It needed less than awhile for the Chevrolet to arrive in front of Sherry's abode—a modest flat, aesthetically passable and lacking illumination, in one of the mutest district in Tokyo; perfect for any individual in submergence.

What seemed to take awhile was for Sherry to start disembarking from the vehicle.

Rye took an inquisitive glance on her, but quickly returned his gawk against his wheels. There was a peculiar silence built between the two, and it didn't end in one, two, nor three seconds. Rye peeked into his passenger seat's visor mirror, on the pursuit of coming to terms with the situation.

Her stare was empty; her mind though, another way around.

"Come on in," She broke the silence; only with a low voice that wasn't even audible hadn't they sulked in a neighborhood quieter than the poles of Earth. "I owe you some drinks," she added, statically lacking in expression.

It was no less than true that after all the heap of that day's workload, Moroboshi Dai could use a can of beer or two. And what better way could there be than to have it with the closest person he had to a friendly coworker? Of course it was not his nature to pay a visit to his associates', but he could hardly find any reason why he shouldn't at the moment. Of course there was the probability that she could use some company too.

Rye, still in a plain air, shrugged in approval. "Why not?"

Having parked the semi-truck conveniently on the side of the road, the pair proceeded to come ashore. Sherry was on the lead; granting Rye entries to the unsurprisingly plenty barriers in her door intended for security.

"Don't mess around, put soundly your grimy shoes here, and have a seat there."

Rye was awed by the interior as he walked to the couch; it was unexpectedly sophisticated and far from what was to be anticipated exteriorly. He admitted the girl, who now had disappeared into another room, had some decent—if not keen—eyes for visuals.

He threw himself to the couch and leaned to its side. The television in front of him was looking unused, like the rest of the apartment. No wonder, she had stayed for months in her previous lab. He skimmed around trying to locate the remote control; to the left to no avail, to the right in vain, and to the rear—where he had been feeling wedged since his first landing on the couch, and grinned when he was able to seize the object. He nibbled with it for awhile and put it right back where he found it.

Sherry was back; on her hand were a bottle of bourbon and a pair of highballs, both plenty in ice cubes. She put down her load on a coffee table the distance of straightened feet from the couch, and start pouring the liquor—half-full to the highball already filled with mint sprigs and sugar, and full to the one with ice only. She then joined her guest in a tacit—if not nervously—manner, and started to distribute the neat liqueur to him.

"I almost forgot that it wouldn't be a wise act to drink things that you concoct,"

For a moment, Sherry contemplated how it was rather peculiar, the jest gestures he habitually put up around her, especially when she compared it to his somber and hostile demeanor during missions, or to virtually each of every other member of the organization. Even with Gin—whom others had acted so courteously around due to his ruthless brutality—he didn't seem to feel the need to compromise his disdain.

Sherry hushed the temptation of expecting there was more to it than just her being his lover's little sister. She had accustomed herself to hold back from looking ahead to anything, and the older she grew, the better she had gotten doing it.

"Shut up and drink it before I change my mind"

It was Sherry's myriad number of orders that Rye started losing count. Another thing he started losing was his previous wisdom, and though Sherry had disputed his suspicion, she was no less dubious on the man letting his guard down. A gulp down his throat and she grabbed her own annual allowance dose of mint julep, shook it gently, and sipped it along.

In a flash, the clock showed 4.45 in the a.m and the television started to get blurry. It was past two hour and over the fifth glass already. Perhaps it was the alcohol that diluted the time. Perhaps it was the alcohol that brought up the warmth in the room, despite the fact that except some callous remarks on the television show—it was, by the way, a sort of mushy drama they were forced into watching since the channel had the best reception—not much conversation were brought up between the two.

Perhaps it was the alcohol, that Sherry, then arisen and stood up before Rye, started to stare into her guest's pair of eyes, with intensity no less than the deepest of the Pacific trenches. Perhaps, it was still the alcohol that then she started to crawl onto his open lap.

Rye choked in disbelief, and although he was under influence, a man like him was always more sober than not. He moved his legs uneasily, in such a way that hinted his surprise, yet subtle enough to let the girl remain where she had seated herself.

"Is this a test?"

Sherry knew exactly what he was referring to; and she knew exactly that it was her sister—a woman of dignity and compassion she had always adored, maybe too much, that she had given up the endeavor of being the good side of the sisterhood exclusively to her—who was also, the closest he had to a lover. Sherry understood fully the situation and the compensation she might have to pay later, and she had spent an ample while deliberating her current course of action. This time though, Sherry had determined that she could not wait any longer. This had to be done. She had to get a head on, and she had to be at liberty to explore the man before him, even if it was momentary.

She answered the question by creeping farther towards his trunk, driving him half shaken and red. Her fingers tiptoed on his cheek, then down on his neck, and on his chest. She pushed herself tighter against his body, and felt a flush of blood briskly filling up her buccal capillaries.

At that point, Rye was stoned, and struggling to reconcile with his conscience.

But Sherry wasn't. In fact, she had never been soberer. She sneaked her hands tenderly to the back of the man before her, sweeping away every strand of the jet black hair that stood between her fingers and his build. She pulled her hands further down, in a slow, captivating motion, and finally sensed her hands arriving on their destination. With a solid grab, she pulled it off.

Her two hands clenched firmly the handle of the deadly entity; its cold, metal end imprinting on the forehead of the man whose eyes pinpointed from shock. Sherry's arm straightened, creating distance between Rye's torso and hers that few seconds earlier did not exist. Her right pointer was steady on the trigger; ready to send along a bullet or two with the poor man's soul should he not give what she required him to.

"Who are you and what do you want?!"

It was not a question; it was another order for Rye, this time to explain himself. And it was delivered in a voice so tense it was breaking.

Rye understood that this was an inevitable turn of event for he had been deliberately leaving trails of his secret mission to her. He, against advice from his superiors, was attempting to wake Sherry's consciousness about the existence of a chance for her to escape from the filthy life she didn't deserve. He, having been hanging out with Akemi for a while, had taken onto him some sort of responsibility to drag Sherry out of the darkness.

But Rye was on her gunpoint, having spared his life on the line should she, rather than considering the brighter concept of life, choose her allegiance to the body of which—while foul—had been credited in raising her for the last twenty years.

Then again, Rye, or so he was called, was already an excellent operation officer of the FBI at a relatively young age. That thanks to his combat skills, and the exceptional way he familiarized himself with firearms, he succeeded to infiltrate the organization known for its sturdy fortifications against law enforcers, and was already a step away into completing his current mission. On the other hand, Sherry had just used a gun once, twice, four times at max—none of them fatal—for when her 'bodyguards' failed to assist her during dangers.

She was right out outclassed, and there was not much she could do when with his prominent hand—suitably left—swiftly tackled her tender ones, and rotate the barrel of the gun in a one hundred eighty degrees motion; its lip kissing her glabellar point, switching her pointer with his on the trigger.

Her vessels were then surmounted with inundations of adrenaline.

"You should stick with the highballs. This thing right here is my area," His voice, to Sherry's terror, was deadly. She was wrong after all; he was not the man Sherry expected him to be. He was a murderer; not a fiber of his being different with the rest of the crooks she had always known. "You didn't think I wasn't expecting this, did you?"

The next thing she knew was that the gun was loaded, and was more than ready to pierce a bullet through her cranium. Should he be a man of Gin's sort, as divinely sensible considering his attitude—excluding the aforementioned occasional time—never would he hesitate to end her. Should he be a man of Gin's sort, death was upon her; again, not that she was too in love with live. The thought of Akemi's safety overflew her mind; he was her sister's object of affection, and that it was this grin that formed in his face when he was about to shoot her, she might need a subtle notification to raise her awareness of who he was, to say the least. She might not have time for that, though, since he was clearly pulling out his trigger finger, drawing the trigger to its near end.

Shiho had no choice but to close her eyes and embrace the end of her. It was about time.

CLACK!

Her heart skipped a beat. Strangely, it was just one beat. And instead of having her last breath, her lungs pumps faster in response of her rising tension.

She was still alive and well. She opened her eyes; and found Rye's right palm clasped before her eyes. When he opened it, the shimmering silver tint of bullets gleamed against the in-appending street light through the window glass.

"Of course I was expecting this, you petty criminal,"

Rye had had the most comfortable opportunity to take away all the bullets loaded in the Beretta hidden in within the couch, just right where he laid his back on. Even the course of its finding was trivial—it began as a search for the television remote control. Sherry certainly didn't expect Rye to have the behavior of someone who would bump on the couch at the first place, and thus sensing the slightly protruding thing on his back. Who would have guessed the means of entertainment Rye thought it was turned out to be such a lethal tool?

He was having a sheer luck; not that he needed it critically. In fact, Sherry was expecting not to have to make a kill—she had enough of the word. She was just using the gun as a means to threaten Rye into confessing whatever he was up to.

"As for the answer of your question," Rye put down the firearm, carried Sherry on his both arms, and removed her from his lap; seating her back to her former throne on the left side of the couch. Sherry was still stunned, and consequently staring emptily at the glass of mint julep she hadn't even finished.

"Other than making sure of your well-being? Let's see... Nothing you should worry about, I guess."

He didn't sit back down by Sherry's right. He took his jacket, once messily lingering to the edge of the couch, and put it on. He grabbed his long hair tucked in the jacket and let it slid out. He was then a Rye again, an inclusive Moroboshi Dai. With his undershirt tucked in secrets Shiho had yet to figure out—not that it sparked as much curiosity anymore. He walked past the narrow hall and put on his shoes in the mud room. Shiho was not even looking.

"One last thing," She muttered, still having an intact focus at the mint julep. "Is onee-san safe?"

The man, already on his shoes, smiled subtly.

"I will make sure she is,"

It was somewhere close to five in the morning; Sherry hadn't paid herself a sleep before the two hours she had to prepare for 'work'. Shortly, her gaze was breathed a life and the mint julep in front of her suddenly looking increasingly appealing. She grabbed the glass and gulped it empty, leaving its mints leaves on the base of the glass. She rose from the couch, taking with her the empty glasses and the bottle of bourbon where not even a half of a shot glass it could fill. She went to the kitchen and put the glasses on the washbasin.

Perhaps it was the alcohol that whispered to her conscience to let go of the man she held at gunpoint just a moment earlier. Perhaps it was the alcohol that convinced her to give him a benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it was the alcohol, that took the credit of the growing faith within her very self.

But Shiho, still, was as sober as a just judge. And she wasn't sure why, but there's an escalating faith within herself, that the man who just left her place, he was to open a door she thought the key did not exist. She wasn't sure what, but heck—her doubts didn't even shriek as strident as she would've daily heard.

She wasn't sure when, but she knew something vital was about to occur.

Maybe tonight when the man responsible for her bewilderness was to meet with their higher-up on that exclusive meeting he had long been anticipating. Maybe next week, when Shiho wouldn't have a clue about his whereabouts. Maybe in a time so far in the future Shiho wouldn't even be certain of its existence, but she could already smell that scent.

The scent of liberty.

Somewhere close to five in that very morning was the last time Shiho Miyano met Dai Moroboshi.