There Was No Secret Evil-Fighting Organization (srsly?!), So I Made One MYSELF!
世界の闇と戦う秘密結社が無いから作った（半ギレ）

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Chapter 7: Please Refrain From Supernatural Battles Within Our Premises

Volume 6: Assailant from the Future

          The most effective strategy on a battlefield is a blitzkrieg — namely, a lightning fast attack bringing all of one’s greatest firepower to bear. If you take your time preparing, your opponent also gets time to prepare. If you split up your forces, the small squads might get squashed one by one. And if you hold back with your firepower, the few pot shots you do end up landing wouldn’t even serve as intimidation.

          In light of this, Tsukuyomi’s actions made all the sense in the world. Right after Chris and Baba got hit, they launched a raid with all three of their combat personnel before Amaterasu had time to prepare for a fight.

          Guitar Fatty’s usual look with a traffic cone over his head was so impactful as to be absolutely unforgettable, and Amaterasu knew from first-hand experience how much of a threat his superpower was. The instant Tsukuyomi barged into Ama-no-Iwato, freezing cold air sprang up around Shouta-kun as he reflexively clapped his hands over his ears and leaped to his feet, kicking his chair out of the way. Rin-chan also stood up with her hands over her ears as I cast a protective barrier around Ig, whose tail was standing stiff from surprise. Kuma-san immediately lifted his fists the instant he understood we were under attack but failed to protect his ears. Shige-jii was mumbling softly, fast asleep.

          Miyama’s explosive sound attack came a split second later, as expected. With Ama-no-Iwato being a small underground bar, there was nowhere for the sound to escape. When the attack hit him with full strength, Shige-jii fell over backwards, the whites of his eyes showing. Kuma-san also became down for the count.

          The remaining members remained unscathed, but the same could not be said of the bottles on our shelves. They exploded in unison, their contents mixing together into a colorful waterfall.

          “Ah.”

          AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          Dude, what the fuck?! Our stock just… Our entire line up just… What the actual fuck?! That’s millions of yen in damages! You idiot! You fatty! You sonuvabitch!

          Miyama had totally stepped out of line, but I had to admit part of the fault was mine. I should have cast a barrier to protect the shelves. A momentary lapse in judgment had ended up causing a loss in the millions.

          It’s just wrong. This world is wrong. Everything is this world’s fault.

          Just as my heart was about to be swallowed by the darkness of despair brought about by abrupt financial loss, the colorful waterfall stopped as if it had frozen up. The next thing I knew, it was flowing backwards in defiance of gravity and separating into streams that reached towards their respective bottles. Finally, glass shards were sucked back towards the remains of broken bottles. Everything had returned to its original state in the blink of an eye. Not even cracks remained on the bottles’ shiny surfaces.

          That wasn’t all. Shige-jii had also returned to his chair and resumed nodding off. It was as if time itself had been turned back.

          I turned towards Rin-chan in astonishment and found her breathing heavily. She wiped off the sweat on her forehead and gave me a peace sign.

          Oh! My God! She turned back time! Since when could Shiori do that?! It’s so powerful! It looks like it takes a lot out of her, though. Hm? She left Kuma-san still unconscious. Is that to conserve her own stamina or to purposely leave him out of the fight? Ah, maybe it’s both. Okay, I’m pretty sure it’s both.

          Unfazed by how well Amaterasu had held up against the sound attack, Tsukuyomi charged in. Oyabun silently stood up, took a step forward at supersonic speed, and threw a straight punch.

          “Absolute Zero Guard!”

          The punch emanated so much presence that Shouta-kun immediately identified it as a serious threat. In a split second, he had charged up front, drawing on his superpower to put up the sturdiest defensive move in his arsenal. The fact that he had been able to react so quickly and appropriately was surely thanks to Kuma-san’s daily instruction and his own battle experience against World Shadows.

          By all appearances, Shouta-kun’s superpower looked like the ability to freeze things, but its true form was molecular deceleration. The molecules of everything that came into contact with his white mist slowed down. Its temperature dropping was, consequently, a side effect. Forcefully slowing down something’s molecules also meant making it resistant to physical changes. In other words, Shouta-kun had the ability to make things extremely sturdy.

          Absolute Zero Guard was the ultimate move he had developed based off of this phenomenon. By bringing the temperature of air down to almost absolute zero, he was effectively making a wall of air with molecules so firmly held in place that it could withstand even a nuclear explosion. True to the word “absolute” in its name, this move had never been breached.

          “Hm?”

          “What?!”

          To Shouta-kun’s shock, Oyabun’s punch left a spider web of cracks on his supposedly indestructible shield. A split second later, another shockwave tore through the store, accompanied by a sharp sound similar to the crack of a whip.

          If I didn’t throw up a barrier, that would have destroyed all the equipment in the store, dude!

          “You gotta be shitting me!” Shouta-kun exclaimed.

          At the same time, Chris shouted, “Oyabun’s punch got blocked?!”

          Both appeared equally shocked—Shouta-kun at the fact that Absolute Zero Guard had been overcome, and Chris at the fact that Oyabun’s attack got stopped.

          I love scenes like this where both sides get surprised at each others’ abilities. Show me more please.

          On another note, Oyabun’s gotten stronger. During the final fight against Tanioka-gumi, swinging around a tank in each hand was the best he could do. Now, I’m pretty sure a proper punch from him is enough to flatten the Tokyo Skytree. I guess his superpower source can still grow despite being torn to shreds.

          “RaaaaaAAAAAAAH!”

          “Uh, UAHHHHHHHH!”

          Oyabun started throwing a barrage of punches, and Shouta-kun deployed Absolute Zero Guards in quick succession. Even so, the latter found himself slowly pushed back. Before long, he was down on one knee.

          Everyone else was hiding in corners behind the tables and the counter, desperately holding on for fear of being battered about by the raging flurry of shockwaves generated by the exchange. They understood that if they carelessly exposed themselves, they could get knocked out so suddenly they’d have no idea what just happened.

          In the nick of time, Rin-chan managed to grab the dazed Shige-jii by his back collar and drag him behind the counter, where Ig healed his drunken stupor.

          For once, Miyama was not playing his BGM. This made it clear Tsukuyomi’s aim was to wear Amaterasu down. The equilibrium between Oyabun unleashing normal attacks on the level of ultimates against Shouta-kun resisting with actual ultimates didn’t last long. The split second Shouta-kun reached his limit and stopped producing white mist, Oyabun landed a punch square in his gut, slamming him against the far wall and rendering him unconscious.

          Dayum, he’s so strong! He forced his way through with brute force as if to say that tricks were beneath him. This is a good demonstration of what happens when the boss of a secret organization fights against a mere member.

          After coughing painfully a few times, Oyabun turned toward the members of Amaterasu hiding behind the counter and cracked his knuckles. The blood drained from Rin-chan’s and Shige-jii’s faces as they crawled backwards to hide behind me. Kuma-san and Shouta-kun, both out like a light, also reappeared behind the counter, probably thanks to Shiori’s chronoprohiberis.

          Me? I’d been standing behind the counter the whole time, spectating the fight while polishing a wine glass. Even now, I didn’t feel threatened in the slightest. In fact, the shockwaves felt like nothing more than cool breezes to me.

          I put down the glass I’d finished polishing and picked up another one. Usually, I would fix the bottom of the glass to the counter and polish it with my one hand, but this time, I went to the trouble of making it float in midair and polishing it with a cloth that I was also controlling with telekinesis.

          I looked into Oyabun’s eyes. “If you don’t want to lose both your eyes, go home. I lost my right arm, and that’s more than enough for me.”

          “I don’t intend on fighting you a second time either,” Oyabun growled. “Give us back our time machine and we’ll leave. It’s ours.”

          “I refuse. My daughter needs it to go home.”

          “Not my business. Tsukuyomi takes back what’s stolen from us. Without fail.”

          Memories of the past tumbled into my head. Once, when a child of Tsukimori-gumi got kidnapped, Oyabun rushed out to rescue her despite knowing his chances at victory were almost zero. If he didn’t back off then, he sure wasn’t going to back off here today.

          Though tattered, Oyabun’s source was still growing. He was still far from being a match for me, but the last time I thought that and let down my guard, I got drawn into a fight for my life that led to permanent geographical changes. I very much wanted to believe I was beyond letting something similar happen again, but just in case, I wanted to avoid fighting.

          Oyabun’s body had gotten much weaker due to the state of his source, and even now, I could tell he was forcing himself to stand. This was another reason why I didn’t want to fight.

          I was trying to keep Tsukuyomi at bay due to how things were unfolding, but the only instruction I’d received from Shiori was, “Retreat before it gets to the point where the entire city of Tokyo gets wrecked.” Tsukuyomi’s actions were often so off the wall that even she couldn’t perfectly predict them.

          Hmm, how should we handle this? They’re practically bursting with fighting spirit.

          Suddenly, Chris shouted, “Ah, that’s a big no. Tactical retreat! Poof!”

          The answer, as it turned out, was simple. I caught Rin-chan whispering to Shige-jii out of the corner of my eye. The instant he stood up and generated his black mist, Chris saw the future and threw a smoke bomb at the ground. Light footsteps, heavy footsteps, and plodding footsteps rang out in the store, charging towards the door. When the smoke cleared, Tsukuyomi had completely disappeared.

          Oh right, Shige-jii’s spacial attack is a perfect counter for Oyabun. If Oyabun threw a punch at Shige-jii, the latter can throw the former into an alternate dimension, fist and all. The strength of the punch would not change the result a bit. Framed this way, Shige-jii’s superpower is seriously overpowered. His range is short, yes, but that’s an issue that could be resolved simply by him fusing with Mikage-chan.

          “I didn’t expect Tsukuyomi to move so fast,” Rin-chan sighed. “We need to retrieve that Artifact ASAP.”

          “Hm? You mentioned an Artifact. Are you referring to…what I think you are?” Shige-jii, who had basically joined us merely to steal the final scene of the fight, acted like he knew what Rin-chan was talking about.

          “Huh?! You know about it, Hazama-san?!”

          “Indeed. When I was young, I accepted a top-secret mission from the govern—”

          “Sounds like I can leave it all to you, then! Please lead everyone over. I need to rest ’cus I overused my superpower just now. Whew.”

          I love Rin-chan’s mischievous way of shutting Shige-jii down with brutal trust! She’s so cute!

          Shige-jii coughed in surprise. “Uh, but, um, that’s, the thing is, that time, well… put another way, it… I… I’m sorry. I was only pretending to know. Please tell us where the location is.”

          I also love how Shige-jii reflexively tries to grandstand but ends up digging himself into a hole and gets forced to admit it out loud! He’s so cute! (I must be confused.)

          Rin-chan shot an impish smile at the dejected old man, then said dramatically, “Very well, I shall tell you. The location of the Artifact is… an underground cave in Antarctica!”

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Footnotes

Wow, such empty.