Flowing River

Shuuji is dead! You killed him!

Shuu...ji...?

You're not Madame Oni anymore... you're just an Oni... a vicious Oni, even...

You would kill the brother you drank at the same table with, and you wouldn't even hesitate, as long as we're in your way...

Will you kill me too, vicious Oni?

Out of the way... Koutarou.

I can't turn back. I must stop Kinbee, no matter what!

Vicious Oni!!!

Vicious Oni...

Go... to hell...

Vicious Oni?

Am I... a vicious Oni?

Oni?

...dead.

The Diet candidate... is dead.

This place.

I picked this empty lot by the riverbank rather than those ruins along the way, so you won't be distracted by the memories. No need to thank me.

Good timing, too. The fireworks show isn't over yet.

......

What? Getting cold feet now?

No.

I just wanted to clear up everything before we started fighting.

What else isn't clear?

Only one thing.

Where did your hatred come from?

I ran into Tetsuya at the TV station and heard from him what happened when Uncle Tessai died. You didn't have to be so cruel.

I don't know how he treated you all these years, but he must not have seen you as an adversary if you got as far as to turn him into a figurehead.

Beside, I didn't think I did you any wrong. When I came back to Mitsukue, all I wanted was to make sure that my sacrifice wasn't meaningless—

Sacrifice?

That's why you make me sick, you and Tessai.

You're a fool, and he's an even bigger fool. Even if you really did accidentally kill the candidate, did you think he wouldn't know to frame me for it, since I was there too?

He favored you, so I kept waiting for the day when he would make me 'take responsibility' for the murder.

It would have been the best result. He would protect his favorite, while eliminating a subordinate who had been going over his head.

As for that little thing about killing one's brothers... what does it matter? Who would be foolish enough to speak up, with Hannya in your hand and his support behind you?

......

But he chose to cut ties with his favorite, choosing honor over family... how sickening.

Did he really not know that the oyabun of the Kinsekikai was the furthest thing from 'honor', or did he just pretend not to know?

Honor is a personal thing. When a group of people start acting in the name of honor, they'll either fall apart, or they're just dregs of society fooling themselves.

Tessai always liked to boast, talking about how yakuza were pathetic outcasts that could only live under the protection of the syndicate.

Retired veterans, hoodlums, gamblers, peddlers, orphans... Tessai united them under the banner of Kinsekikai, hoping they would love each other like family...

Forget everything before that night for a moment and let's just talk about what happened after the diet candidate's death. Shimasu tried to blackmail me, Gouda tried to undermine me, and Sanoguchi tried to exclude me as he once excluded you...

Family? Nothing more than old Tessai's pipe dream.

Besides, is it anything more than just an excuse for one's failure to fit into society? What do you say, Officer Hoshiguma? If what he said was true, then what are you, and what am I?

If this is your idea of fitting into society, I'm glad I was the one who took responsibility.

Finally, you're making sense, Officer Hoshiguma. You have no idea how lucky you are.

You took responsibility and left. I chose silence and stayed, cleaning up the mess that you and Tessai left behind.

Are the public up in arms about the yakuza killing a Diet candidate? Then spend money, build industries and tread on your own dignity to butter up real Diet members.

Getting hit by TV reports? Build your own media through crystalline industry, and change the image of the yakuza.

People starting to have designs on your burgeoning industry? Set your pride aside, and cling to the people who have the most use of you.

Run into someone that you can't soothe over? Then there's no choice. Eliminate them.

And you're complaining about it? Didn't you choose it yourself?

Yes, I chose it. I let my own weakness shut my own mouth that night!

You chose the twisted path of shame and guilty conscience—

Guilty conscience?!

Don't make me laugh, Officer Hoshiguma!

The path I chose showed just how incompetent Tessai was, how hypocritical his honor was, and how close his Kinsekikai was to destruction!

He was an incompetent, blind shogi player who began to abandon piece after piece for his precious Kinsekikai as changing times threatened to checkmate it.

Your incident was just the beginning. The concept of 'Diet' had just emerged, and he had already abandoned you.

When the relationship between North and South was at its most delicate, he was foolish enough to buy weapons from Northern Court factions, just to destroy a gang that was acting out of line in his eyes, one that had better weapons than the Kinsekikai.

He didn't even have that much of a grudge against them, other than the fact that they had once harbored the 'Wandering Vicious Oni' who killed his family.

Ostensibly, he was taking revenge for his wife and son. And look what came of it! He abandoned Tetsuya's mother and turned Tetsuya against him.

As for me? How many times would he have abandoned me, but for the fact that this lieutenant of his never believed in this 'honor' of his for even a moment?

I was proven right, time and again. He's no more than a Pawn who thinks himself a King, charging blindly into the fray...

Did he think promotion awaited? No, everyone else, friend or foe, was walking in the opposite direction. There is nothing but a dead end awaiting him at the end of the road.

To hold back the tide for that fool, clean up his mess, all the while getting walked all over by him?

I would rather you had killed me in your madness that night!

......

Happy now? Is that enough reason for you to bring your sword or shield to bear?

I only have one question. Are you putting on an act?

...An act?

I agree that he could have reinforced his position by putting the blame on you.

I can understand why you say that the oyabun of the Kinsekikai is the furthest from honor.

I believe you when you say you stemmed the tide of Kinsekikai's destruction, and that you are angry at Uncle Tessai for being in the way.

Then what do you want to say?

I just don't know what to think anymore.

It was you who brought me back to Kajimachi. It was you who tried to make me lose my reason and eliminate me once and for all.

It was you who earned Tetsuya's fervent loyalty. It was you who made him witness his own father's death at your hands.

It was you who cut off your own finger in front of Uncle Tessai. It was you who cursed his incompetence, even unto his death.

Your analysis was very clear, very rational. I fully understood what you were saying, and how you got to this point.

But the clearer and more rational it is, the less I could believe it...

Is this really you? Or is this all one final act of madness, written and directed by yourself, so that I would believe that this is the kind of person you are?

Uncle Tessai said you were faking it when you cut off your little finger that day in Kajimachi. I didn't believe it.

But now, I really want to know... how many fingers are there under your left glove?

......

I want to tell you that the little finger I cut off had been with me for decades, but you wouldn't believe it, would you?

......

Haha... very good, very good.

Of all the things you said, there's only one that has a little bit of value.

Honor... is a personal thing.

Are you done?

Yeah.

If you've got any men hiding out here, now would be a good time to holler for them.

There's only me. No one in hiding, no traps, no tricks.

Is the life of a media mogul, a politician's favorite, the oyabun of the Kinsekikai, something to be taken so lightly?

Mogul? Not for long.

Politician? You made sure to put an end to that personally.

Oyabun of the Kinsekikai? Remind me who crashed the accession ceremony again?

If you think I've been acting, congratulations, because I'm tired of it.

I'm just a yakuza. A yakuza backed into a corner.

If that's the only death I can have, then I would have a clean death... a beautiful death.

Even if everything you've done up to this point was one big pile of dishonor?

I'm not talking about honor—that rusty piece of trash floating around your and Tessai's heads.

I'm talking about beauty.

What's about to happen may not compare to making a son watch his father die for him, but you cannot deny...

There's a beauty to a duel by the riverside, under the fireworks, the blood spilling on the banks, perhaps even a head flying into the air.

Don't worry, Hoshiguma. In the event that I'm not the one who dies, I'll admit that you wrote a beautiful ending for yourself as a yakuza.

I don't need it.

I'm fighting you for one reason. To cut my last ties with you, with the Kinsekikai, with Mitsukue and with Higashi.

Suit yourself. But how should I sing the song of your death, in the event that it happens? Who did I kill? An Oni?

An Oni.

An Oni who has lost her home forever.

I had a thought, Hoshiguma.

......

When we were young, Tessai took us to watch the snow, here by this very riverside.

I remember.

He said, don't look down on yourself just because you're yakuza.

He said we're descendants of warriors. He said generations after generations of samurai since Shigekazu Onishoubu have given their lives for loyalty and righteousness, and we are their legacy.

He said that even without noble status, without power, without a liege to serve, even without the bloodline of warriors...

Loyalty and righteousness never die. The warrior's spirit never dies.

Jingi, ninkyou, honor in all its names.

The warrior's spirit lives on, even if it has fallen on hard times, even if it has become distorted, even if it has taken on many different names, even if no bonds of blood tie us.

He was spewing nonsense, wasn't he? It was all an act, wasn't it?

......

You don't know the answer?

There's only one thing that I know.

Someone you hated so much would never put on an act for you.

Sure enough.

You trusted him, and I trust you. I believe you when you say that Tessai didn't lie to me. I believe that we're the last descendants of warriors, here in Nan'in Anzai Mitsukueooyashiro.

As for the true blue-blooded warriors whose emblems are passed on from generation to generation...

I suppose they're all speculating in real estate right now.

You... you're not injured at all?

I have a slight cut on my face.

What about me?

I can feel myself bleeding, Hoshiguma, but I don't want to look.

Tell me. How much time do I have left?

I don't know.

I think there'll be someone here soon, after I leave. I think you'll live a pretty long time.

Why didn't you kill me?

You and I, we have nothing to do with each other anymore.

There will be other people to judge you for Uncle Tessai and Momoka.

Ha, haha...

After all these years, at the end of it all... you won.

No, I lost.

Completely.

You hate the way of this city so very much?

I just don't recognize it anymore.

It's no longer my home, that's all.

Sayounara. We won't meet again.

So, you didn't see any of the fireworks at all?

Basically.

What? You missed the entire fireworks show?

Yeah.

That's such a shame... well...

At least you'll see this.

I couldn't find any fireworks that nice. All I found on Nita Street was small stuff like this...

Don't be sad, okay?

......

Why would I be sad?

I'm so relieved to hear that.

It's beautiful.

Fleeting... but beautiful.

Where are the others? Kichisei, Sarasa, Moriuchi... and Tetsuya?

Kichisei and Moriuchi-san are being questioned by that tired-looking cop. They should be coming out soon.

Sarasa suddenly fell asleep one block before we ran into the cops. She told us to just leave her there. By the time I talked to the cops and went back for her, she was nowhere to be seen.

As for Tetsuya... I have no idea.

Oh, we should also let the police know that Kinbee is still lying on the river bank, and someone should go and get him—

They're already headed over.

There you are! What are you doing? Hosting your own fireworks show?

Looks like it.

We have someone here who missed the entire thing, after all. Gotta make it up somehow, right?

(This is...)

(...Kami-sama?)

What's the matter, Hoshiguma? Did something happen?

No, nothing... just imagining things.