It hit me like heat from an open furnace—dense, male, volatile. Sweat, cigar smoke, and the faint skunky twist of weed clung to the air.
Testosterone teemed in every square inch of the space.
And the room.
God.
It was massive.
A ballroom of war.
The ceiling arched high above with black beams like a ribcage. The walls were stone, slick and dark, broken only by mounted guns and a long line of crimson banners—each marked with a silver dragon curling in a circle and eating its own tail.
My gaze went to the wall across from me where there was a gigantic display of eight huge flat screens—two rows of four—glowing with late-breaking news footage. All were on mute, but the silence made it worse.
Tokyo burning. Smoke still curling into the skyline. Subtitles crawling across each screen.
But it was the center that stole my breath.
A giant 3D layout of Tokyo stretched nearly the entire length of the floor. Not flat like a map.
This wassculpture.
Towers rose up to my hips. Roads curved with chilling precision. I spotted Shibuya. Roppongi. Odaiba. Ginza. Ueno. Daikanyama. Akihabara.
Even the glinting shape of Tokyo Tower, scaled down to perfection, stood at attention beneath the low light.
Holy fuck.
It must’ve taken twenty artists. Maybe more.
Men moved along its edge, heads bent, murmuring to one another as they placed glowing tokens on key intersections or on top of roofs. A few painted huge black X’s on the front of buildings.
I wondered if those were the ones that had been bombed or would fall next.
Every now and then, I spotted small animal heads placed delicately on roofs too—some shaped like a fox, others carved into dragon heads with curved horns and gold-tipped teeth. I did catch a lion head here and there, but it was mainly dragons and foxes.
Territory markers?
It was too much to absorb. I was still cataloguing the sprawl when the sound of my heels clicked against the marble floor.
Everything slowed.
Conversations faded.
Cigars hovered midair.
Heads turned.
And then—all eyes found me.
Dozens of them.
Hardened men in designer dark suits and holstered guns. Some seated at steel desks with blueprints and open laptops. Others lined along the display, even bigger guns strapped to their hips.
And they were all now looking at me.
Alright. Here we go.
