Sometime later Arron returned to the Ryu yakuza’s building Using the dark alleys and less trafficked areas to avoid any police or other patrolling rival yakuza or gang members, Arron managed to return to the underground room inside the Ryu family’s building.
He was surprised to see that several other candidates had finished their ‘Test’ faster than him.
Most of the people waiting in the room had faces full of new bruises. Several of them had small wounds that they were only now bandaging.
Of the people gathered so far there were only a few who looked to be unscathed from their fights.
Since Arron’s completion seemed to be on the quicker side with it only taking him a handful of hours to complete, he and the rest of the candidates in the room had to sit here and wait for the 24-hour time limit to pass.
They were not allowed to order food or leave the room once they arrived. The only food provided were several boxes of synth-energy jelly on a nearby table.
As boredom set in, several conversations between the candidates started up as they bragged about their fights to try and pass the time and relieve some of their stress.
With every hour that passed by more candidates returned. The majority of them were also wounded.
Arron stayed up all night partly due to the stress he was feeling and also all the caffeine that was pumping through him after eating the synth-energy jelly for the day’s meals.
As soon as the 24-hour time limit ended the room’s open doors slid shut blocking anyone from entering or leaving.
Hiss…
A hidden sliding wall door opened and the ‘Old man’ from the day before entered the room followed by two muscular guards.
The old man silently looked at each of the candidates that had returned. There were less than 50 of the initial candidates. Over half of those who had stood here a day ago were nowhere to be seen.
With a silent nod of his head, the Old man’s hands flew into motion as he began tapping on several invisible menus and flicked several files onto the gray holographic projection that was covering the back wall.
“Let’s begin,” said the Old man tapping one of the floating files.
A 3-d holo-video expanded to cover the entire wall and began to play at an extremely fast speed showing every detail of the person’s hunt for their target. When the video reached the fight, it only slowed down for a few minutes as the elderly man nodded while watching the candidate get cut several dozen times by his target but still had a smile as he fought and eventually finished off the target.
“[M], you pass,” said the Old man.
“My name is not M,” said M with a frown.
The Old man did not reply to the rude M, instead, it was one of the guards that spoke.
“If he says your name is M then your name is now M!”
With a swipe of the Old man’s hand, the holo-vid was minimized and thrown away.
In the next holo-video, the candidate who was really skinny found his target, a rival gang member. He fearlessly rushed forward and engaged in battle with the target… but the recording was quite hard to watch after that as several other gang members teamed up and brutally beat him into a twitching mess.
“[Twig], you PASS. When you fully recover you can join the others and begin training,” said the Old man not looking at the man who was covered in bloody bandages and dazed out of his mind from the concoction that had been given to him to combat his pain.
Like this ten more holo-vids were reviewed with each person passing and receiving their new ‘Name’.
With everyone passing with such ease, Arron started to think something was wrong as the current pass rate was 100%.
As he looked at the dwindling files still floating on the wall he finally realized something and started to sweat, his anxiety skyrocketing.
A few others seemed to notice what was going on as well. They were also antsy as they looked back and forth between the current playing holo-vid and the remaining files that were floating on the wall.
When there were only three floating files left on the wall Arron let out a long sigh of relief when he saw his face appear and watched the sped-up recording which only slowed down at the end when the view of the video switched to show Arron apologizing with a blank face before he beat his target bloody and walked out of the bar without another word.
Arron frowned at seeing the high-quality recording of the fight. He was sure that the drone that was following him had stayed outside.
Now after seeing this, it seemed that the [Himitsu Spion’s] bad reputation with the yakuza families and gangs was all a sham to lure unsuspecting targets and have them lower their guard to the point they might let important information slip out their mouths.
“'[Sorry], you pass,” said the Old man as he looked Arron straight in the eyes.
Arron only silently nodded his head.
A short time later the last holo-vid on the wall was reviewed.
For several more seconds, the Old man silently stared at everyone.
“Those of you not mentioned have failed. You may leave now,” said the Old man as the door leading out of the room unlocked and slid open.
“What?” asked a man who had finished his task and had already been in the room when Arron had returned.
“Why are they allowed to join and I am not!?” asked another man who was one of the few without any wounds. He was pointing at the dazed and bloody Twig whose face was so swollen it did not look anything like his original photo.
Another man stood up angrily and pointed at the old man and shouted, “You made me attack Croud who is a member of one of the large Families! What am I supposed to do now!”
The Old man’s calm face finally frowned as the man’s finger was pointed at him and angry words were spat out in his direction.
“I did not force you to do this. You may leave now. If you still want to join the Ryu family you can wait until the next recruitment drive and try again,” said the old man with a sharp tone.
Another angry man stood up next to the first man and said, “My target was an informant for Mother and Father! Because of you, I’m dead now if I get caught!”
The guards, seeing the situation was getting out of control, stepped forward as they drew their weapons, “If you do not want to leave or are having trouble moving your legs, we can help you.”
Several other guards from the hallway entered the room with their weapons drawn. They were all pointed at those who had failed and were no longer welcome.
Seeing this show of force the majority of those who failed meekly hurried out of the room while a few of them stomped out angrily.
When the old man was sure that the failures had all left the building, he turned back to the small group that remained.
They were a mixed bag of people, some of them were heavily wounded and were barely able to stay awake and sit up straight, while others had no visible wounds.
“Each of you has been chosen by me to be a probationary member. But before you can officially join as a probationary member there are still a few things that need to be taken care of.”
Several groans were heard.
“Fear not, there are no more tests that you need to pass right now. The matters I speak of are rather trivial. Despite all the floating gossip and what Mother and Father would want you to believe, we do have our own honor and standards for how we do things, unlike some of the newer and stupid thuggish gangs that are constantly popping up and have no honor,” said the Old man with his hand held up to try and assure them that the tests were over.
“Since this is the case, you will not be able to do as you please, like in those loose gangs. You must live by the code that everyone in each of the Yakuza families lives by along with the house rules of our Ryu family,” said the Old man as he tapped a few options on his wrist datapad and flicked another file forward sending it to each of the probationary members.
“These are the rules you must learn by heart! And this…” said the Old man as he flicked another file forward. “Is a list of tasks you must complete before you are to start your first day as a probationary member. If the list is not completed you will forfeit your right to join the Ryu family and will be barred from future recruitment drives.”
“For those of you with family, you will need to explain to them that you will be away for some time due to work. You will be living here during the entire time you are in probationary hell. Although you will not receive any pay during this time, those of you that need credits to support your family can come and see me later and I can work out a loan for you.”
A few who were looking worried slowly nodded their heads fully relaxing upon hearing this.
With a wave of his hand, the Old man motioned the guards forward.
The guards took out two small wooden boxes and began handing out flimsy metallic badges to each of them.
“This is a temporary identification badge that will help you take care of tasks given to you. Don’t think you can abuse this as it is nothing more than a piece of metal that proves you are related to us. Your permanent probationary identification will be handed to you tomorrow if everything is completed to my satisfaction.”
With that said, the Old man left the room.
