Tokyo, Japan, in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city.
2 April 1912
1:23 AM, JST
It is a clear night, with a full moon shining.
The gentle snick of shuffling cards. Thethud of a sake bottle placed on an empty overturned crate. A sigh, a grumble. The acrid smell of kerosene and the flickering light of the lamps scattered throughout the room, hazy in the cigarette smoke. It’s a cold night. The old warehouse is filthy, moonbeams shining through the splinters in the wooden wall, dust motes swirling in the light.
Katana Meyu taps her fingernails against the rickety table, studying the cards laid out in front of her. The numbers of the night remain ingrained in her mind, the cards flashing in front of her eyes.
Her opponent, a young man with a nervous expression and a slight build, glances around the warehouse before coming back to her. On the table between them, scattered like breadcrumbs, are a couple thousand yen (Korean and Japanese both), pesos shining silver, even a few copper cash coins. Quite the winnings, for a night like tonight.
“Well?”
Meyu finally raises her eyes to meet his, her lips twisting into a cat-like grin. Everything from her nonchalant posture to the worn aviator goggles resting on top of her blue-dyed locks of hair gives the message that she is unconcerned, unbothered. Only the sharpness of her eyes as they take in the various bakuto members standing around their game gives her away, and even then.
Everything is under control.
“You want to up the ante?” She offers, grinning, biting her tongue between her teeth, pink on white. “What do you say?”
He blinks, eyes wide and caught off guard. It’s been a long night. “What?”
Meyu resists the urge to roll her eyes as she unfastens the hooks at the neck of her tunic. Some of the other members of the gang scramble forward, eager to get a look, but she keeps her gaze locked with her opponent, unflinching and unfeeling, and reaches into the folds of the dark fabric, just below her leather corset. When her hand emerges, clasping two tiny jade droplet earrings, the rest of the bakuto drop back onto their seats, looking thoroughly disappointed.
Not all of them, though. Meyu’s opponent has suddenly gone dreadfully pale, and wets his lips several times before he speaks.
“You’re bluffing.”
Meyu tilts her head curiously. “Oh, am I?” Tosses the jewelry: the priceless jewelry, rumored to have belonged to the emperors of old, she tosses them onto the table like child’s play. Her eyes glint dangerously – they say there are bigger things at stake.
“Well?” She prompts, glancing around at their bleak surroundings, the growing hostility she can feel in the air every minute. “Are you going to roll with it, or should I just take my winnings and go elsewhere?”
Her hand is reaching for the earrings on top of the pile of money, when suddenly her opponent pitches forward in his seat frantically, placing a protective hand over the jewelry.
“N-No!” This kind of opportunity can’t be passed up. They both know this. “I take your wager!”
This is met with grumbles of displeasure from the surrounding members, one of whom grabs the boy’s shoulder and hisses furiously in his ear, “You fool, Yūto, you have nothing more to bet!”
“I-I still have the tickets –”
“Shut up, you’re going to get yourself killed.” The hand on the boy’s shoulder tightens, and Yūto winces slightly. “I’m gonna tell you this once, little brother, take your losses and walk away.”
There’s a tense silence that reigns, after that. Meyu leans back in her seat, tilts her head and smiles at the discomfort in the air. She’s been around this group long enough to know where each man stands in the complicated structure of the bakuto hierarchy, not quite illegal but close enough for them to hide out here in this dingy warehouse, away from the automaton Peacekeepers that prowl the streets this late at night. She’s been playing this band of gamblers and thieves like a six-string fiddle for two hours now, advancing closer and closer to her prize.
Yūto is just a boy, so young in this pit of vipers and snakes. She almost feels guilty.
Almost.
“Boys, it’s been a long night,” she says, stretching her arms up above her head and letting out a dramatic yawn. “And I have a train to catch in the morning, so as much fun as this has been…”
“I’ll take it,” Yūto breaks in, his voice determined and unwavering. Without so much as glancing at his superior, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out two wrinkled, folded up pieces of paper, and drops them on top of the earrings and yen. Holds his breath.
The man who had warned him scowls darkly, turns away to throw his cigarette on the ground and crush it beneath the heel of his boots. But he doesn’t say another word, doesn’t challenge the decision. No one does.
Meyu glances up at the eyes of her opponent. His are unflinching.
She smiles, and with that, they both flip over their cards.
“Kabu.” A five, two, and two. Nine overall. There’s something so very sweet about a perfect hand.
Yūto stares at the grain in the wood of the table, seemingly immobile in his seat. Not even looking at Meyu’s cards, but fixated on his own, his jaw slack and his breath coming out in trembling pants.
An eight, a nine, a three. Twenty-one.
“Yakuza.” The word is almost a whimper, a catch in his throat. Nobody moves, nobody breathes. Even the smoke in the air seems to hang still, a moment frozen in time.
Then, someone swears.
“You piece of sh*t, Yūto, you lost everything!” His superior snarls, grabbing the boy by the back of his shirt and hauling him off his seat and onto his feet. “I told you to walk away, I told you, you son of a –”
Meyu narrows her eyes as the commotion in the room rises to a clamoring din, as various other bakuto members dive forward to lay their own abuse on Yūto, who stands shaking in the man’s white-knuckled grasp. The poor kid is probably gonna end up exiled, or worse.
“Lemme at him!”
“Cut off his finger!”
“You’re dead meat, you little sh*t!”
The yelled Japanese voices swirl around Yūto as she reaches for the suddenly forgotten tickets on the table. Fans them out in front of her, studies the ink-carved letters. SS Titanic, Yokohama to San Francisco.
Excellent.
She raises her gaze now to watch Yūto cower before the glares of the rest of his gang. There is something like murder in their eyes, there is blood in the air.
Poor boy doesn’t stand a chance.
So she stands and kicks the table, sending the various coins scattering across the concrete floor. The clinking noise draws the attention of the members, though the one man still has a firm grasp on Yūto’s collar. They all stand and watch, Meyu and her tiny height almost overwhelming them with her presence. The rest of the warehouse seems to shrink in comparison.
“All right, gentlemen,” she says, folding and tucking the tickets into the front of her corset. “It’s been fun kicking your asses and all, but as I said before, I’ve got a train to catch.”
A smirk, a wink, and Meyu snatches the earrings off the table as she saunters to the door.
She makes eye contact with Yūto as she heads across the room. There are already bruises forming on his shoulder, visible through the torn sleeves of his jacket. There’s a visible trembling that wracks his frame – he’s terrified, though whether it’s of her or his uncertain fate, she doesn’t know.
Doesn’t matter. She presses the earrings into his hand as she passes by, warm palms and burning eyes.
“You can keep the change,” she murmurs.
Meyu pulls her goggles down over her eyes and pulls the door open, the fresh night air cool and sweet, the gas streetlamps of Tokyo at 1:30 shining bright in the distance. They keep staring as though in shock, all eyes on her, as she slips onto the streets, into the shadows.
She doesn’t look back.
She never does.
