None of it ever showed in front of Seitenshi. He understood her too well for that. She didn't see the Cursed Children the way everyone else did.
She was kind. Soft-hearted. She pitied those girls, wanted to help them, wanted to give them somewhere warm to belong. If she ever learned how he felt about them, she'd be furious. She might even punish him.
So he buried it. Kept his face respectful and mild in her presence, and let nothing slip.
Gojo caught all of it. His glasses hid whatever moved behind his eyes.
With everything settled, Yasuwaki bowed again to both of them, took Sumire's list, and left with quick steps. He clearly wanted this done fast, and he clearly wanted Gojo to notice.
His departure barely registered. Seitenshi turned the conversation back to magic and began asking questions.
She hadn't eased off at all these past weeks. Government business took its share of her day, and nearly everything left over went into training. No teacher alive would dislike a student like that. Gojo certainly didn't.
"Oh. Mr. Gojo, do you remember that Gastrea incident you handled with Rentaro?"
Something had occurred to her. Her voice dropped, the smile fading, worry surfacing in her eyes.
"Gastrea incident?"
His brows drew together. He sorted through a mess of memories before it surfaced. That had been right after he'd arrived in this world, still finding his footing, when a Gastrea attacked civilians and he'd put it down alongside Rentaro Satomi.
"What about it?"
His tone sharpened. She looked genuinely troubled, and that made no sense. The thing had been dealt with. Why bring it up now, and why wear that expression?
She gave a small, pained laugh and shook her head. "It never actually ended. That Gastrea took something with it. Something important enough to decide what happens to this entire city."
Her voice went quiet, each word landing heavy. "We're assembling the best Civil Security in Tokyo to go after it and bring it back. You're Civil Security now too, so I wanted to ask whether you'd join us."
"You're joking."
His expression twisted into something odd, amusement threading through it.
The premise was absurd. Something that could decide Tokyo's fate, carried off by a mindless Gastrea? The story had a hole in it big enough to drive through.
"I'm not. I wish I were."
She knew how it sounded. All she could do was explain with that same helpless smile. "It's confirmed. The Gastrea took it. We don't know where the creature is hiding, and we don't know whether the object is still intact."
"Something that could change Tokyo's fate, stolen by a creature with no mind."
He pushed his glasses up his nose and made a dismissive noise. "If that's how things actually work in this city, that's pathetic."
He preferred straight lines. Problems existed to be solved, not to be schemed around.
That didn't mean he missed what was in front of him. His mind cut cleaner and faster than anyone's in the room.
Anything that valuable would be locked down. Guarded. Watched by people whose entire job was making sure nothing and no one got near it.
And a Gastrea? A creature running on instinct alone. They attacked people, they wrecked things, and they had no concept of value. Nothing about them distinguished a treasure from a rock.
That object had been sitting inside Tokyo, behind the Monoliths, behind armed guards. No Gastrea stumbles into a vault. Someone had arranged it, and the arrangement had a purpose, and the purpose wasn't good.
"I know something's wrong with the story."
She let out a breath, exhaustion bleeding through. "But it's already happened. Arguing about it or assigning blame changes nothing. All we can do now is recover it before something worse follows."
"If it's a conspiracy, somebody wants something out of it."
He shrugged, entirely unbothered, as though the whole matter belonged to someone else's life. "Unless whoever did it wants Tokyo wiped off the map with themselves inside it."
Her position was already about as bad as it could get. A ruler stripped of everything but the title. Most of this wasn't worth losing sleep over, and none of it was her burden to carry alone.
Let the Higher-ups tear at each other. As long as nobody touched the people around him, as long as nobody touched the Cursed Children, he had no interest.
Seitenshi said nothing. Her head stayed down, lashes lowered over whatever was in her eyes, shoulders trembling faintly under the weight of it.
Silence filled the room again, thicker this time. Even Betty picked up on it and stood quietly to the side without a word.
Sumire's easy manner dropped away. She studied Seitenshi with a question forming behind her eyes, curious now about what this object was and why it could put that look on the ruler of Tokyo's face.
Gojo's expression shifted, brows pulling together, as if he'd just walked into something considerably larger than he'd assumed.
"Don't tell me this thing you're describing could genuinely destroy Tokyo."
She lifted her head. The smile she wore had nothing behind it but dread, and under the eyes of all three of them, she nodded slowly.
"Yes. It could destroy all of it."
"Interesting."
Not a trace of alarm in him. If anything, he looked entertained, a spark of real curiosity showing. "Outside of a nuclear warhead, I'd love to know what's capable of leveling this city right now."
"And even with a warhead, a Gastrea couldn't set it off. They're not smart enough."
Nothing else came to mind. Warheads required procedure, precision, intent. Creatures running on raw instinct couldn't manage any of it.
Which left him genuinely curious. What object carried that much destructive weight, and how had a Gastrea walked away with it?
"It's the Legacy of Nanase Village."
She hesitated, bit her lip, then said it. The effect on Sumire was immediate. Her composure collapsed into shock and something close to terror.
"What?!"
She shot to her feet, the chair screeching against the floor. Her face had gone bloodless, near translucent, her body shaking. "The Legacy of Nanase Village?"
"You people lost that? And a Gastrea has it?!"
Sumire Muroto, who feared nothing and treated most disasters as mildly interesting, had come completely undone at the name. She stared at Seitenshi, fury and fear tangled together, voice unsteady.
That artifact, lost. Carried off by a Gastrea. It was the end of everything.
"Easy. Easy." Gojo caught her arm and steadied her, keeping his voice gentle. "We already established there's a conspiracy behind it. None of this is on Seitenshi. She's a victim here, and she only found out recently herself."
He looked after his students. He wasn't about to let Sumire pile blame on her, or let her carry any more than she already was.
"You're saying that because you have no idea what this means!" Sumire pulled free of his hand, still white to the lips, swaying slightly like she might go down. "You have no concept of what that thing is capable of!"
Watching her come apart like this only sharpened his interest. His brows drew in, and his tone turned serious. "So you know something the rest of us don't. Let's hear it. What is it, and what makes it so terrible?"
Betty and Seitenshi both watched her, curious and uneasy in equal measure.
Sumire pulled in a long breath and forced herself back down into the chair. Her hands knotted together, knuckles bleached white, and her voice came out bitter and heavy.
"That thing... can draw a Stage 5 Gastrea."
A question mark bloomed over Gojo's head. His amusement vanished, replaced by something focused. He turned to Seitenshi, and her grim nod confirmed it.
A Stage 5 Gastrea.
The words dropped like a hammer. The air in the room grew unbearable.
He hadn't been in this world long, but he understood what that meant.
The apex. The thing at the top of the pyramid, powerful past reason, with almost nothing on earth able to stand against it.
Out of every Gastrea alive, a bare handful ever reached that tier. They started there. They came into existence already carrying the power to unmake landscapes.
The Monoliths repelled the lower and middle tiers. Those creatures felt revulsion and stayed away, and the barrier held.
But the Monoliths weren't invulnerable, and they didn't stop everything.
If the Legacy drew a Stage 5 Gastrea to Tokyo, the Monoliths wouldn't matter. They'd break. The creature would walk in and reduce the entire city to rubble.
Chaos and ruin, countless lives ended, families torn apart. And the Cursed Children, already suffering, would face something far worse.
That artifact was gone now, in the possession of a Gastrea. The moment it sat exposed to open air, the moment a Stage 5 caught the scent, Tokyo was finished.
"Well, well." He clicked his tongue, something complicated crossing his face. "Sounds like we're dealing with people who don't care what they burn to get what they want."