(M) Chapter 29 – A Foothold
Main Story 2, Chapter 4, Part 2
Novel Title: 獣はかくして交わる (The Beasts Intertwine This Way)
Author：沙野 風結子 (Fuyuko Sano)
Illustrator：小山田 あみ (Oyamada Ami)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 鹿倉 陣也 (Kagura Jinya -MC) & ゼロ (Zero -ML)
*Please read at novels.space, the original site of translation. TQ*
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Kagura forces his tongue between Zero’s lips. Thinking he’s already surrendered, Zero responds smugly, intertwining his tongue with him.
As Kagura delves deeper into his mouth, he strips off Zero’s leather jacket, letting his hands travel down his arms, gripping and rubbing his thick fingers.
When their lips finally part, Zero scowls sharply, looking down at his own hands.
His thumbs are bound together with a zip tie.
Kagura would have preferred to tie his hands behind his back, but this was the best he could manage in his moment of vulnerability.
“I’ve started carrying one around, taking a page out of your book.”
Touching the zip tie, Kagura grins.
“You haven’t tamed me. I’m the one who’s going to tame you.”
The ceiling light illuminates Zero, who lies face-up on the rough steel bed. His thumbs are bound in front, and his wrists tied with a necktie, securing his arms upward to a bar-like frame.
“Do you think this means you’ve tamed me?”
Zero’s voice was thick and slightly mocking.
There was no decisive victory, but neither had lost. Kagura was certain Zero shared that same conclusion.
Staring at the ceiling, Kagura replied in a hoarse voice.
“We have the same goal, to crush the Eastern Alliance. I won’t accept anyone running away because they think we can’t understand each other.”
Zero also looked toward the ceiling, responding.
“Enwu and I will keep fighting against the Eastern Alliance and Kiriyama until we bring them down. That’ll accomplish your goal, too. Isn’t that enough?”
Kagura clicked his tongue in irritation, summoning the strength to sit up and place his hand around Zero’s throat, fingers pressing lightly. He glared into Zero’s bloodshot eyes.
“This is my fight.”
There was no way he could sit somewhere safe, waiting for someone else to achieve what he wanted.
“Don’t ever think of me as a liability. ‘Citizen’ or ‘non-citizen’, if the problem is understanding each other, then make me understand.”
Zero’s eyes turned cold, glancing at him with disdain.
“Do you really think we can understand each other?”
“There has to be some way.”
Their gazes clashed intensely, filling Kagura’s field of vision with Zero’s dark, unyielding presence.
Then, Zero’s voice broke through the silence.
“My maternal grandfather was on death row.”
His voice, dark and emotionless, continued.
“My mother was the eldest of three sisters. Her two younger sisters couldn’t endure the shame of being related to a criminal and ended their own lives, leaving only my mother. My mother met a man she thought was her ‘prince,’ and she became pregnant with his child. But the ‘prince’ was just a figment of her delusion. In reality, the man had probably just discarded her. Yet my mother believed that someone like her, with her ‘sinful blood,’ shouldn’t burden him, so she chose to bear and hide that child from society.”
As Kagura followed Zero’s story, it sounded almost surreal, like something out of a dark fable.
“She said she tried to abort me many times to avoid inconveniencing him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it because it was a ‘gift’ from her ‘prince’.”
He couldn’t quite grasp what emotions a mother would feel, confiding such things to her child. He wondered what kind of expression Zero had worn, listening to his mother then.
“Every time she looked into my eyes, she’d say; ‘These eyes are the prince’s’.”
A bitter, contemptuous edge crept into Zero’s voice.
Kagura barely managed to grasp that sensation. He was finally able to take a steady breath.
“So… that’s why you were made unregistered.”
It was clearly a selfish decision by his mother and legally wrong.
But Zero already knew this a hundred times over, and putting it into words would be pointless and overly concerned.
“I’ve given you a foothold. Now, remove these.”
“…”
Kagura brought over a tool, cutting the zip tie and untying the necktie around Zero’s wrists.
As soon as he was free, Zero swiftly got off the bed and dressed. Meanwhile, Kagura, still naked, sat on the edge of the bed, replaying everything that had been said in his mind.
As Zero left the room, he didn’t bother looking back but threw out a parting remark.
“Knowing my background… did that make you feel like you understand me?”
It didn’t even sound like a question. Before Kagura could open his mouth to respond, Zero was already gone. The cold sound of the front door closing echoed through the room.
Kagura pressed his hands tightly against his face.
As a detective, he’d conducted countless interviews and interrogations, assembling pieces from a distance and feeling as though he understood them by categorising the details.
But even as he tried, he couldn’t make out Zero’s true self. His desire to understand Zero was spinning in circles, going nowhere.
―――Maybe sharing that ‘foothold’ was like a severance payment.
And it was probably to keep Kagura from getting dragged into an unlawful battle.
“If a point of light is born in a place of only darkness, I will continue to be ensnared by it.”
Those words had proven to be true, especially considering Zero had assigned his team to tail and protect him.
Even during their encounter today, Kagura could feel this was real.
Zero clearly has a strong reaction to Kagura Jinya, who represents that point of light in his world.
And Kagura, too, is deeply bound to that point in Zero.
“…And yet, we can never truly connect.”
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*Translator’s Note: Why does this chapter make me feel sad somehow? -K
*P/S: If the link doesn’t work, just visit my blog directly. It’ll be listed there somewhere.
Next update: 2025.10.02
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