After dropping Teru off at The Blue Canary, only Chinami and Ayame remained in the car.

“Where would you like to go, boss?” Chinami asked, tilting her head slightly towards Ayame.

The other Tokugawa was leaning forward in her seat, hands clasped between her knees and head bowed. Her messy hair hung darkly around her face, casting a shadow over it. She remained in that hunched over position for some time, not uttering so much as a single sound.

“...Home,” Ayame finally answered. “Home is fine.”

“Of course.”

Neither Ayame nor Chinami were big talkers at the best of times, but especially now. Ayame privately missed Teru's presence in this moment; as solitude left her with nothing but her thoughts, and Teru had a natural talent for breaking the ice and lightening any mood.

If there was only one advantage to this strange mood, it was that it gave Ayame ample time to look upon her driver's features under the guise of night and professionalism. The rear-view mirror was perfectly spotless, and ever so slightly illuminated by the alien glow of the radio’s interface; a purple hue captured Chinami’s handsome features perfectly, even when obscured by her mask.

Chinami Saizuki seemed like a mysterious woman; and for the first time in who knew how many years, Ayame actually found herself wanting to know at least a little more about someone else. Whether she’d actually do anything about that or not remained to be seen.

Right now, Ayame Tokugawa felt nothing more than a numb sensation of relief. Relief that the night was ending; relief that she was about to go to bed, and try to forget the violence of this particular day when reminiscing on her past in years to come.

“We’re here,” Chinami announced quietly, and Ayame let out a small noise of surprise upon unexpectedly hearing the sound of her voice. Sure enough, they had managed to make it back to the Tokugawa estate in one piece.

Winding down the electric window with a mechanical whir, Chinami pressed her fingertip to the buzzer of the small speaker outside the giant gates.

“Chinami Saizuki with Ayame Tokugawa,” she stated monotonously.

Like clockwork, the gates opened once again for the expensive tyres of Chinami’s loaned-out car to roll on to the patio.

Though the bugs of summer were making an array of noises off in the distance, the mansion itself was quiet. The Tokugawa estate was an obnoxiously large structure comprised of multiple buildings; it was situated far away from any prying eyes of the police or other such “do-good” organizations...at least, that’s how Ayame would describe it.

To the snot-nosed punks who might have recently joined the Tokugawa ranks, it was a lavish place full of riches for the taking, if they could get it past the door without pissing themselves in excitement. To the older members, it was the norm to have gold and silver strewn about everywhere. To the Tokugawas related by blood, it was little more than a depressing reminder that the woman in charge of their clan valued glittering material possessions above all else; even the price of human flesh.

Ayame staggered out of the car, nearly tripping over herself in exhaustion; a flare of irritation shot through her upon her own body betraying her..

“Will you be alright getting inside, Ayame-san?”

“I told you to drop the fucking formalities already…!” Ayame snarled instinctively.

“…My apologies.”

Ayame’s irritation immediately faded, and was swiftly replaced by a lurching regret settling into her bones. She scratched at the back of her neck, trying her best to play it cool.

“Uhh...I’ll be fine. I can still walk, so…it's all good.”

Chinami nodded as Ayame slipped her hands into her pockets.

“As you wish. Then, I’ll be off to the incinerator before returning.”

The family referred to it as “The Incinerator”, but in reality, it really was little more than an oversized firepit that the Tokugawa clan used to bury their misdeeds. It was an unceremoniously dug-out hole that was in the back of an abandoned building site; after something was burned, the ashes were left to the whims of the tumultuous winds that would inevitably whip it up afterwards. Ayame had completely forgotten in her hazy mind on the way here - the body parts were still in the back.

“Oh, shit…sorry, I forgot. You want me to come with you?”

“Please, don’t pay it any mind. I'm familiar with the procedure.”

“…You’ve done this before?” Ayame asked in surprise.

Chinami’s glasses glinted ever so slightly in the light of the Tokugawa’s front door.

“Yes,” she replied simply.

Well, shit. I can’t argue with that. But isn't this her first night on the job...?

“Alright then,” Ayame said, though the dismissal was hesitant and half-hearted. “See you.”

Chinami bowed her head silently; though just before she turned to leave, their gazes lingered on each other for a surprisingly long time.

Wonder what her deal is, Ayame thought to herself - though in truth, Chinami Saizuki had captivated her more than she probably cared to admit.

But now wasn't the time to think about that, or anything else. Now was the time for a hot shower and sleep, and the time for sleep meant the time to not be disturbed for a while.

With a loud creak, Ayame opened the unnecessarily heavy doors of the Tokugawa mansion with her last reserves of strength and staggered herself inside.

“Eugh…” she winced as the gaudy lights of the mansion all but blinded her night-owl eyes. “Too bright. Nobody around here's got any aesthetic sense, swear to god...”

As the heavy doors slammed shut behind her, the women who had been assigned the night guard looked at her blood-stained person with a slight flinch behind their gaze.

“…Welcome back, Ayame-sama...” they replied one by one; all with a dwindling, pathetic tone of abrasive fear and apprehensive tension.

“What? You think I’m gonna kill you or something?” Ayame said with a scoff.

“Oh, dear. Who can blame the little lambs for being frightened when you look like that?”

Ayame’s head whipped around to the sound of quiet footsteps padding closer, and a voice that Ayame knew too well for her own liking.

“…Owner,” she greeted curtly.

The woman known as Owner oozed her way over to Ayame's side, and smiled with an insidious air about her.

“Good evening, Ayame-chan.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Owner’s monochromatic appearance hadn’t changed much over the years.

Her hair was still jet black, and perfectly straight; all the way down to the small of her back. Her eyes were accentuated by a shock of black winged eyeliner, accompanied by an ever present sense of a sneer behind it; and she always wore an insincere grin with alarming ease. It was considered an unlucky omen amongst the Tokugawa clan to catch Owner displaying an emotion on her face that wasn't that mask of a smile.

Owner always ghosted her way around the Tokugawa mansion in a grey lounging kimono; the lazy air of which of which never failed to strike a nerve of irritation somewhere deep inside Ayame's mind.

“So what did you get up to tonight?” Owner goaded, leaning forwards slightly with her hands clasped behind her back. “Some light bloodsport? A triple homicide?”

Ayame rolled her eyes.

“I murdered ten thousand people. Can't you tell?”

“Wow!” Owner cooed. “That’s a new low, even for you. Or maybe it isn’t.”

Owner had been like this for as long as Ayame had known her. She was a mysterious woman in an ambiguously high position of power for someone who kept so many cards close to her chest. Talk around the Tokugawa water cooler suggested that she was the matriarch's second in command...though no one truly knew.

She did have the clout to order around the Tokugawa twins, though, and that in itself was a powerful status to have. Ayame was approximately one rank underneath Owner in the Tokugawa clan. Teru, thanks to her carefree and girl-motivated behaviour, was two.

“What do you want?” Ayame asked with irritation. “I’m tired.”

“I’ll bet! Those murders won't carry themselves out, right?” Owner giggled from behind a slender hand. “Anyway...some very interesting developments came up whilst you were out doing...whatever you were truly doing. I assume that the tens of thousands of murders were just an unfortunate joke?”

“Do I really need to say it was a joke...?”

“Yes, you do.”

Ayame sighed with a twitch of her eyebrow.

“Yes, it was a joke. Ha, ha, ha. So what happened? Spit it out.”

Owner’s eyes flashed with a shine of anger, and the corners of her smile faltered somewhat; the grin threatening to fall into a deep frown. However, even when it came to the expression on her face, Owner was ever the control freak, and managed to keep the smile plastered on her face as normal.

“Don’t talk to your boss that way, Ayame-chan.”

It was Ayame's turn to feel the flames of fierceness in her eyes as Owner said that. Teru would always joke that these two would kill each other someday, though in times like these, it seemed less like a joke and more like a prophecy.

“Well, I digress…” Owner continued, “I have some especially interesting news. I bet you'll just die when you hear it.”

“Yeah?”

A smile of pure glee spread across Owner’s lips. She looked as though she was positively vibrating with the excitement.

“Fourth Chairwoman Sugimoto…has died.”

Ayame’s tired eyes were, momentarily, tired no longer; and widened considerably.

“What? Died?”

“Suffocation,” Owner replied with a broad grin. “Her immediate officers have already caught the culprit…she’s being strung up now as we speak.”

The death of a Chairwoman was only supposed to happen once in a yakuza’s lifetime; of old age, typically speaking.

Ayame took a step forward, utter disbelief smacked all over her face; and Owner quietly relished the feeling of being the keeper of all knowledge.

“Well? Who was it?!”

“Believe it or not, it was a hostess who works at Pink Ocean hostess club.”

“A...a hostess took out the Fourth Chairwoman? Seriously?”

“That's right,” Owner confirmed, her voice laced with a spiteful laugh. “It seems like it was some kind of asphyxia play gone wrong…well, I suppose there are worse ways to die, hm? I can only dream of dying in the midst of my greatest fantasies.”

Ayame wasn't about to share her opinion with Owner, of all people, but she simply wasn't able to truly take this given reason on board. There's no way in hell a mere hostess managed to off the head of the most powerful yakuza umbrella in all of Japan; by accident, no less.

From the way Owner was talking, it certainly sounded like this death was unplanned. But this meant that things were going to get a lot more interesting within the families that had been kept united under the Sugimoto banner.

The Tokugawa clan was just one of many of them, after all.

Rare as it was, Ayame knew that when a Chairwoman passed away from the very top of the food chain, the yakuza that remained were always sent into a frenzy. Somehow, it always felt as though the glue that held them all together in a somewhat silent, respectful harmony deteriorated immediately, and the lands that they had once shared so peacefully now had the potential to become the Wild West.

The heads of each family now had an uncompromising sense of responsibility to hold everybody together until a new Chairwoman was elected; though who or when that was going to be, nobody could really say.

“So what happens now…?” Ayame asked, though she wasn’t actually expecting an answer.

“I don’t know the answer to that…” Owner confessed as her face fell into a more sombre expression, “...but I love you, Ayame-chan. I promise you'll be okay."

“I've never believed something less in my entire life,” Ayame mumbled. She lacked the energy to truly snap at the woman in front of her, and instead opted to let her constant prodding roll over her.

Owner smiled with an even bigger, more unpleasant smile, and chuckled to herself.

“Well, I’m heading up to bed. You really ought to take a shower…let me run my fingers through that pretty hair of yours.”

“Fuck off.”

“Goodnight to you, too.”

Owner brushed past Ayame, still wearing her comfortably uncomfortable smile plastered on her face; and within seconds, had disappeared up the stairs with a cushioned set of footsteps to follow.

Ayame felt her stomach churn with a gnawing uncertainty as she trudged up the staircase, letting her legs autopilot their way to her room.

What did that mean…? Was there going to be gang wars for which head would ascend to the role of Chairwoman? What about the funeral? Would all families be gathered under the same roof, for the first time in who knew how long?

“Ugh…!” Ayame groaned angrily, and her trudge quickly became a stomp as she thudded to her room. “I don’t have the energy to think about this…dammit, Owner! I bet she told me this just to fucking piss me off!”

Ayame punched the hard plaster of the mansion wall twice as she walked along it, and was not even remotely put off by the fact that dried, bloody smears were now ground into the cream wallpaper that lined the landing.

Opening and slamming the door behind her with an angry bang, Ayame clenched her fists and breathed heavily.

So much violence. So much death. Even more to soon follow, now. Flashes of the lieutenant’s body she’d chopped up came crawling through her mind, and left a terrible taste in her mouth. Every one of her limbs began to tremble viciously, and her breath began to come in quick, shallow rasps that painfully racked her lungs.

Warmer thoughts of Chinami Saizuki, a driver she’d just met tonight, managed to peek their way through the blood red fog that filled her head; as did thoughts of Teru, smiling and joking the night away amidst all the chaos. Though with those bubbles of thought, sudden shocks of anxious nightmares flooded in out of nowhere, too. It was an uncomfortable amalgamation that swirled through her mind ad nauseam, and continued on until she was distracted by the sight of the once still room beginning to ripple around her. It was always the most jarring when this happened.

Hallucinations when she was this tired and emotionally frayed were more common than not. This was the moment Ayame Tokugawa most wanted to shut her mind off from the traumas of the day and just go to sleep.

“Shut up…” Ayame managed to cough out; clutching at her head as she sunk to her knees against the carpet. “Shut up…shut up!”

Slamming her fist against the carpet in a futile attempt to make her mind shut off, she began to finally feel her body’s rejuvenated energy sap away, leaving her as little more than a husk on the floor.

Shut up…

Please…please be quiet…

I just want to sleep…

…

…As quickly as she had entered her bedroom, Ayame Tokugawa had now passed out flat on the floor; allowing the darkness of the night to quietly take her into its embrace as the world of the Tokugawas began to spin around her into what would soon be a feeding frenzy for power. Because as the cogs of fate continued to turn onward, Chairwoman Sugimoto was not the only powerful yakuza that died that night – but Ayame would have to wait to find out just what that news was.