The color drained from Hiratsuka Shizuka's face.
She'd heard every word. And like everyone else, she assumed Nishikado intended to kill Yukinoshita Yukino next.
Instinct took over. She lunged forward, cocking her fist, and bellowed, "You stop right there!"
Her signature iron fist, the one that had decked every male protagonist across multiple anime, closed to within half a centimeter of Nishikado's face.
He tilted his head. The punch sailed past.
Before Hiratsuka could recover, his right foot tapped her ankle. Light. Almost gentle.
"Ngh!"
Her balance evaporated. She pitched backward, headed for an ugly faceplant on the gym floor.
At the last instant, Nishikado caught her wrist, pulled once, and set her upright.
The whole sequence flowed like water.
Hiratsuka staggered two steps, steadied herself, and stared at him in disbelief.
This kid... he's that good?
"Relax, Hiratsuka-sensei. He doesn't intend to kill me."
Yukino's voice was calm.
Two years in the Naruto world hadn't given her any extraordinary powers, but she'd survived enough live combat drills to recognize killing intent when she felt it.
Nishikado had been intimidating, yes. Aggressive, absolutely. But from start to finish, not a trace of genuine murderous intent had been directed at her.
She'd been nervous. She'd never believed he'd actually strike.
"Two years over there, and you actually learned something." Nishikado released Hiratsuka's wrist and turned to leave.
He was itching to test his new power.
As for Itou Makoto, Aki Tomoya, and all the other wastes of oxygen he'd despised since his previous life, there was no rush anymore.
Killing them all at once would be a waste. Better to take his time, the way a predator toys with cornered prey, stripping away every last scrap of dignity before the end.
"I know I'm incredibly cute."
The words hit him mid-step, and Nishikado stopped dead. A giant question mark might as well have materialized above his head.
Excuse me? How did that trigger a dialogue combo?
Yukino continued, seemingly talking to herself as much as anyone. "If this was your way of getting my attention, then congratulations. It worked."
Her logic was simple. Both Sawanaga Taisuke and she had insulted Nishikado. Sawanaga lost his head. She walked away untouched. The only explanation? He was no different from every other man, smitten with her.
Crack.
A sharp, ringing slap echoed through the gymnasium.
Yukino stumbled and hit the ground, clutching her cheek, her expression one of existential bewilderment.
"Ridiculous."
Nishikado looked at her like something stuck to his shoe. "Don't flatter yourself. And don't ever spout that kind of nonsense in front of me again."
He walked toward the gymnasium exit without looking back. Passing Akizuki Airi, he tossed out a single line:
"I'll find you all later. Until then, take care of yourselves."
Under the hollow stares of thousands, his silhouette receded through the doors and vanished.
A full thirty seconds crawled by before anyone snapped out of it.
"Call the police! Someone call the police!"
The voice belonged to Kudou Shinichi, Class 1-B.
Say what you will about being Japan's self-proclaimed police savior, but the boy delivered results. He'd barely hung up the phone before Inspector Megure arrived at the head of a squad car convoy.
Even the seasoned homicide detectives blanched at the sight of Sawanaga Taisuke's severed head lying on the floor, eyes still wide open.
None of them had seen a death like this before.
The school sent every student home immediately. Classes were finished for the day, and everyone knew it.
Only Kudou Shinichi stayed behind, calmly walking the investigators through the sequence of events. He wasn't a police officer, yet he moved through the crime scene like he owned it.
Detectives Satou Miwako and Takagi Wataru listened to his account with slack jaws. Were teenagers these days really this volatile? One disagreement and they murder a classmate?
Inspector Megure stared at the headless corpse and muttered, "That student's strength is... unreal."
Then, out of habit, he turned to Shinichi and activated his signature ability: relying on a teenager to do his job.
"What do you think we should do, Shinichi?"
If Nishikado had been there, the commentary would've written itself. Conan cops really are useless. Asking a high schooler for operational advice?
Shinichi, of course, didn't mind in the slightest. He enjoyed the dependence. "The suspect is close to the Akizuki family. He'll almost certainly contact them. Station surveillance on the Akizuki residence, issue an arrest warrant, and you'll have him in no time."
The case barely registered as interesting to him. The killer had committed the act right in front of his eyes. Identity was never in question. The only mildly surprising detail was Nishikado's inhuman strength.
Then again, his childhood friend Mouri Ran could pull off similar feats, so he filed it away and moved on.
Night fell. The Akizuki residence.
Akizuki Airi and her older sister Akizuki Marina sat in the living room, the air between them heavy and still.
The front door swung open.
"Marina, Airi! Mom's home."
Both sisters turned.
A woman who looked barely past thirty stepped inside, her figure full and striking beneath a crisp office outfit. Their mother, Akizuki Kayoko. No one meeting her for the first time would guess she had two daughters in high school.
Behind her trailed a man in his early thirties. Her fiance, Akizuki Kouzou.
"Hm? Makoto isn't home?"
Kayoko clearly hadn't heard about what happened at Shuchiin Academy.
Airi spoke up. "He said he had something to do tonight. He'll be back late. Mom, let's go ahead and start."
"Really? That's too bad..."
A flicker of disappointment crossed Kayoko's face, gone in a moment. She pulled out a chair and waved Kouzou over with a warm smile.
"Kouzou, sit down. Let me introduce you. These are my daughters, Marina and Airi. I also have an adopted son, Makoto. I'll introduce him to you properly another time."
Kouzou nodded, arranging his features into something warm and fatherly. "Hello, girls. No need to call me 'Dad' right away. 'Uncle' is fine for now."
On the surface, he was polite. Gentle. The picture of a respectable adult.
But a careful observer would have caught the way his eyes moved. They slid over Airi and Marina, tracing curves, lingering where they shouldn't. His lips pressed together. He was working hard to keep his expression neutral.
There was one obstacle, though. That boy living under the same roof.
Kouzou's mind was already turning. He'd need to find a way to get that kid out of the house.
"Do you genuinely want to marry my mother?"
Airi's voice cut through his calculations. Direct. Flat.
He looked up, met her gaze.
In the space of a heartbeat, her clear blue irises shifted to a cold, burning crimson.
Kozo's mind went blank. His pupils dilated, his expression emptied, and he sat slack like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
The words spilled out of him in a monotone, dragged from the darkest pit of his intentions:
"No... I approached this woman to get to you two. Once I found the right moment, I was going to use a hormonal spray I've been developing to train you sisters into exactly what I want..."
Kayoko went rigid. Every drop of blood seemed to leave her face.
"Kouzou... what... what are you saying?!"
Airi's expression didn't change. She pressed further. "What hormonal spray?"
Kouzou's eyes stayed vacant. He answered like a man reading from a script. "It's something I've been developing... an aphrodisiac compound. One dose and the target loses consciousness. Afterward, the body develops an extreme craving for opposite s..."
Kayoko stood frozen, ice in her veins.
The man she'd been ready to spend her life with. The man she'd brought into her home, introduced to her daughters.
This.
And he'd confessed all of it without a shred of resistance, as though someone had reached inside him and pulled the truth out by force.
Airi rose from the couch and called toward the staircase.
"Airi, you can come out now."
Footsteps descended from the second floor.
Kayoko turned toward the stairs, bewildered, and when she saw who was walking down, her mind short-circuited entirely.
Why are there two Airis?