Novel Full Chapter 193 - 58
Chapter 193: Chapter 58
“This way please, Mrs. Kurosaki, Young Miss.” The butler’s voice was as cold and mechanical as the clicking of Erina’s cane against the polished marble floor.
He moved with a stiff, rehearsed elegance, his eyes never meeting theirs, acting as a grim herald through the labyrinthine corridors of the Kurosaki manor.
Akane led the way, her posture unyielding, her violet eyes scanning every shadow for the trap she knew was waiting.
Behind her, Erina followed, her breathing slightly labored as the heavy, oppressive silence of the house felt like a physical weight on her chest, a reminder of the congenital heart disease that had always been her greatest shackle.
They soon arrived at the massive double doors of Kirei’s private office.
The butler knocked twice—a sharp, rhythmic signal—before swinging the doors open.
The two women stepped into the room, and the air immediately changed, with the two of them frowning as they smelled the scent of expensive tobacco, aged wine, and something metallic— like a blood of a prey kept in a predator’s den.
There, they saw Kurosaki Kirei.
He was standing not behind his desk, but to the side of the high-backed leather chair, acting like a common servant.
Seated in that chair was an old man they didn’t recognize, a withered, vulture-like figure with skin like yellowed parchment and eyes that held a very dangerous, hungry glint.
The moment they entered, Mr. Roriko’s eyes lit up as he leaned forward, his gaze raking over Akane’s mature grace and then settling on Erina with a terrifying intensity.
It was a look that felt like a physical violation, as if he were already stripping them naked and calculating their value on a butcher’s scale.
Erina immediately shivered as a cold sweat breaking out across her brow, feeling the man’s gaze full of hunger, like a hunter about to pounce on a prey.
“Impressive,” Mr. Roriko rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering over a grave. “Mister will surely be pleased with these specimens. The quality is… exquisite.”
Kirei stepped forward, his face a mask of twisted self-justification. “Erina… I assume Akane have already discussed the situation? So, do you now know why you are here.”
Erina leaned heavily on her cane, her knuckles white as she stared at her father, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and absolute loathing. “…Yes, and you disgust me. To sell your own flesh and blood for a seat at a table of monsters… have you no soul left?”
Kirei shook his head, his expression remarkably calm. “All of this is for the sake of the family, Erina. You should understand that better than anyone. You were born and raised for one purpose: to support the Kurosaki name. If this is the price for our restoration, then it is a price you were destined to pay.”
Erina didn’t say anything further; the words felt like ash in her mouth as she simply glared at him, her purple eyes burning with a silent curse.
Kirei didn’t mind her silence and simply gave a sharp nod to the butler who stood silently behind the two women.
“Forgive me, Young Miss, Mrs. Kurosaki,” the butler whispered, his voice devoid of any real remorse as he took out a pair of handcuffs.
In a practiced motion, he grabbed Akane’s wrists, bringing them behind her back and the sharp click-clack of cold steel echoed in the room as the handcuffs snapped shut.
He moved to Erina next, but as the metal bit into her delicate wrists and her hands were forced behind her, she lost the vital support of her mahogany cane as it clattered to the floor with a hollow sound.
Erina gasped, her knees buckling as she swayed, her weak heart fluttering painfully in her chest.
Kirei noticed her distress but showed no sign of wavering as he simply turned back to the butler. “Bring a wheelchair. We cannot have her collapse before the delivery.”
The butler bowed and slipped out of the room.
Erina took a deep breath, staring at her father.
“…Haven’t you even thought for a second that you might suffer for what you have done?” Erina asked, her voice a raspy whisper as she struggled to remain upright. “That there is a reckoning for this kind of evil?”
“I have thought about it,” Kirei replied, stepping closer until he was inches from her face. “And I believe the rewards make the risk entirely worth it. You surely haven’t noticed, Erina, because you’ve always been disinterested in the ’ugly’ side of family affairs, but ever since I made my pact with Mister, everything has changed. Our stock prices have stabilized. Our market shares have increased for the first time in a decade! We are relevant again!”
“Then I wish you burn in hell, satisfied that your choices led to your own downfall,” Erina spat.
Before Kirei could say anything, the door opened again, and the butler returned, pushing a high-backed wheelchair.
He helped Erina sit, her bound arms making the position uncomfortable and humiliating.
Kirei turned toward Mr. Roriko, his sycophancy returning in full force. “Mr. Roriko, the assets are prepared. Shall we depart for the sanctuary?”
Mr. Roriko nodded, a slow, disgusting grin spreading across his face. “Very well. I am sure Mister and the others in the Circle are eagerly waiting for them. Even I… can barely contain my anticipation.”
He stood up, his joints popping, and walked toward Erina’s wheelchair as he reached out with a trembling, oily hand and stroked her cheek. “Aahhh~… how soft. Like the finest silk. I truly can’t wait for the feast to begin. Tell me, little porcelain… are you a virgin?”
Erina’s eyes flared with a murderous light, but she remained silent, her jaw locked tight.
“Hehehe… don’t worry,” Roriko chuckled, his breath smelling of decay. “We’ll know for certain soon enough.”
With that, he turned and shuffled out of the room.
Kirei took hold of the wheelchair’s handles, pushing Erina forward, while Akane, her face a mask of cold, unreadable stone, followed behind them under the butler’s watchful eye.
*
*
*
At this moment, several streets away, the neon lights of a 24-hour gasoline station illuminated a row of gleaming sports bikes.
Seijirou sat atop his custom black motorcycle, his expression unreadable behind the visor of his helmet.
Suzune, Emi, Yukina, Renji, Shou, and Sakai were all mounted on their own machines, their engines idling in a deep, basy hum.
Haruka sat pillion behind Seijirou, her hands glowing with a faint, crystalline blue light.
Floating in the air between her and Seijirou was a shimmering, three-dimensional holographic map—a manifestation of her Karyoku.
And there, she saw the small, red pulsing dot was moving away from the Kurosaki estate.
“They are moving,” Haruka reported, her voice as flat and analytical as ever. “Based on the bio-rhythmic data I’m receiving from the spiritual tracker I placed on Erina and her mothrr, she or rather, both of them are stable. Miss Akane remain as calm as ever, shile Erina’s heart rate is elevated but within ’safe’ parameters for her condition. It seems they are in a hurry to deliver them to the location of the ’Mister’.”
“Good. Keep a lock on that signal,” Seijirou commanded, his hand gripping the throttle. “Make sure they don’t take any detours. We need the location of the hive, not just the workers.”
He looked at his friends, their faces obscured by their helmets but their auras burning with a fierce, loyal intensity. “Guys, let’s go. It’s time to see what this ’Mister’ fella is made of.”
The others grinned, the sound of half a dozen high-performance engines revving in unison tearing through the quiet night like a thunderclap.
With a screech of tires, they roared out of the station, a streak of light and steel chasing the darkness.
*
*
*
“USELESS!”
Inside a sprawling, tinted window room of a shady building on the edge of the industrial district, Mister let out a roar of pure, unadulterated fury.
He slammed a massive, flabby fist onto a table covered in half-eaten delicacies, sending plates of “sweet meat” flying.
His gargantuan frame jiggled with every surge of rage, sweat and oil flying from his pores like a foul mist.
He had just felt the psychic snap of the masked entity he had gifted to Yumanbi being annihilated.
He was enjoying his meal when the link just disappeared, erased with a clinical efficiency that made even his demonic heart skip a beat.
“Did that brat not listen to a single word I said!?” he screamed at the ceiling. “To lay low! To avoid attention! Now look, a perfectly good fragment of the Void has been snuffed out because of his incompetence!”
He panted, his heavy breathing sounding like a leaking bellows. “That kid… he didn’t leak any information about our location before he died, did he? If the Grand Order finds this nest before the ritual is complete…”
He trailed off, his eyes darting toward the shadows where the other members of the Inner Circle sat, their faces flushed red as they enjoy the services of the new young orphans they took in the name of adoption.
One of the children, a young girl said that the supreme god Haedeus would protect her, and these people dressed up as Haedeus and took turns having fun with her.
Truly, if these scene were to be seen by anyone other than their inner circle, then death would be mercy.
No, this couldn’t continue. Once the Kurosaki women arrived and the final offering was consumed, they would have to move.
They would have to burn this base to the ground and vanish.
At that moment, his phone vibrated on the table.
He snatched it up, his thick fingers nearly fumbling the device as he saw that he received a message from Mr. Roriko.
[Mister, all Kurosaki women has been gathered, and we are now on the way]
Mister let out a wheezing, disgusting laugh as he quickly typed back a “Good job” and threw the phone aside.
His anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a dark, hungry excitement as be looked at the depraved men gathered before him—the tycoons and politicians who had traded their humanity for a taste of the forbidden.
One of them, an ex military officer even enjoyed starving infants so they can “suck” better, saying that nothing can beat that sensation.
“Truly,” Mister whispered, a wide, greasy grin splitting his face. “When it comes to being evil and depraved, even the demons of the pit would have to give way to the creativity of humanity.”