The penthouse of the Akasaka Tower was deathly silent. On the massive obsidian desk, a tablet displayed a heat-map of the Shinjuku shipping district. One red dot—the Blue Line Bar—had gone dark.
Kiato Kenji stood by the window, his reflection ghostly against the backdrop of the Tokyo skyline. He didn't look angry; he looked disappointed.
"They missed him," Ryo growled from the leather sofa. He was sharpening one of his axes with a whetstone, the rhythmic shrrr-shrrr sounding like a predator's breath. "My best cleaners. Dead. Or blinded by some student's toy."
"They didn't just miss him, Ryo," Kiato said, turning around. His voice was cold, precise. "They were dismantled. The boy didn't do that. The Shadow did. Hitoshi Asda is shielding him."
Kiato tapped the tablet, and a digital poster appeared. It wasn't a police "Wanted" sign. It was a black-market hit contract, encrypted and sent to every "Fixer" and "Cleaner" from Roppongi to the docks.
"Fifty million yen," Ryo whistled, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "That's enough to bring every cockroach in Japan out of the walls."
"Exactly," Kiato said. "I don't want our men wasted on ghosts. I want the mercenaries to do the bleeding for us. I want the Ronin to feel the entire city turning against him. I want him to look at every passerby and wonder if they have a knife in their pocket."
"And what about the father?" Ryo asked, standing up and testing the edge of his axe on his thumb. "Toru Tanaka is sniffing around the old files. He's going to find the connection to Hitoshi."
Kiato adjusted his silk tie. "Let him sniff. A desperate father is a predictable variable. If he finds his son first, he'll lead us straight to the nest. If he doesn't..." Kiato's eyes went dark. "Then he becomes the leverage we need to pull the Ronin out of the sewers."
Ryo laughed, a harsh, guttural sound. "You play chess, brother. I play tag. And I'm tired of being 'It.' When the bounty hunters flush them out, I want the boy's head. Personally."
"Patience, Ryo," Kiato murmured, looking back at the city. "The hunt has only just begun. And in Tokyo, fifty million yen buys a lot of monsters."