Page 85 of Bearly Out Loud

And Dojin.

Dojin stood beside Nari at the windows. Not touching—not here, not in the room where they were about to go to war—but close enough that his arm brushed hers when he breathed. She could read his body with her eyes closed now: the controlled stillness, the set of his shoulders, his jaw relaxing when she was near and tightening when she wasn’t. He’d kissed her in the elevator on the ride up. Brief. Deliberate. His mouth on hers for three seconds, his hand at the base of her spine, and then he pulled back, and his eyes were steady, and she thought,I’m going to marry this man and that’s a problem for future Nari.

The door to the conference room opened. Mercer walked in.

Brent Mercer was shorterthan she expected.

Five-ten, trim, silver at the temples in a calculated way that suggested a colorist rather than genetics. Navy suit tailored within an inch of its life. A tie that cost more than most people’s cars. He moved through the room with loose-limbed ease—a thousand conference rooms entered, most of them left richer.

Three lawyers trailed him. Dark suits, matching briefcases, expressions designed to communicate billable confidence. They took the south side of the table with practiced choreography. Mercer took the center chair. Unbuttoned his jacket. Smiled.

The smile was excellent. Nari gave it that. Boardroom-grade. The kind that worked on investors, senators, and anyone who confused charm for character.

“Dojin.” He nodded across the table. “This is unexpected. Your assistant said business negotiation.”

“It is.” Dojin’s voice carried nothing—no heat, no edge. Flat as a closed ledger. “The nature of the business has changed.”

Mercer’s eyes moved across the room. Noted each person. Lingered on Nari. Lingered on Suki. Lingered on Hana. Then returned to center—smooth recovery, the practiced reflex of someone ambushed before who survived each time by smiling through it.

“James Wixx.” He acknowledged Nari’s father. “Your reputation precedes you.”

James didn’t look up from his documents. “Let’s begin.”

He began.

The presentation was methodical. James Wixx did not perform in courtrooms—he constructed. Each piece of evidence placed on the table with unhurried confidence. He had built cases against pharmaceutical companies and won, against insurance conglomerates and won, against a sitting governor and settled for an amount that required a nondisclosure agreement. He was not loud. He did not need to be.

The sketchbooks came first. Three volumes, dated 1987 through 1992, authenticated by independent experts from the Metropolitan Museum, the Tezuka Archives in Tokyo, and a forensic document specialist whose testimony had held up in eleven federal cases. Hideo’s hand. Hideo’s ink. Hideo’s world.

“These contain the complete mythology, character designs, and narrative architecture for the Sora Nightwind arc of Celestial Ronin.” James placed the authentication reports beside the sketchbooks. “Unpublished. Held in the Wixx family archive since Hideo’s death. Never shared outside the family—except through one individual.”

The Meridian paper trail came next. Shell companies tracing back to Mercer Global through three layers of corporate infrastructure. Payment records. Board meeting minutes from a company that existed on paper and nowhere else. The financial anatomy of a theft laundered through enough LLCs to make it look legitimate, but not enough to make it invisible.

Then Crane’s testimony. Signed. Notarized. Reo had returned with eighteen pages—a man taking apart his own self-mythology, one confession at a time. Crane’s language was careful—he still called the stolen works “the materials,” still framed his betrayal as “ensuring the work found its audience”—but the dates matched, the amounts matched, and the paper trail led in one direction.

Finally, Hana’s pattern analysis. Three other artists. Same pipeline. Same intermediary structure. Same result: original work acquired through trusted proxies, laundered through shell companies, commercialized under new brands. A system. A factory.

James laid the last document down. Folded his hands.

Mercer’s smile hadn’t moved.

“You can’t prove original authorship on unpublished work.”

James didn’t blink. “Actually, we can. Dated sketchbooks, authenticated by three independent experts. Voice notes from 2017 where Hideo describes these exact storylines to his granddaughter.” He glanced at Nari. She held up her phone—the recordings queued, her grandfather’s voice a ghost in the room, ready to testify from beyond the grave. “And a signed affidavit from your own former archivist.”

Mercer’s lead attorney leaned forward. Opened his mouth. Mercer raised one finger—a gesture so small and so practiced that the lawyer closed his mouth mid-syllable, like a puppet whose string had been pulled.

“The Void Gate mythology is generic anime lore.” Mercer’s tone was pleasant. Conversational. A man discussing weather patterns or wine. “Gate structures, guardian archetypes—these appear across dozens of properties. Your family’s claim of originality is—with respect—sentimental, not legal.”

The room waited.

Reo cleared his throat.

Everyone looked at him. The security operative at the door. Six-two, built for damage, concealed carry. Not, by any visible measure, a man you expected to speak during a legal proceeding.

“The thirteen-gate structure with zodiac guardians was originated by Hideo Saito in 1987. Volume 23, Chapter 141.” His voice was level. Professional. The delivery of a man reading from an operational briefing. Except the briefing was thirty years of manga burned into his memory. “The celestial ronin’s oath is spoken in classical Japanese adapted from a Heian-era poem that Wixx-san translated specifically for this arc. Your ‘original concept’ uses the same translation.” He paused. “Including the deliberate error in the fourth line that Wixx-san included as a signature.”

Dead silence.