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Captain Hasegawa was not what I expected.
I'd been picturing someone like Yamamoto. Big, scary, covered in scars. The kind of person who'd seen too much and stopped feeling things.
Instead I got a tired-looking man in his thirties with bags under his eyes and a coffee stain on his shirt. He looked like an accountant who'd given up on life.
"Laurent right?" He didn't look up from his paperwork. "The new kid."
"Yes sir."
"Don't call me sir. Makes me feel old." He finally glanced at me. "You're the one who took off a yakuza's leg?"
Word really did travel fast around here.
"Yeah."
"Huh." He went back to his paperwork. "Grab a desk. We've got a briefing in an hour."
That was it. No welcome speech. No warnings about how dangerous the job was. Just grab a desk.
I liked him already.
Division 3's office was a dump.
Cracked walls. Flickering lights. Desks that looked like they'd survived a war and lost. There were maybe fifteen people total, half of them out on assignments.
I found an empty desk in the corner. Set down my bag, I didn't have much, just some clothes Public Safety had issued me. Sat down.
The chair wobbled.
"New guy?"
I looked up. A woman was leaning against the desk next to mine. Late twenties maybe. Short black hair, sharp eyes, a scar running across her nose.
"Yeah."
"Kobayashi." She didn't offer a hand. "You're young."
"Sixteen."
"Jesus." She shook her head. "They're really scraping the bottom now huh."
"Thanks."
"Not an insult. Just an observation." She sat on the edge of my desk. "What's your deal? Contract? Ability?"
"Something like that. I can see weak points in things. Touch them and they break."
"Huh. Useful." She pulled out a cigarette, lit it. "Word of advice? Don't die in your first month. Hasegawa hates the paperwork."
"I'll try."
"You do that."
She walked off. I watched her go.
Seemed like a pattern forming. People here didn't bother with small talk. Didn't try to make friends. Just acknowledged you existed and moved on.
Made sense I guess. Half the people you met would be dead within a few years. Why get attached?
The briefing was in a conference room that smelled like mold.
Eight of us total. Hasegawa at the front with a projector that looked older than me.
"Alright listen up. We've got three active cases." He clicked to the first slide. Blurry photo of something with too many teeth. "Sewer devil. Been picking off homeless in the Shinjuku underground for two weeks. Low priority but the body count's climbing."
Next slide. Something that looked almost human but wrong. Proportions off. Face too smooth.
"Doll devil. Showed up in Shibuya three days ago. Mid-tier threat. Already killed two civilians."
Next slide. This one was just a dark smear.
"And this one we don't have a good image of. Something's hunting in Ikebukuro at night. Five dead so far, all drained of blood. Could be a vampire-type devil, could be something else."
He turned off the projector.
"Tanaka and Mori, you're on the sewer devil. Kobayashi, take the new kid to Shibuya. Observe the doll devil, gather intel, do not engage unless necessary."
Kobayashi raised an eyebrow. "Babysitting duty?"
"Training duty. Kid needs field experience before I throw him at anything serious."
"Fine." She stubbed out her cigarette. "Come on new guy. Let's go look at a devil."
Shibuya was crowded even at 2 PM.
Thousands of people moving through the streets. Shopping. Eating. Living their lives without any idea what was hunting in the shadows.
The lines on all of them were overwhelming at first. I had to consciously push them to the background just to function.
Kobayashi noticed me squinting.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just... a lot of people."
"Get used to it. Tokyo's always like this." She lit another cigarette as we walked. "So. Weak points. How's that work exactly?"
"I see lines on things. Cracks that show where they can break. If I touch them, they break."
"On everything?"
"Pretty much."
"On people?"
"Yeah."
She didn't flinch. Just nodded.
"Useful," she said again. "The doll devil's last known location was an alley behind a department store. Three blocks from here. We're gonna scope it out, see if we can find a pattern."
"And if we find the devil?"
"We observe. Report back. Let Hasegawa decide how to handle it."
"What if it attacks us?"
She gave me a look. "Then we don't die. That's the job kid."
The alley was empty when we got there.
Narrow. Dark even in daylight. Dumpsters overflowing with garbage. The walls were covered in old posters and graffiti.
But something felt wrong. The air was heavier here. Colder.
And the lines... the lines on everything were brighter than they should be. Sharper. Like the whole alley was on the edge of breaking.
"You feel that?" Kobayashi had her hand on her sword.
"Yeah."
"Devil's been here recently. Residue." She scanned the alley. "Stay close. Don't do anything stupid."
We moved in slowly. Checking corners. Watching shadows.
The deeper we went the worse the feeling got. That wrongness pressing against my skull. The lines getting brighter and brighter.
Then I saw it.
Sitting against the wall at the back of the alley. A doll. Life-sized. Porcelain face. Glass eyes. Wearing a torn dress that might've been white once.
It wasn't moving.
"That's it?" I whispered.
"Don't be fooled. Dolls don't just appear in alleys." Kobayashi's voice was tight. "We observe. That's it. No engaging."
The doll's head turned toward us.
Slowly. Smoothly. Like it was on a swivel.
Those glass eyes fixed on me.
And then it smiled.
I don't know how a porcelain face smiled but it did. This horrible cracking expression that shouldn't have been possible.
"Kobayashi."
"I see it."
"What do we do?"
"We leave. Slowly. Don't run. Don't show fear."
We started backing up. One step at a time. Eyes on the doll.
It watched us go. Still smiling.
When we reached the mouth of the alley it stood up.
One jerky motion. Like a puppet pulled by invisible strings. It was taller than I expected. Almost seven feet.
"Kobayashi."
"Keep moving."
The doll took a step toward us.
Then another.
Then it was running.
"Shit—RUN!"
We made it two blocks before Kobayashi shoved me into a doorway.
"In here!"
Some kind of storage room. Dark. Cramped. We pressed against the wall, trying to control our breathing.
Footsteps outside. That horrible jerky rhythm. Click. Click. Click.
It passed the doorway. Kept going.
We waited. One minute. Two. Five.
Nothing.
"I thought we weren't supposed to engage," I breathed.
"We didn't engage. It engaged us." Kobayashi was sweating. "Shit. That thing's faster than the reports said."
"What now?"
"We report back. Tell Hasegawa it's more aggressive than expected. Get a full team for the takedown."
"And if it finds more victims before then?"
She looked at me. Something hard in her eyes.
"Then they die. And we kill it after." She pushed off the wall. "That's the job kid. We can't save everyone. We just clean up the mess."
We snuck out the back. Took a different route to the station. Didn't see the doll again.
But I could feel it out there somewhere. Hunting.
Hasegawa listened to our report without expression.
"More aggressive. Faster. Possibly intelligent."
"Yes sir—yes." Kobayashi caught herself. "It tracked us for two blocks before we lost it."
"And the new kid?"
They both looked at me.
"I'm fine."
"He didn't panic," Kobayashi said. "Kept his head. Did what I told him."
Hasegawa nodded slowly. "Alright. I'm upgrading this to priority. Full team tomorrow morning. Kobayashi, you're lead. Take Laurent, Tanaka, and Mori."
"The sewer devil?"
"Can wait. This one's hunting in a populated area. Can't let the body count climb."
"Understood."
Hasegawa turned to me. "You did good today kid. First contact and you didn't freeze. That's more than most."
"Thanks."
"Don't thank me yet. Tomorrow you're gonna have to fight that thing for real." He leaned back in his chair. "Get some sleep. Eat something. Be ready at 0600."
I didn't sleep much that night.
Kept seeing that smile. That porcelain face cracking into something that shouldn't exist.
The doll devil. Tomorrow I was going to fight it for real.
I thought about what Kobayashi said. We can't save everyone. We just clean up the mess.
Was that true? Was that all this job was?
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