It started with a call.
Not the usual kind that came from court clerks or defence clients in panic—but a formal inquiry from a firm she had never worked with before. Clean voice, clipped accent, legal phrasing wrapped in suspicion. Someone in their systems team had leaked internal misconduct. The story hadn't gone public—yet—but the company feared legal fallout. They didn't want a PR firm. They wanted containment. Internal review. Discreet legal firewalls.
They wanted her.
Aika hadn't accepted immediately. She rarely did. The last time she'd worked as an embedded legal consultant, the fallout had left her sick for weeks—the kind of sickness that came from watching power twist the law into something hollow. She'd promised herself she would only take cases she believed in.
But there was something about this call. A familiar pressure behind the voice. A weight that didn't match its request. The way they said, "We don't need a win, we need someone unshakable." The kind of sentence that sounded more like a test than a job.
So she said yes.
Aika Tanaka didn't enter quietly.
She walked through the glass doors of the corporation's high-rise headquarters wearing a fitted black blazer, her hair twisted into a clean knot, and a long, steel-grey coat that cut sharply with every step. The receptionist greeted her with confusion, then recognition, then quiet awe. She was younger than the other legal consultants who frequented the firm—sharper, leaner, quieter. Not glamorous, not flashy. Just present in the way a drawn sword was present. Silent. Controlled. Dangerous only when required.
Security badges had already been arranged. The private elevator to the executive floor was waiting.
She stepped in without hesitation.
Inside, she removed her coat and tucked it over her arm, revealing a blouse the colour of pale ash and slacks that moved like armour. She didn't dress to intimidate. She dressed to move. There was a difference. Aika had never believed in wasting words—or wardrobe.
When she exited the elevator, the legal team was already waiting.
A cluster of mid-tier legal staff, two HR managers, and a nervous executive who looked like he hadn't slept in days. They straightened as she approached, half-uncertain whether they were supposed to greet her or salute her. She said nothing at first, just let her eyes scan the office—glass everywhere. Transparent walls. Reflective surfaces. People trying to hide in a space built to expose.
"I'll need a full brief," she said simply. "And every document the whistleblower touched."
The HR manager flinched. "We're not sure which documents those were."
"Then give me access and I'll find out."
There were no further questions.
She took the next two days in silence.
Reviewing documents. Reading messages. Tracing emails that had been hastily archived. Most of the staff didn't speak to her directly—they just watched her pass like a rumour they hadn't dared to believe. She didn't eat in the cafeteria. She didn't chit-chat in the break room. She sat in a temporary glass office they had cleared out for her and read.
When she moved, she moved with purpose.
When she spoke, the room listened.
Because it didn't take long for people to realize she wasn't just there to patch holes. She was there to excavate rot.
The whistleblower's name was redacted in the files—but only on the surface. Aika didn't need a name to follow patterns. The timestamp of the leaks. The types of files accessed. The way some messages had been auto-flagged but never reviewed. She pieced it together like a puzzle. Not out of curiosity. Out of necessity.
Because whatever this employee had seen had triggered something much deeper than simple corruption.
There were missing invoices. Shadow payments. Severance agreements that shouldn't have existed. One signature—executive level—had been forged.
And someone had tried to bury it all under policy language.
Aika hated policy language.
So she did what she was best at: she rewrote the story. Line by line. Document by document. She made the invisible visible.
On the fourth day, she called an emergency meeting.
She stood at the head of the glass conference room, surrounded by mid-level managers and the two highest-ranking legal officers on staff. She held no notes. Just a single folder, tucked under one arm.
"I'll make this clear," she began. "There's enough in the whistleblower's findings to initiate internal prosecution, and if this gets out before we finish, it'll bring the company to its knees."
No one interrupted.
"Whoever approved these payouts," she continued, flipping open the folder, "used a signature template that hasn't been in circulation for two years. That means one of two things: either your systems have been compromised from the top… or someone wanted us to think they were."
The room was still.
"I'll be contacting the ethics board," she said. "But not until I finish my own interviews. And I'll need access to the systems department directly."
Someone finally spoke. "We can't just… go in there and start interrogating."
"I won't be interrogating," Aika said coldly. "I'll be listening. Something this company should have done from the beginning."
The silence that followed was not disagreement. It was fear.
That night, alone in the glass office, she sat with her back to the city skyline.
The lights blinked like slow thoughts.
She rubbed her wrists, the tension finally catching up to her.
This wasn't the kind of case she liked. Too political. Too dirty. But it was the kind of case she was good at—the kind that needed a sword more than a shield. She didn't know why this company had chosen her. Maybe it was because of her reputation. Maybe because someone, somewhere, knew she didn't look the other way.
But deep down, she had the strangest feeling…
That this case wasn't just about ethics.
That something about this place felt like déjà vu.
She couldn't name it.
She just knew that something waited here.
Not danger.
But something unfinished.
Something that made the air feel like it was waiting to break.
She hasn't seen him yet. But the moment is coming. Somewhere behind glass and silence… a past is waiting to be remembered.