Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
A Hundred Steps
Kenji
My father had chosen to make his last stand in a hotel connected to my title. The arrogance of it was so perfectly him that it almost circled back around to respect.
Almost.
The joke is on you, father. You’ll die there and I'll whisper, "I. Am. The Dragon King," in your fucking ear as you bleed to death.
I took in the miniature hotel in front of us. Even at this scale, it was striking—the ornate detailing on the facade, the layered rooflines, the faint outline of gardens pressed behind the structure.
The real Hotel Gajoen Tokyo was built in 1928 as a luxury ryōtei—a traditional dining estate where elite guests were entertained privately with food, art, and performances.
It had been rebuilt after the war and expanded into one of the most visually stunning hotels in Japan. Gold detailing on every surface. Lacquered ceilings. Hand-painted panels depicting mythology and nature.
The kind of excessive, overwhelming beauty that made anyone feel like they had just stepped outside of time and into a painting.
The animation company, Studio Ghibli had drawn inspiration from this hotel for its iconic bathhouse in the spirit world scene in Spirited Away— the towering, labyrinthine bathhouse, full of hidden rooms and impossible staircases.
And we were going to paint this epic location in blood.
I looked at Reo. “Do we know where my father is in the hotel?”
Reo got right in front of the building. "The hotel houses the Hyakudan Kaidan—the Hundred-Step Staircase. Built in 1935. This staircase connects to seven decorated rooms.”
Hiro shook his head. "And our father is at the top. Isn’t he?”
"Yes. In the seventh room." Reo reached for the hotel and pressed his fingers along the edge of the structure.
A beep sounded.
A panel swung open and revealed the interior.
The Claws got up from their chairs.
The Fangs came in closer.
Reo got a latch to hold the panel opening. “I had this building redone as soon as we knew the location.”
Hiro smirked. “You know there are no additional promotions after Roar. You can calm down with trying to show up everyone.”
Some of the Claws snickered.
Reo was all business as he pointed to the display within. “Take note of everything. You need to memorize this by tomorrow night.”
In front of us was a detailed cross-section that his men had built to replace the original miniature. I could see floors, hallways, staircases, rooms within rooms. Tiny figures positioned throughout representing the Fox's men.
Reo stared at it too. "The hackers are inside the hotel's system now. We have camera access, phone signals, movement patterns. We can see their men and have counted them. This is a decent representation of the guards’ placements right now."
Hiro nodded. “And will it change as they change?”
“Yes.”
Hiro looked at him. “Then, you’ve got my recommendation for a promotion.”
Reo smirked and pointed at the room at the top of the huge staircase. "The Fox has nurses attending to him around the clock. There’s the hospital bed and medical equipment."
I leaned in and studied the layout some more. The service corridors. The kitchen. A garden area with what looked like a waterfall feature. And then I went back to that damned staircase—rising through the center of the structure, with rooms branching off at intervals like chambers in a heart.
This staircase will be the biggest obstacle in the battle. Armed men will be everywhere making sure we don’t take any steps up. We’ll have to be fucking careful or many of us can die.
Reo pulled out a pen from his pocket and pointed to another room. "Akiro sleeps here. Two rooms below. He has guards controlling access to the upper floors."
Reo moved the pen. "More armed men here. Here. And here. They’re stationed at every landing, every room, every choke point on the staircase."
He's built a vertical kill zone.
Hiro had no jokes this time. “Goddamn it. This is going to be a blood bath.”
“Let’s make sure the blood bath is on their side and not ours.” Still, this overwhelming dread settled in.
This was worse than I'd imagined.
The hotel was a fortress disguised as a museum—narrow corridors, limited entry points, the staircase functioning as a single vertical path with no alternative routes.
Every room on the way up was a potential ambush.
Every landing was a kill zone. My father had chosen this location because it was beautiful and mocked me, yes, but also because it was a death trap for anyone trying to reach him.
I looked at Reo. "How many men does he have?"
"Based on camera feeds and phone signals, we're estimating around one hundred and thirty."
"We bring two hundred."
Reo nodded. "I've already started mobilizing."
I looked at my brother. “What’s the plan?”
“I have a question for Reo.” Hiro leaned into the cross-section, studying the staircase with the focus of a man counting the steps between himself and the thing he needed to destroy. "So as we go up the steps, there's going to be different levels of men we have to fight through?"
"Correct." Reo traced the path with his pen. "The lower rooms will have standard security—foot soldiers, hired muscle. As you ascend, the quality increases. Tactical fighters in the middle rooms. Akiro's personal guard near the top. And then Akiro himself, below the Fox."
The final fucking boss. This is going to be a cruel, deadly battle.
Pulling out his lollipop from one of his fur coat pockets, Hiro turned to the Claws and Fangs around us.
"The Scales go in first to get as many as they can.
Then, you all are expected to handle the light work.
The lower floors, the foot soldiers, and the hired hands.
Keep the path clear behind us so nothing comes up from below. "
Kaede nodded once. Daisuke didn't move—which was his version of agreement. Toma cracked his neck. The twins tilted their heads in unison.
And all my Fangs sneered which said they were more than ready to kill on command.
I gestured to Hiro and Reo. "The three of us go up. Together. Through the rooms. Through whoever's in them."
"I like that.” Reo nodded.
“Okay. The staircase is handled. We’ll talk more strategy on that later. But can we get in the hotel before they’re ready for us?”
“That’s the problem." Reo pulled the focus back to the cross-section and pointed to the front of the hotel. "We can't go through the main entrance. We'd be on camera and outnumbered before we reached the lobby.”
“Hmmm.” I walked around to the side of the building. "We have the service entrance over here.”
“Yes. That’s for kitchen deliveries and it also makes way to the staff corridors.”
“Tomorrow afternoon, let’s get a small group of Scales to go in disguised as kitchen staff and another to enter later as a delivery crew. We need people on the inside to start chaos right when our hackers disable systems as we arrive.”
“That could work.”
Hiro unraveled the plastic on his lollipop and placed it in his mouth. Next, he took off his fur coat and handed the coat and candy wrapping to Kaoru who immediately frowned.
No doubt that coat reeked of sperm, sexual juices, and sweat all in it. Still frowning, Kaoru placed the fur over his arm and said nothing.
In war mode, Hiro was not the best person to argue with. It was always smartest to work with him, rather than against.
My brother cracked his neck and looked at the building again. "Alright. We arrive without our father’s men knowing. And once we're inside?"
"We move through the kitchen.” I pointed. “Then, we take control of it fast and quiet.”
“I like that too. From the kitchen, there's a corridor that connects to the garden area.
Over here." Reo tapped the pen against a section of the layout.
"This opens to a waterfall feature. There’s a large indoor garden and a stone bridge.
It's a transitional space. Very open and exposed, but the waterfall provides sound cover at least."
“And a lot of ways for us to die.” Hiro sucked on the lollipop. "We fight through the kitchen, through the garden, and then we hit the stairs. That’s a heavy fucking battle for us. We’ll be exhausted by the stairs."
I nodded in agreement. “We divide the Scales with jobs. One group for the kitchen. Another for the garden. A final to hit the stairs and clear as many as they can before we get there.”
“Much better.” Hiro took out his lollipop. “Now we rush inside and our biggest problem is not tripping over dead bodies.”
"And once we get to the stairs, we don't stop." I sneered. "We go up. Room by room. Landing by landing. All the way to the top. No matter how much pain we’re in. Everything ends with this battle. Neither the Fox or Akiro can escape."
Everyone nodded.
I looked at the layout and saw every place where my men could die.
The kitchen was tight—close quarters, limited visibility, and brutal.
The garden was too fucking open—exposed to fire from multiple angles, the waterfall’s mist would blur sightlines, and the Fox could have mines there.
And the staircase—that single, vertical, inescapable path—was a gauntlet. Each room a chamber that couldn't be skipped. Each landing a forced confrontation.
My father had made sure that anyone who wanted to reach him would have to earn every single step in blood.
Don’t worry, father. We will.
Reo continued, "The hackers will kill all feeds and cut cameras. They’ll also jam their internal communications. They will have no radios or phones. For the first five minutes, they won't know we're inside."
Hiro frowned. "Five minutes isn't long."
"Five minutes is enough to take the kitchen and reach the garden.” Reo shrugged.
Five fucking minutes.
The length of a song.
The length of a cigarette.
The length of a fight that decides whether any of us live to see the next day.
Reo sighed. “After that, it doesn't matter if they know. By then, we'll be on the stairs, and there's only one direction—up."
I felt the weight of everything this battle would bring—the inevitability, the narrowness of the path, the knowledge that this plan had almost no margin for error.
If the hackers failed, we'd be walking into a prepared defense.
If the kitchen took too long, we'd lose the element of surprise.
If any of us got wounded on the stairs, there was no retreat—only forward, upward, and through.
"We'll need smoke." I looked at Reo. "Heavy, industrial smoke for the kitchen and the first two rooms on the staircase. If they can't see us, they can't target us."
“Okay.” Reo pulled a small notebook from his jacket and wrote it down. "Done."
"And we go at night. Late. When staffing is lowest and the Fox's men are at their most complacent."
"Tomorrow night," Reo said. "That gives us twenty-four hours to finalize equipment, brief the men, and get the hackers in position."
Tomorrow night.
Those two words sat in the room like a held breath. I could feel everyone behind me processing it—the Claws, the Fangs, and Hiro.
Tomorrow night, we walk into a building named after me and kill the Fox.
Hiro was quiet. He'd taken the lollipop out of his mouth and was holding it between two fingers, looking at the top of the miniature hotel—the Fox's room—with an expression I'd seen before. The expression he wore when death became personal and all meaning centered around blood.
He looked at me. "A hundred steps. Probably sixty to seventy men between us and the top."
"Probably."
"Let’s add the twins to our three.”
“Okay.”
“Pace yourself, brother." His voice grew deadly. "You and I—we need our energy when we get to the top. Because it will be you and me that make the kill."
My heart boomed in my ears.
He held my gaze. "We're going to kill our father together."
Our men and the space went still.
I nodded. "Together."
“And we’ll take our time.” Hiro put the lollipop back in his mouth.
“Yes, we will.” I looked down at the book in my hands with the worn cover, and I considered some of the words inside that had been written by men who hunted demons centuries before I was born.
To hunt demons, we wore their faces.
I tapped my finger against the book. “One more thing."
Everyone looked at me.
"We're wearing masks."
Reo tilted his head.
Hiro raised an eyebrow.
The Claws and Fangs shifted around us.
"Oni masks." I tightened my hold on the book. "In the last fight with Akiro's men, they saw our faces. Once they identified me, Hiro, and Reo, they targeted us specifically. Because killing one of us three devastates the entire operation."
Reo's eyes sharpened. He was already piecing together the logic. "If we're all masked, they don't know who to prioritize."
"Everyone looks the same. Everyone is a threat. No one is the target." I scanned their faces. "It levels the fight. They can't hunt what they can't identify."
Reo pulled out his notebook again. "I'll have masks made tonight."
"For everyone. Two hundred masks. Oni faces."
"We walk into the Dragon King's palace wearing demon faces." A dangerous smile slowly spread across Hiro’s face. The lollipop clicked against his teeth. “That sounds delightful.”
Reo made more notes. “We’ll make sure that we understand the masks. Certain ones for the Scales taking the kitchen, garden, and stairs.”
Yoichi nodded. “The Fangs have their own masks with the same color.”
“The Claws have theirs,” Kaede added.
Hiro gestured to me and Reo. “And we three have unique ones so that you all know where we are throughout the battle.”
“Everyone understand this mission? The time to party is over. Now, it is time to kill and survive.” I stared at them. “Get some rest. Sober up. Be ready tomorrow night. There is no other option. We bury the Fox or our loved ones bury us."