"Mireiyu! We'll let it all slide, so please leave! I know how he looks, but Takatou is actually really strong! There's no way you guys can fight him!" Tomochika must have known there was no way they'd listen to her. But even so, she couldn't just stay quiet and do nothing.
"Oh? Bluffs like that won't work on me, you know? In this world, the Gift is everything. There's nothing the two of you can do without it."
"And I have a high level in Discernment," their leader added, "so I can tell for sure that you don't have the Gift."
As they were speaking, five of the beastkin walked around behind them. Yogiri took stock of their opponents' equipment. Most of them seemed to be using swords. Those who were barehanded may have had some sort of magic. There were also those with weighted nets. No doubt their objective was to capture them.
"First of all, let's have you five die."
All at once, the beastkin that had circled around behind them collapsed. Yogiri had cut their numbers in half right from the start. Now it was time for an experiment in mercy.
During their walk to the city, Yogiri and Tomochika had discussed the way in which he used his power. While she was still troubled by it, she did eventually accept the idea of killing in self-defense. But, thanks to the overwhelming advantage that his power gave him, Yogiri had a tendency to be overly reliant on it. Tomochika had asked if he couldn't show a bit more restraint.
"Wait, what did you do...?"
In an instant, the leader of the beastkin realized that something was wrong. Of course, if he had figured out that much, he should have already been running away. Instead, he was standing stock still, hyper alert. He seemed completely unprepared to deal with a situation like this. The best course of action was to beg for his life. There was no guarantee it would work, but it was the best chance he had. After all, whether they ran away or tried to attack him head-on, Yogiri still planned on bringing all of them down.There were six left now. He quickly decided on a suitable order in which to kill them off.
"Half of you, die."
He pointed at a beastkin who looked like a tiger, causing him to immediately drop to the ground. His target had been only the creature's lower body. This was one of the ways he had thought of to "go easier" on his opponents.
Yogiri's ability was to kill anything he targeted. In that case, if he divided up a target, could he kill only one part of a person? Having never considered showing mercy before, he honestly had no idea how it would turn out.
The tiger man screamed something in a language he couldn't understand. It appeared he was still alive, but before long, his screams abruptly cut off.
Well, perhaps that was to be expected. If you lost the lower half of your body, it was only natural that the rest would follow suit. He didn't know exactly what was going on inside the target's body when it happened, but regardless, it seemed that killing half of the body was too much. He decided to limit the scope further."Right ankle."
This time, his target was a sheep beastkin. But the experiment failed. Maybe it was just inexperience, but he couldn't successfully restrict the power to that one small place. As a result, his victim died instantly.
"Left arm."
He next targeted a leopard man and was much more successful. But in the end, it still led to the total death of the target. He had completely stopped the function of the left arm. Certainly, there were those who could survive losing an arm like that, but it was equally normal for someone to die from the shock of the experience.
"This approach doesn't seem to be working very well..." Yogiri muttered to himself. At this rate, it would just be easier to kill them without overthinking it.
"Eyeballs."
His target this time was a dog-like creature. At last, he achieved something approaching actual success. Although it was a smaller body part than the ankle, perhaps it helped that it was a more distinctive one. With a howl, the dog man fell over, holding his hands to his eyes.
"Nose, ears."
Yogiri continued to unleash his power. If the beastkin possessed similar senses to that of a dog, he couldn't leave the ears or nose intact.
Another success. But killing three of the dog man's five senses didn't feel particularly merciful.
"Wh-What is happening?! What the hell are you?!" Mireiyu began to panic. In only a few moments, her group had been reduced to three — the Japanese leader, Mireiyu herself, and a lizard beastkin of unknown gender.
Although barehanded, the lizard was radiating a clear intent to kill. But whatever it had been planning, Yogiri's counter was faster, killing the creature instantly.
Now there were only two.
"Well, that settles that. I don't think there's much point in explaining myself further."
Unlike with Hanakawa, Yogiri had no need to extract information from them. As such, there was no need to explain the threat in further detail.
Yogiri turned to Tomochika. She had a pained expression on her face but showed no signs of trying to stop him. It seemed she was ready to do whatever it took.
"W-Wait! Please, don't kill me! I was only doing what this guy told me to! My little brother is starving, waiting for me at home! My father abandoned us to chase after some woman, and my mother needs expensive medicine for her illness! I needed the money!"
It appeared her bizarre, cat-like manner of speaking up until then had all been to curry favor with them, and she had now decided, correctly, that it would have the opposite effect. Yogiri had certainly found her weird inflections extremely annoying.
"Oh, really?"
"Yes! Yes! It's true! So please —" Mireiyu grasped desperately at the single thread of compassion she saw in Yogiri's words. Stepping away from the leader of their group, she began to approach the two of them.
"Not really a good enough reason for robbing and kidnapping though, is it?"
Mireiyu's expression immediately filled with despair, her feet stopping mid-stride.
"What...what are you?... You're supposed to be powerless..." The leader shrank back, terror plain on his face.
"Well, it seems I can go easy if I want to, but it's pretty inefficient. I don't see much of a point to it, either." His words did little more than fan the flames of their fear, although that hadn't actually been Yogiri's intention.
"We're both Japanese, right? Right? Please, don't kill me! This is the only way to get by in this world!"
"Don't act like we're the same, please." In the end, Yogiri had no doubt this guy would simply run away and continue his criminal lifestyle without a second thought. Letting them live would only be a nuisance later."Die."
He unleashed his power at the two of them. He didn't especially want to kill them, but the experiments had to continue.
Nothing happened.
"Ha, haha! Looks like it failed!"
"Now's our chance!!"
The two of them immediately broke into a run, fleeing from the alley.
"Wait, what? Are we really letting them go?!" Tomochika may not have been particularly happy about the way Yogiri had been dealing with things, but even she recognized the danger it presented if their would-be abductors escaped.
"I didn't let them go..."
But even as he said that, the two thugs were running full tilt into the depths of the city, disappearing into the night.
◇ ◇ ◇
Mireiyu ran with everything she had. Leaning forward, she dropped to her hands and feet, soaring down the stone road on all fours."Hey! Don't leave me behind!" Whatever her former leader was saying, Mireiyu ignored him. There was no way she was slowing down for him.
Taking one turn after another onto numerous side streets, she eventually bounded up the wall of a building, coming to a stop only when she had decided she was far enough away to be safe. Crouching low on the roof of the building, she could feel her heart pounding from the exertion of her escape.
"What was that...that monster...?"
She didn't understand at all. With only one or two words from Yogiri, her companions had all collapsed. It was like some sort of elaborate practical joke. There was no impression of reality to it at all. But its lack of realism only served to strengthen her conviction that an equally irrational death had been waiting for her as well.
They were supposed to be worthless. Powerless. Those with no abilities were less than slaves in this world. And otherworlders with no powers were extraordinarily rare. When she had seen them at the weapons shop, she had felt incredibly lucky. After an easy kidnapping, she could sell them to some noble for a great price. That should have been the end of it. So how had it ended up this way? She simply couldn't accept it.But none of that mattered now. She had escaped. That in and of itself was worthy of celebration. For the moment, she just had to focus on calming down.
As these thoughts ran through her mind, Mireiyu realized how unnaturally quiet it had become. There wasn't a single sound around her. And when she finally understood what it meant, it was like a rod of ice stabbing her in the back.
Her heart had been racing up until that point, yet she realized she could no longer feel it now.
Mireiyu gave one last groan. She couldn't breathe.
Her heart had stopped.
Her vision was rapidly growing dark.
Desperately, she extended her claws, trying to dig into the roof below her, but at this point it was meaningless. The strength left her limbs, and her consciousness began to fail.
I should never have gotten involved with them...
And then, Mireiyu slipped away into darkness.
◇ ◇ ◇
"I already explained this on our way here...the effects of my power are irreversible. Once it's been activated, there's no way to stop it. They will definitely die."
"Yeah, I remember you saying that."
"The timing is somewhat flexible, though. I won't claim that delayed death actually qualifies as 'taking it easy' on them, but I had never tried it before and figured I'd give it a shot."
"So..."
"They're dead, somewhere out there."
From Yogiri's perspective, he had merely retaliated against a band of common thieves. Tomochika understood that to some degree, but she seemed unable to simply leave it at that just yet.
"Anyway, let's get out of here. Even if there's no evidence, it could be bad if we're here when the bodies are discovered."
"R-Right! If someone sees us, they'll think we're the culprits!"
Without hesitation, they left the alley behind. Or at least, they tried to.
As they made their way to the exit, a figure stepped forward to block their path.
"Halt," it commanded them in stern, fluent Japanese.
"What's up?" Yogiri asked, stopping in front of the figure.
"We're with the City Guard. I have some questions for you," said the armor-clad woman. Behind her were a number of other soldiers, so she must have been the highest ranked among them.
"All right. But we just came across this scene when we got lost and ended up in this alley by chance," Yogiri replied smoothly, sweeping his gaze around him.
"Nice try," said the soldier with a snort, her voice brimming with confidence. "Unfortunately, we've been watching from over here from the start."
"And now they think we're the culprits!" Tomochika cried.