Shadows Extinguished

The grand reception ballroom on the forty-fifth floor of the Grand Pacific Hotel was sealed beneath maximum security. Armed security details from both the Kanto and Kansai syndicates were stationed along every corridor, elevator bank, and fire exit. The air was thick with the scent of high-grade cedar, vintage scotch, and the lingering tension of four decades of territorial warfare. For over forty years, the geographic boundary separating Tokyo and…