We Are the Men in Black

by Velgamidragon

AU inspired by DragonlordRynn's "Black". The Organization is secretly the Japanese branch of the Men in Black and APTX-4869 was intentionally made to shrink its victim. Kudo was shrunk for his own protection, and Sherry shrunk to protect Dr. Agasa and go into hiding. Vermouth was behaving suspiciously as of late, and Gin was determined to find out and expose her secret agenda.

12. Raven Chaser

Author's Note: Dear god, this chapter is nearly 14,000 words; how the hell do I write so much? Anyway I decided to change the rating of this fic to 'M', not because there's anything present in this chapter to finally warrant the change, but because this entire story has been the most rebellious, disobedient child I've ever worked with, and even though I'm not PLANNING on writing anything to necessitate the change, this story may decide to be completely wanton without my consent again. The fact that this story even EXISTS as long as it is is proof enough of that (there was never even a suggestion of a plan in my brain to turn this into an actual multi-chapter story when I first started writing this and yet here I am).

Took me a while to get this one done for two big reasons. One, I had a lot of major life changes happen within the past six months (new job, moving, getting settled, figuring out expenses, etc). Two, despite being based on existing material, I actually had to write a lot of this chapter from scratch which naturally required more effort on my part.

Naturally, the entirety of this chapter takes place within the 13th DC movie, Raven Chaser. I love that movie so much and that nightmare scene right before the opening intro gets me every freaking time, even knowing what happens and that it's not real. It's just such a powerful representation of everything Conan dreads and the consequence of his failure to keep his survival a secret.

---

Raven Chaser

The streets of Tokyo are no more or less intimidating and frightful than your average highly-populated metropolitan cityscape. The stars in the sky had been swallowed up by the darkness and instead, the man-made stars in the form of cars, traffic and street lights, neon signs, billboards, and skyscrapers of every size shown dismal and sad from their lowly vantage, winking up at the sky in feeble mockery of the obscured heavenly pinpricks of light. In this city built by men, people drive, take the bus, bike, and walk. But under the cover of darkness, those of the slimy underbelly wriggle out of their hidey holes and daytime personas, to shed their skins in hideous revelry and stalk the night in search of prey. At this hour, the unwary, the weak, the foolish, and the defenseless depart from their sanctums of refuge at their peril.

A man passed under a street light on the sidewalk at this time of night in one of the cheaper, and by consequence shadier, parts of the city. That by itself did not make him noteworthy. The fact that he walked at an easy pace facing straight ahead in such an area without even glancing left and right; that was more interesting. He walked with confidence, unafraid of being assaulted, and this was a key trait of most individuals of the predatory underbelly. He must be a top predator at that, for even other criminals are prey to the masters of their craft. Although, perhaps such a conclusion about this person was too hastily reached. Perhaps his confidence was attributed to his height, for he was very tall (being over six feet), even for the standards of those in the Western world. To Japan, this man was a giant with short blond hair, and was very clearly a foreigner. He wore blue jeans and had on a black hoodie with the collar of a tight black muscle shirt visible at his neckline. His hands, probably large, well-muscled hands if one judged by his shoulders and height, were hidden inside the pockets of his hoodie and he didn't seem to be carrying anything on his person.

Truthfully, apart from the odd hour and his lack of furtive glancing, there wasn't anything suspicious about this foreign man, except, to the paranoid, for the moment when he suddenly turned off the sidewalk into a dark, narrow alley. If anyone had been following this man and looked down that same alley to continue watching him, they'd have found no sign of him. Running down the alley to the opposite parallel street would have been a fruitless effort, for they wouldn't have found him there either. It was like he'd completely vanished into thin air. What such a person would quite easily miss, unless they combed the alleyway carefully, and only at day because it was impossible to see at night, was the presence of a door set into one of the alley walls and half-hidden behind two dumpsters.

The presence of such doors was not uncommon as they quite often served as backdoors into buildings. This particular door, once it was found, led immediately down a set of stairs to the basement of what had formerly been the storage space for a packing and shipping company that had operated just upstairs. The company had either gone out of business or moved to a different location three months ago, but the end result was the same which was that this basement and the floor above it were deserted.

The basement was completely empty except for some heavy metal racks that had come with the place, so were never moved out, and it was almost pitch-black within. The night sky may be starless and the moon unable to reach the far-distant ground, but it was neither rainy nor cloudy and the yellow lamps from the streetlights were able to peek dimly through the small, rectangular glass windows along the basement ceiling in line with the street. The presence of such feeble illumination hardly amounted to anything where diurnal-primed visibility was concerned, and it was most successful at casting great looming, sinister shadows across the walls, racks, and floor. The door had not been locked, so anything could be hiding within this dark lair.

"Ah, Irish, you've arrived," a sweet, evanescent voice called out and it rippled through the room like water, pleasant and soothing.

The man, identified by the disembodied voice as Irish, seemed to momentarily stiffen at the sound, but then relaxed. He was staring straight ahead into the darkness, but a faint ray of streetlight peeked through and it struck something that somewhat resembled a human female in figure but was a fierce blood red color. Both darker and lighter red bars and spots decorated this figure, but they shifted about her body in a subtle, undulating rhythm like the gentle back-and-forth of the ocean tide on the beach, so you couldn't help but relax.

"So, please tell me, my dear Irish, what news do you have for me? Have you managed to recover the data chip with the NOC list for the Men in Black yet?" the female-sounding voice said in honeyed tones.

Irish bowed his neck to the glistening red female figure before him and shook his head. "No, Pandora, Parliamentary Secretary Masaaki Okakura was already dead long before I arrived and the Men in Black's NOC data was nowhere to be found on his person, in his office, his home, or anywhere. I believe whoever killed him may have stolen it as a trophy for the murder they committed."

A sweet, mournful sigh of resignation escaped her. "It cannot be helped, I suppose. It is not your fault that you were unable to complete your objective within the time I specified due to this unforeseen complication. You have served me quite well since acceding to my request and that's good news indeed, a mark in your favor in spite of the failure. Don't fret, Irish, I promise to make sure you will have the chance to steal back the NOC list and make it up to me. I have plenty of other pawns I can manipulate to accomplish my objective."

()()()()()

Four days before Tanabata, after the Police Conference…

Boredom would kill Gin before a bullet did. He had better things to do with his time than act as Vermouth's chauffeur, but he stayed where he was parked on the side of the road near the police headquarters and ready to leave as soon as Vermouth got out of the conference. She was disguised of course; her true face was too famous to show just anywhere and if things fell through, then she would need to take over the undercover aspect of their own investigation. Said investigation was the sole reason he was willing to put up with being Vermouth's driver for this occasion.

Gin spotted movement in his rearview mirror and he wearily glanced at it with sharp green eyes, then sat up a little straighter. The front doors to the Metropolitan police HQ had opened and Vermouth had appeared, walking briskly directly toward his car. He didn't start it up until she had opened the door and slipped into the passenger seat. Gin pulled back onto the main road, but not before catching a brief glimpse of a small boy with black hair and glasses in his mirrors: Conan Edogawa. Gin grimaced; there was no doubt the kid recognized his car and had probably pinned the disguised Vermouth as a member of the Organization before he'd even realized the black Porsche was so close by. Great. That was just what they needed right now. The Organization was in the middle of a crisis and Shinichi Kudo was alert to their interest in this serial murder.

Already much more short-tempered than usual lately, Gin snapped, "Vermouth, did you already inform 'that person' about what you heard at the conference?"

Vermouth ripped off the male face mask with a breathless exhale and said, "Yes, he knows. I texted him while I was waiting for the elevator to arrive."

"Wonderful," he grumbled bitterly, figuring that Kudo had probably heard the 'Seven Children' melody.

"Eh?" Vermouth chirped.

"I saw one Conan Edogawa run out the front doors just as I was pulling out onto the main road," Gin explained.

"I see…" Vermouth said with a slow nod. "Too bad. That will make things difficult for us."

Gin grunted in affirmation. "So, how did the conference go?"

"Not much happened. It was mostly a gathering of all the relevant parties and putting everyone on the same page in the investigation. The police are still trying to determine the link all the victims have with each other and their murderer. The most recent victim was killed in a car accident instead of being stabbed by a right-handed knife wielder, but they found a mahjong tile with the body, so the police believe he should be included. He even left a dying message, saying 'Tanabata Kyo'. Does that mean anything to you?"

Gin, having absorbed everything she said, shook his head briefly. "No, nothing comes to mind. And the other matter…?"

"Irish's cover is secure. Nobody suspects a thing," she said confidently.

"I still don't get why you're having Irish do this undercover infiltration. This isn't his type of work," he protested, for not the first time since the assignment had been given.

Vermouth laughed, "He asked me to, Gin. What could I do, tell him 'no'?"

Gin fixed her with a steely glare as his answer.

Vermouth only laughed again, a more sultry laugh than the previous one. "Now Gin, isn't it better that Irish is the one infiltrating the police instead of me? Shinichi Kudo doesn't know Irish and since I've already left, he won't even consider the possibility that there was another member of the Organization at that conference."

They had not known that Detective Mouri would be invited to attend the conference and that Kudo would be in such close proximity, but Gin was forced to concede Vermouth's point regardless. "And Superintendent Matsumoto is safe?"

Vermouth looked at him askance with such visible hurt reflected in her bluish eyes, Gin might have felt guilty if he weren't so wise to her nature. Sure enough, when she got no reaction from him, her expression cleared, but it was still surprisingly solemn.

"We may not be as close as we used to be…"

One of his eyebrows shot up in deep skepticism.

"… but we've been able to maintain a decent professional working relationship despite those obstacles."

That too was questionable.

"However, this situation is bigger than the both of us. If the NOC list falls into the wrong hands, then the entire MiB falls, as you well know. The MiB's very existence is in a precarious situation and I would not have done anything to further exacerbate that. Can you believe me to this extent, Gin?" Vermouth said.

He wanted to, if only because it would mean one less thing for him to worry about, but there were voices lingering in the back of his mind and whispering insistently 'Calvados' and 'Sherry.' The one who she'd killed and the one she'd tried to kill.

"I trust your work, not your goals," he said by way of compromise and Vermouth accepted this non-answer. After that, the two high-ranking members lapsed into silence and, to Gin's delight, did not speak another word to each other for the rest of the car ride.

()()()()()

Four days before Tanabata, evening of the Police Conference…

It was never a good thing when Kudo came over to the Professor's house and started speaking with his old friend in hushed voices when she was out of the room. It was 95% guaranteed that he had discovered something about the Organization that he thought would freak her out and he didn't want her to worry. Fortunately, despite his age (or maybe because of it), Dr. Agasa still had difficulty cuing into the proper volume settings in a timely manner and couldn't seem to figure out how to create a shocked whisper with his machine. Haibara had been working in the basement when she had heard such a vocal exclamation and promptly decided to investigate the cause.

She turned off the computer monitor and crept quick and silent up the stairs. When she had just about reached the top, she crouched down as low as she could go on the last step and peaked out into the circular living room and kitchen. Kudo and the Professor were sitting on their own separate purple couches with only a single large light turned on to illuminate their space. They were both completely engrossed in their conversation, and speaking softly, but not enough so that their words were unintelligible at this distance. Still, Haibara carefully picked herself off the step and tiptoed across the room, listening in to their conversation as she made her way to the back of Dr. Agasa's couch. She heard Vermouth's name and Kudo's inference that she had been at the police conference he had attended because the hack detective from Gunma had heard the 'Seven Children' dial tones that keyed into the Boss's phone.

"But why…?" Dr. Agasa began.

"My, my, and here I was wondering what you two were whispering about," Haibara said as she walked around from the back of the couch as a way of announcing her presence to Kudo.

"Haibara!" Conan exclaimed wide-eyed and startled.

"So, why do you think it was Vermouth?" she asked, straight to the point. "The push-button tones alone wouldn't-"

"-Because Gin's Porsche was there too."

Haibara broke off with a gasp and alarmed eyes. Gin was there? Why?! What had happened to warrant his personal attention to an infiltration of the police conference on an ordinary serial murder?

Conan blithely continued, completely unaware that her reaction was borne out of concern, not fear. "The risk would be too high for them to infiltrate the police without a disguise and when it comes to disguises, Vermouth does it best."

This was true and if Gin was involved, it probably had been Vermouth which only worried Haibara further. After Vermouth's near-successful murder attempt on her a while ago, Gin would not interact with Vermouth unless he absolutely had to from a professional standpoint, and not at all from a personal one. What kind of alien activity was involved in this serial murder? It had to be big.

"In any case, it's now safe to assume that these cases somehow involve the Black Organization and I'd like to investigate these cases as well. Can you lend me a hand?" Kudo said, directing this last to the Professor.

"I don't mind, but…" Dr. Agasa trailed off, glancing down at her.

Haibara huffed, "Even if I told you to stop, you would never give up, would you?" This was said rhetorically. Of course he wouldn't; it was against his nature. "But you need to be on high alert," she reminded him gravely. "I'm sure you're already aware, but if your identity were exposed to them…"

"Yeah, I know," Kudo replied evenly, his blue eyes steady on hers.

It was significant to her that he didn't try and blow off her warning as he had sometimes done in the past when things were good and the Organization was nowhere in sight. It was a mark of how seriously he was treating his situation. With the Organization already so close by and alert, he could not afford to be careless lest he give away his secret and endanger the lives of everyone around him. That was what he truly believed and it was Haibara's job to make sure it stayed that way.

Kudo remained a little longer to talk to Dr. Agasa about the route they would take to visit all the murder locations and how much time he would take off of school to accomplish this, but Haibara retreated back down to her work station in the basement full of her own thoughts. She turned the computer monitor back on and reached for her phone, flipping it open to look at the time on the front screen. It was 9:15 PM and fully dark outside. It wasn't too late, so there was still a chance… She dialed and raised the phone to her ear.

It didn't even ring but went straight to Gin's voicemail and that worried her even more. It was incredibly rare that she got to Gin's voicemail and even rarer still for his phone to be turned off. He was too important to the MiB to go off the grid like that for long. His work must have started early tonight, and he was in such a place that he couldn't afford to have his phone on. If her instincts were right, this off-grid night prowl he was on was probably connected to the Organization's interest in today's police conference. This mystery was becoming more enigmatic and more terrifying by the minute. Whatever was going on, it was no average serial murder.

Haibara left her message, informing Gin that Kudo was aware he and Vermouth had been at the police conference, so they would know to be on guard, and hung up. She set her phone down and turned to the computer to resume her work on the Apoptoxin antidote, but after a few minutes of making no significant progress in the formula, Haibara gave up. Between Kudo and Gin, her brain was too distracted by other things to focus properly on reversing the Apoptoxin effects at this time. Deciding her project was a lost cause for the evening, she saved her work and shut down the computer before starting to get ready for bed.

()()()()()

Three days before Tanabata, one day after the Police Conference…

There are two major reasons for why predators will choose to do most of their hunting at night. It's too hot during the day or that's when the prey of choice is more vulnerable. Sometimes it was both. Naturally, if one is a hunter of such nocturnal predators, you may be forced to do your own hunting at night if you cannot find them during the day when they're at their weakest. This was the situation that Chianti and Korn found themselves operating under and they'd had very little rest for days now. For over a week, they had been prowling and poking around the alien underground of Japan centered around the Tokyo prefecture during the evenings. During the day, they had taken the 'tracks' left by their target in the night and extrapolated where it might go based on its patterns of movement. It seemed to be slowly making its way northeast and they were spending this night looking for concrete evidence of their target in one of the cities of the Kanagawa prefecture.

Finally, it seemed as though their hard work was going to pay off.

"Chianti, 400 yards, 10 o'clock," Korn murmured, staring through the scope of his rifle at a spot at ground level.

Suddenly more alert than she had been all night, Chianti brought her own rifle to bear on the spot Korn had sighted and peered through the scope. There was something down in the street. A little bugger that looked no bigger than a human kid of about six or seven was edging along the dark edge of the street near the buildings out of the light. It might have passed for a human kid too if it didn't have green skin, a stubby tail, four evenly-spaced horns on its noggin, and a protruding snout. These were all normal species attributes of the aliens called UV-niks. What wasn't normal was the nasty-looking plasma carbine twice as long as its body with a barbed harpoon on the end.

"Ringore," Korn said quietly.

"Yeah, that's our guy, the bounty hunter after our NOC list," Chianti agreed, watching their target through the scope for a little longer.

The miniature alien bounty hunter's illegal arrival on Earth had pinged MiB security measures, but he'd gotten past them before they could nab him. Early on in the investigation, nobody had any idea what his business on Earth entailed except that it couldn't be good. At first, there seemed to be no sense to his pattern of travel, but after Okakura was discovered dead, the serial murders came to light in the Organization's investigation and they realized Ringore's movements followed those of the murderer from Okakura onward. He was not the serial killer the police were after because he was not planet-side when the first two murders took place, but it couldn't just be coincidence. Ringore was after the Men in Black's NOC list, there was no doubt. They had no idea if Ringore had done anything yet apart from illegal entry, but they knew he had either played a role in the initial theft of the NOC list and lost it, or was still trying to make his initial acquisition of the memory card, otherwise he'd have skipped town already.

"You remember our orders, yeah?" Chianti asked.

"Arrest first. Kill if you can't," Korn answered.

"Bingo. Let's get a move on and don't let him hit you with that harpoon attachment," she said.

Korn smirked, both of them knowing the rebuke was more for Chianti's benefit. Between the two of them, she was the one with the itchy trigger finger, and he silently followed after her along the roof to jump on over to the next one to keep an eye on their target. Fortunately for them, the UV-nik didn't seem to have noticed their stalking approach yet. This was good because they had to get a lot closer if they were to have any chance of arresting the alien. Chianti managed to sneak just ahead of their target's walking path until they were just shy of 100 yards away. That distance was almost entirely due to their high vantage point. She quietly set her sniper rifle down on the ground then lifted the rifle's carrying bag off her shoulder to set that on the ground too. She unzipped it and pulled out another long gun, similar in design to the sniper rifle, but shorter and a lot more fragile-looking, like the skeleton of a rifle instead of an actual weapon. Like the Noisy Cricket, the rifle looked like it would break apart if someone tried to use it.

However, Chianti showed no disdain for the skeleton-looking rifle as she withdrew it from her bag along with a small, rectangular metal box. She opened the latch and lifted the lid, revealing two feathered darts within. She picked up one of these and loaded it into the skeleton rifle, or rather the tranquilizer gun, with the efficiency of experience and snapped the ammo box shut once finished. Chianti took a deep breath from where she sat crouching behind the roof's ledge, and then spun onto her knees to face the street and bring the tranquilizer gun to bear on the target. They were to arrest him first if possible, but Ringore was a bounty hunter and would not allow himself to be willingly caught by law enforcement in any galaxy. If they were able to knock him down with one of the tranquilizer darts, then they may actually have a chance of subduing him before he could escape.

She glanced over at Korn who had set up nearby. He was not aiming a tranquilizer gun at the target as she was, and this was intentional. If she missed the first shot, she would need time to load the next dart since this kind of tranquilizer couldn't hold more than one, and Korn would be able to give her that time by shooting out Ringore's knee or something to incapacitate his escape. Of course, Korn still might have to shoot out his knee because sometimes it took a while for the sedation drugs to take effect on these aliens. It would do them no good if they nailed the target with a dart, but then lost him while waiting for him to pass out. Korn, maybe sensing her eyes locked on him, finally looked over at her and nodded once. He was ready if she was.

Chianti nodded back in affirmation and lifted the tranquilizer gun over the roof ledge, looking through the scope at her target. The tranquilizer was not her preferred weapon and it handled differently from the sniper rifle. Not only was it shorter and lighter, but it relied on pressurized carbon dioxide to launch the dart instead of gunpowder. However, she had used it often enough that she was well-experienced in the peculiarities. Ringore was within the tranquilizer's upper limit and Chianti had good aim on any long-range weapon up to 600 yards, generally speaking, but the propulsion was not as strong, which meant the acceleration could mean the difference between success and failure. Through the scope, Chianti scanned the UV-nik from its horned head to the out-of-place tennis shoes on its feet. Where would be the best place to aim? The hybrid carbine-harpoon he was carrying covered his whole back and UV-niks were a reptilian-like species with tough guard scales on select parts of their anatomy. Unfortunately, she couldn't remember exactly what those parts were. Thighs, when the aliens had them, tended to be good targets because they were fleshy with good blood supply, but did UV-niks have guard scales on their outer thighs?

"Chianti," Korn hissed urgently, quickly snapping her back to reality.

She was dawdling and if she didn't act now, they would lose their window of opportunity. She would just have to use her best judgment. Chianti mentally shook herself, took a breath, aimed the tranquilizer at the inside of Ringore's right thigh, the farther leg from her, and squeezed the trigger. She struck him, but not in the intended area. His short tail had unexpectedly swiped sideways right in the path of the oncoming dart, and that was where it had stuck him. The UV-nik did not make a sound and the only indication that it had been shot at all, apart from the feathered dart sticking out of its tail, was his pause in movement.

"Korn, cover for me!" Chianti said frantically, already moving to reload the tranquilizer for one more shot.

The crack of rifle fire from her right was Korn's answering reply. The second shot firing so closely after the first nearly startled her into dropping the new dart she was holding. Just as she opened her mouth to demand information from him, he said, in a slightly panicked tone, "Grazed. He's coming fast!"

An alien that moved towards its attackers instead of away from them was never a good thing. They had no chance of taking this guy into custody if he wasn't tranq'd first. "I got one more shot, and then it's shoot to kill. Mark 'em for me," she told him as she simultaneously beat a hasty retreat from the roof ledge while loading the new dart into the tranquilizer.

It was a mark of their long partnership that they didn't need to question each other for clearer directions and smoothly responded to the changing situation with complete trust in the other's skills. Korn backed away from the ledge as well, but at a 45-degree angle in the opposite direction to herself. He had just barely managed to achieve a good distance when a small greenish blur leaped into the air and promptly landed on the ledge with a surprisingly loud thud for its small size. Not a second later, Korn fired, blood spurted, and Ringore overbalanced, his arms flailing wildly. This time, Korn's mark had been true and he had struck the left knee. Those precious extra seconds he'd bought were exactly what she needed to get a quick bead on the UV-nik and fire. The dart struck Ringore in the neck only to bounce off the scaly-armored skin.

"Fucking shit!" she swore. Chianti tossed the tranquilizer rifle aside and stuffed her hand into the pouch at her waist, pulling out the tiny Noisy Cricket just as Ringore was regaining his balance. "This is the Men in Black! Don't move or we'll shoot to kill!"

Ringore turned his reptilian snout in her direction with a look of surprise. "The MiB?" he said in a guttural growl. He wasn't actually speaking Japanese or any other Earth language, but they had translators to understand him anyway – hers was neurologically routed through the butterfly tattoo around her left eye and Korn's, like Vodka's, was electronically routed through his shades – and then he gave her a big toothy grin. "I thought you were other bounty hunters after the stolen NOC list just looking to take out the competition, but you're this planet's law enforcement. Congratulations on getting this far to find me, but good luck trying to catch me."

With those ominous words, Chianti and Korn fired their weapons at Ringore at the exact same time, but they missed. He had already disappeared and he wasn't anywhere else on the roof. They ran back to the ledge and looked down into the street, but there was nothing there. He had fled and was already long gone by now.

Chianti slammed her fist angrily on the roof ledge. "Damn it! We lost him!" she snarled. "Now we're back to square one trying to find him and he's alert to the MiB tracking him."

"Chianti, the list," Korn said.

She grimaced. "I know. Whether he stole it first or not is still up in the air, but if he didn't steal it, then word has gotten out into the galaxy pretty quickly that our NOC list was stolen. We need to get it back fast." She sighed in frustration and walked back across the rooftop to retrieve the tranquilizer rifle from where she'd discarded it. "Come on, we're not gonna get anywhere else in the investigation tonight."

"I'll inform, Gin."

Chianti nodded. "And when you do, make sure you also requisition a freeze ray or something to stop that bastard from being able to move so fast. I just hope Irish has better luck in tracking our list down on his end, 'cuz we're not doing so hot on ours."

()()()()()

Two days before Tanabata, two days after the police conference…

"You know, for being one of the executive members of the Men in Black, you're not an easy man to find to report information to, Gin."

Gin all but glared at the tanned, bleached-blonde man leaning against his car in the parking garage where he had left it in order to go run some business errands for the Organization. "That's why I prefer to receive reports via text or phone call, Bourbon," he said icily.

The relaxed, easy-going smile never left the other's face as he shrugged calmly in the face of Gin's hostility. "That may be the case, but such things can be intercepted by unwanted third parties very easily if they have a will and a way, and clearly the criminal galaxy is already aware of our predicament as Chianti and Korn informed the Organization yesterday evening."

Gin had never gotten along well with Bourbon, finding the other half-Japanese man to be too much of an arrogant know-it-all. He usually didn't have to deal with him because he reported directly to Vermouth, but with the very future of the Organization at risk, it was all-hands-on-deck, even if that meant Gin had to interact with people he didn't like, such as Vermouth and now Bourbon. He couldn't deny that for all his personal dislike of the whiskey-codenamed agent, he was good at intelligence gathering.

"What have you found out?" Gin asked, deciding not to demand Bourbon get off his car just yet until after he'd received the report. Bourbon could be intentionally difficult when he wanted to be and there was nothing he liked better than pushing his buttons if he thought he could get away with it. He rather suspected that was the true reason Bourbon was insisting on giving the report in person.

"Not much on the alien activity front, I'm afraid," Bourbon began with another shrug. "After Chianti and Korn's encounter with Ringore, the bounty hunter seems to have completely disappeared again. We know he hasn't left the country, much less the planet, but that's all we can say for certain. The fact that he wasn't wearing a human skin during their confrontation suggests he's probably using some kind of low-key stealth technology to mask the unusually cool heat signature that's normal for the UV-nik species, which is why we're unable to track him that way."

That was hardly news to bother reporting. Bourbon wouldn't have tracked him down just for that. "What else?" he bit out.

Now Bourbon smirked. "Oh, we've made some good progress on the human activity front. The latest victim that had the car accident at Usui Pass, Shuuhei Jinno, was discovered to have been stabbed and wounded with a knife previously by a man named Minoru Fukase. I haven't yet found a connection between him and the other victims, but he's my prime suspect and I'm following up on this lead at present."

Both of Gin's eyebrows rose slightly out of interest. "And? Have you found him yet?"

Bourbon offered a grim smile. "Unfortunately not, but Fukase has a girlfriend, Risa Yoshii, whom he may contact. It seems the Japanese police are also aware of this information and have the same idea as I, for I spied them inconspicuously monitoring her. I've assigned one of my own subordinates to keep me abreast of their movements, especially if they're unusual ones."

So it was indeed something, but they were logistically-speaking no closer to retrieving the NOC list than they were two days ago. Gin huffed in annoyance and stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "Who else has been informed of these details about Minoru Fukase and Risa Yoshii?" he asked.

"'That person', naturally, and also Vermouth." His blue eyes glittered wickedly when he said the American actress's name, fully aware of how much Gin despised her. "She's my direct superior after all, and she would be the one person best able to get close enough to our suspect to get him away and interrogate him without arousing suspicion."

That was true, Gin just hated relying on her talents so heavily without being able to keep a close eye on her movements. "Is that all?" he asked.

"For now, anyway," Bourbon agreed.

"Then get the fuck off my car."

()()()()()

One day before Tanabata, three days after the police conference…

When Kudo called for her and Dr. Agasa to pick him up at a shrine well after the sun had finally gone down during the season when full dark meant 9 o'clock or later, Haibara knew that something was wrong. It had been three days since the police conference and he had spent two of those investigating the serial murder case. He had been back at school today, having found nothing new, so what could have happened to cause this secretive summoning on his part?

As soon as Dr. Agasa stopped the Beetle at the shrine, Kudo darted out from behind the outer wall and jumped into the car as fast as possible, telling the Professor to start driving again. He did so, and that was when Kudo revealed the reason for his secrecy. He explained how after school, he had seen the police heading into a mall, how they had tried to corner their presumed suspect, but then a hostage had gotten involved, and how that hostage had turned out to be Vermouth. Then he told her, to her immense horror, that Vermouth had informed him the Organization was following the serial murder in order to recover its NOC list and there was another member of the Organization still among the police disguised as an officer.

"… Disguised as an officer?" Haibara repeated blankly, barely able to think past her alarm that the MiB's NOC list was in jeopardy.

"Yeah, their codename is Irish. Have you ever heard it before?"

"No, never…" she admitted heavily.

Haibara didn't always tell Kudo when she recognized members' codenames, such as pretending she didn't recognize Kir, but that was not the case this time. She had never heard of an Irish before, which meant he or she wasn't too high-ranking and they didn't report directly to Gin. She knew that the officer Irish had chosen to disguise as was not in any danger – the Organization would not have let that happen – but Haibara was just as clueless as Kudo about the nature of this member, and it scared her. Who was it? Did they report to Vermouth? Did they know the truth about Kudo? Could they be trusted? So many unanswered questions and no one around to answer them. While all this was running through her head, she heard Kudo voicing his thoughts aloud about discerning Irish's identity and a shiver of fear ran through her.

"You should stop," she said quietly. Kudo paused in his ramblings and looked over at her. "If it's true that this 'Irish' has disguised as an officer, then they would've been alerted to your running after Vermouth following the conference."

In the world of aliens disguised as the planet's dominant species, one did not get to codenamed status without taking note of unusual human behaviors, and that included seven-year-old children tearing frantically after disguised MiB agents.

"Well… yeah, but…"

"Don't you get it?! The more cases you solve, the more likely it is they'll see you're Shinichi Kudo!" she shrieked.

Had it not been for Dr. Agasa's quiet plea, she would have forgotten herself entirely and spilled way too much. Haibara took the time and the silence immediately following her outburst to regather her composure and mentally thank the Professor for his timely intervention. Depending on which version of the NOC list had been stolen, she might very well be on that list and she was already a target, just as Akemi had been and she suspected her parents too. For whatever reason, her family was being systematically eliminated, and the only reason she and Akemi had survived to adulthood had been entirely due to the potent protection of the Men in Black. If her enemies found out where she was, neither Kudo nor Gin would be able to move fast enough to protect her.

The problem with this Irish finding out that Conan Edogawa was Shinichi Kudo was that they would likely figure out what happened to her as a result and… she'd had this sneaking suspicion growing in her heart for some time now that whoever wanted her dead was actually someone close to the MiB. Her first suspect had been Vermouth, but she'd quickly dismissed her. Vermouth had tried to kill her once, yes, but had made no other attempts since then. She was just jealous that Gin had chosen her, and she'd never heard of Vermouth having a grudge against Akemi. She did have something against her parents though, the memories of that long-ago night coming back to her in a hazy wave… but Vermouth had not made a second attempt on her life, despite possessing ample time and opportunity. It was simply coincidence that Vermouth hated her and her parents, and she had no proof that her family's killer – if it was really the work and motive of one individual – was connected to the MiB anyway.

Still, she didn't want anyone in the MiB who didn't already know about Kudo or herself to find out. If they did, there was no telling who that information may be leaked to, whether by accident or intent.

"I know what you're worried about…" Kudo said seriously after a while.

How little he truly understood.

"… but this is not something I can leave unsolved."

She knew that. He just couldn't leave a case unsolved, even if in trying to solve it, his reckless sense of justice ended up getting him killed one day. His first encounter with Gin should have been lesson enough, but he was also a stubborn fool. A stubborn, reckless, passionate, honest, optimistic fool. His actions exasperated her to no end and she wished Kudo would actually listen to her when she stressed caution, but when it came down to the wire, she found him endearing and wouldn't have wanted to know him any other way. Before he left for the night, Haibara agreed to his plan not to meet up again except for at school until the whole thing blew over and silently promised to also let Gin know that Vermouth had told Kudo the NOC list had been stolen. She didn't know what the older woman's endgame was, but nothing good could come of Kudo knowing the Organization's NOC list was on the line.

()()()()()

One day before Tanabata, same evening…

The door to the Ugly Monkey establishment always creaked with even the slightest movement, no matter how slowly one moved it. This was for the express purpose of preventing anyone from sneaking in or out without alerting the bartenders and customers. It was a dark, quiet sort of place with a very secretive sort of clientele, and if the door moved, nobody else would so much as twitch a muscle, but the entrant would immediately be pinned in place by the multitude of scrutinizing stares.

It was around eleven at night when the entrance to the Ugly Monkey was thrown open with shocking force and the street backlit the tall, imposing figure outlined in a silver sheen and framed in the doorway. As was part of the unofficial protocol, all eyes were drawn to the newcomer and calculating green eyes conquered every single one who dared. The very shadows themselves seemed to shrink away from this frightening gaze. All of this was accomplished in less than a minute in complete silence and the newcomer swept in unopposed. This being was shrouded in a long black coat, the color of night, but it was the long river of silver hair that drew forth the horrified realizations from the current crop of customers.

The green eyes flicked to the bartender and a deep, harsh voice barked out, "One Dark 'N' Stormy. You know how I like it."

This rather cryptic demand was met with a sedate nod by the bartender who immediately set about making the alcoholic cocktail for what was apparently one of the more regular patrons. The silver-haired man swept past the other customers directly to an occupied table off to the side and he slid into the seat directly opposite the man already sitting there. Although… to call that individual a man exactly was a bit of a stretch.

A series of popping noises emitted from the being across from the man known as Jynnan Tonnyx in these parts and Gin said, as if in response, "You know how this works. I don't pay you until you give me the information, and if I think you're trying to double-cross me, I put a bullet through your skull." He moved his left hand into his coat where he touched the grip of his gun for added emphasis.

The popping noise increased in frequency and something that looked like a feathered fin appeared briefly from beneath the overlarge jacket the other was wearing.

"Smart choice," Gin sneered. "Now what do you know about Ringore's movements?"

More popping, but also some furtive rustling, followed this question. While the informant was 'talking', the bartender brought over Gin's cocktail. He took several sips from the glass, but never once did his steely green eyes flick away from the alien across from him.

After one particularly squelchy pop, Gin raised an eyebrow suddenly and hummed appreciatively. "Ohh? I already knew he was masking his lack of a sufficient heat signature, but I was unaware his species literally can't stand the heat of day, and you say he was last seen heading north toward Tokyo?"

He stuck his hand in his coat and tossed something across the table at the informant. The fin from within the jacket lunged out and caught it. It was a small circular metal tin no bigger than what one might use for a lip balm.

"There's your payment. Replenishment of your salt moisturizer compounds for your fins." His business complete, Gin downed the rest of his drink, paid his bill and the tip, and strode out of the establishment. He had been there for all of ten minutes, but it took over half an hour for the bar to resume its former state of relaxed calmness.

Once Gin had returned to his car, he redialed a number in his Recent Call history and stared blankly out the front window while he leaned against the door with his elbow hanging out. Surprisingly, the phone rang instead of going straight to voicemail and he didn't have to wait long before he was answered. "What is it, Gin?"

"Where have you been for the past two hours?" he demanded of Irish, but the other agent was silent and Gin narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "It seems like you've been places where you had to power off your cell."

"Does that bother you?" Irish asked in a tone that was carefully respectful yet insolent at the same time.

He'd like that, wouldn't he? To think that his going off the grid without any forewarnings, excuses, or explanations was something that bothered Gin. He scoffed, "No matter. Just do the job you've been assigned and be on the lookout for Ringore. I've received word that he's physically incapable of traveling during the day from after dawn until sundown, and he's been steadily making his way north towards Tokyo. Depending on how much travel distance he covers tonight, he may get there as soon as early tomorrow evening."

"I'll keep a lookout. Speaking of assignments, the one who accidentally poisoned that high school detective with an experimental memory-erasing drug was you, wasn't it?"

Huh?

"What's this about?" he asked, thrown by the subject change.

"Shinichi Kudo. Don't you remember?"

That hadn't cleared anything up at all. Of course Gin knew who Shinichi Kudo was, but why was Irish asking about him? He had no reason for doing so and though his current undercover assignment had brought him in close proximity to Conan Edogawa, Irish did not qualify for the need-to-know clearance. His eyes narrowed further.

"I've dealt with a lot of people who've stumbled across the Organization's secret. I can't be bothered to remember every single one. Why? What makes this one so special?"

There was a pause on the other end before Irish said, "No, it's nothing."

Gin huffed. "Regardless, concentrate on your assignment," he said and hung up. Something was off, but he didn't have time to investigate Irish right now, not when he had a NOC list to retrieve or destroy before any aliens or Kudo got it first.

()()()()()

One day before Tanabata, still the same evening…

Vodka looked down at the cards in his hand and then across the table at his opponent. She glanced up at him from her own hand and raised a questioning eyebrow. He quickly averted his eyes, hidden though they were by his sunglasses, and stared back down at this hand in question. The woman was a skilled opponent. She knew all the ins and outs of this game and one wrong move would be the end of him.

Sitting up straight, he met her angular blue eyes (through his sunglasses) and said, "Do you have any threes?"

A smirk graced the woman's lips. "No, go fish."

Vodka sighed and drew a new card from the pile while Kir giggled at him. It was her turn next and with only a quick glance down at her hand, she said, "Do you have a nine?"

He did, it was the card he'd just drawn and he dutifully handed it over for her to make her seventh pair in this round of this particular game. They'd played six others beforehand and he'd only won one of them. "How are you so good at Go Fish?" he asked in dismay.

Kir burst out in a fit of laughter so loud, Vodka jumped. Who'd have thought Kir would be a loud, happy drunk? "Vodka, you know Go Fish is just luck and basic memorization. We're not even playing one of the card games that requires you to have a good poker face specifically because you'd have no chance of winning. Got any queens?"

"You don't have to tell me twice, and no, go fish," Vodka muttered and drank some of his beer. Kir drew a card from the pile. "Is it really okay for us to just be hanging out here in my apartment playing card games and drinking alcohol while everyone else is out working to recover the NOC list?"

Kir gave a nonchalant shrug. "What's an agent to do? I'm not an executive and I've already put in all my hours for the week, so unless the Boss wants to start paying me overtime, I can't do anything. As for you, nobody's given you any work to do apart from being Gin's on-call driver, and he's driving himself tonight, so why worry about what you can't control? Haven't you ever heard that too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the pie?"

"No?"

She shrugged again and took a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle she'd brought with her. "Probably an American proverb. It means that too many people trying to work on one thing just ends up making a mess of things, so if the Organization doesn't need you right now, why not enjoy the time off while you can?"

Vodka stared meaningfully at the whiskey bottle in her hands. "You're gonna be sloshed with a nasty hangover tomorrow morning if you keep that up. You don't have my build to absorb all that alcohol. And do you have any tens?"

With cheeks already flushed pink, Kir grinned and raised the bottle in a toast. "No, go fish. If I'm not allowed to occasionally get drunk off my ass with a friend on my days off, then when else am I gonna do it?"

Vodka sighed and raised his beer glass to Kir's whiskey bottle with a clink. "Just so long as you don't mind Gin finding you here if he comes by to pick me up for work before you've left."

Kir snickered while he drew another card from the pile, which turned out to be another three that he paired off with the one in his hand. "He wouldn't even bat an eyelash. Maybe raise an eyebrow and warn us not to get distracted from our work, but he couldn't care less about coworker interpersonal relationships. Got any ones?"

'Unless they're his own,' Vodka amended internally, but otherwise, Kir was right on the mark about Gin. "Yes, I have a one."

()()()()()

Evening of Tanabata…

Finally, they had some good news. After several stressful days and numerous dead-ends, the Organization was finally on its way to retrieve the missing NOC list from the serial murderer holed up at Tohto Tower. Gin was making his way over in that direction with Vodka now to provide additional backup if Irish needed it. Gin didn't expect him to, but it was a necessary precaution. Ringore was still loose and it would be the perfect time to strike when everyone thought they were home free.

His phone rang for the millionth time that day and he saw that the call was from Vermouth. He answered, "It's me. What is it?"

"Bad news, Gin. The police and the kids just found Superintendent Matsumoto tied up and gagged in a boarded-up cabin in one of the park woods," she said gravely. "From what I can scope of the situation, it looks like he's been in there for several days."

Gin's hand clenched convulsively around his phone. "Irish," he growled.

"Looks that way and I'm afraid it gets worse. It seems that Irish has been secretly cooperating with that UV-nik bounty hunter that we've been after and he intends to sell the NOC data to him right at Tohto Tower."

"… Got it," Gin said deadly quiet and hung up. His next words were to Vodka. "Alter your course and floor it to the nearest helipad. I'm calling Korn and Chianti to meet us there. We have to get to Tohto Tower now."

He could sense the question bubbling on his partner's tongue, but he ignored him as he dialed Chianti's number. She was probably driving too, but she was pretty good about always wearing her Bluetooth so she could drive hands-free.

"Yo, what's up, Gin?"

"You and Korn get to the Beika City helipad ASAP," Gin ordered. "Irish has betrayed us and we may need the extra firepower. Vodka and I will be there shortly, but if you get there first, get the helicopter ready. I'll explain more in-detail later."

"The fuck-?!" was all Gin heard of Chianti's flabbergasted response before he cut that call too.

"Irish has what?" Vodka repeated, dumbfounded.

"The first call I got was from Vermouth, and that was why she called. It seems Irish not only kept Superintendent Matsumoto prisoner for several days while impersonating him, but plans to sell our NOC list to Ringore at Tohto Tower right after he reacquires it on behalf of the MiB," Gin bit out angrily. If there was one thing he hated more than anything in the world, it was traitors.

Vodka swallowed and asked, "You gonna kill him?"

Gin narrowed his eyes hatefully at the road ahead. "I haven't decided if I'm going to kill him on sight or force him to undergo the MiB's internal criminal justice system to formalize his execution first. We'll see how I'm feeling once he's in view."

Neither man spoke to each other for the rest of the drive to the helipad. Just as Gin had expected, Chianti and Korn had made it first and the black helicopter was ready and waiting for them.

"There you two are! Now what's this about Irish betraying the Men in Black?" Chianti demanded irately.

"I'll tell you on the way, just make sure you bring your rifle. Vodka, you're flying this thing," Gin said as he slammed the car door behind him and made his way to the helicopter.

Everyone piled in with Chianti and Korn in the back, and Vodka and himself in the front. While Vodka got them in the air, Gin filled in the other two on what Vermouth had told him regarding Irish. Chianti griped about it not being enough information, but he didn't know more than that, and it didn't bother him in the slightest. Where traitors were concerned, it was better to deal with them swiftly and aggressively. He didn't need to know the who, when, why, or how long of a traitor's true allegiance in order to capture and punish them for their transgressions.

"Aniki, we're coming up on Tohto Tower now, but it looks like there's a lot of police lights on at the base. I won't be able to land," Vodka informed him.

"And it's started raining," Gin commented idly as a few drops on the windows quickly turned into a downpour. Using the helicopter's equipment, he was able to pinpoint Irish's position on one of the Tower's outer stairways. "Looks like we won't be pulling off an extraction unless we want to try landing on the roof. Chianti, Korn, one of you douse the Tower's lights. I want a blackout."

"Roger that, one blacked-out Tower coming right up," Chianti said happily.

Korn opened the back gun portal to aim at the power breaker box within the structure on the floor just above where the legs ended. Flying this low was risky, but Gin was relying on the darkness, the rain, the helicopter's black paint job, and the police's preoccupation to cover for them until the Tower was dark. Korn fired through the metal struts, supports, and glass, struck his intended target with deadly accuracy, and Tohto Tower's lights went out one section at a time from the bottom up.

"Nice shot, Korn!" Chianti crowed and Korn nodded.

Checking back in with the equipment, Gin told Vodka, "Irish is on the south side just behind us and about twenty meters up. Bring us parallel to the Tower at his position so that Chianti can get a clear shot."

"Wait, I'm shooting him?" Chianti asked.

Gin was silent for a few seconds before he finally muttered, "Non-fatally."

"Cool, just give me some kind of signal and I'll do it," Chianti said, completely nonplussed, unlike Vodka who had been tense until Gin had made the clarification.

Vodka turned the helicopter around and rose higher into the air. He flicked a switch to turn on the white spotlight while Gin aimed it at the Tower, and he tapped Vodka's arm when he spotted Irish. Vodka nodded and stopped the helicopter's ascent. However, in the few seconds that Gin had taken his eyes off the tall agent, he'd disappeared. Frowning, Gin scanned through his extensive contact list for Irish's number and dialed it. Traitor or not, he couldn't have gotten far and if he was smart, he would answer his phone. A figure moved away from the stairs and when they stood up, Gin saw it was Irish withdrawing his phone from his back pocket.

The call connected, and Irish raised his left hand to shield his eyes as he glared into the helicopter's spotlight. "It's me," he said.

"How is it? Have you secured the memory card?" Gin asked casually. The state of the memory card was the first order of business.

He watched Irish holster the gun he was holding in his left hand and replace it with something tiny between his thumb and forefinger. Making use of the onboard tech, he zoomed in on the hand until the SD card filled the screen. Good, he hadn't sold the information to Ringore yet.

Gin sneered. "I can't really see you. Hold it out further."

There was a tapping sound on the rifle scope behind him where Chianti sat. Irish started to stretch out his arm.

"That's right, a little more," he encouraged until Irish's arm was fully extended. "Now!"

Chianti's rifle went off and shattered the memory card into fragments just before it lanced through Irish in the chest just right of center, missing his heart and spraying blood everywhere. Chianti whooped in delight as Irish stumbled back into the wall and crashed to the floor unmoving. Gin gave a satisfied nod in regard to Chianti's work.

"Aniki…" Vodka muttered worriedly.

"Don't worry, he won't die on us," Gin reassured his partner, knowing he didn't like participating in his vigilante crusades against traitors. "He'll face the MiB's internal criminal justice system for charges of kidnapping and treason."

Vodka's eyes widened in surprise momentarily behind his sunglasses and then he looked out the helicopter window. "But what about the police down below? Even more cars are arriving right this minute."

Gin scoffed, "He can use his neuralyzer to get past the police with ease and we'll nab him once he's out of their way. If he doesn't have it on him for some reason, we'll just do it ourselves, but he's not getting away." Then he spoke with a nasty smirk directly to the downed Irish still visible on his screen. "It's what you deserve for being a filthy traitor."

Then something moved. Tiny, barely-noticeable, but definitely present. Gin zoomed in on the image and saw something white and round near the ground by Irish, like a shoe, slide out of sight behind a metal box next to the stairs.

"Someone's there next to Irish," he hissed.

"Eh? Are you sure?" Chianti asked.

"Is it Ringore?" Vodka added.

"Who else could it be?" Gin retorted. "Vodka, reposition us to get an open view of that staircase. If we can nail Ringore here, we won't have to track him down again later."

"Alright," his partner answered and while he did so, Gin kept his eyes focused on where Irish lay just in case Ringore came out of hiding now that the spotlight was off his co-conspirator.

He never did, and Vodka got the helicopter lined up, but there were some more metal boxes along the outside of the Tower's frame, so the line of sight back to the stairs wasn't as clear as Gin would have liked. It would have to do.

"Chianti, can you see Ringore?" Gin asked.

"No, but I can make out something moving under Irish's right arm and it's small enough it could be Ringore," she said.

Gin nodded slowly. "Right, I'll shine the spotlight on the area, and then you shoot. I don't need to remind you how fast he moves."

That she didn't throw a snappy comeback at him was a good tell of how seriously she was taking this situation. He turned on the spotlight and aimed it at the bottom of the stairs. Chianti only took a brief moment to line up the shot and then fired twice.

She swore after the second shot. "Fuck, I think I just killed Irish. Ringore used him as a shield."

Gin clicked his tongue in annoyance. "It'll be troublesome if we have to land. Vodka, use the gunner." It would not be the first time the MiB had to restore a national monument that was destroyed due to alien activity.

"Roger that," Vodka said, and he flew the helicopter back to its original position, aimed at the stairs, and pulled the trigger.

The results were immediate. Metal sparked and sheared away, and the glass windows fragmented into shards. Gin watched the stairs like a hawk for any sign of movement from their adversary, but there was nothing. They weren't going to be able to get him like this.

"Hold your fire a moment," Gin commanded. "Let's give him a chance to make a break for it."

Sure enough, after Vodka released the triggering mechanism, a small figure in blue darted out of hiding and took off up the stairs.

"There he is. Continue," he said.

The hail of gunfire resumed and chased the bounty hunter further up the Tower. Vodka operated both the helicopter's and gun turret's controls while Gin kept the spotlight focused on Ringore for his partner's benefit. An almost-steady stream of bullets trailed after Ringore, just barely missing him, and then he darted into the uppermost observation deck. The helicopter circled the deck's entirety and shot out all the windows, but even with the spotlight and the night vision imaging zoom-in feature, they couldn't see Ringore anymore. He'd found a new burrow to wedge himself into.

"Aniki, what should we do?" Vodka asked, letting up on the trigger again.

He was thinking of that. "Chianti, smoke him out," he ordered.

"Okay!" she said happily and started rummaging around in her equipment bag. She made an 'aha!' of triumph and Gin could hear the series of clicks as she loaded her ammunition of choice.

"What are you using?" he asked.

"Tear gas!" she declared and fired through one of the destroyed windows.

It went off almost immediately and the smoky substance spread rapidly across the observation deck. "Thank you, Chianti, for further decreasing our visibility in the dark in the rain," he commented drily as he turned his attention on the view screen.

Even with the night vision setting, the tear gas still made visibility poor enough that he needed the spotlight to scan the area. He focused his search on the exit points and kept his eyes peeled for organic movement.

"There we are," he said smugly as he watched the small alien continue to ascend the Tower steps. "Force him to the top. Not even UV-niks can survive falls from this high up."

Once again, Vodka resumed firing the gun turret while maintaining a steady, upward rotation of the helicopter, even when the stairwell disappeared within the structure again. He continued until their quarry had finally been flushed out onto the rooftop.

A maniac grin split Gin's face. "Finally, the mouse has been cornered. Go up and attack him from the roof. He's got nowhere left to hide."

"Roger," Vodka said, also smiling in anticipation.

His partner took the helicopter higher into the stormy sky and then brought it into position directly overhead the top of Tohto Tower. However, just as Vodka started realigning the turret gun to fire on Ringore, Gin saw him dive head first off the roof of the Tower and plummet to his death.

"What?! He jumped!" Chianti exclaimed in astonishment.

"Hnn, accepting his fate of no escape, huh?" Gin commented.

Committing suicide over facing an enemy wasn't how he would have chosen to go out if it were him, but the end result was the same. Unfortunately, Ringore's preferred choice of death meant his body would splatter all over the pavement where those police cars were, so they would still have to bring the helicopter down to erase all those memories, even if they didn't assist in the clean-up. He was still trying to work out the logistics when he saw something very small and fast out of the corner of his eye shooting straight up into the air at them. He turned to get a better look, but it disappeared. A second later, he heard something slam into the tail end of the helicopter followed by an explosive shudder that rocked through the aircraft.

"We've been hit!" Korn exclaimed.

Indeed, the entire thing began to shake, and the control panel started beeping incessantly.

"Great! Now what?!" Chianti snapped acidly.

Vodka was pressing toggles and switches, but nothing seemed to respond and he shook his head in despair. "It's no use; I can't control it anymore!"

"We have no choice; get us out of here," Gin told him.

"Alright…" Vodka answered and began trying to chart a course to a safe place to land.

They were dropping at an alarming rate and Gin could smell burning metal and electricity coming from the back, but he risked one last alarmed glance back at the Tower. What… what the hell was that? Ringore had jumped off the roof and as hardy as his species was, he should have died. There was no getting around that, so what had attacked them so quickly just now?

"Gin, this thing's breaking apart too fast! I can't land it and it's gonna explode any second!" Vodka panicked.

"Everyone, grab your parachutes and bail out now!" he yelled.

Vodka abandoned his valiant efforts to steady the helicopter to retrieve his parachute. The doors were opened and only after Gin heard his three team members jump did he follow suit. He was not a moment too soon. The helicopter exploded and split in two with the majority of the wreckage creating a fiery trajectory towards the outskirts of a park and a much smaller part going in the complete opposite direction. He averted his eyes from the destroyed aircraft and searched anxiously for his comrades, but it was dark, it was still raining, and they were dressed in black as he was. He couldn't see anything like this. Suddenly, he saw the faint outline of a parachute open up below him, then a second and a third, and he released an exhale of relief before opening his own. All of them had survived and were all close by. It wouldn't be too difficult to find each other and hopefully no one would get stuck on the landing.

As Gin slowly drifted down to Earth and made tiny adjustments to his landbound trajectory, he felt something in his pocket vibrate. It was his phone which he withdrew, glanced briefly at the caller ID, frowned slightly, and answered it. "Yeah, it's me. What is it Vermouth?"

"Oh good, you're not dead," she said lightly, but there was some relief in her tone. "I saw the helicopter crash in the park and the resulting fireball of an explosion from the highway. What happened?"

"Ringore happened," he growled. "Chianti destroyed the SD card with the MiB's NOC list, so our secrets are safe for the moment, but Ringore was already at Tohto Tower ready to receive the information from that traitorous bastard, Irish. He's dead by the way-"

"-I figured," she interrupted.

Gin scowled. "I was going to leave him alive for MiB Internal Affairs to pass judgment on instead, but Ringore used Irish's body as a shield when we tried to get a clearer shot and we ended up killing him."

"You sound very put out," she commented sarcastically.

He ignored it. "We chased Ringore all the way to the top of Tohto Tower and were just about to shoot him down too when he jumped off the roof. Not a minute later, something launched straight up into the air at us and struck the helicopter in the tail end. At that point, we lost control and it was all we could do to get away and get out before we suffered fiery deaths. Vodka, Chianti, and Korn are all alive too. I'm still not sure what attacked the helicopter so suddenly like that and I wasn't able to confirm Ringore's death. How close are you to Tohto Tower right now?"

"Close enough. I can be there in about fifteen minutes to scope out the situation and maybe erase some memories if that turns out to be necessary."

"Good. I'll be waiting for a status update," he said stiffly and hung up before she had the chance to try and worsen his mood. However, his phone started ringing again immediately after. He rolled his eyes and answered with an annoyed, "What?"

The shriek on the other end definitely wasn't Vermouth's. "Don't 'what' me! I saw a black helicopter crash and explode! I was terrified you'd been killed! I can still see the smoke from here!"

"S-Sherry?!" Gin gasped. "I thought you were Vermouth calling me back to complain about how rudely I hung up on her."

The line on the other end went quiet and he imagined Sherry squinting her eyes suspiciously when she said, "Why were you talking to Vermouth?"

"She saw the explosion too and called for the same reason as you to make sure I wasn't dead," he answered bluntly. "She's also close to Tohto Tower, so she's going to call me back to give me an update on the situation over there."

"What did happen?" Sherry asked.

Gin very quickly brought Sherry up to speed. "Irish betrayed the Men in Black. He impersonated Superintendent Matsumoto after kidnapping him and Vermouth discovered he was going to sell the NOC list to a bounty hunter named Ringore that we've been chasing for days. Long story short, the NOC list's SD card was destroyed, Irish is dead, and Ringore is presumed dead, but the helicopter was attacked from out of nowhere, so I have no idea what's going on."

"Vermouth told you about Superintendent Matsumoto?"

One eyebrow rose questioningly. "You know about the Superintendent?"

"The kids found some beetles with tape in a 'v' shape on their wings, Dr. Agasa deduced it was a call for help based on the name of the Beatles band's fifth album. They decided to take him seriously and followed through on investigating the source of the beetles which is how we ended up finding Superintendent Matsumoto tied up in a wood cabin in Beika Forest," Sherry explained. "Vermouth was there with a motorbike, so she must have found him around the same time we did."

"I'd like to know what tipped her off to be suspicious," Gin grumbled.

"You can ask her that yourself when she calls you back," Sherry said shortly.

He groaned, "Sherry, don't be like that. My feet have not even touched solid ground yet and I need somebody else to scope out the situation immediately. Vermouth just happens to be in the best position to do that right now."

"Yes, yes, I hear you," she said dismissively. "Kudo was investigating this case too, so I'll let you know if he discovered anything relevant as usual. Goodni-"

"-Sherry, wait!" he blurted out before she could hang up. She paused expectantly mid-sentence, and he felt his cheeks flush. "I… Thank you for worrying about me."

Sherry was silent for a little while before she said in a much softer tone, "Well, what else am I going to do? Not worry?" Gin smiled, but she had more to say. "Oh, I guess it's not as important anymore, but Kudo knew our NOC list was in jeopardy. Vermouth told him yesterday, and I suspect Irish might have found out about his secret identity."

Gin's eyes narrowed. "Vermouth told him, huh…" he repeated quietly.

"I thought it odd too. I don't know why she would do that, but then I've never been able to figure her out," she sighed heavily.

"It's definitely suspicious," he agreed and then smirked. "I love you, Sherry."

His shrunken scientist instantly began to stutter in embarrassment, "H-Hey! Don't do that!"

Gin's smirk widened further. "What? Profess my feelings?"

"Say them so suddenly! I wasn't ready!"

"But I enjoy seeing you flustered."

"You're not seeing me at all!"

Gin shrugged nonchalant. "Hearing you is just as good."

"Well, I'm not going to say 'I love you' back!" she retorted.

"And yet I believe you just did," he commented, using her own words against her.

"Goodnight Gin!" Sherry said and cut the call, no doubt blushing as red as a rose.

Gin chuckled and returned his phone to his pocket. Getting Sherry riled up was always something he enjoyed, especially when it made her embarrassed. She really was too cute for her own good. Still, what Sherry had told him about Vermouth was worrisome. Why did she tell Kudo about the NOC list? For all her faults, she was still a loyal member of the Organization. Was it some weird attempt of stacking the cards in their favor to prevent hostile aliens from retrieving the data first? It was possible. Getting the NOC list back from Conan Edogawa would have been much easier than if someone like Ringore had gotten it.

He was quickly approaching the ground, so he scanned the area for a good place to set down without getting stuck in a tree or in the middle of a road. He saw a mostly-empty parking lot and aimed for that. His feet touched the black asphalt and he had to take a few running steps before the parachute stopped catching air and allowed him to stop completely. He had just finished getting out of the harness when his cellphone rang again.

This time, it was Vodka. "Aniki, where are you?"

"I landed in a parking lot for some kind of store. I can't tell what yet, but there's an office building next door. What about you?" Gin asked as he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and used his hands to start gathering up the parachute.

"I'm with Chianti in some kids' playground. We haven't found Korn yet, but she's calling him now. I see an office building a little way down the street to the right, but I don't see a store parking lot."

Gin glanced up. "The office building is on my right side facing the street, so the parking lot I'm in is probably hidden behind it. I'll come over and meet you two since-" a sudden outburst of cackling laughter through the phone caused him to stop and stare before he said, quite calmly, "Vodka… why does Chianti sound like she's dying…?"

"Uh… it seems like Korn might have ended up getting stuck on the roof of a parking garage…" Vodka answered uncertainly.

He let the silence carry his unimpressed mood before he said, "I'm not going to look for him. He'll have to come to us if he wants to regroup."

"Once Chianti calms down enough to listen, I'll ask her to relay the message to him. I guess I'll see you soon then?"

"Ah," Gin agreed and hung up on his partner.

He reached the sidewalk and made sure to very carefully look both ways into the dark street before crossing. Rainy nights in the city were always treacherous, but especially when wearing all-black clothes. The water accumulated on the roads and reflected the light cast by everything, including street lamps, building signs, and cars. Wearing a black long coat did well to hide him from prey and predators alike but made him more of a hidden target for reckless drivers. Gin scowled and tucked the collapsed parachute under one arm to tug the brim of his hat further down his face with his free hand. He hated rain. It always meant an extra half-hour's worth of blow-drying his hair after he got home.

It was raining so heavily that he barely heard his phone ring for the fourth time that evening, but he managed to catch it in time. "Yes, it's me. Who is it now?"

"Now, Gin, you were the one who told me to call you back with an update," Vermouth reprimanded.

That did not make him feel any better about receiving a call from Vermouth of all people, but he was interested in what she'd discovered. "Go on," he said.

"I've checked around the place, but I saw no signs of any aliens being present at Tohto Tower."

"Impossible. Even if Ringore somehow survived the fall from the top of Tohto Tower, there should still be blood or imprints or something," Gin insisted.

"I was very thorough in my investigation and there's nothing," she repeated. "The only beings here are the police officers, the human serial killer culprit and the one who was going to be wrongly blamed for the murders, Irish's dead body, Ran Mouri, and Conan Edogawa."

"Con- what?! He was there?"

"And he seems pretty injured. He had a bandage around his head, one on his cheek, and there was blood on the left shoulder of his jacket," she continued.

Gin's jaw fell slack and he stared blankly ahead of him. "I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna accidentally end up killing him one of these days," he finally muttered aloud after several minutes of stunned silence.

"Oh?"

"I didn't know he was there. He must have been after Irish," he continued. "That's twice now that I've nearly killed him because he's gotten in the way of our work." He frowned suddenly and glanced askance at his phone out of the corner of his eye. "And speaking of Irish, how did you discover that he was going to sell the NOC list to Ringore?"

Vermouth only tsked at him and said, "A secret makes a woman, a woman."

Gin rolled his eyes. "Fine, don't tell me," he said and hung up on her again. The conversation had carried on long enough that it had brought him within sight range of Vodka and Chianti, the former of whom waved at him. He raised his own hand to let him know he saw the signal and walked over to join them. "How's Korn's situation?" he asked Vodka, because Chianti was still on the phone.

"He was all the way up there," Vodka said, pointing to the roof of a parking garage barely visible through the trees just south of their position. "So he's probably close to the ground floor by now."

Gin nodded in acknowledgment. "Good. I can update 'that person' on the current situation while we wait for him."

Unfortunately, the downpour was such that the trees provided negligible cover, so he took off his hat and used it as an umbrella for his phone as he composed the message to 'that person' discussing everything that had happened at Tohto Tower. He pressed the 'send' button and replaced the soaked hat on his equally-soaked head.

"Man, what a mess, huh? We saved the NOC list, but it looks like we're back to square one on Ringore," Vodka sighed.

Gin gave an angry huff and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. "He wasn't even there."

"Eh?"

"I was on the phone with Vermouth just before I arrived here. Ringore was never at the Tower and the one we thought was Ringore was actually Conan Edogawa," Gin explained.

"Conan Edogawa? Are you serious?" Vodka asked in alarm.

"Unfortunately," he bit out. He started feeling around for his cigarettes and matches in his pockets.

"But we could have accidentally killed him."

"Yes." He kept the burning match sheltered from the rain with his hand and then the brim of his hat protected the end of the cigarette once it was lit.

"And he nearly killed us!"

"I know."

"… Did Sherry know?"

Gin shook his head and breathed out some smoke. "No, she saw the helicopter explode and called while I was still up in the air to make sure I wasn't dead. She would have told me then if she knew where Kudo had been."

Vodka nodded slowly in agreement and then held out his hand. "May I borrow a match?"

Gin wordlessly handed him the matchbox and watched him light his own cigarette. Chianti finished her phone call with Korn shortly after and informed them he'd be there soon. Gin filled her in on what happened at Tohto Tower which caused her to swear profusely in frustration ("All that work we put into tracking the little fucker and he didn't even show up?!"). He very much sympathized with her feelings on the matter even though he was less vocal about it. At last, Korn showed up with his sniper rifle bag under one arm, his parachute under the other, and looking sheepish for making them wait so long.

Chianti affectionately punched his shoulder once he'd rejoined the group and he gave her a brief smile before looking around at them all and saying, "How are we getting back to the cars?"

The only sound that immediately followed this question from the oldest member present was the pattering of rain on the leaves, sidewalk, playground equipment, hats, bags, and jackets. That calm, tranquil sound was interrupted momentarily by one well-placed, despairing groan of "Fuck…" from the group's highest-ranking member.

---

Well, lookie here. Bourbon got a cameo before his officially-canon appearance. Gin's really not a people person (and not just because he keeps murdering them).

Also Kir appeared again, yay! I like Kir and I wish her role in the canon story hadn't been usurped by Bourbon. Anyway, like most things in this story, her appearance in this chapter was unplanned. Since Gin was the focus in the previous section and needed to be the focus of the next section in a different time point, I felt like I needed to add a different character to focus on to break it up for a bit which is how I came up with using Vodka (especially since he wasn't with Gin when he made that call to Irish), but I had a difficult time figuring out what he could do until, bam, it hit me. Have him bonding with the only other codenamed member I haven't used this chapter who could potentially be available for such relaxation.

Surprise, surprise, the next chapter is NOT based on a Black Organization episode, but it's also not going to be filler. It's actually going to be plot-relevant and focus on Haibara. Shocking, I know, but Gin was very active in this one, so I feel the need to balance it out and give Haibara some love.