(PoV-Zero and Protocol 9)
—
And so, Zero and the remaining team started their break into the Grand Imperial.
Riku Matsuda was still breathing when they found him.
Zero crouched beside the unconscious man and pressed two fingers to his throat. The pulse was weak but there. Drug sweat slicked Matsuda's skin, and he'd already lost enough blood to leave him clammy.
Zero stood.
Across the Grand Imperial's marble concourse, silk scarves had been shredded across the floor. Bullets had punched through a display case that probably cost more than Zero had earned in the last year he'd still had a salary.
"Not a threat," he said into the channel. "Leave him for the pickup teams. Let's move."
And then, they headed upstairs.
The Grand Imperial hadn't been built for men like them. Marble steps meant for tuxedos and evening gowns cracked under six pairs of tactical boots. On every landing they found more of Sabushi's men, usually two or three at a time. For some strange reason, some had been shot, while others hadn't needed bullets.
At the second floor, Kenji stopped beside a man whose throat had been opened with one clean cut.
"Whoever came through first wasn't hunting," he said, before crouching for a closer look, then glancing toward the next body. "This is the work of an expert. No wasted shots. No playing with them." Kenji then stood up and rested the shotgun against his shoulder. He'd spent too many years around dead people not to recognize the difference between murder and work. "Professional. Young, though. Judging from these, the killer had no time to waste, or hated useless suffering."
Sora looked over. "What do you mean by 'young?'"
"An old hand leaves at least one body messy out of anger or habit," Kenji nodded toward the bodies. "These are all clean."
"The girl," Sora said, popping his gum. His goggles flicked between camera feeds. "Chief's other ghost. Ishikawa."
"Focus," Zero said. "Whatever has happened, we have a target. Move."
"Roger." They all said in unison.
And then, the Protocol 9 kept moving.
The third floor took four minutes and eleven rounds.
For some reason, Sabushi's men had managed to organize something that looked like a defense.
They'd overturned banquet tables across an old wedding hall and taken positions behind them. Silk still hung from the rafters overhead, untouched.
"Six," Sora said. His goggles shifted from thermal to low-light. "Two rifles behind the tables. Four covering the side doors. They've had time to set this up."
"Then don't give them more." Zero said. "Eliminate."
And then, Valeriya went straight through the barricade.
She hit the first table with her shoulder and sent it crashing backward before the man behind it could brace. One of her tomahawks slipped through the gap between another gunman's collar and vest as he tried to bring his rifle around. She was already moving before he hit the floor.
Years ago, slowing down for something she wanted had nearly killed her. She'd learned the lesson.
Meanwhile, Goro took the side hallway.
A controlled burst of flame rolled past the doorway and swallowed the men holding it.
Fire climbed into the silk overhead, turning the fabric bright orange before it curled black.
Goro watched for half a second too long.
He never liked standing close to his own fires. Not anymore. Still, the tension in his bandaged jaw said part of him wanted to.
"Clear," Valeriya called. She wiped one tomahawk against a dead man's jacket and headed for the stairs.
The fourth floor was empty, and that made Zero slow down.
The reception desk had been abandoned mid-shift. Phones rang behind it. A room-service cart sat against the wall with cold plates still under silver covers.
"They pulled everyone upstairs," Zero said. "Everything has been too easy. We have to expect something bigger."
"I think so," Kenji said, reloading his shotgun.
And then, they moved to the fifth floor: the Casino.
That place had fallen silent after the killing.
Coins lay scattered across the carpet. Rain blew through a shattered window and swept sideways over an overturned craps table. Beneath the dead chandeliers, where blood had begun to spread thin under the water, a woman lay motionless.
Sora's goggles found her first.
"Contact. Female, unarmed, critical." He paused. The usual lightness in his voice was gone. "Chief, she's barely reading."
Zero crossed the room while the others spread out behind him, weapons raised out of habit.
Whoever had done this work was already gone.
The leader crouched beside the woman and studied her; Kenji reached them half a step later and stopped.
"I know that face." Years and years of case files had left their mark on his memory. Retirement hadn't changed that. "Interpol red notice. More than one hundred confirmed kills across three countries. Her name is presumed dead along with another guy named 'Shota Watanabe'." His voice flattened. "Aiko Nakamura."
"She's not dead," Sora said.
"Give it ten minutes," Kenji replied.
At the sound of her name, Aiko managed to open her eyes, and her gaze drifted across six masked, armored strangers standing over her.
Both arms lay useless at her sides. The tendons behind her knees and in her forearms had been cut with such precision that Kagami fell silent as he examined them.
He lifted one of her forearms carefully.
"Clean." His eyes followed the wound. "Whoever did this wanted her alive long enough to understand what happened." He glanced at Zero. "Four sites. She'll bleed out anyway if I don't close them."
Zero looked at him. Aiko might have some answers.
Kagami was already opening the Surgeon's kit clipped to his vest.
Once, it had carried very different instruments for very different work. Now it held clamps, sutures, and gauze. Kagami handled them with the same steady hands.
Aiko didn't resist. She no longer had the strength.
The needle passed through torn skin. Once. Again. Then to the next wound.
Nobody spoke during that work.
Forty-four floors above the street, behind concrete and steel, Sabushi was almost certainly watching through a camera they hadn't found. Anything said in the casino might reach him.
Zero suspected something like that; that's why he didn't lower his guard, not even for an instant.
Then, Kagami tied the final suture and sat back on his heels.
Aiko's eyes had cleared. She took in the armor first, then the weapons, then the man who had just kept her from dying.
"So this is how it ends." Her voice was weak, though the old mockery still lived underneath it. "Sewn up like a doll by a bunch of trained dogs." Her lip curled. "I'd rather bleed out than end up in a cage belonging to men like you."
No one answered.
"What is gonna happen to me now?" She asked, her voice becoming sharper with a hint of mischievousness.
Zero turned his visor toward her. "It isn't our place to judge you for your crimes."
Aiko stared back at him.
"With those wounds," he continued, "you're not going anywhere."
He raised two fingers and pointed once toward the floor beside her.
Kagami understood. He settled onto one knee, leaving the trauma kit open beside him, and turned his attention toward the stairwell.
"Stay until the rest of the department arrives," Zero said as he rose. "Keep her alive. We need to ask her a few questions once we're out of this."
Kenji stayed where he was.
He looked down at Aiko, though whatever he saw now had little to do with the photograph attached to an old red notice.
He had spent twenty-six years chasing people like her. In the end, neither a courtroom nor an international manhunt had brought Aiko Nakamura down.
A girl barely older than his daughter had.
"More than one hundred kills confirmed," he said. "How many unconfirmed?"
Aiko's eyes shifted toward him. For the first time that night, she looked genuinely interested.
"Counting, Inspector?" She teased.
"Used to be my job," Kenji replied.
"Used to be." She repeated it slowly. "Funny phrase. Seems to follow all nine of you around."
Kenji said nothing, but something clicked when she said, 'All nine of you around.'"
"Used to be a killer. Used to be a cop." Her gaze sharpened despite the blood loss. "Used to be someone your daughter recognized."
His jaw moved. Barely.
Aiko caught it, and her smile returned immediately. "Careful, old man. I collect things like that for free."
"Enough," Zero said, and Kenji turned away.
Aiko watched him join the others, five figures moving toward the stairwell.
And then, she laughed at everything. Pain. Death. Hina. Her own blood spilling into the carpet. Every word had come dressed as a joke or a threat. What came next didn't.
"You know none of this matters." She called after them.
Zero kept walking.
"The Kurotaka just shot the sky down. Nobody's leaving this building whole. Not me. Not you. Not Hina. Probably not even Sabushi." Her voice cracked. Aiko swallowed and forced out a laugh, but there was no amusement in it anymore. "We're all going to die in here. Including you."
Her head sank against the wet carpet. Her eyes closed.
"This is destiny, right? Tch..."
Zero reached the stairwell without answering.
The door shut behind him and the others.
Rain hissed through the broken window. Coins shifted now and then beneath the water running across the carpet.
Kagami remained beside Aiko, quietly checking the work of his stitches.