I let myself into the headquarters house quietly and slowly, carrying my suit on a clothing hanger draped over my shoulder. I hadn't expected to come face to face with Oda-sama sitting neatly at the table in the main room, wearing his yukata and haori, reading a newspaper and sipping tea.

"You better not be hiding from someone, coming in here so early in the morning." He said, hardly looking up from his newspaper. He took a second cup from the tray the tea set was on and poured for me, setting the cup at the space beside him, inviting me to sit.

"No no, I'm not trying to hide." I sat down heavily, disappointed at having been discovered. "I stayed with a friend last night, and she has an early schedule."

Oda-sama cast me a glance out of the corner of his eye. "A friend with an early schedule is not a friend of our world." I stayed quiet. I couldn't disagree with his comment, and I couldn't defend myself. "I suppose you are getting older. Are you thinking about settling down yet?"

I wanted to give him the answer that he wanted to hear, which happened to be vastly different from what I really felt. I settled on a truth that was somewhere in the middle. "I can't settle down with anyone from our world, I'm afraid." I said. "Night life women are just too ingenuine."

"And ugly." Oda-sama said, taking a sip from his cup without looking at me.

I tried to hold back a smile. "And ugly." I agreed.

Oda-sama had managed to grow old without ties to anyone, without a wife, without children, but with many who wound up tied to him. "You better get changed, and not let anyone know you came in here without a suit on."

I gave up my seat beside Oda-sama as the meeting began to pace the room instead. The seat I would have occupied remained empty, and though I was slouching with my hands shoved into my pockets, my constant rotating presence in the room was intimidating.

"We have a mole." Oda-sama started the meeting without any introduction. "It had become known to me that our acquisition of the Club Diamond franchise was planned. They let us take over, even after so many years of resistance. This tells me they knew about the raids, and they let it happen. The question is why."

I didn't let it show that I hadn't known anything about what Oda-sama would say. My mind went blank. It took every ounce of energy I had to keep pacing. I hid glances at the younger recruits to study their expressions, and I didn't hesitate to judge the face of every other higher up member of the syndicate as well. Oda-sama either got word from a credible source, like he said, or he had a suspicion and was putting everyone sitting at the table to the test.

"We now have control over the west side of Tokyo. Regardless of if someone gave it to us or not."

As soon as he spoke the words, my mind came alive. "Oda-sama, your life is in danger." I was hovering somewhere around the middle of the table, and every head turned in my direction, waiting for me to explain. "Someone gave us a head start into taking total control so that we would do the leg work for them. Now all they have to do is take you out and step into your place."

He closed his eyes and nodded slowly just one time. He had been testing everyone sitting at the table, but he had been testing me as well. He had known the whole time. "Would you allow that to happen?"

"Absolutely not."

"Lay low for the next few days until we meet again. Make your rounds, but make no waves. And keep your eyes open."

Club Diamond was the last stop on my rounds for the day. I hadn't shown my face there since the take over, and the renovations that our associates had made erased any evidence that anything had happened there at all. I was accompanied by two of my men, taking caution not to be seen unguarded. Everyone knew who I was. Everyone knew my place. Admittedly, I was in as much danger as Oda-sama.

We were greeted at the door by the head mistress, with a weary look in her eyes, as if she was already exhausted at just the sight of me. "Obata-san, good evening." She said.

"Good evening." It bothered me that all I could think about the flash image in my mind of how hard she cried that night. A grown woman so scared of a man with a simple request. "I wouldn't mind sitting down for a drink, it's been a long day."

"Of course, right this way."

The mistress lead me to a booth in the back corner of the club with a circular seating arrangement and a small table just for drinks in the center. It was quieter, shielded from the other seats by paper screens acting as privacy barriers. I took a moment to admire the red leather upholstery, since it had been my own investment although I made no decisions. "What would you like? I'll have my best girl bring it for you."

"Just something simple and no sugar, whatever you recommend. And I'd like you to bring it."

I knew that my demeanor, although relaxed, must have been daunting. I had a habit of creating a very large presence in any room I happen to occupy, and I had no idea what she thought of me.

"Obata-san." I heard my name spoken quietly, and realized I had let my gaze dissolve out of focus. I blinked a few times to see Ito passing by. She smiled, and I waved at her with just my fingers, trying to make sure the gesture was small enough to be obvious that it was meant for her only. I watched her walk away, watched the way her form moved, saw the confidence in her stride. Her black hair was curled at the ends, and it hugged her shoulder blades and bounced as she stepped. She looked over her shoulder once, still smiling.

The head mistress returned, setting a drink down on the table from a small tray she carried with her palm flat on the bottom. She bowed, and I patted the seat beside me before she had the idea to try to walk away. "You and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other." I told her. "So we might as well make it as pleasant as business transactions can be." I held out my hand, intending for her to take it. "I'm Obata Kazuhide. What's your name?"

She took my hand, but avoided my eyes. "Ishikawa." She said.

"Good enough. Ishikawa-san, now I own your club, but I assure you I want the business to remain as comfortable for you and your employees as possible. I'm a nice person. I'll help you in any way I can if you just ask me. Understand? You don't need to be afraid of me."

She nodded, but I could tell she didn't believe me. She was listening. She was listening closely to me, that I knew, but she didn't believe me. At the time, I knew nothing I said or did would make her warm up to me. "The night of the raid, Ishikawa-san, I acted the way I did because I had a goal that needed to be accomplished. I had a goal, and I had a lot of people that I needed to keep in order so we could reach that goal. And we did, because I'm good at my job. But that's all it is, just a job."

I was tired of explaining myself to women who were afraid of me. I didn't think she was capable of orchestrating that would put Oda-sama's or my life in danger, but with how terrified she acted, she could have easily been turned into a pawn. I would have to do more digging, I thought, with an awareness that discovering such danger could become an obsession.

I had my men park my car in the alleyway beside the club, far enough away that even if some passerby thought I was waiting for a hostess, it would only be an assumption based on the fact that I owned the club. I was close enough still to be sure that Ito wouldn't be troubled by anyone lingering outside as she left. I leaned against the back of the car, one hand shoved into the pocket of my pants, the other idly holding a lit cigarette. I barely smoked anymore. I had simply lost interest in it. I was anxious to be free of my suit, having worn it for the entire day and night, and being generally unable to relax in it. My overnight bag sat in the back seat of the car, along with my gym bag that I kept my martial arts gear in. Again, I was going on the wild assumptions I was making.