Chapter 149: Bald Bodyguards Come With a Permanent Flash Kick
August 30th, 1999. Yorknew City.
Ross stood at the large glass window of the airship and looked down over the city. The view below matched almost perfectly with what he had in his memory.
Yorknew City was essentially New York City's counterpart in another timeline, a world-class metropolis by any standard.
The Yorknew City Millionaire's Dream Auction would officially open two days from now, on September 1st.
As the highest-caliber annual auction in the world, it drew an enormous concentration of the wealthy and powerful during this period, all converging here to spend extraordinary sums competing over rare items.
This created a siphon effect: people who couldn't get into the main auction, along with large quantities of goods moving through unofficial channels, also gathered in Yorknew City during the same window, producing a scattering of underground auctions throughout the city.
Ross had arrived two days early specifically to scout the flea markets and underground auctions for anything useful.
Focusing purely on training meant no time to go wandering around looking for cartridge-related items. But sharpening the blade first was never a waste. Solid capability was the foundation that would eventually let Ross go everywhere he wanted.
This time, though, he wasn't traveling alone. He had brought along an entire noisy group.
Yusuke and Kuwabara were naturally present, both virtually incapable of gaming talent, unable to reach S-rank in Entertainment Mode even through rote memorization, pair of blockheads.
Kurama was interested in the items at the main auction and had decided to hitch a ride on Ross's airship and car. He had left his Demon World supreme thief days behind him, so he should be able to resist the urge to reach out and grab something. Probably.
Then there were two new additions: two bodyguards Ross had hired.
Kazemaru and Hanzou of the Kasanui-ryu school.
Their primary profession was bodyguard work, and Ross had simply called on the off chance they were available. When he found out both were free, he hired them on the spot.
The Todo Group's available muscle was just ordinary crime outfit members, useless in any situation that actually required something of them.
Having two dedicated professional bodyguards along was an extra layer of insurance.
He was, after all, an acting head of a crime organization. A certain level of presence was appropriate.
Kazemaru had lost to Ross's sneak attack during the exam in a way that had felt thoroughly unfair, but after learning from Hanzou that Ross had been holding back, any resentment he might have harbored had instead converted directly into motivation. His training had progressed considerably in the past seven-plus months.
Hanzou had also shown real aptitude in his Nen development. Beyond building a solid foundation, he had developed an ability distinct from Kazemaru's, one that matched his own interpretation of what a ninja's ability should be. He called it Soul Separation, an unusual form of body-doubling.
Of course, Ross had also used the standard mercenary assessment method of beating both bald men in separate fights, and through the combination of injuring and then treating them he had extracted two new navigation keywords.
Ninja. And Bald.
Those two keywords alone were enough to make Ross laugh out loud.
The Ninja keyword was broad, but the game coverage it implied needed no explanation. Bald added targeted character filtering on top of it. Both were excellent additions.
Clone, Tiger, Prominent Chin, Delinquent, Ninja, Bald. That was the full list of navigation keywords Ross currently held.
Beyond the Delinquent plus Tiger combination that had previously led to Nekketsu Fighting Legend, there was at least one other combination in this set that could be made to point clearly at a specific game.
Clone plus Ninja was enough to narrow the search range down to a list including Shadow of the Ninja, Ninja Gaiden, Super Ninja Gaiden, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Samurai Shodown, and Ninja Baseball Bat Man. Adding Bald on top of that theoretically narrowed it directly to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninja Baseball Bat Man.
Ross tested it while still on the airship before landing. He loaded all three keywords, Clone, Ninja, and Bald, into the navigation arrow simultaneously. The arrow reacted immediately.
Given that Yorknew City was New York City's counterpart, Ross had solid reason to suspect the cartridge the arrow was pointing at was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-related. If that turned out to be the case, his preference would lean toward Tournament Fighters, the best fighting game in the TMNT lineup on the Famicom.
Back to the bodyguards.
Hanzou could actually accept getting beaten twice by Ross fairly reasonably, simply assuming Ross was a veteran far beyond his level and didn't know Ross had only opened his Nen about a month before him. Kazemaru was harder hit. Losing to the same person twice in a row didn't feel good by any measure.
Hanzou raised the more practical question: you're clearly this much stronger than both of us. Do you actually need bodyguards?
But Ross's answer settled it: "I need your experience as proper professional guards. And the pay is good."
Hiring these two did come with two unavoidable problems.
The first: under direct sunlight, these two gleaming bald heads produced a light reflection intensity that was genuinely staggering. Ross ended up specifically purchasing sunglasses to defend against their permanent Flash Kick effect.
The second: Hanzou's mouth. The man was a talker to an extraordinary degree. For the entire airship journey he had not stopped once, and he kept going even when Ross threatened a pay cut.
Ross didn't actually cut it, of course.
"Whoa! A real city!"
Kuwabara had his entire face pressed against the glass, staring at the skyline below.
"The scale is so much bigger than the Sky Arena area."
Yusuke was less overwhelmed, but genuinely appreciating the view below with an open sincerity.
"Yorknew City is arguably the most prosperous city on the continent, without rival. It concentrates enormous wealth from the V5 and the wider world. If a city with this kind of commercial base didn't look like this, that would be the strange thing."
Kurama delivered the analysis with complete calm.
"People who are normally scattered across different countries and regions all choose to gather here for the Dream Auction. Enormous quantities of rare items and wealth converge in one place at the same time."
"Which means the probability of accidents and danger here increases at an exponential rate."
Ross picked up the second half of Kurama's sentence and completed it.
The remark, clearly pointing at something specific, pulled every pair of eyes in the group directly to him.