Her father's face was full of rage like, if he was to die the next moment he would kill her before it and make sure she was dead.

She screamed and ran to her bedroom, sliding under her bed. Then she heard their lounge window breaking and she saw footsteps running inside her room. The steps faltered and the person fell to the ground. His face was facing her, with eyes filled with terror for life. It was her father's bloody form. Then another pair of steps followed him inside. They were clad in black bloody boots.

He flipped her father over, so he laid on his back. Then he sat on her father's chest with the tip of the same knife pressed right above her father's heart that her father had used to kill his wife. Then with a single jerk, he dove it in his heart and her father's struggles halted that very instant.

She was crying hysterically which caught the killer's attention. He gots off of him and stretched his hard towards her. He was offering her a hand to help her out from under the bed. But she was too afraid to take it. He retreated his hand and fumbled into his pocket. He then pulled a candy out, strawberry flavoured with mint. He leaned down to her eye level and his face was slowly revealed to her as he leaned down. It was Tsuda, a very young version of him. He gently placed the candy on her palm.

"I'm so sorry. Only if I've come a little earlier. I'm so sorry sweetheart." He said and his eyes were genuinely sad for her.

Suddenly she gasped into consciousness, like she just woke up from a trance, in the present. Tsuda's father stood in front of her crying form.

"Why? Why did he do it? Why did he lie!?" She demanded.

"As I've said before. He gave himself up for you. Your father killed your mother because she was not divorcing him like he wanted. He wanted to be with someone else, but your mother wanted him to be there for you. So he was going to kill you both that night." He told her and Avery felt chills down her back at that.

Mr Hamasaki sat behind his table again. Sipping the hard alcohol. "Tsuda went to the West to make a life of his own, a rebel he was at that time. He was assigned by your father to kill you and your mother but he refused to kill a woman and a child. He wanted to protect you both, but was too late and he couldn't ever forgive himself for it." He kept on telling her.

"Why did he not tell me the truth?" She asked.

"Because he believed that you would harm yourself if you knew about the truth. Thinking your father killed your mother because of you. So he lied, took all the blame. So you could live with yourself." He told her and she felt like her heart halted.

Then she recalled each curse she threw his way, how she choked him, how she killed him and he accepted it all, without a complaint.

She wailed then, so loudly that the whole house was shaken and everyone woke up. She was thumping her heart, that was how much it was hurting. Her breaths were coming out in hiccups.

"No, it can't be true. Not like this." She cried out holding her hands infront of her. She saw them drenched in blood, in Tsuda's blood. She covered her face with them and kept on wailing.

"Does it hurt any less, now that you've killed my son?" Mr. Hamasaki asked, he was asking about her pain of her parent's loss.

"I feel like I killed myself with him." She choked out.

"Hmm. Get out of my house now, you're not welcome here." He told her unsympathetic coldness and left the room.

She did not know how but she gathered the strength to get up and out of there. Before she could form any thought she found herself infront of his grave again.

"Why? Why did you do this?" She cried knowing full well why. He took the blame so that she won't kill herself over the grief of causing her mother's death. He wanted her to live, but how could she? Especially after what she had done to him.

She laid down beside his grave, with an exhausted body and soul. "How can I live now? Why'd you wish for your murderer to have happy life?" She breathed out into the cold night and looked up at the night sky. It was a clear night, with stars shattered all over the sky. She could see the sky a little further from the cherry blossom sheltering them. It felt like each star was representing each piece of her broken soul. Avery felt a tear slip down the side of her eye.

"Tsuda, can you see this? Isn't it pretty?" She reached a hand up to the sky. "I wish we could see this together. I wish... we could be together once again." She clutched her shirt over her heart.

"You love me too much, do you not? You would do anything for me, right? So, please.. please come back to me, Tsuda."

"I'll get on my knees to beg for your forgiveness. I'll do anything you say. Just please return to me or take me with you. It's suffocating out here." She couldn't even feel her eyes or tear anymore.

After hours of laying in the dark silence, Avery whispered to her lover's grave. "I will live, if that's what you want. I will accept this punishment without a word." And soon she drifted into slumber.

Avery woke up next morning with something soft brushed over her cheek. Almost as if Tsuda was stroking it softly. She jerked her eyes open and saw the tree above her. The cherry blossom petals were fluttering into the wind, descending everywhere. She touched her cheek and picked up a petal that had landed on it, making her crack a sad smile.

She got up and noticed that surprisingly she was not cold at all. She looked down and found a grey coat covering her, with white fox fur coving it's collar. She looked around to see who did it belong to and saw Kei standing a little away from her.

"Is it yours?" She asked him.

"Yes. Keep it." He told her.

"Thank you for covering me up, but I can't take it. It looks expensive." She handed it to him and he took it with a nod.

"Here, eat. I need to talk to you about something." He told her as he sat down beside her in his car. He handed her a cup of coffee and some sandwiches and started eating his own breakfast.

"Thank you." She accepted it and took a few small bites out of it.

"What did you want to talk about?" She asked him.

"Did you ever encounter a masked man during your stay in Japan?" He asked her.

"Yes, why?" She asked.

"Did he harm you in anyway?" He asked.

"No, he just told me that Tsuda killed my parents." She told him.

"That's weird. If he did not wish to harm you, why is he after your uncle?" He pondered.

"What do you mean?" She asked urgently.

"Did you not know? Your uncle is missing. Have you tried contacting him recently?" He asked.

"What? No I have not." She took out her phone to call him but it was dead.

"Can I have your phone for a moment?" She asked.

He nodded and handed it to her.

She dialed Charles' number and put the phone to her ear.

Pick up. Pick up. Not you too. I can't lose you too. She prayed.

After a few rings it was picked up. "Hello? Who is it?" She recognized the voice of her Uncle's bodyguard.

"This is Avery. Where is Mr Charles? Hand the phone to him." She told the man.

"Alright." He told her and there was a pause for a moment.

"Yes? Avery?" Charles asked in a voice filled with concern.

"Uncle, are you okay?" She asked.

"Perfectly, but who's phone are you calling me from?" He asked.

She looked up at Kei and he shook his head in no.

"My phone died so I took a stranger's phone to make this call. More importantly where are you? I need to see you." She asked.

"I'm in a farmhouse near Osaka airport. I'm relieved that you're getting here. Let's get out of Japan together." He told her.

"Okay, I'll be there in an hour or so. Take care." She told him and cut the call.

"Who is this masked one?" She asked him.

"I don't know, we had never encountered him before. We saw him tailing your uncle a few day ago. Then both of them disappeared." He told her.

"We must get going." She told him.

He nodded and told her, "It will take us 2 and a half hour by train."

"Okay let's go by train." She agreed.

The location he sent her in details was hard to find but they did reach it at last. Kei told her that he would wait outside while she went into the house.

"Uncle Charles?" She called out when she saw no one around at front.

She got no reply, making her anxious. "Uncle?" She called again while look around the house.

"Unc..." She stopped when she spotted him sitting in the garden with his men.

"Oh! Look who's here. Come Child. Have this fresh juice." He told her as he handed her the drink.

She sat down and put the juice down.

"Have you seen someone suspicious around you recently?" She asked him.

"Not that I can think of. Why are you asking?" He told her.

"I was just worried." She told him.

"There's nothing to worry about now that Tsuda is dead." He told her, which made her clench her fists on her lap.

"By the way, I do think we need to get out of here quick. You don't know what happened that day after you walked out of the wearhouse." He told her.

"What happened?" She asked.

"Someone I least expected to see barged in with his men, and a huge fight broke out. I bearly slipped out of there." He told her.

"Are you okay? Who was it?" She asked.

"Salvatore Agosti! Can you believe?" He told her.

"But thanks to you, Tsuda was long past saving when they arrived." He told her. It made her heart shrink with pain. As though someone was squeezing it hard.

"Thank God you're okay." She told him and took the glass of juice to sip from it.

"Yeah. I need to tell you something too. Actually it's about your father. I was the one who..." Before he could continue a bullet came piercing through Avery's glass and shattering it.

Everyone was alerted and got up. Soon out of no where, men started pouring in and among them stood the very man Kei talked about. The masked man, with an eye patch.

Something was odd, very odd about him and it clicked to her what it was. He was wearing the very same coat that covered her last night.

Then realisation dawned on her, that who was the masked man, who misled Avery and who betrayed Tsuda.

"Kei!" Avery screamed in rage and charged towards him, determined to kill him, if that was the last thing she did.