The automatic doors of Sakura General Hospital sighed open at 11:42 am, on a grey Thursday in late April.
Paulo stepped through them into a world that felt simultaneously too bright and too muted, as though someone had turned the saturation down on reality itself.
His left eye, the one that had been a ruined socket of jelly and blood, was now hidden beneath a matte-black eyepatch that Mizaki had personally selected from a Harajuku boutique.
The surgeons had managed to save the orbit and implant a prosthetic that tracked almost perfectly with his remaining blue eye.
Almost. If you stared long enough, you could catch the faint lag, the half-second delay when he blinked.
A reminder, the doctor had said, that miracles have margins.
He wore the same cobalt-blue hoodie he had been found in three weeks earlier, now washed and mended by Mizaki's private tailor.
The slashes in the sleeve had been sewn with black thread that looked deliberate, almost decorative.
His ribs still ached when he breathed too deeply, and the new scar that ran from his left cheekbone to the corner of his mouth pulled tight whenever he spoke.
But he walked without the limp he had had when they wheeled him in.
Taekwondo had taught him how to hide pain; survival had made it second nature.
Mizaki walked half a step behind him, her bubble-gum-pink hair tied in a high ponytail that swished like a metronome.
She had not left his side for more than twenty minutes in twenty-one days.
Not when the police came.
Not when the principal, her father, tried to enforce visiting hours.
Not even when the nurses threatened to call security.
She had slept in the vinyl recliner, eaten convenience-store onigiri, and threatened to burn the hospital down if anyone tried to move Paulo to a public ward.
The staff had learned quickly: the principal's daughter was not bluffing.
Now she carried a pink duffel bag with his discharge papers, a bottle of industrial-strength painkillers, and the collapsible baton he had used to break Rin's arm.
She had cleaned the blood off it herself.
"Car's this way," she said softly, fingers brushing the small of his back.
Her touch lingered longer than necessary.
Paulo stopped on the pavement.
The sky was the colour of wet concrete.
Cherry blossoms had mostly fallen; the gutters were clogged with bruised pink petals that looked, to his newly asymmetrical vision, like flecks of dried blood.
"I told you I'd walk," he said.
"You're not walking anywhere alone," Mizaki replied.
Her voice was sweet, but the grip on his hoodie tightened, "Not until I know it's safe."
He almost laughed.
Safe.
The word felt like a joke in a language he no longer spoke.
That was when he saw them.
Parked beneath the wilting cherry tree across the street was a matte-black SUV with tinted windows.
Standing beside it were two figures he had prayed never to see again.
Miya Mori wore the Sakura High uniform like armour, burgundy bow perfectly centred, navy skirt pressed sharp enough to cut.
Her chestnut brown hair was pulled into a low bun, the cherry-blossom clip glinting like a warning. She looked smaller than he remembered.
Or maybe he had just grown larger in the dark.
Beside her stood Watsu Mori, six-foot-four, shoulders broad as a doorframe, black bomber jacket over a white tee that strained against muscle earned from years of something far more brutal than kendo club.
His buzzed hair had grown out slightly, giving him a shadowed, almost gentle look.
But Paulo knew better. Watsu's hands had ended Rin and Shin in the backyard shed while Paulo lay bleeding out on his own hallway floor.
The memory of wet thuds and the smell of iron still woke him at 3 a.m.
Mizaki stiffened. "Paulo—"
"Stay here," he said quietly.
"No." Her fingers dug in, "They don't get to talk to you without going through me."
He turned his head, just enough for her to see the remaining blue eye.
It was colder than she had ever seen it, "Mizaki. Stay. Here."
For a moment he thought she would argue.
Then her hand dropped, and she stepped back, violet eyes blazing with something between fury and pride.
Paulo crossed the street alone.
Miya's gaze flicked to the eyepatch, then to the scar, then to his hands, steady, no tremor.
She swallowed.
Watsu spoke first, "You look like shit, Satoshi."
"Funny," Paulo said, "I feel worse."
Miya opened her mouth, closed it.
The wind tugged a strand of hair across her face.
She did not brush it away.
"We need to talk," Watsu said.
He jerked his chin toward the SUV, "Get in."
Paulo shook his head, "No."
Watsu raised an eyebrow. "You sure? Because this is not the kind of conversation you have on a public street."
Paulo glanced back. Mizaki had not moved, but Marina and Shizuka had appeared from nowhere, Marina's long blue hair whipping in the wind, Shizuka's green eyes narrowed.
Backup. Or jailers.
He was not sure anymore.
He turned back to Watsu, "Here's fine."
Watsu sighed through his nose, "Rin and Shin aren't dead."
The words hit harder than expected.
Paulo's pulse thudded once in his ruined eye socket, "You told me you finished them."
"I said I managed them." Watsu shrugged, "Different thing. They are breathing. Barely. Rin's got a metal plate in his skull and a voice like a broken accordion. Shin will not walk without a cane before he is thirty. They are out of Tokyo. Out of your life. Out of Miya's. That is what matters."
Miya flinched at her name.
Paulo stared at her, "You came here to tell me your trash is still taking up oxygen?"
"No," Miya whispered, "I came to—" She stopped, glanced at her brother.
Watsu continued, "We came to tell you, you are not a threat. Not to us."
He paused, studying Paulo the way a butcher studies meat, "Because we know about the Satoshi Mafia."
The world narrowed to a single point. Paulo felt the scar on his cheek pull tight.
Watsu smiled without warmth.
"Yeah. We know your uncle Takeshi runs half the docks in Yokohama. We know your cousin Haru manages enforcement. We know the family voted to keep you out of it, 'let the kid have a normal life,' right? Cute. But normal went out the window the night you put three people in the hospital, and my sister called an ambulance instead of letting you bleed out."
Paulo's voice was flat, "Say what you came to say."
"Here it is." Watsu stepped closer, towering, "The family's watching now. They know what happened under the bridge. They know Rin pulled a knife. They know my sister was there when you lost an eye. And they are asking questions. Questions like: why is the Satoshi heir living alone in a suburban house with no protection? Why did no one come for him when he was half-dead in the river? Why is the principal's daughter sleeping in his hospital room like a psychotic guard dog?"
Paulo's remaining eye flicked to Miya.
She was crying silently, tears cutting clean tracks through the powder on her cheeks.
Watsu kept going, "Word's out that the Satoshi clan is weak. That they let their own get carved up by high-schoolers. Takeshi's losing face. Haru's itching to do something stupid. And every lowlife from here to Osaka smells blood in the water."
He leaned in until Paulo could smell the mint gum on his breath.
"So, here is the deal, Paulo. You stay the hell away from Miya. You keep your crazy pink stalker on a leash. And you tell your family, when they finally remember you exist, that the Mori family managed their rubbish for them. We protected their investment. They owe us."
Paulo laughed. It was a short, ugly sound, "You think this is about debt?"
"No," Watsu said, "It is about survival. Yours. Hers." He nodded toward Mizaki, who was now flanked by Marina and Shizuka like a tiny, furious army, "And hers." He looked at Miya.
Paulo followed his gaze. Miya's hands were trembling.
"Listen to me," Paulo said quietly, "Both of you."
He took one step forward. Watsu tensed but did not move.
"I'm not the threat," Paulo said, "Not anymore. I was a kid who trusted the wrong people. You beat me, you drowned me, you took my eye, and I still won. Because I am still standing. And you are scared."
Miya made a small, wounded sound.
Paulo ignored her, "But the family?"
He shook his head, "They do not forgive. They do not forget. And they do not do warnings. They do funerals."
He looked Watsu dead in the eye, "You want to protect your sister? Then protect her with your life. Because the Satoshi Mafia is not coming for me. They are coming for everyone who put hands on me. Rin. Shin. Alexis. Miya. Mizaki. You. They will start with the ones who can still walk."
Watsu's jaw flexed, "You are threatening my family?"
"I'm giving you the only heads-up you'll ever get," Paulo's voice dropped to a whisper, "Tell Miya to disappear. New city. New name. Tonight. Or the next time you see her, it will be in a box."
Miya sobbed once, loud and broken.
Watsu's hand twitched toward his jacket, Paulo saw the outline of a pistol under the leather.
His own hand brushed the baton in his hoodie pocket. Three weeks ago, he would have frozen. Now his heartbeat was steady, almost curious.
But Watsu did not draw. He just stared for a long moment, then stepped back.
"This conversation isn't over," he said.
"Yes," Paulo replied, "It is."
He turned and walked away. Mizaki met him halfway, slipping her arm through his like it had always belonged there.
Marina and Shizuka fell in behind them without a word.
As they reached the hospital's taxi stand, Paulo heard the SUV's engine roar to life.
Tires screeched.
Miya's muffled crying faded into the distance.
Mizaki's grip tightened, "What did they want?"
"To warn me," Paulo said.
Mizaki replied, "About what?"
He looked up at the grey sky.
Somewhere beyond the clouds, decisions were being made in rooms that smelled of cigarette smoke and old money
"About what happens next," Paulo commented
She studied his face, the scar, the eyepatch, the new hardness in his mouth, "You're not scared."
"No," he said, "I'm done being scared."
Mizaki smiled, small and terrifying, "Good. Because I am not letting anyone take you again."
Paulo did not answer.
He was watching a single cherry blossom petal drift down from a branch that should not still have any left.
It landed on the toe of his sneaker, pink and perfect and already dying.
He crushed it underfoot as they walked away.
Behind them, the hospital doors sighed shut. Ahead, the city stretched out like a chessboard where every piece was already in motion.
And somewhere in the distance, a phone was ringing in a dockside office in Yokohama.
Takeshi Satoshi picked up on the third ring.
"It's time," the voice on the other end said.
On the rooftop of Sakura General, a crow landed on the railing and cocked its head at the empty space where Paulo had stood moments before.
It cawed once, sharp, and final, then took flight toward Tokyo Bay.
The game had moved to a bigger board.
And Paulo Satoshi, scarred, half-blind, and no longer alone, was finally ready to play.