Richard Takato was the name he was born with, but now, he helmed the title of Yokosuka Ladies’ newest waiter: Shinichi Nakasaki. He held up a tray with a golden bucket holding a champagne bottle and a gold chalice decorated with diamonds. Clad in a purple suit that matched the carpet he darted across on his way to his waiting customer.

He adjusted his earpiece deeper into his ear as he walked past white vector-based patterned loveseats where salaryman after salaryman was being kept company by unbelievably beautiful women in tight, showy dresses—feeding them sushi, laughing at their stories, teasing them with tantalizing stares, and most importantly, making sure they burn through their checking account and then clean out their savings.

The air of the opulent space filled with laughter and frantically happy shrieks was blessed with a composite fragrance of sweet alcohol and deluxe male and female perfume.

Takato fought to not focus on the alcohol and its luring scent as twinges assaulted his mind.

His target luxuriated all the way at the end of the club blocked away from the other groups with wooden walls, like a cubicle. Takato stepped into the VIP section through the opening and froze, trying to hide his glare behind his forged dark brown eyes.

Despite not having the highest frequency of visits, the hulking, snazzy-dressed grave-robber was proudly credited with being the customer who spent the most money annually. It was not a surprise he was treated like a king whenever he showed up.

Domingos was slouched back into the largest curved sofa Takato had ever seen. His legs were spread open and his arms extended to either side, two stunners on each arm.

A buffet spread on the wide ottoman before them—literally every item on the menu even sashimi Takato knew Domingos would never touch. More beautiful girls of various kinds were seated on the rest of the massive couch, because why not? The girls happily helped themselves to the meals spread out for the party. Even though they couldn’t effectively flirt with Domingos, the point here wasn’t if it was effective or not to get so many girls, it was “If I can, I will”—a mantra the Neanderthal came up with for himself and has followed it without fail.

Which incentivized him to commit that heinous crime.

“Are you just going to stare at my balls all night, dipshit?” Domingos rasped.

He didn’t even bother to insult him in Japanese. Takato wasn’t sure if Domingos knew the language or not, but wouldn’t be surprised if he never took the time to learn. It’s not like it would be much of a barrier to getting what he wants. Food and women didn’t require verbal requests for him, and if the latter denied access… there’s no need to understand what they’re saying while resisting. It was an easy job anyway.

Takato forced a smile and announced the arrival of his drink in Japanese. He approached the king and his mistresses and grabbed the chalice from the tray.

As he looked for a spot to place it on the ottoman, Takato thought back to all the times he spied on Domingos’ sleazy activities during his leisure whenever they had a job in Japan. Towards the end of the night, he was always rewarded for his outrageous expenses with a gold, diamond-encrusted chalice, and a cup’s worth of Dom Perignon Rose Gold champagne.

He had to pay for the rest of the bottle of course.

Takato found a spot and placed the chalice, and then the bucket with the bottle. He trembled for a bit staring at the rosy pink liquid and then averted his gaze with a struggle. “Here is your final drink of the day, Domingos-san,” he said in Japanese.

Domingos eyed him with a lazy look and then grabbed the brunette to his left by the back of her neck.

The other girls silenced and froze.

Only the sounds of the easy jazz and the girl's faint whimpers could be heard in the room as Domingos started to shake her.

The muscles that outlined his high-collar paisley shirt from underneath were flexing as she shook the girl without breaking eye contact with Takato.

Then, he pulled the girl to him and planted his lips on her, and then forced his tongue into her mouth.

Another pleasant quality of Domingos was the need to show off. Drawing a line between his superiority and other men’s inferiority was a prime directive for him. It was as important as breathing to show he was at the top of the dominance hierarchy.

As he continued to make out with the brunette, Takato was confident that this wasn’t allowed even for their best customer, the morbid fact became even more evident when he noticed the awkward smiles plastered on the faces of the other girls. They had no idea what to do.

He could stop him, but there was no need to.

Domingos would be too dead to continue soon.

Takato glanced at the chalice and failed to hide his smirk. Of all the sins the deviant bore, gluttony was going to be the one to send him to the grave.

Domingos pulled away from the violated hostess and reached for the champagne bottle, clenching its neck with a mighty grip. He brought it to his lips and chugged it down.

Takato’s eyes widened in panic.

With a step back, he tried to recollect himself and believe that Domingos would touch the chalice eventually. He liked being the king. There was no way he was going to pass on the opportunity to drink from a chalice even though he had many times before.

Domingos dropped the empty bottle onto the carpet and forced himself onto a blonde to his right, liquid was still leaking from the side of his lip and now pouring into the poor girl’s mouth.

Takato turned away. All he could do now was hope.

It’s what got him through that time and it’s what can get him through this. There was no need to watch him die. All he had to do was wait for the screams and besides, the stench of alcohol int he air was making him weak. He started walking.

Ding.

Takato whipped around, startled.

Domingos was slouched forward flicking the rim of the cup with his massive finger. The disgusting smile on his face was smug enough to run for office and a look as sharp as his pointy shoes. “Do you want me to drink from this cup?” Domingos asked, still in English.

He stopped for a moment and feinted a grasp of the chalice.

Takato flinched.

“Man, you’re pathetic. If you want to kill me so badly, then just tell me.”

Takato’s face fell and he knew he was defeated. “How?”

“I don’t know how you set this all up. I guess you’ve been watching me for a while. Ever heard the saying: ‘the devil is in the details'? Everybody here calls me ‘Ben-san’, idiot.” He picked up the cup and poured it onto the carpet. “Courtesy of the twins’ poison, huh? Too bad,” he jested.

Even though they were hopelessly lost on what he was saying, the language barrier let the cruel animosity in his voice slip through, and the girls stared in terror. Takato noticed a number of them twisting uncomfortably in their seat.

“To be honest, I was trying to lure in the 2nd power couple. I should’ve known better than to depend on Chris to be spontaneous even with that tiny lunatic by his side.”

Takato moved his hand to his mouth, awestruck. Could Domingos have devised a plan of his own?

Domingos dropped the chalice. “So, you want to get the first hit in… Takato?”

With the green light given, Takato stayed in place and his attention was grabbed by the hostesses. They were squirming and whining about feeling weird.

“I have a question for you, Takato,” Domingos said. “How do you like your women?”

The blonde’s face swelled grotesquely and she fell frontward onto the carpet, provoking a choir of screams from the other girls.

Then their skin began to expand as well.

The slim arms of the hostesses enlarged in width and became runny alongside their once supermodel-worthy legs. Their screams were muffled by their own expanding flesh as they transformed into massive blobs of skin. Unable to move due to the crushing weight of what was now their bodies.

Domingos shot up and raised his intimidatingly large fist. “Personally, I like my girls to have a little more meat on their bones.”

###

Vanessa was parked in an alleyway, humming stubbornly.

Chris sat in the passenger seat with Ryder humming behind the wheel. His hums were bizarrely in sync with the van’s engine and the stereo’s playing of a slowed-down electronic version of a Japanese song Chris suspected must’ve been from the ‘70s.

The clumsy sharpshooter cringed inward realizing he was liking the music which Ryder identified for him as Vaporwave—another product of hipster culture the ever-unique getaway driver subscribed to.

Chris adjusted his earpiece in trepidation that his new curse would stop him from hearing his ally’s distress calls at a crucial time. Turning his head back, Chris’s eyes locked onto the abductee. He was in deep sleep, spread out on the backseat in just his tank top, boxers, and socks.

“Richard could’ve at least given him his clothes,” said Ryder, turning his head back to the young man.

Chris shot a glance at Ryder. “I think we played enough dress-up for today, don’t you think?” he said, referencing their deplorable actions with Tayte prior to entering the hotel.

A smug smirk curving up on one side of Ryder’s face riled up Chris.

“What the hell is that look for?” Chris asked. “Let me guess you’re going to make a comment about me liking Tayte or something.”

“Well, do you? I think you two would make a cute couple. You’d bring her down to earth and she’d help dig you out from so deep in the ground.”

“First of all, that analogy sucked, and second of all, shut up.”

Ryder turned back to the dashboard and spun the dial back, the music lowered.

Naturally, Chris feared the worst coming as Ryder lowering music is the equivalent of his mother calling him by his full name.

Ryder leaned forward until his chin touched the leather driving wheel. “Do you think… with Tatyana in a coma we should use the opportunity to take her home?”

“As long as Tayte’s soul is fused with the Relic she’ll always have that target on her back,” Chris replied, his voice tinged with a bit of vexation. “Come on, man, you know this.”

“Richard said he is only interested in killing Domingos and not the Trials right? Maybe you two could team up against Mayumi and Adisa, as well. If we dropped her back in Sugarmaple, she’d have no way of getting back to Japan on her own, or at least, not before the Trials are over. That way there’ll be no worry about—”

“I would still need to get her to forfeit her Relic. We both know that she wouldn’t be willing to.”

“But if there is nobody else to fight by the end, then it’ll be pointless for her.”

A wicked thought conjured in Chris’s head that made his stomach turn over. What if Tayte decides to fight him? The fear of saying it aloud made him sabotage the conversation, switching it completely. “Back at the Muhabura Checkpoint I told Tayte about my uncle,” he said.

Ryder straightened himself and stared back silently.

“Yeah about the… you know.”

Ryder curled his lip to the side. “I thought that you had already told her by then.” He leaned back, reclining the chair by a couple of inches, and took off his heart-shaped glasses. “Why did you suddenly decide to tell her there?” said Ryder, focusing on his glasses as he played with them in his hand.

Chris studied Ryder after detecting an unusual shrewdness in his tone. “I don’t know. I was caught up in the moment… she was crying, man. I have never seen her like that, no, I didn’t think she was able to express emotions like that.”

“She must’ve cared a lot for Tatsunori.”

“Yeah, I guess, but I think it goes even deeper than that. She was a mess. She even said she wanted to quit.”

Ryder shot up in his seat and stared back with wild eyes. “What?”

“But it was just a mumble. Something that just came out with all the negative emotions whirling in her. Obviously, she didn’t mean it.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’ve never said something you didn’t mean when you were sad or angry?”

“Christopher. It’s like getting drunk. You don’t say anything that your brain hasn’t thought about at least once.”

“You know how she is. You know she doesn’t want to quit. It feels so redundant having to say this over and over!”

“I just… think it’s interesting that’s the moment you chose to tell her about the reason why you want to beat the Trials.”

Chris felt the anger simmering in his as he looked back at Ryder. “What are you accusing me of, Darren?”

“What?” Ryder’s voice was now hostile. “You just want to hear me say it? You know what I mean.”

As he felt his insides seethe, Chris began to tremble in his seat fervently. Although his eyes were facing Ryder, all he saw was red.

How could that bastard accuse him of exploiting his Uncle’s suicide?

“Okay, how about this?” Chris began. “You just focus on your damn job of being a driver and stop moonlighting as a judgmental therapist. Do you think you have any right to judge people?” He struck a spot on his side of the dashboard and a small compartment opened.

A white gold ring scintillated from inside. Chris noticed Ryder spring up from the corner of his eye.

Still seeing red, Chris grabbed the ring and held it up. “You think your dead fiancée is possessing this van! Don’t you try to talk me like you’re some kind of wise sage with no problems or some shit.”

“Put that back, Christopher,” Ryder said slowly with a frightening intensity.

The feral look in Ryder’s eyes was one that Chris had never seen before. It was beastly and teasing a brawl that he definitely wanted.

Something about Ryder not giving a damn about jumping into a fight with him without a Relic of his own terrified Chris. He dropped the ring back into the compartment and closed it. The guilt began to pang in his gut—he thought he would have a few more minutes before it started. Ryder showed him the ring’s space in confidence. He would’ve never done as so if he knew it would result in this betrayal of his trust all these years later.

“You should really get rid of that ring. She’s dead and never coming back. That’s how death works,” Chris said in a quiet voice, channeling the creed of the Enbergs.

Ryder clenched the steering wheel, staring calmly at Chris. “The only reason why I don’t kick you out right now is because you haven’t wired the final payment, yet. But if you hit Vanessa like that again I’ll break your fucking legs, Christopher Nangobi.”

The two stared at each other.

Then, Chris’s ear buzzed slicing through the heated silence and a distressed voice emitted.

“We’ve got a problem,” Takato said from the earpiece.