As Kazuo and Asami walked through the dimly lit alleyways of Kyoto, silence reigned between them. Asami held her hands folded in front of her, walking with a light and confident step, while Kazuo walked a little behind, his hands in his pockets.
He finally broke the silence.
"You know, Asami, I shouldn't have turned back," he said, glancing to the side.
"I am not a child to be seen." Asami stared at her, raising an eyebrow with her usual arrogant expression.
"Don't think I did this for you," she replied harshly.
"It's just a precaution. With what you bring in I better know where you live... in case there's a problem." Kazuo looked at her for a moment, a slight amused smile appearing on his lips.
"Oh, sure. So you just want to know where I live, just in case. Interesting," he said.
Asami looked at him."Make no mistake, Kazuo. If you get out of hand, it's my responsibility to... act to protect others," she replied, avoiding her gaze.
As they continued down the alley, a voice suddenly rang out behind them. A deep, defiant voice.
"Hey, there's our little sandwich thief," someone taunted.
Kazuo and Asami turned to face a massive group of people blocking the entrance to the alley. In the center of the group, a large, imposing young man stood with his arms crossed, a wicked smile on his lips.
It was Caterpillar Ambulances, the leader of the high school, accompanied by nearly a thousand members of his gang.
"Really, all this for a sandwich?" Kazuo muttered with an exasperated sigh.
Caterpillar stepped forward as his friends surrounded Kazuo and Asami.
"You don't seem to understand who you're dealing with, Kazuo," Caterpillar hissed.
"Nobody's this pisses me off, let alone a sandwich. Do you have any idea who I am, kid?"
Kazuo looked at him with an almost amused expression, as if he were dealing with a simple formality. He shrugged and said to Asami:
"It shouldn't be long." Asami pulled back slightly, a little surprised by his calmness, but said nothing, watching intently.
Kazuo turned to Caterpillar and his gang, quickly analyzing the situation with the keen eye of someone who had mastered the art of provocation.
"So you mobilized…" He looked around the group, mentally counting. "Thousands of people, say, to avenge your wounded ego for a sandwich? Fascinating. I wonder how many of you are actually worth anything."
Caterpillar narrowed his eyes, clearly irritated by Kazuo's casual attitude.
"Stop playing smart!" he shouted. "Tonight you will understand the law of the road."
Kazuo smiled, then, in a tone that combines sarcasm and authority, he began to speak as if he were giving lessons.
"In accounting there is the concept of return on investment. Let's see...if each of you decided to fight in a matter of honor, how many punches, on average, would you have to land to hope to defeat me? Let's say that there are a thousand of you and each one gets a blow for a blow. The equation is simple: I beat you all."
He then turned to Caterpillar.
"And being the leader of this group will cost you even more. Because if you attack first and get knocked out... you will have invested your honor in a draw. A real risk of loss, right?"
A murmur ran through the ranks of the band. Kazuo, despite the danger, continued to advance towards them, taking on his own natural confidence.
This belief quickly destabilized the gang, who began to doubt.
"Shut up!" the Caterpillar shouted, clearly annoyed. "That's enough, guys. Tell them we're not kidding!"
But as his gang members leaned in to attack, Kazuo moved with surprising speed. He swept away the first with a precise blow, then another.
In a few moments he seemed to be dancing between the attackers, knocking them down one after the other without showing the slightest sign of fatigue.Asami, leaning against a wall, watched the scene with wide eyes.
He had never seen someone fight with such confidence. In no time, Kazuo had scattered the gang members, leaving them groaning on the ground.One of the boys, wide-eyed, whispered when he finally recognized Kazuo:
"Wait, but... it's him... Rakai! The one who destroyed a whole bunch with his bare hands... twenty thousand people!"
A shudder went through the remaining crowd and some began to retreat, clearly startled by this revelation. Caterpillar also took a step back, suddenly much less sure of himself.Kazuo calmly walked towards him and stopped right in front of him, sinking his cold gaze into Caterpillar's.
"So, Caterpillar? Still so determined to protect your sandwich?"
Caterpillar stuttered, unable to meet Kazuo's gaze, then ended up turning on his heel and ran off, followed by those who could still get up. Kazuo sighed, looking around with an indifferent expression.
"Seriously… all this for a sandwich," he mumbled before turning to Asami. "Ready to continue?" Asami, who had been watching the fight with undisguised admiration, nodded, impressed in spite of herself. As they continued down the street, she was silent, looking at him with a new respect in her eyes.
"Finally," she mumbled to herself, "maybe I don't need to stare at you as much as I thought..."
Kazuo finally arrived at his residential neighborhood, Sakurazaka, a quiet and green place where he knew every corner of the street.
As he approached his house, he saw his mother in the garden, busy hanging out the laundry.
She looked up and greeted him with a smile, then noticed Asami's presence next to her.
"Oh, Kazuo!" - she said happily. "And who is this girl accompanying you?" Kazuo stopped in front of his mother, a little embarrassed by the way things were going.
"Mom, this is Asami Miyahara. She's... a classmate," he explained, scratching the back of his head, trying to hide his worry.
Kazuo's mother narrowed her eyes and looked at Asami with a curious expression, then gave her a mischievous smile.
"Oh, I see. So she was the one accusing you of... this abuse, right?" Asami suddenly blushed, taken aback by the direct question and clearly surprised.
She looked at Kazuo, his cheeks red.
"C-Of course not!" She shouted in a dry tone, before giving Kazuo one last murderous look.
"You can explain this to your mother!"
Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and hurried off, clearly annoyed. Kazuo looked at his mother, exasperated, before shrugging.
"Good job, Mom," he whispers. "You really have a knack for making people uncomfortable."
She teased him with her eye.
"Well, you know, son, I'll make sure you're surrounded by good people," she said with a smile.
Kazuo nodded, amused despite himself, then went straight to his room. He sat cross-legged on the ground, Asami's grandfather's advice echoing in his memory. It was finally time to put into practice what he had learned. "I remembered the detailed explanations of the occult energy, the awakening and the channel, and concentrated."
Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing, trying to clear his mind of all distractions. His thoughts still wandered a bit, crossed by Asami's angry face, but he forced himself to push them aside, to focus only on what was inside him.
"Occult energy… what sleeps inside me," he muttered to himself.
He tried to visualize this inner force as a flow, a kind of hidden current that he had to learn to capture and master. "At first, I didn't feel anything special." Silence filled the room, broken only by the steady rate of his breathing.
Then, little by little, he felt a strange warmth welling up from deep within his body, like a barely perceptible shiver.
Kazuo focused on this feeling, trying to direct it, exploring it without letting it dissipate. The warmth intensified a little, forming a kind of pulsation in his chest, where he knew the Heart of Lion resided within him.
"This is it..." he thought, his eyes still closed.Then he began to feel what Asami's grandfather had described: a gentle and powerful flow of energy, still sleeping in the depths of his being.
She gave him the impression of an ancient force, wild and uncontrollable, but which, paradoxically, seemed ready to obey if he found the key to taming it.After a few minutes of effort, Kazuo felt a barrier crack inside him, opening a passage to this mysterious energy.
His limbs trembled and he felt every part of his body fill with this new strength. For a moment, he had the impression that he was face to face with the very essence of the lion in him, this proud and indomitable being.His concentration was suddenly interrupted by a small noise coming from outside.
He opened his eyes, regained awareness of the room around him. This first meditation had allowed him to tap into something extraordinary, but he knew he still had a lot to learn to master this energy.
He stood up slowly, feeling his muscles numb from prolonged meditation. Although this first attempt only offered him a glimpse of this power, he felt more determined than ever. Now he knew that this occult energy really existed within him, and that if he could harness it, he might be able to answer all the questions that tempted him.
Kazuo stood up, a measured smile on his lips.
As the house fell silent for the night, Kazuo did his nightly push-up sets, a routine he had imposed on himself to build his stamina and clear his mind of disturbing thoughts.
Suddenly, he heard a faint noise: a stone had just been thrown at his window.Startled, he got up and looked. Below, in the darkness, stood the Caterpillar Ambulance, visibly furious.
Kazuo opened the window, intrigued by what this former gang leader could want from him in the middle of the night.
"What are you doing here?" Kazuo said in an irritated tone.The Ambulance Caterpillar looked up, their faces contorted with anger.
"Because of you, my gang turned their backs on me. The whole neighborhood is laughing at me now! You humiliated me!" he yelled, his tone full of mold.
Kazuo sighed, exasperated.
"You better keep your sandwich," he replied, cutting the sarcasm. "Go complain somewhere else, I don't have time for you."
Caterpillar ambulance roared, but then something strange happened. His eyes take on a bright red hue, an eerie, almost supernatural glow.
His body began to contort, his muscles billowing and stretching beneath his skin, his human features gradually melting into a hybrid creature both terrifying and grotesque.
"I'm no longer the one you humiliated!" he shouted, his voice becoming hoarse and inhuman. "It's Caterpillar Ambulance!"
Kazuo quickly climbed down from the window, aware that something bad had just happened. But no sooner had he touched the ground than he felt a shadowy presence descending upon him.
The speed of the Caterpillar ambulance was much greater than he could imagine, and before he knew what was happening, he received an extremely brutal blow.
He jumped back, his body hitting the ground hard. The impact took his breath away and he stumbled to his feet, seeing the massive shadow of the Caterpillar ambulance bearing down on him, ready to crush him again.
"Impossible… How could he become so powerful?" Kazuo whispered in shock.
The young Caterpillar dominated in strength and speed, his movements furious, destructive. Despite his best efforts to dodge, Kazuo soon found himself cornered, unable to compete with this supernatural power.
High in the night sky, a figure surveyed the scene with a satisfied smile. Iriza, the succubus, quietly sauntered away, enjoying the spectacle of her work.
"That's a first step well taken," she murmured in amusement. "Corruption has taken hold of his heart and soon he will be just another pawn in my command."
Kazuo felt a helpless rage well up in him. But despite his fear, he remembered Asami's grandfather's words.
He knew he had to awaken this hidden energy within him, the one that had been revealed to him in the form of a lion. It was now or never.
Forcing himself to focus despite the pain, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, searching for that buried strength, that pulsation of occult energy that he had felt during his meditation. When he was almost exhausted, he felt this inner heat again, this current of power that barely touched him.
He realized that he wasn't ready to fully master it yet, but he could use it to at least resist.
Opening his eyes, Kazuo faced the Caterpillar Ambulance, ready to continue the fight, even if the outcome seemed uncertain.
"Do you want to play monsters? Okay. Then I will show you what a real lion can do,"
Kazuo said, his voice filled with determination.
The battle between Kazuo and the creature continued under Iriza's malevolent gaze, marking the beginning of a new chapter in this fight against the forces that seek to corrupt Kazuo's heart.