Chapter 219: Fathers
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 219: Fathers
After a lavish lunch at the high-end restaurant, we chatted over a sweet dessert to finish the meal.
Most of our conversation revolved around Sasha.
I figured that since this was the first time she’d been away from her parents for so long, they would all have a lot to catch up on.
Sasha described the events of the past six months since she’d come to Japan as an exchange student, using a wide array of expressions.
But no matter how proficient her Japanese was, her vocabulary was still lacking compared to a typical high school student, so our conversation became a mix of Japanese and Russian words we couldn't understand.
Naturally, Sasha’s parents started speaking Russian as well, and at some point, the rest of us were left in a state of ‘Where am I? Who am I?’
Sasha’s mother, belatedly noticing this, cleared her throat and spoke.
"My apologies. To think we invited Sasha’s friends only to have a private family conversation."
Rika, who had been spacing out, jumped in surprise and waved her hands dismissively.
"No! Not at all! You haven't seen each other in so long! We understand!"
Finding her reaction quite adorable, Sasha’s mother chuckled and said, "Heh heh, you're a very considerate child, Miss Rika."
"Hehe…"
Rika scratched the back of her head, looking embarrassed.
In any case, thanks to Sasha’s mother cutting in at the right moment, Ivan, who had been deep in conversation with Sasha, rose from his seat.
"Well then, Sasha, you can go up and play with your friends. We have somewhere we need to be for a bit."
"Okay. I’ll see you this evening."
After seeing her parents off as they left the hotel, Sasha turned back to us with an excited expression.
"Shall we head up, then?"
The class president asked her, "Shouldn't you be spending time with your parents? Are we in the way?"
"It's fine. They said they plan on staying in Japan for the next week."
"That's a relief, then."
As the class president nodded in agreement, Sasha, who had been looking around, suddenly strode over and linked her arm with mine.
"?!?!"
Startled by the soft sensation against my arm, I tried to pull away, but Sasha only tightened her grip and looked up at me.
"Just follow me quietly, Kim Yoo-Sung. I know your weakness."
"What?"
Weakness?
For a moment, I wore a dumbfounded expression at Sasha's sudden remark, then a hypothesis popped into my head.
The possibility that Sasha might have found out about the relationship between me and the President.
"...Let's go."
And so, despite the suspicious gazes from those around me, I couldn't even put up a decent struggle and had no choice but to be quietly dragged away by Sasha.
*
At the same time Kim Yoo-Sung and the others were heading to Sasha’s suite—
Ivan and his wife, Yelena, had left the hotel and were now traveling through downtown Tokyo in a large sedan.
"Lena, has it been a while since the two of us came to Japan?"
"It has. The last time I was here was ten years ago."
As his wife Yelena said, her last visit to Japan had been in 2008.
She had come to watch the finals of the 4th God of Fist Tournament, which had been held since its inception in 1999.
And 2008 was, in many ways, an unforgettable year for Ivan as well.
It was the year that he, who had solidified his position as the world's strongest by achieving a grand slam of three consecutive GOF victories, suffered his first-ever defeat in an official match.
Because the Black Yaksha, who had finally won once after losing continuously, vanished without a trace afterward, opinions among fight fans were still divided as to who was the greatest fighter of all time.
From Ivan's perspective, it was incredibly frustrating.
He had been caught off guard by a strange technique he’d never seen before, but he was confident he would win if they fought again.
That Black Yaksha bastard… Where is he and what is he doing?
The intelligence network of the Easter Egg Company, where Ivan reigned as chairman, was comparable to Russia's SVR or America's CIA.
This was because it had actively absorbed personnel from the KGB of the former Soviet Union.
Ivan’s close aide, Boris, was one of them.
But even with such overwhelming intelligence capabilities, it was impossible to track down the reclusive Black Yaksha.
They had received numerous reports of sightings of someone resembling him within Japan, but the man himself was incredibly elusive. And unlike Russia, which was mostly flat, Japan's mountainous terrain was perfectly suited for a life of seclusion, away from prying eyes.
"Chairman, we have arrived at our destination."
The driver's voice broke Ivan from his thoughts.
Click!
The door of the large sedan opened. As Ivan and Yelena stepped out from the back seat, the yakuza who had been waiting at the mansion's entrance all bowed their heads in unison.
A normal person would have been overwhelmed by the disciplined display, but the man standing here was, in name and reality, the 'World's Strongest Man.'
"Welcome, Chairman Ivan."
The one who greeted him was a yakuza whose trademarks were his blood-red hair and the cross-shaped scar on his face.
"It's been a while, red-haired brat."
"...I go by the name Bloodbath now."
Tojo Naoto.
The 6th chairman of the long-standing Toseikai.
Together with his right-hand man, Takeyama, they were known as the worst yakuza duo, called the "Mountain of Corpses and Sea of Blood." But before Ivan, who controlled the Russian underworld at will, they paled in comparison.
"Well, does it matter what I call you? We're here to talk business, after all."
"Please, come inside. I will show you the way."
"Right. Lead on."
Beyond the wide-open gates, hundreds of yakuza were lined up in formation in the courtyard.
It was nothing more than a device to show off the Toseikai's power, but Ivan didn't bat an eye.
Instead, with a composed look, he took a cigar from his coat, placed it in his mouth, and lit it himself.
"Fwoooosh—"
After exhaling a cloud of smoke that had filled his mouth, Ivan spoke as if he had just remembered something.
"By the way, I met your daughter before coming here."
"...My daughter, you say?"
Tojo Naoto, who was walking ahead, momentarily tensed up, thinking Ivan was using his family to threaten him. But one should always hear a person out.
"My daughter is currently in Japan as an exchange student. It seems the two of them are friends."
"I see…"
He already knew this, as she had visited his home before, but feeling as though he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, Naoto let his words trail off vaguely.
"Circumstances prevent me from staying in Japan for long, so I'd like you to keep an eye on my daughter."
"...Understood."
Realizing that even a man as notoriously ruthless in the underworld as Ivan worried about his daughter all the same, Tojo Naoto felt a little more at ease and decided to let go of his unnecessary tension.
After all, any mistake during the negotiations would only be to his own detriment.
*
At the same time—
"Kim Yoo-Sung, was it?"
Having fled his house to escape the wrath of his daughter, Fuma Yukika, Fuma Kotaro stood atop a telephone pole, expanding his energy sense across the whole of Tokyo.
Normally, finding a person this way would be nearly impossible.
Searching for one person in a city of millions was as difficult as finding a needle in a desert.
However, the story changed slightly when a clue was added.
The Kim Yoo-Sung he was currently searching for had defeated Ivan Romanov and Hattori Hanzo, two of the world's most formidable fighters, in succession, earning him the title of Japan's Strongest.
A man like that would possess an enormous amount of ki within his body, and for a ninja like Fuma Kotaro, sensing such a powerful presence was a very simple task.
1 km…
2 km…
5 km…
The range of his senses gradually expanded.
Eventually, what his senses caught were two powerful ki signatures.
One was radiating heat like the sun, its body seeming to burn with a shimmering haze.
The other was a refined ki, cold as a Siberian wind and tightly condensed like arctic ice.
The latter presence was familiar to Fuma Kotaro.
It was only natural, as they had fought four times on the international stage.
Ivan Romanov… What is he doing in Japan?
The last time he had met him was ten years ago.
After raising his own value to its absolute peak with their final battle, Fuma Kotaro had left his village immediately after.
He believed that only then would the village elders truly feel the weight of his absence.
Damn, this is no time to get sidetracked.
Sensing for too long could get him detected in return. Fuma Kotaro hastily cut off his senses and began to move, following the sun-like ki he had discovered in the east.
But at that moment, he couldn't have imagined it.
The fact that Ivan had already detected his presence in Tokyo.