TWENTY-TWO

As news of the vicious massacre at the Sasaki Bathhouse spread, the remaining shatei in the Kojima-gumi had all sought shelter back at their HQ building, bringing along their families and loved ones for protection. But upon their arrival, they had each been greeted by a swarm of armed wakacku traitors, who had taken them captive and then escorted them upstairs at gunpoint to the meeting room on the 59th floor.

There inside the meeting room, with their families left watching on, the shatei were seated at the conference table before the always-grinning Ichi Fujita.

“Welcome, gentlemen,” Fujita said as the last few were seated. “It’s good to see you all made it here safely.”

“What is this madness, Fujita-san?!” the young Goro Suzuki shouted, slamming his fist down hard on the table. “I want to speak to Kenji Kojima, right now!”

“Regretfully, that will not be possible,” Fujita said in a patronising tone. “Kenji Kojima is no longer acting kumicho of the Kojima-gumi. He has been replaced by a far more suitable candidate.”

“And who exactly is his replacement supposed to be? You?!” Suzuki spat. “You dare speak such nonsense, Fujita! In times of old, such words would have cost you a lot more than just your head!”

“True. But times have changed now, gentlemen; that relic Kazuo has certainly seen to that. And no, I am not the one who will lead us. As you all know, that is not where my true talents lie.”

“No matter who your candidate is, there’s not one man in this room who will stand for this bullshit, Fujita!” Suzuki snarled. “This is fucking mutiny!”

“Then I suggest you take a shovel right now and start digging two graves, Suzuki-san,” Fujita chuckled. “One for yourself, and another for that slutty secretary of yours you’ve been fucking like a rabbit.”

Suzuki glanced across the room to his secretary and lover, Michelle Yana. She was standing there in amongst the crowd of hostages, her jaw agape and her eyes filled with tears in shock and embarrassment. Suzuki’s hand balled into a fist as he glared back at the Smiling Assassin, fire in his eyes.

“Now you listen to me, you smug son of a bitch," Suzuki said. "If you dare threaten Michelle again, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?! Make me waste a few of my precious bullets? Go ahead, hero!”

At that moment a hush of silence spread over the meeting room as another man entered. The long faultless blade of the katana sword in his hands was gleaming magnificently in the room’s light. The man walked over to Fujita at the head of the table and the Smiling Assassin quickly and obediently moved aside for him to sit down.

“Gentlemen,” Saito Kojima began once he was seated and feeling a little more comfortable. “I understand that all this must come as quite a surprise to you, and I must say that I’m sorry it has come to this. But it was necessary for the good of our organization.”

Fujita had taken up a position right behind Saito, drawing a Beretta M9 handgun from his coat: an intimidating sight for all of the shatei down the table.

“Why are you doing this, Saito?” Suzuki asked. “What good can possibly come from any of this?”

“Simply put,” Saito said, “I intend to put an end to all the Kojima-gumi’s weaknesses; weaknesses that have been plaguing our once great organization for the past decade.” He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes picking out several shatei to glare at individually. “Change is essential to survival in any environment, and in all business ventures. This is true now even more so than ever with our enemies gaining so much ground on us in recent years. My father is a weak man; one who has never had the balls or the vision to see things for the way they really are. Thus it is now up to me to lead us into the future. In order to do this, all weak links must first be severed from our chain!” He stood up from his seat then and suddenly raised his sword, driving it straight down through the top of the table.

The shatei around him all cringed uncomfortably at the sight of blade cutting so effortlessly through the wood.

“What is this nonsense you speak of, Saito?!” Junichi Takato said with a shake of his head. He was seated right down the opposite end of the table, clearly undeterred by Saito’s suggestive threats. “Weak links? The Kojima-gumi is as powerful today as it has been at any time in our history!”

“Wrong!” Saito pried his blade free from the table with a quick twist. “Our strength is just a façade. I will not let Kazuo’s lies and half-truths hold us back any longer! It’s true we may have financial stability now, Takato-san, but we have grown soft, and our enemies are exposing our weaknesses for what they are; Fang Fu’s Triads have already taken back territory in Shanghai from us, and now they are threatening to do the same on our home turf back in Kobe. We are under siege on all fronts!”

“So then do you propose we do?!” Takato asked.

“It’s quite simple really,” Saito said. “For far too long the Kojima-gumi has been held back from discovering its full potential. Here in Panama, for example, we are negotiating with the Paravinchis to run this city in a partnership, settling for scraps. Well, I say fuck the Paravinchis, and fuck General Gomez, and fuck all the other rival distributors; if we use our resources, this whole city can be ours!”

“This is a time peace, Saito!” Takato said. “A war with the Paravinchis would be disastrous in the long run for both sides; our forces are far too evenly matched. To win such a fight, we would first have to risk losing everything. And that’s not even taking all of the collateral damage into consideration; innocent civilians would be caught up in the bloodshed too.”

“Sacrifices are a necessary part of life,” Saito said. “Nothing good ever comes for free. But I can say confidently that we will win, just so long as we strike first and strike hard!”

“And what about your father? What about the council back in Kobe?” Goro Suzuki objected. “Do you think they will just sit back and let you run a campaign of annihilation?!”

“My father is a weak man on his last legs,” Saito said. “As for Kobe, they can come after me all they want. With the new alliances I’ve made, I have even more guns than they do now. Just let them try stopping me!”

“Enough of this nonsense!” the ever-serious Suji Yamata suddenly slammed his fist down hard on the table, stealing everyone’s attention. “All I’m hearing right now are the pipe-dreams of a little brat who has lost sense of his place in the world. I for one can’t wait to see the elders of Kobe put you down like the sick, pathetic little puppy dog that you are!”

A slightly subdued round of applause spread around the room in support of Yamata.

In response, Saito turned around to Ichi Fujita and nodded. The Smiling Assassin promptly raised his Beretta and fired three rounds in rapid succession. Suji Yamata’s body jerked spastically in his seat with each devastating impact to the chest, blood spurting out all over the table and washing down like a waterfall over the laps of shatei seated opposite him.

“Well, I think we can all agree that was rather excessive on Fujita’s part,” Saito glared around the table at each of the stunned shatei as silence gripped the entire room. “But nevertheless, let that serve as a lesson to the rest of you: I have no obligation to spare your lives, so unless any of you have something constructive to say, I would suggest you all keep your mouths shut from now and just listen to what I have to say!”

Nobody at the table was game to raise another word of protest.