Yukishiro Arima

Tokyo, 10 January 2144

Snow drizzles from a sky so dark it could swallow regrets. You wrap your fingers around the paper cup like it's the last warmth this city has to offer. Bitter vending machine coffee—cheap, thin, but burning just enough to remind you you're still here. Still alive. Still on the clock.

The streets are near-empty, lined with ghost-lit towers and flickering streetlamps. Tokyo at this hour isn’t alive. It’s sedated. Dreaming. You breathe in the cold like punishment, each exhale a white apology.

Your boots crunch against the frozen sidewalk as you make your way to the car—mid-range import, still smells like fake leather and ambition. Not too flashy, not too dull. Like you. You sip again. Lukewarm now.

You’ve been up since 03:00. The call was short. “Double homicide. Couple. Knife wounds.” The dispatcher didn’t sound tired. You hate that. You hate that it’s just another Tuesday for them.

The engine growls awake. You slide into the driver’s seat, feeling the stiffness in your spine, the ache in your knees. The heater wheezes a half-hearted breath of warmth. You ignore it. Let the cold settle in your bones.

You glance at the clock. 03:21. The world hasn’t woken up, but you don’t get that luxury. Not anymore.

Time to go meet the dead.

Less than ten minutes later, you’re there. The scene unfolds like something out of a dull procedural, except it’s always realer when you smell it. The iron in the air. The muted murmur of the living, orbiting death like moths too numb to know better.

Holographic police tape hums faintly—blue light flickering across the driveway of a modern two-story. White facade, wide glass windows, minimalistic luxury—money, clean money. Or so it looked. But something’s off. The kind of rich that buys silence. The kind of rich that ends up dead.

Uniforms swarm the perimeter. Someone’s barking into a headset. A crowd of neighbors gathers across the street, wrapped in robes and curiosity, clutching thermal mugs and anxiety. Their eyes say it all: How close did death get this time?

You step into the scene.

“Detective.”
A tired officer greets you at the door. He doesn’t smile. No one welcomes this kind of morning.
He leads you past a wall of curious neighbors and blank-faced uniforms.

“Victims are a married couple. Their daughter — eight years old — is missing. Possibly abducted. The father was a Liberal Democratic politician.”

Blood and tea — the evening’s offering.

“A stab wounds to the husband’s chest. The wife has a puncture to the lower stomach. And... there’s a blood trail, but we lost it after a short distance.”

Still fresh. Still angry.

You pause inside the room. It’s too quiet. Not from the lack of sound — but from what’s missing. No overturned furniture. No sign of forced entry. No broken glass.

Someone was let in. Welcomed.
Yes. That fits.

Your eyes scan the scene:
A few cups left in disarray on the table, steam long vanished. Green tea — not factory brew. Home-brewed, familiar. A guest, perhaps a distant relative. Or… a teacher?

Your gaze drifts. The sofa — torn slightly at the edge, as if brushed by something sharp.
A knife lies near the wife. Not serrated. Stainless steel.
Kitchen-grade.

The kitchen is two rooms away.
That knife didn’t end up here by chance.
It was brought. Or prepared.

You glance at the fruit basket on the table: apples, pears, grapes — untouched.

Yes. A knife belongs here. For peeling.
But this… this isn’t how guests are usually entertained in a Japanese home, is it?

The fruit wasn’t for eating.
The knife wasn’t for peeling.
The hospitality was a ruse.

You feel it in your bones.
They were expecting something — or someone.

Motive?
Not yet.

“How about CCTV?”

“Intentionally disabled. Last recording was noon yesterday.”

A beat.
Not sabotage — this was neat. Purposeful. Like turning down the lights before a performance.

“Did the family employ a housekeeper?”

The officer scratches his head.
“No... none listed.”

You nod, lips tight.
No outsiders. No help. That narrows the pool.

“Fingerprints?”

“Only two sets. Both victims.”

You fall silent. Something itches in your brain.
You look again at the couch. That tear — not random. Not careless. It’s on their seat. The one facing away from the entrance. The farthest from the door.
The seat of habit. Of trust.

“What about the victims’ daughter? Did she show up at school yesterday?”

“Uhh... we haven’t contacted the school yet.”

Of course. It’s barely 4 a.m. The world’s still half-asleep.
Even the dead are yawning.

You nod. Eyes heavy, mind sharper than the cold.

“Who made the call? And when?”

“It came from the landline…”

“The landline?”

“Yes. It seems the call originated from this house.”

You squint.

“And the identity?”

“We... don’t really know.”

“…”

You stare into the officer’s eyes. Really? You don’t know?

“The voice was quiet. Frightened. Hard to make out. But—”
A pause. Something heavy, hanging.

“Sounded like a female.”

Something clicks.
A sudden jolt in your chest—realization.

“Everyone, stop what you’re doing. Search the house again. Every room.”

Your voice cuts through the static of routine like a blade.

You scan the living room anew—flower vase, intercom, whitewashed walls, sofa, table. Every object becomes a suspect.
Every piece of furniture a silent witness.

“No... not this room,”
you mutter under your breath.

You move on—
Kitchen: sterile. Everything where it should be.
Family room: undisturbed. Staged peace. Too clean.

Then—
“Yukishiro-keiji!”
A voice breaks from above.

One of the uniforms.
Urgent. Breathless.
He gestures for you to follow—upstairs.

It’s the master bedroom. Neat. Pristine.
Too pristine.

Wardrobe room tucked behind polished doors—money always leaves fingerprints, even when it tries not to. The officer leads you to a wall mirror. Large. Embedded. Doesn't belong.

You know.

You give the signal.

A second officer steps forward with a hammer.
One swing—crack.
A second—crash.
Glass blossoms like ice on pavement.

Behind it: a hollow space. Dark. Waiting.

Then the light slips in through the shattered hole—
soft at first, then growing.

You’re the first to step in.

Your fingers find your phone, thumb sliding up to light the dark. The beam cuts through the black—narrow, surgical.

And there it is.

Not the room.
Not the cold cement walls, not the sickly scent of rot and old plastic.
It’s the intent behind it that turns your stomach.

You see her.

A girl—small. Couldn’t even reach your belt if she stood. Crumpled on the floor like a dropped doll. Fingers clutching a cordless phone like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to this world.

Unconscious.

"Call an ambulance," you say. No room for doubt. No room for delay.

You kneel beside her. Closer now. Scanning.

Skin too pale. Warmth already leaving her. But the pulse—
Faint. Flickering. Still there.

You lift her into your arms.
She's weightless.

Hell.

When the sun rises, the press will be on your throat like wolves in heat. But right now?
Now you’re just holding a kid who shouldn’t have had to be brave enough to call the cops.

A few hours pass. 9 a.m.
The final piece of the puzzle falls into place.

You're outside the school. A tired building. Frozen breath in the air.
The homeroom teacher steps forward—no cuffs, no struggle. Just surrender. Like he’s been holding his breath.

He talks.

Self-defense. That’s what he says.
The girl—Miharu Kana—was being abused. Both parents. Long-term. The kind that rots someone from the inside out.

January 9th, 2144. Miharu didn’t come to school. Not for several days before.
Ren Yoshikawa, the teacher, called. Said he was coming over.
They invited him. Smiles over the phone. Come visit tonight.
You can fill in the rest.

Things went south. A struggle. Panic.
He fought back. Protected himself. Ran. No plan. No alibi. Just fear.

He kept his gloves on.
Too cold to take them off, he says.
A coincidence—but the kind that changes everything. No fingerprints, no forced entry. Just a red trail that never made sense—until now.

Back to near the scene. A trash bin. Crows scatter when you lift the lid.

There they are.
A pair of gloves. Stained. Dried. Folded like they still carry the weight of what he did.

You light a cigarette.

Just one problem left.

The girl.

No relatives. No emergency contacts. No one to pick her up when the hospital calls.
No one waiting on the other side of the glass.

Tragic? Maybe.
But not surprising.

You see it. Not her—no.
Someone else, sitting in that empty white room with no shoes on.

Heh.
It’s you.

You're not good with kids.
Never were. Never tried to be. Never wanted to.

But your legs — they moved on their own.
Took you here.

The hospital smells like sterilized sorrow.
You find the ward. Quiet. White. Too clean.

There she is.

Sitting on the bed, knees to chest.
Blank stare. Hollow.

Not crying. Not speaking.
Just... there.
Like a ghost that hasn’t decided if it wants to haunt or disappear.

And yet, something pulls you.
Like a magnetic field — invisible, irrational.
Toward her.

To become her guardian?
Heh. Destiny? Don’t kid yourself.
You’ve never been the religious type. Not even close.
If anything, you've spent your life running from anything that resembled fate.

But here you are.
Still walking toward the storm.

****

You jolt awake —
like a screen gone dead in the middle of a broadcast.

The world evaporates.
Memories scatter like dust in the static.
You're back. In a new world. In a new body.

From dream. 

Or... Was that your memory?
Yes. Instinct tells you — painfully, undeniably — that it was.
And shit. You've lost more of your old life than you thought.
There’s a void after that day. A canyon of amnesia.
You remember nothing past the case.

But one thing burns bright in the fog:
You have to go back.
Back to the old world. Back to her.
You have an adopted daughter, for God's sake.

Turns out, you didn’t grow old completely alone after all.
Traitor.
But still single, probably. Maybe. Who knows?

No! Forget that part.
Focus.

Where are you?

Your eyes scan the room —
sterile, unfamiliar. Bandages wrap parts of you you didn't know were injured.

"You're awake,"
a voice cuts through the haze — sharp, precise.

You didn’t even notice her there.
She’s been sitting beside you this whole time.

Memory stirs. Like a fish beneath the ice.

A suspicion surfaces from before you passed out. 

"Professor Areldine’s girlfriend?"
It slips out before your brain catches it.

"What?!"
Her eyes flare — confusion, outrage, something in between.
She looks like she’s about to explode.