Heavy rain, pouring down across the neon signboards, each drop catching the city’s colors in miniature.

The sky was fully dark, but Nightless Street ignored that entirely.

Its signs blazed through the downpour around the clock, pulsing to the rhythm of music that spilled out of every doorway, the entire concept of time dissolved into a perpetual purple-red glow.

The covered walkways kept the rain off, and the crowds hadn’t thinned at all, tourists stopping for photographs, locals who got more alive after midnight, video bloggers moving from venue to venue with cameras raised.

Two in the morning and it felt like a busy afternoon market.

Raphael walked through it and asked a passerby for directions. It didn’t take long to find the Hiyori Nightclub.

It was large, with an unusual shape, a massive sphere, the exterior plating composed of interlocking hexagons in non-transparent metal, a surface unlike anything else on the street.

Two broad-shouldered men stood at the entrance, one on each side, handguns sitting plainly on their hips. In a district with strict firearms regulations, that was a deliberate statement.

As Raphael approached, a confrontation was wrapping up at the door. A man in a hood and strange clothing had apparently been arguing his case for some time and was now running out of ground.

He hit the wall once with his fist, registered the guards’ flat expressions, and let his momentum collapse into a reluctant retreat.

Head down, not watching where he was going, he walked straight into Raphael’s shoulder and stumbled.

"Sorry."

He didn’t look up. He walked away quickly.

Raphael’s brow furrowed slightly, not at the collision, but at the smell. Heavy men’s cologne had been applied in quantity, and it almost worked. Almost.

Underneath it: something animal, something feral, not body odor, the specific earthy scent that clung to stray cats and dogs that had been living rough.

"Odd."

He refocused and approached the entrance.

He wasn’t dressed formally, and he was wearing his sunglasses, the distinctive blue eyes were still a liability while his wanted status was active, and he preferred to respect the police’s peace of mind in his own way.

Predictably, the guards stopped him immediately.

"Hold it, sir. Members-only establishment. Please present your membership card, or if this is your first visit, you can register now. Seven hundred and fifty Colin monthly, or six thousand eight hundred for the year."

Raphael’s forehead twitched very slightly.

Can I put this on expenses? Charge it to the vampire?

Obviously not. He was here to kill the man, which made expense reimbursement logistically awkward.

He opened his wallet, counted out seven hundred and fifty Colin from Sam’s recovered cash, and handed it over without expression.

One guard accepted the bills with his body angled to block the other’s view, smoothly removed a fifty-Colin note, and tucked it into his own pocket before producing a white card from the other side.

"Here you go. Take it to the front desk for registration. Valid one month."

Raphael’s eyebrow went up very slightly. Seven hundred was the real price, then. He breathed in through his nose, took the card, and walked inside.

This was someone else’s territory. He’d note it and do nothing about it.

Straight through the entrance was a reception desk. Raphael approached and found himself mildly surprised, the receptionist was a beast-kin, currently absorbed in a tablet showing electronic news.

The moment she registered a guest, she put it face-down on the desk and stood with a practiced smile.

Her face was smooth, her features indistinguishable from a human’s, with one notable exception: no ears on the sides of her head. Instead, a pair of cat ears stood upright at the top.

"You’re quite striking," Raphael said, without covering his surprise. Most people walking in would react.

She maintained her smile with the ease of someone who had processed this particular reaction many thousands of times, and slid a form across the counter.

"Some fields are optional, for privacy reasons, you’re not required to fill in everything. We don’t mandate ID verification."

Raphael looked it over. The mandatory fields included everything he absolutely could not fill in honestly, starting with his name and occupation.

I wonder how widely they’ve distributed that wanted notice...

He was about to invent a surname and keep his first name when his peripheral vision caught the tablet she’d placed face-down on the desk. The screen was still on, showing a news item.

Today, a wanted criminal by the name of Raphael Alanster has been confirmed present in Zexi City. Suspect is described as...

Raphael cleared his throat quietly and, without hesitation, wrote Elena’s name in the name field.

For occupation he wrote something related to waste management. For gender, he wrote: armed helicopter.

Everything about this form should look as unlike the news description as possible.

The receptionist accepted it, glanced at the answers, and her smile stiffened for a fraction of a second. She cleared her throat delicately.

"This name, is this... you, sir?"

Raphael nodded with full sincerity.

"Yes. That’s me."

She looked at him, the build of a man who had clearly survived things, then looked back at the somewhat feminine name on the form.

She hesitated for a few seconds, then asked very quietly:

"Should I address you as Mr. Elena, or Ms. Elena, or... neither? And why did you write ’armed helicopter’ in the gender field?"

She was genuinely curious. Her eyes drifted upward slightly, and the scar across his brow caught the club’s ambient lighting.

Then her gaze started moving toward the face-down tablet.

Raphael’s voice dropped by several degrees.

"Can’t you tell? Do you need me to explain? And furthermore, what gives you the right to assume my gender?

You’re asking too many personal questions. I find this invasive. I’m deeply uncomfortable."

The receptionist visibly startled, snapped her gaze down to the desk, and launched into what was clearly a rehearsed apology protocol, modifying the template in real-time to fit the specific situation:

"I sincerely apologize, honored Elena Armed Helicopter, I am deeply sorry for violating your privacy.

I fully and genuinely uphold the principle of respecting all gender minorities, and I feel profound remorse for the offensive implications of my remarks.

Your, um... rotor blades? Yes. Your rotor blades are magnificently impressive, and even without being able to see them, I can feel your powerful and commanding presence.

Please forgive the gaps in my training regarding appropriate forms of address for... um... non-organic entities."

Raphael stood with the quiet sensation of watching something go completely sideways and deciding to accept it.

The apology was clearly a template, a prepared script for handling sensitive complaints, with blanks for inserting context-appropriate vocabulary, and filling it in on the fly for this particular situation had produced results that were somehow more insulting than saying nothing at all.

The phrase non-organic entities in particular would stay with him.

He waved a hand. He accepted the apology. He completed the registration. He received a pin identifying his status, clipped it on, and entered the Hiyori Nightclub properly.

The security presence inside was significant. Weapon scanners at every necessary chokepoint, guards stationed at intervals who missed nothing.

Each time one of them looked at his pin, their expression went through a very specific sequence, neutral, then something that wanted to become a question, then professional restraint.

Several of them greeted him. In the manner of people who had been trained to address guests by their registered details.

"Welcome, Elena Armed Helicopter."

"Good evening, Elena Armed Helicopter."

Raphael walked through it all with perfect composure and privately sighed.

He’d gotten through the door. The next step was finding the underground, which meant finding the vampire, which meant handling the Alp as well once the opportunity came. He could add capability afterward.

He found the interior layout posted on a wall and studied it.

The Hiyori was built in a classic concentric ring design.

The innermost core was an enormous dance floor running the full height of the first three floors, the source of the bass that had been audible since the street.

The ring structure around it was divided into multiple distinct zones.

He looked through them methodically. Nothing that required attention.

And then, on the route to the lower levels, a marking he hadn’t wanted to see.

"...Are you serious. Annual members only?"

He thought about the annual membership price. He thought about the hundred and fifty-odd Colin in his wallet. He exhaled.

"That man. How does he run a black market transaction and fail to mention this detail?"

He thought about it.

"Unless, he never expected me to actually complete the job and show up here. If he assumed the task was beyond me, he had no reason to explain any of this."

He shook his head. The venue was blanketed in cameras, dense coverage, no corner unmonitored.

Using Wraith Form to phase through the walls in front of all of this, while IFSA was running active patrols nearby, was not a viable option.

He went back to the posted layout and read the fine print.

Each annual member may bring one guest of their choosing.

"Right. That’s the angle."

He turned and walked toward the second floor bar.

He was through the door and scanning the room when he saw a familiar silhouette. Bright gold hair, unmistakable.

"Hm? The church deacon?"