The hostile reaction didn't bother Hayase at all.
If anything, it was expected.
A special grade sorcerer with no fixed location, suddenly getting a direct call from an unknown man on a line nobody should have? Anyone sane would be on guard. Honestly, if their positions were reversed, his response would've been even colder.
But Yuki Tsukumo's attitude wasn't the point.
Right now, Hayase did not trust Yuki Tsukumo.
Not after that disastrous simulation.
He would never be arrogant enough to assume the mastermind behind everything had worked alone.
How many spies were buried among the higher-ups? Had one of the special grades already been compromised? Without proof, the number of people he could trust completely was tiny.
This call had one purpose.
Get information from the person who knew the most about eliminating cursed energy.
That was all.
So he ignored both her question and her threat and went straight to the point.
"For the complete eradication of cursed energy, is a living Heavenly Restriction user with zero cursed energy absolutely necessary?"
"..."
That question landed like a hammer.
On the other end of the line, Yuki Tsukumo went genuinely quiet.
She hadn't been expecting anything like this.
One second she'd probably been stretched out on some beach overseas, doing whatever the hell Yuki Tsukumo did on vacation. The next, an unknown caller had gone straight for the core of the secret research she'd been pursuing for years.
And from that one sentence, her mind locked onto two ugly facts.
First, the man speaking to her didn't just know she was a special grade. He also knew, in unnervingly specific detail, about the research she'd never reported to the higher-ups.
Second, he'd specifically asked about a living Heavenly Restriction user with zero cursed energy.
Which meant he was talking about the anomaly who'd broken free from the Zenin Clan.
And if he was asking that question, there was a good chance he intended to do something drastic involving that man.
Could it be...?
Is this guy trying to overturn the whole rotten system too?
The possibility stirred her curiosity hard enough that, for a moment, it even outweighed her instinct to track the call and drag out his real identity.
Excitement flashed through her. She took a breath and asked, in complete seriousness wrapped in her usual nonsense:
"Before I answer that, I need to confirm something. What kind of woman are you into?"
It sounded ridiculous.
But for Yuki, it was one of the best ways to read people.
The answer came instantly.
No hesitation at all.
In that fake, mature voice, Hayase replied with chilling calm.
"Probably... a woman who can truly save this world."
For a beat, the air seemed to freeze.
Then, perhaps because he realized how easily that answer could be misunderstood by a certain self-confident woman on the other side of the ocean, he added a correction.
"Don't get the wrong idea. I know you've been looking for a way to erase curses at the root. But you still don't have a workable method. So the ideal I'm talking about wasn't you."
"..."
Yuki Tsukumo was speechless for the second time that day.
Sitting in a beach chair somewhere, golden hair moving in the sea wind, her eyes had probably lit up more than they had in years.
Because that answer was unlike anything she'd ever heard.
He wasn't talking about romance. Not really.
He was talking about devotion so extreme it barely looked human anymore. As if he could decide to love anyone, absolutely anyone, so long as they were the one who actually saved the world.
Love didn't matter.
Desire didn't matter.
The only thing that mattered to him was that goal.
Saving the world.
Absurd on paper, sure. A little childish, even. But her instincts told her he wasn't lying. Whatever else this man was hiding, that part was real.
Of course, she also knew he might have prepared that answer in advance. Anyone who knew this much about her probably knew about that question too.
Still, rehearsed or not, the way he'd said it mattered.
For now, Yuki was willing to treat it as truth.
More than that, she could feel it, in that half-rational way sorcerers sometimes just knew things.
The person on the other end of the line, the one who wouldn't even use his real voice, somehow resonated with her.
A kindred soul, maybe.
Or something close enough to be dangerous.
When she spoke again, the teasing was gone. What came through now was the serious voice of a researcher.
"Heh. I'll admit it, you're very interesting. Fine... Since you aced that question... my answer is no."
She paused, then explained.
"That man is an absurdly valuable specimen. A near-perfect case of completely losing cursed energy in exchange for extreme physical ability. I've wanted to study him for years. But Heavenly Restriction users like him are freak exceptions, not the only possible path. Something that rare, that unreproducible, is terrible if you're trying to scale the result to all humanity. So objectively, he has tremendous research value, but no, he isn't absolutely necessary. Though for the record, I did used to really want to tie him to a lab table and dissect him."
In the alley, Hayase listened without much visible reaction.
This matched his own projections, and what he'd pieced together from the memories of his previous life.
His eyes darkened slightly.
Then he went straight for the weak point in her theory.
"Your thinking is too naive. Even if you could study that anomaly and find a way to cut cursed energy out of the human race, how would you scale it? Let's say you somehow spend decades, centuries even, and eventually turn all of humanity into people with no cursed energy at all..."
His voice turned ice cold.
"Then all you've done is create a world full of physical monsters. Once cursed spirits are gone, people with the strength to rip armored vehicles apart barehanded will just start killing each other instead. Resource wars... greed... slaughter. It would be worse than the damage curses ever caused. As a solution, that's garbage."
Yuki wasn't offended.
If anything, she sounded more interested.
He'd hit the problem dead center.
"You're not wrong," she said. "I've thought about the collapse that could come from creating a world full of superhumans. But research works through trial and error. If I can isolate the exact equivalence between the loss of cursed energy and the gain in physical ability, maybe one day we could make finer changes. People with no cursed energy, but no monstrous physical boost either. Just ordinary humans. If nobody produces cursed energy anymore, curses disappear with it."
Hayase listened, and this time the sigh slipped out before he could stop it.
Heavy and tired.
Like someone who'd already watched the world burn once.
"Too slow. Your plan is too slow, Yuki Tsukumo. It won't happen in our lifetime, maybe not for several generations. And whether you can even separate those two variables is still a giant unknown. This world doesn't have time to wait for your research to crawl forward."
The urgency in his voice, hard and absolute, made Yuki shift gears.
No more theory.
Her tone sharpened.
"You went through all this trouble to contact me on a line like this. That voice is fake too, isn't it? Who the hell are you?"
Hayase had no intention of answering.
His reply was light, almost detached.
"Who I am doesn't matter. Not to you. Not to this world."
So Yuki changed the question. This one was sharper than the last.
"What are you planning to do to him?"
Hayase didn't answer right away.
For a brief second, memories from the Simulator rushed up in his mind.
Hidden behind perfect anonymity, what came out next sounded less like an answer to Yuki and more like a confession to the weaker version of himself from before.
"There was a time when I was stupid enough to think curse users, the ones who killed for money or for fun, could be left alone. I thought that as long as they didn't commit something unforgivable right in front of me, I could ignore it. Pretend I didn't see it. Leave judgment to whoever officially had the right to make it. I thought that was what following the rules looked like."
His disguised voice dropped lower.
Rougher.
Killing intent bled through it so densely it would've made most people's skin crawl.
"But I was wrong. That wasn't mercy. It was cowardice. Curse users are called curse users for a reason. Their hands are already covered in innocent blood. And that blood doesn't come off. Ever. A tumor has to be cut out, no matter what excuse it comes with."
On the other end of the line, Yuki listened quietly.
Patiently.
As that nameless person poured out something that sounded half like repentance and half like an oath, her curiosity deepened, along with a faint chill.
Because she understood very well what he was talking about.
The Sorcerer Killer, Toji Zenin, was not some ordinary criminal you could just arrest and process.
He was a monster.
For 99.9 percent of all sorcerers alive, saying you were going to kill him was just fantasy.
Still, from the steady calm in this caller's voice, she could tell one thing.
He meant it. And he had no intention of revealing who he was today.
Fine.
If he really intended to do something as insane as hunting the Sorcerer Killer, then one way or another, the aftermath would leave traces. Either he would kill Toji, or Toji would kill him.
There would be something to follow.
Eventually, she'd find out.
So she didn't push any further.
Instead, genuine interest curled at the corner of her lips, and she asked softly,
"Sounds like you've decided to be the exterminator. So, mysterious savior... after it's over, will you call me again?"
What came back was not the answer she wanted.
"..."
The line cut.
All she heard was the flat, merciless beep of a disconnected call.
And in a dark corner of Shinjuku that Yuki Tsukumo would never see, Hayase calmly removed the overseas SIM card from his phone.
A flicker of cursed energy brushed his fingertips.
The flimsy bit of plastic crumbled into powder so fine it would never be pieced back together.
The next gust of wind took the remains with it.
No trace left behind.