Port Area, Shibaura Pier.
The late-night sea breeze carried a biting sleet, swirling like tiny blades against the rusted corrugated metal of the abandoned dockyards.
This was the forward operating base for the Black Dragon Society. Within these warehouses, they staged their "propaganda trucks" and the heavy construction machinery they used to bulldoze their way through neighborhood disputes and corporate harassment.
It was no mere skeleton crew guarding the hoard. For tomorrow's planned "Grand Opening" disruption, the Society had mobilized elites from across the Kanto region.
Inside the cavernous Warehouse No. 3, nearly fifty yakuza—clad in sharp black suits or rugged work clothes—stood ready. They gripped steel pipes and baseball bats, while the silhouettes of illegal daggers and modified air guns bulged beneath their waistbands.
The air was a thick, stagnant soup of low-grade tobacco, cheap sake, and the aggressive musk of fifty men anticipating a fight.
"Stay sharp, you bastards!"
The Wakagashira, a brutish man with a face like a slab of granite, stood atop a stack of wooden crates. He brandished a bottle of sake like a scepter.
"The Chairman was clear! At nine tomorrow morning, we surround the Saionji shop so tight a drop of water couldn't leak through! If anyone screws this up, you're feeding the crabs in Tokyo Bay!"
"OH—!"
The roar of fifty voices rattled the high ceiling, sending decades of dust fluttering down like snow. In this era, before the tightening of the Anti-Boryokudan Act, the yakuza were the undisputed masters of the night.
They felt invincible.
Right up until the moment the world went black.
Snap.
It wasn't the sound of a light switch. It was the sharp crack of a transformer being physically severed. The warehouse plunged into an absolute, suffocating darkness.
"What the hell? A power outage?"
"Check the breakers!"
Before the Wakagashira could finish his command, the skylights above exploded simultaneously.
Crash—!
Rain, sleet, and jagged glass rained down—followed by six cylindrical objects that hissed as they fell.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Military-grade flashbangs.
Blinding white light and eardrum-shattering thunder tore through the enclosed space. The fifty yakuza were instantly rendered blind and deaf, stumbling into one another, clutching their faces and screaming in a panicked frenzy.
Then, the four side doors—reinforced and bolted—were blown inward by directional explosive cords.
Boom!
Through the settling dust, thirty black silhouettes rushed in like wraiths.
They wore unmarked tactical gear, full-face gas masks, and the eerie green glow of night-vision goggles. They didn't carry the clumsy knives of street thugs—they carried titanium alloy tactical batons and high-voltage stun shields.
S.A. Security Department: Special Service Division.
This wasn't a brawl.
It was an asymmetrical slaughter.
"Team One, suppress the left! Team Two, flank right! Team Three, breach the center!"
Dojima Gen led the charge.
He was unarmed—or rather, in a space where firearms were forbidden to avoid police scrutiny, his fists were the only weapons he needed.
A yakuza member, blinking through the white spots in his vision, lunged forward with a machete.
"You bastard—!"
Dojima didn't flinch.
He stepped into the man's guard, sidestepped the blade, and drove a precise elbow into the man's face.
Crack.
The bridge of the man's nose shattered. He collapsed without a sound.
The S.A. operatives worked in three-man cells—a relentless machine of tactical precision. They used their shields to absorb chaotic swings and their batons to systematically shatter knees, wrists, and collarbones.
"My leg! Ah, god, my leg!"
"My hand is gone!"
In less than three minutes, the fifty "elites" of the Black Dragon Society lay on the floor like mown wheat.
Dojima Gen stepped over the groaning bodies, walking calmly toward the Wakagashira, who was scrambling for the rear exit.
The man fumbled with a revolver, his hands shaking so violently he could barely find the trigger.
Zip.
A rubber bullet caught him in the wrist. The pistol clattered to the floor.
Dojima reached him in two strides, hoisted him up by the throat, and slammed him against the cold corrugated wall.
"Where is Onizuka?"
The Wakagashira gasped, trying to maintain his bravado.
"You... you're dead men! The Chairman will—"
Snap.
Dojima broke the man's index finger without changing his expression.
"AAAAAH!"
"I'm on a schedule," Dojima said softly. "Where is Onizuka?"
"Akasaka! The main office in Akasaka! There's a hundred men there! You're walking into a grave!"
Dojima let the man slump to the ground. He pressed his earpiece.
"Boss. Cleanup at Shibaura is complete. Target confirmed: Akasaka Headquarters. Estimated strength: 100-plus."
Through the earpiece came Satsuki's voice—cool, rhythmic, and terrifyingly calm. The faint sound of a page turning echoed in the background.
"A hundred men?" she mused. "Perfect. Since we are making an example, we may as well pull the weeds out by the roots."
A brief pause.
"Dojima… I want him to understand the meaning of despair inside his 'fortress.'"
A predatory smile touched Dojima's lips.
"Understood. Gear up! Target: Akasaka. We're playing for high stakes tonight."
Akasaka, Black Dragon Society Headquarters.
The five-story building sat on a quiet slope. To a passerby, it looked like a mundane trading firm.
In reality, it was a hardened bunker—bulletproof glass, reinforced shutters, and sixty armed thugs holding the lobby at all times.
In the penthouse office, Onizuka Toranosuke was meticulously wiping an antique katana.
Ring, ring, ring—
Onizuka frowned and answered.
"Chairman! It's over! Shibaura is gone—wiped out! They're professionals!" The voice on the other end was hysterical. "They're coming for Akasaka! It's an army, Chairman! An army!"
"Coward!"
Onizuka slammed the phone down.
He knew the Saionji were powerful, but he hadn't expected the "noble" girl to field a private military.
"Everyone up! Drop the rolling shutters! Seal the building!"
He wasn't entirely worried.
This was Akasaka—the heart of the capital. If a massive gunfight broke out, the Metropolitan Police would have to intervene. The Saionji would be ruined by the scandal of deploying armed forces on Tokyo streets.
He picked up his red "hotline" phone—a direct link to a powerful figure in the ruling party.
Ring… ring… ring…
No answer.
His heart sank.
He dialed a second number—a director at the Ministry of Finance.
"The number you have dialed is powered off."
The third—a Senior Superintendent at the MPD.
"The line is busy…"
Onizuka's hands began to tremble.
In the dead of night, the powerful men who grew fat on his bribes had collectively vanished.
The realization hit him like ice water:
He had been abandoned.
"Bastards! You told me to cause the trouble! Now you hide?!"
Boom—!
A massive explosion rocked the building.
The reinforced steel shutters, rated to stop a semi-truck, were shredded by a thermobaric breach.
"Enemy attack! Ground floor is breached!" the intercom screamed.
Onizuka rushed to the monitors.
Through the smoke in the lobby, he saw them—black masks, glowing green eyes, and shields advancing in a phalanx.
His men were numerous.
But against S.A.'s CQB tactics, they were nothing.
Flashbangs. Tear gas. Tasers.
The S.A. didn't even use lead.
They used precision.
The second floor fell.
The third floor fell.
The rhythmic thud-thud-thud of combat boots on the stairs sounded like a funeral drum.
"Even a hundred pigs would take longer to catch!" Onizuka shrieked.
"Chairman! The exits are blocked!"
His bodyguard burst in, face slick with blood.
"The secret passage is the only way!"
Behind the bookshelf was an escape tunnel leading to the parking garage of the adjacent building.
Onizuka didn't hesitate.
He grabbed a briefcase stuffed with cash and fake passports and scrambled into the dark.
He stumbled through the damp tunnel, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Just get to the car. The car with the clean plates.
Light appeared ahead.
He shoved open the vent-disguised door and tumbled into the basement parking lot. He gasped for air, reaching for his keys.
"Good evening, Chairman Onizuka."
Onizuka froze.
Leaning against a black van in the shadows was Dojima Gen.
He had removed his mask.
He looked pristine—not a drop of blood, not a hair out of place.
Behind him, four operatives held net guns and zip-ties.
"How… how did you know?"
"The Counter-Intelligence Division checked the city blueprints from fifty years ago," Dojima said, his shoes clicking on the concrete. "This was an air-raid shelter connection. Did you really think we wouldn't look?"
"Don't kill me!"
Onizuka tripped backward, his briefcase bursting open. Bundles of ten-thousand-yen notes spilled onto the grease-stained floor.
"Money! Take it all! I have Swiss accounts! Just let me go!"
Dojima looked down at the "Godfather" of Tokyo, now shivering like a wet dog.
"The Saionji Family isn't short on cash."
Dojima stepped in.
A precise, blindingly fast knife-hand strike hit Onizuka's carotid artery.
The yakuza's eyes rolled back.
He slumped into Dojima's arms.
"Withdraw," Dojima commanded. "Clean the site. Leave no traces."
4:00 AM. Tokyo Bay, Reclamation Site.
This was a patch of land that didn't yet exist on any map—a wasteland of unfinished breakwaters and black sea.
Splash.
A bucket of seawater jolted Onizuka awake.
He found himself shoved into a steel gasoline drum, buried to his waist in wet, heavy sand. Men in work clothes were nearby, mixing vats of quick-dry cement.
"What are you doing?! Stop!"
Onizuka screamed, his mind finally registering the grim tradition he was about to star in.
Dojima Gen stood before him, leafing through a black ledger found in the briefcase.
"Fascinating reading," Dojima noted. "Bribery logs for Diet members. Dirt on Finance officials. Money laundering routes. You've had a busy career, Onizuka."
"Take it! It's yours!" Onizuka wailed. "You can control half of Tokyo with that! Just let me live! I'll be your witness! I'll tell you everything!"
Dojima pulled out a mobile phone and dialed.
"Boss. We have him. And the ledger. It's enough to cause a political earthquake."
Miles away, Satsuki watched the first gray light of dawn touch the horizon. She took a sip of hot milk.
"Burn it," she said softly.
"The Saionji do not need filthy leverage to lead. That is the tool of the weak. Besides, keeping it would only make those 'big shots' desperate enough to turn on us."
A brief pause.
"As for the man… make him disappear. A dead man is a secret kept. The men he served will be relieved he's gone—and they will owe that relief to us. That is how you build true credit."
"Understood."
Dojima hung up.
He flicked a lighter and touched it to the ledger. The secrets of Tokyo's elite turned into glowing embers, scattered by the sea breeze.
"NO!!!"
"Begin," Dojima commanded.
Subordinates began shoveling heavy cement slurry into the drum.
It rose past Onizuka's waist… his chest… his throat.
The cold, viscous weight was more suffocating than the fear.
"In your next life," Dojima said, looking him in the eye, "try to remember that there are some people you simply cannot afford to offend."
The final shovel of cement was leveled off.
A lid was welded shut.
Plop.
A dull splash echoed in the dark.
The drum vanished into the depths of Tokyo Bay, leaving only a few ripples that were quickly smoothed over by the tide.
Everything returned to silence.
Dojima Gen stood on the breakwater and lit a cigarette.
He looked toward the city as it began to stir.
Beneath the shimmering glass and neon of the new Tokyo, another cornerstone had been laid one scented with salt, wet concrete, and blood.