Chapter 99: Let Big Brother Check Your Bodies
The moment Ross made his final choice, every player in the group, Ross included, was forcibly transported out of the Secret Realm stage and back into the run-down basement they had started from. More precisely: thrown back out through the same glowing green entrance they had come through.
The Secret Realm needed to begin its internal transformation. It was about to be completely rebuilt into what Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse required it to look like.
Before he did anything else, Ross collected what was his. Thrown out alongside the group were the items extracted from Suzaku: the Suzaku's Sacred Artifact, the Weapon Chip: Thunder Cannon, and the Dark Sonata: Flute Movement sheet music. All of it went into storage before he turned his attention to checking on everyone.
Ears needed treatment, but more importantly he needed to examine and assess how far the Dark Sonata had eroded everyone's bodies. What he found was that the damage was lower than expected.
The affected areas on each person were limited in number. Even the worst of it only resembled the kind of atrophy you would see in someone bedridden for years without corresponding muscle activity, not permanent necrosis.
Erosion at this level didn't even require a Nen exorcism. Extended rest and recovery, using one's own life-force-rich Nen to gradually push the malevolent Nen out of the affected areas, would heal it naturally over time. Which was precisely why Ross was puzzled.
Given the Dark Sonata's background as a Demon King creation, being defensible by something as simple as puncturing your eardrums seemed too modest for something with that kind of reputation. And yet everyone's condition confirmed that the Dark Sonata's effect had genuinely been suppressed.
In discussing it with Kurama, Ross suddenly realized: sound wave vibration should have been one of the Dark Sonata's transmission pathways. The reason its effect had been weakened was that something had interfered with the normal propagation of those sound waves.
The Mega Buster. More precisely, the Weapon Chip: Vibration Cannon, obtained from Byakko's "destructive factor" ability, whose item description had clearly stated: "Vibration Rounds will affect certain wave-type propagation effects."
Suzaku had probably never imagined that the Byakko he kept around as a large pet actually contained the capability to directly counter the Dark Sonata.
If that big cat hadn't been a human-eating demon, Ross would have been genuinely interested in trying to keep one.
"Do we need the old lady to step in?"
Yusuke looked at a section of visibly atrophied skin and muscle on his arm and asked with mild concern.
"Having Master do a Nen exorcism would be overkill for this. A stretch of proper rest and recovery should bring it back gradually."
Ross gave his assessment of the erosion level.
It was true that Genkai was capable of Nen exorcism, the kind that could even be passed down as a trainable technique. Within the Spirit Wave Style's five mastery areas, under the Refinement branch, there was a special technique called the Bright Stillness Purification Spell that could achieve a Nen exorcism effect.
But using it required the practitioner to have an extremely large Nen reserve and deep accumulated training to sustain it, and the recipient also faced significant risk to their life.
Right now, no one except Genkai herself could perform it. Ross was nowhere close.
And risking one's life to clear a small patch of malevolent Nen erosion would be going considerably too far.
"Ross."
At that moment, Hiei, who had dutifully received his treatment and was beginning to recover his hearing, spoke.
"The commission is complete. Time for the second installment."
He was done waiting. He urgently wanted the remaining intelligence.
Whatever he had contributed inside the Secret Realm, he had helped, and he had genuinely played a critical role against Suzaku. He could claim this intel with a clear conscience.
"OK. Listen carefully."
Ross didn't waste time.
"The person holding her captive is a gem dealer. His name is Tarukane. He's human, but his appearance is more abstract than most demons who haven't taken human form. If you see a short, fat, squat figure with a pointed head whose skull forms an equilateral triangle or a kagami mochi shape, that's him.
"He's a gang family head under the Ten Dons. Makes his money dirty. He's built a large private villa complex in a remote mountain area called Bone Rot Village. The person you're looking for is most likely imprisoned in a barrier-sealed underground chamber beneath those villas.
"Recently, Tarukane made a deal with an underground mercenary group called the Dark Brokers. Every member of this group is a demon capable of basic transformation to conceal their identity. Their business model is capturing and selling demon creatures, running the full range from basic grunt-level fighters to modified biological weapons."
Ross paused. He glanced at Yusuke with a look that made Yusuke involuntarily mime a "does this involve me somehow?" gesture.
"The Toguro Brothers."
"The Elder Toguro is just repulsive. But the Younger Toguro is something categorically different. At our current level of development, he is a wall none of us can climb over.
"And on the matter of identity and seniority: Younger Toguro technically qualifies as our senior disciple-uncle in the Spirit Wave Style."
"What!?"
This genuinely stunned Yusuke. He lurched up from a crouch so fast he swayed twice.
"It's true. But this particular senior uncle left the school a long time ago. Because of a certain incident in his past, he chose to transform himself into a demon, which effectively severed his relationship with our master. Think of him as a pure demon and nothing more."
Ross laid out Younger Toguro's identity directly, with no interest in being cryptic about it.
On the other side of the room, Hiei had heard everything he needed to hear and was already at the door.
"Do you want the ability profiles of the Toguro Brothers? I can give you a discount."
Ross made one last attempt to sell additional intelligence.
"Not interested."
That was all he left behind before disappearing from everyone's sight.
Leaping between rooftops, only one thought remained in his mind.
Yukina. Wait for me.
Yusuke, for his part, was still in shock, eyes unfocused.
He had complained about "the stupid old lady" often enough during the harder training sessions, but Genkai was an irreplaceable master to him. Finding out there was a Spirit Wave Style senior disciple-uncle who had turned traitor, transformed into a demon, and broken with her was a lot to sit with. His brain wasn't quite turning over.
Ross pulled food and drinks from the Nekketsu New Record inn room storage, signaled everyone to take a break, and began examining the newly acquired Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse Creator Authority.
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