Lonely Thieves

Act II, Part VI

Masao uncorked a vintage bottle of wine and poured out into four glasses. He handed one out to Megumi, who tried to refuse.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Yoshida, but I'm still underage."

"Eh, you're already on the wrong side of the law anyway, right?" Masao pressed the wine glass into her hands. After making sure that everyone else had a glass, Masao returned to his seat and took a sip from his glass.

"Sorry about taking up so much time," Masao apologized as he slapped his right leg. "The body doesn't work like it used to."

"Doesn't the facility have subsidies for free implant surgeries?" Hikaru asked. "I'm sure you'd qualify for leg reinforcers if you asked."

"I don't like that," Masao rebutted. "Youngsters these days rely too much on that cyber-implant stuff. It's not natural for humans to move the way those Overman special agents do."

Megumi shifted awkwardly in her seat, knowing that she was at least 20% cybernetic. She noticed that Kolya had nodded approvingly at Masao's statement, but didn't address it.

Masao then reached over to his left armrest and pressed a button hidden behind the cushion. All at once, the walls began to shimmer, creating a translucent barrier that surrounded the living room.

"Soundproofing," Masao explained to his bewildered guests. "Wouldn't want to let this get out, after all."

Masao sat down once again and took another puff of his cigarette. "Now, where should I begin? I suppose we should start with the man who started it all, Gen Matsuoka.

"You see, fifty years ago the Hayasaka Zaibatsu was on the verge of breaking apart. Bad deals, failed product lines – the conglomerate was seeing losses like never before, and stocks were plummeting. At the time, people really believed that the end of Hayasaka's reign was in sight.

"All that changed because of a man named Gen Matsuoka. At the time, he was no more than a mid-level sales manager, but he was a good friend to the CEO's son Tom Hayasaka, who introduced him to his father. With that connection, he took command of Hayasaka's sales operations and made some game-changing decisions that managed to save the company from bankruptcy with minimal restructuring. Over the next five years, he drove a massive rebranding campaign and rebuilt the Hayasaka's reputation as a provider of high-quality, low-cost goods. When he was done, it was like no one even remembered that Hayasaka was in danger of collapsing not even a decade ago.

"Naturally, Gen Matsuoka was heavily rewarded for his work, and his turn-around was even called the 'Matsuoka Miracle' for a very long time. Time passed, and Gen continued to climb until he was an irreplaceable part of the Hayasaka executive structure. At this point, he was such a beloved member of the company that people believed that the aging CEO, Shigeru Hayasaka, was sure to have Matsuoka succeed him.

"Now, Tom Hayasaka didn't like that very much. He was proud of his friend's successes, but that didn't mean that he was happy to let him have what he believed was his. Unfortunately, his fears came to pass, and after celebrating his thirtieth year at the company, Gen and Tom were called to Shigeru's hospital room, where he declared Gen his successor.

"Tom was already expecting this, and the moment Shigeru announced it, he had his men storm the hospital room and kill both his father and Gen. He left a gun in Gen's hand and made it all look as if Gen killed Shigeru, then turned the gun on himself. Then he forged a will and made it so his father declared him to be the next CEO. He told his executives the story he had cooked up, but told them to tell the lower-rungs that Shigeru had died of his illness, and Gen had disappeared without leaving anything behind.

"If that was all that had happened, it probably wouldn't have gotten out of hand. Tom Hayasaka became the CEO, and for a few months he mostly focused on managing the company. Unfortunately, Tom Hayasaka was quite a paranoid man. He'd started to get worried about the Matsuokas finding out about what he did and trying to take revenge. One day, he decided to engineer a manhunt in order to eliminate the Matsuokas completely. However, he didn't want to dirty his own hands, so he went outside for help. He paid for Innocenti assassins, who hunted down the Matsuokas one by one and set up the scene as accidental deaths or random muggings. Then, he paid off the Overman security agents who would arrive at the scene, take away any damning evidence, then lock the case away as unsolved. Tom Hayasaka would then use his influence to keep any stories of it out of mass media."

"That's how the Three Great Families are involved with the Matsuokas?" Kolya asked.

"Indeed. The three of them essentially conspired to massacre an entire family. At least twenty people were killed over three years."

"Three years? Why did it take so long for them to hunt down the whole family?"

"Well, most of the family were killed fairly quickly. Much of that time was spent tracking down those that went into hiding once they realized what was happening. Eventually, the only person left alive that the Innocenti assassins couldn't find was Chisato – your mother, Megumi."

Megumi reacted visibly to the reveal of her mother's name. She had wondered why Masao had called her Chisato before. She must have looked a lot like her mother.

"Chisato was the only surviving daughter of Gen Matsuoka, and Tom and the Innocenti drove themselves half mad looking for her. Course, she couldn't avoid them alone. That was where your father Sosuke came in. He and I had been working at the fledgling Hayasaka Security before Gen had died, and when he realized what Tom was doing, he ran and got Chisato into hiding. It was reckless, but you do what you can for love, eh?

"Still, he could only do so much. Tom Hayasaka fabricated a false terrorism plot that allowed him and the Overman Foundation to set up checkpoints across every road leading out of the city, making it impossible for the two of them to skip town. The two of them were trapped, and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before they were caught. Before that happened, however, Sosuke came to me one night with a little bundle in his arms. That was you, Megumi."

Megumi could only nod silently in response.

"He was always a man of few words, you know? All he said to me was 'That's my daughter. I can trust you, right?' Then he left you in my arms and disappeared. What a man.

"Anyway, that was the last time I saw him. I wanted to hold out hope, but after a month, I noticed that the presence of Innocenti men and Overman agents started to decline. Two weeks later, I accepted that it was most likely that they were caught and killed.

"It was then that I started to worry about you, Megumi. Sosuke was good at avoiding detection, but it was possible that he could have slipped up at some point. If that happened, it was likely that they'd turn to me, being his best friend. I was unmarried at the time, so it'd seem strange if I was suddenly taking care of an infant. In the end, I decided to give you up to an orphanage in the Horizon district. Still, even then I was worried that they would try and hunt through the orphanages for any kids. Because of that, I asked Hikaru if he could join the orphanage with Megumi and look after her. Not my proudest moment, I tell you."

"You don't need to apologize, Uncle," Hikaru interjected. "I agreed to do it for you. You always took care of me, after all."

"Even if you say that, it was too much to ask a child to do. You were only five years old at the time. I should have been able to find a better way."

Masao leaned back and took another drag from his cigarette. "Well, that's the whole story of the Matsuokas. Everything that's happened now, if it has anything to do with the Matsuokas, it's gonna be because of this. I doubt they know who you really are, but to think you'd be the one to put yourself in their crosshairs... it must be fate."

"But what do the necklaces have to do with the Matsuokas?" Megumi asked. "Are they related somehow?"

"Well, that's not something I can say for sure, but I do remember something Chisato once told me about the necklace. She believed that the reason Tom Hayasaka wanted to get rid of the Matsuoka family was because a copy of Shigeru Hayasaka's original will still existed."

"What? Why wouldn't he have deleted that?" Hikaru asked.

"Maybe he couldn't," Kolya suggested. "It's common for the wealthy to encode their will into a code that allows their heirs to access what they've inherited. If the will is required to access something important, it could mean that Tom Hayasaka couldn't delete it easily."

A thought suddenly occurred to Megumi. "The three-part passcode!" She took the necklace out of her pocket. "The necklaces aren't holding a code to unlock something; they're the will itself!"

Masao nodded. "That might be true. If that's the case, then gathering up all of the necklaces should give you the ability to reproduce the will."

"Thank you, uncle," Hikaru said with a bow. "You've really helped us out so much."

"No need to thank me," Masao laughed. "I've really done so little for you."

As the three of them got up to leave, Masao stood up and put a hand on Megumi's shoulder. "Megumi. Can I have a word with you?" he asked in a low voice.

"Of course. What is it?"

"You don't need to take revenge for your parents," Masao declared with a serious expression on your face. "That may not be what's motivating you right now, but I wanted you to know that at the very least."

Megumi nodded. "I understand."

"Live your life to the fullest, okay? I'm sure that's what your parents would have wanted."

Megumi gave him a silent nod and exited the room.