Suspicions - Part 1

“Speak! How did you manage to control so many monsters?!” shouted a Red Thunder agent.

A full day had passed since we discovered the identity of the Beast King and proceeded to capture Yu, and right now we were at the Red Thunder guild’s headquarters.

Ever since they captured him, Yu had been undergoing interrogation. An endless stream of different hunters had gone in and out; some tried speaking to him calmly, others were gentle, and others opted directly for violence and yelling, just like the one trying now—but nothing worked.

No matter the questions or the methods they tried, Yu never spoke. He simply remained seated in the interrogation room, which we could observe through the one-way glass covering it, along with speakers that let us hear everything clearly.

Seeing the man who had been my tutor in such a state stirred conflicting feelings in me. His expression now was one of someone defeated yet unshakable at the same time; he didn’t seem to have any will left, but at the same time he didn’t look like he would talk no matter what they did.

All the atrocities he had committed overlapped with the days we had spent together—like when he saved me on my first day, or when he supported me at the academy. He had done many horrible things, yes, but it was hard to forget what he had done for me, no matter how much I tried.

Even so, I could not forgive him. Not after being the direct cause of my older sister’s death; that feeling was what still kept me standing in this position.

After a while, the interrogator stormed out of the room, furious after having failed to get any answers, and it wasn’t just him—every hunter and guild agent seemed equally frustrated at the complete lack of information about Yu’s previous attacks as the Beast King.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere…” Miss Usagi said with frustration. “If this continues, I’ll have to go in and interrogate him myself.”

Given what little I knew of her, I could easily imagine that an interrogation conducted by her wouldn’t be gentle in the slightest. Her electric elemental magic must be a very effective weapon for this kind of situation.

“Yu! Where is Yu?!” yelled a familiar voice in the distance.

As the door to the room opened, a familiar face emerged, clearly distressed by everything that was happening—and how could she not be? She was the mother of the accused. Rina Takahashi.

“Mrs. Takahashi…”

Miss Usagi’s expression wavered for a moment. She must have felt terrible about the situation Mrs. Takahashi was going through as a mother, but she quickly regained her composure.

“He is being interrogated right now, but we haven’t managed to obtain anything from him.”

“Let him go! It’s impossible for him to be the Beast King!”

“There is no mistake… Both Touka and I saw his face behind the mask. There is absolutely no doubt it was him.”

Upon hearing those words, Mrs. Takahashi’s face went pale, and terror unlike anything I had ever seen washed over her. Her once serious and professional expression vanished, replaced by pure horror—likely because she now understood the truth about her son.

I could understand her. If someone told me Yu was the Beast King without me having seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe it easily either—but just as Miss Usagi said, I had witnessed it with my own eyes.

“Miss Aizawa, would you like us to send in another one of our agents?”

“No. I will go in myself now. If he continues refusing to talk, I’ll have to resort to my electric magic.”

“Let me speak with him!” pleaded Mrs. Takahashi. “Please! It’s important!”

“Impossible. Yu Takahiro is our prisoner. No matter that you are his mother or a distinguished figure in the hunter world—this is our job.”

And just as Miss Usagi prepared to enter and confront Yu, another one of her agents rushed into the room.

“Miss Aizawa!” shouted the agent. “Government agents have arrived at the facility! They demand to see the prisoner!”

“The government?” she questioned. “Makes sense. The Beast King is a national-level threat. Let them in.”

“Understood!”

The interrogation had been postponed.

After a little more than five minutes, the government agents entered the room in a hurry. Their movements were fast, yet incredibly orderly and calculated. Some headed toward the interrogation room and, to our surprise, walked right in.

“We are here to take custody of the detainee. He will now be a government prisoner.”

“What?!” Miss Usagi exclaimed. “You can’t just take him like that! He’s our prisoner!”

“Sorry. Direct orders from the government. Top priority,” one of them replied, handing Miss Usagi a document.

As she read it, her expression became more and more doubtful. And Yu wasn’t the only one they wanted to take.

“Rina Takahashi, you are under arrest. You will come with us.”

At that moment, Mrs. Takahashi was also handcuffed and surrounded.

“Wait!” I exclaimed. “Why are you taking her too?!”

“Classified information.”

“To hell with that! What the hell is going on here?!” Miss Usagi roared, startling all the Red Thunder agents present.

However, the government agents remained unshaken by the intimidating hunter, and they responded to her in the same cold, almost mechanical tone they had used with me.

“Classified information.”

Miss Usagi was clearly irritated, but she seemed to realize on her own that she wouldn’t be able to extract anything from them, so she restrained herself from trying anything else.

As soon as they dragged Yu out of the interrogation room, the first thing he saw was that they had captured Mrs. Takahashi as well, so he suddenly head-butted the agent holding him so hard that the man fell to the floor.

A couple more government agents tried to restrain him, but even weakened by the special handcuffs, Yu used his extensive hunter experience to evade and counterattack—just as he had taught me at the beginning.

He tried to go help Mrs. Takahashi, but another agent shot something into his neck. It looked like a tranquilizer dart, and it had to be an extremely strong one, because Yu fell unconscious only a few seconds later, unable to say a word.

Finally, the agents took them both out of the building, leaving the room filled with an overwhelming silence born from confusion.

What had just happened?

Taking Yu was understandable given his identity as the Beast King, but why take Mrs. Takahashi as well?

Was she involved in Yu’s actions too?

The situation left us with more questions than answers. Even the level of confidentiality felt excessive, given that they were withholding information even from hunters as important as Miss Usagi.

“Something’s wrong…” she murmured. “We usually work transparently with the government. What could be so important that they’d refuse to tell us anything?”

Miss Usagi seemed just as confused as I was—or perhaps even more, given how many times she had dealt with the government and its agents. However, standing around doing nothing wasn’t going to solve anything.

“We need information, so we’ll look for it ourselves.”

“No need!” shouted a voice in the distance.

Daisuke, whom I hadn’t seen since the day we fought the Beast King, appeared again as if nothing had happened.

“Where have you been?!”

“Investigating ahead of time, of course. Did you seriously think I was just going to accept that my best friend was the Beast King? Of course not! I had to find the truth myself! I even went to ask the leader of Dead Eye for help.”

“You convinced Mr. Kuroki to help you?!”

Miss Usagi’s surprise caught me off guard, but thinking about it, it made sense. Mr. Kuroki was incredibly serious, direct, and unapproachable—and that’s without mentioning that both guilds, Red Thunder and Dead Eye, constantly competed to be the strongest in the country. No wonder his cooperation was so shocking.

“Yes! It wasn’t that hard. He also had his doubts about the Beast King’s identity. Although… what we found doesn’t exactly clear things up.”

If things were already complicated, hearing that they could still get even more convoluted made my head start to ache slightly. Miss Usagi also seemed unsure, but she let Daisuke continue with what he had discovered.

However, just as he said himself, the answer was nothing like what we expected.