"It's time to show him what a real storm looks like."
Ryuuji leaned against the doorframe of the shattered penthouse office, checking his watch—a Patek Philippe Nautilus that cost more than the steel and concrete building they were standing in. The face of the watch caught the strobe-light flashes of lightning from outside, illuminating the complication of gears for a split second.
"The reception is at the Imperial," he noted, his voice smooth, untroubled by the corpse of the guard bleeding out on the carpet three feet away. "String quartets. Expensive caviar. French champagne chilled to exactly six degrees Celsius. You're not exactly dressed for a waltz, Hanae."
Hanae adjusted the cuffs of her bespoke suit. The fabric was Italian wool, matte black, absorbing the dim light of the room. It was armor, rigid and unforgiving, tailored to hide the feminine curve of her waist while accentuating the lethal width of her shoulders.
She walked to a decorative mirror—one of the few things in Jiro's office that hadn't been smashed by Takeshi's rampage. She inspected herself.
Her hair was slicked back, wet from the rain and sweat, revealing the sharp, aristocratic lines of her face. Her eyes were voids, two dark tunnels with no light at the end. But it was the collar of her crisp white dress shirt that drew the eye.
There was a splatter of blood on the right side of the collar. It was bright red, arterial, vivid against the starch white cotton. It wasn't a smudge; it was a spray, an abstract painting of violence created when she had crushed the mercenary's throat downstairs.
"It's not a stain, Ryuuji," Hanae said, turning away from the mirror. Her voice was lower now, stripped of the breathy, high-pitched mask she had worn for six years. It was a baritone rumble that vibrated in the chest. "It's a corsage."
She stepped over the debris of her uncle's reign. The floor was a mosaic of shattered glass, shredded bearer bonds, and shell casings. Her leather loafers crunched on the wreckage with a rhythmic, satisfying sound. Crack. Crack. Crack.
Takeshi stood by the elevator, a mountain of a man covered in white drywall dust and red splatter. He looked like a golem crafted from the ruins of a butcher shop. He held the elevator doors open with one massive hand, his other hand resting on the handle of his meat cleaver, which was now sheathed in a custom leather holster at his hip.
"The car is ready, Boss," Takeshi rumbled. "Ren says the engine is warm."
"And the Viper?" Hanae asked.
"Cleaning up," a cheerful voice echoed from the hallway.
Reina skipped into view. She had found a towel somewhere and was vigorously scrubbing the blood off her twin tails. Her Gothic Lolita dress was ruined—the white lace trim was now a muddy brown-red—but she looked ecstatic. She twirled a butterfly knife in her left hand, the blade flickering in the gloom.
"Seventy-two," Reina announced proudly. "That's the final count. Seventy-two barcodes scanned and removed from the inventory. The building is clean."
Hanae nodded. She didn't offer praise. Cleaning the trash was expected.
"Let's go," she said.
She entered the elevator, stepping over the corpses of the mercenaries that still cluttered the floor. Takeshi kicked a limb out of the way to allow Ryuuji to enter.
The descent was silent. The elevator, bullet-riddled and smelling of copper and cordite, hummed smoothly downward.
Hanae lit a cigarette. The flame of the gold lighter illuminated her face for a brief second—sharp, angular, terrifying. She inhaled deep, letting the smoke fill her lungs, replacing the stale air of the office.
She closed her eyes.
For six years, she had imagined her wedding reception. She had imagined Kenji holding her hand, looking at her with love. She had imagined the first dance. She had practiced the steps in the kitchen while waiting for the water to boil. One-two-three, one-two-three.
She exhaled the smoke.
"I promised him a dance," she whispered to the closing doors.
Ryuuji looked at her, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "I have a feeling he's going to stumble."
The Imperial Hotel - The Golden Cage
The Grand Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel was a universe away from the blood-soaked carpet of the Kurosawa Tower.
Here, the air didn't smell of death. It smelled of expensive perfume—Chanel No. 5, Santal 33, and the subtle, cloying scent of lilies. The lighting wasn't harsh neon or lightning flashes; it was the soft, golden glow of twenty crystal chandeliers, each one costing more than a luxury sedan.
A string quartet sat on a raised dais in the corner, playing a gentle, anesthetized version of Pachelbel's Canon in D. Waiters in white gloves moved like ghosts through the crowd, carrying silver trays laden with flutes of Dom Pérignon and spoons of Beluga caviar.
Kenji Sato stood in the center of the room, holding a crystal flute. He wore a white tuxedo jacket with black lapels, a look he had seen in a magazine and insisted on copying. He felt like a king.
"It's a merger, essentially," Kenji said loudly to a group of elderly businessmen, his voice booming with unearned confidence. "The Kurosawa family has assets, of course, but they lack... modern vision. My management firm will streamline their operations. Cut the fat."
"The fat being the daughter?" one of the businessmen asked with a polite, wolfish smile.
Kenji laughed. It was a practiced laugh, designed to sound charming but coming off as hollow.
"Hanae?" Kenji shook his head, looking down at his polished shoes. "Poor Hanae. She's a sweet girl, really. Good with domestic tasks. But she lacks the... temperament for high society. She's fragile. The pressure of being a CEO's wife would have crushed her."
He looked toward the head table.
Emi sat there. She was wearing a second wedding dress—this one pink, strapless, and covered in sequins. She looked like a doll. A very expensive, very breakable doll.
She held a silk handkerchief to her mouth and coughed. It was a delicate, bird-like sound. Kah. Kah.
The guests cooed with sympathy.
"So brave," a woman in pearls whispered nearby. "Dying of a rare blood disease, yet she smiles for him."
"And the sister? The one he dumped?"
"Plain," the woman sniffed. "I saw her earlier. Walked like a peasant. Broad shoulders. No grace. It's a mercy he let her go, really. She would have been an embarrassment at a function like this."
Kenji swirled his champagne. He felt light. Weightless.
For six years, he had felt the heavy, suffocating presence of Hanae in his house. Her silence. Her staring. The way she seemed to fill a room even when she was shrinking herself into the corner. He had hated her strength, hated the fact that she never complained, never cried, never needed him.
Emi needed him. Emi was weak. Emi made him feel big.
"Where is Jiro-san?" one of the investors asked, looking around. "The Uncle? I thought he was giving the toast."
Kenji waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, you know Jiro. Probably closing a deal in the penthouse. He told me he'd be a little late. He's securing the future of the clan."
Kenji took a sip of the cold wine. It tasted like victory.
He imagined Hanae somewhere out in the rain. Probably at a bus stop. Probably crying into her cheap handbag. The thought gave him a twisted sense of satisfaction. She was finally in her place. Below him.
"To the future!" Kenji toasted, raising his glass.
"To the future!" the sycophants echoed.
The string quartet transitioned into a waltz. The atmosphere was perfect. Hermetically sealed. Safe.
Then, the water in Kenji's glass rippled.
It wasn't a large ripple. Just a tiny, concentric circle that disturbed the surface of the champagne.
Thrum.
A sound vibrated through the floorboards. It wasn't the music. It was too low, too guttural. It felt less like a sound and more like an earthquake deep within the earth.
Kenji frowned. He looked at the floor.
Thrum-thrum-thrum.
The crystal chandeliers began to tinkle. The delicate glass teardrops tapped against each other, creating a nervous, chiming melody that clashed with the waltz.
"Is that... thunder?" someone asked.
"No," a man near the window said, pulling back the heavy velvet curtain. "That's not thunder."
The Omen
Outside the main entrance of the Imperial Hotel, the valet manager—a young man named Hiroshi—was having a heart attack.
A minute ago, the driveway had been empty, save for a few taxis.
Now, it was a parking lot of war.
It had started with the roar. A low-frequency mechanical scream that heralded the arrival of the convoy. Then, the headlights appeared. Hundreds of them. Cutting through the rain like searchlights from a prison break.
Black sedans blocked the main road. They blocked the side exits. They blocked the delivery ramp.
Matte-black motorcycles swarmed the sidewalk, their riders clad in leather and helmets, revving their engines in a synchronized rhythm that sounded like a breathing beast. Vroom. Vroom. Vroom.
The lead car—a battered Mercedes S-Class with no side mirrors and a smashed front grille—rolled up to the red carpet. It didn't stop at the valet stand. It drove onto the sidewalk, crushing the "No Parking" sign under its tires.
Hiroshi ran forward, waving his hands. "Sir! Sir! You can't park here! This is a private event! The Sato wedding—"
The rear door of the Mercedes opened.
A black leather boot hit the pavement.
Hiroshi froze. He looked up.
He saw a woman. She was wearing a man's suit, soaking wet, fitted to a body that looked like it was carved from granite. Her hair was slicked back. Her eyes were terrifying.
And behind her... an army.
Hundreds of men in black suits were exiting their vehicles. They didn't speak. They didn't rush. They moved with the terrifying discipline of a insect colony. They carried baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire. They carried lengths of pipe. Some openly carried swords.
They formed a corridor. A human tunnel of black fabric and violence leading from the Mercedes to the hotel doors.
Hiroshi swallowed. He took a step back.
"I..." Hiroshi squeaked.
The woman ignored him. She looked at the revolving glass doors of the hotel lobby.
"Takeshi," she said. Her voice cut through the rain.
A giant in a blood-stained chef's uniform stepped out of the front seat. He looked at Hiroshi. He winked.
"Valet," Takeshi grunted, tossing a set of keys at the terrified boy. "Keep it running. The Boss hates waiting."
Hiroshi caught the keys. He didn't argue. He watched as the woman, the giant, a strange girl in a gothic dress, and a man in a charcoal suit walked toward the doors.
The army of three hundred men turned their backs to the hotel, facing the street, forming an impenetrable wall of steel and flesh.
The hotel was no longer a hotel. It was a siege.
The Invasion
Inside the ballroom, the string quartet stopped playing. They couldn't hear themselves over the vibration of the floor.
The guests had gone silent. The murmuring gossip died out. Three hundred heads turned toward the main double doors—huge, oak panels adorned with gold leaf.
Kenji lowered his glass. "What is going on? Security! Check the entrance!"
Before the hotel security could move, the handles of the double doors began to turn.
They didn't burst open. They weren't kicked down.
They opened slowly. Deliberately.
Creeeeeeeak.
The sound was agonizingly loud in the silent room.
First, a shadow fell across the threshold. A shadow that seemed too large to be human.
Takeshi stepped in.
The sight of him caused a woman in the front row to faint. He was a nightmare contrast to the white-tie elegance of the room. He was covered in gray dust and red splatter. His chef's whites were torn, revealing arms as thick as tree trunks. He held a meat cleaver loosely in his right hand, the steel dull and notched.
He stepped to the side and held the door open. He bowed his head.
"Kumicho," he announced. The word echoed off the vaulted ceiling. Boss.
Hanae walked in.
She walked with a stride that ate the distance. Her heels clicked on the marble floor with military precision. Click. Click. Click.
She was soaking wet. Water dripped from the hem of her trousers, leaving a dark trail on the expensive runner.
But it was the suit that confused them.
The guests squinted. Was that... a tuxedo? No. It was a suit. A man's suit. And the red on her collar? Was that wine?
Kenji blinked. He squinted through the glare of the chandeliers.
"Hanae?" he whispered.
He couldn't reconcile the image. The Hanae he knew was a mouse. A woman who wore beige cardigans and apologized for taking up space. This woman took up all the space. She radiated a gravity that pulled the eyes of everyone in the room.
Behind her, Reina skipped in, her frilled dress stained with mud and darker fluids. She looked at the guests—the women in jewels, the men in tuxedos—and licked her lips.
And behind them, the Ghost Squad entered.
They flowed into the room like oil. Silent men in black suits lined the walls. They didn't attack. They didn't yell. They simply stood there, shoulder to shoulder, surrounding the perimeter of the ballroom. A ring of iron enclosing the golden cage.
There were fifty of them inside the room. Two hundred outside.
The exits were blocked.
Hanae stopped in the center of the aisle. She stood exactly where she had stood hours ago in her wedding dress.
She looked at the altar. She looked at the cake—a ten-tier monstrosity. She looked at Emi.
Then, she looked at Kenji.
She didn't look at him with love. She didn't look at him with hate. She looked at him the way a boot looks at an ant.
Kenji felt his stomach drop. But his ego, built up over years of bullying her, refused to shatter just yet. He forced a laugh. It sounded brittle.
"Hanae!" Kenji shouted, stepping forward. He waved his hand at the guests, trying to regain control of the narrative. "Everyone, look! It's my ex-wife! She's... she's clearly had a breakdown!"
He walked toward her, putting on his "concerned husband" face.
"What are you wearing, Hanae? A suit? You look ridiculous. And who are these people? Did you hire actors? Is this some kind of desperate attempt to get me back?"
He stopped three feet from her. He could smell her.
She didn't smell like vanilla and flour anymore. She smelled of rain, tobacco, and blood. It was a sharp, metallic tang that triggered a primal fear response in his brain.
"Go home, Hanae," Kenji hissed, keeping his voice low so the guests wouldn't hear the fear creeping in. "You're embarrassing yourself. You look like a man. It's disgusting."
Hanae ignored him. She didn't even blink.
She walked past him.
It was the ultimate insult. She treated him like a piece of furniture. She walked straight to the stage where the string quartet was cowering.
She grabbed the microphone stand. She pulled the mic off the clip.
Screeeech.
Feedback whined through the speakers. The guests covered their ears.
Hanae tapped the mic. Thump. Thump.
"The music," she said. Her voice was calm, amplified to fill the cavernous room. "It's too soft."
She looked at the quartet.
"Do you know Requiem?"
The cellist shook his head frantically, his bow trembling.
"Pity," Hanae said.
She turned back to the crowd. She looked at the three hundred elites who had laughed at her earlier. Who had called her a "sturdy workhorse."
"You all seem to be enjoying the party," she said. "The champagne looks expensive. The cake looks sweet."
Kenji marched up to the stage. His face was red. The humiliation was burning him alive.
"That's enough!" Kenji yelled. He reached out to grab her arm. "Give me the microphone! Security! Get her out of here!"
He grabbed her bicep.
Or he tried to.
Hanae didn't move. She didn't even look at him.
Takeshi moved.
The giant covered the distance in one stride. He grabbed Kenji's hand—the hand touching Hanae—and squeezed.
SNAP.
The sound of metacarpal bones fracturing was distinct, like dry twigs stepping broken in a winter forest. It echoed through the silent ballroom.
"AAAAAHHH!"
Kenji's scream was shrill. He dropped to his knees, clutching his mangled hand.
"Do not touch the Boss," Takeshi grumbled, sounding bored. He grabbed Kenji by the back of his expensive white tuxedo jacket and tossed him.
He didn't throw him far. Just enough. Kenji flew five feet and crashed onto the head table, scattering plates of caviar and crystal glasses. He landed in the wreckage of the wedding feast, groaning, wine soaking into his white suit like a spreading gunshot wound.
The guests gasped. Some screamed. But nobody moved. The men lining the walls took a synchronized step forward. STOMP.
The message was clear: Move, and you die.
Hanae looked down at Kenji, who was writhing among the broken china.
"Boss?" Kenji wheezed, looking up at her with tear-filled eyes. "What... what did he call you?"
Hanae stepped off the stage. She walked over to the wedding cake. It was a masterpiece of sugar and fondant, topped with a plastic figurine of a groom and a bride.
She reached into the pocket of her suit jacket.
She pulled out a heavy gold object.
It was a signet ring. A massive chunk of gold featuring the Roaring Black Dragon. The ring that had been on Uncle Jiro's finger less than an hour ago.
"You were waiting for my Uncle Jiro," Hanae said into the microphone. "You said he was 'securing the future.'"
She held the ring up. The gold caught the light.
"He was."
She tossed the ring.
It flew through the air in a slow arc. It landed on top of the wedding cake, crushing the plastic groom figurine.
"He sends his regards," Hanae said coldnly. "From hell."
A silence so profound fell over the room that you could hear the rain hitting the windows outside.
The investors in the front row—the ones who knew what that ring meant—turned pale. They recognized the seal of the Kumicho. And they realized, with dawning horror, that the woman standing before them wasn't a jilted housewife.
She was the coup.
"Jiro is dead," Hanae announced, her voice flat. "The Kurosawa Clan is under new management."
She walked toward the head table. Toward the only person who hadn't moved.
Emi.
The stepsister was sitting frozen in her pink sequined dress. Her "sickly" act had evaporated. She wasn't coughing. She was staring at Hanae with eyes wide with terror. She looked at Kenji, broken and crying on the table next to her, and then back at the woman she had tormented for years.
Hanae stopped in front of her.
"Hello, sister," Hanae said.
Emi's lip trembled. "H-Hanae... I... I didn't know... I..."
"You're not coughing," Hanae observed. "It's a miracle. The wedding cured you."
Reina skipped up to the table. She hopped onto the chair next to Emi, perched like a gargoyle. She leaned in close, bringing her face inches from Emi's. She tapped the blade of her butterfly knife against Emi's champagne glass. Clink. Clink.
"She smells like fake tan and fear," Reina whispered to Hanae. "Can I peel her?"
"Not yet," Hanae said.
Hanae walked around the table. She approached the Groom's chair—the throne Kenji had set up for himself.
She grabbed the back of the chair. She spun it around.
She sat down.
She crossed her legs, the fabric of her trousers pulling tight over her thighs. She leaned back, resting her elbows on the armrests, interlacing her gloved fingers. She looked like a king surveying a conquered kingdom.
She looked at Kenji, who was trying to crawl away through the caviar.
"Takeshi," she said.
"Yes, Boss?"
"The groom looks thirsty. Give him a drink."
Takeshi picked up a bottle of champagne. He didn't pour it. He grabbed Kenji by the hair, yanked his head back, and shoved the bottle into his mouth, forcing the foam down his throat. Kenji gagged, sputtering, wine pouring down his chin.
Hanae turned her gaze to the crowd.
"This party is over," she said. "Get out."
Panic ensued.
It was a stampede. The elite of Tokyo, the billionaires and politicians, abandoned their dignity. They scrambled for the doors, tripping over their gowns, pushing each other out of the way. They ran past the silent sentinels of the Ghost Squad, fleeing into the rainy night, terrified of the woman on the throne.
Within two minutes, the ballroom was empty.
Save for the Ghost Squad.
Save for Ryuuji, who was leaning against a pillar, clapping slowly.
And save for Emi and Kenji.
Kenji was sobbing on the floor. Emi was shivering in her chair, pinned in place by Reina's unblinking stare.
Hanae took a cigarette from her pocket. She lit it.
She inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke directly at Emi.
"Now," Hanae said, her voice dropping to a whisper that sounded like the lid of a coffin closing.
She leaned forward, her dark eyes locking onto her stepsister's soul.
"Let's talk about my dowry."
[End of Chapter 7]