The Roppongi Hills Mori Tower stood like a needle of glass piercing the smoky sky of Tokyo. While the rest of the city barricaded its doors against the riots and the fear of the Shogun, the penthouse levels of Roppongi hummed with a different frequency: the frequency of denial.
Reika Kurosawa was twenty-two years old, and she was bored.
She sat in the VIP booth of the exclusive "Velvet" lounge, twirling a diamond necklace around her finger. The club was quieter than usual the curfew had kept the tourists away but the champagne still flowed, and the music still thumped.
"Reika-sama." a deep voice rumbled beside her.
She looked up. It was Senku, her head of security. He was a massive man, an ex-sumo wrestler with a neck as thick as a tree trunk and eyes that scanned the room perpetually. He wore a black suit that strained at the shoulders.
"The car is ready." Senku said, checking his earpiece. "Your mother is worried. The news reports are... disturbing."
"My mother is always worried." Reika sighed, draining her glass. "She thinks the boogeyman is coming for us because of Father."
She stood up, smoothing the white fur of her coat. It was an extravagant thing, imported from Italy, costing more than the entire net worth of the families living in the Adachi industrial zone.
"Let's go, Senku." she said, swaying slightly. "This city is depressing tonight."
They took the private elevator down to the sub-basement executive garage. It was a fortress of concrete, brightly lit and patrolled by private security. Reika felt safe here. The Kurosawa money, the blood money from the Chiba deal, had built walls that she thought were impenetrable.
The elevator doors slid open. The garage was silent.
"Stay behind me." Senku said, stepping out first. His hand hovered near the stun baton on his belt guns were too messy for private security.
He scanned the rows of luxury cars. The Kurosawa limousine sat waiting, engine idling.
"It's clear." Senku grunted. He walked to the rear door of the limo and opened it.
Reika stepped out, her heels clicking on the polished floor. She moved toward the car, fishing her phone out of her purse to check her messages.
Thwip.
A soft sound. Like a finger snapping against wet cardboard.
Reika looked up.
Senku was standing by the car door. He looked confused. He reached up to his neck. A small, red feathered dart was sticking out of his jugular vein.
"Senku?" Reika asked.
The massive bodyguard's eyes rolled back in his head. His knees buckled. He didn't fall gracefully, he crashed like a demolished building, his head hitting the concrete with a sickening thud.
Reika froze. Her brain couldn't process the image. Senku was invincible. He was the wall.
"Senku, get up." she whispered.
She looked around the garage. It was empty. Bright. Silent.
Then, she saw him.
He didn't jump out from the shadows. He simply walked out from behind a concrete pillar.
He was a solo figure. He wore simple dark clothes, functional and nondescript. His face was covered by a black balaclava, not a theatrical mask. He wasn't performing for an audience right now. He was working.
He moved with a terrifying, fluid silence.
Reika opened her mouth to scream, but the air wouldn't come. The fear paralyzed her diaphragm.
The killer walked over to Senku's unconscious body. He didn't look down. He stepped over the bodyguard as if he were a piece of furniture.
He stopped in front of Reika.
"Do you know who I am?" she managed to squeak, backing up against the cold metal of the limousine. "My father..."
"Your father is ash." the killer said. His voice was calm, flat, and utterly devoid of emotion. "He burned in a field he stole."
Reika's eyes widened. "You... you're him. The Shogun."
"Get in the trunk." he said.
He popped the trunk of the limousine with a gloved hand.
"No!" Reika turned to run.
She made it two steps before he caught her. He didn't strike her. He simply grabbed the back of her fur coat and yanked. She flew backward, slamming into the bumper of the car.
Before she could recover, he pressed a cloth against her face. The chemical smell was sharp and stinging.
"Sleep." he whispered. "You need your strength for the tearing."
Reika Kurosawa's world dissolved into black. There were no sirens. No police. Her mother hadn't called the TMPD because she didn't want a scandal. The private security team was dead or bypassed.
For the first time in her life, Reika was completely, terrifyingly alone.
06:00 AM. The Unnamed Warehouse.
Reika woke up to the sound of engines.
A low, mechanical rumble that vibrated through the floor and into her bones.
She opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, her head pounding from the chloroform. She tried to raise her hand to her face, but her arm wouldn't move.
She blinked, focusing.
She was standing in the center of a large, abandoned maintenance bay. The ceiling was high, lost in shadow. The floor was stained with oil and grease.
She tried to step forward, but her leg jerked to a stop.
She looked down.
A heavy steel cable was looped around her right ankle. The cable ran across the floor, through a heavy iron pulley bolted to the concrete, and connected to the rear hitch of a massive, yellow bulldozer.
She looked at her left ankle. Another cable. This one ran to the front winch of a heavy-duty tow truck parked facing the opposite direction.
She looked at her arms.
Her right wrist was tied to a cable running to a hydraulic lift. Her left wrist ran to a structural support beam.
She was spread-eagled. Suspended. An X marks the spot.
"Help!" she screamed. Her voice echoed in the vast, empty space. "Someone help me!"
"There is no one." a voice said.
Reika jerked her head up.
The killer was sitting on the hood of the bulldozer. He held a remote control device in his hand. He was watching her with the detachment of a scientist observing a specimen.
"Please," Reika sobbed, the tears cutting tracks through her makeup. "I have money. I have accounts in Switzerland. I can give you anything."
"You have nothing." the killer said, hopping off the hood. He walked toward her, inspecting the tension of the cables. "The money you spent... the cars, the clothes, the jewelry... it wasn't yours."
"It was my inheritance!"
"It was the harvest." the killer corrected. "Your father planted seeds of poison in the ground of Chiba. He watered them with mercury. And you ate the fruit."
He reached out and touched the white fur coat she was still wearing. It was stained with grease now.
"You never asked where the money came from." he said softly. "You saw the news. You saw the protests. You saw the farmers dying. But you turned the channel and bought another pair of shoes."
"I didn't do it!" Reika shrieked, pulling against the cables. The steel bit into her skin. "I didn't kill anyone!"
"That is your sin." the killer said. "Indifference. You lived on the mountain of corpses your father built, and you didn't even look down."
He walked back to the bulldozer. He climbed into the cab and turned the key. The massive diesel engine roared to life, spewing black smoke.
Reika screamed, a primal sound of terror.
He got out and walked to the tow truck. He started that engine too. The warehouse filled with the deafening idle of heavy machinery.
He stood between the vehicles, holding the remote.
"This is Ushi-zaki." the killer said, his voice raised over the engine noise. "The Ox Tearing. In the feudal era, they used bulls to tear a traitor apart. Today, we use horsepower."
"No... no... please..." Reika hyperventilated.
"The winches are synchronized." he explained calmly. "They will pull at a rate of one inch every thirty seconds. It is slow. You will have time to think about every yen you spent."
He pressed the button.
CLANK.
The cables went taut.
Reika gasped as her limbs were yanked straight. Her joints popped shoulders, hips stretched to their absolute limit.
"Stop!" she begged. "I'll give it back! I'll give it all back!"
"You can't give back a life." the killer said.
He turned and walked toward the exit.
"Where are you going?" Reika screamed, the pressure building in her shoulders. It felt like fire. "Don't leave me!"
"I have to send a message." the killer said, not looking back. "The police don't know you are here. Your mother didn't call them. She was afraid of the bad publicity."
He opened the heavy steel door. The morning light spilled in, blindingly bright compared to the gloom of the warehouse.
"You are dying in secret, Reika. Just like the farmers."
He stepped out. The door slammed shut with a final, booming resonance.
Reika was alone with the machines.
Whirrrrr.
The winches turned. Another inch.
Reika screamed as her left shoulder dislocated with a wet pop. The pain was blinding, white-hot, consuming her entire world.
She was being unmade. The Golden Fruit was being peeled.
07:30 AM. A Parking Lot in Shinjuku.
Kenji Sano sat in the driver's seat of the unmarked sedan, staring at the rain-streaked windshield. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked.
Manjiro was asleep in the passenger seat, his head leaning against the window, shotgun across his lap.
They had been driving all night. Checking known addresses. Checking old Kurosawa properties. Checking anywhere the Shogun might have gone after the tunnel.
Nothing.
The city was waking up, but the police radio was silent regarding any new murders. The riots in Chiyoda had settled into a sullen standoff.
"We have nothing." Kenji whispered to himself.
He felt a deep, gnawing impotence. They had found the hideout. They had seen the killer's face or at least, the mask he wanted them to see. They knew the motive.
But they didn't know the target.
"Why hasn't he struck?" Kenji asked the empty air. "The riddle... Count the sticks. The Akiyama couple were the sticks. They carried the sin. He killed them."
Kenji rubbed his face.
"But he's not done. He's never done until the legacy is gone."
Kenji looked at the list of victims again on his tablet.
* Suzuki (Money)
* Kurosawa (Land)
* Takeda (Law)
* Tanaka (Judge)
* Ogawa (Science)
* Hideo (Authority)
* Akiyama Pair (Transport)
"He wiped out the past." Kenji muttered. "Everyone who did it is dead."
So who was left?
He thought about the Chiba file. The financial records.
The money.
Suzuki managed the money, but Kurosawa owned it. And when Kurosawa died... the money didn't vanish. It transferred.
"Reika." Kenji said the name aloud.
He shook Manjiro awake.
"Wake up."
Manjiro snorted, jerking upright, gripping his gun. "What? Did he call?"
"No." Kenji said grimly. "That's the problem. He hasn't called."
"Maybe he's sleeping? Maybe he's done?"
"He's not done." Kenji started the car. "We missed something, Manjiro. We've been waiting for a dispatch call. We've been waiting for a body to drop."
"And?"
"And nobody has called it in." Kenji said. "Check the Kurosawa family status. Check Reika Kurosawa."
Manjiro rubbed his eyes and grabbed the tablet. He logged in using Hideo's credentials again.
"Checking... nothing in the criminal log. Nothing in the accident log."
"Check the private security channels." Kenji said. "Kurosawa Holdings has their own security."
Manjiro tabbed over. "That's encrypted."
"Hack it. Or check the police liaison log. If a VIP goes missing, private security usually flags it quietly to avoid the press."
Manjiro tapped furiously. Then he stopped.
"Kenji," Manjiro said, his voice cold. "There's a flag. A 'Code Silence' alert filed by Kurosawa Security at 04:00 AM."
"Code Silence?"
"It means a VIP is unreachable, but they don't want police intervention yet. They think it's a kidnapping for ransom."
"Reika," Kenji said. "Where was she last seen?"
"Roppongi Hills. Her bodyguard... Senku... was found unconscious in the garage. Private ambulance took him. No police report."
Kenji slammed his hand on the dashboard.
"Fuck that bastard... he took her." Kenji said. "He took her three hours ago. And because her family is obsessed with their image, they didn't call 110. They didn't call us."
"So she's gone?" Manjiro asked. "And we didn't know because they didn't complain?"
"We sat here." Kenji said, revving the engine. "We sat here in a parking lot while he walked into a secure garage and took her."
"Where would he take her?"
"Not a public stage." Kenji said, peeling out of the lot. "Not this time. The Akiyamas were hidden in their own warehouse. Kurosawa died in a raincoat. This is personal."
Kenji's mind raced. Where do you take a rich girl to kill her for the sin of greed?
"He doesn't need to show us this one." Kenji realized. "He's not teaching the police a lesson anymore. He's punishing the bloodline."
"We have to find her."
"We can't." Kenji said, the despair washing over him. "We have zero leads. No tracking. No phone signal. If the family didn't report it, we have no data."
Kenji drove aimlessly, the car prowling the streets like a caged animal.
"He's winning, Manjiro." Kenji whispered. "He's killing them in the dark, and we're blind."
Somewhere in the city, Reika Kurosawa was screaming. Kenji felt it. But the city was vast, a labyrinth of concrete and steel, and without a complaint, without a clue, she was just another ghost in the machine.
Chapter 27 Ends - Why he was killing?