In that instant, even the air seemed to freeze.
No one knew how long it lasted.
Professor X drew a deep breath, fixed his gaze on Hayashi Ren, and spoke word by word.
"If my memory has not failed me, Ren, you are a Delta level mutant. Aside from a higher than average level of brain development, you have no other special abilities."
He pointed at the plan that had appeared out of thin air on the desk and rubbed his brow with the other hand. "So, can you explain what is going on?"
Right now, his head throbbed.
He had realized something.
This talk was not a whim. It had been planned for a long time.
The student before him was guiding the rhythm of the conversation step by step.
"Magic, Professor."
Ren did not hide it. After ten years of keeping his head down, staying quiet any longer would be foolish. "That is my true ability."
How shrewd was Professor X?
With a single turn of thought, everything clicked.
From the day this boy entered the school, he had been concealing his edge.
Back then he had been only eight.
Most unbelievable of all, every teacher at the academy, including the headmaster himself, had been fooled.
"Magic…"
Professor X forced down the impulse to read Ren's mind and said, "I do not know why you hid your ability. But since you revealed it today, I assume it is related to this plan."
"Yes, Professor."
Ren nodded.
"You are this solemn about it, so you prepared this long in advance."
A meaningful smile touched Professor X's lips. "Tell me then. How do you plan to save mutants?"
Ren smiled as well.
He knew they had reached the crux.
"In my view, both Magneto and you made a fundamental mistake at the very start. You split mutants and humans into two camps, separated by a hard line."
"Why can mutants and ordinary people not be on the same side?"
Meeting the fathomless look in Professor X's eyes, Ren spoke with easy confidence.
His first words were startling. "Decades ago, an Eastern sage said victory in struggle means making friends more and enemies fewer."
"But our current condition is this. We have no friends. The whole world is our enemy."
"Is the cause only fear among ordinary people? Only the casualties that may occur when mutant powers go out of control?"
"No."
"That is just the surface."
"The true cause is that mutants have no voice in this world."
At his first sentence, Professor X felt a pang of rue. Youthful idealism, he thought.
Mutants and ordinary people, on the same side?
Only the untested young could say that.
But as Ren went on, Professor X's face changed. "No voice…?"
"Yes."
Ren's gaze shone, his words ringing firm and clear. "When mutants are called freaks, we have no way to refute it because we have no voice."
"When mutants are seized, hunted, and subjected to inhuman experiments, everyone looks on coldly and even thinks it is only right, because we have no voice."
"For the same reason, politicians can pass a Mutant Registration Act on a whim or deploy every tactic against us."
"Over time, attacking mutants becomes 'normal.'"
"That 'normal' is terrifying."
"It makes the entire world hostile to us, and even makes many mutants feel they are monsters who should not exist, so they give up on themselves."
"In that way, before any true war with humanity begins, mutants have already lost half the battle."
It was a perspective Professor X had never considered.
He listened, stunned. Several times he wanted to object, only to find each point clean and precise, cutting to the root of mutant misery.
Ren was not done. "Imagine it, Professor. If we held the voice, what would the picture look like?"
"Mutants possess extraordinary power. Why can that not be human genetic evolution? Why can it not be divine favor? Why can it not be the refinement of human civilization?"
"If that current of thought became mainstream, who would not envy mutants? Who would still shout for our blood?"
"At that point, those who continue to reject mutants would be the heretics."
If Professor X had watched certain dark superhero tales, he would have hailed Ren's words as a maxim.
He had not.
Even so, the vision stirred him.
This mightiest of telepaths stood inwardly shaken.
He stared blankly at Ren. "Ren, what books have you been reading to reach these ideas?"
"Hmm?"
Ren missed the beat, then smiled. "Interested, Professor? I can recommend a few."
He snapped his fingers, and a tall stack of books materialized before Professor X.
On top lay Selected Works.
"Is the culture of that ancient Eastern land truly so vast?"
Professor X sucked in a breath. "Then in your view, how do we gain a voice?"
"In the world of ordinary people, only money and power endure."
Ren spread his hands. "When we become a world class consortium, when we hold the lifelines of the global economy, when governments everywhere are filled with our own allies, when the world proclaims that the mutant gene is human evolution and mutants are favored by heaven…"
"Then mutants will be the tide of the times, beyond dispute."
"Peace will follow by itself."
He picked up the plan and gently handed it to Professor X, smiling. "A peace where the initiative is in our hands is the only true peace, is it not?"
Professor X fell silent for a long time.
The message could not be clearer. If he still failed to grasp Ren's intent, he might as well walk into a wall.
Sure enough.
He took the plan and opened it. On the very first page, the words leaped out: Establish a Mutant Consortium.
"So you are here… to raise capital?"
His expression turned involuntarily odd.
A graduate of the academy did not want to join the X-Men but to start a company.
And he wanted the headmaster to invest.
He had never imagined such a thing.
In that moment, looking at the harmlessly smiling Ren, Professor X felt a strange sense of absurdity. "You think founding a mutant company will make a consortium, seize the arteries of the world economy, and place obedient politicians in office across nations?"
"What project could be that incredible?"
"Are you not too confident?"
"This is not an ordinary project."
Ren understood his doubts. He smiled and snapped his fingers once more.
"Welcome to the world of magic, Professor."