How powerful was Randou after gaining a preliminary grasp of "Illuminations"?
—So long as you failed to flee at the very first moment, he simply did not care what kind of ability you possessed.
Before he even set foot inside Watanabe Yukisada's villa, golden subspace cubes fell from his palm, rapidly expanding as they broke through the limits of physical law. Without damaging the villa or its furnishings, the subspace enveloped the interior of the room instead. The ability Randou wielded already revealed a frightening degree of precision and fine control.
Watanabe Yukisada uncorked a bottle of red wine he would normally never bring himself to open, settled into a crimson velvet high-backed chair, and leisurely enjoyed the nighttime view of the Black Lizard member currying his favor in women's clothing. Putting everything else aside, once Kimura Seimei stripped away those chaotic personal styles, put on a wig, shaved his leg hair, carefully tidied himself up, and changed into a kimono that was not eye-searing, the result was actually rather pleasing.
What was most exquisite was Kimura Seimei's expression: that complete lack of resistance, the absence of revulsion, the look of someone who seemed born to cross-dressing. It was simply perfect. Watanabe Yukisada had never told anyone else that seeing a lover in women's clothing gave him a peculiar sense of excitement.
What was this, then? A fetish for cross-dressing?
In the increasingly unhinged underworld of Japan, such a thing was hardly worth mentioning. Sometimes, when Watanabe Yukisada recalled rumors about the strange proclivities of certain ability users, even he would feel a chill run down his spine. Defeated Japan seemed to have had its backbone broken, its spirit crushed; veterans who returned from the battlefield were half-mad, babbling about things no one believed. And yet those things were real. Living within the circles of Japanese ability users, no matter how closed-off one was, it was impossible not to understand that the essence of that war had been a war of abilities.
Stories of a single person dominating a battlefield, of turning the tide alone, of sinking aircraft carriers—anyone would find such tales unbelievable.
The powerhouses abroad were simply too formidable, operating on a level entirely different from those at home. When Watanabe Yukisada first heard that there was a Frenchman beside Asou Akiya who had only recently awakened his ability, he showed disdain on the surface, yet in truth obediently found a pawn to test the waters.
And the result was that the pawn sold himself in a bid for favor?
Watanabe Yukisada sighed in admiration. "The ability users of our Port Mafia really are all impressive."
He praised both Kimura Seimei's appearance and the small cleverness he had shown in choosing to defect.
Adults, after all, were never rash.
"Kimura-kun, the Black Lizard teaches disguise techniques, doesn't it?" Watanabe Yukisada said leisurely. "Dance for me."
"…Street dance is fine, right?"
A grin spread across "Kimura Seimei's" face. Some time had already passed since he sent the message to Randou.
He fixed his gaze on Watanabe Yukisada, his demeanor unusually tolerant, an eerie delight flickering in his eyes, revealing something faintly inhuman—like an exaggerated stage puppet, performing the joys and sorrows of life with a corpse as its medium. Such hair-raising details were never something a man like Watanabe Yukisada, content with indulgence and pleasure, would notice.
"Street dance? No one's ever danced for me before," Watanabe Yukisada said, thoroughly amused, and agreed at once.
"This used to be my favorite thing," the man in women's clothes said, making no attempt to act delicate as he moved his body freely. "Ah, it's been so long since I last danced. I can't quite remember some of the moves. It feels like I've gone back to my youth."
Watanabe Yukisada asked, "Are you usually like this too? So uninhibited?"
"Kimura Seimei" completed a move with his hands braced against the floor, twisted his waist, spun, leaped, and flung aside the obstructive wig.
"Usually?"
At that instant, a faint golden sheen rippled across the wallpaper.
"Probably not," he said calmly.
No longer interested in performing, "Kimura Seimei" slowly stepped forward and reached for the second wine glass on the table. He lowered his head to look at the seated sub-executive, who had not moved, a strange expression crossing his face. "People never know whether luck or misfortune will suddenly come crashing down on their heads. To be honest, I think death is pretty good."
He loosened his clothes, baring his body, and smiled. "I'll go to hell one step ahead of you."
"What a delightful thing," he said softly.
"Illuminations" withdrew its control over Kimura Seimei. The humanoid ability shattered and dissolved into the golden subspace. A living person vanished into thin air. Watanabe Yukisada sprang to his feet at once, only to realize that everything around him had fallen silent—the antique clock had stopped swinging as well. Without hesitation, he drew his handgun and fired at the window!
It was clearly not bulletproof glass, yet the surface refracting golden light did not even ripple.
"What kind of power is this?!"
Watanabe Yukisada was like an ant sealed inside a box, struggling in despair and exhausting every means at his disposal, yet utterly unable to escape.
The villa's main doors swung open, and all of the surveillance equipment failed at once.
Randou stepped in from the night, his head lowered as the wind outside scattered his black hair, which was then pressed back down by the cute white, fluffy earmuffs perched atop his head, barely containing his thick, naturally curled locks. He tugged at the soft scarf around his neck, trying to keep the chill of the thin, probing breeze from slipping inside, breathing out faint clouds of air as his body shivered slightly, like a traveler who had just come in from the depths of winter.
It was bizarre.
A violent sense of contradiction.
November in Japan was indeed growing colder, but it was nowhere near cold enough for this.
He lifted his face from the warmth of the scarf, his features deep and elegant, his eyes captivating, the slight hollows of his eyelids and the tremble of his lashes sketching out a melancholy allure that dispelled some of the illusion of frailty.
"This winter is going to be especially cold,"
the French beauty from a land crowded with powerful figures murmured softly as he looked toward the oil paintings in the villa.
Within "Illuminations," Watanabe Yukisada's body exploded from the inside out.
Subspace tore matter apart and sliced through space itself. Faced with the golden cubes, the enemy had nowhere to flee. Standing there, Randou controlled each golden block at will, assembling them into any shape like building blocks, or making them appear anywhere his gaze could reach, inside any person's body, where they would detonate with a dull boom.
"So weak."
Randou gazed at the blood seeping into the carpet, a faint sorrow of killing interwoven with the detached perspective of one who looks down from above.
"Was this really Akiya's enemy?"
From then on,
After he recovered his memories and resolved the hidden dangers surrounding his identity, he would take Akiya back to his hometown in France.
What would France be like in winter…
He could no longer remember.
The fallen leaves must be beautiful.
Three seconds later.
A newly extracted humanoid ability replaced Kimura Semei, staring at Randou with a face twisted in terror.
"Resurrection from the dead?"
"Watanabe Yukisada" frantically patted his own body, as if confirming his existence.
"No. You are already dead." Randou issued the order with cool indifference. "Make use of your final value. Return to the Port Mafia, cover up Kimura Semei's death, and after that, obey Asou Akiya's commands."
Randou was reluctant to part with the villa's heating, yet he wanted even more to return to his lover's side, to draw warmth from that faint, precious heat.
He walked outside, leaving the murder scene to be dealt with by Watanabe Yukisada's humanoid ability.
"So cold… why does Japan feel so unbearably cold to me…"
The murmured words dissolved into the air.
Inside the Bankoudou Hall, Asou Akiya had just attended one of Natsume Souseki's lessons, this one focused on how to properly handle interpersonal relationships.
Natsume Souseki tossed aside the chalk and pointed at the web of connections he had drawn. Asou Akiya's network was pitifully simple—once investigated, everything was laid bare at a glance. At most, he had concealed the true identities of Randou and Nakahara Chuya.
"With a brain like yours," Natsume scolded, "how do you not understand how to cultivate connections? You've been in the Mafia for so many years, yet you're still like a complete novice!"
Asou Akiya slumped bonelessly in his seat, burning with fever, and replied weakly,
"You can think of me as a complete social idiot."
Natsume Souseki looked at him with a smile that was not quite a smile.
"An idiot who managed to woo a French ability user?"
Asou Akiya, who loved his wife with unwavering devotion every single day, immediately perked up, as if a switch had been flipped.
"Love is the most beautiful thing in the world!"
"You probably couldn't beat him in a fight."
"My darling would never hit me," Asou Akiya said at once, full of confidence. "He's so gentle, always indulges me in everything. All I want is to give him the very best."
"No wonder, then," Natsume Souseki replied dryly. "Most of your money goes into food, clothing, housing, and travel."
"Hehe."
"In that regard," Natsume Souseki added, "you can be considered fairly capable. You helped Japan secure a foreign ability user."
He was clearly curious about Randou's true identity, and offered this praise only reluctantly.
Asou Akiya responded vaguely, "Mm."
Then, all of a sudden, Asou Akiya asked Natsume Souseki a question that was extremely sensitive—something ordinary ability users would never even know to ask.
"Natsume-sensei, does Japan have any Transcendents?"
"…No."
No matter how Asou Akiya had learned the term Transcendents, Natsume Souseki's answer came out with a hint of difficulty, as though the word itself were hard to utter.
Having received a definitive answer at last, Asou Akiya lifted a hand and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Japan's government really was in a miserable state.
In the future, they would pamper Shibusawa Tatsuhiko to an absurd degree, cleaning up every mess he left behind, all for the sake of one single hope—that Shibusawa Tatsuhiko might grow into a Transcendent by collecting ability crystals. And yet the White Girrafe had died in such a laughably ignoble way.
Put that way, hadn't he essentially helped Japan secure a Transcendent just by falling in love?
Japan owed him ten billion yen!
Asou Akiya said dazedly, "Natsume-sensei… if you introduce talent to Japan, is there some kind of bonus or subsidy? Japan is so desperately short on top-tier combat power—has the government never considered offering benefits to attract foreign ability users to settle here?"
Natsume Souseki walked over and placed a hand against his forehead. The fever was serious.
"The government is powerless as well."
The look in his eyes as he regarded Asou Akiya softened, just a little. That big-picture analytical perspective of his really was outstanding; the angles from which he examined problems were always so novel they were almost dazzling enough to throw one's back out.
"I know an underground doctor who's switched professions," Natsume Souseki said. "Later, go there and have your wounds treated."
"A doctor? No need… I can go back to the Port Mafia…"
Asou Akiya's consciousness was sinking, heavy and foggy.
Between the two of them, a faint atmosphere of teacher and student quietly took shape.
At the entrance of Bankoudou, the door was suddenly pushed open. The joy on Randou's face froze the instant he stepped inside.
"Akiya…?"
He saw his lover's injuries had worsened. Asou Akiya was slumped in a chair, sliding downward, and at his feet sat a calico cat already well along in years. The calico glanced at Asou Akiya and then at Randou, calmly withdrawing the paw it had just placed on him, as if nothing had happened.
In the very next second, the barely conscious Asou Akiya suddenly lunged forward and scooped up the bristling, puffed-up calico from the floor.
The black-haired young man nuzzled his cheek against the big cat in blissful delight.
"Randou, I saw a calico cat—so cute! It looks just like Nyanko-sensei!"
"..."
"Meow—!!!"
Three razor-sharp claws slashed across Asou Akiya's face in a flash, delivering a merciless face-breaking strike.
Randou screamed in horror, "Stop—!!!"
Not the face—anything but the face!
After finishing him off, the calico cat deftly dodged the golden blocks that shot toward it, then leapt into the hidden passage within Bankado and vanished without a trace.
Randou sprinted over, only to find Asou Akiya baring his teeth in pain.
"Akiya, I'm taking you to see a doctor right now!"
"…Don't panic. I'm not dead yet. My head is spinning, and I think there's something on my knee."
"It's a note."
Randou picked it up and took a look. Written on it was the address of a clinic.
Not only that—on the blackboard directly in front of Akiya, there were chalk-written words and diagrams left behind by someone else.
"Akiya, who did you meet?" Randou felt a deep sense of his territory being violated. His brows shot up, a dangerous glint flashing in his eyes. Scratched awake by the calico's claws, Asou Akiya recovered a bit of clarity and replied sluggishly, "Just now… Natsume-sensei came by… don't you remember? Bankoudou is a place for teaching people. I just finished my very first lesson."
Randou gently touched Asou Akiya's injured face and no longer pursued the matter of him meeting someone else. A man's air of mystery did, after all, add to his charm.
French cat doting.jpg
This time, he would let it slide.
But next time, he will defend his territory! No other stray cats would be allowed to appear!