The mercenary, still cradling his firearm, stumbled back as another drop of molten metal hissed onto the carpet, burrowing a tiny, smoking crater. He swung his barrel wildly between the dripping steel and my reclined posture. Sayuri, meanwhile, had begun to hyperventilate. She gripped the armrests of the overturned arcade cabinet, her knuckles white. “We’re going to die! She’s going to melt us all into expensive puddles!”
I merely sighed. Puddles implied movement. I disliked movement.
My gaze drifted to the growing, fiery fissure in the blast doors. This was just another Tuesday, only with more heat and less air conditioning. Back then, Tuesdays meant something different entirely.
*The fluorescent hum of the Kyobashi Tower’s 37th floor was a constant, low thrum against my eardrums. My fingers, numb and aching, pecked at the ancient keyboard, churning out another quarterly report for the ‘Shizen Corp.’ – natural wellness products, ironically enough. The digital display on the corner of the cathode monitor blinked 2:17 AM. My eyelids felt like sandpaper. My spine was a question mark. Another all-nighter. Another deadline. Another promotion for some go-getter who clocked in twelve hours and left me to finish the work.*
*My supervisor, Mr. Tanaka, a man whose soul had been surgically replaced with a spreadsheet, had praised my ‘tireless dedication’ yesterday. My dedication was to not getting fired, which required a truly monumental expenditure of energy I simply didn’t possess anymore. The thought of collapsing, just letting my face hit the keyboard, was a daily fantasy. A beautiful, sweet surrender to oblivion. That day, the fantasy almost became reality. A sharp pain in my chest, a sudden dizziness. The world tilted. The keyboard swam. And then, mercifully, nothing.*
And then, this. This glorious, effortless existence where the only report I had to worry about was whether the caviar supplier was consistent. I wouldn’t trade it for all the power-lunches and corner offices in Neo-Kyobashi.
The molten steel doors finally gave way with a screech of tortured metal, peeling inward like a fiery flower. Smoke billowed into the penthouse, carrying the scent of scorched paint and ozone. Through the haze, a figure emerged. Oba-san Chiyo. She was no longer the sweet, tea-brewing matriarch. Her kimono, a deep indigo, was splattered with grime and something dark that was likely not tea. Her silver hair, usually pulled back in a neat bun, had escaped its confines, framing a face contorted with a fierce, almost feral triumph. Behind her, a contingent of heavily armed men, their faces grim under tactical balaclavas, fanned out, their weapons trained on us.
“Reika-chan,” Chiyo’s voice, once so gentle, now grated with an edge of cold steel. “I must say, your tenacity for… *inactivity*… is truly astounding. But even a rock eventually succumbs to the tide.” She gestured grandly around the opulent arcade room, ignoring Sayuri, who had whimpered and ducked behind a racing game cabinet.
“The Shinjo clan once stood for something!” Chiyo continued, her voice rising, echoing against the scorched walls. “Ambition! Legacy! Honor earned through sweat and blood! Not… this!” Her gaze, burning with contempt, swept over me, still reclining on my plush leather cushions, a half-empty glass of soda precariously balanced on my belly. “A parasite. A useless, indolent trophy wife who contributes nothing but… *breathing*! You have no legacy, Reika. No ambition. No understanding of what it means to truly *strive*.”
She took a step closer, her eyes glittering with a frightening intensity. “You exist to consume, not to create. You are a stain on the Shinjo name, a monument to the decay Kenjiro has allowed. When I retake what is mine, I will rebuild it with steel and fire! With purpose! And you, my dear, will be nothing more than a forgotten footnote in the annals of a clan that remembers what it means to rule!”
I blinked slowly. All that yelling. Exhausting. The soda in my glass was starting to lose its fizz. I shifted slightly, just enough to find a more comfortable dip in the cushions. My hip nudged against something hard. It was the loose panel where I’d dropped the remote yesterday when trying to change the channel on the gargantuan cathode-ray projection console. I’d spent a blissful fifteen minutes fishing it out with a pair of antique chopsticks. It had seemed like a curious design choice for an entertainment room – a trapdoor, hidden under the main lounging area.
My minor shift of weight was enough. A faint click echoed through the room, swallowed by Chiyo’s passionate rhetoric. Then, a grinding whir. The floor panel beneath Chiyo’s feet, directly in front of my cushions, swung inward with a gasp of hydraulics. Her monologue faltered. Her jaw dropped as she looked down at the rapidly opening void beneath her.
“What… what is this contraption?!” she shrieked, flailing her arms as the floor vanished beneath her designer slippers. She grasped wildly at the air, then at the edge of the opening. Her fingers, adorned with a magnificent jade ring, scrabbled for purchase on the smooth, polished edge of the floor. It was no use.
With a terrified, guttural scream, Oba-san Chiyo vanished into the darkness, a blur of indigo kimono and frantic limbs. The trapdoor slammed shut with a resounding thud, the grinding whir dying away into the lingering silence. A faint, distant *thump-thump-thump* sound, like a sack of potatoes tumbling down a long, narrow tunnel, echoed up from the depths of the mansion’s plumbing.
I sighed, retrieved my soda, and took a long, satisfying sip. This was why I loved this house. So many hidden conveniences. I truly hoped she landed somewhere soft. Maybe the compost heap? Kenjiro was very particular about his organic waste.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sayuri cautiously peek over the racing game cabinet. Her mouth hung slack. The armed men Chiyo had brought were frozen, staring at the spot where their mastermind had just dramatically disappeared. One of them nervously cleared his throat.
“Boss… where did she go?” he whispered, his voice trembling.
I merely shrugged. “Probably the high-speed garbage chute. The one that leads directly to the central courtyard.”
Almost on cue, a new, louder sound ripped through the air. A series of explosions, followed by a cacophony of gunfire and shouting, erupted from the very direction I had indicated. A truly furious, guttural roar then tore through the din, a sound that made the very foundations of the Shinjo Estate tremble. It was Kenjiro. And he sounded less than pleased to be interrupted.