"Behave yourself!" Yimi copied what she had seen in cartoons, stepped on Miyano Akemi's butt, then tied the rope into a bow.
Damn woman. The little cat had kindly come over to help her, and she still tried to hit the cat.
Since Akemi had protected the little cat earlier, Yimi would let that part go for now.
"Mmmph!" Miyano Akemi wriggled twice on the floor like a caterpillar.
"You have the right to remain silent, but I won't listen to anything you say." Unable to remember the next line at all, Yimi simply invented the rest herself.
Because this was a bad woman who hit the little cat, Yimi used the hemp rope they had prepared to fake Hirota's suicide and tied her up with it.
Miyano Akemi still had no idea what had just happened. A girl who looked only seven, with skinny little arms and legs, had gone "meow," then knocked her down in a few moves and tied her up.
"Small fry." And now the girl was even verbally attacking her.
This wasn't right, was it?
Four black cats circled Yimi and meowed curiously, but Yimi ignored them. She looked around the house for a landline so she could call the police.
Unfortunately, she found nothing. This was only a temporarily rented house and had no landline at all. What she did find was a huge pile of suitcases whose purpose she did not understand.
"Stay here. I'm going to call the police." Yimi ran outside.
Kisaki Eri had taught her that if something happened outside, she could use a phone booth, and had even taught her how to use one. Strangely, only a few days after Kisaki Eri explained it, there seemed to be far fewer phone booths on the streets.
"Ptooey! Cough, cough, cough!"
Only after the little girl who had turned the tables on her ran away did Miyano Akemi finally start recovering. She hurriedly spat out the piece of cloth that had not actually been doing much to keep her mouth shut.
This wasn't right, was it?
Miyano Akemi, who deeply hated the Black Organization, began to wonder whether her abilities were simply too poor for her to deserve working in the Black Organization at all.
She shook the thought out of her head and carefully felt the knot restraining her.
There had only been one hemp rope. Yimi had also insisted on tying both her hands and feet at the same time, with her hands behind her back. As a result, Miyano Akemi was currently restrained in a rather ridiculous position.
But because Yimi only knew one kind of knot, a bow, the thick hemp rope had to leave a great deal of length free for her to tie one. That meant both Akemi's wrists and ankles had only been wrapped once, leaving her plenty of room to move and free herself.
A bow could be undone with a single pull. As expected, a child around seven simply did not have enough life experience.
After flexing her wrists a couple of times, Akemi stacked the large pile of suitcases on a cart and pulled them outside.
The little girl was nowhere to be seen. That was good. Miyano Akemi did not want to think about why that child had managed to knock her down in the first place.
She loaded the suitcases one by one into the van she had arrived in, planning to store them in a warehouse first. She had already prepared for the possibility that Gin would never let her younger sister go.
* * *
The meeting place was a container yard at the port. Honestly, she had originally planned to ask the Organization for another week, but she had not expected to be lucky enough to find Hirota that same day.
The sky gradually darkened, yet there was still no sign of Gin.
Miyano Akemi waited for a long time, repeatedly checking her watch.
Was he late? That was unexpected. Or...
A chill surged through her. Then a suppressed gunshot rang out from behind Miyano Akemi—though at a port, it would not have sounded especially conspicuous anyway. At the same time, pain unlike anything she had ever experienced tore from her back through her chest.
Yes. The Organization had wanted her dead all along. The promise to let Shiho go had been a lie too. This one-billion-yen task had merely been an excuse to kill her.
Miyano Akemi collapsed weakly to the ground, staring blankly as Gin took the key to the safe from her body, though that key was actually fake.
"You came alone?" Even Gin sounded a little surprised.
He had arrived long ago. He had only been searching for any FBI agents Miyano Akemi might have brought with her.
A car falling into a river was obviously not enough to kill him. What he had not expected was for Vodka to be an undercover agent too. No wonder he had been feeling unwell in all sorts of ways these past few days. That bastard must have been secretly dosing him with a slow-acting poison.
Was Vodka completely lacking in the qualities of an undercover agent, or had he simply hidden them extremely well? Gin had never noticed that Vodka shared such a deep bond with the Miyano sisters, deep enough to expose himself without hesitation and try to take Gin down with him.
The reason the Organization wanted Miyano Akemi eliminated was simple too. Akai Shuichi, an FBI agent, had once infiltrated the Organization under the alias Moroboshi Dai. He was Miyano Akemi's former boyfriend, and he had largely been able to join because of his relationship with her.
Gin had originally thought Miyano Akemi had already realized the Organization intended to kill her and joined forces with her old lover in advance. Apparently, he had worried for nothing.
Gin waved to his new subordinate and turned away.
Of course, this new subordinate was merely a peripheral member he had found temporarily to drive for him. Gin had no intention of training him.
The salty sea breeze blew past. Gin, usually careful and meticulous, was so irritated by the miserable day that he forgot to finish her off with a shot to the head. The only result was that Miyano Akemi now had time to feel her one and only life slipping rapidly away.
To die completely alone... Could anything be more miserable?
As though God had heard her thoughts, a knit cap entirely out of season entered her field of vision. In contrast to Akemi, whose life was about to end, a child symbolizing new life stood beside her, watching without moving.
"Your face is different."
Miyano Akemi had removed her disguise on the way here, while Yimi had tracked her by scent.
"You actually followed me all the way here. Little girl, you really aren't an ordinary child..."
From this angle, Yimi looked like an angel who had come down from heaven to receive her. But someone like Akemi would only be going to hell, wouldn't she?
"You're hurt." Yimi crouched down and placed a hand on Akemi's chest.
"In the end, I still couldn't escape the Organization's grasp. Sorry... I only hit you because I didn't want to drag you into this." Even knowing the child would not understand, Akemi had nobody else to talk to now.
Using the last of her strength, Miyano Akemi took out a key and instructed her in a tired voice, "The one he took is fake. Please give this to the police. You have to get there before he does..."
She saw a faint white glow appear in the little girl's palm, warm and comforting like a parent's embrace. Something only about the size of a thumbnail was faintly visible inside it.
Miyano Akemi saw clearly what it was: the bullet hole that should have pierced straight through her from the back, somehow twisted so that it opened in another direction.
"You..."
* * *
"Can I open a window?" The new driver seemed tense under Gin's aura, which made it feel as though he might kill someone at any moment, even though the driver himself had killed plenty of people.
"Just drive." Gin pulled a cigarette from his pocket and had no intention of answering such a pointless question.
Suddenly, the peripheral member behind the wheel felt a wrenching pain in his chest. His hand went weak on its own, and he accidentally jerked the steering wheel.
Splash—
The car lost control, smashed through the guardrail, and plunged into the water.
Gin: "?"