Chapter 59: The Arbitrator

"No..."

Mizuno Hirosuke looked at the scene before him and cried out in despair.

Thud!

A sudden, sharp pain flared in his abdomen, spreading like a tidal wave across his entire body.

His hands instinctively reached toward the source of the agony, where he felt something warm and slick... his own blood.

The next moment, convulsions wracked his body as he let out a miserable scream.

However, his high-end apartment was completely soundproof.

Once Wakaba closed the window, no one could possibly hear his screams.

He staggered and crashed to the floor, staring with a face full of terror and anguish at Wakaba walking toward him.

She wore a fox mask, and the silencer on the pistol in her hand drifted with faint wisps of gunpowder smoke...

When she obtained the address from her handler, she never expected it would lead to the Mizuno household.

Since she was the one who had left him with lingering psychological trauma, it never crossed her mind that he would actually retaliate against her.

Adhering to her personal principle of never letting a grievance wait overnight, she had rushed over immediately.

To her surprise, she had even overheard their conversation.

"I heard you have a younger sister who is the mistress of some big shot in the Shibukawa City Board of Education?" Wakaba approached him. "Tell me, what is her name, and where is she?"

"Y-You are Shiraori Kiyoshi?" Hearing that voice which sounded like a nightmare, Mizuno Hirosuke raised his head in disbelief and glared at Wakaba.

"Correct answer. Well, did you expect that the company you placed the order with employs me?" Wakaba said.

"How could that be... Y-You're an assassin!" Mizuno Hirosuke felt as though the world was playing a most cruel joke on him. "No, impossible, you're just an ordinary high school student, how could you be an assassin?"

He found the truth impossible to accept.

Wakaba, however, had no intention of wasting any more breath on him and immediately began interrogating him about his sister's whereabouts.

"Would his sister just let it go simply because her brother was the one who hired a hitman first?"

"There's no way that's possible."

"Or should I bury my head in the sand like an ostrich, wishing away the reality and naively thinking they'll never trace it back to me?"

"His sister is a big shot's mistress; that big shot will undoubtedly track this back to me. When that happens, I'll be left without a burial place, and my... true identity might even be exposed!"

"No way am I just sitting here waiting to die!"

"The only course of action now is to strike first!"

Wakaba's gaze hardened with determination.

Through an interrogation where she systematically snapped Mizuno Hirosuke's fingers one by one, she quickly extracted all the information about his sister, including the identity of the so-called big shot.

Realizing he had outlived his usefulness, Wakaba rewarded him with a single bullet.

Silence descended upon the room.

She sat at the table, gazing at the spread of expensive, nourishing gourmet dishes. Remembering that she hadn't eaten dinner yet, and adhering to the principle that every grain of rice is earned through hard work, she began to eat.

Between bites, she sighed to herself: "Sigh~~, I, Wakaba—a gentle, kind-hearted good girl—work my fingers to the bone taking classes during the day and risk my life earning money at night, only to end up eating instant noodles every day and facing eviction from my apartment in a year?

"These people are venomous at heart and fawn upon the powerful, yet they live in a luxurious mansion and eat thousand-yen meals at every single meal.

"It's so hard to be a good person!

"Still, I, Wakaba, am going to remain a good girl, because I am inherently a good girl."

After eating her fill, she stood up and searched the place, managing to find only twenty thousand in cash.

She then destroyed the room's electrical circuits, scattered volatile solid fuel over the three corpses and every corner of the room, and set the place ablaze.

Whoosh!

The raging fire engulfed the living room and all the rooms, the rising pressure shattering the surrounding glass windows as tongues of flame surged three to four meters outward...

Meanwhile, Wakaba had long since used silver threads to maneuver across the walls in a three-dimensional escape, leaving the scene far behind.

Instead of going home, she headed straight toward the residence of that big shot to eliminate the evildoer!

...

In the central district of Shibukawa City.

Inside a towering, bustling skyscraper.

Chihaya Saoh walked into a vast, spacious room where the lighting was dim. Accompanied by the faint buzzing of electrical currents, numerous holographic projections flickered into existence one after another.

These holographic projections were shrouded by specialized technical concealment, revealing only their general silhouettes while rendering their facial features and appearances entirely indistinguishable.

They took their seats in order within the massive electronic conference hall.

"Well?" At the front, the figure seated in the director's chair emitted a deep, synthesized voice.

Chihaya Saoh knelt in the center of the room, prostrating herself on the ground: "Reporting to Lord Director, under normal conditions, this subordinate is no match for him."

This statement caused the people in the room to frown slightly.

"You are an arbiter from the organization's headquarters, having undergone brutal training since childhood. Even under normal conditions, you represent the absolute limit of human capability, yet you actually lost to a high school student who has only trained for a year?" questioned an executive seated further forward.

"This subordinate is willing to die to atone for her failure," Chihaya Saoh said clearly.

"You are an elite of the organization's headquarters. Even if you must die, you must die for the organization, understood?" The director's tone carried a hint of reprimand.

"This subordinate understands!" Chihaya Saoh hurriedly kowtowed in gratitude.

Another executive remarked, "Since even an arbiter couldn't defeat that kid, could the incident involving the Anson Group actually be his doing?"

They were well aware of the annihilation of the Anson Group and had acquired first-hand intelligence regarding it, such as the numerous explosive traces left at the scene...

That was clearly the kind of destructive power possessed only by individual tactical demolition equipment.

Following their investigation, they had flagged Wakaba as a person of interest and dispatched Chihaya Saoh to test him.

"Wait, we shouldn't be so hasty in our conclusions," spoke up the head of Group D, Fēng, who was seated further back.

He was the trench-coat-clad man who had maintained contact with Wakaba.

He looked toward Chihaya Saoh and asked, "You crossed swords with him—did you notice if he sustained any injuries?"

Chihaya Saoh pondered for a moment before shaking her head. "No."

Upon receiving this affirmative answer, Fēng quickly chimed in, "Everyone, although the Anson Group is only a first-generation corporation, it still possesses rudimentary neural cores and a security department. Even if an arbiter of the organization unleashes her berserk state to wipe them out, she wouldn't emerge completely unscathed, would she?"

At these words, quite a few people nodded in agreement.

"We cannot rule out the possibility that he has a high-level medical team behind him, healing his injuries with advanced medical technology," retorted the head of Group G.

"If a faction with that kind of technology existed, would they bother planting someone inside our organization?" Fēng narrowed his eyes as he looked at the man.

The other person had a past grievance with him and naturally could not bear to see a talent emerge on his side.

Left speechless, the man gritted his teeth and said, "Even if the Anson Group incident wasn't his doing, his strength clearly surpasses the level of an outer-ring C-class assassin.

"Once someone like that acquires power, the very first thing they think about is breaking away from the organization, or even destroying it."

Hearing this, everyone nodded in agreement.

Over the years, among these C-class assassins used as cannon fodder, while good prospects certainly appeared from time to time, absolute loyalty was entirely non-existent.

Either they plotted to escape the organization, or they sought to destroy it for revenge... though all of them inevitably failed.

Yet this was hardly surprising.

These C-class cannon fodder were essentially driven down this path after falling deep into usurious debt engineered by the organization.

Living each day on the precipice of survival, over ninety percent of their earnings were systematically siphoned away.

Any normal person would harbor zero loyalty toward such an organization.

Seizing the opportunity, the head of Group G respectfully addressed the director: "Sir, this subordinate proposes that we deal with this Shiraori Kiyoshi according to our usual precedent: eliminate him!"

"Wait, Shiraori Kiyoshi has a clean background; might he not be worth recruiting into headquarters?" Fēng interjected urgently. "Besides, as long as he passes the trial—"

"Heh~, the trial~. Do you think just anyone can pass the trial?" the head of Group G sneered, his tone shifting abruptly. "For the past fifty years, aside from Lord Director himself, who else has ever passed the trial?"

Fēng was left speechless by the retort.

That trial was utterly soul-crushing; even arbiters cultivated by the organization from childhood would likely fail to pass it.

How could an outer-ring C-class assassin possibly succeed?

After a brief discussion among those present, the director at the head of the table finally spoke: "Stop arguing, all of you. The current political landscape is turbulent, and we are in urgent need of talent; we cannot afford to let any source of power go to waste."

With that, he looked toward Chihaya Saoh. "You are responsible for testing his loyalty to see if there is any possibility of bringing him into the organization. If not, kill him."

"Understood, this subordinate accepts the command," Chihaya Saoh replied respectfully, her tone brimming with confidence.

Arbiters were thoroughly accustomed to handling matters of this nature.

"Now then, let us discuss the next agenda item..."