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“Boooooooring.”
Ranpo couldn’t help announcing it with a sigh, fully leaning back in the lecture hall chair. The only other person here (a stupid early bird) turned fully in her chair to give him a withering look. He took the sucker out of his mouth with an audible pop, mockingly offering it to her. She snorted in disgust before turning back around. He doesn’t see why she’s so uptight, when a glance at the notebook she pulled out and the syllabus stuffed inside smothered in highlighter proved she’d pass the class with or without him interfering.
Well, maybe she’d have to stop after his little stunt, or at least find a transfer.
Ranpo crossed his ankles as he watched everyone else file in, almost looking asleep as he studied them. That one’s dating that one, that one wants to date that one, that person’s drunk (he didn’t need his Super Deduction for that, they stank of booze), that one’s probably in the wrong class and will leave in five minutes, and where is the teacher so Ranpo can grab him and go?
It’s boring how they pulled out laptops, it’s boring how they introduced themselves to their neighbors, and it’s boring how someone sat next to him at the first opportunity. He crossed his arms as the student offered his hand to shake.
The President told him that not everyone realizes what he does, but sitting right on the aisle should’ve been the cue he doesn’t want any neighbors. He had to walk all the way around just to get in his seat, and now, he’s offering his hand? Forgoing that level of convenience is unconventional, at least.
He took note of that right as the teacher walked into the classroom. He didn’t look like much, blonde hair in a tight ponytail and red glasses perched on his nose. He walked with confidence, eyes on the podium in front of the chalkboard, and didn’t bother to greet them. Instead, he placed his computer at the podium, picked up the chalk, and turned on his heel to face them.
“Doppo Kunikida. When I call your name, announce it.” He procured a printed sheet of paper with a frown, watching them as he read it off. One by one, students asserted their presence, until he eventually stumbled.
“W—hm.” He narrowed his eyes, pressing his lips in a thin line. “Wordsworth?”
The boy next to Ranpo raised his hand. He spun the sucker stick between two fingers, half-listening as he explained how he’s studying abroad and transferred and blah blah blah. He won’t need that information yet, and given the teacher’s suspicious glare, someone else was already on it.
Right now, he’s watching Kunikida, matching up the little information they have on file to what Ranpo can glean from studying his behavior. Doppo Kunikida, born Tetsuo Kunikida, who changed his name a few months prior. Age nineteen, only a year above the students he’s supposed to be teaching. College dropout, with the reason behind that completely erased. Ranpo would assume it’s because of meddling from the Special Division of Unusual Powers (who names their organization that? Come up with something that you can shorten easily, like the ADA), but he doesn’t have hard proof of it. That’s what led them on the trail here. The President can’t intervene and Yosano was pretty strict on her “no”, so Ranpo has to be the one to sell him on this.
Except he’s supposed to wait until after the class, which is such a long time and Ranpo can feel himself losing interest already. Fine, focus on what’s intriguing about this situation. How does a college dropout become a teacher? Easy, they have a setup with the government where they sweep everything under the rug as long as they have job security.
Not as fun of a mystery as he thought. Okay, next one: why would they do that? Because he’s a gifted individual who is highly dangerous. Also not fun. Why is there no information on his gift? See answers one and two, where it was swept under the rug and the government wants to avoid him getting recruited. Ranpo would shudder to imagine someone who gets wiped clean like this joining up with the Port Mafia.
The Agency would still win that fight, but he doesn’t want Yosano to patch him up more than strictly necessary. If they don’t know his gift, how do they know it’ll even be useful? Ranpo would just have to guess it.
Okay, that’s a question he can explore.
He leaned forward in his chair, suddenly in full concentration. If it was one the government erased, but they didn’t erase him for, it’s easy to control. But for him to have an incident in the first place, it must be conversely uncontrollable. For example, if he has a trigger that the common people experience in every day life, and instead has drastic consequences when he does it. For it to be something the government sees as controllable, it can’t be crucial to staying alive. It’s not eating, sleeping, or drinking water. He can walk without triggering it, as well as speak, but he may have to avoid certain words (Ranpo will test that later).
Running, maybe? Like a superspeed, where he can’t stop himself, and he caused a car accident by bolting into the street? Kunikida moves slowly enough right now for it to be true, although that’s mostly in stride. His handwriting’s a swift mess, the chalk dusting his fingers. His hands are uncovered, so he can touch anything, but the glasses may help with his ability, just as Ranpo’s help him. What if when he removes his glasses, something bad happens?
That could be good. Ranpo could crack a tooth with how hard he bit into the candy, leaning forward with a smirk. Should he try getting rid of the glasses, or would it be too dangerous? The possibilities are practically endless. He could turn people to stone, or see the future where it causes him distress, or maybe—
“You in the hat!”
Ranpo fixed his emerald eyes on the finger pointing in his direction. “Yes?”
Kunikida grit his teeth. “If you’re not going to pay attention, then I assume you need something?”
Ha! He has a chance in the middle of teaching. Ranpo flicked his gaze over the front of the classroom, looking for clues. Kunikida was in the middle of writing a math problem on the board, his attendance sheet discarded with single dots to mark someone present. The laptop’s still closed, but bringing the laptop in the first place means he’s capable of using it and isn’t afraid of having technology in public.
He has to try something. He settled back on the chalkboard. Something that won’t tip Kunikida off, not yet.
“Can you repeat your name?” Ranpo decided as the best question for now.
Kunikida narrowed his eyes. “Doppo Kunikida. You’re slacking off in my class just for that?” He raised his shoulders a bit when he said that, defensive and ready to bite back against criticism, but that may be because he changed it, not because it’s related to his gift. It’s still a matter to pursue further.
“Well, I’m curious, is all.” Ranpo held up his sucker like a baton with the candy completely gone, the end of it thoroughly chewed. “Any chance you can spell that for me? I make it a priority to remember everyone’s names.”
Kunikida shifted again, his eye twitching. More reaction, so he’s getting closer. “D-O-P-P-O-”
“I’m actually a visual learner.” Ranpo pointed at the board with his stick. “Can you write it out? I’m sure some other students want to see it, too.”
“I can say it slowly for you to copy it.”
“But how will I remember the exact kanji? Romaji isn’t good enough for everyone, you know!”
Kunikida looked ready to burst a blood vessel. How someone so high strung ended up teaching, Ranpo will never understand. The chalk in his hand cracked as he turned to write.
In aching slowness, he scratched it out, and Ranpo could see the slightest shake. He waited patiently as the kanji formed, only to note one irregularity with each one. Nothing he wrote was finished. “Doku” missing the tail to a stroke, “ho” seeking the line at the bottom, “kuni” without a box, “ki” sliced in half, and “da” in a reversed stroke order that just left it looking wrong.
Kunikida, when finished, took a step back like he fully expected something to happen. Ranpo felt the pieces slot together as he exhaled, and after scolding the detective for wasting his time, went on with teaching the class.
Writing. It had to be writing. Ranpo glared at the name in the lower corner of the board. So if he finishes a word, something happens, although what it is is a mystery. Kunikida wasn’t writing the numbers in kanji, instead using the decimal system. Numbers could be safe, but since they’re still words, it’s more likely that other languages’ letters are out of his gift’s reach. That would most likely mean that if he wrote in French, the gift would not activate. Perhaps if he’s a native French speaker, it would.
Now he has to wonder why numbers would be safe. There is no native speaker to the decimal system, so why is it out of his reach? Wouldn’t it just work the same as kanji? If someone gave him a phrase to write in another language, and told him what that phrase meant, would the gift activate, or would he have to be able to read it?
And what happens when he finishes the word? It’s driving Ranpo up the wall! Okay, go back to the kanji and think about their individual meanings. Except that’s just gibberish, so if he combines them…
Doppo means self-guided, and Kunikida is just a family name made of a mishmash of syllables. Not helping.
Ranpo ignored how his neighbor was watching him with growing concern, instead staring right at Kunikida. Maybe intimidation would get him to slip, not that he’s that scary in the first place. It worked just a bit initially, Kunikida glancing over more and more often to see if Ranpo’s still glaring. Slip up. Slip. Up.
But it’s not making him nervous. If anything, Kunikida’s just becoming agitated. During that last check over his shoulder he seemed to have a blood vessel popping on his forehead. Kunikida stopped speaking, glancing at the clock.
“That’s enough for your introduction to our coursework. Get out.”
Anyone who dared to move sluggishly hurried their pace at his growl, packing their bags at lightning speed. Ranpo didn’t move. His neighbor didn’t move either, at first, not until he realized he won’t budge and trudged off.
Now, for Ranpo to make his move. He stood on the lecture hall table in one fluid motion from his seat, mocking a yawn with his arms stretched above him. “Interesting stuff, mister!” He declared with a grin.
Kunikida snapped open his laptop without looking in his direction, typing fast enough Ranpo couldn’t make out the difference between keystrokes. “What did you say your name is again, young man?”
“Ranpo Edogawa.” He stepped from one table to the next without a care, eventually stopping where he had to hop to the ground. “And for the record, I’m older than you.”
“You weren’t on my attendance sheet.”
“Correct!” He clapped his hands together with delight. “Oh, you’re a detective already! Not as good as me, though.”
Kunikida stopped typing with one eyebrow raised. “Detective?”
“Yes. I’m the greatest detective to ever live.”
“Then why are you sneaking into my class?”
“Because I’m investigating you, silly.”
He blanched at that, quickly closing the laptop again and tucking it under his arm. “I just gave the security team your description and instructions to apprehend you, so I wouldn’t recommend doing anything foolish.”
“Aw, come on, Kunikida. I’m not here to hurt you. I just have some questions!”
“I’m afraid they’ll go unanswered.”
“They really won’t.” Ranpo shrugged. “I can answer any question myself, but it takes forever if I don’t have a lot of information. So, just give me the clues I need, please.”
“Any question.”
“Yes, correct again! You’re a smart one amongst the idiots.”
Kunikida’s lip twitched at that, like he’s resisting the urge to shout. Ouch, seems like an even hotter temper than he originally guessed. It could add some spice to the office, if nothing else.
Ranpo took pity on him with a sigh, withdrawing his glasses from his pocket. “Kunikida, I’m just like you. I have a gift that’ll let me into the truth of anything. I would rather have this conversation without the party tricks since your ability obviously puts you off this much, but it’s your call. If you want to see my work, you only have to ask.”
He snorted, already making his way up the stairs to the exit, but he won’t get away at just a walk. Ranpo pushed the glasses up on his nose as he walked behind him, taking in everything he could pick up on.
Talking more to him revealed a southern accent, most likely from the rural part of the Yamaguchi prefecture. It’s mostly faded by now, so he hasn’t lived there in a while, but it still comes out in his shouts. “You moved to a major city for college.” Teaching in mathematics and previously living at a university that could cover up an incident without it getting out. He doesn’t seem wealthy regardless of where he lived previously, so it has to be somewhere that would take in students from those areas without elitism. “Waseda University in Tokyo.” He started early, around seventeen years old, because of an issue with the time of year he was born, and he’s nineteen now. “You stayed for two years before an accident occurred, forcing you to leave. An accident involving your gift, where anything that you write—”
“Shut the hell up!” Kunikida whipped around inches from his face, a stick of chalk he maintained pressing into Ranpo’s nose. He held up his hands in surrender as the teacher bore down on him. “I don’t know which family hired you, so go tell them I dropped dead.”
The accident resulted in more than one death, most likely of students, although a teacher could’ve also been hurt. It was bad enough to cause anger, not just an accident, but something where he’s clearly at fault. Ranpo wished he had a second sucker to avoid biting his inner cheek, immediately pulling off his hat to hold in front of him with one hand.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Kunikida stiffened, not sure how to respond. “Really?”
“Nope!” Ranpo held up the attendance sheet between two fingers, pulled from on top of Kunikida’s laptop while he wasn’t paying attention. “Why’d you use dots, huh? Are you scared of even a check mark making something happen? If it’s a mark with no prescribed meaning to it, will it do nothing? Or will it do something random?”
“Excuse me?” Kunikida swiped at the page as Ranpo danced back a few paces. “That’s none of your—”
“I just want to know what happens when you write things. My best guess is that it becomes real, but then why would you be scared of writing your name? How real can it be? How big can it be? If you write ‘Japan’ will all of Japan appear again on top of this Japan? Or do you get the flag? A map? Nothing?”
Kunikida’s laptop clattered to the ground (the college will not pay for that) as he pounced, grabbing for the sheet. Ranpo had a half second to realize that he’s in a trained combat stance before Kunikida threw him over his shoulder, his elbow digging into the detective’s sternum.
“Ow,” Ranpo cried, clearly hurt in soul if not body.
Kunikida leaned forward, his stormy expression inches from his captive’s face. “Why do you want to know what I can do so damn badly?”
“I like answers.”
“You said you can find any answer.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to. If I know whether you’re lying to every question I ask, it’s easier to ask you everything. Then again, you may think you’re telling the truth and be wrong anyway, which just adds extra work.”
“Who is sending a gifted detective after me?”
“The gifted agency, obviously!” Ranpo turned his head so his cheek stopped freezing on the cold floor. “We just want to talk.”
“You want to control me like those creeps in black jackets.”
“No, we want to—creeps in black jackets?” Bail out the college student with incredible abilities, convince him to work for you, boom, you have someone who can make anything and therefore anyone bend to their will. Good plan if it worked. “Why would they help you start your life over again if they want you to work for them?”
“The Clocktower?”
“Who?” Ranpo blinked, twisting as best as he can without hurting his wrists where Kunikida held them. “I’m talking about the Special Division for Unusual Powers. Who are you talking about?”
Kunikida abruptly released him, standing and bringing Ranpo to his feet. Ranpo thought he would receive an apology, but instead found Kunikida openly staring at someone not far away from them. It’s the same kid from earlier, his chocolate hair pushed back from his face. He slid the side bag off his shoulder, leaning back on his heels with a black jacket speckled in white snow.
“Doppo Kunikida.” The man offered a sad smile, rolling his neck in a resounding pop. “I’d suggest you surrender.”
“William Wordsworth, right?” Ranpo remained unfazed compared to Kunikida’s strangled fear. “You know, if you’re going to pretend to be from Japan, you should pick a Japanese name as your cover.”
Wordsworth snickered. “You knew the whole time, huh?”
“You sat down next to me and waited until Kunikida was alone, hoping that I’d get the hint and leave first. I just thought you were a gift user with a personal vendetta, not a member of the—Clocktower, you said?” Ranpo checked Kunikida’s face for an affirmation, but he was a bit too busy trying not to drop a piece of chalk. “Oh, they’re serious, aren’t they?”
“Kid, whoever you are, you’re not on our schedule. You’re free to go.” Wordsworth held up his hand, letting a scythe of woven grain and tawny feathers grow into his grasp. “We just need that guy.”
“What gets me on your schedule?” Ranpo questioned, staying emotionless as he picked up the laptop.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Sure it’s my concern! If I mess up, you’ll kill me with a broken knife.” Ranpo tilted his entire body to the side as he passed off the computer, wondering if looking at him upside down is more fun. “That has a rule to it, right? You can’t just have a magic weapon you can summon whenever you want. A timer? Can’t hurt certain things? It hurts you, too?”
“Get out of the way.”
“But whyyyyyyy?”
“Back up!” Kunikida threw something over Ranpo’s head, the detective squinting at it as it flew toward Wordsworth. The laptop, with chalk scratching out “wall”.
As soon as it landed, Ranpo was inches from a stack of bricks blocking off the hallway. He heard retreating footsteps behind him, turning to follow Kunikida’s mad dash backward.
“So anything you write is real?”
“Yes.”
“Anything! No rules at all?”
“If I can’t make it, it just turns into something else.” Kunikida kicked open the door to the staircase, ascending two at a time with a scowl. “It just becomes anything.”
“Unless you don’t finish the kanji, because you technically didn’t finish writing it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s incredible!”
“Yes, until you have a very stressful day and in the middle of writing the answers to a test a bomb appears on your desk.”
“Oh.” Ranpo always asked the President how abilities formed, and he simply answered that it’s in times of dire emergency. College kid stress may be able to do it, but he knows the answer to every question, so he hasn’t dealt with that. “So in the middle of your sentence, you just wrote ‘bomb’? Or did you start it with ‘bomb’?”
“It was a written portion for an essay and—” Kunikida halted at the top of the stairs, white knuckling the door handle. “—he definitely took the stairs at the other end of the hall and will be here soon.”
“Wait, you didn’t know that would happen?” Ranpo cocked his head incredulously. “I thought you were buying time for my Super Deduction.”
“Did you use your Super Deduction?”
“The scythe has a gimmick where it won’t kill you, we just don’t know what it is. Also, you have one piece of paper and chalk, so only one chance to combat the next attack. I’d recommend something that actually defeats him. If you write ‘anti-scythe’ will you get anything?”
“That’s not a word.”
“I said it, didn’t I?”
Kunikida grumbled something incomprehensible as he opened the door, shoving Ranpo through. “Where’s this mystical paper you mentioned?”
Ranpo held up the attendance sheet, watching Kunikida study it for a second.
“Only one shot.”
“Unless you shred the paper to give yourself infinite chances.”
Kunikida nodded, starting to divvy out some scraps. Ranpo let him get to three before he waved to Wordsworth running down the hall.
“Hello! Don’t kill us, please!”
“Shit.” Kunikida saw the man approaching and etched something into the page. He twisted on his heel with a gun in his hand, tossing it to Ranpo.
Ranpo doesn’t care for weapons, but what has to be done, has to be done. He aimed for Wordsworth’s head, watching the scythe slice through the bullet. Okay, so he can interact with material, non living objects with his ability. Next, his foot. He jumped out of the way, so he has agility beyond just the power—
Kunikida didn’t give him a chance to test further, grabbing him by the collar with one hand and throwing paper with the other. The anvil appeared in a flash of light, Ranpo watching with wide eyes as the scythe hit two things.
One: his leg while he’s tugged backward, and two: the anvil, which landed in two halves on the ground. One of those halves trapped Wordsworth’s foot, him stopping in a hiss as Kunikida tugged Ranpo away.
He barely noticed the blood leaking from the wide gap in his calf, instead studying Wordsworth’s attempt to untrap himself. He grit his teeth as he slammed the curve into the material, the blade passing through harmlessly. Too much of the scythe disappeared, like it melted into the floor.
Wordsworth had to rock it on his foot before he could saw through the steel enough to move it away.
“Kunikida, stop.” Ranpo tapped on his shoulder as the man tried a half-run with the detective at his side.
“Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m helping. That’s what detectives do. We help.”
“I’m not going to—”
Ranpo pulled on his ponytail to force his ear to his mouth, whispering what he could parse. Kunikida’s eyes widened, stopping with the paper in his fingers. He set Ranpo on the ground and took a step forward.
Wait, Ranpo hasn’t tested his theory yet!
“Uh, Kunikida—”
“I understand that you see me as too dangerous to let live, but I have to disagree.” Kunikida scratched out the word on his paper, letting the flash of light turn into a gun in his hands.
Wordsworth stood, favoring one leg as he scowled. “You don’t make that decision.”
“And yet, the Clocktower doesn’t have jurisdiction here, so neither should you.” Kunikida kept his steps slow and deliberate, stopping after every movement just to be safe. “So, I still refuse your offer. And I’m not dying, either.”
“Just so you can protect some kid?” Wordsworth tested his weight, frowning at the handle he twisted in his palm. “Please.”
“He’s older than me, and he’s plenty more capable than you.” Kunikida raised the pistol with a click. “We both are.”
Wordsworth sprang, the blade flashing in the fluorescent light. Kunikida stayed still, the golden material sliding through his throat.
Bang!
Wordsworth was down, blood leaking from the arm he held the scythe with. Kunikida turned, not a scratch on him, to help Ranpo up to his feet. The detective snickered as he watched the gift user squirm.
“An ability that only works on stuff that moves? Pretty limited when your prey stops running from you.”
“How did you figure that out?” Kunikida’s voice stayed carefully monotone, his eyes not taking in the crimson staining the tiles.
“Easy. He couldn’t cut through your anvil until he started moving it back and forth as he cut it. He sliced through my leg because you pulled me backward, and the bullet traveling toward him didn’t stand a chance. However, he didn’t try to go through your wall because it would never move, and the blade passed through the floor without a dent.” Ranpo used the hand not around Kunikida’s arms to fish in his pockets, pulling out a stick of gum. “So anyway, I know a guy who will help Kunikida focus on his ability. We’ll use it wisely and all that, we have legal protection, too. Just leave him alone, ‘kay? Otherwise you’ll have a war with the detective agency.”
“I still don’t see how you can help me when I made a gun to hurt someone.” Kunikida dropped the weapon like it was on fire, sliding it away as Wordsworth struggled to sit up. “Anything I write, anything at all, becomes real. I have no control over it. I can’t even write my own name.”
“Which makes you an excellent math teacher! How do you write numbers?”
“It only works with kanji because I’m only fluent in Japanese.”
“Knew it.” Ranpo pumped his fist in victory. “But the President has an ability that makes it controllable.”
Kunikida sighed, turning them both so they could leave the building. “So it only becomes real if I want it to?”
“Well, you may not be able to write on laptops. His ability gives you rules so you don’t destroy everything you touch, pretty much.”
“That sounds…really nice.” Kunikida slumped, a weight off his shoulders, as he opened the door. “Thank you.”
“No problem! I hope you didn’t want to keep your job as a teacher.”
“The security cameras absolutely saw me firing on a student. Name change or no, I’ll be blacklisted from every institution by the end of the week.”
“You seem too stressed to be a teacher, anyway.”
“I’ll be glad to deal with people who want to do their work, at least.” Kunikida sighed, like the thought of it lifted him off the ground. “No one bothers with their homework.”
“You assigned homework on the first day of class?”
“Of course! You need to get a head start on your education.”
Ranpo firmly believed at that moment that he invited a monster back to the agency. Then again, he had a different problem.
When they stepped out onto the grass of the university grounds, four security guards were waiting.
“You called security on me—”
“—I called security on you.” Kunikida grabbed his hat despite Ranpo’s protests, scribbling before throwing it on the ground.
Ranpo allowed himself to be picked up as mist fizzled, watching it puff in an ugly smog skyward. “Did you just turn my hat into smoke like a magician?”
Kunikida didn’t reply as he dragged him to the side of the building. “We need to get off campus.”
“You already reported me, they definitely heard gunshots, and you may have security camera footage of you shooting.”
“So you better be getting me that job.”
“Do you have a car?”
“I take the bus.”
“Ugh.” Ranpo hopped along beside him, eventually unknotting his tie and holding it out for the other man. “Turn this into a car.”
“I don’t think I can make something that big.”
“You made a wall, you can make a car.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s safe to make a car—”
“Doppo Kunikida make a car right now.”
He groaned, stopping and squinting at the fabric. Ranpo backed up, giving him enough room for the vehicle to appear. Kunikida, nonplussed by his excited cheering, almost drove off before Ranpo could get in the passenger seat.
Ranpo sighed, reclining next to him as the teacher ground his teeth into dust. “See?” He patted the dashboard. “Car.”
“Shut up.” He revved the engine before hurtling through the university gate, almost sending Ranpo through the windshield. “And buckle your seatbelt.”
He stuck out his tongue, but complied.
It took two minutes for Ranpo to be sick of the silence. Three to figure out there’s no radio. And four for the car to disappear in the middle of the street.
Ranpo pulled Kunikida out of the way before they could be run down, taking note of the venomous look all the while. “Okay, fine, we shouldn’t make cars.”
“Small objects might as well stay indefinitely, but I don’t have the energy to uphold something that big for that long.”
“Can you do it if you concentrate?”
“What do you think I was doing?”
Ranpo shrugged. “Well, we’re far enough away now. We can walk to the agency from here.”
“And where are we walking?”
Ranpo hummed, studying their surroundings in a slow spin. When he found no way to navigate, he shrugged and started off in a random direction. Kunikida looked close to an aneurysm, but Ranpo knew he would loosen up eventually.
He didn’t loosen up when he got a shiny new book from the President, just like Ranpo had his glasses. He didn’t when he kept getting mad at him for not doing all of his paperwork (although Ranpo stopped being the object of that ire when a bandage waster started napping in the office even more than him). He still didn’t after dragging two high school students and a farm boy into their midst, watching them like he doesn’t trust them not to cheat on an exam. There was nothing calm in insisting on running everything smoothly, because without him, the agency would crumble.
Wordsworth never came back, since the Clocktower won’t mess with the Agency. And hey, an awkward healing with Yosano was worth watching this man joyfully write down everything he could ever think of, confident that it won’t cause havoc when the pen leaves his paper. It’s nice that he listened, too, Kunikida following his plans without questioning how he could know this or that. Just doing it, with the tools to carry it out already forming at his fingertips. If Ranpo was wrong, he just got yelled at later, and that was that. Ranpo was more than happy to have the line of succession skip over him, as long as Kunikida was the first to lead them.