Kiss of Death

Part 30

Chapter 29

"Hostage"


"Vermouth, eyes on the road. You seem to be in a daze," Vinsanto said in a sing-song voice. She gave the girl a cold glare.

Here she was, following the car that Ran and Hidemi were in.

If it was only Hidemi, who was once a traitor in the Black Organisation, it would have been easy. Vermouth had always envied those traitors - to have the courage to secretly go against the syndicate despite the risks. She herself, wanted to escape from being a prisoner of the organisation, yet, due to her daughter's safety, she was unable to bring herself to do anything.

That is, until 5 years ago, she conspired with a man to take advantage of the syndicate's downfall. With the Black Organisation in ashes, Vermouth shot the former Boss through the temple. However, what she had not foreseen is that the man she conspired with desired to de-throne the former Boss and reform the organisation. She was a crow in a cage once more, but this time, with a stronger and darker owner. The now-Boss without a doubt, is a sinister one.

To plan a massacre of shrunken adults? Now that's just berserk.

Demented, even.


Ran was shaking. What was she supposed to do? The vehicle could have been one of the syndicate members that they feared.

"Ran, keep calm. Let's head over to that mountain. We'll try to lose them there," Hidemi instructed, pointing at Mount Akina.


Meanwhile, Vermouth gasped. Mount Akina was similar to Mount Haruna, the faithful day where she had lost everything. Her heart started palpitating. In one wrong move, either one of them might meet with an accident that could cost a life.

Vermouth wouldn't let that happen to Angel.

Yet, the other obstacle was the insane girl beside her, who was ruthless and loyal to the current Boss. With the blackmail of her daughter's life, it seemed difficult for her to get the outcome she desired.

Please... someone just give me an excuse to fail this mission.

She was near to tears, while holding the wheel - almost having the urge to pray for a miracle.

Then, as if that her prayers were heard, a gunshot came firing at her rear-view mirror. Both Vermouth and Vinsanto were startled, looking back, only to meet the mysterious eyes of Akai Shuichi.

"I should have known he was following us!" Vinsanto screamed spitefully, a dark aura lingering around her. She loaded a pistol and opened the car window. With the flexibility of a gymnast, it was an easy task for her to sit on the car door, in order to have a clear shot at the vehicles in front and behind them.

She shot the vehicle that Akai Shuichi was in, only to have grazed Akai's ear.

"Tch-" Akai clicked his tongue out of annoyance. This petite dyed-pink-haired girl sure was troublesome.

Another gunshot was fired.

This time, his vehicle wobbled slightly, perhaps one of the car's tires had been shot. He slowed down, but Akai continued to fire at the driver of the violet car. Luckily for Vermouth, she was able to duck in time, with the bullet missing her head by an inch. She gave Akai a glare through her rear-view mirror, in which the man with dark eyelashes returned it with a smirk.

"Vinsanto, shoot him," Vermouth commanded with a grudge in her voice. For heaven's sake, she could have died by his bullet a few seconds ago.

"Relax, he's slowing down," she said as she fired another bullet towards him. The bullet managed to land on his hand, in which Akai grimaced in sheer pain. It seems severe, with his blood dribbling down his arm.

He could hear the echo of Vinsanto's laughter.

"Fuck this, I'm glad it's not my dominant hand," he said as he quickly bandaged up his bloodied right hand. He caught sight of his assaulter, grinning gleefully at his wounds.


At the same time, Ran winced slightly at the loudness of the firing of bullets, as the sounds were unfamiliar to her. She tried her best to keep concentrated of the driving in such a dangerous road, despite the chaotic exchange of gun fights between the vehicles. As for Hidemi, she had acknowledge that Akai needed reinforcement, given that Akai had stopped firing. She managed her hand to peer out of the window and fired at the girl who was attacking them.

"Hmm, I guess that woman is giving me problems too. Such trouble," Vinsanto said as she shook her head. She loaded her gun, aiming at Hidemi. In response, Hidemi retreated her arm, waiting for another opening to attack.

Vinsanto chuckled, "smart woman. Then I guess I'll just have to attack the driver." She was prepared to shoot at Ran's head.

This caused Vermouth to panic. Ensuring that Vinsanto will miss, she made a sharp swift to side in order for the bullet to not hit Ran. The bullet ended up grazing over Ran's car door, but the thought of death at her doorstep still frightened Ran. Her heart seemed to be pounding at an inhumane pace, with adrenaline kicking in, yelling at her body instructions to keep herself alive.

"Hey! Drive properly!" Vinsanto yelled at her partner. Vermouth feigned difficulty in the task.

With an exasperated sigh from Vinsanto, she resorted into shooting the wheels instead. This resulted in Ran having a difficult time to operate the car, given that its tire was flattening and they were running at an exceedingly high speed. More or less, the car would have gone over the edge of the mountain road. Ran slammed the breaks upon seeing a very sharp curve ahead, making the tires screech eerily. The car did halt, hitting the metal border at Ran's side with a loud bang. The window beside Ran shattered, with the motion of the sudden halt throwing Ran out of the car. Hidemi screamed, her hands were still clutching dearly at her seat belt.

Ran felt like her heart was going to drop. She was falling, unsure if she would survive.

Just then, a pair of arms gripped her tightly. She looked up and saw a man with white wings and suit holding onto her tightly. They were gliding across the wind. For a moment, Ran thought that an angel had stopped her fall.

"Kaito Kid?" she said, a little perplexed and dizzy. Through her giddy vision, she noticed Kaito Kid's smile gracefully.

Akai could breathe now. Thank goodness he had contacted the phantom thief, which was an odd choice for him. But somehow, Kaito Kid seemed like the right man for the job at this point.

The celebration was cut short when Vinsanto hurled a spinning knife at the white gliding figure, creating a small cut on Kaito Kid's hang-glider. The flying pair wobbled a bit, crashing onto the forested area nearby. They were slightly far away for the syndicate members to go after, but near enough to see them. Ran and Kaito Kid got up unharmed, albeit for the scratches upon grazing on the grasses.

Vermouth smiled a little when she witnessed that her angel was alright.

Vermouth halted the car because the crashed car Hidemi was in was blocking her way. And so did Akai.

Seeing that the battle was not over, Vinsanto quickly got out of the car and ran towards Hidemi, grabbing her and placing a knife near her neck.

She smirked, knowing that Hidemi was weakened by the car crash to retaliate. She demanded, "one wrong move and this woman is dead. Drop your weapons."

Akai complied. Vinsanto motioned for Vermouth to do a body search on him for any hidden weapons.

"Alright, what do you want?" Akai said, composed as ever.

"Call up Eisuke Hondou. I'm pretty sure he would want his sister to be alive. Tell him that we want the boy named Tyler and the doctor named Tomoaki Araide," she said.

He sighed loudly, but complied to her request.

"Eisuke?"

"Yes, Akai?" the voice on the line said.

"Give me that," Vermouth interrupted, snatching the phone.

"Eisuke Hondou, listen up carefully. Your traitor of a sister is here with us, with a knife on her throat. We've got James Black too. Tell us where you're hiding Tyler and Doctor Araide, then we'll let her go," Vermouth said.

There was hesitation over the line.

Vermouth motioned Vinsanto to stand by. She said, "tell us now, or your sister's dead. I will count to three."

"One-"

"No! Eisuke! Don't tell them where you are!" Hidemi screamed.

"Two-"

"Just forget about me, don't tell them!"

"Thr-"

"Alright, I will give you the location. Just don't hurt my sister," Eisuke said defeatedly.

"Good choice," Vermouth replied with a malicious smile, "I would call you again. Your sister will be in custody with us, so don't try anything funny." She then turned to Akai, who tried to keep himself unfazed.

"Keep still," Vermouth said as she shot the tires of Akai's car, until they were deflated. She did one last body search and of his car. She also crushed his communication devices with her heel. Then, she held onto his phone to keep in contact with Eisuke and kept his weapons with her.

She cut off one of the seat belts from his car. Vermouth approached Akai with the torn-off seat belt and binded his hands, not too tightly, but just enough to allow for movements. She said, "don't try to do anything funny."

Vermouth glanced at Vinsanto for a moment. Seeing that the girl was distracted by her hostage, she quickly placed a small cell phone in Akai's back-pocket. Akai was slightly flabbergasted at her strange behaviour - why would she try to help him?

She leaned onto his ear and whispered, "you're a Silver Bullet, so don't fail my expectations." Then she left, along with Vinsanto and Hidemi in the violet car. Akai waited for them to be out of sight, before untying himself with ease.

That woman... she tied it in a way that I can get out of it easily. I don't know why she seems to side us. But, I should find Ran and Kaito Kid first. If Kaito Kid's hang-glider works just fine, we should be able to reach there first.

He headed to the location where Kaito Kid and Ran should have crashed. Expectedly, he found them. Ran had a few scratches and Kaito Kid's hang-glider was in a mess. Kaito Kid's arm was bleeding from abrasion, soaking his white clothing.

"What happened?" Kaito Kid asked.

"They took agent Hidemi Hondou and used her to blackmail Eisuke to bring Doctor Araide and the boy," Akai answered.

"Tomoaki? We have to get there!" Ran screamed, panicking.

"Relax miss. Besides, I think you should head somewhere safe. You almost got into trouble," Kaito Kid said.

"I can't! My husband is in danger, I can't sit back down. Besides, I placed a tracker in his glasses. So I should know where he is. I won't tell you, unless you agree that I'm going," Ran said adamantly, her fist containing the golden ring shimmering against the sunlight.

The two men sighed. Even if they refused, they knew that she would go through lengths to save an individual, especially her spouse.

"Show us the way-"


"This is bad! This is bad!" Eisuke mumbled, catching the attention of Tomoaki Araide.

"The Black Organisation attacked 95% of the CIA, FBI and NPA members working on the case against them. They have my sister too! And they won't give her back unless they have you or Tyler!" he rambled on, furiously typing on his keyboard. Eisuke Hondou was currently a trainee hacker in the cyber security department in the CIA. But because of the recent massacre, the other CIA members in Eisuke's department has been either out of reach, occupied with other missions or dead. This makes Eisuke more helpless as more load was now on his shoulders. He attempted to hack and find the syndicate members' whereabouts, but the Black Organisation's Night Baron virus kept him from being successful.

Doctor Tomaki Araide placed his palm on the younger man's shoulder, "calm down, Eisuke. Right now we need to figure out how to evade them. And also why they are after us. I'm pretty sure I can guess why they want me - I know too much about Julias Cisson's death and they probably need a person with medical knowledge to facilitate more in their research of drugs and poisons. What I don't get is why they want Tyler so much. They tried to abduct him once, but it didn't work. What does the boy possess that they want?"

Eisuke maintained his composure. He took out a file and started to ramble on, "it was mentioned that Tyler was the grandson of the owner of Moriarty Academy, but there was little known about the owner, not even Tyler himself. Now, Moriarty Academy was established with a hidden programme where they train certain hand-picked students for social experiments and train them to become elite criminals. It's only possible that the owner wants his grandson back."

Eisuke took another folder and showed two photographs - of an albino boy and a platinum blonde girl. He continued, "out of these experiments and training, I've found out that these two teens are often deemed superior in the batch of students. They were given code-names: Williamine and Vinsanto. They are seen helping the more authoritative syndicate members like Gin and Vermouth. From previous reports of encounters, Vinsanto was known for being ruthless and agile in her attacks, while Williamine is swift and precise in his killings. Now, the one who had called me was Vermouth. From the reports on the massacre at the headquarters, Vermouth was accompanied by Vinsanto."

"Killings? So all these bad blood runs through my veins..." Tyler whispered, his face paled in horror. The boy had been awake after being stunned by a drug that the syndicate had used, thanks to Doctor Araide who cured him in no time. Yet, the boy was simply in a fetal-like position, having heard of the recent deaths and the involvement of his school with a syndicate. The deaths of Cedric and the recent headquarters were sure terrifying, even Genta's death was devastating. Sure that Tyler did not get along well with Genta, but still, Genta was nowhere near a direct threat to the organisation. So why did they have to suffer? What did they ever do that they had to pay with their lives? The boss seems merciless, no doubt. The thought of the Boss being related to Tyler scared him. He would not accept that he was ever related to that thing.

"Tyler, don't say that..." Tomoaki Araide reassured, but the boy was stone cold in his fetal-like position.

"Someone's approaching!" Eisuke alarmed them. He used the camera monitors to identify the individuals - they were Ran, Kaito Kid and Akai. Eisuke granted them access, in which Ran rushed to their location.

"Tomoaki!" she yelled and leapt onto a hug.

"How'd you find me?"

"Oh, I placed a tracker on you using the glasses invented by Professor Agasa, I couldn't imagine being a sitting duck while you risk your life," she replied.

"That's dangerous! You could've been in danger!" he exclaimed, hugging her again tightly.

"They say that they would want you in exchange for Hidemi Hondou. We need to save her, but I don't want you to turn yourself in as well!" Ran cried, unable to keep her cool in check. Eisuke furiously typed on the keyboard, searching for reinforcements. But he shook his head - after the massacre, only a few agents were left. The only choice was to call up Rei, who used to be known as Bourbon, in spite of his amenity with Akai.

"It's fine, inform him where we are. Our plan has been ruined, due to the unforeseen massacre. I'll try to think of something," Akai spoke up, "but this only certainly works if Vermouth and Vinsanto were the only ones in the scene."


Meanwhile, Gin and Williamine were waiting, just outside Ai's hideout.

"So, I can take Sherry, if I could?" Gin said, his eyes shimmering with bloodlust.

"You can," Vermouth said, "but remember, she's just a minor target. We have a bigger target, a bigger fish to catch than Doctor Araide and Tyler."