Chapter 23: Well, Well, Well

After I returned to Vale, I distracted myself from Raven's attack on my purity by looking for a new apartment to move into. I found a couple nice looking places worth requesting a tour for before making up my mind and heading home. Then, I took a shower, drank one of the Soul Restoration Potions that the clone I'd left behind before leaving for Beacon had been set to work on and went to bed after rolling all the Gacha I'd had stockpiled — and then rerolling my gains from the Meta Gacha I got from getting Velvet as my girlfriend.

[Results: Rarity — Unique 1,702 | Mental Resistance (Skill)]

[Results: Rarity — Unique 2,500 | Bloodline Limit: Sharingan (Ability)]

[Results: Rarity — Unique -4,004 | Pain Bomb (Item)]

[Results: Rarity — Rare 414 | Odogaron Armor Set (Item)]

[Results: Rarity — Rare -871 | Filth of Yharnam (Item)]

[Results: Rarity — Uncommon 50 | Inventory Slot x3 (Ability)]

[Results: Rarity — Uncommon 60 | Knife Throwing x5 (Skill)]

[Results: Rarity — Uncommon 15 | Drawing x10 (Skill)]

[Results: Rarity — Uncommon 29 | Japanese x10 (Skill)]

There was a lot of good stuff this time around for the amount of Gacha Coins I'd used. Most notably, the "Sharingan" Ability I got for teaching Velvet how to mix drinks pretty much gave me a Chakra-powered version of her Semblance. It did more than just give me perfect recall of everything I saw once I activated it as well as the ability to mimic any movements I saw, but those were the most important details in a world where people didn't have Chakra.

The Pain Bomb was the most horrifying Item I'd ever had the displeasure of discovering. It was a mechanical marvel of bomb engineering and biochemistry. Without the Demolitionist Perk, I wouldn't have known how to use it safely and probably subjected myself and anyone unfortunate to be around me to the worst pain imaginable, the effects of which would last hours if not days depending on the affected individuals' tolerance.

Odogaron Armor was nifty, a bit too gaudy for my tastes, but functional and perfect to keep in my Equipment Slots now that I had enough slots to keep everything it had to offer in reserve. Filth of Yharnam was a hodgepodge of dangerous materials which would be worthless to me if my Alchemy Skill hadn't already been maxed. Since it was maxed, though, I could use many of the tainted catalysts that were a part of the "reward" to make niche potions.

More Inventory Slots meant I'd have more space to store even more different types of Potions which would eventually be useful. And, I couldn't complain about getting and maxing out a new Skill in Drawing along with my Knife Throwing which hadn't seen any improvement since I'd gotten it.

The change in my Knife Throwing was instantly useful as I found myself only losing out to Katayoki at a rate of taking four hits to every one I landed on him. This rapidly changed to only losing out 33% of the time by the time I was due to wake up, after I started using my newly acquired Sharingan, boosted by my Learning Skill, to steal Katayoki's innate techniques.

I fought him under the effects of Hollowfication and made it an added challenge to try and reign in the Hollow spiritual energies that spouted off me like a broken facet while striving to overcome him.

The power boost it gave was overwhelming, but it came with the side effect of borderline killing everyone around me without the spiritual power to defend themselves from the pressure. That was useful when indiscriminate murder was on the table, but I doubted that I'd find myself faced with that kind of situation often enough to not care about getting a handle on controlling the power.

This time, it took around twice as long before my Inner World started shaking violently from the clashes between Katayoki and I while I was Hollowfied. I took it as a sign of the Soul Restoration Potion working as intended and healing over whatever damage I might have been doing in a way that left my Inner World stronger for it.

When I woke up, I took another Soul Restoration Potion and secured the 22 remaining portions of the batch my Shadow Clone had made away in one of my Inventory Slots. I went out and completed my morning workout as usual before seeking out a new restaurant to clean house.

Aside from getting to look through a new part of Vale, trying out all the dishes of the restaurant I chose and texting Velvet with my Scroll, nothing interesting happened until the evening started settling into dusk. At around 6:30 PM I left my apartment for Junior's; the club Roman wanted to meet up at to pay off his debt and introduce me a potential bodyguarding client.

As I got close enough for the club to enter my Ki Sensing Range, I perked up at the various familiar signatures I was picking up on. Aside from the bunch I expected, Neapolitan and Roman, I was picking up the signatures of the three ingrates that had, kind-of-literally kind-of-not, shot me in the back during the whole fiasco with Amber. There was also one of Nicholas' kids, which I recognized reflexively from having focused on him when I ran into Nicholas and his family at the Bistro Cafe.

Apart from all that, I was also picking up on a concerning amount of Aura users. These were people I'd never ran into, but they were clearly elevated from regular civilians and all congregated within the club.

Interesting.

'Let's see how this shitshow will end,' I thought as I skipped past the line and walked up to the bouncer at the front of the club.

"Line starts way the fuck over there, kid," the bouncer said and I couldn't be mad at him. He was just doing his job.

"Roman's expecting me," I said with my Scroll already ready to show him my VIP pass and direct invitation.

"My apologies, sir," he said before moving to the side.

I gave him a nod and walked into the club. As I waded through a sea of the rhythmically bouncing bodies of the club-goers, I made a Shadow Clone and handed it an Invisibility Potion to take and discretely keep track Team CEM. I'd wait for a better opportunity to capture them and decide what to do with them after finding out what their deal was rather than to start something in the middle of this extremely crowded club.

Making a beeline for the bar where Roman, Neopolitan and even the Arc kid were all at, I approached with the calm of someone not currently in the middle of plotting vengeance.

I had the distinct impression that neither Roman nor Neopolitan would appreciate me just walking up and tapping them on their backs, so I pulled out my Scroll and sent them a warning text.

"I'm right behind you," the text read, and yeah, I would have made it more ominous if I could.

The look on their faces when they hurriedly turned around to see me was well worth whatever goodwill I might have burned.

"Is this you're guy?" The man sitting to Roman's right — Neapolitan was sitting to his left — asked. When Roman softly sighed before nodding, the man turned to the Arc kid and said, "Sorry, kid. Actually important business has come up earlier than I expected, so I need you to buzz off right now."

"But I—"

"I'm not going to ask you again," the man cut the Arc kid off and only ended up poking my busybody nature.

"Hold on just a second," I said, as I walked over to the Arc kid and said, "I owe his dad. So if you have some sort of business with me, let's take care of this first."

The man chuckled, "Funny you should say that. Little Jaune over here is actually looking to hire someone to forge his documents to get into Beacon and do precisely the opposite of what his dad wants."

"Me and my stupid mouth," Jaune muttered under his breath as he grew pale in the face.

"Seriously?" I asked him. He at least had the tact to admit his intentions with a heavy sigh. "Well, I can't exactly let this go unresolved, but I'm also here for business. I won't decide what to do about you until I hear what you have to say. So, I suggest you start thinking of what you want to tell me. Here—" I gave him my Scroll contact information, "—You have until the end of tomorrow to convince me you're not suicidal before I find a way to let your dad know you're trying to get into Beacon without Aura."

The blond-haired man took my contact information before leaving with slumped shoulders. I had no idea what his deal was, but there was probably an interesting story behind him if he was doing something as monumentally stupid as trying to become a Huntsman without any of the training. Before Beacon or any of the other great academies, there were high schools dedicated to teaching future Huntsman everything they would need, first and foremost being to get their Auras unlocked.

[Congratulations! For preventing a major canon event and stopping Jaune from getting his forged transcripts, you have earned a Legendary Locked Gacha Coin!]

WHAT?!?!

This had just turned into a gravely serious matter if it involved a Gacha with the highest Rarity I'd seen so far. I'd need to deal with it carefully after I was done with my business at the club.

Neapolitan tapped at my shoulder and made impatient gestures, which Katayoki automatically volunteered to translate as, "Can we get on with our business now? I'd quite like to get work over with and move on to the party."

"But of course, my dear," I leaned down such that my head and hers were level, "I'm sooo sorry to keep you waiting for longer than ten seconds." She kicked at my shins but it was entirely lacking any force so I didn't bother to activate my Aura.

As she went back to her seat, I took my own next to her.

"Okay, now that that's out of the way, I'd like to introduce you to each other. Lapis, this is Hei Junior Xiong; he's the owner of this club and the contact I had that found your potential bodyguard gig. Junior, this is Lapis Lain; don't be fooled by his young appearance, this guy is a monster who doesn't even need Aura to give me and Neo trouble."

"A pleasure to meet you," Junior said, "But I'm going to need to test your strength before I present you to the client. Roman's words is good as gold in our line of business, but this is something I really need to see to believe."

"Trust, but verify," I nodded. "It's a good principle to stand by."

The four of us walked away from the bar. We headed for the exit while Junior sent out a message on his Scroll. Outside of the club, we moved on to one of the abandoned industrial buildings across the block and soon after, two identical twins entered the building after us.

"This is the guy you want us to test?" The twin in white spoke with a nasally valley-girl accent that made my skin crawl.

"He doesn't seem like much," The twin in red added dismissively. Her tone was similar but not at all plagued by that god-awful accent.

"If you can last at least five minutes against them, I'll vouch for your ability as a bodyguard," Junior said to me, completely ignoring both of the twins' offhanded comments.

"Ok," I summoned Katayoki's Knife, "Whenever you're ready, come at me."

They gave each other a look before rushing off to either side of me to launch a pincer assault on two fronts. Unfortunately, they were not even as fast a Fox and I could keep pace with him while suppressed to 1% of my power. I didn't need the throwing knife, but I still used it to block the claws of the red twin while dodging the white twin's bladed boots.

I made a show of avoiding their attacks for a while until they started to use their Semblances. Both twins could project sharp elemental attacks from their weapons, but it was limited to fire for the one in red and wind for the one in white.

"Boo! Could you be any more unoriginal?" Katayoki heckled from within my Inner World.

Once I got bored from not seeing any new trick come up from either twin I promptly ended the "fight" with my overwhelming physical superiority. I caught the red one's forearms when she missed yet another attempt to claw my face off and smashed her through a couple inches of the concrete floor beneath us.

As the white one tossed a flurry of feints and misdirected kicks. I stood still until she committed to slicing my jugular with the blades attached to her boots and caught her by the ankle before giving her a similar treatment as her sister.

The two did not get up after I threw them against the ground. Their Ki levels had not fluctuated in the least, so I assumed they were just unconscious.

"He's gotten even faster and stronger than before," I overheard Roman nervously mutter to Neopolitan.

"Whoops, let me heal them up real quick. I didn't expect a single attack to take out their Aura and leave them like that," I said before casting my Healing magic on them.

"He can do that?" Junior asked as he watched gobsmacked. I couldn't tell if it was because of how strong I was or because of the Healing that quickly restored the twin's consciousness.

"Don't ask me. The man never runs out of tricks to pull out of his sleeve like he's some sort of magician," Roman said.

"Anyway, now that that's taken care of, I assume I passed, right?" I said to get the conversation back on track. 

"Yeah, I'd say so," Junior tepidly said as he looked at me warily.

He led our group of six back into his club. The twins split off when we crossed the dancefloor, while Roman, Neopolitan, and I followed Junior into the staff area at the back of the club. As we approached what looked like stairs leading down the basement area, I couldn't help but let out a laugh as that was exactly the direction I'd need to take to find the signatures of Team CEM.

"Is that necessary?" Roman asked as I switched to the Odogaron Armor headpiece in my Head Equipment Slot.

"I have the distinct feeling that it'll be for the best," I said.

For various possible reasons, no one made an effort to get me to take off the white-maned crimson-colored ogre mask. Soon enough after descending the stairs, we reached the basement and inside was exactly who I expected to find.

The gray-haired man was seated next to the dark-skinned green-haired woman, while the other woman in red with black hair — the one who shot me — was sitting alone.

"About time," the gray-haired man said as he kicked his feet off the table and took a less informal sitting position.

"Yeah, antagonize our potential allies, why not?" The green-haired woman scoffed.

"Settle down children," the other woman sat a little straighter as she looked at Junior and said, "I presume you've found someone acceptable."

"Most likely," Junior broke out in a cold sweat as he said, "I just tested him and he defeated both twins at the same time without breaking a sweat."

"Is that supposed to be impressive?" The gray-haired man asked rhetorically. "Even Emerald over there could pull that off."

"He won without using Aura and only used a knife to block attacks. When he moved to attack, he only needed to smash the twins against the floor, once each, before they were knocked out cold," Junior said.

"Now we're talking," the gray-haired man looked at me with a bit more respect.

"Impressive. Does the mysterious stranger want to introduce himself?" Cinder asked.

"Lapis Lain, almost assuredly at your service," I made an effort to bow slightly.

"I like him. He's not a grouch like Mercury. Though, I guess that's not very hard to pull off," Emerald commented.

"You can be in charge of him if he agrees to join us," Cinder said. "That is, of course, if the price for his loyalty is reasonable."

"Would you believe me if I said I'm in this business for the love of the game?" I chuckled as I looked around the room and saw the various expressions that covered every emotion on the spectrum. "I don't care for money, only connections and fun experiences. You already seem like important people if you're known associates of Roman and Junior. So long as whatever it is that you'd have me protect you from is interesting, I'd be more than happy to help out."

"How interesting would you find an encounter with the leader of Vale's branch of the White Fang? He's the next on my list that I plan on recruiting," Cinder said.

"Can't say I'm familiar with whoever that is, but they're bound to be strong. Do you think chances of a fight breaking out are high?" I asked. It wasn't that I was interested in joining her on any measure, but I needed to keep up a facade until they left for a place where I could strike them down without any collateral to worry about.

"I have it on good authority that they'll need a bit of convincing, if you know what I mean," she smiled cruelly.

"Send me the details at your convenience, then," I said as I offered her my Scroll contact information. "I'll never turn down a good time."

Mercury snorted, but that went ignored as Cinder took my contact information.

"Well, this went smoother than I planned," Cinder said with what looked like great self-satisfaction. She addressed Emerald Mercury as she said, "You two can have your fun at the club now. I have a few calls to make before we retreat for the night."

"Finally, I can bring on the booze," Mercury said as he stood up and left with Emerald.

"Roman, Neo," I said getting their attention, "Consider your debt paid off. I have other business to attend to, so I'll be leaving as well." Anything they could have paid me in cash was worthless compared to landing me this opportunity.

Neopolitan waved appreciatively at me calling her by Roman's nickname for her, while Roman just looked at me and nodded. I left the basement, then the club itself, only taking off the Odogaron headpiece after making my way up to the roof.

Now, I just needed to wait for the trio to leave.