CHAPTER 105: COINCIDENCE
"..."
Nozomi Tenma, Ichika Iori, and Fusui Kure—chatting by the pool—found their gazes pulled toward the same point of interest.
A man was walking hurriedly behind their lounge area.
He had a furrowed brow, a scruffy, unkempt beard, and was wearing a faded, sun-bleached beach set under a loose, ancient haori jacket. He was, by every possible metric, the opposite of "Beautiful."
Was it Nozomi's superhuman dynamic vision?
Was it Ichika's professional sensitivity from years of wrestling Yakuza thugs?
Or was it Fusui's literal "Assassin's Instinct"?
Whatever the catalyst, a heavy wave of "Wrongness" washed over the three of them.
As the man hurried past, the trio's minds processed a mountain of data in a single microsecond.
Messy hair. Body odor. Stale tobacco. Dirt under the fingernails. A filthy, open collar.
Nothing about him suggested he was a vacationing gourmet or a visiting scholar.
Yet, from his person drifted the unnatural scent of heavy grease, metallic dust, and... rotten eggs.
Observing his center of gravity and the specific hitch in his stride, they deduced that the pockets of his jacket were weighted.
Left side: A glass bottle containing a liquid that radiated the acrid, stinging scent of industrial-grade sulfuric acid.
Right side: Based on the silhouette and the way he guarded the pocket, a heavy blade—likely a butcher's knife or a carving tool over 30cm long.
And beneath those smells was the cloying aroma of cheap, mass-produced bread. He had likely smuggled his "Dangerous Goods" inside a lunchbox, hidden between sandwich slices, to bypass the front gate security.
The conclusion was absolute: This man was a Spree Killer. He was a socially resentful time bomb, seconds away from pulling a knife or throwing acid at the crowd.
Station Report: Suspect Yuki Mimura. Last blog post: [Everyone is at fault. I don't care who it is. Just die.]
Mimura stopped in front of a row of lounge chairs where three small children were playing. His eyes drifted toward a group of teenage girls laughing nearby.
Right first. Then left.
Slash the throat. Open the bottle. Spray everything.
Mimura reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy carving knife. The children didn't even notice; they were staring at his face, confused by the scowling stranger.
SHING!
Mimura lunged, the blade arc-ing toward the children's level.
BANG!!!
A sound like a localized explosion erupted from directly behind him. Mimura flinched, his nervous system jolting at the unexpected noise. The carving knife slipped from his sweaty grip, clattering harmlessly onto the concrete.
The children, finally sensing the lethality of the moment, screamed and scrambled away.
"!?!"
Foiled, Mimura frantically dove for his knife. He spun around, searching for the source of the "Explosion."
Ten feet away, Ren Shiroki stood in his swim trunks. He was holding a crushed, twisted aluminum soda can in his hand, tilting his head back to drain the last few drops of cola from the mangled metal.
The "Explosion" had been the sound of Ren's "Might" crushing the pressurized can in a single micro-second.
"You... you goddamn...!"
Mimura's face twisted with a manic, bloodshot rage. "I had a plan! I had it all mapped out! You ruined the sound! You ruined the moment!"
The sudden outbreak of violence triggered a mass panic. The hundreds of civilians in the water park began to scream, a tide of people rushing for the exits.
Confirmed that the children were safe, the trio near the glass wall didn't rush in. They leaned against the reinforced glass, observing the situation with a cold, analytical detachment.
Truthfully, they weren't worried. Ren was there, and Fusui was right next to him. Even Ichika, a "Juvenile Division" cop, could dismantle a social reject like Mimura with her eyes closed.
It was a shame the weekend was ruined, but it was just a cleanup job now.
"Good grief," Nozomi sighed, crossing her arms. "Is the world really ending? Can't a girl just have a soak without a psychopath showing up?"
Fusui giggled, her black-and-white eyes narrowing. "Yeah. People are so scary, aren't they?"
Nozomi looked at her. Aren't you a professional assassin?
She turned to Ichika. "Is this guy part of that dossier you mentioned? The 'Undercurrent' stuff?"
"Doubt it," Ichika said, exhaling a plume of smoke. "He looks like a standard social-outcast type. No 'Might,' no training. Just pure resentment."
"So, just a common murderer?" Nozomi asked.
"...No."
A deep, gravelly voice echoed from behind them—from the outside of the reinforced glass wall.
"!?!"
The three women spun around. Standing in the parking lot on the other side of the glass was a massive, hulking man.
He was bald and shirtless, his skin covered in a film of grime and road dust. He wore tattered, filthy trousers and was barefoot. On the left side of his face was a crude tattoo of religious scripture.
His eyes were the most terrifying feature—wide, unblinking, and filled with a void of human empathy.
Everything about him screamed "Abnormality." He was a monster on an entirely different tier than the man with the carving knife.
"That man... he is a heretic..."
The voice rumbled through the glass, sending a vibration through Nozomi's spine.
Looking at the man's face, Ichika Iori's eyes widened in recognition. Her professional memory fired.
"Wait... oi! That's—!"
Before she could finish the name, the bald man pressed his fingers together in a rigid Spear-Hand.
SHING!
He thrust his hand forward. The "Might" was so concentrated that his fingers pierced the 2-inch thick reinforced tempered glass as if it were wet cardboard.
CRASH-SHATTER!
The glass wall exploded inward. Shards of the heavy pane rained down on the man, some grazing his face and eyes, but he didn't even blink. He didn't feel the "Discomfort."
To pierce structural glass with a bare hand required a level of strength that was "Non-Human."
"This is Destiny," the man whispered. "The Destiny to purge the heretics."
"Humanity must be judged."
The man's gaze shifted to the trio. He launched a second Spear-Hand strike toward Ichika's chest.
ZIP!
The veins around Fusui's eyes bulged. She triggered her [Removal] instantly, grabbing Nozomi and Ichika by their collars and leaping backward into the main pool.
The three women hit the water with a massive splash just as the man's hand whistled through the space where they had been standing.
"Aha!"
Fusui surfaced, helping the others up. Her black-and-white eyes were wide with excitement. "Now this is a weekend! This is what I call relaxation!"
"Pffft—cough!"
Ichika sputtered, gasping for air as she climbed onto the pool steps. "I remember him now! The prison riot in Chiba!"
"That's Ginji Nagashima! Alias: The Fanatic Demon. He's a high-ranking member of the 'World Savior' cult. He murdered 56 members of a rival religion with his bare hands! He escaped the high-security block last week during the confusion!"
"That is a 'National Threat' level criminal!"
The park was a disaster zone. The civilians were gone. Only the "Monsters" remained.
Arisa and Marco were standing near the wave pool, and Yuzuha Li was just surfacing from a lap. She wiped the water from her face, her hair clinging to her shoulders.
"A terror attack?"
Yuzuha scanned the room. "The bald guy looks problematic, but Ren-kun and Fusui-chan can handle him. I guess there's no need for a 'Genius Kung Fu Princess' like me to get her hands dirty... what a shame."
As Yuzuha prepared to wade out of the pool, she noticed a few bubbles rising to the surface right next to her.
Glub... glub... glub...
A thick, shiny bald head slowly emerged from the water.
Whoa. Another bald guy?
But this one was an "Old Man."
He had a massive, jagged scar across his left eye socket, and his right eye was covered by a rugged black leather eyepatch. He had a scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard and a face carved from granite. His ears were thick and scarred—the "Cauliflower Ears" of a man who had spent forty years in the pits.
The one-eyed old man let out a massive, satisfied yawn. He stayed neck-deep in the water, looking as if he were enjoying a hot spring in the mountains rather than sitting in the middle of a terror incident.
"Just finished my training pilgrimage..." he muttered, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "I wanted to sneak a soak for free since I was in the neighborhood... but why is it so damn noisy in here?"
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