“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” Yuya sighed. She’d been talking to the police officer for the past twenty minutes and that was twenty minutes she could have used earning more money. Yeah, technically she was paid a flat wage per hour but as a waitress she made her tips by talking and interacting with people. It was annoying that she was missing that for something the officer knew she wasn’t going to help them with. “Sometimes they come in here, sometimes they don’t.” She leveled the officer with a Look. “Sometimes the police come in here, sometimes the Five Stars do. I just serve the customers.”

The officer frowned. “Well, if you see any member of the Four Emperors—any member—it’s your civic duty to inform the police. They’re wanted criminals, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the spiel,” Yuya said. Finally, the officer left. Yuya sighed and looked over her shoulder towards the counter with the register on it. “They’re gone, you can come out now.”

Like a clown car one by one the members of the infamous Four Emperors gang came out of hiding. Yuya was mostly just impressed that they’d managed to hide Bontenmaru’s large frame. And that the others had kept their bickering to a fairly quiet level this time.

“Thanks Yuya-chan,” Akari said with a wave of her hand. The other patrons of the restaurant were used to these antics by now. “You’re a life saver.”

Bontenmaru scratched his head and sat down heavily in his usual seat at their usual table. “The police seem…enthusiastic this time.”

Yuya’s eye twitched. Enthusiastic? That was one hell of an understatement. There’d been sirens sounding all over the city and there’d been at least two cop cars parked outside her restaurant for the past few hours. That wasn’t including any undercover vehicles that were surely around. “What did you do?!” she practically screeched. She really, really didn’t need this kind of police scrutiny in her life.

The one reason she tolerated Kyo and his stupid friends coming around instead of handing them over for any bounties was that she appreciated their ethics. By and large the Four Emperors and Kyo especially didn’t really have ‘ethics’ or ‘morals’ but there were some things they just didn’t do—they killed and stole but they never dragged in civilians or unrelated people into their stupid schemes. They’d kill rival gangs or anyone who challenged them with a laugh and a smile on their face but they at least had some restraint. Sort of. Kind of.

“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking, Yuya-san,” Akira said with a calm smile on his face. Yuya supposed he was trying to go for reassuring—considering she just spent the last twenty minutes getting chewed out by the police on the dangers of harboring known criminals she wasn’t feeling very reassured.

It didn’t help that through this whole exchange Hotaru had been carefully stroking a chinchilla he had for some reason. Like usual the man was off in his own head, his eyes only coming into focus to ask Yuya for a cup of tea. Like lemmings the others followed suit, pretending like this was just like any other day.

To them it probably was. Yuya, on the other hand, could feel her blood pressure rising.

“No one is getting anything until you tell me what happened!” she snapped. “And where the hell is Kyo in all this mess?”

The Four Emperors exchanged glances, shrugged, and began to explain.

~.~

The day started out pretty ordinary. A coffee run.

“Why are we getting coffee for your brother?” Akari griped, sighing heavily in boredom. She played idly on her phone while they waited in line at the local coffee shop. They were less likely to kick them out than one of the bigger named businesses and by now they knew the baristas by name.

Hotaru snorted and smirked. “I said Shinrei asked me to get coffee for the Five Stars. I didn’t say I was going to actually bring it to him.”

Bontenmaru raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t he give you the company card for the coffee?” His only answer was another smirk. He shrugged. “I’m fine with coffee paid for by the Mibu. They can certainly afford it.”

“I’m just surprised Shinrei actually thought you’d do what he asked,” Akira smirked, his hand like usual raised to his chin.

“He’s optimistic.”

~.~

Yuya gave them a flat look. “And where was Kyo?”

~.~

After grabbing coffee the Four made their way across the city towards their ‘hideout,’ an old arcade building that had been gutted out and filled with various odds and ends picked out at garage sales and the occasional curb drop.

Kyo was just waking up. Akira, who’d won the game of rock-paper-scissors for who could bring Kyo his coffee, swept over to the most revered man of the gang, and presented him with his straight black coffee.

“Courtesy of the Mibu,” Bontenmaru announced, waving the company card around in his hand. Kyo’s smirk is savage—like the others, he holds no particularly fond feelings for the Mibu. At the very least he enjoys inconveniencing them as much as the others do.

With nothing better to do that day and with a Mibu company credit card at their disposal they unanimously decide to see how far they can go before the thing’s finally cancelled. At about noon Hotaru received a phone call.

“I ask one thing of you. Just one thing.”

“Oh. Shinrei.” Hotaru answered like he doesn’t have caller ID.

“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?!”

“Because I don’t like you,” he answered, promptly hanging up the phone.

“Shinrei called,” he announced.

“So we gathered,” Bontenmaru said dryly. He turned to Kyo. “Well? What now?”

Kyo grinned. “Now we do what we want.”

~.~

Yuya groaned. She wasn’t sure what she expected, really.

“After that it got kind of…chaotic,” Akira said diplomatically.

A fire truck drove by outside, sirens blaring with an ambulance following shortly after.

“Clearly.”

~.~

As these things tend to do, news of the Four Emperors moving around the city spread quickly, attracting the kind of attention that they normally tried to avoid—or at the very least, not actively seek out.

“Come out, Emperors!” Bikara shouted from across the alley. “You have nowhere to run!”

“Who the fuck would be running from you?” Akari shouted back from behind cover. She and the others were sat leaning against a makeshift barricade of a rusted out old truck that Bon had managed to move around to fit all four of them. Kyo, having been called out by Nobunaga himself, had already moved on with his fight. His followers weren’t worried, though. Kyo wouldn’t lose against anyone.

“Should we just wait until Shindara gets here?” Akira asked, bored. This standoff would have been a lot more fun—or at least interesting—if anyone involved was actually interested in fighting seriously. As it was, there was just a lot of throwing around of insults, rocks, bottles, and anything else they could get their hands on. Makora had joined Bikara and it was unclear if he was trying to help the man or just annoy the Emperors. He, at least, had better aim than Bikara so there was at least that element of danger there. Other than that, this whole thing was boring. Santera had been taken out earlier by Akari telling her to go home and Basara was around somewhere which was annoying to deal with.

“Screw that,” Akari declared. “Hotaru, gimme one of your lighters.” Hotaru did so without complaint and instead seemed content with protecting the chinchilla in his arms from the occasional projectile from a hidden Basara. Akari lit the end of a piece of cloth she found and threw a Molotov cocktail over the truck towards Bikara. Like she thought Basara couldn’t help but attack the projectile, causing the bottle to break and fire to spread throughout the alley. “Let’s just go, Kyo’s not coming back and I don’t want to be here if Kyo’s not here.”

“I second that,” Akira agreed. Bontenmaru sighed and drug Hotaru to his feet so they could make their escape. Hotaru wouldn’t have left if he hadn’t, he didn’t have nearly the same concern about fire that everyone else had.

“Hotaru, where the hell did you get a chinchilla from?”

“What?”

~.~

Yuya sighed in despair. “Should I expect the Twelve Gods to come around, then? Is that what’s happening now?” She kind of wished Tora was around right now instead of off visiting family. He at least would have overreacted with her about this whole thing, even if he would have found it cool and probably would have wanted to join in on the chaos.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Akari dismissed easily.

“Considering the police presence outside I’d say they wouldn’t bother trying to show their faces around here,” Akira said.

Well, that was something.

The bell above the door rang as Shinrei burst through the door, throwing a look of barely concealed fury and irritation at the Emperors.

“You!” he shouted.