Second Chance: A Dark Tale of Urban India

**Archive Room, Hitachi Building**

They burst through the heavy steel door.

The scene hit them like a slap. The manager stood with his trousers pooled around his ankles, his thing buried deep in Sakura’s mouth as she knelt before him, breasts fully exposed.

It didn’t appear forced, but rather mutual.

Time froze for a heartbeat.

The manager reacted first. "How dare you come in here!"

But Li had already seen enough. In a blind, heartbroken rage, he exploded. "You fucking bitch!"

He didn’t go for the manager first. He slapped his own fiancée hard across the face, the crack echoing as she crashed into a shelf of binders. "I wasn’t enough for you... that you came here to swallow his..."

Then he turned, landing a brutal right cross on the manager’s cheek. A tooth flew out with a spray of blood and saliva. "I will kill you!"

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Sakura scrambled to her feet and tried to run. Riku grabbed her arm in a vice grip. "Where do you think you’re going?" he said coldly. "This all started because of you. See this..."

He forced her to watch the manager get punched in the face and later kicked in the stomach.

Sensing real danger, the manager suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs: "Help! Security! These two are trying to assault us!"

The entire floor erupted. Colleagues poured in. They didn’t see the truth — only two troublesome male employees attacking a senior manager and a crying woman with her shirt unbuttoned.

"Fucking rascal, is that your true face?"

"I knew the foreigner is no good."

"Call the police!"

Riku tried desperately to explain. "Wait! We are not... You can ask her. She was his fiancée! And he was forcing her."

All eyes turned to Sakura, who was already sobbing, hiding her face and chest.

"Enough. Get them. No more talks."

Riku protested fiercely, even resorting to threats, but to no avail, while Li Wei stayed deathly silent, staring at Sakura with pure hatred burning in his eyes.

Within minutes, sirens wailed outside.

As the police dragged Riku and Li Wei away in handcuffs, the manager adjusted his tie with trembling fingers and smiled smugly, blood still dripping from his nose. "You both are finished."

The CD-R remained hidden in Riku’s pocket — their only proof, and now their greatest weapon.

Riku grinned maniacally as he was pulled down the hallway. "Oh no... If you dare not come and bail us, I swear I will make you drown with us. I know all your secrets. Dare to try..."

***

The threat had worked.

The manager bailed them out "in good faith," but only in exchange for their complete silence. He refused any compensation and threatened them with further penalties if they ever spoke about the incident. After brutal negotiations and the return of the CD-R (duplicate), the two men were released without formal charges.

Their careers, however, were dead.

With no final pay and no severance, they were given three days to vacate the company dormitories and were left on the streets.

That night, they ended up in a small, grimy bar recommended by their Chinese internet café friend, a dimly lit hole-in-the-wall with cheap drinks and the constant rattle of passing bullet trains.

Riku and Li sat hunched at the counter, glasses of cheap shochu already refilled. Earlier, they were badly beaten and had themselves bandaged.

Riku’s split lip throbbed. Li Wei looked worse, a bandage over his forehead, eyes bloodshot, knuckles bruised.

Li took a long, bitter gulp and slammed the glass down. "My dream job... I chose this company as my dream job, spent two fucking years between Taipei and Tokyo, and they treat me like a damn criminal for exposing a rapist. That’s it."

Riku exhaled a plume of smoke, his voice low and raspy. "They don’t care about the truth, Li. They only care about the NPA contract. We’re just bugs they squashed to keep the paperwork clean." He tapped ash into the tray. "But the 2channel thread is already at five hundred comments. The mirror links are live. By tomorrow, the whole country will know his name. The company won’t be unscathed."

Li scoffed, staring at his bruised knuckles. "And how does that matter? The boss is still sitting pretty. We’re blacklisted. Finished."

Riku leaned in, eyes dark. "Nobody is safe when exposed to the media... People’s perception is hard to change. I doubt the company would choose that baldy over their own reputation."

"To the banger of the Archive Room," Riku raised his glass in a bitter toast, "May his dick rest in peace once the company fires his ass off."

Li Wei wasn’t paying attention to him. He was lost in his own sorrow. "I was supposed to be a Senior Architect by thirty, Riku. My parents in Taipei... I told them I was working at the top of the world. Now? I’m just a ’violent foreigner’ on a police report... My life is ruined."

He slammed the glass down again. "And Sakura... my fiancée. She didn’t even look at me when I hit her. She just stared at the manager’s shoes. Like she was waiting for him to tell her it was okay to cry. Was it for a promotion? A bigger apartment? I don’t even know who she is anymore."

Riku spat blood into a paper napkin. "They’re all the same, Li. My Haruka... I thought she was the one light in that island hell. But when he thrashed me, she just stared at her monitor. I saw her clearly. She was counting the seconds until the chime so she didn’t have to acknowledge I existed. Stupid love."

Li didn’t laugh. He looked utterly broken. After a long silence, he muttered, "I’m done, Riku. I don’t believe in love anymore. I’m going to join a monastery. Shave my head and disappear."

Riku paused, then shook his head with a tired sigh. "Forget it, Li. A monastery? You? You’d be kicked out for bewitching a senior lady monk." He tried to force a laugh, but it came out hollow.

"Hey... Don’t talk like a coward. The world needs young blood like us. You’re going to retire because of one minor setback? One bad choice? Then... what about me? Dated nine and never successful."

Li gave no response, still drowned in his mess.

Riku tilted his head, his gaze sharpening. "Listen to your senior. The choice was bad from the start, brother. She was a single mother in the middle of a messy divorce. That’s not a romance... it was simply lust. I thought you would understand. I even warned you, not a wife material."

He clicked his tongue, adding, "Li... there is a quote in Japan. Real men don’t borrow lineages... they make their own."

Li frowned, the logic slowly cutting through his drunken haze. He exhaled a long, shaky breath. "You’re right... Even if I do marry again... no more baggage. I’m not raising someone else’s shadow."

Riku slapped him on the shoulder, a jagged grin returning to his face. "That’s the spirit. Look, the marriage concept itself is flawed... Why worry about one woman when there are so many chicks? I heard it on some American show once: ’Marry a woman to make one woman happy; remain unmarried to make several others happy.’"

The absurdity of the quote caught Li off guard. He let out a genuine, bark-like laugh that startled the wasted salaryman sleeping two seats down. "Several others, huh?"

"Exactly," Riku cheered, his eyes gleaming with dark mischief. "We’ve been fired, blacklisted, and thrashed. We should go to a Soapland in Kabukicho. Let someone else’s tender hands handle our stress for once. Think about their curvy shapes, their softness... ah, I’m already hard."

"You seriously are the most perverted Ojisan I’ve ever seen. Fine..." Li’s laughter faded as he reached into his empty pockets. "But do we have enough money? The little we have can only rent our new home for a week."

"We’ll figure it out, it’s just a night," Riku said, though his heart wasn’t fully in the lie. He turned to the old bartender, ready to beg for one last tab. "Oi, Pops, one more—"

Before he could finish, a gloved female hand reached over his shoulder and slapped a crisp ¥10,000 (yen) note onto the sticky counter.

The old bartender froze, his eyes widening at the high-denomination bill. Riku and Li both spun around, mouths slightly open.

Standing there was a woman in a sharp charcoal-grey trench coat. Her polished figure stood out in the grimy bar like jade among rust. She carried the unmistakable scent of expensive perfume.

"The Soapland can wait," she said, her voice sweet yet direct. "I think your ’young blood’ is worth much more than a night in Kabukicho."

She slid into the narrow space between them without ordering a drink and dropped her purse on the counter. Instead, she placed a sleek silver flip phone on the counter. On the screen was a live feed of the 2channel thread Riku had started.

"It’s gaining traction," she said in perfect, slightly accented Japanese. "Five thousand views in twenty minutes. The company won’t stay silent. The NPA is already scrambling to pull the plug on the Hitachi servers."

Riku tensed, stepping back. "Who are you? Police?"

She smiled, but her eyes stayed cold. "The police want to put you in a cage for ’assault’ and ’data theft.’ My employers? They want to put you in a private jet to Shanghai."

She glanced at Li Wei. "Li-san, your confrontational skills in the archive room were legendary. We admire men with guts like you. And Riku-san... anyone who can map a mainframe while being slapped by a third-rate manager is wasted in this country. Want revenge? Posting on a message board... is for children."

She slid two dark blue passports onto the sticky counter. "New identities. Clean records. The first train to Narita Airport leaves in four hours."

She let them absorb her words for a few seconds, then added with mesmerizing intensity, "Are you tired of being put on a leash, or do you want to see what happens when you can bite back?"

Li’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Thanks, but... who are you? Why are you helping us?"

The woman pulled out a sleek business card and placed it in front of them. "My name doesn’t matter. What matters is the organization you would be joining. My interest is simple — not wasting talent."

Riku picked up the card and read it: Shinra Vanguard. The name sounded like a legitimate Japanese company.

He didn’t look at her face at first. He leaned in and breathed deeply as she moved closer. Beneath the bar’s cheap grease and her expensive perfume, he caught a sharp, fermented sting.

"Authentic Doubanjiang," Riku muttered, staring into his sake. "And that’s not Japanese rice vinegar. It’s too dark. Too smoky. Zhenjiang black vinegar."

He finally looked up, a smirk forming. "You didn’t just come from an office. You came from a kitchen in Ikebukuro’s Chinatown. I can smell the Sichuan pepper on your coat," he deduced in a low rasp. "Aren’t you Chinese?"

The woman showed a flicker of surprise, which quickly turned into a dark, knowing smile. "Indeed. You are sharper than our intel. But fear not — the organization’s owner and it itself are Japanese. We hire from all nations if they meet our criteria."

She took out her purse as if preparing to leave. "If you join, you’ll first be taken to Shanghai for two years of training and briefings. Eventually, you’ll return to Japan for missions. Your contract stands for twenty years of service. Of course, you can choose to extend it... or retire with a very large sum of money."

Riku and Li exchanged a long look.

Riku asked quietly, "What do you think?"

Li replied, half-joking but clearly tempted, "She doesn’t look bad. I wouldn’t mind going with her."

Riku smiled. At least Li was cheered up. They had a goal now — and a new place to stay. As long as it wasn’t some hellhole of the Japanese Yakuza world...

But he had no idea they were stepping into something far worse, a labyrinth of international shadows, betrayal, and a long, bloody path of revenge that would eventually end with Riku’s death... only to be reborn as an 18-year-old boy named Rohit in India.

Rohit snapped out of the violent memories, his mind clearing. No... something is indeed fishy.

At one point, he felt happy to see his past comrade, but would that solve his current problems? No. Rather, he would cut his throat for smearing the name of his friend.

By then, he reached the main road and hailed a passing taxi, but not before checking his back one last time.

Behind him, a black sedan stood park in shadows. Three Japanese men in dark suits emerged from their hiding seats.

The driver asked, "Do you think he saw us?"

The other man shrugged. "Who knows? Let’s keep trailing him. We follow Mistress’s orders."

The third man nodded, checking his watch. "Ren-sama is waiting for results. Don’t lose him."