Haruka gave deep, heavy breaths. With a lit cigarette between her teeth, every exhale sent smoke out into the chill night air. Deep breaths to calm her down. Nicotine to ease her nerves.

She was standing two stories above New Serena, on the building's roof. Yuta, Haruto, and Date were hanging out in the bar below her. She'd told them a little bit. Enough to catch them up to speed on what had happened these past few days. But right now, Haruka just wanted to be alone. Over the guardrail she got a good view of the bright lights of Kamurocho. Bright lights and empty streets. Whatever Minami had done to clear the city out, it was apparently still in effect. If one were to just look at it, you might call it a peaceful moment for the normally chaotic city.

Listening as she was, however, Haruka only heard anarchy. Gone was the cover of partygoers and happy drunks, the city was laid bare for what it truly was. Sirens blared from every corner. The only voices that could be heard now were screams. Screams of hatred, screams of fear, screams of anguish, screams of revenge. Gunshots rang out often, she knew there were no cars here to backfire now, and no slots being played. It could only be the sound of dozens of lives being stolen as the ripples of what had happened tonight spread through the city.

Haruka could only guess what happened, but she had a pretty good idea. Minami and Matsushige had been arrested. Aikawa and Kuroda were dead. The Tojo was without leadership, and no one left had been set to fill the vacuum.

So instead, the remaining scraps of the Tojo tore itself apart. Family leaders were killing one another, desperate for the spots and terrified that their brothers would take it from them at this critical opportunity. With the infrastructure falling apart, those lower on the totem pole, those with nothing to lose, might start making rash decisions. If the organization is crumbling, maybe it's time to abandon ship and start a new one. If the leadership is dying, who will be there to punish them if they sell out what remains? If this lifeline is now gone, what is their promise of safety now worth? And of course, if those who disagreed with their actions found out, they might do something rash in return to prevent it from happening. They would try and hang on to the order while it still lasted, by any means necessary.

And that was to say nothing of those who staked their life on this clan who would decide to give in and pay up now.

For every act of violence that Haruka could hear, there must be a dozen done in the quiet. Muffled by the shadow, with whispered methods and silent resolution.

The Tojo Clan was deeply interconnected with Kamurocho, these two entities shared a life essence. And through it, through Kamurocho's dead streets, Haruka could feel the Tojo itself dying as well.

Haruka hated Kamurocho. She hated the Tojo too.

But this felt wrong.

Deep, heavy breaths.

Sharp footsteps rang out against the metal fire escape behind her. She turned around expecting to see Yuta or Date, come to interrogate more information out of her. Instead, however, Taro was standing there.

Haruka's efforts to calm herself were wasted in that second. As rage infected her body, her breathing went quick, her heartrate sped up. She dropped her cigarette on the ground and immediately threw a right hook to his face. He let it follow through without buckling in the slightest.

"Yeah, I deserve that."

Left hook. No more of a response. Right. Left. Right.

Taro wiped a small drop of blood from his lip.

"You good?"

"What are you doing here? Come to kill me next?"

Taro gave a single chuckle, not much in a laughing mood past that. "Shoot one guy in the head and all the sudden people think you're a serial killer."

"It was more than one guy."

"Fine. Why do you even care about them?" He shook the thought out of his head. "No, sorry, I'm here cause you deserve to know the truth. After all you did for me, after how much you put your life at stake, you deserve to know."

"Now you're telling the truth? And that story about buying your way out, that was a lie, right? Complete bullshit?"

"Starting with the hard one, huh? I mean, it wasn't a complete lie. The guy with the shop, he was a real guy. He was a real guy that I really killed. It taught me a lot about the value of a human life, that it's not something to rob from someone without good reason. Do you think the people there were like him, that they didn't deserve it?"

"You're trying to take the moral high ground on people who are the exact same as you."

"No, no, you're right. The older captains in the Alliance, they always tell me to keep it about business. Don't get distracted by all the emotions that come with it. Just business then, how about that?"

"The business of misery, maybe."

"You're the one who just said we're on an even level. Two equally despicable rivals trying our damnedest to murder each other. And in the end, I won. It's just how things work."

"But why me? Why did I have to be involved? Why did you drag me away from my life and into this, Taro?"

Taro sighed. "The Tojo is… they're… look there's no two ways around it, they're a powder keg. Self-destructive in the worst ways with violent personalities rising to the top and legitimate businessmen being better off just doing legitimate business. They've been on a down spiral for damn near 20, maybe 30 years because of it. Yet they just won't die. You know why that is?"

"Don't tell me it's tenacity."

"Ha. Nothing so abstract. It's pretty simple really. It's your old man."

"…Kiryu."

"The Dragon of Dojima himself. Every couple years, the Tojo gets up to something boneheaded that should mean the end for them, but every time Kiryu comes out of nowhere to pull them back together. Keep this sinking ship afloat. The Omi have been waiting for this to happen ever since he passed 6 years ago. Surprised it took this long honestly. At least, that's my understanding of it. You and me, we were kids for most of this, though I suppose you were well acquainted with the situation anyways."

Haruka didn't have a response to that, but solemnly nodded in agreement.

"Now, the Tojo may be a powder keg but the pilot light couldn't just be any old thing. We need an explosion that'll spread the ashes so far that they can't pick the pieces back up, you know? Way to do that is to build up pressure from every side. Part of it's easy, the yakuza aren't quite so popular nowadays, not with civilians or the cops. The Omi have been hit with it too, the bad turnover rates, high incarceration, the pressure's on all of us. Another part is simply the act of a legitimate business muscling in on their territory. Or, at least, seemingly legitimate. See, the trick to tearing the Tojo apart is to make them think they're in trouble, regardless of if they actually are or not. If they feel compelled to do something, nine times out of ten they'll pick the wrong move."

"And my involvement forced them to make a choice."

"Exactly. All that stuff puts the right amount of pressure on them, but the actual pilot light? That's you. The Tojo are worried, they're on the eve of destruction, and they, like you and me, think back. 'How did we always get through this kind of thing before?' they say. The answer of course, is Kiryu. It's always Kiryu. But they don't have Kiryu anymore, so both of us start looking for the next best thing. I know they're keeping tabs on me, looking for any way to take me down. I lead them to you, and the fuse is lit. Course, anyone who knows you knows you'd never go along with them, which is precisely why they take the bait hook, line, and sinker."

"You couldn't have possibly known all this would happen from the very beginning."

"This specifically? No. But I think the results of the experiment prove the hypothesis. In the mad scramble to get to you, and to get to me, their entire leadership was taken out in one night. And because of the severe power imbalance they've been struggling with for a decade now, one captain looking to make a show of strength was able to take half the clan's soldiers out into the city instead of leaving them to guard home base. You see what I'm getting at right, we didn't need to destroy the Tojo, we just needed to give them the opportunity to destroy themselves."

"So, what happens now? The Omi forces storm into Kamurocho, now thoroughly unopposed? You take over and life goes on, the king is dead long live the king?"

"Well," Taro looked exasperated. "Yes, but also no, you know? Look, Haruka, I know it looks bad, but we do want to take this moment to prove that we're better than the Tojo. Less volatile. A bigger part of the community. We- I can be better than they were. I promise."

"All I hear is empty words from the next parasite to dig into this hell town."

"I don't get it Haruka, the group you hate the most, the group that took your father away from you, they're gone. You helped tear them down. They'll never be able to take another life in this city, in this country, and it's thanks to you. I figured you'd at least appreciate that a little more."

She spun on him. "No Taro, you don't get it. This isn't some petty little grudge with one clan in specific. This is about all of you, because all of you are the same. You say you want to be better than the Tojo, well it's too late for that. Because despite what you claim to want, you lied, and manipulated, and killed just to get your grubby hands on a useless stretch of life-sucking concrete. Because of your clever little scheme my son was terrorized, my friend had her business burned to the ground, and my uncle is dead."

"I'm sorry Haruka. I'm sorry you had to go through that. But you can't honestly blame-"

"I blame all of you! It's your fault as much as it is theirs!"

Taro was quiet for a minute. Keeping his breath held as he looked her over. "Right. Of course. I'm sorry."

"But you're not going to stop what you're doing."

"Well, I don't exactly have a choice."

"You had a choice…" Haruka huffed. "…You are of course familiar with my father. The stuff that he's done. The feats he's accomplished."

"There's not many people in this business who wouldn't know."

"You know about the time he fought the entire Tojo by himself to stop them from going to war?"

Taro paused. He studied her. Tentatively, a laugh escaped his lips. It grew, waiting for Haruka to join in on the joke. It faded when she didn't. "You can't be fucking serious."

"Bring your soldiers. As many as you can. The same pier. I'll stop all of you from repeating this cycle again."

"You realize what you're proposing, yeah?"

"Stopping an invasion at the pass?"

"It's some serious shit. Haruka, I'm grateful for what you've done, really I am, maybe you don't believe me but… but if you go through with this, my boys won't be holding back. After coming this far, we're not about to be stopped by one girl. They'll kill you if they feel they have to. You sure that's not too much for you?"

"Tomorrow night."

Taro blinked. Then nodded, the ghost of a smile twitching at his lips. "Tomorrow night then. Don't disappoint me."

And with that, he turned and walked right back the way he came. Down the fire escape and into the empty and dying streets of Kamurocho.