Chapter 1 Cherry and Brandy

Tokyo's nights can sometimes seem particularly long, especially when it rains. A drop of rain will float in the wind for a while before landing slowly on the ground.

Then everything in my eyes became extremely slow.

Furuya Rei was walking on the path in the cemetery, holding a black umbrella. He had walked this path countless times, but never before had it been as long as it was now. It seemed that no matter how he walked, this path would always lead to a farther place. It was endless, going round and round.

But he still reached the end.

The headstone at the end was filled with a pool of moonlight, light and cool. When he approached, the headstone turned mottled and dark under the umbrella.

He gently touched the wet stone tablet, and when he removed his hand, a blood-red mark was left on it. Everything in front of him was reflected in those purple-gray eyes.

Furugaya Rei thought again of the words that person always said.

"When you pray sincerely enough, and even offer your soul as a sacrifice, the gods will respond to you."

"Really?" He murmured softly, as if to confirm, but also as if to provoke or question, "If that's true, I want to see him again."

The gods responded to him.

…

When Furuya Rei first met Akiyama Kanade at a mission site, he had been in the organization for more than four years. As an intelligence officer, he rarely acted with other members of the organization, but that was an exception.

The organization wants to trade a batch of guns with the Japanese underworld Yamano Group. Furiya Rei discovered that the other party was counterfeiting money privately and was preparing to cheat the organization. He wanted to take advantage of the situation and use the organization to cut off a layer of skin from the Yamano Group.

So he reported the Yamano Group's secret moves to the organization, and the boss really sent many elites such as Gin, Chianti, Cohen, Irish Whiskey, etc. to attend the meeting. Even Bermode, who was in the United States at the time, was recalled to participate in the action.

It was during that operation that he met Akiyama Kanade, codenamed Cherry Brandy.

The deal that night fell through in less than ten minutes. It was unknown which side fired the first shot, and the scene soon turned into a melee. Although the organization had been prepared and even set up an ambush in the dark, the people of the Yamano Group were not all idle. The gunfight between the two sides turned the old factory chosen as the trading site into an orange halo made of sparks in the blink of an eye.

From the outer ring of the orange halo, a lazy voice came intermittently amid the continuous gunfire.

"Wow, it's so lively. How can you not take me with you?"

Rei Furuya was also surprised that he could still hear this soft voice under the stimulation of high tension and surging adrenaline. He found shelter and looked towards the source of the sound.

A tall, thin young man sat on the roof of a factory building. He was wearing a black hoodie, with the wide brim covering half of his face, revealing only his snow-white chin and a slightly raised corner of his lips.

Dust flew, the air was filled with frightened curses, and the blood flowers blooming in the air seemed unable to disturb him.

He slowly took out a sniper rifle from the guitar bag beside him.

Furiya Rei had never seen a sniper like him. He didn't even look for cover, as if there was no such thing as hiding in this world. He held the gun and shot one by one without blinking, as if there was no such thing as aiming in this world.

Although there were many people from the mountain group, with his style of fighting it was like pulling radishes, and soon they felt the joy of farmers getting a good harvest.

But in this situation, those who get hit are usually the enemy's cannon fodder. The Yamano Group is not without snipers, and even their snipers react very quickly and shoot back at the young man in the blink of an eye.

However, no one knew whether the young man had an extra eye compared to others. He dodged left and right, always accurately avoiding the bullets coming towards him.

Furiya Rei heard the young man's gentle and soft voice again.

"Huh? How come there's no bullets again?"

He half-lay on the roof, clasped his hands into a trumpet shape and shouted to Gin: "Gin--he--has--no--bullets--what--to--do--"

He deliberately dragged out his voice slowly and long, and asked such a question that was obviously looking for trouble. No matter how Furiya Rei thought about it, he felt that Gin should curse him.

Who knew that Gin's attitude could be considered kind - compared to his usual style of "Just hit me, idiot."

"Oh." The young man straightened up with some grievance, bent his arm and threw the sniper rifle in his hand out, and immediately a group of people fell down like cutting leeks.

Cohen, who was almost injured by mistake, pushed up his sunglasses and said, "Next time, please make sure you know the direction."

The young man called out obediently: "Yes, sorry."

Without a weapon in his hands, the young man propped himself up with his arms, turned over and jumped down from the roof which was more than two meters high, and landed steadily on the ground.

The hood of the hoodie slipped off, and finally Furiya Rei could see his appearance clearly - soft chocolate-brown short hair, snow-white skin with freckles scattered on his cheeks, and a pair of bloodshot red eyes when he lifted his eyelids.

Bermode called him, "Cherry Brandy, you've been called back too?"

The young man nodded repeatedly.

Bermode flicked her platinum hair and smiled. "That's great. It's too annoying to do it yourself. I'll leave the rest to you. Is that ok?"

The young man nodded again in a serious tone.

"Hey, you guys are still chatting in this situation, don't you take us seriously?" Their nonchalant attitude obviously irritated the people from the Yamano Group, but Cherry Brandy answered very seriously: "Sorry, yes."

Then he attacked alone, so fast that he left only a shadow. Before Furuya Rei could even see his movements, he had already turned over and clamped his legs around the head of the man from the Yamano Group. He said softly and politely, "This is a move I learned from a novel in the Rabbit Country. This master likes hoodies just like me. Can you help me see if this move works?"

He moved his waist and broke the man's neck.

"How is it? Is it comfortable to die like this?" He lowered his head and asked the head.

After a moment of silence, the Yamano group retreated. Cherry Brandy wanted to chase after them, but was stopped by Gin.

The purpose of this action is to teach the Yamano Group a lesson and to make other organizations realize that they are not pushovers and there is no point in hunting them down.

After calling Cherry Brandy, there was neither excitement nor disappointment on his face. He just stood there quietly, waiting for the next instruction like a robot.

Gin lit a cigarette and said to him, "The mission is accomplished. Go wherever you want. Don't cause any trouble. There's so much noise here. The police will be here soon. Retreat now."

After walking for a while, Rei Furuya realized that Cherry Brandy had followed him after the group disbanded. He wasn't following him, he didn't even think about hiding his whereabouts, he just walked behind Rei Furuya in a swaggering manner.

They hadn't even left the area where the old factory was located. At first glance, the old factory building looked like a layer of old dust covering the ground.

Cherry Brandy followed Furuya Rei's line of sight and said, "Five seconds left."

"What?"

No need for cherry brandy to explain, 5 seconds later, there was a loud bang, and the thin layer of residual ash was blown away by the sudden burst of flames.

The intense heat from the fire rushed towards Fūya Rei's face, like a magnificent epic poem that was cut short before it was completed.

Cherry Brandy smiled happily, "It sounds great, do you like it?"

Fūya Rei glanced at him, and there was also a fire rolling in the young man's blood-red eyes.

"You set off the bomb?"

"Yes."

"Why? It's just an old factory. There's no point in blowing it up, right?"

The young man shrugged, his voice still gentle and pleasant, "It sounds nice, I like listening to this voice."

Fūya Rei lowered his eyes and said nothing, turned his back to the fire and continued to walk out. Cherry Brandy followed him again.

Anyway, he just has to go his own way and follow his own path.

Finally, Rei Furuya couldn't help it and asked him coldly: "Why are you following me?" Years of undercover career have enabled Rei Furuya to distinguish between himself and Bourbon very well. When he appears in Bourbon's state, just looking into his eyes will make people shudder involuntarily.

Cherry Brandy seemed unaware that he was angry. The night breeze blew his short chocolate-brown hair. He ran his snow-white fingers through his hair to brush it out of his eyes. His expression was as soft and quiet as a newborn baby.

"Oh, I don't know the way, so I just followed you."

As he raised his hand, a piece of his sleeve slid down his arm, and bright red bloodstains snaked across his snowy skin.

Only then did Furiya Rei notice that he was injured - probably hit by a stray bullet in the melee just now - but he himself seemed to be fine. After combing his hair, he put down his arms and let the blood drip onto the ground, splashing up a wisp of dust.

"…You are injured." Furiya Rei reminded in a humanitarian spirit.

It took Cherry Brandy some time to realize that the words were directed at him. He turned around a few times, as if trying to figure out where he was injured.

Fūya Rei reminded him again with a headache, "Arm."

Cherry Brandy raised her arms and looked at them, then suddenly realized what was going on. Then she put her arms down again and smiled, so gentle that it was almost weird. "Thank you."

Furiya Rei had never seen anyone who had such a hard time talking, "...Don't you need to take care of it?"

Cherry Brandy still smiled and said cheerfully, "No, it will be ready tomorrow!"

Where is the liar?

Anyway, the injury was on his own body, and to be honest, Rei Furuya didn't really want to pay attention to him, but Cherry Brandy kept following him, all the way to his car.

On the way, the young man picked a small purple wild flower from the roadside and pinned it in his hair - it looked pretty good against his snow-white face.

The conscience of a public security police officer meant that Fūya Ling could not completely ignore him, so he had to let him get in the car and planned to drop him off at a random hotel and buy him two bottles of medicine and a bandage, which would be the most he could do.

After Cherry Brandy got into the car, he fastened his seat belt obediently and didn't move. He didn't look around or touch anything else with his hands. He was the perfect example of a model student.

"Toru Amuro, codename Bourbon." Furuya Rei introduced himself in just one sentence to avoid the trouble of calling him by his name.

"My name is Akiyama Kanade." The young man followed suit, "Codename: Cherry Brandy. You can call me Cherry, that's what they all call me—"

This was the first meeting between Furuya Rei and Akiyama Kanade in his memory.