Staring up at the helicopter hovering in the sky piloted by Gin Ryuji squinted. The helicopter looked suspiciously like a modified Black Hawk, armed with a Gatling gun and even missile pods mounted underneath.
He scratched his head, muttering to himself,
"No matter how you look at it, there's no way a regular terrorist group could afford something like this…"
At this point, Ryuji was convinced this organization had America's backing. There was simply no way a terrorist organization operating in Japan could get their hands on such military-grade equipment.
You've got to be kidding me.
"But really... you're underestimating me."
Ryuji looked up at the sky and a crooked grin formed beneath his mask, almost playful grin as he stared at Gin who clearly thought he was already dead.
From Gin's vantage point above, all he could see was a shadowy figure... an unidentifiable monster cloaked in mystery.
He already knew everything that had happened here. The surviving researchers had reported the situation in detail. Although it all sounded bizarre, they were well aware that there were extraordinary individuals in this world. In fact, the very purpose of their organization was to pursue immortality... so naturally, they chose to believe it.
After that, the organization immediately mobilized its full power.
Gin looked down from the helicopter at the man below. He didn't know that this person was Ryuji, but his instincts told him that the man standing there was the same kind of monster as the one he had encountered that day.
And since this person had taken Shiho Miyano away, that meant one thing: her research had worked. The drug she designed was indeed effective!
Still…
"I'll give you one chance to speak," Gin called through the radio, taking a long drag from his cigarette.
"Mister unknown… you must be here for that thing as well, aren't you? We can cooperate!"
Neither Gin nor his subordinates believed someone who found this place so quickly could be working alone. They all thought Ryuji must be part of some organization.
A man this powerful he had to be a modified soldier or something similar. Which meant there was a organization behind him.
And if that was true, then Shiho's research project might truly be possible. Even if it wasn't, there was no way they'd let Ryuji take her away.
But if the organization behind him was willing to cooperate, they were not opposed to that idea either. After all, immortality was something everyone desired.
"It's so noisy."
Ryuji looked up at the Black Hawk helicopter hovering above, feeling speechless.He could dodge bullets by observing a shooter's body movements but how was he supposed to observe the trigger pull of a helicopter-mounted gun?
And...
"There are a lot of snipers."
He could feel them countless snipers had already taken aim at him. On nearby rooftops, some even held rocket launchers. Anything farther than that, he couldn't sense.... his perception range in this world had limits.
Still, with only this level of threat, Ryuji had no intention of using his water or fire powers .
Because that was all they had.
Without dozens of heavy machine guns forming a continuous web of crossfire or a swarm of enemies charging him with submachine guns.... did they really think snipers a few kilometers away could hurt him? What a dream.
So, he simply raised his head, aimed the gun in his hand at Gin in the sky, and pulled the trigger.
The next moment, a gunshot rang out and countless weapons locked onto Ryuji's position, and Gin, having just dodged the incoming shot, immediately prepared to pull the trigger of the helicopter's Gatling gun to retaliate.
However...
When Gin looked down at the Gatling gun, the trigger was gone.
At the same time, Ryuji twisted his body into a strange but precise posture, dodging bullets from all directions, fired at him from multiple snipers aiming for every vital point on his body.Then, without hesitation, he returned fire toward their locations.
One after another, miserable screams rang out through the area. Every sniper who had revealed themselves was wiped out within three seconds.
Gin immediately ordered the Black Hawk to turn around and unleash a barrage from its onboard machine guns toward Ryuji's position.
But even that was useless!
Despite the helicopter's incredible speed, Ryuji leapt onto an air-conditioning unit outside a window, then continued jumping upward along the building's surface higher and higher with each leap.
Behind him, a storm of bullets tore through the walls, smashing apart everything in their path.Ryuji couldn't help but feel a trace of nervousness.
Because his defenses couldn't stop that.
If he were hit directly, even he wouldn't walk away unscathed.
"Damn it! What kind of monster is this!?"
The pilot shouted in horror as he watched Ryuji leap from one air-conditioning unit to another at an unbelievable speed. No matter how quickly he turned or adjusted his aim, he still couldn't hit the target!
He was already steering as fast as possible. It wasn't that he was slow.... it was that Ryuji was too fast!
"I don't know! Raise altitude quickly! He might be planning to jump onto us!"
Gin shouted nervously, his eyes fixed on Ryuji's rapidly approaching figure. He had a vague guess as to what Ryuji was trying to do and he roared in anger.
But in the very next moment, he saw Ryuji land on the rooftop. He didn't continue forward; instead, he raised his hand toward the helicopter.
A bad feeling hit Gin instantly. Suddenly, the helicopter began to shake violently. The entire helicopter lost control and started plunging toward the ground!
Gin had no idea what was happening. But those watching from the outside could see it clearly.
Before anyone could react, as the helicopter descended and passed near Ryuji's position, Ryuji fired his gun.
The bullet instantly pierced through Gin's head, erasing every question and thought from his mind.Then the helicopter crashed into a nearby building with a thunderous explosion.
But the others could see everything clearly!
A sniper who had been lucky enough to survive couldn't help murmuring to himself.
"It… it was a grenade…"
That was right. In that instant, Ryuji had thrown a grenade that struck the helicopter's rotor.
Although the rotor blades were bulletproof, there was nothing they could do against grenades.
What's more, Ryuji had hurled three of them in one go and even blew off the tail.
The force of his throw alone was enough to dent the steel plates; add the blast's shock and the helicopter losing control was perfectly plausible. It wasn't like in the movies where the whole craft disintegrates... this was still a hunk of metal but the explosion shredded some critical components around the rotor, made the craft unstable, and sent it plummeting.
If the crash had happened out in the open, maybe it could have been barely survivable, but this place was surrounded by buildings. The earlier slow turning had been because of that, because Gin was using the loudspeaker to talk.
None of them had expected Ryuji could do something like this!
Such a development felt absurdly theatrical, but the fact remained: Ryuji could pull off many actions that belonged in a fantasy drama.
"That's why I said.... supernaturals using modern weapons are way more dangerous than ordinary people!"
Ryuji chuckled lightly and launched himself forward again. In an instant he dodged the blast radius of a rocket-propelled grenade; the shockwave had no effect on him. If it weren't for the number and speed of the fragments, he wouldn't have even needed to evade.
He had no intention of letting everyone here live, so while the Black Organization operatives were still stunned, he resumed his killing.
With his full-range of Observation Haki, overwhelming strength, speed, reaction time, and marksmanship, none of the attacking Black Organization members survived. Terrified, they were picked off one by one as Ryuji blew their heads apart.
Ryuji also glanced toward where the Black Hawk had been and saw the pilot was still alive so he put another bullet through him.
But Gin was unquestionably dead completely obliterated; half his head gone, tongue exposed to the air... an oddly grotesque sight.
"Hmph. So much for the Black Organization."
Ryuji chuckled, then heard the continuous wail of police sirens. He smirked and jumped from the fifth floor, landed in front of the car he stole.
There was no doubt the nearby roads had been sealed off, but that didn't stop Ryuji. He took the Miyano sisters out of the trunk, slung them over his shoulders, and bounded off the building slipping through the police cordon as if no one noticed.
No one did, because Ryuji's speed was simply too fast.
"Piece of cake."
He chuckled softly. Instead of heading home, he used his Observation Haki to find a house that was obviously uninhabited for a long time, slipped inside, and laid Akemi and Shiho gently on the floor.
Dragonfire burst out from his hands and quickly restored the two women's nervous systems from the narcotic state induced by the drug. Ryuji also thoughtfully directed the stream of water he controlled into their clothing to speed their recovery.
Soon, Shiho and Akemi regained consciousness.
"Sister?"
Shiho's eyes flew open and looked at Akemi bound just like herself, she didn't hesitate to shout at Ryuji.
"If you hurt my sister, I would rather die than serve you!"
She wasn't actually panicking. From her perspective, this mysterious man had kidnapped them to obtain the effects of APTX4869, so she wasn't frightened... as long as she retained her research ability, these people wouldn't kill her.
"You're overthinking things. I don't have designs on you two, and I have no interest in APTX4869. Compared to that stuff, your bodies interest me more. But right now, I'd rather find your organization's boss."
Ryuji shrugged and took out the compass again, placing it into Shiho's hand.
Although watching Conan had made him think Shiho was truly charming, it was obvious now that Shiho did not view him as someone to bed.
"Boss of the Organization?"
Shiho frowned; she didn't quite understand.
"I accidentally disrupted your organization's operation earlier and took your sister captive. I've thought it through: an organization like yours won't let me live, so I decided to strike first and take you out."
Ryuji stated his reason cheerfully.
"This…"
Shiho could only feel incredulous inside. Logically there was nothing wrong with his reasoning, but in her worldview, this was basically suicide.
Yet Ryuji had actually done it.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know who the organization's leader is either."
She spoke helplessly. The compass in her hand didn't point anywhere; it spun quickly. Clearly she wasn't thinking about the leader's location, but she was thinking about something else.
Ryuji glanced at Akemi, who seemed lost in thought, and placed the compass in her hand. Like before, the needle spun wildly.
"What are you doing? Wouldn't it be better to side with the leader of your organization?"
Ryuji took the compass back because these two women clearly weren't in any state to think about their boss.
That was the thing about this compass: it only pointed to something you truly wanted. The problem was, people often couldn't be sure what they truly wanted.
Sometimes you think you want one thing, but what you really want is something else entirely.
Ryuji was like that; the compass in his hands was almost useless unless it was used in situations like today... otherwise it was only good for combat.
Akemi sighed helplessly. Having seen the compass's strange power, she understood what Ryuji meant. Unlike her bewildered sister, as the older sibling she already grasped Ryuji's plan.
Although she thought Ryuji's approach was absurd in its own way, she still spoke up.
"Even if you say that, right now we only care more about our own fate."
As she said this, she sighed.
"The Organization definitely won't take us back now, and we don't know how you'll treat us either... so we can't possibly think about who the leader is."
"Then how about this? If you can't find your leader's location, I'll kill your sister."
Ryuji pointed the gun at the two women's foreheads and placed the compass into Akemi's hand once more.
But still.... it kept spinning.
Akemi gave a wry, helpless smile; she could see clearly Ryuji was trying to intimidate her. But Ryuji noticed something different.
Although the compass continued to spin, it would abruptly pause in certain directions, then start spinning again.
Sometimes a direction shuddered repeatedly.
Ryuji pondered and quickly put the compass back into Shiho's hand, speaking up.
"If I can't find your leader's location, I'll kill your sister!"
Shiho, who had never interacted with Ryuji before, was terrified and instinctively tried to search for information about the leader in her mind.
But the compass in her hand reacted the same way as Akemi's: it spun, only to twitch now and then in various directions.... completely unlike how it behaved in Akemi's hands earlier.
"Damn it…"
Ryuji roughly guessed why.
Under the compass's judgment, the Black Organization didn't have just one true boss! Or rather, the person who appeared to be the leader might not be the real boss at all... there were too many people. The continuous spinning was because of the number of people; the tremors indicated multiple people in that direction.
Although that conclusion was unreliable, Ryuji thought about the Black Organization's structure and found himself unable to refute the guess: based on what he'd just done, he likely killed a lot of undercover agents.
Realistically, he might end up accused by multiple countries for attacking police.
And given the Black Organization's convoluted membership, who actually was the true leader was indeed open to debate.
Maybe…
Ryuji glanced again at the compass needle that kept trembling.
"…Among these people there might even be the leader of the United States."
That wasn't impossible!
~~~~~~~~~~
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