The Suzaku boss laughed, a gritty, ugly sound that filled the warehouse. "Look at him, boys. The big bad wolf, caught in a trap. What's wrong, Ryugetsu? Nothing to say?"
Kaizen didn't answer. His focus was a sharpened point, aimed directly at Kenji, who now stood half-hidden behind the Suzaku leader. Kenji wouldn't meet his eyes. He was staring at the concrete floor as if it held the secrets of the universe.
A cold pressure began to fill the room. It wasn't a drop in temperature, but a weight in the air, a heavy blanket of pure menace that pressed down on every man present. The thugs on the catwalks shifted uneasily. The men with pipes and bats felt their bravado leak away, replaced by a primal instinct to take a step back.
The Suzaku boss felt it too. His laughter died in his throat. He watched as something changed in Kaizen's expression. It wasn't anger. It was a terrifying emptiness, a void where emotion should have been.
Then, they saw his eyes.
Under the harsh fluorescent lights, Kaizen's dark eyes seemed to catch fire, a faint, predatory glint of gold simmering in their depths. It wasn't a trick of the light. It was a tangible thing, a glare so intense it felt like a physical force. The men holding guns found their aim wavering. Their palms grew slick with sweat. They had come here to kill a man, not a demon.
This was the Golden Glare, the legend whispered in the darkest corners of the underworld. It was the last thing you saw before your world ended.
"Kill him!" the Suzaku boss shrieked, his voice cracking with a sudden spike of fear. "What are you waiting for? Shoot!"
But they hesitated. That one second of doubt was all Kaizen needed.
He moved.
He exploded forward, not at the gunmen, but directly at the Suzaku boss. He closed the ten-foot gap in an instant. The boss tried to raise his pistol, but Kaizen was already there. He didn't disarm him. He drove the heel of his palm straight up under the man's chin. There was a sickening crunch of teeth and bone, and the boss's head snapped back, his eyes rolling white. He was unconscious before his body hit the floor.
Kaizen ripped the pistol from the man's limp hand and turned, using the falling body as a momentary shield. He didn't fire it. It was a tool of convenience, a weight in his hand. He swung the heavy butt of the gun into the face of the nearest thug, shattering the man's nose in a spray of blood.
The spell was broken. Chaos erupted.
The men swarmed him, a wave of adrenaline and desperation. A pipe swung at his head. Kaizen ducked under it, stepped inside the man's reach, and drove a thumb deep into the soft hollow of his throat. The man dropped the pipe, his hands flying to his neck as he made a wet, gurgling sound.
Another came at him with a knife. Kaizen let the blade slice across his forearm—a shallow price to pay—and grabbed the man's wrist, twisting it until the bone snapped. He spun the man around, using him as a shield against two others, before shoving him away and charging forward.
His movements were a brutal ballet of street-level violence. There were no elegant blocks or fancy kicks. There was only raw, horrifying efficiency. An eye gouge. A knee to the groin. A headbutt that sounded like a coconut splitting open. He grabbed a discarded steel pipe and moved through the crowd like a thresher, breaking arms, legs, and skulls.
Each man he dropped was another step closer to Kenji.
The traitor was pale, his face a mask of disbelief and terror. He had seen Kaizen fight before, but never like this. This wasn't a man. It was a force of nature.
Kaizen was bleeding from a cut on his cheek and the gash on his arm, his suit torn and stained, but he didn't slow. He broke the jaw of one more man and saw his opening. There were only a few stunned thugs left between him and his true target.
"Kenji," he snarled, the first word he had spoken. It was less a name and more a curse.
He took a step.
That's when the first gunshot rang out.
A fist of pure fire punched through his left shoulder, spinning him around. The pain was immediate, electric. Another shot hit him in the leg, and his knee buckled. He fell to one knee, the steel pipe clattering to the ground.
He looked up. The remaining gunmen, their courage returned now that the monster was wounded, had their pistols trained on him.
Through the haze of pain, Kaizen's eyes found Kenji. His former friend was no longer looking at the floor. He was looking right at Kaizen, a slow, triumphant grin spreading across his face.
Then came the final volley. Three more shots, fired in unison. Two slammed into his chest, one into his abdomen. The force threw him backward onto the cold, unforgiving concrete. The world swam, the fluorescent lights blurring into a single, blinding smear. The roaring in his ears faded to a dull hum.
As the darkness closed in, the last thing Kaizen saw was Kenji's grinning face, a portrait of ultimate betrayal.