Kotori Act 1 Chapter 10 A Night Bittersweet

[ Location; Murasume Head Manor ]

[ Time | 12:45 am ]

The dark night sky was clear of clouds. Small speckles of light were scattered about. Looks like the stars wanted to keep its distance from Earth for awhile. I barely made them out with the bright moonlight obstructing my vision. The air was a little under room temperature so it felt rather refreshing for once. The occasional breeze that passed by added on to this. One in fact, just swept past me, lightly removing my side bangs and hair from its place.

However besides that tonight is being pretty lackluster right now. The best I could put it was that there was no 'flavor' to savor. No special sights to spectate. No enjoyable conpany to mindlessly chatter away with. For right now, the only person on this balcony was me, myself and I.

I fix my hair and let my mind wander off. I stare off into space and reimagine the glory I once had. Oh how much I missed the aurora borealis nights. Of course I witnessed those experiences from foreign lands and they only happened every so often. But my childhood still holds tight to those moments of bygone times. In a way it was its own little oasis for me in this time of caution and tension. Back then during those times, I would have company who was around my age. Unliked the grown adults who was mature with their actions, these kids had vigor and youth like me. And they wasn't afraid of letting it off some steam. Company, who off course could get rowdy at time, but atleast they made our tense situation feel tolerable, and fun for omce. Whenever we met up and got through the 'formalites' of the family we would band together and get lost in our own little world of Alice in Wonderland. It was then when our childhood would reach its peak.

Thinking back on it almost brought a tear to my eye. There was so much things that I miss right now. I miss the smell of the cackling firecrackers we would light up in the midst of the night. I miss the sensation of us warming up by the campfire while my Mom strummed away uplifting notes on her guitar. But most importantly I missed that family in general.

....

.....

...missed.....

...

You see reality wasn't kind to us or many others over the coming years. I was only thirteen or fourteen before a chain of unfortunate 'circumstances' befell us all. With chaos and conspiracy rising around every corner, it was starting to get too dangerous to be affliated with the other. It wouldn't be long until we was all forced to go our seperate ways until the situation had stablized. Eventually like most childhood friends in anime, the want to contact one another slipped by us. I assumed we all were being busy caught in our own situation and affairs....in fact to some degree, it still happening right now.

I am no exception to that matter. Because of those circumstances I was forced to take the difficult responsiblity of being the crowned head of the family.

Of course I didn't mind the added responsiblity at the time since I was still too young to fully understand the size of the shoes I needed to fill. But another reason was that I wasn't even supposed to be next in line.

During the "Battle of Succession" I only came up in the top four on the leaderboard. Even though I was a year or two older then the other winning cast, I came up in dead last [ out of that four ]. Meaning whatever happens there is atleast two other capable people the chain of command should fall to before the promotion is even considered to come my way. Despite that with 'one fell swoop' everything quickly went down hill into the worst case scenario.

One single yet most brutal tragic incident had been the root of it all. After it happened the chain of command suffered an extreme blow. Almost to the point of beyond repairing at one point. That's how bad the situation used to be.  If I didn't exist I wouldn't be surprised if the survivors succumbed to a pointless power struggle. Of course its been a couple of years since it happened and as sloppy as it was I did managed to recupirate and command what little we had left.

However we aren't exactly out of the bushes yet. If anything we're still stuck in the den of lions, and right now we are caught in the crossfire of two powerful beasts....and the main fight hasn't even started.

Jinzo.....and Takashi.

Calling them deadly competitors would be putting things lightly. Takashi, more specifically Takashi Enterprises was a multibillionare business. They were highly wealthy with access to connections in high places. There is also information they got power that reached outside the city to the rest of the country. However their money wasn't the real problem. No it actually lied in their higher ups.

To put it plainly they weren't idiots. The bastards are cunning and know how to play their cards properly. They would spend days bainstorming different ways how to make AND maintain a steady flow of cold hard cash. Not being the type to let money go to the head, they would stay level headed and always remain focused on the future. This how they maintained a constant rhythm of progress from the start to present day.

As for Jinzo...well they are a secretive bunch who perfers to operate underneath the shadows. They were like cold blooded assassins. Unlike Takashi they was more 'hands on' and direct with their methods. If they saw you as a threat, you going to end up dead the following morning. In fact they probably have a good deal of responsiblity on the reported incidents.

Unfortunately against our favor there isn't much dirt we can safely dig up without arising suspicion. They had little to almost no public image. We don't know what sort of resources they have or even what budget they are on. We don't even know just how big the gang is or how capable they really are. Whoever they was though they were certified pros in the field of stealth.

I daresay against an enigma of an enemy such as them, they maybe are the biggest problem we need to deal with. A problem I wish I could priortize, however I need to play my cards correctly. The last thing I want is to make unnecessary moves that gets me on their radar.

Which means I gotta use every tool I have to my disposal and start making my own set of preperations and foundation planning.....

Even if it means manipulating people like Ohgi's parents....

~~~

Knock Knock

"Come in."----"Pardon the intrusion mi'lady." A familar face entered the room. The smell of bittersweet tea following suite. Alfred was carrying a small table of tea and other assorted treats for my pleasure. Not like I particularly cared for them.

Alfred walked towards the kotatsu in the center of the room. Even though he was almost sixty years old he still managed to address his posture, and tea pouring elegantly. Only to be expected from the Head Butler of this house.

By the time he was finished, the whole room smelled lovely. Afterwards Alfred stood at attention and awaited for his next set of commands. "Thank you." I respoonded before reaching for the cupware.

The tea was practically coated with tangy lemon pulp but was complimented by the sweet honey agave and the smooth texture of the tea leaves. Leaving it to be a tolerable yet pleseant mixture. "Ah.....delicious as always. Keep up the good work."------"Thank you m'lady."

Not even ten minutes passed before I finished the tea and nimbbled away at the other dried pastries. "Question m'lady?"-----"Speak your mind."------"The expression on your face. It speaks to me as rather lonely. Is everything fine on your part?" Goddamn it Alfred. No matter how hard I try to fake an elegant 'poker face', you always see right through me.

"Just feeling a little...nostalgic is all." Nothing more needed to be said. Alfred was aware of what I meant and decided to leave it be. The last thing I need is someone telling me "it will be fine", or "it will get better soon. Just hold on tight." because right now everything is just too uncertain.

The teatime was enjoyable, but it is time to move on to more serious matters. I placed the cupware on the table and readdressed my tone and manner. The mood of the room drastically changed.

"Report." Immediately Alfred stood up and addressed himself like a proper butler to his master. "Nothing new came up on the facial recognition program. Whoever raided us that day were not liscensed civillians.....not in this city anyways."-----"Not surprising. Can we say it was the work of Jinzo then?"----"They are most suspect, but that doesn't mean we can rule out Takashi."

In other words this little survelliance proved to be fruitless. Without proper ID, or any conclusive evidence we can only specluate our attacker. "What about our family's opinion on the homefront?"----"Restless. With the 'key' gone everyone's morale seems to have dampen."

Pandora's Key... when all three keys are used to unlock its forbidden box, the owner of it contents will practically have the potential to put the entire world's goverment and military into a permanant checkmate. Protecting my family's key was one job that supposed to be prioritized above all else. That same "key" was stolen in that raid. If we don't get one back into our possession soon then we would have lost this battle before it began.

A bittersweet grin slid across my face. "So everyone took the 'bait' it seems?"----"From the looks of it, yes. But we can't get careless."----"Of course. It was a dangerous plan from the start, but its the best card we got to play. Atleast until we are able to discern 'friend' from 'foe'." Alfred agreed with me, before following up with a question of his own.

"Speaking of friends and foes, I have a question concerning Ohgi." I already know what he was curious about, and decided to skip to the answer. "You saw his eyes didn't you? He wasn't lying."------"Not to say I doubt your judgement, but the boy is shrewd. Even if he isn't 'directly' involved, he IS related to that father of his."

Alan Dominic. According to other sources, he is a gentle giant who works a full time job at a convience store somewhere. He has built and maintained a decent citzen reputation. On public record he is a man married to a wife with a love and sex life that could be put into question. Only one child to their name. An adolesencent seventeen year old male who may plan on moving out at one point. Long story short, on papers his household is equivalent to the average american family.

However he isn't as 'average' then what his repuation preceeds him to be. The man has his own connections and a small intelligence network. On the shady side of this city he had repaired and improved unliscensed vechicles and even took part in serveral illegal underground races and played get-away driver on multiple occasions. He has committed many other crimes, but he was intent on making sure not a single one goes public. And it was not my business to bring them to light.

....atleast not yet anyways....

However the man has his own fair share of problems. To be more exact, it was debt. To kickstart his career into this path he relied on moneylenders and loan sharks. Of course he planned to pay it all off when he got successful in his work, but the poor guy accumulated more interest then the profits he occassionally obtained. One insurance company from Takashi in particular was after his ass but that story is unimportant for right now.

What really matters is that this man is sinking into debt, and it wouldn't be surprising if he got Ohgi involved in the business and sold the bikes to our enemy, hoping for something along the sorts of say an extenstion period? If that was the case then none of this would be anything personal but that would mean I would just have to cut some ties....

...or cut them down right where they stand.

"For what it is worth, we could try to use Ohgi as a medium to obtain insider knowledge. Best case scenario he could find some more detailed correlation between his Father and his connections."-----"You're seriously thinking of setting up a child against his father?"-----"You got any brighter ideas? Besides he chose to go into this business on his own accord didn't he? We should address him in a manner befitting the adult responsibilty he asked for."

.....Alfred made a solid point. Besides didn't I swore to use any tactic and play every card we had at our disposal? Goddamn it! Even after all these years my Mother was right. My resolve isn't as steadfast as the sword on my hip!

I bit my fingernail, my gaze wavered from Alfred's profile. I did hear him sigh softly. "I did a bit of a background check on the Dominics on my own time."----"Oh yeah? What came up?" I replied after coming back to reality. "Apperantly they own some acres of land a couple miles out from the city. A junkyard to be more specific."

As if to prove his case, he pulled out his phone. Digital documents, certifications, and photographs all listed here. "The certifications date back to almost four decades, and are listed in names who we can assume was his parents and younger ancestors."

He slid the phone to the left a couple of times. Details of someone's will was digitally recorded. According to the details of the photograph and logs itself this was archived in a time where technology wasn't as advanced as it is now. My guess would say late 1800's to early 1900's. According to the will, the land was to be inherited by the pure blooded sons and daughters. Eventually Alan's name fell upon that list.

Hmm... Mr. Alan's crimes and workings mainly involved that of a car and other varieties that required a means of transportation. However to truly be efficent on it, one would require loads of the same and/or different variations of customized parts and then some. And to have that amount, it would only be obvious one must have enough storage space located some place else.

We have been survelliancing Alan for a couple of months now, and we have found a couple of places he has stashed away parts for a quick inventory and convenient access. However if he had a junkyard outside of city borders then it would make sense how he been able to keep this job of his going. Plus if I was to make an accurate guess it probably would be close to the convience store that he works so far away from home.

"There is one more thing I noticed about this information."----"Whats that?"---"Its about how difficult it was to obtain this. Sure I get it. Its old news from the past...who would want to look this up? But when I approached our "friends", and pulled some strings to get something credible they told me something rather interesting."

"And?" Alfred leaned forward to tell me. "Someone paid good money to keep this info top secret...." Not even the basic authority goverment in this city knows these records exists, and since its in the hands of the elites, they labelled it classifed and hid the results elsewhere."

"Where are you going with this?" I asked Alfred. "Alan isn't a pushover. Despite certain factors, he is a man amongst dangerous men. When push comes to shove he will find a way out of it like a cornered rat."-----"Okay?.....What does that got to do with anything?"----"Put yourself in his shoes for a second. Surely he must know at this rate he is going to be pushed into a corner with bastards trying to obtain money he doesn't have. If that the case wouldn't he need a Plan B?"

Plan B? Hmm....

.....

.....

.....!?

"Blackmail?"---"Bingo. If money doesn't solve your problems then a bit of strategy and blackmail should suffice. He's been in the business long enough to know that much atleast. He probably been digging up dirt around his area and uncovering  evidence to use as insurance. And if you want my two cents, I got money saying all that evidence could be hiding away in that very junkyard... the same place he wanted no one to be aware of...."

!? Holy shit.... Okay Alfred with the clutch! I shot straight up, already knowing what needs to be done. I issued one obvious command to him. "Get us two cars that can blend into traffic and some men skilled in analysis!"

Alfred only chuckled at me. "I figured you say that."----"Whats so funny?" Instead of replying he showed me his phone. Our personal version of the GPS was on it with a red dot indicating a marked location. Judging from the looks of it, it seemed to be a junkyard we was talking about.....wait...DID HE JUST!?

He took a slight bow and excused himself from my room, but before he left he told me one thing that alone proves his capablites as the Head Butler.

"I already made the preperations beforehand ma'dam."