Yuri met her dad in an abandoned park far away from their house. That's because an operation conducted by the Faith Organization called The Pursuit had initiated and the Keller's household was the first target. James Finnegan was informed about the tragic news from a man said to be the best mercenary in the entire world, named Aldrich.

When James was told about that operation, he couldn't stay there any longer. He had to leave immediately.

There wasn't time to do anything else. He packed everything he could inside a bag (clothes, anything valuable and two hundred pounds in cash).

An hour after he had left the house, he met Yuri at the abandoned park. They hugged and cried for all they could. James encouraged her daughter to keep on living, and together find a new meaning in life somewhere else. Time was running out and they needed to leave as soon as possible. He bought two tickets for a passenger ship that was due to depart an thirty minutes. He called a taxi over to pick them up and start their life over from zero in another country that was close by, Japan.

They finally arrived at the port. When they were about to get on the ship, a chubby woman wearing a formal uniform with a deafening high-pitched voice didn't just want to take the money for the transportation. She also needed to write down the names of the passengers in her notebook.

Their turn to pay had come. The woman said "name?" and James got really anxious.

"What if that organization (Faith Organization) reviewed the names of passengers exiting England? They would find out about us and where we're going to." He thought.

Therefore, his answer was surprisingly: "Eiko— Eiko Tokiyama".

When he said that he let out an inaudible sigh of relief. "Phew.."

But then...

"Yeah, yeah I don't care. Where's your identification?" the woman said.

Yuri looked at him slightly baffled, but she couldn't say anything. She was mentally paralysed and would respond robotically so she didn't understand what was going on.

Sweating now, James said while anxiously laughing "Oh, is it not April Fools yet? Hah! I was wrong! How silly of me to make such a stupid joke at this awkward time!"

The woman lowered her glasses and said aggressively "You think this is some kind of joke? HaNd oVEr yOuR iDeNTiFicATIoN!"

He didn't have any other choice. If the woman worked for the Faith organization, I wouldn't have been—

*I shake my head*

—Yuri and James would be really screwed.

When he handed over the identification, the woman said "What a silly name, James Finnegan. Finnegan sounds like a clown's surname, Hah! NEXT!"

She wrote down the name on a small notebook. She would upload them all together later, after she was done with everyone.

After a while, the passenger ship was about to head towards Japan. As mentioned earlier, James Finnegan is really smart, with a lot of compliments being about his bright mind. That statement would be confirmed once more.

Even though it was fortunate that the chubby woman didn't work for the Faith Organization, nobody could ever assure that their journey to Japan would be safe. James thought of the following scenario.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Although there's a solid possibility that they go to Japan unscathed, it's also really possible that the Faith Organisation track them down still. Their names being online could literally get them killed. James couldn't just let this slip by. He had to do something about this small notebook the woman had if he wanted to make sure that their departure and integration in japan was smooth.

The ship was steadily moving and everyone was relaxing inside the cafeteria or enjoying the breeze outside. There was one person however that needed to do something first. And that being to upload the passengers' names on their computer. That person was that chubby and annoying woman. I've said "woman" a few times now while referring to her and it's getting on my nerves. I think her name is Doulaverh.

Doulaverh went inside her small office next to the cafeteria. James thought of something brilliant in order to get rid of their names written down on that notebook.

He planned everything in his head in a snap. The plan was the following.

He would press the red emergency button which would signal a fire breakout. On his way to the cafeteria, he had noticed three of these in different spots. He would choose the one that's closer to Doulaverh's room. That way she'd be the first one to notice and worry about the fire.

"If a fire broke out near you, you wouldn't just stand there, right?" was what he thought. Doulaverh wouldn't have finished writing all the names in her computer and he'd have the chance to sneak his way in, grab the notebook and cut the page that their names were written on.

After thinking other possible solutions, he decided to stick to this one. He told Yuri to wait a minute.

"I need to do something. Stay here" he said.

And so he started. He pressed the button and then quickly hid behind the room's door. That way, when Doulaverh opened the door he wouldn't be seen.

It was a marvellous idea. Everything was going according to plan. Panicked as she was, Doulaverh opened the door and hurriedly headed towards the fire alarm. James sneaked inside and tore off the important to him page. He made a small ball of paper with it, shoved it in his pocket to get rid of it later and quickly left the scene.

Meanwhile, Doulaverh had of course understood that there was no fire. Nevertheless, she was still kinda busy, trying to stop the irritating sound of the alarm that would eventually go away on its own. Worked up over trivial matters as always...

When it stopped ringing, she went to the cafeteria to inform the passengers that there was nothing to worry about. You'd expect the passengers to be calm and relieved after hearing her statement. However, her extremely obnoxious high pitched voice in combination with the old megaphone she used to make the announcement, almost destroyed everyone's eardrums. They were lucky to even survive.

A couple was playing tennis outside and they accidentally sent the tennis ball flying towards the wall. It ricocheted and surprisingly landed on Doulaverh's head while she was still making the announcement. She started trippin' and then she fell down. Only few people moved out of their way to help her. Almost everyone was intensely clapping and cheering for that tennis player. The man said "Well, It was an accide— whatever hah!" and then he also clapped for himself.

Finnegan's plan was a complete success. The distraction he used was more than effective. He then returned to the cafeteria but he couldn't believe in his eyes. Yuri was nowhere to be found...

Even though his expression all this time was sad and bitter, the moment she noticed Yuri missing he softly cried. Everything was too much even for him. He said "Excuse me" to everyone he bumped with and slowly made his way out of the crowd of people who were still clapping and cheering.

He finally exited the cafeteria and was able to run. After a couple of minutes of searching, he found Yuri in a corner, on her knees facing the wall, with her hands covering her wet eyes and crying. James knelt down next to her as well and said

"Yuri... It's okay, don't cry. I'm here..." while hugging her.

Yuri returned the hug, but cried even louder.

"Everything's scary... So Scary... The Alarm— Unknown footsteps (...) Where's Mom? I want to see Mom! (sob)"

James cried as well. Both of them tearing like that... Even now, I can't say I'm not moved. The situation they were in was certainly tragic.

After a while, both of them stopped crying and James tried to fill Yuri with hope about what they were going to do next. He told her about Japan's great sights they could visit, the tradition the Japanese have, things they could do together and so on and so forth.

Telling her "We'll have each other, so don't worry. Nothing can harm us anymore." made Yuri temporarily forget about her mother's death and it put a slight smile on her face. After so many times being either expressionless (as if she were a robot) or really sad, she found a glimmer of hope in his words.

Then, they got up, abandoned the corner and moved outside. Yuri and James stared into the vast ocean. Yuri was surprisingly hopeful. James on the other hand knew how hard it'd be to survive with such little money they had. He was relieved to see her daughter smiling, though. That was enough to make him smile a bit, too.

An hour later, their journey was almost over. They could see with their own eyes Japan's very first islands from far away. With each second passing by, they could feel Japan's presence more and more. But their actual journey had yet to even begin. What does fate have in store for them? How will things unfold in Japan?

At the time, only Sachrist knew how excruciating and brutal their future would be...