The grounds were never supposed to look like this.

Shizu Sakamoto noticed it first in the gravel.

The eastern path had always been her favorite — not because it was beautiful, but because it was predictable. White stones laid in careful arcs, raked smooth each morning, never disturbed unless someone had been careless. Tonight, they lay scattered. Not displaced by wind or rain, but dragged. Scuffed. Kicked aside by feet that had forgotten how to lift themselves properly.

She knelt, brushed one stone aside with two fingers, then set it back into line.

Later, she would fix it properly.

Later still existed. She believed that.

The estate stretched wide and silent around her, lantern posts glowing with soft, deliberate light. The gardens were trimmed too neatly to feel abandoned. Hedges kept their lines. Flowerbeds remained symmetrical, even where petals had fallen and begun to brown. The owners had prized order — not the loud kind, not rules shouted across rooms, but the quieter discipline of things remaining where they belonged.

Even now, even empty, the grounds held to that philosophy.

Gates remained closed. Paths curved where they always had. Nothing encroached unless invited.

Something had been invited tonight.

Shizu rose and adjusted the apron at her waist. The cloth was clean, freshly pressed that morning, its pockets weighted with familiar tools — bleach, cloth, gloves folded precisely. She reached for the mop where it leaned against a stone bench. The handle was solid oak, smoothed by years of use. Heavier than it looked. Balanced.

She preferred it to anything sharp.

Sharp things chipped. Bent. Failed when struck at the wrong angle.

Wood endured.

A sound drifted from the rose walk.

Not loud. Not sudden.

A wet shuffle, uneven, accompanied by breath that rattled instead of flowed — a sound that didn’t belong to a living throat. Shizu exhaled slowly, letting the air leave her lungs without tension, and moved toward it.

Her shoes made no sound on the path.

She knew this estate in fragments rather than whole — which lanterns flickered before stabilizing, which hedges swallowed light and which reflected it back. She had memorized the blind spots long ago, the places guests liked to wander too close to thorns, the benches where hands left fingerprints she wiped away every evening.

She had walked this route every night for years.

The figure emerged between the hedges.

Once, it had worn a suit. That much was clear. The cut of the jacket, the torn silk lining, the way the sleeves still held their crease despite being soaked through with something dark and tacky. Now the fabric hung in strips. The collar had been clawed open by hands that no longer understood what breathing was for.

Its head lolled as it walked. Jaw clicking softly with each step.

Shizu stopped beneath the lantern.

She waited until it stepped fully into the light.

She did not rush.

When it reached for her, fingers stiff and trembling, she stepped aside with practiced ease. The mop hooked cleanly behind its ankle. She pulled, pivoting her weight just enough. The body fell hard onto the stone path, skull cracking with a dull, unclean sound that echoed briefly before being swallowed by the hedges.

She brought the handle down once.

Then again.

The movement stopped.

Shizu stood over it for a moment, breathing evenly, eyes scanning for any sign she might have misjudged the blow. When there was none, she nodded — not in satisfaction, but acknowledgment. A task completed.

She dragged the body to the edge of the path and positioned it carefully behind the hedge, limbs folded inward, face turned away from the lawn. Guests wouldn’t see it there.

She made sure of that.

There were more.

She sensed them the way one sensed dust before it settled — subtle disruptions in an otherwise controlled space.

One lay by the reflecting pool, face submerged, water rippling faintly around slack hair. The lantern light fractured across the surface, turning the pool into broken mirrors. Shizu used the mop handle to lift the head just long enough to confirm there was no resistance left, then let it sink again. The water stilled.

Another tangled itself into the wrought-iron gate near the perimeter, fingers wedged between bars, tugging uselessly. Its suit jacket had snagged, pinning it in place like an insect. Shizu dispatched it with a single precise strike, then pried its hands loose one finger at a time.

The last slumped against a marble planter, head bent at an angle that suggested the fall had already done half the work. She finished the rest quietly.

She handled each the same way.

She pulled, never touched. She struck only when necessary. She checked for movement after. When blood smeared stone or grass, she poured bleach from the bottle clipped to her belt, watching the foam bloom white before fading. It did not erase the stains completely — nothing ever did — but it softened them. Made them manageable.

Between tasks, she straightened what she could.

A chair knocked sideways was set upright. A lantern dislodged from its hook was rehung and tested. She wiped her hands on a cloth, folded it neatly, and returned it to her pocket.

The estate had rules.

When she finished, the grounds were quiet again.

Too quiet, perhaps — but that was not new.

Shizu stood at the center lawn and looked back toward the house. Its windows were dark. Curtains drawn where they had been left. The staff entrance door remained locked, just as it had been when the alarms first sounded days ago.

She had checked every morning since.

No one had come back.

She did not linger on the thought.

Instead, she retrieved the broom from the storage shed near the hedges and swept the eastern path where gravel had scattered. Stone by stone, she nudged them back into place with careful, unhurried motions. The work was meditative. Grounding. When she finished, the path looked as it should.

Order restored — for now.

Shizu extinguished the lanterns one by one, moving toward the gate. Darkness reclaimed the garden gently, respectfully, as if it understood the boundaries it was allowed to cross. At the perimeter fence, she paused and looked out beyond the grounds.

The world outside was untrimmed.

Loud.

Broken.

She did not step through.

Instead, she locked the gate, checked it twice, and turned back toward the house. The mop rested easily across her shoulder, its weight familiar.

There would be more tomorrow.

There always was.

Shizu Sakamoto walked the path home, already planning the morning’s work.

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