Kanji Mitakara. The director of the Sanbo Group, that ruled over the northwest quadrant of Shinjuku. Their territory comprised the once quiet suburban neighborhoods and school zones from the Seibu Shinjuku line to Mejiro Boulevard, followed the cross streets to New Mejiro Boulevard, and traveled the length of Yamate Street, running through Kamiochiai, Nakaochiai and Shimo’ochiai.
This old man—it was said he could freeze a tiger in its tracks with a single look—stood at the head of an organization of five hundred “associates,” dealing in narcotics, prostitution and illegal weapons, and taking in seven billion yen a year.
He’d earned his livelihood in the black market for almost half a century without suffering so much as a scratch, his good luck and wariness making him a legend in Shinjuku. And now he threw the doors wide open and cast all precautions aside to greet this young man—just who was this Setsura Aki?
Setsura closed the door behind him and gave the old man a long look. “You look pretty drugged up to me.”
Kanji Mitakara nodded. His face was flushed, his intoxicated eyes moist. His pale lips moved, like a pair of willow leafs. “Yeah, I’m scared. Were you any other man in my line of business, hell, you could chew me up and spit me out and I’d die with a smile on my face.”
Fear and fierceness filled his voice, and it wasn’t just the drugs. Setsura answered quietly, “And knowing that, you threw the first punch.”
The voice emerged from the shadows drifting there in the darkness, devoid of human emotion, as if those crystal clear eyes existed only to take in all the melodrama of life and communicate only the cold hard facts to the cerebral cortex.
“What about Shiragi and Kurusu?” Mitakara asked.
“Skedaddled. But I know where.”
A faint smile finally graced Mitakara’s mouth. “Skedaddled, eh? Since the day I met you, I haven’t thought about anything else. But them, they’re still young, they’ve still attachments to this world. I have to hope you’ll see them off one of these days.”
“One of these days.”
Mitakara flashed a broad, relieved smile. “Good to know. I’d really hate to take the trip by myself and leave them behind, no matter how much I may deserve it.”
“So has Gento Roran returned?”
“That he has. Where has he been these fifteen years? No matter who you ask, nobody knows. But one thing’s for certain—he wants your head on a platter. I told him the odds were against us pulling it off. He was going to have to settle things with you himself. And we wouldn’t meet again.”
Mitakara suddenly stopped speaking. His eyes brimmed. His lips trembled. He seemed caught up in a rapturous state.
“It is terrifying,” he said, the words leaking from the corners of his mouth all the weaker and euphoric. “Anybody who sees you fight regrets it, and now resents those who sleep soundly at night having not seen what they’ve seen. I at last wish to see for myself. What will become of this city?”
Setsura stood there in front of the door. He didn’t answer. Or perhaps it was the darkness itself that held its tongue.
“This city has belonged to the likes of you all along. Fifteen years and we’ve only just remembered. He’s a tough nut, tougher than his father, tougher than yours. Are you tougher than your father?”
“He had minions. Have they returned too?”
“Hyota? He didn’t show his face. But he has means and skills of his own. Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow.”
“How did they convince you?”
“Promise me—to send Shiragi and Kurusu on to their just rewards—I couldn’t do it alone, but with you—”
Mitakara’s head popped off his shoulders like a manhandled old doll coming apart. The blood fountained from his severed neck. The body ballooned to twice its normal size.
Setsura leapt backwards, to the door, opened it and slammed it shut while still in midair. The door mostly contained the explosion that followed. The four-inch thick oak bowed outwards and split apart under the pressure, the cracked wood stained red.
He landed in a corner of the hallway. Carried along by the shock wave, the flames and shards of wood rained down on him. If those shards possessed a sentience of their own, they would certainly have expressed their surprise at what their target did next.
Maintaining a perfect balance, Setsura jumped back again without bending his knees. The walls of the director’s office crumbled like an earthen levy assaulted by a flood, spitting out fire and a blast of superheated air. The flames washed down what was left of the hallway and raced after Setsura.
He didn’t land but glided three feet above the floor. The black slicker kicked up around his waist streamed out behind him as the jump turned to flight. The eyes watching the fire pursuing him were dark and clear.
The stairs came up before him. Fire consumed the floor in front of him. A hellish inferno blocked the way back.
Setsura’s right arm, hanging by his side, jerked up. Rebounding like a spring, he abruptly changed directions toward the line of windows on his right. Bulletproof glass and hardened steel shutters covered the windows.
His left hand moved within the rushing wind. The black night outside peeked in. Setsura Aki twisted his body and sailed head-first through a gap where the glass and shutters had been. The claw of fire reaching out to him missed by a hair’s breadth, raking only the empty sky.
Mitakara had literally bet his death to lay the trap, ingesting a radioactive catalyst that turned his body into a furnace. Setsura Aki slipped out of the snare and escaped into the night.
Who was this Gento Roran who rose to challenge him? Somewhere out in the night, as if answering that question, a dog howled.