The 366th Day

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑰𝑿: 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑬𝑿𝑻𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵.

Location: ISHIDA RESIDENCE

UPPER FLOOR

SEPTEMBER 14, 2025 — 1:10PM

——

Ren stands in the center of his bedroom and listens to the house decide whether it still belongs to him.

It doesn't.

That verdict has been obvious since Kaito Vane walked through the apartment like a black-suited court order with a pulse, but Ren needs the room to admit it anyway. The heavy oak door stays shut. Beyond it, a tactical belt clinks in a steady rhythm. Tanaka shifts his weight once. Leather creaks against nylon. Metal brushes metal. Thirty seconds pass. Another shift. Another quiet scrape of a watch clasp against a cuff.

Ren counts it without meaning to.

Thirty seconds.

Tanaka checks his watch every thirty seconds.

That's either discipline or a personality disorder with better tailoring.

Ren crosses to the window and peels back the sheer silk curtain with two fingers. The street below burns white under the afternoon glare. Kaito leans against the Maybach like the city arranged itself for his convenience. Eight men hold the perimeter in black wool and earpieces, angled around the front entrance, service alley, side street, and neighboring stairwell. No one looks up long enough.

That is the first mistake.

No one ever looks up long enough.

Ren lets the curtain fall and scans the bedroom. Bed. Desk. Closet. Bathroom. Window. His father's old framed certificates hang crooked near the bookcase, as if law can protect a household where the man with the degree has already signed away the man who passed the bar. His duffel sits open beside the bed. Kaito's antique iron key rests in the front pocket, heavier than metal should be.

Pack a bag.

Take the ballet shoes.

Take the law books.

Leave the father.

Ren's mouth tightens.

"Absolutely not."

He crosses the floor with heavy steps, making each board complain. He wants Tanaka to hear him moving toward the bathroom. He wants the rhythm sloppy enough to sound irritated, not calculated. Inside the ensuite, he cranks the shower handle until water hammers porcelain in a hard white roar. Steam crawls over the mirror.

"Ishida?" Tanaka's voice rolls through the oak. "Five minutes."

Ren opens the linen closet and yanks out the nylon bag hidden behind unused towels. He doesn't pack a suitcase. Suitcases belong to people who plan to arrive somewhere. He shoves in law books for weight, his worn-out leather ballet slippers because Kaito mentioned them and now leaving them feels like surrender, a multi-tool, a rolled shirt, a pouch of cash, and the letter he still hasn't had time to process.

National Bar Examination.

Passed.

Very cute, government. Terrible timing.

Another knock lands on the bedroom door.

"Don't fall asleep in there," Tanaka says. "Mr. Vane isn't a man who enjoys waiting."

Ren wedges one foot on the toilet lid and shoulders the frosted bathroom window. "Tell Mr. Vane he should build character."

He kicks the screen out.

The plastic frame pops loose and drops into the exterior gap with a c***k swallowed by the shower. Ren hooks the bag across his chest, snaps a carabiner to the steel cable bolted beneath the radiator, and slides halfway out the window. The pipe gives a metallic groan.

Not ideal.

Still better than being escorted downstairs like an invoice with cheekbones.

The bedroom door shudders behind him.

"Ishida," Tanaka warns.

Ren grins into the humid air. "Busy."

He drops.

The cable burns through his gloved palm, catches hard, and wrenches his shoulder. His boots hit the sloped lower roof, slate slick from morning rain. His left ankle turns wrong for half a second, pain flashing white up his shin. He slams one hand to the tile, teeth clenched, and lets himself slide three feet before digging his sneaker into the gutter lip.

The bathroom door explodes behind him.

Tanaka's roar follows.

Ren pushes up and runs.

He sprints along the jagged roofline, duffel slapping his ribs, breath cutting hot through his throat. The neighbor's annex waits beyond a neglected rose garden. Twelve feet. Bad angle. Worse landing. He jumps anyway. His fingers catch the stone gargoyle mounted on the annex corner. Old granite tears at his palm. His shoulder screams. He swings once, kicks off the wall, and vaults the railing.

Behind him, Tanaka appears in the destroyed bathroom window.

For a man that size, he should not fit.

The house disagrees and lets him through out of fear.

Ren drops from the annex onto a lower balcony, rolls into a crouch, and launches over a low stone wall into the neighboring yard. A laundry line catches him across the throat. He ducks under it, dragging a white shirt loose with him.

"Sorry," he calls, flinging it over his shoulder. "Emergency capitalism."

A woman shouts from a window.

Ren doesn't look back.

He cuts across manicured grass, plants one foot on a ceramic planter, and vaults to the top of a narrow garden shed. The cheap roof caves slightly under his weight. He jumps before it collapses, hands catching the edge of a concrete balcony. His fingers slip on dust. He hauls himself up just as Tanaka hits the stone wall behind him with both boots and clears it in one brutal motion.

Fine.

So the mountain can jump.

Unfortunate development.

Ren scrambles over the balcony rail and drops through a sliding door into a stranger's dining room.

A family of three freezes around a lunch table.

Ren freezes back.

A small boy holds a spoon halfway to his mouth.

Ren points at the soy sauce. "Don't let him over-salt. He'll regret it later."

The mother blinks.

Tanaka slams into the balcony rail outside.

Ren bolts across polished wood, past a shrine alcove and a cooking show glowing on the wall, then out the front door into the shared corridor. He yanks a decorative umbrella from a stand and jams it under the door handle behind him.

Tanaka hits the door three seconds later.

The umbrella snaps.

Ren hears the curse through the wood.

Beautiful.

He takes the stairs two at a time until he reaches a landing with a window cracked over an alley. He shoves it wider with his shoulder, climbs through, and lands on an awning below. The canvas sags violently, dumps rainwater down his back, and spits him onto a stack of crates behind a restaurant.

For half a second, everything hurts too much to be funny.

Then boots thunder above.

Ren rolls off the crates, hits the ground, and grabs the nearest object with weight. A steel ladle. Useless. He throws it aside and snatches a mop handle instead.

A Vane guard appears at the mouth of the alley, charcoal suit, hand under his jacket.

"Mr. Ishida, stop."

Ren looks at the mop handle.

Then at the guard.

"No."

The guard lunges.

Ren drives the mop handle low into his shin. The man's leg buckles. Ren steps in, wedges the other end under his elbow, and shoves upward. The arm folds wrong enough to make the guard grunt and drop the compact shock baton hidden against his sleeve. Ren catches it before it hits the ground, flicks his wrist, and the baton wakes with a blue-white hiss.

"Oh," Ren says. "That's rude."

Another guard comes in from the far side.

Ren swings the baton against the metal dumpster beside him. Sparks leap off the lid. Both men flinch. Ren uses the second to sprint straight at the second guard, plants one foot on the alley wall, kicks higher, and twists sideways over the man's shoulder. His thigh clips the guard's jaw on the way past. It hurts like hell. The guard staggers anyway.

Ren lands badly, ankle barking, and almost goes down.

A hand catches the back of his hoodie.

Tanaka.

Of course.

Ren reacts without looking. He drops his weight until the hoodie tightens at his throat, slides one arm backward through the fabric, and twists free. The hoodie tears under Tanaka's grip. Ren leaves the ruined garment in his fist and darts forward in a sweat-dark compression shirt.

Tanaka looks at the ripped hoodie.

Then at Ren.

"You're becoming expensive."

Ren backpedals, baton raised. "You bought me. Sounds like your problem."

Tanaka advances.

Ren swings for his wrist. Tanaka catches the baton mid-strike with one gloved hand. The charge snaps against a hard-light film that flickers over his palm, a clear hexagonal shimmer, then vanishes.

Ren's eyebrows lift. "That's cheating."

Tanaka yanks.

Ren lets the baton go before Tanaka can pull him in, kicks off the dumpster, and scrambles up the side ladder bolted to the restaurant wall. Tanaka throws the baton aside and follows, but the ladder groans under his weight, bolts complaining as if the building would like to file a formal protest.

Ren reaches the roof, rolls over the lip, and keeps running.

Three houses down. Then five. A stitched route of roof tiles, service balconies, laundry rails, and narrow walls. He knows these streets because he mapped them years ago. A man who grows up with Masao Ishida for a father learns early that exits aren't paranoia. They're hygiene.

Behind him, Tanaka keeps coming.

He doesn't climb everything.

Some things he simply breaks.

Ren vaults a flimsy wooden fence between two rooftop gardens. Tanaka reaches it three seconds later, lifts one arm, and a hard-light shield forms over his forearm like transparent armor. He doesn't slow. He drives through the fence with his shoulder and raised arm. Wood bursts outward in dry, bright pieces.

Ren glances back. "Okay. That was hot, but deeply unnecessary."

Tanaka spits a splinter from his shoulder line. "Stop running."

"Stop being emotionally available to orders."

Two more Vane men appear ahead on a narrow rooftop walkway. One carries a short baton. The other raises a compact restraint launcher, angled low at Ren's legs.

Ren doesn't slow.

The launcher fires.

A weighted cable snaps toward his ankles.

Ren jumps, tucks both knees, and lands on the baton man's shoulders. Not cleanly. His knee smashes the man's collarbone. The man folds with a strangled sound. Ren grips the back of his jacket, uses him as a pivot, and swings down on the far side. The cable catches the collapsing guard instead, wraps around his legs, and yanks him sideways into his partner.

Both men go down hard.

Ren lands on his hands, kicks backward into the launcher man's face, then pushes into a cartwheel because the roof is too narrow to turn normally. His palms slap tile. His legs split wide to clear a low air-conditioning unit, one foot skimming the metal casing, the other slicing past the launcher man's shoulder as he comes upright.

The movement is ugly and beautiful at the same time.

Not ballet.

Not gymnastics.

Something that grew between roofs, alleys, bad odds, and refusing to be caught.

Tanaka reaches the fallen guards, steps over them, and keeps coming.

The insult of his stamina is frankly personal.

Ren drops into a neighboring courtyard and lands beside a koi pond with a splash that soaks one shoe. A low growl rolls from the shaded corner.

He looks up.

A massive Doberman steps from behind a stone lantern, black coat slick, teeth bared, whole body locked on him like a lawsuit with legs.

"No," Ren says. "I don't have time for side quests."

The dog lunges.

Ren jumps onto the low fence bordering the pond, hands catching the top rail. The Doberman's teeth snap inches from his ankle. Hot breath burns through his sock. Tanaka crests the courtyard wall behind him at exactly the wrong moment.

Or exactly the right one.

Ren waits until the dog launches again, then swings his body out over the pond, using the fence like a bar. His legs cut a wide arc above the water. The dog follows the motion, momentum carrying it straight toward the gap where Tanaka is dropping into the yard.

"Catch, big guy."

Tanaka lands.

The dog hits him in the chest.

For the first time all day, Tanaka makes a sound that is not professional.

Ren swings back, releases, and lands on the far side of the pond. Water splashes up his legs. He takes one second to enjoy the snarling, the muffled curses, the furious shuffle of a soldier trying not to hurt a civilian dog while also not being eaten by one.

Then gunfire stitches through the courtyard wall.

Pop. Pop. Pop-pop-pop.

Ren drops flat.

A bullet cuts through the bamboo beside his head and sprays splinters across his face.

That is not Vane.