Tokyo Tower

Kir froze when she recognized the nature book Sera-san was holding. The book I left for the FBI . . . How did she get it?

There wouldn't be anything suspicious about the book at first glance unless she could see the microdots hidden in the periods and the tittles, or the dots over the i's and j's. But it was too dangerous to be seen out in the open.

"Did she feel guilty?" the girl mumbled, as though talking to herself. She flipped through the book and started to read.

She had to get the girl to give it to the FBI. Kir glanced around; her target hadn't arrived yet. And she needed to sit down before she collapsed. The closest bench was the one Sera-san was sitting on. There was one just a little farther away, but she'd have to walk right past her to get to it.

Sera sighed. The book had nothing special in it. At least by only reading it she wasn't able to find anything. She couldn't even consencrate well.

Someone sat next to her. Sera didn't bother even to look who it was or how that person looked like.

Kir settled beside the girl, keeping her hat pulled low over her eyes. So far Sera-san was so engrossed in her own thuoghts that she failed to notice someone sitting next to her. Hopefully she would think that Kir was a young teen male.

Her side ached and she fought to control her breathing to hide the pain. Pulling out her own book, Kir pretended to read the pages while scanning the park for her target.

Was it a insict or what but Sera got a weird feeling. Feeling that the person who had just sat beside her wasn't there only to read book and look around the beautiful scenery. One reason for that thought was the person's slightly fastened breathing and the fact s/he was reading the book with a wrong pace, a bit too fast and not even consencrating in it.

That same feeling told her to leave the park before anything bad would happen.
"Am I being paranoid or what is this?" She thought and closed her book. The person beside her gave out a silent sigh, making Sera frown and glance at him(her!!!) quickly. The person didn't react in any way.
"Yeah, maybe I'm a bit jumpy... He seems to be just a student." She rose up saying: "If your side is aching you should go home and out some ice on it. Or at least rest a bit."
Before the teen answered the girl continued: "For the way you are breathing and not consencrating in your book, it is easy for a detective to say you are wounded or then you have an astma. You should go home. I have a bad feeling about this park today..." She stated and started to walk towards her motorbike that was parked at the edge of the park.

What did the girl mean? And what did she mean by "detective"? Kir snapped her own book closed as Sera-san started walking toward the edge of the park and got up. "Wait," she said in a low voice.

The girl turned, her eyes widening with recognition. "You!"

"Shh. Not so loud." Kir glanced around. "I know where you got that book and that you have contact with the FBI. It belongs to them."

"Why should I listen to you about anything? You killed my brother, didn't you?" Sera-san snapped.

"I had no choice but to shoot him. He knew that." Kir grabbed the girl's arm. "More incidents like yesterday will happen if you don't give the FBI the book. We were lucky this time, but maybe next time we will not have a chance. People will die."

Sera clenched her fist. It would have been so easy to knock her out just like she had done to Camel. But because the woman was injured, she didn't to so.

"Hmph!" She huffed and turned her back to the woman. "But say did you feel guilty about shooting my brother or why did you help me?"
"At that time I didn't recognize you as his sibling. The situation was too stressful. I had another motive..."
"..." Sera didn't say anything, just walked to her motorbike. Maybe she should give that book to the FBI...

Kir sat back down on the bench as Sera-san walked to her motorcycle. She wasn't sure if she had gotten through to the girl, but it was the best she could do. Pain shot through her side, and she clenched her teeth. Painkillers will slow me down . . . but it looks like I don't have any choice. Taking out a small bottle, she placed two white pills on her tongue and swallowed them dry.

Her target arrived, carrying her usual biography of a great Japanese warrior in one hand and her cellphone in the other, and settled on the bench just past Kir's position. Kir picked up her mystery novel and pretended to read. The pills kicked in after a while and she felt her body relax.

Need to stay alert. She stood and stretched, pretending to yawn, then resumed her seat.

Sera found her way to the tower. For her luck the car Camel had come was still there. She reasoned it has to be his because it hasn't been there when she had arrived there but when she had left the tower it had been. Simple.

She walked to the car and tested the door of it. Open, the agent had been in hurry. Sera placed the book on the driver's seat and left. Why she should carry around a book she couldn't read properly?

For her luck no one saw her. She didn't want any audience. Even less she wanted to answer to stupid questions.

Kir was getting sick of the target's phone call about the latest celebrity scandal gossip; the woman could talk for hours without taking a break. Turning a page in her mystery novel, she focused on the woman's biography.

Judging by Sera-san's reaction, the FBI hasn't told Sera-san about my undercover CIA work, she thought. And hopefully that information would not be leaked.

The woman's conversation ended, and Kir looked up to see the woman pick up her book and open it. Judging by the thickness of the biography, they were both going to be here awhile.

Sera sat in her hotel room. She was slightly annoyed... about everything possible. She didn't know anything vital, that was the main reason. She had only made wild guesses which she had denied right away exept one.

"Was my brother undercover in that organization? That would explain why he was the one who was killed... He knew the way organization worked and that's why was a big threat for it..." She rubbed her temples. Should she try to contact the FBI and ask? They probably would tell nothing. And how she'd explain why she thought so... "And then is that woman... There is something more behind her than the eye can see..."

Camel walked back to his car and found a book lying on the front seat. He sighed; he'd forgotten to lock the car doors. Good thing no one had stolen the car.

Wait . . . He picked the volume up and recognized it as the book Sera had been holding. So she changed her mind after all. I wonder what happened. It didn't matter anyway; the most important part was that they now had the book.

Quickly getting into his car, he drove back to the FBI headquarters, making sure that no one followed him.

Sera looked out of the window. The view she saw was so silent, peaceful... and boring. Though anything after the happenings at the tower would have felt boring.

"I should relax. It's over now. Nothing bad can happen anymore. At least not very soon... If I keep thinking random things I'll get a fever." She talked to herself.

"Wrong. I have to find out what is going on. That woman is the vital clue, I know it..."

The woman finally finished and got up. Kir closed her book and half-turned to watch her target leave. Then she felt a knife blade pressed against the back of her neck.

"Give me your wallet," a harsh voice whispered in her ear. "Slowly."

Kir tried to see who was threatening her, but the knife blade pressed harder against her neck. Why hadn't she noticed this coming? Damn. "I don't have any money," she said in a low tone.

"Your wallet." The knife blade pressed again and she felt blood trickle down her neck.

"Fine." Kir slowly reached into her back pocket. When her elbow was in the right position, she jabbed it back toward the robber's stomach.

She really should have stayed back at the B.O. headquarters today.

Sera collapsed on her bed. The wounds in her legs were aching. She had tried to forget the pain during that day but now, when she was still, it came back.

"Ouch... I guess I can't leave this room for a while." She mumbled, taking the tv's remote control and starting zapping through the channels.

The robber buckled, clutching his stomach as he dropped the knife. Whirling, she swept her leg beneath him, knocking him back on the ground. His eyes widened. "You're . . . you're Mizunashi-san!"

Damn. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her pistol. "Get up slowly," she ordered in a low voice.

Slowly standing up, his hands in the air, the would-be robber stared wide-eyed at her. "Why are you doing this?"

"Shut up." She tucked the pistol in the back of her pants pocket and frisked him. Finding no other weapons, she ordered, "Now walk normally with me to the black car. If you say anything or act suspiciously, I will shoot you and anyone else you communicate with. Understood?"

"H-hai."

Making him walk next to her, she positioned the pistol behind her mystery book and they walked to her car together where she taped his hands behind his back with some duct tape and he climbed into the front passenger seat where she taped his feet together. After giving him a sleeping serum, she buckled his seat belt, and then got into the driver's seat. Her side throbbed and for a minute, she felt dizzy.

She hated killing; she really did. But he'd given her no choice.

Sera shut down the box and sighed. Nothing. There was nothing. And when she said nothing she meant full emptyness. She meant especially the book she had found and given then to the FBI and also how she felt inside her head. All she felt was the little pain in her leg but nothing else.

"So boring..."

Kir drove to a deserted alley in a bad part of town and used his knife to slit his throat. Bullets were too traceable, and she couldn't take a chance that the police would connect her gun to the killing. Leaving the body stuffed in a dumpster, she quickly returned to the car and drove away.

After an hour to make sure that no one was following her, she returned to the headquarters. Gin met her in the garage, and from the furious look on his face, she knew she was in trouble.

"Where were you?" he snapped.

"Working Operation Dasani," she said. "Didn't the orderly tell you?"

"You were given several days off."

"I'd already promised that I would do today. I've made arrangements for someone else to shadow the target over the next week." Kir pressed her hand against her side. She may as well tell him. "I had trouble with a robber who saw my face."

Gin's eyes narrowed. "Was he dispatched?"

"Yes, with his own knife."

(uh, I'm totally out of ideas right now. I'll continue when is the next day in this story. But you can go on )

Gin's eyes grew even narrower, and for a moment, Kir thought that he would order her execution. Then he stepped back. "You will remain in your rooms for the rest of the week or I will personally shoot you myself. Understood?"

"Hai." She walked past him, feeling his gaze boring into her back. She had best not push her luck today.

Once in her bedroom, she took some more painkillers; her side was throbbing. Closing her eyes, she sighed. Maybe things would be better tomorrow . . .

When Sera woke up was already a morning. A grey morning with rain. She sighed. Not only because of the bad weather but because she had slept in jeans and a jacket.

"Geez, what's going on with me..." She changed her clothes and washed her face. "I have to stay sharp... No matter what is going on..."

"How depressing weather..."

Kir woke up at about five a.m. when the painkillers wore off. Popping more in her mouth, she grimaced. She'd really over-done it yesterday.

There hadn't been any news or police scanner reports about the robber she'd killed; no one must have found the body yet. They probably would soon when the sanitation workers came to empty the dumpsters. There wouldn't be many clues; she'd been careful to wear gloves.

Turning on her computer, she checked her e-mail and found a message with an attached file. A new mission? She opened the document and began to read.

Sera streched and glanced quickly the clock on the bedside table.

"5am?!?! Great... I'm sure there isn't any breakfast places open yet..." She sat down and started zapping through the channels. There wasn't anything else for her to do except...

"I can try to find out if there is any odd things in my brother's death..." Sera opened her laptop and made a search:

Raiha Pass murder 13th Friday

After a nano second she got the results. Only one hit had all those keywords so she clicked that. "Let's see what I can find out..."

It was just an announcement for all B.O. members to please remember a meeting scheduled for next week. Kir sighed and deleted the e-mail, then set her computer to run a scan for any planted viruses or bugs.

Fixing herself some tea, she went over to the television and started flipping through channels. She settled on the Nichiuri TV news channel and turned the volume down low.

Sera was reading the police report about a carfire in Raiha Pass. She was pretty sure she'd find something out of its place. She read it again and again. Everything seemed to be right except one thing. The places of bullet holes. The body that was found inside the car had been shot through its temples.

"In that dream the gun was placed against forehead. Besides brother isn't the type of looking away from death."

Nothing interesting was on Nichiuri TV, so she flipped through several channels, passing by a cooking channel, a gardening channel, several dramas, and a Kaimen Yaiba anime. Setting the remote down, she went to the bathroom and washed her face.

What was she going to do for the next several days? The B.O. was watching her closely; she couldn't go out or contact anyone without being followed. After drying her face on a towel, she brushed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail.