Transmission # 3-4-8-0 Addendum "Survive"

35.6707 N, 139.7720 E

2200 hrs; December 8, 1963

Fight...endure...live; these are the facets all of us need to live by now. Not only the club, but humans altogether. If we don't...we all just go extinct.

First Sergeant Conrad "Duke" Hauser moves steadily through the brush along mile 4.5, section H of The Wall. The black leather, wool-lined boots became taught in the frigid air like a prick taking a piss. Tight, uncomfortable at the back heel, they crunch against the frost-laced ground as Conrad smarts with every step; he should've changed his sock. What a damned rookie thing for him to do and forget. The air was still along this stretch of the 35th Parallel. Here was a dead zone—rundown, forgotten, a relic of a war that had never fully ended.

The barricades were a joke. Some were undermanned, others abandoned entirely, their skeletal remains standing against the cold like half-buried tombstones. The JSDF recon squads were spread thin here; most of the men and materiel were pulled inward toward Ginza Prefecture, where the real concern was now. Conrad didn't blame them. With the main transport lines out of commission, the township and train station had become the focus. That's where the reinforcements, the supplies, the desperate bid for control went.

For repairs.

For peace of mind.

For the illusion of safety only a man with a gun could provide.

Cheech had laughed when he saw the amount of armed personnel in the town after the incident.

"You see 'em, Duke? The way they look at us?" He goes, shaking his head; Conrad was given leave to commandeer a few truckloads of men and supplies to asisst in the aid effort. Conrad felt for the town's residents, and Lt. Colonel Colton could understand. He didn't like - what with everything else going on to worry for, but he allowed for a few spare boxes of rations to go their way. Chocolates for the kids, cigarettes for the old folks - the usual. Did little to assuage the worry a quaint little place perched at the edge of nowhere could feel, straddling the line between old and new...

But it did a thing, Conrad felt.

Hoped.

Ginza was a nice type of town that didn't deserve a thing like this. No place should. Nestled in the forest valley of Fuji Mountain, the people here clung to beliefs, routines, traditions passed on by generations. A kind of place which stuck its nose to the grind, hoping the worries of today don't crushed down, watching as their children grew up, pack their bags, and eventually leave them behind.

"They been in transition since '46," Cheech had mused. "Still don't know what the fuck to be." He gave a dry chuckle, shifting the rifle slung across his chest. "That's why they stick a bunch of grunts with weapons in their backyard. 'Force to ensure calm.' It's the only thing that's familiar to'em. What a world, huh?"

"Mama mia," Fats mutters, running a gloved hand over the top of their M60.

"My fucking mother is right." Cheech smirks.

He was the only one still laughing.

The night was too cold. The frost too thick. The pines too still.

Nothing moved in this part of the world. But Duke had been in enough dead zones to know—the quieter it got, the worse it was going to be. Because Private Charlie Iron-Knife got squirrelly when things went too silent, too dark on them. Not that he hadn't been zoned out for a good couple weeks prior, but lately it had been getting worse. Duke didn't like having his point-man unfocused, and tried hard to see if he could get Charlie out of B Company quietly. Not get him a full-blown Section 8 as Fats keeps advocating - Charlie wasn't so whacked to have him discharged due to mental incapability. But mayhaps a referral to get him back stateside. To see a doc, or maybe just to get him back home to New Mexico.

AAAAAAA-CHOO!"

Duke nearly jumped out of his boots—would've been a small mercy—when the Turtle let loose a sneeze so loud it damn near woke the Beast.

The kid, Marvin, was struggling to pull rear, heaving himself and his overloaded ruck up every miserable step of the way. His breath came in hard puffs, barely visible in the frigid night air.

"Shit's messed up, man," he grunted, fumbling with the face covering that had slipped down past his chin. "Freezing my ass off out here. Since when we start pulling trail duty, huh?"

"Keep that shit zipped, youngblood*" barked Lamont, his older cousin, trudging just ahead. "Ain't nobody wanting to hear you complain."

"Ain't nobody around to care," Marvin shot back, shifting his ruck higher on his shoulders. "So what's the big deal if I say it? What, you gon' report me, Sarge?"

Lamont stopped just long enough to glance over his shoulder, the kind of look that could chill a man faster than the night air. "He ain't gotta report nothin'. 'Cause if you don't shut the hell up, I'll strip your ass raw and throw you over this damn wall myself."

That got Marvin quiet—at least for a moment.

"Nah, Turtle's right, Mont," Cheech cut in, rolling his shoulders and letting out a long breath. "This here is some grade-A, red-taped politicking. We all know it."

He sighed with relief as he takes off his M1 helmet; despite army regulation, his hair had gotten a bit longer than grooming standard allowed. If anything, that's what Duke will have written up by yhe time they get back to base. "Freezing our nuts off while General Abernathy gets a hero's send off with his own personal detail of Marines, Rangers, SAS, and limp-dicks. He shafts us while he takes pictures with America's heroes of tomorrow. See that in the Stripes the other day? 'America's heroes'? Pfft, we run Wall detail because some crusty-eyed papa-san asks, and they get to have a paid for vacation to Vietnam."

A number of grumbles comes out the platoon in agreement - Duke called it down so as to shut that kind of talk up before that of talk permeates. He didn't need the boys to stop doing their job for a perceived slight; this weren't nothing, not a thing. A picture in Stars and Stripes newspaper? Ain't worth a damn to nobody - that's not why Duke wanted to go, and not why anybody should want to go. South Vietnam was fracturing apart and it was going to need all the help trying to stand on its own. Flint liked to talk about the politics of it all, saying how it was a test garnering international support. "Third Internationale" was reeling from a divide between its two main pillars - there's no better time than now to strike the brand while it's hot...

But the mess hals were rife with locker room chatter, every table practically becoming a pulpit for would-be polisci majors. Nation builders who hadn't the faintest worldly experience barring being set up in olive drab and being shipped out into the World, now chewed the fat of what's best course of action to avoid World War III.

"South Vietnam's an ally, we should try and help them out."

"You don't even know where South Vietnam is on the map - don't even know where fucking Kentucky is on a map."

"It was a commie assassin who tried to kill Kennedy. I heard it from a cousin of mine in the Texas Rangers."

"Ain't no one believing Oswald was a Soviet agent. Guy was a messed up marine with nowhere to go; doesn't take a lot for a jackass with a gun and a bad intention to act a fool. Besides, aint nothing happen. Kennedy is cool. If he ain't gonna start a war over them missiles in Cuba, ain't no way he gon' do nothing about some fool shit like that, farm boy."

"Leader of the Free World almost gets shot, and ge calls that fool shit?"

"Free World? Free for who? You or me?"

"All this is window-dressing for the coming, man. Fucking end of the world type shit, and it's only gonna get worse. Nukes in Cuba, Kennedy almost getting offed, fucking college kids in Prague getting slaughtered. Hell, man, not to mention all those lights being seen over Anchorage? No one knows what to make of nothing, but you gotta be blind to not see how it's all turning out. Shit, soon as I get outta here, I'm snagging my dad's Pontiac Grand Prix and cruise till the tires fall off. Woosah, bro, absolute woosah."

Was the usual jargon one had to stomach when sitting through their cafeteria, all while you stomached the so-so cornbread and the pasta with the ketchup they call tomato sauce. Coffee was a subpar "meh", so you wouldn't be able to wash it down. And unfortunately beer was one of those things General Abernathy was a stickler for; base had a PX you could get stuff from home, but the Pabst was monitored almost always.

Didn't help, too, a lot of the time they were told the supply was either too low or gone. Fats kept spreading the talk raiders from over The Wall were sneaking in to snag stuff right under their noses. Could be right; once or twice they'd seen a couple of figures in the night hightail outside the base. Everyone was on strict orders, though: no potshots unless the target was fully visible. Smuggling was annoying, but an accidental shooting of a local was far worse. They could afford to miss a few boxes of cigs, beer, and whatever creature comforts soldiers needed.

The wind howled low through the pines, threading through the frost-coated bark and skeletal barricades, whispering just beyond the range of human hearing. It was the kind of sound that crept into a man's bones, settled under the skin like a parasite.

Duke tried to push the feeling out of his mind.

Instead, he kept his eyes ahead, jaw rolling absently, the familiar weight of his carbine steady in his hands. He focused on Charlie's path, watching where the tracker placed his steps, mirroring his movements. This stretch of The Wall had been silent for weeks.

Too silent.

The trail ahead seemed to disappear into the underbrush, swallowed whole by shadow. The forest on either side stood unnaturally still—no rustling of unseen creatures, no distant snap of a branch, nothing but the wind slithering between the trees.

Charlie didn't like it.

Charlie was a man who rarely showed much of anything—steady hands, steady breath, steady pace—but tonight, along with all the other nights, something was off in him. He kept twitching, his gaze darting toward the tree line as if expecting something to leap out. Duke didn't like if Charlie was spooked, then something definitely was wrong.

The rest of the platoon hadn't caught on yet. Cheech was still running his mouth, muttering about how the brass didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Marvin was bellyaching about the cold, his boots, his ruck—everything short of life itself. Katzenbogan kept fumbling with his M-LAW, the occasional clunk of metal against his gear making Duke's teeth grind.

But Charlie just kept walking. His fingers primed over his rifle grip, breathing tight and controlled. Uneasy. Duke exhaled slowly, steadying his own pulse.

This was the sector we were told to monitor, he thinks to himself. This abandoned little patch had seen no visible sign of commotion for months. So why did that old papa-san want them to hunker down here and post up? Made no sense. Even if the geezer had been bobbing up and down the base more often than not, tagging along with his sword-carrying samurai butler. Made for quite a scene every time they showed up to Basilone, but Duke never felt easy when that man showed up. Too unassuming to be just a regular face, and not nearly as genteel as that smile he wears tries to convey.

To Duke, the man looked to constantly have the face of his high school math teacher: ever pensive, ever perceptive, always looking like he was solving an unanswerable problem in his head.

Charlie's hand shot up, fingers stiff as iron.

Duke didn't hesitate—he seconded the motion immediately, throwing up his own fist.

"Down," he ordered, voice just above a whisper. "Shut the hell up."

No one questioned it.

Because when Charlie heard something—no matter how crazy he was—the platoon listened.

A hushed silence settled over them like a thick fog.

Fats awkwardly maneuvered the M60 into position, but he was too high to be Johnny with it now. Too much time lounging, not enough PT. The nickname fit him. Marv shut his mouth real quick, for once in his life, and Lamont kept the rear group in line, his watchful eyes ensuring nobody broke formation.

Slowly, deliberately, Duke moved up beside Charlie. He walked with purpose, boots finding solid ground despite the uneven frost-covered dirt. The moonlight painted Charlie in cold silver hues, standing tall like some imperious cigar shop Indian—except meaner, and angrier to boot.

Duke studied his profile, the hard angles of his face, the tight set of his jaw.

What the hell's got you so spooked, old man?

He kept his voice low. "What you got, Charlie?"

Charlie didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed locked on the forest path, scanning beyond the trees, down the mountain, toward the lone road slicing through the slumbering plain.

A long pause.

Then, finally, he spoke.

"Company's coming, Sarge."

That was all he said.

Duke followed his line of sight, scanning the Kanto below. All he saw was an endless stretch of night, a vast, quiet land held tight in the grip of winter's morass.

He saw nothing.

He heard nothing.

Just the cold wind whistling through the pines, rattling the branches, wrapping around them like an unseen phantom.

Duke sighed through his nose. He liked Charlie, but sometimes he wondered if the man was flirting with a Section 8.

Then he heard it.

A deep, distant rumble.

At first, it was just on the edge of perception, blending with the wind. Then it grew—rolling, pounding, gathering.

A storm of engines.

Duke narrowed his eyes, straining to see through the dark. Then—tiny flickers of light. Torches. Small and minuscule from this distance, but wrong against the countryside's empty sprawl.

His gut twisted.

"What the hell is that…" he muttered.

He didn't wait for an answer—he spun, barking over his shoulder.

"Radioman, on me! Now!"

Charlie remained still, unmoving as a salt pillar, eyes never leaving the road.

Duke grabbed the receiver from the huffing radioman, flipping to the emergency channel. "Camp Basilone, this is Scouting Party Bravo. We've got—"

Then he saw them.

The horde.

A hundred or more motorcycles, tearing through the dark like a mad band of Huns, engines roaring, headlights off, flames dancing in the night.

And they were headed straight for the Sixth Army.

Tomorrow's not guaranteed to people like us, but that doesn't mean we don't have a right to get happy. Our days may be numbered, so best make them the best we can afford...

The treble of the thunder machine beneath Zabuza thrummed through his bones, a deep, growling reverberation that traveled up through the metal frame and into his very marrow. The shaking of the steel, the wild howl of the billowing wind, turned his skin a sallow pale under the sickly moonlight.

The cold should've bitten at him, cut through his exposed flesh, seeped into his bones.

But it didn't.

He'd long since gone numb to whatever this world could throw at him.

Hundreds of engines roared alongside his own, racing across the darkened plain like comets hurling through the void. The headlights stretched out into the night—torches of a barbarian horde, streaking across the land in defiance of the silent, slumbering earth.

And all of it—every last howling, rampaging, murderous soul—was because of him.

The Vinsmoke Judges, the Beastmen, Big Mom's crew—every gang worth a damn in this part of the world had come to attention.

And they had bellyached.

They had moaned.

They had bitched.

But all of that faded—dissolved into nothing—the moment Zabuza unsheathed the Butcher's Blade.

The moment the steel left its scabbard, shining in the moonlight, thirsting for what was to come.

Amazing how foolish fear could make people.

These idiots were more afraid of him than of charging straight into the entire American military.

The thought made something dark curl at the edges of his mouth.

The feeling takes him back.

Back to those black sands.

Back to Iwo Jima and the deafening roar of artillery, the sky splitting apart, the earth trembling beneath the footsteps of giants.

He could almost smell the gunpowder, hear the screams drowned out beneath the endless shelling, feel the heat of flamethrowers turning foxholes into crematoriums again

Yeah.

This was familiar.

This was home.

This is the kind of familiar Zabuza can get behind.

Not Keijo, though.

Unlike the rest of'em, Keijo lived in a place between yesterday's battlefields and the world of tomorrow.

Zabuza focused on the road ahead, on the roaring tide of steel and fire surging beside him. His chopper took point, the thunderous heartbeat of the horde pulsing behind him like a war drum.

Organizing The Fangs into their packs was easy. Their military background meant they understood formation, chain of command, and who the hell to listen to.

The Judges and Beastmen, though?

That took work.

Dregs. Drifters. Junkies with a penchant for riding. Half of them probably barely remembered how they even got here. Corralling them had been a bitch—like trying to herd a pack of stray dogs high on jet fuel.

In the end, they were shoved into the center, surrounded by the disciplined packs of Fangs. Each captain took the lead, following Zabuza's trailblazing machine through the tunnels.

When the Akatsuki insurgents were wiped out, they didn't leave much in the way of directions—no maps, markers, only vague coordinates. But they rode through the blackened veins of the underworld, through the hollow belly of Japan, where the ceiling hung low and the air smelled of gas, oil, and wet stone. Damn nearly went deaf in those tunnels - engines screamed, metal wailed against stone, reverberating through the caverns as the mechanized beasts crawled from the deep. The roar of it all became one continuous cacophony, battering against his skull, drowning out every other thought.

This was the best way, he kept saying. The only way. JSDF scouts choked the highways above and made it harder to slip past.

And Gato needed them to act fast; this wasn't some half-baked gang raid. All of it was based off precision, and demanded two things—timing and a hell of a lot of noise.

"All eyes need to be on you", the little man told him and Tsume in their meeting. "Fucking Yamato - he's getting too smart. Word from up top tells me he needs to be taken care of, but fuck that. Ruffle his feathers a little bit. Shake up the cage. Get him looking the other direction. But don't fucking touch him."

"His people have been combing up and down the waterfront for days. It's only a matter of time before eventually they'll find the tunnels, Gato. And when they do, you and your pen-pal won't be able to keep things quiet." Tsume goes, a sharp canine biting down on her lower lip. "Force is the only thing that'll drive'em away."

"I know that," Gato throws up his hands, Zabuza remembering the little man twiddling the cigarette in his fat fingers; Gato was nervous - things were being forced faster than he could've accommodated. For a fat rat like him, his instincts told him to sit, wait, hope he predators walk on past. Yet this was a time for action; Yamato was too much of a do-gooder to let them act on their own.

Wasn't smart to let a man like that dictate their course of attack.

"Back-up for the tunnels ain't a gonna be a problem - they're covered." Gato puffs out a quick stream of smoke.

"By who?" Tsume asks.

"No one you need to worry about."

Zabuza smirked under his mask.

Zabuza wasn't some fool drunk on power, drunk on the idea of being at the head of an army.

Sure, he rode at the front. Sure, the thunder rumbled in his wake, an iron tide answering only to him. But he wasn't blind to the game. Keijo had been a fool—thought being decent meant something in a world where men ate or got eaten. Thought it made him better. Stronger. But that was the fastest way to debase yourself, to wind up a corpse in a ditch, spat on by the very people you thought you could trust.

Alone.

Zabuza knew better.

A cunning beast doesn't just growl and snarl inside its cave—it adapts. It thinks. It sees beyond the darkness, beyond the immediate hunger gnawing at its belly. Being Alpha wasn't about barking the loudest. It was about being useful—showing the pack that you weren't just strong, but smart. That's why Gato funded The Fangs - not because he liked them, not because he trusted them, but because he knew Zabuza had a mind worth paying for.

Hell, he sure as shit wouldn't trust Tsume. That bitch had all the charm of a rabid dog and none of the sense.

But Zabuza wasn't stupid enough to pick a real fight with an American military base while they were in the middle of a reshuffling; this whole run was a show.

A dog and pony act.

Roman Candles. Toilet Bursts. Red Flowers. A bona fide arsenal of fireworks at their disposal to keep the MetroPD confused and thinking twice. Yamato had a hard-on for them ever since they made their little scene in front of the precinct. Since then, the police had been moving in—quietly, methodically, like a slow-turning knife slipping between the ribs, into the drainage systems beneath Tokyo.

The Akatsuki Tunnels weren't hard to find, but evidently Yamato now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Either deal with the nasty little surprised hiding by the harbor, or put all his effort into catching Zabuza and more than a couple hundred hopped up bōsōzoku careening their way towards Camp Basilone.

The roar of engines filled the night, a rolling thunder that swallowed the darkened plains whole. The biker horde surged forward, a storm of steel and fire, moving as one vast, snarling beast toward the island of white light in the distance.

Camp Basilone stood like a fortress carved from the night, its floodlights burning harsh and pale, bathing the base in an ethereal glow. It shone like a polished jewel, stark against the blackened backdrop of the world beyond.

Zabuza took it all in.

The massive hangars. The skeletal watchtowers standing like silent sentinels. The distant figures scrambling into motion.

Even from here, he could see the commotion brewing inside the base—shadows darting between the buildings, soldiers rushing to their stations.

And there—by the runways—the AC-130s were already prepping for takeoff, their engines growling to life, hungry for the sky.

A smirk tugged at the edge of Zabuza's lips.

Good.

They're right on time.

The dogs—strapped into sidecars beside The Fangs—howled, their cries rising above the mechanical roar, their voices joining the storm.

Zabuza raised a hand, signaling to Koga. The man, his greasy ponytail swinging behind him, turns and barked the orders. His packs moved in tight formation, reaching for their payloads—Sunbird Firecrackers and Bouncing Betties—primed and ready. One push of a button and they'd be launched skyward, a chaotic mess of sound and fury, a sight too big, too loud for the Americans to ignore.

"Not too fucking close, Zabuza. Twelve o'clock."

Vinsmoke yells, nudging his chin toward the .50 caliber emplacements, their barrels already shifting, watching.

Waiting.

One wrong move, one wrong inch too close, and they'd be torn apart before the show even started.

Zabuza lets out a slow breath, eyes locked on the waiting beast of steel and fire ahead. "Stay the course!" He barks.

Not yet...not yet...

The night air is thick with the growl of steel and rubber against the cold asphalt as the gang's motorcycles carve a furious path toward Basilone. Headlights slice through the dark like the fangs of hungry beasts, gleaming off rain-slick pavement and casting long, jagged shadows that flicker in time with the blaze of burning pyrotechnics.

Big Mom is a storm of cackling laughter, her Harlem roadster eating up the street, her kids whooping like banshees in the night. The albino crocodile skin saddlebags slap against the frame with each jolt, a cruel sort of drumbeat to the chaos. She's chaos incarnate, and Zabuza, for all his grim practicality, knows the value of a show. A show keeps people afraid. A show makes people remember.

"Let fly," he growls, voice cutting through the wind and the rising screams of the fireworks.

The payloads are loosed. Rockets scream into the sky, shattering the night in violent bursts of red and gold, electric blue and sickly green. The echoes ripple outward, shaking windows, rattling bones. It's the kind of noise that makes men hesitate before they reach for their guns, the kind that reminds Zabuza of standing under enemy artillery, of the pounding in his skull as the air itself cracked open with fire and shrapnel. His butcher's blade had been heavier then, drenched in fresh meat, drinking deep. It remembers, just as he does.

He shakes the ghosts away. Keijo should've been here, but Keijo isn't, and Zabuza doesn't mourn the dead. The living need him more.

The motorcycles swarm closer, moving like a tide of gleaming chrome and leather and howling their battle cries. For Zabuza this isn't just another job. This is their ascent. Gato's money is the means, but power—real power—is the goal. No more scraps. No more scurrying in the dark like rats.

They're wolves now. And tonight, they bare their teeth.

Chief Yamato, the great hero-cop with all the answers, is going to take the bait. He has to. The ROJ won't let the Expeditionary Force assembly falter—not in any way. Too much is at stake. Too many eyes watching. This will send those fat birds into the air, the American brass spinning their tires, stuck in a bureaucratic tailspin while the streets burn beneath them.

And that's exactly what they need.

It'll be the opening—the only opening—they need.

And Kiba, too.

By now, he and Haku should be in position outside Madoka's premises, waiting in the dark, blades sheathed, engines idling low. Just a little longer. Just until the Metro police are scrambling, chasing ghosts and fireworks, pulled apart at the seams by the chaos unfolding. Then the streets will be empty where it matters.

Then, the real work begins.

Hate's not why I do this, Kiba. It's not why we made the club, and it's not what I want from you in the future. You and your sister... deserve more than to be burdened by my problems. So promise me: learn from my mistakes. It's the only way we're gonna evolve, and become something better. It's too late for me, but not for you...

Kiba exhaled slowly, watching the cloud of his breath fade into the cold night air. The cheap rice wine sat heavy in his gut, its warmth long gone, leaving only a sour taste at the back of his throat. The nerves pressing in on him had burned the haze away, forcing him into an unwanted clarity. But it wasn't just the job twisting knots in his stomach.

He didn't belong here.

The high-rises stretched upward like silent, disapproving sentinels, their glass facades reflecting the neon glow of the city in cold, fractured distortions. Even the trees in the manicured gardens felt unnatural—trimmed and shaped into a perfection that had no place in his world. It was all too clean, too still. Every polished surface, every well-lit path screamed the same thing: You don't belong. You never did.

The low rumble of his motorcycle felt obscene in this part of town, an uninvited guest at an aristocrat's banquet. It was a relic of the streets, of oil-stained hands and alleyway brawls, a sound meant for the backroads and the slums—not here. The people inside these walls wouldn't recognize it, wouldn't understand it. To them, it was an anomaly, something foreign and unwelcome.

But Akamaru—bless him—was oblivious as always. The big mutt sat at his side, tongue lolling, tail giving a slow, lazy wag. The dog didn't feel the weight of the moment, didn't care about glass towers or gated estates. To him, this was just another night, another place, another job.

Kiba envied that.

Two shadows suddenly shift against the moonlight—a silent movement from across the way. Prime Minsiter Madoka was leading Haku up to the door. Mr. Prime Minister looked around to make sure the coast was clear; this wasn't the first time he'd been bringing Haku up to his loft, but a man like him needed to be careful. Though Ikkyu's wife had been dead for a good twelve years at this point, loneliness wasn't good enough excuse. From the loftiest heights, to the lowliest alleys, scandal can be found anywhere in TokyoMetro. No matter the station, no matter the reasons; sin had a price, and a man like Ikkyu could afford it.

Kiba spat out the toothpick, watching as it landed somewhere in the perfectly trimmed grass. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and pulled his hood lower over his face. The night air had that crisp bite to it, the kind that made a man feel awake, wired. No more nerves. No more doubts.

He shifted in the shadow of the building, keeping his body low, his presence a whisper in the dark. Across the small veranda, some half-assed attempt at modern art—a twisted bronze mass someone had paid too much for—stood between him and Haku. It was ugly, meaningless, but right now, it was cover. That was all that mattered.

His eyes stayed locked on the two men approaching the entrance. Haku moved with that same weightless grace of his, a shadow wrapped in silk. The slightest of glances—so imperceptible it might as well have been imagined—passed between them.

A forlorn lamp buzzed above, casting just enough light to stretch their silhouettes long and thin across the pavement.

Go time.

Akamaru didn't make a sound. Good boy. He knew the stakes. One shot, one chance, or MetroPD would be breathing down their necks before they even crossed the threshold.

But Kiba wouldn't fuck this up. He couldn't.

He was his mother's son—had her sharpness, her instincts, her fire. Dad tried to train it out of him, tried to break the wildness, mold him into something else.

Something "better".

Tried, being the key word there.

But Keijo wasn't around long enough for it to matter, leaving Kiba to learn however he can in ever-changing, pitiless habitat bred for the strong, and hard on the weak. Kiba learned in the streets, in back alleys that smelled of piss and desperation, where strength meant survival and hesitation meant death. Being better had nothing to do with some self-righteous moral high ground.

Fuck that.

Being better meant looking out for your own. It meant putting down anyone who wasn't—anyone who got in the way.

Survive. That was the only rule that mattered.

Across the way, Ikkyu Madoka was too busy eyeing the way Haku's tight dress clung to his frame to notice anything else. Typical. Haku played it well, every shift of his body deliberate, every movement bait on a line. Ikkyu followed him inside, practically drooling, oblivious to the world beyond that damn dress.

The door should've shut behind them, but—oh, what a coincidence—a stray needle had found its way into the mechanism, jamming it just enough to keep the entrance propped open.

Perfect.

Kiba waited, counting the seconds. Only when he saw them step into the elevator at the far end of reception—watched the doors slide shut behind them—did he move.

Fifty-fourth floor. Second left from the right hallway.

He slipped inside, quick and quiet, like a ghost that didn't have time for theatrics. The security guard barely had a chance to blink before Kiba was on him. No words, no warning—just a hand grabbing the back of his head and slam.

The crunch was sickening. Skull met desk, body went limp.

No alarms. No second chances.

Kiba let the guard drop like a sack of garbage, barely sparing him a glance. Then he moved.