Yasuo Yasui was not the kind of guy who would enjoy another guy’s birthday party and offer him well wishes. However, if his honor and money was on the line, then that changes everything drastically. Within the cubicle farthest in the back inside a café relatively close to Ama-no-Iwato, Yasui was reporting to his co-conspirator, who was in the middle of drinking apple juice through a straw. “Just as you asked, I’ve pushed a ton of work onto Kuma-san, so he should be stuck at his desk for the entire night tonight. There’s no chance of him interrupting.”
“I’ve also arranged for Ig to stay with a common marmoset breeder in Saitama Prefecture, under the pretense of finding a mate for her. However, I failed to keep Kaburagi away. That woman is just too sharp; take care to not overexert yourself, as she might pick up on it.”
That day when Baba suddenly revealed everything about superpowers to Yasui and told him that Kinemitsu Sago was the mastermind behind everything, he had been terribly surprised. Her little girl appearance and the complete lack of context only served to magnify the sense of bewilderment that Yasui felt when she then asked for his cooperation in arresting Sago. However, upon smelling fresh new bills and feeling reassured upon hearing how simple the tasks were that she asked of him, Yasui soon chose to nod in acceptance of her offer. Afterward, the simple orders continued coming, always followed by a generous deposit in his bank account. And now, he had come to place quite a bit of faith in her as a good business partner.
“Those inside the store shall be myself, Shiori Kaburagi, Shouta Takahashi, Touka Hasumi, and Kinemitsu Sago. Us five.”
“The handcuffs?”
At Yasui’s prompting, Baba-Nyan took out a pair of handcuffs from her chest pocket and slid them toward Yasui. “They work exactly as I’ve explained. Clamping these onto an esper is akin to sealing their powers. But remain wary until you do, for Sago’s powers are beyond your imagination. Although you shall be catching them off guard in the midst of a party—”
“Don’t worry, I got it, I got it. I’m not stupid enough to think of having a frontal face-off with IT.”
For someone who has a superpower that is truly so deserving of the word “super” that it could destroy planets and stars, Sago was an extremely ordinary person. When he crashed and burned after splurging on lootboxes in mobile games, he would then rage quit and go to bed sulking. When there was a sale going on, he would happily rush over to buy a whole stock of toilet paper, but then realize that he had nowhere to store them all and end up just giving them away to other people. In short, his mindset was entirely that of a commoner.
And as such, he was extremely weak against the police. Despite having more than enough power to crush not only the entire police force, but the military forces of every single nation on earth, he would shrink into himself when in front of a policeman, like any other commoner would. Therefore, taking advantage of that to get the handcuffs onto him was going to be Yasui’s job.
While dreaming of all the honor and acclaim that was almost within his reach, Yasui let out a disgusting-sounding chuckle. The crimes that Sago had committed included blackmailing and manipulating the police force, heading the secret organization responsible for the Super Water Sphere incident, and even being the person behind the World Shadows threatening the world. And he, Yasui, was going to get all the credit for arresting this man. A promotion of several ranks was a no-brainer. He looked forward to bathing in so much praise and recognition that it would make his head go dizzy. Of course, the money that he could gain by taking advantage of all this was going to shoot up by leaps and bounds. After all, setting at the dealing table with yakuza and with foreign intelligence agencies were matters on entirely different dimensions from each other.
“You sure you don’t want a split?”
“I desire no such thing. Attaining monetary gain would only taint the taste of revenge.”
When Yasui asked one last time in confirmation, Baba-Nyan’s face twisted with rage. Yasui had not heard from her what was it that had happened to make her so infuriated, but he was a person who placed more trust in anger than in uncertain nonsense like love or friendship. Those seeking revenge were easy to control, as long as you went along with their quest for vengeance.
“‘K then, see you in an hour.”
“Indeed.”
As Yasui stood up and made his leave, Baba-Nyan saw him off with ice-cold eyes.
⚔
When it came time, Yasui stepped into Ama-no-Iwato. What first caught his eye was Sago, who was wearing pince-nez glasses and a decorated hat. He was in the middle of cutting a cake, with his usual sour look still on his face. Sago also noticed him immediately.
At that point, the party was in full swing, and Kaburagi’s face was slightly red from wine as Baba-Nyan continuously made sure to keep her glass topped up. Takahashi was holding a bunch of birthday candles together and was just about to light them all on fire, while Hasumi was in the middle of bringing a piece of cake to her mouth.
“Good evening, everyone. Apologies for interrupting your party. I’m a police officer, name’s Yasui.” Yasui’s self-introduction and brandishing of his police ID caused the bewilderment in the air to thicken. Although Yasui was Kumano’s partner, unlike Kumano, Yasui was not so close with the members of the secret organization as to participate as an uninvited walk-in. But that said, he was not a complete stranger either.
Yasui’s shoes sounded unnaturally loud as he walked straight up to Sago—who had taken off his party paraphernalia—and thrust a counterfeit warrant in his face. “Kinemitsu Sago, you are under arrest for the charge of rioting in regards to the Super Water Sphere incident and for the suspicion of being related to the acts of violence perpetrated by black creatures of undetermined origin.”
“Wha—?”
The forging of a warrant was a severe crime. However, Baba had procured and tested the watery remains of many World Shadow remains, and found Sago’s DNA from them every single time. In addition, she had also found large fragments of lead in his room that looked like they had been part of a large sphere before. Regardless of whether those test results and lead fragments were the real thing or not, this was more than enough to support a claim for reasonable doubt of a crime. If Kaburagi did not have her hand in the police force, normally this would be enough to get a real warrant issued through the proper channels.
That said, having physical evidence was good and all, but what was even better was a confession. Therefore, Yasui had spent a week forging a fake warrant that looked extremely similar to a real one. As he was in the position to look at real ones for reference, this task was actually quite easy.
Normally, evidence procured through illegal means and gathered outside the perimeters of an official criminal investigation would be inadmissible in court. However, with the matter being what it was, surely something could be done afterward as long as he successfully made the arrest.
“Please hold out both your hands.”
“What......?” Unable to process what was going on, Sago obediently held out both of his hands.
Just as Yasui was about to clamp his handcuffs onto Sago’s wrists, Kaburagi leapt up with a pale face. However, immediately afterward she looked extremely shocked, and stared at her hands, whispering, “Why......?”
“If you’re trying to stop time, don’t bother. I’ve mixed a special platinum compound into the wine. For at least the next 3 hours until your metabolism recovers, it’ll be extremely difficult to use your superpower. Though with your proficiency, you probably won’t be able to use it at all,” said Baba-Nyan in a soft, eerie voice.
The two high schoolers became flustered.
“Hold on a... Baba, you can’t talk about superpowers in front of a police officer!”
“Mr. Detective, please wait a minute. There’s some sort of misunderstanding here.”
Yasui ignored their words. Finally realizing that he might be in danger, Sago tried to withdraw his hands, but Yasui held onto them firmly, and the handcuffs quickly clicked into place. Sago immediately tried moving his hands, but the handcuffs would not budge. Then he took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the handcuffs.