They'd expected a brutal fight. Instead, it ended far more easily than anyone anticipated.
People controlled by [Third Bomb] needed time to "buffer" and stabilize afterward. Yu Yachen had originally planned to head straight back to Lungmen, but Exusiai insisted she wanted to hang around and have some fun. With no better option, Yu Yachen agreed.
After spending the night there, the Third Bomb had basically taken full effect. Luckily, the slums were essentially a no-man's-land, so no cops came looking for them the next day. Once Diavolo had been turned into a puppet on strings, the enormous organization known as Passion might as well have fallen into Yu Yachen's hands.
The problem was, she had zero talent for management. She was used to working alone.
Aside from occasionally "deleting" a few people when she was in a bad mood, Yu Yachen's morals were actually pretty normal. She hated drugs and anything illegal, so she simply ordered Diavolo to transform Passion into a legitimate corporation—copying those "families" in Siracusa and calling themselves a family as well.
If Diavolo were more competent, maybe he could turn Passion into something like the SPW Foundation. But that was wishful thinking.
All Yu Yachen had to do was give the commands. Whether Diavolo could execute them was his problem. Besides, he had an assassination squad backing him up—every last one of them with the education level of elementary school at best.
Schemes weren't likely to go wrong, sure, but at least once they stepped out of the shadows into the open, they wouldn't have to worry as much about getting assassinated… right?
And honestly, targeting Diavolo first had been the correct call. From here on out, she could freely mobilize a cross-city mafia organization's worth of Stand users.
If something ever happened to her, she could just summon a whole truckload of Stand users. The scene would be glorious.
But compared to all that, she still needed to take Exusiai's feelings into account.
This Sankta woman had gone out with her full of anticipation. Yu Yachen couldn't exactly let her go home empty-handed. It wasn't that Yu Yachen had "changed"—it was practical. If she ever wanted to go to Laterano, she'd need Exusiai to look out for her. So it made sense to rack up Exusiai's favor now.
Early the next morning, Exusiai dragged her out of bed.
"Come to think of it, I've never actually gone on a date with Miss Yu before."
And so Exusiai pulled Yu Yachen all over Jiangxia, wandering the city like tourists. The streets were a kaleidoscope of breakfast stalls and tiny shops. They walked arm-in-arm, sampled all sorts of food, and then hit the shopping district together.
Exusiai was convinced Yu Yachen would look amazing in a dress. Unfortunately, Yu Yachen basically went out wearing nothing but black. When the Sankta suggested a clothing shop so she could try things on, Yu Yachen refused without hesitation.
After they finished shopping, they headed to an arcade to play fighting games.
For a fashionable, forward-thinking girl like Exusiai, eating, drinking, and having fun came first. And dragging Yu Yachen along on a date—finding tasty things and fun things—was also part of her "romance plan."
But then—
"Miss Yu… I thought you weren't really a gamer."
Exusiai sighed, pulling her hands off the joystick. The screen flashed red and white, and the big letters KO appeared.
Exusiai had been bragging about being a veteran player, but Yu Yachen had basically cornered her and combo'd her to death. Exusiai never even found a single opening. She got chained until she was done.
"I don't really like games," Yu Yachen said. "But my dad loved them. When I was a kid, he'd come into my room, tell me to stop doing homework, and drag me into playing games with him."
Most of Yu Yachen's games and shounen manga had been introduced by her father. If nobody had dragged her into it, with her personality she probably never would've touched any of it.
"Huh!? I'm so jealous. My dad only yells at me like, 'Why are you always on your phone? Why don't you read more books?'" Exusiai stuck out her tongue.
"A lot of Yan parents are like that. I don't know much about Laterano, though."
Yu Yachen smiled and closed her eyes.
Come to think of it, in this life her mom was a business director at a company called Rhine Lab, handling money and connections. Her dad was a manager at Taigu Group, in charge of Columbia's operations. In short—her family was incredibly wealthy.
When she'd seen the System notification that an [Arrow] was being kept at Rhine Lab, she'd considered contacting her mother. But Arrow-related matters were too important. If it was stored at Rhine Lab under those scientists' care, it was safer than in the hands of villains like Dio or Pucci.
So she'd only written her mom a letter as a heads-up, asking her to help smooth things over. She hadn't said anything about retrieving it.
Her next stop would be Laterano—she had to get the Insect Arrow.
"K/O!"
Lost in thought, Yu Yachen stared at the screen and accidentally cornered Exusiai again. On the display, Iori Yagami struck a cool pose—while Exusiai nearly toppled backward onto the floor.
"Ahhh—No! I'm done! Why are you so good at this!?"
The Sankta completely broke down, yanking her hands off the buttons.
Yu Yachen ended up buying her bubble tea out of her own pocket to calm her down. In fact, Yu Yachen had paid for everything on this trip. Exusiai felt guilty, but after seeing the black card in Yu Yachen's hand, she oddly relaxed.
Yu Yachen wasn't short on cash at all. Even for clothes, she'd just walk into some expensive boutique and casually pick out a few items.
"You know… when I was little, my biggest dream was to play games and read manga forever," Exusiai said, holding her pearl milk tea to her lips and biting the straw. "But once you grow up, you do it less and less. It's not that I don't want to. It's just… you can't calm down enough to do things anymore."
"Same," Yu Yachen said.
She'd basically forgotten most of her previous life's memories. By the time she'd transmigrated to Terra, her mental age had already been sixteen.
"You like manga?" she asked.
"Of course! When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about becoming the protagonist of a manga."
She coughed dramatically.
"Actually, I have three major wishes—"
"First: collect eight Guardian Guns. Right now I only have one."
"Second: find someone to turn off the fluorescent light above my head!"
"And the third…"
When she got to the third wish, Exusiai started to fidget, suddenly shy.
"I can't help with the second," Yu Yachen said. "But I can help with the first."
"Huh?"
"Eight Guardian Guns—so long as it's not artillery or a large-caliber sniper rifle, I can get them for you."
"Ehhh?"
Exusiai froze.
"Forget it, Miss Yu. Firearms are basically monopolized by Laterano. Even my Victor submachine gun—the cheaper kind—still sells for hundreds of thousands of Lungmen dollars in Yan."
"Then eight of them is only a few million," Yu Yachen said blandly. "That's just the price of buying a few more pianos."
"…Huh?"
"Still, no. That's too much. I wouldn't even know how to repay you." Exusiai hesitated. She'd only said it casually—she hadn't expected Yu Yachen to mean it.
"Is it a lot? I don't really care."
The white-haired woman suddenly leaned close. Her pale green eyes drew near, and Exusiai instinctively leaned back. Yu Yachen's long eyelashes nearly brushed Exusiai's forehead.
"But there's something I've wanted to ask you."
"What is it?"
"Do you like me, Exusiai?"
....
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