"Do you really think this is a place you can come and leave at will?"
Zenkichi's voice was calm, yet the weight behind his words crashed down like a mountain.
At once, an invisible pressure spread through the air. The killers staggered as if their bodies were being crushed beneath tremendous gravity. Each step forward became impossible. It was as though an enormous weight pressed against their backs, smothering them in suffocating power.
"What… what's happening?" one of them gasped, his eyes wide with disbelief.
None of them could explain it. But instinctively, they turned their gazes toward Zenkichi. From the moment he had spoken, this overwhelming force had emerged, and they knew—it came from him.
"Tell me who sent you," Zenkichi said, his tone unchanging, almost indifferent. "Do that, and I'll let you leave."
He already had a strong guess about their employer. Still, hearing the words from their own mouths mattered. It was not about confirmation—it was about control.
But the killers exchanged glances, and their decision was swift.
Without hesitation, they bit down on the poison capsules hidden in their mouths.
Their eyes hardened as the bitter venom rushed into their systems. They had chosen death over betrayal. Failure was one thing, but revealing their employer was unthinkable. Escape was impossible, and they refused to let themselves be captured. Suicide was their only answer.
"It's a pity…" Zenkichi said softly, watching without a flicker of emotion. "But you can't die. Not until I've heard the truth."
Normally, poison like this was final. Once bitten, it spread instantly to the brain and vital organs, killing within moments. Even the most skilled doctors couldn't reverse it.
But Zenkichi was not "most people."
The killers collapsed, blood seeping from their mouths as the venom tore through their systems. Yet before the poison could claim them, Zenkichi raised a hand. His fingertips glowed faintly, pulsing with life energy that hummed with terrifying vitality.
"I decide whether you live or die," he said, his voice low, carrying an authority that made their blood run cold.
With a flick of his fingers, that vitality surged forth like a tidal wave, flowing into their broken bodies. The poison's corruption was forced back, their destroyed organs restored, their blood purified. What should have been certain death was rewritten.
One by one, the assassins coughed violently, then blinked in disbelief. Their bodies, moments ago wracked by the agony of poison, now felt stronger than before. The suffocating pain was gone. Their wounds were gone. Even their stamina had returned as though they had never fought.
It was unnatural. It was terrifying.
Even cancer would have withered before such overwhelming life force. To undo mere poison was nothing at all.
Zenkichi looked at their pale, shaken faces, his eyes dark and sharp. "Now," he said slowly, "can you tell me?"
The killers trembled under his gaze. They had stared into death just seconds ago, only for this man to drag them back and deny them escape. To them, Arakawa Zenkichi was no longer human. He was a demon in flesh, one they could neither resist nor defy.
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