[PS, Sorry the previous one I upload was an unedited chapter this is the correct one!]
[And please leave Power Stone and review Q-Q]
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"Wait… are you talking about that car accident?"
"Yes, that's right," Akifumi Ye replied with a heavy voice.
He grabbed his cigar again, took one last deep drag, then stubbed it out in the ashtray.
"Sigh… What happened to your friend, Taki Tomoya, wasn't it?—is a damn shame. That poor boy wasn't supposed to die young like that."
"Are you saying… it wasn't an accident?" Mugiho asked.
He waited for an answer, but Akifumi didn't respond immediately. Instead, his father just sat there, turn his head up and stare blankly at the ceiling before continuing.
"That's what I thought too—at first. When I heard you were involved in an accident, your mother and I panicked."
"We thought someone finally found out about you."
"We thought we already lost you… and it terrified us, but when we found out it wasn't you who died… we couldn't help feeling relieve, and let our guards down."
"We wanted to pay our condolences to the Taki family and make sure the driver responsible faced justice, but when we tried to track them down… the police kept delaying the accident report."
Mugiho's narrowed his eyes hearing that. "You mean someone's covering it up?"
"At the time, we didn't care," his father admitted. "We just thought maybe the culprit was on the run, or connected to some powerful family in Japan so that is they try to cover it. That's when we made our mistake."
Mugiho furrowed his brow further, massaging his temples as the pieces clicked together.
'So that's why you sent Yor away…'
"Sending Yor-san to me… that was your mistake, wasn't it?" Mugiho said slowly.
"Yes…" Akifumi Ye sighed. "After experiencing that we thought that the protection that you have in Japan is still lacking, we become too paranoid and hastily decided to sent Yor to protect you."
"….."
Mugiho couldn't bring himself to believe it, thinking the possibility that Yor is conspiring to kill him is unlikely, Yor have a straight personality if she give an order to give rid of him, she will just do it.
'If Yor was really involved… why was he still alive?' None of her actions from back then made sense.
Akifumi Ye studied his son's conflicted expression and sighed.
'Did he already cross paths with Yor?' Akifumi thought bitterly. He wanted freedom—happiness—but his son had to understand his own limit.
'He already have 2 girlfriends now, if this continue to happen how many girlfriends do you want?'
He just hope that the parents of those girls can be understanding, otherwise he probably get killed by them rather than by his enemy.
Akifumi Ye just sigh before continuing, "Don't worry, It probably wasn't Yor herself, but people connected to her."
"But one thing is for sure that the moment Yor made contact with you, the police report we received stated,'No car accident occurred at that time.' That's when we knew something was wrong."
"I sent my own people to investigate," Akifumi Ye admitted. "And what they found was worse—the car involved had vanished entirely. If this were years ago, I could understand records being lost. But for a recent case to disappear? That means someone was tipped off."
A cold realization settled between them.
"Taki Tomoya died because whoever did this knew of you exist—but doesn't who you are. and they knew us… very well."
"First, they knew your mother and I left you in Tokyo the place where Fujiwara most trusted agent DA resided, believing it was safe."
"Second, they had a rough estimate of your age."
"Third, they anticipated that DA agents would be shadowing you to protect you."
"And fourth… They predicted that we wouldn't return to Tokyo often, because hiding you meant keeping our distance from the persona family we created."
"After knowing all of that searching for your identity is just a matter of elimination process."
A bitter laugh escaped Mugiho.
Now that he thought about it, how easy would it be to narrow down these 2 seemingly "normal" high school students living alone in Tokyo… yet somehow DA surveillance often tailing them without direct contact?
"…" Mugiho sat there, staring at the ember in the ashtray—still clinging to life, flickering weakly.
Back when Mugiho had been a hardcore otaku, he'd spent more time with Tomoya than he cared to admit.
'Had they marked Tomoya too? Dragged him into this mess by mistake? Just because they often hanging out?'
'So… it was all just a fucking misunderstanding?' Mugiho thought to himself.
Previously, he'd brushed it off as an accident. But now? Guilt gnawed at him. Even if his past life hadn't known Tomoya well, but the memories of his friend lingered like a ghost.
He took a sharp breath before turning to his father. "Did you find who did this?"
"No… but we have a lead." Akifumi Ye snatched a tissue from the table, then pulled a pen from his jacket.
"After a while, they must've realized you were still alive and that they'd gotten the wrong person. Especially since Yor contacted you."
He pressed the pen to the flimsy tissue. "The moment we started digging more, rumors spread like wildfire in Japan that 'The Fujiwara family descendant is Akifumi Mugiho.' It's like they tried to vanish—burying themselves in the shadows before we could even trace them."
Mugiho's head felt headache. "So it's a dead end. If everyone knows about me now, how the hell is that a lead?"
"Because we got lucky." Akifumi's pen scraped across the tissue as he scribbled names. "After cutting off the rumor, we confirmed only four families in Japan are still actively chasing that rumors."
He tapped the tissue, the ink bleeding faintly into the fibers.
"First is the Shinomiya family."
"Second is the Ayanokouji family."
"Third is the Sakayanagi family."
"And finally… the Yukinoshita family."