I Don't Like When I Lose...

"I don't like when I lose," Aoki said as he plunged the katana sword deep into his own father's torso. Then twisted it for maximum damage. He looked him straight in the eyes as he watched the life fade out of the old man. For a moment, he felt an odd mixture of triumph and devastation. Was this what victory was supposed to feel like? The weight of his actions pressed against his chest, but there was no turning back now.

As Nakamoto Senior's body fell to the floor of the deck of the luxury private boat, Aoki fell to his knees and wept. He was flooded by emotion. He was confused. For a moment, he felt like he had lost his sense of direction. Where were his morals? He had killed the only father he had ever known, the man from whom he had learned all he knew.

But then again, it was Nakamoto Senior that had taught him that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. It was Nakamoto Senior that had inducted him into the Yakuza. And it was Nakamoto Senior that had taught him that if your enemy is planning to kill you, get up early and kill him first.

He had trained him well, too well. Then made himself the enemy the moment he approved a shoot-to-kill order on Aoki.

Aoki did not have much time to mourn his father's demise. He quickly got up and went below deck as he heard helicopters approaching fast. He knew his senior uncle, an elder brother to his father, was coming. And he would want to avenge his brother's death. The scene for battle was already set, in the high seas.

Soon the boat started shaking as a private helicopter hovered low over the boat's helipad. Aoki, who had by now moved to the observation deck, lay low with a sniper's gun held in position. Finger on the trigger. He aimed for the pilot and waited.

He waited patiently until the man in control of the chopper squarely came into his scope. Then he pulled the trigger, sending a .20 caliber bullet through the helicopter's windshield straight into the flying man's forehead.

There was a splatter of blood as pieces of skull and brain matter sprayed out onto the other men in the cockpit. The aircraft spun out of control for a moment before ramming into the boat on its side in a crash landing, violently shaking the entire vessel as its weight disturbed the balance.

The chaos died down momentarily before his senior uncle stumbled out of the mangled mess of the plane with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.

"Come out and fight me, coward," he said.

Aoki had read The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. These books had shaped his understanding of power and survival. He knew better than to fight purely for honor's sake. He knew never to walk into battle knowing he was at a disadvantage. But still, he let his guard down.

Aoki walked onto the ship's deck, eyes locked on his senior uncle. When their eyes met, a cold shiver ran down his spine. His uncle had on the expression of a predator that had cornered its prey. The expression Mike Tyson had before ending fights within a minute of the first round. Ferocious.

His uncle came at him fast, his sword slicing through the air. There was a loud clang as metal crashed against metal. The two men twisted and turned expertly, each dodging the other's sword's sharp edge by inches. Sweat dripped onto the boat's deck as this dangerous dance with the devil went on for a few minutes.

And then Aoki's uncle swung around in his signature move, spinning and twisting in the air before cutting a single deep line starting from Aoki's face straight through his chest and abdominal area to his upper left thigh. This move would have ended it all had Romeo not come into the picture.

Romeo, who was just sixteen years old by then, ran out of the shadows with two long kitchen knives in his hand. Normally, this was something Aoki's uncle would have laughed off and quickly ended the boy.

But this was no ordinary boy. The sureness in his steps was too calculated even for a veteran like Aoki's uncle.

Aoki's uncle barely had time to register what was happening and raise his sword to fight back before he felt a sharp pain in his right arm, his dominant arm. He turned just in time to see a heavy kitchen knife slice right through his elbow joint. Horror filled him as his arm fell to the floor. Romeo then walked up to him, held him by his hair, and in one move sliced his neck clean off, divorcing his head from his body.

Aoki's life had been saved by someone whom, till now, he considered a mere servant, a slave he had bought from the Libyan coast. And so began the bond.

Romeo performed first aid on Aoki as they waited for the rescue helicopters Aoki had called in to ferry them to Saratoga, their new home away from the Yakuza's reach in Tokyo.

Having earned his loyalty, Romeo became Aoki's right-hand man, setting the scene for a love triangle with guns and roses in the mix. Aoki had never imagined that the boy he had once considered nothing more than a tool for survival would become entwined in the most personal part of his life. His own daughter—Emi, would become the Juliet to this Romeo. A love affair forbidden.