The Wanderer's Purpose
"So you're Kir." The Wanderer pulled out a photograph and compared it against the figure lying in the hospital bed, confirming he hadn't picked the wrong person.
He received no response, but that didn't bother him in the slightest. He simply rounded the bed, came to a stop at the bedside, folded his arms across his chest, and recited—without a trace of feeling in his voice—the dossier on Mizunashi Rena. Or rather, on Hondo Hidemi.
"Mizunashi Rena. Real name, Hondo Hidemi. An intelligence officer planted inside the Black Organization by the American CIA, operating under the codename Kir. Father: Ethan Hondo. One younger brother: Hondo Eisuke."
At that, the Wanderer studied the woman in the bed— utterly unresponsive, as though she really were unconscious, as though she truly hadn't heard a word he said—and let out a cold laugh. "Impressive. No wonder they made you an undercover agent. Your composure is top-notch. I've just laid your identity bare, and you can still keep up the act this calmly."
"Then tell me—can you stay just as calm knowing that your little brother is nearby at this very moment, getting ready to sneak into this room?"
The instant he saw Mizunashi Rena's finger twitch, an involuntary reflex she could no longer suppress, the Wanderer knew he'd struck her weak point.
He decided to stoke the fire a little more. "Oh, and by the way—there's something I haven't told you yet. The Organization has noticed your brother too..."
At those final words, Mizunashi Rena finally opened her eyes, fixing a stare straight on the uninvited visitor.
She had been lying down for far too long, and her voice came out thin and listless. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"
"Who I am is of no importance to you." The Wanderer couldn't be bothered to explain his identity to her.
"As for my purpose... it's quite simple. I'd like you to provide us with intelligence from now on."
"Us? Who is 'us'?" Mizunashi Rena frowned. She genuinely couldn't fathom who could possibly be powerful enough to come and go as they pleased inside an FBI safe zone—and dig up intelligence even the Organization itself couldn't find.
Instead of answering her question, the Wanderer pressed on with his demands. "I want you to keep me informed of the FBI's movements when the time comes."
"?"
Confusion spread across Mizunashi Rena's face. Unless her memory was failing her, this boy had just identified her as a CIA mole, not an FBI one. How on earth would she know what the FBI was planning to do?
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Of course not." The Wanderer's voice dropped a register, and he shot her a glance of open displeasure. "I was under the impression that the most basic courtesy between people is not to interrupt them mid-sentence."
Only after she prudently shut her mouth and stopped questioning him did he continue, satisfied.
"The FBI already knows you're a CIA mole. They know your brother Hondo Eisuke is nearby and intends to come see you, and they know the Organization is launching an operation to retrieve you. So they've decided to turn the whole situation to their advantage. They'll use protection for your brother as a bargaining chip to get you to cooperate with them."
"When the Organization moves to pull you out, they'll seize the chance to send you back inside—so you can keep working as their mole within the Organization and feed the FBI information from there."
Noting the way Mizunashi Rena's lips parted and closed again, the Wanderer gave a nod and, with magnanimous grace, allowed her to ask her questions.
She didn't intend to ask how he knew the FBI's plans—true or not, she'd find out soon enough. What concerned her far more was something else.
"You just said the Organization has noticed Eisuke. What did you mean by that? And how is he here?"
She fired off both questions in a single breath. She couldn't help it—the thought of the Organization taking notice of Eisuke and making a move on him terrified her.
"Heh. Whose fault is that but your dear little brother's? He's been running around this hospital clutching your photograph, showing it to everyone he meets, day after day. If the Organization had managed to overlook that, their low-level grunts wouldn't be idiots—they'd be blind."
"But relax. They sent someone to investigate, concluded that you are not Hondo Hidemi, and for now they don't suspect your identity." At this point, the Wanderer couldn't help rolling his eyes, and his next words came out laced with mockery.
"Someone tracked down the place where your mother once worked as a maid, got hold of your brother's family medical records, and confirmed that his blood type really is O—meaning the two of you could never donate blood to each other. And so they pronounced, with great confidence, that you couldn't possibly be his sister."
Tch. As far as he knew, all Cointreau had done upon receiving the report was block the intelligence on Hondo Eisuke's latest blood-type test. Nothing more.
After all, if Charlotte hadn't given him the idea, Hondo Eisuke would never have thought to retest his own blood type in the first place.
Put another way—the simplest way to investigate the matter would have been to get a sample of the kid's blood and send it off for testing. Quick, easy, done.
Were they really going to claim that members of a criminal syndicate couldn't handle a single high schooler? If one man couldn't manage it, send two. Or three. Injuring a high school student shouldn't exactly be difficult.
Since when did the Organization do things with such polite restraint? The Wanderer honestly found the whole thing baffling.
Whoever dreamed up this convoluted detour—wasting time and effort digging through family medical records, only to get the wrong answer in the end—was truly a special kind of talent.
Listening to the boy beside her bed tear into the Organization members' competence without a shred of hesitation, Mizunashi Rena couldn't help but admire his nerve.
But hearing how intimately he understood the Organization's inner workings made her all the more wary of him. These people clearly had their own man inside—someone with rank, no less. Otherwise there was no way they could know all of this in such detail.
She let none of it show. She simply watched the Wanderer, waiting for him to answer her second question—the one that mattered most to her right now.
"As for why your brother is here... well, that's because the FBI isn't one bit better than the Organization's people." The Wanderer switched targets and disparaged this crowd with equal enthusiasm. He held every fool incapable of thinking around a corner in equal, democratic contempt.
"Your brother tracked you to this hospital—worked out which ward you're in, even pinned down your exact room. Naturally, he's about to come find you."
Even now, he couldn't resist a parting jab. "Which just goes to show—the FBI's skills aren't much to write home about either. They can't even keep one person hidden from a high school student. Tch."
Then something occurred to him. He looked at Mizunashi Rena, the corner of his mouth curling up into a distinctly unkind smile. "Oh, right—I heard the FBI once came within a hair's breadth of catching Gin. But one of their people did something stupid and leaked the information, and in the end they not only lost him, they got their own mole—Rye Whiskey—exposed. Is that true?"
"Cough—cough, cough." One look at the Wanderer's expression told Mizunashi Rena that whatever came next would not be pleasant, but hearing a question so openly hostile to both the Organization and the FBI caught her off guard all the same, and an itch seized her throat, forcing her into a fit of coughing.