Ikebukuro, Sunshine Avenue.
The former paradise had become a meat grinder. Fuuki's figure, like a ghost merged with shadows, moved silently through the broken walls and ruins.
To resolve this beastification disaster that was interfering with his observation of Gravity, he chose to act personally.
The intelligence came from [Spider]—the source was locked to the "Tropical Flavors" fruit tea shop.
Unfortunately, when Fuuki arrived at the coordinates, he only saw a pile of rubble that had been ravaged by immense force. A twisted metal sign was half-buried under bricks and stones, and the once bright decor was reduced to charred fragments. The air still carried a strange, cloying sweetness, a mix of fruit essence and blood, and the source clue was completely gone.
"Water source…" Fuuki murmured, his fingertips, covered by tactical gloves, traced a piece of charred counter wreckage.
He pulled out his phone's food delivery platform, his fingers flying, filtering out the bad review section for this shop. A large number of one-star reviews glaringly popped up:
[The lemonade tasted weird, like bleach!]
[I took one sip and threw up; the tap water taste was too strong!]
[Is the owner crazy about cutting costs? Directly using tap water?]
Tokyo's tap water is supposedly drinkable, but it has a bland, chlorinated taste, and few people voluntarily drink it unless extremely thirsty. In recent years, most businesses have switched to purified water, but there are always those who cut corners…
"[Spider], retrieve the water supply network map for this area from the past week…" Fuuki's command was transmitted through an encrypted channel; he needed to find the node of infection.
Just then—
Buzz—! Woo woo woo woo—!
A piercing sound of an overloaded train motor mixed with a girl's desperate wails, coming from far to near, tore through the illusion of dead silence in the street.
Fuuki instantly disappeared into the shadow of a half-collapsed billboard, his gaze, like that of a hawk, fixed on the direction of the sound.
He saw an extremely eye-catching bright yellow, driving a Teiai delivery scooter, speeding madly through the obstacle-strewn street. Behind it was a surging tide of beasts—werewolves clawing at the ground, bear-men smashing through debris, winged creatures diving low!
Yuutenji Nyamu? Why was she here?
This question once again surfaced in Fuuki's mind.
============
"Ugh… Did I… escape by the skin of my teeth, meow?"
Yuutenji Nyamu collapsed onto the cold, dirty alley ground, her heart almost bursting through her throat. The cat ears on her head drooped weakly, clinging to her damp, messy hair.
The lightning-fast pounce and counter-kill just now had left a bloody smell so thick it made her stomach churn. She panted heavily, the exhaustion of surviving a near-death experience sweeping over her.
However, this relief lasted less than a second.
A pungent, scorching smell, a mix of gunpowder, hot metal, and a certain stench, suddenly drilled into her abnormally sensitive nostrils due to beastification. This was followed by the skin-crawling sensation of a cold metal object pressing against her forehead.
She stiffened, her pink cat pupils instantly contracting into vertical slits from fear.
The dark, hollow muzzle that had just created such gore now rested against her forehead, still warm with death.
It was close enough to see the lingering, uncooled dark red bloodstains and traces of melted metal on the edge of the muzzle.
Nyamu's breathing instantly stopped.
Every cell in the girl's body was screaming "danger"! She wanted to retreat, to escape this deadly aura, but her legs felt like lead, unable to move.
What made her soul tremble even more was the palpable oppressive feeling emanating from the man in pure black before her!
The feeling was as heavy as the deep sea. Even without that menacing weapon, radiating an ominous aura, Nyamu had no doubt—this man could kill her with no more difficulty than squashing an ant.
"Noise, bright light, gunpowder, and flames…"
A low male voice emerged from the shadows, breaking the suffocating silence in the alley.
"Some fears, long ago, through evolution, have become fundamental imprints, carved deep into the instincts of living beings…"
As he spoke, the terrifying weapon was put away by the man with one hand. The moment the muzzle left her forehead, Nyamu almost collapsed.
Fuuki's gaze turned to the alley entrance. Several beastified monster corpses, which he had just "cleaned up," lay there. Up close, their forms were even more twisted and violated natural laws than they appeared from a distance.
The "werewolf" whose head he had blown off—its main body was actually a human male, severely deformed, curled up inside a giant wolf-shaped chest cavity.
The shattered wolf's head looked more like a monstrous growth, a giant tumor covering a human head, while the wolf paws on all fours were alienated limbs forcibly "grafted" and grown from the human torso.
It was like a terrifying puppet crudely stuffed into a beast's skin suit, with the skin suit itself having gained life.
However, there were exceptions.
He retracted his gaze, letting it fall back on Nyamu, who was slumped on the ground, trembling.
"If you still have the strength, use your human intelligence to escape from here."
"Or," he raised a hand and pointed in the direction from which sporadic gunfire and explosions could be heard outside the alley, "stay here and wait to be purged as a monster by the counter-attacking army. Or, with even worse luck, be shot as a human by those armed 'beasts'."
The shadows on his face seemed to subtly turn towards the low growling beast-shadows lingering at the alley entrance, driven by fear.
"This chaos is far from over. I advise you to hide as far away as possible."
After Fuuki finished speaking, he no longer looked at Nyamu, walking directly past her towards the several monster corpses that were still warm. He needed closer samples for examination.
Yuutenji Nyamu was a clue to track Yuutenji Minoru, somewhat valuable, but not indispensable. Considering that she had been attracted by Sakiko's band's Gravity, as an interesting observation variable, Fuuki certainly didn't want her to die here so meaninglessly.
Moreover… she was also the country cat taken in by that pink-haired angel girl.
"You mean… the chaos will continue for a while?" A trembling and hoarse female voice sounded from behind Fuuki.
Fuuki crouched down, his gloved fingers examining a growth on a corpse, without turning his head.
"If the source can be resolved."
"…Do you know the truth of this matter?" Nyamu's voice held a faint glimmer of hope.
"No comment."
A brief silence fell in the alley, broken only by the suppressed growls of monsters at the alley entrance and faint explosions in the distance. Fuuki focused on his "dissection," assuming the terrified girl would finally be sensible and leave.
However—
"You definitely know something, right!"
Before Fuuki could react, he felt his ankle tighten! A pair of muddy, trembling hands, like a drowning person grasping driftwood, clung desperately to his ankle!
He looked down in surprise.
He saw Yuutenji Nyamu, at some unknown point, had struggled to crawl over, collapsing to her knees in an extremely disheveled posture, tears mixed with dirt streaming down her face, her cat ears pressed tightly to her head, and her pink cat pupils filled with desperate pleading:
"Please team up with me! Be my companion! I'll do my best not to hold you back! I'll do anything!"
'To advance the FT's mission, I must cling to this powerful figure!'
'If the source isn't resolved, Aiko will never turn back into a human!'
Fuuki's body instantly stiffened. The shadows under his hood seemed to deepen a bit.
In his sixteen years of life, being clung to and begged so shamelessly by a cat was absolutely a first.
"…Let go, I'm allergic to cats."
"Don't say such cold-hearted things! Please! If it weren't for you, I—" Nyamu clung tighter, tears and snot almost getting on his pant leg.
'Boss! Big shot! Give me a chance!'
Fuuki's temples throbbed. He instinctively wanted to mimic Sakiko's action of shaking people off when she got agitated, and violently throw this trouble away.
Just as he lifted his foot—
"Meow—"
A lazy cat's meow with a clear warning, like cool stream water, suddenly echoed in the alley.
Fuuki paused.
From the collar of his wide black trench coat, a fluffy, pale green little head emerged.
It sat steadily on Fuuki's shoulder, its amber cat pupils, like translucent glass in the dim light, calmly looked down at the disheveled Yuutenji Nyamu on the ground.
"Meow?" Nyamu's crying stopped abruptly as she looked in surprise at the suddenly appearing, unusually calm pale green kitten.
"Meow—" The cat spoke again, its voice still carrying the lazy tone characteristic of felines, but its articulation was clear, and every syllable revealed a distinct meaning.
[You, let go.]
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