"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"
"Still asleep? Time to wake up."
Kaito crouched down in front of the two unconscious officers and started slapping them across the face, one after the other.
"Ah!"
"You... are you even human?"
They opened their eyes and found the young man looking down at them. Fear settled into their bodies before they could even think about it. They were ordinary officers, with some loose connections to the civil police, but nothing that ever prepared them for someone who had sent them both flying with a single wave of his hand.
"Oh good, you're up. We can pick up where we left off."
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"
Kaito kept slapping them, not letting up.
"Do you know what you did wrong?"
"Ah! I'm asking you a question. Do you know what you did wrong?"
"Mmm mmm mmm..."
"We know we did something wrong!"
"Then what was it?"
"Bang bang bang!"
"I said, what did you do wrong?"
He looked at them flatly. Both their faces had swollen past the point of recognition.
"We... we don't know..."
And they genuinely didn't. In their minds, they had done nothing wrong. Cursed Children weren't worth protecting, everyone knew that. They just couldn't figure out who they'd managed to offend.
Kaito stood up. He looked at them for a moment, then raised his foot.
"Thump!" "Thump!"
"Aaagh!"
"Ugh..."
"Pfft..."
They hit the pillar and slid to the ground, spitting blood. Barely conscious, they scrambled to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor.
"Please, spare us!"
"We'll do anything, we swear, just please don't kill us!"
Kaito watched them kowtow and beg. His expression slowly eased. He even smiled.
"Is that right? Well. That's good to hear."
He flicked two fingers. Two streaks of golden light laced with black energy shot into their bodies.
"Aaagh!"
"What is this?! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!"
The pain felt like it reached somewhere deeper than flesh. They curled up on the ground, shaking. But as the agony tore through them, their wounds were closing. Bones resetting. Skin knitting back together.
"Cough... wait. My body..."
"Mine too. It's... healed?"
They looked up at each other, then back at Kaito.
"Thank you for sparing us! We'll repay you, we swear, whatever you need!"
Kaito tilted his head pleasantly.
"Feeling better? Nothing still hurts?"
They nodded frantically, relief flooding their faces. He was going to let them go. He had to be.
"Everything's healed! You're incredible, truly!"
"Yes, yes, we're completely fine!"
Kaito nodded with quiet satisfaction.
"Good."
He picked up the pistol from the ground, aimed at their limbs, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"
The shots landed clean. Both of them screamed.
"Aaagh! You said you'd let us go!"
"Why?! Why are you doing this?!"
Kaito looked at them lying there, bleeding, screaming up at him with that bewildered, betrayed look on their faces. He smiled.
"Heh. I think there's been a misunderstanding. When I healed you..."
The smile faded.
His voice dropped to something quieter and colder.
"It was only so I could cripple you again."
He tossed the empty pistol aside, picked up the other one from the ground, and fired again.
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"
"Ugh, aaagh!"
"Cough cough... pfft..."
Ririka, watching from the side, pressed both hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.
She didn't beg for them. Just the fact that she held herself back was enough to show the kind of person she was.
Kaito caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. The corner of his mouth curved, just slightly.
If someone could forgive people like these after what they'd done, that person wouldn't be worth saving in the first place. But Ririka wasn't forgiving them.
He decided this was far enough. Dragging it out any longer would only leave a shadow in her heart.
Kaito pressed the barrel to one of their foreheads. His finger moved to the trigger.
"Stop! You can't kill them!"
A young man stepped out from the side of the building, arm raised, voice sharp.
Kaito glanced sideways at him. Then he pulled the trigger anyway.
"Bang!"
"Aaagh! Someone help me, please, he's going to kill me!"
The shot left a neat hole in the man's forehead. Blood ran down and covered his face entirely.
"You actually shot him!"
Rentaro stared, unable to process it.
The other officer on the ground looked at him like a lifeline had just appeared.
"Help me, please, stop him before he..."
"Bang!"
Kaito put him down before he finished the sentence.
"Too much talking."
Rentaro stared at the two bodies. Then he turned back to Kaito, pointing at him, struggling to form words.
"You... how could you just..."
Kaito looked at Satomi Rentaro with a mild expression, and a faint smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"What about me? I killed two pieces of trash. Is that a problem?"
"I told you to stop!"
Kaito felt something unpleasant stir in his chest. He looked at Rentaro's angry face and let the silence sit for a moment before answering.
"You told me to stop. And? Why didn't you tell them to stop, Satomi Rentaro?"
Rentaro went still.
"How do you know my name?"
"That's not important. Answer the question. Why didn't you tell those two to stop?"
Kaito had spotted Rentaro the moment he arrived. He'd been standing off to the side, watching. At the time, Kaito had been focused on Ririka and hadn't bothered with him. But now, having watched everything and then choosing this moment to step in, it sat wrong.
"I... I was..."
"What were you? Watching a child get beaten and doing nothing? Or did you just think I was the kind of person who takes orders from strangers?"
Rentaro's mouth opened and closed.
"If I hadn't gotten here when I did, Ririka would be dead right now. And you were right there, hiding. What, afraid to get involved? Afraid of the fallout?"
Rentaro slowly lowered his head.
Kaito looked at him for a long moment.
"If you'd stayed hidden, I wouldn't have said a word to you. But you came out. So..."