"I’m really sorry; I have a bit of a conditioned response to rooftops. On Saturday or Sunday, when you co to the Maid Cafe, Mr. Aozawa, I’ll treat you to a al as a thank you for this incident."
Aozawa hadn’t even reached the rooftop when his phone rang. He opened it and saw an apology ssage from Arakawa Reina.
A conditioned response to rooftops?
Aozawa blinked. He always felt that this "conditioned response" was sohow related to certain unhealthy comics, but he didn’t rule out the possibility that the class president might actually have so dark history. In TV dramas or movies, upperclassn bullying underclassn was often closely linked to rooftops.
"No problem," Aozawa replied. "If I’m free, I’ll definitely co for the complintary afternoon tea."
Arakawa Reina quickly responded with an emoji of a rabbit giving a thumbs up, an "OK" bubble popping up above its head.
Aozawa looked at it but didn’t send an emoji back. He knew Arakawa Reina’s habits: if he sent an emoji, she would definitely reply with another. It wasn’t about whether Arakawa Reina wanted to chat; she simply had to reply to any ssage she received. This "must reply when read" spirit of hers was comndable.
Aozawa put away his phone and walked onto the rooftop.
A gust of wind t him. He saw Hojo Tetsuji standing in front of the wire sh, gripping it with his right hand, his eyes gazing into the distance.
"The club building isn’t in that direction. What are you looking at?" Aozawa called out.
Hojo Tetsuji turned his head, his face serious. "Aozawa, I feel like all my brain cells are dead. I can’t think up any plotline at all. My sweet monts with Little Sayuri seem to have ended in just those few Chapters. Darn it, drawing comics is so hard! Isn’t there an easier way?"
"I wouldn’t know about that," Aozawa responded, tossing him a loaf of bread and a cola. He tried to offer a suggestion, "Why not add a battle scene? Have a powerful enemy erge, soone who abducts Little Sayuri. You set off on a journey aboard a spaceship to rescue her, gathering comrades along the way, interspersing it with sweet mories of you and Little Sayuri."
"That’s not bad," Tetsuji mused, rubbing his chin. Although his mind was still blank, with only a vague direction, the idea managed to revive his spirits. He unwrapped the bread and said, "I really need to thank you and the miss for yesterday."
"No problem," Aozawa said with a smile as he opened his bento box.
...
After lunch, Aozawa excused himself, saying he wanted to take a nap, and went to a secluded part of the school.
There were no other students around.
Aozawa used Elent Replacent to turn himself into a breeze, then activated Schrodinger’s Cat.
The wind blew from the campus to Shinjuku.
The sun hid behind thick white clouds, its light streaming through the gaps and shining down on the streets of Shinjuku. In front of Shinjuku station, people bustled about.
As a gentle breeze, he weaved through the dense crowd. Nothing felt more liberating than running at high speed among the tightly packed throng of people.
After playing around for a while, Aozawa had an idea and directed the breeze toward the Hisamatsu Apartnt. He wanted to see what Chitose was having for lunch.
The wind slipped through a second-floor window of the Hisamatsu Apartnt, allowing him to peek into the task force’s midday life.
The dining table in the living room was laden with takeout food: two at dishes, two vegetable dishes, and one soup.
The people present seed very busy. Morimoto Chiyoda sat on the sofa, eating with a spoon while simultaneously flipping through docunts. Aozawa drew closer and saw that they were annotations for the Tao Te Ching.
The door to an inner room was ajar, and he could hear the faint tapping of Iwaki Kususuke’s hands on a keyboard. Katerina, Kitanotake, Ito Oto, and the others all appeared extrely occupied, as if they couldn’t afford to waste even a mont of their alti.
Strange, weren’t they usually gathered together chatting?
This thought crossed Aozawa’s mind just as he heard Morimoto Chiyoda, nibbling on a chicken leg, murmur softly, "Damn baldy!"
After her complaint, she swallowed the chicken at.
Before Aozawa could figure out the connection between the Tao Te Ching and baldness, the door suddenly opened.
Petite Team Leader Emily entered, accompanied by a portly middle-aged man. An uninford observer, seeing them, might have mistaken them for father and daughter.
The lively scene inside caught the Police Director’s eye, and his previously tense expression softened a bit. Due to the collective clamoring from mbers of the Diet, he realized he might be forced to step down. Accustod to being at the top, he had begun to visit the lower echelons to expedite the progress of various cases. He planned to personally oversee every case, striving to achieve so results in the shortest possible ti to silence the Diet mbers, especially those on the National Public Safety Commission. The mbers there who had originally supported him were already beginning to waver.
In tis of peace, the incompetence of a political hatchet man wasn’t a major sin. But in these tis, when talent was crucial, an incompetent person in such a key position made those at the top uneasy. They needed a fierce tiger, not a weak lamb.
But the Police Director didn’t want to step down. He was still young and even hoped to climb higher.
Of all the cases under the Police Director’s jurisdiction, the task force’s was the largest. Even a little progress could shut those people up.
"Team Leader Emily, I know you all have been working hard," the Police Director said, seeing them working on files even during alti. The words of reprimand he had originally intended had to be changed. The task force had already pushed themselves this far; he couldn’t very well say they shouldn’t even have ti to eat and must work around the clock.
"But the matter of Dio concerns the fate of the nation, and I hope you can make an extra effort. Don’t limit your thinking to reality. Instead, be bold in innovating and dare to make bold assumptions!"
The Police Director paused, then emphasized, "Only by daring to conceive and to put conjectures into practice can we know the specific thod to ascend to Paradise. I hired you at great expense so ti ago, and so within the National Public Safety Commission are quite dissatisfied. The next Police Director may not hire a Russian."
Emily’s eyes darkened. She understood the Police Director’s hidden ssage. At this critical juncture of survival, he probably hoped the task force could concoct so false intelligence to fool those above for the ti being. After all, Dio was a Superpower User. It was only natural for the task force to make so false speculations, as no one could guarantee they wouldn’t make mistakes.
Such behavior was undoubtedly like drinking poison to quench thirst—a desperate redy.
The current Police Director couldn’t be bothered with such long-term consequences; he only wanted to quickly produce results and overco his own crisis. Whether the results were real or fake didn’t matter. If he stepped down now, he wouldn’t just lose power; he might very well lose his life. As the Police Director, he knew too much.
"Please rest assured, sir. I will not betray your trust," Emily replied.
This response satisfied the Police Director. He nodded in approval, patted her shoulder, and said earnestly, "I believe in your abilities. Rember, be bold in your assumptions and their verification. Don’t hesitate. You may continue your work; I will inspect other places."
"Understood."
Emily saw the Director off from Hisamatsu Apartnt, watching his official car drive away down the street. Only then did the smile on her face gradually fade.
"Ah, the struggle for power is such a nuisance," Emily sighed, a touch of worry on her youthful face.
She had to admit there was so truth to the Police Director’s words. Her Russian identity might indeed affect how the next Police Director perceived her. In the Western world, such an identity often led to ostracization, making it difficult to gain trust. This troubled Emily deeply, as she felt no sense of belonging to Russia whatsoever. Her ho country was filled with oligarchs and a rapacious elite. Emily would welco a major upheaval there, much like the October Revolution, to do away with both the oligarchs and the president.
Of course, that was just an occasional thought. She wasn’t an idealist and had no intention of becoming fuel for the fire. It wasn’t possible for her to return to Russia to do such dangerous things.
Emily turned, walked up the stairs, and opened the door.
The task force mbers were no longer pretending to be busy.
Morimoto Chiyoda tossed the Tao Te Ching aside, crossed her legs, and said, "Ah, finally dealt with the inspection from above."
With that, she scooped up so chicken soup with a spoon and took a satisfying sip.
"Don’t relax too much," Emily warned. "Be careful, he might suddenly reappear to check on us."
"Don’t worry. We’re monitoring three streets outside the door," Iwaki Kususuke’s rather smug voice ca from the inner room.
Morimoto Chiyoda put down her spoon, sowhat curious. "Do you plan to falsify evidence to keep the Police Director in office?"
"Of course not," Emily said, shaking her head. "If we listened to him, the task force would be completely tied to him." She absolutely couldn’t damage her credibility with Jack. She’d rather have no news than deliver false information.
"Iwaki, have there been any unusual activities from the Dior Salvation Committee?" she asked. She wanted to know exactly when the Police Director might step down.
"There’s no unusual news from Rumi Yoshizawa," Iwaki Kususuke replied honestly. "However, I’ve found that aside from the CIA, others also seem to be monitoring her movents. Her computer system’s backdoor is, frankly, a bitch accessible to anyone."
As a seasoned hacker, he knew that hackers infiltrating systems, more or less, always left so traces. The difference was that so could hide them perfectly, while others could not.
Emily frowned slightly. "Could those people discover us?"
Iwaki Kususuke laughed. "Don’t worry. They might find traces of others, but it’s impossible for them to track us through those traces. Conversely, it’s just as difficult for us to trace them."
"Alright, never mind them. Let’s continue our surveillance," Emily said, walking toward the dining table. She knew that soone so blatantly posting about Dio in forums and leaving comnts would naturally attract attention from other organizations. They were all probably waiting for that absurd plan to be implented.
Including Emily. She, too, wanted to see how things would turn out.
Aozawa, still a gentle breeze, was sowhat confused.
There’s a Dior Salvation Committee in Japan, and Dio himself is unaware? And who is this woman Rumi Yoshizawa?
Aozawa didn’t rember authorizing anyone to use his alias for an organization’s na.
He drifted towards the inner room, wanting to see where the Dior Salvation Committee’s base was.
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