“....So this is the inside of a Correction Bureau transport vehicle?”
“Yes, so please just stay quiet and ride along.”
The student who looked like she was from Valkyrie sitting in front of him said it airily. His weapon had already been confiscated, and he was restrained with handcuffs.
“Hey, I’m thirsty. Give me some water.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll give you some once we arrive.”
“Tch. That didn’t work.”
Thinking that, he paused to consider his next move.
“Hey... Black Market’s latest high-end intel, Kaiser’s trade goods, and you—don’t you want to make some money?”
“Ah, yes. Of course.”
She brushed him off just as casually.
“Hmm... that didn’t work either?”
He didn’t know what the motif of his halo was, but he needed to do whatever he could right now.
“Hey, let’s make a deal. Listen. I’ve got a lot of money on me right now, so if you just turn right here and take me into Black Market, I’ll give you the account number and send it over immediately. Deal?”
“No taking it back.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s more like it.”
The car slowly turned right and headed back toward Black Market.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Huh...?”
“This is Black Market. Turn the car around.”
“Ah... I must’ve gotten a little confused.”
“It happens.”
Sensing his chance, Haruta used the feeling in his body to tell a lie.
“Hey, that girl sitting in front of you said that because you’re so bad at your job, you should get kicked over to the Public Safety Bureau?”
With that fabricated bit of sowing discord, he stirred up suspicion between the two of them.
“You really are something. You cops really do love digging up dirt and tearing each other down just to climb higher. Amazing.”
“W-What are you talking about!”
The student from the Public Safety Bureau shouted. There was clearly a tremor in her voice, faint but obvious enough for everyone to hear.
“You too. Looks like I hit a nerve, huh? Your voice is shaking.”
At that, the student sitting beside her looked at her with suspicion.
Unable to look away from the scene, Haruta watched it unfold. They were definitely going to fight. Before long, an unbelievable crack would form between them.
“....You think that about me?”
“N-No? I swear on everything.”
“Really?”
The car suddenly stopped.
“Hey, then prove it.”
More troops were getting out of the escort vehicles following alongside them. He could still escape if he acted now.
Knock knock
“Hey, why’d you stop?”
“Ah... n-nothing happened. Sorry.”
“Fine. You must be tired too, so just go in and rest.”
“Yes... thank you.”
Then he shouted inwardly at the cop in the driver’s seat.
“Hey, you believe that? If you mess up your job right now, you’ll get sent straight to the Public Safety Bureau. So what then? Let me go here and screw everyone over. That’s an option, isn’t it? Why trust someone who looks down on you and treats you like trash?”
If he had to compare this ability to something, it was like when the demon and angel inside you fought, and the demon took the angel’s place.
An angel? A demon in his head? No, what stood before him now was just a real demon.
The car slowly tilted and slammed into a wall.
Then the policewoman sitting in front handed him the key to the handcuffs.
“Heh... thanks.”
“Keep your promise.”
“Yeah. I like people who don’t hold grudges.”
Then he pulled a sword from the air again and pressed it to her throat.
“W-What... what is this supposed to mean?”
“I figured fifty million for your life was a pretty generous price. But you? You didn’t turn right just now and crashed us into a wall, didn’t you?
The deal’s off!”
Then he put the sword away and smashed the windshield with his bare hand to grab his gun.
Crash!
The sound of shattering glass rang out. Glass embedded itself in his arm, but that didn’t matter.
“Ha... hahaha. Right now, the Public Safety Bureau, the Correction Bureau, almost all of Valkyrie, and Kaiser Security’s automatons...
Yeah. Let’s play one more time!”
Boom!
The troops waiting outside all at once aimed their guns at the smoke pouring from the car.
“Oh? You really think you can handle this many people?”
With a hammer in his left hand and a gold Desert Eagles in his right, he shouted,
“Come on in!”
And the one who charged forward was Haruta.
Whoosh—Bang!
With the sound of air being torn apart, the automatons in front were blown away and slammed into the five Valkyrie troops behind them.
“Fire at will!”
Bang bang bang bang!
Haruta took every bullet fired at him head-on with his body, and then he felt something flowing out of him.
“What is this blood...”
It was definitely blood. But it didn’t hurt.
Soon the blood scattered, gathered again, and formed a sphere. Then it settled into his hand and filled it with mystery.
“This is... ah, screw it!”
At the same time, the sphere left his hand and flew into the middle of the troops.
Kaboom!
An enormous explosion rang out.
A flash bright enough to blind him for a moment washed over his eyes.
“Ugh... what is this...”
For a moment, a crushing headache hit him so hard he nearly collapsed again, but he gripped the gun tightly and dove back into the middle of the enemies.
“Let’s all die today!!!!!”
------------------------------------------
One hour later
“Haa... haa...”
His vision was blurry. His eyes were closing little by little. He was tired.
The pain stabbing through his body told him this was real.
“...Ha... haha. Was it even right for Valkyrie and Kaiser to be cooperating in the first place?”
Thinking that, he closed his eyes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Student Council President’s Office
“P-President... please look at this...”
“What? This... this can’t be real, can it?”
“No... even I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“Dispatch every school force you can send right now.”
“If we fail to apprehend this man now, he’ll bring an unprecedented disaster to Kivotos.
And issue a warrant for him immediately. Designate him as a top-priority arrest target.”
“What? I... understood. I’ll handle it right away.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
“Ha... where am I?”
When Haruta opened his eyes, he saw a sky dyed entirely red and a ground burning beneath him.
“? What the hell?”
“Oh, you’re awake?”
“? Who are you?”
“Hmm... I don’t really have a name, but that’s not important. I’ll get straight to the point.”
“No, I need to know who you are first.”
“Haa... I’m the one at the source of your halo, aren’t I? Or rather, are you even human?”
“Your name?”
“Does this feel like an interrogation now? Fine. I don’t really have a name, but you can call me Demiurgos. Something you people might recognize... ah, right.
Would ‘god’ be more accurate?”
“What kind of bullshit is that? Look at the atmosphere in here.”
“Hah... and you’re saying that in front of a god?”
“Yeah. I’m the type who says what I have to say even if I die.”
“Heh. Yes, that’s the feeling I got from you. Fine, I’ll just get to the point. Your power, to put it simply, is Satan and Lucifer. I assume those two are pretty famous in your world too, so you know them well.
But besides them, there are other demons that symbolize sin... no, my creations. Let’s just say I shoved all of their powers into you.
In other words, you’d be something like the ‘lord of hell,’ I suppose.”
“I’m not following. Explain that again.”
“Haa... so basically, you’re the king of hell.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“More precisely, it’s just my power. If I wanted, I could give you strength equal to mine.”
“Haa...”
Haruta was hit with more shock than he could process, so he decided to just accept it.
“So then why did you call me here?”
“To tell you to use the power you have a little more.”
“Then let me ask you something too. You’re the one who pulled me here, right?”
“That’s right. I can’t handle a setting like Kivotos myself.”
“Wait, you... you’re saying you want to control Kivotos?”
“Huh? No, that’s wrong. I simply gave you power. I don’t particularly want anything from Kivotos.”
“Haa... then how strong am I?”
“Hmm... I thought it was strange you hadn’t asked that yet. Right now, you’d be the strongest person in Kivotos. Well, there are a few gods besides you, but...
Ah, right. Wasn’t the one you liked Hina?”
At that name, Haruta fell silent. Then, slowly, with a heavy atmosphere, he said,
“Hey. Don’t cross the line. If you lay even a finger on Hina, I don’t know what’ll happen.”
“Heh. No, I’m just going to tell you the truth about that girl’s halo.
Baal... does that name mean anything to you?”
He had heard of it. Baal, the demon of hell who symbolized gluttony and greed among the seven deadly sins.
How could that be Hina?
Haruta sighed and raised a hand in a simple gesture.
“Hey, then how far does my power go?”
“Hmm... if you dragged even your soul into it, you might still be able to take Kivotos down with you.”
“Hah...”
Was this what it meant to be so dumbfounded you couldn’t even speak?
He fell silent for a moment.
“I’ll get you out of here for now.”
“Yeah. Get me out of here fast.”
“Then take care, and bring me pizza sometime later.”
“Hah... unbelievable to the very end.”
When he opened his eyes again, he was back on the road from before.
“Ugh...”
As soon as he opened his eyes, pain surged through his entire body and he convulsed.
“Haa...”
He couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he was, but he still knew it well enough.
“I’m near the entrance to D.U. after getting out of Black Market...”
Then he heard the sound of a car from beside him.
“Ah... wait.”
Crash!
The car slammed into his body and sent him flying nearly four meters into the air.
“Kuhk.”
He coughed up blood and tried to stand, but his arms and legs wouldn’t obey him, as if his bones were broken.
“What is it, a person?”
“Huh? Isn’t that the guy from the wanted poster?”
“Oh? It is, isn’t it? Let’s hand him over to the Public Safety Bureau right away!”
He tried to form a sword again with his hand, but his body wouldn’t listen.
“Get lost!”
He shouted to buy time, then looked down beneath the broken bridge.
“Hah... my eyes are starting to close. Fine, this is a gamble!”
Thinking that, he jumped down about fifteen meters and threw himself into the river.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
“Haa... Haruta’s late...”
Hina thought that to herself. As she absentmindedly scrolled through her phone, she felt a bad premonition and opened a news article.
{Kivotos’s Worst Criminal! Who Is He?}
The article was full of sensational headlines, and Hina, gripped by a bad feeling, tapped it.
“...Huh?”
Hina’s mind went blank in an instant, as if it had been wiped clean.
The article said that a boy with a halo in Kivotos had raided Kaiser PMC in Black Market, stolen information, smashed Valkyrie and SRT, and then fled.
“W-What is this?”
Finally, she looked at a new notice from the Student Council.
[As of this moment, the so-called ‘Chaos’ is hereby placed under a wanted order. Anyone who finds him is requested to contact the Student Council immediately.]
Hina could think of nothing. She just stood there trembling.
My friend, the person I love, could never do something like that.
There was no way such a kind person would do something like this.
Still denying it, Hina soon fainted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“......Found you.”
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