Chapter 16 - A Part-time Job

"Do you think you can beat him in a fight?" Fumio asks.

"I have my ways. It'll be easy." Red says.

"Oh... Even if you can, boss, I want to do it myself." Fumio says. "But… How am I supposed to?" he then clenches his jaw in indignation.

"If you had the strength, what will you do with him?" Red asks.

"If I had the power…" Fumio's mind starts a scenario that has been running in his head every time Hideki makes him and other non-superiori members of the Hasegawa Clan suffer.

"I'll… take away his power… He's nothing without it. I'll see if he's any more useful than us non-superiori… The Hasegawa clan will then no longer find worth in him..." Every sentence he utters, his face becomes stonier, colder.

"Will that be enough? Will the anger in your heart disappear after achieving that?" Red asks.

"No… Only until I, with my own eyes, see him lose his will… to live. Only until I see him, take his own life, will I be satisfied." Fumio says, as he touches his chest.

Even though his chest is fully healed, he still feels the pain of the injury that was inflicted by Hideki.

'I like it.' Red cannot help but smirk. He figures that Fumio's preference for a poetic justice, is that he wants to replace the image in his mind of Hideki being an insurmountable monster, into that of weak vermin he can step on.

"Boss, I know I'm weak, but I'm not joking." Fumio, misinterpreting the smirk on Red's face, is offended.

"Oh. I know, kid." Red gulps down the tea from his cup and he checks the time. "21:15. It's still early."

"…" Fumio meanwhile, is a bit indignant, feeling that Red is not taking him seriously. He can only gulp down his own tea, swallowing the bitterness he is feeling along with it.

"Fumio." Red says suddenly. "I can help you achieve the strength you require." He continues.

"…" Fumio is stunned.

He knows that while Red has the tendency to be playful, Red is good-natured and is not the type to kid about situationally sensitive things easily.

"C-can you really?" He asks in intrigue.

"Why don't we go out for a walk?" Red gestures as he stands up from his chair.

A moment later, the two are now in Red's balcony.

"Uhh… a walk, you said?" Fumio scratches his head in confusion as he looks at Red.

"Yeah. Tighten up." Red orders as he points at the belt of Fumio's kimono.

"What are we doing, exactly?" Fumio instinctively and confusedly complies with Red's orders.

The next moment, Red grabs Fumio on the secured belt, lifts the man in the air, and he jumps off the balcony, easily carrying the weight of two people.

"AAAHHHHH!" Fumio can only scream as him and Red free fall to the street below.

"*Hurl* B-boss…" Fumio is bent down, hands on his knees, face to the floor, dry heaving.

"Are you good now?" Red asks. He has given Fumio a few moments to compose himself.

For the past few minutes, he has hopped from building rooftop to building rooftop, twice the speed of an arrow zipping through the air while carrying the flailing Fumio along with one hand like a grocery bag.

Only after finally arriving to their destination did Fumio's suffering end.

"I'm go- *hurl*…" Fumio heaves one last time, before "I'm good boss…", breathing deeply in relief, glad to be alive.

He however, does not know what to say, his mind jumbled by the questions that is flooding his mind. One question however, is the clearest in his mind.

"T-the strength you were talking about… Can I do … whatever that was?" He asks, referring to the feat of physicality that Red displayed to him.

"And more." Red nods.

"More…" Fumio is getting excited at the thought of himself just having the ability to hop from building to building at an incredible speed.

"I-I've seen the top members of Hasegawa spar before… I think only the clan head can move that fast, and he's not that far from reaching A-class." He compares.

"Ah… Well. It'll take you decades to reach the strength of an A Class Superioris." Red says.

"Oh…" Fumio is immediately pulled out from his day dream.

"But to deal with your cousin… I think a year would do?" Red estimates.

"Really?" Hope sparks in Fumio's eyes once again.

"Or a few months? Depending how strong your will is." Red says.

"Will… Boss! I'm strong-willed! I didn't survive that long in the Hasegawa clan as a non-superioris for nothing!" Fumio proudly says.

Red nods, already having an idea of Fumio's martial skills.

While he was massaging Fumio for practice a week ago, Red's spiritual scan of Fumio's muscles revealed years of training in foot movements and swordsmanship. While Fumio's fitness is nothing compared to cultivator mortals, he has an above average fitness for a non-superioris.

"I'll be the judge of that." Red simply says.

"I'll show you boss." Fumio responds in determination.

With that, Red starts to walk away from Fumio.

"Where are you going, boss?" Fumio asks as he quickly catches up.

"To make some money." Red answers as they enter the door of the rooftop.

"Make some money…" Fumio gets curious.

>

"Hey."

"Good luck tonight."

"Do your best, sir."

Aside from the greetings Red is receiving as they walk along the corridor, Fumio noticed more things that makes him very curious about the building.

"Boss… What's going on? Who were those people?" Fumio cannot help but ask.

Red however does not answer as he stops at a door, opens it and gestures Fumio to enter.

"Boss. What's this building? Who are those people? That doorman earlier also asked for a password… And… this looks like some waiting room." Fumio starts to spill his questions as they enter the room.

"Well. Found this place two months ago. When I saw the free money, hey. Why not? It's not like we're earning anything from the shop." Red replies as he sits on the chair of the room reserved only for him, facing a large mirror hanging on the wall.

"Free money?" Fumio asks, but as he looks at Red's reflection in the mirror, his jaw drops.

Red, in the mirror, no longer looks like the kimono-wearing, clean cut-having 40 something year-old Iwai Kichirou, but a bare chested muscular old man with a shoulder-length white hair and well-groomed white mane.

Red's entire face is also covered by an eerie looking white porcelain mask, concealing Red's facial features except for his mouth.

"W-wha…" Fumio eyes dart between Red and his reflection in stupefaction.

He then touches Red and to further his surprise, unlike the reflection showing his hand touching Red's bare shoulder, his hand feels the fabric of Red's kimono.

A moment later, "How is this possible?" He finally utters as he goes to stand behind Red to study the comparisons more.

"…" His eyes almost pop out of its socket when he notices his own reflection.

Just like Red, his reflection looks vastly different.

He is no longer wearing a kimono, but a fancy looking three-piece suit. And unlike his 20 something year-old face, he now looks like a handsome 40-year-old man. He then touches his clothes and his face and just like with Red, he is still wearing his kimono, and he is still 23 years old.

"… How is this possible?!" He asks again, but this time, not to himself, but to Red.

"I'll tell you more of my secrets once you're strong enough to keep them." Red says.

"O-oh…" Fumio is speechless at the answer, but his mind is still being assaulted by questions about Red and his abilities.

Soon however, he realizes that Red sharing his sensitive secrets to him is a huge honor.

"B-boss! I'll keep everything to myself!" He bows to Red.

"Heh. Even if you somehow slip up and tell others, who'd believe you?" Red shrugs with a scoff.

"…" Fumio has nothing to say at the logic.

"So. What do you think? Our disguises are pretty good, huh?" Red asks.

"D-disguises… " Fumio studies his handsome reflection in the mirror again.

"Damn boss. I wanna look like this when I get older." He says as he starts posing.

Unbeknownst to Fumio, what he saw as an excessively detailed embroidery of the logo of the shop oddly located in the inner hem of his kimono robe, is a disguise seal, hand stitched by Red using a platinum thread.

Red, found out that some metals in this world like gold, platinum, palladium, or even silver are good conductors of spiritual energy.

In Muscle Masters, if his customers will look closer, they will notice that the tiles in each corners of the shop's rooms are metallic, and made of silver plates. These silver tiles contain spiritual energy storage seals which Red engraved to power the formations in the shop.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* Fumio and Red are interrupted from their chat as they hear a knock on the waiting room's door.

Red nods at Fumio, and Fumio opens the door.

A man, who seems to be one of the many guards in black suits around the building, enters.

"Is it time?" Red asks.

"Yes, sir." The guard says.

Red, noticing that Fumio is about to ask what it is about, gestures to Fumio to stay quiet.

"He's a friend. Can you register him for a guest's pass?" Red asks the guard.

"Sure thing, sir. I will be back." The guard says.

"Alright Fumio. Here's what you're gonna do." Red starts to give Fumio a crash course about the place where they are.

~

"…" Fumio still cannot believe what he just witnessed.

In view below him, is a basketball-court sized sumo ring, and he is now in the stands among the audience.

He is however smart enough to know that he is not in a sumo event, but an underground fighting arena. A superioris underground fighting arena to be exact.

He just watched the last moments of a bloody match between two transformation type superiori, with the earth type superioris who can transform his arms with earthen spiked clubs, winning against an ice-type superioris who can transform his arms into icicles.

He can barely watch as the two fighters stab and smash at each other to the twisted amusement of the crowd around him.

Currently, he watches in rapt interest as a few earth and fire manipulation type superiori, who seem to be the cleaners of the fighting ring, replace the bloody clay ground, with a new layer.

On the opposite edges of the ring where the two exits are located, meanwhile, are bloody figures of the fighters being carried away on stretchers after the ring's teams of healer-type superiori performed their preliminary measures to prevent the fighters from further injuries.

While Fumio liked watching superioris fighting championships, the bloody and dirty world of underground fighting repulses him. Unlike the professionally regulated and sanctioned official combat tournaments, the underground fighting ring seemed to lack any rules at all.

The two fighters earlier resorted to striking their opponents' groin, back, and neck, as if trying their hardest to go for the kill. Had it not been to support Red, he would have left the area long ago.

Fumio has heard of these underground fighting events from the members of his former clan. He always scoffed in skepticism, finding them tall tales, until today, when he himself is a witness to the real bloody entertainment.

"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen." Fumio is startled by the boisterous baritone voice of the announcer.

"May I present to you all, the final match of the Named Warriors' Row." The announcer continues.

*CHEER* *WHISTLES* The crowd cheer in anticipation.