CH. 5: Releasing

Renjiro exited the safe room, closing the heavy door behind him. As soon as he stepped out, his face cycled through various expressions—shock, contemplation, doubt—before settling back into calmness.

His mind raced as he processed everything Mika had revealed. 'Could my father really have been connected to the underworld?.' He shook his head. 'I need solid proof to believe that!'

Glancing at his watch, Renjiro realized it was already 7 AM. He took out his phone which had been switched off since entering the safe room.

Immediately upon powering up, it began ringing loudly.

"Hello." Renjiro answered curtly.

"Ren, regarding the woman Harishimo Miko's ex-husband Ikade Tanaka, I couldn't find anything. There are no records of him beyond Miko's marriage certificate. It's like he never existed."

"So in summary, this Ikeda person is a complete ghost." Renjiro remarked with pursed lips. "Any clues on how to track him down?"

"Unfortunately, no." The person on the phone admitted. "First of all, you didn't give me much time and with limited time I have, I couldn't find anything. Whoever this man was, he knew how to stay invisible. My only guess is he was not an ordinary man and used some influence to erase his trail."

Renjiro sighed, having expected this dead end. "Very well, we'll put that aside for now. I have another job requiring your skills. How much will it cost to hire you for something big?"

He heard a sigh from the person. "It was not hard to find the woman's information, after all, all she did was erase her social media. After you sent me her pictures, it was easy to find out about her since she had many identity proofs - school registration info, postal service changes of address, health insurance and stuff. I was able to pinpoint her because her face was actually caught on camera in a small robbery attempt before she vanished. A small news channel did cover that issue, they mentioned her court case.

But this man is not easy to find. However if your asking about entirely new task, My normal rate is ¥800,000 for any high level information, Ren." The voice stated. "But for you, I can lower it to ¥700,000 including expenses."

"Hmm, I will give you ¥50,000, keep a lookout on any information for that guy, and ¥650,000 for a new task." Renjiro offered as he paced in the mansion corridors. The voice on the other side agreed without negotiating much.

"Excellent. Now here is what you have to do..." Renjiro described needing all details on the shadowy organization seemingly targeting his family.

The one Renjiro was talking to is a person named Sato, he was a hacker. Renjiro and Sato had a past together and Sato was one of the few people Renjiro actually trusted with his secrets.

After agreeing to the new assignment, Sato ended the call to commence investigating right away.

But just after a few seconds after Renjiro ended the call, it started to ring loudly again. He looked at it only to see the Caller ID showed it was his mother.

'Damn, she must have already heard about last night's attack!' Renjiro realized. Forcing himself to calm down, he answered. "Good morning, Mother."

"Renjiro!" His mother shouted in clear panic. "The security guards just informed me there was a break-in last night! Why didn't you call me immediately?! Are you hurt?!"

"I'm completely fine, Mother. It was just a robbery attempt. The robber ran away before I even came home." He soothed. "I didn't call you because I didn't want you to worry over nothing."

But his mother was in full protective mode.

"I clearly told you to take security with you, yet you didn't listen. Now see what happened. And the guards said you came home late, what are you doing out so late?"

Renjiro patiently explained everything to his mother and tried to soothe her anger.

After repeatedly reassuring his frantic mother of his safety, she insisted. "That's it, I want you home right away! It's clearly too dangerous in that city. I can't work normally after knowing that there was an attack on my son."

Knowing refusal was futile once she decided something, Renjiro conceded. "Very well, I will return to Musutafu in a few days after finishing up some work I have here." He said, thinking about how to deal with Miko.

Surprised by his easy agreement, his mother ended the call to await his return. Renjiro shook his head wryly—even from afar, her worries smothered him.

Returning to the hall, he spotted the caretaker Mato cleaning the remaining water and glass from the destroyed aquarium. Thanks to Renjiro already cleaning all the evidence of his fight with Miko, the scene raised no suspicions.

One of the security guards approached Renjiro. "Sir, the police will arrive shortly to investigate last night's reported break-in."

Having expected this, Renjiro simply nodded. To hide his scrapes and cuts from the fight, he already wore a long-sleeved green shirt before the authorities arrived.

After a few minutes of waiting, two officers in uniform from the Tokyo police station soon appeared to question everyone about the home invasion. They took statements from the guards and Renjiro, who repeated his cover story.

"I was returning home late from a party when I discovered the smashed aquarium and unconscious guards. After doing some first aid on them, I checked security footage but it had been erased by the intruder."

The lead officer hummed thoughtfully. "Strange...nothing seems stolen, yet the thief clearly broke in without any problem. Any idea why a common thief would do that?"

Renjiro kept his face carefully blank. "No clue. As I said, they fled before I ever saw them."

"And you didn't think to call emergency services right away?" Questioned the other officer suspiciously.

"I was focused on helping the injured guards first." Renjiro replied without hesitation. "Plus without any culprit still on scene, I deemed calling you could wait until morning."

"Young people nowadays are too carefree. You judged that the thief actually fled without any evidence. What if the thief was hiding and waiting for you?" He rebutted Renjiro. "Next time anything like this happens, immediately call for emergency services."

They also asked some questions of the security guards, only to receive answers that they didn't see anything before being knocked out.

After talking amongst themselves, the officers concluded it must have been the work of some deranged criminal or wealthy family stalker without actual robbery motive.

"Unfortunately without images of the suspect, we have little to go on." Admitted the lead officer. "We'll file a report and advisory in case this perpetrator attempts another break-in."

After escorting the officers out, Renjiro allowed himself a subtle sigh of relief.

"Well, that was not hard. I mean since there are no serious losses, they didn't go very deep. Their faces looked like they just got out of bed—I mean it's 7 am, they're probably sleepy. Cases like this won't really take much time to be closed because there are simply no leads, so I don't think I have to worry about this now. The thing I have to think about is, how should I deal with Miko? I can't release her without verifying she won't harm me."

After waiting for the mess to be cleaned up, he went back to the safe room and decided to talk to her.

His eyes fell on Miko's angry face. He closed the door and went and sat in front of her.

"What's the meaning of this? You said that we should work together and you left me tied up. I can't feel my other body parts, but my neck is still in pain." She said in an angry tone.

"That's not the problem. The problem is, how should I trust you? What's the guarantee that you will help? Maybe you will try to kill or betray me after I release you?" He asked with a difficult look on his face.

"Really? You really think I would do something so stupid as get rid of someone who can truly help me? I don't have anything that will make you believe I won't betray you, but think about it—even if I do something to you, I won't get anything since they might actually try to kill me to get rid of any loopholes. That's why I don't take any high influence missions, because I won't know whether they will keep their promises or not. I don't have to take any more risks if I stay on your side, so why would I betray you?" She said, panting slightly, her voice containing a bit of pleading.

Renjiro gave a sigh before he stood up and untied her. She tried to stand up only to fall down wobblingly.

After trying a few more times she was able to stand up slowly. After half an hour she even started using her quirk again.

After a while they both walked from the safe room, looking around. They didn't find anyone so they slowly walked towards the window.

"If you're really going to work for me, find me the information about this organization, or at least who they are sending after me since you have failed." He spoke with a vigilant look on his face.

"Don't be so vigilant. I will do my best to find anything about what you asked, but you better keep your promise about searching for my daughters." After saying this, she gave him a phone number to contact her before transforming into mist and slipping through the window.

"When you're weak, you can't always control everything. This time I choose to trust her. I can only wish this won't backfire on me." He said to himself, clenching his hands.

"If only I can make my quirk stronger." He put his left hand forward as blue electricity danced in his hand.

Yet sensing how weak it felt, he pushed more power through knowing nothing will happen.

"BOOOOM!"

A massive surge of lightning burst exploded out, blasting Renjiro backwards. He smashed against the wall, instantly dizzy with his left hand spasming uncontrollably from the aftershocks.

"What the fuck was that?" he groaned, struggling to rise as violent vibrations continued coursing through his tingling left arm and fingers.