Cultivator in a World of Angels, Demons, and Super Heroes

"Good morning, dear guest." Haruto welcomes a new face in the shop.

"Is the owner around?" The new face, a man in his 30s, well-dressed in a blue suit, looks around the shop.

"No, sir. Did you reserve an appointment?" Haruto asks.

"I'm not here for the massage. Where's the owner?" The man asks, his tone intimidating Haruto by quite a bit.

"I don't know sir, but I heard that he is somewhere far away." Haruto explains.

"Our massage therapist is present though. He is currently tending to a guest." He adds.

The man simply grunts in annoyed acknowledgement as he goes to sit on one of the couches in the lounge area.

"Sir, may I ask what your business with the owner is?" Haruto asks.

"An official business." The man says dismissively.

"If I may know more sir? If this is official business, perhaps I can give my employer a heads up?" Haruto insists.

"It's officially none of your business, kid." The man gives Haruto a glare.

Haruto cannot help but step back.

"I'm sorry." He can only apologize.

"Would you like some tea while you wait?" He offers instead. .

"How much longer?" The man ignores Haruto's offer and asks impatiently as he looks at his watch.

"Maybe around fifteen minutes, sir." Haruto estimates.

"Damn it." The man grunts in frustration.

Haruto can only wait uncomfortably with the man for Fumio. Thankfully for Fumio, the man is busy with his own thoughts.

A few minutes later.

"Have a nice day. Please come back again, dear guest!" Haruto bids goodbye to the only supposed customer that reserved an appointment for the day.

"The therapist will be here any moment, sir." Haruto addresses the stranger, noticing that the man is slowly losing his patience.

He also gave Fumio a heads up.

"Haruto. Please go put away the things in the massage room please." Fumio orders Haruto immediately as soon as he enters the lounge area, already knowing that this arrogant looking guest is not here f or a massage.

"Good morning, sir, what can I do for you?" Fumio greets the man. 

"Call the owner right now. I have to talk to him." The man demands.

"I'm sorry, but who are you? And what do you want to talk to my employer for?" Fumio gets a bit annoyed at the man's tone, reminded of some people.

He already figured out that the man in front of him is a member of some superioris clan.

"You don't have to know that, kid." The man harrumphs.

"Well, I don't have to follow the demands of a stranger either." Fumio shrugs.

"So, if you don't have anything else, then please leave. We're closed for the day." Fumio gestures towards the door.

Suddenly, the man jumps at Fumio.

"You will call him. NOW." He grabs Fumio's collar and demands through gritted teeth.

Fumio quickly deactivates his resistance seals and *thunk* headbutts the man's nose.

"ARIGH!" The man steps back in a panic and holds his nose.

Fumio gives no chance for the man to recover as Fumio kicks the man to the floor.

The man is stunned. Even though he is not injured by Fumio's attack, he is still surprised by what had just happened, "damn.", and curses his luck that he just happened to meet a strong superioris masquerading as a massage therapist.

"It didn't have to come to this, mister." Fumio says as he pulls out a tanto from his storage space, and disguises it as drawing it from inside his kimono.

"Wait, wait!" The man gets scared that Fumio would be so agitated to use a weapon just because he grabbed Fumio's collar. Not to mention from the short exchange, he felt his B-Class strength was easily overpowered by Fumio.

"Okay. I deserved that. I wasn't thinking straight." The man apologizes as he stands up.

"Can we talk?" He asks.

"Then talk. If you can tell me your name first." Fumio says as he stores away his tanto.

"Okay. My name is Murata Taro." Taro introduces himself.

"And your employer, Iwai Kichirou? My young miss is in urgent need of him." The man comes clean.

"Which clan? Young miss?" Fumio gets interested.

"Nagano." Taro says. Fumio's eyes widen and his mind runs.

"That… Nagano Clan?" He asks.

"Yeah." Taro nods.

"How do I know you're not lying?" Fumio asks, frustrating Taro.

Taro can only take something out of the inner pocket of his jacket and tosses it to Fumio. Fumio catches the object and sees a huge brass coin with the Nagano Crest embedded on it.

Fumio immediately knows that it is the real deal.

"Okay." Fumio nods as he tosses Taro's clan coin back.

He then pulls out his phone and calls Red.

[Hello.] Red picks up.

"Boss. Someone wants to talk to you." Fumio switches the phone to speaker mode.

"H-hello… Kichirou-san." Taro greets. He can only hope Red can help.

"I'm Murata Taro. I'm Kaoru-sama's secretary. I'm the one who got you your id-"

[Alright Taro-san. What can I do for you?] Red stops Taro from revealing his fake identity to Fumio.

"Kaoru-sama is in urgent need for you, Kichirou-san. It concerns her life." Taro reports.

[Where is she right now?] Red asks.

"Minato. She's at Azabu Hospital." Taro reports.

[Fumio. Can you restrain Taro-san?] Red asks.

Taro, before he can even process the question, *thud* his world goes dark.

<><><><><>

Minato, Tokyo 9AM

…

"*mmfff*" Kaoru wakes up in her hospital bed, feeling heavy and weak.

As she struggles to look around her hospital suite, she finds the guards, her parents, and the other people in her hospital room all unconscious.

After getting over her daze, "W-wha…", she finally realizes the oddity of the sight.

"Tsk.tsk.tsk." She suddenly hears someone clicking their tongue beside her.

She looks and sees that sitting on the chair on her bedside, is the man she has always wished to see but have not seen in more than a year.

"R-red…" She utters in disbelief, her voice hoarse.

"They're just asleep. Why don't we talk?" Red asks.

"H-how did you…"

"That's not what's important." Red cuts off Kaoru as she already knows what she is about to ask.

"What happened? I thought you would live a full life. But just after a year, you're dying again?" He  asks.

"What?" Kaoru is confused but the next moment, memories of what happened before she fell unconscious come back to her.

"I-I… The last thing I remember, I was being swallowed by blue fire." She recounts weakly.

"Well. That explains why you look ugly right now." Red chuckles.

"What?" Kaoru looks at her body, and she sees that indeed, bandages upon bandages are wrapped on her entire body.

"I-I'm still alive…" She sighs.

"Obviously." Red shrugs.

"D-did you heal me again?" Kaoru asks.

"Nah. I just woke you up so I could talk to you." Red reveals.

"I see… I guess healing me again is too much for you." Kaoru chuckles but, "ouch", she feels her chest engulfed in pain.

"Depends." Red shakes his head.

"Why were you swallowed by blue fire? And why a powerful clan like the Nagano would let their young miss be in that situation in the first place?" He asks.

"I-it was a test. A test to find out if I deserve to be the heir. And I guess I failed." Kaoru looks away.

"A test? Why did you have to take it then?" Red asks.

"I uh… I don't know…" Kaoru shakes her head.

"Come on." Red knows that Kaoru is holding back.

"I just want to prove myself. That I wasn't just born with my powers, but I also can use them skillfully… But I guess they were right all along…" Kaoru looks down in embarrassment.

"Heh… Youth." Red shakes his head, but he spotted a sign of deception in Kaoru's eyes.

"But… I can tell that this test was very dangerous. You're dying right now. Your heart is barely working." He reveals, shocking Kaoru.

"What kind of test was this exactly? It helps me knowing what injured you." He continues to ask.

"They had me fight a demon. A strong one. I should have turn and ran the first chance I got." Kaoru says, and just remembering the demon and its power makes her shudder. 

"A strong demon?" Red gets interested.

"I heard that that one killed in the Kumagai Compound was around A-Class, and ones like that one are rare. How did your clan even find one that can hurt you this bad?" He asks.

"I uhh…" Kaoru does not want to answer.

"Come on, Kaoru." Red sends a mental compulsion to Kaoru's head through his spirit sense.

"I just found out that the clan has been keeping demons." Kaoru finally confesses, but talking about it is hard for her.

"The clan has been… To make them stronger, the clan..." She tries to continue however.

"Alright. That's enough." Red stops her, worried that Kaoru getting agitated any further would worsen her condition.

But Red's mental compulsion earlier worked too well.

Kaoru wants to share more because she feels that if she can't talk about the secret to anyone, it will drive her insane.

"The clan has been feeding those demons… with… with… people… I-I… was going to kill that demon… So, the clan would stop." She recounts again, barely holding back her tears.

"Wow…" Red is surprised. He has long figured out that some of the clans have already begun their demon hunting activities for a decade now, but them keeping demons is a surprise to him.

But thinking about it more, he realized that indeed, such practice is very lucrative. The clans can just capture demon, feed them souls to get them stronger to their maximum, and kill them for their high-quality core.

"Okay… There... There." Red touches Kaoru's forehead as he applies a healing technique.

"So, you tried killing the demon, but you weren't powerful enough. Instead, you angered it so bad, it tried to kill you." Red asks.

"…Yeah. I guess." Kaoru nods.

"Where do you your clan keep these demons? They can't possible keep them where people live, right? Because if they are, then they're crazy." Red acts worried.

"Don't worry. The clan keep them in a private island, in a deep bunker." Kaoru assures.

Red then starts to narrow things down in his mind. He figures that while the Nagano keep the demons in a private island away from people, they also want that certain private island to be still in their reach.

'So… a private island around the eastern part of Kanto region.' He concludes, but such information is too broad.

"Where is that island? So I can stay away from it in the future?" He asks, to fish for more.

"I don't know either. I was blindfolded by my dad when he brought me there. All I know is that it's a small island with just the sea in sight." Unfortunately for Red, Kaoru does not know.

"Well then…" Red gives up for now, but decides to scour the East of Kanto region when he has time.

"So… You obviously want to live, right?" He asks.

"You're really going to heal me?" Kaoru asks in excitement.

"I don't know." Red shrugs, "oh.." shutting down Kaoru's excitement.

"In addition to your burnt body, you also had a massive heart attack due to your injuries, killing a majority of your heart tissues and your other organs. Even if a superioris doctor can somehow successfully transplant an artificial heart to you, can they do it quick enough before your brain, lungs die next?" Red explains Kaoru's condition.

"It's that bad, huh?" Kaoru smiles bitterly.

"Yeah. If I didn't make your mother fall asleep, she would be crying for days until you die." Red points at the sleeping Mrs. Nagano.

"So… What do you want in exchange for my life, Red-san?" Kaoru can only attempt to buy her life.