Chapter 48 - Kotone The Masseuse

Nerima, Muscle Masters - 10 AM

"Tomiichi-san. Excuse me." Kotone is distracted from her massage by a woman entering the massage area.

"What is it, Mizuho-chan?" The sixty something year-old customer asks his secretary.

"A phone call from the Vice Speaker." Mizuho reports as she walks to the massage table and reaches out Tomiichi's phone to his reach.

"Kotaru-san. Let's stop for a moment." Tomiichi says to the in-disguise Kotone.

"Give me." He then takes the phone.

"Vice Speaker. What is it?" He greets the person on the other end of the phone.

"Uhuh… Already? It's only been a week since the vote."

"Then what? Do we expect another round of votes?"

"Alright… I'll wait for the good news. Bye."

Soon, Tomiichi's phone call ends and he sighs.

"Eigh. What a nuisance." He mutters as he hands back his phone to Mizuho's care.

"Let's continue." He then orders Kotone.

Mizuho also walks out of the massage room.

While Kotone is curious of the phone call by the congressman, she is not curious enough to be interested, so she simply continues her work.

"Kotaru-san. What do you think of the decision of the House of Representatives last week?" Tomiichi suddenly asks.

"I don't follow politics that much, congressman." Kotone replies in honesty.

"But you must have at least heard of the decision by the congress last week about the Universal Basic Income for the Non-Superiori, yes?" Tomiichi asks.

"All I heard was it was not passed." Kotone comments.

"Uhn. What do you think of that?" Tomiichi asks.

"I was not surprised. If it was an ideal world, I think it would have passed." Kotone voices honestly.

"Ah… Are you a superioris, Kotaru-san?" Tomiichi asks.

"Yes, sir." Kotone, knowing that this certain customer is a superioris supremacist, lies.

"Then why did you think the bill was going to be passed?" Tomiichi asks.

Kotone wants to say she thinks the non-superiori deserve it, but she does not want to offend Tomiichi.

"Because almost half of the congress is made up of non-superiori. I thought they would surely vote a bill that benefits them. And I'm also sure that there are superiori congressmen who feel for the plight of the non-superiori, so I thought they would have voted yes too. So with that, I had hope that the bill would have been passed." Kotone explains.

"Ah… Heh." Tomiichi chuckles, annoying Kotone.

"It's not that simple. Most people also thought the same, but they just don't understand politics."

"Hmmm. I know. But I just wish it isn't about politics but helping out the less fortunate." Kotone lets her real thoughts slip.

"You're a very nice person, Kotaru-san. The world is full of nice people indeed." Tomiichi says.

Kotone feels however that the comment is not a compliment.

"By any chance, have you signed those petitions against the house's decision?" Tomiichi asks.

"No sir. But I'm guessing many did." Kotone says.

"Yes. In just a week, those parties already received two million signatures. They're working hard." Tomiichi sneers.

"But it's useless. The non-superiori congressmen that you, Kotaru-san, and other people think of as allies of the non-superiori population, are not simple. If things were simpler, then this bill would have passed long ago."

Kotone hears a smirk in Tomiichi's voice and she had to stop herself from inflicting pain on the man.

"Well. Politics or not, who are still the people in charge? The reason why I don't care much for politics is because the democracy in our country is a sham." Kotone scoffs, her words surprising Tomiichi.

"A sham brought about by the Superior Clans being nice. Wait. No. Huh… they can control the population better if the population feel that they are free. So it's not them being nice." Kotone starts rambling.

Ever since knowing Fumio, who was a member of a small superioris clan, she was disillusioned by Fumio's ramblings about how Japan's society works.

"… No matter how powerful one is, whether politically, or economically, they will remain the dogs of the Superiori Clans. And ordinary people like me, superioris or not, will remain the sheep." Kotone concludes.

"heh-heh… If you weren't a great substitute for Kichirou-san, I would never want to see you again." Tomiichi tries his best to hide being offended.

"I'm just frustrated. Had the bill been passed, I would still have hope for sheep like me." Kotone on the other hand, smirks proudly.

She cannot believe that she just called a congressman a dog and she got away with it.

-A few minutes later.-

"Please come again, congressman." Kotone bids goodbye to Tomiichi and closes the door of the shop.

"Tsk… If only you didn't have influence, I wouldn't have accepted your appointment." She utters.

The congressman, being a regular of the shop, is someone that Kotone grown familiar of. She has overhead the man's opinions when she was working as the shop's receptionist.

But she found out today that the more comfortable the man feels, the more bigoted he becomes and the things he said during his massage are still bothering her.

"Ugh." She can only shrug it off and pulls out her phone to distract herself from remembering the man's ramblings. 

"Huh?" She then gets a surprise after seeing that she just missed seven calls from an unknown number.

She then hurriedly calls it, in case it is an emergency.

"Hello?"

/Yes. Is this Yoshida Kotone? Iwai Kichirou's representative?/ A man's voice answers from the other end of the line.

"Yes, sir. I apologize as I was busy. What's the call about?" She asks.

/Oh. We are calling from Nishitama District Office. Mr. Kichirou can now receive a copy of the deed of his land in Hinohara from the Recorder's office./

Kotone sighs in relief. Her errand is almost finally over. 

-Nishitama District Office, Mizuho 2 PM-

"Kotone-san, please extend my thanks to Kichirou-san." Tadao bows in gratitude to Kotone.

"I will." Kotone bows back as she embraces the file case on her arms.

The file case contains the things that kept her up at night for the past two weeks.

"You didn't have to accompany me to get the new deed. I know you're a busy man." She also thanks Tadao.

"It's nothing, Kotone-san. It's my responsibility. I had to see it to the end to make sure that not even clerical errors will get in the way." Tadao waves off Kotone's gratitude.

"Well, then. I have to go to Hinohara and hand the documents over to Kazuo-san." Kotone says.

"About that… Did uhhh… Kazuo-san and his students say something about the property?" Tadao asks.

Kotone's brows furrow at the oddly timed question. After all, the house and land in Hinohara where she once visited, is no longer Tadao's, but Red's. 

"Aside from how beautiful and peaceful it is, nothing else." Kotone replies.

"I see… I just found it strange that Kichirou-san, who I never met, bought the property double the market price." Tadao says.

"He simply does not have the time to... Well, he cannot be bothered to go back and forth with you in case you wanted to negotiate." Kotone comes up with an excuse she thinks Red might use.

"Ah…" Tadao can only accept the explanation.

"By the way. How is Kazuo-san and Kichirou-san related? Did Kichirou-san buy the property for Kazuo-san?" Tadao asks.

"Yes. Something like that." Kotone simply nods, not wanting to explain anything.

"I-I see." Tadao sees that Kotone does not want to talk about it.

"Anyways. Please extend my thanks to Kazuo-san too. I feel at ease after he promised that he won't change a thing in my childhood home." He switches subjects.

"I will." Kotone nods, but a question crosses her mind.

"Tadao-san. I believe that you can no longer visit your childhood home without Kazuo-san's permission, how could you be so sure that Kazuo-san will keep his promise?" She asks.

"I just know that I can trust Kazuo-san." Tadao shrugs.

"I see." Kotone is already used to people always having good impressions of Red whether he is in disguise or not.

After parting with Tadao, Kotone finds a café near the government office building. She then goes to the café bathroom, turns on her 'Kotaru' illusion, and leaves the café immediately.

She then pulls out her phone, opens the GPS and marks Hinohara Village's center as her destination.

With that, she starts her run.

Ever since Red released her seals, Kotone found the habit of running from city to city in early mornings, enjoying her newfound mobility. Her being able to run at a speed of a car, gives her a feeling of unprecedented freedom. Adding Red's illusion seal which she can use for half a day straight, offers her the anonymity to break the superiori speeding laws in public roads and sidewalks.

After Red found out Kotone's newfound hobby, he made use of it as a tool to move Kotone's training forward. He asked Kotone to practice the breathing technique while running from place to place until she can execute the breathing technique subconsciously.

While she still needs more practice to match Fumio's mastery in it, she is already feeling the benefits as she is able to run fast for hours while using the breathing technique. 

An hour of running later, Kotone is now at the foot of the hill, which is Red's new property.

"Hmmm… While I've been busy doing errands for Kichirou-san for two weeks, I wonder what Fumio's up to? …" Kotone grumbles.

In contrast to her complaining words however, she is excited to see Red and Fumio. She had not seen Red or Fumio in the past two weeks after all.

While she has been busy running Red's errands like the legwork for the land purchase, which she was authorized by Red through authorization letters, she has not met Red once in the past two weeks and has only received additional orders and instructions on her training through phone calls.

Regarding her communication with Fumio, they usually do not send texts or call each other and when they do, it is all about the matters of the shop. And with Fumio, busy, she has not heard a single thing about Fumio at all, and it has her curious and a bit worried.

Arriving in front of the house, she immediately notices a huge change that was not present during her last visit two weeks ago.

The wild grass and weeds surrounding the house is now replaced by short and uniformly colored grass, giving the house a vibrant green lawn around it.

"Wow… Even the plants in the gardens maintained by the shrines don't look like this."

Past the lawn, she sees that the wild plants and shrubs have been replaced by various plants she has only seen in botanical gardens.

"Must be Kichirou-san's herbs. No wonder his massage solutions are like that."

She is about to touch one plant's flower, *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack* she is startled by a familiar sounding noise coming from the house's backyard.

"What's happening?" She recognizes however that the series of hitting sounds as wooden swords crossing each other.

After hurriedly beelining to the backyard, she sees a sight that makes her eyes almost pop out of their sockets. Red and Fumio sparring.

She does not know which is more amazing. Fumio moving much faster than he did during his spar with Blade Tornado. Or Red who is blocking the barrage of sword strikes from Fumio while standing still, eyes closed, and only using one hand to parry.

When she was watching Fumio and Blade Tornado's match two weeks ago, she can still  process the two's movements despite their speed. Now, she can barely catch up with Fumio's movements, and she loses counts how many swings he does at every combo.

As for Red, she cannot help look back on her lipstick sparring she had with him for months. She knew that Red was holding back because of the resistance seals, but what she is witnessing currently is beyond the body being restricted.

She realizes that the hits she landed on Red to end the sparring sessions, were not even lucky hits, but simply giveaways. She figures that if Red can parry and block the attacks of Fumio who is a better sword user than her, blindfolded, then Red can keep the sparring forever with her.

She is feeling a bit betrayed, but soon scoffs in amusement.. 'It was all calculated by him to measure my progress.'