Saya didn’t flinch. In one fluid motion, she drew the blade. The steel sang as it sliced through the air, catching a stray drop of her own blood from a calculated nick on her thumb. As the sword connected with the creature's chest, the blood acted like a catalyst, turning the monster’s internal chemistry into a volatile prison.

She stood on the platform, her school uniform a jarring contrast to the heavy katana she carried in a nondescript violin case. Her eyes, dark and predatory, never left the businessman leaning against the far pillar. To anyone else, he was a tired salaryman heading home. To Saya, he was a —a shapeshifting monster that had finished its dinner long before the train arrived.

The beast sensed her. Its skin rippled, bones cracking and elongating beneath a cheap polyester suit. With a screech that shattered the station's lightbulbs, it lunged.

Within seconds, the creature didn't just die—it crystallized. Its body turned into a jagged statue of obsidian-like glass before shattering into a thousand harmless shards on the concrete floor.

Saya wiped her blade, the cold mask of her face never wavering. "Target neutralized," she whispered into a small radio hidden in her collar.

As the roar of the incoming train filled the station, she stepped into the shadows. The Red Shield would have a new mission for her by morning, another school to infiltrate, and another nest to burn. For the girl who never aged, the war was just beginning.

The air in the Tokyo subway station was thick with the scent of ozone and something sharper—the metallic tang of old blood. It was 1966, and the world was changing, but for Saya, the passage of time was nothing more than a series of flickering lights in a dark tunnel.