Andrew Cooper didn't want—couldn't stand—to go back to the old days, the days soaked in hardship.
He'd been poor for too long. Hungry for too long.
So he paid the price.
He offered up his childhood sweetheart—his wife, Miranda—to the respected knight, in exchange for a Bandel City entry permit.
And the truth was, he'd been right.
Miranda was living well. Rumor had it she'd become the knight's most favored concubine…
Not long ago, Sir Edmond even rewarded Andrew with a small pouch of gold coins and told him Miranda was "doing great." Because of her, several other security-corps knights had "spoken with her in depth," and all agreed—her work was no worse than those succubi who "serve with their bodies."
Andrew Cooper knew that perfectly well.
He was thrilled. Overjoyed.
And thanks to Miranda moving from bed to bed among the corps' "lords," he finally got the chance he'd waited more than a decade for—
Just recently, Sir Edmond had summoned him and told him the news:
Frank Becky—the "4K Party" fat man who provided services for a certain big shot in the Samir Principality—had died under bizarre circumstances.
Andrew Cooper realized instantly: the opportunity he'd been starving for was here.
He dropped to his knees, lifted Sir Edmond's right foot, kissed the leather of his boot, and swore he would do everything in his power to take over Bege's burden—gather the old 4K Party remnants, become the bridge between Bandel City and the Samir Principality, and help the security corps "standardize" Storm, shedding their outcast identity and rejoining Storm's domain as a tiny, insignificant… but real link.
Of course, there was a condition—
He had to follow Bandel City's rules first.
He had to finish the so-called "Relocation of the Dead."
Rumor said it was a deputy commander's Nen ability. To activate it, two prerequisites were required:
1. the target must be willing, and
2. the target must be eaten by a magical beast.
"Willing," Sir Edmond once drunkenly mentioned, seemed to be to avoid some kind of backlash.
As for "eaten by beasts," Edmond never explained the details, but—
From what Andrew Cooper had observed, it probably involved a private deal between the security corps and a certain Beast Lord.
After all, beasts eat people.
Especially Nen users—fresh, tender, delicious.
Right now, Andrew Cooper stood high on the thick trunk of an ancient tree. In his hands was a delicate Nen hand-crossbow. Beside him stood a towering bald man in heavy armor, a massive round shield slung over his shoulder.
That surprise shot—meant to kill—had been split cleanly in half by that "nobody" of a boy below with a single casual slash.
Andrew Cooper looked down from above. His gaze slid past Roy and locked onto old Mark.
Calmly, he said, "Old man… you don't want your precious granddaughter to fail to get into the city, do you?"
Mark's body trembled.
Shaking, he picked up a stone and raised it over his own head—
Bang!
A flash of snow-white blade light.
Mark's hand went empty.
The stone he'd been holding ran straight into a storm of sword-light and shattered into hundreds of tiny fragments mid-air, pattering to the ground like rain.
"Young man…" Mark froze, then turned—almost pleading—toward his wife Nora, who was now a wandering spirit. His voice cracked.
"Please… don't stop me. You know everything. My worthless life can be thrown away, but… my little Maddy has to live…"
"Mark…" Nora's spirit stroked his face, then drifted to Roy's feet, dropping to the ground and begging alongside him.
"For Storm's sake… please don't stop him…"
Roy's eyes shifted.
For the first time in a long time, he felt something absurd crawl up his spine:
Saving someone can be a mistake.
He looked up at Andrew Cooper in the tree and finally understood where that absurdity came from.
His gaze dropped again—down to the small leather hip flask hanging at Andrew's waist.
Roy's En spread.
Faintly, faintly, he heard a wailing call inside it—like someone sobbing:
"Grandpa…"
"Grandma…"
Grandpa… Grandma… whose grandparents?
Roy closed his eyes. His blade came level in his hand. He stepped forward—past Mark, past Nora's kneeling spirit—and said coldly:
"Mr. Mark, I need to make something clear."
"I stopped you earlier only because, as a human being, I refuse to stand on the same side as beasts."
In his hand, the sword turned red, ignited—
whoomph— blazing flames surged up, lighting the entire forest as bright as day.
Then Roy pointed his blade downward, indifferent, staring up at Andrew Cooper.
"As for now… I've done what I came to do."
"If you still insist on dying, then go ahead."
"I won't stop you anymore."
A sharp, clear sword hum followed.
The raging flames abruptly collapsed inward, flooding into the blade.
In a heartbeat, Eclipse was dyed a scorched, ember-black—like it carried only the afterglow of remaining fire.
Roy didn't even turn back as he walked forward.
"But there's one more thing I think you both deserve to know."
"Dying might be the right choice."
"So you can be reunited…"
"with your precious granddaughter, little Maddy."
"Re…united…?" Mark and Nora both went rigid.
Mark suddenly realized something. He staggered upright and shouted at Roy, panic breaking through his numbness.
"W-What… what do you mean?!"
"Exactly what I said."
Roy slashed.
A blade wave—spanning nearly a hundred meters—tore through the air toward Andrew Cooper.
Roy's voice cut like ice.
"Instead of asking me, ask him where that hip flask came from!"
The sword wave reached him—
But a huge round shield snapped up after the strike and caught it cleanly.
The impact rebounded.
The attack came back faster than before—now aimed at Roy's throat!
"It's the bald guy with the shield!"
Roy's En flared.
He spun and cut, batting the reflected blade-wave away. It streaked into the sky and carved apart clouds.
Up in the tree, Andrew Cooper stood calmly behind the armored giant, studying Roy. He released his own En too, and harshly expelled the Heart Worms trying to crawl in along causal threads.
"Careful, Longorg," Andrew warned the bald man. "That brat's En reads minds. Frank Becky probably died because he got caught by that trick and fell into a passive position."
Frank Becky—the "Bunker." The man called "an army by himself." Not weak in the slightest.
At first Andrew Cooper hadn't paid attention.
But the moment Roy casually mentioned the hip flask—
Andrew's eyes sharpened. He suddenly saw it.
The boy in front of him looked eight parts identical to the "blasphemer" on the security corps' internal wanted board.
So it was him.
The criminal the Storm Archbishop, Benjamin, had personally ordered hunted down.
"I know," the bald giant rumbled. He hammered his massive shield into the tree trunk and glared down at Roy. "That sword's not bad."
"But pity Bege didn't have me with him. If I'd been there, he wouldn't have died."
Another Heart Worm tried to slip in—only to get slammed out by the giant's En.
Roy caught the name and details in that instant:
Longorg — "Parryback."
A conjurer like Roy. He could manifest a round shield at will, dedicated purely to reflection. Once the shield was up, it could deflect any incoming physical attack—blades, bullets, spears, taijutsu, sword waves—and send it back at double the speed.
No wonder he was smug. With him present, Frank Becky might really not have died.
Then, below—
Mark forced himself to speak, trembling.
"Lord Andrew… may I ask… my little Maddy… is she doing well?"
That earlier blade wave died out high in the sky, dissipating into nothing under the sun.
Mark finally lifted his head fully.
He stared at the leather hip flask on Andrew Cooper's waist.
Andrew Cooper clicked his tongue.
"Annoying."
But he still smiled.
"Good. Of course she's good~"
"I even brought her to see you, didn't I?"
He patted his waist. The flask flew into his hand.
He stroked it the same way he once stroked Miranda—obsessive, tender.
Then he sighed, dreamy.
"Her skin's so smooth. So pale. Look—doesn't it make such a pretty flask?"
"Old Mark… you raised a wonderful granddaughter. Outcasts don't get 'goods' like this every day."
"You… you lied to me…" Mark swayed, like someone had yanked the world out from under his feet.
His chest heaved. He pointed at Andrew Cooper, but the finger shook too hard to accuse properly.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed on the ground, vacant and dead-eyed—alive, but hollow.
Beside him, an icy wind suddenly rose.
Nora's spirit—red-eyed, driven mad by the shock—turned in an instant into Post-Mortem Nen.
Post-Mortem Nen: born from obsession so strong it forces the dead to linger—never weak, never harmless.
(The kind of thing that makes monsters out of the dead—like Neferpitou's corpse-driven hatred, or Hisoka's "death Nen" revival.)
The deeper the obsession, the more terrifying the post-mortem Nen.
And nothing is more terrifying than post-mortem Nen that has lost hope—
Like Nora, now, lunging at Andrew Cooper with claws that stretched half a meter long, screaming for him to die with her.
Roy watched her become a shrieking shadow-wind, felt a quiet grief bloom in his chest—
And even Eclipse fell strangely silent in his grip.
Great-Grandpa had once warned him:
A person can't live without hope.
Lose hope, and existence itself collapses.
Nora had begged to die. She died. And still she wasn't satisfied—
So she tried to drag Andrew Cooper into the grave with her.
But Andrew Cooper had come prepared.
He didn't flinch. He almost looked amused.
He played with the flask—Maddy's skin sewn into leather—and sneered.
"Collect."
The flask's cap popped open.
A suction force exploded outward, a miniature storm, and it swallowed Nora's post-mortem spirit whole.
Click.
The cap snapped shut again.
Andrew grinned down at Mark.
"Hey, old fossil… why aren't you dead yet?"
He shook the flask beside his ear. Clink—clunk.
Then he winked at Mark.
"Your wife and granddaughter are both here now. Only you're missing…"
Mark stared.
Slowly, he stood.
Then he sprinted—straight into the nearest tree.
Bang!
Skull cracking.
Blood, bone, and pulp burst in a sick spray.
At the edge of the Uzuki Great Forest, Roy's heart twitched hard.
He forced himself to breathe and closed his eyes.
Some people are alive, but already dead.
Some are dead, but still alive.
Some ride on others and brag, "Look how great I am!"
Some bend their backs and live as cattle and horses.
Some carve their names in stone chasing "immortality."
Some would rather be wild grass—waiting for underground fire.
Light scattered.
Mark's soul separated, confused, peeking around at the world that had raised him, starved him, crushed him, and finally drove him to this—
No nostalgia left.
He dove at Andrew Cooper.
Andrew lifted the flask and swallowed him too.
"One job done," Andrew said brightly, shaking the flask like a toy.
Then he crouched and looked at Roy with an ugly grin.
"Hey, blasphemer. How do you want to die next?"
"Do I kill you… or do you kill yourself?"
He spread his hands.
"Just so we're clear—I'm not letting you walk away."
"You're even more dangerous than us outcasts. You got spat on by God the moment you showed up."
"Even if you don't want to die… you won't get a choice."
That last line landed like a cold nail.
Roy had already understood it when he killed Frank Becky and drew the attention of Benjamin—the Storm Archbishop.
Roy reopened his eyes and stared at Andrew Cooper without emotion.
At the very least, one thing was now certain:
The so-called "Home of the Colorless" had already colluded with Samir Principality.
If Roy walked in wearing this face, he'd just be delivering himself.
So—
Roy hid his true face.
With Deception, his body reshaped in an instant.
He became Andrew Cooper.
He looked at the real Andrew and asked calmly:
"Who are you talking to?"
A thin red tint crept into Roy's eyes.
Then—
Sharingan… open!
~~~
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