Kamurocho Reform School for Wayward Youth is not a place anyone would describe as friendly. Quite the opposite, in fact. Populated by some of the meanest, nastiest, and downright weirdest delinquents in Tokyo prefecture, it was widely know as the place where even the most vicious young men were brutally beaten down into (relatively) productive citizens.

Saejima Taiga had been there for three years.

He'd come in, betrayed by the one man he'd thought he could trust, his kyoudai—his brother. Brought in on what was supposed to be their final job together: taking out a rival gang in the most brutal fashion possible.

Majima never even bothered to show up.

Instead Saejima had taken on twenty men by himself, using the combination of his fists and killer strength to pulverize his enemies into the ground. By the time the cops had shown up to arrest him, all twenty were down, faces barely recognizable in the bloody heaps he had reduced them to. He'd been barely fifteen at the time, and was promptly whisked away to Kamurocho, the only place the penal judge thought sufficient to handle his rather…unique…talents.

It had been a trying three years, spent mostly contemplating a future prison transfer that Saejima knew would be coming with his eighteenth birthday. The rather auspicious event was now a mere three days away.

Saejima felt a sigh coming on as he contemplated the ceiling above his bed—a too common occurrence these days. It wasn't that he was tired or bored—Saejima's immense stamina and rather simple mind prevented either of these occurrences—but he could do little to shake a feeling of impatience bubbling up in his rather expansive chest. There was a kind of electricity in the air; an anticipation that told his finely honed instincts that something was coming. But what?

Slowly letting his sigh out, Saejima let his eyes move to the one window in his small, two-man dorm, charmingly decorated with bars so thick that not even his prodigious strength could hope to bend them.

"Shut up." His roommate, Tatsuya Jiro, glared at him from the bed across the room. Tatsuya did not take kindly to noises of any sort, particularly when reading one of the few books allowed to the imprisoned teens. He'd had "incidents" with loud talkers, whistlers, and hummers in the past, one of the reasons why he'd been paired with the stoic Saejima.

In response of course Saejima said nothing, content to merely stare out the barred window at the setting sun. He was almost glad to be getting out of this hellhole, even if it meant entering the even more daunting realm of a prison cell. His eyes gradually closed as the light faded, and he was able to drift off into a pleasant sleep after Tatsuya turned off his reading light to go to bed.

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The first thing he heard was an annoying tapping sound. A light but consistent Da-Ta, Da-Ta that gradually lead Saejima towards consciousness. Slowly, almost painfully he opened eyes, turning to find the source of the (rather irritating) noise.

A hand was rapping on the lone window in the tiny room. Its owner was difficult to make out within the darkness. Curiosity getting the better of him, Saejima quickly stole Tatsuya's reading lamp, moving towards the window to shine a light on the strange intruder. The taping stopped as the light hit the window. The hand moved, only to be replaced by a face that Saejima knew only too well, though it had been several years since he'd last set eyes on it.

It was a face he'd knew he'd never forget—the face of his friend, of his brother…of his betrayer.

"Majima Goro."