The V-tuber Who Became Obsessed With Me

Chapter 77: The Aizawa fire

"I assume you’re here about X Reveals." He said again .

I stared at him.

Every question I had prepared on the flight dissolved before I could reach for a single one. I had expected resistance. Careful evasion. The particular patience my grandfather used as armour when he did not want to be known.

I had not expected him to say the name first.

"How did you know?" I asked.

Katsuro took a slow sip of tea. "You don’t have to make that face, Himari. I’ve been aware of what’s been going on."

"How long?"

"Long enough."

It should not have surprised me. The estate had always operated on information. Katsuro rarely moved without knowing ten things before anyone else knew one . Still, there was something unsettling about realizing that while I’d been chasing X-Reveals, being dragged into Malcolm’s mess, and trying to stop my life from falling apart, my grandfather had been quietly watching from the sidelines.

"I’ve already had men investigating him," he said.

I sat up straighter.

"What?"

"He first reached out to me about two years ago."

The knot in my stomach tightened.

"He contacted you?"

Katsuro nodded.

"He claimed to be a survivor of the Aizawa fire."

The room suddenly felt very quiet.

"So this has something to do with the Aizawa fire."

"Yes."

No hesitation.

No attempt to soften it.

Just the truth.

I waited for him to continue.

For several seconds he simply sat there with the teacup resting between his hands, his gaze drifting briefly toward the dark window before returning to me.

"The Aizawa fire happened twelve years ago," he said. "Aizawa Tenkaichi was my right-hand man. Fierce. Capable. The kind of man who could walk into a room in my place and make decisions that reflected well on both of us." A pause. "He was also your mother’s godfather."

Maki’s godfather . That alone shows how much I trusted him.

I had never heard that name attached to my mother. Not once. In everything she had told me about the life she left behind, that name had never appeared.

"Until the China deal" katsuro continued . "He started working with the IPAD."

The International Police and Anti-Terrorism Department.

"Why?" I asked.

Katsuro gave a small shrug.

"Maybe he grew a conscience. Maybe they offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse."

"A deal?"

"Immunity for his family."

The answer came immediately."He had a wife and three children. The youngest was twelve at the time."

"He ran," Katsuro said. "Moved his family overseas. He had quietly purchased property in Harrington years before. I didn’t know about it."

The name landed differently than it should have.

Harrington.

The same city where everything in my life had either started or unraveled.

"I might have let the betrayal pass," Katsuro said. "People betray each other in this business. It isn’t exceptional." His voice hardened almost imperceptibly. "But then he went to your mother. He tried to convince Maki to testify against me."

The spoon touched the saucer. A single sharp sound in the quiet.

"He tried to turn my own daughter against me."

And there it was. The line that had made this personal. Not the betrayal itself but where he had reached to make it worse. Into the one place my grandfather had never allowed the world to touch.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I paid someone inside the investigation. They gave me his location." He looked at me without expression. "I sent Tengu."

I already knew the rest.

"Tengu burned the house."

"Yes." He said rubbing the back of his neck " it was more effective that way , the fire destroyed everything including the evidence aizawa was gonna present in court .

The way way he said that with no apology or justification . Just plain fact .

I looked at my hands for a moment.

One order. One fire. An entire family. A twelve year old child.

"One of them survived," I said.

"I know."

I frowned.

"You know?"

"Himari."

His voice was patient.

"This man has been contacting me for two years. Of course I know."

I got up and walked toward the window.

The compound lights stretched across the darkness outside.

"So he’s here because Tengu failed."

Yes and .....katsuro said standing up too..

I turned

"Yes and ?..."

"He wants my attention," Katsuro said. "He also wants revenge. You are the most efficient path to both." He said now standing next to me .

" I mean think about it , If he truly wanted to destroy you he would have done it already. He had the materials , why do you think he just threatened and manipulate you only ? " He said putting his hands behind his back .

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Because standing there with my back to the window and my grandfather’s eyes next to me I had to admit that it was true. Every texts , phone calls , every threat, every carefully released piece of information had been calibrated to wound without killing. Enough to keep me afraid. Never enough to finish it.

Then what about Felix ? I asked " why wasn’t him in his grave ? Did you have something to do with that too ?

The room changed.

Not visibly. Nothing moved. But something shifted in the quality of the silence and I felt my pulse respond before I understood why. freēwēbnovel.com

Katsuro walked back and sat near his tea cups

He did not answer.

"Grandpa."

He looked up and for the first time since I had arrived in this room I saw something in his face that I had seen perhaps twice before in all the years I had known him.

Something that looked like regret.

"I think it’s time you knew the truth."

Everything in me went still.

"What truth?"

For a long moment he simply looked at me.

Then he said, freewebnøvel.coɱ

"Felix Stein isn’t dead."

I stared at him.

The words didn’t make sense.

Not together.

Not in that order.

Because Felix was dead.

I had spent years believing he was dead.

Years carrying that guilt.

Years building my life around that certainty.

"What?"

My voice barely came out.

Katsuro held my gaze.

"Felix Stein is alive."

The room seemed to tilt.

( to be continued.....)