"A real hero of justice... it's the first time I've seen one in my life."

  The girl in the pajamas stared bnkly at Haruki Aizawa, her eyes tracing every line of his face as if she were trying to burn the image into her memory.

  "I'm no hero," Haruki replied, shaking his head.

  He hadn't stepped in out of a sense of moral duty. He simply had a visceral loathing for the strong preying on the weak. It was an instinctual reaction, nothing more.

  He initially intended to escort the ptinum-blonde girl back to her home, but it quickly became apparent that she had no idea where she lived. She remained in a dazed, foggy state, acting as if she were perpetually caught in the middle of a dream.

  Resigned to the situation, Haruki decided to take her back to his pce for the time being.

  "Hero-sama, what is your name?" the girl asked curiously as they walked.

  "I'm Haruki..."

  He started to give his real name, but then remembered the Seitenshi's warning. If he wanted to stay 'dead' to the public, he had to be careful. "...Just call me Haruki."

  "I am Tina... Tina Sprout," the girl introduced herself. She fumbled with her pocket and pulled out a small pstic bottle with English beling. She shook out a couple of pills and popped them into her mouth.

  "What are you taking?"

  "Medicine to make me feel a bit more awake," she muttered.

  "Medicine?"

  "I'm... a nocturnal person. If I don't take these, I can't stay upright during the day."

  Tina didn't just take two; she poured a handful of the pills into her mouth and chewed them with a sleepy, rhythmic grinding motion before swallowing. Haruki frowned, seriously concerned about the girl's health, but since he wasn't her legal guardian, he didn't feel it was his pce to lecture her.

  Just as he was about to dig deeper into her circumstances, a phone rang in her pocket.

  She answered, listened for a few seconds, and her entire aura shifted. The vacant, sleepy look didn't vanish, but a sharp, professional edge momentarily cut through the fog. She hung up and turned to Haruki, offering a small bow of departure.

  "Goodbye, Haruki-san. Oh... could I have your number?"

  "Sure."

  Haruki's phone was a government-issued model provided by the System when he arrived. He entered his contact info into her phone.

  "Can I... test the call first?" Tina asked cautiously.

  "Is that necessary?"

  "I'm worried Haruki-san might have given me a fake number to get rid of me."

  "I have no reason to do that."

  "Then I'm happy."

  A genuine smile touched Tina's face. She meticulously saved the contact, tucked the phone away, and turned to leave. From the back, she looked like any other cheerful, slightly messy young girl.

  However, Haruki stood still, his expression grim.

  Even though the voice on the other end of Tina's call had been brief, Haruki's heightened senses had captured a few key words through the speaker. One name in particur stood out, a name he couldn't ignore:

  Seitenshi.

  "Tina Sprout..."

  Haruki whispered the name to himself. The moment he got home, he sought out Kayo Senju. "Kayo, I need you to run a search. Find everything you can on a 'Tina Sprout'."

  Kayo looked up from her books, her nose twitching slightly. She stared at him for a long moment before speaking.

  "I smell the scent of another girl," she said, her voice ft but her expression clearly sulky.

  Haruki let out a weary ugh and spent the next ten minutes ruffling her hair until his Initiator was sufficiently mollified to start the investigation.

  After setting Kayo to investigate Tina, Haruki returned to the Sacred Residence the following morning to resume his duties.

  The atmosphere in the pace was electric with tension. Today was the day of the high-profile summit between the Seitenshi and the ruler of the Osaka District: Sōun Ikuma.

  Haruki had heard the stories. Sōun was a dictator in the truest sense of the word. He taxed his people into poverty, crushed dissent with an iron fist, and funneled all of Osaka's resources into building a private army. Rumor had it he had secret backing from major powers like Russia and the United States, all with one goal: to unify Japan under his tyrannical rule.

  Haruki didn't care about the politics of national unification. To him, Sōun was just another "big man" with a small soul. However, as the Seitenshi's bodyguard, his intuition was screaming at him. Sōun's visit to Tokyo, especially right after the "Seven Stars Legacy" incident, felt like a setup.

  "Haruki-san, please... don't leave my side," the Seitenshi whispered as they approached the conference hall. She looked pale, her hands trembling slightly against her silk dress.

  "You're nervous," Haruki noted.

  "I've heard too much about Sōun Ikuma. To face someone like that... I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't afraid."

  "Rex. No matter what happens, I've got your back."

  "Thank you. Those words mean more than you know."

  She offered him a small, fragile smile and entered the hall.

  On the far side of the room, a white-haired man sat on a custom-made sofa. Beside him stood a bodyguard whose muscles were so dense he looked like a wall of meat. This was Sōun Ikuma.

  He radiated a predatory dominance, like a lion surveying a mb. The moment the Seitenshi entered, Sōun released a wave of pressure that forced her to instinctively stumble back.

  Haruki stepped forward immediately, his presence like a cold, immovable shield. He stood half a step in front of her, breaking Sōun's momentum.

  "Greetings, Seitenshi-sama," Sōun said, his voice a gravelly boom. He seemed surprised by Haruki's defiance, his eyes narrowing as he sized up the masked man.

  The meeting began. Sōun didn't waste time with pleasantries. He went straight for the jugur, using Tokyo's "failure" to secure the Seven Stars Legacy as a weapon. He demanded that Tokyo cede control of certain trade routes and military manufacturing as "compensation" for endangering the other districts.

  But the Seitenshi didn't fold. She fired back, accusing Osaka of standing by while Tokyo bled. She pointed out that when the Stage V Scorpio appeared, Osaka hadn't sent a single bullet to help.

  The verbal sparring sted for two grueling hours. It ended in a bitter stalemate, with neither side giving an inch.

  After the meeting, Haruki escorted a mentally drained Seitenshi to her armored limousine.

  As they drove through the darkening streets of the First District, the Seitenshi slumped against the seat, her eyes closed. Haruki, however, was as sharp as a bde. He stared out the tinted window, his Sense of Fluctuation extended like a radar.

  Suddenly, the world seemed to warp for a split second.

  The night was pitch bck, and to a normal eye, the cityscape was a blur of shadows. But Haruki "saw" it—a fluctuation of air, a heat signature, a high-velocity vibration screaming across the gap from a distant skyscraper.

  Supersonic. Heavy caliber. Varanium tipped.

  "Down!"

  Before the gss could even shatter, Haruki's body moved on pure instinct. He didn't just push her; he grabbed her by the waist and kicked the car door off its hinges with a thunderous CRACK. He leaped from the speeding vehicle, shielding her with his own body.

  BOOM!

  The car's gas tank exploded the instant the bullet hit, turning the limousine into a rolling fireball that lit up the night like a dying star.

  "Oh my god!!"

  Panic erupted on the streets as pedestrians scrambled for cover. Haruki rolled to a stop, keeping the dazed Seitenshi tucked beneath him.

  Ping!

  A second shot screamed toward them, aimed directly at the Seitenshi's head. She was too frozen with shock to move.

  SHING!

  In one fluid motion, Haruki drew Onikiri. The bde hummed with a dark, violet light as he swung it in a vertical arc.

  Clink.

  The high-velocity bullet hit the Varanium edge and was sliced perfectly in two. The halves whistled past the Seitenshi's ears and buried themselves in the concrete behind her.

  "What!?"

  Far off on a rooftop, the sniper let out a gasp of pure disbelief. No human being—Promoter or otherwise—was supposed to be able to cut a sniper round in mid-air.

  Haruki didn't wait. He used his Sense of Fluctuation to lock onto the sniper's coordinates. He fred his Highnd Soul, becoming a streak of green-and-purple light as he sprinted toward the building.

  By the time he reached the rooftop, it was empty. Only a single warm shell casing remained.

  The sniper had vanished with a speed that wasn't human. It was the speed of an Initiator.

  "A Cursed Child assassin..." Haruki muttered, his eyes narrowing.

  The timing was too perfect. The failed meeting with Sōun, the immediate hit on the way home, and the "sleepy" girl he'd met the night before who was looking for the Seitenshi...

  The pieces were falling into pce. Haruki needed to get back to Kayo and see if the "Tina Sprout" he had met was the same monster who had just tried to put a bullet through his employer's brain.

  ***********************************************

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