Breathing heavily, Karasawa straightened up and wiped the blood from his cheek, hissing under his breath.
The monstrous spider let out one last screech before shattering into a mess of blades scattered across the floor. Maru Denjirou lay sprawled on the ground, hair undone, clothes in disarray, whimpering for mercy.
"Out of the way, you tasteless piece of trash." Karasawa nudged the limp heap with the tip of his shoe and stepped past him into the inner room.
"No! Don't take it!" Maru Denjirou's shadow clung desperately to Karasawa's ankle, weeping. "Take anything else—my treasure, my money—just not that!"
Karasawa crouched down and gave him a smile, patting his cheek lightly with the short blade still caked in black mud. "That's the look. That pain. Do you feel the weight of the sins you inflicted on others? Keep crying. Louder."
Then he kicked away Maru's clinging hand and walked into the main chamber, leaving the man sobbing behind him.
Inside stood a finely crafted wooden chest of drawers, and Karasawa's expression twitched subtly at the sight of it.
Let him guess—this was the very same cabinet from the manga, the one Maru Denjirou had carved death threats into...
A poetic ending, really. Mutual attraction by way of poetic justice.
Karasawa reached up and retrieved the glowing object from the top of the cabinet.
It was a folding fan, its paper face made of gilt, the handle inlaid with luminous mother-of-pearl. Embossed on the fan's surface was a bold, gleaming character: "Maru."
On the reverse side, an illustration: a warrior brandishing a blade, cleaving through a snarling demon.
"How ironic," Karasawa murmured, studying the image with quiet contemplation.
A collector obsessed with the idea of slaying demons had, in the end, become one himself. If Karasawa hadn't intervened, the warrior would've indeed cut him down.
He tucked the fan away and gently pressed its edge against Maru Denjirou's brow.
"Remember what it feels like to have your treasure stolen from you." Karasawa looked down at Maru's tear-streaked, crumpled face and curled his lip. "Repent for what you've done, Mr. Maru."
The aged man stared dazedly at the fan in Karasawa's hand. With a heavy sigh, he sank to his knees and lowered his head.
His shadow dissipated in a burst of light. Karasawa slipped the fan into his waistband, then sprinted forward—just in time to dodge the collapsing doorframe behind him.
The Palace's master had lost his twisted desire, and now the entire Palace was crumbling with it.
"...Still got hurt, huh. Wonder if healing skills actually work on this." Karasawa muttered, sprinting ahead of the disintegrating building. "Only one mask isn't gonna cut it. I'm flying solo out here, and I don't even know if I'll have teammates in the future..."
He made it out of the Maru estate just in time, narrowly avoiding being crushed by falling debris. As he caught his breath, one thought surfaced:
I really need some kind of vehicle for these trips into the Metaverse.
You look so cool when you're fighting—but the way you run away? Absolutely pathetic.
———
Having wrapped up the heart-heist in record time, Karasawa made it back to Café Poirot before lunch.
According to his experiments, healing skills could indeed restore physical condition—but only inside the Metaverse. If he didn't fully heal up before leaving, the injuries carried over.
And once outside, no amount of going back in could erase the wounds.
Luckily, this time most of the damage was internal. On the surface, he only had a thin scratch on his cheek—nothing that would arouse suspicion.
He buttoned his undershirt all the way up, hiding the bruising across his chest, then pushed open the café door.
The first thing he saw: Furuya Rei washing dishes with a face like a thundercloud. His expression didn't change much, but the furious squeaking of the sponge was enough to kill a man.
"Amuro-san?" Karasawa prompted quietly. "That plate's already clean."
Furuya blinked, looked down at the mirror-shiny plate in his hands, clicked his tongue, and set it on the rack.
"Bad mood? Something happen?" Karasawa took a seat at the bar.
In a manga, his current pose would've had speedlines and dark aura effects drawn all over it.
Instead of answering, Furuya shot a question back: "Where did you go this morning?"
Karasawa gave a nervous little laugh. "Ahaha, just out for a walk. Why do you ask?"
What happened? No way, right? I didn't blow my cover on my very first heart heist... right?
"You haven't had any trouble these past couple of days?" Furuya's gaze felt like an X-ray, scanning Karasawa up and down. "No suspicious people following you?"
Trouble? Would Suwa Yuuji nearly stabbing someone count? Or that batch of fake cards he'd mass-printed and handed to a bunch of delinquents?
Karasawa couldn't tell if Furuya had picked up on something specific, or if he was just fishing. Either way, he didn't dare speak too soon.
Then Furuya abruptly narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, grabbing Karasawa's cheek.
"Ow ow ow—" The still-healing scratch stung like hell, and Karasawa yelped, jerking out of his grip.
Furuya was clearly fuming. "How'd you get that cut? Did someone follow you?"
Karasawa blinked, trying to gauge what had triggered his anger. He gave a vague answer: "Just a scratch... really, nothing serious..."
But Furuya wasn't buying it. He yanked at Karasawa's tightly buttoned collar. "That shirt wasn't buttoned all the way this morning. Start talking."
The bruising from the spider monster's strikes hadn't faded yet—those katana hits hurt like hell. One of them alone had knocked off 25 HP, and it showed.
A dark, bluish-purple welt stretched from his chest to his collarbone. The edges were starting to turn black.
The moment Furuya saw it, his expression soured. "You were attacked?"
Karasawa quickly adjusted his collar and came to a realization. "Wait... this morning? I left before you even got to work. How do you know what my shirt looked like?"
"I got here just after you left. I saw someone acting suspiciously, following you. I figured I'd tail them and see what they were up to." Furuya flipped the timeline without blinking, presenting his own stalking as noble concern for a minor. "But then I noticed—you were trying to shake them off."
Karasawa blinked twice.
Huh? Someone was tailing me? And I managed to ditch them?
Wait a second—was Furuya following me, and someone else was too, and I just happened to slip into the Metaverse, leaving both of them behind?
That would explain it.
Karasawa relaxed a little. At least it wasn't about the Phantom Thieves.
Wearing a suitably serious expression, he began to explain. "Someone's been tailing me for a couple days now—maybe even since I arrived in Tokyo. I don't know who they're with."
Then, with the perfect blend of performance and plausible deniability, Karasawa tossed the blame somewhere—anywhere—else.
Given his current persona as Karasawa Shou, being targeted by upper-level retaliation, organizational surveillance, or some unknown faction wasn't far-fetched at all.
He didn't know who the stalker was. But hey—if someone had to take the fall for injuring a minor?
He'd happily let them carry that pot.