Rei didn’t know how she got here. As she observed the room, everything seemed to be exactly the same from when she left; the concrete walls mounted with weapons and devices of all sorts, the blue mats that told of victories and losses, but most of all, he was still here.

His hooded eyes stared at her with the same ferocity you held towards him. Their hatred towards each other was still mutual.

“Rei... It’s nice to see you again.” She ripped her eyes away and focused on the man before her. Was blue his son’s new favorite color? The frosty hue fit Fujita Ichirou’s demeanor well, cold and bites back, hard.

“You promised I’d never had to come back here, Ichirou.”

Here- this labyrinth that she was barely able to escape unscathed from. Her family was as powerful as the Fujita’s, who ruled the Hemlock Clan, and blindingly served as their shield. Rei never questioned it, though. The thought was instilled into her, permanently tattooed onto her skin, engraved into each and every one of her bones, and what she prayed for: protect the Fujitas.

However, this loyalty faltered after the complete extermination of Himura’s clan, her family. Brethren lay together in pools of their own blood, part of which they shared after their blood oath to the family. Her parents still eerily sat in their sofa chairs with one precise bullet to the center of their foreheads. Their terrified eyes still haunt hers when she closed her own.

This was a planned attack to weaken the Fujitas, she knew. Her family was the loyal and faithful hound sat by the feet of the Fujitas. But deep down, she always had a lingering thought she never pondered on for too long until that incident. Rei and her family could be replaced by another to serve the Fujitas and protect their place as the leaders of the Hemlock Clan. Brothers and sisters alike always died in Rei’s family; she thought it was normal. They would always be replaced by someone new, someone she’d have to open up to though ultimately they’d die in the end. And the cycle continued on and on.

The complete annihilation of her family left a profound hole in the Fujitas. They couldn’t just clone more of Rei to restore the lost family but they’d do something similar: make her train newcomers to learn the techniques exclusive to her family, which she’d rather kill herself than do. So with the pleads from Ichirou, the next head of the Hemlock Clan, they let her go. The shackles bound to her feet were removed. The collar she always wore was thrown away. She was free.

Ichirou personally gave her enough money to last the rest of her solitude life, which Rei reluctantly took with his persistence. But she decided build herself up, deciding on not basking in the huge wads of cash the latter had handed to her in a large suitcase. The pang that stabbed your heart turned into a dull ache. The conformities of her past loosened and she slowly learned to become a new and better version of herself. The new her who worked odd jobs to pay for medical school. The new her who wanted to still continue to help and protect people despite her past experiences doing the exact opposite. But all of that came crashing down when she was hit on the upside of her head and woke up back here.

“Untie her. She won’t hurt me.” Ichirou said after a long while. A stoic male dressed in an all black suit approached Rei and undid the knots on the rope binding her hards together. There were no marks left behind to her surprise as she shook off her wrists and examined them.

“And what makes you so sure?” She looked back up at Ichirou with a smirk, the threat setting off a domino effect and in no time, a few knives were held to her neck and the side of her head.

“Stand back.” The men listened and the ‘shings’ that accompanied the closing of the knives were a little too close for her liking.

“If you really did want to hurt me, you’d escape out of those ropes before I could’ve even said a word.” He was right.

“They were too loose and carefree, probably because Ichirou told them to,” Rei thought.

“And,” a sing-song tone piped in; Rei clearly remember it as Kouji’s voice, “she wouldn’t catch this.”

Rei’s body instinctively moved in front of Ichirou’s as her hand shot up and grabbed the handle of the pocket knife that Kouji threw just before it could carve her eye out. Kouji smirked at her as she threw down the pocket knife, ricocheting it to meet the male, to which he mirrored her actions and caught it himself.

“How long has it been? Five, seven years?”

“Shut up, you psychotic idiot.” Rei snarled.

“I missed you, too.” And Kouji has the audacity to send Rei a flying kiss!

She rolled her eyes when he brought up a hand to his heart. He still liked to piss her off, it seems.

“Old habits die hard, don’t they Rei?” She glared at the new male coming into the conversation.