"Ah, as soon as I get home I'll develop yesterday's photos...", he thought.
Karimi Batsuo had endured a long, soul-sapping day — full of papers, politeness, and political backstabbing — but his pace remained leveled, his tie still straight. He was the kind of man who internalized the grind like a habit passed down through generations.
Calm, composed, and with a quiet pride in routines.
He worked at a mid-sized law firm in central Tokyo, with decent salary and predictable schedules.
He found solace in photography, however. A thirteen-year-old Canon DSLR 2.1 hanged on his neck all of the time.
"I haven't figured out what I'm going to eat yet... Maybe ramen and a frozen frappe. I'm not sure about the spicy ramen, though. I guess I'll give it the benefit of the doubt."
It was the seventh of October, at night.
A cold night.
He was going home, after an exhausting day of work... He actually has a knack for work!
As he passed a dense wall of untrimmed bushes on state property, he turned a corner and saw a feminine silhouette.
She was leaning onto a postlight, like someone who knew exactly how to occupy space.
Her hair was the color of silver, shifting delicately with every breeze. Her eyes caught light like stained glass, with hues of fuchsia, merged with a sunset-amber that looked too vivid to be real. She wore linen robes with layered scarves that wound around her body.
Her clothes seemed like a majestic optical illusion.
When she noticed him, she pushed herself upright from the post, tilted her head gently to the right, and lifted one finger in his direction.
"Good evening," she whispered. "Please, just a second."
Batsuo froze. The sentence felt rehearsed, but she wasn't selling anything or holding anything with her hands.
He blinked once, then, ignoring the weight of her voice, he kept walking, offering a quiet "good night," as if dismissing a harmless street performer.
"..."
"Please."
But before he could take the second step, she was already there.
"!"
"Wh-!"
She didn't move, she appeared there, in front of him. One moment she was standing five meters away, the next, directly in front of him. She didn't teleport, she simply replaced the air with her presence.
She was fast. Not fast like athletes are, fast like the second between a match striking and flame catching, too fast for the human eye.
The blade emerged like a conjured breath. It shimmered yellow.
Batsuo didn't scream, though.
There was only the sound of cloth tearing, the soft gurgle of flesh giving way, and then warmth.
The heat bloomed under his ribs.
He fell to his knees.
"My job is easier when people look directly at me," she said. "Sorry, it probably hurts a lot, I guess."
Her voice was clear and centered.
She crouched before him, inspecting him as some. He could smell the linen, washed but aged and a strange scent of pen ink.
Batsuo opened his mouth, but nothing came. When he found the strength to inhale, she was already rising.
With a fluid step, she turned, and her silhouette began to walk away.
It wasn't until she had vanished that he touched the wound.
It burned and created small and pale holes on his skin.
He did not faint, and that made him proud later. But he bled more than he'd thought possible, barely making it home with a sleeve pressed tight against the leaking hole in his chest.
In the days that followed, the wound never closed fully. Not a week after, or two, or months later, in the way wounds should. It pulsed at night.
Occasionally, it glowed purpur.
He stopped trying to understand, and kept photographing.
And then, nineteen years later...
It was raining.
And there was so much water falling from the skies.
The kind that sounded like small rocks falling against the ground.
Batsuo had just left his camera drying on a towel, and a kettle whistling behind him. He poured instant coffee into a chipped mug, but as he did, the doorbell rang.
He walked ordinarily.
It was probably the mailman anyways! But that's some sincere dedication: delivering packs under such a downpour!
But there she was.
Her hair with the same impossible color. Her eyes just as complicated. Her clothes looser now.
She held a plastic bag with a broken umbrella sticking out the top, and a packet of cinnamon biscuits pressed against her chest.
"Good evening, Karimi. My name is Platina Haoru. And, if that makes sense, it's time to talk about what I left inside you."
She stepped inside before he could speak.
What a sharp woman she was... I mean, she's still as sharp as the first time!