Minister Takahashi handed Hirayama a piece of string and the square-shaped nomi and turned to contemplate the Shinjuku skyline. His face was an inscrutable mask of resolve. The move caught Hirayama, who was hovering nearby, completely by surprise. The whole episode was just a blur. He held the string limply in his left hand and stared into space, seeing nothing. He had just told the oyabun the bad news. His men had failed to prevent the Diane Joplin girl from being spirited away from right underneath their noses. And in Hong Kong, Hideo Sato and Miyagi had failed to capture Cad Caldwell and retrieve the console on two attempts. The whole thing was turning into a fiasco and somebody had to take responsibility. Why did it have to be him?

They were in one of Takahashi’s many business offices dotted around Tokyo. A huge wall-to-wall window revealed a breathtaking vista of Shinjuku stretching out to the snow-covered outskirts of the city. The view outside was a dense sprawl of gray concrete and neon. Hirayama studied the carpet, watching the memory fibers resurrect themselves, erasing the imprint left by their shoes. In the background was the low but indistinguishable hum of commerce and enterprise, wind shear against the windows and the subliminal sounds of a metropolis ticking over.

The computer controlled shoji had been slid apart conjoining Takahashi’s office proper and his visitor area to form an expansive space characterized by elegant simplicity. Zen. A plasma screen pulsated silently in one corner flipping through lists of unintelligible Nikkei indices. In the seating area, minimalist square designer chairs covered in extinct buffalo hide and framed with chrome. Takahashi’s desk was a smooth plane of black with a high-gloss urushi finish. The area around the desk was uncarpeted, exposing textured gray granite and canals of crushed white stone.

Even as he bowed deeply, Hirayama’s mind was racing through the consequences. If he had had any hope of replacing Kenzo Yamamoto as second-in-command in the convoluted hierarchy of the Yamaguchi-gumi, that chance had long disappeared. Hirayama had always hoped that he would never have to the subject himself to the humiliation of yubizume, the ritual severing of a section of the little finger as repentance for mistakes. He half suspected that the Minister knew of his ambitions and by requesting him to perform the gruesome act was deftly nipping his aspirations in the bud.

Hirayama couldn’t help, at this moment, reflecting on the unfairness of life and thinking of his dead mother. When he had joined the Yakuza almost twenty years ago, his mother had asked him never to return to the family home. Hirayama had agreed implicitly by moving out and never turning back. It was part of the Yakuza code and on joining he had sworn to place the interests of the Yamaguchi-gumi above all else, including himself and family. That’s why Hirayama had never married, preferring the fleeting comfort of paid interstitial sex to the conformity and responsibility of marriage. He had kept a woman for a while, an AV starlet whose career was on the dive, but after she started becoming too demanding and asking unanswerable questions, Hirayama had quickly cut her loose. The last he’d heard was that she was addicted to some cocaine-based drug and plying the trade to construction workers somewhere in the suburbs of Tokyo. That was the way of the water business.

Hirayama wrapped the string tightly around the little finger of his right hand and pulled it tight. He watched the blood drain from his finger as it started to go numb. He walked over to the sitting area in Takahashi’s office and placed his finger on the glass coffee table with its etched drawing of the willow world. Glancing over at the broad back of the oyabun, Hirayama held the nomi firmly in his left hand and placed it just above joint of his finger. All he could hear was the scraping sounds of a robot outside the window. Using the thrust of his body weight, Hirayama leaned forward and felt the blade of the small chisel slide through his finger. The sound of the amputation was not much. Hirayama was vaguely reminded of his mother in the kitchen slicing cabbage, but the pain was intense. It didn’t last long but Hirayama knew that psychologically he would never be the same person again.

He wrapped the stub of his finger with a handkerchief and watched the white silk turn a sickly red. Picking up his severed finger, the soft lifeless feel of his own flesh embalmed in the silk at once strange and curiously familiar, Hirayama walked up to the oyabun and bowing deeply, offered the finger to Takahashi. Takahashi turned around, nodded towards his desk and grunted his acceptance. Hirayama could swear he saw a little boy smiling behind the oyabun’s emotionless eyes. He walked slowly towards the desk and placed the blood-soaked handkerchief shrouding his severed pinkie on the shiny black surface. Zen.

“Order Sato and Miyagi back to Tokyo immediately. If that incompetent fool was not a distant relation, I would have had his head long ago,” Takahashi said.

“Yes, oyabun.” This was no time to question the oyabun’s decisions.

“Now that HYDRA is so actively involved we can’t afford a political scandal. We will fix this problem at the root.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Yamamoto’s killer?”

“We found out who he is. He is affiliated with the PLA and is reputedly under the direct command of Major-general Wang of the PLA’s Third Department, oyabun.”

“The Chinese are declaring war on us?”

“Yamamoto was probably spying on them, oyabun. I believe it’s all related to the consoles.”

“That would seem to be the case. Find out where in New China this General Wang is right now.”

“We know that already, oyabun. The last communication was that he is planning some trip to Shanghai.”

“Shanghai? As soon as those two arrive in Tokyo, I want you to personally go with them to Shanghai.”

“Shanghai, oyabun? I have never been out of Japan.”

“Hirayama, I want Major-general Wang dead. Do you understand? I don’t care if Sato or Miyagi lose their lives doing it.”

“Yes oyabun.”

“We’ll take care of the girl and her new-found friends here in Tokyo.”

“I see.”

“And Hirayama?”

“Oyabun?”

“If you fail, you are no longer welcome in Japan.”

Hirayama grimaced and looked down at the blood-soaked stub of his finger. The gods were certainly conspiring against him. He swore quietly to himself that one day Nobu Takahashi would pay for this humiliation.