An onyx-colored high-rise building stood in the lonely Tokyo night. The streets hummed below as the quiet covered the late hours of the night. Restaurants buzzed with patrons, the soaplands provided their hidden services, and the last train had long departed. Everything was routine on the streets. The building, however, resonated with an unseen massacre.
The halls of the twenty-four-story building were painted with blood. Limbs and limbs of men in suits cluttered the former white tile floors. Several craters pierced the walls parodying a grotesque scatter plot. Even through the grand golden door with Japanese dragon engravings, the older man could smell everything.
He did everything to keep his composure, despite the stench. However, each clamorous noise of bones snapping, or the sound of stray bullets made his finger twitch on his own gun’s trigger guard. The man usually found the golden gun with dragon carvings on the handle to be of a comfort to him in his line of work. Now it was nothing more than a toy. His building held countless men to protect their leader. Their numbers could have easily been mistaken for a small army before the slaughter began.
The older man, the head of the building, now sat in silence in his high-priced light grey suit with his red tie and black dress shirt. The last of his forces were two middle-aged men in black suits with their guns trained at the door with them standing behind their boss’s seated position. The temperature in the office was always set at a precise degree for comfort. Between the three men sweating profusely, it was more of a sauna than an office space.
Currently, the only sounds emulating life in the building were three raspy breaths and a set of footsteps aimed for the door.
In the next moment, the door flew open as two crimson spears soared through the air piercing the skulls of the guards against the large building window behind them. The man seated at the desk stood and let his clip ring from his engraved pistol towards the entrance. While the bullets were certainly hitting their mark, that mark sauntered forward from the opening of the door with his arms blocking his face in a vertical guard. The mark’s appearance was not far off from a wild dog. The man had tan skin, a dark grey suit with silver stripes, a shaved head with an unruly black mohawk and a pair of sharp teeth akin to fangs. The wild man deviously sneered as the bullets ripped into his arm without so much as a trickle of blood or penetration to his attire as he fully entered the room.
After the golden gun was empty, the building leader looked at the gun in disgust before tossing it aside. Stepping through the doorway were two other men. The first was a man with a scarlet mask that covered his face and revealed his straight, long crimson hair. The man with the mask sported a black vest with a white dress shirt underneath, black gloves, and black dress pants. Gripped in his left hand was a silver machete with a black handle with the blade soaked in the blood of the former residents.
The final man donned a crisp, powder white three-piece suit and a navy-blue neck scarf that was draped down his shoulders. Aside from his attire and a pin with a scarab beetle with a sword in the middle; the man had a terribly disfigured face. His left eye and eyebrow were the only parts unscathed showing that he was once handsome. His entire right cheekbone, part of his left cheekbone, whole nose, and half of his mouth were mutilated beyond repair. His pale skin was both burned and melted together with a strong imprint diagonally spreading across his face. Finally, his right eye was cloudy with blindness and drooped with decay. To a passerby, he was a horrid satire of a human face. To himself, he was a gruesome reminder.
The wild man and the masked man stayed behind as the man with the disfigured face stepped forward towards the desk. The man standing behind the desk gritted his teeth and clenched his fist to show his last bit of bark.
“You’re dead,” the man started. “Damnit, you’re dead! Nobody starts a war and wins against us. You can’t outlast the Golden Dragons! My comrades- “
“Are dead. You have no one else,” the disfigured man calmly interrupted.
“Bullshit. Your word is as good as hobo shit on the ground.”
The disfigured man turns and gives a small gesture of his hand towards the masked man. Without breaking eye contact from the older man, the man in the mask reached into his vest jacket with his non-machete hand. The masked man took the contents out and threw them on the flat, wooden desk. One severed hand and one amputated ear with a lavish gold piercing in the shape of a claw still attached.
The older man swallowed unable to process words. Both body parts were different in skin tone and the hand still had a massive golden ring with a Japanese dragon engraved in the center on its index finger. The building leader wordlessly looked at his own index finger with the same ring design.
The disfigured man raised his voice and said, “You were a fool to deny our cooperation. While it was admirable to think that the three of you could prepare for us, I believe in hindsight it was a poor choice. Your operations, profits, and equipment are now under our rule. I’m afraid this is the end of your clan and your life.”
The older man registered the last sentence and shot up from his seat. “W-w-w-wait! No! We can come to an agreement still. Please, just – “
The wild man from earlier instantly stepped forward and grasped the older man’s throat and raised him in the air like paper.
“We don’t need you, you old dog,” the man cheerfully snarled. “We have all that we need. Now hurry up and die.”
The mad dog instantly crushed the building leader’s windpipe with a flex of his arm. Unable to speak and unable to scream, the older man groaned in agony before the wild man slammed him through the lavish chair. The chair was broken into pieces just like the older man as he was raised into the air once more. Having played with his toy long enough, the wild man used all his strength to hurl the building leader through the large window in front of them. The older man hardly made a sound as his body disappeared during the fall below their viewpoint.
After a moment, a crash was heard along with screams from the late-night public. The last of the city’s peace was abruptly shattered as the disfigured man pulled out an expensive cigar and midnight blue cigar cutter. He knew his way around a cigar as he perfectly made his cut and pulled out a lighter in the same color group as the cutter. He carried on toasting the foot and lighting the cigar while his two escorts silently left through the gaudy door.
After the cigar was evenly lit, the man in the three-piece suit took a puff and held the smoke for five seconds before a heavy blow passed his lips. The disfigured man quietly looked up into the night horizon while the distant sirens wailed in the distance. Amongst the noise and the breeze, the man’s gaze was almost pleading to the darken skyline.
His voice echoed into the distant as he softly spoke.
“Now begins the road to conquest. Let those unwilling cower in fear. Let them cower before the Imperials.”
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