Chapter 56 - The Jester

Fumio and Kotone then see Red take a step forward. And with that step, they see that he morhps his appearance to something that is absolutely out of their expectations.

Red has changed to what looks like the joker card from a typical deck of playing cards, only looking much more sinister.

His face looks like it is painted white with his lips and nose exaggeratedly painted in a mix of red and black. He is wearing what looks like a typical medieval jester's costume, only made of fine-looking fabric, and is colored bright red with golden checkered patterns on his vest and cloth shoes.

To top it off, with his gloved hands, he "puts" on his head, a 'Fool's Hat' that has three points with balls of gold at each end.

"You two stay here." He then orders his two students.

Fumio and Kotone notice that even Red's voice has changed; from its original baritone pitch to a high, slightly nasal one with a tinge of innocence and mischief on it.

They also notice Red's posture change from a perpetually straight one, to one with a slight slouch leaning forward, looking more aggressive.

The two can only nod at Red's command, too taken aback that their teacher seemed to have changed to an entirely different person, and not just his appearance.

Red as he walks to join the crowd, smirks. It has been a year since he arrived in this world. And for a year, he did nothing but peacefully travel around the world while taking in how society works. 

He figures that just for today, and just to celebrate the anniversary of his arrival, he will do something that will disrupt a society he deemed to peaceful for a mortal realm. At the same time, he will show his two students the strength they will hunger for and will strive to achieve.

Meanwhile near the front of the National Diet Building, the tension between the protesters and the members of Citizens for Self-Governance, is about to break at any moment.

The CSG members are hoping that the protesters will start something, and the protesters are trying to hold themselves from mobbing their disrupters despite the smirks and the words they are hearing from them.

"THE NON-SUPERIORI, PLEASE STEP BACK. THE SUPERIORI, MOVE FORWARD." One of the popular leaders of the protest, a strong voice of the movement despite being a C-Class Superiori himself, instructs everyone.

"SEE? SEE! YOU HIDE BEHIND THE SUPERIORI!" The CSG leader smugly points out, "RAHHH!!!", and his associates are roused.

"Tatsuji-san! This is our fight!"

Some of the non-superiori protesters however, are not willing to back down, their pride taking a hit from the CSG leader's words.

"That's right! So what if they have powers? We outnumber them!"

The others also never had the intentions of backing down in the first place.

Suddenly, "HEEE HEEE! HAHAHAHA! AHAHA!", the people in the scene, almost two thousand of them, protesters, CSG members, press people, and policemen alike, all suddenly hear a mischievous cackle in the air, cutting through sounds of chaos and arguments, as if the person who the laugh belongs to is right next to them.

"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" The voice urges the two opposing as it continues to laugh.

Soon enough, they notice that tens of feet above, they see a man, wearing the most outrageous and eye-catching jester clothes, jumping and leaping around the scene using invisible footholds.

"HEHEHAHA! THIS IS FUN! SO MUCH FUN! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" The jester continues to chant as he continues hopping and skipping around with comedic grace.

His urging however, achieves the opposite effect of the meaning of his words.

The crowd's tension dies down a bit and are now either confused, curious, or apprehensive. They are not sure of the identity of the man, but they are getting nervous.

They figure that the man, despite being in odd costume, is definitely not a hero.

They can only assume that he is either a crazy superioris or worse, a superioris criminal.

The only hundred or so policemen, meanwhile, collectively sigh in relief, half-thanking the jester's actions in their minds, as the crowd is now less agitated than before.

"EH?!" The jester suddenly stops hopping around and stands in one place, twenty feet above the ground.

"NOT FIGHTING?" He asks the crowd as he puts his hands on his hips.

"YOU! SMELLY MAN!" He then points at the leader of the CSG.

"NOT FIGHTING?" He asks.

The leader of the CSG is taken aback, being addressed directly, and unsure of how to answer.

"NO?!" The jester's gasps.

"YOU GRANDPA? NOT FIGHTING?" He then asks one of the elderly leaders of the protesters.

"NO." The elderly leader responds using a megaphone, thankful of the jester for calming the situation down.

"WHY NOT~?" The jester then does a spin on his foot and asks the crowd in a childish tone.

"YOU TRICKED ME!" He yells out, as if having a tantrum, then waves his hand to the side of the protesters.

Following that gesture, is a huge breeze of wind that caresses the half of the protesters.

A second or two later, half of the thousand-men protesters that are the closest to the jester, the same people who were touched by the jester's wind, almost in a unified fashion, all faint.

This stuns the other half of the protesters at the back and they stand frozen, speechless. It does not take them long however to confirm that the jester in front of them is a supervillain. Not only a supervillain, but a powerful one.

"AAHHHH!" Nobody knows who initiated it, but they all then turn around to flee in panic.

"FREEZE!" The police, realizing what just happened, spring to action.

Half of them attend to the fainted protesters to assess the protesters' conditions, and half of them convene to the jester's direction.

Unfortunately, they are slowed down out of caution as they do not want to step on the fainted protesters.

This slowed action is enough for the jester to once again wave his hand, and just like what happened with the protesters, a gust of wind caresses them policemen and they shortly faint afterwards.

The CSG members and the people of the press and their crews who are the only ones left standing in the scene, are horrified at what they had just witnessed. The CSG members try to nudge each other into action, but all of them know that they do not have a powerful superioris with them. The reporters, most being thinker superiori, do not have the brute to fight.

Finally, these two groups decide to flee. They are about to do so, when suddenly, "DON'T LEAVE YET~" the jester says.

Along with the jester's words, a heavy and choking feeling descend upon the CSG members and the press, making their legs weak, making them unable to run away.

Along with the burdening feeling, they also feel an impending sense of doom, as if the doors of death is just somewhere near them.

The superiori in the crowd that have the abilities to flee in normal crises, cannot as they are simply too scared to concentrate on activating their powers.

"AH!" The jester, out of nowhere, gasps and covers his mouth with an exaggerated manner.

"ARE THOSE CAMERAS?" He then waves at some of the cameras that are bravely pointed at him by cameramen with giant balls.

"AM I ON TV?" He asks one of the camera men.

"Yes." The cameraman bravely answers.

He feels like he is about to die at any moment, so he can only try and broadcast a good footage to make his death meaningful.

"CAN THEY HEAR ME ON TV?" The jester asks.

"YES." A man beside the cameraman, holding a huge microphone, says. "OKAY!" The jester exclaims in excitement.

"HI MOM! HI DAD! I'M ON TV! ARE YOU WATCHING?" The jester addresses the camera once again.

The people present would have found the jester's actions at least even a bit adorable had it not been for the feeling of death whispering to them if they dare make the wrong step.

"THIS SMELLY MAN TRICKED ME~!" The jester points at the leader of the CSG once again and the man falls flat on his bottom.

"WHY DID YOU TRICK ME?" He addresses the leader more directly.

"Dear sir, I don't know what you mean." The CSG leader tries to sound amicable.

"WHY DID YOU WANT TO FIGHT? BUT YOU DIDN'T FIGHT? THEN YOU WANT TO FIGHT, THEN YOU DON'T WANT TO FIGHT?" The jester's limited and childish vocabulary and grammar, while confusing, gets across to the ones who are listening.

"We just wanted to talk!" The CSG leader answers.

"THEN WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO THESE WEAK PEOPLE?" The jester asks, but this time, in a more serious tone.

"…'' The CSG leader has nothing to say.

"WHY?" The jester asks again.

"I-I…" The CSG leader, despite guessing that the jester is a simple-minded fool, is scared to come up with a lie.

"WHY?" The jester then turns the questions to the other members of the CSG, but just like their leader, they do now know how to respond.

"WHY?~ WHY?~ WHY?~" The jester asks three consecutive times, like how a toddler asks series of it to an adult.

Each 'Why' he spoke, the choking feeling increases in the CSG members and they are forced to kneel.

The news crews around then notice that they are unaffected by whatever happened to the CSG. They know however that they might be next, so they simply continue documenting everything while hoping that their live broadcasts are being seen by police or any strong superiori nearby, which will subsequently lead to their rescue.

The jester on the other hand, goes on the move again and starts jumping, hopping, and skipping in the air around the CSG members and the press people in great speeds, while still chanting 'why'.

And at each 'why' the CSG members hear, the heavy and choking feeling increase once again, making them feel as if death is getting nearer and nearer.

No matter how much the CSG members fight the feeling, they cannot even talk, much less scream for help.

Slowly, one by one, the CSG members who can no longer stand the pressure, start fainting one by one, until none are left conscious.

"OH!... GOODNIGHT!" The jester, seeing that the final green wind-breaker-wearing person has fallen, stops in one place again, and waves at their unconscious bodies.

The news crews meanwhile, do not know what else to do but stare at the jester.

And when they see the jester look their way, they get scared again.

Fortunately for them, the pressure they were feeling suddenly disappears, and they feel light again. They all collectively sigh in relief, feeling that they finally found land after days in the story seas.

"PRETTY NEE-SAN!" The jester turns his attention to one particular reporter who looks to be young and inexperienced.

That reporter gulps, and she gets nervous again. "Y-yes?" She manages to respond.

"THE PEOPLE INSIDE THAT BUILDING…" The jester points at the National Diet Building.

"ARE THEY GOOD PEOPLE?" He asks.

"Uhhh… some of them are, some of them are not." The reporter says in honesty, making the other news crew members look at her weirdly, even though they know truth.

"ARE THEY GOOD AT FIGHTING?" The jester then asks in excitement.

"Uhhh. No. But, some of them are." As soon as the reporter said that, a figure of a human bursts out from the entrance of the National Diet Building and quickly reaches the jester and the press people, crossing fifty meters in a second.

"W-WHa…" That figure, which the press people now recognize as a government employee based on how he is dressed, stare in shock at the hundreds of unconscious people lying on the green grass of the building's huge lawn.

"Murakami-san…" One of the reporters who is acquainted with the man, greets.

"Hiroki Murakami? The Sergeant at arms?" The jester hears some of the press people whisper about the man's identity.

"You there! You did this?" Hiroki asks the jester, trying to get over the dangerous feeling he is feeling from the strangely dressed man.

"YES." The jester plainly admits, as if having done nothing wrong. Hiroki on the other hand, is taken aback at the honesty.

"Are they dead?" Hiroki asks.

"NO. SLEEPING." The jester answers.

"WHO ARE YOU? YOU LOOK STRONG. WANNA FIGHT?" He does not give Hiroki a chance to ask anymore questions and simply challenges.

Hiroki simply stares at the jester, and takes a deep thoughtful breath.

"Sure… But let's go somewhere where there are not many people.." He decides.