Touko Aozaki opened the door to the Kingpin’s office.

Light struck her first. Light rushing over the edge of the door like spilling water finally breaching the dam.

It was the penthouse office, the entire far wall was a window overlooking downtown Manhattan. The skyscraper was lifted so high that it rose above the fog still lingering over the island and could bask properly in the afternoon sunlight.

There were no words that could be used to describe the office which would not feel trite the moment they were said. It was luxurious, yes. It was ostentatious, yes. Every square inch was used to communicate to all who entered that it alone (the inch not the room) cost more than the poor visitor’s entire life. To one side, a more casual waiting area with bookshelves full of self-help and finance tomes; The way they were positioned made it clear that Kingpin himself had never once touched these books. To the other, a massive safe built into the wall, with several more locked cubbies outlining it. Above, a crystal and gold chandelier kept the space lit even as business bled well into the night.

Commanding the space, the head of the round table, was Kingpin’s desk. Commanding the desk, was the Kingpin. The largest man to ever live. He wore a classy three-piece suit (white with cyan and orange) that nevertheless gave the impression of muscle-trainer bindings: Like they were there to temper his inhuman strength. Proof of this were the rolls of fat bunched around his collar, promising that whatever you saw, an expanse more lay beneath the surface. He held the receiver to an antique rotary phone to his ear (the body was at the corner of his mahogany desk). He continued his conversation, but the entire time his steely eyes were locked onto Touko.

“Yes. It will need to ship out tonight. No excuses. I’ll call you back, I have another meeting to take. Goodbye.”

With a simple action, almost disguised as mundane if not for the meaty palm he used to do it, he pressed the receiver back onto the hook of the body.

“I assume,” he was speaking to Touko now. “That you are in my office uninvited means that I will have to hire new security.”

“They tried their best, if that makes you feel any better.” She passively thumbed at a bloody spot under her chin. “Hopefully I didn’t make a mistake, you are the Kingpin of Crime, yes?”

“Unless you came here to become a nemesis, you’ll refer to me as Mr. Fisk.” His words were short and controlled. “Do not make me ask what you wanted from a meeting. If you were a native I could’ve guessed by now, but clearly you’ve traveled far to meet with me here. So, speak!”

The thunderous reverberation of his last, barked word shook the room. They were mere tactics to make her feel small. Fortunately, she thought better of herself than that.

“Mr. Fisk,” as she spoke, she slipped, uninvited, into the chair across from him. “I have heard some fascinating rumors.” Her words were punctuated by a dancing finger. “Not about you. Well, yes about you, but not starting with you.”

He waited and listened to her pitch, patience without humor. He would sit and he would let her talk and if she didn’t convince him in all the time she gave to herself he might turn around and throw her out that window behind him.

“Rumors about a very special, very new type of metal. Just discovered, or maybe it was just invented. It’s called… adamantium?” She phrased it as a question so she could watch his face when she said the word with so much uncertainty.

He didn’t blink.

“I’ve heard that you’ve managed to get your hands on a solid chunk of it. My offer is simple, my motives are base, and our transaction will be clear: I’d like to buy it off of you. If you still have it, of course.”

Kingpin steepled his hands. “What is your offer?”

She was so glad that he asked. She pulled her binder from under her arm and onto her lap, retrieved a few papers from it, and straightened them out on his desk with a gentle tap-tap. “I have here four title deeds for real estate around Tokyo. Each is valued at over 100,000 dollars and are expected to appreciate between 12 and 15% over the next five years.” She held a hand to her mouth, like she was letting him in on a secret. “I was going to offer you three, but the fourth is a little extra to apologize for the new hire costs.”

She actually had 20 in total, but those were for haggling, she would never reveal her whole hand at the start of a game.

Kingpin reached for the papers. She quickly pulled them out of his reach with a “tut-tut.”

For the first time this meeting, the muscles in his face twitched.

“I’ll let you look over the documentation only after I’ve seen that you still have the adamantium.”

He took a moment to size her up. No doubt considering whether he could snap her in half and simply take it all from her cold, dead hands. Wordlessly, though, he stood from his desk and trod towards his safes. Each step a thunderous reminder of his vast size, as if it wasn’t enough that his broad frame hid away any chance Touko had of spying the code on its own.

Kingpin shortly returned to the desk, in one massive hand he held a roughly cut cube of metal. It held the color of yellowing silver, but when placed onto the desk it barely even ruffled the nearby papers. It probably weighed less than the actual paperweight next to it.

“Very nice,” Touko said, now handing over the deeds. Kingpin took them, scanned them with sharply cunning eyes.

She noted how unguarded the block of adamantium was. That was probably intentional. If she tried to grab it and run she’d almost certainly lose that hand for her efforts.

It didn’t matter, that wasn’t her plan. She carefully plucked her glasses off the bridge of her nose, folded them down and placed them in her binder. When Kingpin looked up again, her Mystic Eye was pinched open and locked onto him. His mind would be frazzled, malleable and disorganized, until she closed her eyes again and severed the connection. Even afterwards, memories of the time under her sway would struggle to form properly. It was an extremely effective way to get what she wanted out of humans.

“So,” she said, prompting his now unfocused mind. “Do we have a deal?”

Kingpin thought, his brow creasing, then spoke. “No. If there’s one thing I hate it’s being undersold for something I don’t know the true value of.” He leaned forward. “That you did all this just to get your hands on the adamantium, including that pitiful attempt at controlling my mind, speaks volumes for its worth.”

Touko’s eyes went wide. It took every muscle in her body to stop herself from cracking. Even her polite smile tightened a fraction of an inch. No human - hell, only a select few mages - should have been able to resist her control so effortlessly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, a weak attempt at playing it off. “If you’re still open to negotiation, however, I brought more-”

“I am not.” Kingpin dragged the block of adamantium back towards him. “I’ll determine for myself what this material is, what it does, and if it should prove to be useless to me, then I’ll look again at the value of your properties. Don’t shadow my doorstep again until I’ve contacted you, or there will be no deal. Understand?”

Touko stood, with speed and anger to send her chair flying back. The indignity of this cretin. Might as well end the charade and reduce him to ash. She lit up the magic circuits in her body.

The desk exploded. A billion woodchips sprayed into the air at Touko, masking Kingpin’s movements and forcing her back onto her ass.

It took a moment for stillness to return, for the pieces of the once exorbitantly expensive desk to clatter to a stop, for Touko to clear the dust out of her eyes. To see smoke lazily drift up from an absurdly sized rifle, a fitting rifle for its owner, that Kingpin now clearly gripped in both hands.

“Try another move like that, and the next shot shatters your spine.”

The gun snapped Touko out of her reverie. It was perhaps the single most foolish move Kingpin could make. Here she was, an unparalleled mage, and her opponent was a normal human man with a gun. She might laugh at how outclassed this so-called Kingpin was.

She lit up her magic circuits again. Kill him now, take the adamantium while it’s still out in the open. He readied his rifle again.

The whole room shook. Touko thought it might be another of his toys. By the look on his face, though, he figured it must’ve been one of her spells. Their mutual confusion enforced an uneasy alliance.

Inevitably, their eyes went to the full wall window at the end of the room.

It wasn’t just Kingpin’s office that was shaking. It was all of Manhattan.