Chapter 313: I Pull! I Pull!! (Patreon)

In the reception room of Anti-Air Section Six, Geno, Twiggy and Belle sat quietly, sipping the coffee a clerk had brought them and murmuring about what came next.

"Geno, what exactly are you looking for? And what does it have to do with Miss Miyabi's sword?"

Belle picked up her coffee cup, set it down, picked it up again. In the end her curiosity won out, and she turned to Geno.

Geno only took a small sip of his coffee and slowly shook his head.

"Let's wait a little longer. We'll talk once Tsukishiro and the others get here. Explaining the same thing twice is exhausting."

Belle silently rolled her eyes. They'd already been waiting half an hour, and half an hour ago Geno had said exactly the same thing. Yanagi Tsukishiro seemed to have been held up by something and still hadn't shown, and the wait itched at Belle like a cat clawing at her insides.

So she snatched the coffee off the table and downed it in one go, forcing her curiosity back down.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting."

Just then, the door of the reception room finally opened, and Yanagi Tsukishiro's trademark pink hair and glasses came into view.

Geno got to his feet at once and went over to greet her.

"No problem, Miss Tsukishiro. Did you bring what I asked for?"

Geno didn't dawdle and got straight to the point.

Yanagi instinctively pushed up her glasses, then signaled the staff member behind her to bring over Hoshimi Miyabi's sword.

The peerless blade that had fought a whole battle at Geno's side was sheathed once more, its razor-sharp killing intent drawn back inside.

"Good. With this, every condition is met."

Geno's cryptic words left Yanagi and the others puzzled.

Seizing the opening, Belle could finally go after the answer she'd been dying for.

"Geno, explain it properly. My curiosity's about to explode."

"All right, all right. We'll talk while we walk."

Unable to hold out against Belle's pestering, Geno asked Yanagi to take them to see Hoshimi Miyabi.

The staff member carrying the sword hesitated, since Geno's group were outsiders, but Yanagi raised no objection, so he said nothing.

On the way, Geno took Tailless and walked everyone through the whole story.

"I know why Hoshimi Miyabi is unconscious."

"What? You know?"

That first sentence alone made Yanagi's eyes go wide.

Ever since Miyabi was wounded, she'd had no contact with Geno whatsoever. Yet he claimed to know why she wouldn't wake. How could that not startle her?

"Of course. I came here to fix exactly that. It's also why I asked you ahead of time to bring Tailless."

Geno's expression was perfectly calm. Even Yanagi couldn't read anything in it, so all she could do was wait for him to continue.

And Geno didn't disappoint.

"The reason Hoshimi Miyabi won't wake up isn't actually a bad thing. It's a tremendous piece of good fortune."

"Good fortune?"

How could someone being unconscious be good? The sheer backwardness of the logic left Yanagi and the others baffled.

Twiggy, though, propped her chin on her hand as if something had occurred to her, and her gaze drifted down to the ring on her finger.

Could it be…?

A bold idea had taken shape in her mind, but she couldn't confirm it. She would have to wait until Geno laid everything out.

Before long, the group arrived at Hoshimi Miyabi's ward.

Miyabi lay on the bed, brow tightly knit, with no sign of waking. Worry was written across every face in the room.

"She looks like she's in so much pain. Can this really be called good?"

Belle lightly covered her mouth with one hand, and a pang of pity stirred in her at the sight.

"Of course. These are only early signs. Once I've treated her, everything will go back to normal."

As he spoke, Geno reached for Tailless, still held by the staff member beside him.

Then he took the blade and walked, unhurried, toward Miyabi's side.

"Wait! What do you think you're doing?!"

Geno's rash move jolted the nurses and doctors nearby, and a crowd of them instinctively blocked his path, keeping him away from Miyabi.

"Deputy Section Chief Tsukishiro! Why are these outsiders here?!"

Miyabi's attending physician had a face like frost, and he squared off against Yanagi in barely contained anger.

Yanagi didn't understand Geno's actions either, but she trusted him, and stepped forward to explain.

"This person is a specialist here to treat Section Chief Hoshimi's condition. Please trust me, both in my duty as Deputy Section Chief of Anti-Air Section Six and as a friend of Executive Hoshimi Miyabi."

If Yanagi was saying so, the doctor could hardly argue further. She was the most dependable person in Anti-Air Section Six, after all, and whatever she decided must have some deeper reason behind it.

And so the crowd that had just been hemming Geno in parted, clearing a path for him.

"Thanks. Don't worry, I'll have this done in no time. But before that, anyone not involved, please step out."

"You…?!"

"It's fine. Go on out, all of you. I'll stay here and watch him."

The medical staff, who had been ready to explode, filed out the door grumbling once they heard Yanagi say that.

Thanks to Yanagi's reputation for reliability, getting them out of the room so easily would have been impossible otherwise.

Geno shot Yanagi a grateful look, then continued to Miyabi's bedside. He gripped Tailless's hilt and pulled with all his strength…

Pull…

P! U! L! L!!!

"Nnngh!! Why won't it come out?!"

Geno strained with everything he had, but Tailless still wouldn't leave its sheath.

Watching Geno turn red in the face from the effort, Yanagi felt a bead of sweat the size of a soybean roll down the back of her head.

"Um… that sheath is custom-made. Only Section Chief Miyabi's fingerprint can unlock it."

They had recovered that sheath from the Ballet Twins Building. It was a special sheath built by the Hoshimi family to seal Tailless's power.

Even Sarah Floren had only been able to open it by stealing Hoshimi Miyabi's biometric data.

"Oh, so that's how it is."

What a ridiculous mix-up. Geno's old face flushed, but he recovered quickly. Compared to his earlier fiasco, his skin had grown even thicker.

Then he lifted Miyabi's small hand and used her fingerprint to draw Tailless successfully.

The instant it left the sheath, a deep, shadowy blue light poured from Tailless's blade. As Geno channeled his Ether energy into it, the blue quickly turned red.

In an instant, Geno's whole presence became suffocatingly heavy.