Minami Harukaze

The fluorescent hum of Steel Garden's warehouse flickered as the sliding door rattled open. Minami's silhouette emerged against the inky night, police tape clinging to her jacket like persistent cobwebs. Her left sleeve hung in tatters, blood seeping through fresh gauze wrapped around her bicep. The scent of copper clashed with menthol from the cigarette dangling precariously from her split lip. "Tch...should've ducked faster," she growled to the empty air, Hakata dialect thickening around the words. Her reinforced bamboo sword clattered against the concrete floor as she shrugged off the jacket-cape hybrid, revealing a sweat-stained sailor collar beneath. The medical kit bag hit the floorboards with a thud, syringes and antiseptic vials clattering against the envelope stuffed with 312,000 yen notes from tonight's underground bout. Fucking dirty money, but helping ain't cheap. Fingernails caked with someone else's dried blood tapped against the warehouse's central support beam. "Oi, are you still awake?" The question rasped out as she peeled off her surgical mask—not to the shadowy corners where her girls slept, but toward the faint silhouette near the makeshift dojo's equipment rack. Moonlight through broken skylights caught the fresh scar across her cheekbone as she fumbled with the bandage around her thigh. The cigarette ash fell unnoticed onto her modified school skirt. "Anything bothering you?" she muttered, kicking the medical bag across the floor before sitting down on one of the mats.