Chapter 1955-1963 [Accepting a new younger brother]

[Oh, I forgot one thing.]

Izuka Saburo opened the email with shaking hands, and saw a few lines of cold words printed on the screen, spelling out an even colder statement. The cold-blooded and mysterious superior said:

[From now on, you will become a direct subordinate of "Uzo". Remember this code name, but do not disclose it to anyone, otherwise you will know the consequences.

[--Good luck.]

Izuka Saburo: “…”

Izuka Saburo: “?!!” Wait, wait, what do you mean by wishing me good luck? Is this what you should say to a subordinate who is being transferred? Why does it sound like a curse?

And who is Uzo? Is it that thing? It must be! ——Why did things turn out like this!

"It's normal for Hashimoto Maya to be targeted. Although he has been exhausted recently due to some unknown incident, it can still be seen that he is not an ordinary peripheral member... But Izuka Saburo is just an ordinary member. What does all this have to do with me?"

Izuka Saburo couldn't believe it: "Could it be because I happened to be in the same car with those two people before? But I didn't talk about him with Torimaru Naoko and Hashimoto Maya at all. I was just an innocent driver who didn't say a word. Why did they do this to me?!

…

When Saburo Izuka suddenly heard the bad news.

On the other side, Maya Hashimoto, blending into the night, was wrapped in black and hurriedly crossing the street, intending to go back to her apartment first.

This residential area is dimly lit, the street lamps are old, and it feels inexplicably eerie.

While Hashimoto Maya secretly condemned Curacao's perfunctory custody, she could only be alert and quicken her pace.

Just as she was passing through a dark area with broken street lights, Hashimoto Maya looked up inadvertently and suddenly froze.

——Under a street lamp more than ten meters away, a cat was sitting there quietly, turning its head to look in his direction.

It is not uncommon to see stray cats at night, but this cat made Maya Hashimoto's eyes suddenly stop.

His steps froze and he stopped where he was, feeling a chill rising from behind him: the cat in front of him was completely black, with only four snow-white paws - both in size and fur color, it was exactly the same cat he had seen in the car not long ago!

"I remember when Torimaru Naoko jumped into our car, she said that it was Usa who asked her to find a black car that would open the door automatically... and the reason I opened the door at that time was to throw the stray cat out."

A series of thoughts flashed through his mind, and in an instant, Hashimoto Maya felt that everything was right: black cats often symbolize bad luck and misfortune, and this cat was like a messenger sent by Usa. The last time he saw it, he learned the bad news from Torimaru Naoko, and this time... why did it suddenly appear again?

Just as he was thinking in a cold sweat, the cat suddenly called at him.

It seemed like just an ordinary reminder, but when the sound fell into Hashimoto Maya's ears, he felt that the cat's cry was particularly shrill and cold in the night, like a death horn, perfectly fitting all his stereotypes about black cats.

Maya Hashimoto looked at it vigilantly. Before he could figure out what the cat was trying to do, he suddenly felt a strange sound of wind nearby.

He was startled, and before he could figure out what was going on, his collar suddenly tightened.

——A hand grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

Hashimoto Maya was forced to lean forward, and almost at the same time, something heavy brushed past his nose. The wind from the heavy object cut his face sharply, and the next moment, the object brushed past him and hit the wall heavily with a thud.

“…”

The sound of the collision was so close and deafening that it took Hashimoto Maya two seconds to comprehend what had happened. Although it was dark and he couldn't see anything, one thing was very clear - just now, he was almost hit on the head by a pile of rocks that flew from nowhere!

In fear, the benefactor behind him patted his shoulder, as if signaling him to leave.

Hashimoto Maya turned around in a cold sweat and was about to thank him, but he vaguely saw his benefactor put his finger to his lips, signaling him to be quiet, and whispered: "Don't talk, don't make any noise. This will disturb the actors' hard practice."

"Practice?" Hashimoto Maya instinctively followed the other person and lowered her voice, but she didn't understand what this sentence meant: Could it be that there was some bored crew filming a drama nearby and were throwing props around?

...Wait, the crew?!

This keyword triggered some painful memories. Hashimoto Maya's heart skipped a beat and she felt the hairs on her back stand up.

His gaze slowly fell on the black-clad figure in front of him. As a thought suddenly flashed through his mind, his heart beat faster and faster, and his blood roared.

His brain seemed to have stopped working. When he came to his senses, he had already followed the man out of the dark area and reached the corner of the street.

Hashimoto Maya felt like he was sleepwalking in a horror movie. He raised his head and looked forward. The person walking in front of him only left him a leisurely back view. The man was wearing a black suit, black curly hair, and the temples of sunglasses behind his ears pressed down his hair. Although he hadn't seen his face, this outfit was completely the same as the man in black he saw on the stage in Hokkaido not long ago.

The cat squatting under the streetlight had left with them at some point, and lay on the shoulder of the man in black very familiarly, swaying like a black and white shawl.

A terrifying code name instantly popped up in his mind - Uzo.

Although his reason had made him rule out this possibility countless times, when this person appeared in front of him in person, just a light gesture and a few short words were enough to cause Hashimoto Maya's carefully built up psychological defense of "this is not Uzo" to collapse.

...This is Uzo. The real devil.

In the past, Hashimoto Maya had imagined countless times what it would be like if she met Usa: maybe she would muster up the courage to rush forward and die together with him, maybe she would follow her heart and turn around and run away to the ends of the earth, maybe she would force herself to act like she would never surrender, and then die bravely like a hero against Usa...

However, when faced with reality, he felt as if he had ascended to heaven from head to toe, his mind was blank, and he couldn't even utter a single sentence, "Are you Uzo?" for a short period of time, let alone any passionate lines.

Suddenly, at the street corner ahead, a few drunk female office workers were returning home late at night, passing by in groups, laughing and joking.

The sudden laughter and joy floated in the night, like a bridge from hell back to the world, which suddenly aroused Mayana Hashimoto's numb desire to survive.

(End of this chapter)