The low, ambient lighting of the bar cast long shadows across the room.
Hayashi sat comfortably in a leather chair, swirling his drink.
The heavy wooden doors pushed open.
Arata and Tensei walked in.
Both of them looked worse for wear, their clothes dirtied and expressions exhausted.
The Rankers had truly pushed them to their limits.
Seeing them approach, Hayashi immediately stood up.
“Come. Sit down.”
The two men pulled up chairs opposite him, sinking heavily into the seats.
Arata let out a breath, pulling a cigarette from his pocket.
With an easy, almost forced smirk, he placed it between his lips, flicked his lighter, and took a long drag.
A thick cloud of smoke drifted toward the ceiling.
Tensei leaned forward, looking at Hayashi.
“Your plan to use the empty truck as a decoy was flawless. Because of that, we successfully managed to get the other two trucks completely out of Tokyo.”
A deeply satisfied smile spread across Hayashi’s face.
“I’m confident that with strategies like this, our business partnership will thrive.”
Arata glanced at Hayashi through the haze of smoke.
In his mind, a flash of his fight with Souta replayed—the sheer terror of having every single attack perfectly countered.
“Yeah… maybe,” Arata muttered.
“But I felt a terrifying presence out there tonight. Something dangerously close to Masaki’s level.”
Hayashi’s eyes sharpened.
“Good observation. Who was it?”
Arata stared down at the glass of water on the table, his eyes darkening.
“Souta Minami. It felt like he was predicting my next moves before I even thought of them.”
Hayashi leaned back, his voice dropping to a serious murmur.
“The man you fought… rumor has it he is the only person in the underworld who was ever offered the title of Rank Zero. Souta Minami.”
Both Tensei and Arata froze in genuine shock.
Tensei gritted his teeth.
“The Rankers really gave us hell out there… And that kid driving their car? He literally managed to crash two of our interceptors.”
[10 Hours Ago — The Bungalow Gates]
The night air was cool.
Hio, Souta, Ren, and Raiga stood outside the towering gates of the base.
Raiga and Hio began to walk through the entrance, but Souta suddenly stopped, grabbing Ren firmly by the wrist.
Ren blinked, looking down at Souta’s grip before meeting his eyes.
“Why aren’t you letting me inside?”
Souta offered a warm, brotherly smile.
“You go home and get some rest. We’ll handle everything else from here.”
Ren immediately stubbornly pushed back.
He gestured to himself.
“No, look at me! I didn’t get hurt anywhere, and I’m not even tired!”
“This is an official command.”
Ren deflated, letting out a frustrated sigh of his own.
He stared up at Souta with a slight pout.
Souta just chuckled, extending his hand outward.
Ren looked at the hand, a small, defeated smile breaking through.
“You’re really something else, you know that?”
Ren firmly shook his hand, turning around to head back home for the night.
Meanwhile, Masaki stood leaning against the open door of the bungalow.
Hio and Raiga approached him, their expressions heavy with frustration.
Hio pointed an accusing finger.
“Alright, tell us right now. How exactly did we *not* fail out there?”
Masaki gestured casually toward the living room.
“Come inside and sit down first.”
Hio crossed his arms stubbornly, turning his face away.
“No. I’m not sitting down. You’re going to tell us right here.”
Raiga couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile at Hio’s stubbornness.
Just then, Souta walked up from the gates.
Taking in the tense standoff, Souta raised an eyebrow.
“Is a battle starting out here too?”
Masaki rubbed his temples and let out a tired sigh.
“Fine. Listen closely.”
The three of them instantly went quiet, hanging onto his every word.
“Earlier, when I went to the cafe to meet my informant, he gave me intel,” Masaki began, his voice calm and calculating.
“He told me about a hidden godown where Hayashi stores all his raw materials. We only went to the street fight arena to do a preliminary check, but they handed us a golden opportunity by testing us with a fighter.”
Masaki’s eyes gleamed with tactical brilliance.
“So, I assigned Kirishima the task of physically locating that godown.”
“Out on the highway, the four of you drew so much attention and made such a massive spectacle, Hayashi’s forces had absolutely no idea that Kirishima had already completely secured the godown.”
“But…”
Hio’s eyes went wide with realization.
“Ohhh… so Rank 1 was moving behind the scenes this whole time.”
Raiga caught the tail end of Masaki’s sentence.
“Wait, why did you add a ‘but’ at the end?”
“Because,” Masaki replied smoothly, “now we have to go there and completely clear out all of that raw material ourselves.”
Souta tilted his head, a question forming.
“Where exactly is Rank 1 right now?”
A dark, predatory smile slowly formed on Masaki’s face.
“He went to deliver a reply to their little challenge.”
The dim, red neon lights cast a bloody glow over the interior of the bar.
Thick clouds of cigarette smoke hung heavy in the warm air, creating a suffocating, blurry haze across the room.
Sitting at a secluded corner table, Arata, Tensei, and Hayashi clinked their heavy whiskey glasses together.
Their laughter echoed loudly over the chatter, though it carried a strained, hollow edge.
Suddenly—
CHING!
The sharp ring of the entrance bell pierced through the noise.
Every single conversation died instantly.
Every eye in the room instinctively snapped toward the doorway.
A solitary figure stood framed in the entrance.
He wore a long, dark coat and pristine leather gloves.
In his hands, he loosely gripped twin tactical mini-axes.
Condensation dripped slowly from the dark metal blades, as if they had just been pulled straight out of a block of solid ice.
He stepped inside.
His pace was slow, steady, and terrifyingly calm.
The hardened thugs and patrons of the bar instinctively scrambled backward.
Wooden stools scraped harshly against the floor.
A glass slipped from someone’s hand and shattered into pieces.
The crowd parted down the middle like a retreating wave, desperate to get out of his path.
Only one man continued to walk forward into the lion’s den.
Rank 1.
Kirishima raizen.
With every measured step he took, the heavy wooden floorboards creaked under his boots.
Tensei’s subordinates, scattered around the bar, immediately recognized the figure.
The blood completely drained from their faces in pure, unadulterated shock—before quickly twisting into feral rage.
“It’s… it’s Kirishima!” one of the men screamed, panic bleeding into his voice.
“Kill him!!”
In less than a heartbeat, a dozen hands reached under coats and belts.
The metallic clatter of slides being racked filled the air as a dozen guns were drawn, laser-focused directly on him.
But Kirishima didn’t even blink.
His expression remained utterly deadpan, his heartbeat completely steady.
With a smooth, flawless flick of his wrist, he spun the heavy mini-axe in his right hand.
The exact millisecond the first thug’s finger tightened on a trigger, Kirishima moved.
He launched the weapon.
The axe tore through the hazy, smoke-filled air like a silver flash of lightning.
THWACK!
The heavy blade buried itself directly into the thug’s hand.
The man let out a bloodcurdling scream of agony as the sheer kinetic force violently knocked the pistol from his grip.
The gun spun wildly into the air, discharging by accident—
BANG!
—sending a stray bullet ricocheting loudly off the ceiling.
Kirishima didn’t break his stride.
He simply raised his remaining axe, his cold eyes locking onto the corner table.
His reply had been delivered.
—Chapter 15 End —