Around the same time Sigmarus and Grace arrived at her shack, a man barged into Madame Lee’s office followed by a handful of stern-looking men who all had intimidating demeanors. The only identifying feature which unified these men was the green three-horned goat skull tattoo imprinted on each of them in various locations.
Compared to the thugs accompanying him, the man in front looked even more intimidating. An old knife scar cut down at a slight angle from the top of his forehead to between his eyebrows and across his large nose, splitting open his right nostril. His moderately long black hair was combed over his cauliflowered left ear, though the sides were shaved almost down to the root in a neat taper. Dark green eyes sat below his low-hanging eyebrows, staring emotionlessly at Elizabeth, sending a shiver down her spine. In contrast to his poorly dressed subordinates, he wore neatly pressed black dress pants, a lime green dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a black vest. All of his clothes were old and discolored, but still looked fancy compared to the shoddy clothing of his companions. His thin musculature looked similar to Sigmarus’, but he was taller by a hand’s width, causing the dress clothes to fit snugly against his skin.
Not expecting such a sudden visit, Elizabeth frowned with furrowed brows from behind her desk and slowly stashed away the paper she had been doodling on inside a drawer stuffed to the brim with similar doodles.
“What can I do for you today, sir?” Elizabeth inquired with a cautious tone as she stood up from her chair.
The well-dressed man glanced around the room for a few seconds before staring at her again with callous green eyes. He traipsed over behind the desk with a methodical slowness to his gait and calmly sat down in the chair normally reserved for Elizabeth. Then, he pointed at one of the guest chairs and commanded, “Sit.”
Somewhat accustomed to the man’s brusque attitude, she sat down and looked at the man with a cautious but questioning gaze.
“How are things going, here?” The man asked, still staring at her with emotionless eyes.
“Well enough,” Elizabeth answered. Inwardly, however, she wondered, Why is he asking such a thing? He’s usually more on top of things than I am.
“Is that so? How is the new girl doing? Is she working well?”
“Yes.”
“Is that so?”
The man leaned forward, rested his forearms against the edge of the desk, and pressed the fingertips of both hands together before closing his eyes as though deep in thought. With closed eyes, he firmed his already cold voice and asked, “Why is it, then, that when I showed up to check on things, one of your workers came up to me to complain about biased treatment?”
“Biased?” Elizabeth asked, her gut starting to churn out of anxiousness. Which of the girls here would willingly tell this man about such a thing? Who here didn’t despise him? It didn’t make sense to her.
Suddenly, the man’s fist slammed onto the surface of the desk. A loud crack echoed around the room. Splinters flew from the point of impact. Elizabeth flinched on reflex and covered her face with her arms. A creaking sound pulled her attention back to the desk. She widened her eyes upon seeing cracks spread through the wood all the way to the bottom. The wood strained and groaned as it struggled to maintain its own weight. Before long, multiple cracks echoed through the room again, and the desk crumbled into two uneven halves surrounded by smaller splinters. Elizabeth’s eyes widened even further from pure shock. She couldn’t believe that this muskrat branch leader could do such a thing. It implied that he had received physical augments, but those were expensive even for people in the Upper Districts.
The man finally opened his eyelids to reveal his unchanged emotionless eyes. He looked at the nearest two men and ordered, “Take this trash outside and burn it.”
Two of the men walked over. They silently lifted the desk’s broken halves and walked toward the door.
When Elizabeth saw that, she came back to her senses and spun around to face them as she exclaimed, “Wa- wait! At least let me take my things out of it!”
“It seems you’ve forgotten your position in the few months since you last saw me,” The man declared in a voice cold enough to freeze her in her tracks the moment she turned away from him. As Elizabeth fell silent and trembled with a mix of fear and anger, he ignored her, looked at another of his men, and said, “Bring her outside to watch it burn.”
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“Got it,” The bulky man said, quickly stepping forward to obey his boss’ will. He arrived behind Elizabeth in a few steps, pulled her arms behind her, and forced her to follow the two men who had already left the room. She struggled against the hulking man at first, but quickly gave up upon realizing she couldn’t even budge against his strength. A subtle apprehension overtook her mind as he forced her to walk out of the brothel. Behind them, the well-dressed man followed with his remaining three subordinates.
Once outside, they saw the first two men gathering flammable materials around the two pieces of broken desk. They briefly glanced toward the others before returning to work. Elizabeth thought they would have trouble lighting it on fire with just small lighters, but then she saw several gas cans lined up against the wall just outside the door. She immediately lost all hope to save all the doodles she had drawn during her years of loneliness, not to mention some of the gifts that had been given to her over the years by the girls here. She fell to her knees with a hopeless and blank look in her eyes, though the man holding her didn’t let go of her arms which nearly popped out of their sockets when she collapsed.
The well-dressed man raised a hand toward his men and said, “Stop for a moment.”
The two men stopped gathering trash to burn and looked at their boss for further instruction.
The man coldly glared at Elizabeth and said, “Now that I think about it, I forgot to mention that your worker who told me about your recent actions did so two weeks ago.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and she looked up at him with her eyes full of worry and fear, though not for herself.
“After hearing such a thing, how could I let my precious gang suffer such an insult, hm? The man who was helping that girl… he doesn’t matter that much, but it turns out he had a vague connection to those weeds. And, you played along with it? Did you forget who you belong to? Fallen Leaf might have a big presence in this district, but they’re small when you look at all of Haze City. Have you forgotten what kind of people we are? Tell me, Miss Lee, did you forget how we treat those who prevent me from collecting what I’m owed?”
“...No.”
“Lies,” The man stated. Then, he looked at the most muscular of his men and ordered, “Go get Donovan and tell him bring twenty people to take care of everything on that little girl’s end.”
“Yes, sir,” The man replied with a nod and quickly made his exit from the dim alleyway.
Watching the man leave without hesitation nor need for more detailed instructions, Elizabeth realized how scripted all of this felt.
“Now, as for the rest of you... Those weeds have grown a little too big for the crack they’ve made in our city. Don’t you agree?”
The remaining five guys all laughed and nodded. Two of them grabbed the broken desk halves while the other two with free hands picked up the gasoline canisters in one quick motion as though they had known this moment was coming. In fact, Elizabeth trembled as tears started to roll down her eyes. She knew how this calculating and devilish man operated. This action was definitely not commanded on a whim.
From there, the large man dragged her along with the rest of the group to the nearest brothel owned by Falling Leaf. Her throat locked up due to fear, preventing her from saying anything. Tears trickled from her eyes as she watched the others barge inside and pour old gasoline everywhere. A handful of customers and workers immediately fled outside and away from the scene, but most of the people inside apparently didn’t notice what was about to happen.
Before long, the well-dressed man walked back outside with his men and stuck a cigarette between his lips. Then, he pulled out a lighter and looked down at Elizabeth with callous eyes as though looking at a piece of trash and said, “Since you’ve obviously forgotten your place just like the rest of these complacent fools, it’s about time for everyone to remember why we’re called devils. Don’t you agree?”
Elizabeth’s lips trembled, but she didn’t say anything. Unwilling to watch any longer, she averted her eyes from both the man and the building.
However, the well-dressed man clicked his tongue. He knelt in front of her, grabbed her cheeks in one hand hard enough that she felt her jaw might break, and he whipped her head forward, forcing her to look him in the eye. For a moment, she averted her gaze, but he let go, slapped her, and then grasped her face again. In a voice as cold and distant as the long-forgotten mountains, he said, “You will watch the result of your foolish desire to escape from us. Don’t think I don’t know why you allowed those two to do as they pleased in our establishment. You will remember your place, you wingless piece of trash. Is that clear?”
Tears continued to trickle down Elizabeth’s face as she slowly nodded, fully incapable of resisting against the commands of the one who had forcefully ripped off her wings ten years ago. The pain of the man’s hand crushing her cheeks and jaw burned home the fear she had wanted to escape from as she watched him light his cigarette, take a single puff, and then toss it inside the open front door. She watched in horror until smoke billowed out of the doors and windows and people started running out of the establishment in a cacophony of screams.
Six people burned to death that day, all of them members of Fallen Leaf who had been chained inside by the Green Devils. The only thing left behind was a pile of charred rubble and a green three-horned goat skull painted on the building behind it.