The Quiet Life They Couldn't Let Him Have. (Takemichi.)

Takemichi's Vanishing Life

Takemichi Hanagaki had disappeared without a trace.

No one knew where he went, no one saw him again after he slipped away from Toman's chaos. For weeks, rumors spread-some said he was dead, others whispered he betrayed the gang. But the truth was far simpler, far quieter.

Takemichi was alive, but he had chosen a life no one would ever expect.

He lived in a cramped, half-broken apartment on the edge of the city. The ceiling leaked when it rained, the walls were thin enough to hear the neighbors fight, and the bed was a second-hand mattress pressed against a dusty window. By day, he worked as a cashier in a small library no one visited. It was silent, safe, and ordinary-the complete opposite of the life he had known.

For the first time, he wasn't fighting, he wasn't saving anyone, and he wasn't running after Mikey. He was just... existing. Forgotten. Invisible.

But Bonten had not forgotten him.

Mikey, Draken, Baji, Kazutora, the Haitani twins-every single one of them remembered. And it drove them mad. They searched every corner of Tokyo like men possessed, obsessed with the boy who had once been their heart, their hope, their anchor. To them, Takemichi wasn't just a missing person. He was everything.

The more Takemichi slipped into a normal, quiet life, the more Bonten descended into chaos. Mikey's smile grew darker, Draken's fists bloodier, Hanma's laughter sharper. Each of them carried the same hunger: find him, no matter what.

And in the shadows of the city, Bonten whispered his name like a curse, like a prayer-
Takemichi.