Spring, 2016
Opportunities were few and far between in Tokyo. Its denizens fought tooth and nail for the possibility of a good future with no guarantee at the end of the tunnel, no light to guide them. Nevertheless, they desired hope; a reason to live; a purpose. Some lost themselves in their work; others in their romantic partners. Some just lost themselves in the thick of Tokyo's menacing excess.
Makoto Niijima lucked out when a day meant to be spent patrolling turned into a tag-along with a senior detective and two other officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. With such a chance taking her by surprise, Makoto worried that the potential career-changing moment would pass her by if she blinked.
But, just as Tokyo's most successful citizens did, Makoto didn't worry about blinking. She just prayed that whatever was on the side of the gigantic penthouse door wouldn't bite.
Both Officer Sanada and Makoto banged their fists on the massive wooden door. Two more officers waited a few feet behind the pair, prepared for whenever the door would open. Makoto and Sanada's initial attempts yielded no results, so Sanada stepped it up a bit. "Kubo! We have a warrant for your arrest!"
With luck, those would be the words that would open the door. They would walk in, cuff Kubo, then tow him out of the building as victors in one of the most important arrests in the history of Japan. Makoto breathed deeply, readying herself for what would surely be a key moment of her still-young career as an officer of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
It never came. Silence from the other side of the door left Makoto on bated breath, only for Sanada to up the ante. "Kubo, if you do not open this door, we will enter using force!"
Knocking down the door would be a tremendous waste. It alone probably cost more than Makoto made in a month. Gold-highlighted carvings on the door almost distracted Makoto from the task at hand.
Officer Sanada turned to the two officers behind him, giving them the go-ahead nod to show the door how little they cared about its value. The two additional officers lifted the battering ram, the tallest of the pair smiling at Makoto in confidence. Makoto shook her head and stepped out of the way.
The additional officers held the end of the battering ram to the door, aiming their strike. Sanada figured he'd give Kubo one more shot and yelled once again. "This is your last chance, Kubo! Come out now, or we're breaking this door down!"
They knew Kubo was inside. He rarely left the penthouse, at least according to the extensive work Sanada's team had done tailing Kubo. When he did leave, he went to the dingy strip club he owned in Kōtō. From the club, Sanada previously assumed that Kubo conducted the operations of his yakuza clan, the Fourth Tosu.
Makoto smiled to herself when she remembered that they no longer were assumptions; Sanada's team found evidence. They found witnesses, rats, and everything else needed to put Kubo away for life.
Murder, extortion, bribery—Kubo did his best to commit every crime described in Japanese law. Not only that, but he also did his best to involve people in his schemes. That left loads of people to prosecute, and plenty to pull testimonies from. Putting Kubo behind bars would be cutting the head off a hydra, but putting him, his lieutenants, and numerous underlings behind bars would cripple the Tosu.
All they had to do was get through this door. Sanada gave his last nod, and the battering pair took action. They swung the weighty object backward, using their hips to add extra force, before slamming forward with all their weight into the door. It swung open to a shimmering, pristine penthouse that—
Blood splattered across Makoto's uniform before she even realized what happened. The battering ram gave a loud chunk as it dropped to the ground along with the man holding up the front end of it. Only after the man she once knew lay dead in front of her did Makoto process what occurred: Kubo shot an officer.
Makoto dove backward, around the corner that led to the elevator as another shot rang out. She never even saw Kubo—he must've been waiting for them to break the door down. Makoto panted heavily as she got herself into a crouch before forcing herself to stand up. Instinctively, her hand came to her face to wipe away the blood. Even knowing what she would see, Makoto gasped when she looked at her hand.
"Niijima!"
She looked to the corner on the opposite side of the hall. Sanada, the veteran officer who told Makoto that this would be an in-and-out mission with little danger, had the same idea as her. He pulled his revolver out of the holster and readied it. Makoto followed his lead and prepared her revolver as she stood up straight against her cover.
Despite the chaos, Makoto wanted to account for her fellow officers. Sanda showed no injuries, only facing a similar situation as Makoto: blood stained his uniform. As for Yasuda and Satow, they were nowhere to be seen and, as Makoto assumed, were lying in pools of blood around the corner.
Makoto worked up the courage to check the corner, only to be snapped out of her adrenaline-fueled focus when she heard Sanada radioing the situation back to the station for backup and medical. His radio clicked and he noticed Makoto. He shook his head, telling her off before he immediately did the very thing he stopped her from doing. His head poked out for the longest seconds of Makoto's life before he pulled it safely behind cover to nod at his only remaining help.
Makoto peeked around the corner, now without the same confidence she built up before, but with permission. She looked straight ahead into the penthouse. Kubo must've vacated the main area because she saw no sign of life on the other side of the doors.
Or on their side of the doors for that matter. Yasuda, the one who held the front of the battering ram, and Satow, the one who held the rear, were motionless on the ground. The grotesque opening on the back of Yasuda's head told Makoto enough about his status, but Satow did seem to have some hope. His bullet hole went through his shoulder. His police clothing covered the reality of the wound, but Makoto held on to the hope that only one person needed to die.
"Niijima!" Sanada caught her attention with a blurted whisper. She snapped her head to the other side of the hall. "Follow after my signal!" Sanada left cover, pushing up the hallway in a crouch. Makoto looked on in fear as Sanada checked the pulse of the second officer. From Sanada's lack of a reaction, Makoto couldn't decipher the result. Sanada crossed through the broken doorway, jumping up and surveying the room with his revolver trained. He swiftly turned back to Makoto, nodded, and moved left out of view.
Makoto pivoted out of her corner, gun in hand, before repeating Sanada's movements and staying low as she walked through the blood-stained hall. She passed over the spot she stood in when the day went to shit, recalling the feeling of the blood hitting her clothes and skin. She pushed the thought away and crossed the door, disregarding the feeling of blood drying on her cheek.
Makoto expected the extravagance of the penthouse. The Tosu declined in significance over the past few years, but they still maintained their spot atop the world of organized crime in Japan. Nearly every citizen living in an area with a dense population feared the Tosu.
And Mitsuo Kubo, one of the most dangerous men in Japan—on account of his power and wealth—awaited Makoto somewhere in the glorious penthouse.
Makoto caught sight of Sanada, who took cover behind a large marble pillar a few feet from the door. Another marble pillar on the right side of the entrance caught Makoto's eye, so rushed up to it before standing. She looked to Sanada for directions.
"Kubo!" Sanada yelled. "Don't make this worse for yourself!" This time, there were no gunshots. Just more eerie silence, reminding Makoto of those who had already lost their lives. She looked back at the gory scene at the entrance. Sanada lowered his voice so only Makoto could hear it. "I'll go up those stairs. Stay here to make sure he doesn't escape," he said as he motioned around the pillar to the spiral staircase that led to the second floor of the penthouse. Beneath the staircase sat a bar. A lone glass of dark liquor had been left spilled and uncleaned on its countertop.
"Sanada…" He always did this to Makoto. As some favor to her father or something, Sanada never quit in his pursuit to not let Makoto do anything that could be considered dangerous in the line of duty. Except for this outing, but they both originally thought it'd be routine. "I trained for this; I can ha—."
"So did they," Sanada said as he nodded back towards the entrance. "Stay here. If you hear anything, retreat to the hallway to cover it. Backup will be here soon." Sanada rolled around the other side of the pillar and hustled over to the staircase. Makoto carefully watched the top of the staircase to make sure that Kubo pulled no tricks and caught them by surprise. Thankfully, her discretion proved unnecessary. Sanada made it up the stairs safely.
And Makoto stood behind a pillar even more safely. To be frank, Makoto found it belittling that Sanada still thought of her as an incapable little girl. He'd seen her scores from training; he knew that she led her class in nearly every category.
An idea popped into Makoto's head. Sanada wasn't her commanding officer, only the one with seniority. She was brought along to be a bystander to an important arrest in order to give her experience. Forcing her to sit back and wait was an insult to her capability.
Makoto tried to shake the concept of disobedience from her mind. Sanada outranked her, and that must've counted for something. Still, Makoto couldn't stand around. She wanted to at least do something, even if out of harm's way. On her side of the massive living room of the penthouse was another doorway. Kubo probably went upstairs, given the advantage of high ground, so Makoto searching the lower floor meant nothing except that she wouldn't have to sit still.
Besides, if she stayed behind the pillars, Makoto would be faced with the bodies of Satow and Yasuda.
Makoto rolled around the right side of her pillar and checked the room that they already cleared. She approached the next door, delicately cracking it open with her trained gun to not make a sound. Makoto used the door as cover for her flank as she peeked into the hallway. Nothing but a door at the end of the hall.
Cautiously, Makoto wheeled around the other side of the door to check her flank. Again, nothing but a door at the other end of the hall. Makoto didn't make the dilemma difficult; she chose the first door she saw and approached it, finding it sloppily cracked open. She steeled herself. Her shoulder pressed to the side of the door while clearing her mind of possibility and worry. All that existed to her was her own fate in her own hands.
Makoto leaned hard into the door, turning on a screw with her gun drawn as she stumbled into an empty room of baby blue walls. The emptiness stumped Makoto only for a moment before she realized who stood in the corner of the room, just next to the window that filled out where a wall should have been.
Kubo spun around with a sleek silver object in his hand and no life in his face. Makoto didn't even have to think about it.
She pulled the trigger.
Makoto blinked as the shot rang out, but she still registered the effect. Blood splattered across the wall, forever ruining whatever Kubo wanted the room to be. Makoto's aim held true, and Kubo did not stumble after the shot to the head. His body fell backward into the corner of the room, slumping down against the window.
The off-center bullet hole in Kubo's forehead and his dead, black eyes stared through Makoto. There could be no doubt what happened: Makoto killed Mitsuo Kubo. A trickle of blood came down his forehead, dipping against his nose and dropping down the side of his crooked face.
Makoto stood there in shock, her gun still trained on Kubo's body, with her eyes fixed on the warm corpse. She looked over the details, only to find that the metallic object in Kubo's hand wasn't a gun like Makoto thought.
A flip phone—Makoto must've caught him making a phone call, likely to one of his saiko-komon.
"Makoto!" Sanada barged into the room and shoved her out of the way, his gun still in hand. Makoto finally lowered her gun, and Sanada followed suit when he noticed the body. "Oh shit…"
Makoto desperately tried to excuse her mistake. "H-he was holding the phone a-and—"
Sanada sighed as he holstered his service weapon. "It's alright… He got two of us. He was dangerous, and you did the right thing." Despite what he said, he walked past Makoto and towards the body. Even in death, Kubo glared at the cop who dared to search him. Shock took over Makoto, ending any chance she had of protesting when Akihiko rummaged through Kubo's jacket and pockets for—
Makoto's eyes widened when Akihiko—with cloth in hand—slid a silver pistol out of the inside of Kubo's jacket. He tilted it side to side, eyeing it for details. She did the same, so much so that she didn't realize Akihiko stopped inspecting the gun. "Niijima… Step aside." She raised an eyebrow but did as she was told.
Akihiko pointed the gun at the door, exactly where Makoto stood seconds before, and fired two shots into the wall. Just as quickly as he flipped Makoto's world on its head, Akihiko delicately placed the gun in Kubo's limp hand and stood up.
"Crew's gonna be here soon. Let's get ready to report," he said, walking past Makoto. His hand tugged on her shoulder, but she couldn't move; not after what Akihiko had done.
Without hesitation, Akihiko had initiated a cover-up that would affect the rest of Makoto's life and she knew it. The man who led her through the early years of her career just led her into Hell, tricked the devil, and wanted to lead her back out as if nothing changed.
But what if he didn't? Akihiko cared for Makoto; he had ever since Masanori Niijima passed and would do anything for her. If Akihiko didn't fake a shootout, was Makoto's career at risk? All her training, instincts, and logic gave her the right answer. Her trust in Akihiko gave her the wrong one.
The hand on her shoulder squeezed. Makoto shook the thoughts from her head, turned her back on Kubo, and followed Akihiko out of the stained room.
"Niijima! How're ya feeling today?" Amada asked from his desk. Makoto's return from her daily coffee trip always ended with the rookie officer talking to her. She didn't mind, but Amada possessed the habit of speaking whenever people wanted him not to.
"I'm fine," Makoto said as she walked past his desk, trying to avoid conversation. Too much weighed on her for small talk.
"Well, you're about to be great, because I got some news for you!" Amada said with a grin, stopping Makoto in her path. She turned back to his messy desk, which he shared with two other officers who surely got annoyed by Amada's unorganized work style. "I mean, I don't have the news, but I—"
"What is it, Amada-san?" Makoto asked, trying to get on with it.
"Sako-sama asked to speak with you in his office," Amada finally spit out. "Looks like you're goin' big time, huh?"
Makoto's boss rarely spoke with her in the office. The only instances of them conversing were for assignments, always with other officers around. Maybe Amada's assumption stood true; a promotion seemed like a reasonable possibility, especially with how her peers had reacted to her killing a grizzled yakuza boss. She received too many pats on the back and words of praise for someone who made a mistake—not that her peers knew that.
She certainly wouldn't mind a promotion. More pay meant she would hopefully be able to move into a nicer apartment than the one she currently stayed in, but it also meant the work would be more difficult. Makoto didn't care. She didn't go through years of training to only handle small crimes and the occasional interesting case that Sanada let her tag along for. She didn't murder the most dangerous criminal in the nation to—
"Niijima-san? I know that I'm glowing today, but you don't have to stare." Amada's annoyance snapped Makoto out of her memory. She just smiled, nodded, and walked away from Amada towards Sako's office.
On the way, she set down her coffee on her own shared desk and made the final steps toward Sako's door. She knocked. "Come in," said a gruff voice from the other side. Makoto opened the door, quickly taking a seat in front of Sako's desk. The older man, eyebrows thick with gray hair and his actual hair shortly trimmed, welcomed her. "Ah, Niijima. How's your morning been?"
Makoto liked Sako well enough. He was one of the most experienced people on the force, and his years hardened him into a gruff, stern old man who took some pleasure in yelling at people he didn't like. Makoto wasn't one of those people—quite the opposite, in fact. He always gave her easier patrol assignments.
"Can't complain."
"Amada sent you in?" Sako asked, receiving a nod in return. "Good. I'm sure you can tell that this is important." Makoto said nothing. She only waited for Sako to get to the point. "The OCCB's been looking for someone to head a case for a few weeks now. Because I'm so well-loved and respected, they asked me to make the choice. Given your exemplary record and newfound experience, you're the perfect one for the job. I'm promoting you to detective."
So early into Makoto's career and already a detective—Masanori would be beaming with pride. Still, she had to question the decision. It seemed a bit too ahead of schedule, even if she was excelling at every task thrown at her.
"Thank you, Sako-sama."
"Don't thank me yet. I haven't even given you the assignment," Sako quickly replied. "The Aka Handan Ikka, known on the street as the Aka Ikka, are small." The name rang a bell, but as Sako said, they were a small family. Makoto didn't know much about them, but that made it an actual case, didn't it? "They are very, very dangerous. While the actions of you and Sanada are commendable, they have done what we expected: open up a giant vacuum that other bōryokudan clans will want to fill."
"But you said so yourself—the Aka Ikka are small…" A half-dozen other clans came to mind that would see surges in violence over the coming months. The Kaneshiro, the Shido, the Sakura, the Aizu, the Kuzuryu, and the Kozokura were more formidable than the Aka Ikka ever could be. Makoto could pin the name of the boss to each clan she thought of, yet the Aka Ikka conjured nothing in her mind. They bucked the trend of naming their family after their first boss, opting to conceal their identities under a rather literal name for the family. Makoto's years of studying and research provided no help. "They'll be eaten alive by the other clans if a war breaks out."
"That's what one would think," Sako began as he held up a finger. "However, the Aka Ikka are different. Since we first heard rumblings of the name a few years ago, there's been a significant rise in deaths of bōryokudan members. Every major clan in the city has suffered from members dying under questionable circumstances, except for the Aka Ikka—who remain as the only syndicate without a death in the family over the past few years."
"Sako-sama, I am grateful for the opportunity, but—"
"I know, it sounds like a lot, but you are one of the most capable officers here, Niijima-san. Besides your skill, your numbers are great," Sako said as he flipped open a tan file. "It doesn't hurt that the top brass likes you after recent events. Plus, we all know that Niijimas never backs down from a challenge."
Something told Makoto that there was more to the story. Hell, she even felt bad for herself; she wouldn't be thrown into such a tough case if Akihiko never rushed to cover up the truth of Kubo's death—not that she told the truth in her report of the incident."Sako-sama—"
Sako disregarded whatever concerns Makoto had with a wave of his hand, which she did expect, but still offended her nonetheless. He continued, "We tried investigating a few years ago but got nothing but breadcrumbs on their size, resources, and personnel. We've yet to identify anyone in, or claiming to be in, the Aka Ikka."
The more that Sako described the dead-end of a case that was the Aka Handan Ikka, the more Makoto understood why it was passed on to her. Yes, it was a promotion, but it was a promotion to do less actual police work. She knew one thing for sure: there would be a lot of paperwork in her future.
"Great."
"I appreciate your enthusiasm, Niijima-san, and I expect excellent things from you and your team. You may request whatever you want for your squad and support, but both need approval from me or the brass at the OCCB."
Makoto was hopeful that choosing her team would make up for things. She made several worthwhile acquaintances in the TMPD, but those would be put to the test when working on an actual case instead of just going out for drinks together. Plus, working for the Organized Crime Control Bureau was notoriously difficult because of the alleged corruption that pervaded its most important officers.
"Is that everything, sir?"
"You're free to begin, Niijima-san. Your updated salary will appear in the next bank transfer," Sako said dismissively as he waved her away. She stood up and began to walk out. A few additional words from Sako stopped her just as she crossed the door. "Remember, Niijima-san. A war is brewing. You're expected to succeed, so do a bit of that Niijima-overachieving the brass loves and make your sister proud."
He said it as if Sae actually cared. His ignorance of the fault line between the Niijima sisters could be forgiven, but judging Makoto for her last name rather than her merit made Makoto dislike her boss immensely more than she had ten minutes prior. Then again, if he was judging her on her merit, she'd be getting fired instead of promoted for shooting Kubo.
Still, Makoto accepted the advice and closed the office door behind her, not looking as she took her next steps directly into another officer. "Sorr—Sanada-san?" Sanada must have waited outside the door for her.
"Happy about the new gig?" he excitedly asked. Despite the age under his eyes and how little he showed emotion, Sanada still showed that he cared about Makoto's career.
"I don't know yet. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of file work rather than actual police work."
"Makoto," Akihiko said as he put his hand on her shoulder, "you're still doing police work. You're doing detective work. This is something that no one else has been able to solve. The bosses think you're the one who could do it."
"Or they want to put me behind a desk all day."
Akihiko looked away from Makoto. "Yeah, maybe." Makoto got the hint that he knew something about the bosses choosing her, but she didn't want to pry yet. She had too much to plan, especially with who would be on her team for the investigation.
"Sanada, what do you think about joining my team for the investigation?" Makoto inquired. Akihiko had the most experience of any of the coworkers she considered herself close to, making him an easy choice. Her memory of the cover-up almost made her retract the invitation, but Akihiko's actions required her to pretend like everything was normal.
"And let you boss me around? Hah!" His loud, hearty laugh drew a few eyes from their coworkers. "Can't," Akihiko said, holding up a wad of papers in his left hand. "I've gotta verify this missing person report. Besides, this is your case, Makoto. This is your big break."
Not nearly as optimistic as Akihiko, Makoto didn't object to his sentiment. He had only been kind to her and had been the only veteran officer to give her a chance on more high-profile outings.
Even if they ended in bloody murder.
"Woah, Yukiko!" Chie amazedly exclaimed as she watched her best friend down yet another shot. "How many is that?!"
Yukiko hiccupped. Everyone else at the table accepted it as a suitable answer, so their excited banter resumed.
Makoto excluded, of course. She'd picked a few of her closest willing acquaintances on the force as her squad before giving in to their idea of celebrating. People who she considered nothing more than acquaintances were more eager to drink to her and—courtesy of coattail-riding—their new promotion.
"More drinks and Yukiko's future will be in jeopardy…" Chihaya mused, having quite a bit to drink herself. Her red face and messy, long blonde hair gave off the impression that she may have even downed more than Yukiko.
Yukiko hiccupped again. "Jeopardy?! Ish thaaat a threat?!" Yukiko's hidden fierceness always came out at strange times. A celebration of getting promoted probably shouldn't warrant anger from anyone, but Yukiko's strangeness eluded Makoto. She never knew how the girl would react.
Still, Makoto preferred her over other people on the force. Yukiko showed some degree of intelligence and already had a semi-significant case under her name. Something about proving fraud in a bi-yearly union election. Makoto couldn't recall the details.
Her next pick for the squad, Chie Satonaka, could be considered Yukiko's complement. Chie didn't exhibit the same smarts as her friend, but she did excel on the physical side of things. A Satonaka patrol ending in a footrace was a running joke across the department because it was used to excuse all the bruises that suspects would arrive with. A few rules may have been skirted along the way, but Satonaka was a good cop with a good heart. Chie took sips from her glass and laughed as Yukiko had even more to drink.
"Mako? You're not gonna celebrate your big day?" Chihaya asked as she took a sip of a drink that the bartender put together for her. Chihaya's affinity for fate meant that her police work often took some damage, but she did have deadly intuition. Chihaya possessed the habit of being spot-on with many things, but that came with placing too much trust in her power. Quite a few cases had been dismissed on her baseless claims that required her third eye to gaze into the void to discover misdemeanors.
"If she doesn't want to drink, she doesn't want to drink." The other one not drinking, at least not yet, sat next to Makoto. Mamoru Hayase, a prodigious kendo star in high school before giving it all up, could be described as the all-around guy for Makoto's team. He had Chie's physical ability, solid intelligence plus detective skills, and just seemed to enjoy being a police officer. His silence and antisocial attitude stood as his only flaws if one wanted to count anything against him.
Makoto wondered why Mamoru even decided to join them at the Old Imperial Bar in Yongen if he didn't plan on speaking much or having anything from the bar. At least the final member of the team just rejected the offer instead of tagging along to be quiet. Makoto almost faulted Mamoru for it until she realized she was currently doing the same thing.
Unlike Mamoru, Makoto had an excuse. Every few minutes, she'd have to gaze into the black eyes of Mitsuo Kubo. Blood dripped down his eyelids and pooled in his eye. His slackened jaw uncomfortably hung from his face, and his body hunched in a way that unnerved Makoto. All of it made her sick to her stomach to think about, especially the fact that she did it.
Even worse, the man she chose as a role model decided to cover it up and tell the brass a white lie.
"Fuck it," Makoto said as she finally gave in, if only to take her mind off her actions. "Nori-chan! More shots, please?" she called up front, realizing that she would most definitely end up regretting it.
"Woooh! Go, Mako!" Yukiko cheered as the celebration continued inside the empty bar.
Makoto definitely didn't regret those shots as she stumbled through the cold, empty streets of Yongen. Her first day with actual authority at the office awaited her in less than eight hours, but she wobbled around instead of going home to sleep.
As if she could even make it home. Drunken spontaneity pulled the group from the Old Imperial Bar and into the streets, wandering around for something interesting in the most boring part of Tokyo. It was no coincidence that the group soon split. Chie and Yukiko ran off unannounced, Chihaya went back to the bar, and Mamoru said he was going to the batting cage but Makoto couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Nonetheless, she could find neither the bar nor the batting cage in her current state.
Her shambling continued. Out of Makoto's drunkenness, safety had been placed last on her list of things to worry about. Tokyo certainly wasn't a city that young women, alone and drunk, wanted to be caught up in. Yongen's emptiness offered her some comfort. Despite its centralness within Tokyo, it felt more like a quiet countryside suburb.
Makoto tripped over the curb and nearly slammed her face into the sidewalk. As she attempted to stand up through her swimming vision, the street looked different. It had grown more narrow and winding, especially—
She realized she had turned onto a completely new street. What should've been a small moment became a gargantuan revelation that changed the shape of her night completely, humoring her for a moment.
Makoto giggled at herself before she continued trying to walk. The subway station could have been at the end of the road, but Makoto doubted it. She knew that walking randomly only dug herself more into her current hole, but it couldn't get any worse, right?
As Makoto walked, the building next to her lit her up with its interior lights. She carefully stepped forward, not taking any chances with that pesky curb, and looked through the window.
A coffee shop, empty on the inside except for its lights, sat on the other side of glass windows. Makoto ogled old-fashioned furniture and designs; the wooden booths and bar captured an aesthetic that Makoto couldn't put a name to, yet it fit perfectly with her ideal coffee shop. The few lights inside were dim, but the one coming from the stairs to the second floor—that was real brightness to Makoto.
Coffee sounded incredible. It'd help Makoto make the final push to the subway station. Not only that, but light meant life, even in the desolate streets of Yongen at midnight. The undoubtedly old, friendly man whose wife had passed on long ago and who spent his retirement serving coffee to the quiet community of Yongen would help her find the subway station, surely. Makoto's thoughts ran away with her; the coffee shop seemed so perfect that it must've been a dream.
Eager at what could be her only chance to get home safely, Makoto shuffled over to the door before knocking.
Nothing from inside. Makoto leaned over to look through the window again, nearly falling as she tried to determine whether to wait or not. She leered at the light from the staircase; its brightness told her that all the action was happening upstairs. She grew impatient—why would the lights be on if coffee wasn't being served?
Being drunk, impatient, cold, and lonely, Makoto knocked again, this time more urgently, but it came through in a sloppy pattern that Makoto would've found grating if she wasn't so inebriated.
Just as she raised her fist to knock again, a shadow flickered on the stairs. Makoto peered inside through the window again, this time with unconsciously hindered breath. The shadows grew stronger as it came down the stairs with its owner not far behind.
A tall, slender man, roughly Makoto's age, with shaggy black hair came down the stairs. He wore jeans and a… rain jacket? It covered most of his body, including his legs down to his ankles.
"Ish that… mmh," Makoto forgot all about it—and the idea of an old-fashioned coffee shop owner that she came up with—mid-sentence. This man looked nice, and only that mattered. Oh, and that he'd be speaking to her in about… three seconds.
The man came to the door and frowned when he saw Makoto, but still opened it. "Can I help you?" he asked. His pointy chin seemed closer than it was. Makoto almost laughed, but that would have been mean, right? She was already rude enough—the man was peeved to be interrupted with his oh-so-important midnight activities in a coffee shop.
Makoto felt eager to intrude, but not even alcohol could obliterate the manners that her parents had instilled in her so many years ago. "I'm… yes…" Makoto said as she rubbed her face, pinching her cheek to give herself some semblance of clarity. "Sub?" She hadn't realized how much her face hurt from the fall until she tried speaking coherently.
He raised an eyebrow. "Do you need something?"
"Yes… sorry… subway station?" she slurred.
"Ah." The man stepped out of the doorway and into the street with Makoto. He grew dangerously close to her until she just realized that her body automatically leaned itself forward.
She adjusted her posture as the man looked around the street, seemingly taking note of all their surroundings. Makoto had no clue what the man searched for, but he didn't seem to find it. He turned around, closed the door to the shop, and locked it with a key that he deposited in the pocket of his rain jacket after he finished with the door.
"The station's far and you seem a bit out of it," the man said as he looked Makoto in the eye. Drunk and existing as the most simple version of herself, Makoto liked his eyes. She really liked them. Their blackness reminded Makoto of something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She'd get it eventually, surely. "I have a friend who lives over here. You can stay with her."
Seemed like a good idea to Makoto. Her apartment, while clean and decent enough, only served as a reminder of how little she had in life. "Yes," Makoto said, nodding until it made her too dizzy. She began to tilt, but the man reached forward and caught her. His hand slipped around the small of her back, gracefully pulling her back to her feet.
Makoto giggled at the movement and the man's soft touch. The man didn't relinquish his arm, leaving it over her shoulder, as he took the first few steps with Makoto. He guided her out of the narrow street in front of the coffee shop to what Makoto remembered as the wider one she'd been on a few minutes before.
"So what's your name?" Makoto asked, feeling the pressure to be social with her savior.
Unamused, the man answered her without any inflection. "Fuzzy Dunlop."
"That's a funny name," Makoto mumbled as she held onto him for support. She giggled at Fuzzy's name, knowing it was fake, but not caring in the slightest.
The man said nothing for a few seconds until he retorted with the same question. "And yours?"
"Makoto Niijima," she said. Drunkenness gave her an awful amount of pride in just saying her name. Perhaps she wanted Fuzzy to remember it.
"And what's Makoto Niijima doing in Yongen at midnight, very, very drunk?" Fuzzy asked.
"Erm… I'm a, uh," Makoto sloppily maneuvered her way through the sentence before nearly completing it with emphasized finality, "police officer—no—a detective! I—"
"Police, huh?" Most people had at least a few questions to show feigned interest in Makoto when she told them about her job, but not Fuzzy. In fact, he sounded upset at her career.
It didn't matter. He walked her up a few stairs and to a door before knocking harshly. Makoto flinched at the first knock because of its loudness, but she quickly grew used to it. However, Fuzzy didn't stop knocking until the door swung open with a very angry, and gorgeous, woman standing on the other side of it.
The woman, with her dark eyes and dark bob cut, immediately looked at Makoto with annoyance. "Oh, goddammit, R—"
"Let her stay the night on your couch."
"I don't want your one-night stand on my couch."
Fuzzy opened his mouth to respond, but hesitated, drawing in another slow breath before finally speaking. "I have work tonight. I don't have time for this, Tae. I'll pay you to let her sleep on your couch."
"Dammit…" Tae looked Makoto over again. Makoto tried not to make a blubbering fool of herself, though she couldn't tell if she succeeded or failed. "I don't want your money. She can stay here," Tae said before she moved out of the way.
Fuzzy patted Makoto on the back, encouraging her to go inside. Makoto turned around, giving Fuzzy an unexpected hug, and saying a few words to him. "Thanks, Fuzzy," Makoto said as she stepped into the building.
He waved goodbye but didn't smile. As Tae shut the door, Fuzzy pierced through Makoto with his eyes, not moving as the door came to a close.
"Alright, let's get you settled," Tae said before leading Makoto over to a couch. "I'll wake you up in the morning. Don't move from this couch until then, alright?"
"Mmm," Makoto hummed as she laid down. Her vision spun as she rested on her side, but pleasant thoughts of her new acquaintance calmed her. She drifted off into sleep with no worries about what she'd done earlier that week.
Should've never answered that damn door. Hurts to be curious, doesn't it? Now, you're paranoid.
Ren tried to breathe his stress into the chilly air on his walk back to Leblanc. The past week saw his level of importance and work rise all too dramatically. Some dumbass cop cut the head off the hydra and five new heads sprang up in its place. That meant work at one in the morning; quite unfortunate for all involved parties.
As for the cop Ren suspected to be drinking her way out of staking him out, she changed the fate of the evening. Makoto Niijima drunkenly swaying her way into his arms paused Ren's night for a simple moment of comfort and relief. Time stood still a second too long and Ren didn't realize what he had until Tae told him to fuck off and shut the door.
Before Ren saw Makoto Niijima standing outside Leblanc, he had been preoccupied with how the Aka Handan Ikka would fit into Tokyo's reshaping hierarchy of the families. After, he became preoccupied with her. All his thinking came with the excuse that he had to worry about her because she was a cop snooping around the wrong places, not because she was intriguing or anything of that sort. Not at all…
Unlocking and entering Leblanc's stuffy atmosphere focused him. Since Kubo's death, certain bosses became more overt in their slights against Ren and he needed to understand why. Answers awaited him in Leblanc's cramped attic. Each step towards the attic shook the feeling of Niijima's warmth against him out of his head, leaving nothing but the moment at hand.
Ren took the last step and crept around the obscuring corner to find everything in its right place. Answers hid beneath the skittish eyes of a scrawny man, the man sat in one of Leblanc's stools—gagged and bound to it—and the stool sat atop clumsily spread white sheets that awaited the inevitable mess.
Behind the bound man of answers was another, this one a man of truths and questions. "Who was at the door?" Ryuji Sakamoto, matching Ren with his black rain jacket, asked. Standing directly under the dim and low ceiling light made his dyed blonde hair glow. It made the pistol in his hand shine, too.
"Homeless drunkard saw the lights and wanted to say hello. I pointed him in the direction of the station."
Ren approached the captive with careful steps to not crease the sheets or drag them out of place from under the chair. The closer he got, the wider the eyes of the captive. By the end, they were wide circles of fear. Left with no way to express himself through the gag, the captive could only flinch and struggle against his bindings to escape Ren.
Hah, look at him! Pathetic. At least have a little fucking dignity in your last moments.
Ren didn't fault the captive for shying away. His body looked worse for wear in every way. Below both eyes were various cuts, bruises shaded his forehead, cheeks, and chin, and his right pinkie was missing. Ren felt sorry for all, bar the pinky—that one wasn't his fault.
See, his lack of a pinkie was why he was captive, along with his noticeable-in-a-crowd blue hair. Those factors alone identified him as Yuuki Mishima of the Second Kaneshiro, a family that adhered to old-school rules designed around honor—most of it baseless bullshit from Ren's perspective.
"Hello, Yuuki," Ren said as he leveled with the captive by dropping to a comfortable crouch. He rested his elbows on his knees as he looked directly into Yuuki's frantic eyes. "Do you remember where we were?"
Yuuki shook his head as much as he could through the soreness. Despite the negative answer, Ren didn't accept it as the truth. Not taking his eyes off Yuuki, Ren nodded at Ryuji, who kept his gun on the back of Yuuki's head as he roughly pulled loose one end of the gag. It dropped from Yuuki's mouth and into his lap.
"Sure you don't remember?"
"I swear," Yuuki panted.
Ren looked up. "Do you remember, Ryuji?"
"Can't say I do."
"Fine. Then we'll save ourselves some time and skip ahead." Yuuki knew where the situation was heading, so skipping ahead was last on his list of things to do. His eyes went wider than when Ren approached him, and he tried to shake his legs free of their bindings. All the movement failed to bother Ren. "Tell me what the Second Kaneshiro wants with Kōtō."
Kōtō, a district of Tokyo, dictated Ren's sleepless nights for the next few weeks. It held the Port of Tokyo, a massively important resource for any criminal organizations trying to operate in the city. Previously, the Tosu ruled it with undisputed democracy by giving everyone a fair deal to do business through the Port. All families could use the port so long as they paid their taxes to the Tosu.
With the Tosu imploding after the death of Kubo and the arrests of its senior members, Kōtō was up for grabs. The unavoidable power vacuum created the need to stockpile resources, weapons, and drugs, and whoever wanted to stockpile needed the port; thus Kubo's death created a tide of bickering that swept through every crime family in the city.
"Kamoshida wants… To seize control… Take the Tosu's place…"
'Course he does. Suguru's had that honor-instilled stick up his ass since before I met him. Real fucker to deal with, and I thought he liked me!
Ren already knew that. "No shit." Kamoshida always wanted to be more than a gangster. His honor made him look down on himself and his coworkers.
Ren's few words unnerved Mishima into adding more information. "He's gonna ship in guns…"
"Why?"
"To teach the… Aka Ikka a lesson…"
Suguru can't teach shit, especially with a gun in his hand. Can't dress himself, either. I ever tell you the story of him taking the gun into the mall and—
Ren pinched his nose's bridge to silence his head. "And what lesson is that?"
"I don't know!"
Yuuki helped just enough. All the families bumbled around the port trying to avoid all-out war, yet Kamoshida intended to seize it, assumedly by force, and make the other families bow down to whatever rules he set. Most importantly, he wanted to make an example of the Aka Handan Ikka along the way—that was enough for Ren.
He stood up, looking at Ryuji for an unspoken command, then back down at Yuuki. Ren didn't blink as he asked the question that decided the prisoner's fate. "Do you know who we are?"
In the smallest fraction of a second, Ren got his answer. Yuuki's gaze shook as he tried to figure out the best possible lie, only to come up with nothing that could sway someone as resolute as Ren.
"Please! I t-told you about—" Ren harshly grabbed Yuuki by the chin, forcing the gag back into his mouth. Ryuji fastened it around the back of Yuuki's head, tugging it back and pulling Yuuki's head along with it. Yuuki screamed into the gag, tears emerging from his pleading eyes.
"Want this one, boss?" Ryuji offered his silenced pistol to Ren. Light glinted off the black handle and barely, inviting Ren to stop the shine by grabbing it. It patiently waited in Ryuji's hand for Ren to want its power—it would have to wait a little longer.
Woah woah woah, hold on one second. Think of how useful he could be! This is one of Kamoshida's lieutenants—keep him alive and use him for info. Or, if you don't wanna do all that complicated shit, he's got a family. Threaten him with their lives, get a few yen out of it, then kill him—full-proof plan.
Ren rubbed the side of his head. The cruel thoughts that filled his head ebbed and flowed with his mood and how focused he was on his sense of self. Tonight, however, he could barely think. Makoto Niijima's warmth and her crimson eyes continuously interrupted Ren's plans for Yuuki's demise, enough to shake his resolve.
"You okay?" Ryuji asked. His voice revealed nothing, but Ren's unease made Ryuji nervous. Ren knew that because that was how it had always been between them.
Fuck it, fine. Leave his family alone and forget about his wallet. Just get it over with and shoot him already, 'kay?
Ren could feel Niijima hugging him from behind. She rubbed her head into the back of his shoulder—he could feel tears. She begged and pleaded with him to not take the gun.
Oh, her? Some drunk bitch hugs you and you let it stop you from getting the job done? Gimme a fucking break.
Ren closed his eyes and exhaled his mind's anger into Leblanc's stuffy attic. "You do it, Ryuji." It felt more like permitting Ryuji to shoot him rather than Yuuki.
Ryuji shrugged. "Suit yourself." He rolled the gun back into his own grip, then swiftly brought it to rest against Yuuki's temple. The captive squeaked, his pale white fingers digging into the chair as his whole body tensed against the cold metal.
Ren expected screams of protest in between his ears, but his mind was nothing but silent. In control of his thoughts, Ren settled the business of the evening and gave Yuuki a few words to consider on his way out the door.
"You know why this is happening to you, Yuuki. If you live, then Kamoshida has an excuse to come after us. Can't have the fact that we're doing some questionable reconnaissance going around, can we?" Ren asked, letting the room breathe so that Yuuki savor the final moments of his life. "At least you die helping the right side." Yuuki closed his eyes and whimpered into the gag.
Ryuji pulled the trigger.
