***So exams start this week and I thought "Wow I don't feel like studying I can't study English or Graphic Design I use English every freaking day and open Photoshop every week or so what the hell should I study oh I know I'll update and while I'm at it I'm gonna reply some reviews why because I can and I don't feel like studying English / GD and man writing without commas feel so weird what am I doing"

Cookie Addiction: It's Sweet Ann, should've mentioned it earlier. ^_^;;

Naty17: To your lighter note, I've never paid attention to Conan... Oh well, you should only suspect the innocent-looking ones when they have that yandere aura surrounding them, otherwise don't. I read a "summary" of this sick book where witches get tortured and it's all about innocent people who gets tied up with a big stones as weight and people throw them down a lak- Why am I talking about this.

aira2889: Great, now I have a satanic Ann stuck in my head.

Quieteyes2: I don't mind~

It's always nice to try new things, can't remember the last time I reply reviews in a chapter though, I just feel like writing. ...It's just practice for my English test tomorrow! ***

Chapter 7: To Shore

01:05 AM

When he realized it, it was already Len's ninth day on the ship, and in within a few hours he would finally arrive in France. Sure, he would be exhausted from the ten days trip, but he wasn't planning on spending more than a day in France. With the money he had with him he wouldn't be able to afford a ticket back home, but surely Kaito wouldn't mind him borrowing some money, right? Kaito owed him answers, bets or no bets he still owed him. He was planning on pressing him until he gave him answers, whether he likes it or not.

Once he's back... He just wanted to go back, he was sure the reason to why he wanted to go back home was because he was sick of all the events in the ship that had happened so far, though something told him there was something more than that. He felt anxious just thinking about it. The event with Ann kept on repeating on his mind, his hand trembling with every repeat. It made him unable to think about anything else but murder going on on the ship, and that he's part of the murderer group that must be feared.

Anxiousness aside, Len tried to recap everything that had happened the past few days. The champagne was an important point, something Len had to "literally" get rid of. It was a sleeping drug, and it wasn't easy to detect either. The aroma of wine or liquor vary, those who enjoy drinking them would know a type by the aroma, there are even experts of them. The aroma of the drug didn't affect the champagne very much, whoever "they" were, they know what they were doing. Len wasn't sure how many people are involved to this charade, he saw three sailors throwing people off the ship... What if there were more people involved? Even the stupidest of the stupidest people would eventually notice the fact that half the passengers were missing, and they were in the middle of the ocean, where else could they have gone? All the workers weren't really "panicking", and he wasn't sure who added the drugs to the champagne too; it could even be one of the servants serving the champagne.

Len had been watching too, monitoring everything and everyone; and it's a good thing he's a light sleeper. The odds of him waking up the next day under water is higher than him returning home safely. At least the passengers were safe, the champagnes were all gone by day seven, an hour before and after midnight he would patrol around the deck. It wasn't as bad as before, Len tried to remember the faces of some passengers just so he would notice when one of them were missing.

He noticed one person though, he couldn't find Ann everywhere. If he would at least try and protect her, would there be any difference? He went back to his room before he could collapse on the hallway, if he had chased after her, would she still be there in the ship? Someone killed her, he doubted that ten year old committed suicide. Was she even on the "list"?

They mentioned a "list", Len was sure it was a list of all the people needed to be killed. What else could it be than a death list? A list of people to be killed, that was the only motive Len had in mind. He got a hold of the names of the people who were missing, though just names wouldn't be enough to confirm anything.

On the bright side, he was still alive, there, walking back to his bed from his shift. He fought his eyes opened; at least within a few hours he could rent a room in an inn and sleep (if he had the money to). He'd been avoiding Lui and the other servants, though not too distant to the point where everyone would be suspicious. He just couldn't trust them, in fact for the first time since he stepped foot on the ship, he trusted Kaito more than those servants.

"Night, Leon." Lui whispered and crawled up his bed.

Len mumbled a small "night" back, and a second before he rest his head down, he noticed a letter just above his pillow. He looked around, wondering whether any of the servants would send him that letter. If they wanted to say something they could just say it to him directly, whoever the sender is wasn't all secretive either. Anyone could see that letter, that piece of paper folded in two. So if it isn't a secret it shouldn't be important, right?

To: Leon

From: You know whose handwriting this is.

Meet me at the deck 8:00

Oh, he recognized that handwriting alright. Len couldn't guess what Kaito had in mind, or perhaps he was too tired to think since this was Kaito he's talking about there. It'd be nice if Kaito would explain a few things, answer a few questions... Something he should have done nine days ago. Whatever it was, something told him nothing good would come out of it. If it's something trivial Kaito would've just confronted him, if it was good news Kaito would've done the same thing. Len sighed and lay on his bed, his eyes still opened.

Now that his mind was clear from everything he started to feel anxious on going back home again.

8:10 AM

Sneaking off the dining hall was a bit tricky. Everyone kept calling him wanting this and that, even if it was his job, everyone was just... There. They would arrive soon and by the time the passengers finish breakfast they could finally leave the ship. Maybe in around, twenty minutes or so they would reach the harbor. It felt like around five hundred passengers were there on day one, and on the last day none of them noticed that only 1/4 of them were present. He tried to ignore the "missing" passengers and went to the deck where he and Kaito should meet up.

There were a few sailors on the deck, which made him more nervous, but nothing he couldn't handle. He saw Kaito at the edge of the deck, he was looking out to shore, they could see the harbor just a few kilometers away, other ships and fishermen boats were up and about as well. What started as a normal walk for Len turned into a fast jog a minute later. He can feel people looking at him. If he really was a servant and he didn't know the fact that at least three sailors murdered half of the population of the ship Len could've ignored those stares. He shouldn't be there after all; he should be in the dining hall like the other servants.

"What do you want?" It was weird, Len didn't mean to greet so rudely, it somehow just came to him.

"It's nice to see you too." Kaito wasn't even looking at him; it was hard to tell his expression. Not that Len could anyway. "You have a revolver with you, don't you? If I have to take a guess on your right pants pocket."

"On my left pants pocket." Len could feel the revolver on his pocket, the revolver he took from the one of the sailor's he threw off board. Right at that exact spot, the spot Kaito was standing.

"Three sailors went missing, any idea how?"

"Maybe they're thrown off board." Len fought with himself not to look back, he could feel all the stares from the sailors on the deck. "Why did you call me here? Is it because you want to know whether I have anything to do with those three sailors? You already know I'm carrying one of their revolvers!"

"Let's say, hypothetically..." Kaito completely ignored him. "There's this tragic incident..." He scratched the back of his neck, sighed, and finally turned around. His expression was blank and that made him scarier, in a way.

"Which made my boss anxious and wait at the harbor right now and she's going to kill me."

"Literally?" Len raised an eyebrow.

"No, just an expression. It's nice to see you care about my well-being though." He smirked and turned to face the harbor again. "Maybe you've noticed how the number of passengers is decreasing... And I'm sure you've seen some sailors doing "bad" things."

"Is that how you personally describe "murder"? You know they're doing all of this but you're not doing anything to prevent it! What? Are you one of them or something? You throw people off board too?" Sure, the deck was wide. Real wide, not to mention the sound of the waves. Just to make sure though, Len kept his voice low.

"All the passengers in this ship were meant to die the second they stepped foot in to this ship." Kaito faced him again. "we were invited here because we were paid to kill them all."

"This ship... all of its passengers paid us to kill themselves. Well, not all. Most of them at least. They're cowards, suicidal people who are too afraid to kill themselves. Some, like the fortune teller and that sweet girl you made witness, were sent here to be killed. Who asked? Their companions of course. Well, doesn't change the fact that we're murderers."

Len wasn't sure what was worse. Kaito was a part of a group of paid assassin, or the fact that one ship would be the death of up to half a million passengers. That must be the biggest mass murder case in the world to date. In other words Kaito had killed hundreds of lives. Another disturbing fact was how he explained it to him in such a calm tone! He was left speechless there, he wanted to say something but there were too many things in mind he just can't say it aloud.

But his explanation explained a lot of things. Like why no one noticed the disappearance. It's not that they didn't notice, they had expected it. They all knew that they were going to die. Kaito and his group couldn't use poison to just kill off all of them at once, because not all people in that ship knew of the nature of the passengers. So to escape suspicion of said people, like Lui for example, they had to kill off little by little.

"... you're sick, Kaito."

"In my defense, you killed hundreds of people when you burnt down those buildings two months ago. And those three sailors in this ship." Again, his tone sickened him.

"For a good cause, they were kidnapping people, experimenting them! What else was I supposed to do?"

"Even if you say they're guilty, their friends and families aren't. No matter what the cause is, you, we, took hundreds of futures away from the people we've killed." Kaito rubbed his temples, as if trying to calm himself down. "This isn't why I called you here. I wanted to apologize. For everything. What I did, what I'm doing, and what I'll do in the future or something."

"Apologizing won't change anything and if you think I'll just sit here and do nothing, you're wrong." Len could take his revolver out and shot him right there, though that'd be an act of suicide, the other sailors were watching him. Why would he want to kill Kaito, anyway? He just wanted to take his anger out at something, the friend he used to trust and count on since his childhood turned out to be someone so different and distant. How else was he supposed to react?

"I'm sure you wouldn't trust me, but you need to listen closely." Kaito signaled him to come closer. "If you want to live for another few years, stay away from me and from any ship. Going back to England isn't the greatest idea either."

"Why not?"

"Just... I'm sorry, okay? Apologizing won't work for you, I'm fine with that, I just..." Kaito put his arms on both of Len's shoulders. "I should've done this since the beginning." With that, Kaito pushed him off the deck and on to the waters.

He felt like a rock there, all stiff as he fell two hundred and fifty meters on full speed to the ocean. So many things flashed before his very eyes and head: Would he survive the fall? The impact? Assuming he did could he really swim god-knows-how-many kilometers back to shore? Why did Kaito push him off board? Revenge? All those thoughts circled around his head, any normal person falling off from the height to meet their deaths would scream all the way down. But he didn't.

Len fell with a big splash, the force pushed him deeper and deeper into the bottom of the sea. He snapped himself up, hesitantly his eyes opened wide, doing nothing won't help him float back up to the surface! He put all his might and power to his legs, splashing, Len didn't take a breath when he fell, he'd be out of breaths in seconds. When the worst comes and he is out of breath, he'll lose consciousness, and his body will fore-

'I really should stop poisoning my own mind with negative thoughts in near deaths experience.' Len said to himself and added one last push up back to the surface. He took one large breath from his mouth, coughing up some water that came in when he did so, and rubbed his eyes. He'd never tried to open his eyes under water before, it was a strange experience. Though compared to everything else about the ship he was in, the "strange"-ness was incomparable.

From the angle he was in, he could no longer see the deck, he can't tell whether Kaito was there or not. Just when he thought he could finally clear his head, Len suddenly heard gunshots from above, followed with screams, all were faint but he could hear them. What was happening there? He'd be the stupidest man alive if he were to go back to the ship, should he just run away? From the sounds of it, those "assassins" were shooting all the passengers there.

Everyone... those who wanted to die and didn't...

Maybe, just maybe Kaito's reason to why he pushed him off the ship, was it because of the shooting up there? Kaito said so himself, he had to stay away, lives were at stake up there. Just the thought of it sickened him, he was about to abandon hundreds of lives when he could be doing something. It's just that, he wasn't sure what that "something" was. A thought struck his head, "They wanted to die anyway, so it's better if I leave" Why... He wanted to punch himself for saying that. He only had two options, two of which were impossible and would lead to deaths.

1. He could return to the ship, somehow. The outcome? He'd be shot to death.

2. He "could" swim back to shore, a few kilometers away. Which would mean, his death would only be delayed.

Again, he reminded himself, doing nothing won't help him. He had to do something, he had to make a decision. He thought of the third option, he could just commit suicide and let his death be fast, let the ocean be his grave. ...No, that's the most unlikely option he'd go with. Then he thought, maybe it's best to follow Kaito's advice and NOT return to the ship. There were boats and ships everywhere, fishermen surely he could somehow negotiate with them and ask them bring them to shore, right?

Then again, he couldn't speak French, and he was in their territory already. Assuming all went well and he could step foot on shore with no blood dripping, no cuts, or no broken bones, he'd still be stranded in a foreign country with no money, no acquaintances, and no knowledge of French.

'The future can just.. Wait.' Len thought to himself. Even though it's always nice to think ahead, he doesn't want to get caught up thinking about the future that he forgot to fight and survive in the present.

Ignoring all the screams and gunshots from the ship, Len swam for the nearest small boat there. From the looks of it, the small boat only a hundred meters away from him was a fishing boat. Oddly though he couldn't see anyone on that brown rusty boat, or was it just the angle he was in? He continued on and once near, he climbed up the boat, hoping whoever in charge wouldn't be too surprised to find a foreigner crawling up a boat like that.

"I'm.. Very sorry." Len apologized for intruding into someone else's property, coughed up some water he swallowed, every inch of his body wet. His heart sank down his shoes when he noticed a body, a corpse lying down near the stirring wheel of the boat.

Len ran to the corpse, the bearded middle aged man's body still warm. His eyes were still opened out of shock, and as if one bullet wasn't enough, it was safe to say there were more than five bullets just around his abdomen, his pale shirt dyed completely in red. No, it wasn't just that, the weapon used, it was no ordinary handgun, the bullets were so powerful, blood wasn't the only thing which left his soon to be stiffed body. He died a few minutes ago, Len knew from his warm temperature. By the sailors up there, and their motive? The fishing boat was probably being too close to the ship and they were afraid there'd be witnesses of the shootings inside the ship, was that it?

He put both his hands on his head, everything was going too fast! The sailors haven't seen him in the boat yet but if they do he'd die in the matter of minutes! He took a deep breath, not to catch a breath, but to calm himself down. He had to somehow figure out how to use the boat, avoid suspicion of carrying a corpse, explaining his defense in a foreign language, ... Life would be much easier for him if this world had only one language.

"I... Can do this." Len said to himself, his hands now on the stirring wheel. The engine was still on, so, all he had to do was stir it back to the shore, ... Right? It could be worse, he could be stranded in the middle of the ocean without a boat. Following his instincts, he tried to turn the fishing boat around and away from the death ship full of psychopaths and fools.

To his surprise, it didn't take him long to steer the wheel to the right direction. He just had to balance it out, keep both his hands on the wheel, and calm down. Len figured that would be a great time to think back, again, and recapped what just happened to him the past fifteen minutes.

Kaito confessed, the passengers wanted to die, they were invited and he was paid, along with the other sailors, that he was a paid assassin. Thinking back, Kaito had always have traits of an assassin. His combat skills, his keen eyes for information, and how he could get hands on weapons. Moving on, Kaito pushed him off the ship, and for what? Was it coincidence that moments later he heard gunshots and screams of the passengers? Kaito may be a paid assassin, but if it weren't for him, he'd still be on the ship lying cold and stiff with bullets inside of him.

The sky was clear, but it started to drizzle just a little bit. It didn't matter to him, he was soaking wet. Ah, that's right he needed a change of clothes as well before he catches a cold. Len looked up to the harbor, thinking he was actually going to make it, then up to the sky. He'd heard myths saying when rain falls down when the sky is clear, an innocent person died. Of course Len doesn't believe in those kinds of things, though it's true that many of innocent people had died that day, and he had witnessed them all. Innocent people dies every day, so at that rate it'd rain with a clear sky every day, wouldn't it?

He closed his eyes, his mind clearer than before. The thoughts and predictions to what would happen next can wait, he had to think of what to do at the moment. He needed to go home. He needed to see Rin again, and make sure she never leave his side again...

Rin...

'Please be safe...'

Len knew nothing of how to "park" a boat. The second there was land he could step on, he quickly jumped out. It'd be trouble to be seen with a boat containing a corpse there, so it'd be better for him to run away, somewhere far away. He started to run, looked back for a second, guilt written all over his face for something he didn't do. A moment later he bumped into someone, Len, who had no stamina left nearly fell down to the ground.

"I'm sorry." He couldn't even name simple words in French, again, he wanted to punch himself in the face. Not as hard because it wasn't as stupid as leaving hundreds of lives in a death trap. "I can't speak French, so I.."

"Don't worry, I speak English." It was a blonde woman; she looked around Rin's age or even younger. There were curls on the edges of her hair, dressed completely in black, a doll on one hand and an umbrella on the other. "You look tired, what's wrong?"

"Ah, a hard day's work." The problem was, the day just started for most people, it was eight in the morning. "If you'll excuse me, miss." Len tried to go past her but she blocked Len's way. She treated it like it was some sort of game, when Len went for the right, the girl would block him there. Must... Not... Let out anger... To a seemingly innocent girl he just met...

"Hold my bunny doll!" She forcefully gave Len her bunny doll and smiled. "You know, I want to play with you a while longer, unfortunately, I can't." That "seemingly" innocent girl grabbed a revolver out her gown pocket and pulled the trigger.