Neon District: Redux

Part 3 Chapter 1

       Is she a savior or a monster? Is she a hero or a villain? She didn't bother to question if she were a good person or not. She already knew the answer to that.

It has been just over two years since the raid on the Syndicate Shanties and two years since Manzo Ogawa took office as mayor of the Neon District. And yet Yuka still found herself pacing through the corroding Shanties like she did every so often to think. To think about if what she did, or rather, what Manzo did was just and deserving of leading them down the path they are at now.

A lot has changed since then. Not just the District itself, but herself as well. She traded in her jeans, leather jackets, and boots for pant suits, heels, and makeup. Right now she wore some flats that she didn't mind getting dirty from the moldy concrete floor of the Shanties. Her black hair now hung down passed her armpits comparing to its shoulder length a couple years ago and she usually wore it in a tight bun in the back. She has changed quite a bit since then, but the District itself changed even more.

The majority of the businesses in the District has either closed down or forcefully shut down with some of the wealthy moving out of the District elsewhere. Manzo passed a law a few months after taking office that essentially flipped the social classes upside down with the wealthy being on the lowest class and the poor now on the top. A lot of people took this the wrong way and began murdering and causing anarchy against the proclaimed wealthy not too long after the law was set in place. With that came the demise of the economy with everyone of any wealth or status being killed or leaving the District. That left those that had no business experience to lead the economy along for a bit before it dropped off and eventually stop fluctuating altogether. 

Yuka thought she had always wanted this to happen, but after confronting Manzo about his plan after the economy stopped she thought otherwise. Manzo appeared unbothered by it when, in fact, his eyes told her otherwise. It was the same look Eiji gave her when he talked about Ashtown to her that one time, which felt like ages ago. Manzo seemingly gave off by his expressions alone that this wasn't what he had envisioned for his bright future, too.

She carefully traversed through the Shanties while making sure not to step on anything that would cause her to lose her balance. 

The Shanties had debris scattered along the moldy concrete floor with loose bricks corroding on the floor. Above her the ceiling was practically non existent where the sewer water finished corroding away at the remainder of the ceiling where she set off the bomb. 

She had killed many of her old family with that bomb, Isao and Sam included. 

Family.

She never had referred to the Syndicate as her family before and always made herself refuse to think otherwise. But now thinking of them like that her brain didn't refuse that opinion of them. When this all started she thought that all they were was stepping stones to help her get to where she was now. Little did she know that it would cost losing them.

She didn't even like where she was now. Everything that happened after obtaining her wealth and status only made her believe that she made a big mistake.

She thought that she had nothing when she was with the Syndicate; no family, no friends, nothing. She thought that she was alone and that nobody cared for her. Well, somebody did at one point. That somebody seemed to have regretted ever meeting her before getting a bullet lodged in his eye. That somebody isn't here anymore. Pacing through the Shanties occasionally made her realize that she did have everything she had ever wanted: a family. She took them for granted and now they were either in prison, dead, or had ran away.

She had a family before the Syndicate too, but she took that for granted as well.  

Yuka sighed and turned herself around and headed towards the exit.