"Your name is erased, Kiryu. You have no right to save anyone."
Joryu lit a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating the scar tissue on his chest. "Let them."
Three yakuza thugs from the Omi Alliance’s scrappy remnants had the boy cornered against a vending machine. "You saw our face, kid," the leader snarled, a dragon tattoo peeking from his collar—a cheap, faded imitation. "That's a problem."
Then the boy did something foolish. He threw the toy truck at the thug’s face. It bounced off his cheek with a hollow thwack . The man laughed, then raised a fist.
The boy took the pieces, nodded once, and ran off into the festival crowds.
The boy was staring, eyes wide as dinner plates. Not with fear. With awe.
Joryu knelt. For a moment, the mask slipped entirely. The boy saw not the emotionless agent, but a tired, haunted man who had given up everything to protect children just like him. A man who hadn't held a child's hand in years.
Joryu exhaled smoke into the humid Osaka night. "My name is gone. But my hands don't know that." He walked away, the cracked mask of Joryu now showing the faint, unmistakable glow of the Dragon underneath.
