PREFACE: Heya! I'm back with more River City Girls! And this one's gonna be from the first villain from this series that we'll actually see in person. Child of Sabu himself—Sabuko.
Enjoy!
Issue #03: Unseen
SCHWING!
There was a desk in Sabu's office. A broken desk.
Shimakuma. A type of wood that could only be found on the Izu Islands, and extremely expensive.
And now it was severed in two. Splintered from the force of the cut.
Sabuko gazed at the surface of her katana's blade. Her expression was cold and devoid of emotion.
Yet as she stared at the broken desk, her heart raced with glee.
Her breath came in shallow huffs as she came down from the euphoria.
After she'd regained her calm, Sabuko turned, looking for the next thing in the room.
She found it. A large chair. Himeji leather. White-tanned.
Sabuko felt her body prick with goosebumps. The hand that held her sword shook with excitement.
SCHWING!
Just like the desk before it, the chair had been sliced in half.
Sabuko's eyes lingered on it. It was a clean cut. A beautiful cut.
She stuck her sword into the floor, leaning against it. She let her head droop, smirking wickedly.
Admittedly, she had an affinity for destroying things.
Her underlings would have all sorts of expensive furniture and pottery brought into her fathers office. And then she would destroy it.
It wasn't intended as an act of spite. The reason for her destruction was simple. Sabuko had a fascination with violence that often manifested in her laying waste to her surroundings.
Sabuko's eyes wandered upwards, looking at a large framed portrait of her father Sabu.
As eager for destruction as she was, this was something that she could never ruin.
One could claim that it was a framed picture. That she could've easily had it reprinted and reframed. But she wouldn't dare damage it in the first place. That was a picture of the man who she loved more than anything.
And the man who she now stood in for.
Sabu Sanwakai had been arrested, and until he was released, she—his daughter—was his replacement.
From the moment she was born, Sabu loved her. He always had to spoil her with gifts and toys. She had no idea how he got her so many of them at the time, but it wasn't as if she cared. Especially when he made sure to make time for her. Sabuko loved hearing his bedtime stories, even if they were mostly over video call.
Her father always made sure to tell her how beautiful she was, which was essential. She'd been born with mismatched eyes—one brown eye and one blue eye. It was something the other children at school would tease her for, which made it difficult for Sabuko to accept. Sabu was sure to cheer her up, and to reassure her that her appearance was something to take pride in.
He'd raised her in a way that the common people of society would deem acceptable. He'd urged her to be respectful, to play, and to make friends.
Her father's work kept him from ever associating with her out in public. Friends of hers, her teachers, none of them had never even seen him. And for good reason. He'd already been fairly notorious as a criminal by that point, and couldn't show his face out in public. He said that he was sorry that he couldn't be there himself, and sorry that he'd had to send one of his "friends" to act as her guardian for the unsuspecting public.
He'd insisted it was for the best. He wanted her to be an ordinary girl.
But one night, she'd eavesdropped on a phone conversation between him and one of his "friends" that had been assigned to her that day.
Sabuko had heard the truth about her father that night, and ever since finding out what he'd really done, she'd wanted to be a part of it.
The idea of having a father who sought to command an entire city, reminded Sabuko of the bedtime stories that Sabu would always read to her. At her young age, his behavior reminded her of a king, which would make her a princess.
But she didn't want to be any ordinary princess. She'd actually wanted to do what he did. But her integration was easier said than done.
When Sabuko was a girl, there was nary a female yakuza to be found in the profession, nor had there been at any point throughout history. It was a rule that the yakuza rigidly enforced in the name of honoring tradition.
Nevertheless, Sabu would give his princess anything she wanted. And to her delight, that meant personally bringing her up to be the first female yakuza to enter the criminal world.
As to be expected, it turned heads if those in her father's line of work. Some figures in the yakuza world were enraged that Sabu would defile their lifestyle like this. Others would simply ridicule him for it, saying how someone who'd wanted to "play with his little girl" was better off bowing out of the yakuza lifestyle altogether.
But her father stayed right where he was, and having considered her a part of the family business, he'd brought along.
Sabu hadn't planned on leaving the seat until his death, but death was inevitable. And when that eventually day came, Sabuko needed to be ready to take over.
With this came some lifestyle changes, of course. Sabuko had to give up the friends she'd made, and she wasn't allowed to make any more. Her father had told her that as the future oyabun of the family, giving out her identity was far too dangerous.
From that point on, Sabuko grew up lacking companionship with anyone her age. As Sabu's future successor, the other members of the were considered underneath her. Not that any of them were her age. And despite working around her father more closely, he had his own duties to attend to, so she rarely got to spend any quality time with him.
It was lonely. But she didn't complain. She missed them, of course, but her new life had been something that she herself had wanted.
She'd had to abandon any notion that she was a "normal girl" after entering the underworld. Her father had been quick to iron out those life lessons that he'd begun to instill in her prior to her interest in this life. He'd told her that as people that would soon have it all, being a sweetheart to everyone she met wasn't going to get her anywhere as a yakuza. She couldn't show respect to just anyone anymore.
She'd been taught to respect power. And that she'd had to strive for power herself.
He'd began teaching her everything. He'd told her who the rival families in River City were—the families that looked down on them. He'd told her who their oyabun were, what their weaknesses were, and how they did business.
Sabuko remembered being struck with awe by her father's drive as it carried their family on toward the top, seeing to the disappearance of any one yakuza, and even entire families who'd opposed him.
Her father was a ruthless oyabun who in time, had gone on to make the Sanwakai the most feared Family in the yakuza, and since becoming its acting oyabun, Sabuko wanted to uphold that status.
Sabuko's eyes fell onto a pair of cabinets made of Shimakuma wood, the same as the desk that now lay in pieces.
She focused as she strode over to them. A large gong bearing a dragon began to glow with a brilliant yellow light.
The blade of her katana suddenly burst aflame. Sabuko swung her weapon, the flaming slice splitting the cabinet in two and leaving the remains to burn.
She gave a second stroke, sending a ball of fire leaping off of the blade and into the second cabinet.
Sabuko turned her attention to a pair of large, healthy potted plants. She concentrated again.
The light faded from the large gong, immediately extinguishing the fire along the sword's blade. The gong to its left began to glow—one marked with a symbol of a dolphin.
Four orbs of shimmering water materialized around her, She began gently orbiting them around her, floating two of the orbs into the plants. They burst on contact with the plants, wetting them.
Immediately, the plants began to wither, shriveling down into sad black crisps.
She floated the remaining two orbs of water over to the chunks of flaming wood. The orbs burst over them, putting out the fire.
Sabuko's breath came short. The plants had gotten their water sucked out of them, but the pots were still in one piece.
She couldn't have that. She concentrated.
The second gong's light faded. The third and furthermost gong depicted a rabbit. It began to glow.
In a flash, Sabuko kicked both marble pots high into the air. With blinding speed, she leapt off of the walls, cutting the airborne pots with each lightning-fast leap.
Sabuko landed, catching a glimpse of five afterimages still slashing away in midair. Chips of shredded marble clattered to the ground around her a few moments after.
Sabuko doubled over with glee, grinning monstrously. She felt her skin crawl with excitement as she reached into her hair and picked out a piece of marble—a fragment of what used to be one of the pots she'd destroyed.
She caused that—and with a maneuver that was nothing short of exquisite.
Sabuko stood up straight, short of breath. Walking toward the set of gongs as the third one's glow faded.
They were weapons—conductors of great power. These three gongs were precious family heirlooms, passed down the generations. Sabu was their present keeper, but ever since she'd expressed an interest in joining the yakuza, Sabu had promised to train her to use them just as thoroughly as he would train himself.
Of course, he refused so much as a first lesson on how to use them without proving that she was good enough a fighter without them. He'd trained her in both hand-to-hand combat and the use of the katana. The gongs' power couldn't even be summoned without the user being within range of them, which was why Sabu also trained her to weaponize her ki just as he did.
And so she had. She'd mastered combat, she'd learned how to channel her ki into devastating attacks, and she'd learned how to use the gongs' power viably.
Her father could do all of those things better, but with how long he'd been in this line of work, there was no surprise that he was an even greater fighter than herself. Her father was a nigh-unstoppable monster in battle, which made it all the more surprising that Kunio and Riki managed to defeat him.
Or at least, it would've been surprising.
She and her father had kept a close eye on those two as soon as they'd found out someone was poking their noses into their business. Undoubtedly, her father could've disposed of them easily. Had he utilized any one of the gongs' abilities, or even his ki, the battle would've been over in moments. But her father was prideful. If she'd known her father well, he'd looked down on the two of them and more than likely refused to use anything other than his two fists just to assert his superiority.
And in all honesty, why wouldn't he? They were two teenage boys that lacked proper training. Two local kids who had decided that they liked playing hero and thought that they could challenge the oyabun of the Sanwakai Family. In a way, she understood why her father pulled his punches.
That didn't mean that they would be as fortunate as to avoid her wrath if the two of them were foolish enough to return.
Kunio and Riki were responsible for not only sending her father to jail, but hospitalizing him as well. They needed to recognize true power—to respect it—and if she found those two back here again, she would ensure that they died knowing how miniscule they were.
It would be easy, too. Just as the things she'd had to do growing up. She'd been sent on assignments In her formative days as a yakuza, and as the one who would succeed her father in the future, she'd been sent on many of the more crucial missions. Be it making an attack on a rival Family or defending her own, Sabuko showed no mercy to her opponents. She spared no mercy toward the other yakuza Families, cutting them down like cattle. Her father taught how important it was to give any opposition a sample of what she could do. It was a lesson learned all too well.
Sabuko stode over to a second chair—made of Himeji just like the first. She kicked it high into the air, and leapt after it. She brought her leg swinging around and up in a wild arc, and then back down against it. The chair fell back down to the ground in two halves. Sabuko landed neatly on her feet, chills running through her body.
Sabuko looked around at all of the damage she'd done. Barring her father's portrait and his various swords holstered against the walls, everything had been destroyed.
Not that it was cause for concern. Everything that had been in the room could've been replaced ten times over. The police thought they'd relieved the Sanwakai Family of all of its ill-gotten money following her father's arrest, but he'd prepared a backup fund to be opened in the event of an emergency.
It would take some time, but the temporary loss of her father wasn't a death sentence for the organization. And with her in charge in her father's absence, she would see to it that the Sanwakai Family reclaimed River City in full.
Fortunately, the criminal underworld hadn't lost respect for the Sanwakai. Owing to her father's work, the other yakuza Families had even come to believe them to be a force of nature that could only ever be toyed with, not completely destroyed.
The rumors were correct. Her father still drew breath, and it would be a mere matter of time until he'd made it out of whatever maximum security hole he'd been confined to.
She'd managed to track down the members of the Family who had escaped arrest, and had scouted some new ones—both male and female. Sabuko figured that since her father himself had praised her, seen great potential in her, that gender was in fact, irrelevant. One of her two favorite assassins was female.
Sabuko also managed to get Chief Fujimoto out of jail and back into the Family. All too easy, as crooked as he was. He'd ordered his officers to go out and bring any potential members her way. He'd been a great help in the recruitment process.
But despite all that she'd accomplished, the Family was still in a vulnerable position with so many people missing. While she would've loved nothing more than to do battle with a rival oyabun, do the things that her father had done on his way to the top, she was needed here.
Sabuko hated that.
Her blade called out for murder, and yet she couldn't. This was all for her father, the one person she could never disappoint. She was stuck behind a desk whether she liked it or not.
Sabuko looked at the broken desk.
Figuratively, stuck behind a desk, that was.
Sabuko looked around at all of the destruction she'd wrought. It was satisfying to look at, and still yet not nearly enough.
Compared to the beauty of a human's murder, this was nothing.
It was why she almost wished for one of her yakuza to go against her instruction and attempt to help her against an enemy. She required no underling's assistance in defeating an enemy. She fought her own battles. If her men and women couldn't remember that, it would cost them their lives.
Not that she had a problem with that.
She would take their lives from them during the fight, not after. She'd cut right through them to get to her opponent.
Some would call such a thing irresponsible, especially for the one at the head of the organization. But in Sabuko's defense, she made sure that all of her subordinates knew that this would happen were they to disobey her. And she had to assert her authority somehow. And that preferred method just happened to involve spreading immediate death to any offending yakuza.
With her father in charge, she would've never gotten to do this. Her father punished incompetence with death just as any yakuza leader should, but he took no pleasure in it. He saw the organization and its members as a monument to the man he'd become, and he believed that to kill someone in it would be to destroy a part of himself.
Sabuko thought differently.
As long as she was in charge of the Sanwakai, its men and women were her property. She believed in the notion that things that you owned were yours to do with as you pleased.
And she had those brats Kunio and Riki to blame for the fact that she couldn't.
She wanted nothing more than to have all of the Sanwakai Family's members out of jail and at her beck and call. With that many people working under her, killing a few would be inconsequential.
But, with her father's arrest, she knew that she would slaughter tons just to feel better. Even she could see that doing that was a bad idea, and saw no other choice but to put the Family's needs before her own.
Sabuko could feel her blood boiling at the thought. . .
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The sudden sound against the metal door cut through her thoughts. She turned around to face the door.
"You may enter." Sabuko intoned, gripping her katana.
The door opened, and in stepped Yakuza, one of the organization's new members.
"Yo, boss!" Yakuza greeted, touting a chipper smile. "I got some news!"
A second passed, and Yakuza's smile wavered. He'd no doubt seen the ferocious look on her face.
"I-is this a. . .good time? I could always come back later. . ."
Had the Sanwakai been in a better place, Sabuko would've turned away an offer from an idiot Yakuza without a second thought. But she didn't have that luxury. She was undermanned, and desperate times called for desperate measures.
It was a shame, too. Yakuza was next to useless, being unable to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. It made him an excellent waste of space, the perfect fodder to cut down to satisfy her own need to spill blood. But by some miracle, Sabuko restrained herself and convinced herself that there was some other way he could've made himself useful.
"Speak," Sabuko commanded. "What news do you bring?"
"Just thought I'd tell you that we've got some new members," Yakuza reported. "Fudo, Katashi, Hiromi, and Masaaki."
Sabuko recognized all of those names. Those were the names of men who had served her father well.
"Good. . ." Sabuko replied.
"And I've been busy myself!" Yakuza boasted, proudly puffing his chest out.
"Do I want to know what it is you've done this time?" Sabuko deadpanned.
"You sure do!" Yakuza grinned. "I've been laundering money!"
"Is that so?" Sabuko asked skeptically.
"You bet I have!" Yakuza replied, holding his head high.
"What exactly have you been up to?" Sabuko questioned, crossing her arms. "Where does River City believe its money is going?"
"Huh?" Yakuza blinked.
"You said that you've been laundering money," Sabuko irately repeated. "Give me the details."
"Details?" Yakuza asked. "Isn't it obvious?"
"No, it isn't," Sabuko frowned. "I need specifics. Now tell me what you did and what your cover for it was."
"I dunno what you're talking about, boss," Yakuza replied. "I stuck some bills in the wash. Y'know, laundering."
Sabuko's eye twitched.
"What?"
Yakuza swelled with pride. "Didn't think I could do it, could ya?"
"Idiot!" Sabuko cried, her sword falling to the ground. Her hands became fists. They trembled.
"Don't sweat it," Yakuza was gleefully dismissive. "I hung 'em up on the line to dry."
"What do you use for brains, boy?!" Sabuko hissed, shaking him by the front of his uniform. "That isn't what it means to launder money!"
"It's not. . ?" Yakuza weakly asked, blinking his good eye rapidly.
"No, you cretin!" Sabuko shouted, roughly releasing him. "It refers to the act of concealing the origins of illegally obtained money!"
"Then why call it laundering?" Yakuza quietly mumbled, straightening his uniform. "Kinda weird if you ask me. . ."
Sabuko retrieved her sword from the ground. She glared at Yakuza.
Perhaps she could afford to spare one person. It wasn't as if she'd be getting rid of anyone of value with how incompetent this fool was.
And she'd been just dying to see the spill of blood.
But then she practically heard a lightbulb ding right above her head. She began to reconsider.
"Uhh, boss?" Yakuza asked "Y-you okay there?"
"I'm fine, Yakuza." Sabuko calmly answered. "I have a job for you."
"Aw, sweet!" Yakuza cheered, pumping a fist.
"Since you have such trouble grasping the basics," Sabuko continued. "I have something nice and simple I need taken care of."
"Lemme guess, you need Kunio and Riki taken out!" Yakuza, gamesomely smirked, twirling his uzi. "Nothing more simple than that!"
A stray bullet from Yakuza's uzi whizzed past her head, startling him into a sort of juggling act as he tried to grab the weapon.
Sabuko clenched her sword in a death grip. She'd heard glass breaking behind her.
She slowly turned around to see that the shot had completely shattered one of the decently-sized window panes.
Sabuko turned back around to see Yakuza grinning nervously, bashfully waving his fingers at her.
"No. . ." Sabuko finally replied. "That's not what I need. But since you mentioned take out. . ."
"Yeah?!" Yakuza excitedly blurted out.
"You can get my food today."
Yakuza blinked. "W-what?"
"You are to go out into town and bring me my lunch." Sabuko demanded. "Surely you can accomplish that."
"But. . ." Yakuza frowned. "Don't you have someone who does that?"
"Yes. You." Sabuko said, fixing him with a steely gaze.
"But I'm a yakuza!" Yakuza protested. "My name's Yakuza! I'm not some errand boy!"
"You dare question your orders, boy?" Sabuko shouted, roughly gripping him by the jaw.
"Eep!" Yakuza squeaked.
"Real yakuza possess more than a single brain cell," Sabuko snarled, releasing him. "You are no real yakuza. So instead, I will test your skills as a menial worker."
"This sucks. . ." Yakuza moaned, tenderly rubbing his jaw.
"I want you to bring me a California roll with a cherry flavored boba tea." Sabuko instructed.
"Where from?" Yakuza sighed.
"Mao's Sushi." Sabuko said.
"And how am I supposed to afford it?" Yakuza whined. "Mao's Sushi is Uptown! I'm not made of money!"
"You do nothing but walk around with that gun!" Sabuko hissed. "Walk inside and threaten to end someone's life if the workers don't do as you say!"
"Okay. . ." Yakuza mumbled dejectedly.
"After you get back," Sabuko sharply pointed a finger behind her. "I want this mess cleaned up, that broken window pane covered up, and all of my new furniture brought in from the storage department."
"Yes boss. . ." Yakuza said, hanging his head.
"I'm going to be in the master sauna," Sabuko said curtly. "Are my instructions clear to you?"
"Crystal. . ." Yakuza said.
"You have your orders," Sabuko gave a short nod. "See to them."
Yakuza sidled out of the way as Sabuko walked out of the office.
She started down the hallway, grimacing at how pathetic she sounded. She was the oyabun of the Sanwakai Family, and here she was, telling one of her men to get her take out restaurant. A high-end one, but nonetheless something that a simple citizen of River City would resort to. Not someone who owned River City.
Usually, they had chefs on hand to cook anything that she or her father wanted. But they'd disappeared along with most of the Family's members, and had even less of a reason to return. Sabuko hated it, but for the moment, eating out was her only option.
At least the master sauna in the Sanwakai Tower was still functional. Sabuko deserved it. No one could begin to understand the kind of responsibility that had been dumped onto her shoulders.
But now that she finally found herself in charge of the organization, she was going to fulfill those responsibilities.
Author's Notes: Whew!
I hope I delivered on this one. On my first playthrough, I thought Sabuko had the blandest personality out of all of the previous bosses, which stood out since they'd all had such colorful identities. But upon closer inspection, I noticed that there were things I'd missed. Mainly her destructive urges—as displayed when she needlessly shreds the desk in her intro. With some creativity, I was able to stretch that into someone who sees causing destruction as an indulgence, and someone who gets cranky when she's denied it.
Her abilities, however, I fell in love with instantly. Her repertoire has alot of flash, which makes for an interesting character to watch. Not only did I have fun translating them to the page, but coming up with the small amount of backstory for those gongs that you see in Sabu's office.
I also enjoy the idea that Sabu has access to the same fighting style as well. Given that you see swords mounted on the walls of his office in River City Girls—as well as in Renegade—I decided to make it so Sabu taught Sabuko everything that she knows about swordsmanship. And after that, I took it one step further and decided to give him the same powers Sabuko demonstrates in her boss fight. No telling how he'll fight when—or if—he shows up in River City Girls 2, but as far as this fanfic series goes, he's got the ability to pull off anything and everything that Sabuko can.
As you noticed, I decided to include the thug standing right outside Sabu's office in River City Girls. He's just titled "Yakuza" in the game, but I honestly dunno if they just couldn't find a name for him or actually intended for that to be his name. But for the purpose of this series, I'm going with the latter interpretation and declaring that the guy's literally got "Yakuza" written on his birth certificate. It makes for some nice irony.
So what's the verdict on this one? Yay or nay? Like I said, Sabuko was a bit of a tough case, so I'm curious to hear what you guys think.
Leave a review! See ya!