Chapter 10: A Hero Saves the Beauty (Second Update)
Clang!
In a chaotic, dim alleyway, the sound of something being thrown rang out—then a heavy thud as it smashed into the ground.
"Eek!"
A girl's scream followed immediately, mixed with the filthy, raucous voices of several men.
"…So it was."
Ritsuka frowned. In that instant, he realized this wasn't some stupid youth "party" in an alley.
This was outright violence.
The moment he accepted what was happening, a cold light flickered in his eyes. His thoughts connected with the insect familiar he'd sent ahead—its vision synced with his.
And then he saw it clearly.
A punk with a tuft of dyed blond hair was cursing loudly in the background. The alley was cramped and noisy.
Farther ahead, a man with garish, multicolored hair held a knife.
He was cutting open the clothing across the girl's chest as she lay pinned against stacked boxes.
Four more thugs hovered nearby:
One was rifling through her wallet, counting cash.
Three others held tools—a wooden club, a strange syringe, and a bizarre phone clearly meant for recording.
Seeing that scene, Ritsuka didn't hesitate.
He snapped his fingers.
The next moment, the scouting familiar received a new order and shot forward at high speed—diving toward the thug about to violate the girl.
Slash!
In an instant—blood sprayed.
The insect moved too fast.
The thug, who had been savoring the girl's screams, didn't even understand what happened. His vision turned crimson. Heat flooded his face—
and then the pain hit like a blade.
"—AAAAAAAH!!"
He screamed so hard it sounded like his throat would tear.
"Blood—blood—why is my eye bleeding?!"
He clutched his right eye and collapsed, howling. Bright red blood streamed between his fingers. The other thugs rushed over, shouting questions, trying to figure out what the hell had happened.
But when he pulled his hand away…
everyone's faces drained.
His eye was gone—like a glass marble shattered to pieces—leaving only a ruined socket pouring blood.
They spun around, searching for the attacker.
But the alley was nothing but darkness, scattered trash—
and the girl lying on the ground.
Nothing else.
Just a tiny insect, hovering unnoticed in midair.
It was a weak familiar meant for scouting—almost no killing power.
But that was "weak" only by a magus's standards.
Against ordinary trash like this, it was more than enough to cause panic and serious injury.
And right now, those thugs were visibly rattled.
They couldn't find a culprit.
So, inevitably, their rage twisted toward the only "explanation" they could grasp—
the victim.
"What did she do?!"
"No idea—I didn't see anything!"
"This is creepy as hell—she's resisting?!"
"Damn bitch! We'll kill you!"
Unable to find the real attacker, they advanced on the girl again, screaming and waving their weapons.
One of them even grabbed her wrist and yanked her upright, reaching toward her to do something worse.
And then—
from another corner of the alley, a voice cut through the chaos.
"Let go of her."
In less than half a minute, Ritsuka had entered the pitch-black alley.
His gaze was flat and cold as he looked at the scum in front of him.
"Where the hell did you crawl out from?!"
"Who the hell are you to order us around?!"
"Was it you?! Kill him too—kill him and that bitch!"
A pack of idiots: each one worthless alone, yet together brimming with misplaced confidence.
They still didn't understand where Ritsuka had come from, but he was alone—so their swagger came roaring back.
The thug holding the girl's wrist, furious, threw her hard to the side—
but Ritsuka moved faster than anyone could process.
He stepped forward once, and in a blur nobody could follow, he caught the girl by the arm and pulled her cleanly behind him.
"Stand here. Don't move. And最好闭上眼睛——the next part might get bloody."
He spoke calmly, then turned his eyes back to the thugs.
Hero saving the beauty.
For a lot of boys, it was a dream.
For Ritsuka, it wasn't.
He wasn't trying to look cool.
He simply couldn't stand it—because it was wrong.
Even after all the torture under Zōken Matō, even after feeling his personality grow sharper, more warped—closer to the kind of cold pragmatism common to magi—
he still had his own values.
Something softer.
Something human.
A memory surfaced—fragmented, but still precious.
Words from his "older sister," the legendary Gudako—Fujimaru Rikka.
"Ritsuka… can you promise your sister something? Even if you become an excellent magus, I still hope you grow up happy. No matter what, don't let your heart waver."
"No matter where you are, do what you believe is right—so you'll never regret it."
"And… I want you to be a good person. I want you to have your own golden spirit."
Those gentle words, those warm memories—blurred by time—remained the most precious treasure he had.
That was why he stepped in.
No benefit. No necessity.
He still did it.
Not for a grand reason.
Not for a goal.
Simply because he found it disgusting.
Because he couldn't accept it.
He wanted to act, so he acted.
That was enough.
"Hah? You read too many comics or what? Just some brat—playing hero saving the damsel?!"
Two thugs drew knives and lunged together at Ritsuka, stabbing hard.
"Let him die with her!"
"Don't—!!"
Their roars and the girl's scream collided—
but the sound they expected, Ritsuka's scream, never came.
"W-what—? AAAAAAH!!"
The two thugs at the front shrieked in horror.
In their eyes, the "fragile boy" had grabbed their knives bare-handed.
Then, with a simple push, he redirected both blades—
and the knives drove perfectly into their companions' kidneys.
"Surprised?" Ritsuka asked, tone even. "Is it the pain? Or the fact you can't understand what just happened?"
He continued, almost like a lecturer.
"Someone who stabs for the heart either knows how to kill… or knows nothing about the human body. Which are you?"
He increased pressure, forcing their arms—letting the knives grind deeper inside the bodies they'd struck.
Their screams echoed off the alley walls.
"I'd say you're half-baked."
"So now—enjoy the pain you were so eager to give others."
Thk!
He wrenched their arms free.
Blood sprayed into the darkness.
The knives stayed wedged between bone.
The two loud-mouthed punks—who had been so confident a moment ago—passed out on the spot.
"You bastard!!"
The remaining thugs trembled—genuinely terrified now.
But they still had numbers.
So they forced courage out of fear and swung beer bottles at him.
They didn't even get the chance.
Because the next second, their eyes widened, faces twisting into panic—
a black gun barrel was aimed straight at them.
"A gun… it's a gun!"
"This kid has a gun?!"
"Is he from the Ryougi group?!"
In that moment—facing the calm, cold logic of a firearm—they all began regretting everything.
"Heh… can we talk this out?"
"A bunch of social parasites," Ritsuka said. "Reflect properly."
He gave them no time.
His finger squeezed the trigger.
Bang, bang, bang!
Three dull shots.
Three bursts of blood flowered in the air.
The three men dropped like kites with cut strings, collapsing in different twisted angles, screaming in agony.
Under the insect familiar's guidance, the bullets struck with surgical precision—
arm, calf, abdomen—
each at a critical joint or structural point.
Not "fatal," not "clean."
Permanently destructive.
In the blink of an eye:
One would lose the use of an arm forever.
One would lose the use of a leg forever.
One would become a high-level paraplegic—permanently ruined.
Now only the first thug remained—the one who had already been blinded in one eye by the familiar.
Terrified by the "truth launcher" in Ritsuka's hand, he tried to run—
but Ritsuka didn't allow it.
The thug's remaining eye caught the flicker of something small approaching—
bzz bzz—
His last eye shattered like a marble.
He screamed as darkness swallowed him, then collapsed unconscious.
Now there was one more blind man.
Ritsuka looked down at the bodies without emotion.
He didn't leave immediately—two of them still had "operational capacity," after all.
So, in what could only be called "thoughtful thoroughness," he put an extra round into each of the two who had fallen earliest—until he was satisfied they'd spend the rest of their lives as useless wrecks.
Whether they lived or died after that—
he couldn't be bothered to care.
He had used familiars.
But he hadn't used magecraft.
He hadn't used his Mystic Eyes.
Even if they survived, they couldn't "prove" anything.
Even if veteran police or underworld figures arrived, it would be classified as nothing more than a gang-related shooting.
So the concealment of Mystery remained intact.
Ritsuka was, as always, precise.
"It's over."
He holstered his gun and turned to leave.
This had been a trivial side matter.
Now he needed to continue searching for his true target.
Let local police handle the aftermath.
"Um…"
A soft voice behind him.
Only then did Ritsuka truly notice the girl.
She was… very pretty.
Long violet hair, a fragile, Yamato-nadeshiko kind of aura.
And oddly—
she felt familiar, in a way he couldn't immediately place.
But the torn-open front of what looked like a school uniform—or perhaps a nun's habit—revealing a swathe of pale skin made his gaze shift away instinctively.
"Thank you…"
She spoke quietly, looking from her exposed chest to the cold-eyed boy who had saved her.
"Um…"
She hesitated, then lowered her head, clenched her fists, and finally gathered her courage—
"Please… take me with you!"
"…Hah?"
(An illustration followed.)
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