This is where the story starts to kick into gear at last. Everything up till now had been already pretty much covered in the prologue and promo stuff, and I feel like it would only have been like one chapter of a regular Ryu ga Gotoku game. So it’s two fairly story-heavy chapters this time, 6 and 7.
Chapter 6: Enemies on all sides
Kasuga has a flashback, to him and Arakawa talking back in 2000, again with Arakawa telling Ichiban not to smile so much. “You grinning away like that all the time will end up making your ‘smile’ ineffective. Save it for when you’re cornered and in big trouble, and give your opponent a big smile. Then your smile will become a weapon. It makes him think, ‘He’s still got something up his sleeve.’ It could give you a way out.”
[I’ll just note, there’s a bug in the game (at least in mine. I’m playing on an old-ish iPad, it crashes quite a lot too), where whenever there’s an overlay on the screen it blanks out half the text box, and the log is blank too. However, when the flashback ends you can tap the log button to see the flashback text. It looks like this:]
Kasuga wakes up in hospital, and Kitamura is with him. Ichiban’s first words are “Oyassan smiled!” He explains to Kitamura what Arakawa told him about how yakuza only smile when they’re in trouble. Kitamura asks, “You really trust Arakawa that much?” Kasuga thinks Arakawa deliberately aimed his shot so as not to hit any vital organs, but Kitamura disagrees. He says even though the bullet didn’t hit anything vital, Kasuga would still have died if X hadn’t predicted what would happen and called an ambulance for him. He’s been unconscious for three weeks, but Kasuga is still determined to get Omi out of Kamurocho and help Arakawa. “If you pick a fight with me, I’ll fight you … and win!” Kitamura asks if that’s another one of his old people quotes, and he says no, those are my own words.
Three days later, he’s out of hospital again, convalescing by fighting Omi guys.
Kitamura takes some time to explain the current state of Kamurocho. Arakawa Masumi now basically rules the town. Within Arakawa Gumi there are four leaders, powerful people known as “Omi’s Four Kings.” One of them is Sawashiro, but they don’t know who the other three are yet. Arakawa Gumi operates like the mafia, they don’t let information out. He tells Kasuga his first step will have to be to find out who they are.
Kasuga asks Kitamura why he’s cooperating with such a such a shady guy as X. Kitamura says that his life was saved by the police, just as Kasuga’s was saved by the yakuza, and that’s why he became a cop. His aim is to put the police back how it was, when he admired it. He knows he has to be careful of X, but that’s exactly why he thinks it’s best to be working with him.
Kitamura says they should try to gather information discreetly but that’s not how Kasuga operates. He gets the first Omi guy who attacks him to take him to their office, storms in, and asks their boss about the Four Kings. The guy asks what he’s going to do with that information and Kasuga says, “Shut up! I don’t know either!” Anyway, he doesn’t know anything about the Four Kings.
Then back on Tenkaichi Street, who turns up but Nakai, the manager of the cabaret club in Chapter One. He’s still in Kamurocho, still working in the same place, and he invites them to come in for a drink. But … Kamurocho has changed. Because of the police’s yakuza countermeasures, shops have to hire designated security companies. But all those designated security companies are Omi fronts! The club is sinking under a ton of loans, so he had to sell Kasuga out to Omi to clear them.
Kasuga apologises to Nakai for putting him in that position. But then another old friend turns up with the Omi attackers – Yasumura.
Chapter 7: A glimmer of hope
Kasuga asks Yasumura why he didn’t come to meet him when he got out of prison. He calls him by his old nickname, Mitsu, but Yasumura tells him not to be so familiar, calling him “Kasuga-san”. He says Kasuga left the gang and he isn’t his aniki any more.
After they fight him, the Omi grunts are still coming at them, but then a young woman turns up and tells them to follow her. She leads them out the back way and into the sewers.
The girl, who Kasuga thinks looks familiar, leads them to Akiyama, who knows who they are already. He introduces himself as “your ally. Probably.”
Then the girl introduces herself as Seto Mayumi, and Kasuga remembers her: she’s the granddaughter of Granny Mitsuko, the late mama of Cat Burglar in the Champion District.
They leave the sewers via the manhole in Children’s Park. Kasuga’s already forgotten Akiyama’s name, and Mayumi finds that offensive. Kasuga says she was a lot quieter at Cat Burglar. He says she might be more popular with guys if she was nicer. Which she takes even more offence at. Kitamura breaks in to introduce himself. And then Kasuga gets offended because she’s polite to him.
Anyway, Akiyama asks Kasuga to fight, but he says he won’t fight without a reason. So Akiyama says he guesses the Killer Arakawa Gumi isn’t up to all that after all, and he supposes that’s only to be expected of a gang run by a “traitor”. So of course Kasuga gets angry and Akiyama gets the fight he wanted.
Afterwards he says he was testing Kasuga’s strength. Because he and Mayumi want to team up with Kasuga and Kitamura, to kick out Omi and bring back the old Kamurocho.
Kitamura asks if he’s the same Akiyama who runs Sky Finance, and Akiyama says he is, but the business is shut down now. Kitamura tells Kasuga about Akiyama’s history, and says he’s well known to the police because he was deeply involved in several incidents in Kamurocho. Akiyama says he wasn’t so much involved as he got dragged into things … but anyway, he wants Ichiban to help him for more than one reason.
Arakawa Masumi showed himself in order to meet with Kasuga. So he thinks Kasuga might be a more important person to Arakawa than he even realises himself. And Akiyama thinks that will make him a key man in taking back Kamurocho.
Kasuga says he’ll help, but there’s one thing they need to know. His aim is to save Arakawa. He knows Akiyama sees him as the main enemy, but for Kasuga if Arakawa’s in trouble he’s going to help him. Mayumi and Akiyama are shocked. “But Arakawa shot you!?” That doesn’t matter to Kasuga, but Mayumi can’t accept it. She says he doesn’t know anything, and runs away.
Kasuga goes after her to try to talk to her, and ends up in the Champion District, which is deserted. Except for Omi of course. The guy from the bar he talked to before comes out and asks him to please stop fighting outside his shop. But this time he recognises Kasuga, calling him Ichiban-kun.
He used to live next door to Cat Burglar when Ichiban was a kid, but he moved away from Kamurocho for a while. Kasuga asks if he has any idea where Mayumi might be, and he says try the second basement floor of the Sansa Building in Nakamichi Alley. It’s a members’ club, though. Kasuga says he’ll use his fists as his membership card. Before he leaves, though, the guy talks about the mama’s suicide again. He says Mayumi’s been fighting all alone since then, so if Kasuga is her friend, he’d like him to help her. Kasuga says he doesn’t really understand, but okay.
He goes to the place the man told him about, and it’s a casino.
(I’m taking a break now to play the Judge Eyes demo, so it might be a few days till the next update.)
Dojima's Dragon Girl 
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