The neon glow of the upper districts bathed the streets in artificial twilight. Towering skyscrapers loomed above, their glass facades reflecting the holographic billboards that flickered with corporate propaganda and underworld advertisements alike. The heart of the Mori Clan''s money-laundering operation lay here, hidden beneath the guise of exclusivity—The Crimson Lotus, a high-end club catering to the elite and the criminal alike.


    Ash Atsuyuki stepped out of the unmarked vehicle, his dark attire blending seamlessly into the sea of shadows. He wasn''t alone. Kaito stood beside him, his veteran gaze sweeping the street for threats, while two of the most trusted Shirogiri enforcers lingered just behind.


    "Subtle approach or direct force?" Kaito asked, his tone dry.


    Ash smirked, adjusting the cuff of his gloves. "We own this place by sunrise. How much noise we make depends on how cooperative they are."


    Kaito chuckled. "Then let''s give them a chance to surrender before we burn it down."


    They moved toward the club entrance. The bouncers, clad in sleek black suits, shifted instinctively when they noticed the approaching figures. Their augmented eyes scanned Ash and his men, pulling up biometric data within seconds.


    "No entry without an invitation," one of them grunted.


    Ash met his gaze with an unshaken calm. "Tell your manager that the new owner has arrived."


    The bouncer frowned, then instinctively reached for his earpiece. Before he could react further, Ash moved. A swift palm strike to the wrist disarmed the man, and a second motion sent him crashing against the club''s entrance. The second bouncer barely had time to pull his weapon before Kaito stepped forward, a single precise strike rendering him unconscious.


    The entrance was theirs.


    Inside, The Crimson Lotus pulsed with deep bass, the scent of alcohol, smoke, and desperation lingering in the air. A sea of high-profile guests—corporate executives, politicians, and underworld elites—moved in their own spheres of influence, unaware that the club was seconds away from changing hands.


    Ash''s eyes scanned the room, quickly identifying the real prize—the VIP lounge on the upper level. That was where Ryuji Mori, the man overseeing this operation, would be.


    Kaito gestured toward the security guards flanking the stairway. "Your call. Fast or clean?"


    Ash exhaled. "We do both. Fast, then clean."


    They moved as shadows through the club. The first guard was faster than expected, his reflexes enhanced. Spliced with artificial enhancements, his body hummed with neural accelerators and reinforced sinew. He lunged at Ash, faster than a normal man should be, his arm blurring as he struck.


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    Ash twisted, barely dodging, his instincts roaring into overdrive. The enhanced guard''s movements were precise, but Ash had fought augmented warriors before. He shifted into a lower stance, letting the momentum of the strike carry the guard forward before twisting his wrist into a brutal counter. A sharpened combat knife flashed in his free hand—sinking into the base of the man''s cybernetic spine.


    The guard convulsed and dropped.


    The second one didn''t hesitate. He came in hard, his fists reinforced with impact knuckles. Ash barely had time to react before the first strike connected—a sledgehammer force against his ribs. Pain flared, but he rolled with the blow, avoiding the full impact. Kaito stepped in, his own blade flashing, and with a quick, decisive slash, the second guard was down.


    Now, only one door stood between them and their target.


    Meanwhile, in Cyberspace…


    The moment Ash forced his way into the club, The Crimson Lotus'' AI woke up. It was a heavily fortified construct, designed to monitor financial transactions and security feeds, but also to repel digital intruders.


    Kenshiko, lurking in the digital shadows, struck first.


    She slipped into the club''s neural architecture like a ghost, bypassing firewalls as if they were made of paper. But Lotus-9, the club''s AI, was not idle. It responded with brute force—unleashing a swarm of defense protocols shaped like crimson lotus petals, each a fragment of self-replicating code meant to disassemble Kenshiko at a molecular level.


    "Cute," Kenshiko murmured, effortlessly dodging through the barrage. "But I''ve danced with better."


    She retaliated with a fragmentation pulse, detonating shards of corrupting data that ate through the petals like acid. Lotus-9 twisted, trying to rewrite its own code mid-battle, but Kenshiko had already anticipated the maneuver. She sent a pulse into the core servers, overloading their logic circuits.


    For a brief second, the club''s security cameras glitched. Then, every financial record belonging to the Mori Clan transferred to Ash''s personal servers.


    Lotus-9 let out a final, silent cry before collapsing, its data shredded into useless fragments.


    "And that''s checkmate," Kenshiko whispered before vanishing from the network.


    Back in the VIP lounge…


    Ash kicked the door open.


    Inside, Ryuji Mori stood with two of his personal guards. He was a man who had long bathed in luxury, but his eyes sharpened with the instincts of a survivor. He knew what was happening before a word was spoken.


    "Atsuyuki," Ryuji greeted, masking his unease with bravado. "I heard rumors. I should have known you''d come straight for me."


    Ash stepped forward, his presence suffocating in its intensity. "I''m not here for conversation, Ryuji. I''m here for everything you own. The club, the laundering routes, the connections. They belong to the Shirogiri now."


    Ryuji''s expression twisted into something between amusement and defiance. "You think you can just walk in here and take what generations of the Mori have built?"


    Ash tilted his head. "That''s exactly what I think."


    The first guard moved. Ash''s blade was faster.


    Steel glinted in the neon light, and in a heartbeat, the man crumpled, a clean slash across his chest silencing him forever. The second guard hesitated, then dropped his weapon, realizing that defiance only led to death.


    Ryuji swallowed, stepping back until he hit the wall. "If you take this club, the Mori will—"


    "The Mori are already dead," Ash interrupted. "They just don''t know it yet."


    Silence. The truth hung heavy in the air.


    Ryuji clenched his fists, then exhaled slowly. He had no choice. Not anymore.


    "Fine," he said bitterly. "The Crimson Lotus is yours."


    Ash turned to Kaito. "Get the word out. The Shirogiri are back in business."


    The takeover was complete. And it was only the beginning.