FireCacodemon: Darker than Black belongs to Tensai Okamura.

Chapter 2

Hei's eyes slowly opened to reveal that a blindfold was covering his eyes. Instinctively Hei abandoned his sight (as they were covered anyway) and focused more on what he could hear. Hushed conversations in a different room which he guessed were Yin, Huang and Mao. He didn't worry about what was happening with them but more what happened to himself out there…what happened to Li? He knew that there was always a chance that lies could become a reality but he never wished for Li to be a doll…or to have an inanimate object behave like it did then. Since when did Li have the ability to give life to the wire and have the ability to send out spectres? He thought back to how he woke up in the world…where Misaki didn't recognise him…if she didn't recognise him…did the Black Reaper exist here? If not, would it be wise to act as the Black Reaper would here? Killing contractors with a single touch like he did in his world…could he really start that up again? More questions than answers rose in Hei's mind. He needed to move, to get out there and learn what he could before he could do anything. Right now, he needed to do some testing of his own. Hei tried to move his arms…but tied firmly around his wrists was some thick rope. He stopped trying to move his arms after learning that, the last thing he wanted was a friction burn from moving and letting the rope rub against his skin. He tested it out with his legs too. They were bound but he knocked something. There was the sound of a wooden table scraping along the floor and Hei became still once more.

"Finally awake, are we?" Hei heard Yin's voice from the other room. Hei remained silent, Yin was a contractor now and she could easily kill him if she wanted to by just manipulating the water from a nearby tap or a water bottle. After a few minutes, Hei heard Yin's footsteps coming closer. The sound of high heels clapping the floor as she approached Hei grew louder with each step and the closer she got, the more Hei could feel the vibrations trough the floor. The sound stopped as Yin knelt in front of Hei. "You seem to be well trained…for a doll. I've never seen you around before, what's your name?" There was so much confidence bursting from her voice. Yin sounded nothing like she did back in Hei's world. Yin was no longer quiet and reserved, she was confident and interested in what her team had just discovered at the park. "We stripped you down to just your boxers. You must love the tone of black. Normally people I meet wear some colour." Hei didn't even realise that he was just in his boxers. There wasn't any air moving, no air taking what heat he had from him.

"Yin, careful. He's blindfolded but we don't know if he's a doll for sure," Hei recognised Mao's voice. He was glad that his voice hasn't changed. Still calculating and still putting the team first.

"Contractors don't have spectres, therefore he's a doll," Huang's voice was still a rough as ever. Hei's hearing picked up Huang's padded paws on the floor. Hearing both Yin's and Huang's foot/paw steps finally gave Hei the sense on what type of floor he was currently on. He was currently laying on some wooden floor.

"Dolls don't have the ability to give life to inanimate objects either, that's something contractors do," Mao responded to Huang.

"Where…are my clothes?" Hei finally asked before Mao and Huang started an argument over what Hei was. He wanted to find out about that too and being tied up like he was at the moment wasn't going to help him find the answer to that.

"We'll be buying you new clothes. Ones which won't stick out so much if we let you go out in public," Yin informed Hei as she stood up from her kneeling position.

"What have you done with my clothes?" Hei asked another question.

"Will you stop going on about clothes? You haven't answered my previous question." Yin didn't sound happy with her question being ignored. Hei thought back to what she said before, she asked for his name. Should he give her his code name from the Syndicate or his cover name…Li Shengshun? Neither name would be known…hopefully.

"Li…Li Shengshun," Hei's response just came naturally. Hei had spent most of his life post-Heaven's War calling himself Li. Hei…couldn't even remember his birth name. He knew that Hei was a codename given to him by the Syndicate and Li was just his cover, his personal mask.

"Chinese huh? So, tell me, Li Shengshun…why you have a bullet proof trench coat, harness and cable wire?"

"I think that information is keeping me alive…"

"Simple question then. Are you a contractor or doll?"

"I don't have an answer to that," Hei replied with honesty. He didn't know anymore. He wasn't sure when he was going to have a chance to even test if he was still a contractor if he was slowly transforming into what this world needed him to be.

"How can you not know the answer?" Yin demanded.

"Untie me."

Lighter than White – Chapter 2

Saito was busy typing away at his computer while the rest of his team were busy working on contractor case files. It was their job today to catalogue any contractor (alive or dead) with their code name, star number, power and price to pay for the power. While this sounded rather boring, Saito found that he was enjoying this type of work. Maybe it was because contractors fuelled his interest, being with supernatural powers with equally strange payments to do after the power had been used. When the two gates appeared (now only Heaven's Gate) was the day that their stars mingled in with the real stars. You couldn't really tell the difference if you just casually looked at them but if one was to look closely, then you'll notice that if a contractor used their ability then their corresponding star would glow. No one even noticed that contractors were walking among people as they just blended in at first before people started to notice that people who once were their friends were slowly losing their emotions. If an animal died, they wouldn't care. Then there were dolls too, they weren't noticed when the gates first appeared. There was just a sudden increase of blindness through younger children who were still developing. When parents had taken them to see the opticians, they didn't see anything wrong…but nothing they did could bring back the child's sight. Contractors and dolls were still being studied too. Any dolls that were found were often brought to their researching organisation who called themselves Pandora. Contractors were brought there too as they were good study material. Originally it had only been dead subjects but the police (especially Saito) had managed to capture a few contractors alive.

"This job is so boring…I'd rather be back out on the field…" Misaki complained as she moved away from the computer screen and looked up at the ceiling. Saito looked up from his computer and over towards Misaki.

"What's got you so restless?" Saito asked her.

"Earlier this morning, you remembered I mentioned some unknown male unconscious in the nearby park?"

"I believe so, what about it?"

"It's just bothering me that he looked at me with fear…"

"Fear?" Saito asked her. Misaki nodded.

"I've never even seen the guy and he looked at me like I was going to catch him and lock him up for some reason."

"Did he say anything?"

"Yeah, he asked me if I recognised him." Saito looked back at his computer screen. With over one-hundred contractors already catalogued, was there a chance that one of them had the ability to create rips into other worlds? Saito pressed control and then F on his keyboard. A small search box opened on the screen and asked for what Saito was searching for. Putting the word: Alternative into the search box, he pressed enter and waited as the computer searched the database for anything containing the word, alternative. It came back fruitless. No contractor catalogued had the ability to open alternative worlds. That would have been a frightening power to have, to throw someone or something into an alternative world where things could be different.

"Has there been any strange activity going on recently?" Saito turned his attention towards Yutaka Kono, the younger orange haired officer looked at Saito before he started to shuffle through the recent report from Starlight.

"According to Starlight, there was only one reading and that was earlier today. The star remains unknown due to it only being active for a few milliseconds before becoming inactive again. Our Spectre Network wasn't able to pinpoint the location with such a short time window," Yutaka informed Saito as he handed over the report from Starlight.

Starlight runs an observatory to monitor the stars in the sky. If a contractor became active, then they would be able to see which star became active (most of the time) and then use its Spectre Network to help pinpoint where the contractor was by using the dolls that Pandora had finished experimenting on. Starlight had around twelve members who worked on shifts at the building to keep track on what star became active and then sending the report to the police every morning, mid-day and at night. As well as the twelve qualified members of staff, they also had volunteers to help look after the dolls. Dolls also ran on shifts to as they were still treated as humans, it was important to keep the dolls happy so that their work improved. Pandora had researched into a dolls happiness and found that even though they couldn't show emotions like people could, they still felt happiness, sadness and every other emotion one could think of. They were still children after all and it was important that they should still be treated like children. Dolls seemed to have a short-lifespan too, Pandora and Starlight had noticed that once a doll reached the age of fifteen or sixteen then their bodies would slowly stop working. It was much easier to euthanize the young teenager than watching their body slowly shut down. Everyone at Starlight had said that it was better to let them pass on while they weren't in any pain.

"So, there's no idea on what contractor was active?" Misaki asked and the two males nodded.

"Then I'm going to have to ask you and Yutaka to go out and do some investigating. Take this camera, if there's something unusual then take a picture of it and return straight back here. Ask people if you have to but I would like to keep contractors a secret as much as possible." Saito pulled out a draw from his desk and pulled out a camera and handed it over to Misaki. "Any questions?"

"No sir, we'll get straight on it," both Misaki and Yuyaka responded, getting up from their desks and getting ready to leave. Saito returned back to the database, if he had photographic evidence on what the contractor had done then there was a chance that he would know which contractor had become active and what their payment was.

"What do you think on Misaki's story?" Otsuka asked Saito.

"I don't know. It seems strange but then again…we're cataloguing contractors." Otsuka chuckled to herself.

"That's true."

Lighter than White – Chapter 2

"This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I asked you to untie me…" Hei admitted as he looked down at the handcuff cuffed around his right arm while the other handcuff was cuffed to Mao's left. The rope had been removed around his wrists and legs and the blindfold had been removed but he was cuffed to Mao now. He wasn't sure how strong Mao physically was and he didn't want to test his strength now. Hei gently tugged on the chair.

"We can't let you go free. From what Huang and Yin informed me, your wire had a life of its own," Mao told Hei.

"I don't know what happened," Hei told Mao sternly as he gently tugged at the chain once more. Mao watched Hei as he tugged on the chain. It was clear he was testing how far he could go without any repercussions from Mao. "When can I have some clothes?" Mao beckoned Hei to follow him before he started to walk towards the table with Hei following him behind.

"I asked Yin if she could go and fetch you some clothes while we study your clothing. It isn't often you find bulletproof clothing. You're a strange person I'll give you that Li," Mao smiled warmly at Hei. Hei simply watched Mao and said nothing. Hei never classed himself as strange before but maybe now he wasn't in his world anymore, maybe he was strange. "Don't worry, I'm like this with everyone I meet and talk to. How about we play a game?"

"A game…?" Hei asked confused. "What type of game?"

"A game of Truth or Lies. I'll start by asking you a question and you can either answer by telling a lie or by telling the truth. Once you've finished answering the question, I say if it's a truth or a lie. You get to say if I'm correct or not. We'll swap roles after that. How does that sound?"

"Okay," Hei agreed. The conditions of the game sounded fair and he could just lie with everything and not reveal anything. This also gave him some time to brush up on his people skills too. Detecting lies and truths was important as well as judging if they can be trusted or not while not showing how you feel about them.

"I'll start then. Much like Yin and Huang, I'm also a contractor."

Lighter than White – Chapter 2

"Found anything?" Yutaka asked Misaki as they met up again. The police officer nodded her head and brought out the camera that Saito had given her. Switching on the digital camera she showed him the remains of one of the trees from the park. The tree that Yin had sliced in half earlier was photographed. "Have you sent that already?"

"I've already sent the picture over to Saito, yes. We should be receiving a text on who the contractor was that became active." Misaki said as she switched off the camera. "Nobody was around when the incident took place but if what I saw was true then it was the White Lady. Saito can confirm that though."

"The White Lady…isn't she a powerful contractor?"

"A contractor no one has been able to observe." Misaki felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. "That must be Saito. I better answer him," Misaki reached into her pocket to retrieve the dark blue flip phone. Flipping open the phone, she pressed the green phone button and moved the phone up to her hear. Yutaka moved in closer so he could try and listen in to the conversation. "Misaki Kirihara here."

"Misaki, the contractor that had become active was possible the White Lady, previous photographic evidence we have in the database match near enough perfectly to the picture you've taken recently. Star number is IW-175 as well as the ability of water manipulation. We don't know her payment." Saito's voice came through the receiver.

"So, she just willingly activated for a split second, sliced a tree and stopped using her ability?" Misaki questioned Saito.

"It seems like it. It's also possible that she was attacking another contractor before they were able to pull off their own contract. Either way, we don't know for sure. Was there any blood at the scene?"

"No, there wasn't any blood at the scene so I guess that rules out a contractor attack?"

"Interesting…alright, come back to the station. We've done all we can for now."

"Yes sir," Misaki and Yutaka reported simultaneously and Saito hung up the phone on the other end.

FireCacodemon: snowy1219 - I'm glad you're enjoying the story. At the original time of writing it, I didn't really have a plan in mind. I always kinda thought Hei and Li were different personalities in the same body, as for what he is...you'll have to read and find out more. I've taken on board your suggestion and will see what happens in the future of the story. I've actually enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope it helps readers such as yourself to know this world a bit better. I dunno if I did that well enough but this is me without a plan...should probably write a plan...but anyway, thank you for the feedback. I didn't think this story was going to interest anyone with the poor summary I've given it. I tried writing a few but I felt like it gave away what I wanted to keep hidden...make sense?

FireCacodemon: I'll try and write a chapter every month as real life is getting in the way. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Bye!