Don't fuck with someone who was there from the start! Sano Mitsuo sighed in depression. Helping his best friends with their vendetta had taken him down roads best never walked.

When he had a high schooler framed and expelled from her school her guardian finally popped up like a toad from a boiling pond. All a matter of how to smoke people out. Now that retard tried making trouble instead of go down and disintegrate like a good kid. Only after the loss his mother's hospital care and Mitsuo making sure the wife got fired from her job for stealing, did the man understand what kind of opponent Mitsuo was.

Still, didn't expect her to take her life as well. Bah, shit happens.

Mitsuo knew rumours were spreading. He did the spreading after all, but the last week rumours of a digital bakemono making their way to him weren't his, and Mitsuo wondered who the hell were digging up shit on his targets behind his back.

His father's teachings worked for the dirty job he was doing now, but repressive suppression methods from early Showa just weren't applicable on-line.

And someone did anyway. Who the hell are you? He sighed again. I'm too old for this shit. Damn, I'm twice too old!

Contacts from organised crime refused to talk to him over the phone. A friend of his as well as a mole flat out told him to get his arse to Osaka if he wanted to talk banking frauds and refused to continue the email conversation.

The last day or two Mitsuo's suspicions grew. One out of two. If the boyfriend, then a major pain in the arse, admittedly a damn skilled pain. That was the good option.

If it was his granddaughter, if it was Tina, then it was time to get the hell out of the area. From what he read in her eyes Mitsuo knew you didn't end up sorry if you stood in her way; you ended up dead. She was his relative through and through. She was also the only person he knew who scared him.

A phone-call to his friends revealed that they were absolutely clueless. The Wakayamas were as ruthless as naive. One of the reasons Mitsuo loved them so much.

What do I do? That Ulf kid didn't scare him. He could probably be talked with, even included for mutual benefit, but Tina. If it was Tina he could end up dead before she even knew.

Unbeknownst to either of the latest arrivals Mitsuo had milked Ashiga James for as much information as possible. Mitsuo never expected to stay in Tokyo for a second evening, but when it came to Christina Agerman, The Billion Dollar Empress, there was no end to the stories. She was a long way removed from the Princess of Scandinavia, and Mitsuo wondered what had turned her into a monster.

He knew, that she knew, that both of them knew, that you couldn't feign innocence and lack of knowledge. Chag was her personal beast, and Chag ate people all over the world.

A doctorate in history, it turned out, was a highly efficient vessel for memorising and classifying data pertaining to society. In fact Ashiga James was a goldmine when it came to anything relating to the upstream world before he arrived here.

I have to risk it.

Mitsuo's next target was a businessman. He had two sons, and the younger could be tied tighter to the yakuza, if Mitsuo paid the right kind of people some money. Nothing much. What Mitsuo wanted was for the business to get associated with organised crime. The kid could just lie down and die for all he cared.

I don't think Natsumi and Tadao would agree, but you both knew I was broken from the beginning. Mitsuo shook his head. And you still called me to fight your war? What am I getting myself into? Anything bad enough for his two friends to give up their decency had to be disgustingly bad. I hope you'll be able to live on when it clings to you. This kind of dirt can never be washed away.

Oh well, I need to know. He prayed he had guessed right and sent Ulf Hammargren an email. After that it was time to hang enough shit around the throat of an eighteen year old child to make sure he wouldn't be accepted at university. Nothing less would make his father budge.

And I'm one of the good guys? Sheesh, where did the world go wrong? Grinning more honestly now Mitsuo rang a contact of his, who didn't know exactly where he was going to be hit by a drunk motorcyclist. After the accident Mitsuo wasn't needed any longer. The former athlete knew how to spin a web of lies well enough without any instructions.

There was a response to his email. Yes! Thank all gods!

Would the kid be interested in cooperation?

Yes, but what was in it for him?

Money?

No, he made enough of those. Names and places.

What the hell? They were hunting the same people. Or almost the same people. Difference being Ulf didn't want anyone killed, and Mitsuo didn't need a naive kid to tell him how to solve a problem.

And then, very suddenly, Mitsuo found out there were two persons in the world who scared him. In less than ten minutes he had no working phone, no assets in the bank, and a paper delivered to where he was walking, by means of a taxi, told him in no uncertain terms what would happen to his ownership of that spa south of Ise if even one more person died.

Sano Mitsuo, almost a hundred years old subjectively and forty objectively, grinned like a retarded teenager when his telephone came alive again. Hell yeah! Whenever you want to marry Tina, just say the word and I'll walk her down the aisle.

Guts and integrity. What was there not to like? Never before had anyone dared to bring down the hammer of doom on his head without a moment of hesitation. Natsumi eventually did, but Mitsuo was certain there had been quite some deliberations before.

I had forgotten how much more fun it is with new arrivals. Fine Ulf, I'll deliver them by their balls. Alive, but by their balls.

***

Ryu handed over his tablet to Hitomi-chan. This was their last day before exams, and the club members were cramming like their lives depended on it. It didn't, he knew that. Ryu had looked at the statistics. With the exception of Urufu and Kuri the club members fared a lot better than the average.

And they're our teachers, or at least Urufu is. Madness.

Stockholm Haven Café. Their haven. Their changed haven. A core of half a dozen Irishima High students made it their primary hangout as well. There were over a dozen Red Rose high students as well. All of them demonstratively took off their red blazers as soon as they entered. Rumours had it all of them would transfer to Himekaizen come April.

“Urufu, last one.”

No response.

“Urufu, wake up!” Oh shit, sorry.

While there still was no response, this time Ryu didn't say anything. He just watched Urufu's expression of desolation when he caught Kuri in his view.

I don't understand it. You two are so obviously in love with each other, so why break up? Ryu looked as Urufu crossed the room. Is he making contact with her again? They haven't talked for weeks.

And it seemed he was. Ah, of course. Mars 14.

“In return for your gift,” Urufu said to her back, and directly addressed like this she couldn't ignore him.

“Thanks,” Kuri said and just turned enough to receive a very small paper bag.

Urufu returned, and to Ryu's surprise he received a high five. “Have an errand to run. Keep the place running, will you?”

What?

“Ulf! No! Ulf! You can't!”

“See you later,” Urufu said and pretended not to have heard Kuri's shouts.

“Ulf, dammit. Stay!”

But the boy just left the room and Ryu could only stare at a back and a waving had.

“Ulf, no!”

And this was his cue. “Sorry my friend, but Urufu said he was busy. Shall we respect that?” With those words Ryu caught Kuri and pulled her back into the room. Now what on earth would bring out that kind of reaction from her in the first place?

“What on earth...”

“Don't touch it!” Kuri rushed back to where she had left her opened bag on the table. “Don't touch it!”

Too late. Urufu must have stripped his gift off the box it originally came in, but Ryu still saw the ring that rolled out.

Crap! Maybe dad wasn't all that showy after all.

“Don't touch it! It's mine!”

“Must have been real great chocolate,” Hitomi-chan said with venom in her voice. Since the break-up Kuri was worth less than a cockroach in her eyes.

Kuri flinched and sat down, but not until after she had secured the ring.

Ryu couldn't think of anyone in his circle of acquaintances who would have refused it as a wedding gift. So that's why you worked so hard? And that still didn't make sense. A need to burn time seemed more likely.

You two. I just don't understand you two.

By now more of the girls had seen that something happened.

“What was it?” Sakura-chan wanted to know.

“Urufu handed her some cheap crap,” Saki-chan said and nodded at Kuri.

Hitomi-chan shot her some lightning from her eyes. “Remind me to tell you future fiancé not to bother with anything expensive.”

“Hitomi?” Sakura-chan said.

Oh, you two dropped the honorifics?

“Kuri's Valentine's gift to Urufu was to break up with him,” Hitomi-chan said, and Ryu noticed how Kuri cringed under the onslaught. “In return he gave her a wedding ring.”

“Why?” came a whisper from Kuri's chair.

Hitomi-chan knew no refrain. “It might look just like another brilliant, but if you have it checked, knowing Urufu, I promise it's a Scandinavian standard cut.”

“Why? Why you bloody stupid idiot! Why, if you're going to give me this?”

“Because he actually wants to show who he loves, you piece of shit!”

Something in that accusation rang false. Wasn't it always you who showered him with open love? What's going on?

“Ryu, please help me. I need someone to talk with.”

More like a shoulder to cry on. “Fine, but I'm telling Ai-chan first.”

Kuri shot him a guilty stare and nodded. Then she grabbed her bag, coat and umbrella and left the room. Most likely she wouldn't come back again, and Ryu doubted she'd be welcome to. No matter what Urufu said, and to be honest he said far less than he could have, Kuri's reputation stayed glued to the floor.

Poor girl, Ryu thought as he wrenched his own coat over his shoulders. A nonchalant hand by his head he waved his way through the door and went directly for the table Ai-chan shared with some of her friends.

“Seems my club president has a problem she wants to discuss with me. We're just outside if you need me.”

Ai-chan had seen who just left the café and gave him an unhappy look. “Just outside?” she asked.

Ryu nodded and zigzagged his way to the exit. True to the promise he had given Kuri really stood just outside. On the other side of the street, but still just outside. He joined her and made sure they could be immediately seen from the café.

“So, what's on your mind?”

“I don't get it,” Kuri said, and from her voice Ryu could tell she had cried a little.

“Don't get what?”

“If you need a girl to break up with you for her own best, why would you give her something like this?” On her annualry a large diamond glimmered under the street-lights. Even Ryu could see it must have been horribly expensive.

“For your own best? Isn't that for you to decide?” The last question made him wonder just to what extent he had allowed himself to be influenced by Urufu.

“He won't let me. I know he loves me, but he never said so. So I had to break up with him, even though I love him.”

But for Ai-chan, this is when I would have made my move on you. Kuri attracted him. Ryu didn't even pretend anything else, but he was no longer in love with her, or at least not as much as he liked Ai-chan.

“I don't get you two,” he said. “For now, just keep it and wait until after the exams, OK?”

“Wait for what?”

“I'll ask sis. She's the smart one.” As if she would know anything about a mess like this. Whatever, anything that allows us to take our exams in peace.