'Shit. There was another one?' I thought as I felt like a bucket of ice water was just poured on me. 'But there was nothing behind me other than that empty office.'

I glanced down to see that there was a long needle pricked against my neck.

"Hands where I can see them." The voice said.

I brought my left arm up to the side.

"Other one too."

"I think it's broken, I can't move it."

As bad as the situation was, I found it a little funny. The both of us were speaking in low, hoarse tones to try and mask our voices.

The person behind me suddenly stepped on the nearby tanto, causing it to flip upwards and into their hands. I felt my heart rate increase as they brought the tanto up to next to my face before swinging it to the side.

"Ugh!" The man from the Yamaguchi-gumi that was stabbed early, dropped to the ground as the tanto embedded into his neck.

The person behind me then patted against my robe to check for other weapons and pulled the dagger I had on my waist off.

'They didn't notice the bracer?' I thought. 'Maybe I still have a chance to get out of this situation.'

There was a clang as the dagger was tossed to the side. I suddenly smelled the scent of cypress as they reached in to take off my mask.

"Why didn't you kill him?" They asked.

"Because I'm not a killer."

"Your comrades are killing all our people out there right now."

"There's not much I can do about it, since they're not really my comrades."

"That sounds a hypocritical."

"I know it is since I'm helping them, but I just don't want to kill if I don't have to."

"He's a vindictive person, he won't forget this. You should have killed him." The person said as they nudged the young man with their foot.

"I just want to live my life on my own terms."

The voice was less hoarse this time and sounded like more familiar and feminine as it muttered. "Live on your own terms..."

"That's you, right? Rin?"

The cold metal was suddenly pulled away from my neck.

"How did you know?" Rin asked as I turned to see her standing behind me, her silky, long hair was let down as she held the needle that was normally used to hold it up, in her hand.

"We've been working together for awhile, you think I wouldn't recognize you by now?"

"What are you doing here?"

"The Yamaguchi-gumi tracked some of the Matsumoto-gumi guys here."

"Those useless..." She muttered.

"I don't know how you are related to the Matsumoto-gumi but you need to hide before they get here." I said as I leaned against the wall and pulled myself up.

Rin knelt down and slapped the young man's cheek. "Zuki, wake up."

After no response, she picked him up, and in a display of strength, hulled him over her shoulder before she turned to go back into the office room.

"Give me a 10 minute head start so I can clean some things up."

I noticed that there was a passageway inside the office that wasn't there before.

'She's telling me I can reveal this passageway after 10 minutes?'

"You're doing this for Azu, right?" She suddenly asked.

I felt my eyes widen a bit at her question. 'Was she spying on me?'

"We've been working together for awhile, you think I wouldn't know you by now?" She said with a grin on her face.

She walked into the hidden passageway before turning around.

"If you continue to deal with the Yamaguchi-gumi you should be careful of the Shinrin-kai. They have eyes everywhere." She said and then pushed against the wall, causing the wall to shut and re-conceal the passageway.

I went back into the hallway and retrieved all my things before returning to the office and slumping down tiredly at the desk. I looked through the desk for anything valuable but there was mostly only paperwork. I did find bandages, which I used to dress my wound.

There were other drawers in the room but I was too drained and injured to want to even get up and check.

As I sat there staring at the wall, I suddenly realized that the patterns on the wall looked like scales.

'There was the snake motif at the entrance. What is this place anyways?'

A large group showed up soon after, led by a Matsumoto-gumi member held at dagger point.

"So this is overseer's office?" Kurata said as they entered. "Seems like you had a rough time, Mister Nei. Did you happen to see where Overseer Zuki went?"

I pointed at the wall on the side.

"Clever." Kurata said after they scoured around the office and found a hidden depression in the wall, revealing the hidden passageway. "Lead the way."

They forced the Matsumoto-gumi member to lead the way again and shortly after entering the passageway a scream came out from it.

"AHHHH!"

"It's booby-trapped!" Someone called out as they backed out of the passageway,

"Alright, we'll wait for backup before we proceed any further. Keep some people here to watch over this room. In the meantime, send everyone else to rip this place apart for any other hidden passages and valuables. Remember to secure all documents you find." Kurata ordered.

"Yes, Headquarters Chief."

Ryota popped by right after. "Backup should be arriving soon, you can hitch a ride on one of the wagons they'll be bringing to take things back."

"Alright." I nodded.

Soon after, I fell asleep in the chair from exhaustion as I waited and the Yamaguchi-gumi searched the hideout. I was woken from my nap when I heard a commotion.

"We need backup at the entrance!"

"Let's hurry!"

Everyone was scrambling to make their way to the entrance. I decided to follow along to find out what was going on. I arrived in the vestibule at the same time Ryota did.

There was fighting happening outside the entrance and people were being taken down.

"What's going on?" Ryota questioned.

"Three punks showed up and started attacking us once they figured out we weren't the Matsumoto-gumi." One of the men reported. "They're really strong."

"Retreat!" Kurata, who was by the crowded entrance, called out.

Everyone began to run back inside. Soon the entrance wasn't as crowded anymore and I finally caught sight of who was attacking. They were three teenagers, who couldn't have been more than 14-16 years old, and they we ripping apart the Yamaguchi-gumi guys with a tanto, a claw weapon, and a kunai. They chased the Yamaguchi-gumi men towards the entrance.

"So you're the leader?" The oldest of them, a teenaged girl grin savagely as she spotted Kurata and began charging towards him with her allies right behind her.

"Get away from me!" Kurata had a frantic look on his face as he fled.

Once they reached the entrance, Kurata's expression suddenly changed back into his usual stoic look as he raised a hand in the air.

*BOOM*

The crates that had been inconspicuously sitting beside the entrance let out a deafening explosion as they blew up in a large bloom of smoke and rubble. I had to hold my hand up to stop a piece of debris from pelting me in the face.

Once the smoke cleared, all that I could see was a crater at the entranceway. One of the men stepped forward to inspect things.

"This one is still alive." He called out as he peeked outside.

I moved over to see, and discovered that one of the boys had survived but he was missing his legs, and above that, the rest of him was wounded and bleeding all over. Even though he could barely keep his eyes open, he had a look of intense hatred in his eyes as he laid there wheezing.

"Should we take him as a prisoner, Headquarters Chief?" The man asked.

"He's too dangerous to keep alive." Kurata said coldly.

The man nodded and pulled his crossbow off his back and walked up to the boy.

"Let me do it."

Goro spoke up as he hobbled over to the man, who handed him the crossbow.

"Send my regards to the god of death, you little demon." Goro spat as he aimed down.

The boy kept the hatred in his eyes even as Goro pulled the trigger, putting the him out of his misery with a crossbow bolt to the head.

"Check if any of our people survived, and then clean up this mess." Kurata left the order before turning around and walking back into the base.

I couldn't help but recall the conversation I had with Rin just earlier about her people dying.

'Maybe I had more of a hand in this than I thought...'

I also remembered my talk with Souji about lingering hatred. I turned and asked Ryota to retrieve something for me. He soon came back with a blunt and matches.

I didn't know if I needed some onmyodo technique to go along with it but I lit up the blunt anyways. I stuck it into the ground next to the boy like incense. Hopefully, this would purify the area of any grudges that boy had left behind.

He had a horrible death, the least I could do was spare him of a horrible afterlife.