• The sky was bright. There were no clouds in the sky, and the wind blew with an angered force at the elated height. Two men stood under the tall Sakusei bridge, pieces of debris being whipped into their faces, their black and dashing suits getting gritty.

    “You're falling, Mitsubashi.”

    “Not until I see you dive into those watery depths, Takefumi.”

    The two men were Mitsubashi and Takefumi. Obviously. They're both from rivaling groups in the city of Ravenhurst: the Legion of Gigatsi Café and the Children of Sorrow Church followers. These groups have been rivaling for decades, and the prides of these groups have finally decided to duke it out. Under a bridge, with guns.

    With each's barrel pointed at the other, their breath steady and soothing. The only sounds were the waves below and the cars above.

    Takefumi snorted, the smell of the salty ocean water filling his nostrils, and then he grunted. “You going to shoot, Mitsubashi? Or are we going to wait here all day? I've got the café to tend to, you know?” The waves beneath both men's feet were more than two-hundred feet away, and Takefumi's psychologically addressed fear of water was kicking him in the head. Sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eyes. Without flinching from the salty pain, he blinked it away. One might be amazed at how little he feared the searing pain a bullet wound would leak compared to the fall into those crisp waves. But then again, he was a proud, prestigious member of the Gigatsi Café, and not much feared him in the first place.

    “Yeah, I know. But I'm afraid you'll never leave this place, Takefumi.” Mitsubashi paused as he winced at the memories he held with his rival. He pulled back on the gun's hammer and grit his teeth, getting ready for whatever may come.

    The two men used to have a sort of respect for one another; in fact, they used to be the greatest of friends. Then they split ways when they choose to devout themselves to the rival groups. As ex-best friends are, they still held that respect and honor towards one another, having fair battles and trying to lead a good fight.

    One day, they were having breakfast in a neutral diner on a hill. The sort that looked like an old trailer truck and had a shady owner with too-young-looking waitresses which sometimes got harassed. The cops never paid attention, though. No one gave any attention to the neutral facilities, which was why they were the best places for inter-group friendship meetings to take place.

    At this neutral diner, the two got into an argument about how to pour salt. Mitsubashi said to just shake it over the meal, while Takefumi said to pour it into the hand and then sprinkle it. This turned into a gun fight, and the diner being shut down for a few months to recover. Of course, though, the diner's underground operations never stopped, which was why it came back so fast.

    “Why did it have to come down to this, old friend?” Mitsubashi said, sadness in his eyes. One might say those of the Church were a little more emotional than those of the Gigatsi, but those were all lies. The Church was just a little more... merciful, while Gigatsi was more rough-and-tumble.

    Takefumi sighed, shrugged, and spun his gun around his trigger finger, whirling it around a few times. “Whatever the mess we've gotten ourselves into... we can't get out of, now, can we?” The grip on his handgun tightened, and he pulled back the hammer, too.

    “You ready, Takefumi?”

    “As ready as I'll ever be, Mitsubashi.”

    There were three loud shots, and then everything was silent except for the hazy sound of waves below.