"Ahh... before we dive into hell," Ren murmured, leaning back on the rickety wooden chair, "I’ve gotta ask—what first drew you into this mercenary world?"
Fujisawa—busy pouring water into two tin mugs at the small portable stove—paused. Thin smoke curled from the pot’s spout, mingling with the dust and old-metal scent. Ren’s question hung in the air, calm yet profound enough to stir up something buried deep inside.
After a moment, Fujisawa spoke.
"For money," he answered simply, his face unreadable.
Ren turned, surprised by the blunt honesty. "Money...? Sorry, man, I feel like I just hit a sore spot..."
Fujisawa offered a faint smile as he handed a mug of tea to Ren and took a sip of his coffee—despite the steaming vapor still rising sharply.
"Whoa...it’s still boiling!" Ren exclaimed.
"Heat is just perception," Fujisawa replied calmly, then continued softly. "I’d just graduated high school in Osaka. Life felt empty. My parents died during my final year. The only family left was my two-year-old sister."
Ren listened, silent.
"She... was diagnosed with a rare disease. Her immune system started attacking her organs. It was hereditary autoimmune disorder—they said it was incurable, just manageable. And that’s expensive as hell."
Ren’s eyes flickered with awe. "Terminal illness... God, your sister’s tough."
Fujisawa nodded. "Every week, she’s in and out of hospitals. The bills were endless. I tried odd jobs, but it never cut it. Then I got a gig—private security overseas. The pay was high. The risk... even higher."
Ren stared thoughtfully, then asked softly, "Is she still alive today?"
"She is," Fujisawa said, a tired pride in his voice. "She’s eleven now. Some days are bad, but she’s holding on. Enough for me to keep fighting."
Ren held his warm mug, watching the steam disappear in the cool night. He nodded. "Your sister... she’s incredible. Living with that—and having a brother like you."
Fujisawa let out a soft laugh, his voice rough like worn wood. "Don’t make me sound like a hero, kid. I’m just... doing what a big brother should."
Ren returned a gentle smile, respect clear in his eyes. "Somebody called Senjō no Akuma, huh? That’s something else."
Fujisawa snorted and looked away. "Can you stop calling me that lame nickname? Seriously, it creeps me out."
"Why?" Ren laughed. "It’s epic. Who’d expect the battle-hardened soldier feared on the battlefield is actually a softie at heart?"
"Ugh... enough! Now your turn, kid!" Fujisawa jabbed a finger at Ren, half amused, half intrigued.
"Me?" Ren blinked. "Okay... Well, I’ve been fascinated with science since I was four. I watched those hero shows on TV—like tokusatsu. They had armor, gadgets, and saved people. That’s when I thought... ’Why can’t I build something like that?’"
Fujisawa leaned back, listening.
"So I started collecting old electronics—found them in dumpsters, bought junked gear, even took apart my neighbor’s old radio. My classmates thought I was a trash kid."
Fujisawa chuckled. "Wait—where’d you grow up?"
"At the foot of Mount Fuji. In Shizuoka. Quiet place, and the view... unreal," Ren said, gazing at his half-empty mug. "I could see Fuji from my bedroom window. Waking up to it draped in mist felt like being inside a painting."
Fujisawa nodded. "Sounds peaceful."
Ren laughed, but his tone turned wry. "At first. Then my room turned into an experiment lab—wires everywhere, dead batteries piled up, fan motors and printer parts scattered. My mom couldn’t take it. So I got kicked out of my room."
"And sent to the back shed?" Fujisawa guessed, raising an eyebrow.
"Yup. That’s where it all started," Ren answered with a proud smile. "That old warehouse became my first secret lab. I began building little prototypes—mechanical limbs, tracking devices, motion sensors. The outside world? I barely cared. I still went to school, but my mind was filled with resistors and transistors, not test questions."
Fujisawa leaned back, sipping his now-cool coffee. "So you’ve been a mad scientist since you were a kid?"
Ren chuckled softly. "If being ’mad’ means having an obsession that eats away at your sleep and free time... then yeah, I guess so."
"Huh?" Fujisawa frowned. "But wait, you’re fifteen now, right? Final year of middle school? I never heard of you being some national prodigy or anything. If you were really that good..."
Ren glanced up at the cabin’s wooden ceiling, his smile fading gently. "Early on I did stand out. In elementary school, I entered dozens of science, robotics, and math contests—and I brought home trophies for all of them. Other kids... they looked at me like I was an alien. I seemed perfect, but—I was lonely. No one wanted to be friends with a kid who sat in a corner scribbling circuit diagrams."
Fujisawa sighed softly, staring out the dusty cabin window. "Yeah, kids are like that. They don’t yet know how to understand someone different. Too young to realize not everyone fits into the crowd."
Ren nodded, leaning back in the creaky chair. "Right. Back then... I didn’t care, either. The only thing I looked forward to each day was getting home from school. Not to play, not to watch TV, but to get back to the warehouse. Back to my little world, my messy but comforting experiments."
Fujisawa offered a subtle smile. "And... amid all that, this genius kid finally found a friend?"
Ren let out a gentle laugh. "Ironically... yeah. And if I had to sum it up, it all began... with a punch."
Fujisawa nearly spit out his coffee. "A punch!?"
Ren nodded, expression nostalgic rather than dramatic. "Yup. Right in the park near my new house. It was the day I moved to Kyoto after years in Shizuoka. My dad got transferred to a JAXA research center, so we moved. At the new school... same old story. The same looks—like I was an alien who somehow learned human language."
He paused, eyes fixed on the small fire in the stove.
"And my dad... he was worried. He said if I couldn’t make at least one friend, and I stayed holed up in that warehouse every day, he’d take my tools away. He said, ’Make one friend, Ren. Just one friend, and you can go back to your world.’"
Fujisawa listened intently, silent.
"So I went to the park, hoping... maybe someone would want to play with me. But the park was empty. Quiet, with only white sand and an empty bench facing the pond. Since no one was around, I sat down and started playing in the sand. Maybe... I just wanted to fit in, even if just for a moment."
He laughed softly, almost teasing himself.
"But as I was building a castle in the sand, bam—’Whap!’—I got hit on the back."
Fujisawa raised an eyebrow, incredulous. "And that... was Kiriya?"
Ren nodded slowly. "Yup. An eight-year-old with a grumpy face, full of anger, with a mouth on him. He was furious because I sat in ’his favorite bench’ and was playing in ’his territory’—or at least that’s how he put it, full of bossy attitude."
Fujisawa chuckled. "And your reaction?"
"I was startled, of course. But instead of being angry or crying, I... was intrigued. It was the first time someone didn’t view me as an alien or a weird toy. He treated me like a real nuisance. Somehow... it felt good."
Fujisawa leaned back, his smile growing. "Then what happened? Did you exchange business cards?"
Ren gave a short laugh, tinged with nostalgia. "Not that polite. He was hot-tempered. So... we fought. Pushing, grabbing—like normal kids. I used my brain, he used his strength. And in the end... I won. Weird, right? Instead of being angry, he just stood there."
Fujisawa chuckled. "First punch as a greeting. Classic."
Ren nodded. "You could say that. After that, I started talking. Introduced myself, asked his name... and to my surprise, he snapped back. From there, everything changed. When he started telling me a bit about himself, I realized—we were alike."
Ren looked up at the dark wooden ceiling. "Back then, Kiriya was alone too. No friends, no one to talk to. He was known as the school delinquent, too blunt, liked fighting. But... that was just a shield. He was just surviving."
He took a small breath, then smiled. "Lucky for both of us, I opened up first. Honestly... yeah, at first I just wanted to go back to the warehouse and needed one friend. But who knew, from that, we stuck together like magnets ever since."
Then, in the middle of their conversation, Ren’s phone rang—Kiriya calling.
[Alright, Ren, I’m connected to the satellite. But that’s not all—there’s a transport aircraft heading straight to your location,] Kiriya announced, his voice steady over the comm-link. He’d synced the satellite to track Earth’s movement so he could pinpoint Ren and feed him precise instructions.
Fujisawa, catching the amplified ring of Ren’s phone, snapped to his feet, ready to move out. But Ren gestured calmly, "Sit tight," before he answered the call.