Prologue - The Client

My name is Akira Suzuki, and I don't believe in heroes.

On that fateful day, I was sitting in my office as usual, fiddling with a pen behind my desk. I was dressed in a simple grey shirt with lavish yellow pants. I can kind of remember that it was raining outside; in fact, it had been raining for two days straight, leading to reports of flooding from several impoverished areas of Mirai Metropolis, the city I called home. But I wasn't focused on the rain. On my mind were the complex workings of a case I had just solved. It was a theft, where the perpetrator had intentionally placed several clues in order to mislead the cops pursuing him. The cops knew his identity, but not his whereabouts. After I was hired, it was obvious that it was this very fact that led to his downfall. By tracing some of the locations he had given in order to mislead the cops, I found a pattern with his current whereabouts and the places he had given; every place he had specified had contributed to a significant event in his own life. All I had to do was draw up the next time something similar happened in his life, and he just happened to be holed up there.

I opened my desk drawer and took out a cigarette from it. I searched around for a lighter and didn't find one.

"It must be Akari, fuck it," I grumbled to myself.

Akari was my wife. She was a beautiful woman who I'd met as a client during one of my earlier cases. While solving the case, we hit it off and after the case, I proposed to her. We got married, and since then we were living a happy life. Apart from her hiding my liquor and cigarette lighters, of course. She'd always been pressuring me to quit, but I just couldn't get myself to. 

While I was deep in thought, there was a soft knock at the door. My senses were alerted. There was a crack of thunder outside the window. I stared at the door processing the information.
A client? But it's a Sunday. Clients don't usually come in on weekends. The Police? It's possible. Probably some emergency regarding a new or earlier case.

I got up out of my chair and walked over to the door. The door sat at the end of a long hallway. The thunder menacingly cracked behind me. The sound echoed through the shadowy hallway, with the light of the lightning temporarily illuminating it. I gulped.

When I got to the door, I slowly twisted the handle and opened it. There was a man on the other side. He was dressed in an all-leather outfit with leather gloves and wore a leather hat too. He was wearing a black mask that covered his face and black sunglasses over the mask's eye holes. None of his skin was visible. He lent out a hand.

"Hello, Akira. My name is Jose. I came here to discuss a very important case with you," said the mysterious man in a deep, raspy voice.

I shook his hand and looked him in the eyes. I couldn't see them because of the sunglasses. I asked him, "Have we met before?"

"I'm afraid we haven't. If we had, this interaction would go differently."

I laughed off his advances. "Different in what way?"

He avoided my question. "Can we get straight to discussing the case? I'd love to chat, but I'm afraid it's rather important."

"Oh yeah, come in. Sorry for keeping you so long. You can leave your hat and jacket here."

"I'd prefer not to."

"Alright..."

I gestured the man into my office. He walked in with a bizarre stride, limping on his right foot.

"Is your foot alright?" I asked.

He looked me straight in the eyes. "I sprained my ankle."

"Oh. In here, please."

I pointed to a chair opposite my desk. He took a seat in it and I took a seat on my own. We stared at each other for a brief awkward moment before I broke the silence.

"So, what case did you want to discuss?"

"It's concerning The Cowboy."

I got chills up my spine. The Cowboy was an infamous serial killer who had been active for 10 years now. He had no eyewitnesses and had made no mistakes. He was psychotic, meticulous, and professional in his killing. It was impossible to figure out his identity. He could be anyone, anywhere, at any time. Who knows, he could also be the man in front of me (Which, regrettably, I discovered the hard way). I asked him:

"What about him?"

"I may have witnessed him killing someone. I think he's out for me."

"What makes you think that?"

At this time, there was a lightning crack outside the window. The rain poured on harder outside. Suddenly, I couldn't help but notice something. If he came from outside, then... I looked at his footprints leading inside my office. They were smooth, with no texture. He had no footprints. The bottom of his soles was a flat surface. That explained his bizarre way of walking. But why? The only logical solution was that he didn't want his footprints to be identified. He wanted to leave no trace; be a ghost. I wish I had got the hint then, but I just let it go. He continued talking.

"A few weeks ago, I was at the town plaza..."

I analyzed him, noticing his strange way of speaking. The way he chose his words wasn't organic, it was like he was trying to be someone else.

"...And I saw The Cowboy kill her. Since then, I've felt like I was being stalked, and strange things have been happening..."

He went into detail about anonymous phone calls, random emails with death threats and warnings, dead animals outside his house, and other things that he claimed The Cowboy set up to mentally weaken him.

"I feel like every new day might be my last. That's why I need your help."

"Why don't you go straight to the police?"

"I can't trust them. Word is, they're cooperating with The Cowboy. That's why he hasn't been found for all these years."

I pondered whether to give it to him straight or not. I chose the latter.

"I'm sorry. This is all too risky for me to investigate. You might not be dealing with The Cowboy, this sounds like a psychological attack by some gang in this city. It's far too dangerous of an avenue for me to explore. Please understand, I may not look it, but I really do value my own life."

He went silent. After a while, he slowly got up from the chair and thanked me for my time before walking out of my office without a word. I watched him go and close the door behind him. After I was sure he had gone down the elevator outside my office, I quickly ran out to the fire exit of the building, running down the stairs while panting heavily. I had rejected the case, but that didn't mean I wouldn't pursue it on my own. This was far too intriguing to leave untouched. I came to the bottom of the stairs and watched him walk down the street. He approached and opened a silver BMW and started the engine. I noted down the license number as it left.
I was gonna get to the end of this.

It was 12:35 AM. I was in my black Ford parked outside the guy's house. I had traced the license number using a friend of mine working as a cop and had arrived 5 minutes earlier. The house was on the 4th floor of a large apartment complex. Using a pair of binoculars, I was looking through the window of his apartment. I could see a silhouette of him and a woman making love through the light of a lamp next to their bed. They had been going at it ever since I came. The woman was a prostitute, who I saw him pick up when I was tailing his car an hour ago. One abnormal detail I noted was that he was making love while fully clothed even though she was undressed. It looked like he had something to hide.

It was 1:00 AM. They were still going.
1:10 AM. Still going.
1:20. When will it end?

At 1:30 I was getting restless. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened unlike what he had discussed in my office. I was just about to leave when suddenly something happened. The lights of the apartment went out; a power outage. I leaned forward on my seat. I was in complete darkness, I couldn't see a thing.
That's when I heard it.

A tapping on my driver-side window. Before I could react, the window was smashed with glass pieces flying everywhere, cutting my face in several places. Amidst the pain, I felt a pair of hands clutch my shoulders and drag me out of the car, through the window. My elbows were dragged on the sharp glass, and before I had the chance to scream, my face was slammed into the dirt on the ground. I pushed the attacker's hands away and managed to wriggle out of his grasp.
Not for long though. He came charging at me, and I barely managed to dodge as he slammed into the side of the car. I got up, and could barely see him in the darkness. He was wearing all-black clothing. I put my fists up as he charged at me again, and before I could punch him, I felt a knife tearing though my stomach.

That was when I passed out.