Mash-Up: Anything for Money

Russia, on the edge of the city, atop a suspended tower.

Hakuto stood at the very edge of the suspended tower, hands in his pockets.

At night, the moonlight spread like water across every corner of the city, yet it couldn't pierce the large shadow cast by the towering suspended tower.

Hakuto stood quietly at the top of the suspended tower, his long hair flowing wildly in the night wind, like black satin dancing in the dark.

He gazed down at the city below, its lights shimmering, the flowing cars, which seemed like distant illusions in his eyes.

His vision... was getting blurry...

Hakuto rubbed his eyes. 

If he didn't enter that special state, the lights below the suspended tower appeared as blurry, twinkling stars in his vision, making it difficult to see clearly.

By the way, what was that special state called again?

Hakuto shook his head, not wanting to think too much about it. 

He tossed his brown backpack off the suspended tower, then immediately followed it, opening his arms wide as he fell backward.

The suspended tower he was standing on was 400 meters high. Perhaps this number didn't seem too remarkable.

A normal person falling freely from 400 meters would take about ten seconds to reach the ground.

At 400 meters, forget a normal human, even a body made of steel would be shattered into pieces from the fall.

But Hakuto seemed not to have such concerns. 

In mid-air, he caught his backpack that had fallen before him, adjusted his posture, and landed smoothly on one knee.

Due to inertia, the dust left on the ground from construction spread again from his movement.

It was a construction area, and no one was around at night. Otherwise, if anyone had seen this scene, they would have gone back and told their mother they saw Superman today.

Hakuto rubbed his eyes. The heavy dark circles under his eyes didn't quite match his handsome face, but he seemed to have gotten used to it.

He paused for a moment, then looked around before his figure flickered and vanished from the spot.

...

In a place so bright it seemed like daylight, there seemed to have been a significant battle.

Shiny bullet casings littered the ground, a terrifying sight. The amount of ammunition was so massive that no carbon-based life form could withstand it.

In this scene, dozens of people wearing hospital gowns, along with a few dressed in white lab coats, were trembling as they sat on the ground, as if they had witnessed something terrifying.

Hakuto's figure suddenly appeared here, and with his arrival, the bullet casings on the ground were crushed underfoot with loud cracks.

Hakuto frowned and kicked aside the bullet casings, then looked at the group of people in hospital gowns not far away.

"You guys don't... want to mess with me..."

Hakuto had originally planned to wait until Otosaka Yuu walked far enough before following.

But just as he stepped into this place, a sharp whistling sound pierced the air, followed by the crisp crack of a gunshot.

Before Hakuto could finish speaking, his body instinctively turned, and the bullet whizzed past his ear, sharp and accompanied by a sting...

Hakuto slowly turned around, his expression calm, and looked at the tall buildings in the distance.

"Here again... How many times has it been now..."

It wasn't an ordinary firearm; its power had reached the level of a cannon. If it hit someone, it would certainly blow them apart.

"Did it hit him?!"

"It seems not. He turned his head and dodged..."

"Turned your head to dodge? This is a sniper rifle! Damn it! Try again!"

Hakuto's gaze remained calm, as still as stagnant water with no ripples.

However, the next moment, a sound like a water droplet falling to the ground suddenly reached his ears.

A trace of confusion appeared in Hakuto's eyes, and he subconsciously reached up to touch his ear.

As expected, blood, red and fresh, was dripping down his ear. Although it was only a slight scrape...

Hakuto's gaze became blank, as he touched the empty space beside his earlobe, feeling as if something important had gone missing...

In Hakuto's blank stare, the sharp sound of something cutting through the air reached his ears once again.

But this time, Hakuto didn't dodge. Instead, he reached out and caught the bullet with his hand.

"You... really should die!"

The moment Hakuto spoke, an explosion suddenly came from the building where the sniper was positioned.

"Boom!!"

In an instant, flames shot into the sky, and dark shadows devoured the building's outer walls.

Glass shattered like raindrops, refracting a blinding light in the moonlight before falling to the ground.

The surrounding air was thrown into chaos by the shockwave, with the sounds of people screaming and crying intertwining.

That towering skyscraper, once grand, now swayed and seemed on the brink of collapsing, turning into a pile of rubble.

Amidst the shattered skyscraper, Hakuto stood against the moonlight, his head slightly tilted upward.

He didn't understand why he had done that, why he had gotten so angry.

He only knew that when he touched the empty space by his earlobe, he felt an uncontrollable fire within his chest.

Hakuto felt as if he had violated some original purpose, but that no longer mattered...

Hakuto turned back and looked at the terrified faces of the people around him, but he didn't make any movement.

His gaze swept around, as if searching for something.

At that moment, a little girl, probably around fourteen years old, trembling, walked in front of Hakuto and extended her hand.

"Big brother... Are you looking for this...?"

In the little girl's hand, a blackened and broken earring appeared in front of Hakuto.

He couldn't remember exactly what he was looking for, but instinctively, he reached out and took the earring from her.

The charred exterior had made it hard to tell what it originally looked like, and the engraving on it was also unreadable...

Being shot by a sniper and leaving behind this broken fragment was already fortunate...

"Thank you..." Hakuto almost instinctively gave a gentle smile as he thanked the little girl in front of him.

The expression was a complete contrast to the angry one he had just shown.

The little girl in the hospital gown smiled, though no one knew why she had the courage to step forward and return this item to Hakuto.

Hakuto tucked the earring into his pocket. It seemed like he was starting to remember something—someone was probably waiting for him to return.

He took off his hairpin and tucked it away, letting his hair fall loosely behind him. He didn't want anything important to go wrong again...

"It's time to go..."

___

See?

Now he is even starting to get blurry memories.

This doesn't make sense.

It feels so forced to give us a drama like this..