Chapter 33 The Descent #2
“The second prize is not my Tiger’s cooking. It is my chef who will be cooking that.”
One of the Claws grumbled, but when I looked at them neither owned up to it.
Hiro shrugged. “Fine. We’ll have your chef be the second prize. Six course meal and that aged sake you’ve been holding onto.”
“You mean the bottle that I’ve been saving to open for my first born child?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then, the second born child’s bottle.”
I gave up talking to him.
Hiroko made a small sound next to me. When I looked at her, she was smiling and shaking her head like she was watching two children argue over a toy. “I knew Nyomi had captured your heart. I had no idea she’d stolen your brother’s heart too.”
“Unfortunately.”
Hiro returned to naming other prizes and rules for their little contest.
Hiroko looked out the window and then back at me. "How are we getting into Tokyo without anyone knowing? With six or seven helicopters? Wouldn’t that be too obvious?"
"As far as anyone's concerned, these are government official helicopters. Prime Minister level. No one's going to question it."
Her eyebrows rose slightly. "Reo's work?"
I nodded.
Hiroko was quiet for a moment. Then she turned fully to face me. "Kenji. . .I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me."
"Go ahead."
"Are we walking into a trap? Surely. . .you know that it could be one. Right?"
The helicopter hummed around us. Hiro's contest chatter faded into the background.
I looked at her. "It could be."
"Could be?"
"Some of my best victories have come from walking straight into traps, Hiroko. The difference is knowing what the trap is before it closes."
She studied my face. "And you know what this one could be?"
"Sun Tzu said, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
" I let that sit for a second. "I know myself, my strengths.
My weaknesses. And I know my father. I know how he thinks.
I know how he builds. I know how he wins.
And that's why I know this possible trap is the best thing that could've happened to us. "
Hiroko's brow furrowed. "Explain that to me."
"If this is a trap, it means my father knows I've been monitoring the Butcher. It means he's aware of exactly how much I've been watching. So what happens if this trap fails? If I never take the bait?
"He goes silent."
"Exactly. He goes completely dark. New routes. New methods. New faces. He rebuilds from scratch, and we lose every thread we've been waiting to pull. That alone makes this worth walking into. We can't afford to let him reset."
Hiroko nodded slowly but didn't look convinced.
"But here's the part my father didn't think I'd see." I leaned forward. "If this is a trap, he won't be there. The Fox never sits inside his own traps. He watches from a distance. That's his way.”
“Then, who will be there?”
"A new puppet. A new commander. Someone my father trusts enough to put inside the trap itself. Someone vital to carrying out his instructions. Someone he can't afford to lose in this war, and if he can't afford to lose them. . ."
She raised her eyebrows.
"Then the trap has safe points. Built into the design. Escape routes. Protected positions. Places where this person can be shielded if things go wrong.”
Hiroko relaxed.
“That's my father's way. He sacrifices pawns, but he protects his generals." I sat back. "So we have two possibilities.”
“We find your father today and kill him or we walk into a trap with safe points.”
“Exactly. And we're not walking in to fight the trap, Hiroko. We're walking in to find the safe points. Because whoever is sitting in those safe points is the person my father needs most right now. And when we take them. . .we take his ability to operate."
Silence stretched between us.
She let out a long breath. “Okay. I’m understanding.”
"Good.” I looked at the Claws as they returned to readying themselves to kill. “My father thinks we're going to enter Yoshiwara the way anyone would. Through the front. Through the streets. Through the obvious routes. He's planned for that. He's built the trap around that assumption."
I looked at her. "But we're not going in that way."
Hiroko met my gaze. “We’re not.”
"He knows we don't know the tunnels beneath Yoshiwara. He's counting on that. He's certain of it." I held her stare. "But he doesn't know we have you."
Hiroko's expression shifted, and doubt left. "I know every tunnel. Every passage. Every door. I walked those tunnels for many years."
"I know."
"There are routes even the Fox has forgotten."
"I'm counting on it."
She looked out the window at the city approaching below us. When she looked back, her jaw was set. "Then let's go take him or his puppet."
I winked. “Exactly.”
Hiroko went quiet again and from my peripheral, I could see her looking at me with the same softness that reminded me of the way my mother used to look at me when I was younger. "I'm so proud of you, Kenji."
I blinked. "What?"
"I know your mom's not here anymore," Hiroko continued. "But I remember her. She was an exquisitely classy woman full of love and sweetness."
I didn't know what to say, so I just listened.
"She used to come to the red-light district," Hiroko gave me a sad smile. "Not for herself, but for us. She would bring doctors and nurses. Later, she set up free clinics. Did you know about the clinics she started?"
I shook my head slowly. “No.”
“She set up two women's health clinics in the district that provided abortion services and other things. She also set up adoption agencies and orphanages on the outskirts. When she died, the businesses withered away."
My chest tightened. “Had I known about them, I would have kept them going.”
“Still. . .” Hiroko nodded. "Usually, a woman with her power would just sit back on her throne and count her diamonds.
Look at her crowns. Enjoy her wealth. But that wasn't what your mother was about.
She always wanted to care for people, to love them, and take care of as many people as she possibly could. "
My heart warmed. A grief I'd been holding back since the night my mother died rose within me.
Hiroko reached over and put her hand on mine. "I see that in Nyomi. The way she cares. The way she wants to help.”
I shivered.
“You picked well, Kenji. Your mother would be proud of that too."
I swallowed hard and nodded because I didn't trust my voice.
The helicopter descended lower, and I looked out the window.
Tokyo was below us now.
We were flying over water first. Islands dotted the bay, and I could see boats moving slowly through the waves. But as we got closer to the city, the mood in the helicopter changed.
Everyone went quiet and looked out the windows at the new view of Tokyo.
Fuck.
Dark smoke still hung over parts of the city. Thick black clouds still rose from the warehouse district and spread across the sky.
The fires that had been put out days ago, still had lingering smoke.
And people were still on the ground. Tiny figures moved through the rubble. Cleaning crews. Emergency responders. They were still working to clear the debris from the bombs I'd ordered.
The rest of Tokyo was untouched, but there was a heaviness in the air now. A sense of dread that hadn't been there before.
I'd done this.
I'd brought war to Tokyo.
And now I could see the cost of it.
I checked my brother and saw Hiro staring out the window with his hand holding his knife.
And then I remembered that this war was about healing his broken heart and saving my Heart.
I scanned the helicopter.
For my brother and Tiger. . .I would bomb the fucking city again and again.
The Claws were silent. Even Toma had stopped grinning.
Reo turned around in his seat and looked back at me. Our eyes met, and I saw the weight of what we were doing reflected in his gaze.
Holy fuck, his expression said.
I nodded.
The helicopter banked again, and we started descending toward a building.
The Shirogane Hotel.
It was one of the most exclusive hotels in Tokyo.
Forty-eight floors of black glass and steel that rose up from the heart of the city like a blade.
The architecture was brutalist and beautiful at the same time.
Sharp angles. Clean lines. No unnecessary ornamentation.
Even though it was huge, only the wealthiest people in Japan knew it existed.
There was no website. No public phone number.
You couldn't book a room unless you were personally invited by someone who already had access.
Politicians stayed there when they wanted to disappear from the public eye. CEOs used it for meetings that would never show up on any ledger.
Many times, I met with foreign crime syndicates in the private dining rooms on the thirty-second floor.
And the rooftop?
That was reserved exclusively for important helicopter landings.
The helipad was massive. Large enough to hold seven choppers at once.
I spotted the armed guards on the rooftop. They wore black suits and earpieces, and they were waving us down with illuminated batons, guiding us in like we were exactly what we appeared to be—government officials arriving for classified business.
According to Hiroko, the Shirogane had a relationship with Yoshiwara. An understanding. Wealthy clients would land here, take the private elevator down to the underground garage, and slip into unmarked cars that would drive them directly to the hidden entrances of the pleasure district.
She’d explained that the Prime Minister himself had used this route. So had half the Cabinet.
I believed it.
Big deals were made down in those tunnels. Nasty things happened in those rooms. The kind of things that would end careers if they ever saw daylight.
But we weren't using the cars or the main entrances like my father planned for.
Hiroko knew about a special service entrance. A secret that the hotel kept even from most of its elite clientele.
There was an elevator—older, industrial, meant for staff and deliveries—that went all the way down.
Past the underground garage.
Past the foundation.
Deep into the earth where it connected directly to the Yoshiwara tunnel system.
Hiroko had a key for it. A small bronze thing she'd shown me back on the island, worn smooth from decades of use.
That elevator would take us straight into the Yoshiwara depths.
But there was a problem.
I stared at the armed security on the rooftop guiding us in. “Stay alert, everyone.”
For now the guards would see the government helicopters and assume we were legitimate.
But the moment we started getting off—the moment they got a clear look at our faces—they'd recognize me, Reo, or Hiro.
They probably wouldn't shoot. Not right away. They knew what it meant to kill the Dragon.
But someone would reach for a radio or phone to warn my father.
Reo wouldn’t want us to kill anyone, so we would have to knock them out and get rid of all communication equipment.
Seconds later, the other helicopters were breaking off, heading to their own landing zones and spreading out across the city.
Okay. Everything is going according to plan for now.
I looked at Hiroko. Her two guards shifted closer to her, ready. "Stay close to me."
She nodded.
I looked around the helicopter at everyone else. Hiro. Reo. The Claws. All of them had their hands on their weapons now.
All of them knew what was about to happen.
The rooftop security was walking toward us, batons still lit, smiles on their faces like they were greeting honored guests.
They had no idea.
Let’s begin.