Kenji's apartment smelled like instant ramen and desperation.
Haru had commandeered the kitchen table two hours ago, his laptop surrounded by a fortress of energy drinks, notepads covered in indecipherable diagrams, and what appeared to be half a convenience store's worth of snacks. The USB drive sat in the port like a ticking bomb.
"Okay, so the good news is it's not encrypted," Haru muttered, fingers flying across the keyboard. "The bad news is there's about forty gigabytes of data here and most of it's in formats that haven't been standard since the early 2000s."
"Can you read it or not?" Kenji leaned over his shoulder, trying to make sense of the scrolling files..
"Can I read it? Kenji, I'm insulted. Of course I can read it. It's just going to take—" He paused, squinting at the screen. "—okay, that's weird."
"What's weird?" Hana appeared from the bathroom, toweling her hair. She'd shown up soaked from a sudden rain shower, and Kenji's mom had insisted she dry off before catching a cold. The domestic normalcy of it would have been nice if they weren't currently digging through evidence of corporate murder.
"The file structure. Look." Haru turned the laptop so they could see. "Everything's organized by year, going back to 1995. But 1998 has three separate folders—'Tournament Official,' 'Shadow Operations,' and... 'Saito T.'"
Kenji's chest tightened. His father's name, right there in plain text, like he was just another item on a spreadsheet. Which, to Kurogane, he probably had been.
"Open it," he said quietly.
Haru clicked. The folder contained dozens of files—scanned documents, spreadsheets, and several video files marked with dates. The last one was dated March 15, 1998.
The day his father died.
"Kenji," Hana's hand found his shoulder. "You don't have to watch this right now. We can—"
"Open it."
Haru looked at him for a long moment, then double-clicked.
The video player launched. Grainy security footage, black and white, timestamp in the corner reading 23:47:33 - 03/15/1998. The angle showed what looked like a warehouse loading dock, poorly lit, with two figures visible near a van.
Even in the degraded footage, Kenji recognized his father. Saito Tachibana at twenty-three, wearing the same bomber jacket that now hung in Kenji's closet. He was arguing with someone—a taller man whose face was turned away from the camera.
"—not doing this anymore," Saito's voice came through tinny and distant. "You want to rig games, find someone else. I'm out."
"You're out when I say you're out." The other man's voice was cultured, educated.
Familiar in a way that made Kenji's skin crawl. "We had an agreement, Tachibana. You signed the contract."
"I signed up to play basketball, not to throw games for your gambling operation. There's a difference."
"Is there?" The man stepped forward, and for one frame, his profile caught the light.
Haru sucked in a breath. "Is that—"
"Kaito's father," Kenji confirmed. Younger, less gray, but unmistakable. "He was there."
On screen, the argument escalated. Saito pushed past Kurogane senior, heading for a motorcycle parked near the warehouse entrance. But three other men emerged from the shadows—one of them wearing a distinctive black cap.
The Enforcer.
What happened next took less than thirty seconds. A scuffle. Saito fighting back. Then a shove, badly timed or deliberately vicious, and Saito stumbling backward into the path of a truck that was backing up to the loading dock.
The impact was sickeningly quick.
Kenji's hands were shaking. He couldn't stop them, couldn't breathe, couldn't process what he was seeing. His father, alive and arguing and angry and then—
"Turn it off," Hana said sharply. "Haru, turn it off."
The video stopped. Silence filled the apartment, broken only by the hum of Haru's laptop and the distant sounds of Tokyo traffic outside.
"There's more footage," Haru said quietly, not looking at them. "After. It shows them... cleaning up. Moving the body. Staging it to look like a traffic accident further away from the warehouse."
"They murdered him." Kenji's voice didn't sound like his own. "Not an accident. Not even an accident during a fight. They killed him and covered it up."
"Kenji—"
"My mom spent seventeen years thinking he died because he was reckless. Because he wasn't careful enough. Because he—" His voice cracked. "She blamed herself for not stopping him from going out that night. And it was them. It was always them."
Hana's arms wrapped around him from behind, her forehead pressed against his shoulder blade. She didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
Haru cleared his throat. "There's... there's documentation too. Financial records showing payments to the police officers who handled the case. To the coroner who signed off on the accident report. To witnesses who provided false statements." His fingers moved across the trackpad. "It's all here. Everything we'd need to reopen the investigation."
"How did Ami get this?" Kenji pulled away from Hana, wiping his eyes roughly. "This is internal Kurogane documentation. Security footage they should have destroyed twenty-seven years ago."
"Maybe they kept it as insurance," Hana suggested. "Evidence to hold over people involved, keep them in line. Or maybe..." She trailed off.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe Ami's not the only one inside Kurogane who wants out. There could be others. People who've been waiting for someone brave enough or stupid enough to actually use this information."
Haru was still scrolling through files. "There's stuff here about other incidents too. Not just '98. A referee hospitalized after refusing to fix a game in 2003. A journalist whose exposé on sports betting mysteriously killed in 2007. A player who—" He stopped. "Oh. Oh no."
"What?"
"Ichiro Sasaki. The guy who wants to meet tomorrow night at the warehouse." Haru's face had gone pale. "He's in these files. Multiple times. He wasn't just at the '98 tournament—he was one of the players in the rigged games. And according to this..."
He clicked through several documents. "He tried to go to the police in 1999. There's a notation here: 'IS situation handled via family pressure. No further action required.'"
"They threatened his family," Kenji said flatly.
"Looks like it. But if he's willing to talk now, after all these years..." Haru looked up at them. "Either he's finally found the courage, or—"
"Or it's a trap," Hana finished. "They're using him as bait to get us all in one place."
Kenji's phone buzzed. He almost ignored it, but the name on the screen made him look.
Tatami: Heard you got some interesting data. Don't open the video files on any device connected to the internet. They might have tracking embedded. Meet me at the usual spot. Bring the drive. Come now.
The usual spot was a 24-hour internet café in Akihabara—the kind of place with private booths and lax security cameras. Tatami had used it before for sensitive exchanges.
"That's convenient timing," Hana said, reading over his shoulder. "How does he know about the drive?"
"Ami probably contacted him. They're working together, remember?" But Kenji felt uneasy. Everything was moving too fast, too many pieces falling into place.
"We should go," Haru said, already closing his laptop. "If there's tracking code in these files, we might have already triggered it. The longer we wait—"
A sound from outside. Footsteps in the hallway, too heavy and deliberate to be Kenji's mom coming home from the restaurant.
They froze.
The footsteps stopped outside Kenji's door. A long pause. Then a piece of paper slid under the door, and the footsteps retreated.
Nobody moved for a solid ten seconds.
Finally, Haru crept forward, picked up the paper. It was a photograph, printed on plain copy paper. It showed the three of them entering the Shibuya café earlier that evening. Ami was visible in the background through the window.
On the back, written in neat block letters: WE KNOW. TOMORROW NIGHT. COME ALONE OR EVERYONE YOU LOVE PAYS THE PRICE.
"Okay," Hana said, her voice surprisingly steady. "New plan. We're not going to that warehouse."
"We have to," Kenji argued. "If Ichiro Sasaki actually has information—"
"It's a trap! They just proved they can track us, follow us, threaten us whenever they want. Going to an abandoned warehouse at night is literally asking to get killed!"
"She's right," Haru said quietly. "Kenji, I know you want answers, but this is too dangerous. We have the video evidence now. We should take it to the police, to the media, to—"
"To who? We just saw documentation that the police were paid off. The media ignored this for twenty-seven years." Kenji grabbed his jacket. "The only people who've actually helped us are Tatami's network. So we're going to meet him, show him what we have, and figure out our next move. Together."
"And the warehouse tomorrow?"
Kenji looked at the photograph again. At Hana's face captured in profile, at Haru's distinctive glasses, at himself looking over his shoulder like he knew they were being watched.
"We're going," he said. "But not alone. And not unprepared."
The internet café was exactly as sketchy as Kenji remembered—flickering neon signs advertising hourly rates, a bored attendant who didn't look up from his phone, and rows of private booths with frosted glass doors. Tatami had texted them booth 23, in the back corner.
They found him already set up, a laptop open and running what looked like security monitoring software. The man hadn't aged well—his face was more scarred than Kenji remembered, new lines around his eyes, and he moved with the caution of someone who'd learned to expect ambushes.
"You were followed," Tatami said without preamble. "Lost them at Shinjuku station, but they're good. Better than the usual Kurogane muscle."
"How do you know we were followed?"
"Because I've been doing this for twelve years, kid. You think you're the first person to come to me with evidence against Kurogane?" He held out his hand. "The drive."
Kenji hesitated. "How do we know you're really on our side? For all we know, you could be working for them, leading us into—"
"Into what? A trap at an internet café in Akihabara?" Tatami's laugh was bitter. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. Your apartment building has seventeen security cameras. I counted. If I could find you, so can they."
Fair point.
Kenji handed over the USB drive. Tatami plugged it into his laptop, which was running some kind of specialized operating system Kenji didn't recognize. Within seconds, code began scrolling across the screen.
"Smart of you not to open everything," Tatami muttered. "There's tracking code embedded in three of the video files. Old school, but effective. If you'd opened them on a regular computer connected to the internet..." He didn't finish the sentence.
"But we did open one," Haru said, panicking. "The 1998 footage. On my laptop. At Kenji's apartment."
Tatami swore creatively. "Then they know you have it. They know you watched it. And they know exactly where you were when you did." He unplugged the drive, ran it through some kind of scanner device. "The good news is I can clean this. Remove the tracking code, make clean copies. The bad news is the damage is done. They know you have the evidence."
"So what do we do?" Hana asked.
"You do nothing. You go home, you act normal, you play your basketball game in four days. Leave this to me." Tatami was already copying files, his fingers moving with practiced efficiency. "I have people—journalists who can't be bought, lawyers who owe me favors, international contacts who can get this out of Kurogane's reach. Give me three days and I can make this public in a way they can't stop."
"Three days," Kenji repeated. "The semi-finals are in four days. If you go public before then—"
"Then Kurogane will pull every dirty trick they have to destroy you before the finals. I know." Tatami looked up, and his eyes were harder than Kenji had ever seen them.
"That's why we wait until after. You win your game, advance to the finals against Ryusei High, and then—boom. The night before the championship, this hits every news outlet in Japan simultaneously. Kurogane won't have time to cover it up or spin the narrative."
"That's assuming we win the semi-finals," Haru pointed out.
"You'll win. I've watched your games. You're good enough." Tatami ejected the cleaned USB drive, handed it back to Kenji. "But that warehouse meeting tomorrow—"
"We're going," Kenji said.
"That's suicide."
"Maybe. But Ichiro Sasaki was there when my father died. If there's even a chance he has information that's not in these files, information about who else was involved or why they did it..." Kenji met Tatami's stare. "I have to go."
"Then you're an idiot." Tatami sighed. "But you're a stubborn idiot, just like your dad.
Fine. I'll have my people watching. You go in, you talk to Sasaki, you get out. First sign of trouble, you run. Understood?"
"Understood."
"And take this." Tatami pulled out three small devices that looked like thick coins. "Panic buttons. Press the center, and my team will know you're in trouble. We can be there in under five minutes. Don't be a hero, Tachibana. Heroes get killed. Survivors get justice."
They left the café separately—Tatami first, then Haru, then Kenji and Hana together. The Tokyo night pressed in around them, full of shadows and surveillance cameras and enemies they couldn't see.
"You know this is crazy, right?" Hana said as they walked toward the station. "Going to that warehouse."
"I know."
"And you're going anyway."
"I have to."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Your dad would be proud of you. Stupid proud, because this is definitely stupid, but proud."
Kenji almost smiled. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." She slipped her hand into his. "Just promise me you'll actually use that panic button if things go wrong. Because if you die before I get to properly kiss you, I'm going to be really annoyed."
He stopped walking. Stared at her. "What?"
Hana's face was red, but she didn't look away. "You heard me. I've been waiting for you to figure it out for like three months now, but apparently basketball and conspiracy investigations have completely destroyed your ability to read basic social cues, so I'm just telling you. I like you. As in, like-like you. As in, when this is all over and we're not running from corporate assassins, I would very much like to go on an actual date that doesn't involve USB drives or warehouse meetings or—"
Kenji kissed her.
It was awkward and sudden and they were standing in the middle of a sidewalk in Akihabara with people streaming past and it was probably the worst timing in the world, but he didn't care. Her lips were soft and she tasted like the strawberry tea she'd been drinking at his apartment and when she kissed him back, everything else—the video, the threats, the fear—receded to background noise.
When they finally broke apart, Hana was grinning.
"So, to be clear," she said. "That means you like me too, right? Because if I just misread that entire situation—"
"I like you too," Kenji confirmed. "Have for a while. Just didn't think... with everything going on..."
"Yeah, well. Life's short. Corporate assassins and all that." She squeezed his hand. "Come on. Let's get you home before your mom worries. We've got a warehouse to survive tomorrow and a semi-final to win in four days."
They walked to the station together, hand in hand, and for just a little while, Kenji let himself forget about Kurogane and murder and conspiracy. Let himself be seventeen and holding hands with a girl he liked and planning for a future that might actually exist.
Tomorrow would bring danger. The day after, more investigations. In four days, the biggest game of his life.
But tonight, for right now, this was enough.
Kenji's phone buzzed as they waited on the platform. A message from an unknown number.
Unknown: Saw you on the security cameras. Cute couple. Would be a shame if something happened to her. See you tomorrow night. Don't be late.
The message was followed by a photo. Hana, taken just minutes ago, captured from a high angle. From a traffic camera, probably, or a security feed they'd hacked.
They were always watching.
Kenji showed Hana the message. She went pale but didn't let go of his hand.
"Still going to that warehouse?" she asked.
"More than ever."
"Good." Her jaw set. "Because we're going to end this. Whatever it takes."
The train pulled in, and they boarded together, pressed close in the crowded car. Kenji caught their reflection in the window—two teenagers who looked way too young to be taking on a corporate empire.
But they weren't alone. They had Haru. Akira. The team. Tatami's network. And now they had evidence—real, damning, undeniable evidence of what Kurogane had done.
One more day until the warehouse.
Four days until the semi-finals.
And then, if Tatami's plan worked, the whole world would know the truth.
Kenji just had to survive long enough to see it.