“Listen, I’m not asking for much here! Just give me a little more time, I’m begging you!” an exhausted-looking woman pleaded, her back against the grimy, rough wall of an alleyway. She wore a rather-expensive-looking rouge kimono that had been tied with a black silk obi. She had her long black hair flowing halfway down her back with a small red flower ornament sitting on the left side of her head. On her feet were traditional-looking geta that could not have been cheap purchase.

“Huh? More time? You boys hear that, huh? She’s asking for even more time!” exclaimed a man in an all-black suit, turning back to his group of subordinates that were dressed in exactly the same way. “You should already know that I hate waiting, Saki”

“I know, but I’m still getting the money together. You know how hard it is for a lone girl in Shinjuku, right?”

“As if. All you women have to do is smile and dance a bit and you’re drowning in cash. You’re just not trying hard enough. Do you want to be in debt or something?”

“No, but I…”

“Or maybe you’d like to get rid of it all in one go? If you get what I mean”

All colour drained from the woman’s face.

“N-No…I’d much rather pay it off…” she replied quietly, casting her eyes downwards.

“You fucking said that last time too!” the man shouted, suddenly closing in on the girl. “C’mon, if you just pretend its your husband or something you might even enjoy yourself!”

“Leave Keita out of this, you fucking asshole!”

The swift slap that followed stunned the man for a couple of seconds, but it wasn’t long enough.

“Alright. We’re doing this” he said in a serious tone, grabbing the flailing woman’s wrists. “You lot, surround her already. Don’t worry, you’ll get your turns too”

A couple of seconds passed. No response.

“Oi! Are you lot deaf or something? I said fucking surround…” the man twisted around to shout at his men, only to find nobody behind him. Until he looked up.

Maybe it was the way that his comrades were suspended above the ground by what seemed to be hair or perhaps it was the way they were all hanging by their necks, their blood running down the thin hair strands that strangled them. Either way, the man’s grip on the woman loosened, but at this point, the two of them were too engrossed to notice. Their attention was solely on the figure that was in front of them.

A woman in a white and red kimono with a bright red obi loosely keeping the garment closed. She wore a pair of simple wooden sandals on her feet that looked worn-out, thanks to the broken straps on them.

Her most haunting feature was her hair. Despite it looking black and silky, it was long. Extremely long. To the point where it even covered her face and trailed behind her as she walked. She was chuckling to herself as she approached the man and the woman, although it was impossible to see what kind of face she was making under her hair.

“My, what a disgrace” came her voice, her words were muffled slightly by her hair, but it easy to tell that she was speaking in a rather thick Kansai dialect. “Doing all of this in broad daylight? Suppose little Renzu was right about humanity being a lost cause after all…”

It took the man’s brain a few seconds to register the intense fear that he was feeling before jumped and began sprinting out of the alleyway.

“M-Monster!” He shrieked, as he was only a couple of steps away from the main walkway, trying to alert all the passerby’s there.

It was only then that he realised the web of hair strands that was stretched out in front of him, thanks to the light reflecting off them. However, at the speed he was running at, it was already too late.

Watching her debt-collector being cleanly cut into several pieces was the last thing Saki expected to see when she woke up that morning. Maybe she should’ve screamed and ran as well? But the only thing the girl could do in front of the mysterious woman was break down into tears. As she cried, she felt the woman gently pet her head, the same way you would do to a small animal.

“Nothing to worry about now, girl. It’s all over now. Take this and leave, you hear?” she said gently, pushing a bulging brown envelope into Saki’s right hand. “Us Red-Lighters have to look out for each other, yeah?”

Before Saki could even look up and thank her for everything, the woman was already gone. Along with what was left of the debt-collector and his goons. Not even a strand of her hair was present. It was almost as if the whole event never took place, apart from the brown envelope that Saki discovered contained a ridiculous amount of money.

“Sorry about this, Niko” Ibuki said as she tossed a can of cola in his direction. “I thought we could just take this shortcut through the red-light district to get back quicker, but I guess I took more damage from that fight than I thought…”

“Nah, its okay. You need to take a break anyway, Ibuki. You’re pushing yourself too hard” he replied, catching the drink, opening it and taking a sip.

“Maybe you’re right…Don’t look so tense, I know it’s a red-light district, but these places are actually pretty normal in the mornings”

“Really? Well, I guess it is pretty quiet…”

“We shouldn’t hang around too long though, we might get attacked again or worse, the police might catch us”

“Police?”

“Well, yeah. This is Shinjuku after all. And how can we explain ourselves when we’re two highschool students standing in a red-light district at eight in the morning?”

“T-That’s true…We should make a move then”

“Yeah, hopefully Kaori doesn’t murder us when we get back though…”

“Oh yeah…I forgot about her…”

The two housemates both chuckled sheepishly and continued slowly walking towards their inevitable fate that was awaiting them back at Masahiro.

“Urgh. Too old. How’s a girl like me supposed to get any nutrition out of old farts like these?” A woman with a thick Kansai accent muttered to herself on top of the roof of a popular nighttime cabaret club. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given that girl everything I had in my purse…could’ve used it to buy some food, even though human food tastes like shit…”

She stepped over the dead bodies in black suits and stared out towards the convenience store that she frequented often. “Maybe I could get a meatbun or two if I showed a little skin to cashier, but I don’t really feel like eating meatbuns today…”

As the woman fought with herself over her current food crisis, she suddenly spotted a rather filling-looking meal walking with some highschool girl past the store.

“Now. That’s convenient!” she smiled, licking her plump, red lips. “Convenience stores really do have everything even for a woman like me!” She leaned over railings around the building, watching them walk away. A malicious grin plastered on her face.

“Now, how should I catch this one?”