The dim light of flickering fluorescent tubes cast a pale hue over the walls of the underground clinic. Hidden beneath a ramen shop in Ikebukuro, the place smelled of antiseptic, old cigarette smoke, and secrets. The kind of place where questions died before they were spoken.
Ryuji Tatsugami sat on a steel table, shirt off showing his dragon tattoo, back hunched slightly as an elderly man stitched a deep gash along his ribs. Blood was smeared across his torso like war paint. He didn't flinch. Kaito leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the door.
"He was watching," Ryuji muttered.
The doctor didn't look up. His hands moved with practiced precision. "Who?"
"Shigure Tsujihara."
Kaito's brows furrowed. "He didn't strike?"
"No," Ryuji said, voice low. "He sent his men. Let them fall. He wanted to see how I fought."
"So the whole thing—?"
"A study. Not an ambush."
Silence lingered for a moment. Then the doctor chuckled. It was a raspy, hollow sound.
"Just like your old man," he said. "Kazuma used to say that sometimes the deadliest blades don't cut—they measure."
Ryuji looked over his shoulder, meeting the old man's eyes. "You knew my father."
The doctor nodded once. "Tatsugami Kazuma. He came to me more times than I can count. Bullet wounds, broken bones. He was stubborn. Never rested long."
He tied off the last stitch and stepped back.
"I heard what they did," the old man continued. "The night the Tatsugami-gumi fell... we all heard."
Kaito's jaw tightened. Ryuji simply listened.
"You know who pulled the strings?" the doctor asked.
Ryuji didn't respond.
"The Minazuki-kai paid off the press. Bought silence. And Reika Araragi—she sent her dogs into the mountains. Hunted your bloodline like wolves."
A beat of silence.
"I lost track of you after that," the doctor added. "But seeing you now... maybe it wasn't the end after all."
Ryuji stood, grabbing his jacket and slinging it over his shoulder. "It never was."
---
At the Tsujihara estate, far from the fluorescent lights of the underground, Shigure sat alone in a dim room.
A shrine stood before him—candles flickering, the scent of incense curling into the air. At its center was a tanto, laid across aged wood. It once belonged to his father.
Shigure held the blade now, running his thumb along its edge. Not enough to cut. Just enough to remember.
He had watched Ryuji fight. The shift in stances. The mastery of styles. The ferocity, precision, and cold execution.
Kurayami Ryū. Yasha-no-Mai. Hadou-Ryū. Oni-Kenpō. Kuroken.
It hadn't been a display. It had been a message.
"He hasn't dulled," Shigure whispered. "He's sharpened."
He stood, tying the blade at his waist. Surveillance was no longer enough. The time for shadows had passed.
Now it was about confrontation.
---
Later that night, the streets of Tokyo were alive with neon and smoke. The rain had stopped, but puddles remained, reflecting broken images of light and sky.
Ryuji walked alone. His wounds wrapped tight beneath his shirt. The city didn't care about pain. Neither did he.
He passed shuttered stalls, vending machines humming like quiet sentinels. His steps were slow, deliberate.
His mind drifted.
---
The past.
He was ten. Kneeling beside his father's body. Blood everywhere. Rain hammering the ground. The smell of gunpowder and smoke.
Kazuma's final words weren't for revenge. They were for a promise.
A vow.
A pact not of rage, but of resolve. To never kneel again. To make the world remember the name they tried to erase.
Tatsugami.
---
Ryuji stopped in front of a railing overlooking the cityscape. Far in the distance, past the glowing skyline, stood the compound of the Kurohane syndicate. Their towers rose like judgment.
Kaito's voice echoed in his mind: "What now?"
He whispered to no one, to the ghosts and the neon.
"One by one," Ryuji said. "They'll all fall."
And in that moment, as wind stirred the edges of his coat and thunder rumbled in the clouds above, something old awakened beneath the Tokyo night.
The war wasn't coming.
It had already begun.