Then Silva tossed off, “Nice earrings.”
He left the gallery and headed straight upstairs.
An assassin’s perception is razor-sharp; a top assassin sees every ripple in his surroundings. Silva is like that; so is Zeno. If Silva cares to, nothing within three hundred meters slips his senses.
His En radius is farther than that, besides.
So Roy had never imagined he could hide the earrings from Silva. He might as well wear them openly and not take them off.
Urokodaki Sakonji’s training regimen was, as expected, thorough.
Step one: tree-hugging practice.
He even gave it a poetic name: “Everything breathes—every flower and blade of grass is alive. So the first step in learning a Breathing style isn’t sword drills; it’s understanding what ‘breath’ is.”
“Rōichirō, start with that birch. When you understand how a tree breathes, you may touch a blade.”
After accepting him as a disciple…
Urokod...
Yeah… do you need a reason to kill demons?
When it’s life or death—either you or me—Sabito had warned Giyu that very way back then. And Giyu took it to heart. The pity is… once he passed the test, he lost the chance to avenge Sabito, Makomo, and every fellow disciple in this hut.
So all these years, Sabito has waited. Makomo has waited. Shinsuke, Fukuda, Inoue… all waiting.
Now, it finally feels like there’s a glimmer of dawn.
Urokodaki Sakonji was si...
Patience… more patience… still more patience…
If only he’d had the patience to keep them a few more years—help perfect their Breathing, hone their craft—maybe things wouldn’t have come to this.
Wearing a striped haori of cloud-white over blue, Urokodaki Sakonji walked ahead.
Roy and Tanjiro followed at an easy pace behind,
and behind them trailed a line of bowing spirits—a scene uncanny and strange.
Slurp— Makomo seized the chance as Tanjir...
The sounds of roughhousing and chasing echoed around…
Pity only Roy could hear them.
Gurururu…
The water boiled and popped the lid. Tanjiro, quick as a fox, lifted the pot and poured a cup of hot tea for Roy.
He leaned in and whispered, “Nii-san, why does this place feel creepy… like someone’s watching us?”
Father Tanjuro was the first in a thousand years, since ancestor Kamado Sumiyoshi, to step into the Transparent World. Maybe Tanjiro inherite...
Minamino Hirotomo was an ordinary man—one speck of dust among billions. Aside from his family, no one would have cared. Now there was one more—Roy.
Clutching the copper coin, Roy walked the lonely depths of Mt. Sagiri and, on his panel, assigned Minamino’s “life energy” to Physique.
[Notice…]
[Physique: 10.55 → 11.55]
“Sss… sss…”
Heat streamed off the crown of his head.
Stumbling through the snow behind him, Tanjiro looked up—a...
“For the current situation, I’ve got three plans: top, middle, and bottom.”
Uchiha Yorin confidently held up three fingers. Minato opened his mouth, fighting the urge to quip.
“No way, again?”
He wanted to say that, but worried Yorin might flip the table, so he chose another tactic: “How about you skip to the middle plan?”
Yorin: “The top plan is: we hit the daimyo’s treasury now and pull one massive job. Besides grabbing the cash, we snatch a hos...
This was how Yorin roasted Fugaku:
“If you won’t be a back-stabbing condottiere like the Italians, at least learn from Wallenstein of the Germanies.”
And the next night, he said the exact same thing to NamikazebMinato.
Minato: “…”
Uchiha Fugaku: “…”
Uzumaki Kushina, who’d come to catch a cheater: “…”
Everyone was stunned by Yorin’s shameless scheming.
Dude… we’re ninja—are we really allowed to play it like this...
Uchiha Fugaku might shout “we should become Hokage” when he’s with the clan, but in truth he’s a conservative. He favors maintaining relations with the village. If they can deepen those ties, great; if not, keeping the current status is acceptable.
But now Uchiha Yorin has brought intel that shows huge risks and looming crisis.
If they fall out with Danzō and Orochimaru, relations between the Uchiha and the Hokage faction could deteriorate sharply.
Even if the Uc...
In short, Uchiha Yorin still managed to talk the clansmen around in the end.
Just like with the clan head, he offered them a three-tier plan: best, middle, and worst.
The top plan was to change their public image—move closer to him and Shisui, become bright, open, sunny types. That way they’d shed the tsundere persona.
Uchiha Tekka: “Yorin-nii, are you saying we should all turn into ‘gentle perverts’?”
Uchiha Yorin patted Shisui’s shoulder: “He call...
Batman’s AI tech is worthless to ordinary people.
But Tony Stark is a smart man—and to someone like him, Batman’s technology can be applied to weapons, aerospace, automobiles, medicine, industry…
virtually every field Stark Industries touches.
Faced with a kid who hasn’t even graduated from Empire State University yet but holds tech like this, Tony Stark chose to pay for knowledge.
“Sir, congratulations on formally meeting an extraordinarily gifted youn...
“What’s your name?”
“Happy Hogan, Mr. Stark.”
On the top floor of Stark Tower, at a helipad that juts from the main building, security chief Happy Hogan stood a bit stiffly while Tony Stark poured drinks behind the indoor bar.
“Happy, I don’t want strangers crashing my parties ever again.”
“Sorry, Mr. Stark.”
Head bowed, Happy apologized. He felt like he was about to be fired—but also sensed it wouldn’t be that simple. Tony Stark was ...
From morning until now I’ve been to more than thirty law firms—none of them will take a case against Kingpin.
Even the few who were interested backed out after their colleagues talked them down.
For the first time, Batman felt stumped by something.
Whether it was the Justice League infected by Joker’s virus or having his spine broken by Bane and tossed into the Pit, none of it had felt as tricky as “simply” finding a lawyer.
Because lawyers deal with all ...
As soon as George Stacy left, Norman Osborn arrived at the precinct.
As Oscorp’s chairman, Norman had little trouble getting to the holding cell where the Spider-Slayer—Spencer Smythe—was being kept. He cleared his throat twice through the bars.
“Norman!”
Hearing the sound, Smythe—handcuffed—scrambled to the door, clutching the bars as if he could shove his head through the gap. “It wasn’t a spider. It was a bat!”
“A bat?” Norman frowned. ...
Everything about magic was fresh and fascinating to Sean—yes, even History of Magic, the class most first-years loved to grumble about.
He was happy to dig into the past of vampire hunters, to examine what those witches and wizards—specialists in hunting vampires—had done wrong, and to ask why Article 12 of the Code of Wand Use for Non-Wizard Half-Breeds had criminalized that profession.
History’s allure kept Sean absorbed until night fell.
Lying flat on his four-...
Just as Sean was staring at the sweets that had suddenly appeared in his bag and Justin was despairing, the owl huffed and snapped:
“Little wizard—hmph! Lucky little wizard! Get in, quickly! Don’t let Lady Ravenclaw catch you!”
With a flap of its wings, a crack split the wall, revealing a sky-blue door. Hermione’s eyes flew wide.
“Thanks,” Justin said at once, face brightening as he offered a sincere thank-you.
Sean, meanwhile, picked up the lollipop ...
After three o’clock, Hogwarts slid into a lazy weekend. For first-years, Friday felt even happier and looser than Saturday or Sunday—because on this day they could toss homework aside and enjoy some real leisure.
Walking up from the greenhouses, dew from the post-rain sunshine still clung to the hem of Sean’s robe. From Professor Sprout he’d learned that Snape was beginning a two-day brew today, so his own potion plan would have to pause. With Master Libatius Borage’s knowled...
“You’ve already done really well.”
Sean split his Yorkshire pudding with Justin, figuring sweets might lift his mood.
“Professor Snape is a fool,” he said softly. “Don’t be upset, Hermione—want some pudding?”
Sean loved Yorkshire pudding; that came from the old lady who used to donate supplies to the orphanage—she always brought heaps of pudding, the best thing he’d ever tasted back then. So he always chose a seat where the puddings piled high.
Roy drank his tea in silence.
Tanjiro sat on pins and needles, a lump in his throat.
The grandmother and the woman both went pale. The latter hadn’t grasped it at first; now she did—her hands twisted together, ten fingers digging hard into her hem.
A moment later, a sigh…
The grandmother seemed to age ten years in an instant. In a low voice she said, “Hirotomo’s a stubborn child.
“Out on the road all year, he treats silver as dearer than life…<...
At the east end of the village, a few cottages sat behind a wicker fence.
In the yard, two figures—one big, one small—were building a snowman together. The little one, a girl in a floral padded jacket with a purple scarf at her neck. The older, a woman in a headscarf, was hefting her daughter to set a hood on the snowman’s head. From a distance, the snowman even looked a bit like Minamino Hirotomo.
“Shizuki, do you miss Daddy?”
“I do.”
The hood sat a ...
Electroshock can be tuned by adjusting voltage to control the current through the body.
But Silva’s whip has no such “setting.”
When he lashes someone, how hard he swings and whether he adds Nen—both are unknowns.
“Whatever makes him happy,” Roy said, a little drained.
They’re all stubborn. No one bows to anyone. That’s the Zoldycks—one house full of hardheads.
Gotoh was never the meddling type; he just did his best to handle Roy’s logist...
Roy ignored Illumi.
Even unconscious, his little brother kept those dead-fish eyes fixed on him—clearly unwilling to accept it.
I, Illumi, have never been weaker than anyone. Roy could almost hear what Illumi was thinking when he stubbornly chose the stronger baton.
Roy simply sat on him for a bit, then waved for Luke to dig a pit in the courtyard and dumped Illumi into it.
“Young master, is this… appropriate?” Luke was genuinely afraid Illumi would wake up...
“Unbelievable… he’s wielding two blades at once with flawless form—his attack power doubled in an instant.
A technique like this is practically a miracle. And the key is, it’s not ninjutsu or genjutsu—it’s taijutsu.
Which means he earned it through years of grind. As expected of my elder—Uchiha’s hardest worker.”
Even a prodigy like Uchiha Shisui couldn’t help being shaken by the sight, and he found himself thinking:
“Against a brother like ...
All that talk about “pseudo-Rinnegan” and “pseudo-Six Paths physique” was really just Yorin gilding his own face.
If he actually had a Mangekyō plus Hashirama cells, fusing a Rinnegan would be on the table.
But Yang Release nature vs. Hashirama cells is a whole Everest apart; three-tomoe vs. Mangekyō is, conservatively, three to five Rin Noharas apart.
Using Yang-nature chakra to amp his Sharingan only beefed up his physicals—especially his eyesight—so his r...
Yorin decided that after training he’d go “farm coins” off Clan Head Fugaku—i.e., press him to open the clan archive so he could train on more jutsu.
Right now his chakra natures were Fire, Wind, Earth, Yin, and Yang.
Short term, he figured he should stack more high-power Fire Style and be a textbook Uchiha—laying the groundwork for casually tossing out Amaterasu someday.
Later, if the system threw a quest, he’d grab some Lightning nature too.
Cloud’s...
And so, having gotten a firm hold on the glasses lady’s weak spot, Uchiha Yorin began living a happy, carefree life.
Every time he wrapped a mission and dragged himself back exhausted, he’d drop a donation at the orphanage—then enjoy Nono’s full “service.” If he wanted a JK outfit, she wore a JK outfit; if he wanted a uniform, she wore a uniform. Life was bliss.
Of course, there were some headaches.
Every date, Nono would ask:
“Uchiha Yorin, have you ...
After booking a room and showering, their clothes came off piece by piece, their breathing grew heavier, their bodies pressed closer—and at last they got down to the usual business.
This and that, then that and this… About an hour later, Uchiha Yorin lay on the bed, calmly staring at the ceiling.
A tickle on his chest made him turn his head; Yakushi Nono was tracing circles there with a fingertip. Sated and tired, Yorin felt too lazy to move. He just gave her hand a light pa...
“Minato-sama—”
“—Minato!”
Seeing him sway, Yorin couldn’t help thinking, holy crap, don’t you dare die on us.
Their wayward student was even more infuriating than the two Uchiha had imagined.
If Minato actually keeled over from anger, there’d be no clean way out. Worst case, some kid would fling the door open right now, point at them and shout, “Murder! Shisui and Yorin from the Uchiha killed the Fourth!” Then no matter what they said, they’...
The sun rose as Harry Osborn lay in bed and switched on the giant TV mounted on his bedroom wall.
“…A major tragedy at Oscorp: multiple researchers were killed overnight. Police are pursuing the killer, but based on damage to walls and equipment, some claim the culprit isn’t even human…”
“What?!” Harry stared at the footage of seven or eight bodies being wheeled out of Oscorp Tower under white sheets.
The reporter kept talking to camera, but Harry wasn’t l...
“Join us—or we’ll sample your lovely wife and daughter first, then toss you into the Hudson.”
“All your boys have already gone over to Kingpin. Why are you still resisting?”
Hell’s Kitchen, the Manhattan district by the Hudson River. On the pier, a thug pressed a gun to the head of a small-time boss named Kevin.
Kevin knelt with his hands tied behind him. The cold muzzle at his temple made the vein there throb. He forced an ugly grin.
“Every time ni...