Tomoya sang like a canary, because in his mind, the person in front of him was far above his boss.

He told the person about shady deals, people that his boss killed, and those who he had someone kill for him. He also said that his boss intended to kidnap Sofia and keep her somewhere, but he was in the middle of a takeover, and he wanted to dedicate all of his time to her.

Not only that, but he told the person that he kept a flash-drive in a secret compartment in his car’s trunk, which had actual proof of a lot of things.

Asahi was only slightly surprised that Tomoya didn’t even try to lie.

From a couple meters away, Asahi pointed the futuristic-looking black pistol at Tomoya, which frightened him.

“Please, don’t kill me, I told you everything.”

Asahi chuckled. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

As he pulled the trigger, a small blue light was shot from the pistol without a sound, reaching Tomoya’s chest in an instant, with only its after-image being visible. As it hit his chest, a light-blue glow spread over his body in a fraction of a second, and he was instantly knocked out cold.

‘Holy hell, this thing is incredible.’

Asahi picked up Tomoya’s phone from the ground, and input the password. He then tapped the Transcendent Network app, and with Psychokinesis, he opened Tomoya’s eyes, and adjusted his face to look like he was awake, passing the facial recognition.

Within the app, he looked for the report function. He just marked it as an emergency, typed the word ‘rooftop’ and pinged his location, then put away his pistol.

He waited.

 

It took ten minutes until he felt two people flying towards his location, holding hands, about as fast as someone in a bicycle. Although they were both invisible, it didn’t hinder Asahi’s detection in the least.

As they approached, they saw the walled rooftop, where a man was tied to a chair, and a person in strange armored clothes was just standing there. What startled them, was that the person was looking directly at them.

They flew sideways, just to be sure, but the person’s head followed their movement. It was a show of power.

Both of them landed on the walled rooftop, dismissing the invisibility.

A 1.75m-tall man in his late forties, and a 1.62m-tall woman in her late thirties. They both wore social clothes. His hair was short and well-combed, while she wore hers tied in a bun.

The woman spoke. “Restrain them.”

The man made a gesture like he was trying to grasp something.

Asahi felt the powerful psionic matrixes around him, but as powerful as they were, they were also laughably simple. It barely took a thought for Asahi to undo them.

He giggled. “That was so adorable.”

Suddenly, the man and the woman both felt like each cell on their skin was being held in place, but nothing else. It was like their skin could be ripped off at any moment, if the person in front of them wished so.

“This is what that power is supposed to be like.”

A chill ran down their spine. To them, it felt that if they lived or died, would depend on the whims of the person in front of them.

In reality, Asahi was once again bluffing his ass off. If they actually tried to move, it would only hurt a little. Whenever he did incredibly precise things like that with Psychokinesis, he wasn’t able to exert as much force as he usually could. As for imbuing it with ki to compensate, it was still a bit unstable for his liking, so he needed more practice before trying it on someone.

Asahi then released both of them. “Iwamoto Junko, Sensorial Camouflage. Tajima Renzo, Telekinesis. Both professors in the engineering department of Tokyo University. You have been working for the Transcendent Justice Department for thirteen years, nine of those as partners, and eight as lovers. Without your respective spouses knowing about the affair, of course. Look at your phones, and you will find a recording of the man in the chair. Use what is in there to take care of Fukuda Shunsuke for good, otherwise, I will come for you. You may call me Zunakyr.”

Before they could say anything, the objects that were binding the unconscious man to the chair, flew towards person in futuristic clothing, going beneath their trench coat.

The person before them vanished, like they were never there to begin with.

What happened, was Asahi activating a consumable with his left hand’s middle finger without them noticing. It was an enchanted trigger that activated a higher version of Sensorial Camouflage on him, that lasted for ten minutes.

Asahi bolted through the door that he left open on purpose. He had no need to worry about noise, because no one could hear any noise that he made, unless he dropped something on the floor. Footsteps sounds however, were non-existent.

Junko looked at Renzo with fear and confusion in her eyes. “Did… you see what I just saw? I’m not crazy, am I?”

Renzo shook his head, feeling the same as her. “No, you’re not crazy. Someone looking like they came straight out from a dystopian future, just not only completely ignored our powers, but showed us a better version of them. What now?”

Junko sighed. “We do what they told us to do, and also report their existence. Damn it, this is going to be a pain.”

 

Inside a stall in the men’s bathroom, Asahi switched back to his clothes and backpack. As soon as the effect of the consumable wore out, he flushed the toiled, like he had just used it.

As he washed his hand, he thought. ‘So, did it work?’

[ Hook, line and sinker. ]

He sighed in relief.

After leaving the bathroom, he went straight home.

He had the thought of creating an identity like that for quite a while in the back of his mind, but never needed to.

The things that the System bought for him, were relatively cheap, and as soon as he put on the helm, he realized something that should have been pretty obvious. Whenever he wore technology created by the System like that, even if he didn’t know how to use it, he could just will it, and the System to do it for him.

It was similar to the System being able to delete the videos he sent to people, because it was still part of them, like the items they created.

Arriving at his apartment, he used his inventory to put his stuff in his room and change clothes. He also made the item that cleaned the body appear on his hand, and pressed the trigger. It was bought in case a fight ensued and he needed to clean himself after.

A refreshing sensation washed over his body.

He then walked over to Mayumi’s room, where she and Fumiko were cuddling on the bed, just talking.

Asahi smiled upon seeing them. “I’m back.”

The girls looked at him with beaming smiles, which made him feel like he was being healed.

Mayumi gestured with her hand. “Come here, cuddle with us.”

He happily crawled onto the bed, gave them both a light kiss, and hugged Fumiko from behind. “I have another movie to show you two. I’m completely fine, and everything was safe.”

Fumiko slapped his butt. “Who did you save now?”

“The president of the Drawing and Painting club. I did it to avoid an annoyance though, not due to compassion or anything.”

Mayumi chuckled. “Right, like she would care about why she was saved.”

Asahi rubbed his leg against Fumiko’s, enjoying her warmth. “She doesn’t even know that it went down though. It was a guy using Clairvoyance on the club room, from the rooftop. He was hired by the president’s stalker, who’s the owner of a financial group, and a member of the TS. This time I went full smoke and mirrors because of that.”

Fumiko caressed his arm. “Can’t wait to watch it. How was the club itself?”

He smirked. “There are only women in the club, fourteen of them. My first activity was to pose nude for them, only to be invited to a threesome by the end. Had to refuse, both because I’d like to hang out with them first, and I had no time, since I had to deal with the dude on the roof.”

Mayumi laughed. “Asahi, the cockblocked hero.”

Fumiko chuckled. “True, you had a foursome ruined for you on Saturday as well. But it still looks like you’ll have a lot of opportunities. Bring some home too, it’s nice to share, you know?”

Asahi laughed ant tickled her.

They stayed in bed for half an hour or so, before going to the living-room, where they watched what he went through, while eating popcorn.

The girls were fascinated by his futuristic getup.

Mayumi pointed at the black bracelets holding the man’s limbs, and the rope tying his torso. “Do they do something special?”

“Those clasps are just really sturdy. They can probably hold back someone of Trish’s strength for a dozen minutes or so. The rope has a glue-like property that is activated by psionic stimulation. It can stick a car to a ceiling, if the ceiling can handle it. The neat thing, is that I can deactivate the stickiness and it’s gone, no residue, no mess.”

The girls made some bondage jokes as they kept watching the video, and despite how dark some of the content was, the girls were in a light mood.

After it was done, Asahi had a pensive expression. “As much as I appreciate the light mood, I’m a bit worried about how you two are actually dealing with all of this.”

Fumiko smiled. “We were actually talking about that earlier, not long before you got home. Obviously, we only talked about the System, not the TS and the other stuff.”

Mayumi nodded. “The thing is, if you think about it, we’re actually safer like this.”

Fumiko caressed his thigh. “Think about it. Pretend that there is no System, nor powered people. We can still get shot, stabbed, kidnapped, and a lot of other bad things, against which we had very little to defend ourselves with. But our reality now, is that we have you on our corner, who has arguably the most powerful entity in existence.”

Mayumi held his hand. “Please, don’t misunderstand us. We have no intention of using you or the System for selfish reasons, or anything even remotely like that. We’re trying to say that, as far as things we can’t control goes, it was an improvement.”

Asahi smiled, embracing each of them with one arm, bringing them closer to him. “Yeah, I get it. I’ll be very honest about something. If you gave me the option to give up the System, in order to remove the powers from the rest of the people on earth, I wouldn’t even consider it, even for a millisecond.”

Fumiko lightly slapped his chest. “Nor should you, are you crazy? Even you remove ki, mana and stuff like that, it wouldn’t make this any fairer. Besides, you have the power of instant delivery, and that alone is worth sacrificing a few planets.”

They laughed at the obvious joke.

Mayumi laid her head on his shoulder. “It’s not like we’re not surprised at all by how well we’re taking this, we’re just being rational about it. Take the video we just watched as an example. Technically, it was fairly dark and you were in a potentially dangerous situation. However, because you have the System, it was probably safer for you to be in that situation, than it is for me to just walk to Uni. Obviously, it’s like that because you’re smart and can make proper use of what the System offers you.”

[ That assessment is fairly accurate. ]

The message slightly startled the girls, but they were getting used to it.

Asahi chuckled. “If you say so. Yeah, it wasn’t really dangerous, but only because I lucked out, and the only proper offensive power they had was Telekinesis. With the way psionic abilities work, the more complex the psionic matrix is, the harder it is to undo it. The people on Earth who have abilities like Telekinesis, have their psionics capabilities only partially unlocked. They use their powers through ki, creating powerful effects, but with very simplistic matrixes.”

Fumiko put her index finger on her chin. “So, against other powered people it’s very effective, but against you who can directly manipulate psionic matrixes, it becomes useless.”

Asahi nodded. “Yup. I’m thinking about a way of dealing with the Consortium as well. With them, I’ll probably have to develop a business relationship of some sort. I want to have all my basis covered. I’m gonna shelf that for now though, since I want to get to at least another evolution before even thinking about that. Ideally, I’d want to unlock the Scrying Mode first.”

Mayumi asked. “To fake a mysterious organization better?”

Asahi kissed the top of her head, that was still on his shoulder. “Exactly. But now I must leave you two and start writing, I fucked around way too much already.”

He gave both of them a tender kiss, and went to his room.

‘I noticed something unusual today. Locking their cells down, it didn’t tax my mind nearly as much. Is this because of the Mind Fortress as well?’

[ Partially, yes. It is also due to your Psionics stat being close to 4. ]

‘Oh, nice.’

He stretched a bit, then started writing on his computer, only stopping to have dinner. He ended up going to bed around 3am.

 

His classes in the morning went well. Although he didn’t slack around, and paid attention, the classes themselves weren’t really something that really excited him.

Initially he had two reasons for going to university; the first being to learn, in order to have a stable way to earn a living. However, that was completely unnecessary already, due to the System. That left the second thing, meeting people.

Even if that was his intention though, it wasn’t the easiest thing for him. He still had some reservations about it. The main reason for him to have extended that invitation to his group mates, was to talk about their powers.

In the afternoon, he went to train with Trish.

As soon as they entered the training room, Trish closed the door. “Is it safe to talk?”

He nodded.

She started stretching. “So, Zunakyr?”

He started stretching as well. “Wow, it already got to you? I was gonna tell you though, just need to do it in person.”

She chuckled. “I know. My dad came to me, because it happened where my friend goes to school.”

“That’s so nice of him. Should I send him a gift-basket or something?”

She leaned towards him and slapped his butt. “You know that you stirred up a lot of conspiracy theories within the TS, right? The Justice Department is in turmoil right now.”

He smiled. “Good, that’s what I wanted. They’re probably gonna come to talk to me eventually, because of what happened Saturday. A young guy, backed by a seemingly powerful and mysterious organization, and soon after, a mysterious person with superior powers and technology shows up. Both of them seem to have access to information that they shouldn’t. Just like I want them to think.”

She nodded. “I have to admit, the Zunakyr persona was incredibly effective. Do you have a plan for when they come to talk to you?”

“Yup. Kinoshita Asahi is gonna be sort of a golden child of said mysterious organization.”

“Do you have a name for the organization already?”

He shook his head. “It won’t have a name. According to the System, lie detection abilities, are derivative of Telepathy, and are mind-affecting effects, so I’m good there. However, I need to shield myself against good old-fashioned cold reading. I’ll just refer to the organization as they, because I’ll be thinking about the System, therefore I won’t be lying. Of course, I’ll also be minding the words that I use.”

She smirked. “You’re really thinking this through, I’m impressed.”

“Of course. This directly impacts my safety and the safety of the people I care about.”

He stopped stretching, walked over to her, and gently pulled her to him, wrapping his hands around her waist.

He gave her a gentle and tender kiss. “I do care about you, a lot. I’m struggling with trusting you completely, but I promise you that I’m trying to work on it, and you more than earned it so far.”

She smiled, with a tinge of red on her face. “I know. You have your first therapy session tomorrow, right?”

He nodded.

She caressed his face. “There is no need to rush, and I’ll remind you of this as many times as I need to. Just take care of yourself, and you’ll already be putting a smile on my face. The rest can wait.”

He smiled, and kissed her. “This is really nice, but it’s time for you to beat the ever-living crap out of me.”

She laughed, and slapped his butt.

 

That night, the group of five met online once again, to talk more about the project and for Asahi to show them how the writing was going.

After a couple hours, they were pretty much done with what they wanted to accomplish, and Setsuko shifted topics with a question through voice chat.

(S)- “Alright, I have sort of a personal question. What is actually the deal with you two? The TN only said
        that you were roommates, but you seem too close to be just that.”
(M)- *chuckles* “Between friends with benefits and a polyamorous relationship. There is another
         person involved as well, our friend Fumiko. Oh, there is also Asahi’s mistress.”
(As)- “Yeah, something like that, aside from the mistress part. Well, kind of? Honestly, I have no idea on
          how to define my relationship with her, nor do I see the need to. She’s actually part of the TS,
          Maruyama Patricia, or Trish.”
(S)- “Damn, I saw that you trained at her family’s place, but to think you were also banging her. I’m
        gonna start to think that your dick is bigger than mine at this point.”
(As)- “Unless you’re more of a grower than me, mine is a bit bigger.”
(M)- “Wait, you have a dick?”
(S)- “Yeah, I was born a guy, and started transitioning a little over two years ago. Believe it or not, my
        boobs were not implanted. They’re completely real, thanks to the beauty of technology. Never
        mind that though, how do you know the size of my dick, or that I even have one?”
(As)- “I can sense all matter around me, so sensing the outline of a person’s body has become second
          nature.”
(S)- “That sounds cool, may I know how precise it is? Describe the details of my body.”
(As)- “You’re circumcised, completely shaved, outside a little patch in the form of a heart on your pelvis.
           You also have pierced nipples. Tattoos are something that I’m trying to find a way to perceive, so I
           don’t know if you have one.”
(S)- “Weirdly arousing. If I was into manly dudes, wasn’t head-over-heels in love and in a monogamous
         relationship with my cute little Ryota, I would hit on you.”
(M)- “So close, almost scored.”

The three of them started laughing. Ryota’s muffled giggles could be heard in the background, while Amaya stayed silent.