The Raven

The leader of the underworld organization "Raven," which controls Tokyo's black market, is traditionally required to assume the name "White Crow" from one generation to the next.

The first White Crow was a formidable woman who survived the turmoil following the Gremlin Disaster and laid the foundations of the Raven as it exists today.

She bleached her hair white, which gave rise to the name White Crow.

The second White Crow, who grew up watching her predecessor, inherited the name out of respect for her and adopted a white suit as her trademark in place of white hair.

The third White Crow, Nishiura Kisuke, who succeeded the second, likewise always wears a crisply pressed white suit from a high-end brand.

There is no blood relation among the White Crows, from the first through the third. The first never had any biological children.

However, the liquor they drank together bound Raven's members with bonds stronger than blood.

The blood code passed down through Raven's generations includes the rescue of orphans.

During the turmoil, children who had lost their parents were everywhere, and Raven spent much of the money it earned through bloody, filthy businesses on helping orphans.

Raven dragged countless adults into darkness and ruined them during that turbulent era. However, the number of orphans it saved was even greater.

In the modern era, fewer children are left orphaned than in the past.

Even so, children without parents still exist, and the third White Crow himself came from an orphanage run by Raven.

The third White Crow's parents lived on Tsushima, and the Hell Witch rescued them from a life of misery. When their safely born son came into the world, they named him Kisuke, using the character for oni. Kisuke was raised with great care by his kind parents.

But those parents died of Shadow-Shedding Disease, and Kisuke became an orphan with no one to rely on, so he stowed away on a merchant ship to cross to the mainland.

Society was in utter chaos due to the Shadow-Shedding Disease pandemic, and Kisuke had no choice but to survive alone.

He stole, killed, deceived—he did anything and everything.

In winter, he sneaked into bathhouse boiler rooms to sleep; in summer, he got stomachaches from eating food that was nearly rotten.

Every adult was too busy saving themselves and their own families in the middle of the pandemic to lend a hand to some unknown delinquent child.

To avoid being traced, Kisuke moved from place to place until he eventually washed up in Tokyo.

There, the second White Crow took him in and educated him, and he rose from a street child as dangerous as a drawn knife to become the mafia boss who ruled a major organization.

Nishiura Kisuke, as the third White Crow, runs Tokyo's black market. He is the boss crow who commands more than a thousand crows.

He steals, kills, deceives—he does anything and everything.

But he cherishes orphans.

That is Raven's blood code, and caring for orphans was also a way of caring for his younger self, who had suffered so much.

So when the three stoats crept back from the Takamine Auction, despite his repeated, emphatic orders to stay away, White Crow thumped each of them on the head.

"You damn idiots!"

"Ow!"

"Oof!"

"Agh!"

As adults, they would get an actual bullet rather than a fist. Since they were orphans, he was sending them to the lecture room instead of the torture room.

Their eyes welled with tears, and the stoats rubbed their heads with their tiny hands. When White Crow raised his fist again, they flinched and shrank back.

"S-s-sorry! It's my fault. I'm the one who invited the other two!"

"You idiots! The Blue Witch and the Dragon Witch were both at that venue, you know! How many times do I have to tell you not to get involved with Transcendents!? Did you three plan to die together!?"

"B-b-but the Blue Witch gave us autographs, you know? She was way nicer than the rumors said."

Bokuta threw his whole tiny body, wrapped in fluffy white fur, around the signed scrap of paper, hugging it protectively.

The veins in White Crow's head nearly burst at that carefree statement.

There was a rumor that the Blue Witch could freeze a person to death with nothing more than a glare. She had a wildly impressive history—enough to make it impossible to dismiss the rumor as mere hearsay—and was a one-person national military force.

She seemed much more even-tempered these days than in the wild stories from the time of the turmoil, but she was still a terrifying witch who would kill anyone without mercy—whether woman, child, or even family—if they stepped on one of her land mines.

The Blue Witch was not kind. They had simply caught her in a rare kind mood.

If she had been in a bad mood, all three of them would have been turned into ice sculptures.

"It all worked out, though. The Blue Witch probably didn't know about my Back Crossing either. She didn't catch us."

"You moron! You showed her your Back Crossing right in front of her! Some hotshot university professor will figure out how it works within three days. You went and wasted your precious hidden ace on something so stupid...!"

Bokuta was every bit as carefree as Odemaru.

White Crow irritably tore at his hair and groaned.

Odemaru had been blind until the age of seven. His worthless parents had left him abandoned in a room in a run-down apartment for years, until a young man from Raven's debt-collection crew took pity on him, turned his parents into food for monsters, and brought him to the orphanage.

Soon after entering the orphanage, Odemaru saw a proper doctor and had his eyesight restored with high-level healing magic.

The exorbitant treatment cost—so high that even a wealthy family would have begged them to shave a digit off the price—was, of course, paid entirely out of Raven's coffers.

Odemaru was smart. He became attached to the young man who had saved him and imitated the man's speech, so a foolish-sounding way of talking became his habit. In reality, he was the best student among the trio of delinquent brats.

Odemaru was also the one who discovered Back Crossing, the hidden ability in Stoat Transformation magic.

A stoat created by Stoat Transformation magic looks exactly like a stoat, but it is actually a magical creature called a White Beast.

Repeated jumps build up magic power; then a plunge into an acute angle allows it to enter the back world.

Whenever there is an acute angle—such as the corner of a room, the corner of a triangular ruler, the tip of a pencil, or the gap between the pages of a half-open book—one can slip into the back world through it and leap out again.

White Crow had too little magic power to transform into a stoat, so he had no firsthand experience of what Back Crossing was like. From the three stoats, he understood it as: "You disappear from the surface world. You can pass through anything. But you can only dive shallowly, and if you stay under too long, it feels like you're going to drown."

It was an ability that made sense and didn't at the same time.

But in short, all it took was a few bouncy jumps and a dive into a corner to disappear and reappear.

Just as a person unable to control magic can fly and breathe fire by transforming into a dragon, transforming into a stoat lets them use Back Crossing even without the ability to control magic.

The ability's various restrictions were minor, and its utility was astounding.

Odemaru immediately shared his discovery with the other two. White Crow learned about it through his young men and immediately ordered them to keep it secret.

Stoat Back Crossing was a valuable intelligence asset that had to be handled with care.

Back Crossing was a handy ability that anyone could easily imitate once they knew how to do it.

As long as no one outside Raven knew about it, it was an incredible advantage. But the moment word got out, that advantage would vanish.

White Crow considered Back Crossing an important asset that would help secure Odemaru's future.

Once he learned a little more and acquired high-school-level knowledge, Odemaru could surely enter a magic university by skipping grades. If he revealed Back Crossing there and made a name for himself as a researcher, he would be set for life. With the right handling, even his dark childhood could be turned into a heartwarming story.

And just as White Crow had taken such care to help Odemaru escape the darkness and walk through the bright world...

Odemaru was too absorbed in fooling around with his friends to ruin his special pass to the surface world.

The Blue Witch was close friends with the famous Stoat Professor. If the Blue Witch had seen Back Crossing, it wouldn't be long before the Professor figured out how it worked.

Of course, White Crow was immensely proud that, despite his wretched origins, Odemaru was honest at heart, never acted superior about his intelligence, shared his secrets freely with his friends, and valued gratitude and friendship above all.

Odemaru was a good kid.

Bokuta also had a bad habit of playing with words and trying to baffle people with a show of cleverness, but his body moved when his companions were in danger. He was a good kid who valued harmony among his friends.

That was precisely why his thoughtless behavior made White Crow so angry.

Why did children with enough talent to rise in the surface world keep doing bad things?

"Now, now, old man, calm down. We promised the Blue Witch, see? All of us said we wouldn't do anything bad anymore."

"You morons! How many times are you going to break the same promise!? How many has it been now, huh? And I'm not just talking about the auction—the magic booster you pinched, too!"

"Ah... well, we can't transform unless we boost our magic. It just sort of happened."

Atsushi stuck out his tongue and tried to play it off with his charm, so White Crow flicked him on the forehead.

Despite repeatedly telling them not to do bad things, to study, and to make friends outside Raven, his words still barely sank in with the three boys.

Atsushi in particular had sticky fingers and a sharp eye for opportunity, eagerly throwing himself into all kinds of mischief.

Put kindly, that meant he was considerate, never shied away from petty chores, and was full of initiative—all qualities that would become wonderful virtues if he mended his ways.

But if he was using his gifted abilities to pilfer magic boosters, his future was a cause for concern.

The three of them had more than 50K magic power. That was more than enough to make a living as mages.

If they took magic boosters, they could even transform into dragons. Even if they failed to make a living through their studies, they could launder their backgrounds and forge clean résumés, then work as dragon couriers. It was grueling physical labor, but it paid well and was a popular profession.

But if they themselves had no intention of taking the straight path, there was nothing he could do, no matter how many rails leading to respectable society he laid out for them or how much he tried to take them by the hand.

"Please, old man. This time we've really reformed. We even got autographs."

"I won't skip my writing homework anymore."

"Seeing Kyanos live was amazing. It made me want to make one of these myself. I even thought maybe I'd become a wandmaker in the surface world. No, really. I'm serious."

The three stoats each tried to prove their remorse and reformation.

White Crow forced down the stream of abuse rising to his lips.

He mustn't tell children, "Yeah, right. You'll do it again anyway." Such words could wound a child deeply and make them lose faith in adults (or so the parenting book said).

It was much harder to discipline three children than three hundred rowdy men.

White Crow folded his arms and frowned, listening to their displays of remorse for a while before letting out a deep sigh and delivering his ruling.

"All right, all right. First, go to the accounting office and get some magic boosters. I've authorized them properly this time. Once you've taken them and turned back into humans, starting today, help the nanny make the meals every day for a week. Morning and evening is enough."

A protest of "Whaaat?" rose, so White Crow poked the three cheeky stoats in the cheeks.

"Can't those mouths say yes? Two weeks. Do it properly for two weeks, and I'll acknowledge your remorse and let you off with only half your allowance withheld. Slack off even once and you get no allowance. Now go."

White Crow shooed them away, and the three stoats left the room, looking eager to complain but not talking back.

As the three left, the underboss entered.

The underboss spoke with a fawning grin.

"I heard everything. Raising kids is tough, huh, old man?"

"...Shut up."

"What was that? That's no punishment at all. It's ridiculously lenient. If it were me, I'd take those brats to the Blue Witch and make them bow their heads—"

Before he could finish, White Crow slammed a backfist into the underboss's face.

The underboss went flying into the wall, crashed against it, and rolled to the floor, staring blankly as he clutched his bleeding nose.

To the fool who didn't even understand why he'd been hit, White Crow said coldly:

"Since when have you been in a position to give me your opinion? Huh?"

"S-sorry..."

"Don't get blood on the carpet. Now, what was the report?"

"Um, word came that they won't pay the ransom."

"I see. And?"

"What should we do...?"

"Don't ask me about every little thing. Do what we always do. Cut off his right hand and send it to them. If they still refuse to pay, cut off the left one too. If you've got it, get lost."

"Got it..."

The underboss staggered out of the room.

Perhaps hiding so much of the dirty side of things from the children was a mistake, White Crow thought as he lit a cigarette.

The three seemed to have gotten it into their heads that Raven was some kind of dark hero.

No matter how often he told them Raven was a gathering of scumbags, they refused to listen. Even when he told them they could become scholars, wandmakers, or anything else, but must never become members of Raven, they still wouldn't listen. What a headache.

If, knowing both the good and evil in the world, they still wanted to choose the path of evil, there was nothing he could do.

Yet he was the third boss of an underworld organization, praying that this time the three would truly reform.