"Using something like that. Aren't they afraid it turns on them and leaves nothing to bury?"
Nobody ordinary could have pulled this off. No ordinary faction, either. Only someone high in the government would have access to the Legacy of Nanase Village, the reach to arrange a chain of events like this, and the nerve to gamble on that scale.
Regular people wouldn't have heard the name, let alone touched the thing. Steering a Gastrea into carrying it off was another order of impossible.
"Seitenshi. Any thoughts on this?"
He turned to her, serious now. He wanted to know whether she suspected anyone, whether any thread existed to pull.
Her mouth opened, then closed. Whatever suspicion she'd started to voice went back down her throat, and something apologetic crossed her face.
"I don't know what to tell you. All of it reached me after the fact. I knew nothing beforehand."
The ruler of Tokyo, kept in the dark until the artifact was already gone, then informed like an afterthought.
Helpless. Guilty. And underneath both of those, angry.
Something this severe, and no one had thought her worth telling until the damage was finished. Even a temperament as mild as hers had a limit, and heat rose behind her ribs.
"Think about the other Higher-ups. Does any of them have a reason to want this?"
He didn't scold her and didn't coddle her. He steered, patient and even. "The ones who fight you at every turn. The ones circling your seat. The ones who've buried the New Gastrea Law every time you've raised it."
She was kind and soft, but she wasn't stupid. Her kindness was the cage. She didn't want to suspect the people around her, didn't want to believe the Higher-ups would do something this monstrous for their own gain.
Her brows knit. Face after face surfaced in her memory, each one's habits and expressions turned over and examined, searching for a motive that fit.
Nothing came. No one she could picture going that far.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Gojo. I've got nothing."
She shook her head, regret in it. "Kikunojou Tendo and I have been at odds over the New Gastrea Law for a long time. We argue constantly. But that's a small thing."
"Disagreement is routine at that level. Every year brings countless bills, and countless bills die after a few loud sessions. That's ordinary."
"Building a conspiracy this terrible over it, wanting the whole city destroyed... I can't believe he'd do that."
Kikunojou opposed her, yes, and pursued his own interests and his own power. But risking Tokyo itself, risking every life in it, made no sense for a man like that.
"If nothing comes to mind, leave it."
He waved it off, unconcerned. He had a working sense of how politicians operated. "They'll do plenty of ugly things to get what they want. But every last one of them shares a trait. They're terrified of dying."
"The higher they climb, the more power and money they stack up, the more precious their own skin becomes."
He didn't believe for a second that men like that would take everyone down with them, wager their lives, or burn everything they'd built. Whoever was behind this wanted something. A seizure of power, control over the city, something they couldn't say out loud. Not annihilation.
If Tokyo fell, everything they owned went with it, and they'd likely die alongside it. There was no profit in ashes.
"Don't lose sleep over this. It won't amount to much."
He softened, watching the worry still sitting on her. "If real trouble shows up, if a Stage 5 Gastrea comes calling, phone me. I'll handle it."
A Stage 5 Gastrea was an inconvenience where he and Betty were concerned, nothing close to unmanageable. If one came, he'd put it down and keep the city standing, along with everyone near him and every Cursed Child in it.
Her shoulders came down. The worry thinned out of her face, replaced by something steadier.
Compared to anyone else, compared to the finest Civil Security Tokyo could assemble, the strength he'd already shown carried a different weight entirely.
He didn't make empty claims. If he said it, he could do it. With him here, nothing was unsolvable, and Tokyo wasn't going to burn.
"Understood. I'll get the laboratory and the orphanage moving quickly. Everything else I'll leave in your hands."
Gratitude and trust ran through her voice. She held his gaze, and something firm had settled behind her eyes. "And I'll train harder. I don't want to stand and watch, powerless, ever again."
"Good."
He grinned and gave her a thumbs up, nothing in his voice but confidence. "You're my first student. Relax. I've got this, and those kids aren't going to suffer any longer."
With everything settled, he collected Betty, Sumire, and Aii, and left the Holy Residence.
The sun had dropped low. Gold light spilled across the palace roof and down through the streets, gilding the whole city, warm in a way it rarely looked.
The car was quiet on the way back. Aii dozed against Betty's shoulder, a sweet smile still on her face. The day had left her feeling safe, and happy, in a way she wasn't used to.
Sumire sat with her equipment list, flipping through it now and then, anticipation showing. Once the laboratory came together and the instruments arrived, she could start. She could begin hunting for a way to stop Cursed Children from turning into Gastrea.
Gojo leaned against the window, watching the city slide past. Get the orphanage built. Get the laboratory built. Bring every child in the 39th Area out of those tunnels and give them somewhere warm.
Half an hour later the car pulled up beneath the apartment building. He woke Aii gently and led them all inside.
Rentaro Satomi, Enju Aihara, and Kisara had beaten them home. All three were in the kitchen working on dinner, which meant nobody had drawn a job today.
The smell of cooking filled the apartment, warm and close. Next to the grandeur of the Holy Residence, this place had smoke and steam and the feel of somewhere people actually lived.
"Mr. Gojo, you're back?"
Enju came running at the sound of the door, and curiosity took over her face the moment she spotted Aii behind them.
He gave them the short version of where she'd come from.
Once they understood, all three looked at the girl with plain pity.
Cursed Children had grim lives across the board, but few as grim as hers. Blindness alone broke grown adults. She'd carried it at that age.
"We went out to the 39th Area today. There are a lot of children living down in the drainage tunnels, and it's rough. Once we get more food and supplies out there, it should start improving."
"When the laboratory is finished, I'm going to bring all of them out, Elder Matsuzaki included. After that we take in more, a few at a time."
Over dinner he laid out the day and what he intended to do about it.
"Really? But there are so many kids like me out there."
Enju's eyes lit up, excitement breaking through before she could rein it in. She leaned forward, fingers tightening on the hem of her shirt without noticing.
She knew better than anyone what those lives looked like.
She remembered huddling at the mouth of a freezing alley, never full, never warm, always braced for the disgusted stares and the shouts driving her off. That fear hadn't left her.
If she hadn't gotten lucky, if her Initiator powers hadn't awakened, if Rentaro Satomi hadn't found her and given her somewhere to land, she'd be where the rest of them were. Rotting in some damp corner, one bad night away from starving, freezing, or being beaten out of existence.
If his plan worked, girls like her would never have to beg for a meal again.
They wouldn't have to hide what they were or brace for fists because of it.
They wouldn't have to watch their Corrosion Rate climb toward the day they lost themselves and became one of those mindless things.
Light gathered in her eyes, and her smile came out bright and unguarded.
"Of course."
He tilted back in his chair, chin propped on one hand, tone as casual as if he'd promised to pick up groceries. Underneath it, something serious.
"We take it slow."
"From what we can tell, there are a few tens of thousands of Cursed Children across Tokyo. That's not an impossible number. Push it forward step by step and we'll get all of them settled."
"Can you actually make that happen?"
Rentaro, who'd said almost nothing all evening, finally looked up. Caution edged his voice, and his brows drew together.
His hands sat folded on the table, fingertips rubbing absently against each other while he worked through the logistics.
"Too many people in this world hate them. Politicians at the top, ordinary citizens at the bottom. Most of them look at those girls and see monsters. Bad omens."
"Do this loudly, even with Seitenshi backing you, and people will line up to stop it. It could turn into something worse."
"Doesn't matter."
While he spoke, his eyes drifted toward Betty, head down over her soup. He shot a hand out, lifted a piece of tamagoyaki off the edge of her bowl, and had it in his mouth before she looked up, a smear of sauce at the corner of his lips.
"I do what I want to do. What's that got to do with them? They can object all they like. I'm not dropping something I've decided on because of other people's opinions."
"Still, it's going to be difficult on Seitenshi's end."
Kisara Tendo lifted her teacup and took a small sip, expression thoughtful, fingers tapping absently against the porcelain.
She'd grown up as the Tendo heiress, surrounded by those politicians since childhood. Their flattery, their maneuvering, their bottomless appetite for profit. She knew exactly how they operated.