Chapter Text
When Kiryu walks out of the prison doors, into the fresh sunlight of a Tokyo’s summer morning, there is a car waiting for him. With tinted-windows and a fresh shine along its flashy exterior, it’s clearly a yakuza car, not some random civilian just parking outside the prison. Considering that Kazama-san’s letter had been very explicit about being unable to pick Kiryu up from the prison, because of internal politics, the car’s presence is...weird. Nobody else is being released from prison today either, so it’s not like it could be for somebody else.
Kiryu cautiously approaches the car and blinks as the driver’s window immediately rolls down, to reveal an unfamiliar yakuza wearing shades.
“Kiryu-san?” asks the driver, passively.
“That’s...me. Who are you?” asks Kiryu, and he can’t stop his suspicion leaking into his voice, as he leans forward, and can’t recognize the pin on the driver’s lapel. Damn. Kashiwagi-san had always told him he had too obvious tells.
“Sengoku, from the Nishikiyama family. The boss asked me to take you to your apartment, sir.” says the yakuza man, casually, getting out of his driver’s seat, to open the back-door for Kiryu.
His heart thumps, and Kiryu cannot quite stop the elated smile spreading across his face. Nishikiyama Family? His brother had made it! Nishikiyama Family...what a bizarre word to rest on his lips. Hadn’t this been their dream, when they’d been teenagers huddled together on Kiryu’s bunkbed, dreaming of the yakuza lifestyle? Becoming the head of their own families, just like Kazama-san, and being successful together?
Kiryu will never be able to make it, not anymore, but here Nishiki’s gone and done it anyway.
He can’t deny that he’s sad to not have seen it happen. But it had happened, and it was because Kiryu had taken the blame for Nishiki, and Kiryu, for all that he should be, isn’t jealous. The dream of a Kiryu Family had always been a vague, nebulous idea of success and victory that Kiryu had not felt ready for, even as everybody around him had been buzzing with excitement for it. In some ways, it feels like a relief to not have to worry about it.
He can’t deny he’s a little wistful of what they could have been together. But the words ‘Nishikiyama Family’ is enough to satiate his dreams, as he steps into the backseat, and lets Sengoku drive them away.
“Boss sends his apologies. He would have liked to greet you himself, but there’s a big meeting at the Tojo Clan Headquarters right now.” Sengoku says, evenly.
“Is there?” asks Kiryu, curious.
“Yeah.” Sengoku’s expression shows how much he wants to gossip, but the words will not leave this underling’s mouth, even when Kiryu raises an eyebrow at him in the backseat mirror. Well. He’s well trained.
How strange. He’d always imagined that the Nishikiyama Family would be just as talkative as his sworn brother. But that was simply a projection, wasn’t it? This man wasn’t another dream of reckless youth, but a person, in the living breathing flesh. Kiryu can’t place the expectations of youth upon him.
“Tell me about Kamurocho.” Kiryu says, instead. “What’s it like?”
“It’s...well.” Sengoku coughs, uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t be able to answer you properly, sir. I only joined the yakuza two years ago and moved to Kamurocho then.”
Young then. And definitely unable to answer what Kiryu wants to know. How disappointing, when his entire body is filled with desperate curiosity about what has become of the world since he exited the arena. Kiryu exhales. “It’s overwhelming, then?”
“Yessir.” Sengoku says, almost shyly, and darts a nervous look to the backseat.
So, he’s scared then, of Kiryu being his Patriarch’s friend, huh? Kiryu decides to leave the poor lackey alone and stares out the car window at a changed Tokyo unfolding around him. The skyscrapers have grown taller and more prolific, slowly blotting out the sky itself. Where Tokyo had been new before, it is positively staggering with its technological prowess now, a shining silver metropolis.
Big neon screens, blaring out new TV show and beauty product advertisements cling to the corners of the street, and people power walk through the streets, wearing new fashions that Kiryu can’t even begin to understand. There are more hawkers and foreigners on the street, more people in general. Tokyo is dizzyingly beautiful, and iridescently liminal, and Kiryu has to press the heels of his palms to his eyes, to stop himself from crying like a fool at the realization that he has been homesick all this time, and never really noticed.
What an idiot.
How could he have forgot that his love for Nishiki, Kazama, Kashiwagi, Reina, Yumi, was tied in with this city?
Kiryu had spent hours mapping out every nook and cranny of Kamurocho because he had loved its contours, the ways the shop signs glowed gentle at night, and music blared at all hours, and the shit smell and the shit food, and the way it had made him feel alive. And the people within Kamurocho, be they angry, pathetic, evil, greedy, helpless, lustful, lost, waylaid, angry, depressed or drunk out of their mind, Kiryu had found love in his heart for every one of them, too. They had all responded to the siren’s call of Kamurocho, after all, just as he had.
How had he forgotten? Had prison been so overwhelming that he’d pushed his love for Kamurocho aside? What else had he forgotten, in those long, stasis years?
They pass by those city blocks, quickly, and find themselves in a different part of Shinjuku, by Waseda University. The more respectable part of Shinjuku, and Kiryu frowns, when their car stops by a large set of high-rises that stretch to the sky.
From his short time working in real-estate, before the bubble had destroyed Yamanoi’s real estate company, Kiryu recognizes the high-rise as an apartment complex. This was where Nishiki had bought him a new apartment? Sure...he hadn’t exactly expected that his shithole place in Kamurocho would have still been available, or that Nishiki would put him up there. But this nice respectable university neighbourhood?
Kiryu looks down at his hands and exhales, before exiting the car, following Sengoku into the building lobby. Don’t overthink it, he chides himself. Hasn’t Nishiki always been like that? Nishiki’s always valued money and image and appearance. What better an appearance for an ex-con than this nice...penthouse apartment?
Kiryu gapes as Sengoku presses the penthouse button, and scoffs, in disbelief. Sengoku shoots him a look, but doesn’t really clarify anything, as they hurtle upwards, onto the top floor, which opens out into a ridiculously elegant place.
In disbelief, Kiryu wanders around the apartment, staring and prodding at everything around them. It essentially has four big rooms. The main living space, with an open-plan kitchen. The shelves in the kitchen are fully stocked with pans and plates, and when he opens the fridge, it is packed full with beer, barley tea and bento-boxes filled with meat, rice and vegetables, pre-prepared, so he doesn’t have to figure out how to work the rice-cooker on the counter for some time. The living room itself is lavish, with a reclining sofa, several ottomans and armchairs, and a huge flatscreen TV, nothing like the old box that he and Nishiki had carted over from Akihabara in 1992, excited with the magnitude of their purchase.
There’s a bathroom, with a huge standing shower, and jacuzzi bath, which, Kiryu notices, is large enough for at least three people to fit in. “Just what does he think I’m going to get up to, huh?” Kiryu mutters to himself, as he puts away his small toiletries kit from the prison, and glares at himself in the too-large mirror.
There’s an office room, stacked high with empty shelves and filing cabinets, that looks remarkably like Kiryu’s old office with Yamanoi. There’s no Marina hanging around with a clipboard and a smile, nor the blocky model of Kamurocho that he’d used to physically mark out his progress, nor even the dulcet squawks of his favourite business manager, Nugget the chicken. But it is nostalgic in the good kind of way, and Kiryu pats the leather chair, absently. It’s of good quality. Not that he’s expecting to do much more paperwork than yearly taxes, but having an office immediately makes Kiryu feel more like a real adult.
The master bedroom is ridiculously large and filled with plants, which after closer inspection, are proved to be fakes. Kiryu stares at the deep-maroon duvet draped over the bed, the same colour as Nishiki’s favourite suit back in the day, and sits on the edge of the bed, tentatively. He sinks straight into the mattress, which is softer than he had imagined even clouds would be, and Kiryu has to struggle to stand back up again from the bed.
As he goes to hang up the only other pair of clothes he has in his wardrobe, Kiryu is stunned by the fact that the wardrobe is already filled with suits. Each shirt in the suit-set is different, some patterned, some not, but each jacket and pants are some shade of grey.
Kiryu feels his heart throb with an intense strength. Something strange and tangled eases within him. He’d wondered, all those long years in the prison, with no visitors, whether he had been left behind by those he’d loved. But this is proof, isn’t it? More than the rest of the stupidly lavish apartment, this closet is proof that Nishiki hadn’t forgotten him. Hadn’t left him behind. He’d still remembered that stupid promise that Kiryu had made, years ago, to never wear anything but grey again. Grey to match the goddamn underworld.
“Idiot.” Kiryu chokes out a laugh, but nonetheless, changes out of his old suit, and into something that Nishiki has picked out for him. It fits perfectly.
Sengoku’s already gone, by the time Kiryu is done looking around at his new home, leaving only a keycard and a cellphone behind, next to a small, dainty Nishikiyama Family family pin.
It is a tacit invitation. It is an unspoken invitation. Thing is, Kiryu doesn’t want the unspoken. He wants Nishiki to formally invite him, look him in the eyes and welcome his oath-brother into his goddamn family—
Kiryu wants to wear the pin after that, so he leaves it there, on the counter until it becomes his to properly flaunt and accepts the other two gifts instead. He’s only seen these new flip-phones in the TV dramas they’d occasionally get to watch during breaktimes, and it takes a few moments to figure out how it works. An hour later, he’s figured out how to call someone, text someone and even take small, blurry pictures. This will be useful for keeping in contact with his parole officer for the next few months, if nothing else.
Still, as he turns the radio on, and lets some pop music jingle through the apartment, he starts to feel a deep restlessness settle into his bones. For all that the leather sofa is comfortable, and the beer is fresh, and the meat is newly delicious, the apartment feels...wrong. It feels empty, too large, too...wrong.
He can’t quite identify why he feels uncomfortable, only that he does. Kiryu finds a pack of smokes in the table by the door, and lights it up, using his old lighter he’d managed to keep through most of prison, miraculously. The nicotine takes the edge off Kiryu’s restlessness, but it doesn’t assuage it, and after a bit of pacing round the apartment, he can’t quite take it anymore.
He grabs a pen and a pad of paper from the office and writes down his cell-phone number and a quick message.
Nishiki
Headed out to Kamurocho. Be back by sundown. If you get here before me, give me a ring and I’ll head straight back.
Kiryu.
As he finishes writing out the message, he shifts against the sofa, and something like a scent memory triggers.
He’s eighteen again, and he’s fidgeting by the door of a Le Marche, as Nishiki tries increasingly more expensive colognes across his arms, intent on spending his first paycheck not on something useful like nice food or a better winter coat, or something cool like a knife or a video-game console, but instead on something as simple as cologne.
“What about this one?” Nishiki asks him, for what feels like the millionth time, sticking the crook of his elbow into Kiryu’s face.
“I can’t tell the difference anymore.” Kiryu says, bluntly, and Nishiki rolls his eyes, exasperated and fond.
“Luddite.” he mocks, and sniffs at his arm again. “No, it’s a bit too...floral for my tastes.”
“What about this one, sir?” asks the shopkeep, who to his credit, is remarkably unflappable, despite the fact that these two yakuza kids have been hanging around in his store for something closer to forty-five minutes now, and scaring off other customers who might want to come in.
When Nishiki sprays this one against the delicate spray of veins on his left hand, Kiryu smells it intensely, even though he’s standing a head away from Nishiki. It’s not an abrasive scent, by any means, just very distinct. It smells like the end of autumn, the crisp scent of leaves dying and the world sleeping and a transition into something different. It smells like searching for chestnuts in the small forest behind their school, it smells like eating mushrooms off the side of the road, it smells like making nabe for the entire orphanage as punishment for getting into another fight, it smells like catching beetles for the old man down the road.
“That one.” Kiryu says, and Nishiki doesn’t even think, before nodding, and saying he’ll buy it. Perhaps he smells their past too, just as clearly as Kiryu does.
Kiryu shuts his eyes and rubs them hard until he sees black dots against the inside of his eyelids. He’s thirty-seven again, sitting in this new, empty apartment, staring at a cushion that is decorated with the exact pattern that Nishiki had worn on his haori for Yumi’s Coming of Age Ceremony, and Nishiki’s cologne still faintly clinging to the fabric.
The weight of the years is abruptly overwhelming, so Kiryu rises, before he can think better of it, and shoves his keycard and phone into his pockets, and walks out.
-
The south entrance to Kamurocho smells like shit, as it always does, and Kiryu snorts, as he looks around him. For all that things have changed, they also haven’t. There are still young women chatting up older men lightly on the streets, people lining up for oden-stalls as they clutch their shopping bags, yakuza hanging out by the doors of clubs, hostesses and party-women standing by hawkers to encourage people to enter their establishments, young punks running through the street like nothing in the world could hurt them, homeless people perched in dark alleyways acting as the eyes and ears for whoever paid them the most that week.
Home sweet home.
It still looks strange in the daylight too, for all that it’s still bustling. None of the neon-signs are quite lit up yet, the early throes of the afternoon light still snaking its way through the labyrinthine alleyways and avenues, lighting up what should be hidden, still.
Kiryu briefly considers walking out towards Stardust, the location Kazama-san had asked him to investigate but decides against it. It’s still daytime, yet, and the club won’t be open. And he’s already saved up the night-time to meet up with Nishiki again, so he decides to put that particular task away until tomorrow.
Instead he wanders around, letting his nose take him around town. The restaurants have changed a bit. More western fast-food chains around now, Kiryu notes with a slightly wrinkled nose. Not that he wouldn’t eat a burger if it were put in front of him, but he’s always had more of a traditional taste. It’s why none of the hostess girls were every happy when they went out on mini-dates and he never took them out to the fancy French or Italian restaurants, a flaw that Kiryu had owned. He’d always sworn that if he were ever going to date a woman, it would be someone that loved Japanese food more than foreign food.
It takes a little wandering around to find a nice looking tonkatsu shop, with prettily arranged food bowls in the front-window. By this points, a couple of punks have already tried to beat him down for cash and offered their money up as penance for their indiscretion, so he doesn’t even have to worry about the fact that he’s flat broke. He has enough money to buy a large tonkatsu curry bowl, and digs in.
He gets extra-spicy curry, which he usually avoids, but can’t help but lean into, now that he’s out of jail. The sharp punch of flavours hitting his tongue again is almost enough to make him sob. Ten years of prison slop, and now he can go back to eating whatever he wants to. What man wouldn’t be moved?
Kiryu doesn’t end up crying, just sniffles a little, something he can blame on the extra-spicy curry instead.
After that, he wanders around his old haunts. He finds a young boy by the SEGA arcade and discovers the popular children’s game MesuKing (that can’t be age-appropriate right? Or have the younger generations just got that much more mature about nudity?). That reminds him of Pocket Circuit Racing, and he wanders his way back to his old haunt, only to hear about Pocket Circuit Fighter’s upcoming marriage and tragic career loss. He swears to help Pocket Circuit Fighter find a successor (but if he’s honest, he can’t really imagine anybody loving the art of racing cars more than his good friend Fighter-kun.) On the way out, he runs into a group of shogi players, who harass him into a game he spectacularly loses at but enjoys himself nonetheless (they promise to tutor him in how to play better if he returns).
At this point, the evening is imminent, so Kiryu turns around from the afternoon of distractions, and steels himself to see Nishiki again.
What is he even going to say? He can’t quite picture it in his head, all that he tries to map out a conversation starter that won’t immediately be awkward. He can only hope that Nishiki won’t laugh too much at Kiryu sticking his foot in his mouth again. Maybe Nishiki will do him a favour and just talk to him, instead. That’s the ideal scenario, and the thought of recreating their long nights of chatter again leaves a contented smile on Kiryu’s face.
But then, he runs into Majima-no-nii-san.
After he’s been smashed to the ground by Majima-no-nii-san, who seems more ruthless and more dangerous than ever, he limps over to a Poppo’s and grabs a pack of ice for his face. Well, there went his good mood. Not that Majima-no-nii-san wasn’t reassuring in his own way, one of the only things in town that felt like a constant, but Kiryu had not been prepared for a fight where Majima hit him repeatedly with his metal bat, and then kicked him with a break-dancing move while Kiryu was down—all to end the fight by jabbing Kiryu in the eyes. That had been humiliating, more than it had been painful, and they both knew it.
“I-Is that all sir?” stammers out the cashier, and Kiryu realizes he’s glowering down at her.
“No.” he says, gravely. “What’s your most expensive alcohol?”
The cashier points a trembling finger towards the back of the conbini, where the sakes and champagnes reside, in the aisle that Kiryu rarely ventures into. Kiryu marches over there and pulls out the most expensive champagne there. It decimates all the money he’d gotten from the street-punks, but Kiryu’s not really concerned. He’ll make that back in no time. “This please.” Kiryu says, placing it down on the counter.
The cashier scans it, thanks him, and quivers until Kiryu leaves the store. He feels a little bad about scaring her, but she needs to be better at dealing with scary-looking people if she’s working in Kamurocho, so he doesn’t feel especially bad. He’s still vibrating with anger and uselessness and obsolete-ness as he stalks back outside.
The sky is orange. It’s time to return home, whether he feels ready or not. Kiryu takes a long look at the neon lights starting to slowly flicker on, and walks away, back to his apartment.
-
When Kiryu gets back to the apartment, the sun has disappeared entirely behind the horizon, and Nishiki is already waiting in the centre of his living room.
It’s unmistakeably Nishiki, for all that it looks wrong. He’s wearing this white suit, and he’s unbuttoned his black shirt, so the old gold chain they’d gifted each other is visible. Not a touch of colour on him at all, and Kiryu can’t help but frown at that. Nishiki had always been defined by bright colours, a subtle, refined sense of fashion that always made whatever patterns he wore look classy, instead of flashy, like Kiryu’s foray into patterned shirts had been.
He’s slicked back his hair too, and his eyebrows are sharper. All in all, he’s looks cold, from head to toe. Still, he’s unmistakeably Nishiki. That unchanged look of undeniable confidence fills him with a charisma that makes him so attractive and fascinating. And his cologne is as strong and nostalgic as ever.
“Were you waiting long?” Kiryu asks, quietly, as he walks over to where Nishiki has made himself at home, watching TV.
“Nah. I was gonna call you, then I saw you walking down the street.” Nishiki tilts his head towards the giant glass window that overlooks the residential district ahead, and Kamurocho in the distance. “Figured I could wait the ten minutes it took you to get up here.”
“Aah.”
“So, what do you think of the place?” Nishikiyama asks, putting down the beer he’s taken from the fridge. He spreads his arms wide and looks around the lavish surroundings he’s created just for Kiryu.
Kiryu desperately wishes he could say something coherent. He can neither say, ‘It’s too large, I feel agoraphobic and like I want to be back in my cell again,’ nor ‘It’s too small, it feels like the gilded cage you want to keep me in,’ nor ‘It looks like something you have meticulously designed, down the scent of your cologne in the pillowcases’ nor ‘It feels empty without you, why did you do this for me?’ None of these are answers that feel right, after ten years. Honesty is a bridge that Kiryu can’t quite cross, so he settles instead on; “....it looks neat.”
Nishikiyama snorts. “Eloquent as ever, huh?” There’s a look in his eyes, a sneer of scorn, the motions of a joke dancing at the corner of his lips. Kiryu’s seen this expression before, it’s the expression that Nishiki would share with him several times on a night out on the town. The difference was, back then, he was in on the joke.
It’s been ten years, and Kiryu was a fool if he’d thought that all of that could just melt away. That they could fall easily back into what they had been before. Kazama’s letter had been stupid. Kiryu’s expectations had been stupid. Of course Nishiki had changed. It’s been ten years.
“You changed your hair.” Kiryu says, quietly, setting the conbini bag down on the glass coffee table. Better to say something small, instead of something stupid.
Nishiki’s hand comes up to the touch his hair, self-consciously, as if the immaculate construction of slick gel didn’t show how intimately aware of it he was. “Oh, yeah. It was in the way, so...”
“It looks good.” Kiryu lies, and takes a seat next to Nishiki, on the couch. For all that Nishiki’s leant back into the couch and spread his legs far apart, a sign of casual relaxation that should have indicated the desired tone of this conversation, Kiryu can’t help but sit with his back upright.
This isn’t the sort of place he’s used to, not like Nishiki clearly is.
“You grew out sideburns.” Nishiki accuses, narrowing his eyes. It’s the tone that he’d always used when critiquing Kiryu’s boring fashion, and it’s painfully familiar.
“Yeah. They make you shave your head when you first get into prison. When I got the privilege to grow it out again...kind of went a bit further than expected.” Kiryu explains, carefully.
Nishiki laughs, light and amused. “At least it’s not a beard. I couldn’t take you seriously if you grew out facial hair.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t go to prison, they would have shaved your hair, and then you’d have scared the prison guards so thoroughly, they’d never let you out again.” Kiryu says, absently, before realizing with a horror that that was the sort of thing he didn’t want to talk about with this cold shard of a man.
Nishiki freezes for a moment, eyes wide and shocked, before bursting into laughter. Kiryu knows the sound of Nishiki’s laughter. He’s played it in his head, over and over again. It’s the sound of Kiryu’s joy, Kiryu’s happiness. This laugh is entirely new. Shocked, scared, angry, sad, but at the end, filled with something like desperate amusement. Kiryu can’t join in with that laugh, he can only sit and wait it out. Sure enough, Nishiki subsides, and there is only a tired weariness left in his eyes.
“You always said the strangest shit. I forgot that.” Nishiki says, quietly, and his eyes look dull.
Didn’t you forget a lot of things? Kiryu wants to desperately ask, but he’s stepped too far already, so he tries something a little safer. He states the obvious, as per usual.
“You got your own family, huh? They’re very professional.”
Nishiki nods. “Good little dogs in perfectly groomed suits. They needed a little training at first, but you know, now they come to heel when they’re told.”
That’s....not the way Kiryu had ever thought he’d hear his blood-brother talk about people. Nishiki’s problem had always been that he cared too much. It was why Kiryu had had to run collections and beat people to a pulp, while Nishiki did the stuff like manage cabaret girls, operate the rehab programme, and managed restaurants. He’d always cared about people’s lives, in an intrinsic way that Kiryu had envied, and aimed to emulate by running around town and doing errands for people (that usually just ended in a fight anyway, because Kiryu wasn’t good at much else except violence.)
Now, Nishiki speaks like any other lieutenant.
No...now, he speaks like Shimano. That’s who he sounds like.
Kiryu understands that a level of bragging is necessary with the other patriarchs. He’s sure that there are cruel things you had to say, as part of the bullshit you needed to rise high. Nishiki has always been good at knowing the right thing to say in those sorts of situations. But now they’re together. Nishiki doesn’t need to say that sort of thing to Kiryu.
Yet he had.
“I’m proud of you.” Kiryu says, quietly, so quietly, he’s not entirely sure he’d said it aloud. Not sure if it’s true, anymore. “I always knew it would happen.”
Nishiki exhales, and there is a bitter curl to his face. “Idiot. They only gave me this position because it was supposed to be yours, and I’m just a good little seatwarmer. Don’t make it sound like it was inevitable.”
Kiryu might have faltered before. Might have grown angry, concerned and flew into a rage. But for all that it hurts, Nishiki’s not the only one who’s changed. Kiryu has spent ten years in prison. That sort of introspection and quiet has changed him too. It’s made him reflect on his life, who he is, who he was, what he wanted to become. He’s thirty-seven years old, and he’s spent more of his life as a prisoner than as a yakuza.
“Don’t be a fool. Me, a leader? It would have ended poorly. I could barely follow orders, can you imagine me giving them?” Kiryu laughs and runs a hand over his eyes. He had never learnt how to be a team player at Kazama’s hands. Nishiki had always been a team player from the very beginning. “It was always meant to be you.”
Nishiki’s jaw goes slack, his lips part and Kiryu internally curses. He hadn’t been aware this was an unsafe topic. God. He just puts his foot in his mouth every time, doesn’t he? Before, that would have been something he and Nishiki laughed over. Before, Kiryu hadn’t been aware there were sore spots between them.
“Fuck you! You were the Dragon of Dojima. Everybody knew it was going to be you that Kazama was going to give it to. You commanded respect. Everybody wanted you to be a leader.” Nishiki says, and there’s a ferocious intensity to his gaze, a fury that Kiryu hadn’t been aware Nishiki had the capacity for.
How can he do anything but meet that, as its equal?
“There is no longer a Dragon of Dojima. Dojima is dead. You killed him.” Kiryu retorts, fiercely. “All that’s left is the Dragon of Nishikiyama. Right? Isn’t that what this is? You’re taking me into your family? You left your goddamn pin at the door, and made this whole goddamn apartment as a recruiting pitch, right?”
Nishiki’s gaze bores into him, and his lips have gone almost completely white from how close to the edge, he looks.
“You didn’t need to set me up with all of...this.” Kiryu says, waving his hand around at the luxury he’d never desired or wanted. “I would have said yes.”
Nishiki makes a noise from the back of his throat, a guttural whimper, and he looks like he’s about to lose it. Kiryu hates it, hates making him so uncomfortable, but there is a brightness shimmering in his eyes, and Kiryu feels, finally, like the Nishiki he’d grown up with is still here. Beneath the ice-cold exterior, brittle, fragile and frigid, Nishiki is still there.
He can melt the ice. It might take a while, but Kiryu knows he can, now.
He rummages into his pocket and pulls out a box of cigarettes. Wordlessly, he offers one to Nishiki. Thankfully, Nishiki accepts, popping it straight in his mouth in autopilot. He taps his white pockets, looking for a lighter, absently. But Kiryu is waiting already, with the expensive golden lighter that he’d taken from Nishiki, all those years ago. His own lighter, now.
Before Kiryu can second-guess himself, he leans in and lights the cigarettes with both hands, in offering. Even though he can’t say everything in his heart, everything he really wants to say, he can at least do this right. “Kumicho.” he murmurs, like it is a prayer.
His pinky finger brushes against Nishiki’s lips, accidentally. Ten years in prison have made him rusty at these basic actions of servitude, that he had done by rote for Dojima and Kazama. Kiryu tries to not shake, as he lights his own cigarette, and gazes out towards Kamurocho.
“Not that I’m much of a Dragon anymore.” Kiryu says, quietly. Majima-no-nii-san had showed him that quite succinctly, and his face still aches with the force of that particular lesson. “But if you make me the offer, Nishiki. I won’t refuse.”
“Kyoudai...” Nishiki says, and his voice is raw and ragged. “Thanks.”
Nishiki sounds on the verge of tears, but he doesn’t cry. He’s not thawed yet. Kiryu and Kashiwagi had always been on his ass for crying (what kind of a yakuza just cries whenever things get rough, huh?) but now that Nishiki isn’t crying, it feels odd. Perhaps it’s fine. Kiryu will learn how this new Nishiki works, and he’ll figure out where the old Nishiki is hiding too. It’s fine. He’s stubborn enough and patient enough to see this through.
They finish their cigarettes in a comfortable silence. The city life continues on, underneath them, uncaring of their struggles, and Kiryu is comforted by that, almost. He’s just one small piece of a much larger puzzle, and he’s fine with that. He stubs his cigarette on the ashtray and turn to look to Nishiki, whose expression is far-away, lost somewhere Kiryu can’t go.
“Nishiki?” he asks, and his brother blinks, and the moment passes.
“What’d you bring with you, bro? Is that champagne?” Nishiki asks, smile spreading across his face. “Come on, let’s get smashed. We’re celebrating after all! I haven’t drunk with you in ten years, bro!”
A not especially nice smile spreads across Nishiki’s face, and Kiryu rolls his eyes, as he gets up to get champagne flutes. “I haven’t drunk a single drop of booze since prison, and all you stocked my fridge with was cheap beer. Of course I bought champagne.”
“You never drank anything but cheap shit before!” Nishiki protests, leaning over the couch.
“Well, it’s different now!” Kiryu says, not quite slamming the glasses on top of the coffee table.
“Then I’ll make sure to get you the real good shit next time. I got gifted this super expensive scotch thing by one of my subordinates...haven’t touched it yet, but it looks so expensive. I passed it onto Reina to keep, we can head over to Serena some time soon and chug that down.” Nishiki murmurs, as he expertly pops the cork and pours them both glasses, like a good superior.
“Cheers.” Kiryu says, solemnly clinking their glasses together, and this time, Nishiki smiles a genuine smile as they down their glasses like shots.
They spend the rest of the night drinking their way through Kiryu’s fridge, as they watch shitty television, and sing old karaoke songs, and try to play cards. Nishiki’s gotten better at poker, but Kiryu still wipes his ass. Still, Nishiki’s better at darts than Kiryu as per usual, his aim perfectly true, getting bullseyes with ease even though his face is fully red from drunkenness. They don’t sing any duets in karaoke, though. Nishiki swears off it, though he claps along to Kiryu drawling out an enka ballad with an amused mien. Nishiki shows him some new anime on the late-night channel, ones that Kiryu hasn’t had a chance to read yet in Shonen Jump, and in return, Kiryu rags on the television dramas that had been some of the only entertainment in prison, because of the prison guard’s choices.
It’s a good night, all in all, even if they don’t talk about anything important.
When Kiryu awakes in the early afternoon, light streaming through the open-glass panels, Nishiki’s gone, and most of the mess they’d made around his living room has been cleaned up.
On the centre of the coffee table lies the Nishikiyama Family pin, another tacit invitation. Kiryu picks it up, and with a sour taste in his mouth that is more than just his hangover, realizes that Nishiki still hadn’t actually asked Kiryu to join him.
Kiryu shuts his eyes and wonders. Is it too much to ask, for Nishiki to want Kiryu so badly that he asks out loud? Kiryu had as much as said he was amenable—but the formalities mattered. He wanted to hear it. That was why they were yakuza. Because the formalities matter.
Scowling, Kiryu tucks the Nishikiyama pin in his suit pocket, and goes to wash up. He wants answers from Kazama about what the hell has happened in the ten years he has been trapped in stasis.
-
Finding Stardust is a pain in the ass. Kiryu has to go through several annoying yakuza, is given the run-around by an informant with a bad sense of directions, and even ends up in a fight with one of the hosts, before he can finally settle down with the man Kazama had asked him to seek out, Kazuki, in the back room of the club.
“I’m sorry about the trouble you went through at the front, I had been expecting you yesterday, you see. Still, I really wish Yuya hadn’t drawn attention to us like that, that definitely shortens the length of the conversation we can have right now.” Kazuki says, quickly, as he locks the door, and looks around his small room.
“Does it? Why?” Kiryu asks, feeling a foreboding feeling creep down his chest.
“There are...a lot of people after you right now, Kiryu-san.” Kazuki says, grimly.
“Me? What did I do? I just got out of prison!” Kiryu demands.
“Have you not heard yet?” Kazuki asks, eyes widening. “Kiryu-san, yesterday the Third Chairman was murdered in his office, here in Kamurocho.”
“Sera-san?” asks Kiryu, feeling a punch in his guts at that news. He’d always respected Sera’s tenacity and cool calm.
Before he can say anything more, the door rattles and Kazuki freezes, hand tightening around something hidden in his suit jacket.
“Kazuki-san! It’s me, Tanaka!” says the man at the door, and Kiryu blinks at the familiar voice. Thankfully, Kazuki relaxes and unlocks the door in a swift motion, to welcome in Tanaka Shinji, Kiryu’s former subordinate.
“Kiryu-san! So, the rumour’s true then...” Shinji exclaims, not looking especially pleased to see him. “Kazuki, Shimano’s boys will be here soon, word on the street’s out about the Dragon of Dojima being here.”
“Why are they after me?” Kiryu demands.
“Why? Because the day that Patriarch Killer got out of prison, Chairman Sera was murdered!” Shinji says, as if amazed that Kiryu wouldn’t put together this ludicrous assumption together.
“Why would they think I killed him?!” Kiryu asks, feeling a deep sense of bewilderment overcome him. “Sera saved me. He expelled me instead of banishing me entirely. And I already owe him for the events surrounding the Empty Lot...”
“Well, it’s not like people think much of your loyalty anymore, Kiryu-san.” Shinji says, looking a little more apologetic. “You killed Patriarch Dojima, who was your boss, right as Dojima was about to promote you! People are stupid, they’re willing to believe anything. Besides, you were seen in Kamurocho yesterday in the afternoon, but not around in the night, once everybody realized he was dead...”
“I was at my house! I was with Nishiki, we were talking! Ask him, he’ll corroborate me.” Kiryu says, feeling a deep anger and discontent welling within him. What the hell is going on? All he wants is answers, and he just keeps getting more curveballs thrown straight in his face.
Kazuki and Shinji exchange looks, as if the thought of Nishiki doing something like that is a naïve myth, and Kiryu’s heart hardens even more. “Where’s Kazama-san?” he demands, tired of this strange charade he’s found himself in. “I need to see him.”
“He’s busy. The Tojo Clan is in disarray right now, and there’s a lot of power politics in play here.” Kazuki says, briskly. “He asked me to fill you in, but—”
“I don’t need that. I need to hear it from him.” Kiryu interrupts, shaking his head. The things he has ask and say are not the sort of things he can say to a random host-club owner, trusted by Kazama or not. “Where is he now?”
“At the Tojo Clan Headquarters, but—
“I’ll get a taxi there.” Kiryu says, standing up, to bow and excuse himself. Shinji grabs his arm, though, and pulls him, firmly.
“Are you insane, Kiryu-san? Did you not just hear what I said? They all think you killed Chairman Sera! They won’t let you in, they’re doing the wake right now, and the funeral is tomorrow. You can’t go anywhere near there when the whole family’s basically gathered there!” Shinji says, frantically. “You can’t!”
“They’re holding his funeral tomorrow? Good, I’ll go and pay my respects.” Kiryu says, firmly.
“They’re going to kill you!” Shinji says, his face pale, and although Kiryu is touched by his concern, it is an unnecessary concern. Weak or not, by Majima’s standards, he has a goal to fulfill, and a bunch of idiots who believe baseless rumours won’t be able to stop him.
“I’m a civilian, right now.” Kiryu says, blankly. “If they kill me, they’ll have a police problem. I’m not one of the clan. So right now, if I fight them, I won’t be disobeying any orders. I’ll beat every single grunt to the ground if I need to. I’m going to see Kazama-san.”
Kazuki looks at him with a bright blankness. “You’re insane...” he mutters.
“Shimano’s goons are here!” A yell from the other side of the door, and Shinji and Kazuki both swear. But Kiryu’s done with hiding and waiting and holding back, and the slow fury that’s been simmering within him from the moment he stepped out of jail to a world he can no longer recognize fills up his whole body.
He pushes the door open and strides through the club, until he faces the would-be attackers. They sneer at him, say something pointless and debasing about him. He cracks his knuckles and gets to work.
He destroys Shimano’s goons. He smashes tables over their heads, takes their own swords and slash down against their weak bodies, and throws them around the room, like weapons against each other. It’s only once he stands over a pile of unconscious bodies, surveying the damage done to the club’s main dance floor, that something like a thrumming calm settles over his skin.
The other hosts stare at him in horror, fear painted over their eyes, and Kiryu hates that expression, always has, but he can’t help but feel a dark stab of vindication at gaining something like a modicum of control over his life. Violence is a language that people listen to.
Shinji stands across from him, eyes blown out wide, filled with a reluctant admiration. Kiryu turns towards him. “Shinji?”
“Y-Yes Kiryu-san?”
“I need to get to the Tojo Clan Headquarters. Will you help me?”
“...yes.”
-
He disguises himself as one of the mortuary workers to sneak into the funeral. With Kazuki’s help in creating a truly gargantuan flower arrangement display to wheel in, so he can hide his face from any watching yakuza, Kiryu quietly manages to get past the main entrance. Once he’s wheeled the flower arrangement into the main hall, he pauses briefly, to kneel in front of Sera’s casket. He prays, momentarily, to the gods he’s never really put much stock in, and before he lingers too long and is caught, he drops a single flower atop Sera’s casket. Kiryu’s grateful to see that Shinji has managed to artfully place a cleaning cart in the side corridor, that Kiryu can quickly use as a way to wander the rest of the Tojo Clan Headquarters. He cautiously navigates his way around the winding halls, until he reaches the room with a purple flower, where he is supposed to meet Kazama-san, for the first time in ten years.
He enters, quickly, with a quiet knock and exhales a sigh of relief. Kazama waits for him, cane leant against his armchair, eyes clear and firm as he looks at Kiryu.
“So you came.” Kazama says, quietly.
Kiryu can only nod.
“It’s strange. In my mind, I think I will only be able to see you as the sixteen-year-old who stood before me in the rain and told me he was intent on joining me. Yet here you, almost forty. It has been a long time, Kazuma.” Kazama-san’s voice is nostalgic, and there’s a faint smile that touches the edge of his lips.
Kiryu wishes he could say something similar, but the shock of Kazama-san’s age is now burned into his brain. His slicked back hair is now greying, he truly looks like he is sixty. The lines on his face that had one just been an indication of his firm strength, now bely only age.
“I—What happened here? Why is this happening?” asks Kiryu, quietly, coming to sit in front of the only man who could have ever called his father, feeling a strange feeling start to overwhelm him.
Kazama looks quite saddened. “Prison didn’t prepare you for this, did it?”
“Prison isn’t a preparation, it’s a punishment.” Kiryu says, dryly. “What happened in my absence? Where’s Yumi?”
Kazama’s face shutters off. “It’s...a long story. A difficult story. Not a story meant to be said at the funeral of Chairman Sera.”
If he had been speaking to anybody else, he would have shouted or beaten them up. Would have said that answer wasn’t good enough. There’s no way he could threaten Kazama, however, so Kiryu just resorts to glaring at him, to tell him just how much bullshit Kiryu thinks that is.
“If you can’t talk about Yumi, what the hell happened to Nishiki, huh?”
Kazama exhales. “Kiryu...these answers. Are you sure you want them?”
“Am I supposed to live in ignorance? Not know anything about my two closest friends, and just wander around Kamurocho like a blind idiot, constantly hiding away?” Kiryu asks. He can feel the impatience starting to rise within him, and he tamps down on it, firmly. No. He can wait. He can be patient.
Kazama exhales, and points towards the bottle of sake behind them both. Kiryu stands up, quickly, to grab it, and pour them both glasses. “Always the path of most resistance with you, Kiryu.” Kazama murmurs. But he relents and starts to speak, hands clutched around the glass he takes occasional sips from. “The problem of Nishikiyama lies with a poorly timed decision. In the wake of Dojima’s death, I took over the Dojima Family, incorporated those soldiers into my own family. In doing so, a power vacuum was left over, and I did not wish for Shimano to fill it. In hindsight, I should have asked Kashiwagi to become a patriarch in his own right. But I thought that Nishikiyama could create a family for you to return to. I had thought...”
Kazama trails off and shakes his head. “It is weak people, Kazuma, that seek power for its own sake. The strong understand that power is a means to another end: charity, love, or even destruction. But the weak see power as the ultimate goal and lose themselves in pursuit of it, chasing endlessly after a tool that is not an achievement. Nishikiyama was always weak, but he had the potential to change, to grow and understand the true nature of strength. I thought that giving him a structured regiment towards power would help him. Instead, he bucked at the idea of structure and betrayed us entirely, seeking power endlessly for himself, for his own purposes.”
Kiryu is uncertain what to think. Kazama’s theory of power is strangely clinical for Kazama’s usually broad, sweeping kindness and wisdom. And, after an evening of observing Nishiki’s smug expressions, he definitely doesn’t think that Nishiki is seeking power for its own end. He’s up to something, even if Kiryu doesn’t know enough about the Clan as it is to fully comprehend the scale of that.
But betrayal? Nishiki was about as loyal to Kazama as Kiryu was—so he had thought. To find out otherwise, hurts.
“How did he betray us?” Kiryu asks, quietly, putting the untouched glass down. He doesn’t much feel like drinking right now.
“Slowly. It was hardly some grand gesture.” Kazama says, grimly. “He stopped sending us money and information and started challenging me and my decisions more openly, at the meetings. His family started closing ranks and expelling those who were more loyal to me, before eating away at the edges of my territory. He started making alliances with Shimano and Matsugane and Shibata Families...it was a slow but visible turn away from us.”
Kiryu frowns and runs a hand over the Nishikiyama pin in his front pocket. “He gave me an apartment, a rather lavish one. And he sent some of his men to pick me up at the prison.”
Kazama nods, looking quite pensive, taking a few sips from his cup. “I suspect it is a declaration to you. Asking you to choose between us.”
Kiryu exhales, feeling a slight headache start to come about, as he tries to piece what little information he has together. “There isn’t really a choice for me, though, is there? I can’t join your family, Kazama-san. Not when it is a fusion between you and the Dojima family, from which I’ve been expelled. Nishiki’s my only choice.”
Kazama raises an eyebrow. “There is always a choice, Kazuma. You need not pick either of us. You may walk away to another family who would take you in. I’ve heard that Majima has taken a shine to you. Though I doubt Shimano would make your life easy, it would be a different place to go.”
It’s an intriguing prospect, but Kiryu doesn’t dwell on it for more than a few moments. “They wouldn’t take me. To the world, I’m the Patriarch Killer, aren’t I? They even think I’ve killed Chairman Sera now. Who would accept me but you two, the only ones who know the truth?”
Kazama laughs, dryly. “Only the rank and file yakuza believe that you killed Sera. Everybody who’s even vaguely important knows why he’s dead. It’s because of the missing 10 billion yen.”
Kiryu frowns. He’s heard of it on the streets a little but doesn’t really know about it. “Whose money is missing?”
“The Tojo Clan’s. It’s sent the whole family scurrying in a panic.” Kazama looks vaguely amused. “That sort of money in the hands of our enemies could be deadly. Whoever killed Sera is making a move towards power. If they acquire the 10 billion yen and Sera’s gone, they claim the top position.”
“Who would want to do that?” asks Kiryu, though he already knows the answer, without even having to say it aloud.
Before Kazama can answer however, he frowns and shuts his eyes, tightly.
“Kazama-san?” Kiryu asks, concerned.
Kazama doesn’t respond, just makes a keening noise of pain. Kiryu realizes, immediately, that something is horribly wrong. He lunges forward and examines his father’s body. “Kazama-san?! Are you hurt?”
“P-poisoned. Run.” Kazama manages to eke out, before he starts to convulse a little and cough up blood over Kiryu’s white shirt. Kiryu stares in horror, at the empty glass of alcohol that Kazama had fully drained, and feels a deep anger rise within him. Somebody just tried to kill Kazama, and they may well succeed.
“Shinji!” he yells, pushing the door open, not caring about the people who might be milling around. “Get a doctor, Kazama-san’s—”
It’s just his luck to open the door straight into a group of Shimano thugs. They look at him, see the blood over his shirt, and Kazama-san dying in the background, and come to entirely the wrong conclusions. Kiryu’s entirely full cup of alcohol probably doesn’t help his case, he muses, as he ducks out of the way of their punches and barrels his way down towards Shinji might be.
He runs into him coming out of the bathroom.
“Shinji, Kazama-san’s been poisoned, get a doctor!” Kiryu says, grabbing Shinji’s shoulders.
Shinji looks at him with wide eyes. “You didn’t—”
“No!” Kiryu snaps, fury filling his veins.
Shinji nods, and runs off in the opposite direction. He’s a smart man, Kiryu has to trust he’ll take care of Kazama, now that Kiryu can’t. He runs, as fast as he can through the house, not bothering with stealth now. He’s already been detected; the main thing now is to get out, before people mobilize in one area and overwhelm him in numbers. Kiryu can handle crowds of ten, fifteen people at a time. He can’t take on the full force of the Tojo Clan all at once though, he has to stagger it out.
As he run into people, he uses the things strewn around the house to help attack people. Sofas, vases, paintings, cabinets, tables—anything that will protect him from taking too many hits and will incapacitate as many people as he can manage. Nothing lethal though. Even as his opponents drop knives and guns, Kiryu doesn’t pick them up. He doesn’t need to add to the list of bodies that supposedly drift in his wake.
He dodges attacks, jumping from one foot to another with a suppleness that doesn’t belie his age, thanking Kamoji’s swift and brutal training back when he’d been younger for his swift reflexes. Kiryu lets his adrenaline take over when his opponents do manage to get a hit in, enduring onwards, even as the blows start to damage his skin. He has no time for pain. He has to escape.
He runs into Majima on the way, who grins widely at him, impressed and maddened as ever. “Kiryu-chan, you’re really a beast, huh? Takes some guts rolling up in here, all casual-like, taking on the whole clan.”
“You do what you have to for family.” Kiryu responds, and something grows very brittle in Majima’s gaze, as he draws his tanto.
The fight is too easy and Majima taps out almost immediately, after only being slammed into the ground headfirst twice. His gaze follows Kiryu, as Kiryu runs away and pointedly doesn’t think about it, and what that means.
Majima’s kindness doesn’t matter anyway, because as soon as he bursts out into the main courtyard, a whole crowd of Tojo Clan members are gathered together, about fifty men. Kiryu can’t take down fifty men alone, couldn’t if he tried.
To his relief, Shimano is at the head of the audience and booms out in his loud voice, “I’m going to fight you one-on-one, Kiryu, and destroy you, once and for all!” From anybody else, it would be a horribly cheesy line, but Shimano’s eyes are narrowed and cold like a snake, and his body is built like a tank, and it is desperately, horrifically sincere.
Kiryu has fought his fair share of yakuza, but Shimano is one of the Tojo Clan’s most feared warriors, able to crush his enemies under heel, and turn others into allies when he finds it expedient. There is no sadistic mercy in Shimano’s eyes today, however, just pure fury.
As they circle around each other, Kiryu eyes the crowd. The fight is a temporary respite, in truth. Even if he defeats Shimano, how is he going to escape the fifty-odd men that will then jump him? The flower delivery van he had hoped to escape with initially, has not yet come around the front: it was supposed to wait a full hour before rolling around again, and it’s barely been half that time. If he runs, he won’t make it far. If he loses, he dies. Shimano, with his fierce tiger tattoos and the blood running down his jaw, will not suffer Kiryu living.
There is no escape.
In the crowd, however, Kiryu spots Nishiki. He’s coolly watching, arms over his chest, as Kiryu deftly weaves and evades Shimano’s destructive punches and holds. Kiryu raises an eyebrow at him, a tacit question of ‘why aren’t you helping me here?’ Nishiki looks down, meaningfully, to Kiryu’s lapel.
Feeling the tinge of fury rise up within him, Kiryu drops his guard a little, and is socked in the face and straight to the ground by Shimano. Fuck! After all this time, it’s a fucking powerplay to Nishiki? In private, Kiryu would have kissed Nishiki’s feet, kissed his ring: whatever adulatory obeisance Nishiki wanted, Kiryu would have given him without question. Out here in public, though, it’s a matter of pride, as all yakuza matters are. Nishikiyama knows that. Kiryu knows that.
And Kiryu refuses to lose.
He concentrates in on himself, and rolls away from Shimano’s finishing blow, pushing himself upwards, to jab him in the back, and restart his assault.
As they fight, blood spilling and bones cracking, adrenaline shifting within their bodies, Kiryu thinks of his childhood. At Sunflower Orphanage, he and Nishiki didn’t often face off against each other alone. Games weren’t allowed to exclude other kids, and so the twenty-or-so children often played large group games or team games: tag, basketball, kagome kagome, hide-and-seek, football, old maid, or oshikura. He and Nishiki were almost always on the same team or rooting for each other to win. That was just the sort of friendship they’d had.
But Yumi had decided, once, to base a game around a spy show she’d been very interested in, a bit like Russian Roulette. Two of the players were secret spies, and everybody else was normal, and you had to figure out the spies each round by killing whoever you suspected by the end of the turn. It was a team game: either the spies won, or the team won.
Kiryu had always been pretty good at the game, because he so rarely spoke, that nobody ever really thought to suspect him. Nishiki hated the game though, because even though he managed to convince everybody else of his innocence when he was a spy, Kiryu always knew, and that soon enough, became a tell for all the other kids.
Nishiki’s tactic when he was a spy, had always been to accuse somebody entirely innocent and push for their destruction, to divert attention from himself. When things started getting close to the wire, Nishiki always threw his fellow spy under the bus, so he alone could survive. And Kiryu had always known that Nishiki was a spy because he’d always noticed how much quieter, how much less offensive Nishiki played, when he had nothing to hide.
Kiryu had always won games of Russian Roulette by forcing Nishiki on the defensive. Nishiki had never been good at weathering through suspicion. His defense always crumpled. Nishiki wasn’t the sort of person who was good at maintaining long-term plans, he became too nervous and frazzled and gave himself away. He’d never had much patience, living for the short-term pleasures and glories in life.
Kiryu has always played for the long-term victory.
He pushes Shimano to the ground, one final uppercut knocking him fully unconscious. In that moment, as everybody stares in horror, taking in the sheer incredulity of the fact that Kiryu had defeated a Patriarch like Shimano with barely any wounds to show for it, Kiryu pulls the Nishikiyama Family pin out of his pocket, and pins it firmly on his lapel.
He’s not submitting to Nishikiyama’s power, anymore. He’s throwing his accolades at Nishikiyama’s feet, instead. To the victor, the spoils.
Sera is dead, Kazama poisoned and Shimano now humiliated. The only person who has won is Nishikiyama, and now everybody knows what Kiryu had known, from the moment he’d heard about Chairman Sera’s death being pinned on him.
The crowd howls, and the world shifts on its axis within the Tojo Clan. Majima watches with a glinting eye, as the man who he’d thought was indestructible crumples onto the floor like a used-up toy and wonders. Kashiwagi watches in horror, as both of the boys he considers sons, align together and seemingly betray Kazama. The Omi Alliance members who had disguised themselves as funeral workers ponder the strength of their alliances with Shimano and Kazama both: legends made mortal today.
But Kiryu doesn’t pay attention to the swirling chaos in front of him, he only looks at Nishikiyama’s expression, when he realizes how Kiryu has outplayed his game of lies and deception.
“Kumicho.” he says, and this time, it is a challenge.