The next three days passed quietly.
Aki worked three normal jobs — a vandalized restaurant, a trashed hotel room, and a mechanic's garage with oil spilled everywhere. All routine. No strange messages, no odd clients, no red paint on the floor.
But the quiet didn't fool her.
She'd lived long enough to know that silence usually came right before the noise.
---
It was late evening when the next message arrived.
"New job. High pay. Discretion required. Meet in person."
Attached was an address — a luxury hotel downtown. No name, no company, just the message.
Aki stared at the text for a moment, then slipped her phone into her pocket. She didn't reply. She didn't need to.
She drove through the city lights, her van weaving between cars like a ghost in traffic. The rain had stopped, but the streets still glistened under the lamps, reflecting colors like melted glass.
When she arrived at the hotel, the doorman looked up but didn't stop her. She moved through the marble lobby silently, her boots barely making a sound on the polished floor.
The meeting room was on the 27th floor — Room 2708. She knocked once.
"Come in," a man's voice said from inside.
---
The room smelled of expensive cologne and whiskey. A man in a dark suit stood by the window, city lights behind him. He turned slowly as she entered, and Aki recognized something immediately — the stance, the weight in his gaze.
Not a businessman. A soldier.
"Miss Sato," he said. "Or should I say… Kurokami no Onna?"
Aki didn't move. Her expression remained as calm as still water. "That name doesn't exist."
The man smiled faintly. "Oh, it does. At least to the few who survived that night in Tokyo."
There it was — confirmation. He did remember.
"You were there," she said quietly.
"I was," he admitted. "I was one of the few who crawled out alive. You killed everyone else. Forty-three men. I counted."
She said nothing.
He poured two glasses of whiskey, handed one to her. She didn't take it.
"I have to admit," he continued, "I never thought I'd see you again. The stories said you vanished. Changed your face. Burned every trace."
"I did," she said simply.
"Until now." He took a slow sip, studying her. "You're a cleaner now. That's… poetic, isn't it? A woman who used to make messes now spends her life erasing them."
Aki's voice was steady. "You didn't bring me here to talk about irony. What do you want?"
He smiled again, but there was no warmth in it. "A job. Something delicate. Something only you can do."
"I don't take personal requests."
"Oh, this one's not personal," he said, setting down his glass. "It's business. But it will pay ten times your usual rate."
She paused, eyes narrowing slightly. "Where?"
He slid an envelope across the table. "Everything's inside. Location, details, payment method."
She picked it up and opened it. Inside was a photo — an empty warehouse, half-burned, somewhere on the outskirts of the city. But behind the photo was something else: a single, old snapshot from Japan.
A younger version of her, wearing black, standing over a floor covered in bodies.
Her hand didn't even tremble. She looked at the photo, then at him. "You've kept this for five years."
He nodded. "Proof of legend."
"And the job?"
"The same warehouse. The one from that night. My men bought the property recently. We want it… cleaned. Properly. Symbolic, you could say."
Aki stared at him for a long time, her eyes unreadable. "You could've hired anyone for that."
"But no one cleans like you," he said softly. "And no one knows that place like you do."
She set the envelope down. "Fine. I'll do it."
The man looked genuinely surprised. "Just like that?"
"I don't care who you are," she said, standing up. "Or what you remember. I only care about the job. Pay me, and you'll get what you want."
He smiled again — a little too quickly this time. "Excellent. Tomorrow night then. Midnight."
She nodded once, turned, and walked to the door.
Before she stepped out, he said quietly, "I have to ask… Do you ever regret it? That night?"
Aki looked over her shoulder. Her gaze was calm, empty. "Regret doesn't clean anything."
Then she left.
---
That night, she drove home under a sky full of stars hidden behind city light.
She didn't think about the man, or the photo, or the warehouse she hadn't seen in years. She thought about the number — forty-three. It had been a long time since anyone said it aloud.
Her phone buzzed once more when she parked. Another message from the same unknown number as before.
"Don't go tomorrow. It's a trap."
Aki stared at the message, unreadable as ever. She typed back:
"It doesn't matter."
And then, for the first time in years, she smiled — small and cold.
Because she wasn't afraid of traps.
She was the reason traps existed.
---
The next night, Aki would return to the place where her legend was born — not as the woman she used to be, but as the ghost no one could kill.
And whoever set the trap would soon learn:
You don't hunt the Black-Haired Woman.
You only die trying.