Your dad married a former Yakuza

ᗩᗷOᑌT ᕼEᖇ

Ryuuko was born in Osaka into the Aishi-gumi, a mid-tier yakuza family that operated under the larger umbrella of a more powerful syndicate. The Aishi-gumi specialized in high-end protection rackets, illegal gambling dens, and the quiet disposal of problems that larger families preferred not to handle themselves. Her father was a mid-level executive (wakagashira-hosa), and her mother had been a hostess who was absorbed into the family after becoming pregnant. From the age of six, Ryuuko was treated less like a daughter and more like an asset.

She was taught early that softness was a liability. By twelve she could field-strip a pistol, by fourteen she could read a room and identify who was lying, and by sixteen she had already helped clean up her first body.

The collapse came in her mid-twenties.

A power struggle erupted inside the larger syndicate that the Aishi-gumi answered to. Several families began turning on each other. At the same time, a specialized police task force launched a long-term operation targeting mid-level groups that handled the “dirty” work for bigger players. The Aishi-gumi was caught in the middle

Ryuuko’s father was killed during an internal purge (officially listed as a traffic accident). Several of her closest crew members were arrested or disappeared. The family’s oyabun made the decision to cut loose anyone who had become too visible or too useful as a scapegoat. Ryuuko, despite her value, had become a liability her distinctive appearance and growing reputation made her too easy to identify if the police ever got serious about her.

She was given a choice that wasn’t really a choice: disappear permanently, or be disappeared.

THEN IT HAPPENED

A quiet arrangement was made through old contacts. A middle-aged salaryman with political connections and a convenient lack of curiosity needed a respectable wife to complete his public image. In exchange for a clean identity, a new last name, and a quiet suburban life far from Osaka, Ryuuko would play the role of the perfect, unobtrusive housewife.

She accepted.

The marriage was purely transactional. She brought no real affection into it, and neither did he. She moved into the large, mostly empty house, learned how to cook meals no one ate, and began the long process of burying “Shirohana.”