A brawny, muscular youth in a full-gray school uniform is seated at a table booth in the corner of the "Jade Mixture" nightclub and bar, his famously low patience by this point worn to the bone.
It's well before opening hours, so the club is empty, but you can still feel the sweat and smell the spirits in the air. Trash and spill stains litter the patterned carpet, since the cleaning crew had to be delayed so that this meeting could be held. The only other person present in the room is the portly well-dressed barkeep, who's cleaning out the inside of some shot glasses with an ancient rag.
It's a cozy place, with a row of smaller tables arranged in a tight U formation around a smooth wood-panel disco dancefloor and old-fashioned turntable, stacked with vinyl records.
Elsewhere in the world they say disco is dead, but it still has its fans in this town.
Kimodo was never the partying type, however. He normally wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this, especially knowing what he does now: about what sinister transactions are routinely carried out, behind those lovely silk curtains, in the backrkoms of seedy establishments such as these.
This bastard's kept me waiting for almost a damn hour, Kimodo seethes.
He better not be planning something…
'Cuz I'd really like to finish up here in time for lunch.
A moment later, a scrawny middle-aged man emerges from the back rooms. He sports a way overdone fake tan, wearing a fake gold peace symbol necklace and dressed in a cheap orange suit with the first three buttons undone–ostensibly, to allow the innumerable sweat-slicked hairs of his chest to breathe.
"Sorry! Sorry!" he says, bowing profusely. "I had to make a few…calls."
Kimodo slams his hand on the table.
"Enough with the damn stalling!" he growls. "Where's the fucking money, asshole? Unless you want a taste of what happens to fuckheads that tick me off."
The bar owner appears calm.
However, his words are steeped in anger:
"You know, a fucking brat like you should learn some proper manners."
Kimodo raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"I won't be paying, I've decided."
Kimodo sighs, massaging his temples.
Why's he gotta make this difficult?
"My dude…I will literally rip your arm off and shove it up your ass."
"Tough talk won't be enough to get what you fuckers want this time. 'Cuz you see, I've gone and made some new friends–and they're offering a way better deal than what you bozos are cutting me."
"Last chance: give me the money, or tell me which arm you'd prefer to keep."
"How about option 3: meet my new pals."
Sensing movement, Kimodo looks–
All around the room, leisure-suited figures in bandana masks are emerging from the shadows, armed with tommyguns and pistols; until there's about a dozen in total, blocking off all possible avenues for Kimodo to escape.
Kimodo runs a hand through his spiky blue hair with frosted tips. "Really? You're actually gonna try to pull something on me?"
"Enough with the tough guy act! Better scram right now, kid, before I–"
Komodo's eyes grow, with a vicious stare.
"What did you just call me?"
The bar owner frowns, looking mildly annoyed. "Kid…I called you kid, because that's what you are to me. You're in here, trying to talk a big game, like you're rolling with the big guys, but you ain't nothing but a poser."
"Save the spiel, shithead: only one person is allowed to call me kid."
"Hey, I'm being generous here. I'm tryna let you off easy, 'cuz I ain't some sicko who'll get any joy out of killing a–"he purposefully stresses the word: "KID."
"Generous? Pfft!" Kimodo scoffs. "Let me at least grab a drink for the road, then."
The bar owner rolls his eyes, shrugging.
"Fine. Whatever. Order whatever you want–it's on the house–just keep it under 50 bucks, okay?"
Kimodo smirks as he stands from the table.
"Look at who's talking tough now."
He gestures at the barkeep–
"Get me a tropical punch! On the rocks."
The bar owner, the bartender and some of the leisure-suited assassins share a snicker as Kimodo walks over to the counter to take his glass.
"Thanks." Throwing back his head, he drinks it all down in one gulp.
The bar owner crosses his arms.
"There, are you satisfied?" He points to a door that one of the assassins had moved away from blocking. "Now would you kindly get the fuck out?"
"Go ahead and give it to me already."
"What?" the bar owner snaps.
Lifting the emptied glass in one hand, he reaches behind his back with the other…
"He's got a gun!" an assassin says.
There is no hesitation:
PEWpepepepepepepepepepeepepwpe–
It's an endless barrage of bullets, but they're all deflecting off of Kimodo like pebbles off the side of a truck. They tear the uniform and black tank top undershirt he's wearing to shreds, but fail to even leave a scratch on his skin, as he proceeds to casually walk toward the turntable by the dancefloor–as though the sustained fire were less insignificant to him than a swarm of flies.
He reaches for the stack of vinyl records at the turntable.
"Let's see the kind of selection you got…"
"Stop shooting!" The bar owner says. "That turntable and those records were a thousand dollar investment! You're gonna ruin me!"
The assassins, coldly ignoring him, continue to unload on Kimodo as he, whistling nonchalantly, stops to inspect a record in his hand and reads the label out loud: "disco inferno! Hey, I know that one. Everyone does, right?"
PEW! A bullet shatters the record into pieces.
The bar owner is desperate:
"Stop it, you fucking morons! You're tearing down the whole joint!"
Still, they don't stop until, one after another, their ammo clips are fully emptied as signified by a series of sharp clicks. After which, all that remains is an awkward silence amid a growing gray haze of gun and debris smoke.
"Unbelievable," one of them incredulously murmurs.
Kimodo sighs, cracking his fists.
"Okay, now it's my turn."
He reveals what it was that he'd been reaching for behind his back:
A roll of wrist tape–not a gun, after all.
"This kid is inhuman!" The assassins and the bar owner look on, stunned, as he proceeds to calmly wrap the tape around each of his knuckles.
Bash Kimodo…doesn't use a gun: For one, because ammo costs money and there isn't a whole lot of that to go around in his organization. More importantly, it also doesn't suit his style or personal sense of honor as a fighter; as to him, guns are a crutch for weaklings and cowards too pathetic to settle things with their bare fists.
Rather, he wields his boxing skills to crush the enemies and unruly business clients of Irorishiro in his role as an Enforcer: the last guy to get called in whenever shit hits the fan.
The assassins don't stand a chance.
He swiftly pummels and knocks them out, snatches away their guns.
Any attempts to fight back are easily thwarted by his superior skills and raw might of his incredible physique, cultivated through years of daily exercise and careful dieting.
After he's through with the assassins, there's only one thing left for him to do…
Kimodo searches for the bar owner.
He finds the coward hiding behind the bar counter next to the bullet-riddled and slumped over, very much dead bartender, in a growing puddle of hundreds of dollars worth of liquor and glassware.
"Alright–" grabbing him by the collar, Kimodo hoists him over the counter. "Back to our little discussion…"
"You're a d-demon!"
"I'm the demon?" Kimodo frowns. "You're the one that got an innocent guy killed today, over a meager amount of cash. That bartender's life was worth more than any amount of money in the world."
The bar owner is speechless.
"Tell me, did he have a family? A wife and kid to look out for?"
"Y-yeah I…recall him mentioning–"
"You're gonna be taking care of them from now on, ain't ya?"
The man looks confused. "Huh?"
"That's the duty of the boss!" Kimodo yells in his face. "If something happens to one of his workers, the boss is supposed to make sure their family is well looked after!" Kimodo scoffs. "It's only the right and honorable thing to do, ya sleaze. But you're too wrapped up in making money like everyone is these days."
"I…" the bar owner is too afraid to speak, lest he stir the demon's wrath.
"Don't bother defending yourself; it would all be BS anyway," Kimodo says, as an evil grin stretches across his face. "The next words out of your mouth are gonna be either right, or left."
Moments later, a team of Goon-class Irorishiro punks arrives on the scene.
They're here to salvage the nightclub for any items that could be sold toward paying back the remainder of the owner's debt, after he'd already just given up every dollar that he had. Since it's technically not 'stealing' if it's owed property, now is it?
Or so the family believes.
Among them is a freshman-age boy named Tohru, who finds himself staring in awe at the spectacle of carnage; until he recieves a disciplinary slap across the back of his head from the supervising Underboss, who's a Senior-age that's tall and broad-shouldered with purple-dyed hair gelled into jester spikes and a long thin mustache.
"Quit gawking, Goon! You've got a job to do like everyone else."
"R-right…sorry, Boss Renzaimon."
"Ah, it's really impressive though, isn't it? That a single man is capable of this," he says, grinning. "Let it inspire you to show utmost loyalty to the family."
"Mhm!" Tohru nods, reinvigorated. "Some day…I'll be just like Captain Kimodo!"
Renzaimon laughs. "Sure you will–now put all that energy to good use already, woulda ya? You'll never make it to Captain just be standing here."
Tohru gives him a salute. "You got it, sir!"
The underboss then watches as he scurries away, secretly frowns.
I should tell him that not everyone can make it to the top, he thinks to himself, as he takes a sour gumball from his pants pocket and throws it in his mouth. But I'd hate to crush his little heart.
Meanwhile, the bar owner is laying in the middle of the dancefloor, pants down, his right arm torn off at the shoulder--
And it's shoved up his ass.