Madness

Shadowboxing, also known as "punching air," was a training exercise in which one faced a mirror and imagined fighting an opponent, performing various attacks, blocks, dodges, and counterattacks.

The man in black in the back seat was a boxing fan and knew the term, which only made him more confused.

"Practice? Can punching air leave you covered in injuries? And just now you even... bled? How is that possible?!"

"..."

Shiraki Uke thought for a moment, then suddenly held out his empty hand, spreading his fingers.

"Now imagine I have half a freshly cut lemon in my hand. You can squeeze juice from the fresh flesh, and you can smell that lemon scent too. It's super sour."

"And then—"

Shiraki Uke suddenly shoved his palm toward the mouth of the man in black in the back seat and said with a smile, "Here, have a lick!"

"Wha—

The man in black in the back seat was caught completely off guard. He imagined it as Shiraki Uke had described, and his tongue felt unbearably sour. Even the two men in the front couldn't help salivating.

Shiraki Uke then showed them his empty palm.

"The human body is amazing. You only imagined the sour taste, but it made your mouths water."

"So if you go a step further and imagine things more vividly while shadowboxing, you can get more realistic feedback..."

The small-time boss and the two men in black had never heard anything like it.

The men in black were only carrying out their superior's orders, and both found Shiraki Uke's analogy interesting.

But the small-time boss, whose relationship with him was hostile, felt an inexplicable unease. He couldn't shake the feeling that Shiraki Uke didn't think he was worth mentioning.

Wasn't this guy's brain broken? Why was he chatting with the people from the Teiai Group?

"Tch!"

The small-time boss frowned deeply and said viciously, "I don't care if it's lemons or pickled plums. Don't even think about pulling any tricks in tonight's match!"

But Shiraki Uke instead used him as a negative example, explaining to the two men in black, "See? When you're under a lot of stress, your mind grows darker, and you get angry more easily."

The two men in black often had to collect debts from deadbeats, and they felt down too. They hurriedly asked, "Then how do we fix it?"

"Build some muscle."

Shiraki Uke leaned back in the rear seat and laughed. "Exercise more, and you'll feel happier."

The men in black thought that made sense.

The veins on the small-time boss's forehead bulged even more.

The open ground by the Shiraki Family's dojo.

Shiraki Uke had been gone for more than ten minutes, and the sky was growing dark. Arisa leaned against the wall, restlessly swinging her legs, unable to sit still.

She knew her brother had done it to keep her safe, but she was worried about him too.

"..."

As she pondered, another car approached from a different direction and stopped in front of Arisa.

Arisa grew wary and was about to run, but then the rear door suddenly opened. To her surprise, Kure Karura was waving at her. "Arisa, over here!" Kure Karura said happily. "We've come to pick you up!"

"Arisa, over here!" Karla said happily. "We're here to pick you up!"

The driver's window rolled down, revealing Kure Fusui behind the wheel. She smiled and patted the car door. "To watch your brother fight, of course!"

Chapter 5: Madness

"I looked into the Sanjigumi over the past few days. They really do seem to have hired a fighter registered with the Kengan Association, but how could a low-to-mid-level yakuza group like them afford the appearance fee?"

"There are undercurrents stirring in the underworld..."

Kure Fusui licked her lips excitedly and waved to the girl by the roadside.

"Tonight's bound to be fun. Don't worry, Kure Karura and I will protect you."

"Arisa-chan, come on, don't be shy!"

"..."

Seeing that Arisa still hadn't answered and probably didn't intend to come along, Kure Fusui and Kure Karura thought it was a shame.

But on second thought, it made sense. Unlike them, who came from the Kure Clan, Arisa was just an "ordinary person." It was only natural for her to be frightened by words like "yakuza" and "underground fighting."

"If you don't want to go, you don't have to force yourself," Kure Karura said, leaning against the car window to comfort Arisa. "We can keep in touch by phone. We'll tell you how the match goes—"

Before she could finish, Arisa suddenly threw both hands into the air and cheered.

"Woo-hoo!"

She dashed into the car and thanked the two of them, her eyes shining with excitement and an indescribable sense of exhilaration.

"..."

The sight left Kure Fusui and Kure Karura stunned instead.

Normally, Arisa should have looked worried, overcome her fear, mustered her courage, and finally gotten into the car with determination. That was how things were supposed to go.

So why had Arisa's eyes lit up before she hopped into the car with a "woo-hoo"?!

"Arisa," Kure Karura asked, unable to contain her curiosity, "you know where we're going, right? Aren't you a little... scared?"

"Nope!"

Arisa rested her chin on her hand and sighed. "I am worried about my brother, but I'm not scared. I've always been lucky, so it'll be fine."

Kure Karura was even more puzzled.

After all, as far as she knew, life hadn't gone smoothly for the siblings, Shiraki Uke and Sakurai Arisa. It had even been bleak.

Their parents had died, her brother had fallen gravely ill, the dojo had closed down, loan sharks had come after them, and the yakuza had set their sights on their land... One mess after another had come their way, so why did Arisa say she was lucky?

"For example—"

Arisa counted on her fingers, recalling each thing one by one.

"I was adopted and met my old man and my brother. I wanted to drop out of school to pay for my brother's treatment, but someone came to our door offering a loan. My brother and I were about to lose our home, but then he got better..."

"And now, just when I was worried about my brother, you and Fengshui came to pick me up."

Arisa clenched her fists tightly and declared with conviction, "See? I'm super lucky!"

"..."

Hearing that, Kure Fusui and Kure Karura exchanged a glance in the rearview mirror.

Most members of the Kure Clan worked as assassins, so their worldview was very different from that of ordinary people. Yet even from the Kure Clan's perspective, Arisa's way of thinking was still a little strange.

Or perhaps it was only to be expected of a fighter's family upbringing, which came with a touch of "madness."

The car drove all the way to the suburbs.

Leaving the city lights behind, they entered the murky darkness, as though passing from the "ordinary world" into the "underworld."

Their destination was an "underground casino" at an abandoned resort.

From the outside, the place looked as though it had been deserted for a long time. But past the entrance, farther inside, stood an unfinished building. Scaffolding remained around its exterior, and it didn't even have windows installed, but the building had electricity.

The car stopped on the open ground outside the building.

Arisa, Kure Karura, and Kure Fusui got out one after another and looked around.

It was certainly lively tonight.

The open ground held not only the black cars favored by yakuza, but also haphazardly painted off-road vehicles and even biker-gang motorcycles.

As they entered the unfinished building, an even more feverish atmosphere hit them.

Everywhere they looked, they could see gambling facilities that operated in a gray area—or were outright illegal: pachinko, mahjong, roulette, Texas hold'em, blackjack...

Yakuza, biker gangs, thugs, and delinquents—all manner of "bad people" roamed beneath the dim lights, and the clamor never stopped.

The air carried a slightly pungent mixture of cigarette smoke and cologne.

Arisa couldn't help swallowing. "My brother's going to fight a Kengan match here tonight..."

"That's not quite right."

Hearing her, Karla corrected her from beside her. "Shiraki is going to fight an underground match against a fighter registered with the Kengan Association, not a real Kengan match."

Arisa was puzzled. "What's the difference?"

"A lot. Underground fighting has its own tiers, and the Kengan Association is the very tip of the pyramid."

The current head of the Kure Clan had deep ties to the Kengan Association, and as his favorite great-granddaughter, Kure Karura was also a frequent spectator at Kengan matches.

She counted off the differences. "Take the spectators, for example. Most spectators at Kengan matches are members, including many major financiers and political figures. Besides the stakes put up by the two competitors, the outside wagers involved are also measured in the tens of millions."

"But the most important thing is the atmosphere."

"The atmosphere at a real Kengan match is far more charged than it is here."

Kure Karura yawned in boredom. "In other words, even if they've brought in a fighter registered with the Kengan Association, this is still just a 'fake'..."

Arisa nodded, more or less understanding.

It was like the low-level hoodlums who occasionally loitered on the streets. They might look intimidating, but if they actually stood alongside certain financiers, political figures, scholars, or Olympic champions, their inferiority in bearing and spirit would be plain to see.

"..."

As Arisa thought this, she searched her surroundings, intending to find her brother first.

But she suddenly bumped into someone—or, more accurately, that person had deliberately stepped into the way, blocking the path of Arisa and the other two.