A few nights before Empire’s End
The room looked like it had given up a long time ago. Cheap business hotel. Single bed. Thin mattress. Beige walls, the color of nicotine stains and forgotten promises. The hum of the mini–fridge under the desk sounded louder than it had any right to be. Out the window, Tokyo bled neon into the slick black streets, rain turning every light into a smear of sickly color.
Yasuo Okada sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, wrists resting on his taped fingers. The Street Rat in his underwear and socks, gear bag open at his feet, Aerial X tomorrow hanging over his head like a ceiling about to cave in.
His boots were lined up beside the bag, black leather dulled by ring grime and alley dust. His black-and-gold tights hung from the back of the plastic chair. The TV played some late–night variety show on mute, bright laughter and chaos reduced to empty movement.
He wasn’t watching it.
He was watching his hands.
Yasuo: Three. That’s it.
He flexed his fingers, tape creaking softly as it dug against his knuckles.
Yasuo: Three jumps. Three times I leave the ground before they do.
The rules were simple. First to hit three high–risk moves from above the top rope or higher on an opponent wins. Aerial X didn’t care about pins or submissions. Just gravity and nerve.
Yasuo: Street Rat Stomp. Sewer Dive. Rat’s Revenge.
He tried to picture it in order, clean, like a sequence he could buy and sell.
First, the Street Rat Stomp. Kami draped on the mat, Tatsu winded, August down after something ugly. Climb, balance, drop both boots into someone’s ribs. First aerial.
Then the Sewer Dive. Ropes parting around his shoulders like dirty water, body folding through the gap, wiping out a stack of bodies at ringside. Second aerial.
Last, Rat’s Revenge. The 450. The one that made people chant his name and made doctors sigh. Spin, twist, land. Third aerial.
In his head, he hit all three. The impact rattled his bones. The fans screamed. The ref raised his hand. The Aerial X Championship came home to AAPW like Tanaka wanted. The Syndicate cheered. The Yakuza nodded. The cops…
The cops?
The picture blurred.
The ring lights in his mind flickered and melted into something colder. The roar of the crowd turned into the buzz of a fluorescent tube. The canvas became a metal table bolted to the floor. The ref’s hand slapping three became a pen tapping on a folder.
Interrogation room. Gray walls. Gray chairs. Gray air.
Chief Inoue’s voice cutting through it all like a blade.
Inoue: Hard drugs. Distribution. Yakuza ties. You know how this ends for you, Okada.
He’d sat chained to that table; wrists cuffed so tight the metal left an angry pink bracelet around his bones. Sweat drying cold under his shirt. Mouth full of copper where he’d bitten his tongue when they threw him across the hood of the car.
Yasuo dragged himself back to the present with a sharp inhale. The hotel smelled like cleaning chemicals trying and failing to hide mold.
Yasuo: Tch.
He scrubbed his hands over his face hard enough to hurt, trying to scratch out the memory.
But underneath the fluorescent cops was another ghost: Kurāken no Suana.
He’d never been inside, but he’d seen it from the outside. That hidden entrance by the freight district, marked only by a stone lantern and a camera lens nobody pretended not to see. He knew the stories. Yakuza in suits and silk. Enslaved Yokai fighting until something broke that wasn’t supposed to. Sumo matches on blood–slick floors. Betting slips written in ink and fear.
Yasuo: And I thought Aerial X was dangerous.
His phone buzzed on the bedside table, vibrating its way toward the edge like it wanted to bolt.
Blocked number.
Lately, those only meant two things: someone with a badge, or someone with a blade.
He watched it buzz once. Twice.
Then he picked up.
Akane: Okada.
Her voice came in flat and clear. No hello. No playing nice. He could picture her: hair tied back, plain clothes, standing under some harsh office light with a stack of files taller than his career.
Yasuo leaned back against the headboard, staring at the cracked ceiling.
Yasuo: You cops ever sleep, Watanabe?
Akane: Not when we’re cleaning up after men like you.
He smirked despite himself.
Yasuo: Ouch. You call to nag me or to tell me I’m a free man?
Akane: You’re not free. You’re leveraged. Remember the difference.
Paper rustled on her end. A mouse clicked.
Akane: The ledgers you got us from accounting? They were real. Those sponsorship payments? Half of them are shell companies tied to Yamamoto fronts. The auditors are going to have a heart attack.
He closed his eyes. That day in the AAPW office, playing the loyal Syndicate errand boy, delivering a sealed envelope from a “sponsor” while his phone camera quietly snapped photos of every ledger page left open on a desk.
Yasuo: So what I’m hearing is I’m very helpful.
Akane: What you’re hearing is you just bought yourself a little time. Tanaka’s discretionary fund is full of Yamamoto money. The Prime Minister is going to love that.
Yasuo: Great. I’ll send him a signed 8x10.
Silence hissed between them for a moment.
Akane: Tomorrow is Empire’s End. You focus on that. No more side errands tonight. No more basement meetings. No more office raids. We have enough to start squeezing.
Yasuo: You sure? Inoue made it sound like I’d be hand–delivering you Yamamoto’s heart in a box if I wanted to stay out of prison.
Akane: Do you want the numbers again?
Yasuo: No.
She gave them anyway.
Akane: Twenty to life, with your priors and Yakuza connections. No parole for a long time. And that’s if the Yamamoto clan doesn’t silence you first. That’s your future without us.
He stared at his reflection in the dark TV screen. The faint outline of his own face looked smug and tired.
Yasuo: And with you?
Akane: You keep doing what you’ve been doing. You keep feeding us everything. We build a case big enough that when it falls, your cooperation outweighs your sins. Maybe you walk after a few years. Maybe you walk clean. Depends on how many people we bring down.
Yasuo: So the more dangerous the man, the better I look.
Akane: Something like that.
He let that sit.
Behind his eyes, another face surfaced. Not Akane’s. Not Inoue’s.
Daichi Sasaki in a dim Syndicate locker room, smoke curling in the air, suit jacket slung over the back of a chair like he owned the building — because he did.
Daichi: I picked you for this match because you’re not brave, Okada. You don’t fight for pride. You fight because you’re greedy. Greedy men are useful. They do anything.
Yasuo: I’m starting to feel a little overbooked. Daichi wants a belt. Tanaka wants a symbol. Yamamoto wants an ear in the locker room. You and your boys want financial guts spilled on the table.
Akane: You wanted to live.
That shut him up.
Akane: Tomorrow, all you have to do is be what you already are. A rat in a maze. Climb faster. Bite when they don’t expect it. Win the belt. Make yourself valuable on every side of this.
Yasuo: You think Tanaka won’t smell it? Belt goes back to AAPW, money trail starts going hot, and suddenly his Street Rat has a police shadow on him?
Akane: Then don’t let him smell it. You were sneaky enough to become his errand boy. Be sneaky enough to stay alive.
Her tone softened. Barely. Just enough to sound human.
Akane: We’ll contact you after Empire’s End. Do your job in the ring. Let us do ours.
The line went dead.
He let the phone drop onto the table with a dull thud.
Two envelopes sat there like rival gods.
One was plain white, creased at the corners, already opened. Inside: a few crisp bills – “expense money” from Inoue’s people. Just enough to keep him in hotels like this instead of rotting in a holding cell.
The other was black, heavier stock, the paper thick and expensive. A red seal on the flap, pressed wax stamped with a dragon coiled around kanji: Yamamoto.
That one he hadn’t been able to ignore.
He picked it up again, thumb running over the broken seal. Inside: a single casino chip from Kurāken no Suana, deep crimson with a gold inlay, heavy enough to know it wasn’t cheap.
And the photo.
His own face, grainy, taken from a distance as he walked out of a nondescript door near the precinct. Two plain clothes officers in the background, barely visible, but there.
No note. No “we see you.” It didn’t need one.
**Yasuo: **Yeah. I get the message.
He had torn the photo in half the moment he saw it. He’d meant to toss it. Instead, both halves sat on the table under the chip, like some kind of altar.
Yasuo: Cops watching one side of the street. Yakuza watching the other.
He slid the chip between his fingers, feeling the weight of Kurāken no Suana like a ghost’s hand on the back of his neck.
Yasuo: And everybody is betting on how long it takes me to die.
He stood, stretching his back until something popped. The floor under his bare feet was cold. The window glass was colder when he touched it, palm flattening against the city’s reflected glow.
Down below, the alley was narrow, cluttered with trash cans, bikes chained to railings, and puddles reflecting convenience store signs. Somewhere out there, the Syndicate had eyes. Somewhere deeper in Tokyo, Yamamoto’s people were tightening circles. Somewhere in a station across town, Akane was pinning printed spreadsheets to a board with red string.
Yasuo: Let them stare.
He peeled himself away from the glass and went back to the bed. The ritual was waiting.
He dumped the gear bag onto the mattress. Knee pads. Elbow pads. Towels. Wrist tape. The mask he sometimes wore for promos but never for matches. He lined everything up with a precision that would’ve surprised people who only knew the smirking rat on TV.
Rats survived because they organized chaos in their heads.
He pulled on his tights slow, the fabric dragging over old bruises and fresher aches. The gold trim caught the TV’s light as he turned, checking the fit in the cracked mirror.
Yasuo: Kami Nakada.
He let her name sit for a moment. IWGP–level grace, but wrapped in Ultimate Wrestling’s gaijin paycheck. Technically Japanese, but working for the foreign enemy. Tanaka’s favorite kind of betrayal.
Yasuo: You’re the queen of the sky right now. Champion. Cool. You like clean lines. Clean landings. You jump because you trust yourself.
He nodded at his reflection.
Yasuo: Trust gets people killed.
He smoothed the waistband, fingers tracing the tiny rat logo stitched near his hip.
Yasuo: Tatsu Hime.
He pictured the Dragon Princess, eyes wild, yelling at the storm itself. Rage wrapped in athletic tape. The kind of woman who’d rather launch herself off the top rope with broken ribs than admit she should stay on the mat.
Yasuo: You jump because if you don’t, your demons eat you alive. You’re not looking where you land.
Then there was the other one.
August Knight. The gaijin scientist.
Yasuo: And you.
He laced his boots now, pulling the leather tight, crossing the laces with practiced speed. He’d watched August’s matches. The man moved like he was solving equations in real time. Every step measured. Every hold precise. No wasted motion.
Yasuo: You don’t jump for emotion. You don’t jump for pride. You jump because the numbers tell you it works.
The problem with numbers?
Yasuo: People aren’t numbers.
He tied off the last knot and stood, rolling his ankles, feeling the reassuring tightness of the boots around his bones. He bounced once, twice, testing how his knees felt. Not perfect. Never perfect. Good enough.
He picked up his wrist tape again, redoing the ends, reinforcing the parts that would hit ropes and steel.
Yasuo: Kami wants to prove she’s untouchable. Tatsu wants revenge. August wants to prove he can control chaos.
He caught his own smirk in the mirror.
Yasuo: I just want out.
The TV changed on its own to a hype package. Bright graphics. Empire’s End logo pulsing in the corner. Highlights of the Aerial X Division. The sound was off, but he’d seen enough of these to know the cadence.
Kami hitting that precise flying knee. Tatsu moonsaulting through a blizzard of pyro. August bridging into some intricate submission that made less sense the longer you looked at it.
Then they cut to him.
Yasuo Okada hitting Rat’s Revenge on some poor rookie, body twisting through the air in slow motion, the rotation smooth, the impact clean. The graphic under him read in bold letters:
THE STREET RAT – AAPW’S WILDCARD
He walked closer to the screen until his nose almost touched the glass.
Yasuo: Wildcard.
He liked the way that looked.
Wildcards got overlooked. Underestimated. Feared only after it was too late.
Yasuo: Tomorrow, the dragon’s going to scream about gods and fire. The dove’s going to talk about variables and inevitability. Kami’s going to pretend she’s above all of it.
He tapped the TV right over his own frozen image.
Yasuo: And I’m going to be the rat in the floorboard, chewing through all their plans.
He clicked the TV off. The room fell into a softer darkness, lit only by the sodium–yellow glow leaking around the edges of the curtain.
He sat down on the bed again, this time crossing his legs, resting his hands on his knees. He closed his eyes.
The ring rose up in the dark behind his eyelids. Empty. No crowd. Just ropes, buckle pads, canvas.
He walked it in his mind like he used to walk the rooftops as a kid, hopping from one building edge to the next to avoid cops and drunk salarymen.
Bell rings.
They crash into each other, all hungry, all desperate. That was fine. Let them collide. Let them create chaos.
Yasuo: You don’t win by being braver. You win by being later.
He saw himself roll out under the bottom rope the second the bell rang, dropping to the floor, letting them forget about him for ten seconds while they tried to kill each other.
He saw the opening for the first aerial.
Kami perched on the middle rope, lining up a knee. Tatsu behind her, screaming. August watching them instead of noticing the rat on the floor.
Yasuo: Rat Trap.
He launched in his mind. Springboard. Feet hitting the top rope, body whipping sideways, both boots smashing into the back of somebody’s skull. First tick on the ref’s fingers.
Match resets.
Bodies shift. Someone gets dumped outside. The timing for the second aerial appears.
Yasuo: Sewer Dive.
He saw the ropes in front of him, the blur outside, the clump of humanity waiting to be knocked down. He ran, slid between the ropes, body threading that narrow gap like he’d done a hundred times.
Second tick.
Last one waited like a knife on a high shelf.
Rat’s Revenge.
He felt his heart pick up just thinking about it. The 450 was never safe. That was the point. Pivot, spring, spin blind, land blind, hope that the target didn’t roll half an inch while you were upside down.
He was honest enough with himself to admit it.
Yasuo: If I miss that one, I’m done. Spine, ribs, ribs again. My luck doesn’t last forever.
Inoue’s voice crept back in.
Inoue: Twenty to life.
Tanaka’s voice overlapped it in memory.
Tanaka: Bring the belt home, Okada. Make AAPW proud.
Under that, Daichi’s voice, colder.
Daichi: Make me money or make yourself disappear.
He dragged all of them into one simple line.
Yasuo: You miss, you’re dead. In a cell. In an alley. In a barrel. Doesn’t matter.
He let the thought hang like a noose… then cut it.
Yasuo: You hit?
He could almost feel the belt’s weight on his shoulder, the way Tanaka would force a smile for the cameras, the way Daichi would clap his back too hard, the way Yamamoto would lean over some casino balcony and say, That rat’s earning his crumbs.
And behind them, in some quiet office, Akane sliding another file across Inoue’s desk, saying,
Akane: He’s still useful.
Yasuo opened his eyes.
Yasuo: Then you hit.
He leaned over, reached for the light switch, and flicked it off.
The city came in under the curtain, painting his gear in blue–gray shadows. The mini–fridge hummed. Distant traffic murmured. Somewhere, a siren wailed for someone else’s disaster.
He lay back on the bed, boots still on, hands folded over his chest. The ceiling disappeared into the dark. He stared anyway.
Yasuo: Street Rat climbs. Street Rat jumps. Street Rat lands.
He took one slow breath in.
Held it.
Let it out.
Again.
Again.
Between one breath and the next, the panic about Kurāken no Suana, Inoue’s numbers, Yamamoto’s chip, Daichi’s expectations, Tanaka’s rotten smile — all of it faded to a thin background buzz.
What was left was simple.
Ring.
Ropes.
Height.
Three jumps between him and whatever passed for freedom in this life.
Yasuo: Just another alley.
His eyes finally closed.
Outside, the rain started again, tapping against the window like fingers trying to get in. Inside, Yasuo Okada — The Street Rat, the snitch, the gambler, the future champion or future corpse — lay in the dark and rehearsed the feeling of letting go of the top rope and trusting that, just one more time, gravity would let him steal the sky.
The rain had turned Tokyo’s backstreets into veins of black glass. Yasuo leaned against the cold concrete of the parking structure and watched neon bleed across the puddles below, streaking pink, blue, and sickly green. Somewhere far beneath, past three layers of asphalt and secrets, Kurāken No Suana pulsed like a cancer in the bones of the city.
He could feel it.
Even from here.
His phone buzzed once in his hand.
Akane: Last chance to walk away, Okada.
He snorted under his breath, thumb hovering over the screen.
Yasuo: Yeah? And go where.
A beat. Then another message.
Akane: Inoue ran the numbers again.
Akane: If this works, the prosecutor signs off on full immunity for the drug charges.
Akane: If it doesn’t, you’re looking at twenty to life.
He read it twice even though he knew the math already. Twenty to life. His whole twenties and thirties evaporating into a concrete box because he got sloppy on pills and yaba for the Syndicate.
**Yasuo: **You cops ever try positive reinforcement?
Yasuo: Or is it all rot in a cell and don’t drop the soap.
No reply for a long moment. Long enough for him to hear distant thunder, the roll of it muffled by the city’s weight.
Then:
Akane: Positive reinforcement?
Akane: Bring me what I asked for and you get to wrestle at Empire’s End instead of watching it on the TV in a detention block.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket before he could type something stupid.
The USB drive sat in his palm like it weighed a kilo. It was nothing to look at—matte black, no logo, no charm, just another forgettable piece of plastic and silicon. Inoue’s tech guys had called it a drop leech. Plug it into the right machine, let it sit, and it quietly drank every file in the room.
Yasuo turned it between his fingers, watching the city lights bend across it.
Evidence.
Money trails from Kurāken No Suana into shell companies and anonymous investors. Shell companies into AAPW accounts. AAPW accounts into Haruki Tanaka’s pristine reports. Yamamoto’s rot threaded through all of it like mold in the walls.
He tucked the drive into the tiny inner pocket sewn behind his belt buckle. It sat flush against his hipbone, right where a ref would slap checking for foreign objects on the way to the ring.
He chuckled at the thought.
The Street Rat, smuggling something that could actually hurt someone for once.
He pulled his hood up, left the parking structure, and followed the alley downward as the city’s pulse thickened.
Tokyo: Lower Docks, Kurāken Alley
Kurāken No Suana did not have a sign. It didn’t need one.
Yasuo slipped past the ramen stalls and cheap hostess bars, following the smell of incense and ozone. The alley narrowed until it felt more like a throat than a street. Worn stone steps descended into the dark, each one marked with old kanji cut so deep they might have been carved with claws instead of chisels.
Two men flanked the steel door at the bottom.
They wore human shapes like suits—broad shoulders, black coats, identical expressions—but the illusion fell apart if you stared too long. Their eyes gleamed too gold, too flat. Their shadows twitched a half-beat off their movements. Around their wrists, paper talismans were tied over iron shackles etched with crawling sigils.
Enslaved Yokai. Guard dogs bound in skin.
One of them inhaled as Yasuo approached, nostrils flaring like a beast catching scent.
Yokai Guard: Yamamoto business.
Yasuo kept his shoulders loose, his grin lazy.
Yasuo: Syndicate, actually. Okada Yasuo. I’m here for the boss.
The guard’s stare scraped over him, catching on the Syndicate pin glinting on the lapel of his jacket. A small silver emblem, Daichi’s sigil woven around Yamamoto’s crest. The talisman on the Yokai’s wrist flared briefly, the kanji for obey glowing a dull red.
The other guard’s tongue flicked across his teeth in a way that had never been human.
Yokai Guard 2: Okada. The Street Rat.
Yasuo smirked.
Yasuo: Only in the ring, man. Out here, I’m a respectable citizen.
Something like a chuckle rattled behind one of their throats. A hand the size of a shovel hit the buzzer beside the door. Layers of lock and ward uncoiled with a series of metallic groans and soft, whispered syllables he tried not to listen to too closely.
The door opened.
Heat rolled out first—wet, heavy, soaked in cigarette smoke and sweat and incense thick enough to choke a god. Then sound poured over him: the roar of a thousand voices, the electronic warble of slot machines, the clatter of dice, the crack of flesh on flesh from somewhere deeper in.
Yasuo stepped inside.
The door closed behind him with the finality of a tomb.
Inside Kurāken No Suana
Kurāken No Suana stretched out like a fever dream under the city.
Gold light spilled across red carpets, across polished stone and lacquer and glass. The main floor was a sea of gambling tables and machines, all of it pulsing to the rhythm of an unseen dealer. Huge plasma screens along the walls displayed live feeds of Sumo bouts in one pit and something much worse in another—Yokai fights to the death, talismans flaring as writhing, half-seen creatures tore at each other while the richest men in Tokyo clinked glasses and placed bets.
Above it all, translucent paper lanterns hung from the vaulted ceiling, each one painted with a different monster’s face. Their eyes seemed to track him as he moved.
Yasuo walked like he belonged there.
Because he did.
He nodded to a couple of pit bosses he recognized, flashed a grin at a pair of Syndicate muscle leaning against a railing, and let his feet carry him toward the back where the real money lived.
Daichi Sasaki held court near one of the private lounges, draped over a velvet couch like a bored prince. Two girls lounged on either side of him, more decoration than company. A half-empty bottle of imported whiskey sat on the table, the glass sweating under the lights.
Daichi: Okada. Our little rat comes when he’s called.
Yasuo bowed his head just enough to show respect without groveling.
Yasuo: You said there was work, Daichi-san. I’m here.
Daichi’s eyes were sharp even when his smile was lazy. He flicked ash from his cigarette into a crystal tray shaped like a dragon’s skull.
Daichi: Relax. Tonight’s simple. No blood, no broken bones. You take chips from accounting to cage three. You stay out of the high rollers’ way. You don’t look at anything you shouldn’t.
Yasuo’s pulse ticked up.
Accounting.
He let his weight shift to one leg, posture casual.
**Yasuo: **That’s it? I was hoping for something exciting, you know? Maybe throw me in the pit with a kappa, see who comes out with more limbs.
One of the girls giggled. Daichi’s mouth curled.
Daichi: You want excitement, jump off another balcony in Las Vegas for the boss’s amusement. Here, you earn quietly.
He snapped his fingers. A runner in a plain black vest appeared at Yasuo’s elbow with a lacquered tray and a laminated badge.
Daichi: Take him to the office. Get the chips. Don’t make stupid conversation.
Runner: Hai.
Yasuo took the badge, clipped it to his belt. The plastic felt cheap. The opportunity behind it did not.
He followed the runner through a side hallway lined with framed calligraphy and photographs of Yamamoto shaking hands with politicians whose faces were always just out of frame. The deeper they went, the more the air changed—less perfume and neon, more ozone and the metallic tang of old blood.
Wards burned quietly along the walls. Some were inked directly into the plaster, some etched into bronze plates. A few were written on paper and pinned upside-down. The characters twisted if he looked for too long, like they didn’t want him to remember them.
His skin prickled as they passed a heavy metal door humming with suppressed fury. Something large moved behind it, chains clinking softly in the dark.
The runner didn’t react. Of course, he didn’t. This was normal for them.
Yasuo swallowed the urge to glance back.
Accounting
The accounting office looked boring.
That was how he knew it was dangerous.
It was a plain room with a low ceiling, fluorescent lights, grey filing cabinets, and a single long table stacked with chips and ledgers. Three men in shirtsleeves sat at terminals, eyes glazed in that particular way people got from staring at numbers too long. One of them had a Yamamoto pin on his tie. Another had a small Syndicate emblem tattooed behind his ear.
The third’s left eye was glass.
It followed Yasuo anyway.
Yamamoto Accountant: You’re late, Okada.
Yasuo spread his hands.
Yasuo: Sorry. House was full. Had to squeeze past a few million yen on the way back here.
A thin twitch of amusement pulled at one mouth. The guy with the glass eye jerked his chin toward a stacked metal case beside the table.
Yamamoto Accountant: Cage three. That case. Don’t drop it. Don’t open it. Don’t count it. Don’t think about it. You understand?
Yasuo: Yeah. Don’t fall in love with it. Got it.
They barely looked at him after that.
Which was exactly what he needed.
He hoisted the case; it was heavier than it looked. His biceps burned as he settled it against his hip. He let his eyes wander just enough to map the room—three terminals, one old server tower in the corner humming like a nest of hornets, one dusty printer, two external drives stacked on a shelf. A tangle of cables bled from the server into the floor and up into the wall.
The server was the heart.
And his fingers itched for the USB.
He shifted the case.
Yasuo: Where’s the restroom back here? Boss didn’t say there was a maze between the tables and the toilets.
The accountant with the tattoo snorted, never taking his eyes off the screen.
Tattooed Accountant: Out the door. Left. Two doors down. Don’t piss in the counting room. We had a guy try that once.
Yasuo made a face.
Yasuo: That guy still breathing?
Glass Eye didn’t bother to respond.
Yasuo stepped back toward the door, case still braced against his hip. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, loud enough he was half-sure the Yokai two stories up could hear it.
Left, he thought.
He stepped right.
The Side Room
The little side room was barely a closet—empty shelves, a folding chair, a dead security monitor mounted crooked on the wall. He kicked the door shut with his heel and listened.
No footsteps.
No voices.
Just the heavy, distant thrum of Kurāken’s heart.
His hands moved before his brain could talk him out of it.
Belt buckle. Inner seam. The drive slid free, smooth and cold in his fingers. He popped the faceplate off the dead monitor with the heel of his hand, exposing a forgotten cable still live with a faint hum.
Lucky.
He plugged the drive in.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then a tiny red LED on the side of the USB blinked once, twice, and held steady.
He swallowed, forcing his breath to stay slow.
Sixty seconds, Inoue had said. Maybe ninety if the network lagged.
Sixty seconds in a Yakuza-owned, Yokai-warded underground casino, stealing their books while dressed in their pin.
His stomach rolled.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and closed his eyes, counting in his head the same way he counted when he bounced on the top rope before a 450.
One.
He saw Daichi’s lazy smile, the weight of the Syndicate pin on his chest.
Five.
He saw Akane’s eyes across the interrogation table, calm and relentless.
Ten.
He saw the Aerial X belt flashing under the lights at Empire’s End, Kami’s silhouette framed in white, Tatsu’s fire, August’s cold stare.
Fifteen.
He saw a concrete cell. Four walls. One bed. Twenty years.
Twenty.
A footstep creaked outside the door.
His eyes snapped open.
The LED was still solid.
He could hear someone walking past, slow, heavy. The kind of walk people used when they owned a place and didn’t think they’d ever have to run for their lives.
The footsteps paused.
Right outside.
Yasuo stared at the door, every muscle in his body coiled.
The handle twitched.
Someone tested it once. Twice.
It held.
He had wedged the folding chair under the knob without thinking when he came in. Now it felt like the only thing between him and a shallow grave under Tokyo Bay.
A low growl rumbled on the other side of the wood. Too low for human vocal cords. The talisman he couldn’t see sizzled faintly.
Yasuo forced his lungs to move.
Rat in the walls, he thought. Just be the rat in the walls.
The growl faded.
The footsteps moved on.
He didn’t realize he’d dug his nails into his palms until the LED on the drive flashed three times and went dark.
Done.
He yanked the USB out, shoved it back into his belt, kicked the chair away from the door, and stepped out into the hallway with a bored expression pasted across his face.
Back Through the Casino
Nobody looked up when he re-entered the counting room.
The case left a red mark across his hip by the time he hauled it out again, but his hands were steady now. He let the rhythm of the casino swallow him on the way back to cage three—up through the corridors, past the humming wards, through the river of gamblers and killers and men who thought they owned the world.
He dropped the case on the cage counter. The woman behind the glass scanned his badge and barely nodded.
It was done.
He had just robbed Yamamoto and Haruki Tanaka without touching a single yen.
He drifted back to the lounge where Daichi sat.
The boss glanced at him, at the now-empty space where the case had been, and flicked ash again.
Daichi: See? Quiet money. No corpses. No drama. You look disappointed, Okada.
Yasuo forced a shrug, letting his cocky grin do its usual work.
Yasuo: Guess I’m just more of a fireworks guy than a bank clerk.
Daichi: Fireworks burn out. Clerks live to count again.
The words felt like a warning and a prophecy.
Yasuo bowed just enough, then let himself be dismissed. He threaded back through the throng, through the fumes, through the whispers of Yokai chained in spell-lit shadow, until he felt Kurāken’s breath on the back of his neck in one long, hot exhale as he stepped out into the cool, wet air of the alley.
The door shut behind him.
The night felt almost too quiet.
FamilyMart Hand-Off
He didn’t meet Akane in some dark alley by the Kurāken entrance. That would have been suicide. Even the rats knew better than to squeak that close to the dragon’s jaw.
They chose a FamilyMart instead.
Bright lights. Security cameras. Tired salarymen. High school kids arguing over instant noodles. The most normal place in the world.
Akane stood near the magazine rack in a grey hoodie and jeans, hair pulled back, a cheap surgical mask hanging loose around her neck like everyone else in Tokyo still pretending the pandemic hadn’t fully loosened its grip.
She didn’t look at him when he walked in.
Neither of them spoke as he grabbed a canned coffee from the cooler and she picked up a bottle of water. They drifted toward the register at the same time, a step apart.
He slid a small pack of gum onto the counter.
His fingers brushed hers.
The USB passed from his skin to hers as smoothly as a tag in the middle of a hot match.
The clerk barely glanced at them. The scanner beeped. The moment was over.
Outside, under the weak glow of the convenience store sign, Akane finally lifted her eyes to his. The USB was already gone, tucked into some inner pocket he’d never find even if he tried.
Akane: How clean was it?
Yasuo exhaled smoke from the cheap cigarette he’d lit the second he stepped back onto the sidewalk.
Yasuo: Cleaner than the bathroom, dirtier than my conscience.
A ghost of a smile tugged at her mouth. It didn’t last.
Akane: Kurāken’s accounting hub?
He nodded once.
Yasuo: You’re gonna like what’s on there. Or have a heart attack. Maybe both.
She studied him for a beat, eyes searching his face for something he wasn’t sure he wanted her to find.
Akane: You did good, Okada.
The words landed heavier than he expected.
He shrugged it off, flicking ash into the gutter.
Yasuo: Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it. Next time I might just run.
Akane: If you were going to run, you wouldn’t have gone down those stairs tonight.
She turned to leave, the city swallowing her into its crowd as easily as Kurāken had swallowed him earlier.
Akane: Stay sharp. They will notice eventually.
He watched her go, the USB—his future, his freedom, his death warrant—hidden somewhere under that plain hoodie.
He took one last drag, let the smoke curl out between his teeth, and looked back toward the alley that led down to the monster’s throat.
Yasuo: Yeah, well.
He muttered it to himself, to the rain, to the ghosts humming under Tokyo’s skin.
Yasuo: Let ’em notice after Empire’s End.
He crushed the cigarette under his heel and walked off into the neon haze, the roar of Kurāken still echoing somewhere deep in his bones.
Night before Empire’s End
The TV in Yasuo’s apartment flickered like it was trying to decide which world to belong to.
On screen, AAPW’s production crew had stitched together a fever dream: Tatsu Hime leaping through a blizzard, her mask trailing fire; Kami Nakada stepping through falling petals under the cherry tree; August Knight standing in a dark hallway, his face half in shadow as the commentary whispered about “the man behind the red door.”
Then it cut to him.
Street footage.
Yasuo dropping from a balcony rail in Shinjuku, landing on a stack of cardboard and laughing like he’d just cheated death for the fun of it. Faint grain at the edges of the camera, smartphone quality, reposted a thousand times.
Commentator: The Street Rat, Okada Yasuo. Chaos in human form. Can he survive the gods long enough to steal the sky.
He muted the TV.
The silence hit harder than the hype.
Rain pattered against the glass, slower now than it had at the docks. The neon outside smeared across his window in tired streaks. His apartment was barely more than a box—bed, low table, a clothes rack sagging under hoodies and jackets that all looked the same. The only decoration was a single AAPW poster tacked crooked above the TV, corners curling.
Yasuo sat cross-legged on the floor, an ice pack draped across his shoulder, his phone face-down beside him.
He stared at the black screen for a long time.
It vibrated once.
He didn’t jump.
He felt it through his palm, like a second heartbeat.
He flipped it over.
Unknown Number: Delivery received. Clean pull. Confirmed.
Another vibration before his brain finished reading.
**Unknown Number: **You did what you had to do, Okada. Lie low. After Empire’s End, the hammer drops.
A third.
Unknown Number: Stay alive until then.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
Yasuo: Yeah. No pressure.
He set the phone down again, more carefully this time. The messages glowed for a few seconds, then dimmed as the screen went black.
He leaned back until his shoulders hit the wall and let his head thunk against the plaster.
Yasuo: After Empire’s End.
The words tasted weird.
As if there was a version of him after all of this.
The USB was out of his hands now. The evidence was in theirs. Numbers, transfers, shell companies, Yamamoto fingerprints, Tanaka signatures. Enough, maybe, to cut the Syndicate’s leash from AAPW’s neck—or at least tighten a noose around it.
And all he had to do to get his own neck back was not die in a four-way Aerial X war while both a Yakuza clan and a billionaire president unknowingly stood on a trapdoor above a courtroom.
Easy...