Chapter 101: Please Forgive Me, I Have Found It

Members of the Black Society were essentially creatures of the night. Yuri Sugimoto was no exception.

At one o'clock in the morning, after a night of revelry at a nightclub, he was holding a hostess close, preparing to take her home to his apartment. As the head of a Black Society faction, with numerous enemies, he was always accompanied by four bodyguards. His car led the way, while the four bodyguards followed behind at a distance of about fifty meters.

In the dead of night, Tokyo’s entertainment districts still buzzed with energy, yet the streets had grown nearly empty—quiet and still.

Sugimoto, not yet forty and still in his prime, was already eagerly embracing the woman in the car, the buzz of alcohol fueling his impatience. The two of them kissed fervently while removing each other’s clothes, clearly gearing up for an intimate encounter in the speeding vehicle, much to the driver’s indifference.

As Sugimoto’s car crossed an intersection, a van suddenly honked, ignoring the traffic signals, and pulled into the middle of the road. The vehicle carrying Sugimoto’s bodyguards was forced into an abrupt stop.

“Damn it! What the hell’s wrong with your driving?” one yelled.

“Don’t you know how to follow traffic rules, idiot?” another cursed.

The four men inside the car muttered curses as the van slowly passed through the intersection. By then, they had lost sight of Sugimoto’s car ahead but thought little of it, confident they could catch up by accelerating.

However, even after speeding up, they saw no sign of their leader. Instead, they spotted a disheveled woman collapsed by the roadside—the very hostess Sugimoto had planned to take home. It dawned on them that the van had deliberately blocked their view.

Their boss was likely in serious trouble.

At 1:45 a.m., inside a slaughterhouse in Minami-Senju, Arakawa Ward, when Hidenobu Aoyama entered a factory room led by Kazuki Yamakawa, he found a middle-aged man stripped naked, blindfolded and tied to a chair—if one didn’t know better, they might think it was some perverse game.

“Who are you? Why am I tied up?” the man shouted.

“Do you want money or do you want to live? I can pay!” he pleaded.

Hearing the door open and footsteps approach, Sugimoto struggled fiercely, his fear magnified by the darkness.

“Where are the photos you had stolen from Shibuya Matsutō Ichome tonight? Hand them over, and you’ll live,” Aoyama said coldly.

Sugimoto froze, silent for a moment before asking, “Who exactly are you?”

“Seems like you haven’t figured out who’s asking the questions here,” Aoyama replied with a frown.

Yamakawa gave a subtle signal.

Two men from the Yamakawa faction stepped forward, wielding baseball bats, and began relentlessly pounding Sugimoto.

Each strike landed solidly, the blows echoing with force.

“Stop! Please, stop! Ah!” Sugimoto cried out.

“I didn’t steal anything... I arranged for someone to steal, but in the end, they didn’t... ah!” he howled, writhing in agony, trapped under the brutal assault.

“You’re still lying,” Aoyama said. Unable to discern truth from falsehood, he decided to escalate.

At that moment, he extended his right hand.

Yamakawa immediately handed him a pair of pliers.

Aoyama knelt before Sugimoto, taking his hand and letting him feel the cold metal. “Do you know what this is?”

“Pliers… used for cracking walnuts,” Sugimoto replied hesitantly.

“It can be used for other things too,” Aoyama said with a faint smile as he inserted two of Sugimoto’s fingers into the jaws.

Aoyama rarely got his own hands dirty with such grim tasks, but the pressure of the situation had built a fierce rage inside him that demanded release.

Upon hearing Aoyama’s words, Sugimoto’s eyes widened in horror. He frantically tried to pull his hand back, screaming, “I really didn’t steal! I swear I didn’t!”

But he was no match for Aoyama’s strength.

His fingers were firmly gripped and squeezed into the pliers. With crushing cracks, flesh and skin blurred away to reveal bone, which then bent and shattered visibly. Sugimoto’s left pinky and ring finger were severed.

The two broken fingers dropped to the floor with a soft thud, their jagged ends dripping crimson blood.

“Ahhh!” Sugimoto’s forehead bulged with veins as he howled in unbearable pain.

“Did you steal or not?” Aoyama’s face remained impassive as he clamped down on Sugimoto’s middle finger.

Overcome by agony and fury, Sugimoto snarled, “If you’ve got the guts, just kill me…”

“Crack!”

Before he finished, his middle finger snapped in two.

“Ahhh!” Sugimoto screamed again, his face contorted in torment. This time, utterly broken, he wailed, “I didn’t steal! I didn’t!”

Aoyama took a deep breath, casually discarded the pliers, and stood up. He accepted a handkerchief presented by Yamakawa and wiped the blood from his hands.

If this still didn’t break him, then he truly was a hardened gangster.

“Apologies for the mistake. I’m sorry for the trouble caused. Please forgive me,” Aoyama said sincerely, glancing at Sugimoto’s three severed fingers.

Sugimoto clenched his teeth, saying nothing.

As a gambler-born gang leader—ruthless and merciless—he was used to being the one who inflicted pain, not the one receiving it.

Having lost three fingers without cause, swallowing his rage was impossible. He silently memorized Aoyama’s voice, vowing to make them pay in blood.

Seeing him silent, Aoyama sighed in exasperation, thinking him petty. Turning to leave, he raised a hand to his neck and made a throat-slitting gesture.

Yamakawa bowed slightly in acknowledgment.

After Aoyama left, one of the underlings slipped a clear plastic bag over Sugimoto’s head.

“What are you doing? What do you want?” Sugimoto panicked, recognizing this lethal method.

“I forgive you! I won’t—”

As the bag tightened, his breath grew shallow, his words slurred, and soon his struggling ceased.

Outside, Aoyama called Yūji Yamada.

“He wasn’t the thief. Find someone else to support as the head of the Sugimoto family.”

“You… you killed him?” Yamada gasped, disbelief in his voice.

As a high-ranking prosecutor, he’d been involved in plenty of corruption, but never murder.

Aoyama replied coolly, “What if he remembered my voice and held a grudge?”

He wouldn’t give anyone a chance to retaliate.

Yamada swallowed hard and fell silent.

“Anyone else suspected? We need to act quickly,” Aoyama asked.

After a moment, Yamada named someone: “Hiroshi Itō, my assistant. If not Sugimoto, it’s likely him.”

“Address,” Aoyama requested tersely.

Yamada gave an address, then added, “I’m conflicted. I hope it’s him, but I also hope it’s not. I’ve known him for years—I haven’t wronged him.”

“I’m not interested in your feelings,” Aoyama said coldly, about to hang up.

“Wait! I’ll handle the questioning,” Yamada blurted out.

Their bond was indeed deep.

“Fine. Come to the slaughterhouse in Minami-Senju, Arakawa Ward,” Aoyama instructed before ending the call. He then turned to Yamakawa. “Go to Room 205, Sunrise Apartments, Kita-Shinjuku 5-chome, and bring Hiroshi Itō here.”

“Right away!” Yamakawa responded promptly.

Half an hour later, when Yamada arrived at the slaughterhouse and was brought before Aoyama, his first question was, “What happened to Sugimoto’s body?”

Those accustomed to killing knew well: murder was easy; disposing of the body was hard.

“It’s being processed inside,” Aoyama said, gesturing toward the humming machinery of the processing plant behind him.

Yamada instinctively entered, but moments later staggered out, doubled over, face pale, vomiting violently, dry heaves wracking his frame.

When he looked up at Aoyama, his eyes were filled with terror.

“Clean yourself up,” Aoyama said calmly, tossing him some tissues. “He was just a villainous Black Society member. Killing him was justice. No need for guilt.”

Yamada silently wiped his mouth.

“What about Itō? How will you handle him?” After a moment, Yamada steadied himself.

Aoyama looked at him. “He’s your trusted man. Naturally, you handle it. I’m not here to overstep. Besides, I can’t do everything.”

Yamada already regretted insisting on coming.

About ten minutes later, blindfolded Hiroshi Itō was escorted in by four burly men.

“Who are you? Do you know who I am? How dare you kidnap me? Speak!” Itō demanded loudly, sensing they had reached their destination and that the mastermind was near.

“Did you send someone to steal from Shibuya Matsutō Ichome?” Aoyama asked softly.

Itō paused, then asked the same question Sugimoto had: “Who are you?”

“Don’t you have any other lines?” Aoyama shook his head and handed the pliers to Yamada.

Hesitant, Yamada took them and gripped one of Itō’s fingers.

“What are you doing? Let me go! What is that thing?” Itō cried out, feeling the cold metal but uncertain of its purpose, anxiety flooding him.

Seeing his trusted aide terrified, Yamada’s heart wavered, but he gritted his teeth and squeezed the pliers hard.

“Crack!”

A finger snapped off and fell.

“Ahhh!” Itō’s screams echoed through the factory.

“Confess—did you steal? If not, the next finger goes,” Aoyama said in time.

Itō, a man of culture, couldn’t endure physical pain. He nodded repeatedly like a frightened child. “Yes! I stole it. It was me.”

Yamada, both relieved and furious, lost control and yanked off Itō’s blindfold, glaring with bloodshot eyes.

“Pro... Prosecutor...” Itō’s eyes widened in terror as he looked at Yamada.

Yamada grabbed his collar, face twisted in rage. “Why did you betray me?”

For a man, betrayal by another man often cuts deeper than any wound inflicted by a woman.