Page 111 of Brutal Union
He laughs again, louder this time, leaning back from the bars with a theatrical shake of his head. “Same mouth, I see. Youalways were a cocky little shit,Sho-chan.Still mouthing off from the bottom of a hole.”
My jaw flexes, but I keep the rest of me still.
“You’ve gotten bigger,” I remark, eyes scanning his thick arms and broad chest. “Slower too, probably. Or maybe you’ve exchanged the art of the samurai for the art of the sumo. No shame in sumo-fighting, really—it takes a certain skill as well.”
Hiragi’s smile falters for half a second, the corner of his lip twitching before he smooths it out again. His eyes narrow slightly beneath the shelf of his brow, and when he speaks, his voice is lower, more deliberate.
“Careful,kintama, I might sit on you just to shut that smart mouth up.” He taps the bars with two thick fingers, the sound dull and controlled, like the warning beat of a war drum. “Besides, all these years I have been training with father.”
“That’s cute. He lets you call him father now?” I say, pushing myself off the wall and stepping close enough that the light hits my face. “Must be nice to finally get the approval of the man who saved you from that gutter.”
His smile widens, but there’s something underneath it now. A flicker of heat in his eyes, some old bitterness still burning despite all these years. “You still talk like you’re above it all. Like your hands aren’t as filthy as the rest of us.”
“I don’t deal in flesh. I don’t deal in children. I don’t send needy little brats to do my kills,” I murmur. “I don’t think. Iambetter than you..”
Hiragi laughs again, but this time it’s sharp and humorless, like broken glass in the throat. “You think I care what I look like toyou?” he asks, stepping closer so we’re nose-to-nose, bars the only thing between us. “I’m the one with power now. You’re the one chained like a dog, dying like the fucking animal you are.”
“Funny,” I say, smirking as I lean in just slightly, “from where I’m standing, the only animal here is you.”
His fist slams into the bars so hard it makes the steel ring. The sound vibrates up through my chest, and I get the same warm feeling I had when we were kids. Saying all the wrong things that hit the right nerve.
Hiragi’s chest rises and falls once, heavy with frustration. He stares at me, and for a moment, I see exactly what he’s thinking. He wants to crack my skull open. Wants to hear me beg. But he won’t. Not yet. Not without permission.
“If you weren’t already up for the slaughter,” he growls through clenched teeth.
He reaches behind his back and pulls out a thick pair of industrial-grade handcuffs—oversized, reinforced, the kind they use on men they expect to thrash until they bleed.
He spins them once by the chain, then holds them through the bars with the lock already clicked open.
“Hands.”
I don’t hesitate. I step forward and slide both hands through the open space between the bars, wrists turned up.
“Don’t lock them too tight Hiragi,” I mock. “Daddy will be mad at you for injuring his favorite.”
His jaw flexes, and for a moment I can see the urge to tighten them until something cracks. But he doesn’t. He snaps the cuffsinto place—tight enough to bruise, but not enough to break skin—then yanks the chain hard, dragging me forward against the bars with a metallic screech.
He crouches down and unlocks the shackles around my ankles, the metal clanking as it hits the stone floor. The cell door groans as he pulls it open, the rusted hinges protesting.
“Let’s take a walk,” he mutters.
He hauls me through the underground passage and up the stairs toward the main house.
The hallway is narrow, the floors creaking beneath our steps as we move through the underground corridors. Once we climb the stairs, the house greets us with a stillness I remember too well. The Yakuza headquarters isn't some fortress made of steel and bulletproof glass. It’s a commune of old, sprawling Japanese-style homes built on tradition, pride, and intimidation. The outer structures still wear their age in the weathered wood and black tiled roofs, nestled behind stone walls lined with pine.
We step into the open air, the sun falling through the spaces between buildings in fractured slants of gold. Nothing has changed. The path of dark, flat stones still winds through the manicured garden. The koi pond bubbles quietly to the right of the courtyard, its glassy surface broken only by the lazy flick of a tail beneath.
It smells like cedar and dust and faint incense—just like it did when I was a child. And yet, everything feels smaller.
Familiar, but hollow.
We pass the servant’s quarters, the outer dojo, and the tea house where I once knelt in full uniform, bleeding from the lip whileFather read out the history of our ancestors, and warned me of the fleeting power of the Yakuza. I half expect to see myself at every corner—training barefoot in the gravel, polishing blades I wasn’t yet allowed to wield, running laps until my lungs burned.
As we approach the main house, I glance to the left out of habit, just to see the one stop of beauty in this entire compound.
The flowerbed. Once overflowing with wild roses, thick and unkempt and beautiful in their defiance. My mother’s roses. She planted them when I was six. She said they were for protection, that the thorns kept bad spirits from entering the house. They were the only thing in this place that felt like softness. Like rebellion.
They’re gone now.
