The rain in Tokyo didn't fall, it dissolved.
It was a suffocating, grey sheet that turned the neon skyline of Shinjuku into a blurred watercolor. Inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the air was recycled and stale, smelling faintly of wet wool and bitter coffee.
Kenji Sano stared at the digital clock on the wall.
13:12.
The colon blinked with a rhythmic indifference that looked like small shreds on his nerves. Kenji spun a cheap ballpoint pen between his fingers, the plastic clicking against his wedding ring. He was twenty-four, but the reflection in his darkened computer monitor showed a man pushing thirty-five. His tie was loosened, his collar unbuttoned, and the shadows under his eyes were deep enough to carry loose change.
"You're going to snap that pen!" a voice rumbled from the desk across the passage between cabinets.
Kenji stopped spinning. He didn't look up. "I'm thinking, Manjiro. It's a delicate process."
Manjiro Tenken leaned back in his chair, the sofa springs groaning under his considerable bulk. Manjiro was a bear of a man, with shoulders that strained the fabric of his cheap suit and a haircut that hadn't changed since the showa era. Despite his imposing size, he had the gentle, sleepy eyes of a man who had seen too much horror to be surprised by anything anymore. He was peeling a mandarin orange with surprising delicacy, his thick fingers moving with precision.
"You're not thinking," Manjiro said, tossing a piece of orange peel into the trash bin with a perfect arc. "You're vibrating. I can feel the anxiety radiating off you like heat off pavement. What is it? The humidity?"
"It's the quiet."
Kenji muttered, finally tossing the pen onto his desk. It landed on a stack of unresolved burglary reports. "Tokyo is never this quiet, Manjiro. Not at one in the afternoon. No domestic disputes, no traffic allegations, no drunks passing out on the Yamanote line. It's… artificial."
"It's rain, Kenji. People don't like getting wet. They stay inside, they drink tea, they watch variety shows." Manjiro popped a segment of the orange into his mouth. "You should try it sometime. Relaxing. It's good for the blood pressure."
Kenji stood up, walking to the window. The glass was cold against his forehead. Below, the streets were a river of black umbrellas. Police work in Tokyo was usually a grind of bureaucracy and petty malice, but Kenji had an instinct a 'nose,' the Chief called it - that reacted whenever the barometer of the city dropped.
"I don't like it." Kenji said softly. "The city feels like it's holding its breath."
Manjiro chuckled, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. "You're a poet, Sano. A dark, depressing poet. If you're that bored, I have a stack of paperwork on the Kabukicho extortion racket that needs filing. You can help me cross-reference yakuza associates."
"Pass."
"Suit yourself." Manjiro turned back to his monitor. "But don't complain when the Chief walks in and catches you staring out the window like a romantic lead in a drama."
As if summoned by the mention of his rank, the heavy double doors at the end of the room swung open. The room, which had been buzzing with the low murmur of phone calls and typing, instantly quieted.
Chief Inspector Hideo entered. He was a small man, dried out and sharp, like a piece of drift wood. He didn't look at the officers, he looked straight at Kenji.
"Sano. Tenken. Gear up."
Kenji turned from the window, his posture sharpening instantly. "What is it, Chief?"
"Suspicious death..." Hideo said, stopping at Kenji's desk. He dropped a slip of paper onto the messy surface. "Minato Ward. An abandoned maintenance access near the old drainage canals. Maintenance crew went down to check a blockage. They found something else instead."
Manjiro sighed, closing his eyes for a brief second before standing up. The playfulness was gone, replaced by the heavy solidity of a veteran officer. "Homicide?"
"They didn't say.." Hideo replied, his face unreadable. "The caller... he was hysterical. kept saying 'it's not right.' Said the body was 'wrong.'"
"Wrong how?" Kenji asked, picking up the slip of paper. The address was in an industrial sector, forgotten by the redevelopment projects.
"He said it looked like art," Hideo said, his voice dropping. "Go. Forensics is twenty minutes out, but I want you two securing the scene before the press gets a whiff. If it's weird, the vultures will be circling within the hour."
The drive to Minato Ward was silent. Kenji drove the unmarked sedan, the windshield wipers fighting a losing battle against the rain. The rain hammered the roof of the car, a relentless drumbeat that seemed to isolate them from the rest of the world.
Manjiro sat in the passenger seat, reading the preliminary dispatch notes on a tablet.
"Maintenance tunnel C-4," Manjiro read aloud. "Built in the late 80s, mostly used for storm overflow. It's deep. Access is via a service hatch in an alleyway behind a textile factory."
"Who owns the factory?" Kenji asked, his eyes watching the grey road.
"Bankrupt since 2019. It's a ghost town out there." Manjiro scrolled down. "Kenji, the first responders... they're holding back at the entrance. They haven't gone down to the body."
Kenji frowned. "Why? Gas leak? Structural instability?"
"No!" Manjiro said, looking up, his face grim in the dashboard light. "They said the atmosphere feels 'cursed.' One of the rookies threw up and refused to go back down."
Kenji gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Superstitious nonsense. We're police officers, not ghost hunters."
"Maybe..." Manjiro murmured, looking out at the rain. "But fear is a primal instinct, Kenji. When a rookie gets scared, it's usually because of adrenaline. When they get sick? That's something else."
They pulled up to the site ten minutes later. The flashing red lights of two patrol cars cut through the gloom, painting the wet way in strokes of blood-colored light. Yellow tape had already been strung across the rusted iron gate of the factory.
A young uniformed officer, soaked to the bone, hurried over to their car as Kenji stepped out. The officer was pale, his lips trembling slightly.
"Detectives.." the officer saluted, though his hand shook. "Thank you for coming."
"Report?" Kenji commanded, opening his umbrella. The sound of the rain was deafening out here, echoing off the brick walls.
"The workers are in the back of the ambulance, sir. Treating for shock. The... the deceased is down the hatch. Third level. We... we verified death visually from the second landing, but we didn't touch anything."
"You didn't approach the body?" Manjiro asked the young officer.
"We couldn't, sir. You'll see." The officer swallowed hard. "It's... quiet down there. Too quiet."
Kenji exchanged a look with Manjiro. "Stay here. Secure the perimeter. No one in or out."
Kenji ducked under the tape and headed for the open maintenance hatch. A portable floodlight had been set up, casting a white beam into the abyss of the earth. An iron ladder disappeared into the darkness.
"Ladies first..." Manjiro muttered in sarcastic way, checking his flashlight.
Kenji gripped the cold, wet rungs and began to descend.
The air changed immediately. The smell of rain and ozone vanished, replaced by the heavy, cloying scent of stagnant water, rust, and something sweeter, something like copper and old meat. The sounds of the city above faded, swallowed by the thick concrete walls.
They descended twenty meters, their footsteps clanging softly on the metal. They reached the third level, a wide drainage tunnel where the water was ankle-deep. The beam of Kenji's flashlight cut through the gloom, illuminating rusted pipes.
"Over there.." Manjiro whispered.
Fifty meters ahead, in a dry alcove designed for machinery, something was hanging.
Kenji moved forward, his hand instinctively resting on his holster(holder for carrying handgun). The silence was absolute. The only sound was the dripping of water from the ceiling. Plip. Plip. Plip.
As they got closer, the shape resolved itself.
It was a man.
He was suspended upside down. A thick, rough weaven rope was tied around his ankles, hoisted over a rusted industrial pipe near the ceiling. His arms dangled toward the floor, his fingertips brushing the concrete.
"Jesus!" Manjiro breathed.
Kenji didn't speak. He stepped closer, shining his light on the victim.
The man was naked, his body pale and drained of color, resembling a marble statue more than flesh. He was lean, perhaps in his thirties. But it was the method that froze Kenji's blood.
There was no pool of blood on the floor.
The victim's head was suspended directly over a dark, circular hole in the concrete floor a drainage pit. The pit was filled not with water, but with something dark and viscous. The smell hit Kenji then. Draainage. Excrement. Rot. The pit had been filled with filth.
The victim's hair hung down into the pit, just barely touching the surface of the foul sludge.
"Where is the blood?" Manjiro asked, his voice echoing in the tunnel. "If he was killed, there should be blood."
Kenji knelt, tilting his head to look at the victim's face. The man's eyes were wide open, frozen in a pain of silent agony. His skin was translucent. He had been drained. Completely.
"Here..!" Kenji whispered, pointing his light at the victim's temple.
Just behind the left ear, there was a tiny, precise incision. It was no larger than a coin slot. A small, surgical cut.
"He bled out." Kenji said, his mind racing, connecting dots he didn't want to connect.
"Gravity. He was hung up here alive. That cut... it's small enough that the blood wouldn't gush. It would drip. Drip by drip. It would take hours. Maybe a day."
Manjiro stepped back, looking at the setup with a mixture of horror and confusion.
"Torture? A cartel hit?"
"No," Kenji stood up, looking at the rope. It wasn't modern nylon. It was traditional Japanese rope, woven in a pattern Kenji had only seen in museums. "Cartels are messy. They want to send a message with bullets and chainsaws. This... this is ritual."
Kenji looked around the alcove. The scene was meticulously clean. No footprints in the dust. No struggle marks. The victim had been brought here and executed with terrifying patience.
"Look at his face, Manjiro." Kenji said quietly.
"The congestion in the face is minimal. The cut relieved the pressure. The killer wanted him to stay conscious for as long as possible. Hanging upside down over a pit of filth... waiting for the darkness to take you."
"Does it remind you of something?" Manjiro asked, sensing Kenji's train of thought.
"History class." Kenji muttered. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp tunnel. "This is Tsurushi. The Pit."
"Tsurushi?"
"It was a method used in the Edoperiod. specifically used against Christians and political opposers. They would hang them just like this. Bleed them slowly. If they renounced their faith, they were let down. If not... they died."
Manjiro shone his light on the victim's chest. "I don't think this guy was a martyr, Kenji. Look at the tattoo."
On the victim's shoulder, barely visible against the pale skin, was a faded tattoo of a barcode and a logo. It was a corporate stamp, the kind used by underground hostess clubs in Kabukicho(Red-liht area) to mark 'property.'
"A propeller?" Kenji asked.
"Or a trafficker." Manjiro corrected. "Low life. Scum."
"So someone is judging the scum." Kenji said, looking back at the inverted corpse.
"Using a three-hundred-year-old execution method."
Something caught Kenji's eye near the edge of the drainage pit. A small, rectangular object placed neatly on the concrete, untouched by the dust.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a latex glove, wear it on, and picked the object up.
It was a wooden tag. A fuda. The kind you would see at a Shinto shrine or an old prison.
On the wood, painted in fresh, dark ink, was a single Kanji character.
貪 - Greed.
"Greed." Manjiro read over his shoulder. "He's labeling them."
Kenji stood up, clutching the wooden tag. The weight of the rain above them felt heavier now, pressing down on the earth. The silence of the tunnel was no longer empty, it was waiting.
"This isn't a murder, Manjiro." Kenji said, his voice hard as iron. "This is a sentencing."
"And the killer?"
Kenji looked at the darkness stretching out further into the tunnel system. "He thinks he's the executioner. And if history is any guide... Tsurushi is just the beginning."
Kenji turned back to the ladder.
"Call the Chief. Tell him to wake up the Cold Case unit and get a historian on the line. And tell the forensics team to bring a body bag. A strong one."
"Why?"
"Because," Kenji said, looking back at the pale figure suspended in the dark, "Killer wants to return the shogunate to Tokyo."
Chapter 1 ends - Showdown of shogun!