In the gutters of Ashland, the poorest district in Osaka's Glen River area, Kuzuha Ritsu learned early that silence is survival. The son of a low-ranking yakuza and an alcoholic mother, he wakes each morning to shattered glass and screaming, then walks to school wearing the only armor he has: a perfect test score and a face that never gives anything away. His plan is simple—use his mind to claw his way out of this city of brothels, gambling dens, and biker gangs, and never look back.
Then he me
Until It Turns to Ashes - Money and Weakness, and the Fragility of the Chosen
Morning at Shinonome Technical High School began with the smell of iron, oil, and sweat. The school walls were grimy with soot, and the linoleum in the hallways hadn't been replaced in years. Cracks spidered through the window glass, still patched over with repair tape.
Ritsu sat at the very back of the classroom, by the window.
He seemed to be gazing outside, but he was counting the movement of eyes within the room. Who looked down at whose shoes. Who stole glances at the bulge of whose wallet. One year since coming to Shinonome Technical, and Ritsu had mapped the mechanics of this classroom as precisely as the knuckles on his own hand.
"Hey, Kuzuha. You got today's ready?"
The sun-darkened boy in the seat ahead turned around. Mimura. A delinquent in the same class—one of the ones who owed Ritsu money. Mimura's eyes were probing Ritsu's expression. His Adam's apple bobbed, just once.
Ritsu drew a black-covered notebook from the depths of his bag. It fit in the palm of his hand. Inside, dates and names and amounts and repayment deadlines were lined up in his meticulous handwriting.
"Yeah," said Ritsu.
He opened the notebook and traced Mimura's name with his finger.
"Today's your deadline. Principal thirty thousand, interest four thousand. Thirty-four thousand altogether."
"I know, I know. Here."
Mimura pulled a crumpled wad of bills from his pocket. Ritsu took it, counted it quick with his fingers, and wrote "paid in full" in the notebook. Mimura's shoulders sagged, just slightly.
"Ritsu-san, you're the man again today!"
A voice that carried well came flying from the classroom doorway. It was Masashi. Hair cropped close, a brown so light it was nearly blond, sun-darkened skin, bright brown eyes. On his right arm, a small tattoo of Ritsu's name in a stylized script. A safety-pin piercing in his left ear. When he grinned, his big mouth split wide.
Masashi came to the front of Ritsu's desk and sat down as though shoving the surrounding students out of the way.
"Was Mimura borrowing money off you, Ritsu-san? He pay it back proper?"
Ritsu didn't answer, just returned the notebook to the depths of his bag. Masashi's voice drew eyes from all over the classroom. Ritsu didn't count them. In this town, gazes were just air.
"Masashi. How'd that thing of yours go?"
Ritsu's voice was flat, as always. Not a fragment of emotion riding on it. But Masashi knew that meant "status report on the job."
"Perfect, man! The gambling den in Ashland—I looked into all the rumors around that place!"
Masashi dropped his voice. For a year now, as Ritsu's right hand, he'd handled information-gathering and collections. Masashi was the pawn who carried out Ritsu's orders faithfully.
"So? What'd you find?"
"Well, here's the thing—"
Masashi leaned forward, and that was when it happened.
The classroom door opened and the homeroom teacher came in. A thin man in his fifties. Name of Morikawa. A technical-department instructor, known to the students as "Moriken." Morikawa scanned the room and looked at Ritsu for a single instant. Then he looked away, quick. Ritsu was counting the seconds until Morikawa's gaze broke away.
The teachers at Shinonome Technical kept their distance from Ritsu.
The reason was simple. Ritsu was a yakuza's son. And a year ago, he'd been put on probation for an assault. On top of that, the rumor that he was running a money-lending operation inside the school had reached the teachers' ears.
But nobody stopped Ritsu.
At this school, lending money and borrowing it, throwing violence and taking it—all of it was just "everyday life."
Morikawa stood at the podium and took attendance. When Ritsu's name was called, Ritsu raised his hand a little. Morikawa saw it and moved straight on to the next name.
(Coming to this school was the right call.)
Ritsu muttered it in his head.
Shinonome Technical was a bottom-tier school with a deviation score of thirty-eight. Nothing like an elite prep school such as Reimei Academy. But for Ritsu, this school was more convenient.
Here, money and power decided everything.
Nobody cared how good your grades were. Ritsu's brains were used not for test scores but for moving people.
(Money over violence. Leverage over money.)
He had spent this past year honing that principle to a fine edge.
He never got his own hands dirty. Never threw a punch himself, never threatened anyone directly. He lent money, let the interest pile up, and controlled those who couldn't pay. The delinquents who'd flocked around Ritsu back in middle school now gathered around him for his money and his brains.
Ritsu used them as pawns.
He had them gather information, do his collecting, sometimes get a hold on someone's weakness. All of it was to build up the funds and the power he'd need to get out of this town.
(I won't become a yakuza like my father.)
His father's face surfaced in Ritsu's mind. Flushed with drink. Shirt hanging open, sloppy. Old tattoos.
(I won't end up like that.)
Ritsu looked at the back of his right hand. An old burn scar. Two centimeters across—the mark of touching a stove. Since that day, the scar had been a part of him.
Lunch break.
Ritsu went up to the roof.
The roof of Shinonome Technical was the students' hangout. Cigarette butts littered the ground, and the walls were covered in graffiti. But when Ritsu arrived, the students around him drifted away on their own. Ritsu claimed a well-ventilated spot by the fence, the space they'd left him.
He put his back against the fence and listened to Masashi's report.
"So. That information you mentioned."
"Yeah. The rumor that a guy in a Reimei Academy uniform's been going in and out of the Ashland gambling den—it was for real."
Masashi spoke in a low voice, his face serious.
"His name's Misaki Tooru. Second-year at Reimei, and his old man's the president of Mount Sion Bank, apparently."
Ritsu's eyes narrowed, just slightly.
Mount Sion Bank. A regional bank headquartered in Granveld Ward, with deposits of roughly two trillion eight hundred billion yen. The president, Misaki Seiichirou, was a heavyweight with deep connections in politics and business.
(A bank president's son, in an underground gambling den in Ashland.)
Ritsu calculated the value of that information in an instant.
"Where in the gambling den?"
"A place called Casino Ash, run by the Kuzuha-gumi. He shows up there two, three times a week, they say."
"My family's den, huh."
Ritsu murmured it low.
Casino Ash, the underground gambling den operated by the Kuzuha-gumi. It sat in the basement of an abandoned building in Ashland—a den with a decent enough crowd. Ritsu's father's gang ran it as one of their revenue streams.
(A bank president's son, frequenting my father's den.)
The outline of a plan began to take shape in Ritsu's mind.
"And this Misaki guy, he's in debt from losing at the tables."
"Yeah! He keeps throwing more money on trying to win it back! Word is his debt's already past a million!"
Masashi spoke with excitement.
Ritsu watched Masashi's fervor with cool eyes.
"You actually seen this Misaki guy yourself?"
"No, not face to face yet. But I heard plenty from the guys at the den."
"What's he like?"
"Uh, looks like a serious honor student, apparently. Wears glasses, always in his uniform. But when he loses, he makes excuses a mile a minute. 'I'll win next time.' 'I'm one of the chosen.'"
Ritsu turned Masashi's words over in his head.
(One of the chosen, huh.)
The corner of Ritsu's mouth twisted, just barely.
"Masashi."
"Yes!?"
"You ever been up to the gates of Reimei Academy?"
Masashi tilted his head.
"No. A classy place like that, a guy like me shows up, they'd call the cops."
"Right. Me neither."
Ritsu quietly spoke the name of the school he'd once aimed for.
Reimei Academy. A prep school with a deviation score of seventy-two. A private elite in Northgate. The place Ritsu was supposed to have gone.
(Never once set foot inside.)
Ritsu received that fact with a strange feeling.
"Tomorrow, we're going."
"Huh—where!?"
"The gates of Reimei Academy. I'm going to see this Misaki guy's face with my own eyes."
Masashi's face lit up bright.
"For real!? Can I come too!?"
"You're the one who brought me the intel. I'll take you along."
"Awesome! Me and Ritsu-san, off to Reimei Academy! Man, I'm getting pumped!"
Masashi was carrying on like a kid. Watching him, Ritsu muttered inwardly.
(This one's my pawn.)
(But a loyal pawn.)
Ritsu had confirmed Masashi's loyalty any number of times over the past year. Ever since that night Masashi witnessed Ritsu beat three men to the ground to save Ai, he'd looked up to Ritsu like an older brother.
(Use everything that can be used.)
Ritsu clapped Masashi lightly on the shoulder.
"You're doing good work. I'm counting on you."
Masashi's face shone like nothing else in the world could top it.
"Leave it to me! For you, Ritsu-san, I'll do anything!"
With Masashi's fervor at his back, Ritsu looked down over the streets of Ashland through the roof fence. The rusted water tower, the work clothes hung out to dry, the winding alleys. All of it breathed, small, at the edge of his vision.
(I'm getting out of this town.)
(And this might just be the big card I need.)
A quiet excitement welled up deep in Ritsu's chest.
The next day.
Ritsu and Masashi made their way to the gates of Reimei Academy in Northgate.
Thirty minutes by bus from Ashland. Through Granveld Ward, toward the foot of the Sion Mountains. The scenery changed completely.
The streets were wide, the roadside trees lined up in neat rows, and every building was new and clean. Even the clothes of the people walking by were different from Ashland's. Men in suits, women in elegant dresses, children in school uniforms.
"Whoa... so this is Northgate. The air's different here."
Masashi said it while craning his neck this way and that.
Ritsu didn't answer. He stood before the gates of Reimei Academy.
The school building was four stories, its white walls shining in the sunlight. A guard stood at the gate, and students were filing in, orderly. Boys in navy blazers, girls in navy skirts and white blouses. All of them refined, calm, wrapped in an air somehow removed from the world.
(This is where I was supposed to be.)
Ritsu gazed at the scene with distant eyes.
But there was no sentiment in it.
The road to Reimei Academy had vanished completely that night. There was nothing left to feel about it now. Ritsu was here for one reason only: to observe the man named Misaki Tooru.
"Ritsu-san, is that him?"
Masashi spoke in a whisper.
Ritsu followed Masashi's gaze.
A male student was walking out from the school gate. Neat, fresh-cut black hair. Thin silver-rimmed glasses. Dark eyes with double lids. Short—around five foot five. He wore his uniform well and carried an elegant smile.
(So that's Misaki Tooru.)
Ritsu observed Misaki from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
Misaki was walking alongside a student who seemed to be a friend. Now and then he raised a laugh, clapped a shoulder, wore a smug expression. However you looked at him, he was a "well-bred young gentleman."
But Ritsu's eyes were on Misaki's right pinky finger.
(When he lies, his right pinky trembles.)
The intel from Masashi. Misaki Tooru's right pinky trembled when he lied.
Right now, Misaki was laughing. But the smile didn't reach his eyes.
(Refined on the surface. Brittle underneath.)
Ritsu saw through to the "something" behind Misaki's smile.
"That's him. Misaki Tooru."
"For real!? That honor-student-looking guy's in debt from underground gambling!?"
"That's right. For all his looks, he's weak to a wager."
Ritsu kept his eyes fixed on Misaki's back until he passed through the gate and disappeared into the school building.
(The target is set.)
Ritsu murmured it quietly, in his heart.
That night.
Ritsu sent Masashi into Casino Ash.
The objective: to secure evidence of Misaki Tooru's gambling habit and
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