Chapter 8: Shadows.

Sherry bent forward to have a better view of the clear midday skyline. There was their destination, a distant, oddly-shaped mass of green, brown and grey that emerged abruptly from the azure waters. Her only desire was to reach it, to flee from the loud chat of her fellow passengers, the rumble of the ferry's engine and the high-pitched shrieks of the seagulls that flew above their heads every few seconds, and immediately be back home, to walk into her apartment and have a moment to calm herself down in the peace and solitude she longed for.

She recognized Gin's light steps way before the boy reached her and leaned against the railings next to her. She turned her face to one side and pretended to contemplate the vast ocean before them.

'Are you okay?' he asked, and Sherry could detect a good deal of true concern in his tone. 'Are you seasick or anything?'

'I'm fine,' she answered. 'Enjoying the views, that's all. And you?'

'I'm fine.'

'How's your wound doing?' she spoke. Still avoiding his gaze, she tilted her head so as to check him, even if only out of the corner of the eye.

'Pretty well, actually,' he claimed, seemingly unaware of the girl's manoeuvre. 'It barely hurts. And I'll have the bullet taken out in roughly one hour, so you don't need to worry.'

'I can only be grateful we're going back half a day before planned,' she confessed with a shrug. 'The sooner that wound is treated by an actual doctor, the better.'

'You did a great job, though,' the boy added. 'You cleaned, disinfected and dressed it – and even got me a tetanus shot. Alhough in the end you didn't treat your own wound…'

'It was merely a scratch, I told you,' she replied. 'It's already healing perfectly well on its own. And I had no time to treat it, anyway – right after I was done with your shoulder, we started arguing, and then…'

A familiar warmth flooded Sherry's cheeks accompanied with what she guessed would appear as a pale shade of red. It still felt odd to think that Gin and she had had sex. She didn't regret it – actually, she was rather proud. And, above all, she was glad that it had gone well. Not even the slight soreness of her crotch or the tiny drops of blood which she had noticed that morning on the sheets could possibly eclipse the satisfaction she felt.

'I'm glad we did it,' he claimed, taking Sherry completely off guard. She turned and noticed that the boy's cheeks were of a dark pink. Noticing his gaze move up towards hers, she hurried to stare back at the calm waters. 'Are you?'

'Yes, I am,' she answered. 'I really am. I had wanted to do it for a long time.'

'The only thing I could regret about it is that you didn't treat your wound…'

'It's okay, I tell you' she insisted, nearly on her nerves. 'I'll let the Organization's doctors have a look at it, okay?'

'I can't help worrying for you,' he argued. He had lowered his voice and moved closer to her, but Sherry stayed still. 'Everything's going spectacularly well, I want it to stay like that. I only hope Rukuma's being as lucky as us…'

Sherry folded her arms more tightly and her right hand closed around the cool metal railings. Her gaze searched desperately for something to focus on, only so she had an excuse not to look directly at her boyfriend's face.

'She'll be okay, I'm sure,' he went on. 'She's done it all before, hasn't she? She'll manage to start a new life – and this time the Organization won't disturb her. She'll be finally free. Are you okay?'

Sherry shifted her weight to one leg and stood up straight. The longer Gin stayed right beside her, the more she worried about him finding out, but she couldn't end their conversation too abruptly. Something inside of her seemed to stir, unease, wanting to get out by any means possible…

'You look tense, Shiho,' the boy pointed out. She could feel his green eyes fixed on her profile, scrutinizing every single inch of her face which he could see. 'What's wrong? If you feel sick…'

'It's nothing,' she answered at last with a shrug of her shoulders and a shook of her head. 'It's only that… that I feel something has changed,' she added. `I feel things will be different from now on, even if they look the same – that I will see everything… from a very different point of view…'

She stopped. A sudden urge to tell Gin the truth flooded her entire being, as if carried by the blood her heart pumped in a furious pace.

'It's okay,' the boy spoke, giving her a perfect excuse not to keep on talking. 'I know we've been raised to take this whole virginity issue as a big deal…'

Shiho bit her lip so as to repress a sad laugh. Although, giving it a second thought, it was actually better if he believed that to be what she worried about, wasn't it? Yes, it was – anything was fine as long as he didn't know the truth. He must never know anything of the plans she had made while he slept, of the clock alarm he had not heard; of the chilly air in the early morning as she waited for the baker to get to Rukuma's street; of the appetizing warmth the few loafs of bread gave off as the syringe moved in and out of each one of them through the thin plastic bag, filling them with a tasteless poison the forensic doctors would not find; of how she had got back into the bed where he still lay, perfectly unaware of what had just happened … He could never know that she had killed Rukuma – that, for the first time in her existence, Shiho Miyano had directly ended a human life. Nor could he know that it had been for the same reason he had claimed for sparing their target's life – that Rukuma had seen their dreams come true, that she had conquered a freedom they had never known and would never have.

As he went on with a lecture she didn't pay much attention to, the girl could hear him say something on 'innocence' and the loss of it. With his hand pressed against hers and her gaze fixed on the blue sky before them, Shiho could only think he was right on that, of all things.

She had paid one last visit to Rukuma's street while they waited to buy their ferry tickets. From the top of the low wall of her garden, she had seen the woman's corpse through an open window.

She wasn't exactly sure of what she had felt.

Author's notes:

¡Hola! Hello! Hallo! こんにちは! Salut! Here comes Sherry Furude once more, ready for attack!

So here is the last chapter! Thank you very much for reading the fic! I hope you enjoyed it!

As you may have noticed, the fic is eight chapters long... being eight the number of days Gin estimates for the mission in chapter 2. I could do this because I decided the number of chapters way before writing them. Along with this, I also planned the (alternate) distribution of the POV throughout the entire fic, making it the opposite of Hokkaido Views'. I wanted these two fics to complement each other, and I'm rather content with the results. At the very least, I've met my main goal on this - to have the smut chapter narrated by Sherry.

I considered various possible endings for this fic: one in which Gin killed Rukuma, another one in which she ended up safe and sound... The idea of Sherry killing her (without Gin knowing about it) was something that came to me all of sudden and which, as odd as I found it at first, I ended up liking very much - too much not to use it! I like using my writing to explore what I call 'the dark corners of the human soul,' what we humans are capable of at our worst. In this fic, Sherry kills Rukuma out of pure envy. Thus, the mission means the loss of her innocence - not (mainly or only) because she has sex for the first time, but because she gives in to the darkest corners of her soul and kills a fellow human being directly and actively for the very first time.

Thank you again for reading. And, yet again, let me encourage you to tell me if you find any kind of mistake. Help me become a better writer!

Lots of love and see you next time!

Sherry F.