Author's Note:Hello lads and ladies
While rereading this after I haven't touched the chapter in weeks due to me having racked up a collection of chapters while I was at the clinic, (after chapter 22 I am out of prewritten chapters. Chapter 23 is in the works but is taking it's sweet ass time as my meds have still not changed much if anything.) and I find Ibuki to encapsulate perfectly the wonderous feeling of finding new meaning in a terrible place.
To say that he lived a long life is to understate it. The type of stress he went through is gonna give him grey hairs before the age of 40. Monumental stress. But I'm not really worried about Ibuki in this chapter here.
Tokugawa was a shower thought character, called Uncle Tokata in my very first draft I ever had of the character. I imagined him as an uncle type of boss of the Yakuza. An unbelievably kind soul in a wretched business as the Mafia. But things hardly play out like you plan them anyhow.
I told Foxy about this character idea and he had the brilliant idea: "Why don't you use him as the Black market Boss for the Mafia Tie in?". At the time I was struggling to piece together how to make the Shishigumi organically appear in the story, and Tokugawa was a wonderful tie in that worked wonders. At the point where I introduced him I was delighted to notice that Paula, who had grown to be a very treasured friend at the moment had also a kick ass cougar character in her fanfiction. So that was funny. But now back to the point I'm trying to make.
Tokugawa might be nicer than the average underworld boss, but you should still remember that it's a business bound by blood and that comes with certain consequences. I am trying my best in order to make Tokugawa a leveled and realistic character that fits into the fic while not betraying my own ideals and morals. We tend to be softer on people we like, and I fricking love Tokugawa. So him committing crimes is a point where I am doing my best to stay fair to how I treat him and not be blinded by his charms and go easy on him.
Because as Paula pointed out to me while we were discussing our fics, Louis as the canonical leader of the black market still let the same kind of rings of children trafficking that he himself was in as number four happen with out interruption. And he never faced any consequence.
But beside this long rant I hope that you guys don't think i'm being too nice to an OC character. All of you have a good time reading. I promise I haven't forgotten about the high school part of this plot lol.
Edited by: SuperAverageFoxyboy (He's back!)
Edited by: Some random reader 32
Enjoy!
-Portal
Chapter 21: Do you know what Desperation feels like?
The Kyokai Daily paper was a town paper crammed into a small office. It shared the same building block as the post office by a train station before the main docking terminal in charge of stocking the ships. It never had the strong reign over journalism in the city as the Nippon Hoso National Press office in the city center. They were a local press office using the stories they could get. Which was, more often than not, the scraps.
But any office one day gets their lucky hit, and they had theirs two days ago. The information cycle's first finders were most often the police. A few workers had put together some of their pay. The article about the mutilation of the three carnivores was the best-sold paper in years.
That taught the journalists at Kyokai a very valuable thing. Police info and gossip were worth gold. And so they started paying policemen more often and often, depending on their accessibility to underpaid cops who didn't care much for keeping in line with protocol. But as they quickly learned, there was no shortage of self-important patrol animals that felt underappreciated by the Police Chief. And like scavengers looking for leftovers in the primal days, the journalists took anything they could get their hands on. And so, the stories rolled in.
Devouring cases left and right, domestic violence involving various officials and gladly the next big hit. The Dockside Massacre. Fifteen herbivores dead, ten more heavily wounded. The retaliating attack to the carnivore mutilation incident. They joked during their coffee break that they now had two parts of the storyline that would cement their place as one of the big names in the city. But with life being how it is… nothing moved in paces you could foresee or predict.
The morning shift group walked along the sidewalk to their office, chatting and preparing for the day. They were mostly herbivores. A horse, a few red deers, a few goats, a wombat, and the only carnivore of their group, a dalmatian. They were early for today, as it was a weekday, but that didn't stop the events of the day from happening just as they did.
As they joked about their sudden popularity in the public eyes, they didn't notice the lion on the other side of the street grabbing his radio, quickly changing channels to reach his comrades. He returned the radio to his pocket and left the vicinity in a straightforward and concentrated strut. Nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps one could say they just forgot an errand to run.
The workers reached the door and fumbled for their keys as the lion passed the corner. The ensuing chaos happened extremely quickly.
The screeching of wheels and the roaring of a motor caught various civilians to turn their heads in irritation. The car slowed down to five miles an hour, rolling past in a slow rumble as the windows rolled down.
This was the moment the horse out front currently unlocking the door jammed the key inside and turned quickly. You could be strong or weak in any situation, but a herbivore knew when things were about to go array.
The hail of bullets tore through the journalists like pen tips through paper. The fast-thinking horse fell into the building, laying on the ground clutching his side as blood emitted from the bullet hole that tore through his liver. The wombat scurried in, crawling on the floor as the shooters emptied their magazines.
The shooting only held on for a couple of seconds, the screaming outside dwindling relatively quickly. Life turned into a daze for the horse, who was still laying on the floor in his pain. The world shifted before his eyes and marbled into squiggly lines. The pain was excruciating. He bit down and tried his best to stay awake when the second wave of pain hit his body, and he drifted off. No one truly knows what death is like, but for him it was merciful, ending his pain instead of prolonging it.
The wombat crawled forward ignoring his already dead co-worker completely as he tried to crawl while still listening for the car. The sound of the roaring engine was his cue to stand up and run full speed through the lobby to the back door. He threw the door to the backroom open and lunged for the door. His foot caught on a box standing in his way, sending him back scurrying on the floor.
If he had looked back at the object, he might've known what caused his sudden fiery death. As the wombat's life was vaporized, the building's walls crumbled to the ground in a mess of bricks, cement, and glass. The casualties included the clerk at the post office and a civilian getting an early delivery.
Meanwhile, in the car...
"Can you change the station? I need some rock after this job." Free tugged at his collar, his other hand holding his machine gun by the midsection.
Dolph navigated the dial and turned the steering wheel gracefully in his hand simultaneously. A talent of a driver Ibuki liked to say, but he currently wasn't present. They were split up on a new high-priority mission by Tokugawa. A drive-by shooting wasn't anything new to them. They handled it by protocol. Wear masks, don't leave the car, switch vehicles after the hit, split up. They turned around another corner, the parking garage in their sights. Free began to laugh.
"So who's doing explosives for Nippon Hoso?"
"Dope," Agata answered, sitting in the passenger seat, watching the road ahead with focus. Free began to laugh again.
"Well, that will be wonderful fireworks if Dope is on the job. Ey!" Free raised his fist, Jinma raised it as well, hitting knuckles to knuckles.
"Sure as hell," Jinma answered, observing the many cars zooming past them in the parking garage house.
"We're here."
Dolph turned left and slid into the parking space seamlessly. The doors opened, and the lions emerged, tucking at their masks. The lions strutted along the cars in a calm Sunday walk type of way. The four split into groups of two, Free and Jinma, and Dolph and Agata.
Free sat down on the driver's seat and started up the car. The two silver cars passed by the black vehicle they had used for their mission. Free grabbed for the dash compartment and felt around. His hand emerged with the small handle with only a single button.
Free shared a quick glance with Jinma as they drove out of the parking garage and pressed the button.
The black car suddenly exploded into a burning flame nest. Free laughed all the way down the road from the building that soon accumulated a group of onlookers. Jinma glanced at him and shook his head.
"You got issues."
"Oh, shut up and let me have fun." Free retaliated, still laughing as they drove down the road to the regroup point.
They ditched the car two streets south of their regroup point. They strolled down the street with Free whistling a song from the radio all the way. Jinma gave up after the third time of telling him to shut up.
The Nippon Hoso National Press office stood nestled between a few block office buildings by the railway tracks. Free randomly had the thought that if you followed the train tracks, you could just about reach every historic building in Edobutsu. The town hall which stood its ground for more than two hundred years now, the general hospital in the city center… and of course every fucking post office or news station you could think of. Economy drove everything, and with it, the town built itself up, expanding from the docks and the train tracks. The very things that got the town to its standard as it was. The Capitol of an industrial powerhouse of a country of course had it's own history of Industrial supremacy.
"A stinking pile of corruption and money laundering is all that it is. People just tell themselves it was business." His dad would tell him. But his father was just as corrupt as anybody else. He was a conductor in the 70s. And the 70s were the times when the drug epidemic swept the globe. He was paid reasonable cash for letting a few trainloads pass by without security control.
But his dad would've never learned better anyway. He became a conductor after his own father, who routinely sold ware loads from businesses to rival firms. And his dad's dad's dad must have not been much better if his entire family line was a bunch of crooks.
Well, the thing Free was prideful of was the fact that he was the only one not lying to himself. He had been honest in his profession ever since boosting cars and robbing homes when he was fourteen years old, dealing with his mom being constantly drunk and his dad spending most nights outside cheating on his wife and harassing herbivores.
Free and Jinma climbed the service ladder made for the maintenance staff. Most of the monorails for the general populous were on raised platforms in order to not interfere with traffic. And as it came, it made for a perfect place to spy onto other buildings from uninterrupted.
The two lions strolled towards the others, the walkway just big enough to allow them to let someone pass without having to step down onto the train tracks.
"Hello, gentlemen of various sizes and importance." Miguel peaked past Ibuki and held up his hand.
The passed by Ibuki who stared at the building with complete focus. His mind was on the job and nothing else.
"Where is Hino?" Jinma asked. Miguel shrugged.
"Probably still driving his bike up the hill to us. Should reach us any minute." As if on cue, the sound of a motorcycle engine stopping sounded out from beyond the corner. Agata and Dolph ascended the ladder, stepping into the lineup next to them.
"Well, there comes Fox Fucker and Steady Hand. Good day gentlemen."
"Says the guy who sticks his dick into a plant-eater," Agata muttered under his breath. Free's face turned into an angry scowl as he looked past Ibuki.
"What did you sa-" Ibuki slapped him while still looking at the building, irritation lighting up his face.
"He's giving you your own medicine, so stop fighting and shut up," Ibuki growled. Free rubbed his face and shot a glare at Agata who looked at him with an equal amount of anger.
"Ah fuck it." Free looked ahead towards the three-story building. The third on top was equipped with roof balconies, making the last story look like a penthouse.
"Boastful pricks, aren't they?" Jinma spoke into the round.
"Sure they are, but what do you expect from the second most influential press office in all of Japan. It all gets right to their heads." Ibuki's vision was blank, staring at the objective without really seeing anything but another job well done. He thrived for this work.
Things hadn't been this fulfilling for years. And he was savoring any moment that he could satisfy Tokugawa with his work. And today was a day like no other. Today they were ordered a hit on the most important press offices in Edobutsu. To send a message as he put it. And Ibuki had no plans to disappoint him.
Hino, Dope, and Sabu joined in not many moments later, completing the roundup of the Backalley legend,or whatever we are. A title is only as great as the person bestowing it. And whatever we are… now we truly deserve it.
"Dope, hand me the Detonator," Ibuki spoke through many layers light years away from him. He dimly noticed Free clasping his hand together beside him, starting away another ugly cackle in anticipation of destruction. Ibuki felt his spirit shift under the weight of his thoughts and break through the barrier of time.
Memories of being shackled in chains, memories of standing on his bed to see the sun slowly rise among the buildings of savagery, memories of the riot, and lastly the crystal clear image of the guard falling over as the other walking slab of carnivore meat thrashed out in a violent outburst.
The meat harvesting practice extended to carnivores just as much as to herbivores. And the tattoos on his entire body told you all you had to know. The upper bicep was a boost in strength, the calf was an aid in constitution, and his testicles were a boost in fertility.
As a child, you didn't question things you thought to be normal. For a child doesn't know better. They only ask why if they are taught how to. For the longest time, you thought it was just how things are going on in the world. Everyone had a guard and a cell, and everyone had to be brought up in front of various gentlemen all fitted in nice-looking clothes that then picked one of you out that would never come back again. Ibuki must have thought they were adopted and brought to new homes for the time of his stay. Children rationalize so easily.
But the opportunity of the key presented itself, and who was he to say no. The guards were awful and vile creatures that might look like carnivores but were more akin to demons. To… shadows of carnivores.
After he grabbed the key it was all a blur. All he knows is that he woke up in a dumpster soon after with no memory from which building he had escaped from. He lived two years on the streets, never once even learning that such a thing as the outside world existed. To him, the black market was all there ever was. It wasn't until the ripe age of fourteen that they found him.
All those faces phased past with so much emotion. The big brothers Miguel, Sabu, and Jinma were around from the start, showing him the ropes of being a mafia man. Dolph and Hino who were his first partners on his first mission. Agata who was the little brother; naive and good-natured. He was gullible but a part of them all the same. Free and Dope… mafia men, friends till the end, and brothers in eternal rest, they wouldn't have it any other way.
Back when the Shishigumi's leader changed places with the Chief who would be the one to bring them to fall, after all, it was no longer them being a mere part of the Shishigumi. It was them who made the Shishigumi what it was. An onslaught of members that held no name or personality beyond hired gun, the mission after mission tracking down a new meal from the outside world, and the slow corruption of their honor and reputation… the ones who remained throughout was them. Through all the bad choices of the Chief only they remained.
Now it was only them. And that was how it should always be for the rest of the days of the Shishigumi. Ibuki would make sure for that now.
The Nippon Hoso National Press office lost its right to be called a building. The second-floor windows burst outwards as the C4 punched a large hole into the front of the building. The third floor stood with barely any support from below just for a few seconds before the bricks began to lose hold and the top floor penthouse slid split down the middle, the front hanging down the broken facade threatening to fall any second but still remaining in the awkward position as if the building itself was embarrassed to be destroyed so easily.
Ibuki watched apathetically the destruction on the building as Dope grabbed the second detonator. Dope handed it down the row until it reached Ibuki who's gaze only quickly drifted over the detonator.
"You do the honors." The excitement from Free was enough to validate Ibuki's choice.
Free turned the key on the device relatively quickly, causing the second explosion in the back of the building where the second charge was placed. The penthouse-like top of the press office slid off the building into a pile of brick, glass, and animals.
Ibuki looked into the pile of buildings surrounded by screams. Panicked onlookers, buried journalists, and a ruckus of animals in complete shock. The all too familiar sound of sirens began to loudly move through town in relatively quick succession. The members stayed side by side for a while longer, basking in their work. It was brutal and unforgiving work done in a horrible business bound by blood, but it was honest with itself. There were no lies or illusions about it. Mafia work was paid for with blood.
"Let's get off the train tracks before they get nosy."
The mafia men crowded at the bottom of the service ladder, and all made their ways separately again. Free whistled to himself as he walked by Ibuki's side down the main path, stopping to snicker when the ambulance drove past.
He stopped when he felt the strong hand of Ibuki on his collar. He looked over to see menacing darkness in his eyes. There weren't many things that Free liked to admit to being scared by, but with Ibuki, he never could help it. Even when he first joined the Shishigumi, Ibuki was the only one to ever openly manage to scare him.
"You may laugh about destruction, about fire, and about your own instinctual need for chaos being satisfied. But if you dare to laugh about these lives… then we'll have problems." He let go and stomped forward.
Free was first to see a change in Ibuki's nature long before any of the others clued into it. His dominance was not out of the ordinary. The others were more so used to him being the one to call the shots when the Chief wasn't around. But the fire behind his eyes changed. It evolved. He was no longer doing it out of necessity. He was starting to seriously grow into the role of the new boss.
Free staggered behind the new boss of his mob. Ibuki stood still by the road, a cigarette between his lips, lines of smoke hanging in the air.
"I'm sorry Ibuki. Should-"
"Just get in the car. I'm gonna take a smoke, and we are going back to HQ." He flicked his hand upward, sending the smoke waving in the air.
Free thought briefly about commenting about the situation but quickly decided it wasn't worth the risk of fully pissing off the lion.
Free got into the car and peered into the rear side mirror. Through the tinted glass of the back window, Ibuki looked mysteriously in thought and menacing all the while.
To understand what a lion is worth… Free heard Ibuki's voice playback in his mind, a situation they had had years ago, the two sitting together in their headquarters.
...you watch what they do in a moment of desperation. Only the truest of kin will keep in focus, absolutely concentrated on the task at hand.
"Well, then I must be a fool," Free told himself and lit a cigarette for himself. Two minutes later, they were driving down the road back to their HQ.
"Congratulations, fellas!" Tokugawa raised his glass, clinking it loudly with the rest of the members at the table, all eagerly chugging down the first round of their alcoholic beverages.
They were in a small moderate bar in the back of the black market, mostly empty except for a few quiet individuals. An owl sitting at the bar and two coyotes dreamily looking into each other's eyes as they ate their food. It was quiet, and that left Ibuki time to think.
Ibuki sat at the bar, drinking his beer with a very low focus on what was happening outside of his head. The thoughts of the circumstances that lead him down this path returned with intrusive swiftness. The night so long ago that changed them all.
He grabbed his shoulder as he remembered the stinging pain in his shoulder, the she-wolf having taken a moderately-sized chunk out of his shoulder. In retrospect, he was inspired by the girl's courage. The children he saw around in the current times were all huge wusses. Incompetent, fragile, and helpless. Wannabe tough guys. Those kids proved that his knowledge of things was completely wrong.
It was another mission night, another white animal they wheeled in. The dwarf rabbit couldn't have been older than eighteen, a young animal that would for one make a wonderful meal. Young, healthy, but unfortunately small and almost frail. Chief would eat it in two bites was the joke Free used, scaring the young herbivore in a way that Ibuki had rarely seen people be scared.
It was like the dwarf rabbit girl was at an equilibrium with death while not wanting to die either. She fought back, but she seemed ok with losing. He was sure the fight in her mind was much bigger and elaborate than the fight going on on the outside.
She was different than the others Ibuki found in retrospective. She was something special. It was truly no wonder that it was her that broke the cycle. The youngest target ever on the list that broke the cycle.
"A Sunshine, please." His boss sat down beside him in a graceful and swift motion. He rest his hand on the counter, his head still noticeably above Ibuki's. He looked over with a friendly smile.
"What is the leader doing by the bar all by himself?" He asked trivially, his vision not lingering long but wandering over to the barkeeper preparing his drink.
Ibuki found himself in a peculiar spot of wanting to say nothing and everything at the same time. He didn't know why, but a part of him didn't like the idea of revealing the past in the current moment. A lion didn't do such a thing. Strength meant you grew stronger with your scars, and you let them speak for yourself. But the group of those kids lived in his mind for no discernible reason other than his business wasn't yet finished with them.
"One Sunshine." The barkeeper, a rather well-dressed owl, sat down the square glass in front of the cougar.
"Many thanks." Tokugawa placed a banknote on the counter that the Owl quickly put into his coat pocket with an appreciative thanks of his own.
"Personal things of my subordinates are not usually my business to invade in, but I am curious. You seem stuck in rather important thought." The cougar took a sip of his glass and looked across the bar, his ears standing sharply upright, listening attentively.
"There is something that needs to be done."
Tokugawa looked at the lion with complete interest. Ibuki's voice was completely honest, dry and resumed into another long thoughtful pause just as the words left his mouth.
"… and that is?" Tokugawa asked.
"Boss… may I ask a favor from you?" Ibuki lead his glass to his mouth in apathetic thoughtfulness as his boss leaned in closer to hear his quieter voice.
"After all you did? Why wouldn't I grant you a favor." There was more than just a liminal sense of curiosity in the inquiry about his thoughts. Tokugawa liked to know what went through people's heads. Trouble makers more so than those well behaved. But when something of importance was going through a valued employee's head, that was another case in which Tokugawa decided that knowing was better than not. If not for job security and proof of loyalty, than out of personal concern.
Tokugawa liked Ibuki. He was competent in the lineup of the most influential mafia of the black market. And with the mafia, there was the same rule that was in every firm or organization. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And in the business of management, which deals with a certain bit of showmanship and reputation, having your flagship be the weakest one in the race is never of good use. Ibuki eradicated that fear. And the captain of the flagship deserved some praise.
"Do you know the circumstances of how Chief died?" The question caught Tokugawa off guard as he sat upright again, taking another sip to distract himself from the present moment.
Did he know how the great tyrant of the Shishigumi died? Well, yes… it was Doctor Gouhin, but not Gouhin alone. The miraculous group that cleansed the Shishigumi. A group that although seen with the Doctor of the Back-alley, was never properly identified.
Tokugawa knew it was a rescue mission, but he didn't have any concrete information about the group that he could trust. He heard the rumors, but those sounded unrealistic and blinded by the subjective eye. When people were scared sometimes smaller animals looked like teenagers to them, even if the lead wolf of the group was only slightly smaller than Gouhin.
"I know that one of my employees was involved, Doctor Gouhin." Ibuki's eyes drifted over to the cougar, the white suit shining brightly in the darker bar.
"That panda works for you?" He asked with minimal surprise.
"He is one of my most valued assets," Tokugawa answered. Ibuki had the urge to ask more questions but decided that he would get to shake the panda's hand himself in due time.
"Well, anyway, do you know what happened that night… specifically." Ibuki took another drink and let the cougar think for another moment to answer.
"I know it was a group… Other information about the group seemed unrealistic." To Tokugawa's surprise, Ibuki began to laugh.
The lion's frame jittered up and down as his lung quickly pumped through air. He laughed for maybe a good ten seconds when his breathing started to normalize. He took another drink and said through a smile that broke out into laughter shortly after.
"They were just a bunch of kids." The lion nearly laughed himself to death as Tokugawa observed him. That was a laugh of relief in desperation mixed with disbelief. The lion wasn't believing himself with what he was saying while knowing it was the honest truth. He was telling the truth.
"Children? Run of the mill children killed the leader of the strongest mafia in all of the black market?" Tokugawa's question was answered through the laughter.
"Students. Three Carnivores lead by a deer…" Ibuki laughed even harder, slapping the counter repeatedly. Tokugawa looked over his shoulder to see all eyes on the two of them. Their eyes told him that they knew what their leader had just told him. And more than a few were smiling to themselves with the unlikely exception of Free who looked offended by the absolute stupidity of the truth.
"And the best part?… It was the son of Oguma." The entire table behind them broke out in complete laughter that was utterly bizarre to Tokugawa. Many lives were lost that day, some of which were friends and brothers to the lions as much as they were brothers to each other. Their laughter was almost unreasonable, but for some reason, he didn't voice any concern of manners about the whole matter. He simply remained silent until the table stopped laughing minus Free, who wore an expression of agitation. Something here wasn't going the way he was used to at all.
The lion beside him grasped himself and breathed normally again. He gazed towards the shelf, the different colored bottles reflecting the warm orange light of the lamps like candlelight.
"Could you find them?…" Tokugawa looked at the lion and studied his face for a considerable while.
"For what purpose?" He hated to even hint at that motive, but a drunken animal had other moral codes than a sober one. They lacked inhibition and impulse control.
"An invitation," Ibuki spoke a bit slower, if not for being drunk then for being stuck in thought. Tokugawa still listened for further explanation.
"Invite them to dinner at your castle…" Ibuki's eyes moved off the bottles and into towards the gaze of the cougar, stopping while looking directly at him. He motioned around himself.
"All this… That dinner, the other Gumi's listening for once and you having newfound control over the black market…" He looked at the cougar and the words he wanted to say but couldn't, darted through the air like flies.
A male rarely ever got emotional. A male rarely ever spoke their mind when it came what their feeling. And when they did, it never was with their boss. Tokugawa knew even before the talk that Ibuki was serious about how determined he was about all of this. He knew before because he had a habit of knowing things. But he knew one thing now.
He knew that Ibuki was so utterly thankful for all that Tokugawa caused in his life that the rules of carnivore male behavior prohibited him from openly addressing it. And that, of all things a man would want to express, was one of the most humbling experiences to make.
"… I want to thank them." He adverted his gaze again and looked at the bottles once more.
"Without them, all of this wouldn't have happened… All I wish for is to thank them myself. If I am granted that opportunity, of course…" Ibuki fell silent after that, drinking another sip and not moving his eyes much if it all.
Tokugawa looked ahead and thought about it. Track down the group that liberated his market from filth. What an idea that was. He was honestly wondering why he didn't think of it himself. Oguma surely wasn't a friend, but an associate. The generations of both families were deeply intertwined when it came to business. It came naturally that some form of acquaintance had begun to stick around.
Tokugawa's hand landed on the lion's shoulder, bringing him to look at his boss again as the cougar downed his drink.
"I shall see to it myself." Ibuki grinned a dull smile and kept it on his face even when he looked ahead again.
"Thank you, Boss."
"Thank you, Ibuki. Your services are oh so appreciated." Tokugawa patted his shoulder and then started to plan the visit to the conglomerate's homestead that would soon follow. It would need a great amount of charm, but that never was a problem for him after all.