Five minutes earlier
They all watch with bated breath as I raise my arm. Even if they do not know what my plan is, they can feel it, they can feel themselves losing.
I wish I could look at their faces, oh how I wish I could see what expressions they make as I secure my victory. But I can't, I have to focus.
They charge at me, but it's too late. The coins are in the air, sparks fly.
I snap my fingers.
A small ball of destruction, only the size of a fingernail, gathers around my fingers and shoots out, leaving a glowing arc in the air before hitting one of the coins.
Instead of the coin being blown away, it absorbs the entire force of the projectile. After that, it is over.
My explosion ricochets off the first coin, off the second, off the third, fourth and fifth. It is lines of arcing light, creating an explosive matrix in the air. When it hits the fifth coin, the projectile splits in five, one for each of my enemies.
From the air above, the men are met with their own personal doom, an explosion that sends them slamming every which way. Some hit walls, some fall and slide back before collapsing. The result is the same.
I am the one left standing, and they are not.
My body returns to normal, the warhead gone, the fuses melting into my skin. My shirt is bloodied and tattered, and I am left panting.
Ricochet works in a few steps I have to keep track of simultaneously. I have to know how many coins I have, how many times I want the projectile to bounce, how many times I want it to split, and what my targets are.
It's mentally exhausting. More than two coins takes a toll on my psyche.
I struggle to move the passed out thugs, my body small, weak without the transformation. But I can't pull the pin again. It'd last a few seconds at most.
I just grit my teeth and pull each passed out member of their shitty crew, dragging them feet first through the entrance and lining them up like prizes to be won at a fair.
I do it because I want to make a spectacle of this win. I want to show her that I'm becoming something more. That I've changed and that she should be scared of me.
It's only then that she shows herself.
Instead of surprise, instead of fear, instead of anything I hoped for or expected, her face twists into something alien.
She smiles.
It's an expression I've seen before. I've seen her smile, I've seen her laugh, I've seen her pout and grin.
This feels different, and I don't like it. It's disgusting. It's a monster trying to play a human.
All of her other smiles, I realize, everything she's shown me so far, it's all been practiced. She was imitating a smile. This one is genuine. It's honest. She looks happy. Proud.
My stomach sinks in a deep, deep abyss. I scowl. My face contorts without my permission.
No. You can't smile like that. You can't be human.
You can't be human. You can't show me that face.
How can I kill you if you smile like that? How can I maintain my resolve?
I swallow it all down, cold water against nerves.
This won't affect me. I won't allow it. It's one of her tricks. I can't allow her to sway me. She wants me to think she's human, that she's more than just the crazy psycho that tore me apart limb from limb. I won't fall for it. I won't.
I won't.
I breathe in, deep and steady.
Ignore this. Ignore the churning in my stomach. Ignore the bile rising up my throat.
I reset. Back to normal.
Then we laugh. I tell her about what I've done, I tell her about how the old man said we're similar. She finds it funny as I thought she would. She laughs as I remember her laughing.
Good. She's normal again.
I look at her, at her face as if I'm seeing it again for the first time. Stark white hair. Crystalline blue eyes.
Then her name. Reiko.
Well then, Reiko, never smile like that again.
*
"Figure out what you're gonna do with the place?" Reiko asks as we stand in front of the empty storefront. It's dark now, the sun set while we had our dinner.
The men are awake now, standing behind us like puppies at attention.
I'm quiet for a moment, thinking. It should be a cash business, something innocuous that doesn't require much tending to. A convenience store is out of the question, it would be too difficult to obtain licensing, not to mention the up front cost, supply logistics, and staff management.
Most of all, though, it should be something I am familiar with. In case someone comes prodding, I should be able to display familiarity with my own line of business. Or at least, I should be familiar enough with it that I can teach Reiko about it. She's the one they'll question, not me. That cuts out a large part of my options.
It could be a book store, after all, books were a large part of my past life. I'd be good at managing it too, I think. I worked in one before.
"A bookstore?" I say, somewhat tentatively, unsure of my own decision.
Reiko sticks her tongue out. "Boo! Boring."
I sigh, not arguing. It's true. It provokes nothing in me. I tilt my head to get a new look at the empty space.
If someone were to ask me what hobby I regretted not pursuing the most, I'd answer 'music' in a heartbeat. Before my parents branded me as a leech and dumped me off to grandparents, they made me take drumming lessons. Even if I was young, I enjoyed it more than most things.
I had to quit, obviously, it was getting too expensive. Not only that, but a drum set would've gotten me kicked out of my cheap, shitty apartment. I didn't have money for groceries most months, let alone money to rent out practice rooms.
"Music." I say.
"What?"
"Like a music shop. Records and instruments, maybe a practice room in the back."
"This is still to launder money, right?" Reiko snorts.
"Just cause we're laundering doesn't mean this has to be a laundromat," I say. "Besides, laundromats are a mob era relic, people have washing machines in their homes now. It'd be insane to launder that much money through a laundromat nowadays."
"And a record shop isn't old-school?"
I look at her like she just ran over my dog. "People love records."
God knows I wanted to be able to afford a collection.
"Besides, we can just say we sell vintage vinyls on our revenue sheet and bluff the numbers," I continue. "Not to mention selling instruments. We can basically lie as much as we want."
"You're the genius here. Whatever you say goes," Reiko says, hands behind her head. "Just don't be an idiot. Hah. Well, not like it matters. Even if we do get caught, I can just kill the investigators and create a new fake identity. Not like I officially exist anyway."
I chuckle darkly. "That's reassuring."
She places her elbow on my head and uses me as a post she leans on. "A pleasure."
I swat her arm away. "We're gonna need contractors, suppliers too, maybe. At least for the instruments. I can look around for records. I assume money isn't an issue.
"What do we need contractors for?" Reiko laughs, turning around. The old man and his crew avoid her gaze. "We have a perfectly good workforce right here."
"Miss Reiko, please!" Hyoshi starts. "You promised we'd be free if we did this!"
"I promised you'd be free if you won. Did you win?"
They're silent.
"Did you win?"
"No, miss Reiko." Hyoshi bites his tongue. "We apologize."
She scoffs. "See, labour is secured. And we don't have to pay them a dime. Isn't that nice?"
I smirk at my new laborers. "Truly nice, miss Reiko," I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
She smacks the back of my head for what feels like the thousandth time. I don't even feel it anymore, I'm pretty sure that spot's gone fully numb.
"Don't get cheeky," she says. "It's still my hard earned money."
I wave her words off. "You mean blood money."
She pouts. "Brat."
We keep bickering, working out the details of the new venture while her dogs watch in silence, resigned to their fate.
When we finally sign the lease, we use the old man's back as a table to hold the document against. Her name, my name. Neither of us have real identities anymore. She's some sort of ghost, and I am probably assumed dead, a red stain along with my parents.
"We're gonna need new identities," I say.
"Why?"
"So you can file taxes and so that I can exist?" I say, incredulous. "Geniuenly, how do you manage to feed yourself?"
"How mean! Apologize, young nephew!"
"Bleh, auntie is mean!"
"Can we go now?" The old man and his crew are just standing there awkwardly, watching on.
"No!" We say in unison.
Eventually, preparations start. In a matter of months, the shop should be up and running. By then, I'll have grown even stronger, and I'll have my hand in Reiko's pocket.
Things couldn't be going better.
It is only then that she decides to make things worse for me, obviously.
-----
A/N: Bonus chapter here, rejoice!
Anyway, small timeskip next chapter. Can you see where I'm going with the record shop?
Also, I've noticed we're in the top 200 on PS rankings, which is pretty cool. How do people even get to number 1? Regardless, I don't know when the rankings reset, but if we crack the top 50 (somehow) I'll do more bonus chapters.