The night belonged to assassins.
Asou Akiya recuperated in the safe house, one eye on his own condition, the other remotely checking on the progress of the two little troublemakers at their cram school.
When he read Chuuya's short essay, he laughed so hard he nearly tore his stitches open.
The composition was saturated with resentment and quiet misery, painstakingly recounting everything he had seen and experienced since arriving in Tokyo. In the clumsy, earnest prose of a nine-year-old child, Nakahara Chuuya sketched out an Edogawa Ranpo who seemed determined to bring chaos down upon heaven and earth alike.
Akiya replied on his phone with an encouraging comment:
[Extremely immersive writing.]
It wasn't that he didn't want to use a computer, sitting upright for too long was simply troublesome, and as for laptops… well, apologies, but this world had only just emerged from war. Many nations were still mired in postwar turmoil; there was no IBM, no Apple, and laptops here were bulky, unwieldy contraptions. To someone accustomed to sleek, lightweight modern machines, Asou Akiya found them thoroughly uncomfortable to use.
Nakahara Chuuya was texting him from the red phone Akiya had bought before their departure.
[A week's almost up. When can I come back to Yokohama?]
[Did you understand everything covered in your classes?]
[…I understood it.]
A lie.
Asou Akiya was not a foolish, doting parent. Stuffing a nine-year-old into a cram school meant for adolescents was, by any normal standard, a classic case of forcing a seedling to grow too fast. The problem was that geniuses were different, and he had never intended to raise his own kids by ordinary rules.
Nakahara Chuuya: physical age, nine; true age, not even three yet. In everyday life, he was no different from an ordinary child.
Edogawa Ranpo: physical age, fourteen; true age… well, let's not go into that. Suffice it to say, he was a lively, restless child, destined to stand peerless in the field of deduction.
His intelligence was terrifyingly high.
His emotional intelligence was terrifyingly low.
Placed side by side, neither of them could be called normal. Whether an Arahabaki or a human prodigy, every last one of them still had much to learn.
[Akiya! Is your plan finished yet? I miss Yokohama's cheap sweets!]
This reply was clearly sent by Edogawa Ranpo after snatching Nakahara Chuuya's phone, willful as ever, and firing the message off to Asou Akiya.
Because of the information blackout, Edogawa Ranpo still had no idea that Asou Akiya had been injured. Based on his deductions, he concluded that Akiya was simply taking advantage of this opportunity to carry out a plan that would sever all future threats, clearing the way for Randou to smoothly join the Port Mafia. What kind of plan was it? Ranpo guessed that it had something to do with Asou Akiya's past. A clever adult like him would surely have prepared a decisive trump card for himself.
Asou Akiya was profoundly grateful for Edogawa Ranpo's overestimation of him, silently chanting to himself, "Distance creates beauty."
Living together day in and day out made it far too easy for slips of the tongue to happen. He was deeply worried that the halo of genius he wore in Edogawa Ranpo's eyes might one day shatter.
Just how intoxicating that halo was—only those who wore it would ever truly understand.
[Soon.]
After soothing the two cats who were bickering with each other from afar, Asou Akiya sat on the bed and glanced toward the bathroom.
Randou was showering.
Truly, choosing frosted glass for the bathroom door had been the right decision—hazy, indistinct, and utterly perfect.
Asou Akiya took a deep breath, his hand drifting to the bandages wrapped around his abdomen—ah, he'd accidentally touched his kidney instead. There would be so many days ahead for them to spend together; if he didn't take proper care of himself now, how could he possibly live up to Randou's fierce, blazing affection?
Outside the safe house, Kimura Semei stared at the room where the lights were still on, a cold smile creeping across his lips.
He had already surveyed the surrounding roads while remaining hidden.
No one was coming to save Asou Akiya.
Even the French ability user mentioned on the back of the letter did not worry him in the slightest. It was true that European ability users were infamous far and wide, their reputations thunderous, but how strong could a foreigner who had only just awakened his ability really be? Spatial abilities were rare and special, yes—but a spatial ability that merely suppressed movement and stabilized wounds was laughably weak, at best a support-type power, hardly worth fearing.
Kimura Semei had absolute confidence in his own skills. Give him one minute, and he could slit the throats of everyone inside the safe house.
"I'm Black Lizard."
A faint ferocity twisted his expression. Since joining the Port Mafia's Black Lizard unit, he had done more filthy, unspeakable things than he could count. Whether he liked it or not no longer mattered—he had sought the organization's protection, and that meant paying the corresponding price.
Ability users were closer to urban legends than to subjects the Japanese mainstream media would ever openly report on.
In Japanese society, to stand alone as an ability user was extremely dangerous.
There were rumors of organizations secretly targeting them, branding them as tumors festering within Japan.
Kimura Semei sneered at such claims. All excuses, every last one of them. They coveted the power of ability users, then turned around and smeared their names. Japan's defeat was the fault of those in power—what the hell did it have to do with ability users?
What would Japan even look like without ability users? How would the world's great powers treat Japan then? Kimura Semei had never bothered to think that far. His thoughts stalled at that point, refusing to move forward. He admitted it himself—he had never left the country, knew little of the outside world, and could only operate within Yokohama. He had once harbored a trace of envy toward that "analyst" who climbed the ranks with nothing but his brain.
Now, that envy had hardened into something solid and murderous.
[If you have no grudge against me, I can't be bothered with you.]
[If you do have a grudge against me? Sorry about that.]
[Strike first.]
[Let ordinary people die clutching their resentment at being killed by ability users!]
Kimura Semei reached the balcony and silently slipped inside.
The instant he set foot in the safe house, Asou Akiya sensed nothing amiss. A gentle smile lingered on his face as he leisurely admired the sight of his lover's back while bathing. It was only when the killing intent seeped into the room that Randou—standing farther away—suddenly spun around. Through the glass door, it was as though he could already see his enemy.
—I can avenge Akiya now.
Asou Akiya shifted his gaze, leaned back against the pillow, and calmly watched the Black Lizard member who had arrived.
"Kimura-kun, you're here."
Perhaps it was because the voice was too calm, too detached, utterly devoid of hatred, that Kimura Semei's urgent, killing motion stalled for a split second.
"Well, well, isn't this the pitiful little 'Analyst'?" Kimura Semei sneered. A dagger rested in his hand, his fingers deftly spinning it in a flashy flourish, perfectly displaying both his wariness toward desk-bound intellectuals and his contempt for them in close combat. "So? Have you analyzed why I'm here? Then do you know who leaked your whereabouts—and who ordered me to come kill you?"
Asou Akiya replied instead with a question. "The one here to kill me doesn't know himself?"
The corner of Kimura Semei's mouth twitched.
Damn it—these clever types. He really did not know. At best, he had blindly guessed one of the Port Mafia's sub-executives.
"You think mocking me like that will make me spill more information?" Kimura Semei brazenly shifted the blame elsewhere. "After tonight, you'll die in a gas explosion staged by an assassin. All the evidence will be wiped clean along with your death. As for the person pulling the strings behind all this—he's not someone you or I can afford to offend."
Asou Akiya smiled. "Pulling the strings? Are you worried I might be hiding a listening device? Don't worry. Nothing will leak out."
Facing the dyed-haired man dressed in a hip-hop style, the black-haired young man's voice suddenly dropped, dark and heavy.
"As a son, one must avenge one's parents. Even if I wasn't especially close to them, that much remains the same."
"..."
Kimura Semei locked eyes with him, gnashing his teeth in a near-neurotic reflex, fully aware that this hatred could only be settled through death.
An absolute nuisance to the extreme!
It only meant adding yet another piece of damning evidence—another handle by which his murder could be seized and used against him!
Beside them, the steady patter of water in the bathroom suddenly came to a halt.
Kimura Semei's nerves snapped tight. His gaze turned cold as he looked toward the second person he was meant to kill. The faucet was shut off, and Randou pushed open the frosted glass door, stepping out of the bathroom. He walked on the tips of his toes, a towel wrapped loosely around his waist. Droplets of water slid down his milky-white skin, and in the cramped, sealed space of the safe house, the scent of rose shampoo quietly spread.
In an instant, the ambiguous atmosphere washed away the air thick with gunpowder.
A scorching French allure rushed straight at the senses.
Japanese beauties were mostly bound by restraint, their frames slender and delicate, lacking the unabashed sensuality so common among Europeans.
As Randou approached, moisture clung to the tiles, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints. Kimura Semei could not help swallowing hard. When had he ever witnessed such a vividly alive, intoxicating scene?
Peerless beauty, a poet's romance, and a rare aristocratic bearing—after two years steeped in love, Randou radiated a breathtaking splendor in this far eastern island nation. He was like a French cat cradled in someone's palms, refusing to spare others a proper glance, arrogance etched deep into his bones. He belonged sprawled across a lavish bed, the room filled with antiques once owned by European royalty, his ebony-long hair scattered over silken sheets, head tilted to the side as his fingers idly toyed with some dull, empty gemstone.
No matter how dazzling the jewels, they paled in comparison to those languid, ash-green eyes. Within them seemed to burn a reckless, blazing soul—one that shattered the confines of gender itself.
He should not have been here!
He should not have appeared like this—so close to wanton abandon—as he emerged from a crude, makeshift bathroom!
Anyone with eyes should understand—
This was not someone an ordinary household could ever have produced!
Such a stark sense of dissonance inevitably filled the mind of anyone seeing Randou for the first time, and Kimura Semei was no exception, despite having seen his share of Yokohama's red-light districts. Instinctively, he could not bear to blink. What a French beauty! So the lover Asou Akiya had been secretly keeping by his side for two years was not a woman—but a young man!
"What a pity," Kimura Semei said coldly. "The beauty you've hidden for two years will have to die together with you."
Kimura Semei revealed a vicious look of mock regret as the glow of his ability surfaced. That peculiar power spread to every corner of the room, forming node-like markers throughout the space, each one poised and waiting for detonation.
Asou Akiya rested his hand atop the blanket. He did not reach for the gun. Instead, he asked calmly,
"Does no one know where you are tonight?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Kimura Semei grew increasingly unsettled by Asou Akiya's composure. He abandoned the idea of cutting his throat at close range, positioning himself with his back to the balcony and raising his guard. The one he truly guarded against, however, was the Frenchman. Yet Randou ignored the presence of his ability entirely and stood by the bed.
Asou Akiya was feeling unwell. He coughed a few times, and Randou gently patted his back and poured him some water.
Their love had not changed because of abilities.
After meeting Randou, Asou Akiya's fate had undergone a tremendous shift—not in the simple sense of becoming better or worse. He had gained Randou's support, no longer needing to live cautiously, craning his neck to look up at the world.
His voice grew hoarse, yet still carried a trace of a smile.
Slowly, he unveiled the truth.
"How pitiful. Then… no one will know that you disappeared."
In the instant before the ability detonated, a golden subspace swallowed the entire room whole, drowning the panic-stricken Kimura Semei within it, brutally tearing him away from the real world with no possibility of escape.
One of the highest-tier abilities in the world.
"Illuminations."
Its true effect could be summed up in a single sentence: it reads the living as the dead, and reads the dead as humanoid abilities.
Asou Akiya drank the warm water, then apologized to Randou, who had told him everything about the ability without holding anything back.
"I'm sorry. I let you dirty your hands."
"I don't care."
Randou did not hesitate or waver. Avenging one's parents was only natural and just.
Thinking of how Akiya would have to spend three full months recuperating, Randou felt an urge to tear the enemy to pieces. He asked softly, almost idly, "Should we desecrate the corpse? I haven't mastered this power perfectly yet… but my instincts tell me that doing so wouldn't be a problem at all."
Asou Akiya: "..."
No. I just wanted to avenge the original owner's parents. There's no need to be that brutal.
Asou Akiya closed his eyes briefly. "At the very least, he was an ability user. Don't waste that power. Read him into a humanoid ability instead. After that, have him make contact with Tanaka and find the one pulling the strings behind Tanaka."
A chilling darkness spread through his black eyes.
"Follow the trail, one link at a time. Before Ranpo comes home, resolve all of our troubles."
Just kidding.
A mere Port Mafia was nowhere near enough to make his partner really cut loose.
Top-tier French intelligence operatives… were terrifyingly efficient.
I may not have Port Mafia ability users protecting me, but the one who has stayed by my side all along, guarding me at close range, is a Transcendent.
Mm. I've eaten far too much soft rice.