"You could have appeared behind them and knocked them both out. No trouble at all. Instead you waited."
"Maybe the waiting was lucky. Everything tilts toward a good ending."
"Maybe the waiting wasn't. She dies."
"I'd rather not gamble a living person on which one it turns out to be."
Gojo clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on. It's late. Let's get home."
"Um... what about her?"
Enju could feel the mood in the room, but the girl in her arms was still crying, so she asked anyway, quiet about it.
"Bring her with us. We'll find a way to get her back tomorrow. It's too late for her to travel alone, and the 39th Area is nothing but empty ground out there."
Enju helped the girl up off the cold concrete.
Rentaro said nothing the whole time. What Gojo had said, and that phone call, had left something sitting heavy in him.
"Let's go. Why are you standing there?" Gojo threw an arm across his shoulders, grinning. "Or are you sulking about earlier? I only said any of that because I think of you as a friend. We see things differently. I don't see why that has to matter."
As though the argument had never happened at all.
Rentaro surfaced slowly and gave a dull nod. Nothing more.
Whatever was going on inside him, nobody in the group had the attention to spare. Enju was busy with her friend. Sumire Muroto orbited Gojo, firing questions about his abilities.
And Betty, as always, regarded everyone who wasn't Gojo as furniture.
Sirens rose somewhere in the distance as they left the gutted building, headed this way. Not their problem anymore.
They reached the apartment past seven.
Kisara Tendo had been waiting at Rentaro's place for a while. The size of the crowd surprised her, and Rentaro's face surprised her more.
"Ms. Muroto? What are you all doing here together?"
"Small incident. Nothing serious." Gojo smiled and left it there. "Come inside, I'll explain."
Rentaro walked past without a word and disappeared into the kitchen.
Kisara had prepped some of the groceries earlier while the place was empty, which saved him a good deal of work.
While he cooked, the rest of them sat in the living room and laid the evening out for her.
The news that Sumire Muroto had signed on as Gojo's personal consultant barely registered. Kisara knew who the woman was, and knew that anyone with that intellect would have thought the decision through.
The two dead officers were another matter.
"You killed someone?"
"Two someones. Unpleasant people." Gojo nodded, untroubled.
"You're not joking."
"Nothing to joke about. And there's no point lying with everyone standing right here." He caught the tension in her shoulders and softened. "Relax. It's handled. The Seitenshi has it arranged on her end. There won't be any fallout."
The knot in Kisara's chest loosened, replaced by something closer to disbelief.
"Something that serious, and you fixed it with a phone call?"
"Was it that serious?" A shrug. "I'd argue it counts as justice."
"That's different. They were police..."
"Ms. Tendo, do you think what those two officers did was right? If they'd been beating on you, what would you have done?"
"Oh?"
"In that situation? I'd fight back, obviously."
"Fight back until they were dead?"
She had no answer.
Put in that girl's place, she'd have wanted to turn into a Gastrea on the spot and tear both men apart with her teeth. Dying was fine, as long as she took a piece of them with her.
Even standing outside it, watching those two, stripped of the law's restraint, part of her wanted them dead. Nothing about them earned a place in the world.
Gojo smiled at her silence. "See? It's a simple question."
She nodded. Nothing about it sat comfortably. But she couldn't find the flaw in what he'd done.
"You're all overthinking this. It happened. It's over. Everyone's fine, which is the best outcome available." Sumire Muroto sprawled across the tatami.
The woman didn't care much about presentation, but her legs went on forever, and the grey stockings did them favors. Nobody in the room noticed.
"Ms. Muroto's right. Why fuss over it? Never mind that, tell me about your abilities. There's no device on you anywhere, so how do bullets stop dead in front of your face? Is that magic?"
"Magic? No. That's Cursed Energy, the same thing lowering Enju's Corrosion Rate." He glanced over at Betty. "This is magic."
Betty rolled her eyes and condensed a deep-purple crystal arrow out of empty air beside her.
Sumire lit up like a struck match.
She'd assumed one research subject was already more than she deserved. Now there were two.
Kisara studied the floating arrow with interest, though the video she'd seen earlier had blunted the shock. Something else nagged at her more.
"Gojo, what kind of deal did you make with the Seitenshi? She cleaned up something like this for you."
"Did I not mention it?"
"Maybe you did?" Kisara sounded unsure. The last two days with Gojo and Betty crashing into her life had piled up more surprises than she could file.
Not that she'd ever admit the other half of it. Three full meals a day had taken the edge off the sharpness that came with an empty stomach.
"It's nothing dramatic. I teach the Seitenshi magic. I'm her instructor..."
"You teach magic..." Kisara repeated it, then her head snapped up. "Wait. Gojo, aren't you two products of a laboratory?"
"I never said that stopped anyone else from learning magic or Cursed Energy." He spread his hands, wearing the face of a man who reserved all rights of interpretation.
"Then... could I learn?"
Kisara dropped to her knees, back straight, eyes fixed on him and full of something raw.
"You want to learn?" That caught him off guard.
"If it's allowed, so do I." Sumire raised a hand, refusing to be left behind. "You can't properly study these abilities without understanding them from the inside."
"Um... can I learn too?" Enju had picked up the conversation from across the room, sharp ears and all, and hurried over. "If I could, I'd protect Rentaro better."
Gojo took in the row of hopeful faces and laughed.
"We're all friends here. If you want to learn, that's fine. I can't promise any of you will get anywhere with it. Enju, you're a Cursed Child, so you understand. Not every Cursed Child can become an Initiator. Not everyone can learn Cursed Energy or magic either."
"However hard it is, please let me try." Kisara pressed her forehead to the floor, all the way down.
"You don't need to do that." He caught her arm and lifted her back up, curious now at how hard her eyes had set. "Ms. Tendo, will you tell me why you want this? There's something in your face that isn't in theirs."
She pressed her lips together. The pause stretched.
"Revenge," she said. "Against the Tendo family. They killed my father and my mother."
The girl with the long black hair, the one everyone treated as untouchable, spoke each word through open hatred.
Gojo understood.
So that was why the Tendo heiress lived out here, scraping by. Another layer under the surface.
"Fine by me." He nodded around at all of them.
Cursed Energy and magic both came down to talent. Teaching contributed little. You cracked the door open for someone and then they trained on their own from there. One student or four made no difference to him.
"It's late, though. Tomorrow. We've got nothing but time, and an extra evening won't change anything."
Nobody argued.
Rentaro appeared with dinner right on cue. "Food's ready."
Three words, flat. Not how he usually said anything.
The night had lodged itself somewhere in him and hadn't shifted.
Gojo didn't seem to notice or care. He ate, drank, and kept the table talking the way he always did.
Afterward, they gathered to leave.
"The girl can stay here tonight. Ms. Muroto comes with me. Cram everyone into one apartment and none of you sleep."
Rentaro nodded, calm, no objection.
Back at their place, Sumire started demanding a shower and a change of clothes before the door had shut. Gojo and Betty had stocked up on supplies earlier, so fresh towels weren't a problem. Clothes were thinner. Underwear was out of the question, though a T-shirt and shorts turned up. She'd have to make do.
The scientist didn't care. She wandered off humming, and water started running behind the bathroom door.
"Another problem child." Betty thumbed through channels with the remote.
"Problem child? That fits her well enough."
Neither of them spelled it out. Neither needed to.
"Whose problem is bigger, Subaru's or Rentaro's?"
Betty snorted. "Both of them are broken. If you're making me choose, that idiot Subaru is at least more likable. He'd kill for Emilia, and mean it."
"True. You remember the state he was in when he ran into Sloth? Murder in every line of him." Gojo stretched out on the bed. "Different environments grow different thinking, though. Lugunica isn't exactly a place with a rigorous legal code."
"Is that so? What a person chooses comes down to who they are. You think Subaru in a place like this would let the law stop him from killing for Emilia?"
"Mm. Knowing him? He would."
"There you go. And the boy next door is more childish than Subaru, with that gloomy face on top of it. Hard to warm to."
"Gloomy? Rentaro seems fine. He's lively most of the time."
"Surface. He's a loner living inside his own head."