Disclaimer: I do not own Darker Than BLACK or anything affiliated with it.

CHAPTER ONE: ASSIGNMENT

"You have another assignment from the Syndicate," Huang said. Hei didn't respond. He was silently admiring the false stars scattered across the ebony sky. Despite knowing that they were fake, that one of those stars in fact defined his existence on planet Earth, a Messier Catalogue Number, he still found them strangely intriguing. BK-201...I only exist in the sky. I'm irrelevant here; that is my home.

"Hei!" Mao tried. Hei pulled his eyes from the luminous show above him and connected with his surroundings once more. Huang and Mao were staring at him with puzzled faces. Yin was simply present, though somewhere deep inside those hollow eyes, Hei was sure she felt some pang of humanity.

"Did you hear me?" Huang pressed.

"Of course. The new assignment." Hei replied at last, still not making eye-contact with his team.

"As I said, we have a new assignment. It's actually rather mysterious." Huang continued. Who could define mystery in a world as shrouded as theirs? Hei again looked up at the sky. They were just like those stars: numbered but nearly insignificant to those who didn't want them dead. Hei, though consumed in these thoughts, did hear and understand what Huang was saying.

"Well?" he asked, waiting for Huang to finish.

"It will require much more than a black heart to handle this case. You are going to have to go way undercover and get real close. You cannot kill until so ordered."

"This had better not be like the Shinoda case," Hei said with a frown. Huang tossed his cigarette down on the wet pavement, snuffed it, and sighed.

"In many ways this is exactly like the Shinoda case," he muttered. "But it's a little more tricky and will require more time. You're not befriending this girl for information."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Hei asked.

"It means that you're going after her memories. And that's about all I have." Huang explained quickly. Hei was certain he had never heard of such a foolish thing before. Especially not where Contractors were involved. It wasn't plausible. And why should it be?

"What good are a girl's memories?"

"I don't know." Hei glanced down at Mao who didn't have anything to say on the subject either.

"Did she witness something crucial?" Neither Huang nor Mao spoke. Hei even turned to Yin for an answer. She was staring out over the overpass blankly. "So I'm supposed to rattle her brain blindly?" Again, silence. Hei grabbed his green jacket off of the overpass railing and headed off down the overpass toward the street. He knew he hadn't gotten the full briefing on the assignment; he didn't know who he was supposed to be tailing. But he wanted some participation. And it didn't take long. Mao appeared above him on a street-lamp post. The faint tinkling of his bell, his communication with his team, seemed like a siren in the ominous silence and unending darkness of the night. Hei stopped walking and waited for Mao to disclose the name of the target.

"Her name is Kanbi Sora," Mao said solemnly. "I imagine you'll know which memory is important once you've heard it. It has to be something significant." Hei then continued onward through the darkness in the cold streets of Tokyo as its shadows proved shelter to the invisible menace.

Hei entered Li's apartment and immediately hung up his jacket. He had only just realized that he was beyond starving. If he had thought about it on the way home he would have picked something up at a restaurant. But whining wasn't much in his nature, so he grabbed some fish, mushrooms, peppers, onions, garlic, shrimp, cabbage, white rice, and snow peas out of the refrigerator for dinner. He started mixing a tempura batter to cook the shrimp in.

Hei contemplated his new assignment. Kanbi Sora either did or did not possess certain memories that the Syndicate either wanted for informational purposes or wanted destroyed for security. But Hei didn't know what he was looking for; perhaps the Syndicate didn't either. Mao had said that he would know what he was looking for once he found it, but was the Syndicate waiting for Hei to find what they weren't looking for? That didn't make sense. It was like they were anticipating trouble that most likely wasn't there. What would they do if it was? What would Hei do?

And better yet, he had to find her without a profile. He didn't even know what she looked like. Of course, the task wasn't impossible. It was just that the Syndicate was typically much more organized than this.

The next morning Hei got up early and headed outside to start browsing the city for Sora. He was hoping for leads. It would be even better if he could simply find her. The charades he had to put on as Li just to function in that town were exhausting. He was always Li, but he had to be everywhere; he had to do every job. There was no other Contractor like him, that was certain.

Hei's surroundings were illuminated in lavender light and the streets were relatively empty. Of course, there were always businessmen on the streets at all hours of the day with their cell phone and bagel in one hand, their newspaper and briefcase in the other. But there was a noticeable lack of girls. Hei had been under the impression that girls got up at the crack of dawn to paint their faces, straighten their hair, and lace on their best lolita corset, but perhaps they were still getting ready in their rooms.

The air was relatively chilly and less than pleasant, but nothing to complain about. Hei shoved his hands inside of his pockets and drew in a deep breath. That was when he heard shouting. He had been wrong. It was a girl's voice he had heard.

Li took off toward the sound, rounded a corner, and darted into a dark alleyway where he found a young woman being hounded by two men. He wondered what Sora might look like. Before his very eyes was a young woman around the age he imagined Sora might be, with tepid, blue eyes, black hair, and pale skin. There were two boys with her, though from the looks of it the girl didn't much appreciate their company. Her purse was lying on the ground, some of its contents strewn about the pavement. Most notably was a tube of red lipstick that was lying near Li's foot, and he was a decent distance away. There must have been a struggle, though the girl was particularly calm at that point.

Li contemplated interfering. If it wasn't Sora these boys were harassing, then it would have been a wasted effort on Hei's part. If it was, then this good deed could easily jumpstart Li's potential relationship with her.

One of the boys was holding what appeared to be a painting. It was secured in a navy-blue canvas-bag. The other had the lone girl by the arm and was trying, with much difficulty, to nuzzle her neck.

"This painting seems a little dark for such a cute little thing," The one holding the canvas said. "What is it? A superhero?"

"Maybe it's her boyfriend in cosplay," the other one sneered. They were only peeking at the painting through the bag; Li couldn't get a very good look, so he had no opinion.

"Well that's just my luck," the one continued, pouting. The girl remained astonishingly silent. Li at last decided to intervene.

Li emerged from the shadows, hardly startling the trio at all.

"Is there a problem?" Li asked.

"There might be if you don't back off," the second boy said. "This isn't your boyfriend, is it?" The girl snatched her arm away angrily. But the first boy was determined to make her work to get her painting back.

In a split second Li appeared beside the first boy and jammed his foot in his stomach. The second boy rushed forward to defend his friend when the faint tinkling of a bell was heard. A black cat appeared from above and landed on the boy's face, tearing it with his claws. The first boy tried to get back up, but Li punched him in face, causing blood to spurt from his nose, meanwhile the second boy had already forfeited to Mao's attacks. The girl watched the scene, overwhelmed with confusion. She began to back away slowly when Li abruptly produced the painting from the wounded boy propped up against the grimy dumpster. He handed it to the girl, smiling sheepishly.

"Sorry about all that," Li muttered. "This is yours, isn't it?" The girl's gaze rolled over Li's shoulder to the wounded men on the ground. She then recovered from her daze and accepted the canvas-bag.

"Thank you," she mumbled. Li was already on the ground collecting her things. The girl didn't know what to do. She seemed lost. Li scanned the area to be sure he hadn't left anything behind, then handed the girl her black leather purse. It was a lolita brand, he imagined.

"Well, are you alright?" Li asked. The girl nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied. She seemed like she wanted to say something.

"Don't be shy," Li encouraged, though he wasn't much of a socialite himself...for obvious reasons.

"I didn't get your name." the girl said, seemingly embarrassed.

"My name is Li Shengshun." The girl frowned.

"You're from China, then?" she said. Li nodded. "Are you a student?"

"Yeah," Li hesitated. "What's your name?" He was dreading the answer. He wasn't trying to take this girl on a date. He just wanted her to be Kanbi Sora. He wanted to get his assignment started.

"I'm Kanbi Sora." Hei's eyes must have lit up on Li's face, because Sora frowned again. "Is something wrong?"

"No, of course not," Li mumbled quickly. "I don't want to get ahead of myself, but would you like to grab a cup of coffee?" Truthfully, Li was craving breakfast; he could eat out the entire pastry shop on the next block.

"I was actually on my way to breakfast before all of this," Sora agreed.

"Great," Li took Sora's painting for her like a gentleman and guided her to Kyuuchi's Sweet Shop.

"So tell me about your painting," Li said. He was downing his fourteenth pastry. Initially it appeared Sora had been put off by Li's voracious appetite, but she quickly grew accustomed to it and didn't seem to pay attention any longer.

"It's a secret," Sora replied ominously. It was clear to Li that she wasn't trying to be flirtatious, but her sweet and innocent demeanor immediately transformed into a mysterious and sexy playfulness that could have won over any normal man. Li decided to let the issue of the painting go for the time being. But the thought still puzzled him.

"So you're eighteen, nineteen? What is it?" Li asked.

"Nineteen since last month," Sora replied, stealing a piece of Li's raspberry pastry. "What about you?"

"Twenty-two," Li mumbled.

"Oh, you're one of those," Sora teased, giggling. "So, drinking at the hostess club later, huh?" Li blushed.

"I've never been."

"I don't believe you." Sora's smile was nearly luminescent. In fact, the sweet teenager was catching the eye of plenty of men in the pastry shop. Li was slightly puzzled. This girl seemed too innocent to possess memories passionate enough to be on the Syndicate's radar. But he couldn't question it now.

"Well, Mao tells me you found the girl," Huang said. "Good work. Anything we should know?" Hei shook his head.

"There's nothing to tell," he mumbled. They were sitting in the park on the wall of a planter bordering a large tree. It was pitch black outside, hours since Li had enjoyed breakfast with Sora. They had made a bit of progress; he had her phone number and her approval. She seemed to like him, so it shouldn't be too difficult to develop a friendship.

"Yin, do you have a location?" Mao asked. Yin was sitting on the wall of a fountain, staring into the rushing pool absently. Despite her inability to see, she still saw much more than anyone else could desire to.

"She's nearing the Saito Apartment Complex," Yin replied, her voice completely void of any emotion.

"Now that we have a general location, you should be able to keep tabs on this girl," Huang said. "Don't ruin this." Hei could tell Huang was again referring to the Shinoda case. It had been quite a while since then, but Huang still blamed him for the potentially unfortunate situation they had almost been in.

"I know what I have to do," Hei said with a hint of aggression. "I'll handle this."

A/N: I have a lot of really promising ideas for this story, so please let me know if this is the right start. Thank you for reading!

Also, although it may not matter, Sora means "sky". I might use her name metaphorically later...