The city of Osaka was screaming. Not with a voice, but with the roar of engines, the neon flicker of thousands of advertisements, and the heavy humidity of a late-summer afternoon. Inside the District Prosecutor's Office, the air conditioning hummed with a sterile, mechanical vibration.
Akira stood by the window, her silhouette sharp against the glass. In her hand, a lukewarm cup of coffee had long since gone cold. On her desk sat a scorched manila envelope, its edges blackened by fire. It had been sent anonymously from Tokyo, and the contents were enough to make a seasoned detective lose their appetite for a week.
1. The Rebel's Uniform: No Skirts, Only Shadows
Akira turned away from the window and caught her reflection. She was wearing tailored charcoal trousers that broke perfectly at the ankle and an oversized white cotton shirt. She had never been a "skirt" person. To Akira, a skirt was a cage. It was a garment designed to make women sit a certain way, walk a certain way, and be viewed a certain way.
She preferred the freedom of pants—the ability to run, to climb, to kick if necessary. Her shirts were always of the highest quality, but she wore them with a rebellious edge—the collar popped slightly, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and the top two buttons left open to breathe. For Akira, fashion wasn't about being pretty; it was about being a predator. "If I'm going into the belly of the beast," she often muttered to herself, "I don't want to be wearing lace."
2. The Disgusting Truth: The "Art" of Death
She sat down and spread the photos from the envelope across her mahogany desk. Her hands, usually steady as a rock, felt a slight tremor. These weren't photos of a crime scene in the traditional sense. They were photos of an underground "Art Gallery" in Tokyo's most elite district.
But the "Art" was horrifying.
Encased in thick, museum-grade glass boxes were human organs. A heart, its valves preserved in a shimmering silver liquid. A pair of lungs, translucent and frozen in a state of eternal inhalation. A network of veins and arteries, pulled apart and pinned to a velvet backing like a grotesque butterfly collection.
This was "The Crimson Canvas Project." It was the latest trend for Tokyo's bored, wealthy elite—those who had everything and now wanted the one thing money shouldn't be able to buy: the very essence of human life.
What chilled Akira to the bone was the Surgical Perfection. These weren't the jagged cuts of a serial killer. These were the clean, microscopic dissections of a genius. Every major vessel was preserved; every nerve ending was intact.
"This is the Ghost Surgeon," Akira whispered to the empty room. Her hatred for this unknown phantom solidified. She didn't see a doctor anymore; she saw a "Master of Horror." She believed this surgeon was killing people just to provide "raw materials" for these wealthy collectors.
3. The Heart of Osaka: A Family's Shadow
That night, Akira returned to her family's traditional estate. The sliding paper doors and the smell of tatami mats usually felt like a sanctuary, but tonight, the "Crimson Canvas" photos felt like they were burning a hole in her bag.
In the kitchen, her mother was preparing Okonomiyaki, the sizzling sound of the batter on the grill filling the house. "Akira, you're late again," her mother said, though there was no malice in it. "And still in those trousers? I saw a lovely navy pencil skirt at the boutique..."
"Maa," Akira interrupted gently, kissing her mother's cheek. "Trousers have pockets for my evidence. Skirts just have room for tradition. I don't have time for tradition today."
In the corner of the living room, her younger brother Ren sat cross-legged in front of a three-monitor setup. Ren was the family's tech-prodigy, a boy who could navigate the dark web as easily as a grocery store.
"Didi, I did it," Ren said, his voice dropping as their father entered the room. "I traced the digital signature of the gallery's website. It's routed through a server in the Tokyo General Hospital district. But there's something worse. The people being used for this 'Art'... they are 'Ghosts.' Homeless people, undocumented immigrants—people the system doesn't count. They are declared 'brain dead' by a specific medical board and then they just... disappear."
Her father, a retired police commissioner who had seen the worst of humanity, sat down heavily. He didn't look at the food. He looked at Akira with eyes that were tired but sharp. "Akira, this isn't a corruption case. This is a descent into hell. The people behind this 'Crimson Canvas' aren't just greedy; they are insane. They think they are gods."
"Then I'll be the one to remind them they're mortal," Akira said, her jaw tightening.
4. The Departure: Into the Fog
The next morning, the air in Osaka was cool and crisp. Akira packed her suitcase with clinical precision. Five crisp white shirts. Four pairs of tailored trousers. One heavy trench coat. No dresses. No makeup beyond the basics. She was a woman on a mission.
Ren walked her to the Shinkansen station. The platform was crowded, but they stood in a pocket of silence.
"Didi, I looked into the 'Silver Lining' technique," Ren said, handing her a small, encrypted thumb drive. "It's a surgical method so complex that only one or two people in the country can pull it off without leaving a trace. If you find the surgeon who can do that, you've found your monster."
Akira hugged him, then stepped onto the train. As the bullet train accelerated, she opened her laptop. She had no photo of the surgeon. No name. Just a trail of "Perfect" blood.
She had no idea that the "Ghost Surgeon"—Naea—was currently sitting in a dark office in Tokyo, exhausted from a twenty-hour shift, believing she was helping "Scientific Research." Naea thought her dissections were being used to teach medical students, unaware that her "Research" was being auctioned off to billionaires for millions of yen.
Akira was going to Tokyo to destroy a villain, not realizing that the person she was hunting was a victim of the same "Cancer" she was trying to cure.
As the train entered the outskirts of Tokyo, the skyscrapers rose like tombstones through the morning mist. Akira stood up, straightened the collar of her white shirt, and pulled on her coat. The "Ice Queen" had arrived in the capital, and she wouldn't stop until the Crimson Canvas was burned to the ground.