“Young Lady Tsukiyuki, first I must make this clear: this incident has absolutely nothing to do with our Shokaku Society. I can even provide you the movement records of our group members for the past month.” Masaki Toshihisa hunched slightly, fawning obsequiously, completely lacking the air of a gang boss from movies and TV.
“And how can you prove those movement records aren’t fabricated?”
“Let me put it this way, Young Lady Tsukiyuki. To keep us from committing crimes, the police practically watch us around the clock. Only in a few instances, when our interests align, do they turn a blind eye. Normally, the police watch us like we’re thieves.” Masaki Toshihisa lightly adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. “Incidentally, our group’s members all have our in-house app installed on their phones, which tracks their movements. I also looked into Toyama Jun, the man who attempted to assassinate Mr. Gao Sijin. He had no social connections whatsoever. The member who last collected his debt said we didn’t push him too hard. That bastard, apart from playing Pachinko, whenever he ran out of money, a good beating would get him working again. Here’s the running account of Toyama Jun’s payments to our organization. Please have a look.”
The ledger was straightforward, clear at a glance. Initially, he owed one million yen. Over time, Toyama Jun had already paid back one and a half million yen, yet there was still eight hundred thousand yen in principal outstanding. This couldn’t even be called loan sharking; it was outright robbery in broad daylight. It was shocking to see.
“It’s only a rumor, but I heard he often complained to his coworkers at the convenience store that China citizens had stolen his job opportunities. He also spouted a lot of vitriol against China and Country K. His life was a mess, reeking of nationalist stench, constantly prattling on about the Yamato spirit, like an unflushed toilet from the Showa era.”
Because Gao Sijin was a foreigner, Masaki Toshihisa spoke at a very deliberate pace, and at the end he still felt the need to add:
“What that bastard Toyama Jun said was the exact opposite of the truth. In this day and age, without our great neighbor nations, far more of us would lose our jobs. Toyama Jun was simply an ungrateful insect.”
Gao Sijin could tell the gang boss was deliberately kissing up to him.
At Masaki Toshihisa’s level, the underworld was no longer about bloodshed; it was about social graces and peaceful profit.
At Masaki Toshihisa’s summons, the member responsible for debt collection entered the office. It was a burly man around one hundred eighty-five centimeters tall, with dark skin and tattoos covering his arms. He looked to be over thirty, his face thick and fleshy, and just by appearances he seemed extremely dangerous.
If this were a movie, a low-level thug like him would be a better fit for the gang boss, while Masaki Toshihisa would look like the cowering victim.
Reality was the complete opposite. The moment the big man entered the office and saw the boss, the senior advisor, and the underbosses, he immediately bowed his head like a huge herbivore.
“Boss Masaki, you called for me?”
“Toyama Jun was your responsibility. Now that something’s happened to Toyama Jun, you should explain things clearly. That’s the code of our Shokaku Society.”
“But I have no idea why he suddenly went crazy! A man like that, normally you just punch him in the face a few times and he drops to his knees begging for mercy. Who would have thought he’d carry cyanide and go kill someone in broad daylight?” The big man also put on an innocent face, recounting what he knew in a trembling voice.
He then recounted the entire debt collection process. Almost every time he went to collect, Toyama Jun would say he had no money, and so he’d beat him until he begged for mercy. The first time he refused to pay, they even dragged him off to a sweatshop to work off the debt. After that, he grew more obedient—even going hungry to pay back the Shokaku Society. But no matter how much he paid, he could never catch up with the ballooning interest.
“Last time, in the alley near the 7-Eleven, I beat Toyama Jun bloody. He swore that one day he’d wipe out our Shokaku Society…”
Tsukiyuki Rio could tell that the big man reporting in wasn’t lying; what he said seemed to be true. Besides, almost everything he described could be verified through the surveillance cameras blanketing every corner of J-Country.
Masaki Toshihisa took a deep breath.
“Young Miss, we truly are innocent in this matter. With your knowledge, you must be aware of the Great Purge in Country R in the 1930s, yes? The First Secretary of the Leningrad Oblast Committee, Kirov, was assassinated. The killer was a scumbag with an antisocial personality. Investigation later revealed he killed Kirov because he wanted to do something spectacular before dying. Because of that incident, the supreme leader of Country R at the time started suspecting everyone around him, and one after another, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, and even Trotsky, who was in exile abroad, were all killed. Out of the five marshals at the time, three were purged. Fifteen out of sixteen army group commanders were killed. At the peak, between ’37 and ’38, a total of six hundred eighty thousand people were executed. Among them, there were certainly genuine opposition members, but there were also plenty of innocents. And we, the Shokaku Society, are the innocents—just coincidentally caught up in a plot.”
“Good grief, I’m Kirov now,” Gao Sijin couldn’t help but rub his nose. “And a Kirov who didn’t die, at that.”
“Boss Masaki, I didn’t come here to listen to history lessons. Right now, I just want to know who wanted to harm my man. From what I understand, with Toyama Jun’s background, he shouldn’t have been able to buy cyanide or a pistol, right? Where exactly did those things come from?”
“We honestly don’t know that. After all, we gangsters can’t keep watch on Toyama Jun twenty-four hours a day…” Masaki Toshihisa lowered his head like a child being scolded by a teacher. “Young Lady Tsukiyuki, think about it. If we truly wanted to harm Mr. Gao Sijin, would we leave so many obvious loose ends? Finding a deathsworn with no ties to us would be far more reliable than using a half-baked scumbag like Toyama Jun. I strongly suspect this is the work of a rival organization trying to use your hand to eliminate our Shokaku Society.”
“So who do you think this rival organization might be?” Tsukiyuki Rio asked, resting her chin on her hand with some impatience.
“Young Lady Tsukiyuki, I believe the Taoka Group is highly suspect.”
