He was the leader of the pack, not the top dog, but the top dog’s right-hand man. The muscle. The one who took care of business. When the call came, he was sent out there to get things done. Pay up, or pay in blood. There was no alternative, and when you had Kenzo on your tail, you were running scared. He was a big man, not super tall but tall enough, and with enough bulk to make up for his height in the intimidation factor. And his eyes would harden, go dark. They were coals, burned out, when he stared through you. And then, at that point, you realized, finally, that you’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

The big boss, Basho, as he was called, was a Jabba the Hutt-like character. But he did have style. He would listen to classical music and would speak in a sing-song manner. And when victims were being punished and/or taught their important life lessons, he would play that classical music and prance around the room. It was an odd scene, mixed with the elegance of the music and the screams of the victims.

Basho was a man who was growing more and more paranoid. And Daisuke did not help matters. He was a swindler and a smuck, and he wanted Kenzo’s position, always had his eyes on it. He would speak to Kenzo in a syrupy way, all false smiles; but behind the bigger man’s back, Daisuke was scheming and planning. Patience, he told himself, for it will come. But we must be patient.

And it did come. Opportunity arose, and Daisuke was there to snatch it up. At a casino, Kenzo was entertaining guests, friends, and happened to run into Basho’s wife, Midori. They had had encounters before, many, of course, Ken being the right-hand man, but he was always careful of his place and respectful and in a way indifferent toward Basho’s wife.

But tonight, she was there because of Dai; he had conned her into being present. Dai was also there, being his charming self. And Dai had his cameras on the two. Even when the woman led Ken to the Jacuzzi, the cameras were there. And into the bedroom. But wait. Was that Kenzo in the bedroom? Was he drugged? What had happened there? Some illusion, of course. There had been a magician in the casino that night. And this magic man set Kenzo and eventually Basho up for the fall. The end was near. Soon, there would be terror and betrayal.

It would send Kenzo on the road, running, running for his life. He and his son, Makoto, would be the only true men in the region, for a cancer was spreading, and not slowly, through the body of the yakuza. Kenzo, the muscle, was now being muscled out by Daisuke, the diabolical thinker.

In the town called Rice, where the one notable feature was to have your name engraved on a grain of rice, Kenzo had a friend. His old buddy from the military, Chang. Chang would hide Kenzo and his son from the baddies, but the problem was that Chang had problems all his own.

They had begun one year ago, when some Russians showed up in the small town. He thought they were on their way out to Vegas, like everyone else. But slowly their intentions became known. They were there for the property, for their own personal industry. It would be a midway station for their illicit affairs. They would be in control of a whorehouse there and a crystal-meth lab. No one would bother them. They just needed the town.

That’s where Kenzo and Makoto came in.