Midnight in Angelus. The full moon hung fat and swollen, radiating pale light across the shadow-draped streets. Lights burned fitfully against the wan glitter of the sea below. Seen from the 110th floor of the Kometetsu building, Angelus seemed like a ship set adrift upon an ocean of darkness.
The penthouse suite was a privilege and perk for the Oyabun of the Kurobara-Kai. As such, it was sumptuously decorated with expensive art, hand-carved teak furniture, jade and marble inlaid across the countertops while priceless rugs lay beneath the visitor's feet.
In the window, he studied his reflection - a face no mother would love, not anymore. Skin split and re-sewn into a jigsaw of zigzag scars, one eye almost completely exposed and milky white. A jaw and nose that appeared to have been mangled over and over again. His hair was iron-gray, his throat a road map of burn tissue.
The window, he noted, was of the bulletproof variety, and furthermore had carbon-steel threads woven into the glass. A prudent precaution in times such as these. The scarred man turned as he heard the door open, and bowed slightly.
Satori Hanzo returned the bow, although keeping his depth marginal, revealing his distaste for the visitor. "Ketsuhen Kowareru." He murmured. "Or do you prefer 'the Shattered One'?"
Ketsuhen chuckled with a sound like a knife chopping meat. "I prefer 'Breaker'. But you know why I am here."
Hanzo nodded, his normal reserve very thin at this moment. Something like sheer hatred gleamed in the Oyabun's eyes, and his hands clenched at his sides. "Ryuzo has sent you." Hanzo stated his comment as a fact rather than a question.
A deep breath gave Hanzo time to master himself, to calm his emotions, to find his center. He had navigated the treacherous currents of Angelus' underworld for years and had become quite successful at it. This was merely another challenge. "May I offer you a drink, Breaker-san?"
The offer was refused silently. Ketsuhen simply stood in place, seemingly rooted, almost a part of the building itself.
Hanzo frowned. It was time to stop playing games. "I know Ryuzo has Yasuo. He has my son."
Ketsuhen was unmoved, merely nodded fractionally in acknowledgment.
The Oyabun ground his teeth. "Is there nothing I can offer you to join me? Money, power..." Hanzo's eyes glittered as he reached for a handle that just might work. "Women. I can buy you a hundred geisha who will serve you. I will buy a personality wipe and condition a girl to love only you. She will think you are perfect."
Ketsuhen seemed to hesitate. Lost in thought, the huge and disturbingly mutilated man paused at the brink of a precipice. Then, like ice falling from the front of a glacier, he answered, voice soft. "No."
Hanzo sighed. "There must be something you want, Ketsuhen."
The Breaker shifted slightly, gesturing towards the window. "It would be easier to show you."
Hanzo walked to the window, taking a deep breath, and turned his fathomless gaze out to watch Angelus below.
Ketsuhen tilted his head slightly. "You see this grand city, and all it encompasses?"
Hanzo nodded, shoulders beginning to slump. "It is as I feared. You want control of th-"
A massive hand gnarled with scars and keloids shoved against Hanzo's back. Muscles tensed, and there was suddenly a sense of something utterly, terribly wrong. The house plant next to the door withered and died, shriveling into a black string of decay in the blink of an eye.
The window shattered. Chunks of reinforced glass spun into the night, lazily turning over and over as they followed Sattori Hanzo's body down, down, down. One hundred and ten stories to the street below.
"Ryuzo wants the city." Ketsuhen rumbled. "But what I want...is pain."