"That's not right, I didn't lie about it. In Meteor City, we add a year to our age right after New Year's. If we're being really strict, it's already late August now, I'll be 28 in just a few months."
"What's the exact time? If the boss's birthday is at the end of the year..."
"That little bit of time doesn't matter. The leather used for the coat was cut long before it was made. The conclusion is the coat is at least 7.5 years old now, fixing it is useless!"
What does 7.5 years old even mean for a coat?
During the standoff, Saiki Kusuo held out his hand: [Actually, you can try it.]
Chrollo: ?!
[Even though it's said to be 7 years, the ability should have improved. Maybe it's actually 8 years.]
Just a 0.5 second pause.
Illumi suddenly reached out to Chrollo, and Chrollo had already flipped off the back of the sofa and jumped to his feet! In mid-air, he opened the Bandit's Secret manual with one hand and teleported!
Teleporting himself requires swapping places with someone. In this small house, Chrollo suddenly ended up in the kitchen, and in front of Illumi and Saiki Kusuo, stood...
A middle-aged man picking his nose, Saiki Kusuo's dad, a great, ordinary, working-class man who sells his dignity and freedom to his boss to lick his shoes and support his family.
He works as an editor at a publishing company, bossing around all kinds of comic artists at work... Kikyo, no matter what kind of person Dad is like outside, he's Mom's biggest fan when he comes home.
[Hehe, Mom looks so cute when she's cooking, aww] "Aww Aww!! Kusuo, you're back?! Aww?! What's this rock?!"
Which dad comes in the door, doesn't see any humans in the room, and goes straight to the kitchen just to stare at Mom?
In the kitchen, Mom was washing vegetables: "Is the meat cut? Or should I cut it..."
When Mom looked up, she suddenly saw Mr. Chrollo using a small knife to show off his delicate knife skills, instantly cutting the meat on the cutting board into even slices!
"Aww?! Mr. Chrollo! Why did you suddenly come into the kitchen? I thought Dad just got here!"
"Haha, I'm staying at Kusuo's place, it's a bother. Let me help out in the kitchen! I use knives a lot."
"Mr. Chrollo likes to cook? Oh my, what a good boy..."
"I'm pretty good at taking care of myself. Let me handle that fish too, I'm very good at it."
"Okay, should you take off your coat first? You might get fish..."
"It's okay, I really don't need to take off the coat."
"But the sleeves of the coat will definitely get wet..."
"It's okay, I'll be very careful."
"Mr. Chrollo really likes this coat, doesn't he?"
"Yeah, by the way, Mrs., Kusuo has been bothering me a little. Is he always like this? Saying he wants to try some kind of superpower, wants to do something to me..."
Saiki Kusuo appeared at the kitchen door, his face dark.
Too late, how long has this guy been in the house before he knows who the strongest creature in this world is?
"Kusuo, come here and listen to Mom."
…
What can he do? He can only get scolded.
After dinner, Saiki Kusuo went downstairs alone to do research in the basement.
It doesn't matter that Plan B was rejected. Chrollo, that freak, brought the whole Phantom Troupe on board for a coat. Better not damage the coat.
Disasters caused by people with powers should be solved by people with powers.
That's what he said, but it's so hard. He can't use his restore power to restore the machine either. It was even harder to use seven years ago than it is now.
Saiki Kusuo sat in the chair and sighed. He looked at the data for a long time. Even though he had participated in the research before, it would still take two or three days to fix things.
"Can I come in?" Chrollo was already at the door, having closed it. [What is this machine?]
You're already inside, so don't act so polite.
"I already thought it through in my mind at the door, you didn't seem to hear me," Chrollo explained.
With so many thoughts around, how could I hear everything, especially when I'm thinking about something?
"Can you really not take us back right away?"
Jeez, do you think I'm lying to you?
"If there really is no other solution in the end, you can restore my coat."
Oh. Huh? Wait, he's actually willing.
"But the coat is also very important to me, I don't want it to be an easy solution."
[I'm working hard on other ways right now.]
"What is it?" Chrollo walked closer, his hand on the back of Saiki Kusuo's chair.
A different world travel machine... I can't tell him that answer, do I have to make something up again? So...
"A different world, a travel machine?"
?! Did I just say that out loud? I didn't!
"No, I just feel like you're hiding something from us, so, let me listen." [He used sound transmission.]
Saiki Kusuo then noticed that the lapel of his clothes had a brooch pinned on it. Jeez, he was careless and didn't notice.
What's up with this mutual mind reading? Human communication skills have been completely lost, do we have to think without hiding anything like the Trisolarans?
"What are the Trisolarans? People from another world?"
A science fiction novel, I recommend you read it... no, we're getting off topic.
"Let's get back to the topic, why a different world travel machine?"
Because I need to travel to a different world... tsk, I can't hide anything in my mind.
"Why hide it?"
Because...
…
Jeez, this guy uses mind reading too easily.
Saiki Kusuo frowned. Thinking can't be controlled, the things you want to hide the most will be thought of. In just a few exchanges, he had revealed too many things he shouldn't have.
Can only hope Chrollo doesn't believe it? But hearing this thought would make people believe it instead.
Human thoughts are like this, infinitely complex with positives and negatives.
So in the end, what did Chrollo believe and what did he reject? Is it like last time, when he thought it was all the result of Nen?
Chrollo lowered his head, his mind full of thoughts.
"Before... it's not that I didn't have suspicions."
"The fact that his ability couldn't be stolen that day was strong proof. The level of understanding the person we met today had about us was also very strange."
"Your parents really treat you like a person with special powers, and they really treat you like their child, but you should be Saiki Kusuo Zoldyck. This blood relationship is absolutely impossible to fake."
"In this world, the first two characters of a name are the last name, and the last two characters are the first name. There are 'Saiki' two characters at your house door. This is the Saiki home. Combining your parents' last names..."
"And also Saiki Kusuke who suddenly appeared but has an unusually close relationship with you, and no one knows as a non-Nen users."
Why are you naming my family one by one?
"Based on your honest mind and my bold guess, you are a member of this family, but this is a different world, so you have two identities."
He reached the right conclusion.
"Your abilities follow the power system of this world. This world is a world where people with special powers are all the rage..."
?
No, that's not right. I'm the only one with special powers... uh, although there are others, but they are very few.
"That's very reasonable, isn't it just like Nen users?"
Reasonable my foot. The world I'm in is a very, especially ordinary world where I am an outsider, don't categorize this world as a world with special powers!
Important hint: If you can't find the book title, try searching for the author. Maybe the title was just changed!
"Are you the only one with special powers?"
Barely two more... one, if you count intelligence, Kusuke would also count so two, Toritsuka can only see souls.
"...Three now, are they all in this country?"
Ah, um, yeah, indeed, why are they all in Japan?
"Then there must be other people with special powers in the world, it's just that you haven't..."
I'm really warning you not to slander this wonderful ordinary world with people with special powers.
"Okay, this is a world of ordinary people."
In order to hear Saiki Kusuo's thoughts, he needed to keep his brain at the same height. Saiki Kusuo sat in the chair, and Chrollo knelt with his hands propped on his knees. This was a difficult position to maintain for long, so he tentatively compromised.
"The most fundamental thing is that you have two families? That's a lot of information. Have you decided to tell Illumi? He doesn't know, does he."
Why are you concerned about Illumi, no, the Zoldyck family's affairs, just because he's your gang member?
Saiki Kusuo's answer to this was silence.
He had thought that these things would eventually be revealed to everyone.
Now that he had decided to recognize that side of his family in the future, he shouldn't hide this matter any longer.
However, when to say it and what kind of opportunity to find was very important, so much so that there was always a reason to delay it.
Obviously, now was not the right time in his opinion.
But if the opportunity came on its own... and, this also fulfilled the prophecy that Kusuke had told him.
[Prophecy?] Chrollo was surprised, about to get up. [Then I'll hold on a little longer, squatting really makes my legs sore.]
"..." Saiki Kusuo turned to look at Chrollo, only then realizing what position he was in.
Chrollo: [The contents of the prophecy should contain a solution...]
The contents of the prophecy appeared in Saiki Kusuo's mind, but in the next instant, Saiki Kusuo crushed the brooch.
Chrollo only heard the first half of the prophecy that he had already experienced.
[Accidentally bringing you here doesn't affect my life at all. The prophecy tells of something else.] Saiki Kusuo said.
Without the eavesdropping, Saiki Kusuo then recalled it properly.
When Kusuke told him the prophecy...
["The fact that Neon's prophecies are 100% accurate is the setting of this ability. The name left in the prophecy is Saiki Kusuo, but before that, the clone was identified as Saiki Kusuo, so this prophecy foretells the clone's affairs."
"The fourth paragraph of the prophecy starts by saying 'swinging with a tail', which should refer to the clone, right? You shouldn't be switching identities anymore since you're using the difference between cats and humans to distinguish each other. So this whole poem is talking about the clone... that's what I thought before."
"I'm 99% sure that I haven't taken any actions that changed because of the prophecy. Before I told you, the only people who knew the prophecy were me and your clone, which means that up to this point, everything is still following the trajectory of the prophecy."
" The third paragraph of the poem: 'A lying child is not a good child, colorful eyes are watching you, do not deceive with cherished things, only sincerity can be exchanged for sincerity'."
"At the current time, the first half of the third paragraph should have already passed, but where exactly did the colorful eyes watch the clone? I initially suspected that he had colluded with many people, but then I discovered that he basically only knows dark creatures, he didn't care about the Kakin Kingdom at all."
"So the question is, where exactly did the colorful eyes appear?"
"Thinking about the things that have happened over the past three days, whether it's the hospital room or falling from the building, Kusuo is closer to that line of the prophecy than the clone is."
"Perhaps you can believe that the contents of the prophecy are also related to you. After all, the clone has already changed some people's memories, and you have once again become 'Saiki Kusuo'."]
[Then what is the tail swing in the fourth paragraph about? My special powers are still a long way from being restored, right?]
"Well, that's also a problem. The most likely thing I can think of is that perhaps you two are sharing this prophecy, one line at a time?"
[Is it really possible to share something like this?]
Don't deceive with cherished things, only sincerity can be exchanged for sincerity. Whichever of these two sentences I use, it means the same thing.
Don't deceive, this is also the reason why Saiki Kusuo didn't immediately stop Chrollo from eavesdropping.
Chrollo accepts this very well, so Illumi will also accept it easily... right? That's difficult. Illumi values his family far more than he shows on the surface. Chrollo will accept it because he doesn't care at all.
Jeez, what's going to happen, and also the difficulty of repairing the machine in front of me...
"What is this? Is this the design diagram of your machine cat?"
[Huh? Hey, what are you doing messing around in other people's rooms?]
Saiki Kusuo turned around and found that Chrollo was holding Warp's design diagram.
[Jeez, Warp is still in that world...]
Saiki Kusuo was stunned. There was a faint connection between some causes and effects.
Why did he bring Warp to that world? Wasn't it precisely because he could use restoring Warp to return to this world? Then vice versa, if he finds the cat chariot connected to Warp here, he can go back!
That's it!
Saiki Kusuo jumped up, pointing at the design diagram with enthusiasm, scaring Chrollo.
"What did you think of?"
[Find the location of the cat chariot!]
"Cat chariot? The other part connected to this machine cat?"
[Yes! Does the user manual state the address?] The cat chariot is not here. Where could it be?
"There's no address. There is 'In order to prevent Kusuo's special powers from discovering where it is, the location is top secret' written."
[…That guy.]
"Why doesn't he want you to find out?"
[He wants to use this to fight me.]
"So it really is a world of people with special powers?"
[Slander.]
"Is that a world at war? Tanks are coming out, although the design diagram is quite cute, but the full name is 'The Assemblage of Modern Weaponry Cat Chariot'..."
[This is slander.]
Jeez, it doesn't matter. Even if Kusuke is deliberately preventing him, he can find it in minutes through the design diagram using his clairvoyance!
—Thirty minutes later—
Saiki Kusuo was tired.
No one can handle 30 minutes of being cross-eyed, and even though it's only around 10 o'clock, how could a person with special powers start to feel sleepy at this time?
"Aren't you sleepy? According to your previous schedule, you should be asleep now."
[I'm a person with special powers now. It's right to solve the problem overnight to take you back.]
"But the competition is over. There's nothing to do when you go back. There's no need to rush."
[The courage and responsibility of a person with special powers, I now... aaaaaah, I'm so sleepy, why.]
"Is it related to staying up all night last night?"
[…] Is that why!
He completely forgot that he stayed up all night yesterday. Jeez, his sleepiness is overwhelming, that's right.
[Where is Illumi sleeping today?]
"Your older brother is sleeping in the older brother's room."
He's actually sleeping in Kusuke's room.
[Then I'll go back to sleep too.]
"You're not even asking where I'm sleeping?"
[I heard it in my mind, good night.]
Chrollo slept on the sofa in the living room, with the coffee jelly mountain that had been moved downstairs and the Hisoka statue, spending the night in the living room together.
Why are they put together? Well, maybe they're acting as a burglar alarm. The anti-theft effect of using a robber must be top-notch.
What if a ninja breaks into the house in the middle of the night and attacks the coffee jelly?
[Saiki Kusuo Falling Asleep]