Detective Conan Fanfiction

Remember, you've read it here first. I'm putting this up here before I put it up on fanfiction.net. Do drop some comments, then I can revise it a bit. I think this piece is a bit too long and draggy anf out of focus, but it's because I want to fit everything inside. It's really damn damn long. 6405 words, beat that. I'm now going to re-read my whole collection of Detective Conan manga. Damn Yumito (or Yumiro, or something like that) Corporation for taking down every single Detective Conan video on youtube, not only episodes, but also the AMVs. What the fuck??? AMVs!!! Mine were gone too.

Detective Conan.
One shot, but very long. Covers the whole of the New York episode a year ago. SherryXGinXAkai Shuichi, with Kudo Shinchi, Ran, Vermouth appearing and mentions of Akemi Miyano and the Big Boss.

New York

“You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.” That explanation rang in her head as her tiny feet ran across the snow. “You will save me won’t you, Kudo Shinichi,” she asked, in response to the explanation that rang in her head. “Please save me, Kudo Shinichi. You are the only one who can save me now.” With that, her tiny body fell onto the snow, just outside Kudo Shinichi’s house, she passed out…

“You’re up, Sherry?” a cold voice pierced through the silence of the small room with a slight echo.

Sherry rubbed her eyes and stared at the face from which the voice came from. His eyes were cold and devoid of all emotions, a pale comparison to the passionate animal that had devoured her just an hour ago. He was already dressed. “Is he in a hurry again?” she thought to herself.

“Put on your clothes,” He commanded.

She sat upright on the bed as he tossed her clothes over to her. “Why can’t you be gentler to your lover, Gin?” Sherry reproached. Gin and Sherry went back a long way even though she was only 17. Gin was the one who took care of her ever since her parents died although “take care” was not a very accurate term, because he was her direct superior, sort of like her master, and she was to follow his bidding in whatever he was to say.

“You aren’t my lover. You are my slave. You are to listen to whatever I say and follow all my orders. You better watch where you stand, Sherry.”

“And remember, Sherry, you shall never ever betray me.” Gin said warningly. His voice was not loud, but his tone was strong.

Sherry shuddered. “Yes, I understand.”

As Sherry dressed, Gin turned over and looked long and hard at her. He wasn’t looking at her body, but studying his face intently. There wasn’t a trace of arousal, rather it seemed as though he was planning something, and wanted to make you of the face that he was staring at.

Sure enough, once Sherry was fully dressed, he brought up the topic, that he was thinking about as she was dressing.

“I have a mission for you,” he said as Sherry looked up at him. “It’s for the organisation.”

“But I’m into research and development. That drug that I was supposed to create is almost done. I’ll need to complete it soon before the Big Boss berates me again. It’s also for my sister, he’s threatening me with her life, I don’t think I’ll the time to do anything else.

“You sister is not as important as me. You shall do as I say. Don’t worry, I want you to complete the drug, I won’t ask you to put down the work on the drug. Besides, this mission is far more important than the drug.” Gin said, betraying no kind of emotion in his voice.

Sherry looked up at him. She tried to look into his eyes but they were blocked by his hat. Even so, those pair of eyes was just not the pair that stared into her as they made love an hour ago. She really could not understand how such a hot-blooded animal could turn into a cold-blooded one in just an hour. She sighed. There was nothing she could do now, except to listen to what her master had to say. “What would this mission be about?”

“Akai Shuichi.” Gin answered her.

She knew who he was talking about. Everyone in the organisation knew about him. He was their enemy. He was part of the FBI. He was the top marksman of the FBI. And he was hot on their heels. The organisation knew more about him that the FBI knew that they had known. And the organisation have been trying to make plans to eliminate their most dangerous enemy.

“Isn’t Vermouth on this mission?” Sherry asked. “The last I heard was that she will be disguising herself as a serial killer to lure of Akai Shuichi. What have I got to do with this mission?”

“You will destroy Akai Shuichi before her.”

“What?”

“I can’t have Vermouth take the credit. She’s getting far too powerful in the organisation, and the Big Boss is giving her far too much freedom. No doubt that he likes her, but we have to do something to preventing her from being tossing her weight about in the organisation.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get to Akai Shuichi before her. We all know that she will be disguising as a serial killer to lure him out, but you can do something else that she can’t do to lure him out. You have something that that woman doesn’t have, Sherry.” Gin sneered. It was perhaps the only trace of emotion that he showed after their love making. “You have youth on your side.”

“What do you want me to do?” Sherry repeated, but this time her voice trembled with fear. There was something about Vermouth that instilled fear into her. She didn’t know what that something had been, it just felt like an instinctive pang of fear in her. She wasn’t to know this, but later she was to find out that Vermouth was her parents’ murderer.

“Seduce Akai Shuichi.”

“What?” Sherry asked, surprised. She had expected something more conventional, like ambushing him and shooting him dead, but seduction seemed so far fetched.

“I will plan an ambush for you, and you will follow my orders and seduce him. You don’t have to rush, just pretend to get to know him first, then you will confess to him, and soon, you will have a hold over him and that’s when you can strike. He will be defenseless against you.” Gin said. He seemed to have the whole plan ahead of him.

“You are giving your lover to your enemy?” Sherry snorted.

“First, you are not my lover, you are my slave. Second, you will not have any feelings for Akai Shuichi, you’re merely bait. Third, I will do anything to destroy Akai Shuichi. Fourth, I will do anything to triumph over Vermouth.” Gin paused, and then continued, “Is that a good enough explanation?”

Gin peer under his hat and stared steely into Sherry. She shuddered. She could not answer the negative, it was something innate inside her that she couldn’t bring herself to say “no” to her master. Instead, she turned away. One more second of looking into Gin’s pair of eyes would turn her into a block of ice.

“We have no time to lose. We’ll meet at the corner café tomorrow at one. Wear a cream coloured, one pieced, knee length dress.”

“But I only have black dresses. We aren’t allowed to wear any other coloured clothes.”

“Go buy one tomorrow morning. According to sources, Akai Shuichi likes sweet young girls, and you have youth on your side, we’ll just make full use of that. There’s no way he’ll fall for someone wearing black.”

“Okay, I understand,” Sherry finally reluctantly said.

“I give you further instructions tomorrow.” Gin said as he stood up and put on his long black coat. His long silver hair fluttered behind as he swung the coat behind him.

Sherry fell back onto her bed. “No wonder Gin brought me here to New York. There’s no way he’d bring me on a vacation,” she muttered to herself and she flipped over to her side and looked out of the big clear windows. Neon lights penetrated her windows. “But maybe it’s a good change of environment for a while. Japan’s getting too stuffy for me to bear any longer.”

The next morning, Sherry woke up early, or more precisely, Sherry had not had much sleep the night before, deciding that she really was not able to get anymore sleep, she got up.

As instructed by Gin, Sherry went shopping for a dress. She picked up a branded dress. Sherry was not a brand conscious person, but for that moment, she wanted to spend some money, perhaps it was a form of retail therapy. She bought shoes to match the dress. And a handbag too. Her wardrobe previously consisted of only black clothes. “Maybe it’s also good to add some colour in my life,” Sherry thought. She browsed the shops for another hour as she was still early for her meeting with Gin.

She was not able to recall when the last time she went shopping was. Her whole life, she was brought up within the organisation, removed from the normal growing up process, away from her family, and without any friends. She thought about her sister. Although her sister was elder, she was not as smart as Sherry, who went on an intensive education in the field of science. Her sole purpose in life was to do research and development for the organisation. Thinking about her sad past, she was suddenly overcome by anticipation in her upcoming mission.

At one, Sherry arrived at the café as stipulated. Gin was not around. Sherry picked out a window seat and sat down looking out of the window. She eyes wandered over to a figure passing the window, he was tall and enigmatic, and as he passed her, his long black hair under a knitted hat fluttered in the wind. He entered the café and sat at a seat across her table, but she took little notice of that figure and her eyes remained affixed out of the window. She wondered how Akai Shuichi looked like, she wondered how was Gin planning to set her up with Akai Shuichi.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a phone call.

“Yes?” Sherry asked. She knew who it was.

“Order something to drink,” Gin commanded.

Sherry looked up without putting down the call. She signalled for a waitress and ordered a cup of coffee.

“When the coffee arrives, knock the coffee down to let it splatter over your dress. Make it look like an accident. And you need not blame the waitress, just look as distressed as possible. You take it from there, make sure you do a good job.”

With that, Sherry hung up the phone and continued staring out of the window. It was so like Gin to arrange to meet her at some place but not arriving, instead merely calling her up to give her instructions. This was not the first time something like that had happened, and as long as she was still with Gin, this would not be the last time.

When the waitress brought the coffee over, Sherry did as instructed, and “accidentally” flung her hand across and knocked over the cup. The coffee spilt over her dress, staining it.

“I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry, Miss,” The waitress apologised.

“It’s okay,” answered Sherry, unsure of what to say. Gin did not tell her what to do, only to “take it from here”, but there was still no sight of anything unusual.

Sherry thought for a moment. She decided that she should go back to the shops and buy a change of clothes. She might not be the most fashion conscious girl, but she was after all a girl, and she would not allow herself to walk out in the streets with a stained dress. She slung her handbag over the stain patch on her dress attempting to cover it, but the stain was still visible from the side. She sighed.

Just as she stood at the exit of the café pondering over which boutique she was going to visit, she felt a wave of wind, and a long black trench coat was now rested on her shoulders. Beside her, stood the figure from before. The tall, enigmatic man with long black hair looked at her pitiful face.

“That bag won’t be able to cover the stain. Put this on,” he said.

There was something commanding in his voice that reminded her of Gin, but there was also a tone of care and concern that she so wanted to hear from Gin’s mouth but never able to.

“Thanks,” Sherry said softly. “I’ll buy another dress now. Perhaps I can meet you later in the afternoon to return the coat to you?”

“Are you in a hurry?” he asked.

“I’m supposed to meet someone, I think.” She sounded unsure of herself, miffed with Gin’s instructions.

“Was Akai Shuichi still going to show up?” She thought to herself. Either way, she decided that she was not supposed to meet Akai Shuichi looking wet and dirty, and there was no way that she was supposed to meet him with another guy beside her.

“I’ll meet you at five later at the restaurant beside the hotel,” that guy said. He did not consult Sherry if she was able to make it, and just instructed her to do it. And that wave of long hair, reminded her of someone else…

“I’ll see you later,” replied Sherry. Maybe she was used to this tone of voice, or maybe there was something so enigmatic about this guy in front of her that she was unable to resist him.

Putting on the coat, she walked out of the café and across the streets into the shopping area. She bought another cream dress, but of a different design from the stained one.

At five, she proceeded to the restaurant to meet that guy from before. She packed the coat into a paper bag and carried along with her. There was still no sign of Akai Shuichi, and Gin had not contacted her again. She wanted to call up Gin, but was afraid of his cold emotionless voice.

That guy was already in the restaurant waiting for her as she walked in. She passed the bag to him and thanked him again.

“Why don’t you buy me dinner?” he asked.

“No problem,” she replied, then paused for a moment. “How may I address you?”

“Akai Shuichi.” He looked up and stared into her eyes.

Sherry was stunned. So, right from the start Gin’s plan was that she would make use of the stained shirt to borrow Akai Shuichi’s trench coat, and for her to get to know him better. Sensing that Akai Shuichi saw her stunned look, she tried to cover up her surprise.

“It’s surprising to meet another Japanese here in New York. I mean, I’m Japanese too, or at least half Japanese.” She hoped that that feeble excuse could cover up her miscalculation. “My name’s Sherry. Nice to meet you.”

“Ah… Sherry. I was thinking what to order with the dinner.” Akai Shuichi smiled.

Sherry blushed slightly. All along, Sherry was brought up to me independent and matured, and often looked older that she actually was, but that blush brought back tinges of youth into her. She was, after all, only 17.

That marked the start in the relationship between Akai Shuichi and Sherry. To Sherry, Akai Shuichi was the enigmatic, attractive guy that captured her heart. With his care and concern and his intense gaze on her, she was bother mesmerised and flatter with his love on her. Still, deep down, there was a fear in her. She was afraid of Akai Shuichi because she was afraid that she might too fall in love with him, and the consequences of that forbidden love, forbidden by Gin and the whole organisation. Her sister, her only kin left on this earth, was still in the hands of the organisation, but now, this guy in front of her, someone she might potentially fall in love with, what if one day she had to kill him with her bare hands? Was she able to do it? She did not know. Somewhere deep inside her, she wanted Vermouth to succeed her mission, so that Sherry did not need to be torn between Gin and Akai Shuichi.

Three months later, Sherry moved in with Akai Shuichi. In between her stay in New York, she snuck in several return trips back to Japan to continue on the development of the drug, but she tried her best to avoid Gin every time she went back. News of a long silver haired serial killer in the streets of New York was now rampant. Sherry was not sure if that serial killer was Gin or a disguise of Vermouth. She knew, and everybody in the organisation knew that Vermouth was skilled in disguises.

One night, Sherry lay in the arms of Akai Shuichi and fingered his long dark hair. She always wanted to play with Gin’s hair but she was too afraid of Gin to bring herself to even touch him.

Sherry braided Akai Shuichi’s long black hair as she mused, “Why do you keep your hair this long, Shu? Will you ever cut it one day?”

Akai Shuichi turned to her and said, “The day when I cut this hair would be when you leave me.” He caressed her face as she tried to look away. There was something in his eyes that told her that he knew that she would leave him one day. “Sherry…”

Her hands ran down his naked body. “Would you be upset if I leave you one day?”

“After you leave me, please don’t let me meet you again, would you? Try your best and avoid me as much as possible. I don’t know if I can control myself from planting a bullet in your head.” He said, half jested as he ran his hands over her head, pointing on her temple.

“How far away must I stand from you?”

“I can shoot up to 700 metres accurately, that would be a good gauge, Sherry.”

“700 metres? Wow…” From what Sherry knew of the assassins in the organisation, not even the best of them was able to shoot this far this accurately. 500 metres was probably their limit, but again, Sherry had not been in close contact with the other organisation members for the past three months, not even her sister, who was herself tied up with another mission.

“Sherry, I have a ticket to the theatre showing Golden Apple tomorrow night, but I’ll be tied down with my work. Can you watch it in my place?”

“What will you be doing tomorrow night?” Sherry asked innocently as she took the ticket from her lover.

“I’ll be tracking down the serial killer. I’ve received a tip on his location. But I should be done by ten. I’ll meet you for supper after the theatre.”

Sherry thought for a while, then finally decided that it did not matter to her if that serial killer was Vermouth or Gin, just as long as it was not needed for her to kill Akai Shuichi, it was fine with her.

“What if Shu died?” A horrifying thought suddenly plagued her. “He can shoot accurately from 700 metres.” She tried to comfort herself. “What if Gin died?” She did not know how to make out this thought. She tried to shake off that thought as she buried her head into Akai Shuichi’s chest and closed her eyes. She was tired from all the thoughts.

Akai Shuichi stroked her hair. He seemed to be able to read her mind. His gaze on her softened as he saw her to sleep.

Outside the theatre of Golden Apple, a familiar figure stopped behind Sherry.

“Don’t turn over, you are being watched,” said that voice. A sudden fear rose inside Sherry.

“I had my sources confirming Gin’s plan in sending you over to New York, but let me remind you this, this is my mission, Sherry. It is my mission as instructed by the Big Boss. Don’t ruin my plans.”

“Vermouth,” Sherry finally mustered.

“Shh…”

In a spilt of a second, that figure was gone, a bulky policeman now took the place of where Vermouth was supposed to be at a moment ago. Before she could think deeper into Vermouth’s words, a flashy car sped down the street and stopped right in front of her. Her eyes wandered over to the couple seated behind, a young couple of about her age. She felt a sense of envy. She missed her youth.

That young couple with an older woman sat in front of her during the theatre piece. She was attracted to the scene by scene commentary of the boy. It was not too loud or distracting, but there was something about his voice that comforted her, she liked that voice.

After the theatre, Sherry made her way to the café to meet Akai Shuichi as appointed. Suddenly, a flash of silver fleeted by her. Her first thought was of Gin, but after a second thought, she thought she saw a gleam of triumphant in the eyes of the silver haired man. Gin’s eyes betrayed no trace of emotion, not even triumph or satisfaction.

She rushed over into the alley where the silver haired man went through. However, she stopped short. The silver haired man was hanging from a worn balcony, the bar was just about to give way. The couple she met at the theatre before quickly grabbed his hand just before the bar gave way, preventing the silver haired man from falling to his death.

After they pulled him up, the silver haired man asked them, “Why did you save me?”

The girl gave him a blank look, as if there was no answer to the question. The boy looked up at him and answered him simply.

“You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.”

That line echoed in Sherry’s head.

After Sherry got out of her daze, she found that the young couple was gone, the silver haired man sat by the side of the wall panting. He was still in shock, or maybe he too was pondering over the boy’s comment as Sherry had done.

“Vermouth,” Sherry said as she walked up to the silver haired man who was actually Vermouth in disguise. “Why did you dress up as Gin?”

“Someone’s coming,” Vermouth said instead of answering Sherry’s question.

Without thinking, Sherry pulled a garbage bag from beside and covered it over Vermouth. “You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.” That comment rang inside her head.

“Sherry?” a voice broke the silence of the night.

“Shu, oh it’s you,” answered Sherry.

“Did you see a silver haired man around?”

“He ran by me just a while ago.”

“Did he do anything to you?”

“No, why would he?”

Akai Shuichi studied her face for a moment. “Let’s go for supper,” he said as he stretched out his hand to Sherry.

Sherry took hold of it, and asked, “Aren’t you going after the man? I think he’s the serial killers in the news.”

“I don’t think he’s the person I’m looking for. It doesn’t matter now,” Akai Shuichi replied. He had his thoughts that the silver haired serial killer was Gin, but from Sherry facial expressions, he knew that it was unlikely that the serial killer was Gin. He did not know the reason, he just knew it was so. If it was not Gin, but some petty thief after all, he saw no need for his efforts to capture that guy.

“I met a girl just now. She was crying. I thought she reminded me of you,” Akai said softly, then turned his head over to Sherry. “You know, it’s also a strength to be able to cry.” Akai Shuichi wrapped his hands around Sherry as they headed towards the café where they first met.

A year slowly passed. The drug she was supposed to develop reached the final stages, but she was still living a bi-coastal lifestyle, flying between New York and Japan. Over the past year, she thought of that boy’s words. “You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.”

“What reasons do I have to kill those hundreds and thousands of people with my drug?” Sherry thought to herself every day. Along with Akai Shuichi’s tender loving care, Sherry have grown to care more for people, and to live a life of emotional love, unlike the cold and hard life she led before. Her only worry was her sister. Her sister was taken hostage by Gin, but she did not know the full details. Gin had been threatening Sherry with her sister’s life over the past year she had been in New York. Conversations with her sister revealed that she knew that someone was keeping tabs on her, but her sister did not know what it was. Chances were that Gin was not lying to her.

Just as Sherry was stuck in limbo, one day, she received a call from a shadow of her past.

“Sherry, come down to Tokyo for an investigation,” the voice ordered.

Sherry trembled in fear. It was Gin, currently her most dreaded person on earth. “What was the investigation about?” she thought to herself. “Was it that Gin had found out that I have really fallen in love with Shuichi?”

“I’ve used your newly developed drug on a boy. Don’t you want to investigate on the reactions to your drug?” Gin sneered, as if he read her mind.

“Okay, I’ll be down.”

With that, Sherry left a note for Akai Shuichi informing that she would be out for a couple of days on a research project. She had made a couple of trips away from Akai Shuichi previously, but none of her these trips were at such a sudden notice. “Perhaps I should give him a call instead?” she thought to herself. Deliberating for a moment, she decided to do both. She left the note in their kitchen and hurried off in a cab.

On the cab, she gave Akai Shuichi a call.

“Shu, I need to go down to Tokyo for a couple of days.”

“Now?”

“Yea… But I’ll be back soon, you don’t have to miss me that much.”

“You know Sherry, every time you go off to Japan, I’ve this fear that you wouldn’t return. I don’t know why, but every time you leave me, I feel like you’ve left me.”

“Haha… I’ll be back, Shu. In a couple of days.”

Indeed, every time Sherry went back to Japan, she too had this fear that she might not be allowed to return to New York, she might not be allowed to return to Akai Shuichi side. She was afraid that Gin might stop her, Gin might want to do something else with her, or Gin would kill her. However, since Vermouth had failed in her mission to kill Akai Shuichi, Gin had allowed Sherry to continue to stay by his side, waiting for the best opportunity to prey on him. Ever since a year ago when she met the young couple, she wanted to get out of the organisation and not kill any more people. She wanted to save all the people who she would potentially kill.

And yet, now, Gin was to tell her that someone had died from taking her newly developed drug. Sherry looked at her hands, she saw an image of blood imposed on her hands. She felt sick.

“This is the case file of the victim, status unknown.” Gin passed a file over to Sherry when they met. Halfheartedly, Sherry flipped the file open. To her greatest shock, a picture of a very familiar face stared at her. It was the boy whose comment she had repeated over and over again every day since she met him a year ago. “You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.” It stared in front of her, the name “Kudo Shinichi”, “Status: Unknown”

“So that boy is called Kudo Shinichi,” Sherry thought to herself.

Sherry went with Gin into Kudo Shinichi’s house that night. While Gin looked for traces of his death, Sherry searched the house looking for traces of life. “Someone as nice as him cannot die,” she thought to herself. The drug although had reached it final stages of development, was not a completed successful product yet. There were traces of failure to kill in some of her experiments she had with white laboratory mice. She did not want Kudo Shinichi to die.

That mission that night ended in a somewhat failure, but somewhat success, there was not sign of life or death. It seemed like Kudo Shinichi had just disappeared from the world.

Sherry did not immediately return to the States. She stayed in Japan for a couple more days, making use of the time to visit her sister. Gin was now in charge of her sister, and he gave her a mission to complete. The original deal with her sister was that once she succeeded in her mission, Sherry would be free to leave the organisation. However, Sherry knew that was impossible. While she tried to dissuade her sister, her sister only thought of Sherry final release from the clutches of the organisation.

Deep down, Sherry knew that once in the organisation, the only was out is death. She did not want to burst her sister’s hope, but she feared for her sister’s survival. As she knew that all channels of communication between organisation members were watched by the Big Boss, Sherry gave her sister Akai Shuichi’s contact number, so that they could stay in contact with each other. Sherry knew that Akai Shuichi was careful enough not to let his means of communication to be bugged. Her sister can contact her without being traced. It was highly possible that her own contact was bugged by Gin, after all, there was nothing Gin was incapable of doing.

Before leaving Tokyo, Sherry was still worried about the Kudo Shinichi and decided to make another mission down to his out to search more carefully. This time, she noticed that a drawer was cleared out of the clothes it contained. She remembered very clearly that the last time she was there the drawer was still filled with clothes, Kudo Shinichi’s old clothes from when he was still a kid.

“Don’t tell me…” Sherry thought to herself. “That the drug failed, as with some of the mice.” In some of the experiments she had carried out with mice, instead of dying, they showed signs of prematuring. “Could it be that Kudo Shinichi had cheated death?” Sherry crossed her fingers.

That night, she went back to the department and took out the case file. In order not to let the other members realise the failure of her drug, she decided to alter the status of Kudo Shinichi. “I don’t need a reason to save someone,” Sherry thought to herself as she wrote the words “confirmed dead” under Kudo Shinichi’s name.

On the plane back to New York, Sherry felt a sense of satisfaction, the first time in her whole life she had this feeling that she did not know how to describe her happiness. She managed to save someone. Not only that, yet another time, she managed to hop onto a flight back to Akai Shuichi’s side.

Back in New York, Akai Shuichi greeted her with a warm hug. He was glad too that Sherry was able to make it back from Japan yet another time. He knew, one day Sherry would not be able to return back, but he was still glad that that day would only come later in the future. “I’ve received a call last night from an Akemi Miyano looking for a Shiho Miyano. Do you know any of them, Sherry?” Akai Shuichi asked.

“Oh, my sister called already?” Sherry asked, rather surprised. She had not expected that her sister would call that soon. “My sister’s Akemi.”

“And you are Shiho?” Akai Shuichi asked. A slight smile formed on his lips. “Miyano… I see, I see…” Akai Shuichi looked as though he really understood something. The name Miyano reminded Akai Shuichi of someone else, someone who had died quite some time ago, someone whom he was on the heels of before he died. Sherry too reminded him of that person, but it was only today that he learnt of Sherry’s real name that he was able to see all the pieces fitted together.

“Did my sister say anything to you?” Sherry asked.

“She left me a number. She said that number is safe for you to contact her.” Akai Shuichi said as he passed a scrap note to Sherry. He stared at Sherry, he seemed to want to ask her something, but was unsure if he should ask. After much contemplation, he finally decided against it. He hugged Sherry close to him, and whispered into her ear. “You better contact her now. It sounded as it was urgent.”

Leaning in Akai Shuichi’s arms, Sherry really did not want to leave that warm harbour that quickly, but thoughts of her sister, and fears of what happened to her, she finally pried herself from his arms.

“Can I borrow your cell phone to call my sister?”

Akemi Miyano had rented a room under a disguised name unknown to the people in the organisation. She applied for a telephone line in the room too. Or rather, it was the need for an untapped telephone line that she wanted to rent a room. From that day on, Sherry called up her sister every day. Her sister was her only family left in the world, and she knew that her sister was the only person she could trust. She had few friends, and she definitely could not trust anyone in the organisation, Akai Shuichi was in the FBI and might one day turn against her, maybe someone far away in Tokyo, she might be able to find trust in the person who said “You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.”

One day, as usual, Sherry called her sister to chat, and to update herself on the mission her sister was on, but she kept getting the answering machine. At that time, Sherry thought that perhaps her sister was busy, the mission was sapping her most of the time. However, day after day, Sherry repeated got the answering machine. Sensing something’s wrong, she called Gin.

“I’m not obliged to let you know anything, even if she’s your sister,” Gin replied. “Or maybe I’ll tell you something after you’ve planted a bullet in Akai Shuichi’s head. Or have you fallen in love with him?”

“Damn…” Sherry thought, she knew something was wrong. Something must have happened to her sister.

Not bother to pack her things, Sherry sped off to the airport. Before leaving on the plane, she called Akai Shuichi and left a message in his answering machine.

“Shu, something’s happened to my sister, I need to go back and make sure she’s fine. If… If… If something really happened to her, I… I… I don’t think I’ll return. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Take care, Shu.”

Sherry cried as she left the message. The tears seemed to forebode something bad was to happen.

The moment Sherry touched down in Japan, she went to look for Gin. She didn’t even need to look for Gin to learn of the fate of her sister. News spread quickly within the organisation. The mission failed, her sister died.

“Sherry, have you planted the bullet in Akai Shuichi’s head?” Gin sneered.

“Why did my sister die?” Sherry asked, not bothering to reply to Gin.

“You are in no position to question me,” Gin turned his head away from Sherry. Gin mixed a dosage of sleeping drug into a drink.

When he turned back to face Sherry, he passed her that doped drink. “Drink,” he ordered.

Sherry knew something was wrong with the drink, but her body was incapable to disobeying Gin. Without thinking, she picked up the drink and finished it.

“Isn’t that so easy, Sherry? Why must you always disobey me and make me angry?” Gin sneered.

Sherry brought her hand up and brought it right across Gin’s face leaving a bright red patch there. “Asshole,” she muttered before collapsing on the ground as a result of the sleeping drug.

When she awoke, she found herself in a small room, her wrist was handcuffed. There was no sign of Gin. Gin had gone off to seek medication to remove the swell on his face where Sherry had slapped. Surprisingly, Sherry felt a sense of peace in her. She had lost everything, and there was nothing left for her to lose anymore.

Surveying the room, Sherry spotted her newly developed drug lying in a small bottle. She had passed a bottle to Gin for safekeeping when her researched was successful. Apparently, Gin did not think that her drug was that successful to be important for safekeeping. With nothing more to lose, Sherry decided to commit suicide with that drug. On the best case circumstance, she might not die, and she might be able to escape, on the worst case circumstance, she would just die, and not let herself be tortured by Gin any more.

“Argh…” Sherry screamed as the drug went down her throat. She passed out.

When she came to, she found her hands had slipped off the handcuffs. The clothes she had on were too big for her. Her body had prematured.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming in from outside. Sherry squeezed her small body out of the small window and fled in the darkness. “Where can I go?” she asked herself. The world was so wide and big, but there was nowhere for her to hide herself from the organisation. She definitely was not able to go back to Akai Shuichi. She did not even have an identity now.

“You can have one hundred, one thousand reasons to kill someone. But you don’t need any reason to save someone.” That line popped up in her head again. “Kudo Shinichi.”

“You will save me won’t you, Kudo Shinichi,” she asked. “Please save me, Kudo Shinichi. You are the only one who can save me now.” With that, her tiny body fell onto the snow, just outside Kudo Shinichi’s house, she passed out…