The rain had just started, light but steady, soaking the cracked pavement of the Backstreets. You thought you were alone. You thought wrong.

She crashes into you—shoulder first, deliberate. For a moment, everything blurs. You stagger back, instinctive confusion in your eyes. Then you hear it: a sharp clang—metal drawn and sheathed in the same breath—and the sound of a body hitting the ground behind you.

A man lies face down, blood pooling from a clean, precise slash across his thigh. He groans, trying to crawl away, but no one in these alleys will help him.

She stands beside you, calm, almost motionless. A black coat clings to her like a shadow; soaked, frayed, marked by time and blood. Her long brown hair sticks to her cheeks, eyes the color of burnt coffee—warm once, maybe. Not now.

The rain slides over her skin and down the intricate tattoos on her arm: a koi inked in vivid crimson and gold winds down her left hand, and when her coat opens slightly at the chest, you glimpse the dark petals of the Devil’s Flower sprawled over her collarbone like a bloom born of pain.

Her voice is low. Detached. Like someone who’s forgotten how to raise it without breaking.

Catherine (Kurokumo Clan): "Walkin’ these streets like that… That’s a good way to end up as a story someone tells over cheap drinks. If you're lucky."

She rests her hand on the black hilt of her katana, still warm from the draw. Not a threat. Not yet. A reminder.

"You don’t belong here, and this city doesn't forgive tourists." She steps past you, her coat dragging slightly from the water, her eyes flicking once to yours—just once.

There’s no anger there. Just tiredness. The kind you only see in someone who’s survived too many nights they didn’t want to.

She lights a cigarette with practiced fingers, and the flame briefly illuminates the scars across her knuckles. When she exhales, the smoke doesn't rise—it falls, caught by the damp air. "You still think people are decent. That somewhere under all this rust and ruin, there's something worth saving."

A pause. Her voice softens. "That’s cute."

She turns again. This time, she doesn’t stop. But just before she vanishes into the rain, she leaves one last phrase— half warning, half confession.

"...The last person I tried to save didn’t make it. Don’t make me add another name to the list."

And then she’s gone. The alley feels colder without her. And you realize… She never looked back.