The Hades Counterattack

“You guys.. Arabesque Travaux isn't just some random group of assassins. They are Kisakago Keisakai’s group of assassins!”

The hallway went deathly silent.

“Kisakago..”
“Keisakai..?”

Kenichi’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“TENMICHI’S FATHER?????!!!!!!”

"Ahaha! Yeah, pretty much." Ichirō laughed.

"That's--" 

"THAT'S INSANE." Kenichi shouts.

"Now I see why the Oyabun, Hades, wanted to kidnap Tenmichi." Tsuyoshi puts together.

"Yeah, he wanted leverage over that assassination group, succumb them to his will by using her as a hostage." Kurogane elaborates.

"It would extend his reaches over the country heavily huh?" Kenichi asks.

"Meaning he'd have much more power in the underground world."

Ichirō brings his head up, "That's what we're here to stop, once and for all."

"Right."
"Hm."

"Alright then, let's open all the prisoner cells and be our way downstairs." Ichirō starts fidgeting the keys.

He approached the first cell, the metal of the lock cold and pitted with rust. With a harsh, grinding turn, the bolt slid back.

The door didn't swing; it groaned, a jagged shriek of metal on metal that sounded like a dying man’s final breath.

From the shadows, the first of the damned emerged. He didn't walk so much as spill out, his legs purple and swollen, the skin stretched so thin over the edema that it looked ready to burst. He lunged for the wall, his fingernails clawing at the damp stone to keep from collapsing, leaving dark, bloody tracks behind him.

Ichirō moved to the next. Click-clack.

A woman stumbled out, her hair a matted nest of grey and filth. She didn't look at him. She didn't look at anything. She simply dragged a leg that had been broken and poorly set, the bone clicking sickeningly against the floor with every uneven stride.

As Ichirō moved down the line, the House of Mirrors began to bleed its secrets. The hallway became a river of human misery. Some prisoners, driven mad by the sensory deprivation, lunged at him as they passed. A man with hollowed-out cheeks and eyes white with cataracts grabbed Ichirō’s collar, his grip like a bird’s talon. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a wet, gurgling sound emerged before his strength failed. He slid down Ichirō’s chest, hitting the floor with a soft thud, and began to crawl, his elbows digging into the grime, moving toward the stairs with the blind instinct of an insect.

The air grew thick with the smell of atrophied muscle, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, acidic scent of fear. Ichirō didn't flinch. He just kept turning the keys.

Then came the cell of the former Executive.

The door opened. The man stepped out, but there was no stumble in his gait. His legs were thin, yes, but the muscles were still there, wiry and coiled like a winter-starved wolf. He stood a head taller than the others, his posture straight, his eyes burning with a cold, predatory clarity that the darkness hadn't managed to extinguish. He didn't thank Ichirō. He didn't even nod. He simply turned his head, locking eyes with the samurai for a long, heavy second—a stare that calculated Ichirō’s worth, his reach, and his soul. Then, he turned and walked away into the gloom, his footsteps silent and steady.

Others followed—men and women who had maintained a terrifying level of fitness despite the torture. These were the ones who had fed on the hope of others, or perhaps something more literal. They moved like a silent vanguard through the mass of crawling, weeping wretches.

Ichirō stood in the center of the hall as the flood of the broken moved around him. He felt like a rock in a black tide. The sobbing of the weak and the silent, rhythmic shuffling of the strong created a dissonant symphony of the end of the world.

Just as the last of the cells stood empty, and the crowd began to thin near the stairs, a presence manifested behind him.

The air seemed to drop several degrees. The chaotic noise of the prisoners faded into a low hum, leaving a vacuum of sound around Ichirō. He didn't turn. He couldn't. His body, honed by years of Kenjutsu, locked into a state of absolute readiness.

Behind him, this man had stopped.

They stood back-to-back, separated by a few meters of stagnant air. The stranger was tall, his presence so massive it felt as if the ceiling itself were bowing under his weight. The silence between them was not empty; it was a conversation of killing intent, a silent duel of shadows where every breath was a parry and every heartbeat a strike.

The moment stretched, expanding until the hallway felt like a vast, empty plain under a moonless sky. It was an epic, crushing standoff.

Ichirō’s hand twitched near his hilt, but he didn't draw. To draw now would be to admit fear.

After an eternity, Ichirō took a step forward. He didn't look back. He wouldn't give the ghost that satisfaction.

“Tch,” Ichirō muttered, his voice cutting through the remaining tension. He looked toward Kenichi and Tsuyoshi, who were waiting at the far end of the hall, their faces pale and their hands white-knuckled on their swords.

“Come on, you guys,” Ichirō said, his usual bravado returning, though it sounded thinner, tempered by the darkness he’d just touched. “Let’s move. Ye’all are lucky the other two Executives ain’t here today. If this floor is what they consider a ‘waiting room,’ I don’t want to see what the active ones look like.”

He began to walk toward the stairs leading down into the bowels of the fortress—toward the Oyabun’s office, the heart of the rot. Kenichi and Tsuyoshi and Kurogane fell in line behind him, their eyes darting back toward the shadows, sensing the lingering threat but unable to name it.

Behind them, standing perfectly still in the middle of the empty, gore-streaked hallway, the cryptic man remained.

The flickering torchlight from the wall caught his face. He wasn't looking at the fleeing prisoners, nor was he looking at the stairs. He was looking at the bloody handprint on the wall where the first prisoner had collapsed.

Slowly, his lips peeled back. It wasn't a smile of joy, nor was it a smile of relief. It was a predatory, wide-arched display of bone-white teeth, a grin that seemed to split his face in two. It was the look of a man who had watched a cage break, only to realize that he was the only beast that mattered now.

His teeth glistened, wet and sharp, as the darkness of the House of Mirrors finally claimed him.

---

The descent into the lowest depths of the Hades Bureau felt like a slow crawl into the belly of a leviathan. The stone stairs were slick with a cold, weeping moisture that smelled of sulfur and old copper. At the foot of the stairs stood the grand entrance to the Oyabun’s personal office—a pair of heavy, red-lacquered doors that looked obscenely vibrant against the grey misery of the basement.

Two guards stood at the entrance, their hands resting on the hilts of their katanas. They straightened as they saw Kurogane approach, but their eyes immediately locked onto the three men behind him.

Ichirō, Kenichi, and Tsuyoshi were bunched together, their wrists bound with thick, coarse hemp rope that bit into their skin. They looked disheveled, their heads bowed in a performance of defeated submission.

“Sir! Who are these people?” one of the guards asked, his brow furrowing as he looked at the legendary samurais.

“Oh, just some fools who tried to infiltrate our base,” Kurogane said, his voice dripping with bored contempt. He nudged Ichirō forward with the barrel of his musket. “Caught them sniffing around the prison level. I want to show them to the boss before I dump their bodies in the river. Let us through.”

The guards shared a look of pure confusion. “But... sir, the Oyabun is—”

“He’s waiting for my report, isn’t he?” Kurogane interrupted, his voice rising in an authoritative snap. “Or are you suggesting I keep the Second-in-Command waiting while you two play gatekeeper? Move.”

The guards hesitated, their eyes darting between Kurogane’s cold face and the prisoners. Slowly, reluctantly, they gripped the iron rings of the red doors and pulled them open.

As the four of them stepped into the darkness of the office, the heavy doors groaned shut behind them, sealing them away from the hallway.

The tension snapped instantly. Ichirō and the others turned their backs to one another, pulling hidden shivs from their sleeves and sawing through the hemp ropes in seconds. The coils of rope fell to the floor like dead snakes.

“Seriously, what a dumb idea,” Kenichi muttered, rubbing his chafed wrists. The ruse felt like an insult to his strength. “We could’ve just bolted in like we intended to. Why pretend to be caught at the last stages?”

“My return to the office here is more or less known now,” Kurogane whispered, his eyes scanning the pitch-black room. “I have to act like I’m carrying my duty out until the very second the boss’s head is off his shoulders. If I’m seen leading you in as allies, and this all fails, Arabesque Travaux is finished.”

But as their eyes adjusted to the gloom, a cold realization settled over them.

The office was empty.

There was no Oyabun. No desk, no furniture—just an expansive, hollow stone chamber that echoed with the sound of their own breathing. The air was unnaturally still.

“Where is he?” Tsuyoshi whispered, his hand going to his hilt.

That was when the doors behind them exploded inward.

It wasn't the sound of wood splintering—it was the thunderous, synchronized roar of gunpowder.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

The two guards weren't holding swords anymore. They stood in the doorway, the silhouettes of their bodies framed by the orange muzzle flashes of their muskets. They weren't aiming for a duel; they were firing blindly into the dark room, saturating the space with lead.

“DOWN!” Ichirō screamed.

But they were too close. The lead balls tore through the air with a high-pitched whistle. One slammed into Kenichi’s left wrist, the impact shattering the radius and ulna instantly. He didn't scream—his pride in being a samurai forced the agony into a low, guttural growl—but his hand hung limp, ruined and useless.

Another shot, louder and more direct, struck Tsuyoshi square in the chest.

The force of the bullet knocked him backward. The lead slug tore through his lung, exiting through his back in a spray of dark, arterial blood that painted the cold stone floor. He hit the ground hard, his breath coming in wet, bubbling gasps.

Kurogane moved like a shadow cast by the muzzle flashes. He lunged through the smoke, his musket used as a club. He smashed the stock into the first guard’s face, crushing his nose into his brain, then spun and disarmed the second guard, snapping the man's arm with a sickening pop.

Ichirō ran to the fallen guards, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. He grabbed the survivor by his throat, slamming him against the red door.

“YOU TWO JUST HAD SWORDS! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? HOW DID YOU DOUBT US?!”

The guard, his arm dangling and blood pouring from his mouth, began to smile. It was a terrifying, jubilant expression. “You’re not leaving... this place alive. The age of the sword... ended when you walked through that door.”

From the hallways above, the sounds began. It wasn't the clashing of steel. It was the rhythmic, rolling thunder of more gunshots. Dozens of them.

Ichirō dropped the guard and ran back to his friends. He collapsed beside Tsuyoshi, his hands hovering over the massive, weeping hole in the man's chest. “Tsuyoshi! Stay with me, damn it! Breathe!”

Tsuyoshi’s eyes were glassy, his lips stained crimson. He reached out, his fingers trembling as he grabbed Ichirō’s sleeve. “Run...” he wheezed, blood bubbling from his mouth with every word. “Ichirō... run. Looks like.. they... they knew. It was... a trap.”

“I’m not leaving you!” Ichirō barked, his eyes stinging.

Kenichi knelt on the other side, his ruined wrist tucked into his belt, his face pale with shock but his jaw set in that stubborn, warrior’s pride. “He’s right, Ichirō-dono. I’ll stay here. I’ll take care of him for as long as I can hold a blade in my right hand. But if you don't go now... All of which you wanted to do, dies here.”

“DON'T TALK LIKE THAT!”

“GO!” Tsuyoshi screamed, a final, agonizing surge of strength. He shoved Ichirō away. “Bid your samurai farewell, Ichirō! Live to tell the world... what they’ve done!”

Ichirō’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by an iron fist. He looked at Kenichi, who gave him a single, grim nod. Then, he looked at Tsuyoshi, whose eyes were already beginning to fix on the ceiling.

With a choked sob, Ichirō stood up. He turned to Kurogane. “We go up.”

They charged out of the office, stepping over the corpses of the guards, and began to sprint back up the stone stairs. But the fortress had transformed. The silence was gone, replaced by the mechanical clatter of reloading and the shouts of men who no longer feared the samurai’s reach.

As they leapt forward, the bodies of the prisoners they just freed seemed to be dropped on the floor. Ichirō gathered the tragic fate they were dealt as soon as they saw freedom again, but he had no time to consolidate.

As they reached the landing of the next floor, two figures stood waiting for them. They were the other two Executives, men who should have been masters of the blade. Instead, they held long-barreled Tanegashima muskets, their eyes cold and mocking behind the sights.

“Look at the Chief,” one of the Executives sneered, his voice echoing through the bureau, mockingly towards Kurogane. “Thought he was the only one with toys from the West? Hades doesn't just hire strength, Kurogane. He hires the future.”

Ichirō looked around, his mind reeling. From every corner, more troops emerged. They weren't bandits—they were an army. And every single one of them held a gun.

The realization hit him like a physical blow. He had misunderstood everything. The House of Mirrors, the kidnappings, the secrecy—it wasn't about land or local power. They had kidnapped Seiko Tenmichi because her father was the key to the Arabesque Travaux supply lines. They wanted more guns. They wanted to arm the entire underground and turn it into a black-powder revolution.

“Where is the Oyabun?!” Ichirō shouted, his voice cracking. “Where is Hades?!”

“He’s everywhere and nowhere, little samurai,” the Executive laughed, his finger tightening on the trigger. “While you were playing at honor, we were buying the world.”

Suddenly, the scream of his other comrade—Saru— echoed through the stone floors.

On the floors above, Saru, Shida, and Toshio—the strongest warriors Ichirō knew—found themselves backed into corners. They weren't facing honorable duels or Tier warriors seeking glory. They were facing circles of men with their fingers on triggers, the smell of sulfur choking the air.

Shida grunted in sheer, helpless anger, his sword vibrating in his hand. Toshio stared at the row of barrels pointed at his chest, the clinical calm of his style finally fracturing in the face of a weapon that didn't care about his form.

Ichirō stood on the stairs, caught between the dying brothers below and the cornered brothers above, realizing for the first time that the age they lived in had just been murdered by a puff of grey smoke.

What will he do now? Where is Hades? Will the others survive? Will the rest of the troops get to Kenichi? What about Tenmichi and the lady upstairs who the troops must have seen before entering the Bureau from outside?