Ayame Shinomiya sat in her small apartment with three monitors glowing in the darkness as she reviewed the footage from today's incident for the fifth time.
The apartment was spartan: a single futon in the corner, a small kitchenette she rarely used, and her command center: state-of-the-art surveillance equipment worth more than most people's cars.
On the wall hung a single photograph: a younger Ayame standing stiffly beside a tall man in formal robes bearing the silver hand insignia of the Order.
Her father. Grand Exorcist Takeshi Shinomiya.
She glanced at the photo briefly, then back to her screens. She'd left home at fifteen to join the Order, driven by a need to prove herself outside her father's considerable shadow.
When this assignment came down to investigate supernatural incidents at a Tokyo high school, she'd refused the dossier he'd prepared on Akira Kanzaki.
"I don't need your research," she'd told him coldly. "I'll build my own profile."
