One hundred meters away.
On the rooftop of a nearby residential building, the Italian assassin who had fired the cold shot at Asou Akiya did not leave immediately.
He narrowed his eyes and observed for more than ten seconds.
In the scope, the man who had collapsed was bleeding from the abdomen, the wound clearly a high-velocity penetrating injury caused by the bullet; there was also a small probability of secondary damage from fragments of the shattered bulletproof vest. With injuries like that, unless there were exceptionally skilled emergency treatment on the spot, the drive from here to the nearest hospital—during rush hour, no less—would take more than fifteen minutes…
"Far from the Port Mafia and the bustling city center, isolated, with a low chance of rescue—this really isn't a place fit for living," he muttered.
"Did I misjudge him? This doesn't look like the choice of a smart man."
The Italian assassin felt a trace of regret.
According to the intelligence provided by his employer, Asou Akiya was a non-ability user who had joined the Port Mafia after his parents' deaths. The powerful ability users he knew were all members of the Port Mafia, people who would not step in for him without cause, let alone provide personal protection after working hours.
In short, his status was insufficient, his personal strength lacking, leaving him stranded in an awkward and perilous position.
"Wrap it up," the Italian assassin said.
Just as he was about to disassemble the sniper rifle, he suddenly dropped into a low crouch and snapped his gaze back toward Asou Akiya's direction.
"What is that?!"
A blaze of golden light enveloped Asou Akiya.
It looked like a transparent cube of gold.
In the blink of an eye, that perfectly angular form expanded rapidly, spreading outward in all directions, as though it were about to swallow everything around it.
Relying on his instinctive sense for danger, the Italian assassin abandoned the sniper rifle without hesitation and vaulted the wall with his bare hands, fleeing at full speed. Only a few seconds later, the residential building where he had been positioned was swallowed whole by the expanding subspace!
The Italian assassin sprinted wildly, leaped into a car parked by the roadside, slammed the accelerator, and only then dared to look back, his heart still pounding with lingering fear.
Behind the vehicle, the golden radiance looked like an illusory curtain of light beneath the dusk sky—there one moment, gone the next, as it was swiftly retracted.
The release radius had exceeded a hundred meters!
"A spatial-type ability?!"
And at that scale—are you kidding me?!
Yet there were too few witnesses to this horrifying scene. Most residents in the surrounding houses merely felt as though their eyes had played a trick on them, as if sunlight had suddenly spilled indoors; a chill passed through their bodies, and they dismissed it as nothing more than an illusion.
Even the Special Division for Unusual Powers stationed in Yokohama, with its sluggish and outdated detection equipment, registered no reaction at all.
Too far from the surveillance center, the location far too remote, and the eruption far too brief!
"Akiya! What do we do?! I don't know first aid—I'll take you to the hospital right now!" Randou, in his fury and panic, unconsciously unleashed Illuminations, yet it could not turn time back to that safe moment. He had no room to process his newly awakened ability; he pressed down on Asou Akiya's bleeding wound, staring in terror as blood spilled endlessly through his fingers, soaking his leather gloves. His usual composure was gone. "Don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep! Akiya!"
Asou Akiya grabbed Randou's arm, his face deathly pale, forcing himself to stay conscious on sheer willpower. "…You have an ability now."
Randou's voice broke into sobs, his hands shaking uncontrollably. "My power—I can't save you."
The force he had unleashed was clearly not a healing-type ability!
He did not even know what it was truly meant to do!
"I believe in you… Randou…" Asou Akiya refused to look at how much blood he was losing, his words coming in broken fragments. "I believe in you… the power that awakened for my sake… it can do this… it will do this…"
Moisture welled up in Randou's gray-green eyes, drowning out the golden radiance within them; what filled his gaze was not light, but confusion and pain.
Can it?
Can his ability really save someone?
Akiya would not lie to him… and he had heard it said before that abilities were humanity's miracles.
In the very next second, a golden subspace was severed from reality itself. Like a perfect cube, it fell from Randou's hands and struck the ground. The space where the two of them stood transformed instantly: golden ripples splashed outward in all directions, cutting them off from the physical laws of the outside world, as the subspace unfolded by Illuminations wrapped itself around Randou and Asou Akiya with an icy chill.
The true nature of Arthur Rimbaud's ability should be—
a spatial-type medium.
By slicing open the real world and creating an independent subspace, he could, within that subspace, read living people or corpses alike, and after their death turn them into humanoid abilities that retained memory, personality, and power—entities he could completely control.
It was an extraordinarily terrifying ability with immense potential, a power that killed people and then "revived" them.
But what was "revived" would never be the person themselves!
It would be a puppet.
A weapon.
In any case, it would never be the Akiya he had known in life!
As Randou came to understand his ability more clearly, he nearly broke down. This was not the power to save people—it was the power to kill. Akiya trusted him so completely; how could he have awakened such a murderous ability?
"Wait—!"
Randou sensed something off and lowered his head to look at the blood soaking Asou Akiya's abdomen—
the bleeding had stopped?!
"I found it—it's the laws of physics!" Randou grasped at salvation in a moment of desperate clarity. "Within the range of my ability, Akiya's injuries are no longer governed by physical laws!"
Asou Akiya was in too much pain to speak. He clutched his lover's arm with all his strength, his vision filled with the golden subspace around them.
So this is… the Transcendent-tier ability… Illuminations…
His consciousness was already slipping.
"Randou…"
Don't give up—by relying on the special rules of the subspace, they could slow the bleeding and get him to the hospital.
Do not give up on rescue. Do not read him into a humanoid ability!
Soon after, Asou Akiya lost consciousness.
Inside the car, the driver Tanaka had completely panicked. He crouched in the driver's seat, clutching his head. "I'm innocent… I'm just a driver…" Terror paralyzed him; he did not dare step outside, afraid that the assassin hiding somewhere nearby would casually finish him off as well. The rear door of the car was yanked open as Randou dragged it wide, gathered Akiya into his arms, and climbed in, covered in blood. "If you don't want to die, drive to the hospital immediately!"
A hospital under the Port Mafia's name.
Under the protection of Randou's subspace, Asou Akiya held on until he was wheeled into the emergency room.
The doctors and nurses had no time to be curious about the golden power surrounding him. They hurriedly pushed him into surgery. One advantage of a Port Mafia hospital was that as long as you were one of theirs, no one needed to sign anything—facial recognition was enough, and high-ranking members were exempt from medical fees. Of course, if the rescue failed, even the burial expenses would be covered by the Port Mafia. And if it were next year, Port Mafia members would even be able to enjoy a certain someone's fully invested, one-stop cremation service.
Under the hospital's all-out efforts, the surgery lasted several long hours.
When the doctor finally came out to announce that the operation had ended safely, Randou's entire body slackened, like a bowstring that had been drawn tight for far too long and was at last released.
He sat down on the bench outside the operating room, his lips trembling faintly.
The bone-deep chill had still not left him.
A surgeon stepped out, the white of his coat still stained with blood, and looked at him. "Are you all right?"
Randou shook his head. The blood on his light-colored overcoat had already dried.
"Akiya-kun will need to lie inside for a while longer; he can't come out yet," the surgeon said, introducing himself. "My name is Kusakari Souichirou. Akiya-kun is half a friend of mine—though he probably never mentioned me to you."
Randou was consumed by worry for Akiya and had no desire to engage with him.
The surgeon glanced around, and after confirming that no nurses were within earshot, he walked closer to Randou and lowered his voice. "Back during the Yokohama settlement explosion, you were the one Akiya-kun brought in. I treated you then… When Akiya-kun wakes up, tell him to collect the necessary medical supplies and leave the hospital as soon as possible. Anti-inflammatory shots and painkillers can be administered at home. If anything comes up, have him contact me by phone. Right now, staying in a hospital under the Port Mafia's name is not one hundred percent safe."
A surge of killing intent erupted from Randou, fury blazing in his eyes. "What kind of organization is this supposed to be?"
Their own people couldn't even protect their own?
"There's no helping it—it's an underworld organization. Accidents happen all the time if you're not careful," the surgeon said, and after delivering his warning, he quickly distanced himself, shrinking back as he keenly sensed the extraordinary murderous aura radiating from the French youth.
Randou clenched his fists, the blood soaking into his gloves, leaving behind a damp, nauseating sensation.
"Akiya…"
A garbage organization, built on blood and murder.
If no one else can step forward to save you, that's fine. I will stay by your side and guard you myself.
…
One day later.
When the postoperative anesthesia finally wore off, Asou Akiya was in agony, pain tearing through him so fiercely it felt as if he were dying all over again. During his recovery in the hospital, Randou never left his side for even a moment, refusing to delegate anything to others. He reenacted, in reverse, all the care Akiya had once given him in the past. The problem was that Randou had hardly ever taken care of anyone before; he was constantly flustered, calling for help before finishing an injection, stopping halfway through tasks—an unmistakable picture of a first-time patient's family member in the rookie phase.
"Randou, it hurts so much… give me a little more painkiller," Asou Akiya said, looking at him with pleading eyes.
"The doctor only prescribed this much," Randou replied, panic creeping into his voice. "I'll call the nurse."
The call bell in the room rang, and the nurses came in again and again. If not for his striking good looks, they might have long since lost their patience with the beautiful French youth. "Please follow the doctor's orders!"
Asou Akiya lay stiff on the bed, wanting to curl himself up like a shrimp.
His abdomen hurt.
In both of his lifetimes, he had never suffered like this.
Fortunately, he had not misjudged the assassin's skill. When the man said he would leave him alive, he truly avoided any vital points.
Otherwise—hah. Even if he had survived, Akiya would have hated him to the core.
"Akiya, don't move around, the wound will split open," Randou said. He had already removed the bloodstained gloves and pressed both hands onto Akiya's shoulders. In the haze of pain, Akiya could no longer tell whether it was his own body trembling, or whether it was Randou's hands. "I know it hurts terribly. Bear with it a little longer… I'm sorry I didn't catch the one who fired the shot…"
Hearing how heavy with sorrow Randou's voice was, Asou Akiya felt his heart ache instead. Cold sweat beaded across his skin as he said, "Randou, go get some rest. This time it was my failure to protect myself—I frightened you."
"I'll just sit here," Randou replied.
The long-haired young man pulled a chair over and sat beside the hospital bed, his gray-green eyes brimming with worry as he watched over him.
Yet beneath that concern, a current of murderous intent burned fiercely in his chest.
"I will avenge you," he said softly.
Kill them.
I'll kill every last one of those who dared to plot Akiya's assassination.
After brushing so close to the line between life and death, Asou Akiya's instincts had grown far sharper. Anyone who had truly felt the breath of death would no longer be so thick-skinned as to believe the world they lived in was safe. Sensing that the chill in the hospital room was coming from Randou, he said nothing more. With the hand that was hooked to the IV, he reached out and took Randou's hand—still, as always, his own body temperature was warmer than the other's.
"Randou, don't expose your ability. Hide it as much as possible from the outside…"
"Mm."
Randou continued, "After something happened to you, people from the Port Mafia came specifically to visit, and they asked me what type of ability I have. I told them it's a spatial ability, one that can suppress a person's mobility and injuries."
Asou Akiya couldn't help but laugh, though the pain made him wince and crease his face. "Mm, Randou explained it just right."
Only then did Randou's tears finally fall.
"It's too much. Those people didn't care at all about your injuries. All they cared about was whether you could keep working."
"…It's fine."
"Why didn't those two people you know come to see you?"
"…Because… they probably haven't received the news yet. We're not in the same department…"
"Akiya."
"Don't cry. Tears will turn into shards of ice. This is the first time you've cried for me."
Asou Akiya gently wiped away Randou's tears. The tears that slipped from the corners of his eyes carried a fleeting warmth at first, only to grow cold moments later.
Randou, who had lost his past, was someone who feared the cold more than anyone.
"As long as the two of us are strong enough, we won't need to care about anyone else's attitude," Asou Akiya said weakly. "Now that you've awakened an ability, Randou, you won't have to do the menial work assigned to the lowest members anymore. From now on, we'll be able to see each other often at headquarters."
Randou relayed what the surgeon had told him. With his mind still buzzing, Asou Akiya thought it over for a long while before finally rummaging through his thoughts and pulling out his original plan. "I bought a safe house. After staying here for two more days to stabilize my injuries, we'll move there."
"I can protect you!" Randou said anxiously.
Asou Akiya took a shallow breath. "Be good. I have a way to draw them out. When the time comes, we'll wipe them out in one sweep. There's no need to rush."
After saying that, Asou Akiya was once again swallowed by the torment of his gunshot wound.
"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—Randou, keep talking to me. I want to distract myself."
"Talk about what?"
"Anything about you. I love hearing it."
"Mm…"
"I heard that when an ability user awakens, they immediately know the name of their ability. Randou, do you know what yours is called?"
"Illuminations."
"That's a really beautiful name."
There is no such thing as a flawless life. What people do have is the faith that after the storm passes, a rainbow will always appear.
You love me, and that is the best painkiller in the world.
We will be together forever.
Whether in life or in death.