The Shuto Expressway was a toxic river snaking through the veins of Tokyo.
The black sports car cut through the asphalt under a torrential downpour. The rhythmic slap of the wipers synchronized with the throbbing in Jin's ribs.
Jin gripped the wheel with his left hand. His right arm lay motionless in his lap. With every turn, his stitched shoulder and fractured ribcage reminded him of his limits. He couldn't take a full breath. Only shallow, jagged gasps.
The brick-sized analog phone on the console shrieked.
Jin hit the speaker. He didn't have the strength to lift the receiver.
"Sir." It was his father's private secretary. "Port security called the local police. But the situation has changed. Radio intercepts confirm Kouan is on-site."
Jin's eyes narrowed.
Kouan. The Public Security Intelligence Agency. They didn't handle petty thefts. They handled terror, espionage, and the "unexplained."
"How much time?"
"None. They're there. Perimeter's locked down."
"Understood."
Jin cut the line. He buried the needle.
Tokyo Port, Warehouse District 4.
Blue and red strobes danced across wet shipping containers.
Jin parked the car just outside the police tape, next to a line of black sedans. No license plates. Government ghosts.
He stepped out.
He didn't open an umbrella. Raising his arm would pop the stitches in his shoulder. The rain soaked his jacket instantly, streaming from his hair down his face.
A man in a suit behind the tape raised a hand.
"Area's cordoned off. Turn around."
The man wore no badge on his lapel.
Jin didn't stop. He lifted the tape and walked under it.
"This is Kurosawa Logistics private property," Jin said. His voice was sharp enough to pierce the roar of the rain. "I don't ask the state for permission to enter my own land."
The agent stepped forward, but an older man in a trench coat stopped him from behind.
The Inspector. His face was weary, his eyes like vitriol.
"The Kurosawa heir..." the Inspector said, crushing a cigarette into the wet ground. "I didn't expect you here at this hour."
"My father sent me to see what you're doing on our docks," Jin said. "What are you looking for, Inspector?"
"Isn't the war zone behind me enough?" The Inspector gestured toward the wreckage.
Jin brushed past him and walked into the scene.
The spot where he had fought the Zwitter.
The view was chaotic.
Steel containers were buckled inward as if struck by a massive sledgehammer. The asphalt was cracked, pockmarked with craters. A forklift lay overturned, its glass shattered. The violence here was indistinguishable from a high-speed truck wreck.
Except for one thing.
Blood.
In the middle of this much destruction, there should have been shredded meat, bone, or a lake of gore.
There was nothing.
The spot where the Zwitter—that ten-foot biological nightmare—had fallen... it was just empty.
Rainwater filled the crater in the ground. The White Fire hadn't just killed the creature; it had erased its life and biological existence. It left no DNA, no tissue. Nothing.
"Strange, isn't it?" the Inspector said from behind him. "My forensics team is baffled. Physical damage is immense, but biological material is zero. Like two invisible giants had a go at it."
Jin didn't answer. He scanned the ground.
His own blood... he had definitely bled during the fight. But on a rainy night in 1989, no one would find a few drops on the asphalt. Even if they did, DNA tech was in its infancy. They couldn't ID him by blood alone.
His concern wasn't blood. It was metal.
Two meters away, near a crushed barrel, he saw a metallic glint.
The spent shell casing from his own weapon.
That casing belonged to a gun that didn't exist. If Kouan took it, the ballistics would lead them straight to Kurosawa R&D.
Jin walked toward the casing. He clutched his left leg. He grimaced slightly. He wasn't acting; the pain in his ribs was genuinely stealing his breath, but he made it look like a leg injury.
"Ground's slick," he muttered, dropping to one knee.
The moment he bent, his broken ribs stabbed into his lungs. White flashes sparked in his vision. He kept his posture.
He made a show of adjusting his shoelace with his right hand.
Simultaneously, he dipped his left palm into a puddle. His fingers closed around the cold brass casing.
"Watch your step, Inspector. It's slippery," Jin said, straightening up. The casing was in his palm. He stood with agonizing effort and slid the metal into his jacket pocket.
The Scent
Jin moved away as the Inspector barked orders at his men. He turned into the wind.
He closed his eyes. He tilted his nose upward.
The smell of rain. Wet asphalt. Crushed metal. Exhaust.
The Zwitter's foul, chemical stench was completely gone.
But...
A foreign scent hit Jin's nose.
Faint. Nearly washed away. But there.
A thin trail leading from the center of the scene toward the shadows behind the collapsed containers.
Old paper. Ink. And heavy French perfume.
This scent didn't belong to the Inspector. It didn't belong to the Kouan agents.
This scent belonged to someone who had entered the scene in that narrow window after the fight, but before the police arrived.
Someone had come here after the Zwitter was erased. They had surveyed the destruction. Perhaps they had watched Jin from the dark.
Jin opened his eyes. He walked to his car.
"Leaving?" the Inspector called out.
"Nothing left to see," Jin said. "Send the report to my office."
If he told his father about the Perfumed Person, Naicho would get involved. If Naicho found them, that person would talk. Jin's secret—his identity as the "Judge"—would be compromised.
No, Jin thought, opening his car door. This is my hunt.
The Safe House
He started the engine.
He couldn't go back to the manor. He needed to tend to his wounds and go to ground.
He steered toward Shinjuku. To the Safe House.
Shinjuku's back alleys looked nothing like Tokyo's storefront face. Here, neon lights flickered over the smell of trash and burnt grease.
Jin entered the apartment on the third floor of a grey concrete block.
He closed the door. He turned three separate deadbolts in sequence.
He stripped his jacket. The wet fabric felt heavy as lead.
He gritted his teeth as he unbuttoned his shirt. Blood had dried, fusing the fabric to the bandages. He peeled the shirt off his shoulder and let it drop.
He stood before the cracked mirror in the bathroom.
His body was a war map. The bruising over his left ribs had turned from deep black to a sickly yellow.
He slowly lifted the bandage on his right shoulder.
The stitches were taut. However, the redness around them had receded. The edges of the cut were reaching for one another—not at a magical speed, but with a visible, biological will that would take a normal human weeks. The flesh was knitting itself back together.
Jin probed the wound with his fingertips. It was hot.
He calculated.
Not tomorrow. Not the day after.
For the stitches to hold, for the ribs to set... his body needed time to reach full capacity.
Five days.
For five days, he couldn't fight. He could only watch, analyze, and plan.
He took iodine and fresh gauze from the medicine cabinet. Ignoring the searing sting, he renewed the dressing with mechanical precision.
He went back to the room.
He took the small piece of metal from his pocket.
The spent casing.
He placed it on the table under the yellow light. The casing was the only physical evidence of his crime.
He picked up the receiver. He dialed.
The line connected to the Kurosawa Manor, his father's private line.
"Status?" Takashi's voice. No greeting.
Jin looked at the casing on the table. Then he thought of that scent.
"Clean," Jin said. His voice wasn't that of an injured man, but a professional. "Kouan locked down the zone, but they won't find anything. No biological trace. The target evaporated."
"Witnesses?"
"None," Jin lied.
"Fine." The line went dead.
Jin set the receiver down. He took one last look at the casing on the table. Then he killed the light.
In the darkness, listening to the burn of his healing flesh, he thought of the hunt that would begin in five days.