“Yakuza are on life support,” Sanzu began, picking up a stick from the ground with his hand tucked into his sweater sleeve. He wasn’t going to touch it.
He’d heard that talk before. Many clans had fallen like dominoes, one after another, after a series of policies and social changes. Rindou was fully aware that they were living in the worst time to be involved in crime, possibly in all of history.
Crime appeared and disappeared in the form of small organizations that didn’t last long. The news was constantly announcing successive police victories, as if it were a war of attrition and that was their puritanical propaganda in the middle of a battlefield. They said they would build a country where it wasn’t possible to live off crime, that they had let the yakuza meddle in too much and that they couldn’t allow it anymore.
He had no opinion. To tell the truth, he didn't want to know anything about it; he was content to live another day and fight the crimson-splattered thoughts in his head.
"Bonten isn't the only one who's figured out the trick."
"Leaving the old yakuza values behind to survive wasn't even our idea, actually. We're not the first to do it," Sanzu continued. "It was Izana Kurokawa's idea."
Rindou stifled the biggest sigh in the world.
"I'm so tired of that guy," he muttered.
Sanzu didn't say anything for a minute, lost in thought. When he spoke again, there was a note of resentment in his voice.
"Kurokawa's Tenjiku wasn't like the ideal Tōman Sano wanted. In another world, if they had won that fight, they would have dominated all of Honshu. They could have reached Okinawa if they'd wanted… that son of a bitch had the formula to achieve everything, but in the end, it all came to nothing. His brother” he spat it out as if having it in his mouth was unpleasant “took over, and a couple of years later, we have Bonten.”
“Some groups that eyed Tenjiku with suspicion realized what they were doing,” Sanzu explained, getting straight to the point. “Destroying everything, to hell with family and traditional values, conquest is what matters. Thanks to that, a few managed to hide and prevail against the constant attacks from the politicians and the police.”
“Are those guys from before among those few?” Rindou ran his fingers along the bark of a cypress tree, admiring its towering canopy.
“And until Bonten manages to take over all of Japan, this era will be filled with chaos.” He waved the stick again and slammed it against the ground to try and shake off a cobweb. He ended up abandoning it there and looked over his shoulder. “Including Bonten, there are four relatively large organizations left. You just met the Yamada Gumi. They’ve been a pain in the ass for seven generations and refuse to disappear even after their leader’s arrest two years ago. They’re too well established.”
“…that’s a very fitting name,” he noted, the kanji for mountain not going unnoticed. Technically, they were near Mount Nantai.
“They come from Fukushima, and we’ve been fighting them for years for control of Tochigi and Gunma prefectures.” Sanzu clicked his tongue. “They’re a nuisance.”
It was a fleeting moment, the feeling that he'd connected a couple of dots, perhaps that's why Sanzu had looked at him so intensely for a second. He hadn't had any idea about the situation, not because he hadn't asked, or because he'd been a depressed bum battling alcohol and his own family these past few weeks.
Despite working so closely with Bonten, as an executioner, knowing certain things wasn't really necessary. Knowledge was dangerous when it came to internal politics. If Sanzu had said they were still fighting for Tochigi and Gunma, that meant they'd never had Kanto. Neither Bonten, nor the Kanto Manji.
Knowledge could shift loyalties, could be used as a bargaining chip and an emotional hostage. If there were other groups stronger and more established than them, the mere fact of knowing about their hostile relationships could pose a danger to Bonten itself. Sanzu was trusting him.
"What about the other two?" he asked, curious.
"You'll meet them eventually."
Enemies. Wip for the seventh chapter of Everywhere is Somewhere
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