Chapter 1: The Weight of an Unfinished Verdict
The humidity in Tokyo's Roppongi district was more than a meteorological condition; it was a physical weight, a stifling, invisible blanket that smelled of ozone, scorched asphalt, and the metallic tang of millions of air conditioners struggling against the midsummer heat. Outside the window of the Higuruma Law Office, the neon signage of the district—vivid magentas, electric blues, and sickly greens—didn't sparkle. Instead, they seemed to bleed into the haze, casting long, bruised shadows that smeared across the wet pavement below.
Inside, the air was still. Hiromi Higuruma sat at a mahogany desk that had seen better decades, his silhouette framed by a labyrinth of paper. These weren't just documents; they were monuments. Towers of affidavits, mountains of bank statements, and stacks of grainy, high-contrast photographs lay in precise, agonizingly organized rows. To the casual observer, it was a mess of bureaucracy. To Higuruma, it was a map of a hidden geography—a darkness that pulsed beneath the polite, orderly surface of Tokyo society.
At thirty-two, Higuruma looked as though he had lived fifty. The premature flecks of grey at his temples were like ash, and the deep creases at the corners of his eyes weren't from laughter, but from years of squinting at fine print in poorly lit rooms. His tie was loosened, the knot hanging an inch below his collar, revealing the strain in his neck. His right hand, calloused from pen-strokes and the constant shuffling of heavy cardstock, hovered over a specific line of a ledger.
His breath hitched. There it was. Entry 409-B. A shell company transfer that disguised itself as a purchase of industrial cleaning supplies, but the routing number originated from a private offshore account linked directly to the Kuroi-Gumi syndicate. It was the "smoking gun"—the cold, undeniable bridge between a multi-billion yen construction project and the disappearance of fourteen undocumented workers from Southeast Asia.
In the modern legal theater of Japan, Higuruma was an anomaly, a glitch in a system that prioritized harmony over justice. Most defense attorneys were statisticians; they played the game of percentages, settling cases with quiet handshakes in mahogany-clad bars to maintain a pristine win rate. They were cogs in a machine designed to keep the peace. But for Higuruma, the Law was a sacred geometry. It wasn't a set of suggestions or a flexible social contract; it was the only thing preventing humanity from sliding back into the primordial muck of "might makes right."
"Justice is not a feeling, Hiromi," his mentor, a man who had died with nothing but a room full of books and a reputation for being 'difficult,' had once told him. "It is a process. It is cold, it is rigid, and it is often thankless. If you look for warmth in the Law, you will freeze to death."
Higuruma finally understood the chilling truth of those words. Over the last six months, he had been offered bribes that could have bought a villa in Minato—figures with so many zeros they seemed like abstract art. He had received "friendly advice" from former classmates now working for the prosecution, suggesting he drop the Kuroi-Gumi inquiry for the sake of his career. Then came the threats—the subtle ones first, like a dead bird on his doorstep, followed by the "accidents," like the black sedan that had nearly pinned him against a subway wall a week ago.
He watched a single bead of sweat roll down the side of a glass of lukewarm water on his desk. The police had already washed their hands of the case, citing a "lack of jurisdiction" and "insufficient evidence of foul play." They were terrified of the syndicate, or worse, they were on the payroll.
Higuruma stood up, his chair scraping against the floorboards with a sound like a pained groan. He reached for his charcoal-grey coat, the fabric heavy and stiff. He carefully slid the ledger and the key affidavits into the inner breast pocket, the paper rustling like dry leaves. He wouldn't wait for the bureaucratic lethargy of the morning. He was going to the Special Prosecutor's Office tonight. If the Truth was to be spoken, it had to be spoken now, while the evidence was still warm.
As he stepped out of the building's heavy brass doors, the sky finally broke. It wasn't a gentle summer rain; it was a violent, cleansing downpour. The water hit the hot pavement and hissed, creating a thick fog that turned the streetlights into dim, ghostly orbs. Higuruma pulled his collar up. The rain soaked through his shoes almost instantly, the cold water a sharp contrast to the humid air.
He decided to walk. The rhythmic click-clack of his leather soles against the asphalt was the only anchor in a world that felt increasingly fluid and uncertain. He headed toward the Sumida River bridge, a steel skeleton that arched over the dark, churning waters. The bridge was a shortcut, usually quiet at this hour, illuminated only by a few flickering sodium lamps.
He was halfway across when the world narrowed.
A black sedan, its headlights extinguished, drifted silently into the far end of the bridge, blocking the exit. Higuruma paused, his heart rate spiking, but he didn't turn around. He didn't need to. The low hum of a second engine behind him confirmed the trap.
Four men stepped out of the vehicles. They didn't move like the impulsive street thugs Higuruma often defended in the lower courts. These men had the disciplined, heavy gait of professionals—men who wore tailored suits not for status, but as a uniform of the elite underworld. Their eyes were vacant, the kind of deadness that comes from viewing human beings as mere obstacles to be cleared.
The lead man, an older individual with a jagged scar running through his left eyebrow, stepped forward. He held a large black umbrella in his left hand, sheltering himself perfectly from the deluge. In his right, held low against his thigh, was a suppressed pistol.
"Counselor Higuruma," the man said. His voice was a calm, gravelly whisper that somehow carried over the roar of the rain. "You have been extraordinarily stubborn. We offered you a way out. We offered you a future."
Higuruma stopped. He didn't shake. He didn't beg for his life. Instead, he reached up and adjusted his glasses, which were fogging from the heat of his skin and the cold of the rain. "The trial hasn't even begun, and you're already attempting to suppress the evidence? That's a bold admission of guilt, wouldn't you say?"
"There will be no trial," the scarred man replied, taking a slow, measured step forward. "The world doesn't function the way your textbooks say it does, Counselor. Those papers in your pocket are just ink and wood pulp. Power is the only law that carries a sentence."
"If power were the only law," Higuruma said, his voice ringing with a strange, haunting authority that made the other men hesitate for a fraction of a second, "then you wouldn't need to kill me. You're afraid of the Law because it's the one thing you can't intimidate or bribe. You can buy the judge, you can buy the jury, but you cannot buy the Truth once it has been entered into the record."
The gunman sighed, a sound of genuine, weary pity. "You're a good man, Higuruma. Truly. But the world has a way of making quiet corpses out of good men."
Phut. Phut.
The suppressed shots were no louder than the snapping of dry twigs. The first bullet caught Higuruma in the left shoulder, the force spinning him around like a ragdoll. The second tore through his right lung.
The sensation wasn't a sharp pain—not at first. It was a massive, blunt impact, as if a freight train had slammed into his chest. The air was punched out of his body. He stumbled back, his boots slipping on the rain-slicked metal of the bridge's railing. His vision began to blur, the neon lights of the city turning into jagged streaks of color.
As he tumbled over the edge, the centrifugal force tore his coat open. The files—the months of sleepless nights, the names of the fourteen forgotten men, the ledger of sins—spilled out. The papers fluttered in the rainy abyss, looking like dying white birds caught in a gale. They danced for a moment in the light of the bridge lamps before being swallowed by the black, hungry mouth of the Sumida River.
Higuruma hit the water.
The cold was absolute and instantaneous. It rushed into his nose and mouth, extinguishing the burning fire in his chest. As he sank deeper into the dark, the pressure building in his ears, he didn't feel the panic of a drowning man. He felt a profound, agonizing sense of unfinished business.
The water moved around him, a silent witness to his descent. His consciousness flickered, a dying candle in a vast, dark cathedral.
I wasn't done... his mind whispered, the thought drifting away like a bubble of air. The verdict... I haven't heard the verdict...
Then, the cold replaced the thought. The darkness replaced the light. There was only the muffled, subterranean roar of the river, and then, at long last, there was the silence of the court being adjourned.