Hong Kong was a crap city.

All right, that was unfair, Taisou allowed. Hong Kong had many good points, like pretty girls and an amazing nightlife. It was just that right now it was 11 o'clock in the morning, blazing hot, and so humid it felt like he was drowning on dry land.

He dragged a hand across his forehead to wipe away the mass of sweat that had somehow appeared in the minute since he had last done so and slumped back against one of the wide stone columns outside whatever building he was at now. He was off-duty with no particular place to be, just killing time until the big operation tomorrow. The Hong Kong police were reporting a lot of suspicious activity around Exchange Square, activity that gave the bean-counters the idea that Big Fire was moving in. Taisou hadn't really understood the wall of financial terms they'd thrown at him, but the potential of Big Fire moving in on China was too much to ignore - more than enough to ensure the success of the operation by sending along one of the Celestial Nine. Except Chiefs Ootsuka and Chujo were both busy, so Taisou was left holding the bag. They'd given him a superb staff of spies and auditors so all he had to do was stand around and make sure no one had the bright idea of getting violent while his subordinates stared at tiny rows of numbers until their eyes crossed, then take the bankers out for schmoozing and boozing until one of them slipped up and told him all about Big Fire.

And until then he was just sitting around Hong Kong. Normally he'd find a bar, but 11 AM was too early, even for him. He tried keep himself to after 3 PM. 2, at the very most. He stared at the building in front of him and tried to work up any sort of interest in it.

There was a flash of movement at the very edge of his vision.

Taisou stiffened, half-ready for trouble. It was probably nothing, Hong Kong was crowded on the best of days, but it just...hadn't felt like the normal movement of crowds. He peeked around the column as far as he dared. Nothing.

"Time to lay off the sauce, Taisou," he muttered to himself. It was probably just a pigeon.

It happened again, and this time it was definitely fabric.

Taisou flattened himself against the column, breathing steady. It felt too obvious for a real assassination attempt, but it was weird as hell and you didn't make it to the Celestial Nine without being on your guard against weird as hell. He could feel a presence on the other side, a faint tickle against the back of his mind. He peeked around the column again, this time checking both sides. Zilch.

Another flash, on the other side this time.

Taisou was getting sick of this. He gave the mystery person three seconds to let down their guard before charging around the column ready for a fight. "All right you, if you wanted trouble, you found it! Get rea-uh?"

In front of him was a little girl, still just a child. She had short blonde hair, a white sundress, and a little purse that couldn't hold more than a few coins. And she was rapidly backing away from the freaky guy who had just started yelling at her.

"Oh, hey, sorry about that!" Taisou dropped down to a crouch and rubbed at his head with a sheepish expression. "I, uh, thought you were someone else, little missy. Ah..." She'd stopped backing away but still looked wary. Taisou tried to give her a friendly, reassuring smile. "Where're your parents? You waiting for them?"

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," she snapped back.

"No no, it's all right, I'm a policeman," Taisou hastened to reply. The girl gave him a deeply skeptical look. "Here, I'll prove it," he said and dragged his ID card out of his clothes. "See? Taisou the Fleet Footed of the International Police. Don't worry, I'm not a bad man. I'm here to protect you from them."

The girl took the card and read it carefully, her eyes wide. Her gaze flicked from the card, to Taisou, back to the card, and to Taisou again. He was used to people not buying the police officer story, but this was a little extreme. The card had an official stamp and everything.

Finally she handed the card back to him and said, "Ah...thank you for the offer, but my father should be here any minute. There's no need to worry, so you can just be on your way."

"Nah, I got nothing better to do." Taisou settled back a little more comfortably and stretched his back. "I'll keep you company while you wait. You been here long?"

The girl stood a few paces away. She still looked pretty nervous, even after the card. "Not long," she said, after an extended pause.

"Mm, good. Be sad if your dad kept you waiting. What's your name, anyway?"

She hesitated again. Finally she bit out a quick "Sally," and that was all.

That killed the conversation pretty effectively. Taisou chewed on his straw, the girl - Sally - fiddled with her purse-strap, the sun moved slowly across the sky. In front of them a man jumped on the back of a moving streetcar and a woman blasted her horn as her car inched through the heavy traffic. Maybe ten minutes later Taisou spoke up again. "Say, Sally. Was your dad supposed to be here by now?"

"Maybe he's late. I'm sure he's fine."

Taisou gave her a long look out of the corner of his eye. He was more used to dealing with Big Fire's hardened criminals, but a liar was a liar. After awhile you got a sense. He gave a big sigh and flopped back against the column. "Look, if I call over a nice lady friend of mine, will you be honest with her?"

"I'm not lying!" That sure got a reaction. Sally looked like she'd hit him if she could.

"Don't try to fool a cop, little lady." Taisou waved off any further protests. "This won't take a minute." He activated his wine-gourd communicator and tapped in the code for one of his agents - a sharply competent young lady he hadn't worked much with before, but was looking forward to in the future named Ginrei. It would be nice if he could just call over Youshi and have her handle it, but she was off hunting Big Fire agents in the ass-end of Siberia and wouldn't have been assigned to a mission like this in any case. Maybe next time. The communicator beeped the confirmation and Taisou brought it up to his mouth, much to Sally's evident disgust. "Hey, listen, Ginrei. Where are you?"

"Taisou? What is it? I'm in the Flower Garden Shopping Arcade - just taking care of some personal things while we had the time."

Taisou stood up, then stood up straight. He could just barely see the Flower Garden's sign in the distance, maybe two or three blocks away. Perfect. "I've got a little girl I'm pretty sure is lost, but she doesn't trust me. Figured this could use a woman's touch. We're a few blocks south of you."

"A lost girl? I'll come over, but isn't this a better job for the police?"

"We are the police, remember? See you soon." Taisou clicked the communicator off and stowed it again. Sally was still giving him disgusted looks for drinking in the middle of the day. He gave her another reassuring smile and said something inane about how his lady policeman friend would be here to help soon.

This did not get her let down her guard, for some inexplicable reason.

Ginrei did show her face not long later, jogging up with more than a few bags in tow. She was wearing some long dress with a slit up the side Sally's father would probably enjoy - or convince him they were a bunch of perverts out to kidnap his daughter. She gave them both a friendly, open smile that completely hid any irritation at getting called away from her shopping and said, "Well then, what seems to be the problem here?"

There was a flash of a glare from Sally, gone so fast Taisou almost thought he had imagined it. The cute, shy look was back a second later. "You're a police officer too, miss?"

"That's right!" Ginrei sounded perfectly sunny. "Here's my ID. Did you not believe Taisou? I don't blame you," she said, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "If he's not careful he'll be off the force."

Taisou kept himself to a comically large put-upon sigh. The theatrics did make Sally crack a smile, at least.

"So I hear you've lost your dad," Ginrei said, back to her normal tone. "/Men!/ What does he look like? Short or tall? Fat or skinny? Any distinguishing features?"

"Ah..." Sally thought for a moment. "He's short, and round. Clean-shaven, with...wild, scraggly hair. Yes, very scraggly. Like a mountain man."

"Uh-huh," Taisou said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. She still sounded like she was lying, and from Ginrei's sidelong glance he could tell she agreed. This had shifted from a more-or-less normal concern about strange, scruffy men to...something else.

Still, it wasn't like Big Fire used kids a lot. They were scumbags, but every agent Taisou had ever seen was a full adult. They probably had some huge training facility all set up to brainwash kids somewhere, but Taisou doubted it was in Hong Kong. Or that any of those hypothetical kids would be let outside without strict supervision.

Then again, it wasn't like Big Fire was the only gang out there either. Most of the major criminal enterprises had been either absorbed or destroyed by Big Fire's sheer resources, but there was always room for petty thieves and drug dealers at the bottom of the ladder. Entirely possible Sally's dad was one of those and she just wanted to avoid attention. Either way, the best thing to do would be to play along and hope she slipped up before they did.

"Well," Ginrei said brightly, "I don't see any short, scraggly men around here. Do you remember where you got separated?"

"...the park?" Sally hazarded. Not a bad place to claim, Taisou thought. Plausible, and enough people she could claim to see her dad and run off before they could catch her. He was gonna have to keep a close eye on this girl.

Ginrei just smiled her professional smile and said that was the first place they should look, so off they went. She let Sally get a few steps ahead - not enough they'd lose track of her, just enough to not be heard over the crowd - and whispered to Taisou, "So, we look for a tall, thin, well-groomed man?"

Taisou hmmed and chewed on his straw. "Maybe short and thin, or tall and fat. But well-groomed for sure," he replied.

Ginrei nodded like she'd already come to that conclusion herself. "This really is a matter for the Hong Kong police," she said, shaking her head, then had to jog not a second later when Sally disappeared behind a woman with four children and a full rack of clothing on her shoulders. "Hey! Wait! Don't leave us behind!"

They caught her around the next corner, Sally all innocent looks and 'but where were you's, and after that they both kept right up on either side of her all the way to the nearest city park.

It was a nice park, with benches and trees and a few hopeful food carts hanging around the entrance. It also had a number of small, twisting paths intended to give the impression of a much larger space. Taisou eyed them warily.

Sally, on the other hand, was eyeing the baozi cart with clear longing her in eyes. She drifted back and forth between them and the cart at least three times before Taisou finally sighed and walked her over. He was getting hungry too, it was past time for lunch.

"Ah, a family outing! Perfect weather for it!" The food cart owner exclaimed with a too-broad grin. His hair was scruffy but his robe was a new and eye-searing shade of bright blue. "What'll you and your papa have, little miss?"

"He's not my dad!" Sally snapped back, and Taisou had to cut in with "I'm a policeman, this is my partner, we're looking for her parents here's my card," before the shocked cart owner called the cops on Interpol. Taisou didn't even want to imagine Chief Chujou's face if he'd managed to do that.

The cart owner recovered admirably from his slip and was soon rattling off all the baozi he had available. His niche seemed to be traditional cooking - steam without Shizuma Drives - and he was only too happy to snow Sally under a long explanation of how the old ways were best and so much was lost with dirty, Shizuma-powered steam. The girl was fascinated by the idea like she had never heard of non-Shizuma power - and she probably hadn't, Taisou realized; she was far too young to remember before the drives had taken over the world.

"Feeling old yet?" he asked Ginrei.

"Huh?"

He nodded his head towards where Sally was staring at the little gas fire under the portable barrel, leaning close enough she was going to lose her hair if she wasn't careful. "She can't remember a world without Shizuma. Not like you or me, huh? None of our kids are gonna believe we ever had to worry about oil running out."

"Mm, I hadn't thought of that," Ginrei said, her mouth in a thin line. Must be hard on a young woman to find out about the generation gap, Taisou thought, and felt a little bad for bringing it up. He was fine being an old fogy, but Ginrei wasn't even 20 and that was too young to feel old.

"Yeah well..." Didn't seem to be much to say. Sally was picking over the baozi now, lip between her teeth while the cart owner continued to talk up his remarkable methods of using a fire. Taisou remembered training with the IPO in the mountains where they never had heating in the winter because there was no electricity and all wood had to be saved for cooking - which was burned more often than not. He'd heard every trainee got their own Shizuma stove now and had to resist grumping to himself about it. "Kids. Never appreciate what their elders had to go through."

"And elders never appreciate the struggles of youth!" That seemed to have cheered Ginrei right up, for whatever reason, and she laughed like her old self again. "Don't count me in your group yet, I'm still young."

"What group?" Sally asked, in front of them like she'd never left. "I got you one each, if you want." She held out a couple baozi, with what were presumably hers tucked into the crook of her arm.

"Oh, you didn't have to do that...thank you." Ginrei took the baozi and dug into her pocket for change, Taisou quickly following suit. "Here, this should cover it!"

Sally solemnly accepted the money and slipped it into her coin purse before running off to sit on a nearby bench, where she set herself to tearing her lunch apart with manners more like Tetsugyuu than the polite little girl she'd been playing. Soon a flock of pigeons was fighting for the scraps at her feet. Taisou kept her in the corner of his eye, but she didn't seem to want to run off in the middle of lunch and he had some baozi to eat.

She was still there a few minutes later when he'd finished, with even more pigeons at her feet. Neither he or Ginrei had seen anyone matching any of the descriptions of Sally's father, and no one had run up to her either, so-

Taisou blinked at refocused on the pigeons. Something was...off about them. A tiny, scratching sense at the back of his mind, honed by years of facing down Big Fire, was trying to make itself heard. He waved off Ginrei's "Hey, what are you doing-?" as he stalked forward, carefully watching the pigeons for any suspicious movement.

Of course, they all scattered as soon as he came near. Just a bunch of birds. Had some of them looked odd as they took off flying? Taisou hadn't gotten a good look. All he knew was that his honed sense of the weird was suddenly quiet - and that was weird in and of itself.

Sally gave him a pasted-on smile and finished the last scrap of baozi. "I haven't seen my father yet, have you?"

"Not yet," Taisou said, trying to work out what was going on behind that innocent face. Could she have powers? Espers usually got snapped up by Big Fire or Interpol as soon as possible, but she couldn't be part of Big Fire. "'Bout where did you lose him?"

"Well..." Sally made a big show of looking all around her, twisting to look over her shoulder, leaning around Taisou, and even craning back to look at the sky. "I think...that way?" She pointed off to her left, where Taisou could just glimpse water glimmering through the trees.

"We'll start at the lake, then," Ginrei broke in. "Now, stick close to me... I said close!"

Sally had already taken off for the lake, with Taisou and Ginrei in quick pursuit. She slowed down at Ginrei's shout, but not much. Taisou gave Ginrei a tired look. "Not entirely convinced this kid is normal, agent."

"What tipped you off?" Ginrei muttered back.

The lake was crowded with families out for the day, strolling along and enjoying the bright sunshine reflecting off the lake. Sally was there, looking all around for - her father? A chance to get away? Her eyes did find the restroom on the other side of the lake... Taisou shook his head. Too paranoid. Way too paranoid. He stood next to her and looked around himself. "Now...any one look familiar?"

"Well..." Sally started.

"Miss Sunny! There you are! I've been trying to find you!"

All three of them turned to see a bald man with a very impressive nose shove and elbow his way through the crowd, nearly knocking people over in his haste. "Sally" took a half step backward, a look of consternation creeping over her face as the man arrived in front of them, mopping sweat off his brow. "Where on earth have you been? I only just got your message from the pigeon! Your father-" He broke off and somehow managed to compose himself. "Your father has been worried sick, Miss Sunny!"

"S-sorry, Ivan," The apparent Sunny looked ashamed for him, and it actually looked sincere. "But these Interpol agents helped me, so I was never in any danger."

Taisou did not miss that emphasis. Nor did he miss the look of panicked surprise that flashed in this Ivan's eyes. Come to think of it, he looked familiar, in a way Taisou couldn't quite place...that nose stood out, and that scar... Despite all efforts, Taisou felt his lips pull back in a humorless smile. "It's our duty to help citizens, and we're always happy to perform our duty. Now, we'll have a few questions for the father..."

"Absolutely unnecessary! I assure you, I am Miss Sunny's guardian, with full approval from her father, and while I thank you for looking after her in the time she was lost, there is no need for any questions!"

"Well, it's just that..." Taisou paused. He...didn't actually have a reason to question Sunny's dad. Vague suspicion a kid was lying wasn't a warrant. The situation stank to high heaven, but legally, he didn't have a leg to stand on. "Er, we just wanted to make sure she's headed back with the right people and that you don't lose her again."

"Don't worry!" Sunny broke in, her nervous fingers twisting around her purse strap belying her confident voice. "I know Ivan, he's a friend of my father. And I just...wandered off by mistake. I'll be careful in the future!"

"That's right!" Ivan backed her up. "I won't let her out of my sight! Now, if you'll excuse us..."

Taisou ground his teeth. He could see Ginrei's face out of the corner of his eye; her lips were pressed into a firm line. She was having the same thoughts as he was. Something was off, and all they could do was wave as Sunny and Ivan walked away. Taisou got enough of that with Big Fire, he didn't need it from some petty criminals.

Forcing a smile on his face, Taisou was about to wish them well when a shout came up from the crowd on the left. The entire group turned, just in time to see people scatter before a figure approaching at high speed, a figure that threw itself forward as soon as the way was clear, skidding across the tiled ground to catch Sunny around the shoulders -

"Sunny! Where on Earth have you been?!"

- a figure that was absolutely, without a single doubt, Shocking Alberto of the Magnificent Ten.

"Dad, I'm all right, I'm sorry I got lost-"

Sunny's father was Shocking Alberto. Shocking Alberto had a daughter. One of the Magnificent Ten, the Celestial Nine's sworn enemies, had a daughter.

"What were you thinking, wandering off like that? I should ground you for a month!"

Shocking Alberto...had a daughter. A daughter he was lecturing like any worried parent. Shocking Alberto, of the Magnificent Ten.

Taisou's thoughts felt stuck. Judging from her expression, so were Ginrei's.

Seriously, one of the Magnificent Ten had a daughter! Taisou couldn't believe it was even possible! And a daughter...didn't that imply a wife? Someone had married Alberto? Taisou couldn't decide if that was more or less unbelievable than the rest of it.

Ivan tapped Alberto's shoulder and tilted his head in Taisou and Ginrei's direction. Taisou swore internally. If they could catch Alberto here it would be a major victory - but they were in a park, full of civilians, and heaven only knew what Ivan could do and if he was a match for Ginrei or not - and Sunny, Sunny definitely had powers and it was a general policy of Taisou's to avoid beating the living shit out of children, thank you very much. Even if the children were Big Fire children. With completely unknown strengths and abilities.

What a mess.

Alberto looked right at them, eyes narrowed. From the way his hands clenched on Sunny's shoulders, he was running the same risk-benefit analysis Taisou was. The chance to take out one of the most dangerous enemies either of them had - at the risk of innocent lives.

There really was only one option. Fuck, but Koshin was going to hate him for this.

"Look, Alberto," he started, grinding out every word, "neither of us want a fight here. Too much in the crossfire. So, just this once, we make a deal. We both walk away and forget we ever saw each other. That acceptable?"

Alberto's eyes somehow narrowed even further, but Sunny was crowding against him with a worried look and one glance down shifted his expression from "angry suspicion" to "grim resignation". "Very well," he said and his voice sounded just like Taisou felt. "Just this once."

Ivan, who had been glancing back and forth between the groups, spoke up in surprise. "But sir!"

"Silence, Ivan!"

Ivan instantly bowed his head and fell silent. Taisou wished he could get that kind of obedience out of his subordinates sometimes...like Tetsugyuu. Ginrei was giving Taisou a look, but he could tell she was thinking the same thing he was and made no protest.

"But remember this, Taisou of the Celestial Nine!" Alberto pointed right at him, face set. "This will not happen again. The next time we meet, we will settle the grudge between our organizations."

"Oh, I'm counting on it," Taisou said. Hell, he was downright looking forward to it now.

"And should you try to take advantage...know this, I swear the entire IPO will pay the price!" Piece said, Alberto grabbed Sunny around the shoulders and hustled her off away from them. Just before they disappeared, Taisou could barely glimpse Sunny craning her neck enough to give them a wink and a mischievous grin.

The next moment, something wet and slimy hit the exact center of Taisou's forehead. He looked up to see a pair of birds zooming away - or not birds, they shivered and snapped into leaves as soon as he saw them. There was a taste in his mouth that reminded him of Issei's magic.

"Oh no..." Ginrei pawed at her hair, now streaked with white. "That little brat!"

Taisou scraped the bird shit off his face as best he could. Shower. It was definitely time for a shower. "Well, that operation's down the drain."

"Down the-" Ginrei's eyes widened as it hit her. "They know we're here now." She crossed her arms in irritation. "We can go over the accounts, but I bet we just find a few corrupt bankers. Big Fire will be covering their tracks as soon as Alberto reports back. What a waste."

"And we nearly caught them off-guard too..." If Alberto thought this was a sure enough bet to bring his daughter along, it had to mean Big Fire had no idea Interpol was on to them - until now. Taisou could nearly spit. "All because a little girl wandered off from her daddy." And because he was a big old softy that couldn't resist a kid in trouble. Why'd that have to bite him in the ass, of all things?

"All that effort for nothing," Ginrei agreed. She sighed. "I still can't quite believe Alberto has a daughter. Could you picture him as a loving father?"

Ten minutes ago, Taisou would've laughed at the idea. Now... "The world is full of mysteries," he said. "But...you know what really gets me?"

"What?"

Taisou gazed at the direction Alberto and Sunny had left in, now just a mass of people enjoying the park again. "He was confident enough to have a kid. He must've believed Big Fire untouchable - that no one could take advantage of it, or if they somehow did, he'd be able to take care of it. You heard him, he had no doubts he'd be able to fulfill that vengeance. Isn't that...isn't that the biggest proof that we're losing?" Taisou and Youshi wanted children, had wanted them for years - but the risk was just too damn high. The risk of one or both of them getting killed, the risk of the child getting used against them, the risk that the child would distract from their duties... And then Alberto waltzed in with a sweet little brat of a daughter like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"People don't always think of the risks. Or...they do, but they do it anyway, and just hope they can work out a future-" Ginrei broke off. "Sorry, I don't know how to put it. Just...sometimes people think the risk is worth it. Even in the middle of a war. Even..." That quiet, distant look in her eyes was back.

"I suppose." He couldn't shake the nagging jealousy and bitterness, but he knew it would fade in time. Taisou tried to make it a policy to not let his personal emotions interfere with his job - it was the only way he'd even made a marriage work. And right now, he had a job to do. "Well, we have until we get back to base to come up with a story for how we happened across Shocking Alberto without bringing Sunny into it. Get thinking."

"You're leaving her out of the report?" Ginrei didn't sound surprised. More like she was testing his resolve.

"It's not the side we show to the cameras...but there's a lot of agents willing to do whatever it takes to beat Big Fire. I don't want that to be us." He wouldn't let it be them. Not ever.

"Right. How about this, we were sightseeing around the city..."

A/N: Just so everything's clear, this takes place before the Domino Operation, which is where Cervantes was killed and Alberto lost his eye. Sunny would probably be a lot less willing to play along with the guy who killed Uncle Cervantes and messed up dad's face, so in the interests of keeping this light-hearted it's before any of that happened. To go along with that everyone's a few years younger than they are in the OVA, and Ginrei and Taisou haven't really worked together before.

This happened because someone nominated 'Taisou, Ginrei, and Sunny' for Fandom Growth Exchange when they meant 'Youshi, Ginrei, and Sunny'. Neither of us signed up for the exchange in the end, but trying to figure out how to get all three characters in the same story sparked this little idea in me. I hope someone enjoys it, and if there are any errors please let me know.