Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

Hirozaki wouldn't even utter a cliché like "You will gain our friendship."

“You see, we’re not just the two of us,” Hirosaki Katsuya said, looking at Nakamichi in the corner. “Although calling for help will come at a personal cost, like being seen as an unreliable coward… we can get help, but you, you’re all alone, aren’t you?”

"Why do you think that?" Yuri suppressed the thought that was about to come out of his mouth, "I have friends too," and instead asked the other person for their reasoning... If the other person is unaware of the existence of other people, it's best not to divert their attention.

“If she did, Yuka should have told us, after all, she can’t keep secrets, unless it’s her biggest and most important secret,” Hirosaki Katsuya sighed. “Of course, you probably didn’t tell her in the first place—if you’re going to be so cautious, you’re right, but then you have even less reason to be here protecting her, don’t you?”

Yuri was quite certain that the other person's gaze had also swept over Yamanaka Yuka on the ground—the sin-eater girl seemed to want to say something, but she only opened her mouth and made a barely audible sound.

Did Yuka Yamanaka not tell anyone else about Akemi? Although the reason is unclear, Yuri is deeply grateful for it.

“What are you implying?” Yuri frowned, genuinely puzzled. “You’re implying that she’s not a good person in the mountains—and that she’s too weak to defend herself and can only be attacked by you.”

Hirosaki Katsuya could very well try to get Yuri to give up by slandering him; he might make a lot of sense, but Yuri wasn't prepared to be convinced.

After all, the Sin Eater Girl has never lied to Yuri before, and Hirosaki Katsuya... how can the words of a traitor be trusted?

"A good person?" The traitor slowly shook his head. "Yaka Yamanaka is a good person, a child who has not yet learned how to profit by doing wrong things. Even I would not call her evil."

"This human?" Yuri noticed the emphasis in the other person's words.

"Humans?" The surveillance on Hirosaki Katsuya continued. "Why emphasize that?"

“As for Yuka Yamanaka, this sin-eater, I haven’t yet discovered any harmful actions she’s taken… but she’s already on the path of harming others.” Hirosaki Katsuya’s voice turned heavy. “And she knows this herself, but she still shows no intention of stopping.”

She truly excels in both singing and songwriting, and Yuri is indeed quite interested in this topic.

"You talk as if you know the Sin Eaters very well, and you're not the pure mortal you appeared to be... Of course, you've been lying all along..." Yuri retorted, "Plus, you said you could call for help... Are you an organization that opposes the Sin Eaters? I feel like the path you're talking about that harms people is the path of the Sin Eaters."

Yuka Yamanaka was trying to sit up, but bracing herself against the ground had no effect.

It seems that until this problem is resolved, we can basically assume she is completely immobile.

“Exactly so.” As if oblivious to the sarcasm in Yuri’s words, Hirosaki Katsuya continued, “The path of the sin eater is hardly that of a ‘good person’.”

“Excuse me for being frank, but I think their act of performing rituals to release the spirits sounds perfectly justified,” Yuri immediately retorted. “Although I don’t know where the spirits that were released went, given the current situation, it’s good that they can accept it.”

Although I should have just chopped myself down when I saw myself, I actually mistook myself for a demon from a ghost slaughterhouse.

“You don’t need to be a Sin Eater to perform the ritual of releasing ghosts, and that’s not the problem with Sin Eaters.” Hirosaki Katsuya stopped smiling. “Have you ever heard the rumor that… they are immortal, able to be resurrected even if they are reduced to ashes?”

Yuri wondered, what if he answered that he had never heard of it? Would he have to give a lecture on the spot to prove the rumor's veracity?

“I have indeed heard of such things, but I have never seen a sin-eater rise from the dead before my eyes.” Looking directly into the other person’s eyes, “It’s enviable, but what’s the problem?”

Yuri also wants to be resurrected no matter what after he dies. Could it be that the person on the other side is a firm believer in the belief that "a person can only live once"?

"Do you know how they manage to resurrect time and time again?" Hirosaki Katsuya lowered his voice. "You don't know, because the Sin Eaters, regardless of their own humanity, will not easily reveal this secret."

Yuri genuinely didn't know, so he simply watched the other person's movements and said, "Go on."

If he had maintained his initial complete resistance, he might have made some witty remarks like, "If I had known, wouldn't I have been able to come back to life too?" However, it must be admitted that the topic that Hirosaki Katsuya raised was indeed very tempting.

If it were something without any cost, the Sin Eaters would have already revealed this method to the world—at least some of them would, right? Without death, there would be no new ghosts.

Yuri's guess is that it requires the loss of the spirit-binding power, but not in a way that is irreversible.

"The answer is simple: it's about exchanging lives for lives." Hirosaki Katsuya paused, then raised his voice, "That's right, it's about exchanging other people's lives for one's own resurrection!"

……what?

The answer was far worse than Yuri had imagined. He tried his best to maintain his composure on the surface, even though it might still be obvious, but at least the gun in his hand was still pointed at the other party.

Whether the other party realized it or not—Yuri thought they probably did—Hirosaki Katsuya didn't take this opportunity to launch an attack. He even paused amicably, seemingly waiting for Yuri to process this idea.

“Using other people’s lives? How could such a thing be done?” Yuri did think about it for a moment. “Transferring one person’s life to another is certainly insane, but if such a method existed, it would have been done by high-ranking people in history long ago.”

Ordinary people have no room to do this, but wouldn't high-ranking officials and noble families? Besides, in some eras and in some people throughout history, life was not even considered human.

"How do you know they didn't do it?" Hirosaki Katsuya took half a step forward.

Yuri instinctively raised his gun and pointed it at the other man's chest. Faced with this situation, the other man stopped, but continued talking, "There are plenty of high-ranking officials in history who have done this—but I must say, the sin-eaters' methods have no effect on them."

"It had no effect..." Yuri simply repeated the last few words from the other party.

“The reason is simple. The method of the Sin Eaters is to let the Bound Spirits devour the lives of the murdered, and then, after the Sin Eaters themselves die, they use the lives of others to replace their own lives, thus reviving through the Bound Spirits.” Hirosaki Katsuya’s voice was filled with indescribable hatred—for some reason, Yuri felt that this time, his emotions seemed very real.

"Does each resurrection cost a life?" Yuri pressed.

“I don’t know if it’s one, there’s a high chance of losses in the process… We’d have to ask the Sin Eater himself for the exact number.” Hirosaki Katsuya’s gaze swept over Yamanaka Yuka on the ground again. “Let’s just say it’s one, it can’t be less than one in any way—to prepare for possible resurrection, the Sin Eaters kill by binding spirits—to prepare one resurrection opportunity, they have to kill once; to prepare ten, they have to kill ten times—they have that ability, and they will inevitably walk this path. Yuri… if it were you, how many times would you prepare? How many resurrection opportunities would you feel at ease?”

Yuri had never thought about this question in detail, but intuitively... it couldn't be zero. Even considering that the cost would be the deaths of others... he couldn't be sure he wouldn't waver.

“To be honest, I don’t want to kill anyone, but the stakes are indeed huge…” Yuri nodded slightly. “But Yamanaka isn’t that kind of person, is she? We all know she wouldn’t be willing to trade someone else’s life for her own.”

This also explains Yamanaka Yuka's attitude at the time... When they first met and went to war due to a misunderstanding, Akemi once said, "I'm afraid killing a sin-eater can't be considered killing in the true sense," and Yamanaka Yuka's response was, "You don't understand at all."

If the chance of resurrection requires reserves, then Yuka Yamanaka's reserves are probably zero, so for her, death is truly certain.

"Even if she has no reserves, can you guarantee her future? Do you know how great the benefits are? This isn't to say she 'might' start this atrocity because of the temptation, but that she 'almost certainly' will do it because of the temptation," Hirosaki Katsuya said righteously. "And she... no, every sin-eater has the ability to do this quietly—can the police catch a murder committed by a free-moving ghost?"

Based on Yuri's understanding of the Tokyo police situation, it seems unlikely that he will succeed.

“Even professional occultists would find it difficult to catch up with the Sin Eaters—they can easily harm other people’s lives, they have enough motives, and there is no way to ensure their moral standards—” Hirosaki Katsuya concluded. “The Sin Eaters may do some good things, but their very existence is a poison in human society.”

“What does this have to do with Yuka Yamanaka? We all know she wouldn’t do something like this.” Yuri looked at the eloquent traitor… What he said seemed reasonable, but even disregarding the questionable veracity, he used a “possibility of something happening in the future” as a charge to preemptively attack someone who seemed unlikely to be guilty… Isn’t that a problem?

“Even if she didn’t make any other preparations—she still has original sin.” Hirosaki Katsuya looked at the Sin Eater girl lying on the ground with indifferent eyes. “Otherwise, how do you think the Sin Eater came back to life the first time?”

Oh no, Yuri thought.

169. Baseness and Cunning

“You’ve got it.” Hirosaki Katsuya smiled. “Of course you can—and what you’ve figured out is the real situation—during the first contract, the bound spirit will immediately kill someone else—someone who didn’t have to die.”

This is really bad—wait a minute.

"What if there's no one else nearby to kill? For example, being alone in the middle of a fire."

Or perhaps you are drowning alone in a lake—the time it takes to sign a contract may be only a moment, but at that moment there may not be anyone else around.

“Then the contract would naturally fail—they would die from being bound. I can’t say I look forward to human deaths, but if they lose this chance of ‘resurrection’ and just die like that—at least they won’t have the blood of others on their hands.” Hirosaki Katsuya’s tone was calm. “I can’t say that the Sin Eaters specifically requested to kill someone… I think most people don’t react that quickly—they just accept exchanging the lives of others for their own, and those others do die because of them.”

“Every Sin Eater is someone who has returned from death; every Sin Eater has chosen to sacrifice the lives of others in place of their own.” The traitor spread his hands, pointing his gun at the wall. “A person whose conscience is strong enough not to want others to die because of them would never become a Sin Eater in the first place…”

Yuri fell silent, while the traitor seized the opportunity to pursue him.

"You think they're doing good deeds by performing rituals to help the spirits pass on? Sure, that's true, but what drives them to do these things isn't a sense of justice, but a sense of guilt." Hirosaki Katsuya paused to emphasize his point. "They owed this world a life from the very beginning, and they're prepared to owe it many more in the future—do they think they can wash the blood off their hands by performing rituals to help a few spirits pass on? What's more important to the living than the dead?"

“No, I strongly disagree with that—performing rituals to release ghosts can also have the effect of saving the living.” Yuri recalled a haunted house and a reporter. “If there are too many ghosts, they will start to harm the living.”

Hirosaki Katsuya was taken aback for a moment, perhaps because he hadn't expected Yuri to launch a sudden counterattack, but he didn't hesitate for long.

"...Then why don't you support the Reapers?" The traitor frowned. "The Sin Eaters try to keep ghosts in the world, while the Reapers will take them all to the underworld—clearly, the Reapers are closer to the concept of protecting humanity, aren't they?"

“The underworld is a hell, and you’re just like that—” Yuri began to retort, but was interrupted by the other party.

Hirosaki Katsuya stared wide-eyed in exaggerated disbelief. "So what? So heartless? —Who told you that the underworld is a hell?"

Yuka Yamanaka... Ah.

"You must have heard all this from the Sin Eaters, right?" the traitor continued. "Regardless of whether the underworld is hell everywhere—even if it is, are you going to harm the living to prevent ghosts from going to hell? What right do the dead have to compare themselves to the living? Are you a member of some ghost protection organization?"

"Don't talk like you know me so well," Yuri retorted. "Speaking of which, it reminds me of something. Someone just called me a monster."

"A monster?" Hirosaki Katsuya's expression remained unchanged. After a second's pause, he turned to Nakamichi, who was slumped in the corner, as if suddenly realizing something. "Ah... Nakamichi said that?"

“Yeah.” Although it was said in the middle of a fight, it might also include the phenomenon of Yuri surviving bullets... no, it should still be talking about the problem of Yuri’s spirit form, “Monster... I do not consider myself a completely ordinary person, but being called a monster still hurts a bit.”

Actually, he wasn't injured at all at the time, and being scolded during a battle is perfectly normal—but this guy in front of him seems to want to reason with him? How is he supposed to explain this?

“If it were anyone else, I really wouldn’t know,” Hirosaki said with an “I can explain” look on his face, “but Nakamichi… have you heard about Nakamichi’s past?”

"I've heard a little bit about it. He got involved in some supernatural event, then continued investigating, and eventually entered the supernatural world—at least that's what they said at the time."

As for now, it's entirely uncertain how credible what this person said back then was.

“Yes, that’s true… However, the problem lies in the supernatural events he got involved in.” Hirosaki sighed. “His mother wasn’t supposed to die—her life was taken by a spirit.”

"..." Does he mean, sin-eaters?

“I don’t know for sure if it was the Sin Eater, but he believes it was the Sin Eater and that’s how it got to where it is today.” The traitor’s lips curled into a smirk. “So he’ll hate you for standing in his way when he’s about to succeed. And coincidentally, you’re also a spirit.”

"..." Although it was an undeserved disaster for Yuri, at least there was a reason for it. Yuri fell silent.

“Although I don’t have much of a time limit, it will be dawn if we drag this out any longer, and it won’t look good if we’re standing here with guns on our hands—can you leave quickly?” Hirosaki Katsuya spoke up after half a minute.

"Are you in a hurry?" Yuri wasn't doing nothing, but he felt it was best to make the other person think he hadn't done anything.

Preparing emergency spells or observing the surrounding situation both require time. —He thought he just saw the middle-aged man's finger twitch in the corner; it seemed he hadn't hit him hard enough before, and the man was about to wake up—or had he already woken up?

“I’ve given my reasons, and you have no reason to delay—oh, do you think things will turn around if you drag this out?” The traitor gave a strange smile. “What kind of turning around?”

He was smiling, and it's very likely that he also noticed that Nakamichi had woken up—but he controlled his gaze well, and it didn't involuntarily drift towards the corner of the wall—if it were Yamanaka Yuka, her eyes would probably already be glued to the one behind her.

"Guess?" Yuri wasn't going to answer the question honestly.

More than ten minutes have passed since the problem broke out—that is, since Yuka Yamanaka collapsed on the ground. If there had been any turning point, it should have happened long ago. Now, the closest thing to a turning point is that the other side has woken up.

“I suspect you’re still hoping that the spirit-binder will resolve the current situation—I advise you not to get your hopes up. If he could come, he would have already. Since we dared to attack the Sin Eaters, we must have considered ways to deal with the spirit-binder.” The traitor spoke earnestly.

“That is indeed one of the turning points I’ve been hoping for—in order to put my mind at ease, why don’t you just tell me how you stopped the spirit binding?” Yuri quickly responded.

I did think that way at first, but the spirit has been missing for so long, it must be trapped... but it shouldn't be dead.

“This is confidential, telling you would be going too far—I really can’t see what reason you have to help these sin eaters…” Hirozaki touched his chin with his left hand, looking completely relaxed. “You and she aren’t very familiar with each other, you haven’t even spent enough time together to become friends. If it’s a moral issue, I’ve already told you, our cause is the righteous one.”

"You already told me? Haven't you been hiding the crucial parts all along?" Yuri looked at this traitor who was trying so hard to appear credible. "I can see that what you're doing isn't eliminating the Sin Eaters' abilities, but rather taking them away—"

As Yuri drew out the word, he pointed the gun at the other man's head—not to aim, but to emphasize his point, "And then you make a very good point, almost no one would not do the kind of thing you described after acquiring this ability... so how could you not do murder?"

It's not difficult to portray the Sin Eaters as the evil side when speaking unilaterally, but it becomes much less reliable when combined with the actual action of "seizing the Sin Eaters' power".

"Even if the sin-eaters are truly wicked, aren't you just replacing them?"

Compared to "righteous heroes who rise up to fight back against the sin-eaters who are poisoning living beings", these people are more like "scheming villains who are so envious of the sin-eaters that they can use the lives of others to prolong their own lives and want to take their place".

"This is my last answer to your question. If I explain, will you leave obediently?" Hirosaki let out a long sigh, revealing an impatient expression.

"Hmm, I'll think about it," Yuri replied insincerely.

"The answer is simple, but you're simply unwilling to think about it—I've already said that resurrection requires the support of spirit-binding—do you think our attack on the Sin Eaters will receive the support of spirit-binding?"

"Of course not. If you did, you would have had the Bound Spirits standing behind you, ready to launch a full-scale attack." Yuri seized the opportunity to retort sarcastically, "But you just haven't gotten the Bound Spirits' support yet—what's the use of the power you deliberately seized if you can't solve the problem with the Bound Spirits?"

The power of the Sin Eater does not come entirely from the spirit bondage, but it is absolutely impossible without it. Even if one temporarily seizes the power, it is unlikely that one can use it indefinitely if the spirit bondage does not support it.

...Oh, so that might be why they're so determined to capture Yuka Yamanaka?

“You’ve hit a nerve with us, but that’s also the key to proving our true intentions.” Hirosaki followed up Yuri’s statement almost perfectly, as if he had expected Yuri to interrupt at that point.

"Hmm?" Yuri gestured for him to continue.

“We take the power of the Sin Eaters just like picking up the weapons of a slain enemy soldier on the battlefield. Your question to me is like asking how to replenish the ammunition for this weapon.” Hirosaki looked directly into Yuri’s eyes. “The answer is not to replenish the ammunition. Use whatever is left when you get it, and throw it away when it’s empty.”

"You mean..."

“That’s right. The reason for taking the power of the Sin Eaters is simply so that they can’t use it themselves. I admit that this power is indeed different from that of ordinary people, but we are human beings and do not necessarily have to rely on supernatural powers to fight. It’s good to have it, but it’s also fine if we don’t.”

"And then they fight through intrigue and betrayal? Is that what you call humanity?"

"You should call this strategy; deceiving the enemy is what you're supposed to do," said the traitor who was lowering the bar for human morality. "We hunters will do anything to protect humanity!"

"..." Yuri, who probably didn't even seem human by this standard, fell silent.

Hunter? That word... never mind.

"Alright, I've answered your question. Now it's your turn. Are you going to move aside or not?" Hirozaki slowly pointed his gun at Yuri.

“…Hmm…” Yuri confirmed the location of the people nearby one last time.

Starting from the entrance, the entrance is on the left side of one side of the rectangle—and standing at the entrance is Katsuya Hirosaki.

Directly opposite the door, there is a bed, with Yuka Yamanaka lying on her right side, and Yuri standing next to her.

Further to the right, there was a set of instruments that Yuri didn't recognize, taking up quite a bit of space... It was probably related to the ultrasound room on the sign, but anyway, it could be ignored.

There was still a little distance between the bed and the window, and now, Mr. Nakamichi, who had just woken up, was crawling along this small passage toward Yuri's back.

He moved slowly, trying his best to avoid making a sound, but it still couldn't be said to be completely silent... His perseverance in not crying out in pain despite the blood flowing from his forehead was admirable, but crawling forward in this quiet environment was not so easy.

Then, although it could be a hallucination, Yuri just seemed to hear a soft sound coming from the hallway outside... It might sound strange, but it sounded a bit like the cracking sound of Akemi's joints when she suddenly gets up after sitting and doing her homework for too long.

"Why the sudden silence?" Hirosaki spoke again, his tone revealing a hint of anger and suppressed emotion. "I've already answered your question—do you really have to waste both of our time like this?"

He had put himself in a small predicament... He had spoken too definitively; he wasn't the one who wanted a decisive battle, but he couldn't suddenly appear weak and let Yuri realize that something was wrong.

“I said I would consider it…and I really am considering it.” Yuri stared at the other man. “And I’ve basically come to a conclusion.”