Within the Port Mafia, an unspoken change was about to take place.
"Kimura Semei" replaced the dead body, identical in appearance to the living man down to the last detail. Not only did he show no hatred toward Randou or Asou Akiya, he could even smile as he accepted missions while disguised as a member of the Black Lizard. His personality was vividly convincing, the light in his eyes bright and lively, his complexion far better than the gloomy pallor he had worn before.
"Alright. I'll go find your driver, Tanaka, and then I'll track down the person who was scheming against me from the shadows."
Late at night, "Kimura Semei" lifted a hand in farewell and left.
The man's figure vanished beyond the balcony.
Even Asou Akiya—who had long since known, thanks to spoilers, how terrifying Illuminations truly was—felt his expression subtly change. Watching an anime and witnessing it with one's own eyes were two entirely different matters; at the very least, animation never made so stark and tangible the difference between a living human being and a humanoid ability.
"No matter how real he seems, he is no longer the person who was alive," Randou said, sensing the distance between them as his tone turned grave. "Akiya, don't be deceived by his performance. His personality and memories are false, like a program written solely to carry out a 'find someone' task. You can regard him as my ability."
Randou repeatedly cautioned his lover, as though some unknown past had left him with an exceptionally terrible impression.
"Absolutely do not harbor any fantasies about 'resurrection' with this ability—there is no such thing!"
"Randou… I wouldn't think that way."
Asou Akiya looked at him with quiet compassion, drawing Randou out of his obsessive state. Randou lowered his head. "I spoke too much."
"Why should you feel ashamed in front of me?" Asou Akiya took Randou's hand. The damp skin was smooth and soft, warm with the unmistakable temperature of the living. "To walk among the living world while wielding such a strange ability is a burden to you."
Mist rose in Randou's cool-toned eyes, his heart's most tender place unexpectedly touched.
"Akiya always understands me so well."
"Randou, promise me this—do not develop feelings for the tools born of your ability. I will never use you to resurrect anyone, and I will never treat your ability as some kind of lifesaving instrument."
Asou Akiya let out another sigh, his gaze lingering on the half-naked beauty before him, still brimming with an almost palpable killing intent after stepping out of the bath.
"I mean… aren't you cold?"
"Hiss!"
Randou dove into the covers at lightning speed. Showing off really did invite divine punishment—he was shivering from the cold. He wanted to lean into Asou Akiya's embrace, yet feared pressing against his wounds, and so he hesitated, calling softly, "Akiya."
Asou Akiya shifted slightly, and almost immediately he felt his legs being wrapped around.
Randou clung to him like a beautiful mermaid, coiling close.
It was honestly a bit much to endure.
Asou Akiya gently stroked the person curled up beside him beneath the quilt. Ebony-dark hair slipped through his fingers like liquid, releasing a rich fragrance that carried a faint chill, inevitably calling to mind a fairytale princess—black hair, pale skin, Snow White reborn. Randou was so alluring, so full of irresistible charm, that even Kimura Semei, upon meeting him for the first time, had briefly lost himself.
"Randou, how many humanoid manifestations created by your ability can you control at once?"
"At most, one humanoid ability at a time."
"Can you rotate them?"
"Yes."
Randou laid bare the details of his ability, leaning against Asou Akiya's thigh, his smile tinged with sweetness.
And behind that sweetness, the cruelty it concealed transformed instead into a different kind of beauty.
"Akiya, however many times you want to kill, you can kill as many times as you like. I can recreate your enemies for you and let you vent your anger to your heart's content. Death is, of course, a sorrowful thing—but humanoid abilities are merely tools. Even if they are destroyed, it doesn't matter. As long as the enemy's corpse is in my hands, I can make them beg to live and be unable to die."
"Randou, be a little gentler," Asou Akiya said softly. "Don't say things that frightening."
He reached out and lightly flicked Randou's nose. Randou, utterly convinced, replied without hesitation, "Akiya wouldn't be afraid of me."
"Mm… I'm not afraid," Asou Akiya said, swallowing.
At that moment, he found himself starting to admire Paul Verlaine.
Who on earth had given you the courage to betray Arthur Rimbaud? Weren't you afraid of being killed over and over again?
Once again, Asou Akiya confirmed his conclusion: between the duo of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, the one who truly held the upper hand was most likely Arthur Rimbaud. Otherwise, in Randou's memories from the original work, he would not have mistakenly believed that he had personally killed Verlaine.
Asou Akiya felt something press closer to him and said through clenched teeth, "Randou, how about you put some clothes on before sleeping?"
"Why?" Randou asked, puzzled.
With deep affection in his eyes, Asou Akiya replied, "I'm worried you'll catch a cold."
Randou rubbed against Akiya blissfully. "Akiya is my heater, my sun. When I'm by your side, it's not that cold."
Asou Akiya's kidneys—no, his stomach—started to ache again.
A spoiled wife really is beautiful.
Able to be salty or sweet, able to be the attacker or the receiver, able to be male or female (?), that description fits Arthur Rimbaud perfectly!
In Tokyo, Nakahara Chuuya followed Edogawa Ranpo's advice, packed his belongings, and decided that he would take the train back the very next day. Ranpo was flipping through the newspapers, and whenever he spotted something that caught his interest, he would shout excitedly about going out. Left with no other choice, Nakahara Chuuya—confident that he was more than capable of protecting the other—could only trail after him, reluctantly taking on the role of the youngest bodyguard.
Ranpo commented on this with great satisfaction: "Little orange kitty, you worry too much. If danger shows up, I can run faster than you!"
Nakahara Chuuya let out a dry laugh.
Sorry, but if danger really shows up… I—no, damn it—I'm faster than you!
Knowing that Edogawa Ranpo had no understanding of abilities, Chuuya was actually quite pleased. At last, he had something he could utterly crush Ranpo with, and he had no intention of revealing it easily. He would wait for the moment when Ranpo's catlike face filled with shock.
"I've got the feeling you're thinking about something bad," said Ranpo suddenly, as the two truants strolled down the streets of Tokyo. He leaned in close to Chuuya, emerald-green eyes reflecting a cold, rational gleam. Chuuya instinctively felt guilty; it was hard to imagine that someone with such a gaze could be so simple-minded, with a personality like that of a three-year-old child.
Ranpo gave a few amused hums and bounced over to a vending machine, intending to buy a bottle of ramune.
"Don't let me catch you hiding anything, little orange kitty."
"Call me by my name!"
Veins bulged on Nakahara Chuuya's forehead as his temper flared uncontrollably. With nowhere to vent it, he kicked the vending machine hard. With a loud clang, two bottles of ramune dropped from inside, causing Ranpo's eyes to widen in delighted surprise.
"Little orange kitty, kick it a few more times! We've got free ramune to drink now!"
At that moment, Edogawa Ranpo's moral integrity dropped straight to zero.
Not far away—
A young boy dressed in a distinctly British style, wearing a red bow tie, looked in their direction. The corner of his mouth twitched as he strode over and scolded them, "Hey, isn't that going too far? If you want a drink, pay for it yourselves."
Edogawa Ranpo and Nakahara Chuuya turned around at the same time, but only Nakahara Chuuya felt a stab of shame.
Edogawa Ranpo clicked his tongue. "Tsk."
Ranpo casually handed one bottle of ramune to Chuuya and kept the one with the prettiest colors for himself.
"The machine broke down. How is that our fault? That's something the adults should be dealing with."
"You—!"
The red-bow-tie boy was so angry he nearly jumped. At five years old, he did not really know how to argue back, and after being left speechless, he could only run off to look for an adult. "Dad, the vending machine broke and dropped two bottles of ramune!"
The hand he grabbed belonged to an adult man wearing glasses, who had been standing by the roadside talking with someone.
The man walked over and took a look at the situation.
"Shinichi, the machine isn't broken," he said calmly. "It was kicked."
"Huh? Who did that?"
Having lived abroad for most of his life, Kudou Shinichi immediately cast a suspicious look toward the two of them. Edogawa Ranpo, who was usually fearless, instinctively shrank back a little and hid behind Nakahara Chuuya. Unfortunately, the poor nine-year-old Chuuya was in no way large enough to shield him.
With a miserable expression, Nakahara Chuuya admitted, "I kicked it. I'm sorry. I'll pay for the damage."
Kudou Shinichi muttered, "But who are we supposed to compensate?" He ran over, circled the vending machine once, and found the contact number posted on it. Turning back to his father with a proud look, he said, "Dad, can we call this number?"
The adult man nodded encouragingly. "Yes, you can."
Kudou Shinichi extended his hand toward Nakahara Chuuya. "So, how much are you planning to pay?"
Nakahara Chuuya resigned himself to his fate and lowered his head to look for cash. "..."
While he was hiding, Edogawa Ranpo took the opportunity to secretly observe the adult man, carefully gauging just how formidable he might be.
Five seconds later.
He suddenly burst out laughing, jumped forward, and pointed straight at Kudou Shinichi's father.
"Haha! You're that writer!"
"Hm? Do you know me, little one?" Kudou Yusaku asked with interest.
Kudou Yusaku looked at the two of them with amused curiosity. The contrast was striking: the younger child was pitifully paying compensation, while the older one shamelessly hid behind him. The scene radiated an almost laughable innocence.
"You're the author of detective novels—Kudou Yusaku! Your The Night Baron is way too shallow," Edogawa Ranpo declared with outrageous boldness. "Detective novels should make it impossible to find the real culprit, right? I get it now—you wrote it for your five-year-old son! He's a little dummy; if you didn't spell everything out, he wouldn't understand!"
Kudou Shinichi froze, utterly dumbfounded.
Nakahara Chuuya rolled his eyes and explained, "Don't take him seriously. He doesn't think like normal people."
The synonym for "genius" is "crazy."
After a moment of stunned silence, Kudou Yusaku burst into laughter. "That's a rare opinion! If my editor heard that, he'd probably burst into tears. He's told me more than once to be considerate of readers and make my writing clearer and easier to understand."
As he laughed, the editor they had been talking to earlier happened to walk over and complained, "Who on earth thinks your writing is simple? Your novels are mind-burning—" The editor from a Tokyo publishing house looked down at Edogawa Ranpo and Nakahara Chuuya and said coolly, "You little brat, if you want to belittle Mr. Yusaku's work, shouldn't you first consider what level you're even at?"
Edogawa Ranpo replied arrogantly, "I'll become a detective novelist too!" Though he was short for his age and looked small even among his peers, the way he raised his index finger and pointed at Kudou Yusaku carried an unstoppable, piercing momentum.
"Better than you!"
"If you can't produce something even better, I'll surpass you!"
"You've already made more than enough money, gotten married, and had a child. You're short on creative inspiration, so you came back to Japan to visit relatives and look for ideas, didn't you?"
He once again launched into his habit of stripping people bare by digging up their backgrounds.
Kudou Yusaku, having effectively been challenged to a duel, listened to this without the slightest hint of anger. On the contrary, interest gleamed vividly in his eyes. He even reached out to stop Shinichi, who was about to protest on his father's behalf, and said with a smile, "Little one, liking to write is a good thing. Japan's literary world needs more fresh blood flowing into it. But from what you're saying, it sounds like your reasoning skills are quite strong? In that case, it's true that I came to Japan looking for inspiration. Why don't we go to the fast-food place nearby and talk for a bit? Let me see what you're capable of."
Nakahara Chuuya didn't want to say a word.
Your dad praises you for having talent in writing, and you really take it seriously, huh?
The orange-haired boy looked at these half-believing adults with pity. Edogawa Ranpo might be hopeless at many things, but when it came to deduction, he was terrifying—so terrifying that he felt even less human than Chuuya himself. Only Asou Akiya could keep Edogawa Ranpo in check!
Humans truly were a frightening species.
Seeing how eager Edogawa Ranpo was to compete, Nakahara Chuuya followed them to the fast-food restaurant. What happened afterward was easy to imagine. Inside that modest restaurant, everyone present endured an unprecedented storm of deduction, one that shattered their previous understanding of what "genius" meant. This wasn't deduction at all—it was practically a magical, supernatural ability!
Everyone's intelligence was utterly crushed.
They stood there, dazed.
In one breath, Edogawa Ranpo solved several reasoning puzzles in succession. Not a single one took more than five seconds. He skipped the process entirely and delivered the answers straight out. The black-haired boy sat with his legs crossed, staring arrogantly at the people across from him, looking for all the world like a spoiled imperial prince basking in absolute favor.
Uncle Akiya!
I can't compare to you yet, but I'm growing too—I'll become a proper, qualified adult one day!