Nogitsune (10 page)

“Mia! Her name is Mia!”

“What makes her any different from the one in Okinawa where the two American sailors raped? Or the one before that with the Marines? Or the ones during the World Wars? Better yet, how about all the shit we’ve done throughout our history with China and all over the Pacific? That’s what happens here. That’s the world we’re living. A flawed and broken system cloaked in a peaceful culture of silence.”

Seeing the intensity steaming from both men, they remained silent for the rest of that time until someone gave them a case to work. From there, it became about the job. The reason why they worked so well together…

****

Hideyoshi Ioka made some prayers near a shrine at the back of the Fukushima Compound in Chiba. He lighted some incense and put his hands together in a silent prayer. Most of the men knew to leave him alone.

Before that, he had just been appointed a
gashira
after being a
shatei
in Chiba. With the death of Iyaka, it seemed to not matter, but respected the decision from his old-school boss Daiichi Fukushima.

A part of him stayed away from the rest of the Fukushima soldiers, but he stuck to his job. He spent most of the time at the compound so he didn’t give into his urges.

Like most of the old-school yakuza, he knew what he signed for when he finally became a made man. That meant anyone else in his life would be a part of the life as well and could be caught in the crossfire. Also like most yakuza, no one ever expected for that day to come in this day of age because since the last gangland war, most of the yakuza families revamped their cloak of invisibility from the police and the government. Murders became less and less common in Japan's new age and their system turned into one of pure corruption and advancement if one played the game to their benefit. 

When Hideyoshi opened his eyes and made one last bow for his wife's spirit, he turned around to find his stepdaughter Ayame Komatsu standing before him, startling him.

"I'm sorry," Ayame said. "I was going to offer prayers as well. I know you wanted to be alone. If you want me to leave-"

"No," Hideyoshi said. "I'm done here." Just when he was going to the door, he stopped.

“So what are you going to do about this?” Ayame asked.

“What do you mean?” Hideyoshi said.

“That monster Kento killed my mother, your wife. Do you care about my mother at all to even avenge her death or are you just a coward like the rest of the men, scared to take down one little thug.”

‘I don’t like what you’re implying, little girl,” Hideyoshi said. “I did everything for your mother. She was nothing but a drugged-out whore before I save her life.”

Ayame came closer to Hideyoshi defiantly. “Watch your mouth about her!”

“Your mother never wanted you to know. But you find out anyway, did you?”

Both of them paused.

“I'm sorry for her and the baby. I'll pray for both of their spirits to find safety in the gods' embrace."

"I would appreciate it," Ayame said. “But we both know that would never be enough. Kento Karahawa is still out in the streets living it up and killing people at will while you’re here moaning. You should be going after him and making sure you avenged my mother.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?” Hideyoshi stressed.

Ayame approached the door. "Well, it may be rumor, but they're saying that even when you knew who killed your wife, you won't do anything because you scared of him."

"Scared?" Hideyoshi yelled. "Of Kento Karahawa? Is that what they think?"

"I mean what do I know? I'm just the daughter of a whore." A stern look came over Ayame.

Ayame turned to put her hands together and close her eyes. "By the way, there's going to be a funeral for Daiki Fukai in Saitama. Don't know if that interests you or not, but if you would....like to pay your respects, then he'll be there.”

Confused as to why Ayame mentioned it, Hideyoshi took it to heart and exited the room. From there, Ayame had the entire room to herself. She went through the same ritual Hideyoshi did for his wife. At the moment, she mourned for a fallen member.

"Mother! Don’t worry! Kento Karahawa and the entire Inato family will pay the price! Every last one!”

SILENT BULLETS
(
サイレント箇条書
き
)

The priest read the sutra, then gave the signal to the family that it was time to offer incense. Since Daiki Fukai had no family to speak of, his sponsor Yoshio Oguna walked up to the altar to present the incense. Yoshio put his hands together with the rosary and then humbly bowed, saying a quiet prayer for Daiki. He placed a pinch of incense in the urn, brought it to his forehead and bowed three times and returned to his seat.

Kento went up after Yoshio and when he saw Daiki’s picture, he remained emotionless, even though tears were streaming from his eyes. Kento repeated the same ritual as Yoshio and sat down.

This continued for at least an hour as Daiki’s friends and associates came to pay respect to him.

When the priest read the last passage of the sutra to finish the ceremony, everyone took a final look at Daiki and proceeded to seal the casket.

Everyone, mostly Inato underbosses of the Inato family stood to their feet as the pallbearers lifted the casket to carry it to the hearse. As the pallbearers walked down the aisle from the altar, a single bullet tore through one of the pallbearers’ knees. Instantly the pallbearer fell to the ground and began screaming in agony.

Before the first pallbearer could hit the ground, two more bullets ripped through the air, hitting another pallbearer in the forehead and another in the throat. Daiki’s casket fell to the ground and Daiki’s dead body dropped out of it and into the street. The instant Kento turned around, a bullet ripped through his shoulder and he went down to the ground.

“Ryu, take that fucking sniper out,” said Kento.

Ryu nodded and took out his gun, dashing to the back entrance of the temple. A platoon of gangsters, led by Hideyoshi Ioka, ran up into the temple and began firing systematically, taking out every underboss or hitman they could.

Yoshio Orguna stayed low and tried to crawl out of the way of gun fire. As soon as he was able to make it to one of the statues in the temple, a hollow tip bullet ripped through the air and hit him in the back of the head. The only thing that people around him could see was the top portion of his head exploding.

“SHIT,” said Hiroyuki Takayama as the blood and brain fragments from Yoshio splattered on his face. “Fuck this!”

Hiroyuki ran and picked up an AR-15 from one of his bodyguards and began firing upon Hideyoshi’s men.

“Shit,” said Hideyoshi as he jumped behind one of the temples columns to avoid fire.

The sniper set her sights on Hiroyuki and aimed at his face.

“AHHHHHHHHH!” Hiroyushi pushed Hideyoshi’s men back out of the temple with the other bodyguards. “GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE, KENTO, WHILE WE GOT YOU COVE—“

Hiroyushi’s body flipped backwards and fell in front of Kento. Hiroyushi’s sentence was interrupted by another hollow point bullet sunk in his face through the back of his head.

“Fuck it,” said Kento as he gritted his teeth together and picked up the AR-15 began to return fire. Kento ran towards Hideyoshi Ioka right in his line of fire, determined to kill him with a militant resolve that if he was going to die, it was going to be like a soldier and not like a coward.

****

The sniper aimed at Kento and smiled, knowing he was in range, right where he wanted Kento to be.

“Nah! Right now, pain will be your appetizer before Hideyoshi serves you the true death.”

The sniper turned his sniper rifle to Mr. Inato and within five seconds, shot all of the bodyguards standing around Inato guarding him. Mr. Inato walked through the hail of gunfire calmly and removed the
wakizashi
from his cane. When some Fukushima hitters came charging after him, Inato began killing any of them in his vicinity.

The sniper aimed at Mr. Inato’s face while he was attacking recklessly. “You on the other hand, Mr. Inato, are going to have the privilege of skipping the appetizer and going straight to the main course.”

Three shots went off and the sniper smiled. “Shit! I missed.”

The sniper tried again to find another chance to shoot Inato. Suddenly, he heard a click.

“What the…?”

Ryu stood right behind him aimed straight at his head. “You forgot dessert, fool!” 

Ryu pulled the trigger and a bullet with a mixture of smoke rose from his gun. The sniper’s head dropped to the ground. Ryu loaded the sniper rifle with the same bullet the secret Fukushima sniper had and began taking out all of Hideyoshi’s men.

“Where are you?” asked Ryu as he looked for Hideyoshi through the sight of the sniper rifle.

When the smoke cleared, Kento arose from his madness and gave a wave for Ryu. Ryu does the same as he searched for anyone missing. Kento circled around to find that a majority of the Inato hierarchy lay on the ground with bullets in their bodies. A calm Inato went to Kento and touched his shoulders. Kento wrapped his arm around him.

When Ryu came down from where he was into the street, he managed to meet up with Kento and Inato standing side by side.

“I guess no talk coming in place, huh!” Kento asked his boss.

Kento took a deep breath and said with tranquil cool. “No! I guess not!”

****

Police Chief Sanko Byobugaura walked around the bodies of the fallen Inato, disgusted at the proficiency of how a majority of their ranks met their deaths. Tomonubu Inato walked to the man and both bowed to one another out of respect.

“Do you know who did this?” Sanko asked.

“Take a wild guess,” Inato answered.

Sanko shook his head. “Are you sure Fukushima ordered the hit?”

“He may not have ordered the hit, but he didn’t stop it, either. Nevertheless, he broke the peace. Just like I thought he would.”

“Let me get some information for you before you do anything,” Sanko responded.

“Fuck that!” Kento stormed and pushed the elder Sanko. “Don’t act like you care about your job now. You probably wanted this all along.”

“Kento, calm yourself,” Inato said in a soothing voice.

“Hideyoshi Ioka did this,” Kento said. “He wanted me dead for what I did to his fuckin’ wife.”

‘KENTO!” bellowed Inato.

Kento stopped talking and bowed. Inato wrapped his arm around the police chief and walked away from a fuming Kento.

“I know you need to do your job,” Inato said. “But so do I. I’ve tried my best to keep the peace between us.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sanko said. “The last thing we need is another war and the whole world watching.”

A pause.

Sanko rubbed his forehead. “Look, I don’t care what you need to do. Just do it and keep it quiet so my people won’t be asking too many questions.”

“Like Detective Hamada?”

Sanko stopped walking upon hearing Hamada’s name.

“I’ll take care of my people. Just don’t do anything too crazy and control that dog of yours. As far as I’m concerned, Kento was right. This was probably between Ioka and your underboss after what he did to Iyaka Ioka. So you might want to put a leash on him so Hamada won’t shoot him.”

Suddenly, Sanko received a call on his cell. He answered.

“Tell me something!”

Sanko listened intently and took out his notepad writing notes. “Alright, thanks! You’ve been a good help!”

When he put up the phone, Sanko wrote some more characters and gave the paper to Inato. “Today’s your lucky day. Someone saw Ioka heading back to his own home in Yokohama. I’ll have my men pick him up and then, you can do what you want with him.”

“Thank you, my old friend! I know I could count on you.”

From there, the two elders bowed and went their separate ways. Both men knew what was about to occur. It had happened before…

****

Water drenched Hideyoshi Ioka’s face as he sat tied up in rope and chains. He shook his head, wondering what happened and why he was there in the first place.

“Wake up, little gangster,” someone said.

Hideyoshi focused his eyes to find that it was Kento Karahawa staring at him. Seeing Kento’s face and the sadistic smile he made, Hideyoshi struggled to break free, but his arms were weak.

“There’s no use breaking free,” Kento said. Then, he turned to two cops and gave them sheets of yen. “Tell your boss we won’t forget this.”

The cops took their lead and Kento’s guard Ryu, who saved Kento’s life during the attack, stood before Ioka and started hitting him in the midsection. Hideyoshi spit blood in Ryu’s face, but this hardly deterred Ryu, who just wanted to unleash his pain on Hideyoshi for murdering his leaders.

Kento stopped him for a second and presented himself to his rival once again.

“Who else was with you?” Kento said. “I know you weren’t able to pull this off by yourself. It certainly wasn’t your boss. So who was it?”

Another slob of blood flew to Kento’s pants. “Fuck you, bitch? Kill me! I ain’t afraid to die!”

Kento stood to the side and Ryu went back at punching his midsection again. Kento stopped him again and said, “Still want to fuck me? I don’t think you’ll be able to last.”

Kento looked to the side at a table nearby. “I have an idea. Get him up!”

Ryu raised the wounded Ioka to his feet and walked him to the table.

“Drop his pants and underwear,” Kento commanded.

Ryu obeyed.

“Spread his legs out.”

Ryu did as he was told and moved out the way. Kento had a bat in his hand and swung it around as Ioka had his back turned.

“You know, if you would have just taken the bullet that was meant for your wife, not of this would have happen,” Kento said. “I know that Daiki did you wrong. He shouldn’t have done what he did. Of course, none of that matters now. Daiki is dead and here we are. I know you’re still mourning your wife, which means someone else influenced you. If you tell me who, I can end all of this and I don’t have to do what I really want to do right now.”

Hideyoshi said nothing.

“Defiant to the end. I admire that.”

Then, in a jerk reaction, Kento swung the bat underhandedly and batted Hideyoshi straight in his testicles. A grand scream came from Hideyoshi’s mouth and because he was bound, the pain was more excruciating than he wanted it to be.

Kento screamed, “Who is it? Who you working for? Who pushed you to go after my boss?”

Despite the crying and grandiose pain, Hideyoshi Ioka stuck to the code of not exposing his sources. Kento shook his head as he walked with Ryu.

“So what do we do?” Ryu asked. “He’s not going to say anything. He’s not going to give up anybody. I say we kill him.”

Kento turned as Hideyoshi goes into a cradle position, trying to erase the pain from his head.

“You know, this was much better when I had Daiki in my corner. He would know how to really get it out of him.”

Kento walked over to Hideyoshi, glaring at him. He turned back to Ryu and nodded. He walked away and Ryu took out his gun. As Kento continued to walk his way out of the warehouse, Ryu aimed his gun at a crying Hideyoshi, who started to pray in Japanese.

“I’m coming to see you, Iyaka. I’m coming to-“