Chapter Text
In a dark city alleyway, the Black Reaper sheathed his knife and removed his white mask to let the wind blow across his sweat-glistened face. Unable to stand any longer, he collapsed against the wall behind him to catch his breath. He was exhausted from fighting Syndicate hitmen all day and night.
He peered at the couple of dead bodies around him who he had singlehandedly killed in self-defense. The last group almost got the better of him. If it weren’t for that advanced warning... Hei was only one outnumbered Contractor against an army of soldiers. Fighting forever was unsustainable.
He heard police sirens change pitch as they narrowed in on his resting place. Someone undoubtedly must have heard the sounds of combat and gunshots that had ended only minutes ago. Hei knew it was time to leave the scene unless he wanted to deal with enemies on another front.
In the late night hours, Hei walked to the temporary safehouse that was a foreclosed and dilapidated suburban home. Each time he caught wind that the Syndicate was dispatching a new team, he always made sure to get as far away as possible from the safehouse, returning only to sleep. He always took a different route to and from the house in case he was being watched. It was the only way to ensure its location was kept secret.
He had hurriedly left the rundown room in the Umitsuki apartment complex. But, still, he left it completely intact. It was as if no one had ever rented it. For all the landlady and other tenants knew, he, or at least his alias of Li Shengshun, was deported. He narrowly avoided the policewoman Misaki Kirihara when she came to look for him. It came naturally to him to stay hidden in the shadows. It’s easy to disappear when no one is watching. At least, it is when it’s only one person to account for.
But, Hei wasn’t alone. He had the team’s Doll in tow. Hei furrowed his brows. No, it wasn’t fair to refer to her like that. Yin was a living, breathing person. As Amber said, even the Dolls are evolving. Yin’s future was uncertain, but it was bright. They just had to get past these next few humps.
Their situation was unlike before. It wasn’t like his former Syndicate team. It wasn’t like in South America during Heaven’s War. It wasn’t just watching each others’ backs and getting a job done. This time, he truly cared for his delicate comrade, for Yin. He’d be devastated if anything happened to her. He didn’t want to even think of the possibilities.
He arrived at the safehouse, and after checking he wasn’t being followed, went around to the back door and opened it. He immediately saw Yin, sitting on a wooden chair next to the dining table, exactly where he had left her.
She had poured water on the table from Hei’s canteen. Her hand was in the small puddle. Her observation specter was undoubtedly watching every angle of approach, close and far anywhere there was water.
“Yin, how’s it looking?” Hei inquired.
“We’re safe,” Yin emotionlessly replied.
“Good. You can take a break now.”
Yin removed her hand from the water. She placed both her hands on her lap. Hei took a position beside a window, peering in between the bent plastic blinds. The streets were devoid of anyone. He didn’t see any observer spirits either.
“Hei, you need to eat. You haven’t eaten in days.”
“I’ll be fine.” Admittedly, he craved ramen from the local shop. Twelve bowls of ramen did sound delicious. But now was not the time. There were more important things to worry about than a growling stomach; he didn’t know how they would survive the coming future. “Yin, do you have any ideas on what we should do?”
”No,” Yin simply replied, shaking her head.
As much as Hei liked her and valued her, a Doll never had an opinion. He should’ve known better than to ask. He closed his eyes, hoping some revelation would come to him. He may have always considered himself free from any binding pact, but he was lost without someone overhead to relay and give orders. If only Huang or Mao were here…
“We need to get away from Tokyo,” Hei said, opening his eyes and addressing his companion. “So long as we stay here, the Syndicate will keep sending people after us. The least we can do is leave Tokyo so they’d have to start over on finding us.”
He’d grown accustomed to his former life in Tokyo. It was hard to just abandon. But necessity commanded it. The months he spent, he almost enjoyed. He formed bonds with the people around him, or at least, something close to it. There were moments he could forget he was the Black Reaper and just be Li. But it was all in the past now. Li was dead. Permanently.
“We should pretend to be a married couple. We can get to Okinawa and take another boat away from here, maybe to Taiwan. It’d be us, running away together,” Hei elaborated.
“Pretend,” Yin repeated in her same monotone voice without looking towards him. It was as if she had reservations about the act, but Hei didn’t seem to notice.
“Yes, Yin. I think that’s our best chance.”
Yin slowly nodded once, her dispassionate expression unchanging as always.
As Hei turned back to looking out the window, he heard the sound of a chair scooting back. Yin rose from the seat to her feet.
“If it’s necessary, will you leave me? Will you ever forget me?” Yin asked without looking at him.
Hei looked away, down at the ground. Huang was dead, taking down a Syndicate kill team with a suicide bomb packed with C4. Mao disappeared in the Gate, likely to never be seen again. The team was fractured. Amber was gone. So many Contractors were dead. No, he wouldn’t leave Yin. He would never abandon her. He couldn’t forget about Yin. He would do everything in his power to ensure no harm ever came to her. It was irrational to go to such lengths for someone else according to a rational Contractor's mind. But he was no ordinary Contractor.
Yin never said anything about it, but Hei knew she missed Huang and Mao. He noticed the twinge of sadness on her face when she hugged Huang for the final time before he drove off. He reasoned he must have also felt the same way Yin did when Mao’s mind slipped away. Losing someone was hard, but it was much harder to lose a friend, someone you truly care about. In the time he’d known her, she hardly said anything, but he knew she had to be hurting inside—hurting more than he could fathom. She had no one except for him. And he had no one except for her.
“Of course not. You’re my partner, Yin. We’re in this together until the end. I don’t want to lose you, not now, not ever.”
“Partner.”
Yin reached for Hei’s hand, clasping it tightly. Unlike at the rooftop debriefing after Havoc’s death, he didn’t pull away from Yin’s grasp. Hei felt emotions he hadn’t felt before becoming BK-201. They were bubbling to the surface and, being the somber, stoic man he was, he could hardly identify them, let alone handle them. His mouth involuntarily and slowly formed a smile as he tried to hold back tears.
“Hei…” Yin said after a long silence.
“Yin?”
“Hei, I love you.”