BLOOD, INK AND BLACK SOUL

The shrine stood quietly in the heart of the village, its red torii gate catching the soft light of morning. A hush had settled over the courtyard, broken only by the occasional rustle of silk and the murmuring of old prayers carried gently by the wind.

White petals from late-blooming plum trees drifted through the air like snow, brushing over lacquered sandals and worn wooden steps. Incense coiled upward in pale ribbons from the altar, warm and grounding.

He stood beneath the arch, formal and composed in his black montsuki and hakama, every fold of his attire pressed with quiet pride. His hands were steady, clasped in front of him, eyes facing forward—but he blinked slowly, once, when the bells chimed.

She walked to him with measured grace, her shiromuku—pure white bridal kimono—trailing softly behind her. Her veil fluttered in the breeze, briefly revealing a glimpse of her calm, painted face. Her steps were slow, respectful. Dignified. Her presence carried something serene.

There was no fear in their posture. No hesitation.

Just a quiet understanding.

The priest began the ceremony with age-old words, familiar to every ear present. Behind them, family watched silently. The elders folded their hands. A mother dabbed her eyes with a silk cloth.

The san-san-kudo began—the ritual of sharing sake. Three cups, three sips from each. He lifted the smallest cup, drank once, twice, thrice. She followed, her hands elegant even in the simplest motion.

Their vows were not grand, not poetic.

They were spoken softly, gently.

"I will walk beside you, wherever the path leads," he said.

"I will stay beside you, through the seasons that come," she replied.

The shrine's bells rang again, announcing the union to the heavens.

A quiet applause followed. No cheering. Just the respectful sound of palms meeting palms beneath a pale sky.

Afterward, they stood side by side beneath the blooming tree near the courtyard's edge, their silhouettes reflected in a shallow pool of spring rain.

He glanced sideways.

She was already smiling.

And for a moment, there was only peace.

---

---

A Place Called Humanity

We named ourselves the center.

Spoke to the stars like they owed us light.

Painted gods in our own image—

and then turned away from the mirror

when the blood began to stain the frame.

We call other species "wild."

We call nature "untamed."

As if we were ever meant to tame it.

We build walls around gardens

and call them "protected."

As if the Earth itself needs saving

—from us.

We gave names to every creature,

but only so we could catalogue their bones.

The more we understand,

the more we devour.

Curiosity was never our sin.

Entitlement was.

And oh—how we teach it:

To our children who pluck wings off butterflies

because they're curious.

To our youth who laugh at hurt

because they were never taught empathy

outside their own kind.

We raise kings of concrete,

queens of fire.

And when the forest burns,

we take photos.

When the ocean dies,

we blame the heat.

We touch everything

not to connect—

but to conquer.

We give birth,

but we do not protect.

We breed animals in cages

only to say they were never meant for the wild.

We breed ourselves in cities

and forget how it feels

to look up at a sky without noise.

We whisper about peace

while funding war.

We write poems about nature

while tearing down trees

to print them.

And we dare—

we dare to ask

why the world seems tired.

Why the wind feels heavier.

Why the bees are missing.

Why the children are lonelier.

Why the silence sometimes hurts.

It is because the Earth remembers.

Not in words.

Not in revenge.

But in the way a body remembers a fever.

And we were the fever.

We are not just cruel to other species.

We are cruel to time.

To possibility.

To the fragile idea that life could be better than this.

We see a homeless man

and look away.

We hear a dying scream in the woods

and call it "nature's way."

We step over insects.

We step over truth.

We step over each other

like we were never meant to stand side by side.

And when someone chooses kindness—

they are called naive.

Soft.

Weak.

Because humanity has made cruelty a culture.

And culture...

a cage.

We don't need monsters in stories anymore.

We've become far better at being them

in real life.

We don't wear claws.

We wear smiles.

We don't howl.

We clap.

We build stages, markets, zoos, prisons, borders, bombs—

and call it all necessary.

But the sparrows don't think so.

The coral reefs don't think so.

The wolves we wiped from their mountains

don't think so.

The very air

we laced with ash

doesn't think so.

And when it all falls quiet—

when the sky is done pretending

to be blue for us,

when the last whale sings

to no one—

There will be one voice left.

It won't be human.

It won't be spoken.

But it will be final.

The sound of the Earth

exhaling.

Not in relief.

Not in rage.

But in the solemn, patient grace

of a body that finally

lets go

of its illness.

And we—

We will be the echo.

Nothing more.

---

---

Day Three – 5 Days Left

Kurokawa Museum – Interior Storage Wing

The sun had not yet risen fully, but the faint blue glow of morning seeped through the old stained-glass windows of the Kurokawa Museum. Aiko pushed the heavy side door open with a grunt, Daisuke close behind. Their footsteps echoed with a strange delay, as if the walls were listening first before answering.

"This way," she whispered, though there was no one around. "The storage wing. It hasn't been checked yet."

Daisuke nodded. He carried a handheld light and a black evidence kit. His face was calm, but his eyes scanned constantly. There was something about the quiet here—not a sacred silence, but a stale, almost human stillness. The kind left behind by people who fled in a hurry.

As they stepped inside the wing, rows of display crates lined the walls. Some were covered in dusty tarps; others left exposed, as though someone had been in the middle of cataloging but never finished.

Daisuke paused near a crate labeled Edo Era Silverware Collection. He crouched, running his fingers along a faint trail of smudges.

"Someone opened this," he said. "Recently."

Aiko crouched beside him. "Let me guess. The museum report says it hasn't been touched since 2008?"

Daisuke nodded. She clicked her tongue.

"Let's open it."

The crate creaked with protest as they lifted the lid. Inside, velvet lining cradled slots for cutlery—forks, knives, and a row of elegant silver spoons. But three of the slots were empty.

Aiko leaned in. "That's not normal wear. Look. The velvet is torn. Rushed. Whoever did this was looking for something specific."

Daisuke reached into the crate with tweezers and extracted a small shred of latex.

"Glove residue. Maybe they wore gloves. But this tore. If we're lucky—"

"Skin," Aiko finished.

---

Kurokawa Police Station – Interrogation Observation Room

Kenji folded his arms, staring through the two-way mirror. In the room sat a girl. Late teens. Bruised arm. Pale skin. Her eyes were dull, like she hadn't slept in days.

Naomi leaned against the wall beside him. "Her name's Minori Hayasaka. Age nineteen. Third-tier intern at the museum. Went missing from the hospital."

"And now she's back. Limping, half-starved, and apparently asking to talk."

"She turned herself in," Naomi added. "Or tried. She didn't get very far. Fainted two blocks from the station."

Riku pushed the door open, holding a coffee. "And she's talking now. Said she 'needs to clear her head before it's too late.' Sounds like a ghost story already."

"Get Aiko," Kenji said. "She was the one who saw her first. She should talk to her."

---

Interrogation Room

Minori sat with her fingers curled tight around a paper cup. Her lips trembled slightly as Aiko entered and sat opposite her.

"Minori. I'm Detective Aiko Tanaka. We met... briefly. You were in the road."

"I remember," she whispered. "You... slowed down. You didn't hit me."

Aiko gave a small nod. "We want to understand what happened. Why you ran. Why you vanished. Why your name is now tied to a robbery."

Minori took a long sip from the cup. Then slowly set it down.

"I didn't want to do it," she began, voice paper-thin. "But they said it was just old junk. That no one would miss it."

"Who?"

"Yuuta and Sae. We worked together. I... I admired them. They were smart. Older. Museum associates. They knew the back halls. They called it a reclamation. Said it was about restoring history to the right hands."

Aiko leaned in. "So you helped them."

Minori shook her head violently. "No. Not fully. I only handled small things. Catalog shifts. Turning off cameras during lunch. But then... they asked me to lie. That an item had been destroyed when it hadn't. That something was moved when it wasn't."

She paused. "I said I wanted to back out. I told them... I wanted to go to the police."

"What happened then?"

"They... they changed. Yuuta especially. He said I was endangering their cause. That if I told anyone... I'd never leave the museum again."

Aiko reached forward gently. "Did they hurt you?"

Minori pulled her sleeve up slightly. Bruises lined her upper arm.

"They tried to make it look like I got into a car accident. Sae said it was ironic. Said if they injured me, I'd get more sympathy."

Her voice cracked.

"They locked me in the archive room overnight. I escaped when the fire alarm went off accidentally. I don't even remember how I reached the road. I just... ran."

Aiko inhaled slowly.

"We'll keep you safe. But you need to help us find them."

Minori nodded.

---

Later That Night – Kenji's Desk

The board was now cluttered with red threads, museum blueprints, mugshots, and a large note in Kenji's block handwriting: Yuuta Nakamura. Sae Moriguchi. WANTED.

"The third spoon was sold off," Naomi said. "Minori didn't know to whom. She said they wrapped it in cloth and handed it off to someone in the south wing last Friday. That part of the museum has no working cameras."

Kenji exhaled. "They planned this for months. Maybe longer."

"But why spoons?" Riku asked. "Seriously. They're nice spoons, sure, but still."

Aiko tossed a folder onto the table. "The set belonged to a samurai war widow. Each piece has her family seal. They weren't just utensils. They were forged from the melted sword of her husband."

Riku whistled. "Yikes. Sword spoons. Now that I get."

Daisuke walked in, holding another cloth-wrapped evidence bundle. "We found this hidden in the archives. It was stuffed behind a false panel. Sae's locker key and a ledger."

Kenji opened the ledger.

Inside were dates. Times. Names. Item codes.

And on the last page:

> Phase 3 – The Cradle Project. Replace. Reclaim. Rewrite.

Aiko read it aloud.

Riku blinked. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know," Aiko whispered. "But we just got permission to search Sae's apartment. And Yuuta? His last recorded address is listed under a different name. A false ID."

Kenji leaned over the desk. "We're not just chasing thieves. We're chasing something bigger."

Naomi added grimly, "And if Phase 3 is just beginning... we're already late."

---

Day Four – 4 Days Left

Kurokawa Central Police Station – Briefing Room

"They're going to make their move today," Kenji said, tapping his finger against the board. "Everything points to it. We have their names, their routines, and if Minori was right, they never skip Thursdays."

"Yuuta and Sae always clock in early on Thursdays for 'inventory checks'," Naomi added, air quoting. "Funny how inventory keeps disappearing right after."

"We catch them before they take anything," Aiko said. "Not after. No drama. No chase scenes. Just a clean arrest."

"I already miss the chase scenes," Riku muttered. He got four eye rolls.

Daisuke walked in with two small trackers. "I slipped these into their locker bags yesterday. We'll know exactly where they are."

"Then we move at 9:00 sharp," Kenji said. "Let them get inside. Let them think today will go like the rest. Then we lock it down."

Kurokawa Museum – South Wing

The team split into positions. Kenji, Naomi, and Riku monitored from the makeshift surveillance van parked across the museum's rear alley. Aiko and Daisuke waited inside the corridor near the archive room, one wall between them and the suspects.

9:00 came. The museum opened. Visitors filtered in, none the wiser.

9:12 – Tracker signals: both Yuuta and Sae in the south wing.

9:15 – They entered the restricted archive area.

9:18 – Aiko and Daisuke moved in.

"Yuuta Nakamura. Sae Moriguchi. Hands visible, step back slowly."

Sae dropped the velvet-lined case she was holding. Yuuta raised his hands, brows narrowing.

"I think there's a misunderstanding," he said flatly.

Aiko gave him a look. "Sure. But just in case, you'll explain it with a lawyer present."

Kurokawa Central Police Station – Interrogation Room

Yuuta sat in silence. Naomi leaned on the desk.

"You were caught inside the archives. With an open case. Gloved hands. Unlisted keys. You want to skip the boring denials or keep wasting time?"

Yuuta stared back, lips twitching. "You don't know what you just interrupted."

"Yeah, I do," Naomi said coldly. "A theft."

Next room. Sae sat with Kenji.

"Where is the third item?" he asked, voice calm.

"What third item?" Sae said, genuinely confused. "We were recovering the silver spoons and the ink seal. Those are the only things we handled."

Kenji slid a photo across the table. The blade—a ritual dagger with a phoenix carving.

"This was supposed to be in the same crate as the others. It isn't there. And Minori swore it was last week."

Sae blinked. "I don't know anything about that. We never touched that dagger. I didn't even know it existed until you just showed me."

"Yuuta told you to lie?"

"He never mentioned it," Sae replied. "I would have remembered something like that."

Evidence Room – 4:00 P.M.

Aiko stood over the recovered items, carefully unpacked from the crates Riku and Daisuke had hauled in earlier. Two items accounted for:

Edo Silver Spoon Set (Partial)

Shogunate Ink Seal with original scroll box

But no dagger.

Aiko frowned. "Check the manifest again."

"It was stored with the other two," Daisuke confirmed. "Same crate. Same seal tag. But it's gone."

"Security footage?" she asked.

Naomi walked in. "Backlog is clean. No signs of Yuuta or Sae entering before today. No tampering. Nothing suspicious."

Kenji joined them, flipping through the forensic scans.

"No fingerprints. No fibers. No signs the dagger was ever moved from the crate recently."

"But it was there last week," Riku said. "Minori described it. Twisted handle. Phoenix on the hilt. We verified it."

"So it vanished before Yuuta and Sae even arrived," Aiko muttered.

Daisuke glanced at her. "Then someone else got to it first."

Holding Cell – Evening

Yuuta stared out the small window. When Aiko entered, he didn't even look at her.

"You're lucky," she said, sitting down. "If you were thirty minutes later, we might have charged you for the dagger too."

He snorted. "That would have been amusing."

"You didn't take it?" she asked.

"I swear," he said, suddenly very serious. "We went for the ink seal and the spoons. We thought they were symbolic. Important. But the dagger? We didn't even know it existed."

Aiko narrowed her eyes. "So you admit the theft."

"Of course," he said. "I'm a fool, not a liar. But that dagger..." He leaned forward. "Detective. If someone else got there first, then you have a real problem."

Kurokawa Central Police Station – War Room

The team gathered late into the night. The whiteboard showed their progress.

Recovered:

Edo Silver Spoon Set (6 of 9 spoons)

Shogunate Ink Seal

Unrecovered:

The moon crimson blade (UNKNOWN LOCATION)

Kenji stood beside the board.

"Yuuta and Sae are done. They admitted to fencing two items. That matches the evidence. They don't know about the dagger. We believe them."

Naomi crossed her arms. "Which means someone else was involved."

"Or someone else already acted."

"Before them," Daisuke added. "Before Minori ran. Before the seal even hit the manifest."

Riku frowned. "So we caught the thieves. Stopped the robbery. Saved two artifacts. But the third one... walked away on its own."

Aiko didn't say anything for a long time. Then, finally:

"No. Someone took it first... while everyone was too busy looking at the silver."

And somewhere, far beyond the city, a blade once touched by fire sat quietly in unfamiliar hands.

Waiting.

---

Kurokawa Central Police Station – Afternoon

Break Room / "Crime-Free Madness Time"

The crime board had gone untouched for nearly three hours, which could only mean one of two things: either a major breakthrough was coming…

Or the team was deep in its natural state of utter nonsense.

And right now?

Total. Nonsense.

The break room looked more like a dormitory common space than the headquarters of one of the sharpest investigative teams in the city. Paper cranes were stuck on the ceiling tiles (courtesy of Mika Ayanami), someone had drawn cat ears on the whiteboard criminal sketches (suspected culprit: Riku), and a loud argument was currently escalating about whether hot sauce belonged in tea.

"You're insane!" Mika practically screamed, waving her arms. "Tea is sacred. You don't put spicy poison in it!"

"It's not poison if it makes you stronger," Renji Takasago said calmly, dipping his onigiri into wasabi like a madman. "Capsaicin builds tolerance. Even criminals can't withstand chili logic."

"Renji, we are sketch artists, not spice samurais!" Souta Kurobane yelled from the microwave, where he was burning his fifth cup of instant ramen. "And you still owe me a new nose after that last face you drew looked like it was cursed."

Renji shrugged. "My job is to draw the truth beneath the skin. If the suspect looks cursed, that's his fault, not mine."

Naomi was lying across the couch upside down, scrolling through her phone, while Riku and Mika had somehow started stacking coffee cups into a precarious tower. Aiko had tried to focus on a report for all of two minutes before giving up and joining the chaos by handing Riku a stapler as a counterweight.

Kenji sat at the corner desk, muttering under his breath while pretending to work. His computer screen said "FIREWALL CHECK COMPLETE." He hadn't touched his keyboard in 15 minutes.

At the edge of it all, Daisuke sat quietly by the window, sipping from a bottle of water, eyes vacant. Watching.

Analyzing.

Maybe regretting joining this team.

Maybe planning his escape.

No one could tell.

He was unreadable. And unfortunately, everyone noticed.

---

"Guys…"

Everyone froze as Captain Rei Tsumori (津守 玲) appeared in the doorway, holding a clipboard and a look that said she had not had her coffee yet.

Again.

Her bangs were slightly frazzled. Her jaw twitched.

"What. Is. This."

Riku held up the cup tower. "A monument to caffeine dependency."

Mika threw her arms in the air. "It's structural integrity is based on teamwork and hope!"

Rei's left eye twitched. "Where's Kenji?"

Kenji waved without turning. "Mentally on vacation."

"Naomi?"

"Emotionally unavailable."

"Aiko?"

"Trying to be a responsible adult but clearly failing."

Rei drew a deep breath.

She stared at Renji, who was sketching Mika's "rage expression" in his notebook with eerie accuracy.

She stared at Souta, who had managed to spill instant noodles into a printer somehow.

She stared at Riku, who gave her finger guns.

And then her eyes landed on Daisuke, sitting still, perfectly straight, a blank expression in the middle of a storm.

"Daisuke."

He looked up.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Why are you not participating in this circus?"

He blinked once. "I was under the impression this was not sanctioned team-building."

Rei looked heavenward. "Finally. One sane recruit."

Naomi snorted. "Don't get excited, Captain. He's just traumatized from his training."

Now everyone turned toward Daisuke.

Renji tilted his head. "Training?"

Aiko smirked. "He studied under Instructor Miyama."

That got a reaction.

Riku dropped a cup.

Souta gasped. "THE Miyama? The guy who makes you solve simulated murders in the dark?"

"Blindfolded," Naomi added.

"And buries evidence under real dirt!" Mika yelped. "He's the reason I failed my mock exam three times. I had to pass a note to my plant to find the hidden camera!"

"I heard he once gave someone a fake corpse with their own face," Riku whispered.

"Daisuke," Souta asked, trembling with mock reverence, "...did you ever have to solve a crime scene while being chased by feral cats?"

"No," Daisuke said quietly. "They were wolves."

Everyone screamed.

Except Rei. She rubbed her temples.

"Oh my god," Mika whispered. "You're so cool."

"Don't encourage him," Rei hissed. "You're going to break him."

"I don't think we can break him," Aiko said, eyes twinkling. "But we might chip the corners."

Kenji finally stood. "Alright. Enough bonding over trauma. Back to work."

"Wow, Dad voice," Riku muttered.

"I'm not your dad."

"You're dad-shaped."

---

Outside the Break Room – A Few Minutes Later

Captain Rei stormed down the hallway toward her office, clutching the clipboard like it personally betrayed her. She heard laughter behind her—Naomi teasing Riku, Mika challenging Renji to a sketch battle, and Aiko softly asking Daisuke about wolves.

She paused.

Just briefly.

And a small smile curled at the edge of her lips.

"…Still chaos," she muttered. "But maybe… my chaos."

Then, someone shouted behind her:

"CAPTAIN REI! THE COFFEE MACHINE'S ON FIRE!"

Her smile vanished.

She turned back, eyes blazing.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!"

---

Back in the break room, ten seconds later...

Everyone was already gone.

Even the cup tower.

Only the smoldering coffee machine remained.

And a single sticky note, signed in messy pen:

> "Sorry about the fire. Blame Mika.

– Riku (who did nothing wrong)"

---