The Choices We Made

Two years ago

General Ryo Tanaka crossed his arms with a mixture of annoyance and grudging admiration as half a dozen of his men came stumbling into the warehouse in the Kabukicho district with various states of injuries, followed by their apparent assailant. Under normal circumstances, he would have just had this man made into an example; allowing a stranger to beat his gang's enforcers in such a shameful fashion would normally not be tolerated. Word of that kind of humiliation had a way of getting spread around, which could be ruinous to his group's reputation. But something about the way the assault had gone down had piqued his interest, so he had ordered his men to allow an audience.

"So young man, I've been told you've made quite an impression on some of my men," Ryo began cautiously.

"Your men could use better manners," the stranger replied.

"They're not used to people with such rough handling," Ryo suggested. "Some of them might spend weeks in the hospital."

"Well, then they can spend that time in shame, because I was taking it easy on them," the stranger coldly added.

Ryo took a closer look at the man; late-twenties, fit, with a quiet confident expression. He was a former military officer in a foreign country, so he could recognize the signs; the rigid stance, the eyes that constantly looked for threats, and most importantly, the man obviously kept in shape. "So, tell me, would you be interested in some special opportunities? I can tell you've spent time in the services... I'm a military man myself, and I take pride in recognizing talent when I see it."

"Well, that depends; what kind of money are we talking about?" the stranger asked.

"Oh, more than enough, especially if you're half as good, as I suspect you are," Ryo promised. "So, tell me, what's your name?"

"Kyosuke Sakurai."

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Present day

"So, what's the real story with you two?" Kyoko asked. "And don't tell me you're just running a noodle restaurant. Are you two... secret agents or something?"

Yoriyoshi gave Kyoko an amused look. "Lil' lady, if we were government agents, we would have just called in the men in black SUVs and solved this the easy way."

"Yeah... try a little lower on the totem pole," Kimiko sarcastically chimed in.

Yoriyoshi sighed. "Kyosuke had just gotten back to Japan a couple years ago after finishing up his time in the military. He later told me that he was looking to make a change in his life after finishing his last tour. He never went into details, but I could tell whatever it was must have been messy."

"OK, so how did he end up working for General Tanaka?" Kimiko pointedly ask. "Don't deny it; I heard the General make him an offer; clearly they've worked together."

Yoriyoshi turned to Kimiko. "That came later. I had gotten into financial trouble; the restaurant was deep in debt and looked like it was going to go under because of some bad loans I had taken out from the wrong kind of people. Kyosuke had been working for me and staying upstairs loft and when he heard about it, he told me he would take care of it. He agreed to work for the General on a freelance basis, doing contract hits. The trouble is, once you get into that line of business, it never lets you go."

"S-so, you're also involved with the syndicates?" Kyoko asked hesitantly.

"Nope, I stay out of that line of business," Yoriyoshi insisted. "Still, I owe Kyosuke for getting me clear of that jam, so he still stays at my place between jobs and until today, the gangs hadn't known where he was living, or at least we don't think they did."

"Well... they probably could have found him on social media..." Kimiko pointed out.

"He's not stupid enough to post his life details on Instagram or whatever you call it," Yoriyoshi snapped, as Kimiko huffed.

"So, Kyosuke is a criminal after all?" Kyoko said dejectedly.

"It's complicated," Yoriyoshi equivocated. "He's done some bad things, but it was to earn enough money to pull me out of a jam. The trouble is, once you get into that line of business, it never lets you go. I think at some point, he had entertained the idea of leaving the country once he had earned enough money to make a clean break. Setting up this place was part of that; basically a hidden staging area, or if things went bad, a place to go to ground and wait until the heat blew over."

"OK, so now what?" Kimiko asked.

"We wait; once Kyosuke's clear, he'll reach out to us, and we'll figure out where we can rendezvous," Yoriyoshi answered. 

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Kyosuke sat inconspicuously by himself on the Chiyoda train line as it pulled into Omote-Sando station. Keeping an eye out, he made his way out onto the street, heading to the connecting station to connect to the Ginza line. For the most part, he began to slowly relax. He was outside of the territory Tanaka had the most influence and this train line wrapped around the Imperial Palace, going through the heart of Tokyo, about the safest part of the city. No cheap hoodlum in their right mind would try anything here, unless they wanted a quick one-way trip to the nearest police station.

Kyosuke's mind started plotting what their next step should be. With Akito compromised, there was no telling how many of Ikemoto's security staff were also involved. Hopefully just a few, but the last thing he wanted to do was to hand Kyoko back to a bunch of their security staff, only to have her driven right to General Tanaka's warehouse because they trusted the wrong people. They could just hand her to the nearest policeman, but a matter this important, he really wanted more security than one lone koban.

What's between here and them that has top-notch security... the kind that there's no way could be compromised, he considered. Let's see... Imperial Palace, a handful of museums, Haneda Airport, any one of which Ikemoto should have no trouble getting a convoy of his actual limos there. Once we confirm it's really him and not Akito, we'll hand her over; if any of the syndicates try a repeat of what went down at Hana's, those places all have enough of a security presence they won't be able to cause any trouble without risky their own skin.