The rain had become part of the city's heartbeat. For three days and nights it hadn't stopped, drumming endlessly on rooftops, spilling into clogged drains, and painting the streets of Noxhaven in a sheen of oil-slick black. People moved faster when it rained here—not because they feared getting wet, but because they feared what the shadows hid when the neon lights reflected on puddles.
Detective Suichi Kamane never moved fast. He walked with the same deliberate pace whether it was bright daylight or pitch-dark midnight, his long coat clinging damply to his frame as he ducked under the yellow tape stretched across a narrow alley. The officers guarding the perimeter straightened when they saw him. His reputation had already spread far beyond his precinct; Suichi was the man who saw what others missed, the one who found patterns in chaos. But to the rookies, there was something unsettling about him—something cold in the way his dark eyes scanned a scene, as if he wasn't looking at a crime but dissecting a piece of art.
Tonight's art piece was lying in the filth between two overflowing dumpsters. A man in his mid-thirties, face pale under the stuttering light of a flickering sign. The corpse's eyes were wide open, mouth frozen in an expression that wasn't fear but sheer disbelief. His chest had been carved open, not with clumsy violence but careful precision. Strange geometric symbols traced across the skin in symmetrical lines, too deliberate to be random.
Suichi crouched, the knees of his black trousers soaking in the grime. The young officer beside him—barely out of academy, still carrying the faint arrogance of theory—swallowed hard.
"Sir, robbery gone wrong?" he asked.
Suichi didn't answer immediately. He leaned closer, tilting his head. The cuts weren't shallow. They were deep enough to bleed him out, yet the man's hands told another story. Fingertips scorched, nails chipped, the flesh raw as though he had clawed at something burning. Suichi inhaled, catching a faint trace of something that didn't belong here—incense, sharp and bitter, still clinging to the body even through the stench of garbage and rain.
"Not a mugging," Suichi said finally, his voice quiet but certain. "Not gangs either."
The rookie shifted uncomfortably. "Then what the hell is it?"
Suichi rose, slow and deliberate, scanning the walls. His eyes caught it: faint red paint bleeding down the bricks, half erased by rain but still legible enough. Words scrawled in shaky yet purposeful strokes:
"THE HARVEST BEGINS."
The officer's breath hitched. "What… what does that mean?"
Suichi lit a cigarette, shielding the flame from the drizzle with his palm. Smoke curled upwards, mixing with the mist. He exhaled without looking at the boy.
"It means," he said, tone flat, "this isn't the first body. And it won't be the last."
---
The crime scene blurred into background noise: cameras flashing, officers murmuring, the steady hiss of rain. Suichi's focus lingered on the corpse and the writing on the wall. The phrase stirred something in his memory, like the echo of a case file he had once read, buried deep in closed archives. He wanted time, silence, and a stronger coffee than the watered sludge the station served.
Back in his apartment, silence was relative. The city never slept, not really. Through the half-open blinds, neon lights pulsed faintly, and somewhere a siren wailed before dying into the distance. Suichi's place wasn't the kind of home anyone visited. It was a box of shadows: stacks of old case files leaned like broken teeth along the walls, newspapers spread across the floor, cigarette burns on the desk. His gun rested on the table, always within arm's reach, next to a battered leather notebook he carried everywhere.
He shrugged off his soaked coat, draping it across the back of a chair, then poured himself coffee—black, bitter, the kind that didn't comfort but sharpened edges. Sitting at the desk, he opened the notebook and began to scribble.
Victim: Male, mid-thirties.
Carved symbols = ritualistic, geometric.
Fingertips: scorched. Fire or heated surface.
Smell: incense, non-local.
Message: "The Harvest Begins."
His handwriting was jagged, each stroke pressing deep into the paper. He stared at the words, cigarette smoke blurring the ink, and felt the weight of something he couldn't yet name. The Harvest. It sounded like prophecy, not threat.
He leaned back, eyes half-closed, listening to the rain against the window. For a moment, his mind wandered—to faces he no longer saw, to voices silenced long ago. Trauma had a way of living with him, shadowing him in every case. He never told anyone what he dreamed when he closed his eyes, but the nightmares made him sharper in the waking world.
The phone buzzed on the desk, jolting him back. Unknown number. He answered without hesitation.
Static crackled, followed by a distorted voice.
"Detective Kamane…"
His grip on the receiver tightened. The voice was deep, warped, yet clear enough to chill the blood.
"If you want to stop the harvest," the caller continued, "come to Neon Abyss. Midnight. Alone."
Click. The line went dead.
Suichi lowered the phone slowly. His reflection stared back at him from the dark window, cigarette burning down to ash. Whoever they were, they knew his name. They knew he was already involved.
He stood, holstering his gun, checking the bullets with mechanical precision. His knife slid into his boot sheath, coat back on his shoulders. The city outside was still drowning in rain, but Suichi had learned long ago that rain didn't cleanse—it only masked the dirt until the next storm.
He locked the door behind him, footsteps echoing down the empty stairwell. Somewhere in the neon-lit depths of Noxhaven, the Neon Abyss waited—a place he had heard whispered about in backroom bars, an underground club where the city's worst crawled to feed. Drugs, blood money, fights, trafficking—everything rotten and unspoken had a place there.
And tonight, so did he.
---
The streets of Noxhaven opened up like a wound as he walked. Vendors packed their stalls even past midnight, faces gaunt under fluorescent lamps. Graffiti stained the walls with symbols of gangs that ruled entire districts. A homeless man muttered prayers to no god anyone recognized. The rain never stopped, slicking the asphalt until the city glistened like a beast's skin.
Suichi lit another cigarette as he walked past a crumbling church, its doors chained shut. From inside, faint chanting leaked through the cracks—low, rhythmic, almost hypnotic. He paused, listening. The same incense from the alley brushed past his senses. He made a note of it mentally, but didn't stop. The night was already moving toward him like a loaded gun.
By the time he reached the heart of the Eclipse District, the glow of the Neon Abyss burned in the rain like an open wound—blood-red lights pulsing to the rhythm of bass thudding through the walls. Men in leather jackets lingered at the entrance, eyes hidden under hoods, the stink of alcohol and smoke hanging heavy.
Suichi didn't hesitate. He walked straight toward the club, cigarette burning low, coat dripping rain.
The bouncer stepped in his path, eyes narrowing.
"No badges. No guns. You leave both outside."
Suichi exhaled smoke into the man's face, calm as ever.
"Try and take it."
The man blinked, taken aback at the sheer coldness in his tone. But before he could respond, the club door creaked open from inside, and another figure waved Suichi through.
The bouncer stepped aside reluctantly.
Inside, the world was a different kind of hell. Strobing lights cut the darkness into pieces, dancers moved in shadows, and the smell of sweat, alcohol, and blood mixed into a sick cocktail. In the center pit, two men fought bare-knuckled while a crowd screamed, money flying into the air.
Suichi's hand brushed his holster, his senses sharp. Somewhere in this chaos was the voice from the phone. Somewhere here, the first thread of the harvest waited for him to pull.
And he intended to pull hard enough to unravel the whole city.