A Shared Past the Color of Blood, and Blood the Color of Roses

A single auburn hair and Gin knew it was her and was surprised to discover it was Sherry who had taken the first move. Why is that I wonder? What past warrants their interaction on that snowy hotel roof? What past supplies the context of their witty banter on romance cliches? What past led Gin to spill so much of her blood across the snow? And yet left her so much unharmed?

Blood the color of roses; Sherry's favorite color; the color that spells classical romance.

Funny that a red past sounds less like romance and more like well...

Rather appropriate for the past of Gin and Sherry don't you think?

Chapter 1

Gin made quick work of the training course. A series of slick and silent maneuvers let him outsmart his targets. The course was intended to force him to adapt to the unexpected, and match wits with the bloody brilliant program's opponent.

The environment of this one was controlled, the lighting dark to mimic a crescent moon, and the air thick with moisture and bitter frost. The water in the air felt as if it carried the weight of a damp towel that pressed a chill into his skin. He had worked up a cold sweat. The uncomfortable type he usually only felt with illness. He was here to sweat out the toxin to which he was trying to build up an immunity. It was a particularly nasty one that tempered with his normal reserves of stamina as well. The course strained Gin physically and mentally, which was exactly the rush he needed to distract him from the toxin.

It was a lone mission simulation, which should have given him a straightforward course of action. Though, knowing the opponent he battled was a computer program made him consider everything twice. It was obnoxiously devoid of error. That type of error people were so prone to that made them much easier prey. He was never sure if the footsteps he heard around the corner were ones he was supposed to follow, or the program trying to trick him.

He whipped around the corner regardless, gun trained on the direction of the footsteps. Down the barrel of his beretta was his real life subordinate Vodka.

Gin always remained cool and level headed, unshaken; it was as much who he was as it was his occupation. Gin's cold eyes leveled with the face of his partner who had apparently gotten himself captured and was being threatened. It was a very real scenario; this was exactly the type of situation Vodka wouldn't think through and would get himself captured in. Someone had to have entered that data into the scenario generator. A sharp rage was frighteningly evident in Gin's eyes.

Gin terminated the simulation, but not before he was faced with the image of his subordinate facing a quick and tasteless execution.

The training course zone blinked back to its maze of white walls and flood of stage lights. The course of walls then sunk into the floor, leaving only Gin standing in an expansive empty white space. The ceiling of it was three floors up. He looked to an observing window at the height of the second floor. Gin wouldn't have been able to make out a face from that distance, even with his impeccable sight, but he could tell who it was. Her slim sexy legs were crossed and she had a hand tucked up under her chin, making her posture look villainously amused. If she wasn't that person's favorite she wouldn't still be alive with all her games.

He caught a glance at the figure of another older women in the shadow of the observing room. Brandy?

Gin fired a couple blanks at the ground as if he were standing over a dying person's body and walked toward the exit.

The training simulation room opened up into a foyer. It was usually rather barren, and they had done little to disguise the fact that it was in a warehouse. The walls were dull metal sheets, and unlike the insulated training room that could control every aspect of the atmosphere from air pressure to moisture content, the warehouse trapped whatever weather the Kanto region was experiencing and amplified it.

He had noticed gray clouds pressing down on the city earlier that day, and now it seemed the warehouse had pulled off its usual miraculous feat of magnifying its surrounds. The room gave the feeling of walking through smog while being smothered in the stale warmth that the cloud cover refused to release. Though he couldn't fault the warehouse entirely for the clammy heat likely produced by the mass of people crammed into it.

The Organization rarely had very many of its members assembled in one place, so unless Gin was on a mission that required collaboration he was unlikely to see more than two other members at a time. This made the crowd of just seven black clothed persons in the foyer of one of their training facilities feel as if it may as well have been a thousand.

There was an eighth person in the foyer, but she was not in black at all. Instead, she was adorned with a white coat and remarkably foreign red-brown hair. With a pencil tucked behind her ear, pulling back some of her short hair from her Japanese features she was a startling puzzle to Gin.

Her shoulders and waist looked almost too small to be an adult 's. She was so slender and frail, so easily breakable. Indeed she seemed like a feather from a dove placed in a room of old crows. All notions of her fragile state were shaken from him as he heard her speak.

"I cannot disclose the nature of this trial until you are all debriefed at its conclusion." She addressed the entire group, though it sounded as if she was responding to a particular complaint.

"Tch, I didn't sign up for any of this. I'm leaving." A man with a strong jaw and wide face pushed past the others. This would have been quite a task for anyone not of his stature in present company.

"The test group needed to be randomly selected from the syndicate's members, otherwise it would not be an accurate portrayal of the group as a whole." She wasn't backing down.

Gin's gaze was drawn back to the bulk of a man with the sound of his shaking of the bolted steel door in its hinges. He banged the side of his fist into the metal door a couple more times and shouted for the presumed people on the other side to unlock it.

No answer.

He turned back to the woman in the white coat. "Open the damn door."

"I'm not in control of the door. I assume you will be released upon completion of the baseline tests."

"You tell them to release us."

"I can't do that yet." She had folded her arms around the clipboard she was holding, and her eyes didn't stray down to it or to the floor, nor any level below that of the eyes of the man she addressed.

With less than two strides he was towering over her, grabbing at the collar of her lab coat. He hadn't gotten to verbally threatening her before he jerked back in surprise.

There was now a bullet hole clean through the young scientist's collar where the man had been pulling it out away from her skin. The brutish man turned his attention to Gin who was tucking his beretta back into concealment.

"You arrogant little prick."

Gin's cold eyes were the only retort he offered. His assailant came at him with a hammering fist. What ensued could not be called a real fight. All in one fluid and minimalistic movement, Gin redirected the punch while dodging, and threw the other guy off balance before delivering a sharp strike to the back of his neck. The other guy fell to the ground, easily swatted down as though he were merely a small pest.

"I suppose this is the bit where I'm expected to thank you." The young scientist addressed the victorious Gin. "And you graciously offer to fix the hole you've put in both my coat and my test group."

Gin smiled internally at her reaction, intrigued. She was as bold and poised with him as she had been with that brute, and it made him want to give her a reason to keep speaking.

"You're naive. Life doesn't play out in beautiful neat little scenes."

"And still you play the aloof hero: meeting the girl as he saves her from harm."

Gin scoffed. "What foolish romantic notions."

"Say what you will," she dismissed. "I'm simply pointing out the obvious parallels you've created."

"Gin." His superior, Brandy called from the landing of the stairwell behind him. "The observing room, now."

"Well then," he gave a tilt of his head in a mock bow to the young scientist before proceeding up the stairs after the women who had interrupted their conversation.

Gin shut the door behind him coming in. Brandy hadn't bothered to sit down as per usual and had her resting impatient face. Vermouth had already left it seemed, which was smart of her as Gin hadn't forgotten about her little joke and wasn't entirely sure he would be content leaving his response as only firing blanks at the floor.

Brandy had been present for that entire exchange but likely wouldn't mention it now. Although she was his superior she was not the type to scold him for his and Vermouth's bout, instead, she predictably cut right to the grit of his next assignment.

"It will be Kyoto next. There's a professor there that the syndicate has been keeping tabs on, and on occasion purchased research from. He's gone quiet the past few days and has been acting suspiciously as far as the syndicate is concerned. We are to look into it, with the high likelihood of termination. We leave immediately."

"Understood," Gin said.

She got to the doorknob and paused, "Also, we'll need that scientist girl to collect his research. We believe what he's hiding is a potential breakthrough, maybe even the one we've been looking for."

"Breakthrough?"

"Never mind, the train leaves in an hour."