Grand Theft Auto – Japan

The Streets of Shintate

After a seamless day at school, Miya went to her apartment and turned on her TV to hear a news flash on television. The news flash announced that in the previous night, there was a huge explosion at the Konan Beach Power Plant, causing a huge grid failure all through Shinhama, the city south of Tojo, and the Konan Beach suburbs. The Tojo Prefecture Police have sealed off roads to Shinhama and shut down all train services west until power could be restored. The reporter announced that twenty-five Taniguchi gangsters were arrested, and the police were investigating the probability that it was sabotage. The reporter also referenced a similar occurrence in San Andreas, when saboteurs blew up a power plant in 1992, causing a power outage in Las Venturas. After the news brief on the TV, she found a message on her phone. She quickly pushed the Play button.

"Hey Yoshihara, this is Toshimoto. Be at Club Deco at eight thirty. Dress casual. Don't be late."

She wondered why Toshimoto was in such a rush to have her. She put her books down and headed to Shintate once again.

The nights of Shintate were rather dangerous. Shintate was not only Tojo's most populated borough, but it was also the most dangerous. Police wore bulletproof vests when patrolling Shintate's East section. She knew the Taniguchi—Tojo's largest gang—had their beating hearts in Shintate. Toshimoto, she eventually learned, was the lieutenant of Shintate's East section, and by that position, one of the most powerful men in the Taniguchi organization.

She found herself in Toshimoto's VIP room once again, humbly standing before the man that has Tsuyoshi's life at his whim. Toshimoto was a truly despicable man. He treated women like objects and obviously had no value for morals, but he did have one redeeming value: loyalty to his comrades. If he didn't have that sense of loyalty to his own men, Tsuyoshi would be as good as dead. She still had no idea what Tsuyoshi did, and naturally, demanded an explanation.

"So, would you mind telling me what Tsuyoshi did, and what happened to him now?"

"If you must know," Toshimoto explained, "Tsuyoshi was supposed to perform a very simple task of blowing up a couple generators on at the Konan Beach power plant, but he made a very grave mistake and set off the alarm system at the power plant. Because of this slip up, police surveilance on our organization has tripled, and we simply can't afford to keep them off our backs for good. What you will do will eventually rid of this bad reputation, and allow Tsuyoshi back into his normal life."

"But why me?" Miya asked, "You know I'm just a normal girl, not some kind of criminal."

"I have reason to believe that you must love him very much." Toshimoto explained, "That's plenty of motivation for you, and gives us leverage on you."

Miya was further disgusted at the Taniguchi. She knew they were pure scum. Despite the circumstances, she still loved Tsuyoshi, despite how dirty his life might be.

Toshimoto got up and put his arm around Miya, who obviously had a disturbed reaction to Toshimoto's affection.

"Listen, sweetheart. Shintate is my turf, and lately there have been a gang of young rascals going around and causing trouble around the train station. They've been mugging innocent people, vandalizing stores under my protection, and dealing dope without cutting me any kind of royalties. I want you to find out who these hoods are working for."

"What do you want me to do?"

"See, if they see a tan-suited Taniguchi approaching them, they'd know better and run. I don't want that. They won't be expecting a cute little girl like you to beat some sense into them."

"Do I have to kill anybody?" Miya inquired on the rather grotesque job request, "I don't need any blood on my hands right now, especially if they're just some teenage hoods."

"No, of course not." Toshimoto assured, "Do you have any experience in any kind of fighting art?"

"I took judo when I was younger."

"That should do fine. Go to the Shintate train station and make me proud."

With the dismissal, Toshimoto landed a gentle slap on Miya's left buttock. This bugged Miya a bit, but she knew that he meant it as an affectionate form of encouragement, not as copping a feel. She felt rather strange how nice Toshimoto was to her. However, she was too smart for that. She knew that gangsters always treated people they didn't like with courtesy and respect. She recalled an old Chinese proverb that went, "Never trust a crocodile with its mouth open. You don't know if it is smiling or trying to eat you."

The Shintate Hoods

Shintate was, as mentioned before, a very dangerous borough. However, as sad as it was, the Taniguchi were the only ones doing something about it. The police were simply too few to handle Shintate's—and Tojo's—huge crime problem. Among the members of Shintate's criminial element were the small-time punks who paid no respect to the big gangs. The syndicates often referred to them as gorotsuki, or "hoods."

The hoods were numerous, and had larger numbers than the syndicates. The only problem was, they were often too poor to afford the influence and firepower of the syndicates. Some hoods aligned themselves with the syndicates, having a kind of sponsored existence and in some cases protection.

The hoods of Shintate were known as the "Station Boys" because most of the people they accosted were within walking distance of the Shintate train station. They usually wore white hooded sweatshirts with baggy blue jeans.

Miya walked towards the train station, knife in her pocket. She saw a large group of hoods in front of the train station, but thought it would be smarter to not fight a large group of them, especially in a public place. She thought it would be a good idea to use her good looks as an advantage.

She walked towards Times Square, a huge, crowded shopping district in Shintate's West section, full of neon lights and huge department stores, where she thought the hoods' would be less than in the East, but still enough to cause an impact on them.

A hood approached her and started soliciting his services.

"Hey pretty lady." The hood said, "How about I give you something that can make you feel good?"

"What do you got?" she asked.

"How about you step into my office?"

Miya and the hood walked into a secluded alley between a camera store and a video arcade. The light was dim so nobody could see them. He pulled out his goods—a small, plastic bag with a yellowish-white substance inside.

"I got the best quality spank from Liberty City." He said, "10,000 yen a gram."

"Let me get three grams."

"Alright." The hood said, cutting three grams out of his bag for Miya.

As Miya reached into her pocket, pretending to be reaching for money, she quickly pulled out her knife and held it at the hood.

"Whoa!" the hood said, "What is this? What did I do?"

Miya looked at the hood rather indifferently, eyes rolled at what she was doing.

"Look kid, I don't care what you do. This is for a better cause."

"Wh-wh-what…"

The hood looked really scared and was almost in tears.

"D-d-don't kill me, lady! I don't mean any harm! I'm just 15 years old!"

"How much money do you have on you?"

"T-th-this much!" The hood said, stuttering, crying, pulling out over 400,000 yen in in cold, hard cash, "But this money belongs to my boss! This isn't mine!"

"Give me that." Miya said, snatching the money from the hood, "Now who do you work for?"

"I-I-wo-work…" the hood stuttered, "I work for Tamura! I work for Shinsuke Tamura!"

"I don't know who that is, but tell your crew to stop fucking around here."

She grabbed the hood's wrist and twisted it behind his back in a swift Judo-style wristlock, and pushed the hood up against the wall, holding the knife to his kidney. As the hood's face hit the brickwork, he started crying.

"Pl-pl-please don't kill me!"

Miya kicked the back of his knee, causing the hood to fall to his knees. She landed a fist across the back of his head, causing him to go unconscious. The hood dropped his bag of spank, and she promptly picked it up and put it in her pocket. Giving the hood a final courtesy nudge, she simply looked at him and said, "I'm sorry kid."

She exited the alley and headed towards the East section to Club Deco.

"Tamura?" Toshimoto screamed angrily, "That fucker!"

He threw his glass of scotch across his VIP room, perfectly shattering right next to Miya, but no fragments landed on her. Toshimoto's girlfriend had a scared look on her face.

"We told those fucking Kotetsu to stay out of Tojo!"

The Kotetsu Kai, West Kanzen's largest gang, was the polar opposite of the Taniguchi Group. They were based out of Nagawa, Nishiya Prefecture's largest city. There had been rumors of them expanding their operations in Kanzen, but none of the local groups took the rumor seriously. The Kotetsu had been expanding their influence on the east, and quite rapidly.

"Alright." Miya said, "I did my job. Can I at least get a phone call to Tsuyoshi or something?"

Toshimoto hastily wrote a check for Miya and threw it to her.

"There's your fee." Toshimoto said, "Now get out of here."

"Wait a sec!" Miya said, "There's one more thing I need to show you."

After finishing her sentence, she pulled out the bag of spank in her pocket and threw it on Toshimoto's table. He picked it up and examined it.

"We don't carry this stuff." He explained, "We don't mess with any of this South American shit. All of our product comes from Asia."

He patted some of the yellowish-white powder onto his finger and gently tapped it on his tongue. He spat it in a disgusted reaction.

"This is strong shit. As far as I know, no group in Japan would ever dare carry this garbage."

"So where is it coming from?"

"Watch yourself, sweetheart." Toshimoto told Miya rather firmly, "This is way beyond your league. You're just working for us. You're not part of our organization. You're ten years too early."

"Hey," Miya put in quite insistently, "If it helps me get Tsu-chan back, I must know what there is to know about this."

Toshimoto let out a deep sigh.

"Fine." He let out reluctantly, "This junk is obviously Colombian. As far as I know, the Cartels backed out of Japan arond the turn of the century, after things went sour with the Kasen Family from Miyako. After Kenta Kasen's two children wound up dead in the Liberty City gang wars, he struck against all Colombian interests in Kanzen, and the Colombians felt they have overstayed their welcome in Japan. As far as I know, they haven't been back, but I could be wrong. Now with the Kotetsu in the picture, it would make a lot more sense, what with them dealing with all kinds of foreign interests in Kanzen."

"I've heard about the Kotetsu." Miya said, "But what's so bad about them?"

"They're a new-school syndicate." Toshimoto explained, "They have no regard for honor or loyalty. They deal in anything and everything, and will do whatever it takes to get their way. They make us real organizations look bad. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in collusion with the Colombians."

Miya put her head down, and thought she was getting herself deeper than she intended to.

"Go home, sweetheart." Toshimoto said, "You must be tired."

"Thank you." Miya said, gently bowing and promptly exiting the club.

She was still nowhere near getting her boyfriend out of the Taniguchi's custody, but she promised to do whatever it takes to see her love again.