As the sun goes down, Kohaku makes her way back to the pavilion in the park that serves as the base for her and the other JSDF soldiers that have volunteered for peacekeeping. Once a simple picnic shelter, the pavilion has been shored up with wood and sandbags, to better defend against the hoodlums roving the city. Kohaku sighs and runs a hand through her hair, approaching the gap in the fortifications that serves as the entrance.

It’s eerily quiet. Normally, the peacekeepers would be unwinding after a long day. Chatter would have resounded from behind the walls, occasionally the crackle of a decrepit portable radio, and beers would be shared. Now, nothing. No men lounging on empty crates. No late night strategy meetings. No ex-soldiers working out, trying to maintain a semblance of discipline in a city turned to madness. Now, only death.

The pavilion’s floor is covered in blood, bodies strewn around the scene — a good dozen men, still decked out in the equipment they managed to salvage after the JSDF’s retreat, now reduced to motionless lumps of flesh, their guns clearly having been fired, their knives having been swung, their fists having been bruised — but all to no avail. Some of the finest, bravest soldiers the defense force had ever known, loyal to the point where they had defected and stayed behind to protect the city and its citizens, butchered like cattle.

Amidst the fallout of what can only have been adequately described as savagery, a young woman is standing, slightly slouched, her back turned to the entrance as she is idling away on her phone with one hand, and holding a bloodied, thin, but curved blade in her other. Her hair, looking as if it started out blonde but ended up being washed with blood so often the scarlet shimmer became permanent, is tied into two buns on the sides of her head. A futuristic-looking, oversized red jacket is hanging from her shoulders. She turns around. Her eyes are yellow and emptier than any Kohaku has ever seen.

Kohaku jumps back from the entrance, one hand in her pocket and the other thrown up to protect herself. 

Kohaku: My god, what is this?? Identify yourself!! 

The young woman turns her head slightly, like a predator observing its prey, before her mouth emits a chilling monotone.

???: … Punisher.

In a swift move, the woman darts out, with an unfathomable speed. As she raises her weapon against Kohaku, the light of the setting sun is reflected in its blade, and she brings it down.