Bound for the Sanzu River

As a precaution, Uchiha Naruto had stationed one or more crows at his home, school, and workplace-the three stops of his daily routine-as well as important locations such as the Metropolitan Police Department, to watch for anything unusual at all times.

It was noon, so Takasaki Izakaya naturally wasn't open yet. After exchanging a few words and gestures, Blond Punk and the young monk headed arm in arm into a nearby barbecue restaurant.

Two scumbags getting together right near the izakaya couldn't mean anything good.

Unfortunately, restaurants considered crows too much of a nuisance, so the crow couldn't follow them inside to hear what they were discussing.

After enough time for a meal had passed, the two emerged from the barbecue restaurant with greasy faces and bulging bellies.

The young monk wasn't wearing his robes as he had on the day he came to preach. Instead, he had disguised himself in casual clothes and a hat.

They exchanged a few words at the entrance and were about to part when Blond Punk grabbed the young monk's sleeve, desperately pleading with a fawning expression.

Annoyed by his pestering, the young monk casually pulled out several Yukichi Fukuzawa bills and tossed them onto the ground. Grinning, Blond Punk crouched down to pick them up, then spat at the young monk's retreating back. Satisfied, he took the money and hailed a taxi.

With a thought from Uchiha Naruto, the crow that had been perched on a power line followed him.

Blond Punk took the taxi to Edo River Ward. The ward was named after the Edo River flowing along its eastern side, while the Arakawa River lay to its west, leaving it sandwiched between the two rivers.

Like its fellow unfortunate wards, Adachi Ward and Kita Ward, Edo River Ward sat near the bottom of Tokyo's social pecking order, with poor public safety and a weak economy.

After getting out of the taxi in Minami-Kasai Town, the blond thug waited at an intersection while making a phone call. Before long, a white van with "Nishino Freight Company" printed on its side drove up.

Blond Punk climbed aboard.

"Well? Did you get the keys to the izakaya?"

Four men were sitting in the back of the van. One of them, an older man with a fleshy face and a knife scar at the corner of his mouth, spoke.

Had he been twenty or thirty years younger, he would certainly have been a vicious-looking thug who could frighten a crying child into silence. But now, with his graying hair and deeply wrinkled face, he looked rather comical.

"Inokuchi, I've got the keys right here!"

Blond Punk produced a set of keys as though presenting a treasure.

Yoshio Inokuchi took the keys and nodded in satisfaction. After a moment's thought, he asked:

"Didn't your father disown you? Why would he give you the keys?"

"I'm the old bastard's only son, after all. He hadn't seen me in years. All I had to do was get on my knees, cry my eyes out, and say I'd turn over a new leaf. Sure enough, he softened up and said he'd give me one last chance," the blond thug said smugly.

"That means I've done my part. You'll let me join the Iijima Family now, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." Yoshio Inokuchi brushed him off with a perfunctory response.

"Is the family going after those two little bastards? Count me in! And the bald guy from the True Faith Society said to deliver them to Saitama Prefecture before the ceremony starts at six this evening."

The bruises on Blond Punk's forehead still hadn't gone down, and his right arm was wrapped in bandages. His face filled with spite, he spoke eagerly.

"You're still new and have no experience, so sit this one out. The family has high hopes for young men like you. We'll have more important jobs for you later. Go wait at headquarters for now."

"Then the money you promised..."

"Once the True Faith Society pays the balance, you'll get your share."

After dismissing Blond Punk with a few words, Yoshio Inokuchi spat and said scornfully:

"He'd even sell his own little sister, and scum like that thinks he can join the Yakuza! Who knows whether he'll sell us out next?"

"Exactly. We Yakuza value honor and loyalty above all else. Why would we want trash like that?" the other aging yakuza beside him, all around fifty, agreed.

Looking at these yakuza who were getting on in years just like himself, Yoshio Inokuchi was left speechless.

The aging population plagued Japanese society, and organized crime was no exception. According to Metropolitan Police Department statistics, gang membership had fallen from seventy thousand at its peak in the nineties to eighteen thousand today, with members over fifty accounting for more than forty percent.

Not only that, the government's crackdown on the Boryokudan had grown increasingly severe. The "Organized Crime Exclusion Ordinance" of 2000 explicitly prohibited Boryokudan Members from opening bank accounts, taking out loans, signing contracts, and so on, introducing a series of exclusionary and discriminatory measures against the Boryokudan.

The economic downturn seemed endless. Ordinary people were struggling, and life wasn't any easier for the Yakuza.

Yoshio Inokuchi rubbed the faded tattoos on his arm, unable to help reminiscing about the heady days when he had first entered the business in the eighties.

Those truly had been the Yakuza's golden years. They could do whatever they pleased!

Once the money from the True Faith Society arrived, the first thing he would do was visit a tattoo parlor and get the colors touched up.

The white van drove along the Metropolitan Central Circular Expressway.

"Come to think of it, why does that True Faith Society want us to kidnap these two schoolgirls?"

Yoshio Inokuchi still had reservations about the job. The days when the Yakuza could do as they pleased were long gone, and this was Tokyo, not some rural backwater. If the Metropolitan Police Department caught even the slightest hint, not only the Iijima Family but even their parent organization, the Seishi-gumi, could be wiped out.

But the True Faith Society had offered far too much as a deposit. On top of that, their boss had lost a large shipment belonging to the family and, with nowhere left to turn, desperately needed money to keep them afloat. Otherwise, they would never have taken such a gamble.

"Maybe those bald bastards got tired of their female followers and want to try twin high school girls?"

"They've got it good. These new religions have money and women. Makes me want to join one too."

The middle-aged and elderly yakuza traded dirty jokes.

"I know about this!"

Among the four men was a fat man in his thirties, who spoke while picking at the acne on his face.

Once he saw that he had everyone's attention, the fat man smiled smugly and said:

"Someone from my hometown belongs to the True Faith Society. He's attended plenty of their ceremonies, so I know a little about it. The True Faith Society worships the Twin-Body Buddha, and they consider twins the best sacrifices."

"Twins? Why?"

"I think it has something to do with the True Faith Society's doctrine. But that's pretty normal, isn't it? Here in Japan, we've had a tradition of considering twins bad luck since ancient times. People even killed them. In Spirit-Seer Onmyoji, the new anime I'm watching this season, the heroine was born as one of a pair of twins to a shrine priest's family. They took her as a divine warning of a natural disaster and made her a human sacrifice."

"Young people really do know a lot."

Among this group of yakuza aged fifty and up, the fat man in his thirties naturally counted as young.

And from the sound of it, the fat man was actually an otaku.

An otaku becoming a yakuza was quite unusual. One theory held that the aging of the Boryokudan was closely tied to the rise of otaku culture. Gloomy young men who were ostracized at school and in society and couldn't find work had once been potential gang recruits. But with the rise of otaku culture, they became shut-ins instead.

It was just like how pachinko parlors had lost business after mobile games with paid gacha draws appeared.

"They say the leader of the True Faith Society has supernatural powers!"

Lowering his voice, the fat man said in a conspiratorial tone, "That guy from my hometown once told me when he was drunk that the True Faith Society's leader has been sacrificing living people to obtain supernatural powers!"

"Supernatural? How's that possible? Which of those con artist cult leaders doesn't brag about having boundless powers?"

"This one's different. I haven't joined, but the True Faith Society is famous back home. They went from nothing to over ten thousand followers in just a few years because their leader performed miracles at several ceremonies, showing off his supernatural powers."

"Don't all those religious idiots say the same thing?"

One yakuza spoke disdainfully. Though he had little education himself, he still felt intellectually superior to followers of these new religions.

"Enough. Whatever the True Faith Society wants to do is none of our business. All we have to do is deliver the goods."

Yoshio Inokuchi impatiently cut off the conversation. "Check everything. Have you got the anesthetic, towels, sleeping pills, handcuffs, and masks?"

It had been years since he'd done a kidnapping job like this, and Yoshio Inokuchi felt a little rusty, though he'd done plenty of them when he was young.

The other Boryokudan Members checked their pockets, then nodded at Yoshio Inokuchi.

"Then stick to the plan. We'll unlock the place and hide on the second floor. Once the sisters come in, the four of us will take them two to one, knock them out fast, load them into the van, and drive straight to the True Faith Society. Don't come back afterward, either. Once we've got the money, we'll hide out in the countryside until things cool down!"

The other yakuza readily agreed, their faces twisted with a mixture of excitement and cruelty.

"Ito, when we make our move, park the van across the entrance. Make sure nobody outside can see," Yoshio Inokuchi instructed the driver, turning toward him.

But Ito didn't answer. Without a word, he pressed the accelerator and kept driving the van forward.

A crow suddenly darted out from the passenger seat and stared at him with scarlet eyes.

A crow? Since when had Ito kept a crow?

But this was no time to worry about such trivial things. Yoshio Inokuchi shouted:

"Ito, did you hear me? And why the hell are you driving so fast?"

Ito ignored him. Instead, he pushed even harder on the accelerator. At an absurd speed straight out of Grand Theft Auto, the van tore down the road and raced onto the Arakawa River Bridge!

Deeply alarmed, Yoshio Inokuchi reached forward from the back seat, grabbed Ito around the neck, and roared:

"Are you insane? Driving this fast, are you trying to take us to the Sanzu River?"

"The Sanzu River? That's right. This is the death van bound for the Sanzu River."

Ito turned his head. His eyes were unfocused and his face expressionless, and he spoke in a strange, indifferent tone that made Yoshio Inokuchi's scalp prickle.

Before he could do anything, Ito floored the accelerator and wrenched the steering wheel. The van smashed through the Arakawa River Bridge's guardrail and tumbled into the Arakawa River!

An enormous plume of water erupted from the broad surface of the Arakawa River.

But the water soon grew calm again. A little more scum could do nothing to stop the Arakawa River from flowing onward without end.