Chapter 17: The Danchi Disturbance

“Please calm down for a moment.”
Seiko poured a cup of tea for Murakami Eishi, inviting him to sit down and speak slowly.
“Tell me in detail, what exactly happened?”

“It’s like this…”

Murakami Eishi took a sip of tea, then a deep breath, and began to recount what had just occurred.

Northwest of Urawa High School, there was a place called “Katakura Danchi.”

“Danchi” was a type of subsidized housing project implemented by the Japanese government during a specific period.
After surrendering in World War II, the Japanese government constructed a number of high-rise apartment complexes with relatively comprehensive amenities to solve the housing difficulties of new salaried citizens flocking from the countryside to the cities.
These residences were called “Danchi.”

Incidentally, the “Danchi-zoku” who lived in these complexes were once the object of envy in Japan.
Most of the early tenants were small families of young couples, where the husband worked diligently while the wife stayed home to do housework and raise the children.
Because of this, the Japanese adult video industry once developed a popular genre called “Danchi-zuma,” or “Danchi Wives.”

Even now, several works with the keyword “Danchi-zuma” in their titles could still be found in Bubble Witch’s film library.

However, as the facilities aged and the Japanese economy developed, the “Danchi” residences, which were originally built to be affordable and meet the needs of a special era, gradually fell out of favor with the Japanese public.

The Katakura Danchi was no exception.
In the last two years, its vacancy rate had been steadily increasing.
The Tokyo office workers flooding into Urawa all disdained the Katakura Danchi for its small living spaces, high rate of facility failures, and moldy walls…
Thus, the Urawa city government planned to demolish the Katakura Danchi and build a modern, comprehensive apartment complex in its place.

No matter the country, renovating an old plot of land always begins with the problems of land acquisition and demolition.

Some people like to boast about the Japanese government’s respect for human rights and “inviolable private property,” but in reality, helping the government and corporations drive out residents for demolition is one of the pillar businesses of the Yakuza.

The history of cooperation between the Japanese government and the criminal underworld is long-standing.
Not to mention the Inagawa-kai, which is practically a sibling organization to the Liberal Democratic Party, even the Yamaguchi-gumi, which has always been at odds with the ruling party, actually got its start with weapons supplied by the Japanese government.
Many Japanese prime ministers, including Nobusuke Kishi, Masayoshi Ōhira, and Shinzō Abe, have had connections with the Yamaguchi-gumi.

As the most dynamic social organization in the local area, the Yamagami-gumi couldn’t avoid acting as the Urawa city government’s black glove.

The order the Yamagami-gumi received this time was to send some young punks who had just gotten alternative haircuts and learned to click their tongues to the Katakura Danchi to “amicably” urge the aunties and uncles living there to move out sooner, lest their lives be disturbed by dead rats and red paint.

This was supposed to be a very ordinary “government-enterprise cooperation” project.
The Yamagami-gumi’s top brass, their attention consumed by internal upheaval, initially didn’t pay much mind to this “small project.”
However, who would have known that a special family lived within the Katakura Danchi.

This family’s surname was Esumi.
They had a nephew named Esumi Goro, a minor boss in the Takada-gumi.
His Esumi-gumi had about a dozen members and was a third-tier organization under the Takada-gumi.
To make an analogy, if Kiban Naoya, who was currently detained by the Urawa police, had gathered a few of his old brothers to form his own Kiban-gumi back when the Takeuchi-gumi still existed, his status would have been on the same level as Boss Esumi’s.

When Boss Esumi heard that his aunt and uncle were being bullied by the Yamagami-gumi’s Yakuza, he felt as if his own face had been slapped.
So today, he brought his underlings to the Katakura Danchi and had a brawl with the Yamagami-gumi’s young punks.

After listening, Seiko nodded slightly and asked for more details, “How many people did they bring? What weapons did they use? How many of our men were there? What was the outcome of the fight?”

Murakami Eishi opened his mouth but couldn’t answer.

‘This guy is a boss-level Yakuza bigshot, yet he panics at the first sign of a brawl. What a disgrace to Yakuza bosses…’

Seiko shook her head in resignation and looked at the person next to Murakami Eishi.
This man wore a floral shirt with a Brazilian collar, had dark skin, and his arms were covered in tattoos—a standard Yakuza at a glance.

This Yakuza’s name was Ishiwatari Takashi, a shatei in the Yamagami-gumi.
He also had his own group, the Ishiwatari-gumi.

The Ishiwatari-gumi was primarily responsible for debt collection and collecting protection money.
The business of persuading people to move out was similar to collecting protection money, so when such jobs came up, it was mainly the Ishiwatari-gumi that handled them.

Seeing Seiko’s gaze fall upon him, Ishiwatari Takashi immediately spoke up, “There were seven of us at the time, and they had twelve or thirteen men. They mainly used water pipes and machetes, while our men only had daggers and things like benches picked up from the street, so we were at a great disadvantage. All seven of us were injured, and three are seriously hurt and still in surgery.

A few of them were injured too, but they were likely all minor wounds.”

“Sounds like we lost badly,” Seiko said.

“We were caught off guard…” Ishiwatari Takashi said, somewhat ashamed.

“This isn’t a matter of winning or losing,” Murakami Eishi interjected anxiously. “The Takada-gumi has already called us, asking what’s going on and demanding an explanation. Shouldn’t we find someone to talk to the Takada-gumi first?”

Ishiwatari Takashi looked at Murakami Eishi, then at Seiko, his face a mask of conflict, wanting to speak but hesitating.

“This is precisely a matter of winning or losing. If we had won, even a costly victory, we could have treated this as a trivial matter. But now that we’ve lost, and so miserably…”

Seiko gazed at the ceiling, pondered for a moment, then looked at Ishiwatari Takashi and gave an order.

“Go find someone to kill that Esumi Goro.”

“What?” Murakami Eishi thought he had misheard.

Ishiwatari Takashi’s eyes also widened in shock.

“What? You don’t know how to do it?” Seiko frowned. “Just find some office worker drowning in debt, get him drunk, and have him run Esumi Goro over with a car. You can’t even handle something like that?”

“I can!” Ishiwatari Takashi said hurriedly.

“Then go do it.”

“Yes!”

Ishiwatari Takashi immediately stood up to carry out the order, his mood visibly turning to excitement.

“This, this…”

Murakami Eishi was still in shock.
Although Yamagami Nobuo had told him to consult Seiko on important matters before he left, Murakami Eishi never imagined the result of their consultation would be this.

“Won’t this trigger a major war between the Yamagami-gumi and the Takada-gumi?”

Seiko refilled Murakami Eishi’s teacup and said unhurriedly, “Uncle Murakami, when you encounter a mad dog on the road barking and baring its teeth at you, what you should do is not run away with your head down, praying it won’t bite you. That will only make the dog madder. Instead, you should turn and confront it, maybe even pick up a stone and throw it. That, in turn, might calm the mad dogs down.”

“The Takada-gumi is like a pack of mad dogs right now. We’ve already given up the drug business, yet they’re still being aggressive. If we continue to back down, it will only make them think we are weak and easy to bully, and they will continue to tear at us.”

Murakami Eishi took a sip of tea. He felt that what Seiko said was not without reason, but he was still worried.
“But what if the Takada-gumi really has rabies? What if we kill Esumi, and instead of calming down, they really decide to go to war with us?”

“Then let’s go to war.”

“But…”

“Murakami Eishi, do you think only the Takada-gumi is watching us?” Seiko cut him off, tilting her chin in the direction Ishiwatari Takashi had left.
“My father is dead. Takeuchi Toshio is dead. How many people in the gumi harbor doubts about the Yamagami-gumi’s future? If not eighty or ninety percent, then at least sixty or seventy, right? If you don’t want to see the Yamagami-gumi collapse under the pressure from the Takada-gumi, with traitors presenting our severed fingers and ears to the Takada-gumi as a sign of surrender, then we must draw our blades. If the Takada-gumi slashes us once, we must stab them back. We have to show everyone that even though the Yamagami-gumi is severely weakened, we still have the strength to fight. We have no other choice.”

Murakami Eishi watched Seiko speak murderous words in the calmest tone, and suddenly felt his mouth go dry again.
He instinctively grabbed his teacup and gulped down another mouthful of tea.