The private jet hummed steady at thirty thousand feet, cutting through the night sky like a knife. Inside, the cabin was dim, lit only by the faint glow of overhead lights and the moon shining through the small windows. Toji Yamazaki sat slouched in a plush leather seat, his black jacket unzipped, showing off a scarred chest that told stories of fights he'd won and some he'd barely walked away from.
His jet-black hair was messy, falling into his face, and those green eyes flicked to the girl beside him. She was curled up against the window, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder, her big eyes half-closed like she was fighting sleep. A backpack sat heavy on Toji's lap, stuffed with who-knows-what, and he tapped his fingers on it, restless.
"Look," he said, voice rough and loud, pointing out the window. "That's the blue house down there." His smirk was sharp, cocky, like he owned the world or at least the part of it he was about to wreck.
The girl blinked, slow and groggy, pressing her face closer to the glass. "Huh?" she mumbled, her voice soft, confused. Below them, Korea stretched out a patchwork of lights and shadows, the faint outline of some big building glowing blue against the dark. She rubbed her eyes, trying to focus, but her head felt heavy, like cotton stuffed inside her skull.
"Get up," Toji said, standing fast, slinging the backpack over one shoulder. His boots thudded on the jet's floor, and he grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet. She stumbled, legs wobbly, her head spinning harder now—like she'd been drugged, sedated, something slipping into her system she didn't notice 'til it was too late.
"Where?" she slurred, clutching his arm for balance, her eyes wide but unfocused. "Where are we—"
"This is our stop," he cut her off, grinning wide, those green eyes glowing brighter, wild and crazy. She blinked at him, head tilting, the words not clicking. Stop? They were in the air miles above the ground. Her stomach flipped, panic creeping in, but before she could say anything else, her knees buckled, darkness clawing at the edges of her vision. The last thing she saw was his smile sharp, dangerous, like a lunatic baring his teeth—then nothing.
Toji caught her as she went limp, slinging her over his chest like a ragdoll. He strapped her tight against him with a harness from his bag, her head lolling against his shoulder, her breath shallow. "Sleep tight Princess" he muttered, smirking to himself, then turned toward the back of the jet. Opening the main door at this altitude? No chance pressure would rip it apart, suck them out wrong, kill them both. He wasn't that dumb. Instead, he stomped to the cargo hold, boots echoing loud in the quiet cabin. A red switch glowed on the wall, and he slammed his fist on it without a second thought.
The hatch exploded open with a deafening boom, metal tearing free as freezing air roared in, sucking everything toward the gaping hole. Toji laughed—loud, crazy, a scream of pure thrill—as the wind yanked them out. They freefell, tumbling through the black sky, the girl strapped to his chest like a dead weight, the parachute pack his only lifeline.
The jet soared off toward the ocean, a doomed streak of metal, while they plummeted toward the jungle below, wind screaming past them. He pulled the cord mid-fall, the chute snapping open above, jerking them hard as it slowed their drop. His heart pounded, adrenaline flooding his veins—this was freedom, this was him.
They hit the ground solid but clean, Toji's boots slamming into the dirt, knees bending to take the landing. The parachute fluttered down behind, tangling in the trees, and he unclipped it fast, letting it flop into the mud. The girl was still out, limp against him, her dark hair plastered to her face with sweat. He unstrapped her from his chest, tossing her over his shoulder like a sack, her arms dangling loose. "Time to hike," he muttered, grabbing the empty parachute bag and stomping into the jungle.
Back home, the news hit like a bomb, shaking Japan to its core with a force that left everyone reeling. The private jet—a sleek, silver bird that had carried Toji Yamazaki through the skies—crashed into the ocean near Korea, a fiery wreck that lit up the night before sinking fast into the dark, churning waves. No survivors, they said, their voices grim and final over crackling radios and flickering TV screens. Toji Yamazaki—Kuro Oni, the Black Demon, the man who'd torn through enemies with his bare hands and left rivers of blood in his wake—was dead. The words spread like wildfire, igniting chaos in every shadowed corner of the Yamazaki syndicate, a sprawling empire built on fear and power. Members scrambled, vassals shouted, and the streets buzzed with panic as the news sank in—Toji, the unstoppable brute, was gone, leaving a hole no one knew how to fill. A funeral got thrown together quick, a rushed affair draped in black suits and crocodile tears, orchestrated by his brother, Gun Yamazaki, who stepped into the spotlight without a flicker of doubt. The guy with the reverse eyes—black irises with stark white pupils, eerie and unreadable—stood tall at the front of the packed hall, his face blank as stone, his hands steady as steel. He'd taken over without blinking, slipping into the role of the syndicate's new pillar like he'd been born for it, holding up the crumbling structure now that Toji's raw, brutal strength was lost to the sea. Where Toji had been a wrecking ball, all fists and blood and chaos, a spitting image of their father Shingen's savage fury, Gun was different—cold, sharp, a tactician with a mind like a blade, more akin to their late uncle Shintaro, who'd ruled with plans instead of punches. Some whispered in dark corners, their voices low and wary, that Gun had planned it all—that he'd rigged the crash, killed the monster himself to clear the board and take the throne. There was no proof, just rumors swirling like smoke, but Gun didn't care, didn't flinch, didn't even acknowledge the talk. He handled it all—vassals barking orders, deals teetering on collapse, chaos threatening to swallow everything—with an ease that made people nervous, an effortless control that chilled the air around him.
The funeral was a show, a spectacle—big, loud, and tragic, a performance for the masses who'd feared and followed Toji in equal measure. Hundreds showed up, packing the grand hall of the Yamazaki estate, their black suits a sea of mourning that drowned out the usual vibrancy of the place. They bowed low to a polished wooden coffin that sat center stage, empty save for a pile of ash scraped from the crash site—no body, no proof, just the charred remains of a story they'd all bought into. Gun stood there, towering over the crowd, staring at the framed picture of Toji propped beside the coffin—a snapshot of the Black Demon in his prime, smirking wide with those glowing blue-dotted eyes, like he was laughing at them all from beyond the grave. Gun said nothing, his silence heavier than any speech could've been—no tears streaked his pale face, no grand words spilled from his lips, just a quiet that pressed down on the room like a weight. The vassals, all twenty-two of them at the start, watched him close, their sharp eyes sizing him up, probing for weakness, wondering if he'd crack under the pressure of leading a syndicate that Toji had ruled through sheer force. He didn't. Gun stood firm, unshaken, his reverse eyes scanning the crowd without a hint of strain, and when the ceremony ended, he got to work—splitting the syndicate's load clean, dividing territories with a flick of his pen, handing out jobs like a general marshaling troops, keeping the whole damn thing running smooth as silk. Three months passed, a blur of time marked by whispers and wary glances, and the disorder that had flared up after Toji's "death"—the infighting, the power grabs, the panic—got stomped out fast, crushed under Gun's boot with a precision that left no room for doubt. Gun was good—too good, some said, their voices hushed over sake cups in back rooms—and when he packed up and headed back to Korea for some secret mission, no one dared step out of line, not yet, their fear of him a leash holding them tight.
The chaos had erupted the moment the jet's wreckage hit the news—vassals shouting over each other, members scrambling to protect their turf, the streets alive with rumors of betrayal and revenge. Toji had been the muscle, the fist that smashed problems flat, and without him, the syndicate felt like a house of cards in a storm. But Gun didn't let it fall. He stepped in smooth, his cold voice cutting through the noise, his orders sharp and final, and within days, the cracks started to seal. He didn't roar like Toji, didn't need to—his presence alone, that icy stare and steady hand, was enough to make men fall in line. The vassals who'd eyed him at the funeral, waiting for a stumble, found none; he divided their duties with a ruthless fairness, slicing up Japan's underworld like a pie and handing out pieces without a blink. The ones who'd whispered about him—calling him a schemer, a brother-killer—kept their mouths shut now, their theories unproven but their suspicions simmering. Gun didn't waste time on theatrics like Toji's bloody rampages; he was a shadow, a planner, moving pieces on a board no one else could see. The syndicate steadied under him, the chaos fading to a tense calm, and by the time three months rolled around, cracks were still there and was only widening Gun knew it too afterall Gun's method were completely different and he still has business to dela with in korea
Still, whispers grew, creeping through the shadows of Japan's underworld like smoke that wouldn't clear. Toji's crash—too clean, too perfect, a story that didn't sit right with the sharper minds in the Yamazaki syndicate. The private jet going down in flames, sinking into the ocean near Korea with no survivors, no body to bury—it was all too neat, too convenient, and the more they thought about it, the more it stank. Some vassals, the ones with keen eyes and sharper instincts, started talking in low voices, huddled over sake in dim back rooms or behind closed doors where no one loyal to Gun could hear.
Gun Yamazaki was the last Yamazaki blood, the only thread left holding the syndicate's legacy together, and that made him a target bigger than he knew. If he went down—if they could make him go down—billions were up for grabs, a jackpot so fat it made their mouths water. Land stretched across Japan's cities, from Tokyo's neon slums to Osaka's gritty docks, all tied to the Yamazaki name. Cash piled high in hidden accounts, laundered through clubs and warehouses, enough to buy armies or burn cities. Power—real power, the kind that let you rewrite the rules and crush anyone who didn't bow—was dangling right there, ripe for the taking if they could pull it off. Toji had been a monster, a storm of fists and fury, but Gun? Gun was cold, smart, a tactician who didn't roar but still got results. They'd dealt with Toji's chaos before, survived his temper tantrums and bloody rages, so Gun felt… manageable, like a problem they could solve with the right moves. He wasn't invincible—he bled like anyone else—and that gave them hope, a spark to cling to as they schemed.
The vassals who'd stuck around after Toji's "death"—nineteen now, down from twenty-two—weren't all on board, but the sharp ones, the ambitious ones, were already counting the prize. Men like Hiroshi, a wiry guy with a dragon tattoo curling up his arm, who'd lost three fingers to Toji's wrath years back and still hated the family name. Or Yumi, the shaved-head woman with a scar over her eye, who'd clawed her way up from nothing and saw Gun as a wall she could topple. They met in secret, away from the syndicate's main halls, in rundown bars or empty warehouses where the walls didn't talk. "Crash was too perfect," Hiroshi muttered one night, swirling sake in a chipped cup, his voice low and bitter. "No body, no wreckage we could check—just ash and Gun's word. You believe that?" Yumi smirked, leaning back against a crate, her knife flipping between her fingers. "Doesn't matter what I believe," she said, her tone sharp. "Matters what we do about it. Gun's alone now—last of the blood. We take him out, it's all ours." The others nodded, eyes glinting in the dark, their greed a quiet fire stoking their plans.
The stakes were sky-high, and they knew it. Billions in cash—stacks of yen hidden in vaults, wired through fake businesses, enough to buy loyalty or bury enemies. Land—prime turf in every major city, from Kyoto's old streets to Yokohama's ports, all ripe for the grabbing. Power—the kind that let you sit at the top, make vassals kneel, run the underworld like a king. If Gun fell, it split wide open, and they'd be the ones to scoop it up, carve it between them, build their own empires on the Yamazaki bones. They'd lost three vassals already—idiots who'd jumped too soon, tested Gun's grip, and paid with their lives—but the sharp ones learned, watched, waited. "He's smart," Hiroshi said another night, puffing a cigarette, the smoke curling around his scarred face. "But he's alone.We hit hard, hit quiet, he's done." Yumi nodded, her knife stilled in her hand. "One brother's 'dead,'" she said, smirking dark. "What's one more?"