Yakuza no Iro: The Dragon's Heart ❶

Tokyo at night breathed in light—neon veins pulsing through steel and glass, reflections stretching across rain-dark streets—until, in Hamachō, the city finally learned how to lower its voice.

Beneath a paper lantern swaying outside a narrow izakaya, the glow was softer, illuminating a looming dread that poured out into the streets. The air smelled of sake and grilled fish, and lives were quietly rewritten between clinking cups and unspoken rules.

Tonight, one of those quaint, hidden gems smelled like spilled sake and fear.

A glass shattered near the counter, the sharp crack echoing across the threshold of the tiny establishment. Tables were shoved aside violently and chairs overturned like discarded toys. The handful of customers who’d been drinking just minutes earlier couldn’t flee quick enough, slipping past the noren with pale faces, unwilling to get involved.

Emori Kana stood frozen in the middle of the dining floor, confused and scared.

Three rugged men blocked her path, wearing cheap suits and donning open elaborate collars. The kind of yakuza who wore their aggression proudly on their crowns—the yamikin. One of them kicked a fallen chair aside with his heel, grinning as it scraped loudly across the room.

“You still need to pay up,” one of them said lazily, sizing her up and down with practised sleaze. “Or we find another way to make you useful.”

Kana’s hands trembled around the tray she’d been holding, her fingernails digging into the wood to steady herself. She had half a mind to slam it down on the man’s head.

“I-I didn’t borrow any money,” she asserted without breaking, her voice thin but steady through sheer will. “It’s not me. I never signed anything.”

“Oh?” The one in the middle, clearly the leader, tilted his head. A grin formed on his face as he excitedly corrected her, reaching into his jacket and producing a folded document. He flicked it open with theatrical flair. “Then what’s this?”

He shoved it toward her face.

Her eyes fell on the contents, and she suddenly felt her lungs collapse.

Emori Kaname’s name stared back at her, bold and mocking. She recognised her older brother’s ugly handwriting anywhere, and beneath it was her name and address. And stamped in red ink at the bottom, clear as a brand burned into her chest, was her hanko.

“H-how?” Her knees nearly gave out.

Her heart plummeted like a ship’s anchor released into sea, so fast it felt like it tore something loose inside her. Simmering alongside the unease was an anger rising like a boiling kettle about to hiss. The room swam and edges blurred as blood rushed in her ears. She could hear her own pulse drumming, drowning out the men’s disgusting laughter.

‘No, no, no–’

Kaname’s stupid grin flashed through her mind with his staple careless promises. ‘I’ll fix it later, Kana-chan’.

Then she saw her ailing mother’s frail hands, weak and wrapped around hospital blankets and the steady beep of machines. The bills never stopped piling up in her apron pocket, every yen counted, every shift taken without hesitation no matter how late or exhausting.

This debt... this wasn’t just money; it was her mother’s life, and hers. This was everything she’d been holding together with restless nights and bleeding fingers.

“I didn’t know,” she breathed out, shaking her head in protest as her eyes began to blur. “He never told me. I swear, Kaname never told me. Please, I didn’t agree to this.”

The leader stepped forward, smacking his teeth in disagreement.

She stumbled back on instinct, her hip catching on a misplaced dinner table. Tears welled in her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Crying wouldn’t save her, but they fell anyway.

“You’re the guarantor,” he said calmly as he honed in on her. “Now that he’s gone, his debt’s yours.”

One of the others chuckled like a hyena, high-pitched and careless. “If you can’t pay, we got a place downtown. Girls like you always make it work, eventually.”

Kana’s stomach twisted at the meaning behind his words. ’Trafficking’ didn’t need to be spoken aloud to know what was intended.

“No, please,” Kana protested weakly. She bowed deeply, repeatedly, her hands clasped together against her thighs as she kept backing up. Her pride was cracking under desperation.

“I’ll make it work. I’ll pay in instalments, anything. Just not that, please.”

Then her back hit something solid, and she gasped. Strong hands caught her shoulders and pulled her upright, preventing her from stumbling. Slowly, she turned her head and looked up behind her.

A tall man stood against her back. He appeared to be in his late twenties. Light ash-brown hair slicked back neatly but careless in a way that felt intentional. His maroon eyes met hers, and for the briefest second, something flickered in them. Then it vanished just as quickly as it came, shuttered behind an unreadable coldness.

‘What was that? Who are these people? What do they want from me?’ she thought weakly.

For some reason, something was telling her that this one was a coin toss, that he was either here to save her or derail her life. He appeared collected, and the calmness he carried convinced her that he was the kind of man who didn’t need to raise his voice to be dangerous.

Hopelessness clung onto her as soon as she began to lose some of it. Her chest twisted with a newfound fear, and all she could manage was to stand rooted in place. What else could she do? The yamikin was here to strip her of her dignity and now this man.

For a moment, silence suspended in the air. Then the sound of rolling glass scuffing against a wooden table broke the tension, a scraping drone rapidly growing louder as it gained momentum toward the edge. The glass struck the floor without warning, shattering into shards and scattering unceremoniously across the room.

Her wide blue eyes shone brightly against the shadows of this crime scene, and he noticed in them the refusal to dim despite the grimness of her situation. She seemed like she was about to faint in his arms. He lifted his gaze and settled on the yamikin before him. They darkened and, without a word, he stepped forward, gently but firmly guiding the girl behind him and placing himself squarely between her and the chinpira.

“Gishi,” he drawled, not even glancing back. “Bring the girl out, wait in the car.”

"Hai, Waka.”

Gishi, who had been leaning quietly near the entrance, moved immediately as soon as his instructions left his mouth. Efficiency was his modus operandi, and he wouldn’t expect any less from his subordinates. The girl was led away within seconds, the door sliding shut firmly behind them.

Now, left alone with the trembling owner hiding behind the bar, he faced the yamikin alone. The men bristled, their legs shifting uncomfortably at the sight of him. Surely, they knew who he was? He sighed audibly, rolling his neck and shoulders and feeling the cracks loosened his muscles as he prepared himself for the inevitable bloody confrontation.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of black gloves. He slid them on slowly, each deliberate tug of latex snug around his fingers. Then his expression twisted slightly, absolutely offended by the very air in this room.

The three men advanced toward him, their pride scarred like their faces.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, taking her away?!” one snarled, his sleeves rolled up and ready to pounce. “She owes us money!”

Gaze still lowered to his hands, he chuckled at the fools, adjusting his gloves and unbothered by the noise. There was no reason for him to get involved with low-ranked dogs. He frowned, mildly inconvenienced, and breathed in deeply.

“I don’t really like introducing myself but since you asked,” he said casually, lifting his gaze at last. A calculated grin slowly spread across his face—humourless and filled with displeasure.

“Nice to meet you,” he said softly. “I’m Okita Shion.”

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Hamachō: a neighborhood that breathes with the quiet elegance of a well-kept secret. It is my favourite district.

Izakaya: Japanese-style pub.

Sake: rice wine.

Noren: entryway curtain.

Yamikin: Street-level loan sharks of the underworld; always loud and messy.

Hanko: a personal name seal we use for official documents.

Chinpira: small-time and low-level young punk

Waka: ‘young master’, but Yamagishi Shun drops the honorifics here, their history to be revealed in later chapters.

Author’s note: 3rd revision to fix perspectives and descriptions. (2026.07.04)