Warning! Spoilers for arc book 58 and 59 involving Moroboshi Dai.
If the names Moroboshi Dai and Andre Camel are not familiar, you may wish to stop reading now.

Let her mourn: Farewell.

"PS: If I manage to leave the organisation after this,
will you go out with me as a real boyfriend?
- Akemi."

When he had read her email, discovered she had somehow managed to find a way to contact him despite their situation, he hadn't known what to feel. She knew about him. Had probably known long before he told her. After two years without seeing her, he still remembered her vividly, still wondered why she had never said anything. He had not needed this message to remind him of her. She had always been in his thoughts.

But what the mail had given him was hope. A futile hope that maybe, just maybe, he might not have ruined her life. That he could still...

She wanted out. She wanted her sister out. She had agreed to make a deal with them.

He knew she was smarter than she let on. He knew she would have seen that the "deal" was a trap... But he also knew her to be an optimist.
It was lucky that she had sent him the gist of her plans. They were far from perfect, though the situation was hard to improve on anyway, but maybe, with the help of the FBI, they could help her before it was too late... and bring them down.

He went to James Black about the email. Told him of its contents without showing it in its entirety, in case he commented on the postscript. This was not a time for his boss to question him about anything irrelevant to the case.

She hadn't mentioned the mission date, and had forbidden him to reply to her. It was too difficult and risky to trace the mail back to sender. James was reticent, but he allowed Shuichi to take the first flight available to Japan. If the contents of the email proved to be true, if it was made clear there was no trap intended for him, then James would make readily available to him any FBI resources he needed. James would not be able to accompany him. He had to stay behind and assist Jodie in her investigations on one of their American operatives.

When he arrived in Tokyo, it was very easy for him to find some confirmation of the mail's contents. He spent a day driving around Tokyo, getting his bearings again, seeing how much the town had or had not changed in two years... reminiscing. By the time he got back to his hotel room, there she was, on the news, her features disguised under a crude hood and sunglasses. It was a crop from the street's security video footage. She had already accomplished her mission. She had stolen the one billion yen.

From what little the newscast showed, her silhouette had hardly changed since the organisation had sniffed him out. What worried him more were the silhouettes of the other two... One very tall man, and one rather stocky. The tall one had killed a man during the heist. He couldn't help but fear they might otherwise be known by the names of Gin and Vodka. But no... He didn't think the two most important members of the organisation would participate directly in so blatant a crime. Gin was smarter than that. Either way, Shuichi would have to investigate quietly... Especially if he hoped to reach Akemi without them finding out.

-

A month went by with him hardly finding a lead, on either the billion yen robbery or where Akemi and her sister were. He would spend his days trying to get insider information on the case, reading about other cases, mostly suspicious deaths, in the hope of finding some clue, of finding her before it was too late. He couldn't help but admire how well thought out the theft had been. There had been good inside knowledge on the details of the bank's transfer, a quick getaway and the manpower necessary to handle any complications. They left no incriminating evidence, no distinctive details. Only an empty van and a dead guard. He could only hope that sooner or later someone would make a mistake... He could only hope it wouldn't be a deadly one, he could only hope it wouldn't be her.

When he first encountered the news of a Hirota Kenzou's death, he thought it would turn out to be another dead end. He only investigated it because of the land lady's reported testimony about the man's strange attitude.

"He paid for a year's worth of rent beforehand, and told me not to ask any questions...
and he paid in brand new bills too."

It quickly intrigued him, how this man's situation reminded him of many a case he had read about... An accomplice running away with the loot. Obviously he had been found, and killed. He had been strangled by a tall man, his murder clumsily disguised as a suicide, unpremeditated.
Hirota had been a stocky man, just like one of the three thieves had been. He could have been killed by the tall one, the same one who had killed a guard instead of just shoving him away. It only took the mention of a missing daughter, by the name of Masami, for him to suspect he might be on to something.

A quick check of the victim's background came up with no daughter whatsoever. Shuichi had no doubt. He had found her trail.
He checked the banking company's employee register too, finding the daughter's supposed name there. She had been temporarily employed there for a month prior to the theft, and still was working there. She looked like Akemi, despite the clothing style she wore to disguise her figure. But some questions remained... Where was she now? Where was the tall acolyte? And when where Gin and Vodka going to act?
She had obviously convinced them to give her a chance to get the money back from the back-stabbing taxi driver. Now that they had cleared Hirota's flat, all there was left for "Masami" to do was distract the remaining accomplice and hand over the money as planned.

He called James, and then headed to "Masami's" work place. She hadn't been to work that day. Her home number and address were fake. Her colleagues hardly knew her as more than a sweet girl. As always, Akemi had been good at hiding her inner turmoil. The only information of interest was that one of her colleagues remembered seeing her in a café with a person that sounded remarkably like her sister a couple of times... Once just a couple of days prior. Shuichi decided to meet James and Jodie there. He didn't expect to meet Akemi or Shiho there. His luck could only take him so far. By the time his colleagues arrived there from their flight, another lead had popped up. The tall man had been found in a hotel room. He had been poisoned, and beside him they had found aluminum cases... The ones the billion yen had been in. Shuichi put down his listening device as soon as he had the location of the hotel. The corpse had been warm. The trail was hot.

... And he wanted to see for himself whether Akemi had been the one to use that poison.

When they reached the hotel, it was easy for them to notice the police presence near the scene. Jodie was the one to see the teenage girl approach one of the plain clothes men amongst the officers, to hear her mention Masami and a gunshot. On Jodie's insistent demand, they followed the police car the two had jumped into. They drove up to a port, the area where containers were unloaded onto the docks, ready to be taken away by trucks when their time came. James appeared distracted when he stopped the car. It was only later that he told Shuichi of his bad feeling as he had noticed a Porsche driving away from the scene. Shuichi was the one to approach closest to the commotion, his Japanese features allowing him more discretion than his colleagues as he neared nexus of the police force and ambulance men called there.

The two ambulance men stood, useless, with their stretcher in hand. Around them could be found the police men, standing, waiting, taking in the scene. A drizzle of rain had started to fall from the heavens. A grade school boy stood gravely as the young girl that the FBI agents had followed let flow her tears. Someone must have taken charge then, pushed by some insane urge to make everything move on in the hopes of drowning the tragedy. Photos were taken and the stretcher was put to use, as the plain clothes man stood gravely while the girl (his daughter?), clung to the small boy. It was only upon noticing the child's taut fists that Shuichi realized his own fists were clenched too. For some reason he had trouble registering that what he saw was as he had feared. The child had been right beside her, his fingers tainted by the pool of blood at his feet. She had been inert. She was dead.

He left the scene just as they started to cord it off.
He hated himself for doing so, but he couldn't trust himself to stay calm this time. If he went and tried to intervene in this investigation, as he really should if he wanted to find any lead on her murderers in time to find them, he knew he would be hard pushed not to reveal his knowledge of her, his hunch as to who her murderer was, her motives...

Her motives, what were they really? Always the same question... Why had she never told him anything, why had she never sent him any message? Why had she sent only that one message then?

"So?"

Shuichi barely acknowledged James's question at first. After a short moment it registered, and he replied absently.
"We were too late. They killed her."

He ignored Jodie's gasp, paid no attention to the tightening of James's hold on his communicator. His mind was full of the memories of his last meeting with her.
Akemi's weak concession of a reaction to what should have been a shocking confession, followed by a half hearted effort at waving it off as a joke... the tears that had completely betrayed her act. He had expected tears of anger or betrayal, but those had been neither, no...
They had been tears of grief, but he had not understood then, no. He couldn't comprehend then what they had been in grief for.

Now he knew. He could see why it had seemed so obvious for her that day. That was why she had sent him that message. A final farewell, in case she failed, a hint of an answer, a nudge, in case she managed.

"Will you go out with me as a real boyfriend?"

"Say, Black?"

"Yes, Akai?" The FBI head put down the communicator he had been using before looking at Akai. The elder man's expression was one of quiet concern. Jodie had left the car to try and rapidly scout the surroundings.

"Do you mind if I refer to our 'enemy' as 'girlfriend' from now on?"

The car remained quiet for a moment as the rain pattered away on the roof. In the end James lowered his head and replied.
"I think that will be the perfect code name for our target."

-

A few days later, after bidding farewell to James and Jodie as he told them he would continue to investigate in the city, Shuichi took the occasion to find himself some peaceful retreat to reflect in. Oh, he wouldn't stay long... It was just an illusion he entertained, a memory of the secret corners she used to show him. She had a knack for finding quiet corners to hide away in, to watch the moon or observe the scenery from.
Opening her mail on his phone, he placed it in front of him.

"A real boyfriend, short of protecting her, would avenge his girlfriend's death," he whispered. "Someone who truly loved you would do so without staining the ideals you dreamed of, wouldn't he?"

He grabbed his hair, which he had tied beforehand. With the silent slice of a blade, he let long strands of black hair fall to the floor around him.

"This is until I capture Gin, Akemi. This is until I dismantle the organisation and save your sister from it, you hear?"

"This I promise you. On this, you may rest in piece."

With that, he bowed his head, stood, and closed both mail and phone. He did not delete the mail. It had been the sign that Akemi had come to deal with the loss of their relationship, had finished mourning it. Similarly, he would only delete it once he too had mourned and made his peace with his guilt, his loss; once he had answered her question, once he had sent his own farewell.

He knew he shouldn't blame himself. He couldn't help it if his mission had failed those two years prior. He certainly would not blame it on Camel. The poor man had made an honest mistake, an unhappy yet natural assumption.

The only one he could blame was the one who had seen through their plan, the one whom he had fruitlessly waited for till dawn. He was the one responsible for her death.

Gin.

"I'll make that person regret rejecting me with tears of blood."

Fin.