“Thank you, oyaji,” Atreus gives a small bow of his head out of gratitude. “I should get going now, and leave you to your impending meeting.” He takes one last gulp of the remains of his tea and stands.

“If anything, I'd like you to find a way to save me from it,” Okada remarks with a sigh as he stands, too.

“Are these meetings really that bad?”

“You've never gotten into an argument with some of these bullheaded power-hoarders.”

“What do you all plan on discussing?”

“What you might expect,” the advisor answers with a shrug. “The murder, and how to proceed onward during this disorganization that was caused by it. It's a little late, all things considered. We should've had this meeting the night after we received news, but as you know, the cops started watching the Hoshino family like hawks and Hoshino's one of the oldest and most respected patriarchs in the clan, so to hold a meeting without him would be disrespectful.” Okada begins to lead Atreus back to the office entrance.

“Does the murder really change that much before anything has even been figured out?”

“Well, in isolation, the death of one civilian might not normally be a cause for major concern, but as I told you a few days ago, it's the potential impact on the Sanada-gumi's greatest source of income that's causing a stir. Without the revenue we see from Atmos Dynamics, a lot of our budgeting will need to be overhauled, and many families could see a significant loss of spending money.”

“Oh,” Atreus is finally struck with the realization of why his superior dreads the upcoming meeting. “So that's what the meeting's going to be about – who's going to be getting less money.”

“In part, yes. Obviously, it's only precautionary, but we all need to have a sit-down and discuss what to do if the worst case scenario ends up becoming reality.”

“I imagine Oyamada is going to have a lot of leeway in this meeting because it's his gun running that makes the most money after Atmos's dividends.”

Okada sighs once more. “Yes, and he's a real pompous ass about it too. You don't see him personally participate in the sales much, but that doesn't stop him from throwing his weight around in officer meetings. I definitely don't look forward to spending two or more hours trying to convince him to actually share his excess wealth with other parts of the clan.”

Now at the door, Atreus motions to grab the knob, but hesitates to turn it. After a pause, he looks up at Okada once more with an inquisitive gaze.

“Mind if I ask a personal question, oyaji?”

“Not at all,” the elder man responds with no hesitation.

“Why are you not married?”

For a short instant, Okada's eyes widen, having not expected a question relating to romance, specifically, but he brushes it off with a bittersweet smile and thoughtful stroke of his own cheek.

“Well, I can't say I've never considered it. In fact, I was quite close a couple times,” he confesses with a hint of regret in his eyes.

“What stopped you?”

“I guess the clan did. But I don't mean literally, as if anyone physically stopped me. It's just...” he pauses briefly to latch onto the right words that describe his feelings. “It's difficult to dedicate yourself to another person or to a family while also maintaining a high position here. If I did have a family – right this instant – I'd probably only spend a few hours a week with them. I essentially act as the middle man between the chairman and anyone he's associated with, so obviously my schedule is crammed. Plus I'm the patriarch of my own family, though most of my job as such is relegated to my lieutenants.”

“Okay,” Atreus gives a short, somber reply while looking back down at the doorknob he's still clutching.

“Why? How do you feel right now about your position in the clan?” Okada asks for clarification, showing interest in where such a question came from all of a sudden.

“At the moment, I'm happy, but...” the younger man isn't certain of how to voice his thoughts.

“You know why I work closely with you, right? You know what I'm planning for you,” Okada's face and voice become subtly more stern. “I'm next in line to become chairman of the Sanada-gumi after Misawa-san either retires or passes, either of which could be somewhat soon, because, frankly, he isn't the image of health anymore. While I'm in that position, I want to prepare you to be the one to succeed after me.”

“I... don't even know if I want that for myself.”

“I know. But it's not something that'll happen overnight,” the elder man places his hand on Atreus's shoulder in reassurance. “We're looking at up to ten years down the line. You'll have plenty of opportunities to decide if this is the direction you want your life to go in. Until then, don't let it take away focus from your job at hand: solving the murder. Okay?”

“...Yes, oyaji,” Atreus concedes with a meek nod.

“Good,” Okada removes his hand and straightens himself again. “I'll call you in the morning about your meetings with Stephanie and Song. You're likely going to have a busy day tomorrow, so be sure to get some rest.”

Atreus finally opens the door and exits the office. As he walks down the hall, he starts to wonder about his future in the clan, contrary to his superior's suggestion to do otherwise. For the last two years, he had a strong idea of what Okada had in mind for him, but this is the first time the senior advisor ever went into detail about it so plainly. Not even thirty years old – barely in the Sanada-gumi for ten years – and Atreus was already being groomed to become the eventual chairman? Does Okada truly foresee a strong leader in him?

Lost in a whirlwind of thoughts relating to the subject, Atreus isn't even sure why he asked about Okada's personal life that all of a sudden to begin with. Perhaps with the combination of Ryuji talking about the difficulties of maintaining personal relationships with people outside of the clan, plus the date with Max being cut short due to his obligations, the augmented man was starting to understand why the life of an ambitious yakuza was often a lonely one.

Led by his body practically running on autopilot, Atreus soon finds himself entering an Automa to take him back the Asano family office, where Ryuji likely still is, along with Devin, should he have returned from his money collection duties. Upon arrival, he walks through the lobby of the building, greeted by deep bows of respect from the fresh-faced younger members who don't even have pins of their own yet. He takes the elevator to the top floor and walks into Ryuji's office, where both men who were expected to be there, are.

“Hey, man,” Devin gives a cheerful greeting from the sofa. “How'd the date go?”

“It went pretty well,” Atreus responds as he lets himself fall back into the embrace of the adjacent recliner. “I took her to Takahashi's like I said I would, then Joji's afterward, nothing fancy. We had a good three hours together,” he pauses to inhale deeply. “But then Okada called me. I just came back from his office right now.”

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“No shit?” Devin leans forward with interest. “Is it about the Blue Star and VF+ rounds? Did they sell any recently?”

“He... didn't receive that information yet, because his contact, Lee, is being blocked from obtaining it by another officer who's basically in charge of black market weapon and ammunition sales over there.”

“The fuck? Who? Why?”

“His name's Kyang-chul Song.”

“Who the hell–”

“Kyang-chul Song?” Ryuji's low, commanding voice is heard from his desk. He's glaring at Atreus with a bewildered, wide-eyed face. “He's the officer overlooking weapons and ammo sales over there? Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah, apparently,” Atreus answers, surprised at his boss's sudden, strong tone. “He's clutching the receipts we need to see, and said he'd only hand them over if I went to get them personally.”

“What?!” Ryuji storms upwards, rising to his feet in an instant. His eyes abruptly burn with an intense anger. “Are you going to do it? Did Okada-san actually tell you to go through with this meeting?”

“Yes, he did,” Atreus becomes slightly docile in his short answer, as a livid Ryuji was something that isn't seen often. “We don't really have much of a choice, it's the only way to continue the lead we have on the ammunition. He probably knows that, so he's using the leverage to put the meeting in his turf. It's to be expected, isn't it?”

“Do you not remember Song's name floating around after the incident?” the patriarch asks, leaning over his desk threateningly. “It was heavily rumored that he was the one who allowed the attack to happen. He's always been a vocal dissenter of the truce between us and the Blue Star, and I can't have you walk into his own fucking house by yourself. Is Okada nuts?”

“I barely remember much of anything for the first several weeks after the incident, because I was constantly drugged up and in physical therapy,” Atreus responds with a blunt reminder. “I don't want to go over there any more than you want me too; I told Okada as much. But if I can't go and meet with this guy to get their sales records, then what do you suggest we do? Like I said, he has all the leverage here, because he has something we need, and as far as we know, this lead could be the only legitimate one we have right now.”

“Did Okada at least give you any sort of guarantee for your safety?”

“He basically said he'd be willing to start a war if I so much as fail to contact him after the meeting is over.”

Ryuji sighs and hangs his head. “That's a nice sentiment, but I don't know if I could take it seriously, even from him. It's highly questionable any of the other patriarchs on the higher level would play ball with such a thing.”

“After the incident, Atreus has become a sort of... symbol of loyalty,” Devin interjects, trying to assist his friend in reassuring the distraught family leader. “A lot of people know about him and what he did to earn the respect he has, so even if something did happen, there'd be a lot of whispers if we didn't retaliate in some way.”

“If this Song guy is as nuts as you say he is,” Atreus continues, “then it's not like he'd be willing to try and negotiate anyway. It's either go over there and humor this meeting he wants, or drop the most concrete lead we currently have. This isn't even about the ammo, either. If there's even a tiny chance they could corroborate anything else we've seen or heard, then we should take it.”

Ryuji lets out another long, drawn-out sigh and sits back down at his desk. No matter how much he despises the idea of letting his subordinate, friend, and younger brother figure walk into hostile territory, he can't come up with any other way to reasonably pursue the ammunition lead. All signs currently point to Blue Star, and Atreus will have no choice but to follow or let it slip away, which Okada will not want.

“Fine. You can go,” the patriarch begrudgingly concedes. “But when you meet Song, don't provoke him, no matter how tempting it may be. Keep your head down and be transparent. I have no doubt in my mind that even under threat of war, he'd be willing to shoot you in an instant if you say or do anything he could – and want to – misconstrue as disrespect.”

“I will, aniki. I think Lee might accompany me to the meeting, anyway.”

“So when's this all supposed to go down, again?”

“Okada said he'd try to set the meeting up for as early as tomorrow night.”

“Alright,” Ryuji leans back, staring at the ceiling somberly, still emotionally exasperated from the short argument. “You know, I've kept quiet about this out of respect, and because he's my senior, but I need to remind Okada that you're my lieutenant first before you're his 'protege', or whatever sugarcoated term of endearment he wants to use. Just because you saved his and the chairman's lives, doesn't mean he gets to bogart one of my top men.”

“Did you talk to him about anything else?” Devin asks.

“I mentioned the unknown visitor to Takiyama's apartment. As you might expect, he didn't really have much to add. He just said to keep an open mind about why he could be there, that he could have broke in with the intent to do something bad that isn't necessarily murder.”

“Well, I see his point, but I can't imagine what else the guy would've wanted to do.”

“I also asked if he could set up a meeting with one of his contacts in Atmos Dynamics, and he mentioned a woman named Stephanie who's apparently the senior vice president's secretary. He said he'd try to set something up for tomorrow afternoon.”

“Shit,” Devin leans back and stretches his arms out across the top of the sofa's backrest. “You had a busy day today, and it sounds like you'll have another one tomorrow, what with two meetings in different parts of the city to question two different people – one of whom might kill you. I don't envy you, man.”

“Did you ask Tetsuya about the phone again?”

“I did, actually, while I was on my way back from collection.”

“What'd he say?”

Devin shakes his head. “He said he's definitely not gonna have it cracked open by the end of the night. He sounded pretty frustrated, like he almost never comes across anything with such insane security on it, let alone on a random phone that might not even have anything important in it.”

“Can't imagine there's nothing on it if even someone as experienced as Tetsuya is having trouble with it. Did he at least give an estimation for when he'll be done?”

“He said he'll for sure be done tomorrow night unless something catastrophic happens.”

“Another thing to do tomorrow,” Atreus sighs, keeping a mental checklist of all the people he'll likely need to meet up with. “At least I don't have a shift at Crown to add to it. Oh, and apparently there's a meeting being held at headquarters among the top patriarchs any minute now about how this murder might affect the clan's income.”

“They're just meeting about this now?” Ryuji interjects again, his eyebrows raised in suspicion.

“Apparently it was difficult to organize one immediately with the Hoshino family under close watch from the police.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Hoshino's one of the old guard, so excluding him would look bad.”

“Okada talked about how contentious Oyamada is. I never met the guy before, so I don't know if it's true.”

“He's a proud and stubborn man,” Ryuji clarifies with a reminiscent gaze at nothing in particular. “I've only met him a few times, because he's somewhat of a recluse, but he takes his job at the top of the Sanada-gumi's gun running business very seriously and likes to maintain an iron grip of control over everything about it to ensure it runs as efficiently as possible. He's boastful, but he's earned the right to be, and he doesn't like to toss away money unnecessarily, which may be seen as greed, but he doesn't really spend the money on himself. He's just a firm believer that it's always a smart idea to have a large cache stashed away somewhere for emergencies. With the clan's relationship with Atmos at risk, he might end up saying 'I told you so' for the whole meeting.”

“How much longer before you get invited to these meetings, aniki?” Devin asks his superior, curious about the direction of the family.

“Honestly? Probably never,” the contently unambitious Ryuji gives a straightforward answer. “Becoming important enough to sit among the big boys requires years of clawing at as much power as you can grab, and I'm not that type of person. We're the smallest family that isn't a subsidiary of a larger one, which gives us a lot of independence, but also cripples our rate of growth.”

“We did get that huge influx of new members after the incident, when everyone found out about Atreus's heroics. We pretty much doubled our numbers in a few weeks.”

“True, but things like that don't happen often, nor would I hope they do. God forbid we have to sacrifice more of Atreus's limbs for more members,” the family head gives a teasing smirk. “We get along just fine though. We might not see any money from major operations like Hoshino's contract killing, or Oyamada's arms deals, or Nagakawa's drug deals, but we're standing on our own two feet pretty firmly, and without depending on anyone who might not have our best interests in mind.”