Shin lingered around Kotohana 's apartment complex three times. After fifteen minutes of wandering, he climbed over the wall and left the complex.
He could be sure that the owner of that gaze wouldn't trouble Kotohana and the others after he left, or rather, they shouldn't have other members who would target Kotohana after he departed.
That feeling of being watched, like daggers in his back, never stopped for a moment. His spine sweated and tingled under this strange neural premonition, but Shin's mind remained incredibly calm under the influence of the Lord of Dawn suit.
Following his pre-planned route, he walked from Kotohana 's complex towards the area near the station. He chose a long, roundabout path because it led through an entire red-light district bustling with activity.
As expected, even at 10:30 PM, this noisy street was still boisterous. Office workers, forced by their superiors and work, were drunk and staggering from bars and nightclubs, leaning against walls to vomit, or high school students happily looking for fun, boys and girls dressed in flashy clothes.
Shin silently walked through the noisy crowd, but he didn't choose the shortest path to the station.
He was estimating the distance of the 'thing' tracking him.
From the moment he left Kotohana 's door, this brazen surveillance had never stopped. No matter how Shin detoured, he couldn't shake off the watching gaze.
The eerie thing was that this intensely scrutinizing gaze maintained a constant intensity from beginning to end. Shin couldn't see anyone tracking him in front, behind, or to his sides, which meant... the other party might possess some kind of extra-sensory surveillance ability.
If that was the case, things would be troublesome. If he couldn't root out this thing hiding behind him, wouldn't he feel like he had daggers in his back every day for the next few days?
Shin, in his calm state of mind, felt no fear, but he increasingly realized that he had provoked a considerable amount of trouble.
And to make matters worse, it happened when he was at his most vulnerable.
All one hundred fifty evaluation points had been used to rent the mental subjugation device. This item was the perfect life-saving tool, but only if it was prepared for practical use.
In the current situation, Shin couldn't find any 'prayers' to create substitutes. Rushing to create one wasn't impossible, but he couldn't do such unusual things in public.
Moreover, unless things were truly beyond repair, Shin absolutely didn't want to use the mental subjugation device's worst function – where his main body was killed, and his consciousness had to be transferred to a 'prayer' clone.
The prying gaze lingering behind him never ceased for a moment. Shin pretended to be nonchalant, entered the station, bought a ticket, and boarded the train.
There weren't many people in the train car at 10:30 PM. Shin casually found an empty seat and calmly observed his surroundings.
There were a total of nineteen people in this carriage, mostly office workers and students. The number of people in the two nearby carriages was also similar; this train probably had a total of about a hundred people.
This meant he had a hundred human shields to buffer himself.
Fighting in a crowded place was very inconvenient, but Shin believed this applied not only to him but also to his opponent.
This wasn't the Middle East. If a malicious murder incident occurred on a train and the number
If the other party was truly an organization as insane as Harima Labs, crazy enough to point a Gatling gun at Tokyo Tower, then Shin would admit defeat.
Calling the police would only provoke the other party's reaction sooner; he had to at least wait until he got off the train.
As a sweet female voice from the broadcast announced, the train slowly started moving. Shin, pretending to read a novel on his phone, kept his eyes tightly fixed on the two nearby carriage doors.
No one else had entered this carriage so far. He had found an empty seat in this train car at random, and had changed carriages three times, with no change in the number of people. This basically ruled out the possibility of the person trying to harm him being hidden in the crowd within the carriage.
Just as Shin was thinking warily, the train door on his right opened.
Shin paused. The person who entered was... Saki?
She was still wearing the Mineoka uniform, with a pair of rustic pigtails, but she had taken off her black-rimmed glasses, and the girl's decent looks seemed to have been unleashed.
Shin lowered his head, and of all times, he ran into an acquaintance in this situation. But... could she be the one causing him trouble?
Upon closer thought, a high school girl riding the train alone at 10:30 at night was inherently a bit unreasonable, let alone the fact that this girl shouldn't even live near Chiyoda Ward.
Could it be that this girl was the one who had been watching him from behind, and through this series of elaborate plans, made him provoke that 'Mr. Hiragami', and then she would step in, suddenly transform, and kill him?
Thinking this, Shin had already tensed his body, ready to blow Saki's head off at any moment. But the latter seemed to notice nothing, casually walked over to the empty seat next to Shin, and sat directly down.
Her fair face was full of fatigue and annoyance. She leaned back, eyes relaxed, looking exactly like a middle-aged person whose ideals and dreams had been drained by life.
Shin thought for a moment, and finally decided to speak.
"Going out alone so late, Yoshida-san?"
"Eek!!!!"
Shin's bass-like voice suddenly exploded in Saki's left ear. Her face instantly changed, and she suddenly stood up like a startled rabbit.
"Shi, Shin-sama!!!!"
Saki shrieked. She never thought she'd run into Shin at this time.
"It's almost 11 PM now. Wandering around alone this late isn't a rational choice," Shin said softly.
Saki took a step back, then thought for a moment and took two more steps, then thought again and took three steps, before finally saying in a low voice,
"It's nothing, I just wanted to clear my head..."
Saki's life seemed to change the day her mother took her to a beauty salon, dressed her up completely, and let her have a grand transformation in her second year of high school.
She almost went down a terrible path, but fortunately, Shin pulled her back. Yet, after that, her life didn't seem to return to its original state.
Saki always felt that her stepfather looked at her with a strange gaze.
It was the kind of sticky gaze like someone who had been hungry for a long time seeing delicious food, wanting nothing more than to pounce on her and devour her, licking her from head to toe.
Saki tried her best not to think of her stepfather as that kind of person, but tonight, as she passed her mother's room, she heard her stepfather and mother... doing things, and most importantly, she heard her own name.
At that moment, Saki's mind was in turmoil. An inexplicable panic surged through her, and she left home without much thought.
But the moment she left the house, as the cold wind swept over her body, she remembered a sad truth.
She didn't seem to have any friends who could let her stay overnight.
She meticulously dressed herself, transforming into her current appearance precisely to make more friends, but the plan went awry before it was even implemented. Now, having been reverted to her original state, she became even more withdrawn.
Thinking of this, Saki couldn't help but secretly look up at the silent Shin. She was also present the day he brutally beat Taisuke.
This man was indeed so dangerous and terrifying, yet it wasn't pure violence, but rather a dangerous charisma mixed with something indescribable.
He freely beat that small-time hooligan, remaining composed in front of such terrifying yakuza, always with that smile that suggested everything was under his control.
To Saki, who was an otaku, he was like the tranquil, pale moon rising in the dark night, a rose covered in sharp thorns stained with blood, a mysterious inhabitant of the night world, just like a certain demon butler manga she liked.
Today, he wore a somewhat retro, Victorian-style black trench coat, which further matched Saki's fantasy of him.
Girls of this age could never resist such a mysterious and dangerous aura, even if the feeling was just something she conjured up in her mind.
Ah, perhaps he's a hidden heir to the underworld in the surface world, or a mysterious and cold demon slayer of some sort~~~
Just as Saki's runaway inner monologue was furiously spinning, Shin suddenly stood up.
It wasn't until Shin was beside her that Saki suddenly realized it. She looked up. Shin, cloaked in a black trench coat, appeared incredibly tall before her, blocking the glaring white lights of the train ceiling.
"Shin-d-d-d... san?" Saki asked timidly.
Shin didn't speak. He suddenly threw a punch. His black-gloved fist slammed viciously and fatally towards Saki's temple.
Too late to scream, too late to dodge, Shin's movement was much faster than Saki's sluggish neural response.
But the fist stopped an inch from Saki's temple, the gust of wind it brought made her head feel cold, and Saki seemed to react just then, letting out a sharp scream of terror.
"It seems you're not..."
Shin withdrew his fists and the ready-to-fire cursed needles. The entire train car was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
At some point, the entire carriage had become empty.
No, not just this carriage. The one before it, the one after it. Shin would even bet that the entire train might only have the two of them.
These people had disappeared in an instant. Just as he was distracted talking to Saki, everyone on the train vanished.
Compared to the opponent's ability to instantly teleport over a hundred people, Shin leaned more towards the opponent setting up a similar illusion.
He had been fooled.
If it was the latter, he might still have a chance to compete. If it was the former, he might as well wash his neck and wait for death.
Moreover, judging from the scenery outside the train, this was not a train heading towards Kasumigaseki at all, further proving that Shin might have been misled by something when he boarded the train.
At this point, Shin bit his tongue hard. The metallic taste spreading in his mouth indicated that he was now very clear-headed.
At least within his controllable range, he still maintained full self-awareness.
Saki then noticed the unusual situation inside the train. Her small face went blank for a moment, then a strange excitement rose within her.
"No, could this be the scene where the male and female protagonists meet? Ah!!!"
Just like Shirou Emiya, relentlessly pursued, summoning Artoria; or Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki. Don't works that are close to modern but also have extraordinary elements always unfold in such "Boy meets girl" emergency scenarios?
Shin glanced at the otaku girl who was caught in a strange fantasy. It seemed she really wasn't the one who dragged him into this bizarre situation.
Whoever was behind this was surely too full of themselves to choose such a brain-dead assassin.
Shin kicked open the door to the forward carriage. Saki immediately woke from her pink fantasy and hastily followed Shin, timidly asking,
"Shin-sama, who exactly are you...?"
"A man," Shin said blandly, kicking open the next carriage door.
"You seem to be quite imaginative, but I can assure you that none of the things you're thinking of have anything to do with me."
Shin himself couldn't figure out the current situation, only knowing that his predicament was quite dire.
The first car, the second, and the third were all empty, but Shin did see several large bags of flour on the empty seats. Perhaps the people who left didn't have time to take them with them.
Saki said "Oh," and obediently shut her mouth. Shin also kicked open the last door leading to the driver's cabin.
Inside the driver's cabin, there was no one.
Only the train was running on a predetermined track under automatic control. Shin operated the controls for a while but couldn't stop the train at all.
The automatic driving program was locked, the emergency brakes were destroyed, and communication with the train station was also destroyed.
This entire train seemed to have a signal jammer installed somewhere; his phone couldn't make calls either. In other words, this train had become a true 'death train'.
Shin didn't hesitate. He clenched his fist. The fist, covered by the 'Far Caress' relic armor beneath his school uniform, slammed heavily against the train's tempered glass, creating a spiderweb crack. Shin then continued to punch the cracks, forcibly shattering the tempered glass.
The fierce wind from the speeding train blew past his ears, making Saki's pigtails fly wildly. Shin clung to the broken window and looked outside.
Currently, the train's speed was maintaining a cruising speed of 50 kilometers per hour, but that damned automatic driving system was gradually increasing the speed.
If he jumped now, the force he would have to endure wouldn't be too great. Even without equipment, it would at most result in broken bones. With this equipment, jumping with Saki would be no problem at all.
Leaving this dangerous place was the most important thing right now, otherwise he would have to stay and solve some kind of puzzle?
Shin grabbed Saki's slender waist. The girl, who seemed to have a screw loose, looked stunned for a moment, then her expression suddenly changed.
"Wha, what do you want to do!!!"
"Jump," Shin said flatly, clinging to the window.
"Ah—"
Before Saki could react, Shin was already about to leap out of this dangerous place.
But just as Shin was about to jump off the train, a sharp katana suddenly appeared from the side, striking like a meteor, yet silently.
By the time Shin's peripheral vision caught the approaching katana, the blade was already at his chest. Shin had no choice but to grab Saki and throw her out like a shot put, then he himself leaned back and fell.
Saki, whom he had thrown, slammed hard onto a train seat, her eyes rolling back as she instantly passed out. Shin, lying on his back, found his school uniform torn at the chest, revealing the dark 'Far Caress' armor underneath.
The katana viciously thrust towards Shin's heart, but it was firmly blocked by the half-armor made of special fibers and Abyss relics.
"Far Caress!!!"
Shin, who had fallen backward with the momentum, instantly stretched out his right hand towards his attacker. From the launcher below his glove, the black viscous substance made from abyssal organisms instantly transformed into a dense, impenetrable giant net.
The black net of Far Caress possessed extremely strong adhesion. Unless the person covered by the black net tore off the covered area along with the net, it was almost impossible to break free.
The giant black net spread from all directions towards Shin's attacker. However, under that four-sided encirclement, a huge repulsive force suddenly erupted around the attacker.
Within a two-meter radius centered on him, everything was instantly pushed away as if struck by an invisible wall. The black net was also vibrated away by that invisible repulsive force, and the attacker seized the opportunity to leap backward out of the black net's attack range.
Shin then finally got a clear look at the person who attacked him.
It was a person wearing a grotesque Noh mask, dressed in a black funeral kimono, holding a katana with a plum blossom pattern on the hilt.
Clearly not a normal person.
Shin silently retracted the black net. It was obvious that this 'person' who attacked him wasn't from the underworld. If he had angered the underworld, what would appear before him would be assassins in black suits carrying guns, not someone dressed so 'fantastically'.
Shin and the figure looked at each other, neither having the intention to speak first, but Shin's hand slowly moved towards his face.
In an instant, the masked man moved.
The specially darkened blade, like a silently pouncing hyena in the dark night, was so fast that Shin could barely track it. By the time he reacted, it was already in front of him.
This time, his blade was aimed directly at Shin's neck.
"Gangway!"
Shin's fingers quickly traced his forehead. In an instant, a dark Type I helmet appeared on his empty face.
A deep purple laser condensed into a ball of light from the Type I helmet's light source, then shot out. The monster attacking Shin seemed not to have anticipated the sudden appearance of the helmet on Shin's face, much less the deep purple laser that would shoot out from it.
An ancient and solemn voice emanated from beneath the Noh mask. Shin didn't understand the meaning of his words, he only understood the Japanese phrase that immediately followed:
"Dust-free zone!"
Just like before, this masked man, like Six Paths of Pain releasing Shinra Tensei, instantly unleashed a massive, invisible repulsive field centered on himself, directly blasting Shin and the rapidly firing purple light beam away.
However, Gangway's attack would not be so easily stopped.
The purple light beam, upon being repelled, instantly shot towards the train's dome, then, at a penetrating angle, began to refract dozens of times. In an instant, a network of purple light beams was woven throughout the entire train car.
The light beams emitted by Gangway were not conventional lasers. The light beams shot from equipment modified from the Abyss relic 'Stairway to the Sun' could refract under the operator's will and would even not harm the operator themselves.
The moment the invisible field withdrew, Gangway's light beam, under Shin's control, directly pierced through the masked man's chest. In the left part of his chest, a scorched wound about a finger's width passed straight through.
The masked man staggered two steps. He looked down at the carbonized wound, which had left no blood, then looked up, seemingly in disbelief at Shin, a muffled, broken-bellows-like voice coming from under the mask.
"You, alchemy weapon, Cassell..."
Shin didn't understand what he was saying, nor did he want to. Without giving the opponent any chance to breathe, he raised his hand and fired four cursed needles from his wrist launcher.
The dark cursed needles pierced the masked man's upper body. Along with the dark needles, the Abyssal curse dissolved into his body.
He fell to the ground, his limbs shaking wildly like an egg beater. From under the mask came an unrecognizable howl.
Four cursed needles brought four times the curse of Abyss Layer 3. The curse couldn't upgrade by stacking, but it could stack effects to cause multiple times the pain.
Confirming he had subdued the opponent, Shin stepped forward to finish him off, but at that moment, a scene suddenly flashed before his eyes.
A clear lake, like a bright mirror reflecting the sky. In the center lay a chair, and the person sitting on it was tightly pressed against their reflection.
Shin's eyes narrowed slightly.
In that instant, the nightmare hidden deep in his mind exploded like a bomb, shattering his consciousness. The illusion before him seemed to recognize his nightmare and continued to unfold.
The young man sitting on the chair revealed an expression of painful struggle, like someone drowning. Then, along with the chair, he was dragged entirely to the bottom of the lake, while the shadow at the bottom of the lake slowly rose.
It was an identical person, but the expression on his face was one of chilling indifference, an indifference Shin was incredibly familiar with...
An extreme panic surged from the depths of his heart, then was instantly suppressed by the absolute calmness brought by the Lord of Dawn suit. Shin, beneath Gangway, slightly parted his lips; his expression, which should have been terrified, was exceptionally cold.
The scene before him vanished in the blink of an eye.
And in front of him, the masked man he had knocked to the ground slowly stood up, overcoming the fourfold curse of Abyss Layer 3, his trembling right hand holding a glass tube.
Within the glass tube flowed a mysterious and vibrant seven-colored liquid, subtly flowing, radiating an enchanting and dangerous glow.
"To our Demon King!!!"
He roared, shattering the needle and chugging the mysterious colorful liquid.
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