Founding Member (3)

Sasakawa Masaru.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He was the sixth president of the Black Society, the high-school syndicate that held the whole of Tokyo in its grip—and the prize recruit destined, someday, to be scooped up by the Minamoto Clan.

The Black Society had been founded by the children of modern aristocracy, and its membership requirements were accordingly peculiar. The sole condition for joining was influence. Some men carved that influence out with their own fists. Others simply inherited it from the glow of a famous family name. Generation after generation, then, the Society had filled itself with the sons and daughters of the houses that actually ran Japan.

Members took care of their own. Those with muscle handled every shade of illegal work. Those with political reach buried the illegalities. Those with money kept the machine funded. It was a vicious, elegant loop—a genuine win-win. Strength needed power, power needed money, and money needed strength to keep itself alive. Even after they graduated, they went on bankrolling the Society from adult life. In other words, the Black Society was not a high-school gang. It was a cartel.

And Masaru, sitting at the head of it, had a brilliant future. A third-year. Level 19. One step short of twenty—the rank people whispered could do anything. After graduation he would enter the Minamoto Clan and become someone that mattered.

Lately, though, he had been brooding.

"President. Is something troubling you?"

"…Not particularly."

Vice-Commander Atsuki set the tea down and bowed her head.

"I will proceed with the regular report."

"Go on."

"The rest has more or less been settled. The First Unit and the Fourth Unit are locked in a deadlock. An open clash looks imminent."

"How long has the conflict been running?"

"…Six months. Will you intervene after all?"

The Black Society was in the middle of a civil war. Masaru was a third-year. When he graduated, the president's chair would sit empty. Ordinarily he would already have named a successor. He hadn't. That was why the fighting had broken out at all.

"Leave it."

"Yes. And next…"

Masaru let the rest of it slide past one ear and thought, How dull.

Beyond the window the sky was a cloudless, idiotic blue. To someone else that might have meant happiness. To Masaru it was boredom distilled to its purest form.

He had wanted to become a yakuza because he worshipped strength. And if he was going to do it, he wanted to stand at the very top. A simple enough wish—but the deeper he waded into that world, the more it fascinated him. To Masaru, the yakuza's world was the fairest place on earth. A life seized by force alone, without a shred of contradiction: that way of living had planted longing in him when he was still a boy. So he had seized, and to a point he had succeeded. He had earned a place in the Minamoto Clan—the yakuza that other yakuza named in a whisper.

And yet. The thought came to him unbidden.

What was the point of it?

Yakuza called the boss of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an organization oyabun—a word that held the shape of "father" inside it. Once you bound yourself to a family, you became family. And yet Masaru had never once laid eyes on this so-called oyabun. Was that man even someone worth following? Was he, at the very least, stronger than Masaru himself?

The Minamoto Clan was an old house, standing since the Edo period. The Minamoto of today had been built by the Minamoto of Edo—not by anyone alive now. The man the yakuza called father had had his station handed to him at birth.

Masaru had chosen the yakuza road because he wanted to be weighed by ability alone, without favor or blood. If he walked into that organization and found the oyabun unworthy… what would be left at the end of it? The feeling, surely, of his entire life being denied in a single stroke. And Masaru knew, with unpleasant clarity, that the odds of that were high. In the end, the man had only inherited a name. What value was there to find in someone who had never seized anything, never strained for anything?

"…That is all."

"You've done well. Go. I wish to be alone."

"Yes, sir!"

Atsuki withdrew. The room emptied. In the hollow that remained, Masaru felt a clean, ringing futility.

His eyelids were sinking when a familiar shape drifted across them.

"That is…"

A girl with pink hair and a face built for being adored. Her eyes shone as if they had stars caught in them, and they had the particular power of stopping every passerby's feet at least once. Masaru knew her name.

Minamoto Noah.

A figure wrapped in veils. Beyond the fact that she was the official heir of the Minamoto Clan, not a scrap of information could be found.

He watched her go by with a look that gave her nothing. Two orders, and two only, had come down to him once his entry into the Minamoto ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had become a certainty.

"…I am to follow a child like that, someday."

He did not know who the Minamoto oyabun even was. He did not know the man's name. More precisely, he could not know it. There was no channel, no method, by which the answer could be reached. People from the Minamoto did drop by now and then, but they were such obvious small fry that he could clock them as nobodies in a single glance.

"Come to think of it, the last president went into the Minamoto as well."

He had run into the man not long ago. Totsuki Kentaro, former head of the Black Society. Masaru, who had been a lieutenant last year, knew exactly what Totsuki was worth. Decent hands with a blade. Middling talent. Weaker than Masaru, at any rate. And even that man now rolled around in a luxury sports car, dressed to the teeth. He had to be sitting at a fairly high rank.

"…The greatest yakuza organization in the country, and that is the best they can do."

His doubts about the Minamoto thickened. Fingers clenched in the curtain, he turned and looked across the room—at the wall rack where several wooden practice swords hung. He took one without hesitation. A decoration, yes. But it would be enough. Then, just as unhesitatingly, he started for the Public Morals Committee office.

Masaru leveled the wooden sword.

The pale-skinned girl was staring blankly at what remained of a mug—nothing left of it now but the handle. Half of this, if he was honest, was impulse. What power could a girl this small possibly have? He had never once heard of a woman becoming the boss of an organization. For all he knew there was another heir hidden somewhere, and this child was only a windbreak.

But this was the only way Masaru had, here and now, of testing the Minamoto's true weight. I only need to frighten her a little. She'll carry it to the family on her own. His target was not Noah. It was the identity of the Minamoto itself. He had never once laid eyes on a Minamoto officer. Touch the oyabun's daughter, and something—anything—would answer. And then he would see. Whether anyone there was a person worth following.

"…Pick."

"What?"

"Right or left. Pick."

Noah's eyes snapped open, sharp as drawn steel. So this is a Minamoto after all. That look isn't bad, he had time to think—

And the next thing Masaru saw was the ceiling.

"Ghhk—!"

An agony he had never once tasted in his life folded him up and sent him rolling across the floor.

"Khh— khh."

Through a swimming field of vision he confirmed his own hand, painted in blood. A thick spray of it came up with the cough. What… just happened?

He dragged himself together somehow and lifted his head. Noah was looking down at him. Murder rolled off her in sheets so dense he could barely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠draw a breath.

"Answer."

"…!"

"Right. Left."

"What are you… talking about…"

Masaru got his feet under him by sheer will. His legs shuddered. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and raised the wooden sword. What kind of trick was that? Some self-defense weapon he hadn't seen? Or a bodyguard posted somewhere nearby? Of course. She was the public heir of the Minamoto. They would never have left her alone. Where are you. His eyes went grave, hunting the room for a guard who had to be hiding somewhere.

"From now on you're only going to have one hand, so pick. Which arm do you actually care about?"

"What are you even— ghhk!"

Masaru's body left the floor. Noah's fist drove so deep into his chest it felt as if the air in his lungs, and the organs behind it, were trying to leave through his mouth. White-faced, pupils blown pale, he dropped to his knees.

Noah lifted her fist with an expression like winter. Then she brought it down without the slightest ceremony.

A crack like a gunshot. Masaru's face slammed into the floor. A neat, circular crater opened in the office boards. Noah set her heel on the back of his skull and spoke.

"Beanpole. That mug you just smashed was worth ten of your lives. So die ten times."

Noah was in a state of extreme excitement. That pink mug with the adorable marshmallow coating was a thing she cherished beyond reason. On walks. On trips to the bathroom. At the hot springs. Through a change-of-season cold. Through a hiccup fit that would not stop in the middle of a horror movie. It had been with her through all of it—a vessel packed with memory. And Masaru had gone and broken it.

She crouched, her face loaded with killing intent, and closed her fist. Then she started dropping knuckles on his skull.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Masaru's face sank into the floor by degrees, like a nail being driven. Only after the tenth blow did she stand. She was nowhere near finished. She fully intended to snap both of the delinquent's arms and leave him just functional enough for the bare minimum of daily life.

"Count yourself lucky I'm moving on to both arms, Beanpole."

The voice had gone cold and still, and it did not sound like a joke from any angle.

Yuria leaned in and hissed into Chise's ear. "Senpai…! She's going to kill him. Please stop her. Minamoto-senpai only ever listens to you!"

Chise gave an awkward little laugh and shook her head. "Once she gets like that, even I can't stop her." She pointed. "See that hair sticking straight up?"

"…Yes. I see it."

"That means she's really, truly pissed. You do not touch her when she's like that."

Chise delivered the warning with the gravity of a field briefing. A few strands really were standing bolt upright from the crown of Noah's head.

She's going this far over a broken mug…!

Noah lifted her leg a fraction. She looked ready to simply stamp. If her punches were already like that, what would a kick do? He might actually die.

Yuria bolted forward and threw her arms around Noah.

"Minamoto-senpai! Please calm down!"

"Let go. You wanna die too, Itchi?"

The question, delivered in Noah's nastiest register, very nearly made Yuria lose control of something important.

"Forgive me."

That, as it turned out, was the full extent of Yuria's resolve.

"…Heh. Heh."

A low laugh scraped up from the floor. The nail that had been half-buried in the boards—no, Masaru—was getting up.

Noah's interest stirred.

"You stood up after that. Not bad."

She had hit him with the anesthesia punch and a noogie designed to send a man on a brief tour of the afterlife. Coming around this fast meant he could take a beating. A durability type, then? The world was full of odd talents. Suzuki, for instance, was built like a wall. Something in that neighborhood, she decided, and closed her fist again.

"…Do not take me so lightly."

Masaru, a ruin of a human being, muttered it as he tucked the wooden sword into his sash. A drawing stance. And as he quietly began to speak the name of the form—

"The hell are you mumbling, you moron."

Noah's Brazilian kick detonated across Masaru's cheek. She was not, as a rule, the sort of person who gave anyone time to recite a skill name.