Misaki drummed her fingers on the steering wheel of her Porsche, trying to decide exactly how big of a fool she was. She was pretty sure that what she was about to do would be a major violation of her agreement with Hei - but she couldn't bring herself to believe that he would actually follow through on his threat to kill her.
He's a contractor, she reminded herself for the hundredth time. A criminal. A liar and a killer. Just because we didn't find any bodies at the motel, doesn't mean he didn't kill anyone there. The smiling, innocent boy in Xu's photo was as dead as those contractors in the park.
She had only dreamed him kissing her in the basement of the bar, and if he had flirted in the park, well, he clearly hadn't meant to.
But he called me 'Misaki'.
She sighed to herself and got out of the car, blinking in the harsh noonday light. She considered her gun for a moment, then removed it from its holster and leaned across the driver's seat to tuck it away in the glove box before locking and shutting the door. Bringing it would send the wrong message.
She had, at least, parked two blocks away. That should count for something. And it gave her two blocks to talk herself out of this. She started down the street. An orange cat was sitting on a concrete wall, eying her with interest as she walked past. Misaki did her best to ignore it. Was Mao always a black cat? Was he always a cat, for that matter? She wished she knew more about his ability - she considered, not for the first time, going through the log of BK-201's activity since he arrived in Tokyo and comparing it with other star activity to see if she could determine Mao's identity, as Ootsuka had done with SY-573 and TX-788. But even if she did find something, she couldn't act on it; not without violating her promise.
She wished she could stop by the tobacco shop and say hello to Yin, but she was pretty sure that that would be crossing the line. As if this wasn't. At least this wouldn't get Yin into trouble; just Misaki.
The two blocks passed by quickly under her feet, and before she was ready, she found herself standing in front of apartment 201. Standing, but not knocking. This was stupid. He might not even be home; she should turn around and leave. Instead, Misaki took a deep breath, raised her hand - and jumped as the door swung open.
"Hei. I -"
"Get in before someone sees you," Hei said, standing to the side to give her room to enter. His tone was neutral, but she thought she could detect a touch of irritation. She stepped inside quickly.
Hei shut the door behind her and leaned against it with a relaxed posture, casually blocking her only route out. He was wearing a sleeveless black shirt that bared his toned arms. It also bared two wide bandages wrapped around his left arm. One of the bandages had a little blood seeping through, and there was a nasty scrape along his chin.
"What happened?" Misaki asked in alarm.
"It's fine," he said brusquely.
He had on the blank, emotionless face of the Black Reaper; this didn't bode well for her visit. He didn't say anything more, just crossed his arms (carefully) and waited for her to explain herself.
Straight to business, then. She moved a few steps into the kitchen to put a little more space between them, and leaned against the wall. "Do you know who the two contractors in the park were?"
He didn't answer, just continued to look at her. She had meant for this to be a casual conversation, but Misaki was having trouble focusing under his dark-eyed scrutiny. She retreated into her familiar police officer mode.
"We found out that they were operatives for the Chinese Ministry of State Security."
He didn't react to the information; either he already knew it, or it was meaningless to him.
"We found a cell phone on one of the bodies with directions to a meeting place in the park; the message was from someone called 'Dragon'."
This time, Misaki saw a slight tensing of his shoulders, his well-defined muscles tightening. Had he made the same connection she had? "I know you were at a motel near Ookayama last night. We didn't get any reports of anything suspicious occurring at the motel aside from a blackout; however, approximately half an hour after your star was active, an equipment malfunction in a laboratory at Tokyo Institute of Technology sparked an electrical fire and subsequent explosion, killing a man. Tokodai is just minutes away from that Ookayama motel."
"What does this have to do with the MSS?"
He didn't deny any involvement in the Tokodai fire, Misaki noticed. She looked at his bandaged arm again, and realized that he wasn't leaning against the door just to block her way out; he was hurt and tired, and was using it for support. He wasn't just connected to the fire, he'd been in it, or near enough.
He continued to watch her with that impenetrable gaze; she took a steadying breath, and went on, "The man who was killed in the fire was identified this morning as Iwakara Sachio, a professor of quantum physics at Tokodai who was heavily involved in classified Gate research. According to the preliminary investigation, he may have been involved in something suspicious, possibly criminal. He didn't show up for his classes yesterday, and his bank flagged some suspicious activity: a large sum of money was deposited into his account on Wednesday evening, minutes before your fight with the MSS contractors. The transaction was voided early this morning by an unidentifiable third party - as if someone paid him for something, but decided to take it back upon his death."
"I assume there's a reason you're telling me this?" Hei asked, a touch impatiently.
"I'm telling you what I know," she said, "because it's not what Section 4 knows - I made the connections to our park incident on my own, with information from a detective I know who's working the Iwakara case. I was interested, not just because of your activity so close by, but because I remembered seeing the name Iwakara Sachio before - on the class schedule that one of my subordinates obtained during our routine background check on Xu."
His eyes narrowed at the mention of his cousin's name. "You think Jiao-tu is working for the MSS, is that it? She isn't."
Misaki had been about to say that she didn't think so, but it irritated her that he could so quickly dismiss her opinion, before he had even heard it. "It is plausible - a student studying abroad would be a prime target for a recruiter. How can you be so sure?"
"I know you've talked with her, you should be able to answer your own question. She'd make a terrible operative. She has no motivation to risk herself like that. She's frightened, emotional, and incapable of lying or hurting anyone."
Misaki crossed her arms. "I'm sure she'd say the same thing about you." I certainly did.
He didn't answer for s moment, then shifted his eyes to the wall across from him. "That's fair," he said quietly.
"There's no official investigation involving her, there's not even any suspicion on her," Misaki said, softening her tone. "I honestly don't think that she's knowingly involved in whatever this is, but there are just too many coincidences here for them to all be coincidences. And, well…I just wanted to make sure that you had all the information we do."
Hei turned back to her, his gaze piercing. "Why?"
Misaki shrugged uncomfortably. "My intuition is telling me that she's mixed up in this thing somehow; it's the same sort of feeling I had after meeting Yin. I just want to make sure she stays safe."
The tension drained from Hei's shoulders, and his face began to show the weariness she suspected he had been trying to hide. "I don't know who set the fire that killed Iwakara," he said. "I don't even think he was intended to be killed. But he's dead, and so the job is over. Jiao-tu shouldn't be in danger from anyone."
Misaki felt a small thrill at his words. It was one thing for her to know that he was involved in the case, and for him to know that she knew, but him admitting it to her was another thing entirely.
"Are you still going to have her memory erased?"
"Of course. I meant to do it last night, but things got…complicated." He unfolded his arms, resting his hands lightly in his jeans pockets. "I'll tell Huang about her tomorrow; she said she has an exam today, no point interfering with that."
Such a human consideration, Misaki mused. She knew in her head that he was BK-201, the infamous Black Reaper, one of the most dangerous contractors in the world. But right now all she saw was the boy from Xu's photo, a decade older, burdened with the tragic deaths of his parents and desperate to hold onto what family he had left. She was somehow sure that Yin counted as family to him as well.
"I feel like I should start calling you 'Li' again," she said, smiling a little.
He raised his head. "Why?"
"It is your real name, after all."
And with those words, all trace of humanity was wiped from his expression. "My real name is Hei," he told her, his voice cold and hard as steel. "Li Tian is dead. I killed him ten years ago."
Damn it. Just when she thought he was starting to open up to her; she'd warned herself about this. He was a contractor after all, a liar and a manipulator. "Like you killed your parents?" she asked quietly.
Was that a flicker of anger she saw in his eyes? She pushed a little harder. "Xu told me your sister disappeared; did you kill her, too?"
"You need to leave." There was a dangerous, cutting edge to his words.
"You need to move!" she snapped.
Never taking his dark eyes from her, he used his shoulders to push himself off the door and took two steps into the room, every move of his muscles tightly controlled as if he were walking a knife's edge between emotionless calm and unrestrained rage.
He hadn't left her much room; Misaki had to be careful not to brush against him as she walked to the door and opened it. He caught the door, and for a moment she feared that he was going to prevent her from leaving, but he just held it open, gripping it tightly. She thought she could feel the heat of his body as she slipped out past him, and her skin prickled; she resisted the urge to look back as she left, afraid of what she might see.
She had wanted to uncover that glimmer of emotion that he was so adept at keeping buried, to prove to herself that it was real - but she had not expected that reaction at all. She doubted he would ever be honest with her now.
You're a fool, Misaki.