Chapter 164: The Beginning of a Tragedy

Tatara suddenly felt a chill run down the back of his neck.

He involuntarily paused in his steps, looking back toward the distant horizon. Yet there, apart from the azure, boundless clear sky as always and the scattered, drifting white clouds, the space was empty and devoid of anything else...

"...How strange."

The flaxen-haired young man muttered with a peculiar expression.

In a certain fraction of a second just now, he seemed to sense an extremely intense killing intent piercing across a long distance, assaulting him from afar.

However, when he actually turned to look, the scenery behind him showed no difference from before. Even the gentle breeze sweeping across his cheeks seemed to carry a hint of leisurely calmness, turning his previous sharp perception into nothing more than an overly sensitive illusion...

Tatara gave a slight sigh.

Hearing the sound, Kurama, who was holding Mokona not far ahead of him, and Yata, who carried a skateboard tucked under one arm, noticed his abnormality. They both stopped, turned around, and looked at him with care and inquiry:

"Tatara?"

"Brother Totsuka?"

"...It's nothing."

Tatara smiled at the two of them, not too forcedly.

"It was probably just my imagination." In the end, he came to this conclusion. Without explaining what the illusion actually was, he looked up with a smile at the perplexed Yata: "Speaking of which... the time is about right. Won't it be an issue if you don't go back to the King and Izumo?"

Hearing this, Yata flipped his wrist to check his watch.

Seeing that it was indeed getting late, and that Kurama and Tatara seemed to be in a hurry to do something, the orange-haired boy—though not particularly high in emotional intelligence, at least possessed some social awareness—simply nodded to signal the two of them. With a cool swish of his skateboard, he vanished down the end of the path in a flash, completely unaware that Tatara still had one hand stiffly outstretched behind him, preparing to say something more to him...

"...Pfft."

Kurama and Mokona let out a synchronized, tiny snort of laughter.

The flaxen-haired handsome young man turned to look at them with a helpless expression.

"That's too much." He feigned grievance. "Leaving Yata aside since he's always like that, the two of you—Kurama and Mokona—are going way too far!"

How could they pour salt on his wounds? Weren't they friends?

He was deeply wounded!

Tatara wore a face full of accusation.

Kurama and Mokona tried their best to hold back their laughter.

"It's not Mokona and Kurama's fault!" The white furball rested comfortably in Kurama's arms, its round little face full of deliberate, serious solemnity, looking exceptionally earnest and academic!

"We didn't expect it to turn out like this either, so we just couldn't help it... Pfft!"

"............"

—Fine.

Tatara knew he shouldn't try to reason with a certain little creature, whether seriously or jokingly, because as long as that smiling face appeared, no matter how unreasonable things were, they would somehow end up standing overwhelmingly on the creature's side...

In short, this was the so-called truth being mastered by cute things.

Watching Tatara accept his defeat, Kurama reached out and pinched the white furball's tiny hand.

"Don't bully Tatara."

He offered a soft "reprimand" with zero sincerity.

The white furball puffed out its cheeks in protest, "Mokona is not bullying anyone!", and was then silenced into submission by the Youko's even gentler gaze. Finally, it turned to give Tatara a drooping, grievance-filled look, sending a series of palpitations straight through the lock of the Red Clan...

Just how thick-headed was I to think this little creature was innocent and naive in the first place?!

Tatara silently covered his face.

Under the continuous barrage of Mokona's aggrieved little glances, he decisively decided to change the subject to save himself—

"So, are we going to find Hades-san next? Can you contact them, Kurama?"

Hearing this, Kurama didn't answer immediately, instead giving him a meaningful look.

"Contacting them... is temporarily impossible."

He said in a calm tone.

"However, I do have a few guesses about where they are currently staying. How about... we go try our luck there?"

Hearing the first half of the sentence, Tatara had felt a bit shocked and depressed, but as the second half registered in his ears, his spirits instantly revived.

"Whatever Kurama says goes, then~" He wore an expression that said, "I'm leaving everything to you!" "Anyway, I'm completely useless at a time like this."

—A self-abandoning line spoken with utter nonchalance. The flaxen-haired handsome young man curved the corners of his lips, smiling brightly and cheerfully.

The Youko, who had been (forced to be) entirely relied upon, silently glanced at his friend, and then turned away in tacit understanding with Mokona—

So this guy... is he a natural airhead or a natural black-belly?

Switching between these two auras is practically effortless, and blending them together is way too easy!

Silently venting his complaints, Kurama smiled and turned around, leading a fully revitalized Tatara onto the arduous (?) journey to find His Majesty the Underworld God and the Twin Gods.

***

When Kurama and Tatara found Hades, Thanatos, and Hypnos, the three of them had their auras fully unleashed. Although they were sitting in a bustling central park, Hypnos had uncharacteristically omitted setting up any illusion barrier. Logically speaking, given their extraordinarily striking appearances and temperaments, the three of them should have been able to attract a large crowd of onlookers. Yet within a radius of a hundred meters, there was not a single soul in sight.

Even the girls with slightly greater courage only dared to glance at them from afar, lacking the bravery to even chatter, shriek, and discuss among themselves. After a quick look, they hurriedly turned and ran away, let alone pulling out their mobile phones to excitedly take pictures and videos...

The smile on Tatara's face gradually grew somewhat stiff.

He had never thought having a powerful aura was a mistake. Wasn't his own King born with a certain aura that made him recognize him as his King the very first moment he saw him?

So having a strong aura really was fine... really was fine...

—As if!

"Kurama..."

The white-shirted young man reached out to poke his red-haired friend by his side.

"What are Hades-san and the others... doing?"

Are they afraid they won't attract enough attention? What happened to keeping a low profile?!

The Youko silently turned his head and gave him a complex look.

"Probably... provoking someone."

He answered in a rather tangled tone.

With Hypnos present yet failing to cast an illusion barrier, Kurama could only interpret this in one way: these three were definitely doing it on purpose!

And what was their purpose in doing so?

Clearly, it was to attract attention!

Given the personalities of Hades and Hypnos, this definitely couldn't have been their idea, so the remaining one...

The Youko silently cast his gaze toward Thanatos, who sat there with a helpless and irritated expression while accepting Hypnos's head-pats (→_→)—

Aside from this fellow, there could be no other culprit ==

In Kurama's view, Thanatos's mental state was even easier to deduce.

The Colorless King had somehow learned of their existence (deduced by Kurama to be most likely due to some unknown, mysterious connection between the spiritual body they had forcibly intercepted that night and the Colorless King's main body). Thus, this terminal, incurable chuunibyou split-personality emperor had somehow used various methods to summon a group of people to attack Hades and them.

With Hades and the others' strength, they naturally wouldn't take such petty, petty-minded sneak attacks to heart. Kurama had originally estimated that his lover and Hypnos would probably just knock the attackers unconscious and toss them into some random corner. However... the opponents' tactical choice had been far too disastrous!

First, they had blown up a hotel room, and then launched an attack on Hades and the others inside the room—from the Colorless King's perspective, this group chose to do this to secretly steal the Colorless King's spiritual separate body kept beside Hypnos. From the enemy's standpoint, this was indeed understandable, but...

These people seriously underestimated the severe consequences of rudely interrupting a top-tier scholar while he was researching his favorite (?) experimental subject, causing Hypnos to go berserk...

Thus, what followed hardly needed much explanation.

The God of Sleep in a berserk state had thoroughly disciplined the attackers. While nobody was killed, the psychological trauma... would probably not heal easily.

While this group of direct attackers had already been taught a lesson, how could the Colorless King, the mastermind behind the scenes, escape the full-gauge wrath of the scholar-lord's revenge?

Although they were still unable to crack the specific connection between the Colorless King's main body and that mass of spiritual separate body in Kurama and the others' hands, Hypnos was fully capable of inflicting heavy damage on the main body by heavily damaging the spiritual separate body.

After punishing a certain terminal chuunibyou using this method, Thanatos still felt unsatisfied and proposed finding a place to wait for Kurama. They would keep their auras wide open without using barriers to conceal their forms, continuing their disciplinary actions in a high-profile manner—wasn't the Colorless King capable of sending people to attack them? Wasn't he good at playing sneak attacks?

Oh well, here they were now, shining as bright as a strong beam of light in the dark night. If he had the guts, he should keep sending people over!

They would beat them black and blue right in front of a crowd of ordinary people!

The God of Death was triumphant.

Kurama silently covered his face.

—Although he had already guessed a small part of the preceding causes and effects, after actually hearing Thanatos narrate the whole story from start to finish...

How he wanted to extend a hand and give that triumphant, foolish face a solid flick!

The Youko sighed with sorrow.

Tatara's gaze drifted back and forth between him and Thanatos for a moment, and finally, he couldn't help letting out a soft "pfft."

"…Ahem. Actually, isn't this pretty great?" The young man chuckled, "The Colorless King must be dying of frustration right now! He can neither defeat them nor scheme against them..."

For a chuunibyou who liked to pull strings behind the scenes, trying to manipulate everyone into his web only to be controlled instead, this must be agonizingly painful!

The smile on the corners of Tatara's mouth grew even wider.

And moreover, "This way, he'll have even less attention to spare on the King, the Blue King, and the Silver King at Shinchu Academy! The brief exchange we had with the Blue King this afternoon probably went unnoticed by him, even though the location was School Island, which he closely monitors..."

As he spoke, he nodded solemnly with a look of "indeed so."

This earned him a helpless yet amused glance from Kurama—your little schemes are showing entirely too much. Does making the Colorless King miserable really make you that happy?

Tatara nodded with a smile.

Yes! It really did make him happy!

The Youko was speechless.

"Speaking of which," suddenly thinking of a doubt, Kurama immediately straightened his expression and turned to look at Tatara: "There's a question that has been baffling me."

"(⊙_⊙) What is it?"

"About the Silver King's airship."

Kurama frowned.

"It is said that the reason the First King, the Silver King Adolf K. Weismann's airship 'Heavenly Song', is able to cruise in the air according to a fixed pattern day after day for decades, is related to the Silver King's own ability attributes: 'Immutability' and 'Zero-Gravity Levitation'."

"In other words, the Heavenly Song that has lost the Silver King is no longer the original Heavenly Song."

"Yet right now..."

"It still hasn't landed once and continues to fly high in the sky."

"Isn't that rather strange?" Kurama raised an eyebrow, "Mind you, the Colorless King did not swallow the Silver King's soul, and of course... therefore could not borrow his power through that."

So, without the Silver King's power attributes, how had the Colorless King maintained the mechanical functions of the Heavenly Song all these days?

This question had continued to bother Kurama ever since he first watched the anime.

Hearing his question, Tatara also became somewhat confused.

Immersed deeply in their own thoughts, the two of them, plus the three deities, all fell into an unconscious silence.

Amidst this strange silence, a soft voice suddenly rang out, breaking everyone's furrowed brows and deep contemplation.

Mokona extended its little meaty hand to touch Kurama's cheek, its round little face filled with concern and incomprehension:

"He must have landed secretly before!"

The little creature's voice was crisp.

"It's just that... no one ever noticed it."

—As soon as these words were spoken, Kurama instantly felt a light bulb go off in his mind!

Exactly!

If that were the case...

Exchanging a glance with Tatara, both of them saw a flash of understanding in each other's eyes—

Their previous doubts... could now be completely resolved.