The Setting:
A Tokyo neighborhood rebuilt after "The Great Clash" (Order vs. Yakuza, 5 years ago). Now it's a mosaic of:
Sakura Mart: Tatsu's part-time workplace. Shelves are stocked with canned peaches (ideal blunt objects) and suspiciously durable frying pans.
Reaper's Nest: A shuttered laundromat with coin-operated dryers hiding encrypted dead drops.
Order Outpost: "Tanuki Telecom" – a phone repair shop run by Heisuke (undercover). CCTV covers 78% of the district... except Tatsu's balcony (glare from Miku's windchimes).
PSB Safehouse: Disguised as a cram school. Karasuma teaches "Advanced Civics" (read: tactical retreats).
The Unspoken Rule:
No blood on playgrounds. Break it, and you face Tatsu's "Parent-Teacher Conference" (involves a ladle and disappointed sighs).
Main Character: Sora Aoki
(Pronounced So-ra Ah-oh-ki. Meaning: "Sky Blue Tree" – ironic for a ground-level survivor)
ProfileDetailsAge24AppearanceShort, navy-blue hair (bad home dye job), permanent eye bags. Wears a faded convenience store apron over a stab vest. Carries a thermal lunchbox instead of a weapon case.RoleOrder's "Cleaner" (erases mission evidence). Part-time Sakura Mart cashier.MotivationEarn enough to send little sister to Switzerland – far from Order's wars.SecretAccidentally witnessed the Reaper sparing a target (Year 4). He winked. She's been subtly sabotaging Order ops ever since.
Skills:
Forensic Janitoring: Can make a murder scene look like a gas leak in 7 minutes flat.
Grocery-Fu: Redirects aggression via produce. "Sir, attacking me won't make the mangoes ripen faster."
Data Gardening: Plants false evidence in Order's servers using Tatsu's borrowed wifi (he thinks she's just "bad with phones").
Relationships:
Nagumo: Her handler. Suspects her leaks but keeps her close as "Reaper-bait."
Tatsu: Thinks she's a "hardworking kid." Gives her free onigiri... and unintentionally teaches her parry techniques via vegetable chopping demos.
The Reaper: Leaves cryptic tips in her tip jar (e.g., "Hyo audits supply logs on Tuesdays. Hide the neurotoxin receipts.").
Internal Conflict:
"Order pays for my sister's future... but what world am I building for her? One run by Nagumo's smirk or Tatsu's kitchen knives?"
PROLOGUE: THE BLEACH-SCENTED TIGHTROPE
Rain slanted against the neon sign of Sakura Mart, turning the cheerful pink cherry blossom logo into a bleeding watercolor smear. Inside, the fluorescent lights hummed a flat, weary note, illuminating aisles unnaturally empty for 3 AM. The only sound was the rhythmic squelch-thud of a mop pushing viscous, dark water across the linoleum near the dairy section.
Sora Aoki worked with the grim efficiency of someone who knew the cost of every second. Her navy-blue hair, hastily tied back, stuck to her temples with sweat despite the store's chill. The faded blue apron over her stab vest was already stained – not with blood, thankfully, but with industrial-grade cleaner that smelled like chemical lemons and regret. Her thermal lunchbox sat unopened on a nearby shelf, a silent promise of cold rice and pickled plum she doubted she'd get to eat tonight.
Squelch. Thud. Squelch. Thud.
Each push of the mop erased a little more of the evidence. The faint outline where a body had fallen hard against the yogurt display. The spatter pattern on the bottom shelf of cheeses, already disguised by a hastily rearranged selection of discount camembert. The smell, thankfully, was mostly drowned by the acrid tang of bleach solution – a precise 10:1 dilution she mixed instinctively, Order's "Forensic Janitoring 101" manual burned into her muscle memory.
Seven minutes. Nagumo's voice crackled in her concealed earpiece, smooth as poisoned honey. Make it look like a slip-and-fall. Gas leak narrative prepped. Find the edamame.
The "edamame." Code for the dead yakuza informant's USB drive, supposedly hidden in a pack of frozen soybeans. A tiny, stupid thing that had just cost a life and was now costing Sora her sanity. She'd already swept the frozen aisle twice. Nothing.
Squelch. Thud.
She paused, leaning on the mop handle, her breath fogging briefly in the cold air near the milk coolers. Her gaze snagged on the security mirror above Aisle 3. Reflected back was a small, tired woman in a stained apron, dwarfed by towering shelves of cereal boxes. A cleaner. A ghost. A liar. The money from Order was stacking up in a Swiss escrow account, pixel by pixel, brick by brick, building a future for her little sister, Hana. A future far away from the Kintsugi District, far away from the smell of bleach and blood and the quiet terror that hummed beneath the surface of everyday life. Was Hana's safety worth scrubbing away the truth? Worth becoming part of the machine that made messes like this?
A flicker of movement in the mirror reflection. Not her own. Something shifting behind the stacked towers of Lucky Star puffed rice. Sora froze, her hand instinctively drifting towards the heavy-duty utility knife tucked into her apron pocket – Tatsu's unintentional gift, honed razor-sharp during one of his "efficient vegetable prep" demos.
Then, a familiar, low voice, dry as dust and colder than the freezer section, slithered into her ear, bypassing the Order comms entirely. A voice that made the small hairs on her neck stand rigid.
"Check the tip jar, little sparrow."
The Reaper.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. He was here. Now. In the middle of her cleanup. She hadn't seen him since that rain-slicked alley two years ago, where he'd looked at a terrified shopkeeper, then at her wide eyes peeking from a dumpster, and winked before vanishing like smoke. Leaving the shopkeeper alive and Sora's world irrevocably tilted.
Slowly, deliberately, Sora walked towards the checkout counter, trying to make her steps sound casual, just a worker finishing a task. The ceramic tip jar, shaped like a cartoon cat, sat innocently beside the register. Tatsu insisted on it. "Builds community spirit," he'd say, blissfully unaware of the crumpled bills stained with things other than soy sauce it occasionally contained.
Nestled among a few coins and a faded coupon for canned tuna was a small, folded square of greaseproof butcher paper. Her fingers trembled slightly as she plucked it out, unfolding it under the counter's meagre light.
Not a tip. A message. Scrawled in a precise, almost elegant hand:
*Nagumo lied. Edamame was bait. Real payload: USB-Sigma in the expired discount bento box (Aisle 5, bottom shelf, left corner). Contains Order's "Bulwark Protocol." Targets: Shiroiwa Elementary Trustees. Including Principal Tanaka. Hana's safe… for now. Your move, sparrow. P.S. Hyo audits the bleach logs at dawn. Mind the ratios.*
Ice flooded Sora's veins, colder than any freezer. Hana's Principal. Order wasn't just eliminating loose ends; they were targeting schools. The place Hana went every day. The place Sora was killing her conscience to protect. And Nagumo… he'd set her up. Sent her hunting for phantom soybeans while the real weapon sat among discounted, day-old rice.
A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her. The bleach smell suddenly seemed suffocating. The mop handle felt slick in her sweating palm. The Reaper's words echoed: Your move, sparrow. Was this another manipulation? A way to turn her against Order? Or… was it the only shred of truth in this rotten night?
Before she could process it, the automatic doors hissed open with a jarring swoosh. Sora shoved the note deep into her apron pocket, her face snapping into a mask of weary customer service blandness.
Tatsu stood framed in the doorway, shaking rain off a plain black umbrella. He wore his usual slightly-too-tight polo shirt and slacks, a canvas grocery bag hooked over one arm. His expression was calm, almost serene, but his eyes, sharp as honed steel, scanned the store instantly, lingering for a fraction of a second on the overly clean patch near the dairy, then on Sora's tense posture.
"Sora-chan," he said, his voice a low, grounding rumble. "Working late? The storm is getting fierce." He stepped inside, the door closing behind him with a soft click that sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. He glanced towards Aisle 3, where the Reaper had been. "Place feels… drafty tonight. Did someone leave the freezer open again?"
He walked towards her, his steps silent on the damp floor. He placed the grocery bag gently on the counter. Inside, Sora glimpsed fresh ginger, green onions, and a package of… frozen edamame.
"Couldn't sleep," Tatsu continued, his gaze now resting on the suspiciously spotless floor near the yogurts. "Thought I'd prep tomorrow's miso soup base. Need the workspace." He looked directly at Sora, his dark eyes holding an unnerving depth. "Everything… clean enough in here for that?"
Sora's mouth was dry. Nagumo was in her ear, demanding an update. The Reaper was a phantom presence somewhere in the shadows of the cereal aisle. The USB condemning Hana's principal was hidden among expired lunches. And Tatsu, the immovable object, the suburban enigma, stood before her, asking if the store was clean.
Outside, the wind howled, rattling the sign. The fluorescent lights flickered once, plunging the store into momentary darkness before buzzing back to life. In that split second of blackness, Sora thought she saw a pair of eyes, reflecting the dim emergency exit sign like a predator's, watching her from the end of Aisle 3. Then the light returned, and the space was empty.
The storm wasn't just outside. It was here. In the bleach-scented air, in the weight of the USB in her pocket, in the quiet question hanging between her and the most dangerous man in the Kintsugi District. The tightrope she walked had just turned to razor wire.
Sora forced a smile, thin and brittle. "Spotless, Tatsu-san," she lied, her voice surprisingly steady. "Just finishing up. The counter's all yours."
She picked up her mop and the bucket, the water inside now a diluted, pinkish grey. The game had changed. The cleanup had just gotten infinitely more complicated. And somewhere in the storm-lashed night, the Reaper watched, waiting to see if the little sparrow would fly… or fall.