The Visit
The underground parking garage of Ronia Corporation Headquarters.
"So the job was handled properly?"
"Good work. Though I do have one small question."
"Why hasn't there been any news of a fatality? A child died. There ought to be an uproar."
Judo caught the implication, and the corner of his mouth curled up.
It had been a massive explosion. A child that small could easily have left no trace at all.
"Bwahahaha!!"
Unaware of any of this, Yu Jinhyuk would be frantically searching for the child who had vanished. The thought of that futile scramble brought a laugh to his lips.
"I'll leave the rest in your hands."
"As for the Kobe Port casino matter, I'll throw my weight behind it. You'll have good news before long."
Judo hung up, looking thoroughly refreshed. It felt as though a weight that had been sitting on his chest had finally slid off.
You picked the wrong opponent.
That Korean brat who'd charged in without knowing his place — Yu Jinhyuk. Before he dragged the kid in and killed him, he intended to kindly explain a few things. That everything Jinhyuk had suffered, and everything he was about to suffer, had all sprung from that single moment of arrogance.
Jinhyuk would probably ask whether something so trivial had really been worth going this far.
And Judo already knew what he would say.
Human beings were never equal. The wound his pride had taken at the exchange meeting could only begin to heal once every last scrap of that insignificant brat had been erased from existence.
"Chairman. We can't get through to the Chief Secretary. Should we wait a little longer?"
Judo clicked his tongue. Normally, when the chairman arrived, the Chief Secretary would come down with the rest of the entourage. What was he doing, and where?
"Forget it. Let's go up."
He was in a good mood today. He'd let it slide.
He stepped out of the car and boarded the VIP elevator with Uryu, the Chief of Security. He pressed the button for the top floor and waited.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened with a cheerful chime.
"...?"
He couldn't help the question mark that formed on his face.
The top floor of the Ronia building, where the chairman's office was located. It was a place that never went dark, three hundred and sixty-five days a year — staff were always on standby. Now every light was dead. Pitch-black. Even the secretary who was supposed to be at her post was nowhere to be seen.
Uryu stepped in front of Judo, his brow furrowed. The lights on the other floors looked normal, so it wasn't a blackout.
"Chairman. We should go back down for now. Something's not right here."
"Go back down? This is my building. Do you have any idea how tight the security is? Getting thrashed by a little girl has made you skittish."
Judo clicked his tongue as if Uryu were pathetic. Left with nothing to say, Uryu hung his head.
He had been knocked unconscious by Hiyori right in front of the Hosaka children. From where he stood, it was infuriatingly unfair. His opponent had been Matsuna Hiyori — Japan's official seventh-ranked player.
"Out of the way."
Judo shoved Uryu aside and walked toward the chairman's office.
Getting this frightened in my own house.
He'd have to bring in new security from the Yamaguchi-gumi.
Creeeak.
He threw the door open as boldly as he always did. But he could not take another step.
Hosaka Judo stopped in his tracks and stared straight ahead. He was seeing it with his own two eyes, and still he couldn't quite believe it.
The seat that not even his sons or grandsons had ever sat in — a chair reserved for him and him alone. Someone was sitting in it. And the irony was that the silhouette was painfully familiar.
Jinhyuk, seated in the chair, spun it around. He smiled as if genuinely pleased to see him.
"I'm glad you made it before it got too late. I was starting to think you weren't coming in today — I was about to pay a visit to your home."
"You son of a bitch!!"
Uryu burst in from outside. He was about to charge straight at Jinhyuk when Judo held him back, as if to say not yet. Judo took a breath to compose himself, then spoke.
"How did you get in?"
Whether he was angry or not could wait. How the hell had this man made it all the way here?
"How? I walked in through the front door and took the elevator."
He omitted the part about using Stealth and putting the Yodel Ranger captain out front to slip through every detection system and alarm.
"Bullshit."
There wasn't even a direct elevator from the front entrance to the chairman's office. Even if he'd found the way, he should have been stopped somewhere in between. The fact that there hadn't been a single disturbance was strange.
"So. What do you want? Here to cover my granddaughter's medical bills? If that's the case, you'd better have brought a great deal of money. Selling off every last one of your worthless organs still wouldn't cover it."
"Not a chance."
"Then why are you here?"
"You already know why."
He pulled up today's news on his phone and held it out.
Judo's eyebrow twitched.
How did he find out?
The Yamaguchi-gumi stood between him and that incident. Even if the trail had been followed, the boy should have gone to them first.
"You're not even denying it. And no apology, either."
"Kh... Bwahaha!"
Judo burst out laughing. He laughed for a long time before he finally managed to stop, shaking his head.
"Listen well, brat. Denial and apologies are for the weak. They are not things a man like me does."
Hosaka Judo had been a predator from the day he was born. Everyone had watched the mood of the man destined to be the next family head and chairman of Ronia, doing everything in their power not to cross him. He had lived that life for as long as he had drawn breath. Apologizing to the brat in front of him was simply not possible.
"Is that so."
Jinhyuk let out a deep sigh. The corner of Judo's mouth lifted as he continued.
"You really do have a remarkable lack of danger sense. This isn't the exchange hall. There's no Matsuna family or Jin clan here to protect you."
The VIP elevator arrived, and the security team Uryu had summoned in advance poured out. The Yu Jinhyuk standing in front of them was a suspected Runner. He was still only in the fiftieth-floor range, but they had requested backup to be thorough.
"This is a force that wouldn't lose even against a decent hunter unit. We'll continue this conversation in a moment."
Judo stepped back and looked up at Uryu.
"Leave him breathing. And leave the ears — he needs to hear what I have to say."
"Understood."
They drew their weapons, pulled up their abilities, and stepped forward. Watching the men close in, Jinhyuk slowly rose to his feet.
Meanwhile, in Sannomiya, Kobe.
"Who the hell are you?!"
The man guarding the front gate shouted roughly. A woman of unknown identity had appeared, a black cap pulled low, her face covered.
"Don't you know this is the Yamaguchi-gumi's main house?"
"I wouldn't have come this far if I didn't."
"What?"
The scowling gangster looked her over. Silver hair spilled from beneath the cap, and crimson eyes gleamed clearly even in the dark. A look you didn't often see in Japan.
Shing.
The men on standby drew their katanas and pointed them at Seira. Showing up in the middle of the night dressed like that — she hadn't come to pay a social call.
"So these are the blades you call katanas?"
She asked it lightly, but no answer came.
"Who sent you? The Sekigahara-gumi?"
"I have come for two reasons. The first, by my master's command. The second, to exact the price for harming my friend."
"I asked if it was the Sekigahara."
She had no intention of answering his question either. Instead, she told him something else.
"Even on a battlefield where life and death hang in the balance, there are lines that must not be crossed. To lay a hand upon a child who has no part in any of this is something one who keeps their honor must never do. It can never be forgiven."
"You brought this on yourself. I'll start by taking your wrist."
The gangster at the front swung his raised sword in a horizontal slash.
CRACK!
Question marks bloomed across the faces of the watching gangsters. Crack? That was not the sound a sword made when it cut something.
"Huh...?"
The man who'd swung stared at his dangling wrist. The katana that had been in his hand was somehow gone.
"My own blade is far too precious to waste on refuse. I'll borrow yours, then."
Agonizing pain surged from the broken wrist. But he couldn't even scream. Four heads rose into the air in a single instant.
Seira flicked the blood from the blade and opened the gate that had been shut.
"Everyone out!"
"Intruder!"
"The front gate's been hit!"
The situation room, watching on the cameras, sounded the alarm. Gangsters poured out into a garden the size of a school athletic field. The midnight commotion brought Yanagi and Nishi out as well.
"Huh? Just one person?"
Nishi let out a hollow laugh. The Yamaguchi-gumi was the massive yakuza organization that represented Sannomiya, Kobe. To hit the main house, you'd normally bring a hundred people at least. Just one? It was so absurd she wondered if she was seeing things.
"Senpai. Don't go setting off explosions and making a racket. Just go back inside and get some sleep. By morning her head'll be sitting on the floor. Hm? Yanagi?"
Yanagi didn't answer. He was pouring with a terrifying amount of cold sweat. They had an overwhelming numerical advantage. What could possibly scare him enough to sweat like that?
"Senpai, what's wrong? Are you sick...?!"
Nishi's words died. Her eyes went wide.
A single black streak, drawn horizontally. Seira, who had been standing at the front gate, was now right in front of Yanagi and Nishi in the blink of an eye.
I... I didn't see that?
Nishi had gained a unique class trait: a special pair of eyes. She could catch every frame that ordinary people couldn't even perceive. This time, she hadn't. The intruder's movement — the speed of the sword she'd swung — was impossibly fast.
SHHHHHHRAAAK!!
A delayed geyser of blood erupted. People collapsed without even managing a proper attack. In that instant, Yanagi and Nishi understood instinctively. This was never someone they could handle with numbers.
Beneath the cold moonlight, eyes redder than blood turned toward Yanagi.
"Was it you who harmed my friend?"
"F-friend? What are you...!?"
Yanagi's face went white as he spotted something. A child peeking out, clutching the waist of Seira's trousers. It was unmistakably the child he had blown away with his ability that afternoon — the child who should have been dead, no question.
Nishi and Yanagi's eyes trembled violently. What the hell was going on?
"It's that guy!"
Momo pointed at Yanagi. Seira nodded.
"Dismiss Card Manifestation, Momo."
"Okay!"
Momo vanished. Seira started walking.
"W-wait! Hold on! The kid's alive! There's no need to go this far!"
She did not answer. Instead, she kicked off the ground as lightly as before. Seira cut through both of them in an instant.
Step. Step. Step.
Yanagi and Nishi collapsed in a spray of blood, already dead — but Seira did not break stride.
Her master's order was the annihilation of the Yamaguchi-gumi. And so she intended to erase them completely from this world. The names of those who had been fool enough to challenge her master.