The humidity in the Roppongi district was stifling, a thick blanket of heat that made the neon lights of Tokyo seem to bleed into the pavement. Inside his office, Hiromi Higuruma didn't feel the heat. He was surrounded by towers of paper—affidavits, bank statements, and grainy photographs that whispered of a darkness most citizens pretended didn't exist.
At thirty-two, Higuruma's hair was already showing flecks of premature grey at the temples. His eyes, sharp and weary, were fixed on a specific line of a ledger. It was the "smoking gun." This single document linked the Kuroi-Gumi syndicate to the disappearance of fourteen undocumented workers.
In the modern legal world of Japan, Higuruma was an outlier. Most defense attorneys played the game of percentages, settling cases to maintain a high win rate or bending to the whims of powerful firms. But Higuruma was obsessed with the "Truth." To him, the Law wasn't a set of suggestions; it was the only thing keeping humanity from sliding back into the primordial muck.
"Justice is not a feeling, Hiromi," his mentor had once told him. "It is a process. It is cold, it is rigid, and it is often thankless."
Higuruma finally understood those words. He had been offered bribes that could have bought him a villa in Minato. He had been threatened with "accidents." He had watched as the police look the other way, citing lack of jurisdiction. But tonight, he had enough. He reached for his coat, the fabric heavy with the weight of the files tucked into the inner pocket. He was going to the prosecutor's office. He wouldn't wait for morning.
As he stepped out of his office building, the rain began to fall. It wasn't a gentle mist but a violent downpour that turned the city into a watercolor painting of greys and blacks. He walked toward the Sumida River bridge, his leather shoes clicking rhythmically against the asphalt.
He didn't see the black sedan until it was already blocking the far end of the bridge. He didn't hear the second car pull up behind him.
Four men stepped out. They weren't the street thugs he had dealt with in lower courts. These were professionals—men in tailored suits with dead eyes and the unmistakable gait of those who dealt in violence.
"Counselor Higuruma," the lead man said, his voice barely audible over the rain. He held an umbrella with one hand and a suppressed pistol in the other. "You've been very stubborn."
Higuruma stopped. He didn't shake. He didn't beg. He simply adjusted his glasses, which were fogging up from the rain. "The trial hasn't even begun, and you're already trying to suppress the evidence?"
"There will be no trial," the man replied. "The world doesn't work the way your books say it does. Power is the only law that matters."
"If that were true," Higuruma said, his voice ringing with a strange, calm authority, "then you wouldn't need to kill me. You're afraid of the Law because it's the one thing you can't buy. You can buy the judge, you can buy the jury, but you cannot buy the Truth once it's spoken."
The gunman sighed, a sound of genuine pity. "You're a good man, Higuruma. But good men make for very quiet corpses."
Phut. Phut.
The sound was no louder than a finger snap. The first bullet caught Higuruma in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second tore through his lung. The impact was like being hit by a sledgehammer. He stumbled back, his boots slipping on the slick metal of the bridge's railing.
As he tumbled over the edge, the files spilled from his coat. The papers—months of work, the lives of fourteen people—fluttered in the air like dying white birds before being swallowed by the dark, churning water below.
Higuruma hit the water. The cold was absolute. It rushed into his lungs, extinguishing the fire of the bullet wounds. As he sank, his vision fading into a dull grey, he didn't feel fear. He felt a profound, agonizing sense of unfinished business.
I wasn't done, he thought, his consciousness flickering like a dying candle. The verdict... I haven't heard the verdict...
Then, there was only the sound of the river, and then, silence.