The next forty minutes turned into a sophisticated torture of waiting for the penthouse inhabitants.
The TV didn't stop for a second. Journalists, like hounds that had lost the scent, rushed around Tokyo, trying to predict where the "White-Haired Anomaly" would pop up next.
Experts in the studios, sweating profusely, drew graphs on interactive whiteboards, arguing about how it was even possible to distort space without casting spells.
Marin sat on the floor, rocking nervously and endlessly chewing on her thumbnail.
Ai Hoshino, curled up among the cushions, silently watched the screen. Her usual playfulness had evaporated somewhere, giving way to tense anticipation.
Suddenly, the TV screen flashed with a new breaking news intro.
— "Attention! Live broadcast from Shinjuku Gyoen park!" — a reporter from a helicopter yelled hysterically, drowning out the roar of the rotor blades.
— "The fourth Gate! C+ rank dungeon, 'Crystal Hive', just changed color to blue! He is inside!"
The drone camera quickly zoomed in. Out of the destroyed glass greenhouse, surrounded by hastily gathered police cars, Gojo casually walked out.
Following him, tripping over broken glass and dragging something resembling a bloated Santa Claus sack along the ground, Takemichi barely trudged along.
Marin instantly tensed up like a cat. Her professional seamstress gaze dug into the screen, scanning every inch of Satoru's figure.
The black blindfold was in place. The impossible, light-absorbing black cloak was in place. But under the cloak...
— "Ai-chan..." — Marin whispered. Her voice treacherously trembled.
— "What is it? Magic again?" — Ai opened her eyes slightly, rising on her elbows.
— "A sweater," — the blonde stated in a dead, emotionless voice, poking a shaking finger at the plasma.
— "He is wearing a black, tight-fitting turtleneck sweater."
— "Well, yes," — Ai shrugged. — "Very stylish, by the way. Accentuates the figure. Perfect for the cameras."
— "AND WHERE IS MY JACKET?!" — Marin broke into a piercing scream, jumping to her feet. — "I don't see the blue collar!"
— "I don't see the zipper! He took it off!"
She grabbed her head, starting to pace frantically around the living room, stepping over scattered spools of thread.
— "What even lives in that C+?! Bears with circular saws?! Acid slugs?!"
— "What could have torn Kevlar reinforced with Sakamoto threads?! If he caught on some stalactite and ripped his back... My masterpiece!"
— "My sleepless nights! I'll make him reimburse me for the cost of materials with his blood!"
— "Calm down, Marin-chan," — Ai gently pulled her by the hem of her t-shirt, sitting her back down on the sofa.
— "Maybe he just got hot from the battle, and he stuffed the jacket into that giant sack his poor friend is dragging?"
— "Or tied it around his waist under the cloak?"
— "You don't take off Thermo-Kevlar because of the heat, Ai-chan! It breathes!" — Marin was almost crying, burying her face in her palms.
— "You only take it off in one case... If it is fatally, hopelessly destroyed!"
Meanwhile, madness was unfolding on the screen. The crowd of reporters, breaking through the thin police cordon, rushed straight toward Gojo.
Dozens of microphones reached for his face.
— "Mr. Anomaly! How did you clear the Crystal Hive so fast?!"
— "Who is your partner?!"
Gojo didn't even slow down. The camera took a close-up of his face: a light, arrogant smirk touched his lips.
He didn't answer anything. Instead, he lazily raised his hand and carelessly grabbed Takemichi by the scruff of the neck.
With his free hand, Satoru folded two fingers together.
Marin stopped breathing. Her tears instantly dried. — "Look..." — she exhaled, digging her nails into the sofa upholstery.
The air around Gojo and Takemichi suddenly distorted, twisting into a funnel. A flash of blinding blue light hit the camera lenses.
A deafening clap rang out, sounding like a thunderstrike, and a gust of hurricane wind knocked the front rows of journalists off their feet.
When the dust settled, there was no one on the square. Gojo and Takemichi had simply vanished.
A shocked silence fell over the news studio. In the penthouse, too.
— "He... he teleported," — Marin whispered, and her eyes shone with that fanatical geeky delight.
The anger over the jacket was forgotten for a second. — "Ai-chan, did you see that gesture?! That's [Blue]!"
— "He used spatial attraction to move at high speed! Just like in the Hidden Inventory arc!"
— "My God, this is so canon that I'm going to faint right now... BUT I STILL WON'T FORGIVE HIM FOR MY JACKET!"
For the next ten minutes, the broadcast was filled only with the confused shouts of reporters from Shinjuku. No one knew where the "Anomaly" had gone.
The police tried to restore the cordon, while experts in the studio spouted complete nonsense about invisibility.
Marin had just managed to run to the kitchen for a glass of cold water when the TV once again let out that vile, piercing emergency alert sound.
— "WE FOUND HIM!" — the announcer yelled. — "The White-Haired Anomaly has been spotted at the Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno!"
— "He is entering a B-rank Gate right now!"
— "B-rank..." — Marin choked on her water. The glass landed on the glass table with a clatter.
— "The fifth dungeon? He must be joking."
— "Guilds send raids of thirty to forty people in there!"
The camera from the news helicopter showed the square in front of the museum. A familiar tall figure in a black cloak, ignoring the shouts of the few police officers, confidently stepped right into the thick, crimson haze of the portal.
Following behind, barely dragging his feet, Takemichi was pulled in with his sack.
And then something happened that made all of Japan freeze.
As soon as Gojo's silhouette disappeared inside, the crimson glow of the Gate above the museum rippled wildly and jaggedly.
The portal began to pulsate like a giant heart, and suddenly flared with a blinding, blood-red light.
This light flooded the entire square, painting the police officers' faces the color of fresh blood.
A clatter rang out in the news studio — one of the experts dropped his microphone.
— "R-Red Gate..." — the host babbled, turning pale right on camera. His professional voice broke into a panicked whisper.
— "A spatial distortion has been detected! The Gate in Ueno just evolved... It's a Red Gate!"
It became so quiet in the penthouse that Marin could hear her own heart beating. The beats were hollow and painful.
She knew what a Red Gate was. Everyone in this world knew.
It was hammered into them during school safety lessons: «If the portal is red — run. It's a Double Dungeon.»
«The Gate will not let anyone out until the True Boss of A-rank or higher is killed.»
The glass in Marin's hand trembled, and water splashed onto the white carpet.
The girl slowly sank to the floor, unable to tear her gaze from the bloody glow on the screen.
— "He... he's trapped," — Marin's voice broke, transitioning into a choked sob. She grabbed her head, clutching her hair.
— "Ai-chan... the portal is locked. No one comes out of there alive without an elite raid..."
Ai Hoshino remained silent. She sat very straight, clasping her hands on her lap so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
The star, accustomed to all the scripts in her life being written out in advance, now watched with undisguised horror a catastrophe that could not be canceled.
— "He has zero mana," — Marin sobbed, burying her forehead into the edge of the glass table.
— "He told me himself... The channels are burned out. The teleportation, the shield — those must have been the last drops! He's empty, Ai-chan!"
— "He will die in there... And Takemichi-kun will die with him!"
The blood-red light of the portal on the screen pulsated, as if mocking her despair.
Japan held its breath, awaiting the inevitable death of the one who had seemed like a God an hour ago.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Twenty minutes. In the scale of the universe, an insignificant margin of error. In the scale of a locked, soundproofed penthouse, an eternity woven from sticky, chilling terror.
The huge wall-mounted plasma flooded the living room with a pulsating, alarming blood-red light. This light reflected in the panoramic windows, danced on the glossy surface of the glass table, and painted the faces of the two girls in unnatural, sickly tones.
Marin sat on the fluffy carpet, pulling her sharp knees to her chin.
Her favorite oversized t-shirt with a print of some old anime now felt like a straitjacket to her.
The girl endlessly, painfully bit the knuckle of her index finger. Tears flowed silently down her cheeks, leaving wet trails.
— "He's empty, Ai-chan..." — Marin whispered maniacally, like a broken record, rocking from side to side.
— "He burned out all his channels... That stupid teleportation... He won't even be able to put up a shield. He'll be torn apart in there."
— "And I... I didn't even manage to finish sewing him decent armor..."
Ai Hoshino sat on the sofa right above her. Japan's greatest idol currently looked like a lost child.
She pulled the hood of her yellow bunny pajamas deep over her head, as if the long plush ears could hide her from the cruel reality.
Her slender fingers gripped the edge of the blanket in a death grip.
She was silent, but her star-eyes, usually shining with warmth and mystery, had now darkened, turning into two cold, tense black holes, constantly watching the screen.
There, on the other side of the screen, reporters had already started burying the "White-Haired Anomaly," inviting experts on air who explained with a smart look why surviving in a Red Gate without a raid was impossible.
— "Marin-chan," — Ai's voice sounded hollow, broken, stripped of all stage artificiality.
She slowly reached out and placed her hand on the blonde's shuddering shoulder. — "Look at me."
Marin raised her tear-stained face. The pink hairpin miraculously held on in her disheveled blonde hair.
— "He cannot die," — Ai said firmly, with almost fanatical certainty, squeezing her shoulder.
— "People like him don't die off-screen. They are too selfish to let some monster take away their finale."
— "He will come out."
But the seconds folded into minutes, and the crimson haze above the Ueno museum continued to ominously pulsate. Hope melted with every heartbeat.
And suddenly...
On the TV screen, right behind the backs of the panicking police officers, the blood-red light of the portal twitched. As if a ripple went across a surface of thick blood.
The center of the rift brightened, flared blindingly white, and then the entire haze instantly, with a loud television pop, changed to a calm, deep, crystal-clear blue color.
Someone in the news studio screamed hysterically.
— "THEY ARE CHANGING COLOR! OH MY GOD, THEY ARE BLUE! THE BOSS IS KILLED!" — the reporter on the square broke into a supersonic pitch, dropping his microphone.
Marin stopped breathing. Her tear-stained eyes widened so much they seemed about to fall out.
Ai Hoshino exhaled sharply, leaning back against the sofa, and the bunny hood flew off her head.
Two people walked out of the blue surface of the portal.
The drone camera took the maximum zoom. In front, striding with the grace of a professional runway model, walked Gojo.
His new, light-absorbing matte cloak billowed spectacularly behind his back. The black blindfold was in place. Not a single drop of blood.
Not a single scratch. He looked as if he had just walked out of a spa, not a deadly A-rank trap.
But behind his back... Marin and Ai simultaneously covered their mouths with their hands.
Following the "Strongest", bent double and dragging a giant jingling sack, trudged Takemichi.
The poor schoolboy was a sight worthy of horror movies. He was covered from head to toe in thick, vile, smoking greenish slime.
His uniform had dissolved in several places, and the yellow helmet was half-melted, stuck fast to his crown.
— "Alive..." — Marin sobbed hysterically, dropping her forehead onto the glass table. — "White-haired idiot... he is really alive!"
— "I told you," — Ai let out a strange sound — something between a chuckle and a sob of relief.
— "But his friend... looks like someone tried to digest him."
Meanwhile, madness was unfolding on the screen. The army of journalists, having broken through the cordon, rushed toward them.
Microphones, like spears, reached for Gojo's face, but bumped into the invisible barrier of [Infinity] half a meter away from him.
Questions poured down like a waterfall, overlapping each other: — "MR. HUNTER! HOW DID YOU SURVIVE IN A RED GATE?!".
— "WHO IS YOUR PARTNER AND WHY IS HE COVERED IN STOMACH SLIME?!".
— "SHUEISHA PUBLISHING IS ALREADY PREPARING A LAWSUIT FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY?!".
Marin, paying no attention to her tears, glued herself to the screen. — "Oh no... he's about to say something... Ai-chan, turn it up!".
Ai grabbed the remote and cranked up the volume.
The camera took a close-up of Gojo's face. The guy stopped, shoving his hands into the pockets of his cloak.
He slightly shifted his black blindfold up, revealing one shining, unearthly blue eye, and looked right into the lens.
His lips were touched by his signature, utterly brazen and arrogant smirk. All of Japan held its breath.
— "All questions regarding copyrights, guilds, and the stomach slime of my porter..." — his deep, velvet voice rang out from the speakers, likely making half the female viewers weak in the knees.
— "...should be directed to my manager."
In the penthouse, Ai blinked in surprise. — "Manager?" — she adjusted her pajamas. — "Does he mean me?".
"Well, makes sense, I do work in the industry...".
But Gojo on the screen wasn't finished yet.
— "She has blonde hair..." — he continued in the same charming tone, broadcasted to the entire country.
— "...a stupid pink hairpin, and terrible taste in jacket fabrics."
Then he elegantly folded two fingers together. — "And now, excuse me. My limit for free socialization has been reached."
The silence in the secret penthouse became so thick you could cut it with tailor's shears.
Ai Hoshino froze. She slowly, very slowly turned her head toward her friend.
Marin sat on the carpet absolutely motionless. Her right hand slowly, as if in a dream, rose to her blonde hair, and her trembling fingers touched her pink hairpin.
The tears on her cheeks dried instantly, evaporating from the temperature of the nuclear reactor boiling inside her.
— "A stupid... hairpin?" — Marin whispered. The girl's left eye began to twitch slightly, nervously. — "Terrible... taste... in fabrics?".
Ai couldn't hold back. Japan's greatest idol, accustomed to restraining her emotions in public, simply broke.
She clamped both hands over her mouth, collapsed on her side, and went into a silent, hysterical fit of laughter.
Her shoulders shook, she kicked the back of the sofa with her yellow-slippered feet, choking with laughter.
Tears burst from her eyes — this time from pure comedy.
The greatest sorcerer of modern times had just walked out of a deadly trap only to humiliate his personal tailor's sense of style on national television.
— "I'LL KILL HIM!" — Marin roared in an unexpectedly deep, demonic bass.
She jumped to her feet with such speed that she knocked over the empty pizza box. — "I'LL TEAR HIM TO SHREDS!".
— "TERRIBLE TASTE?! I PUT MY SOUL INTO THAT JACKET! I PRICKED MY FINGERS TO THE BONE!".
— "AND HE... HE... NOT ONLY TORE IT, BUT IS ALSO DISGRACING ME IN FRONT OF ALL OF JAPAN?!".
Marin paced around the living room, predatorily looking for her heavy tailor's shears. — "Just let him come back!".
— "I'll shove his [Infinity] up a certain place! I'll snip off that white hair with my shears!".
On the TV screen, Gojo stood in an epic pose, preparing to teleport. The air around him began to swirl spectacularly.
Marin, despite her boiling rage, stopped for a second, crossing her arms over her chest.
— "And where is he planning to gallop off to with all that pretense?".
The epic blue glow at Gojo's fingertips awkwardly blinked... and went out with a soft hiss. The spatial jump failed.
Gojo froze, looking over the crowd of silent journalists, and then, with an absolutely deadpan face, reached into his pocket.
— "What is he doing?" — Ai squeezed out through her laughter, leaning over the edge of the sofa.
In that exact second, Marin's phone, lying on the glass table right in front of them, vibrated loudly and demandingly.
Both girls stared at the glowing smartphone screen. A contact flashed that Marin had added a couple of hours ago in a fit of anger.
The screen blazed: "White-haired idiot."
The smartphone vibrated on the glossy surface of the glass table, making an obnoxious, rattling sound that seemed deafening in the dead silence of the penthouse.
The screen glowed, mercilessly highlighting the contact: "White-haired idiot."
Marin, still standing in the middle of the living room with her disheveled blonde hair and slipped pink hairpin, stared blankly at the phone.
Then she slowly shifted her gaze to the huge plasma on the wall.
There, on the other side of the screen, surrounded by a crowd of paralyzed journalists and blinding camera flashes, the Strongest sorcerer of modern times nonchalantly pressed a smartphone with cracked glass to his ear.
— "He... he's calling me?" — Marin whispered, feeling as though reality was finally bursting at the seams. — "Right from there?".
Ai Hoshino, who up until this moment had been writhing with laughter on the sofa, couldn't take it.
She slid down onto the fluffy white carpet, burying her face in the long plush ears of her yellow bunny pajamas.
The idol shook in a silent hysterical fit, pounding the floor with her soft-slippered heels.
— "Answer it..." — Ai squeezed out through her tears, pointing at the phone. — "Marin-chan... answer him... All of Japan is waiting...".
Marin gulped. Her fingers, pricked with needles during her night of sewing, trembled from an overdose of adrenaline, rage, and the absurdity of the situation.
She leaned over the table, poked the green accept button with her finger, and without hesitating, cranked the speakerphone to full volume.
— "GOJO SATORU!!" — her furious shriek seemed to bounce off the penthouse's panoramic windows.
A second later, this exact same shriek, amplified by Satoru's phone microphone, echoed across the square in front of the Ueno museum live on air, making the front rows of journalists flinch.
— "YOU'RE LIVE ON TWENTY CHANNELS AT ONCE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" — Marin yelled, looming over the table.
On the TV screen, a light, completely relaxed smile touched Gojo's lips.
— "I know, sweetheart" — his velvet voice rang out from the phone speaker, which a moment later was duplicated from the plasma speakers with a slight television echo.
— "The local lighting makes me look fat, and the cameramen are taking awful angles from below."
Ai Hoshino let out the sound of a dying seagull and rolled across the carpet, clutching her stomach.
The greatest sorcerer, having just emerged from a Red Gate, was complaining about the camerawork.
The cameras on the screen continued to film his every movement. The entire country was now listening to their phone conversation.
— "Listen, quick question" — Gojo continued, adjusting his black blindfold with his free hand, as if posing for a magazine cover.
— "You forgot to send the address. Where am I supposed to beautifully vanish to?"
Marin felt her soul leave her body for a second to bang its head against an invisible wall.
— "W-what?.." — she choked on air, resting her palms against the glass of the table.
— "You're calling me from the cordon of a Red Gate... in front of all of Japan... to ask for directions?!".
— "Exactly.I'm the Strongest, not a GPS. Dictate it."
Marin let out a long, despair-filled groan and slammed her forehead against the cold glass of the table with full force. The glass chimed pitifully.
— "Minato Ward. The elite 'Orion Residence' complex. Twenty-fifth floor, penthouse!"
— she growled, no longer caring that she was giving away the secret hideout of the country's top idol.
At that moment, she didn't care. — "And Gojo... for heaven's sake, why is the boy standing behind you covered in some disgusting green slime?!".
"I'm watching the broadcast!".
Takemichi on the screen whimpered pitifully at the sound of her voice and tried to hide behind his giant sack.
— "Long story. Abyss Devourers can't chew, they swallow whole" — Gojo's voice was as calm as if he were talking about the weather.
— "Anyway, we'll be there soon. Put the kettle on."
The call ended with a short beep.
Marin slowly raised her head. The pink hairpin finally slipped off and fell onto the glass table.
On the TV screen, Gojo carelessly tucked the cracked phone into his trouser pocket.
He looked over the army of reporters who stood with open mouths and lowered microphones, clearly trying to grasp the scale of the absurdity that had just occurred.
— "Where were we? Ah right" — he flashed another dazzling smile and elegantly crossed two fingers.
That terrifying, icy aura of the Strongest returned in a snap, making the journalists back away. — "I desperately need a shower."
— "Cursed Technique: [Blue]"
He grabbed the slime-covered Takemichi by the scruff of the neck and caught the strap of his sack.
The air on the square exploded with a deafening clap, scattering equipment and knocking people off their feet.
A second later, only a gust of wind swirling dust on the empty asphalt remained on the screen. The broadcast plunged into the chaos of screaming reporters.
Silence fell in the secret penthouse. Only the climate control hummed quietly, and somewhere on the floor, Ai Hoshino was gasping from residual laughter, wiping her tear-stained cheeks with the sleeve of her yellow pajamas.
Marin Kitagawa straightened up. Her face, which just five minutes ago was contorted with mortal terror and covered in tears, now presented a mask of absolute, icy calm.
She slowly looked around her makeshift workshop. She stepped over a crumpled scrap of ruined black fabric. She walked to the armchair.
Her elegant hand reached down and closed around the cold metal rings of the heavy, professional tailor's shears. She picked them up.
The blades glinted menacingly in the light of the dim lamps. Clack. Clack.
— "Ai-chan," — Marin's voice was quiet, devoid of emotion, and therefore truly frightening.
— "Y-yes?" — the idol raised her head above the edge of the sofa, still smiling.
— "Go warm the kettle," — Marin turned to the massive oak door of the penthouse, gripping the shears tighter.
— "And I'm going to meet our hero. I need to take a couple of... measurements from him."