Gasping for breath as he stood upright, Kazawa wiped the blood from his cheek and hissed softly.
The grotesque giant spider that had let out a shriek was now scattered on the ground as a pile of swords and blades. Maruden Jirou, with his hair bun undone and his clothes in disarray, lay collapsed on the floor, moaning and begging for mercy.
"Out of the way, you tasteless scum," Kazawa nudged the guy sprawled on the floor like a pile of sludge aside with the tip of his foot and walked toward the room behind him.
"No, don't take it away!" Maruden Jirou's shadow grabbed Kazawa's ankle, sobbing as he pleaded, "Don't take it! You can take anything else—treasure, money—just not that—!"
Kazawa crouched down, smiling as he tapped Maruden Jirou's cheek with the short blade stained in black mud. "That's the face, that's the pain. Do you feel the sins you've inflicted on others now? Go on, cry louder."
With that, he kicked away Maruden Jirou's hand and walked into the main house amid the man's cries.
Inside was a well-made chest of drawers crafted from fine wood. Kazawa's expression grew a bit strange upon seeing the familiar piece of furniture.
Let him guess, this was probably the same dresser from the manga where Maruden Jirou carved death messages...
You could call this a mutual connection. Fun.
Kazawa reached up to the top of the dresser and took down a radiant object.
It was a folding fan with a gold foil face. The handle was inlaid with high-quality mother-of-pearl, and on the fan surface was a golden "丸" character.
On the back was an illustration of a warrior slashing at a demon.
"How interesting." Kazawa studied the painting carefully, an emotion hard to put into words welling up in him.
A collector of treasures depicting demon slaying ends up becoming the demon himself. If Kazawa hadn't intervened, he really would have been slain by that warrior.
Putting the folding fan away, Kazawa pressed the exquisite fan against Maruden Jirou's forehead.
"Remember the pain of having your precious treasure taken from you," Kazawa said, frowning slightly at the tear-streaked, blurred mess of a face, "Repent for everything you've done, Mr. Maruden."
Maruden Jirou, now appearing completely aged and worn out, stared blankly at the fan in Kazawa's hand. With a sigh, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
The shadow dissolved into a beam of light and drifted away. Kazawa tucked the fan into the back of his waistband, then burst into a dash, narrowly dodging the collapsing doors and windows behind him.
With the master of the hall losing his twisted desires, the hall itself was crumbling.
"Tch… I still got hurt. Wonder if healing skills would work." While racing the collapse of the house, Kazawa mumbled to himself, reflecting, "Just one mask really isn't enough insurance. I'm fighting alone, after all. Who knows if I'll even have teammates in the future…"
Gotta keep pushing forward. Kazawa barely made it out of the Maru residence and reminded himself—at the very least, in the Cognition World, he really needed some kind of transportation.
You look cool when you fight, but your escape was a total mess!
——
After quickly wrapping up another heart-stealing adventure, Kazawa made it back to Café Poirot before lunchtime.
From Kazawa's experiments, healing skills did restore physical condition, but only within the Cognition World. If you left without fully healing, you'd carry those injuries back with you.
Even if you re-entered the Cognition World, you couldn't fully erase wounds from the real world.
Luckily, most of his injuries were on his torso. There was only a small scratch on his face—nothing that would raise suspicion.
Kazawa buttoned his inner shirt all the way to the top to hide the bruises on his chest, then pushed open the door and returned to the café.
The moment he stepped in, he saw Amuro Tooru washing dishes with a grim look. He wasn't showing much emotion, but the way the plates squeaked under his scrubbing was practically radiating murderous intent.
"Amuro-san?" Kazawa called softly, "That plate is already clean…"
Snapping out of it, Amuro glanced at the dish in his hand—so polished it gleamed like a mirror. He clicked his tongue and hung it on the rack.
"Bad mood? Did something happen?" Kazawa took a seat at the bar counter.
If this were a manga, there'd probably be scribble lines and dark shadows behind him right now.
But Amuro answered his question with another: "Where did you go this morning?"
Kazawa gave a dry laugh. "Ahaha, I just went for a walk. Why the sudden question?"
Uh oh. What happened? No way… Did my Phantom Thieves cover get blown right after a job?
"Have you run into any trouble these past few days?" Amuro's eyes were sharp, scanning Kazawa up and down like X-rays. "Anyone suspicious tailing you?"
Trouble… Does Suwa Yuuji, who was about to snap and commit murder, count? Or the guys passing out those suspicious little cards? The ones he hired delinquent teens to hand out?
Kazawa hesitated. He couldn't tell whether Amuro had found a flaw or was referring to something else.
Then Amuro suddenly narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, grabbing Kazawa's cheek.
"Ah—ow ow ow—!" The healing scratch flared with pain as Amuro tugged on it, like needles stabbing him. Kazawa quickly pulled away.
Seeing the minor under his care come back injured, Amuro couldn't hold back his anger. "Where'd the wound come from? Were you aware someone was following you?"
Kazawa blinked, trying to guess the real reason behind Amuro's irritation. He responded vaguely, "Just… a normal scratch. Nothing really happened…"
Amuro wasn't buying it. He reached out and yanked Kazawa's tightly buttoned collar. "Don't play dumb. When you left this morning, your shirt wasn't buttoned up this high."
Kazawa had taken quite a few hits from that giant spider—bruises from a katana hurt like hell. One solid slash knocked off 25 HP, and the real-world result was a long purplish bruise from chest to collarbone, nearly turning black.
With one pull from Amuro, the bruise was exposed.
"You were attacked?" Amuro crossed his arms, glaring like he expected a ridiculous excuse.
"Not exactly…" Kazawa fixed his collar, then realized something. "Wait, this morning when I left, Amuro-san, weren't you not on shift yet? How'd you know my shirt wasn't buttoned?"
"I arrived right after you left. Then I saw someone following you, acting suspicious. Didn't look like a good guy. I followed him to see what he was up to," Amuro coolly flipped the timeline to make his stalking sound like concern for a minor. "But then I noticed—you were deliberately shaking him off."
Kazawa blinked.
Huh? Someone was tailing me? And I actually lost them?
So Amuro followed me, and someone else followed me too… Then I slipped into the Cognition World with a quick move, and the two stalkers ran into each other?
Kazawa, having guessed about 80% of the truth, quietly let out a breath.
Whew. It's not about the Phantom Thieves.
That's a relief.
He followed Amuro's lead and began explaining, "Yeah, I've noticed someone tailing me. It's been two or three days now—maybe even since I arrived in Tokyo. I don't know who they are."
Wearing a heavy expression, Kazawa decisively shifted the blame elsewhere.
Given the current situation with Kazawa Shou—whether it was revenge from the high-ranking officials who framed him, monitoring from the Organization, or another force targeting him—it all made sense.
Whoever the stalker was… sorry, but I'm leaving you to take the fall for hurting a minor!