Kiss of Death
Part 29
Chapter 28
"Angel"
A/N: I know lots of you want to know more about Gin, but Gin's backstory will be much later on. Here's Vermouth's first
Vermouth still remembered the woman she was.
Or rather, how she finally remembered. It was back then when she still worked under the former Boss. Back when Whisky had not yet dethroned the original Boss.
The woman, before she was known Vermouth, was a former private investigator and grew up in a broken family...
"Will you please solve it for me?" her step-father pleaded.
Wanting to reconcile with her estranged mother,she nodded in agreement. She was also a widow, trying to raise her only daughter. The prize that her soon-to-be step-father was also attractive, given to her current financial situation.
Being the brilliant woman she was, she was able to locate the mysterious "drug dealer" in the midst of a strange transaction that took place in Japan single-handedly. But being a lone private investigator, the downside of this was that she lacked the presence of a back-up. Thus when the criminals had noticed her presence, the platinum blonde had a difficult time getting away from them.
She immediately hopped onto her vehicle, in hopes of losing them. Yet, the ebony car was determined to give a chase. Having faith in her skilled driving, she led them to Mount Haruna, which was notorious for its dangerous roadway. The roadways were curved narrowly, such that it required one to successfully maneuver the car in hairpin turns.
As determined as she was, she operated the car such that it would drift smoothly along the roadway. She momentarily looked back using her rear-view mirror, and to her surprise, the ebony car was still close behind her.
Panicked, she slammed the gas pedal in order to speed up - probably the biggest mistake of her life. Unable to control the momentum of the car, it skidded nearly to the edge of the mountain, where she attempted to halt it by stepping on the brakes as hard as she could. The car tires made a loud screeching noise, rubbing against the ground. It did manage to slow down the car, but it was not enough to make it stop - her vehicle, along with her, stumbled off the roadway, rolling off the mountain side and disappearing into the forested area. The vehicle finally stopped when a large tree collided with it, knocking her unconscious.
Two figures wearing black suits stepped out of the ebony car, dialing up a number that sounded like the "7 children" song.
When the platinum blonde woke up in the hospital, she was void of any memories - not knowing her real name, her personal background... nothing. In all, she was the perfect human weaponry a syndicate could use.
They named her Sharon Vineyard.
Or rather known as Vermouth.
In the public's eye, she adopted the name "Sharon Vineyard", a talented actress and a friend of Kudo Yukiko. But in the night, she was Vermouth - a ruthless syndicate member, a master of disguise and the Boss's favourite (or perhaps now, the former Boss's favourite).
Life was funny for her. While she was known for being an actress and played the "Golden Apple" so beautifully well, she was also living in act. She was a controlled doll of a syndicate, with no memory of her own and pretending to be an actress - an act of an act.
A rotten apple that she painted with gold.
Truly, Shakespeare say that "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely its players".
And the golden-plated apple, which she consumes, that was being fed by her. Did she question it?
No.
The black mamba seems to be feeding the woman the apple, not for knowledge, but for the sake of sustenance. After all, she had nowhere to go.
As if that wasn't enough, they offered her a request - to be the test subject of Atsushi Miyano. It was harmless, they say - giving her eternal beauty even. It seemed silly, vain even, but the fear of aging is considered natural, for mortals cannot last forever.
"Mom! Mom!" a woman in her late teens snaked through the crowd, after her stunning performance in "The Golden Apple" in New York.
"Do you remember me? Why are you under the name Sharon Vineyard? Come home, with me. I've been all alone. They said you've been gone missing and they tossed me in an orphanage, until I was old enough to get out of it," the girl with the blonde hair said, grappling her shoulder.
Vermouth shifted her gaze, seeing other syndicate members nearby. She did not know the girl, but somehow she felt that the girl would have been in danger if she were to be nearby. Giving the coldest glare, Vermouth replied, "I don't know you."
Vermouth's bodyguards then shoved the girl away, while she left the girl to weep hysterically in front of the theater building.
Few years later, Atsushi Miyano was able to be successful in making a serum that reverses aging, making the user have the physical appearance of a person in her 20s. Vermouth agreed to it - if there was a way to regain her memories, she would need more time and become a healthier youth to fulfill that mission.
In her youthful appearance, she finally faked the death of Sharon Vineyard and emerged as Chris Vineyard. In her new form, she was even more formidable, given the newfound energy and successful missions that came with it.
However, fate seems to punish those that attempted to manipulate time.
In a twisted irony, she had suffered from a concussion in one of her essential missions. From there, she was able to regain all her past memories - but it was too late.
The girl that called her mom was indeed her "daughter"
The Boss that she had been working with was actually her step-father that lured her into this whole mess.
Using her sleuthing skills, she managed to track her daughter's whereabouts and asked her for a meet-up at a cafe, where she used to buy her daughter her favourite ice-cream.
"Why did you want to meet me, Chris Vineyard?" her daughter, now in her mid 20s.
"It's a long story, but I am not really Chris Vineyard," Vermouth said, "I'm your mother. They did something to me."
This earned a puzzled expression from her daughter. "I don't understand... You're Chris Vineyard, you're about the same age as me. Your mother... was Sharon Vineyard," the daughter said shakily.
"Angelique, it's me. We used to come here to this cafe and I would buy you a strawberry cheesecake ice-cream," she stated, reaching for Angelique's hand.
"How do you know that? I never told anyone about that detail...Not even my husband," Angelique said, retreating.
"Angelique, I've missed you," she replied, almost crying.
"You know... the only one who would have known that was my mother. But she left me! All alone. I don't know how, but she appeared out of the blue, known as Sharon Vineyard. I found her, but she didn't even bother to look at me!" Angelique cried, there was green in her eyes, "come to think of it, you're her daughter, aren't you? Now what kind of a sick joke you're playing? Did you come here to rub it to my face that she chose you over me?"
"No, listen-"
"Well, I don't care about it!" her daughter screamed, "it was so cold...When I see children giving roses to their mother on mother's day... I die a little. She's dead now, they broadcast her funeral weeks ago. And she was dead to me a long time ago!"
"I'm sorry..."
"Look, if you're just messing with me, I need to go. I have an appointment with a doctor," she said, rubbing the slight bump on her stomach, "at the very least, I would want to be a good mother to my child."
Angelique stood up and left.
"I'm sorry...my child-"
Angry and betrayed, she stormed off, looking for the Boss.
"How dare you... posing as my step-father," she said, pointing a knife at him.
"The best part my dear...is that I am," he said coolly, "you know... it's quite amusing how I manipulated you in getting an encounter with my syndicate. So that I can get rid of one talented private investigator that could have been a silver bullet. Yet here you are, ending up working for me. And you know what's the best part?"
"What-?"
"I'm still tied to your family. I'm still married to your mother. I know your daughter's whereabouts. Do anything that opposes me, and your daughter will get it. That is, you don't care about her welfare because she hates you anyways," the Boss chuckled.
Vermouth lowered her knife in defeat.
Guilt-ridden.
Devastated.
On some occasions, she would disguise as a serial killer and go on a murder spree to get rid of all the emotional turbulence.
She was stuck in the syndicate for good anyways. The black blood runs in her veins.
No angel has smiled upon her. Only cursed by evil snakes.
She had never met an angel - until she that faithful day.
She was on a murder spree again in New York, until she had crossed paths with two young Japanese teens. The girl looked vulnerable, so she attempted to attack her. Unknown to her, the girl had profound knowledge of self-defense, leading Vermouth to stumble on a slippery metal staircase. Yet, she did not fall to her death, for the girl had caught her.
"Why'd you save me?" she asked Ran, astonished. Ran only had a look of concern in her, as she pulled Vermouth up.
"Must there be a reason? You might have a reason to kill someone, but must a reason be necessary for you to save somebody?" Shinichi said.
And from there, she had realised that an angel may not have smiled at her, but saved her.
Snapping back to reality, it dawned on Vermouth how quickly time flew.
To her delight, she did found a man codenamed "Whisky" who was able to overthrow her step-father. He was the most devious snake she had ever encountered - acting like some helpless rabbit, but underneath all the facade, he was a merciless mamba that never got his fangs stained with blood. He had his ways of planning the effects of events, even manipulating others to kill for him. Vermouth was aware that she was dancing with the devil, but it was the only way for her to get her vengeance.
Whisky was also like her, who was a human lab rat of Atsushi Miyano's project. Whisky also stopped ageing physically. In addition, Vermouth found out that Whisky had saved her during the accident back then. Due to her unique blood type, also called as Rh-null or "Golden Blood". With less than 100 people recorded with the Golden Blood in the past decades, she would have died of blood loss. Yet, as lucky as it seemed, Whisky also had the same blood type and donated blood to her.
Whisky was now the currently new Boss.
[A/N: Golden Blood is a real extremely rare blood type. It lacks Rh antigens. People with Rh null cannot accept other blood types, whereareas it can be donated to anyone regardless of their blood types. Look it up, it's really interesting and keep this small detail in mind (coughs, hint hint!). ]
She did owe a lot to that man, but she knew that he was taunting her. For Vermouth, she was about to hurt her angel - that girl that reminded her so much of her daughter.
Fate was indeed cruel to those that manipulated time.
A/N: It's actually canon that Bourbon briefly implied that the canon Boss was related to Vermouth. Many fans theorized that she could either be the canon Boss's daughter or his wife. I tried to consider both theories and while it has not been revealed yet, I resorted to making her the step-daughter because it's more fitting in this story. Of course, it'll definitely be proved wrong since the correct answer had not yet been revealed. If anything, just think of this story as canon-divergence.
Also, do not confuse the canon Boss and my own version of the Boss. Like I mentioned before, the canon Boss (which is the former Boss in this fanfiction) has not been revealed by Gosho Aoyama, and I would like to leave his identity to the writer himself. Which is why I'm creating a fictional OC, which is supposedly the "new" Boss (codenamed Whisky) in this story.