hell’s Gate event.” She paused again, giving Hei a pointed look. He ignored her and kept eating.
Azure stifled a sigh before continuing and dug into her pockets, searching for something. “We have our reasons for wanting to fight the Syndicate. See, I met Verde on a PANDORA assignment two years ago. Was supposed to smuggle her out. It was a bitch, but we got out.” Azure found what she was looking for—a pack of cigarettes--and pulled them out, along with a lighter. She glanced up at Hei. “Wanna know why she was in there?”
Hei had an idea, but he didn’t particularly care so he said nothing.
“She was an experiment,” Azure continued, and Hei heard some of that murderous anger creep back into her voice. Not befitting of a Contractor, but Hei wasn’t one to talk. “You remember the experiments a few years ago, when they were trying to figure out how to force normal humans into Contracts, how to take a Contract away, that shit? Verde was part of that. She was a Contractor when they caught her.” Azure paused again, for long enough that Hei couldn’t help glancing up at her.
“Now she’s a Moratorium.”
Hei stopped eating.
“That’s impossible.” He shot a look at Verde. She wasn’t eating at all and was looking more subdued than she had before. “How is it that you’re stable?”
“I’m not,” Verde said in that soft voice of hers. “Rather, my ability is not. I am mentally stable, but I have no control over my ability, and I make no obeisance in exchange for it. I can sense other Contractors and Dolls, but the ability comes and goes, as well as its scope and accuracy.”
“You can see why the Syndicate wanted her out,” Azure says, lighting a cigarette. Verde watches and reaches over to grip Azure’s shoulder as Azure takes a long drag on the cigarette. She then lays her other arm on the table, palm up. Hei watches with morbid fascination as Azure braces herself and then presses the glowing end of the cigarette to the soft flesh just below her wrist.
Azure’s face screws up and she hisses in pain, crumpling the cigarette in her other hand and dropping it into the ashtray. Verde scoops an ice cube out of her drink and presses it to the burn mark on Azure’s arm.
“My obeisance,” Azure says thinly. “It’s not as bad as some I’ve seen.”
There’s a long silence. Hei eventually goes back to his food, which is now half gone.
“So you left because you found out PANDORA had turned her into a Moratorium. But that should come as no surprise. Everyone knows PANDORA has been experimenting on Contractors for years.”
“That’s not it,” Verde says, giving Azure’s shoulder a squeeze. Azure reaches across and twines her hand in Verde’s. She looks up at Hei.
“We’re in love,” she says.
Hei stares at them. This is as impossible if not more so than Verde being a semi-stable Moratorium. Nothing is more illogical than love. Nothing is more requiring of emotions and a soul. But Shihoko had loved Huang; had given her life to protect him. And Amber had done the same for Hei.
“Not very logical, is it?” Azure concedes.
“But it’s the truth,” Yin says, speaking for the first time since she’d arrived. Hei looked over at her; Yin was watching the two Contractors as if she could see them. Azure looked back at Yin and nodded.
“We were surprised too, when we found out.”
“We denied it for a long time. But...” Verde shrugs and smiles a little. “You can’t help who you love.”
Huang had said the same thing, just after handing Hei the gun.
“The Syndicate made a deal with PANDORA,” Azure went on. “She was too valuable a specimen; PANDORA wanted her back and the Syndicate agreed. We weren’t going to let that happen.” Azure gave Verde’s hand a squeeze. “So we ran. We headed north, hoping to join the EPR, but we arrived too late. We kept traveling.”
“Met a lot of people on the way, Contractors connected to the EPR,” Verde said, picking up the thread. “There are a lot of them still out there. Most of them believe that Amber is still alive. They’re waiting for her to come back, rally them again. Things are changing, and not just in Japan.”
It was what Amber had said inside the Gate. The Contractors, the Dolls, they were all changing. Waking up. She had said that everything that had happened in the last ten years, everything from the appearance of the Gates to the events a few months ago, were the beginning of something much, much bigger, something that wouldn’t be concluded for hundreds of years. Hei had only half-believed her at the time, despite everything he’d seen. Now it seemed that things were changing faster than even Amber had foreseen.
Hei looked over again at Yin, almost forgetting his food. What did that mean? What did that mean for Yin--for him?
“What exactly happened on the train?” Hei asked.
“The cop was a Syndicate member. He recognized us, so we killed him and crashed the train to destroy the evidence.”
“You could have killed hundreds.”
“The cop was the only one who died. The alternative was our own deaths.”
Hei looked between them. They were still holding hands. He sighed and went back to his food in time to see Yin steal some of his tofu.
Waking up, huh.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, devouring the rest of the tofu before Yin could get at it.
“We likely won’t be in Sapporo much longer,” Azure said. “There’s rumored to be some EPR sympathizers in Shanghai, so we’ll probably head there next.”
Shanghai. China.
“Since the three of us would rather avoid the Syndicate, it would be to everyone’s benefit to work together, for the time being,” Verde said. “You scratch our back, we scratch yours, as they say. And you were connected to the EPR. Rumors about what you did are flying, but the only thing that’s sure is that you saved the Contractors. If you put in a good word for us...”
“You try to kill me and you want me to put in a good word for you?”
“That was a misunderstanding and was nothing personal. You should know that,” Verde pointed out. “All we are asking for is your support.”
“I don’t generally exchange phone calls with what’s left of the EPR or send new recruits their way.”
“All we need is to be able to say that we met you, that you helped us, and that you are willing to help other Contractors in our situation.”
“I never said I would help,” Hei said, draining his last ramen bowl. “Why the EPR? The sunspot cycle is over. PANDORA and the Syndicate can’t destroy the Contractors anymore.”
“The Syndicate needs to be brought down,” Azure said, fierceness creeping into her voice again. “They’re crumbling, but all the signs are saying that they’re just going to become a legit part of the world governments. The big wigs will end up keeping their jobs in intelligence and foreign ministry, and they’ll just make their actions public instead of keeping it secret.”
Like what happens in Misaki’s world. So it really is going in that direction…
Hei set his ramen bowl down and got to his feet. Yin got up as well.
“Well, BK-201?” Verde prompted, fixing him with an intense stare. “Will you help us?”
He pulled on his coat. “It’s Hei. My name is Hei.”
Azure and Verde looked at each other.
“Verde. LU-866.”
“Azure, FN-189.”
Hei took Yin’s hand and started walking out of the restaurant.
“Hei,” Verde called after him. “You didn’t answer the question.”
He stopped and sighed a little, then looked back at her.
“Stay in Sapporo for now,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”
Then he turned and walked out of the restaurant with Yin.
