The heavy click of the door's lock echoed the frantic beat of Aiko's heart. He was gone. The warmth of his confession still hung in the air, a beautiful, fragile thing that the silence of the apartment threatened to shatter. It makes leaving you here... the hardest thing I've ever had to do. The words were a brand on her soul.
She was no longer just a protected asset. She was a liability he cared for. And that, she realized with a sickening lurch in her stomach, made her an even bigger target.
She couldn't sit still. Pacing the vast living room like a caged animal, she was drawn again and again to the giant window. Kaito had told her to stay away from it, but the desperate need to know was a physical ache. Far below, the city pulsed with light and life, completely oblivious to the secret wars being fought in its shadows.
Remembering his lesson, Aiko tried to focus, to see as he had taught her. She let her eyes soften, scanning the rooftops opposite them, the flow of traffic, the anonymous faces on the street. She looked for the tell-tale signs of wrongness—the twitching shadows, the unnatural movements. She was trying to watch his back, even from forty stories up.
She saw nothing but the normal, dizzying rush of Tokyo at night. The lack of information was more terrifying than seeing an army at her door.
Giving up on the window, she turned back to the sterile safety of the room. Her eyes fell on the laptop Kenji had brought. It sat on the coffee table, a sleek black rectangle of silent potential. A thought struck her: Kaito could see his enemies' movements. Maybe she could, too.
As she approached it, the screen flickered to life on its own.
Aiko froze, her blood turning to ice. The screen wasn't booting up to a normal desktop. It was a blank, black screen. White text began to appear, typed out letter by letter as if by an invisible hand.
Hello, Convenience Store Girl.
Aiko stumbled back, a gasp catching in her throat. They were in the system. They had bypassed Kaito's security.
Did your master leave you all alone? the text continued. He shouldn't have done that.
Suddenly, the screen changed. It was a live video feed. Aiko stared in horror as she recognized the corner of the living room, the sofa, the lamp... and herself. She was watching a live feed of herself from a hidden camera in the room. The video feed was a little grainy, angled from a high corner near the ceiling.
They weren't just outside. They were inside. They were watching her. Right now.
Panic, cold and absolute, seized her. Her first instinct was to grab the burner phone and call Kaito. She had to warn him. But his own words stopped her. He's pinned down. It's a trap. If she called him now, while he was in a fight, the sound of his phone, the momentary distraction... it could get him killed.
They were trying to isolate him by ambushing Kenji. Now they were trying to use her to distract him. It was a pincer movement, and she was the bait.
A terrible choice presented itself: endanger Kaito by calling for help, or face this alone.
The girl who had worked at the SmileMart would have called him. The girl who had hidden behind him would have screamed. But the woman who had tended his wounds, the woman for whom he had just gone to war, made a different choice.
Her eyes darted around the room, from the camera's likely position to the laptop screen, then to the gun she had left on the kitchen counter. An idea, desperate and defiant, sparked in her mind.
With her heart pounding, she walked calmly to the kitchen. She knew they were watching every move. She picked up the gun, the cold, heavy weight a terrifying comfort. She then walked back to the laptop, picked it up, and cradled it in her arm, the screen with the video of herself still glowing.
Then she turned and walked, not to the window, not to the bedroom, but to the large, deep pantry off the kitchen. It was the one room in the sleek, modern apartment with no electronics, no smart features. Just shelves and darkness.
She stepped inside, pulled the door shut, and plunged the world into absolute, silent blackness.
She was in the dark, her back against the cool wall, the gun in one hand, the laptop now closed in the other. They couldn't see her anymore. She had cut the cord. She hadn't screamed. She hadn't called. She had taken herself off the board.
Now, all she could do was wait.