The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 47 - Epilogue

Eight months later, roughly 70 miles off the coast of Algiers.

The boat was a Bavaria C57, an incredibly beautiful sailing Yacht which – whoever had the means to dig up information like that knew – belonged to one certain Asami Ryuichi. That he had bought the ship seemingly on a whim and had set sail within a fortnight had been a surprise to those who had known him – business partners mostly. Tough, not as much as the fact that he had called it 'Autumn' in remembrance of his young lover, who had – as word had it – died tragically months before.

That he would then choose to take his own life this night would later be the most startling of it all – or maybe would, after everything else, not be that very startling anymore. After all, it had seemed that he had lost his marbles for good a while ago anyway.

When the boat's motor and tank exploded, it tore a giant hole into the ship's side and burned the already dead man to the point of being unrecognizable – should indeed someone come and look for a corpse. The blast lit up the low clouds like a monstrous jack o'lantern above the black surface of the water. It was honestly stunning to behold, but those people who would later wonder how the once great Asami Ryuichi had fallen so quickly and so badly, would never know about the spectacular sight.

In fact, the only one who really witnessed it sat in a small inflatable boat a hundred yards away and tried to keep his eyes shielded from the sudden brightness. Instead, he focused on the shallow, dark waves on which the dinghy bounced slightly up and down. He kept humming some pop song with which some Russian boy had made 10th place in the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest – and did not even know why the fuck that tune was stuck in his head.

He was pretty relieved to finally being able to occupy his mind with something else, when he spotted a teeny, tiddly white light flashing on the waves between himself and the burning Yacht. With one paddle, he just pushed his dinghy towards it but stopped when there were only a few meters between them. A black arm shot out of the water then. He caught it and dragged the man attached to it inside.

"You look good for a dead man!", he grinned, and Asami felt the sudden urge to punch the Russian.

"Just get us out of here", he gnarled instead, panting a moment for breath, then hoisted in the watertight package he had dragged through the ocean behind him.

"Your mood certainly has not improved", Mikhail gave back, turning on the quiet, little motor of the boat.

About 20 miles to the east there was another ship – a giant, white Sunseeker 35 m motor Yacht – but the man it belonged to did not know that it was there because he was dead and had been for more than 10 years. In truth, he had never really bought the ship in the first place and therefore very likely did not care about the young Japanese who sat at the rear of the top deck and stared off into the darkness.

Every odd minute, the youngster checked his watch, then the overcast sky again. He had been told by the man by his side, that they would very likely not be able to see the explosion because of the clouds. But then again, the other one was still standing there as well, gazing out into the night.

"You know ... we could just leave. We could leave them out there, go home ... with each other ..."

Akihito looked up grinning, but then shrugged. "Oh, but they would both be so sad."

Fei Long smiled down at him before he nodded and sighed. "Yes. And we would probably miss them some day."

When the dinghy finally came into sight, Akihito had almost dozed off from all the staring. For a while now he had believed to see shapes in the clouds, but whenever he had looked up it had been nothing. Now he was more cautious and only raised his arm to point into the distance when he was absolutely sure.