The bounty hunters' bar was quieter than usual. Laughter, insults and tales of glory seemed to have evaporated, replaced by a dense air—as though everyone were breathing guilt. In one of the back tables, Ryo waited, two beers poured before him, one already half finished.
Miyako entered, soaked through from the drizzle, her black coat clinging to her body. She walked between the tables in slow steps, and everyone averted their gaze, as if afraid to meet hers. Since her return… something about her felt different.
"You're late," Ryo said, trying to sound casual, but his voice trembled just a little.
"I didn't know funerals started with beer," she replied, sitting down and taking hers without waiting for an invitation.
Ryo let out a hollow laugh.
"I can't believe it, Miyako. Goro… he…," he drank another swallow, trying to process the impossible, "that man used to give me free beer. He listened to my complaints. I never thought he'd be the one…," his voice broke, "the one to kill Katsuo."
Miyako lowered her gaze. The foam on her beer trembled slowly in the glass, as though it too hesitated whether to stay or vanish.
"Everyone hides something," she said, dryly. "Some do it better than others."
Silence descended like a wall. Ryo nodded, clutching his glass tightly.
"At least they replaced him quickly," he murmured after a few seconds, trying to lighten the load.
At that moment, a young bartender appeared from the bar's shadows. Her hair tied back, eyes calm, movements precise. Without a word, she set down two fresh beers on the table. Ryo looked up.
"Thank you, miss."
She nodded, expressionless, and walked away. Miyako watched her go for a moment, then smiled faintly.
"At least she's steadier-handed than Goro."
"Miyako…" Ryo sighed, weary, "Don't make this a joke."
She drank another sip.
"If I don't, I'll break, Ryo."
He stayed silent. Years tracking monsters, but none so quiet as pain.
"Did you come looking for a new mission?" he asked, more to fill the air than from curiosity.
"No," she answered, rising. "I only came to tell you in person. And to share a beer for the dead."
She pulled out some coins and left them on the table.
Ryo stared at her. The bar's light cast a gray, exhausted hue across his face.
"Don't do anything reckless, Miyako."
She looked at him for a second, and a nearly tender smile touched her lips.
"If I do, you'll know I'm still alive."
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and left the bar.
The sound of the rain greeted her like an old friend. Outside, the lampposts flickered and steam rose from the drains in slow columns. Each step echoed hollow across the wet asphalt.
She paused a few metres ahead, tilted her head toward the cloudy sky. The raindrops mingled with sweat and dried blood she had not bothered to wash away.
"I don't know if I avenged you…" she whispered, barely audible. "But I'm still breathing. That counts, doesn't it?"
Her words' echo faded into the rain as her form vanished into the mist.
Later…
The hum of a broken refrigerator filled the apartment with a persistent drone. Miyako sat before a corkboard covering almost the entire wall—a chaos of clippings, photos and handwritten notes in red ink. Heroes, villains, ranks, dates. Each one connected by a line ending in a black dot: herself.
In the centre stood one name triple-underlined:
Z-Rank Hero Kanzō, the Guardian of Dawn. Number Nine.
Miyako spun in her chair, letting cigarette smoke coil into the air.
"Blind… but sees more than anyone," she murmured.
The photos showed him in combat: a tall man, eyes blindfolded by a white band, wielding a double-edged sword. Lines of pure energy warped from the blade, slicing steel as though it were paper. Reports claimed he could detect vibrations, shifts in air pressure, even the pulse of someone breathing nearby.
A monster in human form.
Miyako picked up chalk and drew a circle around Kanzō's face.
"My invisibility will be useless…," she spoke softly. "He cannot see—but he feels everything."
She stood, pacing the room barefoot, floor strewn with spent casings and flattened cigarette ends.
"Katsuo always said everyone has a blind spot."
Her voice cracked, though her face stayed as firm as ever.
"Even those who cannot see."
She opened a drawer in a nearby cabinet and retrieved an old metal box. Inside lay the little she had left of her father: a rusted plaque with an emblem, mismatched tools, and an empty magazine. She held it for a moment, respect and rage mingling.
"And now I don't even have ammo. Perfect." She let out a bitter laugh. "Guess I'll have to visit your grave, old man."
She moved to the window. The city stretched before her like a labyrinth of tired lights, and beyond, hills wrapped in mist. The rain had not ceased since the night before.
She swept on her coat with mechanical motion and tucked the empty magazine in her pocket.
"If Kanzō can feel the air…," she pondered. "Then I need something that robs him of it."
She opened the apartment door, but before stepping out, glanced back inside one last time.
Loneliness was her only ally.
"Old man, I hope you're still listening from where you are," she whispered, flicking the cigarette butt into the metal frame. "Because I'm going to need your tricks."
A cold wind greeted her as she stepped outside, the city smelling of rust and gasoline.
She descended the building's stairs, her thoughts echoing with each step.
"I can't kill him by strength," she thought, "I have to do it by void."
Reaching the street, a gust stirred dust and paper. In a window's reflection, her silhouette looked thinner, distorted.
The hunter walked into darkness, and in her eyes burned a light that wasn't of life, but of obsession.
The corkboard in her apartment lay behind, with just one word written at the bottom:
"Kanzō."
Below it, a date marked in red.
Her next hunt already had a name.
After walking some distance, the air tasted of rust, dampness and past memories. She arrived at an old factory rising on the city's edge like a sleeping beast, overgrown weeds and corroded plates. No one had dared approach there for years—no one but her.
Miyako paused before rusted doors. A breeze stirred crooked signs still hanging: "GOVERNMENT PROPERTY — RESTRICTED ENTRY."
"Of course," she muttered. "If my father worked here, it must have been government."
She thrust the door open with force. The metallic squeal echoed down empty halls. Inside, her footsteps reverberated like the factory itself breathed.
The interior was choked with dust and green pipes crisscrossing the walls. Some tanks still held a glowing emerald liquid, pulsing softly, as though alive. The low hum of the fluid felt familiar… almost comforting.
"So you're still here, old man," she whispered.
The emblem etched on the tanks—a circle split by a central line—matched the tattoo on her forearm.
Her father's symbol.
The symbol of a power that erased others.
For a moment she stood silent, watching the faint glow in her companions' eyes. She recalled his words, those that haunted her dreams:
"Every power has a price, Miyako. Mine erases others, but also erases part of me."
The memory struck her like a bullet.
A flash from the past: her father, bloodied hands injecting his energy into the tanks, breathing ragged, smiling weary.
"If you ever see me dead, you'll know where to find me."
Miyako closed her eyes and exhaled.
"And here you are," she said softly. "Turned into poison."
She stepped among the metal pillars to a dusty table. At its side lay a box of empty capsules and tools eerily pristine. She cleared them with a rag and began working.
With each motion, tension mounted: opening a valve, drawing the emerald fluid into a syringe, injecting it into capsules. Each bullet glowed faintly, almost like dying fireflies.
The smell was harsh, metallic. Vapour stung her eyes.
Some of the fluid dripped onto her glove, corroding it like acid, burning her skin.
Miyako let out a hoarse laugh.
"Guess family always leaves its mark."
The fluid hissed in reaction to air. A low hum reverberated, like a collective exhale. For a second, she thought she heard her father's voice echo.
"Use my power when yours isn't enough. But remember… each shot erases something of you too."
"Don't worry, old man," she replied, ironic. "Not much left to erase."
She continued loading capsules one by one until she filled a magazine. Then she fashioned small grenades of the same substance, sealing them with metal tape.
The green glow lit her weary face.
When finished, she eyed the bullets on the table. They glimmered in gloom like dying fireflies.
She slid on her gloves, stashed the magazine and grenades into her pack, pausing before she left.
"Thanks, Dad. You're still killing—even dead."
She walked toward the exit as rain began seeping through the roof.
Behind her, a droplet of fluid fell to the concrete, burning the surface with a sharp hiss, leaving a scorched mark.
Once she crossed the rusted doors, night greeted her with an icy wind.
Miyako turned back one last time to the factory. The green lights flickered in darkness, as though something inside still breathed.
"Rest in peace… or whatever's left of you," she whispered.
With that, she vanished into the mist, a magazine of impossible bullets strapped on and the resolve of a daughter not yet learned to stop killing.
Rain had not ceased since she left the factory.
Each drop hammered her coat in a constant, hypnotic rhythm. Her boots on asphalt echoed alongside distant sirens and engines. Tokyo slept, but for Miyako, the night was just beginning.
The air smelled of ozone and dry alcohol. She carried her submachine gun at her shoulder, the fresh magazine in her pocket, a spent cigarette between her lips. She walked unhurried, gaze fixed on the wet ground, letting thoughts ripple like water coursing through sewers.
A blind hero.
A temple full of disciples.
And me—with the blessing of a dead man.
She laughed softly.
The laugh hollow, weary. But not completely alone. Not entirely.
"What are you laughing about?" a feminine voice whispered behind her.
Miyako stopped. The echo of raindrops grew louder. She looked around. Nothing.
"Not this again…" she murmured.
The voice returned, closer this time.
"Because of you, Katsuo died. Remember how you looked at him before every mission?"
"Shut up," she muttered.
"And now you will die like him." The voice shifted to masculine—the voice of her younger brother, dead these years. "You always said you could handle it, Miyako."
She clenched her teeth, quickening her pace.
"You don't exist. You're gone."
"Then why do we still speak to you?" asked a third voice—the voice of her mother.
Miyako whirled in fury.
"Because none of you know how to die properly!" she yelled.
A group of passersby stared from across the street. Two teens stopped, whispering.
"Is she talking to herself?" one said.
She glared at them and kept walking. The kids moved aside in silence.
Rain kept soaking her hair.
Her steps took her through narrow alleys and lonely bridges until the city lay behind.
Ahead, on a hill, Kanzō's temple loomed like a spectre in rain: curved roofs, lit lanterns, flags waving in the wind.
Miyako halted, studying the place.
The air felt heavier.
The silence preceding massacre.
She pulled the cigarette from her lips, eyed it, then dropped it unlit.
"Luck is pointless," she said. "Only aim matters."
She checked her submachine gun. The metal gleamed under the rain.
She opened the magazine—green bullets glinted like small watchers in the gloom.
She smiled, tired but resolute.
"Invisibility pointless, experimental ammo, and a guy who hears souls…" she sighed. "Call it a perfect night."
The voices returned, lower now, as though trailing her.
"You will die."
"Like all the rest."
"Like us."
She ignored them.
As she climbed the stone steps toward the temple, she spoke without glancing back:
"If I die, at least give me a proper wake. And serve something strong."
Her footsteps' echo vanished among lit lanterns.
Wind gusted, snuffing several.
The sky roared with thunder.
Miyako reached the final step and lifted her eyes.
The temple gate stood ajar.
Inside she heard the metallic slash of steel cutting air.
She grinned sideways.
"So you're awake, hero."
And with empty gaze, she advanced toward the sound—ready to enter the sanctuary where silence waited for her.