Experiment

"Mrs. Sato, do you really think it's scientific to say that a good night's sleep will fix your legs? Do you expect us to believe that?"

The interrogation room.

The questioning had been going on for a while.

It was clear that Sato Tomomi was under immense pressure.

Fidgeting with the hem of her clothes, curling her toes, sweat beading on her forehead, her eyes darting and shifting without focus.

She had no training in resisting interrogation. Faced with the officers' relentless, coordinated questioning, she was completely outmatched.

Once she lied about one thing, it was only a matter of time before the others' probing exposed a crack, and then that point would come under concentrated fire.

Sato Tomomi stammered in panic, on the verge of tears. Just as she was about to break and consider revealing the Holy Infant Society, Noguchi Yuji received a notification from behind the one-way glass.

"Chief, a lawyer claims to be commissioned by a friend of Sato Tomomi and is requesting to intervene in the interrogation."

"Who's the client?"

"Okamoto Ritsuichi, a friend in Sato Tomomi's social circle."

"Verify the connection, then assign someone to monitor him."

"Understood. And the lawyer?"

"Make him wait." Noguchi Yuji shook his head. Sato Tomomi was clearly on the verge of breaking; why would he let a lawyer in to bolster her courage?

Even if Sato Tomomi did have the right to make that request.

But before long, someone else entered—and it was the superintendent.

His expression sour, he said, "That lawyer filed a complaint with the director, claiming we're holding her illegally. The director sent me to ask about the interrogation results. If possible, at least let the lawyer meet with her."

Noguchi Yuji frowned, staring at Sato Tomomi, who was pressing her lips tight in the interrogation room. In the end, he relented. Sato Tomomi was, after all, just a suspect's family member. Without solid evidence that she was an accomplice, he couldn't detain her. It wasn't technically a detention yet, but he didn't want to deal with a stubborn, meddlesome lawyer like that.

"Five minutes. He gets five minutes. Let them talk in there."

"He says he only needs one minute."

"...Fine. Kuraki, start timing the moment he walks in. Have Yamaguchi and the others come out first."

The superintendent left, and moments later, a sturdy man in a suit entered the interrogation room. He glanced at the one-way glass, his face expressionless.

But when Mrs. Sato saw him, her expression couldn't hide her shock, as if she was about to blurt something out—only to be stopped by the lawyer's hand on her shoulder, silencing her.

The lawyer leaned close to her ear, whispering something.

Sato Tomomi's expression shifted from shock to covering her mouth, her eyes misting over. Within a second, tears slid down the corners of her eyes.

He didn't even need a minute. The lawyer finished speaking, looked back at the one-way glass, gave a stiff smile, and left the interrogation room.

Noguchi Yuji felt a sense of unease rising in him, an anxiety that things were slipping out of his control.

"Tail that lawyer. Wait for my further orders. And check out his firm—he doesn't look like a lawyer."

Of course he didn't. He was just the Ninth Guardian, controlled by Shiraishi Wataru. Even the complaint had been made using Nakai Hayato's access to the director's private number, with the grievance drafted based on advice from an online lawyer.

That's why Sato Tomomi was so shocked to see him.

This poor couple had become Shiraishi Wataru's test subjects one after the other, giving everything for his collection of symbiosis data.

After controlling the Ninth Guardian to leave the police station, he walked toward the darkness.

The night before.

When Sato Gafeng came home, he saw the lavish spread on the dinner table—richer than any other day.

"What's the occasion? Didn't we just have our anniversary?" Sato Gafeng asked with a smile toward the kitchen.

Sato Tomomi beamed as she brought out the last dish, set it neatly on the table, and then hugged her husband.

"I'm cured, Gafeng. We can have a child now!"

Sato Gafeng stood there dumbfounded, clearly not processing it.

So his wife told him everything that had happened at the church that day and showed him her legs, which were now perfectly fine.

Staring at the strange pill in his palm, then at his wife's hopeful eyes, he swallowed it despite lingering doubts.

"Finally, someone compatible with [Super Strength]." Shiraishi Wataru didn't immediately grant the symbiotic ability. Instead, he chose to lie low. He had an idea—he'd run an experiment the next morning.

"What's wrong? Is it because you don't believe in the Holy Infant, so it didn't work?" Sato Tomomi looked him over, but nothing seemed to have changed. It was completely different from what had happened to her and the others.

"Alright, alright. Either way, I'm just glad your legs are better. Let's eat before it gets cold." Sato Gafeng hadn't seen the scene back then, and he hadn't expected much anyway, so he wasn't disappointed. Instead, he comforted his wife.

"I'll... I'll ask the chairman later. Maybe he'll know." Sato Tomomi didn't give up. She firmly believed the pill worked; maybe it just hadn't taken effect for some other reason.

Looking at his wife, who seemed much younger, Sato Gafeng felt a warmth stir inside him. After dinner, they ended up wetting the kitchen floor.

The next day, when Sato Tomomi saw he still hadn't changed, she felt a pang of disappointment and decided to ask the chairman at the next gathering.

Sato Gafeng went to work by subway as usual.

It was only then that Shiraishi Wataru granted the symbiont an ability—[Super Strength].

Perfect timing to see how [Super Strength] would perform without [Steel Body] to back it up.

Sato Gafeng's body trembled, his face flushed, his heart pounding wildly. A strange power surged through him, as if with just a little force, he could snap the slender, elegant neck of the female office worker beside him.

He tried to calm himself, but it was futile—like a restless leg syndrome sufferer struggling to keep their legs still.

He couldn't hold back the urge to use that strength either.

As he kept fighting to suppress it, the guy in front of him stepped right on his shoe. It didn't hurt, but it was like pouring oil on a fire—that blazing anger kept spreading and growing.

"Sorry, you stepped on me." He forced out a faint smile, patting the person in front of him lightly.

Apologizing first when his own rights were violated—that was already etched into his bones. But today, after saying it, the discomfort in his gut made him sick, like he wanted to throw up.

The man turned his head, glanced back, and seeing it was just an ordinary office worker, turned forward again, pulling his heel back a bit from where it had been pressing.

He could see the tattoo stretching from the man's neck to his cheek when he turned—a typical yakuza. Running into someone like that, you naturally didn't provoke them. The fact that the guy had pulled his foot back instead of grinding it in was already a face-saving gesture.

He looked down at the shoe his wife had carefully wiped clean before he left home, now covered in grime, then back at the man. His breathing grew heavier. The last time he'd felt something similar was when he first started working, and his boss slapped him in the face with a proposal he'd stayed up all night to finish—a humiliation, a trampling of his dignity.

He reached out and tapped the yakuza's shoulder again, forcing an ugly smile onto his face, and said something he'd never dared to say before.

"Aren't you going to apologize?"