"I found her yesterday, begging on the street with nobody to look after her, so I brought her along. I was hoping you'd take her in, Elder. Let her live here with the others."
The old man looked down at the girl beside him and smiled, reaching out to rest a hand on her head. "Good girl. Don't be frightened. This is your home now, and we'll take good care of you."
Aii tilted her face up toward that smile, feeling the warmth of his palm, and something loosened in her chest. She nodded and murmured, "Thank you, Elder."
He accepted her without a moment's pause.
Once, another mouth would have meant real strain. Supplies had always run thin down here, and one more body meant one more share of everything, with hunger never far away.
Now, with what Gojo had hauled in, food and clothing and shelter were covered. One more child hardly registered.
It might mean a little more work, one more girl to look after, but weighed against giving another Cursed Child a warm place to belong instead of a street corner, Matsuzaki considered it a bargain.
The children swarmed around her, greeting her over one another, one pressing a candy into her hand, another tugging her toward some game, the whole entrance loud and bright with it.
He watched from a few paces off, and something eased in his face. All of this had been worth doing.
With Aii handed over to the old man's care, he produced a phone and a solar charger.
"My number's already saved in there. Call me if anything comes up."
"There's one more thing. I'd like Miss Muroto to run a quick check on the children."
He turned toward her, still sorting through the supplies, casual on the surface with something underneath that didn't leave room for refusal.
Most of the children in the 39th Area were only scraping by in the sewers.
Unlike Enju Aihara, they weren't thrown into fights on a regular basis, never had to stand in front of a Gastrea.
Their Corrosion Rate climbed far slower than hers.
That still left the blade hanging over every Cursed Child's head.
As they aged, the Gastrea Virus in them would stir and grow active, and the numbers would creep upward. No escaping it.
Bringing Sumire in for a rough screening was insurance, a way to catch a child whose rate had crept up in silence before something went wrong.
They were too young to understand what a Corrosion Rate was, let alone read their own bodies.
Most of the time nobody noticed until the number had already climbed past anything that could be held back.
And if a child's rate did turn out high, he had ways of pushing it down again.
He'd been turning this over since the drive back from the Holy Residence the day before.
Sumire's expertise was without equal, and on the Gastrea Virus specifically nobody came close.
So after his talk with Seitenshi, he'd had her contact Takuto Yasuwaki and request some basic testing materials.
She'd agreed readily and stayed up through the night cobbling together a rough Corrosion Rate detector.
Now she crouched with the device in hand, waving the first child forward.
They lined up in a small, wobbling queue, curious and a little tense, and came up one at a time.
Her expression stayed serious. She pinched the detector between her fingers, pressed it to each wrist, and watched the numbers flicker across the screen.
Now and then her brow creased and she'd tell a child softly to rest more, not to push themselves.
Matsuzaki stood by, quiet, helping keep the line orderly and calming the nervous ones.
While the screenings ran, Gojo drifted off to one side, his eyes finding Aii again.
She'd folded into the group already, none of that first stiffness left.
Sitting in a ring with a few girls her own age, a fruit candy in her hand, she talked and laughed along with them.
One showed her a drawing. Another held onto her hand and rattled off stories about the sewers.
She listened closely, nodding along, sometimes offering a small piece of her own wandering days in a quiet voice. There was an ache under those stories, but her smile never dimmed.
Watching, his mouth curved without his deciding it. He pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, something soft passing behind his eyes.
"Feeling accomplished, I suppose?"
The voice behind him carried its usual crispness and a hint of prickle.
He didn't turn. No need to guess.
Betty stood with hands on her hips, chin lifted, exasperation in her eyes and something gentler hidden underneath.
She'd been watching him watch Aii, catching the softness in his gaze and the smile he hadn't noticed, and she knew what was going on in his head.
"Not exactly."
Turning slowly, he kept the faint smile, voice lazy. "I'd say it's more that this whole thing is interesting."
"Interesting? What a terrible way to put it..."
She rolled her eyes, disdain plain.
To her, what he'd done here was warm and worth something. Calling it interesting was a cop-out of the highest order.
Before she could get further into it, a familiar chime went off in his ear.
[Side story, "The Life of Satoru Gojo," has updated. Early look at the new episode preview!]
[Side story, "The Life of Satoru Gojo," has updated. Early look at the new episode preview!]
[Side story, "The Life of Satoru Gojo," has updated. Early look at the new episode preview!]
Three glaring notifications in a row, stacked in front of him, identical and impossible to look past.
His eyes brightened, the smile deepening.
It had been so long that he'd assumed the wretched supporting-role system had quit for good.
Turned out it had finally clocked in.
What kind of side story is this supposed to be? "The Life of Satoru Gojo"? His brow furrowed.
Feels like being spied on through a keyhole.
He shook his head. His own life, packaged into a bonus episode. Unsettling to think about too long.
With the thought, the familiar black interface unfolded in front of him.
No picture yet. Just darkness.
But the comments were already pouring across it, dense as a rising tide, so thick they nearly buried the whole screen.
[YESSS!!! Honey, I'm here!]
[FIRST!!! I saw the notification first!]
[Holy crap, a side story already? The system's moving!]
[Finally an update! I get to see my darling husband Satoru Gojo again, I'm flying!]
[Does anyone else get it? I waited forever for this, I thought it was never coming back!]
[Baby Satoru! Mommy's here! Let mommy look at you!]
Same comments, same tone, same fans burning at the same temperature.
He watched them streak past and smiled, the resignation draining out of his eyes.
He had no idea where these people were, or who any of them were.
But that familiar racket felt like running into old friends he hadn't seen in years.
More of the account's old followers piled in, and the comments multiplied, scrolling faster and faster.
Some cheered. Some demanded the footage start already. Others threw out guesses about what the side story would cover.
And amid all the arguing and impatience, an image finally resolved on the black screen.
The moment he saw it, his expression went strange and the smile locked in place.
He'd assumed this so-called side story would be something stitched together from cut footage of his time in Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World.
He'd spent a decent stretch there, been through plenty. No shortage of material.
Wrong on every count.
Nothing about that world appeared. This was his daily life after coming home.
There was Jujutsu High. His office. His teacher and his friend.
He wasn't the only one thrown by it. The comments caught up fast, shock and confusion firing across the screen faster than before.
[??? Where is this? Why does nothing look familiar?]
[Where are my Spirit girls? Where's my Emilia? Why aren't they here?]
[This is a modern city, not medieval castles and villages. Something's off!]
[What the heck? Is this Baby Satoru's story from before he transmigrated? But then why is Betty here?]
[Somebody explain, I'm lost!]
[Don't be lost, I think I've got it. This is Baby Satoru's own world, right?]
While they argued it out, the Gojo on screen and Betty struck up a conversation that answered the question for them.
This was the world he came from. He'd gone home.
And Betty had followed him into that strange modern world to start a new life.
[HAHAHA so he really was off filming! Season one ends and he gets to go home, that's a fun premise!]
[I'm dying, I thought Baby Satoru was stuck in the other world forever and here he is back in reality!]
[This premise is ridiculous, absolutely absurd, and I love it!]
[Hang on, how did he bring Betty back? Wasn't the Re: Zero world supposed to be fake?]
[Idiot! He transmigrated, what do you mean fake? Betty obviously came back with him!]
[Baby Satoru's world looks so cool. What is this place? Feels like a school but not a normal one.]
The comments blurred past, one after another, and the confusion turned into curiosity and anticipation.
The side story wasn't the continuation of the other world that everyone had wanted.
But the whole thing had been told from his perspective from the start.
So nobody minded much. They settled in and watched, thoroughly hooked.
From the scraps mentioned in earlier episodes, his world had Cursed Spirits and Jujutsu Sorcerers by the score.
The thought alone promised something good. Supernatural power against a modern backdrop pulled harder than fantasy in another world ever had.
Scene after scene rolled by, laying out everything he'd done since returning.
Whoever produced this had put real effort in.
He knew better than anyone how long he'd spent back home.
All of it, every last thing, compressed into a single episode.
Which meant the density was extraordinary. Not a wasted frame in it.
There was the reunion with Masamichi Yaga, the two of them sitting in the office over tea, talking easily.
There was Suguru Geto walking beside him across the Jujutsu High campus, the pair of them needling each other, both grinning like fools.
There was Betty coming home with him, being walked through everything modern life had to offer, dragged out for food and shopping and movies.
Her expressions were all there, from bewildered curiosity to settling in to genuine delight, every shift caught clearly.
There were Cursed Spirits cut down, his technique on full display, the movements sharp and the power behind them enough to send the comments into a frenzy.
There were the quieter pieces too, teaching her the basics of Jujutsu, showing her how to protect herself. Warm, and funny in places.
One thing after another drifted past, most of it small and ordinary, and all of it somehow riveting.
The reactions made that clear enough.
[HAHAHA! He's even more of a menace at home than he was in the other world. Some people never change!]
[No wonder Suguru Geto can be friends with Satoru Gojo, that guy's not normal either. Put them together and it's a perfect match!]