Since We're Here

Watching Bakuto get cleanly shot dead by Lin Hai, Madame Gao's feelings were complicated to the extreme. For a moment, she did not even know what emotion she ought to feel.

If she were to say she felt a little schadenfreude, there certainly was some.

The Hand's five "Fingers" had spent centuries openly and secretly fighting, undermining, and scheming against one another. Bakuto relied on his so-called "ancient noble bloodline" and had often treated her with an air of superiority. There had been no shortage of friction and conflict between them.

Seeing him meet such a miserable end, Madame Gao could not help feeling a certain grim satisfaction deep down. So you've finally had your day.

But if she were to say she felt the sorrow of the rabbit dead and the fox grieving, that would not have been entirely false either.

Putting aside their struggles for profit, the five of them had known and coexisted with one another for centuries. That vast span of time was enough for familiarity itself to become a bond.

Alexandra had been killed by Lin Hai at the laundromat, Sowande had just been thrown to his death by Kingpin, Murakami had been shot through the heart by Lin Hai, and now Bakuto had followed them...

Madame Gao had watched all four of them die one after another. Seeing four people who had existed alongside her for centuries fall so swiftly, an indescribable feeling inevitably spread through her heart.

Yet the tangled thoughts surging through her mind rose like the tide, then receded like the tide.

In the end, every thought condensed into the most practical question: deep concern for her own future and fate. Now, only one of the five Fingers remained—her.

Everything about Lin Hai, Kingpin, and their group—their strength, methods, and way