More than half a month later—
A black car sped through the city streets at night.
In the passenger seat sat Gin, calmly cleaning his pistol.
Vodka, focused and alert, handled the wheel.
Lately, Vodka had been driving more frequently—not because he preferred it, but because Gin's beloved Porsche 356A hadn't been returned yet. Gin didn't seem interested in ordinary modern sedans.
Though truth be told, Vodka found this car much easier to handle than that old relic—but he kept that opinion to himself.
"Step on it. We've got more to do after this," Gin ordered coolly.
"Got it."
Vodka pressed harder on the accelerator.
Navigating the city traffic with precision, he overtook the cars ahead so smoothly that the vehicle barely swayed.
But just as he rounded a corner and neared the next intersection, a fully loaded truck in front of them suddenly overturned.
SCREECH!
Vodka slammed the brakes.
The inertia flung Gin slightly forward in his seat.
"Is it Cointreau!?" Vodka exclaimed.
"..." Gin narrowed his eyes, scanning the scene. After a few seconds of silence, he replied coldly, "Don't jump to conclusions and blame everything on Cointreau."
"…Right. Just an accident, I guess."
Vodka let out a breath of relief.
He eased the car around the toppled truck and continued on.
After more than half an hour of driving, they arrived at an apartment building. Just as they pulled up, their target emerged from the building, casually checking his phone.
Vodka accelerated slightly and tailed him.
Kitamura Wataru didn't notice the car at first. It wasn't until it slowed to match his pace and the passenger window rolled down that he realized something was wrong—
BANG!
A bullet pierced straight through his skull.
He crumpled to the ground.
Gin and Vodka stepped out of the car. Vodka knelt down to search the body and reached for the phone—when suddenly:
"Wait!"
A sharp instinct surged through Gin. His pupils contracted.
With a powerful kick, he launched Vodka aside—just as a sniper bullet grazed where Vodka's head had been.
"Sniper!?" Vodka cried out in shock.
Gin scanned the surroundings, his mind racing. Amid the urban sprawl of high-rises, he pinpointed the shooter's position almost instantly.
Roughly 700 yards out!
His right eye throbbed with tension. The sniper had locked on to it.
"Heh… Clever. I walked into a trap…"
Gin grinned with murderous glee. The hatred in his eyes seemed to radiate.
It was a trap.
A low-level pawn had been sacrificed to lure him in—then a hidden sniper tried to finish the job.
So, they thought they could kill him from long range?
How insulting.
He scoffed.
BANG!
From a rooftop far away, a muzzle flashed.
But Gin had already moved.
Even before the sniper's trigger finger twitched, Gin's body had twisted away, avoiding the fatal shot to his right eye.
The bullet struck the ground, sparks flying.
"Aniki!"
Vodka leaped toward the driver's seat. The sniper adjusted quickly and fired again.
The first rushed shot hit the open car door.
The second struck Vodka's arm.
The third—aimed at Gin—barely clipped a strand of his hair as he dove into the vehicle.
Gin slammed the door. Vodka, wincing from the injury, floored the gas pedal.
The black car roared off.
Through her scope, Seiran Hoshi realized it was over. The mission had failed.
She dismantled the rifle methodically, descended the building, and left.
At the intersection, a man tried to chat her up. She ignored him, walked to her car, and drove away. When she stopped at a red light, she called.
"My mission failed."
"You're not hurt, are you?"
"No. I was disguised. No surveillance. At 700 yards, they won't trace me."
Her voice carried some frustration. "If I'd fired from 500 yards, I would've finished the job."
"Heh."
"Relax. I don't blame you."
"You did well, Miss Seiran."
The voice on the other end was soft and reassuring. Her grip on the phone loosened, her stormy gray eyes briefly distant.
"…Yes."
The call ended.
The red light turned green.
But Seiran Hoshi didn't step on the gas right away.
Meanwhile, in a second-floor apartment in Mihua Town—
Hayashi Yoshiki set his phone down, a faint smile curling his lips.
Seiran Hoshi, codenamed Scorpion, was indeed a member of the Zoo organization.
However, based on what she had confessed, her connection was more transactional than hierarchical. The boss of the Zoo would occasionally hire her for assassinations. In turn, she sometimes leveraged their resources for her own purposes.
This suggested that the Zoo didn't operate with the same tightly knit command structure as the Black Organization—the "Winery."
But Seiran had offered an interesting theory: the Zoo's enigmatic boss—whom Yoshiki jokingly referred to as "the zookeeper"—might also be the person behind the assassin platform they all used.
If that were true, then that person commanded a terrifying level of power.
"A platform for killers…"
Hayashi Yoshiki was intrigued.
He wanted to make the tension between the Zoo and the Winery boil over…
He genuinely hoped that Gin—who had narrowly escaped today—could handle the heat.
In truth, Hayashi didn't know Gin and Vodka's exact movements day by day. But by using the Death Note wisely, he could influence events with calculated precision.
[Name: Kitamura Wataru]Cause of death: GunshotDetails: At 21:47 on the night of November 13, he is shot and killed upon exiting his apartment after his identity is exposed.
Hayashi had written that line in the Death Note.
Kitamura was one of the low-tier operatives from the Zoo whose name Shizuka had provided.
By adding "due to identity exposure" to the cause of death, he greatly increased the chances that the Winery would eliminate Kitamura themselves.
All he needed to do was station Seiran at the location—to observe and stir the flames.
Of course, Hayashi had never expected her to succeed in killing Gin. That would've been too much to ask.
His goal was simply to fuel the war between two shadowy titans: the Winery and the Zoo.