Chapter 24: Sequence 8 - Clown
"Inspector, are we just leaving like this?"
Officer Mizuki Akiyama asked, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. She had already pulled Kaito Shirogane's file from the municipal archives and sent it to Sato. The information within had sent a chill down her spine. She couldn't possibly reconcile the clean-cut, handsome young man she had seen in the dorm with the person who had such a "terrifying" past.
At age 13, he hospitalized seven adult men, many of whom suffered concussions and bone fractures.
Starting at age 19, he was involved in "justifiable self-defense" incidents every single year. As a result, the crime rate near the university plummeted. Rumor has it that the entire underworld of the college town now follows the lead of that young "Monster."
Sato, sitting in the passenger seat, kneaded the bridge of his nose. Kaito Shirogane truly gave him a contradictory feeling.
On the one hand, he saw Kaito as a monster filled with a primitive wildness, a being shrouded in an unsettling and dissonant aura. Sato had been tempted to request a special warrant to drag him into the bureau for a thorough psychic evaluation.
On the other hand, he also felt an unusual sense of "stability" from Kaito. The boy's physical constitution was abnormally high. The fact that he could defeat a gang of nearly ten thugs at age 13, seriously injuring many of them, proved that his body possessed some kind of extraordinary gift. Yet, despite this power, there was no record of Kaito ever initiating an attack.
This indicated that Kaito acknowledged and respected order, and that he would actively learn and adapt to it.
Sato felt as if Kaito were a special kind of human walking the line between darkness and light. He was still young. If handled improperly, he could easily be pushed completely into the darkness. Given the unprecedented turmoil of the current era, with that mysterious space constantly expanding, a person like Kaito, if properly guided, might even enter the space himself and become a high-potential asset in the future.
"Hey, Inspector?"
Mizuki suddenly slammed on the brakes. The inertia snapped Sato out of his thoughts. He looked at his somewhat naive apprentice with a sense of helplessness. Mizuki was the daughter of a very powerful figure. While she was nominally his apprentice, she was actually an observer placed in the executive bureau by the higher-ups. Even the top brass was extremely cautious when it came to dealing with supernatural powers.
"What is it?"
Mizuki's expression was strange. A pendant around her neck was faintly glowing.
"In Kaito Shirogane's file… there's no mention of his parents or any family at all. Isn't that weird?"
Sato's pupils contracted. His mind instantly flashed back to the file, recalling the same unusual detail. No mention of parents or relatives… That was almost impossible in an official file. But why had no one, including himself, noticed it?
And why was Mizuki able to see it?
He suddenly remembered the Bureau Chief's words. He had said that besides being an observer, Mizuki was also "the unblinded scales of justice."
A torrent of speculation flooded his mind. He turned to Mizuki, his expression grim. "Let's go. We have to get to the Special Affairs Bureau, right now!"
With a roar of its engine, their car sped away from the university and disappeared onto the main road.
In a milk tea shop across the street from the campus gate, a man in a loose-fitting t-shirt and shorts sat at a table facing the street, watching the scene with an amused smile. When he smiled, his mouth stretched wide to the sides, not in a way that felt warm, but in a way that was slightly horrifying.
On the table in front of him lay a single tarot card.
On its face, a tall tower was being struck by lightning and destroyed, while two men fell headfirst from its peak.
It was the 16th card of the Major Arcana: [The Tower].
The card was reversed. It signified a considerable danger, but one that would unfold in a slow and gentle manner.
Evans—no, it would be more correct to say Satoshi Suzuki—gathered up the card, a knowing smile on his face.
Supernatural abilities weren't a simple game of comparing power levels. He held a deep contempt for the mainstream Reincarnators in the Nexus who blindly pursued destructive power and higher ability ranks. The art of battle, as far as he was concerned, was to always plan before making a move. That was his principle.
He had paid a considerable price to obtain a power system known as a [Sequence] from a Reincarnator in a higher-ranked sector. From Sequence 9 - Seer to Sequence 8 - Clown, Satoshi had played his part perfectly.
He was a second-year student at the neighboring Chiba City University. He used his student club activities as part of his Acting Method, and the recent popularity of online divination had allowed him to digest his potion at a rapid pace. The lower levels of this Sequence pathway weren't strong in direct combat, but their powerful divination abilities had allowed Satoshi to navigate both the real world and the world of Reincarnators with extreme stability. He constantly performed divinations to seek fortune and avoid disaster, steadily accumulating his gains.
Recently, he had discovered a new source of resources: hunting newcomers.
A rookie's trial mission was simple, but the rewards were often surprisingly rich. And these rookies were the most careless and least prepared type of people in the real world. He had already used his "broker" persona to make contact with several newcomers, given them some small item or a few Dimensional Points, and then used that as a link to perform a divination to pinpoint their real-world location. He had successfully ambushed and killed two of them.
Having gotten a taste for it, Satoshi performed another divination today, seeking a rookie with abundant resources. The revelation he received was extraordinary. In his vision, a newcomer had appeared, surrounded by an unimaginable light, signifying that they had made astonishing gains in their trial mission.
And so, Satoshi had used his [Evans the Clown] persona to successfully make contact. By "refunding" the Dimensional Points, he had completed the process of imbuing them with his own "Spirituality." The Dimensional Points of the Nexus were, in essence, a form of information, and information could be tagged with an individual's Spirituality.
When he returned to reality and began his divinations, he was ecstatic to discover that "Mercenary Tao" was in the neighboring Binhai City. He had immediately taken the high-speed train over. But his cautious nature had prompted him to do one last divination for himself, which had revealed the Reversed Tower, indicating a hidden danger.
So, Satoshi had patiently begun to gather information in the places where university students frequented, like the bar street and the food district, while using divination to successfully avoid the troublesome [Hunter - Sato].
Sato was an almost completely "doxxed" Reincarnator in the Nexus. This was because he openly posted "recruitment notices" under his official identity as a special agent of the [Toka Special Affairs Bureau]. Many thought he was insane, but several arrogant Reincarnators who had tried to hunt him in the real world had all simply vanished. This, backed by the terrifying national power of his country, had made Sato's name famous.
The message from the government was clear: their country was not yet a playground for Reincarnators. The power of one of the world's five superpowers was, for the first time, making these individuals with supernatural abilities feel a sense of fear.
"Kaito Shirogane… heh," Satoshi mused, taking a sip of his tea. "Don't be impatient. Once that hyena Sato gets a little further away, I'll come find you…"