Chapter 124: Lone Star of Calamity
Every rule-based item exacts a cost, varying in severity, as Kamihara Shinji had learned. At the Special Division, he’d seen footage of the Transparent Scissors’ cost: severing a melody also bisected the user, spilling blood and organs. Surviving meant enduring soul and body being cut, a feat even monitors struggled with, let alone ordinary people. Yet, Asada Kazumasa’s studio, plastered with soul-trapping canvases, puzzled Kamihara. How could an ordinary person, devoid of special abilities, use a rule-based item so freely?
When asked, Asada fell silent. Despite his earlier arrogance, the journey had sobered him. He realized he wasn’t uniquely special, a bitter pill. Kamihara’s suicide after being trapped in a canvas—reviving unscathed—shattered Asada’s worldview. He’d thought himself singular; now, he knew better.
“Not talking?” Kamihara smiled, his tone leisurely. “The canvases you drew with that pencil likely have tormenting features, right? A soul trapped in one suffers when it’s torn, doesn’t it?”
Asada’s continued silence prompted a sigh from Kamihara, who unleashed his spiritual pressure. Asada’s agonized screams filled the air. The remaining uncollected canvases’ souls, hearing him, erupted in glee, their jeers and curses turning the studio into a raucous market. Kamihara didn’t hush them—trapped forever, they deserved their moment. Pity stirred in him.
“You can stay quiet. I’ve got time to wear you down,” Kamihara said to Asada, voice calm. “I’m precise—maximum pain, no death.”
“No, no! I’ll talk!” Asada, writhing like a beaten dog, convulsed in agony. He’d thought he could endure, but the pain broke him instantly. Pleading, he looked at Kamihara. “If I tell you, will you spare me?”
“Know how I planned to handle you?” Kamihara chuckled. “Torture for days, unbearable pain, then dog bait. Cooperate, and I’ll grant you euthanasia.”
Asada trembled, desperate to live, but Kamihara’s merciless gaze reduced him to dust. “Lie if you want. I don’t mind,” Kamihara added.
Asada crumbled. Death by torment or euthanasia—he chose the latter. Voice quaking, he said, “The… cost of… using the pencil is… a random friend dies.”
A random friend’s death? Kamihara blinked, stunned. The cost was diabolical. Most rule-based items burdened the user, but this pencil shifted the toll to another—a substitute death, like a scapegoat. Lone star of calamity, he thought wryly, evoking a cursed fate.
Frowning, he asked, “With so many canvases, your friends aren’t all dead?”
“New friends count,” Asada replied, hope extinguished, answering mechanically. “I used the pencil to kill for money. From each big payout, I’d take ten percent for ‘friend-making funds.’ I frequented bars, KTVs, made friends, and sometimes organized… group activities.”
“Group activities?” Kamihara raised an eyebrow.
Asada explained, and Kamihara, eyeing Asada’s dark circles, sighed, “You’re something else.”
“Lord Ghost,” an officer interrupted, respectful. “We found a small room in the studio with a canvas containing a soul.” He handed it over.
Kamihara examined it—a young man, about twenty-six. “Greetings, esteemed monitor,” the soul said, bowing. “I’m Hinata Masato of the Hinata family. Thank you for rescuing me.”
“Rescue?” Kamihara asked, intrigued. “You contacted the Special Division from the canvas?”
“No, but I believed Asada’s actions would draw their attention,” Hinata Masato said, head lowered. “He wouldn’t last long.”
“You bastard!” Asada, sprawled on the floor, lunged up, furious. “You knew this stuff and didn’t tell me? Traitor!”
Before he could reach the canvas, Kamihara’s spiritual pressure pinned him down. Hinata Masato sneered, “You trapped my soul and expected help? You killed my brother at his request, avenging me, yet hid the truth about monitors?”
Asada raged futilely, sanity slipping. He’d trapped Hinata’s soul, and to survive, Hinata fed him upper-class connections to amass wealth, withholding monitor knowledge. Both his brother and Asada were enemies.
Kamihara, amused by the drama, waved it off. He had no interest in family feuds. The police could deliver Hinata’s canvas to his family. Another officer approached, handing over another canvas. Kamihara glanced at it and froze. Unlike others, its portrait was static, like a normal sketch.
Asada, lifted by an unseen force, stood shakily. Kamihara handed him the canvas. “You drew this with the pencil?”
“Yes,” Asada said, pausing. “It’s Hinata Masato’s brother. But after drawing, his soul wasn’t trapped.”
(End of Chapter)
Chapter 125: Soul-Trapping Pencil
Not trapped? Hinata Masato, within his canvas, fumed. “You said he was dead!”
“He is,” Asada replied, devoid of resistance, his voice eerily serene, as if transcended. “I drew him, but his soul didn’t trap. That means he died in reality first.”
Hinata Masato paused, conceding the logic. The police had collected all canvases. Kamihara confirmed with Asada that the studio held all his works, then instructed two officers, pointing at Asada, “Take him out. Euthanize him.”
He’d planned a gruesome end—dog bait—after Asada’s stunt revived Matsunai’s soul-tearing pain. But Asada’s cooperation earned mercy. As officers seized him, Asada’s survival instinct flared. Clutching Kamihara’s sleeve, he begged, “Lord Ghost, spare me! I’ll serve you—trap anyone’s soul you want. It requires hyper-realistic art, perfectly capturing the subject. Poor skill fails.”
Kamihara pried off his hand, regretful. “Pity this pencil only works on humans and monitors, not anomalies. Otherwise, you’d make a useful tool.”
His Small Eye ability, not yet rule-level, could kill unprepared monitors with a glance, negating their rule-based items. Humans or monitors were equal before him—monitors just risked item-related surprises. Anomalies, however, were another matter.
“It can work!” Asada insisted. “With a photo, I can trap an anomaly’s soul!”
Kamihara didn’t mock his ignorance, shaking his head. “Anomalies have no souls.”
The words crushed Asada’s hope. “Impossible! No soul? You’re lying!” His screams faded as officers dragged him away.
Kamihara handed Hinata Masato’s canvas to an officer for delivery to the Hinata family. Though unfamiliar with them, Hinata’s monitor knowledge suggested wealth. The police drove Kamihara back to Mizuho Apartments.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Our duty, Lord Ghost,” the driver smiled. Assisting monitors or curbing anomalies earned police merits, a fact Kamihara, an inspector, knew well. He nodded, sparing pleasantries. Soul annihilation had left him drained.
At home, after a bath, Kamihara sat in the living room, picking up the pencil from the coffee table. His first rule-based item, per Special Division rules, was his to keep. As he held it, information surged—absent earlier, signaling Asada’s death. Soul-Trapping Pencil, it was called, aptly straightforward.
Its mechanics matched Asada’s account: draw with it on a canvas to trap a soul. The cost—a random friend’s death, or the user’s if friendless. Useless to Kamihara, who couldn’t draw and had no living friends—his old ones long dead. Even with friends, he’d never use it. Killing with it meant trading one life for another, though it suited covert assassination.
While impractical, it was a fine collectible. Amassing rule-based items might prove useful someday. Twirling the pencil, his thoughts drifted. The police found no canvas of Saikyo Daisuke, torn or intact. Saikyo’s death wasn’t the pencil’s doing. So, what killed him? No anomalous aura lingered at the moment of death, but clues were scarce, stumping even Kamihara.
Bedtime. The next day at school, he reviewed the Iwaharu Publishing incident, conceding defeat—no leads. He almost missed Matsunai’s direct kills; now, deaths before him baffled him. At lunch, an unknown caller rang. An aged but robust voice asked, “Lord Ghost?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Hinata Daiga, head of the Hinata family,” the voice said, chuckling, “and a Special Division think tank member.”
Kamihara recalled the think tank’s role in deploying the Sound Extinction Horn against Takanotsume Kaoru. He harbored no grudge—his conflict with the Special Division was one of differing stances, not morality. Smiling, he said, “Hinata Masato’s your kin, right?”
“Yes,” Hinata Daiga replied, deferential. “Thank you for saving my son.”
“His soul’s trapped in a canvas. I just passed it along.”
“Still, you brought Masato home,” Hinata Daiga said, revealing his purpose. “I’d like to treat you to dinner as thanks. How about it?”
Kamihara leaned toward declining. Dealing with tycoons and politicians was exhausting—veiled words, constant reading between lines, yet flawless etiquette. But the canvas of Hinata Masato’s brother, untrapped, nagged him. Hesitating, as Hinata Daiga braced for rejection, Kamihara agreed, “Fine, I’ll come after school.”
“Need a car?”
“No, send the address. I’ll get there.”
(End of Chapter)
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