In the pulsing heart of Deadlock's virtual Kyoto, the concept of law enforcement had morphed into something barely recognizable. Gone were the days of simple beat cops and detectives chasing garden-variety crooks. The emergence of the Awakened had changed everything, turning the city into a chessboard where pawns and kings alike possessed unfathomable powers.
At first, it had been manageable. A rogue Awakened here, a superpowered tantrum there. Nothing the police, with their cutting-edge tech, couldn't handle. But then, like a digital virus mutating beyond control, the Awakened started banding together. Guilds formed, power consolidated, and suddenly the boys in blue found themselves hopelessly outgunned.
The Arashiyama Police Department, like every other precinct in the game of Deadlock, had been forced to adapt or die. They'd struck a devil's bargain with the Awakened guilds:
Don't harm the normies(non-awakened/civilians), and we'll let you play your power games. It was far from perfect, but it beat the alternative of all-out war in the streets.
In one corner of the Arashiyama PD's bullpen, a young woman known only as 'Z' sat hunched over a laptop. Her fingers flew across the keys like she was trying to set a world record for words per minute.
Appearance-wise, she was a walking, talking piece of art. Her naturally white hair was dyed in a pastel rainbow gradient. Her split bob hair cut left one side longer, as if even her hair couldn't decide which style it preferred.
Z's eyes were a hypnotic swirl of red and purple, reflected the colors of her hair. Five piercings adorned her left ear, while a solitary crucifix dangled from her right, as if to balance out her rebel looks with a touch of the divine.
Her female cut tank top was missing one shoulder strap, in what was probably a fashion statement. It revealed a garden of blue rose tattoos blooming across her arms all the way up her neck.
"Hey Z, how's that incident report from the other day coming?" a voice cut through her concentration. It belonged to another rookie enforcer, a guy whose name Z had never bothered to learn. She called him NPC #247 in her head. But his actual name was Teddy.
Z's fingers paused over the keyboard. "Well, I'm putting it together now, but I don't know, something feels..." she trailed off, searching for the right word. "Off."
Before Teddy or NPC #247 could probe further, the door to the bullpen burst open, admitting a flood of exhausted-looking rookie enforcers. They stumbled in like extras from a zombie movie.
"I swear to god, if I have to fill out one more form, I'm going to lose it," one of them groaned, collapsing into a chair.
Another chimed in, "You think that's bad? I spent six hours today chasing down leads on a case that turned out to be a glitch in the system. A fucking glitch!"
The room filled with a cacophony of grumbles and war stories, each enforcer trying to outdo the others in their tales of bureaucratic woe.
Z tuned them out, her focus laser-sharp on the screen before her. There was a pattern here, hidden in the data. She just needed to find it.
"Hey, looks like you've got a lot on your plate Z, or should I say chest,"
A smarmy voice cut through the noise. Blake, the precinct's resident wannabe ladies' man, leaned against her desk, trying and failing to look cool.
Z didn't even bother to look up, her fingers never missing a beat on the keyboard. Blake, undeterred, pressed on. "Alright, so what do we have here? Has the victim been ID-ed?"
Without breaking her rhythm, Z muttered, "Michelle Romanov, daughter of business tycoon Gregory Romanov... and her boyfriend."
The name dropped like a bomb in the bullpen, silencing the chatter instantly. Blake's eyes widened. "Wait, what? This means there should be a city-sized number of suspects out there, right? Since the victim's dad is a big figure?"
"No," Z replied, her tone flat as a pancake.
Blake blinked, thrown off by the unexpected answer. "No? What do you mean, no?"
Z finally looked up from her screen, fixing Blake with a sharp stare. "Gregory Romanov seems to be closely knitted with 'Kyōka-gumi'"
"What the actual fuck?"
"This is a disturbing news!"
The room erupted in a chorus of gasps and muttered curses. Blake looked like he'd just been told Santa wasn't real.
"Wait a minute, you're talking about the Mirror Flower guild that runs the Gion district?"
Glenn(or NPC #242 as Z called him in her mind), a rookie with a penchant for conspiracy theories, chimed in. "Kyōka-gumi, the Mirror Flower. I heard those guys are no bluff. In fact, the guild is shrouded in mystery." His eyes glazed over as if lost in visions of shadowy figures.
Sam(or NPC #248 as Z called him in her mind), always quick to jump to conclusions, piped up. "Wait, guys, doesn't that give us a clear suspect then?"
"Who?" Blake asked, leaning in like a kid.
Sam gulped, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The Digital Swarm!"
The name hung in the air like a ghost, sending a shiver through the room. Everyone except Z seemed to hold their breath, as if afraid the mere mention of the Swarm might summon them.
But, Blake broke the silence.
"Well, they might as well be the culprits. The Swarm and Kyōka-gumi have been at each other's necks since all this Awakened shit became a thing. But if it really is them, there's nothing we can do. Whether we like it or not, our department is in Arashiyama District, which is the jurisdiction of the Digital Swarm. Our hands are tied..."
Peter(or NPC #249 as Z called him in her mind), arms folded and brow furrowed, cut in. "How to catch them isn't ours to decide. We're merely rookies. Our job is to investigate. We should be thinking about motives."
Sam latched onto the idea like a drowning man to a life preserver. "Alright, what do you think the Digital Swarm hopes to achieve by killing the daughter of an affiliate of Kyōka-gumi?"
Peter's confident demeanor crumbled. "Well, honestly, I have no idea."
"Are you NPC's all stupid or what?"
Z snapped, her patience finally wearing thin. She looked up from her laptop, her multi-colored eyes flashing with irritation.
"Apart from the leaders of the Digital Swarm, their lower tier gangs, especially tier A, R, and M, aren't thinking anything."
Confusion painted itself across Blake's face. "Huh? What do you mean, Z?"
Z let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. Without a word, she tapped a few keys on her laptop. Suddenly, the digital table they all sat around sprang to life, projecting a holographic display.
At first glance, all the rookie enforcers were stunned.
"You're a member of this underground website?" Blake gasped, his eyes wide with disbelief. "How did you even manage to get added?"
Z ignored the question, her focus on the scrolling feed of messages.
Sam leaned in, reading aloud from the most recent post:
"I'm so close to upgrading my rank status to tier A. I am going to keep on hoarding points, the more I have, the higher my chances of getting recruited into a tier A gang under Swarm, and gain more power."
Blake's voice was a mix of awe and horror. "Z, what is this?"
"That," Z replied, her tone dripping with disgust, "is the underground website for users of Swarm. To their deranged minds, all this is nothing but a game."
Sam, still trying to wrap his head around it all, pressed on. "What do you think is their motive, though?"
Z's fingers danced across the keyboard once more, bringing up a new headline on the projected display. Sam read it aloud, his voice growing quieter with each word:
"Your mission is to force Kyōka-gumi (Mirror Flower) out of the shadows."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Blake blurted.
***