The Building before us was a fortress. Six stories tall with a fenced garden surrounding the grounds. No one could even get to it without permission. Though it sat in tokyo, it felt like we were back in the countryside with how removed it was from the world at large. No major roads going into town, no cars drove down unless they owned property. This was how the yakuza wanted it after all. Hard to call something a safe house if you have tourists wandering down the street, drunkenly looking for an arcade.

"Hard to call something safe at all when it holds scum like Takeo."

Maseo scowled within their heart. If he had blood, it would boil. If he had hands, his knuckles would be white. Tatsu knew this well because her own hands grasp the sword so tight her own shared the color.

"Is this just, Maseo? Do we honor our children with what we plan to do?"

"It would dishonor them to do nothing. To leave our hands clean when Takeo's run red."

"He will expect us. It is foolish to assume he is defenseless"

"He was foolish to seek revenge and not expect it to come back two fold."

A guard stands outside the gate. One downside to being so remote is that it takes so much longer for delivery to arrive. Tatsu's eyes ascend from the guard up the walls of the building. Each window was bared and cloaked, but Takeo would not be at peace behind iron bars. He can feel them coming, and Tatsu can see him peeking through the curtains of the fifth floor window. Five floors. Countless yakuza. All armed. Takeo as well.

Tatsu envisioned many ways one could attack the fortified castle. Sneak in the back? No, they would expect that and have guards waiting there for them. A frontal assault? They wouldn't even make it to the gate. Tatsu imagines just setting the garden ablaze and smoking Takeo out. One might think death by fire would be overkill, but the smell of smoke still lingered on Tatsu's clothes. It's smell began to intensify in her mind, forcing her to remember.

"Why wasn't I there?"

"It wasn't your fault"

"I was getting leeks."

"My fault, I used the last of it yesterday"

"I ran late. Mrs Hiruma had held up the line at the register"

"No one could have expected Takeo would come"

"Reiko… Yuki."

"Were upstairs, studying."

"They were such good girls"

"I couldn't get to them in time. The stairs collapsed too quickly"

"Hard to climb with a sword in your back."

"Not all of us were jocks in school"

"Kendo was a respectable lady's sport. I even made the olympics"

"I remember. You would have gone again if you didn't get pregnant."

"Not their fault. Not yours."

"You could have had any life if you didn't settle for me"

"I never settled, I chose you."

"Takeo hated that. Wanted you to choose him"

Tatsu recalls Takeo's face as he scurried through the flames.

The house was glowing before she even turned the block. Groceries spilled out on the pavement as she rushed back home, hoping for dear life it was the neighbors or some cruel prank by the local punks. No, it was hers. She could hear her children screaming from the second floor Flames licked the windows and there was a crash of the stairs collapsing. She burst through the door, hoping this was all a bad dream. She had dozed off at checkout counter. Mrs Hiruma always took forever getting through the checkout.

Maseo tried to fight Takeo off, but he was pulled between defending himself from the swordswinging maniac of a brother and trying to save his dying children. The flame-hot blade melted through his back before he even knew Takeo had gotten close to him. He tried crawl to the stairs. Maybe die with them if even that. Takeo ripped the blade from his back and stabbed it once more. This time the blade made true and pierced his heart.

The two brothers always competed when they were young. Who got the last snack. Who got the highest score in the arcade. Who got the better grades. But there was one contest that Takeo was never going to win. Who would Tatsu choose.

Tatsu grew up in the same neighborhood as the two, but she always had eyes for Maseo. He was sweet and cute. He encouraged her to practice. She encouraged him to study. The two would talk for days on end about their plans to leave their small town. Maseo got a job in the city, Tatsu got athletic scholarships. Takeo meanwhile, stayed in that small town.

Takeo always yearned for Tatsu, pinning for her. But he was younger and bratty. He followed them around like a puppy, but as he grew older, he worried her. The once annoying, but endearing boy, had grown into a demanding man.

"I knew he felt for me, but I didn't realize…"

"Takeo never knew when enough was enough. He demanded that I fight for your hand when I told our parents we were engaged."

"Like I would have ever accepted"

"He hated me for 'winning' you. 'Stealing' you from him."

"You speak as if I was a trophy"

"To him. You were always a prize to him. Something he'd worked hard all his life to earn"

"That night was the last we saw of him… before…"

"I beat him. After he challenged me for you. Just to teach him a lesson. After he lost, he left the house and never came back. After mother found out he had joined a gang, she cut him off. Disowned him. Thought he'd be happy having finally made a name for himself in whatever criminal underworld he'd fall into"

"Men like him are never happy"

Tatsu could feel Maseo's wounds in her own back as she said those words. They continued to remind her what was real.

Maseo was never going to bleed to death in that house. The flames were too intense. They licked his wounds like a wounded dog, melting the flesh, sealing the punctures. By the time Tatsu had broke down the door, Takeo was trying to rip the blade out of Maseo's blackened back. His foot pressed against Maseo's head as he fought for leverage. He looked panicked as he stared at Tatsu through the heat and smoke.

Tatsu leapt at Takeo. Her blood boiled hotter than the fires around her. Takeo scrabbled to his feet and abandoned the sword in Maseo's back. Tatsu barely had time to halt her assault when she spotted the burning beam collapse from the ceiling, splitting the room between them.

"I will find you, Takeo. I will gut you like the pig you are"

Takeo eyed the shattered remains of the door, eager to escape. "LOOK AT ME" Her voice demanding he pause, though he wanted nothing more than to be gone of all this.

"No matter where you run. Who you turn to. My vengeance will never be satisfied until I have your head on a pike."

Though a coward, he was also smart enough to know not to talk back at this moment. With that, Takeo dived out of the burning room, fleeing before the cops could arrive. Tatsu would have followed, but she remembered the now silenced screams of her children, her husband's body as it now laid motionless. Stuck in time as his last moments were to save his children.

"Move"

She felt Maseo's words echo in her mind as she stepped back, and another burning beam collapsed in front of her. She could feel Maseo begging her to leave, but she could not until she could figure where his voice had come from. Though impossible, she somehow stared at the blade still stuck inside Maseo's back and knew. She knew his voice had come from it. Tatsu was not a skeptic who ignored the mystical when it stood in front of her.

As if held only in butter, the blade slid out of Maseo's back. Before she could think twice about what she was doing, she heard Maseo once more. This time far louder and clearer.

"RUN!"

As she dived out of the burning building, the fire department and police had finally arrived. Neighbors crowded around the street. There was even a reporter buried in the crowds.

Tatsu couldn't afford to let the police stop her from what she was going to do. Takeo had already stolen time, distance, and her family. Ducking into the alley, she swore upon her family's graves, she would have her revenge.

"Takeo will die"

"Agreed"

After hours upon hours of searching she found his hole in the ground. A fortress that would soon be Takeo's grave.

"For you. For our children who lie dead"

"For you, who must live long after tonight"