"Says he suddenly has something to do and dumps tonight's mission on me. Won't even give me a reason. That bastard Naoto Kobayashi—don't tell me he's off screwing around with some woman."
Go Fujiwara spat under his breath as he unlocked the door.
"Tonight's a critical step in the plan. Guy usually seems so upstanding, but turns out he's one of those perverts who can't control his urges when he gets nervous!"
He shut the door and flicked on the overhead light.
"The hell?"
Under the harsh white glow of the incandescent bulb, something on the tatami mat flashed in his eyes.
"A mirror?"
His casual expression shifted to confusion.
This was a strange mirror. He could sense something unnervingly familiar about it.
Like it had some kind of magic.
That magic drove him crazy with the urge to pick it up and examine it, as if he'd died in a past life without getting the chance to play with it.
Which is exactly why his instincts screamed danger.
But he quickly relaxed.
"All the Devil Hunter corpses have been accounted for. What's there to be afraid of?"
He reached out for it.
A crow landed on the observation deck with a flutter of wings.
An even stronger sense of familiarity washed over him.
He jerked his hand back.
Went to the bathroom for a cold shower to clear his head.
Chased away the crow and checked the entire room.
Then soaked in the private hot spring for an hour.
Finally went out for dinner.
When he came back, the mirror was still lying there.
"Must be Naoto's mirror. Man's over fifty and still this flashy."
He paused, as if convincing himself:
"Then again, if he wasn't flashy, why would he bail at such a critical moment in the mission? Must be woman trouble. That's the only thing that keeps a working man out late."
He grabbed the mirror and held it up to his face.
His reflection stared back at him.
"What the—nothing's... I knew it!"
Fujiwara flipped his grip and swung the snow blade he'd created, slicing cleanly through the muscle strands bursting out of the mirror.
"Heh, just as I—"
BANG!
Pain exploded in the back of his skull. His consciousness scattered.
In front of the wide-open closet, Hoshino grabbed Fujiwara by the hair and hoisted him up. His fist, wrapped in fiber gloves, hammered into Fujiwara.
Fujiwara went flying.
Hoshino was not happy.
"A low-level villain like you should just walk into the trap and die already!"
The moment before Fujiwara hit the wall, six muscle fibers yanked him back.
"Three hours! Waiting outside the door, then waiting inside!"
Hoshino hooked another punch. Fujiwara bounced back like a boxer's speed bag, pulled back only to be sent flying again.
"I told you to stop!"
"I told you not to chase away the crow!"
"And you had the nerve to go eat dinner?!"
Punch after punch. The sound of cracking bones was continuous.
Meanwhile, countless silk threads spread from his feet in all directions, catching every drop of blood Fujiwara coughed up.
When it was about enough, Hoshino grabbed Fujiwara by the throat:
"Say it. You offer everything and make a contract with me."
"I... offer... everything... and make... a contract... with you..."
The contract formed.
Hoshino huffed indignantly. "It's because of people like you that being the protagonist is such a pain in the ass!"
Snap.
A finger snap.
The silk withdrew from the tatami and walls, wrapping around Fujiwara and cocooning him until only his face was exposed.
To keep the plan viable, Hoshino had carefully avoided hitting his face.
The cocoon's main function was healing and recovery. If there were severed limbs or blood from the injured person, healing would be even faster.
"I need you to cooperate with some things. If it violates the contract, stay silent. Otherwise, do as I say."
After his experiences interrogating Naoto Kobayashi and Doctor Tanaka, he still hadn't figured out the exact boundaries of contracts. It was hard to control the degree of compulsion.
After thinking it over, the best method was to let Fujiwara gauge that boundary himself.
"Which one is the Blizzard Devil?"
"..."
"Kill Naoto Kobayashi for me," Hoshino said.
"..."
"Call Naoto Kobayashi back here."
"..."
"Call that... hook-nosed old guy in his early fifties over for drinks." Hoshino switched to describing his appearance from memory.
"..."
"Call that tall, fair-skinned guy—nearly two meters—over for drinks."
"..."
"Call the white-haired kid over for drinks."
"..."
They were all enemy contractors who'd appeared at the end of the last loop. Hoshino had memorized them all and was now running through them by appearance.
Can't even invite them for drinks? Does any kind of malicious intent not work?
Still, he tried each one.
Until: "Call that woman in her forties with heavy makeup who likes to twirl her finger in her bleached hair over for drinks."
"I can do that."
Hoshino's spirits lifted.
He didn't understand the logic, but as long as she'd come, that was enough.
Though he quickly wondered:
Will she even come at this hour?
The clock showed 8:50.
Beep beep.
Fujiwara made the call.
The process went smoothly without any resistance. She agreed quickly.
"Wow."
Hoshino's face twisted with contempt. "This country's going to be destroyed by people like you!"
He asked a series of questions, some light, some heavy. Most couldn't be answered.
Before leaving, he tossed a small bottle to Fujiwara.
"Play it by ear. Keeping your identity hidden is the priority."
"Okay."
Hoshino dissolved the cocoon and left the Japanese-style room, heading for his room.
At the top of the stairs, he came face-to-face with three workers in orange-red uniforms.
Unlike Fujiwara's uniform, the orange-red was garish and gave Hoshino a sense of déjà vu.
He didn't act rashly. After memorizing their faces, he returned to his room.
Kobeni was already tucked into her futon.
"Kob... Higashiyama, did you catch anyone eavesdropping?"
"N-no one was listening." Kobeni poked her little head halfway out, timidly watching Hoshino.
"Mm." Hoshino nodded. He pulled clothes from his backpack, preparing to take a bath.
"S-some workers came to change the mirror in our room."
"Mirror?" Hoshino raised his hand and rubbed his chin.
After a moment's thought, a brief, easily overlooked memory surfaced.
Hoshino's eyes widened slightly as he pressed: "Workers in orange uniforms?"
"Uh-huh."
He finally remembered where he'd seen those uniforms before.
In the first loop, when he'd just arrived at Yukimi-sou, the owner was handling checking-in guests while directing workers carrying mirrors.
The mirror movers had worn orange-red uniforms.
After I passed out, another group of workers came to move mirrors?
Hoshino reflexively asked: "Where?"
"The... bathroom."
He turned and walked into the bathroom.
A spotless new mirror hung where the old one used to be.
Directly facing the shower.
From the front it looked like an ordinary mirror, but from the side you could see a long diagonal highlight on the mirror's surface that gleamed ice-blue.
Water vapor gathered into a faint mist on the cold surface, clinging to it like a ghostly veil.
In the mirror, a beautiful young man stood quietly.
He'd changed dramatically since the first time he'd looked in a mirror.
The original Futoshi Hoshino had severe myopia and wore thick lenses. He was pretty much a shut-in who rarely styled his hair, leaving it thick and long.
Add in the fact that muscle authority could only improve aging appearances, and his skin had been somewhat aged.
Now everything had changed.
The day he replaced the Muscle Devil, his severe myopia had been cured.
After his first molt, his appearance and body had completely returned to normal.
His jawline was as sharp as ever. His long, narrow phoenix eyes tilted up slightly at the corners. The beauty mark at the corner of his left eye looked like cinnabar. His nose bridge was high and straight. His skin radiated healthy vitality.
Having shed the shadows of time, his entire being exuded the crisp aura unique to youth.
"Am I a succubus or what?"
Hoshino stared blankly, caressing his reflection in the mirror, unable to tear himself away, his expression infatuated.
But if you looked carefully, you'd notice his fingertips seemed to be sinking into the mirror.
After several breaths, Hoshino suddenly smiled.
"Found you."
His hand plunged toward the mirror, countless muscle fibers following.
He quickly grabbed something hard on the outside but soft inside.
He yanked hard.
A tube covered in shattered glass fragments was pulled out, followed by something like a glass tumor.
The tumor was very long and large, like a monster's body, its surface similarly covered in broken glass. Densely packed, it had countless "tubes" growing from it.
Many of the tube openings continuously expelled human body parts—some upper halves, some lower halves, in varying quantities.
The tube nearest to Hoshino expelled half of a figure that looked exactly like him.
A slender strand of muscle pulled back part of the tube's surface, revealing ice crystals inside—constantly forming and being shaped, their colors gradually taking form.
"So it's you."
Hoshino had seen it before—one of the two devils on the Okura Village.
The index and middle fingers of his right hand sharpened into nail-like points, deftly corroding through the outer glass layer before sinking into the soft flesh beneath.
Yellow decay spread. The devil let out a piercing shriek, like glass shards scraping across a chalkboard.
Four massive arms rose from Hoshino's back and slammed into it without holding back an ounce of strength.
When Kobeni peeked fearfully from the doorway, it was already dying. Bright red blood covered the entire bathroom, mixed with glittering glass fragments.
Hoshino stood bathed in blood, wearing a demonic smile:
"Say it. I lend fifty percent of my authority usage rights to Hoshino-kun, and in exchange he handles my corpse."
"..." Kobeni scurried back into her futon.
After the devil finished chattering away, Hoshino thrust his hand into its body. Full aging authority.
"Two percent?" he guessed at the increase.
[You have become the Mirror Devil]
[Mirror (B-): 100%]
[Current Amplification: 10.5% → 19%]
"Huh? Something this weak gave me 8.5%?"
He was pleasantly surprised. A reward disproportionate to combat power meant the mirror authority had very strong functionality.
He couldn't wait to close his eyes and experience this new ability.
In his consciousness, many blue specks of light appeared.
"434."
A number materialized in his mind.
There were 434 ice people throughout the entire onsen district.
Hoshino opened his eyes. His hand reached into the mirror as usual, until his entire body had crawled inside.
Behind the mirror was nothing like the pitch darkness he'd imagined.
All kinds of mirrors—one here, one there—were scattered sporadically throughout various parts of the space.
Light from countless homes seeped in, illuminating what should have been complete darkness into a dim grayness.
He closed his eyes again.
"10,584."
This was the number of all replicas in the entire world—not all ice people.
Some were made from other materials, like stone.
The vast majority were created by contractors.
"So few in China, so many in India. The US has quite a few too."
With a thought, eight ordinary mirrors surrounded him, illuminating his surroundings.
This was the Mirror Devil's most basic power. The farthest mirror came from the administrative center twenty kilometers away.
But.
He twitched his fingers, summoning a gray mirror before him.
This one came from Sendai City, a hundred and fifty kilometers away—a stone mirror.
Its function was nearly identical to the ice mirrors. The only difference was the material—stone instead of ice.
The choice depended on what was plentiful nearby.
Hoshino reached toward it, testing if he could escape through this one—but his hand met resistance. A barrier.
The same barrier encircling Okura Village.
"Still blocked? So the barrier's tied to an even higher power…"
He frowned briefly, then smiled.
"Eh, whatever. This'll do."
Grinning, Hoshino tossed the Mirror Devil's corpse into the mirror world and clapped his hands clean.
Deal done.
Now all he had to do was wait for Go Fujiwara's report—
And catch whoever came snooping around at ten o'clock.