Decrepit streets and decaying homes

I woke up to find Time already up and about, sniffing through the pile of clothes strewn all over the floor.

“Toki, have you washed any of these in the past week?”

“I’m sorry that I’ve been a little busy robbing every corporate magnate in the country and being dirt bloody poor.”

“You stole 100 million yen in one night and yet you still can’t afford to pay a dry cleaner?”

“I stole that money to give it to those who need it, not for my personal errands.”

“Toki, you need it. At this rate, they’re gonna smell you before they see you during your raids.”

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad.” I got up, picked up one of the black tracksuits lying on the ground, and gave it a sniff. For a brief moment, I resented my ability to breathe. “...we’re gonna head to the dry cleaners today.”

“Oh, so now you listen.” I ignored her snide comment, picked the pile of clothes up off the ground and huffed as I turned to the door. “Toki.”

“What?”

“You’re not dressed.”

I looked down and realised I had been one step away from waltzing out the front door in my underwear.

…Christ, I’m a mess.

***

I stepped out of my grubby little shack in the least smelly set of clothes I had. The rest of my clothes were tucked away in the duffle bag over my shoulder, along with a small portion of the money I had stolen the night before. Enough for a load at the dry cleaners and a shower at the local gym.

“There are few things worse than being trapped in a small dark bag with this smell.”

Oh. Yeah. Time was in there too.

“Look, you wanted to sneak out with me and listen around town for information, right? If you’re seen leaving my shack and people figure out my identity you’re gonna be in trouble too. This is the best way to keep you safe.”

“Sure, if I don’t suffocate first.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. You’re a magical cat with incredible supernatural abilities. You can survive a few minutes in a duffle bag.”

“A magical cat with lungs, Toki. And an extremely sensitive sense of smell, to boot. It’s like you’re trying to make me suffer.”

“Well, that’s what you get for scolding me all the time.”

“You actually are! Evil! Villain!”

“Shhh, there’s no better way to draw suspicion than having a talking duffle bag.”

“I’ll remember this…”

Despite her complaining about the stench, she did stay quiet for the rest of the walk to the dry cleaners. Not that the smell outside the bag was much better than it was inside it anyway. The slums are hardly a pleasant place to be. The rich and powerful that ruled this place had no concern for silly frivolities like “upkeep” and “infrastructure,” so everything from the roads to the plumbing was in terrible disrepair. If the smell of shit wasn’t bad enough, the rot certainly was.

Strange as it is, the walk through the decrepit streets and decaying homes gave me a new boost of motivation to keep fighting the good fight. This squalor was the daily reality for tens of millions of Japanese, and I couldn’t live with myself if I let it continue knowing I have the power to change it.

The local dry cleaners was one of the only buildings in the area around the slums to actually be in good condition. Considering the sort of place we lived in, cleanliness was something in high demand around here, so business for the place was pretty much always booming. When I got to the front doors, I stepped back and had a look at it next to its neighbours. It almost looked like it had been taken from somewhere else and dropped in the wrong place.

Well, not that I was complaining. If even the places centred around hygiene were in disrepair, there really would be no hope for this place.

“Alright, Time. I’ll let you get out here,” I said quietly, making sure no one was looking as I lowered the duffle to the ground. “Meet me at the gym in an hour. Let’s keep our ears open for anything we can use, okay?”

“Got it,” said the jet-black cat as she hopped out of the bag. “Keep a low profile, okay? I suspect people already know about last night…”

“Yeah, I’ll keep my head down. Stay safe out there, yeah?”

Time gave me a quick nod and slinked away into the backstreets, while I put the duffle back on my shoulder and headed in through the door. I was immediately hit with a wave of relief as the rotten smell of the streets was replaced with the much less rancid scent of cleaning chemicals and whatever cheap air freshener it was they had in there.

“Ms Tokiko, s’good to see y’again. How’s life been treating ya?” The kindly old lady that owned the dry cleaners greeted me as soon as I walked in, a beaming smile on her wrinkled face. I was always impressed that, despite having thousands of people here each month, she always seemed to remember my name. Also made it even more embarrassing that I didn’t know hers.

“Not too bad, old gran. How’s business been?”

“Never seems to slow down these days. Seems like that last bout of disease made the folks around here more mindful than ever about keeping clean. Good news for business, but terrible that it’s come to all this.”

“God, don’t remind me…”

Yet another symptom of the complete neglect from the bastards in the high rises: the place was often riddled with disease. Earlier that year, thousands lost their lives from some viral plague that hit the slums like a sledgehammer. And when your people are too poor to afford graves, even the bodies of those lost to the disease are still vectors. It was a horrid sight to behold, and the very thing that drove me to turn that CEO to mincemeat.

“Still, things could be worse,” said the old lady, wordlessly taking the duffle from me and sorting the clothes into categories, “those robberies came in just the nick of time, really.”

“Robberies? You mean by that Ronin girl?”

“The very same. The news likes to make her out as just another violent thug, but I can’t find it in meself to see her that way. Y’know, when we got caught up in that firebombing a little while back, someone left a bag of money at our doorstep with a little note saying ‘get your shop fixed up, my clothes need cleaning.’ It wasn’t signed, but there was a big robbery just the night before. To think, the legendary Ronin could be one of my regulars,” she chuckled heartily. I had to suppress a smile. I wasn’t usually so vain as to care about the public’s perception of me, but I won’t say it didn’t make me a little happy to see some people questioning the media’s narrative.

Well, not that the media was entirely wrong. I did carve that one guy up like a pumpkin. And I have stolen over a billion yen. I’m sure to those upper class twats I really did just look like some violent thug. Not that their opinion was worth a single sen to me.

“What’dya think she’ll do next?” I probed, sorting through the money I had taken from the bag. “Any other places you think she’ll rob?”

“If she’s as smart as I think she is, she won’t be doing any more stealing in Shibuya any time soon. Not with the way those MPs have been moving this way.”

“Hm? The military police?”

“You haven’t seen? All the major zaibatsus in the area have moved a tonne of their MPs into Shibuya. Looks like our little vigilante has really gotten on the wrong side of them.”

“Huh…” Embarrassingly, this was somehow the first I had heard of it. Trust old business ladies to have all the town gossip. “Any idea where they’re moving ‘em from?”

“Everywhere in Shin-Tokyo, by the sounds of it. Though it sounds like they’re mostly coming up from Meguro. Heard the roads up that way have never been busier. I can only hope they don’t come here and cause us any more trouble than we’ve already got.”

“Nah, those MP bastards are too snobby to show their faces in the slums. Can’t suck up to their rich overlords if they’re seen hanging around with the poor, can they?” I put the money (plus a little 10% tip) down on the counter and turned on my heel. “Besides, they cause you guys any hassle, you know there’ll be hell to pay. See ya later, old gran.”

“I’ll have your clothes done by tomorrow. See you then, my girl.”

Oh, old gran. You just gave me something much more valuable than a clean set of duds.