By the way, have you ever heard the rumor of the man with demon hands?
It was said that the man always wore a windbreaker jacket and pants when he went to work. The color of his windbreaker was usually black, often sporting white lines, while his shoes were black or navy-blue sneakers. The man appeared at the job location with his hood pulled down over his eyes, so he was sometimes called “the windbreaker man.”
He was also wearing a black windbreaker that day.
There were few who noticed the man walking down the road at night. Most likely, none of them would even recall they walked past him.
The man stopped in front of a building. It was clear from a glance that the five-story building was covered in security cameras and heavily guarded. The front door facing the street was obviously an automatic door, but it was designed not to simply open for anyone who stood in front of it.
One minute passed, and then two, but the windbreaker man didn’t move from in front of the non-opening automatic door. After about three minutes, the door finally opened, and a blond man wearing a tracksuit walked out, his hands rammed into his pockets.
“The hell d’you want?” the blond man demanded.
The blond tracksuit man was probably trying to get rid of the windbreaker man. Undoubtably, he was prepared to resort to violence if intimidation wasn’t enough to drive away the unwelcome guest.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, asshole! Don’t you know what this place—?”
But the first one to resort to violence was the windbreaker man. He threw a straight right punch that shattered the blond tracksuit man’s jaw. Broken teeth and blood scattered everywhere, and the blond tracksuit man soared through the still-open automatic door.
The windbreaker man lost no time in crossing the threshold as well. The door closed a few seconds later.
The security cameras captured footage of the blond tracksuit man getting his ass kicked, so everyone inside was immediately put on high alert.
The building belonged to the Houjou Group, the subsidiary of a large, well-known crime syndicate. It was no coincidence that the head of the family, his lieutenant, and senior members who reported to them were all gathered at the office that night. The windbreaker man had carefully chosen to carry out his attack at this particular time on this particular day.
The man’s name was Tousuke Mochizuke.
Job: killer.
For that reason, he was also known by the alias Crusher.
The first person to confront him in the entry hall was a feared gangster in his twenties who was known in the local area as Demon Bro. Demon Bro was an experienced fighter who was familiar with karate and boxing. He wasted no time on pointless yelling and instead closed in on Mochizuke with his quick footwork. Demon Bro’s fighting style was to silently rain a series of blows on his opponent’s face without warning, making the other person lose their will to fight within seconds.
“Hrrmmph, hrrmmph…!”
Demon Bro’s jab and hook landed almost simultaneously. His boxing combinations were, in so many words, seriously kick-ass. That’s why the younger punks in the area shook in fear and gossiped about him all the time. Even Mochizuke the Crusher couldn’t avoid the hits. But there was no need for him to. He stopped Demon Bro’s jab firmly with his right hand and met Demon Bro’s hook with his left.
“Aarggghhh…?!”
More accurately, Mochizuke had crushed both of Demon Bro’s fists in an instant.
Mochizuke stepped over Demon Bro, who had crumpled to the floor in pain, and the five gangsters who had crowded into the entrance hall shrank back.
The blond thug in a tracksuit may not have been anything to write home about, but Demon Bro was the best fighter out of all the younger members. Even if he didn’t lose his temper, he was considered a real badass. A gangster should be able to take out a person or two without breaking a sweat when they’re enraged. Otherwise, they wouldn’t make a very good gangster. Being able to calmly beat someone to death went above and beyond.
Demon Bro was that sort of guy. Eight years ago, he had tortured then murdered someone from an unaffiliated street gang. One of the local junior members took the blame and was sent to a juvenile detention center. Out of all the gangsters, it was that junior member who gathered up the courage to step forward.
“Y-you asshole…! How dare…?!”
Once he got out of juvie, the junior member grew out his hair and entered the Houjou Group on Demon Bro’s recommendation. The loyal and brave long-haired initiate was beloved by Demon Bro and the more senior gang members. Demon Bro’s catchphrase was “Show me you’re a man!” and the long-haired junior member often imitated this.
“Hyaaaah…!”
To show him what kind of man he was, the long-haired junior member lunged at Mochizuke. He put his entire body weight behind his dropkick. But it never made impact. Mochizuke had casually caught his right ankle.
“Hii-yaaahh…?”
It may have been because it was as fragile as a Popsicle melting under the blazing sun, but the ankle of the long-haired junior member was crushed down to the bone in the blink of an eye.
The remaining four gangsters made strange noises with their mouths, like “Eeaaahh,” “Eeeeeerk,” “Aaaah…eee,” and “Nuhaaah,” as they stood there on the verge of fleeing. If they could have run away, they probably would have. Of course, Mochizuke the Crusher wouldn’t let them.
Mochizuke crushed one gangster’s shoulder, another’s neck, and then a head, one after another. To Mochizuke, human bodies were no different from boiled eggs.
Some of the gangsters died, leaving mangled corpses, while others were left to writhe in pools of their own blood. It was over in an instant. The entry hall had transformed into hell on earth.
Mochizuke, covered head to toe in the blood of his victims, headed to the elevator. He pressed the button with his gore-stained hand.
He pressed it again. Nothing happened.
He took a detour to the emergency stairwell. The door was locked. But that didn’t matter to the Crusher and his demon hands. He twisted the knob right off and flung it to the side. After opening the door, Mochizuke began climbing up the emergency stairwell.
For the members of the Houjou Group, this emergency stairwell became a battlefield.
However, the seven gangsters who had surged into the stairwell from the third floor all had their heads or necks crushed by Mochizuke. They were wiped out in a mere ten seconds or so.
From there, Mochizuke quickened his pace. Just as he reached the fifth floor at the top of the building, the door in front of him opened.
On the fifth floor of the Houjou Group’s office, the leaders of the gang had been enjoying high-quality sushi, tempura, sukiyaki, and alcohol while holding an important discussion about internal conflict in their parent syndicate. Battle-hardened men who had spent more time in prison than out of it were also stationed on the fifth floor as bodyguards.
The chief of the bodyguards used the street name Broadaxe Masa. In his younger days, Masa slew the boss of an enemy organization with a broadaxe. Even after reaching fifty and starting to shave the thinning hair off his head, he was still an extremely ferocious man who sometimes flashed his axe while walking around.
Naturally, Masa led from the front, bursting into the emergency stairwell with his axe in hand.
“Hyaaaaaah—!”
From Masa’s point of view, he had opened the door and found Mochizuke right there. Masa instantly raised his axe the moment they bumped into each other with the intent of driving it into Mochizuki with an almost excessive amount of force and ferocity.
But Mochizuke’s demon hands slapped Masa’s axe away as if he were swatting at flies or mosquitoes. It meant nothing that Masa had been gripping the axe tightly in his right hand. Actually, because he’d been gripping it so tightly, Masa’s whole arm was taken along with his axe.
“Ooooooof…?!”
If Mochizuke hadn’t grabbed hold of his bald head, Masa probably would have fallen down the stairs. He managed to avoid that fate. The trade-off was getting his head crushed by Mochizuke’s demon hands instead, which was instant death.
When Mochizuke stepped from the emergency stairwell into the fifth-floor corridor, three gangster bodyguards were standing there gaping in shock. They had been eager to follow Masa and his broadaxe into battle but were completely rethinking their decision.
All three of them had fought through hell since their days as juvenile delinquents. Everyone who stuck out as looking like bad guys were either enemies or allies. These career villains were experts in crimes like extortion, theft, mugging, violence, scams, and smuggling, so more than fear, it was shock that gripped them.
“Even though it’s a job, this is…”
Mochizuke trailed off. His voice was a little husky but forceful, and it carried well. His hobby was going to karaoke by himself. He also enjoyed showing off his voice at divey joints like snack bars.