Kaori Niina's Acquaintance Recommends a Client
"That looks so delicious! It looks like chocolate!"
"A chocolate cake... Fujino, you really went to a lot of expense!"
"All right, Professor Agasa, make a wish!"
"At my age, I still have to..."
"No, you have to make a wish!"
"We can only cut the cake after you've made one!"
"All right... I've made my wish."
"The cake's cut!"
The kids stuck candles into the chocolate cake Fujino had ordered and practically forced Professor Agasa to make a wish. Then they cut up the entire cake and divided it into several equal portions.
Fujino watched the harmonious scene before him, quietly sitting off to the side.
A single old man and a group of mischievous children.
All he could say was that they had met the right people at the right time.
Professor Agasa took these children out to play every day, buying amusement park tickets without a second thought. It might have looked foolish, but he clearly enjoyed it.
He had given these children an unforgettable and precious childhood.
And hadn't these children given him the warmth of a family in return...
Tokyo, inside Fujino's detached-house secret base.
"Fwoosh..."
Inside a spotless white laboratory, gunpowder burned rapidly in an iron tray atop a metal workbench, giving off thick clouds of smoke.
"Cough!"
Wearing a white lab coat and a mask, Fujino hurriedly ducked away and coughed.
"Whirrr!"
The laboratory's exhaust fan began to spin. On the large screen to the far left of the room, Hiroki Sawada's image rubbed his chin. "It seems that gunpowder ingredients purified using other materials still can't reach the purity achieved through industrial refinement. These charges are completely unusable inside a 25-millimeter cannon. If the force is insufficient, its power will be drastically reduced, or it