Chương 47: Papa?

Blood. Chunks of flesh. Human tissue scattered across the garden. Broken corpses, severed limbs, and bodies too badly damaged to recognize. Only now did Bart and Light Nostrade fully understand what had happened outside the office. Light collapsed into his chair again. Even Bart, who had seen battlefields and massacres, struggled to remain calm.

'How long had passed since the shooting began?'

'Five minutes?'

'Ten?' The villa had held fifty gunmen. Even slaughtering fifty pigs should have taken longer. The eight members of the Phantom Troupe entered the room.

"Children?" Bart stared. They were so young that his judgment rejected the sight. None looked older than twenty. Uvogin and Franklin appeared older at first glance, but Bart had spent years reading fighters. He could estimate their ages well enough. Then his eyes moved toward Machi.

'Eleven?'

'Twelve at most?' Eight children had killed fifty armed men within minutes. Bart felt as though he had wasted most of his life. Chrollo stepped forward.

"Hello. My name is Chrollo. These are my companions. Your people welcomed us rather enthusiastically, so we returned the greeting. Please forgive the intrusion." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Bart's cheek twitched.

'You call the bodies outside a greeting?' Light had temporarily lost the ability to speak. Bart answered in his place.

"What do you want?" He did not waste time with pleasantries. Chrollo spread his hands with a helpless smile.

"We truly came looking for friendly cooperation. Your people were simply too sensitive." Now Bart's eye twitched.

'Cooperation? You killed nearly everyone here.' But the knife was in the Troupe's hand, and the Nostrades were on the chopping block. Complaints meant nothing. That was the truth of the world.

"What kind of cooperation do you want from the Nostrade Family?" Bart asked.

"Nothing excessive," Chrollo said.

"We need legal identities. We will also stay here for a while."

"Identity papers?" Bart understood immediately.

"You're from Meteor City." Then habit betrayed him.

"Do the elders know you left?" Chrollo chuckled. The smile vanished from his face.

"You still don't understand your position. Are you questioning us?" His gaze became a blade. Malice pressed down on Bart. The bodyguard came back to his senses instantly. Cold sweat soaked the back of his suit.

'What am I doing?' Three years in the underworld had infected him with its habits. He had unconsciously searched Chrollo's words for weakness, hoping to recover control of the conversation.

'Did my brain stop working?' These were not the ordinary gangsters Bart dealt with every day. They were monsters. And he had tried to seize the initiative while speaking to monsters. While Chrollo and Bart held their version of a friendly conversation, Aren's attention shifted toward the silent man in the chair.

'Why does he look familiar?' Nostrade. The name stirred memories from both the body he had inherited and his previous life. If someone had said Neon Nostrade, Aren would have recognized it instantly. Light Nostrade alone was harder to place. As Bart tried to think of a way to correct his mistake, a small voice came from the doorway.

"Papa?" The tearful note in that single word broke the tension. Everyone turned. A little girl with violet-blue hair stood at the office entrance, clutching a stuffed bear. Blood from the hallway had soaked her bare feet. Tears hung in her eyes. She looked frightened, confused, and painfully small.

"Neon!" Light shouted. The sound woke him from his paralysis. He sprang from the chair and ran toward her. Feitan clicked his tongue.

'Were all Nostrades this reckless?' He began drawing the thin sword hidden inside his umbrella, ready to remove Light's legs. Aren pushed the blade back into its sheath. Feitan looked at him in surprise. Aren shook his head. Nobunaga quietly lowered his own sword. The others did not understand the intervention, but Aren had a reason. The reason was simple. Light's shout finally completed the connection in Aren's mind. Neon. Neon Nostrade. Fate truly worked in strange ways.

In the future Aren remembered, the Nostrade Family began as an insignificant provincial mafia organization and climbed near the top of the underworld through Neon's prophecy ability. Other mafia families looked down on Light for that rise. Light himself dismissed their resentment as ugly jealousy. That supposedly remote provincial home turned out to be Gambi Town, one of the settlements connected to Meteor City. If this was the Light Nostrade Aren remembered, then his weakness under pressure was not surprising.

The fat boss at the bar had resembled the man he served. Like leader, like subordinate. Aren watched Light hold his daughter and felt only disdain.