Hei sprinted across the flat tops of a row of shipping containers, on a route calculated to cut off his target. The sun had just dropped below the horizon, leaving an eerie, twilit blue haze cloaking the dockyard. The contractor he hunted was running a blind maze, a shadowy canyon between the towering stacks of metal containers. From Hei's vantage point atop columns three or four containers high, he could see each and every turn that the man would be forced to take.
What he didn't know was where the other contractor was, whether she'd managed to follow the target into the shipping yard or not. Hei was working solo this night, and without Yin he was almost as blind as the target. He'd seen that other contractor lying in wait, and so hadn't interfered when she attacked; it didn't matter who Hei took the envelope from, so long as he took it. But she'd botched the job, leaving Hei free to pursue his quarry.
The target veered right around the end of a row of containers; Hei whipped his carabiner around one of the twistlock fittings of the container beneath his feet and swung to the ground, his cable breaking his fall before he broke a leg. He cut the cable loose just as the target finished rounding the corner - the contractor had just enough time to look surprised at the sight of a masked man rising from a crouch in front of him before Hei caught the man's face in a black-gloved hand and electrocuted him. Hei removed his hand, and the contractor crumpled face-first onto the ground.
Hei's lungs were heaving; it had been a long hard sprint. He took off his mask to get some more air, then crouched down and turned the dead man over. The envelope was in an inner pocket of the man's jacket. Good. He would leave this at the dead drop and still have plenty of time to get over to Misaki's.
His briefing last night had been long for such a simple job; then he'd decided that it would be best to scout out the area beforehand. He'd had to do that in the dead of night, before the early morning dockyard shifts began. By the time he'd made it to Misaki's apartment, dawn had been close and she'd been sound asleep in bed, her mouth open slightly and one hand tangled in her long hair. Not wanting to wake her so late - well, early - he'd settled onto the floor next to her bed and dozed, lulled by the sound of her soft, even breathing, until it was time for him to leave. While it was better than not seeing her at all, he much preferred having the whole night together.
The sound of rapid footsteps sounded suddenly in his ears. Hei tucked the envelope into his coat and stood. That female contractor must have caught up. He drew one of his knives and tensed to throw as a figure dashed around the corner of the wall of containers.
A large figure. Too large. Saitou!
Hei recognized the police detective just in time to keep the knife within his grip.
Saitou skidded to a stop at the sight of Hei in his black trench coat; he raised his gun and barked, "Don't move!"
Hei's mind raced through his choices. He could throw the knife as a distraction; that would free up his hand to throw the carabiner and climb up to the top of the stack before Saitou recovered. It all depended on the larger man's reflexes - if he was quick, he might get off a deadly shot before Hei had a chance to -
Saitou's gaze flicked from Hei, to the body on the ground, then back to Hei and the knife in his hand. The detective's eyes widened. "Li?"
Shit. He'd forgotten that he wasn't wearing his mask. This was going to be tricky. "Um," he said, trying to surreptitiously hide the knife. "Saitou?"
Saitou's grip on his gun visibly tightened, a look of confusion and almost panic on his face. "You're BK-201? Drop the knife!"
Bluffing clearly wasn't going to work. "Think carefully about what you're doing," Hei warned in a low voice. He brought the knife down a little more; enough that he hoped that it would look like he was complying with Saitou's order but still in a position for an underhand throw.
"Backup is on the way," Saitou said, his arms so tense that his elbows must be locked. "Come quietly. Try anything and I'll shoot."
"Will you?" It was an honest question. Misaki wouldn't hesitate, he knew, but Saitou was quite a bit softer than she was.
A look of doubt crossed Saitou's face; just for a moment, but it was enough.
Hei took a step forward. Saitou instinctively shifted his weight to his back foot and Hei lunged, pushing Saitou's arms up and slamming his shoulder into his chest. The big man toppled backwards, Hei falling with him; the gun dropped to the ground. Hei rolled to a crouch and was about to spring up and knock the detective out when an earth-shattering crash sounded behind him. A whoosh of air kicked up a storm of dust as vibrations traveled through the pavement.
Hei shielded his eyes with his hands and turned. An entire column of containers had fallen onto the exact spot where he and Saitou had been standing just a moment before - it had missed them by inches.
The metal-manipulating contractor had found them.
A blue glow from above caught his eye and he looked up. She was standing on top of the column directly above them. Without hesitation, Hei threw his knife. She snatched it out of the air using her power, then flipped it in her hand to throw it back down at him - and looked in confusion at the cable attached to the hilt. Hei sent a killing current through the cable, then tugged. The knife fell back to the ground, followed immediately by the dead contractor. Her body hit the concrete with a sickening crunch.
Saitou was slowly pushing himself up off the ground. His eyes were on the gun, lying several feet away. Hei was closer; he walked deliberately to the weapon, picked it up in a black-gloved hand, and straightened again. He hid his relief at being back in control of the situation behind an emotionless expression and aimed the gun dead center at Saitou's chest. The other man froze in a half-crouch, bracing himself against the side of a container.
"Here's what's going to happen," Hei said in his coldest voice. "I'm going to erase your memory of having seen me; you aren't going to struggle."
"Bullshit," Saitou growled. "You're just going to kill me."
"If I was just going to kill you, I would have shot you already. Don't struggle, and you won't get hurt. Try and fight me, and I will kill you. It's the same thing I told Misaki, and she's still alive, isn't she," he added, seeing the look of disbelief on the detective's face.
It was the wrong thing to say.
Saitou tensed, and glowered at him. "Don't you say her name!"
Damn. This could get messy. Hei was sure that he was faster, but Saitou had the advantage of size. It wasn't going to be easy knocking him out without hurting the man.
But before he could say another word, the sound of pounding footsteps announced another arrival. Hei swept his arm ninety degrees and fixed his aim on the newcomer just as they rounded the corner - only to find himself face to face with Misaki.
She had her weapon aimed directly at his head. Her cheeks were flushed with exertion and a stray lock of hair had drifted across her face. Her eyes widened with recognition, but she didn't waver for an instant. For one long, tense beat they stood there, guns pointed at each other; then Hei slowly lowered his arm. Never taking his eyes from Misaki, he ejected the clip and the bullet from the chamber in a practiced motion and tossed the empty weapon at Saitou, who didn't move to catch it. It bounced off his chest and fell to the ground with a clatter that seemed to echo louder than any gunshot in the metal canyon.
Misaki let out her breath in a tired sigh, and, to Hei's surprise, holstered her own weapon. Then she brushed the hair out of her eyes and turned to Saitou. "Are you alright?"
He gaped at her like a fish out of water. "Chief, don't! He's not Li, he's -"
"- going to tell me what the hell happened here!" Misaki snapped at Hei. Apparently satisfied that her subordinate was unhurt, she was now ignoring him completely.
Hei looked at her blankly. What did she think had happened? "A contractor tried to crush me under a shipping container. Then I killed her."
"Who was she?" Misaki glanced down at the broken body, then quickly looked away again. That surprised Hei; she'd seen more than her fair share of dead contractors, why would this one make her squeamish?
"I don't know."
Misaki gave him a hard look. "You weren't sent to kill her?" When Hei didn't answer, she continued, "There was another contractor, a man with long hair in a ponytail. Did you see him?"
Hei glanced over his shoulder at the pile of heavy, crushing containers.
Misaki swore, her brow furrowed. "I hope whatever was in that envelope wasn't destroyed. Saitou, we'll have to coordinate with the dockyard to get those containers shifted as soon as possible."
Saitou was looking between the two of them with an expression of utter confusion. "Chief…?" he said, rising slowly to his feet.
"In the meantime," Misaki continued, ignoring Saitou once again, "you can answer my questions. I'm guessing that you were after him," she indicated the mess behind Hei, "rather than the woman. You were both sent to interrupt the exchange and take whatever was in the envelope that my informant received, right?"
Again, Hei remained silent. Was Misaki interrogating him for Saitou's sake? He was going to have to erase the man's memory no matter what, so this whole charade was pointless. But…Misaki didn't appear to be acting.
Her eyes narrowed, and she placed her hand on the grip of her gun. "I'll arrest you and question you at headquarters if you prefer."
Hei's pulse quickened. "You can try," he said, meeting the challenge in her voice. "But even if you do manage to take me, I won't talk, and I guarantee I'll either be dead or gone from the city within the hour." It wasn't an idle threat; he'd been working for the Syndicate long enough to know exactly how they dealt with operatives who were captured. He hoped that this was just a performance and that she didn't mean to try and arrest him. Even worse than the possibility of being killed was the thought of having to flee the city. He'd never see her again.
"Hei, you need to give me something here," she said, and he was shocked to hear a tremor in her voice. "I can't keep doing this, turning a blind eye to what you do. You're leaving me with nothing but hard choices, while you can just walk away without any consequences!"
Her emotion caught him completely off guard. Hei loved the strength that made up the core of Misaki's being, and it meant something to him that she could set that strength aside and allow him to see her vulnerability. He brought his hand up to the lapel of his coat, then slowed his movement when he saw Misaki's hand return to her gun. Didn't she trust him? Carefully, he retrieved the envelope from an inside pocket and held it out to her. Saitou sucked in his breath but didn't say anything, clearly torn between trusting that his chief knew what she was doing and wanting to warn her to keep out of danger.
Misaki stepped forward and took the envelope gingerly, meeting his eyes only briefly. He didn't know what hurt more, her surprise or her hesitation at coming closer to him. At least she'd let go of her weapon.
"Do you know what's in this?" she asked.
"No."
Misaki handed the envelope over to Saitou. "Let's see what it is," she said to her subordinate.
Saitou was clearly reluctant to take his eyes off of the Black Reaper, but he ran a finger under the seal and ripped it open. He removed a single sheet of paper. "It's got a title….Oenothera," he said, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. "Then it's just a list: affinis, albicaulis, biennis, canescens, cinerea, flava, gaura, hartwegii, linifolia, pallida, picensis, rosea, triloba. That's it."
"What the hell?" Misaki muttered, rubbing her forehead tiredly. She looked at Hei. "Does any of that mean anything to you?"
He shook his head. Some of it sounded vaguely like Spanish or Portuguese, but he'd never heard any of those words before.
"Alright," Misaki said. "We can try and puzzle it out tomorrow. Saitou, let's call in Kouno and Matsumoto and start processing the scene." Then she turned back to Hei.
"Thanks for this," she said, her voice finally softening to a tone he was more accustomed to hearing from her. "I'll let you go now."
"Not yet."
Her eyebrows raised at his words, then furrowed in worry when he glanced significantly toward Saitou. "That's not really necessary," she said. "I'll explain things to Saitou; I trust him."
Hei wondered exactly how much of those "things" Misaki was planning on explaining. But it didn't matter; she might trust him, but Hei didn't. He didn't doubt Saitou's loyalty to his chief, but the man was more than a little in love with Misaki. He wouldn't keep secret her arrangement with BK-201 if he thought it was putting her in danger.
"No," Hei said. Misaki's mouth pressed into a thin line, and Hei worried that she was going to try and argue with him. Or worse, try and stop him.
"Uh, Chief, what's going on? Have you been working with BK-201?"
"No," she said flatly, and crossed her arms. "Yes. Sort of. It's…complicated. Well, are you going to do it or not?"
This last was directed at Hei. He had expected her to want to leave the area first, or at least look away. Then he realized that that was stupid. Of course she wasn't going to leave her subordinate alone in such a situation. And she was going to watch, no matter how much it hurt her.
Saitou was looking slightly bewildered. "Do wha - "
Hei stepped up swiftly behind the detective and sent a shock through his temple - just enough to knock him out and disrupt his memory of the past couple of hours. Misaki flinched slightly as Saitou collapsed; Hei caught the larger man under the arms and lowered him as best he could to the ground, staggering a little under the weight. The piece of paper fell from the detective's limp grasp and fluttered to the pavement.
Misaki already had her phone out and was dialing. "You'd better leave now," she said without looking at him. "And…it's probably best if you don't come by tonight. I can't…I just can't." With that, she put the phone up to her ear and turned her back on him.