"Jiao-tu, are you alright?" Hei asked wearily. He took a step towards her, drawing the small knife from the sheath on his leg; Jiao-tu flinched slightly. He didn't blame her. He stopped in his tracks, then flipped the knife so that he was holding it by the blade and held it out to Misaki.

"Where's your mask?" Jiao-tu asked, wiping her face with her sleeve. She'd stopped crying; Hei was relieved that at least she wasn't trying to run from him.

"It broke, at the embassy. I didn't want to take the time to pick up a new one." And he hadn't wanted to scare her further.

"Did he hurt you at all?" Misaki asked her. She took the knife from Hei and carefully cut Jiao-tu's bonds.

Jiao-tu shook her head. "Well, just a little, earlier. He burned my arm. But Arakawa is hurt worse."

Misaki turned to Arakawa, who hadn't moved from the corner, and gasped at the sight of his face. "He needs an ambulance."

"It'll keep a few minutes," Hei said. He'd seen people survive far worse from Morado.

"Who are you people?" the young man finally spoke up, now that attention was on him. His voice was shaking. "Are you Xu's cousins?"

"I told him my cousin was looking for me with a water doll so I could convince him to keep his water bottle hidden," Jiao-tu said. "Did it help?"

Hei wondered how she'd gotten that idea. "Yes," he told her. "Yin wouldn't have found you so quickly otherwise."

He walked over to Arakawa, who cringed back into the corner. "Get away from me, contractor!" he spat out. Hei ignored him and placed his hand on Arakawa's head.

"What are you - don't!" Jiao-tu said, but Hei had already released his power. Arakawa collapsed; Hei let him fall to the floor.

"He's fine," Misaki was telling Jiao-tu. "He's just knocked out - right?" She shot Hei a look.

Hei returned to them and held out his hand for the knife. "Right. I just erased his memory of the last few hours. I don't want him knowing that Misaki or I were here." Misaki handed him the knife, which he returned to its sheath.

Jiao-tu blinked at him. "How can you can do that?"

He shrugged. "The brain is governed by electrical activity; I just disrupt the process that stores memories." He didn't really understand how it worked, but a Syndicate doctor had explained that to him once. "Can I see your burn?"

He waited until she pulled up the sleeve of her jacket; then he removed his gloves and gently took her arm. She didn't flinch this time. There was a thumb-sized red welt on her inner forearm. "It's not bad. It'll hurt, and you'll have a scar, but there isn't any serious damage."

"How are your burns?"

"What?" Hei looked up at her. She was concerned about him? After everything she'd just seen? "They're fine."

"Are you lying?" Jiao-tu asked accusingly.

He released her arm. "Maybe."

Jiao-tu looked down at her feet. "Did you - did you really come to save me? You already found my phone; Chuzi thought you might be looking for him."

"Of course I came for you," Hei told her sharply. "You're still my family; I still care about you." Chuzi must be Morado; the name fit.

She didn't look up at him. "That's why you burned my phone? Even though you were looking for the key that Arakawa put on it? I mean," she added hurriedly, "I just thought you were looking for it, because of something Chuzi said."

"And not because you were listening to me talk to Misaki last night?" Hei said, raising an eyebrow. "Because the walls were too thin? Or the door just wouldn't close all the way? Or were we just talking too loudly?"

That earned him a sheepish smile. "The wall was pretty thin. But you were talking almost too quietly to hear, I had to press my ear right up against it. I'm sorry I ran away; I was just scared, and angry."

Hei shrugged uncomfortably. "Maybe I should have told you more than I did. I just…didn't want you to see who I am now."

Yin's voice broke in over the radio: "The police specters are looking for the source of the gunshots and contractor activity. I asked them to wait before alerting the police."

Hei and Misaki looked at each other. "The police specters reach Yokohama?" Hei asked.

Misaki nodded. "Kanami told me once that when dolls are networked together, they can reach further than one doll can alone." Then she frowned. "Yin talks to them?"

That was the first Hei had heard of it. "We need to get out of here. I'll take Jiao-tu to Huang to have her memories erased."

"What?" Jiao-tu said, at the same time Misaki said, "No!"

Hei looked between them.

"What do you mean, erase my memory? Why?" Jiao-tu looked like she was going to start crying again.

"Jiao-tu, it's not safe for you to know who I am. Do you understand that? People who know me get hurt." He hadn't expected her to resist the idea. "I need to erase your memories of having met me. And do you really want to remember this?" he added, gesturing to the red, sticky mess that was Zhang.

"No," she said in a quavering voice, not looking towards the body. "But…I want to remember you saving me."

Hei started to shake his head, but before he could respond, Jiao-tu continued, her voice rising angrily. "I spent the last ten years thinking you were dead! Do you know what that's like? Not knowing whether someone you care about is even alive?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

"Well, I don't want to go back to that!" It was hard to ignore the plea in her voice.

Misaki was smiling sadly next to her. "And with everything you've done to protect Xu already, do you really want to bring her to the attention of your superiors?"

Hei rubbed the back of his head in frustration.

"Anyway," Misaki continued, "I need her as a witness, to help explain this…this mess."

"What do you mean, explain? No one knows you were here; we need to leave, and keep it that way."

But Misaki's face was set. "No. I'm not just walking away from this. We have an open case involving two dead MSS contractors, and I'm going to close it."

Hei sighed. He did owe her at least that. "Fine. Do you know how you're going to explain your presence here?"

Misaki nodded. "I gave Xu my phone number at the park; she called me earlier this afternoon because she thought someone was following her. I was already at a friend's in Roppongi, so I went to meet her, but she wasn't there because the MSS grabbed her and took her to the embassy. Then Saitou called to tell me about the contractor fight. I connected the dots, and had a hunch they might take her to Yokohama, so I drove out here. They were questioning Xu when BK-201 interrupted; in the confusion, Xu slipped out and called me from the phone in the restaurant downstairs. When I arrived, the contractors were gone."

Hei stared at her, but she just shrugged. "It was a long drive, and you were quiet for most of it. I had time to think. We can iron out the details later, but for now that should work. Arakawa can testify to his role in this, and the fact that Xu was involved unwittingly. We even have a text copy of the key, that we pulled off of her phone earlier."

It was a better story than anything he could come up with. His end was simple: just tell the Syndicate that Morado ran and he lost him when the police interfered. "We should get downstairs. You can call the police from there."

Hei led the way to the door, but paused by the dead guard. He removed his knife from the man's chest and wiped the blood off (Jiao-tu looked away); then he picked up the guard's gun, ejected the clip, and removed a bullet.

"Here," he said, standing and handing the bullet to Misaki; she looked at him blankly. "Nine millimeter, the same as yours. There are two bullets in this room: you shot once, the guard shot once. Replace your bullet with one of his, and now, he shot twice, and you weren't involved."

"Oh. Right." Obviously she wasn't used to concealing a crime. "Speaking of bullets," she said as they headed down the stairs, "that's the second time I've seen a bullet bounce right off of you. How do you do that?" Hei thought she sounded a little offended.

"It's my coat - it's bulletproof." The restaurant below was empty. Hei had forced the MSS official to dismiss the restaurant staff before knocking him out; the workers had left easily enough, most likely used to this sort of business. The official was still unconscious and handcuffed to the base of the stairs. Jiao-tu gave his leg a kick as she passed.

"Really?" Misaki said. "Where do you get the material? It's a lot lighter than Kevlar. Of course, the ricochets are dangerous, but -"

He cut her off before she could fantasize any further. "It only works when I wear it; my power activates it."

"Hm…so next time I should aim for your head?"

He was pretty sure she was joking.

Yin was waiting inside the open loading bay, sitting on a crate in the corner. Hei frowned. "Yin, I told you to wait in the car. Is something wrong?"

"No," she said, with no further explanation.

"Yin is the one who found me in the water, right?" Jiao-tu asked. "You told her to keep an eye on me?"

"She's part of my team." She was coming to be an irreplaceable part of that team; or maybe she already was. "And I didn't tell her anything; she was watching you because she knows you're my family."

Jiao-tu smiled. "Thank you, Yin."

The doll didn't answer except to nod her head slightly.

"I should call the Yokohama section chief before it gets any later," Misaki said, and took out her phone.

"Wait!" Jiao-tu said, sudden alarm on her face. "What about Mei-li?"

"Do you know where she is?" Misaki asked. "She wasn't here; I'd assumed they left her at the embassy."

"I don't know; they put her in a different car…but I'm pretty sure Chuzi told the driver to take her to the Yokohama base."

Misaki frowned. "They must have another safe house here."

"If she's in Yokohama, Yin will find her," Hei promised. Yin nodded again.

Misaki was still holding her phone, but she hesitated before dialing. "Hei, can I ask you something?"

He had a feeling he knew what she was going to ask, but he waited to let her speak.

"I know you don't like the work you do, and you obviously have loyalties that go beyond your organization. Why don't you turn yourself in? We can work out an immunity deal in exchange for any information you can give us about the people you work for."

It was what he'd expected, but that didn't make it any easier to answer. "No," he said, trying to sound severe but knowing that he was failing. "I'm a contractor; I belong where I am. Besides, the people I work for…it's not so easy to walk away from them. They deal harshly with deserters."

"What do they do?" Jiao-tu asked, sounding worried.

"Usually, they send me," Hei told her bluntly. "Morado deserted five years ago; he's lucky that he's still alive. He'll be on his way to China already if he's smart, but it won't be long until someone is following. If I leave, I'll have to run until one of their assassins kills me, police protection or no. It's not worth the risk." He glanced at Yin. "And I have a team here who depends on me."

He turned back to Misaki. "After tonight we go back to our original deal: you forget what you've seen; you forget that you know me." It hurt to say it, and the disappointed look in her eyes didn't help; but it was necessary. She knew that as well as he did. "And that goes for you too, Jiao-tu. Can you promise not to tell anyone - not your friends, not your parents, or Grandfather, or anyone - that I'm alive, and you've seen me?"

She frowned, biting her lip, but nodded.

For all her eavesdropping tendencies, Jiao-tu was usually good at keeping secrets; but if she let the wrong thing slip to the wrong people… "Are you sure? Not a word, do you understand?"

"Of course," she said with irritation.

"She's family," Yin added quietly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Good news," Misaki told Xu, walking over to the ambulance where the other woman was seated, arm newly-bandaged. Another ambulance had already taken Arakawa to the nearest hospital. Night had fallen while the Yokohama team secured the scene, and blue and red lights lit up the street outside the restaurant. To Misaki's surprise, only the guard that Hei had knifed was dead (aside from Zhang, of course); the others were all unconscious, but still alive. "They found your roommate."

"Really?" Xu said, perking up a little. After she'd told the bare bones of the story that she and Misaki had decided on to the investigators, she'd hardly said a word. Probably it was the shock of everything that had happened finally hitting home; but Misaki thought that part of her depression might be due to her cousin having disappeared from the loading bay without saying goodbye. That was hurting Misaki more than a little too; she'd been discussing the story with Xu, and when she turned back to ask Hei a question, he and Yin were gone.

Misaki sat down next to her and nodded. "She was being held in the back of a grocer's on the other side of Chinatown; the police received an anonymous tip and raided the place. They arrested the man holding her, and are taking her to the hospital. She seems to be in better condition than Arakawa, at least."

Xu sighed in relief. "I'm glad she's okay. An anonymous tip…was that Tian?"

"Probably. Are you ready to go? You're officially my witness still, and I say your statement can wait until tomorrow." Saitou and Kouno had driven down to coordinate with the Yokohama Foreign Affairs detectives, and between their questions and awe at their chief's perspicacity in breaking the MSS case (and displeasure that she hadn't called for backup), Misaki was ready to get away.

Xu nodded, and Misaki led her to her car. "It's official policy to erase the memories of everyone who comes into contact with a contractor," Misaki said. At Xu's worried look, she hurried on. "But you already knew something about them before you got involved in this, and your teaching assistant obviously is familiar with them; so I think I'll be able to get that requirement waived in your case." She looked at the young woman. "That is, if you're sure you want to keep those memories?"

"I'm sure," Xu said, her face set.

As they got into the car, Misaki noticed that Hei's jacket and hat were gone; so was the cap that Yin had been wearing. How could someone who had such a large presence in her life leave so little trace? She hadn't really expected him to agree to give himself up, but she had hoped that he might.

Traffic was light when Misaki turned onto the expressway, the lights of the city flashing by. Xu stared out the window. Though she tried to distract herself, Misaki was mostly occupied with thoughts of Hei. His exchange with Morado had been infuriately enigmatic. Morado had assumed that she was Hei's lover, because he'd always been in the company of a lover in the past? Who was that? It made her feel more than a little jealous, the thought that she wasn't alone in Hei's affections.

And who had Hei been asking Morado about? Who was Amber, and what was she to Hei?

"I don't understand," Xu said abruptly. Misaki had almost forgotten that she was in the car. "You're a police officer, and you know that Tian is a criminal; why are you helping him?"

"I've been asking myself that too," Misaki admitted. "Although, this is the only time I've actually helped him, and that was because it seemed like the best way to help you. Helping the innocent is my job, even if it means I need to team up with someone I've been trying to arrest."

"What was the deal he was talking about?"

"About a month ago, I accidentally walked right into one of his team's operations." She was still kicking herself over doing something so idiotic. "I really thought he was going to kill me; any other contractor would have. But he decided to let me go, without even erasing my memory, if I promised to forget that I'd discovered his alias."

"Really?" Xu said. "Why?"

"Part of it was because he was worried that Yin might get in trouble because I followed her, and he wanted to protect her. And maybe part of it was that he just didn't want to hurt me."

"Maybe? You don't know?"

"Well, he didn't exactly say that." Although, actions did speak louder than words, didn't they?

"Tian was always too shy around girls," Xu said thoughtfully.

Shy? Strangely, it fit. She'd been the one to initiate their first kiss; and last night, his kiss had been shy and almost uncertain, until she'd taken it to another level.

"Arakawa told me that contractors are monsters," Xu continued, "and I don't think I'll ever forget seeing my own cousin kill someone in front of me…but, he was just trying to protect me. I can't think of him as a monster."

Misaki sighed. "Me either. I don't think contractors are as black and white as the rest of us try to paint them. Hei especially." She wouldn't tell Xu about the many crime scenes that Hei had left behind, where he hadn't been trying to protect anything except his employers' interests.

"You really like him, don't you."

Was it that obvious? She supposed it was. "My personal feelings notwithstanding, he's right that we can't see each other again. It's too risky for both of us." Maybe if she said it enough times, she'd believe it. "I'll lose my job, maybe even get arrested, if my department finds out I've been protecting him. If his employers find out…I don't know what they'd do." Probably they'd order him to kill her. She wondered what he'd do if he did get that order. She was pretty sure that he wouldn't go through with it, but what would be the penalty to him? She didn't want him risking himself for her sake.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost in their own thoughts, until Misaki pulled up in front of Xu's apartment building. "Are you going to be alright alone tonight?" she asked Xu.

The other women sighed. "I keep thinking that I want to go stay over at Tian's again. But I guess I can't do that anymore, can I. My roommate should be home; I won't be alone."

"Let me give you my personal number, in case you need anything. It'll help support our story, at least." Misaki started rummaging around for something to write on; she hadn't brought her purse on her stakeout.

"Actually, I already have it." Xu smiled in embarrassment. "I found the business card you gave Tian, and he threw it away when I teased him about it. But I saved it, just in case he changed his mind. That was before I knew he didn't have a phone."

Hei had kept the card with her number?

Xu got out of the car, but didn't shut the door. Instead she stood by it, gazing up at the night sky. "Is it true?" she asked. "That every contractor is linked to a star?"

"It's true," Misaki said. She stepped out of the car herself, and scanned the sky. "That one," she said, pointing up. She didn't know any of the other stars' identities, but a couple of weeks ago she'd asked Kanami to show just one to her. "The one just above that tree. That's your cousin's star."

"Really?" Xu smiled up at it. "I've always loved that star."