Page 112 of Brutal Unionn
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 cuffs into 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 myankles, 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 while Father 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.
In their place are rows of carefully maintained cherry blossoms. Pruned. Uniform. Pink petals curled like they’re too delicate for the ground they grow from.
More traditional, I suppose.
I should feel something. Grief, maybe. Anger. But I don’t. Just a cold press in the center of my chest. A hollow ache that’s been there so long I barely notice it anymore.
Before I can linger, Hiragi kicks me forward hard, the toe of his boot slamming into the back of my knee. I stumble, catch myself, and snap my head around.
“Keep walking,” he says, lips curling in amusement. “We don’t have time for nostalgia,Sho-chan. Daddy wants to see his fallen son.”
The wooden floorboards of the genkan creak beneath our feet as he drags me over the threshold into the main house.
And across the room, I see her.
She’s already kneeling in perfect seiza at the center of the tatami mat floor, the traditional Japanese way of formal sitting. Her back straight, her hands folded gracefully in herlap. Her crimsonfurisoderobe has been exchanged for a simpler garment—dark indigo silk, plain but elegant, the kind worn by shrine maidens or obedient daughters. Her hair is pulled tightly back from her face, not in a bun or braid, but wrapped into a knot at the nape of her neck, exposing the graceful line of her jaw and the healing red line beneath her left eye.
The room is a perfect square lined with paper walls, lacquered beams, and cold stares. The sliding doors are drawn open to reveal an inner garden beyond the house—raked gravel, bamboo fencing, and a still pond that reflects nothing but shadow.
My father sits cross-legged at the head of the room on an elevated platform, his robes a rich, matte black, untouched by dust or time. He watches Nadia with the expression of a man admiring an antique—valuable, elegant, but ultimately disposable.
“Sho,” he booms. “Thank you for joining us. It’s been too long since all the families were together.”
Haragi bows, but I stay up straight, only falling to my knees when an idle guard kicks me in my hip.
“Show your father respect,” someone snarls. I meet the cold gaze of Ryuunosuke Kato—towering, tattooed, and infamous for making his children fight to the death. I spit at his feet. “Yes.”
Haragi yanks my hair back. “I’ll kill you.”
