The rain fell in sheets outside the old shrine complex, drumming against the slate tiles of the main hall like the ticking of a dying clock. Inside, the air was dry—still steeped in incense and shadow.
The circular meeting chamber sat deep beneath the Kyoto hillside, untouched by modernity. No cameras. No digital records. Just tatami, stone, and the scent of tradition fermenting into rot.
Five elders sat in silence, each draped in black robes embroidered with a faded silver iris. They formed a crescent behind a low lacquered table adorned with a single candle, its flame swaying with the breath of every word unspoken.
Behind them loomed the mosaic—the iris in bloom, its petals entwined with a serpent coiled in gold. A symbol older than the country itself. A symbol they swore to protect.
"We warned them," muttered Elder Yano, eyes narrowed beneath his brow. "The foreigner girl was trouble. The boy even more so."
Elder Takahira raised a scroll with trembling hands. "The leak to the global networks… it exposed not only Kanda, but every tie the Hiyashi once had to the artifact program. They made us visible. That is unforgivable."
"Are we so afraid of light now?" said Elder Fujita. He was the youngest of them—only in his fifties, still sharp. "They did what none of us had the will to do. Perhaps they—"
"Enough," snapped the head elder, Jiro Yoshida, his voice gravel and smoke. "This is not a debate. We are not discussing opinions. We are passing judgment."
Fujita's mouth tightened, but he said no more.
A young Remnant courier entered through the back of the chamber, bowed deeply, and knelt before the elders.
"My lords," she said, her voice barely more than breath, "our Kyoto contacts report no signal from PSIA Safezone Gamma. It has gone dark. Surveillance ceased. We… we believe Ryunosuke is dead."
The air thinned.
Yano made a satisfied grunt. "Then the problem solves itself."
"No," Jiro said. "Mayu remains. She defected from her post without council approval. She aligned with an outsider and spat on the bloodline. She has vanished from our sensors."
Takahira nodded. "We must act. Before our own members begin questioning our control."
Fujita said nothing.
"Then it is decided," Jiro said coldly. "Ryunosuke Hiyashi is posthumously marked for dishonor. Mayu will be hunted and killed on sight."
He reached into the folds of his robe and produced an old wooden gavel, its handle smooth from decades of hands. With a slow, ceremonial movement, he raised it and brought it down on the lacquered table.
CRACK.
"Let it be entered into the flame," he intoned. "The line is broken."
The candle guttered slightly.
Far above, thunder rumbled over the city of Kyoto.
The rain came in cold sheets, tapping against the stone steps like slow, deliberate footsteps from the past. Kenji walked beneath a black umbrella, his pace steady, boots whispering over moss-covered stone. He carried a long coat draped over his shoulders, and beneath it—tucked inside a discreet side holster—was a pistol wrapped in faded cloth.
The weight of it never left his side.
It wasn't standard issue. It was old—customized, balanced, black steel. A relic in its own right.
Riku gave it to him.
A year before he vanished, Riku had called Kenji to the same shrine they'd trained at decades earlier. They sat in silence for nearly an hour before Riku slid the pistol across the stone.
"You'll know when to use it," he had said.
"And on who."
At the time, Kenji didn't want to believe that day would come. But now, as the trees bent under the wind and Kyoto watched from behind gray clouds, he realized: Riku had seen the storm long before any of them.
At the top of the hill, a young Remnant stood under the shrine gate—soaked to the bone, shivering, eyes wide.
"They've done it," he said, voice barely audible. "The Elders just marked Mayu and the boy for death."
Kenji didn't stop walking. He passed the young man with nothing more than a glance.
"They're saying Ryunosuke is already dead," the Remnant added. "Gamma's gone dark. No response."
Kenji paused.
"Who told them?" he asked, without turning.
The boy hesitated. "Elder Yano. He read the PSIA intercept aloud. They've sealed the decision."
Kenji's jaw clenched, but his tone remained quiet. "How did they get the intercept?"
"I—I don't know."
"Who was missing from the vote?"
"Elder Fujita, but he returned late."
Kenji nodded once and continued toward the shrine. As he walked, he reached into his coat and touched the cloth-wrapped pistol. The metal was cold against his fingertips, but familiar.
Riku's voice echoed in memory:
"This world doesn't need more tradition. It needs men willing to sever the wrong ones."
The clouds above cracked with distant thunder.
Kenji reached the temple gates just as the candlelight within flickered to life.
He didn't bring offerings. No incense. No apologies.
Only resolve—and the last promise he owed a friend who died without justice.
As he passed through the inner gate, his hand rested on the pistol once more.
He didn't need to knock.
They were already waiting.
The candlelight inside the chamber flickered with uneasy rhythm, casting elongated shadows across the mosaic of the iris and serpent. The elders sat where they had all day—positioned like relics around the ceremonial table, as if immobility granted them authority.
They had spoken. They had passed judgment.
Now, they waited for the storm to obey.
A faint knock came from the wooden door—no urgency, just a single, calculated sound.
Before anyone could rise, the door creaked open.
Kenji stepped inside.
The rain still clung to his shoulders. Water dripped from the hem of his coat, leaving silent tracks across the tatami floor. He closed the door gently behind him, but didn't bow. He didn't remove his shoes. His eyes passed over each of them like a man reading a ledger.
Elder Jiro Hiyashi, seated at the head, narrowed his eyes. "Kenji. You were not summoned."
Kenji stepped forward slowly. His voice was low, quiet. "I heard what you did."
"It was necessary," Jiro said without pause. "The boy endangered everything. And Mayu followed him. You were close to Riku once, so I will forgive your intrusion. But this decision is sealed."
Kenji tilted his head. "Sealed by whom?"
"By those who remember what it means to protect the family."
"That's not family," Kenji said, his voice cooling to steel. "That's fear. And you've built your house on it for too long."
Elder Takahira stood. "Watch your tone. This isn't a dojo. You're speaking before blood."
Kenji took another step forward. The wet floor muffled each movement, but the tension was deafening. "Riku knew what was coming. He tried to warn you. You silenced him. You ignored his son. And now you mark our family's blood for death because he dared to expose the truth you were too weak to face."
Jiro stood now too, slamming his palm on the table. "Enough."
Kenji's hand moved slowly—deliberately—to the inside of his coat.
"I've already heard enough," he said.
They froze.
From the cloth holster, he drew the suppressed pistol—sleek, silent, and heavy with implication. Riku's old sidearm. A tool not of tradition, but of intent.
"Kenji…" Fujita warned, rising halfway. "Don't—"
PFFT.
The gun barely made a sound.
Elder Jiro staggered back, his mouth open in a gasp that never became a word. A dark bloom spread through the center of his robe as he collapsed backward onto the mat. His gavel rolled off the table with a hollow clack.
The chamber erupted in shouts. Elder Yano lunged for the ceremonial blade beside him, but Kenji was faster.
PFFT.
Yano fell beside Jiro, wide-eyed, still reaching.
The remaining three froze.
Kenji didn't raise the pistol again. He didn't need to.
The silence was louder than any gunshot.
"You want a return to old ways?" he said, voice sharp and steady. "Then understand this: the old way is dead. You just watched it die."
He turned to Fujita, who was standing now—still pale, but alive. "You saw the mistake. You hesitated. You'll stay. The others…" He looked at the two remaining elders. "You can leave. Or join them."
They left.
Kenji stepped over Jiro's body and approached the mosaic. The iris and serpent stared back at him—unchanged, unbothered.
He didn't look away.
"Riku," he whispered, "I'm sorry it took this long."
Rain dripped from the eaves of the low-roofed barracks as a quiet murmur swept across the yard. Word had already spread—whispers that outran the storm. The Head Elder was dead. Kenji had pulled the trigger. Two more followed.
The old guard was gone.
Under the dim glow of the yard's floodlights, dozens of Remnant members gathered. Young and old, foot soldiers and officers. Some came in uniforms. Others wore civilian clothes—people called back from rooftops, gambling dens, and safehouses.
They stood shoulder to shoulder in the open courtyard, the gravel beneath them slick with mud. No one spoke.
Then the shrine bell rang once.
Kenji stepped into the courtyard.
He wore no robe, no sash, no ceremonial colors. Just a black long coat, damp from the rain, and a pistol holstered at his side—the weapon no one could stop looking at.
He walked to the center of the courtyard and stood before them, silent.
Thunder rumbled behind him.
"I'm not going to ask for your loyalty," Kenji said finally. His voice was clear, not raised. He didn't need volume. He had gravity. "I'm not going to read from scrolls or invoke ancestors."
He paused.
"They're gone."
A few heads bowed. Others looked down in silence.
"You've all been waiting for this moment. Don't deny it. We've lived in the shadow of an empire built on blood, silence, and shame. They told us tradition was sacred. But they only protected power."
He let that settle.
"They marked Mayu and the boy for death. Our blood. Our future. Because they were brave enough to change something."
He reached into his coat and withdrew the pistol, holding it out in both hands. No threat—just proof.
"This was Riku's," he said. "He gave it to me before he disappeared. Not to preserve the old world. To end it."
Kenji holstered the weapon and looked over the crowd. Dozens of Remnant eyes stared back at him.
"Today, I killed the Hiyashi."
A murmur passed.
"But I'm not asking you to mourn it. I'm asking you to help bury it."
He took a step forward.
"We're not Yakuza. We're not ghosts. We're not a broken lineage clinging to superstition and fear. We are Remnants. And starting now, we rebuild. Not for power. For purpose."
One soldier stepped forward and knelt.
Another followed.
Then more.
Within moments, the courtyard was lined with kneeling figures. Not in submission, but solidarity.
Kenji looked skyward. The rain had stopped.
"I won't promise peace," he said. "But I promise no one will silence us again."
Behind him, in the shadow of the shrine, a new sigil had been painted over the old crest of the iris.
It was still floral, but rough, unfinished.
A new bloom.
A new legacy.