Asahi Heavy Industries, top floor, inside the study.
After Tanaka Asahi hurried back, he saw that the safe door had been opened and documents were scattered all over the floor.
He quickly picked up one of the document bags and shook out all the papers inside.
He did not find what he was looking for.
"Are you looking for this?"
Suddenly, a voice with a hint of teasing came from behind him.
Tanaka Asahi hurriedly turned around and saw an unfamiliar man standing not far away, holding a sheet of paper in his hand.
One name after another was written on the paper.
"It's you. You're the one who called me."
Tanaka Asahi's face immediately darkened. He looked at Rowan with an unfriendly expression.
"You actually dared to come find me."
"Why wouldn't I dare?"
Rowan looked at him with interest.
"Now, can you tell me who that big shot you mentioned is?"
Tanaka Asahi did not answer Rowan's question. His face gradually turned colder.
An icy aura rose from his body.
The atmosphere in the study grew colder bit by bit. Even the sunlight shining through the window seemed to become much colder because of it.
Rowan could tell that this Tanaka Asahi was not an ordinary person. He had some supernatural power on him.
At the very least, this aura was not something an ordinary person should possess.
"Since you're here, don't leave."
He approached Rowan step by step, and the cold aura around him grew stronger and stronger.
Immediately after, a bizarre creature emerged from his body.
It looked like a lizard, but it had a pair of wings. It had no eyes or nose, but it had a mouth filled with dense, backward-facing barbs.
This thing was far too strange. It even had a bit of a Cthulhu flavor to it.
"Kill him!"
Tanaka Asahi pointed at Rowan and issued an order to the bizarre creature.
The monster flapped its wings and, like a streak of light, charged in front of Rowan in an instant.
Its bloody maw opened wide, trying to bite off Rowan's head in one go.
Rowan casually raised one finger and tapped the air.
An invisible cold burst out violently, instantly freezing the lunging monster into an ice sculpture.
Care to learn about the Ice-Ice Fruit?
The cold was so intense that snowflakes began drifting inside the study.
Seeing this scene, Tanaka Asahi's pupils trembled violently.
"This… how is this possible?"
"There's nothing impossible about it. What you think is impossible is only because you've seen too little."
Rowan raised his head and glanced at Tanaka Asahi, just in time to see the fear in his eyes.
Mind-control magic, activate.
Tanaka Asahi was instantly hard-controlled.
Rowan walked over, switched the Ice-Ice Fruit to the Memory-Memory Fruit, and pulled Tanaka Asahi's memories out of his mind, examining them bit by bit.
As expected, this guy had not spoken a single word of truth.
It was true that Tanaka Asahi was a follower of the Time Vessel Association.
But he was not dragged into it by some so-called big shot. Over the phone, this guy had made himself sound helpless and forced.
The truth was the complete opposite.
This guy had been a follower of the Time Vessel Association from the very beginning.
His father was one. His mother was one. He himself was one too. It was just that back then, he was only an insignificant little member under the Time Vessel Association.
The Time Vessel Association had at least eight hundred to a thousand members like him.
But this guy had some skill in business.
So he founded Asahi Heavy Industries and developed it quite impressively.
However, at that time, Asahi Heavy Industries was only a small company. Even though its prospects were good, there was still a long road ahead before it could reach its current scale.
Fortunately, he met the so-called big shot he mentioned.
A person with an extremely high status in the political world.
This big shot was not a member of the Time Vessel Association and had no connection to the group at all.
But this big shot made a mistake.
A fatal mistake.
That mistake could ruin his reputation completely.
Even more fatal was that this weakness fell into Tanaka Asahi's hands.
In order to protect his own position, the big shot had no choice but to provide Tanaka Asahi with various conveniences under Tanaka Asahi's threats. In the end, this allowed Asahi Heavy Industries to expand more than tenfold in just ten years.
Three years ago, the big shot finally discovered Tanaka Asahi's true identity…
A member of the Time Vessel Association.
Unfortunately, by that time, the big shot had already become deeply entangled with Tanaka Asahi.
Once discovered, not only would the big shot himself suffer,
even the big shot's family would be purged.
Left with no choice, the big shot could only unwillingly join the Time Vessel Association.
So the true victim had never been Tanaka Asahi.
It was that big shot.
Everything Tanaka Asahi had said over the phone was false. He had completely reversed black and white.
Rowan had to admit that some people really knew how to lie.
Because Tanaka Asahi had contributed by pulling in the big shot, the higher-ups of the Time Vessel Association bestowed one page of the notebook upon him.
At the same time, with the help of the Time Vessel Association's higher-ups, he became a jujutsu sorcerer.
After years of training, he even possessed the strength of a Grade Two sorcerer, close to Grade One.
Looking across all of Tokyo, he could be considered a minor expert.
The fear, unease, breakdown, and so on over the phone had all been faked by him.
It was acting.
A performance meant to numb Rowan's vigilance.
When Rowan proposed meeting, this guy had been indescribably happy.
He wished Rowan would immediately appear before him so he could kill Rowan and retrieve the paper with the list.
And the thing that had attacked Rowan just now was actually a shikigami Tanaka Asahi summoned using his own technique.
After reading Tanaka Asahi's memories, Rowan had to admit that this guy was not only clever, but also had some real ability.
Unfortunately, he had run into Rowan. Otherwise, he might really have had a chance to turn things around.
At the same time, through Tanaka Asahi's memories, Rowan also investigated something clearly.
Asuna was not killed by Tanaka Asahi.
But her death was not unrelated to him either.
The higher-ups of the Time Vessel Association had obtained the Death Note from who knew where and tore several blank pages from it, giving them to meritorious members of the Time Vessel Association.
Aside from Tanaka Asahi, at least four other people held similar pages.
Including Tanaka Asahi, there were five people in total.
These five people colluded with each other, using the notebook's curse to help one another eliminate enemies.
Killing people with the notebook was already extremely secretive.
Yet these people still used one another to remove each other's enemies, making it even more secretive.
Cautious.
They were truly too cautious.
For example, Asuna's death had been ordered by Tanaka Asahi and carried out by the head of the Washimine Group.
Yes, the leader of the Washimine Group was also a member of the Time Vessel Association.
In addition, Ichijou Raku's death was ordered by the leader of the Washimine Group and carried out by Tanaka Asahi.
It was true that Ichijou Raku was the male protagonist of Nisekoi, but this guy also had another identity.
He was the only son of the head of the Shuei-gumi.
The Shuei-gumi and the Washimine Group were not very different. Both were yakuza.
Because of certain matters, the two sides had clashed again and again, and the Washimine Group had suffered quite a bit.
In terms of pure size, the Washimine Group, with organizations like the Washimine Group and Kousa Council under it, surpassed the Shuei-gumi in both numbers and scale.
But the Shuei-gumi was simply too good at fighting. One man could fight several.
Moreover, the Shuei-gumi boss had also colluded with an organization from America called Beehive, arranging a marriage between his son Ichijou Raku and Beehive boss's daughter, Kirisaki Chitoge.
They planned to join forces against the Washimine Group.
The leader of the Washimine Group couldn't hold it together.
One had to know that when local Japanese yakuza fought, they generally used machetes or katanas.
But those American gangsters had no martial virtue. They did not use blades when fighting. They used American-style iaijutsu.
Who could withstand that?
Out-of-town gangs were seriously too impolite.
So the Washimine Group boss immediately decided to kill Ichijou Raku and Kirisaki Chitoge at the same time, then disguise it as the result of them killing each other in a gang conflict. Wouldn't that accomplish two goals at once?
It would make the Shuei-gumi and Beehive fight each other to the death, and then he could pick up the benefits in the end and take over both groups' forces and territory.
However, after the Washimine Group investigated the organization known as Beehive, they silently gave up on that idea.
The main reason was that they could not afford to provoke them.
Kirisaki Chitoge's father, Beehive's boss, Adelt Kirisaki Wogner, was actually nothing special.
He was just an old American gangster.
But Kirisaki Chitoge's mother was truly someone they could not provoke.
Kirisaki Hana, known as Madam Hana, was the chairwoman of the famous New York-based multinational enterprise Flower Cooperation, with companies all over the world.
Her annual income exceeded tens of billions of dollars. Some people even said that the Nikkei index depended on her mood that day.
Of course, that was a joke.
But there was no denying that Kirisaki Hana was truly rich.
If her daughter were killed too, and that woman went mad, things would become troublesome.
The leader of the Washimine Group did not believe this woman had no backing.
How could a woman without backing build her business to such a scale?
If she truly had no backing, she would have long since been devoured completely by the hyenas on Wall Street who ate people without spitting out the bones.
Through the Time Vessel Association, the Washimine Group's boss discovered that Kirisaki Hana had a close relationship with the Special Grade jujutsu sorcerer Yuki Tsukumo and was suspected to be her intimate friend.
Besides that, she also had some onmyoji serving under her.
Even using the notebook might not necessarily curse that woman to death. Instead, it might completely enrage her.
So after thinking it over again and again, the Washimine Group's leader ultimately decided to have Tanaka Asahi write Ichijou Raku to death.
As for Kirisaki Chitoge, forget it.
In any case, Ichijou Raku was the only son. Once he died, the marriage alliance between the Shuei-gumi and Beehive would fall through.
Joining forces against the Washimine Group would become complete nonsense.
And in reality, that was exactly what happened.
After Ichijou Raku was cursed to death, the Shuei-gumi boss, Ichijou Issei, who was also Ichijou Raku's father, became bedridden from illness.
The Shuei-gumi lost both its boss and its heir at the same time, immediately becoming leaderless.
The Washimine Group pressed their advantage and indeed completely crushed the Shuei-gumi. Just when it seemed they were about to thoroughly destroy the Shuei-gumi,
an accident occurred.