Chapter Text
The streets of Bankoku-gai never sleep. They do, however, change faces.
By day, the narrow streets belong to vendors, deliverymen and residents spilling out from cramped homes and crowded shops. Children race between stalls beneath signs written in Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Tagalog, Arabic and half a dozen other languages, shrieking with laughter while adults argue across open windows and trade insults affectionate enough to pass for greetings.
At night, the shutters fall and the lanterns burn red. The neighbourhood grows quieter, but never truly sleeps. Figures who would rather remain unseen begin slipping through its alleys, swallowed quickly by shadow.
Suo moves through both versions of Bankoku-gai as though he belongs to neither.
His hands rest inside the sleeves of his red coat. His pace remains unhurried despite the altercation he has just left behind. Three men tried to collect an unauthorised toll from a restaurant under Red Chanpuru’s protection. One listened when Suo instructed him to stop.
The other two are reconsidering their decisions from the floor of an alley.
The shopkeeper bowed so low his forehead nearly struck the counter.
Suo smiled, assured him that no payment was required and left before the man could mumble another thank you.
The deeper parts of Bankoku-gai are arranged in layers rather than districts. The first belongs to those who wish to be seen. The second belongs to those who conduct business without interference.
The third belongs to Red Chanpuru.
Here, every street is watched and every doorway has a purpose. Red Chanpuru began as a pact among immigrant families whom the police ignored and local gangs treated as easy prey. The languages and customs inside Bankoku-gai have multiplied over generations, but the organisation's oldest promise remains unchanged: no one here is left undefended simply because this country has decided they do not belong.
Suo spends years learning how to walk through those streets without appearing wary. Even now, after Makochi has taught him what it feels like to move through a neighbourhood without measuring every rooftop and reflection, his body remembers.
A window opens above him and a folded slip of paper flutters down.
Suo catches it without breaking stride.
The paper is black. Three red dragons have been pressed into one corner.
He stops beneath a lantern.
Only two lines have been written, all in red ink.
A debt has been repaid.
A new member will be received. Your presence is required.
For a moment, the sounds of Bankoku-gai recede.
A woman laughs somewhere beyond the next corner. Dice strike the bottom of a wooden cup. A delivery cart rattles over uneven stone.
Suo reads the message again.
A debt has been repaid.
The phrasing alone sets alarm bells ringing in Suo’s head. Red Chanpuru does not speak of debts lightly. Among them, the word is reserved for only one kind of obligation—one paid in blood.
The second line should mean nothing to him.
New members are uncommon, but hardly remarkable. Most are children born or raised by Red Chanpuru, formally inducted when they come of age. Others are drawn from the outer layers of Bankoku-gai. A rare few come from beyond its borders altogether.
In most cases, his presence is not usually required.
Suo folds the paper once. The edge cuts into the pad of his thumb. He doesn’t feel it until a bead of blood stains the black paper.
A young man waits at the far end of the street, half concealed by the shadow of an awning. His clothing bears no obvious crest, but the dragon-shaped clasp at his throat marks him as a messenger of the leadership council.
Suo approaches.
“Who is it?”
The messenger lowers his head and shakes it once.
“I was instructed only to bring you the notice, Officer Sun Fei.”
“Then I’m instructing you to answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
The reply comes too quickly that it brings a thin smile to Suo’s face. The messenger grows pale.
“You seem terribly frightened,” Suo observes lightly.
“N-not at all.”
“Hm. That’s unfortunate. Fear would at least excuse such a poor lie.”
The young man’s gaze flickers towards the southern passage.
The headquarters where the leadership council live and convene lie in the opposite direction.
Whatever waits for Suo is being kept below the old bathhouse.
His smile remains in place.
“Thank you,” he says.
The messenger looks relieved too soon.
Suo passes him and turns south.
Bankoku-gai changes as he descends.
The red lanterns disappear first. The music from the gambling rooms fades. Stone replaces timber, and the air takes on the cool, damp quality of a place built beneath too many other places.
The old bathhouse closed to the public years ago, but steam still rises from vents along its roof. The pools now conceal entrances to lower corridors. The treatment rooms have become offices, storehouses and cells.
Two guards stand outside the rear entrance, both bowing at the sight of him.
“Officer Sun Fei.”
Suo doesn’t return the greeting.
“Where is the new member? I was told there is one.”
The older guard hesitates.
“He’s being kept below, Officer Sun Fei.”
“Do we know who this person is?”
“We were told the council would explain.”
Suo stops directly in front of him. The man is taller and broad enough to block the doorway, but his weight shifts backwards.
“Do we know who this person is?” Suo repeats with deliberate slowness.
A lock turns behind the door.
Rakta steps out before the guard answers. Suo immediately notices the blood staining one sleeve, although the absence of a wound suggests it belongs to somebody else.
His severe expression answers Suo’s question before he speaks. Suo’s body goes still, the alarm bells in his head now ringing louder than ever.
“Don’t tell me,” he says.
Rakta glances towards the guards.
“Sun Fei—”
“No.”
“They found out this afternoon.”
“Where is he?”
Rakta’s jaw tightens before he lets out a heavy sigh.
“Third room on the left.”
Suo walks past him.
The older guard reaches out for him in alarm.
“Officer Sun Fei, the council ordered—”
Suo catches the man’s wrist.
There’s no dramatic movement. One moment the guard is reaching for him, and the next his arm is twisted behind his back with his shoulder pressed against the wall.
Suo leans close.
“You will not touch me again.”
The man’s face tightens with pain.
“Yes, Officer Sun Fei.”
Suo releases him and continues inside, Rakta shadowing his steps.
“The blood on your sleeve, is he hurt?” Suo asks.
“He resisted being taken. Took quite a bit to subdue him.” Rakta glances at Suo beside him. “Nothing that won’t heal with rest, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“I’m concerned about a lot of things,” Suo says testily. He stops in his tracks, lifting his head to lightly sniff the air. “This scent…” His visible eye darkens. “Is sedative being used?”
“Are you asking or just confirming?”
Suo resists the urge to click his tongue. “It smells strong. How much was given?”
There is a beat of silence before Rakta finally answers.
“Three doses.”
Suo stops. Rakta nearly walks into him.
“Three doses,” he repeats flatly.
“The two doses weren’t enough to silence him, according to reports.” When Suo glares sharply at him, Rakta merely meets his gaze with a leveled expression. “I found him already in that state. You know me well enough that I won’t do anything of the sort without your permission, don’t you, Sun Fei?”
Suo clicks his tongue then resumes walking.
The stairs beneath the bathhouse spiral deeper than the official foundations should allow. At the bottom lies a corridor lit by electric lamps disguised inside old iron cages. Incense burns at each intersection, failing to conceal the smells of damp stone, medicine and blood.
Bacchus waits outside the final door, his large frame nearly blocking the corridor. He holds a stained cloth in one hand.
Suo’s gaze drops to it.
“Is that his?”
“Some of it,” Bacchus shrugs and then he opens the door.
Sakura sits against the wall with his head bowed.
His wrists are bound in front of him with a red cord. Another length circles his ankles, and a chain connects his hands to an iron ring in the floor.
Someone has removed his jacket.
His white shirt is torn at one shoulder and stained along the collar. A bruise darkens the side of his jaw. Another spreads beneath his left temple. His lower lip is split.
He doesn’t move when the door opens.
For one terrible second, Suo sees another room.
White cloth.
Blood running between floorboards.
A hand that remains warm after its owner stops breathing.
Then Sakura’s chest rises.
“Sakura-kun,” Suo whispers into the quiet air.
There is no response.
Suo enters the room, stopping to crouch in front of him.
Up close, the damage appears worse. Red marks circle Sakura’s throat where someone must have tried to restrain him. His knuckles are torn. Dried blood runs from a cut behind his ear.
Suo raises a hand, but his fingers still before they can brush Sakura’s face.
There is a camera in the room. What little technology Red Chanpuru can afford is reserved almost exclusively for its leadership; God forbid such luxuries ever reach those condemned to the outer layers.
His gaze flicks towards the black lens wedged discreetly between two stones near the ceiling.
The leadership council is watching.
Suo lowers his hand, letting it settle on Sakura’s shoulder instead.
“Sakura-kun.”
Sakura flinches beneath his palm.
His head rises slowly, as though even that small movement requires more strength than he possesses. When his eyes finally open, they remain clouded and unfocused. His left pupil contracts more sluggishly than the other beneath the room’s harsh light.
For several seconds, he stares straight through Suo.
Then his eyes finally meet his.
“Suo?”
His voice is hoarse, the name frayed with confusion. Relief cuts through Suo so sharply that he nearly closes his eyes.
Instead, he smiles.
“You seem surprised to see me.”
Sakura blinks. Awareness seems to him in fragments.
The stone walls. The chain at his ankle. The cord biting into his wrists.
Suo.
He jerks forward.
The chain snaps taut with a metallic crack, wrenching him off balance. Suo catches him before he can pitch back onto the floor, hands closing around his arms.
“Easy there,” he murmurs.
Sakura shoves hard against his chest out of instinct. “I’m fine. I…”
The words emerge as little more than a groan. Whatever sedative remains in his system has stripped most of the strength from his limbs, but the movement is forceful enough that Suo releases him without resistance.
Sakura scrambles backwards, clumsy and frantic, until his spine strikes the wall.
His breaths come short and ragged. His gaze darts across the room, searching the shadows, the door, the faces watching him.
“Where am I?”
“Do you remember how you got here?” Suo asks.
Sakura squeezes his eyes shut. His expression twists as he tries to force his thoughts into order.
“God, I…” He lifts his bound hands towards his temple before the cord stops him. “I was heading back from Bankoku-gai. Nirei and the others had already gone ahead, and I—”
His face tightens.
“I think someone ambushed me.” He swallows, then winces. “My head hurts.”
“You took a nasty hit,” Bacchus drawls from the corner. “The sedative likely scrambled your memory as well.”
Sakura’s eyes snap towards him.
“The sedative?” He narrows his gaze. “You drugged me?”
“Not me,” Bacchus says. “The men who brought you here.”
“Brought me?” Sakura repeats. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Sakura-kun.” Suo keeps his tone gentle. “Look around. Can you tell where you are?”
Sakura’s breathing catches. He looks around the room again, slower this time. It passes over Suo, then Bacchus, before settling on Rakta. Recognition flickers when he notices the markings on Rakta’s exposed arm.
The anger in Sakura’s face gives way to something colder.
“Am I still in Bankoku-gai?” he rasps.
His eyes return to Suo.
“Am I with the Red Chanpuru?”
Suo’s smile thins.
“I’m afraid so, Sakura-kun.”
“Why?”
For the first time since entering the room, Suo allows a sliver of truth to enter his voice.
“That,” he says quietly, “is precisely what I would like to know.”
“I…” Sakura swallows, but the next words still emerge unevenly. “Suo, you’re an officer of Red Chanpuru, aren’t you?”
Suo exhales softly. “So you knew,” he says. “Who told you?”
Sakura shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Well, it doesn’t to me.” Sakura’s bound hands curl into fists. “I remember something.”
Suo waits patiently for his next words, his expression carefully blank.
“The people who attacked me,” Sakura continues. His breathing remains shallow, but his eyes are clearer now, fixed on Suo with growing unease. “They said you were going to be Red Chanpuru’s next leader.”
Silence settles over the room.
Suo has imagined telling Sakura the truth more times than he cares to admit. In some versions, they sit together over tea. In others, Sakura finds out by accident and confronts him somewhere private, somewhere Suo can explain without weighing every word against the threat of listening ears.
In none of them is Sakura drugged, bound to a stone floor, and staring at him as though every vague answer and careful omission Suo has ever offered is rearranging itself into proof of betrayal.
The camera’s unblinking gaze has never weighed so heavily on Suo.
“The matter of succession remains unsettled,” he says at last.
Sakura’s expression hardens. “That wasn’t what I asked and you know it.”
There is anger in Sakura’s voice now, but beneath it lies something far more difficult to face.
Hurt.
Suo keeps his smile in place.
“I’m just one of the candidates being considered,” he allows. “Like I said, nothing’s decided yet.”
“And you never thought to tell me?”
“He doesn’t owe an outsider that kind of truth,” Rakta says in an even voice. Something in Sakura’s face breaks at the answer.
“An outsider…” he whispers.
“I do hate to interrupt your touching reunion,” a bored voice interrupts in heavy, accented Japanese. It’s crackly, having come from a speaker hidden somewhere in the room. “But Officer Sun Fei, we do require your audience now. You may untie the boy but do keep him restrained. He’s coming with you.”
Sakura looks towards the ceiling in surprise, just as Suo rises.
“Laleh,” he says. “I should have known you were behind this. Why is Sakura-kun here?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Officer Sun Fei. You of all people should know why.” He hears a bemused chuckle. “Considering your position, future leader.”
Suo clenches his fists. “Did you have to restrain him like an animal?” he asks evenly. “Is that how Red Chanpuru treats its guests now?”
The chuckle turns into a bark of a laugh. “He is no guest. But he will find out in time. Now, enough meandering. Bring him over to the council chamber before we lose our patience, boy.”
The speaker cuts out. Silence closes around the room once more.
Sakura keeps staring at the ceiling. “Who was that?”
Suo looks down at him and summons a smile that carries none of its usual warmth.
“Someone exceptionally troublesome.”
“The leadership council has assembled,” Rakta informs him.
Suo glances over as they make their way through the silent streets of Bankoku-gai. Sakura walks between him and Bacchus, his hands still bound and most of his weight sagging against their shoulders.
“At this hour?” Suo says dryly. “They must be terribly eager to see me.”
“Considering who you’re bringing them,” Bacchus replies, “are you really surprised?”
He isn’t.
The leadership council remains elusive even to Red Chanpuru’s officers, convening only when a matter demands their collective attention. For them to gather in the middle of the night means there is nothing left to deliberate.
This meeting is not being held to decide Sakura’s fate but rather to announce it.
Sakura does not speak for the rest of the walk. His injuries and the sedative still clouding his system have subdued everything fiery about him. His steps drag unevenly against the stone, his head bowed as though keeping it raised requires more strength than he has left.
Suo says nothing either.
He slips an arm around Sakura’s waist and helps Bacchus hold him upright, carefully adjusting his grip whenever Sakura stumbles. Sakura stiffens at the contact but lacks the strength to pull away.
By the time they reach headquarters, word of their arrival has already spread.
Members gathered near the entrance fall silent and part to let them through. The same thing happens inside. Some lower their heads as Suo passes. Others stare openly at the exhausted boy held between him and Bacchus.
Sakura notices. He lifts his head with visible effort, his unfocused gaze moving over the watching faces.
“What are they looking at?” he asks hoarsely.
Suo’s mouth curves into a faint smile.
“You, Sakura-kun.”
Sakura frowns at this.
“You are better known within Red Chanpuru than you realise,” Suo continues. “Especially lately.”
“But why?” Sakura’s voice remains weak, though a trace of irritation returns to it. “I’m not anyone important.”
“You are now.” Sakura turns towards him in confusion. Suo keeps his gaze fixed on the corridor ahead. “And you have your father to thank for that.”
“My father?”
Suo feels Sakura tense beneath his arm but he offers no further explanation. After all, he has already said more than he should.
They maintain their silence until they reach the council chamber.
The doors swing open before them.
Seven members sit around a massive oak table, with Laleh occupying the central position beneath the crest of Red Chanpuru.
Iranian-born and raised in Bankoku-gai from childhood, Laleh Azar is the group’s current leader, her authority built across decades spent holding together communities with little else in common beyond the need to survive.
Her silver hair is pinned high with a black comb, leaving her face entirely unobscured as she watches them enter.
Representatives of Red Chanpuru's now divided factions sit on either side of her, wearing expressions ranging from thinly concealed satisfaction to open resentment.
None of them, however, appears surprised by Sakura’s condition.
Suo guides him towards the empty space before the table, where a single wooden chair has been placed. Ordinarily, there would be nothing there at all. Anyone summoned before the leadership council is expected to remain standing, regardless of how long the audience lasts.
Perhaps the chair is intended as a rare gesture of compassion.
More likely, they simply don’t want Sakura collapsing before they have finished with him.
Too exhausted to argue despite the wariness tightening every line of his body, Sakura lowers himself into the chair. Suo moves to stand directly behind him, while Rakta and Bacchus take their places several steps behind Suo.
For a moment, no one speaks.
Then Laleh fixes Suo with a cool, assessing stare.
“Officer Sun Fei,” she begins, “I imagine you have accumulated a great many questions during your journey here.”
“I have,” Suo confirms pleasantly. “For a start, I was unaware that Red Chanpuru had taken to abducting people from the streets. That is not how our blood bonds are supposed to function, Laleh.”
“My, my. What an ugly accusation to open with.”
Laleh’s tone remains light, almost indulgent, as though Suo has committed nothing more serious than a minor breach of etiquette.
“We have abducted no one,” she continues. “We have merely taken possession of something that has belonged to Red Chanpuru for a very long time.”
She leans forward slightly, studying Suo with critical eyes. “A debt remains a debt regardless of how many years pass, and our blood bonds are defined by our willingness to settle what is owed, even when doing so requires methods that outsiders might find distasteful.”
Sakura shifts in the chair. Suo notices, but he keeps his eyes on Laleh.
“You have a generous definition of what belongs to you.”
“It’s the same debt that fractured Red Chanpuru into factions, giving rise to the need for the representatives seated beside me, and the same debt that has left Bankoku-gai to suffer.”
The representatives seated beside her turn their attention towards Suo.
Some regard him with open challenge, while others, a quiet expectation. Suo returns every stare without lowering his own.
Laleh allows the silence to linger for several moments before finally turning her attention to Sakura.
“Sakura Haruka-kun,” she says. “Do you understand why you are here?”
Sakura shifts in the chair. His bound hands rest stiffly in his lap, the cord cutting into skin already rubbed raw, but he makes no attempt to answer immediately. He looks at Laleh, then at the representatives seated on either side of her, taking in the unfamiliar faces and the quiet hostility with which several of them regard him.
“No,” he says at last. His voice is hoarse, but steady. “I don’t.”
“I see.” Laleh folds her hands neatly upon the table. “Then perhaps we should begin with something simpler. When was the last time you saw your father?”
Suo feels Sakura go still, his shoulders going rigid and his fingers curling against his palms. A shadow falls across Sakura’s face.
“Why do you want to know?” he asks stiffly.
“Do answer the question before you ask your own.”
Sakura stares at Laleh for a long moment before leaning back against the chair. The movement is slow and careful, as though even the act of holding himself upright has begun to hurt.
“I haven’t seen him since I was a kid,” he mumbles.
“How young?”
“When I was in elementary school.”
“And where did you part ways?”
Sakura’s mouth twists. “At an orphanage.”
A murmur moves around the table, faint enough that it might have been imagined. Sakura’s eyes narrow at the sound.
“He brought you there himself?” Laleh asks.
“He dropped me off and left.”
There is no visible emotion or hesitation in his face now. He speaks as though recounting something that happened to another person, something too distant to wound him any longer.
Laleh tilts her head in cold curiosity. “Did he tell you why?”
Sakura lets out a quiet breath through his nose.
“He said he couldn’t keep me.”
“That was all?”
Sakura’s gaze moves to glare at her.
“You seem to know so much about him already,” he says snidely. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Laleh gives him a thin smile. “I would prefer to hear what you remember,” she says.
For the first time, anger breaks through the coldness in Sakura’s expression.
“He called me a murderer,” he spits.
The room falls silent. Even the representatives who had been exchanging glances moments before turn fully towards him. Suo’s hand tenses behind his back.
Laleh, however, doesn’t react.
“Why?” she asks simply.
“My mother died giving birth to me. So clearly that meant I killed her.” Sakura’s voice remains flat, each word clipped cleanly from the next.
Suo watches the line of Sakura’s jaw tighten.
“He told the woman at the gate that he wasn’t coming back,” Sakura continues. “Then he looked at me and said I had taken everything from my mother before I had even opened my eyes. After that, he left.”
His fingers dig more deeply into his palms.
“So no, I haven’t seen him since he abandoned me. Whatever problem you have with him, you can find him and settle it yourselves.”
Laleh studies him with an expression that is neither sympathetic nor surprised.
“We would, if his whereabouts were known,” she says.
Sakura gives a humourless laugh. “Then I guess you’re out of luck.”
“On the contrary.”
Suo’s gaze shifts towards her. Laleh leans back in her chair, the sleeves of her robe settling around her wrists.
“Your father was once one of Red Chanpuru's highest-ranking officers,” Laleh says.
Suo sees Sakura jerk in surprise. A brief look of satisfaction flashes across Laleh’s face.
“That was no ordinary achievement. You might have noticed during your little exploration in Bankoku-gai but Red Chanpuru was created by immigrants who learned that the authorities outside Bankoku-gai would neither defend them nor treat them as belonging here. Japanese members have always been rare, and none had ever been entrusted with as much authority as Sakura Issei.”
Sakura says nothing at the name. There is no recognition in his face, only a deepening wariness.
“He grew up near Bankoku-gai and understood early what his Japanese name, citizenship and family register allowed him to do,” she continues. “He could sign leases our families were denied, register businesses in his own name, enter police stations without being treated as a suspect and speak to officials who refused to address us directly. During a coordinated raid, he used those privileges to warn several streets and move dozens of residents before the authorities arrived. Red Chanpuru rewarded him with command, and he made himself indispensable.”
“And then?” Sakura asks. “He ran away?”
“He betrayed us.”
The words land heavily within the chamber.
Laleh’s tone remains calm, but the representatives beside her react nevertheless. One man’s lips curl into a sneer. A woman seated near the eastern end of the table lowers her gaze, her fingers pressing against the polished wood.
“Red Chanpuru protected him as one of its own and permitted him to rise higher than any Japanese officer before him,” Laleh says. “He eventually decided that gratitude was not enough. Our highest seat belongs to the communities this organisation was founded to protect. Issei called that boundary proof that we intended to use him without ever acknowledging his superiority.”
“So he wanted to lead you.”
“He wanted us to admit we could not survive without him,” Laleh answers coldly. “He used real suffering in the outer layers to recruit followers. At the same time, he bargained with Japanese officials, property developers and rival syndicates, offering them access to Bankoku-gai if they helped remove the council.”
Sakura glances at the people seated beside her. “You’re referring to those people seated next to you, aren’t you?”
Laleh smiles. “What a smart boy.”
She gestures lightly towards the representatives.
“His betrayal divided Red Chanpuru between those who saw what he had done and those who still believed the promises he made them. Some continue to call him the leader the council unjustly denied. Others lost parents, siblings, children and homes when the routes he opened became killing grounds.”
Her eyes return to Sakura.
“Bankoku-gai has paid the price ever since.”
Sakura’s expression doesn’t change, but Suo sees his throat move as he swallows.
“And what does any of that have to do with me?”
“Simple. You’re his son.”
“So?”
A representative on Laleh’s right bristles at the answer, but she lifts one hand before he can speak.
“So you’re the only part of him left within our reach.”
Sakura stares at her. For several seconds, the only sound in the chamber is the faint scrape of his bound wrists as his hands tighten in his lap.
“You kidnapped me,” he says slowly, “because you couldn’t find him.”
“We retrieved the heir to an unsettled blood debt.”
“His heir…” Sakura barks out a laugh. “He would rather die than to claim me as his family.”
“What he wants doesn’t change the reality of things, boy,” Laleh answers with a dismissive wave. “You are, without a doubt, his son and therefore, someone who would inherit his debts.”
Something cracks beneath Sakura’s composure. His voice rises, roughened by anger and disbelief.
“I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t grow up with him. I didn’t fight for him, work for him or help him betray anyone here. He hated me enough to throw me away before I was old enough to understand what was happening, and now you’re sitting there telling me I’m responsible for whatever he did?”
Laleh tilts her head, unfazed by his outburst.
“In Red Chanpuru, debts do not disappear merely because the person who created them flees,” she says. “They remain within the bloodline until they are settled.”
“I don’t belong to Red Chanpuru,” Sakura snaps.
“You were born to someone who did.”
“That doesn’t make me one of you.”
The corners of Laleh’s lips lift. “Not yet.”
Suo’s eyes narrow. Sakura hears it too. He straightens as much as his weakened body allows, his gaze hardening upon Laleh.
“What does that mean?” he demands.
Laleh’s expression softens into something almost resembling patience.
“Your father’s betrayal cost Red Chanpuru lives and unity. His supporters continue to wait for someone capable of carrying on his legacy, while the families he harmed refuse to accept peace without repayment. Your existence provides an answer to both.”
Sakura looks from Laleh to the representatives beside her. Understanding comes slowly, followed by disgust.
“You’re going to use me.”
“You will settle what your father left behind,” comes Laleh’s calm reply.
Sakura’s chair scrapes sharply against the floor as he attempts to rise. His legs fail almost immediately, but Suo catches his shoulders before he can fall and steadies him against the backrest.
Sakura jerks away from his touch just so he could glare at Laleh some more.
“I won’t do it. He has nothing to do with me.”
Laleh does not so much as blink. “You haven’t yet heard what will be required of you.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You will be inducted into Red Chanpuru, and through your service, your father’s debt will begin to be repaid.”
“I said no.”
His voice shakes now, whether from rage, exhaustion or the sedative still poisoning his blood, Suo cannot tell.
Laleh’s gaze remains fixed upon him. “This is not a request, Sakura Haruka-kun.”
Sakura’s breathing turns shallow.
“You can dress it up however you like,” he says, each word forced between clenched teeth. “Call it blood, call it debt, call it service or whatever the hell it is. You’re still punishing me because you can’t find the one you’re supposed to. How is that fair?”
For the first time, Laleh’s smile disappears entirely.
“Yes,” she says. “That is precisely what we are doing. And it is fair according to the eyes of Red Chanpuru.”
For several seconds, Sakura says nothing.
He remains rigid in the chair, his bound hands curled tightly in his lap as Laleh’s explanation settles over the chamber. The anger has not left his face, but something beneath it has shifted, turning quieter and far more difficult for Suo to look at.
Then Sakura turns his head. His gaze finds Suo standing behind him.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
The accusation is loud in the silence of the room.
Sakura twists further in the chair despite the way the movement makes him wince. “Answer me, Suo. You knew who my father was.”
“I suspected,” Suo says at last.
Sakura’s expression hardens. “What does that mean?”
“I wasn’t certain when I first met you.” Suo keeps his voice even, despite the attention of every council member now resting upon him. “I knew the man responsible for fracturing Red Chanpuru had left behind a child after his wife’s death, but the surviving records were incomplete. No one knew where that child had been taken, who had taken him in, or whether he was even still alive.”
Sakura says nothing.
Suo takes his silence as permission to continue.
"I had originally been sent to Makochi for an unrelated matter. It was only after I arrived that rumours began circulating about his son possibly living in the same town." His mouth curves faintly, though there is no humour behind it. "A rather convenient coincidence. Then I met you at Furin, and a few things made me wonder if the rumours were true."
"Like what?"
"Your surname, for one. And your age lined up with what we knew of him." Suo lets out a breath. "But a surname alone means nothing—it's common enough, and he could've been given a different one somewhere in the system. So all I had was a guess."
He hesitates. "We knew Issei's child had gone into the welfare system after his mother died. But the trail ended there. He was moved too many times, and whatever name the first institution recorded was never confirmed. There was no way to trace it from our end."
Sakura's expression tightens. "Then what gave me away?"
Suo is silent for a moment.
"When you told us your past."
Sakura goes still.
"We already knew Issei's wife died giving birth to their son," Suo continues. "We knew he blamed the boy for it. Several Red Chanpuru members heard him call his own son a murderer, right before the boy vanished into the system. That detail never left Bankoku-gai—it was never spoken outside it. So when you told us the same thing, unprompted—your mother's death, what your father called you, the orphanage he left you at—there was no coincidence left to explain it. You were the boy we'd been looking for."
"So one shitty thing he said was enough?" Sakura looks away, anger now on his face. "You found out who I was, and you still said nothing."
“I…” Suo swallows as he, for the first time in a while, struggles to find what to say.
“He changed his mind, you see,” a lazy drawl interrupts the conversation.
Suo and Sakura turn their attention back to Laleh, who leans back in her chair as she regards them with open amusement.
“Officer Sun Fei, always known for your considerable care in everything you do,” she says. “Even in things concerning betraying Red Chanpuru.”
“Laleh,” Suo warns.
Sakura looks between them. “What is she talking about?”
Laleh’s smile widens.
“When the rumours concerning the traitor’s surviving child first reached us, Officer Sun Fei was already stationed in Makochi, as he had just told you. He was therefore instructed to determine whether there was any substance to them.”
Suo’s hands curl behind his back.
“He was not, however, required to seize you,” Laleh continues. “He was not even ordered to approach you. He was expected only to report what he could confirm—a name, an age, a description or some detail concerning your history that might allow us to establish whether the child we’re looking for truly lived beneath Bofurin’s protection.”
Sakura turns slowly towards Suo.
“And after I told everyone about my past, you had all of that. Enough to report me.”
Suo meets his eyes.
“Yes.”
The admission settles heavily between them.
Sakura’s bound fingers tighten in his lap. “But you didn’t.”
Before Suo can answer, Laleh gives a soft, humourless laugh.
“No, he most certainly did not.”
Her gaze remains fixed upon Sakura as she speaks, although every word is intended to cut into Suo.
“Officer Sun Fei submitted a report stating that the rumours could not be substantiated. He claimed that he had found no reliable evidence of the traitor’s child living in Makochi and advised the leadership council to abandon the inquiry before our interest attracted Bofurin’s attention.”
Sakura’s brow furrows. “You lied to them.”
Suo does not attempt to deny it. “Yes, I did.”
The chamber falls silent.
Laleh appears almost delighted by the simplicity of his confession.
“And lie he did. Not only did he say the child isn’t in Makochi, he redirected any attention away from the town. And to guarantee that, he left Makochi just so we won’t investigate it any further.”
Suo’s gaze hardens. “That’s enough.”
“What a shame,” Laleh continues, clearly gleeful of Suo’s discomfort. “It would have worked, if you didn’t come looking for him and attracted so much attention. Someone looked into you and confirmed you are indeed, the child we’re looking for. And that Officer Sun Fei had been deliberately concealing you from us.”
She leans forward.
“Because he had come to care for you.”
Suo tenses, which Laleh notices as she smiles in satisfaction.
“Quite greatly, in fact. Enough that he was willing to conceal information from the council all to blind the location of the one person capable of resolving the conflict created by your father’s betrayal.”
Sakura’s lips part, though no words emerge.
“You should understand the significance of that,” Laleh continues. “Officer Sun Fei has never been particularly obedient, but he has always been careful. He challenges our decisions, tests the limits of his authority and occasionally makes himself a nuisance when he believes our methods lack elegance, yet he has never before denied Red Chanpuru something of this magnitude.”
Her gaze moves between them.
“Not until you.”
Suo steps around the chair, placing himself between Sakura and the council.
“Now, now, Laleh,” he says with forced lightness. “You’re making it sound like I’m committing treachery.”
“Are you not, Officer Sun Fei?”
“I did not betray Red Chanpuru,” Suo answers firmly.
“You knowingly withheld information directly related to the fractures happening to Red Chanpuru.” Laleh’s eyes narrow as she continues. “You blindsided us because you had grown too attached to the boy to reveal where he was.”
She leans forward slightly, her expression losing its earlier amusement.
“You knew Red Chanpuru was searching for the traitor’s child. You recognised that child beneath Bofurin’s protection, confirmed his identity through his own account of his past and then deliberately ensured that no one within this organisation would discover the truth. You did not simply neglect to surrender him, Officer Sun Fei. You deprived us of the opportunity to decide what should be done with him at all.”
“He was never yours to decide anything about.”
A small movement comes from behind him.
“Suo.”
The sound of his name is quiet enough that Suo nearly misses it beneath the tension filling the chamber.
He turns.
Sakura is staring up at him with an expression Suo cannot easily decipher. The hurt remains, as does the anger at being kept ignorant, but both have been unsettled by the knowledge Laleh has placed between them.
“I’m used to you giving me half-truths,” he says softly. “So just this once, tell me the entirety of it. Is what that woman says true? Did you really try to hide me from them?
Suo’s eyes lower briefly before returning to his face. “Yes, it’s all true.”
Suo glances towards the cord around Sakura’s wrists, then at the seven people watching them from behind the table.
“Because what’s happening to you right now…is exactly what I feared would happen.”
“You could have warned me,” Sakura argues. “Instead of hiding things from me and disappearing.”
“If I had warned you, what would you have done?” Suo asks calmly.
“That should have been my decision.”
“It should have been,” Suo agrees, the answer quiet enough that Sakura’s anger falters for a moment. “But I knew you well enough by then to understand that you would not simply remain in Makochi and wait for Red Chanpuru to find you. You would have demanded answers. You would have followed every lead directly into Bankoku-gai, no matter the attempts to stop you.”
Sakura’s mouth opens, but he does not deny it.
Suo’s expression softens despite the council watching him.
“I believed I could keep this from reaching you,” he says. “I believed that if Red Chanpuru remained uncertain of your identity and ignorant of your location, then you could continue living as though your father’s debt had nothing to do with you, which it should not.”
Laleh lets out a quiet sigh.
“How touching. You were willing to leave Red Chanpuru blind so long as Sakura-kun remained safely beyond our reach.” Laleh smiles. “But alas, now that his deception has failed, Officer Sun Fei must finally confront the choice he worked so diligently to avoid.”
The room grows very still.
“Whether his loyalty belongs to Red Chanpuru,” she says, “or to you.”
Silence descends upon the room.
“While you decide,” Laleh continues, her voice turning mild once more, “I suppose it is only fair that Sakura-kun learns what awaits him from this point forward.”
Her gaze moves from Suo to Sakura.
“Or, more accurately, what awaits both of you.”
Sakura’s shoulders tense.
Suo doesn’t move from where he stands between him and the council.
Laleh folds her hands upon the table. “Now, as I mentioned before, you will be inducted into Red Chanpuru.”
“No the fuck I won’t.”
She continues as though Sakura has not spoken.
“You will be placed beneath the authority of Officer Sun Fei, who will be your keeper. He will be responsible for your movements, your training and your conduct. You will remain under his supervision until the succession is resolved and, should he ascend as expected, you will assume your position at his side.”
Sakura glances at Suo.
“My position?”
“Why, as his shadow, of course.”
The words settle heavily over the chamber.
Sakura’s brow furrows. “What does that mean?”
“It means you will follow where he leads. You will carry out his orders, defend his interests and stand between him and any threat directed towards Red Chanpuru’s future leader.” Laleh’s gaze does not leave his face. “Your life will be bound to his. If the circumstances demand it, you will surrender yours to preserve his.”
Another bout of silence follows.
Sakura stares at her, the colour slowly draining from his face.
Suo feels something inside him go cold.
“Absolutely not,” he says.
Laleh turns to him. “I was speaking to Sakura-kun.”
“And I am answering for myself. He will not be made into my shield.”
“And why not, Officer Sun Fei?” another voice drawls. Suo looks to the left, where a representative from Issei’s opposing faction speaks. Anurak, if Suo remembers his name correctly.
“It’s a fitting end, one might say, for the son of a traitor,” he continues.
The room changes.
It happens without movement, without raised voices, but every guard stationed along the walls straightens as Suo’s composure thins into something far more dangerous.
“Say that again,” he says softly.
“Threatening the council will not alter the decision,” Laleh reminds mildly.
“There is no decision,” Suo says. “You will not induct him, you will not bind him to me, and he will definitely not be made to someday die in my place.”
Sakura looks at him, but Suo keeps his attention fixed upon Laleh.
She studies him for a moment before speaking.
“You’re behaving as though Sakura-kun has a choice.”
“He does,” Suo says through gritted teeth.
“Then perhaps he should hear the cost of making the wrong one.”
Suo freezes just as Laleh turns back to Sakura.
“If you refuse induction, attempt to leave Bankoku-gai or otherwise resist the terms placed before you, Red Chanpuru will collect the debt elsewhere.”
Sakura’s eyes narrow.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’ve built a life in Makochi,” Laleh says. “You have friends there. People who trust you, people who fight beside you and people whose safety you value enough to place above your own.”
Suo steps forward. “Laleh.”
She ignores him.
“Bofurin has made itself responsible for the protection of that town. Its members patrol the streets openly, its businesses rely upon that protection, and its people have grown comfortable believing no threat can reach them so long as Bofurin is there. It would be a shame, perhaps,” she pauses, “if someone were to prove that wrong.”
Sakura’s bound hands tighten in his lap.
“You leave Makochi out of this.”
“That depends entirely upon you.”
Suo’s voice cuts across the chamber. “Red Chanpuru doesn’t threaten civilians to force obedience.”
Laleh finally looks at him.
“No?” she asks. “How fortunate that you’re here to remind us what Red Chanpuru does and doesn’t permit, Officer Sun Fei, after you spent months deciding which of our laws applied to you.”
“This is beneath us,” Suo says tersely.
“This is what remains available to us.”
“You expect me to believe there was no other way to settle this?”
“I expect you to understand that every other way was denied to us because you ensured we could not reach him.”
Suo’s expression darkens. “I will not let you turn Sakura-kun into a bargaining piece.”
Laleh laughs. “He became one the moment you decided he mattered more than your obligations.”
Sakura looks between them, his breathing shallow.
Laleh’s eyes settle upon Suo.
“Had you reported what you knew when you first confirmed his identity, Sakura-kun could have been brought before us quietly. Terms could have been negotiated before his attachment to Bofurin deepened, before Makochi became another obstacle and before your own feelings complicated every reasonable solution.”
Suo’s expression darkens.
“But you became attached to him,” Laleh adds harshly. “You hid him, shielded him and allowed yourself to believe that affection entitled you to decide which debts Red Chanpuru was permitted to collect.”
Suo’s hands curl at his sides.
“If you touch anyone in Makochi—”
“You’ll do what?” Laleh gloats. “Turn against us openly? Lead Bofurin through Bankoku-gai and tear apart what remains of Red Chanpuru yourself?”
The question hangs between them.
No one at the table moves.
Laleh’s smile fades, leaving only cold certainty behind.
“You have already placed us in this position, Officer Sun Fei. Had you not cared so greatly for Sakura-kun, none of this would have required such inelegant measures. He would have been brought here before his life became so entangled with yours.”
Her gaze shifts briefly to Sakura, then returns to Suo.
“But you chose concealment. You chose disobedience. You chose him.”
Laleh sits back.
“And now,” she says, “you will both bear the consequences of that choice.”
The council gives them seven days.
Not seven days to consider the arrangement, nor seven days in which Sakura might be permitted to negotiate the terms of his induction. Laleh makes that distinction perfectly clear before dismissing them.
Seven days for the factions to summon their scattered members back to Bankoku-gai. Seven days for those who continue to revere Sakura’s father to gather beside the families who still curse his name. Seven days for the leadership council to prepare a ceremony public enough that neither faction can later deny witnessing the settlement of the debt that has divided Red Chanpuru for years.
The induction will take place at sunset on the seventh day.
If Sakura isn’t present when it begins, the first consequence in Makochi will be carried out before midnight.
Those are Laleh’s final words to them.
Suo carries Sakura from the chamber without replying.
Sakura protests faintly when Suo lifts him, insisting through clenched teeth that he can walk, although the claim is undermined by the way his head falls against Suo’s shoulder before they have even crossed the threshold. The sedative has nearly won whatever battle Sakura has been waging against it, leaving his body heavy and his breathing uneven.
Suo says nothing as he carries him through the corridors.
Members step aside as they pass. Some bow. Others stare.
Suo memorises every face that lingers upon Sakura for too long.
By the time they reach his quarters, Sakura is no longer conscious enough to object when Suo lays him upon the bed.
Rakta remains near the door while Bacchus fetches water and a medical kit. Neither comments as Suo removes the cord from Sakura’s wrists, cleans the blood from his temple and examines the darkening bruises beneath his torn shirt.
The blow to his head concerns him most.
The injuries are not severe enough to kill him, according to Rakta, but Suo finds no comfort in that assessment. He, after all, knows the full extent of the lengths Red Chanpuru would resort to, especially since the fracture.
Once Sakura’s wounds are treated, Suo sits beside the bed and watches him sleep.
There is a camera hidden behind the latticework above the door. Suo located it years ago, shortly after the council assigned him these rooms, and has long since learned how much movement the narrow lens can capture. It doesn’t capture sounds - the only thing that the council allowed him when it came to privacy, apparently - but still.
He therefore doesn’t touch Sakura’s face.
He keeps his hands folded in his lap and stares at the person he had vowed to protect, now lying unconscious in the heart of the very place Suo had tried to keep from discovering him.
For months, Suo has imagined the consequences of failure.
None of his imaginings came close enough.
Sakura wakes late the next morning.
Suo hears the change in his breathing before he sees his eyes open. He remains near the window, one leg folded beneath him as he pours tea, and waits for Sakura to understand that he is no longer in Makochi.
The recognition comes quickly.
Sakura jerks upright, then catches himself against the mattress when the movement sends pain through his head. His face pinches in response.
“You should move more slowly,” Suo says.
Sakura lifts his head, his eyes sweeping over Suo’s dark robes, the unfamiliar room and the closed door before settling upon his bandaged wrists.
“How long was I out?” he rasps.
“Throughout the night and a considerable portion of today,” Suo answers. “It’s nearly noon now.”
“Where are we?”
“You’re in my quarters, Sakura-kun.”
Sakura’s expression almost immediately hardens. Memory returns visibly, piece by piece, until his shoulders grow rigid beneath the borrowed sleeping robe Suo had dressed him in after cleaning his wounds.
“They really put me in your room,” Sakura says. “Because…” He frowns as he seems to recall the words from the night before. “That woman. Laleh. Before we left, she called you…my keeper. Because I'm to be your shadow, so we have to be together at all times.”
Suo nods. “That’s correct. So you remembered.”
“Is this…keeper and shadow thing really a thing in Red Chanpuru? Not something Laleh made up for this debt my dad owed all of you?”
“It’s an established practice, though it’s far less common now than it once was,” Suo explains. “Two members are formally bound together when the organisation believes their abilities, temperaments or positions make them suited to one another. Most often, the pair consists of close companions. Less commonly, it may be a master and disciple.”
He pauses.
“And in rarer, less charitable arrangements, a master and servant.”
Sakura’s mouth twists. “With names like keeper and shadow, I’m guessing we’re meant to be the last one.”
“Under different circumstances, perhaps that would be all it meant.”
He holds Sakura’s gaze carefully.
“To speak plainly, Sakura-kun, you have been bound to me as a hostage. Red Chanpuru intends to use my authority to keep you under control, while using your life to keep me obedient.”
He then drops his gaze to his lap before he could see Sakura’s reaction.
“You’re the one they have chained to me, and I am the one they have ordered to hold the other end.”
Silence settles in the room.
Suo hears a shifting movement. He looks up just in time to see Sakura looking at something past him. He turns his head and realises Sakura’s staring at his damaged Furin uniform rests upon the chest near the wall. Someone has cleaned the worst of the blood from the green jacket, but the fabric remains torn at the shoulder and stained near the collar.
A tray of food sits beside it.
Sakura notices the tray, then looks suspiciously towards Suo.
“Rakta prepared it himself,” Suo assures. “So it’s safe to eat.”
“I’m not really hungry,” Sakura says with a shake of his head.
“You should still eat.”
Sakura looks at him sharply. “Are you going to force me?”
The question settles between them, loaded with unspoken meanings.
“No,” Suo says finally.
Sakura studies him for several seconds. Suo meets his eyes head on as he does.
Whatever Sakura finds there appears to satisfy him enough that he pushes the blankets aside and places his feet upon the floor.
His legs tremble the moment he stands.
Suo rises instinctively to steady him but Sakura raises one hand to stop him.
“I got it,” Sakura mutters. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m fragile.”
Suo remains beside the table while Sakura crosses the room, one careful step at a time, and lifts his damaged jacket from the chest.
“Can I leave this room?” he asks.
Suo shakes his head ruefully. “Not without being accompanied by me. Regardless of what they intend to turn you into, you’re still the son of a traitor. They won’t let you roam free.”
Sakura looks over his shoulder. “And you’re just accepting that?”
Suo smiles. “Quite the contrary, Sakura-kun.”
Suo crosses towards the cabinet built into the wall, removes a rolled map from beneath a stack of records and lays it upon the table.
Sakura’s eyes narrow.
“What is that?”
“An escape route.”
Suo unrolls the map and anchors its corners with two cups. Fine lines mark the streets, service passages and tunnels beneath Bankoku-gai, including several routes absent from the official plans retained by the council.
“The people who guard the entry points change shortly before dawn,” Suo explains. “There is a gap of approximately six minutes when the entry on the eastern side is left unattended. If we leave tomorrow morning, we can reach the outer layer of Bankoku-gai before anyone realises you are gone. They won’t make a fuss with so many tourists around.”
Sakura looks at the map for a long moment.
“You already planned this.”
“All night,” Suo says. “As you slept.”
“And after we reach the outer layer?”
“You return to Makochi.”
Sakura’s head lifts immediately.
“You mean we, don’t you?”
Suo knew the omission would not escape him.
“I will remain long enough to redirect the search.”
“No,” Sakura says immediately. “No way in hell you’re staying.”
“Sakura-kun.”
“I came here in the first place to look for you.” Sakura’s voice rises in anger. “And now you’re asking me to leave you here?”
Suo draws a slow breath. “You haven’t heard the entire plan.”
“I heard enough. You sneak me out, send me home and come back here to take the blame.”
Sakura braces one hand against the back of the chair, trembling as though trying to hold in his anger at the perceived absurdity of the plan. The effort required to remain standing is obvious, although Suo knows better than to mention it.
“I can contain the consequences more effectively from inside Red Chanpuru,” Suo rationalises. “If I disappear alongside you, the council will have no reason to believe either of us intends to uphold the agreement. If I remain, I can persuade them that pursuing you would be a bad idea.”
“Persuade them,” Sakura repeats in disbelief.. “The same people who drugged me and threatened everyone in Makochi. Are you even sure you can stop them?”
When Suo doesn’t answer fast enough, Sakura’s mouth twists.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I can’t guarantee anything, but I want to at least delay them. So you can warn Umemiya-san and the rest.”
“After how they treated me, you think I’m going to let anyone gamble with Makochi like this?” Sakura snaps.
The accusation lands sharp in Suo’s chest. Before he could say anything else, Sakura gestures towards the map.
“You think I’m going to run home and sit there wondering whether someone from Red Chanpuru is about to attack Kotoha’s café? Or Nirei? Or some kid who happens to be walking through the wrong street?”
He glares at Suo. “Even if I do warn them, Bofurin can’t protect everyone every second. You would know, after all.”
Suo looks towards the window.
He remembers every narrow street leading into Makochi, every shop that remains open after sunset, every ordinary person who greets Bofurin’s students without fear. Red Chanpuru doesn’t need to destroy the town to make good of Laleh’s threat.
They need only hurt someone before Bofurin can stop them.
Sakura watches him come to the same conclusion.
“I’m staying,” he says.
“No,” Suo says immediately. “I will not let you be trapped here.”
“And you want me to let you do that to yourself?” Sakura demands. “Are you even happy here? Laleh and everyone else in that council sound like pieces of shit.”
Suo exhales.
“Now’s not the time to discuss that. I’m not the problem here, you are.” Suo rolls the map closed with deliberate care. “You’re concussed, exhausted and still affected by whatever they gave you last night. We’ll discuss this again once you’re better.”
“Discuss it all you want,” Sakura says. “I’m still not leaving. Not without you.”
Sakura reaches for the bowl of porridge, lowers himself into the chair and forces down a spoonful despite the discomfort that immediately crosses his face.
Suo watches him swallow.
By then, he already knows that one escape route will not be enough.
On the second day, Suo proposes the old water channels beneath the quarters on the western side of Bankoku-gai.
Bacchus can arrange for one of the iron grates to remain unlocked during the afternoon patrol. A merchant who owes Suo a favour will have a covered cart waiting beyond it, and by evening Sakura can be across the border.
Suo explains the route over breakfast.
Sakura listens until he finishes, asks what will happen to Suo once the escape is discovered, and refuses the moment Suo tells him that his own position is irrelevant.
Later that morning, Suo takes him outside.
The council has forbidden Sakura from leaving the inner layer, and two guards follow them from a distance, but Suo considers the walk necessary. Sakura has spent too long inside the same rooms, circling the same arguments with nowhere to place his anger.
Word of his identity has already spread.
Conversation fades as they pass. Older members search Sakura’s face for traces of his father, while younger ones simply stare at the outsider wearing a borrowed black robe and Suo’s protection.
A woman standing outside a shuttered shop spits near Sakura’s feet.
Suo stops, his body tensing. Sakura catches his sleeve before he can turn.
“I’m fine,” Sakura whispers. “Nothing I’m not used to.”
The woman looks between them and laughs bitterly.
“Oh, and here I thought he was the one who’s supposed to protect you, Officer Sun Fei.”
Suo smiles. “Picking a fight is a punishable offense. You do know that, right?”
The woman glares at him but nevertheless retreats inside.
Sakura releases Suo’s sleeve only after the door closes.
“Sun Fei,” he says as they resume walking. “Is that like, your real name or something?”
“It’s just how my name is actually meant to be read.”
“You never told me that either,” Sakura says, and Suo doesn’t miss the accusation in his voice. “What else haven’t you told me?”
Suo looks ahead. “Nothing that matters, really.”
Sakura makes an irritated sound beneath his breath.
They continue until Sakura slows beside an old mural painted across the wall of an abandoned meeting house.
Most of its colours have faded with age. Three men stand with their arms linked, their bodies rendered in deep red lines that coil around one another like three intertwining dragons. The face of the man in the centre has been violently scratched away, the damage cutting so deeply that the plaster beneath the paint has cracked.
Sakura stares at him.
“Is that supposed to be my dad?”
Suo answers with a silent nod. Sakura steps closer.
His father’s body remains untouched despite the destruction of his face. He is painted taller than the officers beside him, one hand raised as though addressing a crowd.
“...I never did find out his name,” he says softly. “It’s…Issei, isn’t it? That’s what that woman said.”
“That’s correct.”
“Issei,” Sakura repeats softly. His eyes remain transfixed on the mural. “Why didn’t they destroy the whole thing?”
“There were definitely attempts. There are more paintings like these scattered throughout. Whoever still supports your father restores any damages done on them. It’s an endless game of tug and war.”
At some point, Sakura reached out to touch the mural. “What did he actually want?”
Suo takes his place beside him.
“I’ve heard what Laleh said he did,” Sakura continues. “She said he exposed routes, betrayed everyone and got people killed. But some of them still believe in him. Why?”
“Your father said Red Chanpuru had become too dependent upon inherited authority. He argued that the council protected its own influence while allowing the outer layers to starve.”
Sakura glances down the street. He can’t pretend he didn’t notice the people there who looked too thin for his liking.
“He wasn’t wrong.”
“No,” Suo agrees. “That was what made him persuasive. He knew what wounds to target.”
“Then why call him a traitor?”
“Because he didn’t want to heal those wounds unless everyone understood that he alone had done it. You heard Laleh that night. Your father wanted power that had always been out of reach to him.”
Suo studies the faceless figure.
“At first, he moved food and medicine into the outer layers without permission. Some people ate because of him. He made certain they knew exactly whom to thank.”
Sakura remains silent, waiting for Suo to continue.
“Then he erased debts for families who swore loyalty to him and withheld supplies from streets that would not. By the time he spoke openly of reform, there were entire sections of Bankoku-gai who depended upon him personally rather than Red Chanpuru.”
“So he was buying followers.”
"In part. He also opened the protected routes—to Japanese officials, to property brokers, to rival groups who promised him the council's removal. Your father believed he could let just enough violence bleed through to discredit the leadership, then end it at the perfect moment and be seen as the only man who could restore order."
"Did he know people might be killed?"
"Yes," Suo says. "Perhaps not how many. But he knew blood would be spilled, and he was willing to spend it."
Sakura finally looks at him. "Then why do people still believe in him?"
Suo takes a moment before answering.
"Because a lot of people's lives got better because of him, whatever his reasons for it. And that dependency became its own leash: admit he'd used you, and you risked losing everything he'd given you."
His gaze doesn't leave the damaged face. "I think he saved people often enough that he mistook their gratitude for ownership. When Red Chanpuru wouldn't place itself in his hands, he manufactured a crisis so he could be thanked for solving it."
Sakura looks back at the mural.
"So he broke everything just to make them beg him to fix it."
"That's the simplest way to put it, yes."
"Sounds like him." Her voice goes flat. "He blamed his own kid for his wife’s death rather than dealing with it.”
Suo says nothing. Sakura's mouth twists into something hard, something with no humor left in it at all.
"Guess leaving everyone here with his mess was an easier choice too.”
With nothing else left to say between them, they both leave the mural behind in silence.
On the third day, the ceremonial robe arrives.
The tailor is waiting in Suo’s sitting room when they return from breakfast, accompanied by two attendants carrying lacquered boxes. Heavy black fabric rests over her arms.
“I don’t recall ever asking for this,” Suo says before she can speak.
“The leadership council has approved the design.”
“I’m not concerned with what the council has approved.”
“The robe must be fitted before the ceremony,” another attendant insists. “And it cannot be completed without his measurements.” When Suo gives them a cold glance, the attendant raises her hands in defense. “Please, Officer Sun Fei, we’re merely following orders.”
Just then, Sakura slides open the screen separating the bedroom from the sitting room. Suo looks towards him.
“You can go back inside, Sakura-kun.”
Sakura’s brows draw together. “Why?” He looks at the three newcomers.. “Looks like we have guests.”
“The council has sent a tailor, but you don’t have to indulge them.”
“A tailor? For what?”
“You’re to wear a ceremonial robe for the induction ceremony,” the first attendant speaks. She shrinks when Sakura looks over at her. “It’s standard procedure.”
“Hm… Well, let me see it then.”
Suo shakes his head. “Sakura-kun, you don’t have to.”
“It’s just clothes, Suo. It’s fine.”
Suo knows that expression. Refusing now will only ensure Sakura examines the robe after everyone has left. With a heavy sigh, he steps aside.
The tailor lays the garment across the table.
It is a formal changshan made from heavy black silk, the collar high and severe. Deep red embroidery coils from the left shoulder across the chest in the shape of three intertwined dragons, their bodies disappearing into the dark fabric whenever the light shifts. The cuffs and hem bear the same muted red, while a narrow white sash lies folded beneath it.
Sakura touches the sash.
“What’s the white for?”
“The colour represents an unsettled debt,” the tailor answers.
Suo sees Sakura’s fingers still against the fabric.
Black and red for Red Chanpuru.
White for Issei’s debt.
“It’s too elaborate,” Sakura says at last.
“The council has deemed that it’s appropriate for someone of your status,” says the tailor.
“My status? As what? The son of a traitor?” Sakura sneers.
The tailor looks unfazed by Sakura's harsh words. “You are Sakura Issei's heir and a leader candidate's appointed shadow.” She says it as though either position should flatter him.
Suo reaches past Sakura and folds the robe closed.
“You’ve seen enough.”
The fitting takes less than ten minutes. Suo remains beside Sakura throughout it.
When the tailor reaches towards Sakura’s face to adjust the height of the collar, Suo catches her wrist.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask before you touch him,” Suo says meaningfully.
The tailor lowers her eyes in response and does just that throughout the entire fitting.
Once they leave, the robe remains folded upon the table.
Sakura circles it once before stopping beside Suo.
“What happens during the induction?”
“You will be brought before the council and any witnessing members. Laleh will recite the debt, and you will be instructed to acknowledge that you are to inherit it. And since you’re appointed as my shadow, that would also be something you need to acknowledge and accept.”
“What else?”
Suo looks towards the robe.
“You will be given the oath.”
“And?”
A pause stretches between them.
“Red Chanpuru prefers its oaths to remain visible.”
Sakura’s gaze shifts towards Suo’s eyepatch.
“A tattoo, right?” Sakura asks lightly. “I’ve seen them on Rakta and Bacchus, and everyone else. Is yours hidden behind your eyepatch?”
“...That doesn’t really matter right now.” He looks at Sakura.”Particularly since a tattoo is not what you need to concern yourself with.”
Sakura frowns. “What do you mean?”
“It’s true that members receive a tattoo upon their induction,” Suo says. “Ordinary ones, at least.”
Sakura waits, and when Suo continues to let the silence sit, he slowly formulates a response.
“And I’m not ordinary,” he guesses. “What do I get instead?”
Suo turns towards him.
“Let’s try the escape route tonight,” he says instead.
Sakura’s expression closes immediately.
“That’s not an answer I’m looking for.” He sighs heavily. “What route is it this time?”
“A supply caravan leaving through the northern gate.”
“And will you escape with me after I pass through it?”
Suo cannot give him the answer he wants.
Sakura looks away.
“Then, no. I will not leave with you.”
On the fourth day, the scattered members who opposed Issei the most begin returning to Bankoku-gai.
Suo recognises them by the mourning cords around their wrists and the unhidden hostility with which they regard Sakura. Several lost relatives during Issei’s attempted rebellion. Others inherited grievances from parents who ensured their children understood precisely whom to blame for the instability that followed.
A man calls Sakura Issei’s whelp when he believes Suo is too far ahead to hear.
Suo has him against the wall before the final syllable fades. His forearm rests across the man’s throat.
“Would you care to repeat yourself?”
The man’s companions freeze nearby. Suo smiles pleasantly in return.
Sakura catches the back of his robe.
“Suo,” he says with a shake of his head.
Suo releases the man immediately but gives him a meaningful sharp stare that has the man scampering off along with his companions.
They continue walking.
“You’re going to start a fight before the ceremony,” Sakura sighs. “And if I’m meant to be your shadow, shouldn’t I be the one who’s protecting you?”
“I’d rather you don’t accept that position so readily, Sakura-kun,” Suo says.
He smiles after he drops the subject, as though nothing has happened, although his irritation caused by that incident follows them for the rest of the afternoon.
When they return to his quarters, Sakura resumes asking about Issei. In all honesty, Suo didn’t expect him to be so curious about the man who abandoned him.
“What was he like before the betrayal?” Sakura asks.
Suo places a fresh pot of tea between them.
“Charismatic.”
“You said that before. So did Rakta. Anything else?”
Suo glances towards the door, where Rakta stands guard beyond the screen.
“You have been questioning my officers.”
“I’ve been asking questions,” Sakura corrects. “Is that a bad thing? If I’m to inherit my dad’s debt, I might as well learn more about him.”
Suo closes his eyes and sighs.. “Sakura-kun, you need to be very careful asking questions here. Especially with your current predicament. They’ll think you’re plotting something.”
Sakura clicks his tongue but doesn’t argue further.
“Then, can I ask just one more question?”
“...Just one.”
“Does…Red Chanpuru know anything about my mother, too?”
The question catches Suo unprepared.
He looks at Sakura, but Sakura’s attention remains fixed upon the tea in his hands. His thumb moves slowly along the rim of the cup, tracing the same place over and over.
Carefully, Suo sets down the pot.
“Very little remains in the official records,” he says. “She was Japanese, born outside Bankoku-gai, and she was never a member of Red Chanpuru.”
“But people here knew her.”
“Some did, yes.”
Sakura’s fingers tighten around the cup.
“What did they say?”
Suo takes a moment before answering.
“That she was gentle,” he says at last. “Though not nearly as naïve as Issei preferred people to believe. She understood what he was becoming long before many of his followers did.”
Sakura finally looks up.
“She hated Red Chanpuru?”
“She disliked what it brought out in him.” Suo chooses each word with care. “She believed that if he left the organisation — if they moved somewhere beyond Bankoku-gai and built an ordinary life together — he might become the man he was always claiming to be.”
“And did he?”
The bitterness in Sakura’s voice makes the question rhetorical.
Suo lowers his gaze.
“No.”
Silence stretches between them.
Sakura looks down again, watching the tea tremble faintly within his cup.
“Did she die before the uprising?”
“Several years before it,” Suo answers. “She died giving birth to you.”
Sakura’s expression does not change, but the movement of his thumb stops.
“Issei kept both the marriage and her pregnancy largely outside Red Chanpuru’s records,” Suo continues. “After her death, he disappeared for some time. The few people who saw him before he left remembered that he was carrying an infant.”
“That would be me,” Sakura says flatly.
“Yes.”
“And when he came back?”
Suo hesitates.
“The year he returned to Bankoku-gai was the same year he began making the final preparations for his uprising.”
A short, humourless laugh escapes Sakura.
“So he got rid of me first.”
“Sakura-kun—”
“That’s what happened, isn’t it?” Sakura cuts in. His voice remains quiet, but his fingers have gone white around the cup. “He left me in homes after homes before finally throwing me away at an orphanage, made sure I couldn’t follow him back here, and then returned to finish whatever he was planning.”
Sakura stares into his tea.
“He blamed me for her death,” he says. “Called me a murderer. Like I had taken something that belonged to him.”
His mouth twists.
“Then the people here stopped giving him what he wanted, and he did the same thing to them.” Sakura’s tone grows colder with every word. “He erased me from his life because looking at me probably reminded him that he couldn’t save her. Then he tore Red Chanpuru apart because they wouldn’t let him become the person he thought he deserved to be.”
The room falls quiet.
For a moment, Sakura looks as though he might ask something else. About her name, perhaps, or what she looked like. Whether she had held him before she died. Whether she had wanted him. None of the questions Suo could realistically provide answers to, but he would like to pretend otherwise.
Instead, his grip slowly loosens around the cup.
He takes a sip of tea that must have already gone cold.
After that, Sakura asks nothing more about his father.
By the fifth day, the council has closed every route Suo has proposed.
The eastern passage is doubled with guards. The old western channels are sealed. The merchant who agreed to hide Sakura in his cart sends word that his family has been questioned, and Suo releases him from the favour before the council can apply further pressure.
The shrine tunnels remain possible, but only barely.
Suo explains them that evening.
Sakura listens from the window, his arms folded tightly across his chest.
“The entrance is beneath the third-layer shrine,” Suo says. “Rakta can take you as far as the old border while I draw attention towards the northern district. Once you cross the border to the outer layers, no one will catch you before you reach Makochi.”
“And when they realise you helped?”
Sakura turns towards him before Suo can answer.
“You’re still staying here, aren’t you?”
“Sakura-kun…”
“And you still can’t promise they won’t go after Makochi.”
“I can make it difficult,” Suo tries. “I can give Bofurin more time to prepare.”
Sakura barks out a humorless laugh. “They don’t need to harm the entirety of Makochi to prove a point, Suo. You know this.”
Suo’s patience, stretched thin across five days of watching Sakura reject every opening, finally tightens into frustration.
“Sakura-kun, you cannot continue refusing every possible route because none of them feels certain to you. We need to at least try.”
Sakura looks at Suo in anger. “You don’t get it, do you, Suo? I’m refusing because every plan also ends with you staying here while I run.”
“If you stay here, Bofurin will come here instead,” Suo argues. “I know they’re planning your rescue as we speak. And they won’t be ready. They don’t know Red Chanpuru. But if you escape, you can at least warn them and tell them what you learnt.. And…” He lets out a breath. “My position is not yours to concern yourself with.”
Sakura’s eyes narrow.
“Do you even hear yourself?”
“Sakura-kun…”
“You decided I didn’t deserve to know any of this because you thought you could protect me. Then you decided I should escape because you think you can protect Makochi after I’m gone. Now you’re deciding that whatever happens to you isn’t my problem.”
Suo keeps his voice even.
“I am attempting to minimise the number of people harmed.”
“By making sure you’re the only one left behind to take it. And there is no way in hell I would let that happen!” Sakura snaps.
Suo studies him.
Sakura appears exhausted. The bruising near his temple has begun to fade, but he sleeps poorly and wakes at every movement beyond the door. The white sash remains on the table beside the unfinished robe, a constant reminder of what waits at the end of the week.
“You don’t understand what you are choosing,” Suo says quietly.
“Then explain it.”
“Once the induction is complete, leaving will no longer be treated as refusal. It will be treated as betrayal.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t know what betrayal means to Red Chanpuru.”
Sakura curls his fingers into fusts.
“Then tell me.”
Suo looks towards the camera hidden above the door.
The council forbade him from revealing the protected details of the rite, but that alone would not stop him. He has violated more serious orders for Sakura already.
The truth is less honourable.
Suo knows precisely what Sakura will do with the knowledge. He will turn it into another hardship he has decided he can endure.
“I told you before, didn’t I?” Suo says. “That Red Chanpuru demands visibility of its oaths. That is why ordinary members are tattooed,” Suo says. “But those who enter beneath suspicion are treated differently.”
“So you keep saying,” Sakura replies. “But you never explain what it is.”
“If you leave tonight, I won’t need to. And you will never have to know.”
Sakura makes a sound of frustration. “You can’t keep doing this, Suo! You and your half-truths. Your… non-answers.” He steps closer, one hand raised as though about to reach for Suo’s collar and shake him senseless.
“What are they going to do to me?” he asks again.
Suo holds his gaze.
“If I tell you, will you leave?”
“Not unless you’re coming with me.”
Suo’s expression dims.
“Then knowing serves no purpose,” he says. “Beyond giving you two days to anticipate it.”
Sakura stares at him in disbelief.
“So you’re not telling me because I won’t do what you want. That’s it? What do you want me to do?” Sakura demands. “Run back to Makochi and hope they don’t hurt anyone? Leave you here and pretend I don’t know they’ll punish you for helping me?”
“I want you alive!” Suo shouts, raising his voice for his first time. “I want you not to be bound to me! And the only way for you to do that is for you to run from here. I don’t want to give you any more reasons to stay and become a thorn at my side!”
Sakura, startled by his outburst, goes still.
Suo regrets the cruelty immediately, but he does not withdraw it. Gentleness has failed him for five days.
Sakura looks away first. “I’m not leaving,” he says again in quiet determination.
Suo closes his eyes and says nothing.
He has nothing else to say.
On the sixth day, Suo makes one final attempt.
The faction opposed to Issei’s legacy is holding a gathering near the council chamber, drawing enough members away from their usual posts that several routes through the inner layer will be left poorly guarded shortly before dawn. Rakta has arranged for the men stationed at the southern passage to be reassigned, while Bacchus has secured a motorbike beyond the border and someone willing to look the other way when Sakura crosses it.
It is the cleanest route Suo has devised.
The safest.
The last.
He lays the map between them after dinner and smooths one hand over its creased surface.
“The southern passage will remain clear for seven minutes during the changing watch,” he says. “Rakta will take you as far as the border, and Bacchus will be waiting on the other side. You will reach Makochi before sunrise.”
Sakura doesn’t so much as glance at the map.
“And you?”
Suo had known the question would come. It always does.
“I will remain here and delay their response.”
“No.”
The same answer.
The same stubborn certainty.
For six days, Sakura has rejected every route Suo placed before him without hesitation, as though Suo has been offering inconvenience rather than salvation. The sound of that refusal has begun to scrape against something raw inside him.
“This is the final route available to us,” Suo says.
“Then stop looking.”
“Sakura-kun.”
“I told you on the first day that I wasn’t leaving.”
“And I assumed that after nearly a week inside Red Chanpuru, you might finally begin to see reason.”
Sakura’s face darkens.
“Reason,” he repeats. “You mean doing whatever you tell me and trusting that you’ll somehow clean up the rest after I’m gone.”
“I mean accepting that remaining here will not protect anyone.”
“And running will?”
“It gives you a chance.”
“At Makochi’s expense, you mean. You can’t promise no one will get hurt, can you?”
“No,” Suo says, because there is no use lying when Sakura already knows the answer.
Sakura lets out a bitter laugh.
“Then don’t stand there and act like I’m the unreasonable one.”
Suo raises his gaze.
“Sakura-kun, you need to stop thinking that sacrificing yourself is the easier way out of this.”
Sakura shoves his chair back and rises so abruptly that its legs scrape across the floor.
“I’m not trying to sacrifice myself.”
“No?”
“I want you to come with me!”
The words tear out of him with enough force that the room seems to contract around them.
Suo goes still.
Sakura’s hands have curled into fists at his sides. His face is flushed with anger, but there is something beneath it that Suo has spent six days refusing to name.
“If we leave, we leave together,” Sakura says. “If you stay, then I stay. I’m not going back to Makochi while you sit here and wait for them to punish you because of me.”
“This is not because of you.”
“Stop saying that!”
Suo rises from his own seat.
The sudden movement makes Sakura tense, but he does not step back.
“You hid me from them,” Sakura continues. “You lied to the council. You spent six days trying to get me out while planning to stay behind and take whatever happens next. And every time I ask you to come with me, you act like I’m too stupid to understand why you can’t.”
“Because you don’t understand.”
“Then make me.”
“I’ve tried.”
“No, you didn’t,” Sakura says in frustration. “Every time I ask for answers, you run around them and expect me to just understand you. You keep hiding things from me.”
Suo feels his composure breaking.
“And you have continued to reject every opportunity I have given you because you cannot bear to leave me behind.”
Sakura’s jaw sets.
“Yes. Am I wrong for it?”
The answer is immediate and strikes harder than Suo expects.
For one dangerous moment, the anger leaves him with nothing to hide behind.
Then he looks at the map, at the routes he has redrawn night after night, at every path Sakura has refused because none of them include Suo walking beside him.
“So that is all this is,” Suo says quietly. “You are willing to bind yourself to Red Chanpuru, accept your father’s debt and surrender whatever remains of your freedom because you cannot tolerate the thought of me facing the consequences of my own actions.”
“That isn’t all it is.”
“It’s enough for me.”
“You think I should abandon you?”
“I think you should survive me.”
Sakura’s expression falters. Suo hates himself for seeing it. He hates him more for making it necessary.
“You’re an idiot,” Sakura says, his voice roughening. “You really think I’m going to go home and pretend none of this is happening? That I can just leave you here after everything?”
“Yes,” Suo says. “That is precisely what I have been asking you to do.”
“Well, I won’t.”
Suo’s patience finally breaks. His emotions fold inwards until his face settles into the calmest expression he can manage.
“Then perhaps I overestimated you, Sakura-kun.”
Sakura stares at him.
“What?”
“I believed that once you understood the stakes, you would be capable of making a decision based on something other than sentiment. Instead, you have spent six days proving that you are every bit as foolish and naïve as the council expects.”
Sakura’s glare sharpens, pain flashing beneath the anger.
“You bas—”
“Fine,” Suo cuts across him.
The word lands flat and cold.
Sakura stops.
Suo gathers the map and folds it once, then again, hiding every carefully drawn route beneath his hands.
“If you are so determined to remain, then remain.”
“Suo—”
“Attend the induction tomorrow. Stand before every faction they have summoned and accept the position they prepared for you. Allow them to bind you to me, since you appear so eager to sacrifice yourself for my sake.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you have chosen.”
Sakura opens his mouth again, but Suo does not allow him the chance to speak.
“Once the ceremony begins, you may finally understand what I have been trying to tell you from the moment you entered Bankoku-gai. You may realise that stubbornness will not protect Makochi, that enduring pain will not make Red Chanpuru respect you, and that staying beside me will not preserve whatever you believe exists between us.”
The colour drains from Sakura’s face.
Suo forces himself to continue.
“And when that moment comes, you will understand that you should have run when I first gave you the chance.”
Silence follows.
Suo turns before Sakura’s expression can undo him.
He carries the folded map towards the cabinet, every step measured, every breath carefully controlled. He doesn’t look back, because he knows that if Sakura calls his name with anything other than anger, Suo will unfold the map again.
He will offer another route.
He will beg, if he must.
And Sakura will still refuse.
Behind him, Sakura says nothing.
That silence is the only reason Suo manages to keep walking.
The seventh day arrives beneath a red sky.
Suo wakes before dawn and doesn’t sleep again.
By midday, the streets surrounding the council chamber are crowded. Members have travelled from every layer of Bankoku-gai, while others have returned from territories beyond its borders, summoned by the promise that Issei’s debt will finally be settled.
The ceremony begins at sunset.
Two attendants arrive to dress Sakura but Suo dismisses them.
“I can dress myself,” Sakura says once the door closes.
“I’m sure you can.”
“Then why send them away?”
“Because as your keeper, I don’t want anyone to touch you.”
Sakura looks at him but doesn’t answer.
Suo lifts the black robe from its stand.
The silk is cold beneath his fingers. The dragons embroidered across the chest seem almost alive in the lowering light, their red bodies winding towards the white sash that will declare Sakura’s inherited debt before he ever enters the chamber.
Suo helps him into it.
Sakura’s movements are stiff, whether from nerves or resentment Suo cannot determine. He allows Suo to fasten the high collar and straighten the sleeves, although his jaw tightens when Suo reaches for the sash.
“You don’t have to do that,” Sakura says.
“Yes,” Suo answers. “I do.”
He winds the white silk around Sakura’s waist. The colour looks obscene against the black.
When Suo finishes tying it, Sakura studies their reflection in the small mirror beside the wardrobe.
Suo stands behind him in formal red Red Chanpuru robes, his own dragons embroidered in dark thread rather than red. Sakura’s garment marks him as the counterpart beneath Suo’s authority, while the white at his waist identifies the debt binding them together.
Sakura touches his collar.
“Is this what my father wore?”
“No.”
“What did he wear?”
“The same red as the officers. He had no debt when he entered.”
Sakura’s hand falls.
“He only left one.”
“That’s correct.”
A knock sounds at the door. Outside, Rakta announces that the council is ready.
Suo places one hand upon Sakura’s shoulder. Sakura looks at it, then at him.
“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
The question is quiet.
Suo could lie.
Instead, he removes his hand.
“Plenty, Sakura-kun. None of which you need to ever know,” he says and then opens the door.
They walk to the council chamber together.
The streets have fallen silent despite the crowds. Members line the route in formal dress, their tattoos exposed for the occasion. Some bow when Suo passes. Others watch Sakura with expressions that range from reverence to hatred.
Suo walks half a step ahead.
It is the formal position of a keeper leading the person bound beneath his seal.
He despises how naturally his body remembers it.
The council chamber has been transformed.
The massive oak table has been removed, leaving an open floor beneath the banners of the divided factions. Laleh Azar stands upon the raised platform at the far end, the faction representatives arranged behind her.
Hundreds of witnesses fill the chamber.
At its centre rests a low wooden platform.
Beside it stands a brazier.
Suo feels Sakura stop.
The heat reaches them even from the entrance.
Several iron implements rest within the coals, their handles extending beyond the rim. An attendant in red gloves tends the fire, turning one of the irons slowly until its end glows beneath the ash.
Sakura says nothing and Suo doesn’t look at him.
Laleh raises one hand.
The chamber doors close behind them.
“Bring forward Sakura Haruka,” she commands, “son of Sakura Issei and inheritor of his blood debt.”
Suo begins walking.
After a moment, Sakura follows.
The witnesses remain silent as they approach the platform. Suo can feel their attention moving between Sakura’s white sash and the dragons embroidered across his chest.
Laleh recites the history of the betrayal.
She speaks of safehouses exposed, families divided and blood spilled across Bankoku-gai. She recites the promises Issei used to gather followers, the agreements he made with Japanese officials and syndicates, and the routes he opened so outsiders could tear through the community he claimed only he could save. Whatever truth once existed in his criticisms is stripped away until only entitlement remains.
Sakura stands beside Suo without moving. Only the pulse in his throat betrays him.
When Laleh finishes, she turns towards him.
“Sakura Haruka, your father abandoned his obligations and fled beyond the reach of those to whom he owed repayment. By his blood, that debt has passed to you. Do you acknowledge the authority of the council?”
Sakura’s jaw tenses.
“If I have to.”
A murmur moves through the chamber. Laleh doesn’t appear surprised by his non-committal answer.
“Do you accept induction into Red Chanpuru beneath the seal of Officer Sun Fei?”
“If it means keeping him safe.”
“And do you accept your position as his shadow, to carry out his will, defend his life and surrender your own before permitting harm to reach him?”
Sakura turns his head.
For the first time since entering the chamber, he looks directly at Suo.
“If it means keeping him safe,” he says again.
Suo holds his gaze.
Laleh smiles faintly.
“Let the witnesses record that the debt has been presented and the heir has accepted it.”
Two guards step forward.
Sakura shifts immediately, but they seize his arms before he can retreat. His body twists between them, the first sparks of his familiar fury finally breaking through the rigid composure he has maintained all evening.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Suo remains unmoving.
The guards force Sakura towards the platform.
He fights them, but the lingering weakness from his injuries and the restrictive robe work against him. One guard drives him to his knees while the other binds his wrists behind his back.
Sakura looks towards Suo.
“Suo.”
Suo doesn’t answer.
Laleh descends from the platform.
“Ordinary members of Red Chanpuru receive the three dragons as proof that their lives belong to the organisation,” she says. “Their marks are given willingly, through ink, and displayed with pride.”
The attendant lifts one of the irons from the brazier.
Its end glows a deep, furious red.
Sakura freezes. Suo watches recognition form slowly upon his face.
Laleh stops beside him.
“You, however, do not enter as an ordinary member. You enter as the son of a man who betrayed us, bearing a debt created before you understood the meaning of loyalty. It would therefore be inappropriate to offer you the same mark as those who arrived without stain.”
Sakura stares at the iron.
“What is that?”
Laleh’s smile is almost gentle.
“The mark once given to traitors returned to Red Chanpuru’s keeping.”
Sakura turns towards Suo. The horror in his expression cuts deeper than any accusation could have.
“You knew.”
Suo hears every person in the chamber waiting for his answer.
“Yes.”
Sakura’s face changes.
Whatever small hope remained in it disappears.
“You knew they were going to brand me.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
Suo forces his hands to remain loose at his sides.
“I told you you would be treated differently.”
“You didn’t tell me it would be like this!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Because you would have stayed.
Because you would have spent the night convincing yourself that knowing made the choice yours.
Because I needed you to understand that Red Chanpuru will not be defeated by your willingness to endure it.
Because if I stop them now, Laleh will send people into Makochi before the iron has cooled.
Suo allows none of those answers to reach his face.
“You made your decision to stay, didn’t you?” he says instead.
Sakura stares at him as though Suo has struck him.
The guards force his head towards the right, exposing the left side of his face. Panic breaks through his shock.
“No.”
One guard catches his jaw.
Sakura thrashes hard enough that the men restraining him nearly lose their grip.
“No, get the hell off me!” he yells.
The attendant approaches. Sakura’s eye fixes upon the iron, his breathing turning ragged.
“Suo.”
The first call is sharp with disbelief, as though he still expects Suo to step forward now that the danger is no longer abstract.
Suo doesn’t move.
“Suo,” Sakura says again. The fear in his voice deepens.
Suo keeps his expression empty.
He imagines the streets of Makochi. Children running towards those clad in Bofurin’s uniforms. Its cheerful, trusting residents.
He imagines each of them burning because he could not bear to watch this.
The guard tightens his grip on Sakura’s jaw. Sakura’s body jerks violently.
“Suo, stop them.”
The words tear through him.
Suo’s hands remain clasped behind his back, hidden beneath his sleeves where no one can see his nails cutting into his palms.
“Suo!”
Sakura’s voice cracks. He’s no longer speaking to Officer Sun Fei or the man Red Chanpuru intends to make its leader.
He is calling for the person who drank tea beside him at Furin, who walked Makochi’s streets with him, who smiled as though nothing in the world could reach them there.
“Suo, please!”
The plea nearly destroys him.
Suo feels Bacchus shift behind him. Rakta catches his arm before he can move.
Suo doesn’t permit himself even that.
He watches Sakura’s face. He ensures that when the iron touches him, Sakura will see nothing in Suo’s expression that the council can use.
Laleh gestures.
“Opposite Officer Sun Fei's mark,” she instructs. “Let every faction understand how the debt has been bound.”
The attendant raises the iron. Sakura's gaze never leaves Suo.
For a terrible instant, the chamber falls completely silent.
Then the iron meets his skin.
His scream tears through the room, and Suo feels it in his teeth.
He has heard men die. He has heard bones break beneath his own hands, heard voices turn unrecognisable beneath torture he administered himself. He thought he knew every register pain could reach.
Nothing has ever sounded like this.
Sakura's body convulses against the guards, wrists wrenching at the cords until they bite through skin — but the men hold him down, and the iron does not lift. Smoke curls from the wound. His eye had closed on instinct the moment the metal came close, too late to matter, and now the lid is sealed to it, burning shut around the brand.
The smell reaches Suo a moment later.
Burning skin. Burning flesh.
His stomach turns.
Sakura screams Suo’s name again, the sound breaking halfway through as pain strips the word into something barely human.
Suo watches.
He will keep watching.
After ten excruciating seconds, the attendant removes the iron. Sakura drags in a broken breath.
His left eye doesn’t open.
Blood and clear fluid run from beneath the swollen lid, tracking down his cheek beside the blackened shape of the crest.
Suo looks towards Laleh, who returns his gaze without apology.
A brand to the eye. More than to symbolise his bond with Suo, it's a cruel and deliberate injury; a punishment chosen to ensure Sakura will carry the consequences of Issei’s betrayal in every glance, every fight and every reflection for the rest of his life.
Sakura sags, with only the guards to keep him upright.
Laleh addresses the chamber, reciting the formal words of acceptance, though Suo hears none of them. His attention remains fixed on Sakura’s left eye, on the way his head lolls before he forces it upright again.
He is still conscious, though barely.
The attendant turns the iron towards the witnesses.
The broken-dragon crest, the mark of a traitor, is dark now, smeared with blood.
“Let everyone bear witness,” Laleh says. “Sakura Haruka enters Red Chanpuru beneath the debt of his father and the seal of his keeper. From this day forward, his life belongs to the shadowed path beside Officer Sun Fei.”
The chamber answers as one.
Sakura doesn’t. His uncovered eye searches for Suo again.
The betrayal in it is clearer than the pain.
“You…” His voice is barely audible. “You let them…”
Suo takes one step forward.
Laleh raises a hand.
He stops, not because she commands it.
Because Sakura flinches, the movement small but unmistakable.
Suo has never seen Sakura recoil from him before. Something in his chest gives way.
Sakura’s eye rolls shut, his body going limp between the guards.
Against his better judgement, Suo reaches him before he strikes the platform.
He catches Sakura against his chest, one arm beneath his shoulders and the other bracing his waist. The heat radiating from the left side of his face is immediate and terrible.
“Release him,” Suo says.
One guard hesitates. Suo looks up. Whatever the man sees in his expression makes him step away at once.
Suo lifts Sakura from the dais. No one attempts to stop him.
Laleh says something about the ceremony being complete. The witnesses begin to move. The representatives murmur among themselves, either satisfied or appalled.
Suo hears none of it.
He carries Sakura from the chamber.
Rakta brings the physician to Suo’s quarters.
The man confirms what Suo already knows within moments of examining the injury.
The eye cannot be saved. The iron damaged too much tissue, and the heat travelled deeper than the mark itself. Even if infection can be prevented, Sakura will never see from the left side again.
Suo listens without expression.
Bacchus dismisses the physician before Suo can decide whether killing him for stating the obvious would serve any purpose.
Sakura remains unconscious upon the bed.
His face has been cleaned, though the skin surrounding the brand is swollen and angry beneath layers of medicinal salve. A strip of sterile cloth covers the left side of his face, secured carefully around his head.
The white sash lies abandoned on the floor.
Suo has not picked it up.
Rakta stands near the doorway.
“They really chose such a place to brand him,” Suo murmurs.
“It’s meant to mirror your tattoo, Sun Fei,” Rakta says calmly. “But more than anything, Laleh wanted to punish you as well.”
Suo dips another cloth into the basin of cool water.
“Well, she succeeded.”
Rakta’s gaze moves towards Sakura.
“What will you do?”
Suo wrings out the cloth.
“For now, I’ll reduce the swelling and ensure he doesn’t develop a fever.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Rakta remains for another moment before quietly leaving the room.
The door closes.
For the first time since the induction, Suo is alone with Sakura.
He sits beside the bed and replaces the warm compress at Sakura’s temple with the cool cloth. Sakura doesn’t stir.
Without the fury animating him, he looks younger.
Too young for the ceremonial robe still folded near his unconscious body. Too young for the bandages crossing his face. Too young to have inherited anyone’s hatred.
Suo touches the edge of the cloth.
His fingers tremble. He pulls his hand back and stares at it.
Blood has dried beneath his nails where they cut into his palms during the ceremony.
A fitting punishment, perhaps. But not enough.
From now on, nothing will ever be enough.
Sakura’s breathing catches.
Suo leans closer immediately, but he does not wake. His brow furrows, and a faint sound escapes him as his head shifts against the pillow.
Pain has followed him into unconsciousness.
Suo reaches for the medicine Rakta left behind and measures another dose, though the physician warned that Sakura cannot be given more until he wakes.
Useless.
Everything Suo has done for seven days has been useless.
He protected Sakura from the details so that fear would not consume him before the ceremony.
He let the ceremony consume him instead.
Suo closes his eyes.
The knot behind his eyepatch has begun to ache.
He reaches up and unties it. The fabric slips from his face and falls into his lap.
Cool air touches the tattoo surrounding his right eye.
Three red dragons coil across his temple and cheekbone, their bodies intertwined so tightly that their scales blur into one another. One winds above his brow, another curves beneath his eye and the third disappears halfway towards his hairline.
The eye at their centre opens.
Red catches the low lamplight.
Suo has kept the mark hidden in Makochi because he did not want anyone, but especially Sakura, to see what he belonged to. He had continued to keep it hidden from Red Chanpuru because he couldn’t find it in himself to believe in the oath he had sworn into. Not anymore.
Regardless, there is little point to anything now.
He leans over the bed and adjusts the cloth covering Sakura’s ruined left eye. Their marks mirror each other across the narrow space between them: Suo’s dragons given through ink and expectation, Sakura’s broken crest forced into flesh and blood.
Keeper and shadow.
The council has made them a pair at last.
Suo lowers his forehead until it rests against the back of Sakura’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
The words are meaningless, said too late for Sakura to hear.
Suo closes both eyes — one marked, one bare — and remains there, holding the hand of the person who had screamed for him to help and received only silence in return.