Tokyo: Proving one's position from behind the scenes

Hearing the rhythmic knocking of the manhole cover on the pipeline, Nobuko Yoshida's alarm bells went off.

Her first reaction was to run away. The moment she heard the second knock, her right hand gripped the hilt of the demon-slaying sword, while her left hand reached into the crack in the stone, her fingertips touching the rough surface of the rolled-up oilcloth.

Nine fingers. She had just obtained the nine fingers of Su Nuo and had been hiding in this underground stronghold for less than a day when someone came knocking on her door. It was too coincidental, so coincidental that it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

The messenger of the sea spirit, the "traders" who might send the finger from all over the world, even Sukuna's own words in the dream, "They will come looking for you," all these fragments collided in her mind, piecing together a conclusion that made her instinctively want to escape: she had been targeted, she had been targeted the moment she got the finger, and she was now hiding at the end of an abandoned pipe less than two meters in diameter, with the only exit being the manhole cover above her head.

The knocking stopped, and a voice came from above the manhole cover.

It must have been the sound coming from a loudspeaker; the volume wasn't loud, but it was clear enough that every word traveled clearly down the well wall to the bottom.

"Ms. Nobuko Yoshida."

The female voice was steady and slow, as if she were reading a prepared speech.

"We are from the Special Operations Division of the Metropolitan Police Department. Please don't be nervous. We are not carrying weapons and have no intention of entering the pipes. We just want to talk to you."

Nobuko Yoshida held onto the demon-slaying hand tightly. Her gaze shifted from the manhole cover to the dark depths at the other end of the pipe. She quickly reviewed the route of the abandoned combined sewer in her mind to ensure she could escape unimpeded.

We know you're listening.

The sound continued to come down from above the manhole cover.

"First, I want to clarify something for you: we have no malicious intent. We were able to find this place not because someone was following you. The Operations Division retrieved data on all your known activity locations over the past month—the locations of the yakuza groups you cleared in Tokyo. We marked all these locations on a map and analyzed their distribution patterns."

The voice paused for a moment, as if giving Nobuko Yoshida time to understand what he meant.

"The locations where you eliminated the yakuza organization were not entirely random; they exhibited a clear clustering pattern in their spatial distribution, with each cluster center having a radius of approximately three to five kilometers. Based on this pattern, we calculated your most likely hiding area and then installed the same loudspeaker equipment in all locations within that area that met the hiding conditions."

Nobuko Yoshida remained silent, her back against the pipe wall, the tip of her demon-slaying sword touching the ground, casting a small, flowing patch of light on the pipe wall with its dark red glow. Her left hand was pulled back from the crack in the stone, but she did not take the rolled-up oilcloth.

The voice continued speaking, its tone gradually shifting from a steady reading of a prepared speech to a more natural rhythm, as if they were having a face-to-face conversation.

"Ms. Yoshida, we're here to see you, not to arrest you. If we wanted to arrest you, we wouldn't have brought a loudspeaker."

This statement was made neither too strongly nor too weakly, as if stating a fact that did not need to be emphasized.

"Everyone in the Operations Division knows about your brother's situation."

Nobuko Yoshida's fingers tightened on the hilt of the sword for a moment.

"We won't say those yakuza didn't deserve to die, nor will we say you did anything wrong. We just want you to know that the Metropolitan Police Department and you don't necessarily have to be enemies."

The pipe was quiet for a few seconds, with only the extremely faint sound of the flame patterns on the Demon-Slaying Sword alternating between light and shadow, like embers breathing in the wind.

"So we'd like to make a deal with you."

"You can continue doing what you want, you yakuza. Kill as many as you want. The Operations Division won't interfere, won't hunt you down, and won't suddenly rush out of the alley and yell 'Put down your weapons' at you when you're about to kill. After you're done, we'll be responsible for collecting the bodies, sealing off the scene, and making sure the media writes about it as 'internal strife within a yakuza organization' or 'gas explosion'."

The pipes remained quiet for a long time.

Nobuko Yoshida sat behind the low wall, her back against the cool pipe wall, breathing slowly as she slayed the demon. The dark red light flickered, illuminating half of her face, which remained expressionless.

She thought about every word that voice had spoken, about the truck driver and the officer on the highway—she could have killed them, but she didn't. She thought about her brother turning into a monster and killing everyone in that building before dying herself. She thought about Sukuna telling her in her dream, "Someone will come looking for you," and now someone really was coming for her, not just the monsters that brought her fingers, but also people from the Metropolitan Police Department.

"Ms. Yoshida, we can also give you a free piece of information; we just want to show our sincerity."

The sound of papers turning could be heard coming from the loudspeaker.

"The day after tomorrow night, a memorial service will be held at the headquarters of the Niou-gumi near Shiba Park in Minato Ward. The Niou-gumi is one of the top-ranked yakuza organizations in the Kanto region. The memorial service is for their young leader, Katsumura, who was found dead in his car in Chiba a week ago."

"On the night of the Niou Group's memorial service, members from various yakuza organizations in Tokyo will be present. The location is Shiba 3-chome, Minato Ward. The building is a six-story building with a gray-white tiled exterior. The main entrance faces south, and the back entrance leads to a narrow alley."

The voice repeated the address, then described the building's features again: the color of the exterior walls, the number of floors, the location of the front and back doors, the distribution of surrounding buildings, and the distance to the nearest police station.

"We've given you this information. Whether you go or not is entirely up to you. We won't have anyone at the memorial service, we won't set up an ambush, and we won't take advantage of your actions to make our move. If you go, kill someone, and we go to collect the body the next morning, we'll just say it was a gas explosion."

A very faint electrical hum came from the loudspeaker, and then the woman's voice rang out again.

"We've finished speaking. Sorry to have bothered you."

Complete silence returned to the pipes.

Nobuko Yoshida sat behind the low wall, her back against the pipe wall, while Zanki breathed slowly on her knees.

She didn't move.

She was still wearing the hoodie, the shadow obscuring most of her face. Only the dark red light of the Demon Slayer shone up from below, casting a small, flowing light on her chin and lips. Her eyes were hidden in the shadow of the hood, making it impossible to tell where her gaze was.

She was thinking about that address: Shiba 3-chome, Minato-ku, a six-story building with gray-white tiled exterior walls, a south-facing main entrance, and a back door leading to a narrow alley.

She was thinking about the "sincerity" the voice had mentioned, telling her the address, not setting an ambush, not following her, not pulling in a trap, and letting her decide for herself whether to go or not.

She said nothing, didn't mutter to herself, and didn't respond to the departing voice. She simply sat there, her back against the tube wall, her fingers unconsciously tracing the grooves of the flame pattern on the hilt of the demon-slaying sword.

Deep inside the pipe, water droplets seeped from a crack in the pipe wall, dripping onto the stagnant water with a very faint, almost inaudible pattering sound.

The dark red light from the demon-slaying beam cast flickering patterns of light on the tube wall, like a heart slowly breathing in the darkness.

After a while, the rhythmic knocking sound and the woman's voice rang out again.