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Sometimes kindness can be a burden. I had thought I would begin searching for Echo. I thought I would find him and capture him and claim that deliciously large reward. But one crying face and mention of the word ‘suicide’ and I was now wrapped up in helping to prevent a murder.

My mother always told me that my kindness was the most beautiful gift in this broken world but also the heftiest curse. She told me I was just like me father. If he saw a cat on the road, he would throw himself in front of a car just to protect it. I think I’m the same. However this cat is a high-school girl called Karen Ray and the car is a murderer.

In my career I had dealt with many killers of different varieties, however this one was scum. If you killed someone it should be done in a fair fight, face to face not using something as pervasive and cowardly as drugs. After the first week of Karen surveillance I had managed to work out some things.

First, Karen seemed to undergo drastic mood swings. Going from jubilant to desperately depressed and angry in seconds, the more I watched her, the more I realised her states of being happy were decreasing rapidly and she was spending longer in the depressed state. Talking to Vanessa, the girl who had come to me for help, I was able to determine that the happy state can be called Karen’s real self, while this depressive state is the effect of the drug. I could not determine why someone would take a drug to make them depressed.

Second, the drug Karen was taking. She seemed to take it regularly at six hour intervals. Immediately after taking her mood can be considered to be at its lowest and as the effects wear off her state of mind starts rising. But, as I mentioned previously, the length of time she is staying depressed is increasing.

Third, I’m not sure if it’s regular but I did see Karen getting the drugs once. She met up with a man with a ratty face who gave her a bag full of pills. At this point I handed off Karen surveillance to Vanessa and followed the rat man. However he managed to lose me  so I am unable to say where he comes from.

Finally, I think if I want to know how to help Karen, I need to get my hand on one of those drugs and have it analysed, and I need to do it quick, because I don’t think it’ll be long before she jumps.



I sat alone in my apartment mulling things over. I was a tidy person with few possessions so my place was very clean but because of how huge the place is it feels lonely. I don’t mind much though as I rarely spend time here. I prefer to be moving. Be among people. Shiro… The name suits me. I feel blank like a sheet of paper and only by being around others can I start to fill myself in.

I pulled a large gold coin out of my pocket and stared at it, wondering what I should do. I was at a dead end. I wasn’t in a position to save Karen, and by the time I was… It didn’t bear thinking.

‘I need someone… connected…’

Did I know anyone like that? No… Then I remembered her. Sari had been quite forthcoming about her information on Echo as well as that she asked a man called Cherry, apparently referred to as the Flower of London, to gather information on his location. He could find out anything for the right price. Perhaps it would be worth approaching him. Then there was him.

The coin I was holding was a telecommunication device. It slid open into three pieces containing a microphone, a speaker and a number pad. Though it could only call one number. The aniki I hated.

He was the exact opposite of me. He was colourful, so colourful it was hard to discern his true colour at times.  I slipped the phone back into my pocket. Aniki was twisted. I could never depend on him.

However that Cherry guy was a different matter altogether.



‘Hurry it up. I need to get back to my apartment in ten minutes.’

I was slightly depressed. Despite all I had heard about him, Cherry was rather plain. He certainly had looks, however he wasn’t anything like the rumours claimed him to be. In fact, he seemed a bit dull. Was it because I had spent so long near a shining apple, I was unable to appreciate the lustre of the cherry?

‘What’s the rush?’

Information was a business. I always entered into a situation with the optimum amount of information. I already knew that Cherry had to return to his apartment to oversee the installation of a dialysis machine for his (adopted) younger brother, who due to an Oscillation was experiencing massive organ failure.

‘It doesn’t matter, does it? Just start talking.’

I shrugged and poured some tea into a cup offering it to Cherry. He declined with a disgusted look. Ah, yes. Hardly anyone drank tea anymore, they needed something stronger. But for some reason I was addicted to the stuff.

‘What it is it with people and that piss, even that weird guy was…’

‘What was that?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Hurry up. Time is money.’

Hmm, he certainly was a greedy miser just like Sari had said.

‘I will pay you ten thousand euro to get a specific drug. This is an image of the dealer.’

I handed him a hand drawn sketch of the dealer I had seen. I was a good artist so it was a fairly good likeness.

‘His cliental should all be students, male or female ranging between pre-teen and post-adolescent. I have seen him operating in Downtown around the remnants of the abbey. That should help you to narrow the search.’

I handed him ten thousand euro, I could almost see his mind reeling. It was rather amusing.

‘So, do we have a deal?’



Cherry gritted his teeth as the albino handed him the stack of money he’d promised, before delivery. In his experience only two types of people did that, people who knew they were sending him on a wild goose chase and those who didn’t think they’d live long enough to worry about money.

‘What the hell are you trying to pull?’

Cherry whispered quietly. Standing up he slammed his hand on the table attracting the attention of everyone else in the shop.

‘What the hell are you trying to pull, you bastard!’

He tried to reach across the table to grab the albino, but he felt himself twist and found himself lying on the ground, his arm behind his back and a knee pressed into the back of his neck.

‘………’

‘Shit…’

Cherry was ashamed. He hated people who didn’t value their own life. It reminded him of a time he’d rather forget before he had become Cherry and was regular old Damien Victor.

‘I will provide you with another hundred thousand euro on completion of the job, that is merely a bonus.’

‘What?’

He was honestly stunned. He was given the price he had accepted as a bonus and then his payment had been multiplied by ten!

‘Sorry, this looks like more of a dangerous job then I had originally thought.’

The albino stood up, dusting off his clothes, he pulled Cherry up to his feet.

‘I’d leave through the back and take a number of detours on your way home. Make that a habit for the next couple of months.’

‘What are you-‘

The albino didn’t let him finished but pushed him towards the back of the shop.



I watched Cherry leave. Sorry Cherry-kun, it appears I have wrapped you up in something a lot more dangerous than a suicide drug. I turned around to the other customers of the store. All of whom had turned to face him. The sleeves of their clothes pushed back to reveal what looked like gun barrels grafted onto their skin.

‘Honestly, I always choose the most troublesome of targets.’

Though personally I think Nareena-tan picked an extremely troublesome target. I didn’t think anyone else apart from me would be able to take on the Enforcers and survive. You have earned my respect Echo-sensei, wherever you are.

‘Gentleman, I will have to make this quick…’

Taking out my watch I glanced at the time. The hands still hadn’t moved, they were pointing resolutely at 9:48. They would move in time. Though it might be backwards instead of forwards. That was one of the mysteries surrounding the broken clock my otou-san had given to me.

‘…I’m afraid I’m rather late.’