Chapter Fourteen: The Shadow of Tokyo Electric Power

With his glasses back on, Bai Tangjing scrolled through his phone. On the screen was the mission brief Wu Fengshui had just sent him.

"Tokyo Electric... I don't recall having any dealings with a conglomerate like that."

Watching the two members of the Wu clan walk away, Bai Tangjing was full of doubts. He was still irritated by Wu Hori's parting words, that air of assured confidence as if he had Bai Tangjing completely figured out. Still, since the other side wasn't interested in a fight, forcing one would be pointless.

What truly occupied his mind now was the probing gesture from a world-class corporation. Though he had built his fortune from scratch, making fifty million dollars from the financial sector in just a few years, to such a giant, not even ten billion yen would warrant a second glance.

As for personal combat prowess... Bai Tangjing regarded himself as a rational man. He couldn't quite believe that a conglomerate whose annual profits rivaled the GDP of a small nation would care about something so "insignificant." Even after just learning the truth about the Kengan Association from his master, he still preferred to think of it as something akin to a corporate club—fighting merely a pretext, with social maneuvering and business tactics at its core.

His greatest ambition for joining the Kengan Association was simply to leverage it as a means to ascend into Japan's upper echelons.

"If the fate of a nation's capital could truly be decided by a martial artist's fists... well, that's the sort of nonsense only a third-rate comic artist could dream up."

His mind wandered as his finger idly slid across the mission brief. Suddenly, his finger halted as it passed over a particular name.

"Mission issuer... Katsumasa Hayami, president of Tokyo Electric?!"

Startled, he blurted out the name. Instantly, his bio-brain retrieved an image from his memory—a somber old man, a quarter of his face marred by severe burns that had fused the skin around both eyelids together.

How could one describe this old man's social standing? Put simply: this was the very man who made the final call on the construction of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant—Japan's national energy project with global significance.

And now, this elderly figure, whose mere cough could send ripples through international affairs, had personally issued a test mission targeting him.

This only confirmed for Bai Tangjing that the test could not possibly be about something as paltry as personal combat strength. After all, if he wished, he could topple a third-world nation with ease.

But if not for his fighting ability, then why send assassins to test him?

"Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant... Fukushima?"

Mulling over the only possible connection he might have with this global titan—since he had only decided to join the Kengan Association today—he was left with just his birthplace.

Puzzled more than ever, Bai Tangjing dialed the number of a friend currently in Fukushima.

~~~~~~

"Lightning style!"

Bang!

Outside a steel door splattered with paint and chicken blood, a man in a leather jacket—bearing an uncanny resemblance to Takuya Kimura—drove his elbow straight into a yakuza's chest. The gangster was sent flying out of the apartment building, landing flat in the street.

"Damn you!"

The crude curse was punctuated by the whistle of a baseball bat and a knife swinging in from behind, menacing and wild.

"Only cowards attack from behind!"

Masashi Kaiten, decked out in a floral shirt and white trousers, witnessed the scene. With a bold shout, he spun around and bear-hugged the knife-wielding yakuza, using his own weight to slam the man into the ground.

Thud! Crack!

A move that would have required some showmanship even in professional wrestling left the knife man gasping and twitching on the ground, unable even to scream. Amid the sound of plastic shattering, broken pieces of some device spilled from his pocket.

Meanwhile, Takashi Yagami, back to the bat-wielding thug, seemed ready for this. "Flowing style!"

Using an aikido grip to seize the man's wrist from behind, a sharp twist sent the bat flying as pain shot through the joint. Using his shoulder as a pivot, Yagami locked the man's arm and threw him down, so he landed with a solid thud—right beside the knife man.

Although he had passed the bar, Yagami had spent time on the streets; his fighting style was unmistakably his own. "Lightning" built on bajiquan, "Flowing" centered on aikido... Switching fluidly between styles to select the best technique for each situation—that was Yagami's principle as a former lawyer and now a private detective.

Catching his breath, Yagami signaled Kaiten to help clear out the barely conscious yakuza from the building. Throughout the scuffle, neither the building manager nor any of the tenants made a sound, as if no one were home.

But both Yagami and Kaiten knew the truth. Once they left, the residents and manager would find a way to drive out the family behind the painted door, as though the victims were the ones who had disturbed their peaceful lives.

Shaking off these thoughts, Yagami carefully knocked on an unsoiled patch of the battered door.

"Mrs. Zeyanaga, they're gone now. May we come in?"

The door creaked open, and a worn, haggard woman well past fifty cautiously peered out.

"May I ask who you are?"

"We're friends of your son, sent by him from Tokyo—the Yagami Detective Agency!"

Kaiten spoke with his usual blunt candor, but his yakuza-style dress made the old woman shrink back even more.

"Oh, you're... Ta... Taisuke's friends. Please, come in."

Once inside, Yagami's detective instincts kicked in. "Mrs. Zeyanaga looks like an old-fashioned homemaker, but the state of the apartment... Looks like those yakuza have completely worn her down."

She did her best to clear a spot for them on the sofa, bowing in embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry to let you see the place like this."

Yagami and Kaiten hurriedly waved it off, assuring her it was nothing. In good Japanese form, only after she served tea did they begin the real conversation.

"So... how is Taisuke doing?"

At her polite inquiry, Yagami glanced awkwardly at Kaiten, whose own expression froze.

How could they answer? Should they tell her her son had become a Tokyo street punk, only to end up working odd jobs at a failing detective agency after being straightened out by Kaiten? That if not for his decent nature and the bond they'd formed, he wouldn't have dared wade into this mess?

Unskilled at lying, the two men stammered.

"...Regardless, we're truly grateful you both came. Please, you must—must find out the truth!"

Mrs. Zeyanaga, with her life's experience, could read between the lines of their strained smiles and let the matter drop, moving firmly to the heart of things.

Both men, young as they were, felt awkward before her earnest plea. Kaiten scratched his head with a sheepish grin; Yagami's expression grew serious as he went into professional mode.

"Then, please tell us everything that happened, in detail."

With a sorrowful expression, Mrs. Zeyanaga began.

"From the beginning, then. Taisuke's father was an engineer at the nuclear power plant..."