Senba Gari shook his head quickly as he spoke.
"Oh~ So you don't agree, then?"
As she spoke, Kotori Minami narrowed her eyes.
"No. I mean, Otonokizaka is a girls' school, after all. Wouldn't it be a little... strange for a man like me to teach there?"
Senba Gari looked at Kotori Minami hesitantly as he spoke.
"Hehehe, is that so? I seem to remember I still have some old 'photos' of a certain someone. Should I show them to Kotori when we get back?"
As she spoke, Kotori Minami looked at Senba Gari with a 'gentle' smile.
"Fine! I'll go, okay? Just please don't let anyone else find out, Aunt Minami. (T＿T)"
At Kotori Minami's words, Senba Gari jolted and immediately caved. Then, on the verge of tears, he spoke.
"That's more like it. Come find me and report in when Otonokizaka starts classes in a few days. I'm leaving."
As she spoke, Kotori Minami stood up to leave. Senba Gari covered his face, looking utterly miserable.
"Yes, I understand. Take care, Aunt Minami."
A few minutes after Kotori Minami left, Senba Gari also came out of the shop. He got on the Silver Phantom and was just about to leave when its voice came through his earpiece.
Master, I'm very curious about the photo that woman mentioned. What could it be to make you so afraid?
"Don't ask. I really don't want to remember! (T＿T)"
"BOOM!"
Just as Senba Gari was about to leave, a nearby building suddenly collapsed before their eyes.
Master! A new Mlortha reaction has been detected!
The Silver Phantom's voice suddenly came through the earpiece.
"Damn it! Phantom, let's get over there!"
Senba Gari said angrily, then rode the Silver Phantom toward the collapsing building. However, he didn't know that an orange-yellow card in his pocket had flashed with light.
Riding the Silver Phantom, Senba Gari asked it,
"Phantom, where is that new Mlortha now?"
...Sorry, master. I can't detect the Mlortha's reaction anymore. It seems to have left or changed back into a human.
"That's all right. The people inside that collapsed building are the priority. Let's get over there."
He spoke to the Silver Phantom, then headed for the collapsed building. Suddenly remembering something, he took the Divine transformation card from his pocket and said,
"Right, I almost forgot. My current identity can't get involved, so I'll have to use Divine's identity."
"Manifest!"
As soon as he spoke, a flash of silver light appeared around Senba Gari's waist, and a silver-white Beast Soul Driver appeared there.
Senba Gari then inserted the card into the right side of the Beast Soul Driver. The screen displayed an image of Garuda, a bird-faced figure with a human body, and the Beast God Driver let out several synthesized mechanical sounds.
Vehicle armour appear
As the first mechanical voice faded, crimson armor-shaped images appeared around Senba Gari's body.
armed
When the second mechanical voice sounded, the crimson armor images equipped themselves onto Senba Gari.
Divine Garuda
Then the third mechanical voice sounded, and Senba Gari appeared in his Divine Garuda form.
Before long, Divine rode the Silver Phantom to the site of the collapsed building, but—
"Click, click, click."
Several police officers raised their guns, pointing their dark muzzles at Divine. Seeing this, Divine raised his hands to shoulder height, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
"Hey, hey, calm down! Be careful with those guns—you might accidentally fire! I'm not a bad guy."
"Who are you? Tell us what you're doing here! And did you cause this building to collapse?"
One of the officers pointed his gun at Divine and demanded loudly. There was no helping it—Divine looked so strange that anyone would take him for a monster.
"Uh, well, I, I..." How am I supposed to explain this? Should I tell them I know what caused it, but have no idea where it is, so I came to check things out and look for clues? Whether they believe me or not, they'll definitely treat me like a suspect, won't they?! (╯｀□′)╯~ ╧╧ (Actually, they already do. (;一_一))
Just as Divine was at a loss for how to explain himself, a familiar voice came to his rescue.
"Put your guns down. I'm the one who called him here. Go check whether there are any other clues."
A middle-aged man walked over and spoke to the officers around him. Once his subordinates heard their superior, they went off to do their jobs.
"Yes, sir!"
"Uh, aren't you the guy from Akihabara that day?!"
Divine looked up and recognized the middle-aged man as the person he had saved the first time he transformed into Divine.
"That's right. I really owe you for that day. If you hadn't been there, I might have died. Did you come here today because you think those monsters did this?"
When the middle-aged man mentioned the monsters, he lowered his voice as he spoke to Divine.
"Yeah. I also came to investigate for clues."
"I see. We looked into it, and this building belonged to a fairly well-known company. Today happened to be a day off for the employees, so there weren't any major casualties. But the company's boss, a man named Inoue Ko, was struck across the waist by a falling stone pillar."
"I see. Could you take me to where you found Inoue's body?"
Divine asked the middle-aged man, who agreed.
"Of course. Follow me."
Before long, Divine followed the middle-aged man to the spot where they had found the body. The middle-aged man pointed to the rubble beside them and said,
"This is where we found half of Inoue's body. The other half was nearby."
"Here? Let me take a look. By the way, were there any similar incidents before this?"
Divine looked at the blood trail on the ground. It seemed that Inoue had been trying to do something before he died. He turned to ask the middle-aged man.
"Oh, yes. Including this one, three buildings have collapsed. But the other two buildings claimed hundreds of lives. Their foundations were suddenly hollowed out, which caused the buildings to collapse."
"I see."
At the middle-aged man's words, Divine furrowed his brow beneath his mask. The middle-aged man seemed to remember something else.
"Oh! One more thing. The owners of all three buildings knew one another. And before this, a man named Jiang Zhiliu went missing. He knew them, too."
"This looks pretty complicated... Hmm."
Suddenly, Divine noticed several crooked words written in blood on a piece of concrete at the end of the trail left by Inoue.
So many unanswered questions
Divine walked to the end of the blood trail, where Inoue had dragged himself, then crouched and examined the crooked bloodstained letters. On closer inspection, he could make out a few letters that looked like English.
"Phase of Sich."
After Divine read the letters written in blood, his brow furrowed beneath his mask. The middle-aged man beside him noticed his troubled expression and asked,
"Divine, what's wrong? Is there a problem?"
"Yeah, there is. It seems Inoue died before he could finish writing those words in English. And I've had a strange feeling that something doesn't add up ever since I got here."
"Something doesn't add up?"
"Never mind. I'm probably overthinking it."
Divine stood up and spoke to the middle-aged man.
"Well, I'll be going now."
"I see. I hope you can deal with those monsters. And thank you for saving my life last time!"
As he spoke, the middle-aged man bowed deeply to Divine. Divine said nothing, simply waving over his shoulder as he left.
Still struggling
On his way home, Senba Gari had already returned to his normal form and was riding the Silver Phantom when a black car brushed past him.
"Skree—"
As the people in the back of the black car passed him, Senba Gari stopped the Silver Phantom in the middle of the road. He opened the visor of his motorcycle helmet and turned to watch the black car speeding into the distance, his expression grave. Seeing his serious look, the Silver Phantom asked in confusion,
Master, what's wrong?
At the Silver Phantom's voice, Senba Gari replied uncertainly,
"Nothing. I just felt like there was something strange about the people in that car."
Strange?
"Maybe I'm just being paranoid."
He memorized the black car's license plate number, started the Silver Phantom again, and said,
"Phantom, find out who Inoue Ko met before he died."
Understood, master.
That night, at Senba Gari's home.
"Phantom, did you find what I asked you to look for?"
Sitting on the sofa, Senba Gari spoke to the Silver Phantom, who was sitting there too. The Silver Phantom projected an image from its eyes and spoke.
Master, I just found out how the owners of the three buildings that collapsed were connected. They, along with the missing Jiang Zhiliu and Ainosuke, the owner of a Department Store, all gathered together before the incidents occurred. The next morning, the buildings collapsed. Apart from the missing Jiang Zhiliu and Ainosuke, who hasn't been attacked yet, the bodies of all the others were found in the rubble. So I have a theory: the culprit may be Jiang Zhiliu.
"Yeah, that's possible. But we don't even know where he is. How are we supposed to find him?"
Senba Gari pressed a hand to his temple, speaking in frustration. The Silver Phantom spoke up.
Master, if the culprit wants to kill those people, then his next target may be Ainosuke, the owner of the Department Store who is still alive. If we keep an eye on him discreetly, we may be able to find the culprit.
"Ugh, looks like that's our only option. I'm exhausted today. Time for bed."
After speaking, Senba Gari returned to his room.
Late that night, in Senba Gari's dream, he stood on a vast, rocky plain. A gigantic golden-furred Diamond stood in the center of the plain. Just as the dream version of Senba Gari reached a hand out, everything around him suddenly went dark. The rocky plain and the Diamond disappeared, but he could just make out two words in the darkness: the earth.
Then Senba Gari sat up in bed and looked out the window. The sun was already high in the sky, and sunlight shone through the gaps in the curtains into the room. Since he had just woken up, his eyes hadn't adjusted to the sunlight yet, so he squinted.
After a while, once his eyes had adjusted, Senba Gari got out of bed and left his room. The Silver Phantom was still on the sofa, watching TV as usual. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, then came out and said,
"Phantom, let's go."
Understood, master.
--Scene shift
While Senba Gari rode the Silver Phantom toward the Department Store, a girl with long purple hair tied into low twin tails and emerald-green eyes—Nozomi Tojo—smiled at the pair of sisters in front of her.
The older sister, Eli Ayase, had blonde hair tied in a high ponytail and light-blue eyes. Her younger sister, Alisa Ayase, had soft, shoulder-length golden hair and the same light-blue eyes as her sister.
Alisa Ayase looked up at her sister and asked,
"Why are we here, Sis?"
"Because you're going to be living here now, Alisa, so we have to buy all your daily necessities."
Eli Ayase affectionately ruffled her younger sister's hair as she spoke.
"Oh my, you two sisters are shining so brightly together that my eyes are almost going blind~"
Nozomi Tojo looked at the sisters beside her and said helplessly.
"Honestly, Nozomi, you're the one who insisted on coming along. You can't blame me."
"Yes, yes. There's a women's clothing shop right next door. Should we take a look?"
"Sure. Come on, Alisa, let's go buy you some clothes."
Eli Ayase took her younger sister by the hand, and the two of them followed Nozomi Tojo into a clothing shop. At the same time, a black-haired, black-eyed young man with a silver-white Bluetooth earpiece in his left ear—our protagonist, Senba Gari—happened to pass the three girls as they entered the shop.
He was the culprit.
As he walked through the Department Store, Senba Gari spoke to the Silver Phantom through his earpiece.
Before you continue