"Well," the bartender said, stepping down from the shop's entrance, his shoes clicking softly against the wet pavement, "if you're not from around here, you picked a hell of a place to show up looking like that."
Kaito didn't answer. He studied the man—mid-sixties, silver hair combed back, crow's feet framing sharp eyes. His vest was clean, pressed. The nameplate on his chest read Souta. The air around him had that quiet, measured weight of someone who'd seen too much and forgotten even more.
"You got a name, bleach-head?" Souta asked, not unkindly.
Kaito hesitated.
His real name felt… distant now. Like it belonged to someone else—someone weaker. Just then, a name surfaced—sharp, instinctual, like it had been etched into his bones long before he'd woken on that rain-slicked street.
He met Souta's gaze, voice steady.
"Yami. Sukehiro Yami."
Souta raised an eyebrow. "Sukehiro Yami, huh?"
He let the name roll off his tongue like he was tasting it. Then he chuckled, dry and low.
Souta repeated it slowly, testing its weight. Then he chuckled, dry and low. "Hell of a name for a man who drops two punks like they owed him money. You some kind of ex-yakuza, Yami-san?"
Kaito—no, Yami—let the question hang in the air.
The distant hiss of a rain-dampened city filled the silence. Somewhere, a jazz saxophone wailed from a second-story window like it mourned a crime yet to be committed.
He slid his hands back into his pockets, eyes hidden behind his dark sunglasses. His mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Not yakuza," he said finally. "Just… someone who learned the hard way."
Souta gave him a look, half amusement, half suspicion. "That so?"
He stepped closer, eyes scanning Yami's frame with the practiced precision of a man who'd spent decades reading people. "You don't walk like someone who learned it. You move like someone was born into it. Like your fists knew the streets before your feet did."
Yami didn't reply. Instead, he turned toward the city beyond the alley—Yokohama stretched out in electric veins, pulsing with life and danger and memories he hadn't made yet.
Souta sighed. "You plan on just standing here looking pretty, or are you gonna come in? Door's open. So's the tab—for now."
Yami looked at him. "Why?"
Souta shrugged. "Call it bartender's instinct. Or maybe I just like strays."
He turned and walked inside, leaving the door half-open.
Yami stared at the flickering sign above it—Club Silver Lotus—its light sputtering like a heartbeat in a dying dream.
He followed.
It was warm. Wood-paneled walls, faded photos of boxers and gangsters, and the low croon of vinyl soul on a needle. The lighting was amber, forgiving. The bar itself was aged but immaculate—lined with bottles that glinted like secrets. A katana rested in a display above the bar, its sheath lacquered and dark, the blade name etched beneath it in kanji: Kuzure no Ha — The Cracked Blade.
"Nice sword," Yami said.
Souta poured two fingers of whiskey without asking. "Gift from a friend. Didn't end well. Most good stories don't."
Souta moved like a ghost, already behind the bar, polishing a glass. "So, Yami… got a place to stay?"
Yami shook his head. "Not yet."
"Well," Souta said, "you do now."
Yami blinked. "What?"
Souta pushed the drink toward him. "Upstairs. Empty room. Used to be my kid's. He's gone now. World took him before the war could."
Yami's throat tightened. He picked up the glass but didn't drink.
"You don't know me."
Souta smirked. "Kid, I don't even know myself most days. But I know men. And I know when they're standing at a crossroads."
Yami looked down at the glass. Then up at the blade on the wall.
A crossroads.
Maybe that's exactly what this was.
"Alright," he said.
Souta nodded like he'd been expecting that answer all along. "You'll need work. You don't strike me as the salaryman type."
"I have a few questions, if you don't mind, Souta-san?"
Souta raised an eyebrow, setting the glass down. "Ask away. Questions are free. Answers… well, those cost what they're worth."
Yami didn't sit. He stood by the bar, arms crossed, voice low and even.
"Where exactly am I?"
Souta snorted softly. "You serious?"
Yami nodded once. "As a bullet."
The bartender leaned forward, both arms on the counter. "You're in Yokohama. Chinatown to be specific. And unless you're faking it, you really didn't know that."
"I didn't."
Souta studied him. "You hit your head or something?"
"Something like that." Yami's tone made it clear he wouldn't explain further.
Souta didn't pry. "The whole Yokohama is divided into 10 districts, with three rulers.
The 'Yoko Three' is comprised of three criminal syndicates working together to maintain the "Great Wall" that keeps Yokohama underworld under their control and safe from outsider groups such as the Kuroyama Clan, Toranami Alliance. The three criminal organizations that make-up the 'Yoko Three' are the Aokami Clan, a Japanese yakuza group; the Jīnlong Hui, a Chinese-Japanese triad gang; and the Geurimjahoe, a Korean surveillance and information brokerage syndicate."
Souta poured himself a glass now, as if the mention of the "Yoko Three" warranted a drink.
He took a sip, then set the glass down gently, voice lowering to a quieter, steelier edge.
"And they coexist?"
"Coexist like snakes in a barrel."
Souta poured another drink. This time he didn't sip.
"Each one has turf. Each one has grudges. But they keep a fragile peace because war means vultures from Tokyo, Osaka, and even outside Japan come to feast. So they built what people call the 'Great Wall of Yokohama.' An invisible barrier. No outsiders get in. No one crosses borders unless the other two agree."
Yami took that in. "So who did I piss off by dropping those punks outside?"
Souta gave a sardonic smile. "Aokami Clan. That was Amano's crew. Lieutenant with a glass jaw and a rage problem. You just punched his kid brother."
Yami sighed. "Of course I did."
"They'll come sniffing soon enough. Maybe not tonight, but soon. You rippled the water, kid. And Yokohama? She remembers every wave."
Yami drained his glass and finally sat down. "Good. Let them come."
Souta laughed. Not loud. Not mocking. Just a quiet, hollow sound.
"You remind me of someone. Think he died screaming in a warehouse." He leaned in. "You got any reason you're here, Yami? Any purpose? Or are you just drifting?"
Yami looked at his reflection in the glass. The white hair. The crimson eyes. The strength pulsing under skin like heat in iron.
"Maybe I'm here to stop drifting."
---
Upstairs, the room was simple. Bed, desk, bookshelf. A single window that looked out over Sakura River Street, its lights dancing along the wet pavement.
He stood in silence. Breathing. Listening. The city murmured below like an ancient god talking in its sleep.
He opened the desk drawer. Inside was a faded photograph. Souta, younger. Smiling. Arms around a teenage boy in a school uniform, holding a baseball bat and grinning like the world hadn't started ending yet.
Yami stared at it a long time. Then closed the drawer.
He lay down. The bed creaked. The ceiling stared back.
He didn't sleep for hours. His body was ready. His mind wasn't.
The old world was gone. The gamer, the orphan, the boy who answered to Kaito.
He was Sukehiro Yami now.
And Yokohama had no idea what just arrived.