[It's not Re:Zero season two, but this looks fun as hell!]
[If the trailer alone is this good, I can't wait for the real thing.]
[So many little girls. Loli fans, rejoice.]
[Loli fan +1!]
[When does the actual series drop? They didn't even give us a date.]
[Why worry? Re:Zero updated constantly. Update speed is the last thing I'd stress about, it'll be here soon!]
Satoru watched the comments race across the virtual screen, thumbing the edge of the panel, one corner of his mouth tugging up.
The black glasses hid whatever was behind his eyes. All that showed was a clean jawline and that slight lift at his lips.
From a pure spectator's seat, sure, it all looked entertaining.
Laughter in those clips, blood pumping, close calls that always resolved. Enough to hook anybody.
But the reality of it.
His fingers tightened a fraction, and beneath the blindfold his eyes darkened.
All of it had turned countless innocent girls into Cursed Children, and buried countless ordinary people under the claws of Gastrea.
Those girls should have had childhoods without worry. Instead they carried a label that read "cursed" and scraped by on fear and contempt.
Those ordinary people had lived plain lives right up until something tore them apart without warning, without leaving them a second to struggle.
Whatever despair the trailer worked to convey didn't reach one percent of the real thing.
Real despair was cold soaked into the marrow. It was wailing with nothing behind it. It was watching people you knew drop one after another and having no way to pull them back.
Still.
Reading the eagerness packed into those scrolling lines, he felt the weight settle, and underneath it, a quiet flicker of satisfaction.
Weight, because this world held more suffering than he could stomach. Enough that even he, used to controlling everything he touched, felt the edge of powerlessness.
Satisfaction, because if the comments were any indication, Black Bullet would pull a serious audience once it started airing.
Which meant Popularity Points would come easier.
More points meant his strength stayed intact, which meant less effort spent shielding the people he wanted to shield, and rewriting the tragedy running through this place.
One last look at the number ticking on the panel, then a flick of his finger closed it.
"Where are we going now?"
Betty walked at his side, her elaborate outfit lending her a cool, remote air. She turned her head and asked it softly.
Her voice stayed level, though something faintly dependent ran under it. In a world this foreign, he was the only person she trusted.
"To find Rentaro Satomi?"
He glanced up at the sun, light dropping through the leaves and dappling across him.
Close to noon, and the warmth of it made a person want to slow down.
"Let's go, though I don't know if we'll catch them."
Easy tone, unhurried steps, not a trace of urgency in him.
"If we miss it, no harm done. We can ask whether your drones are ready."
He said it with his hands in his pockets, walking light.
This world differed from Re:Zero in fundamental ways.
There, a string of accidents had dragged him into the royal selection, and after that the trouble had never let up.
Everything tangled together until quiet days were scarce and each one ran on travel and combat.
Here, it worked differently.
With the Monoliths standing, Gastrea wouldn't flood the city unless they launched a full-scale assault. Their numbers inside stayed low, their appearances infrequent. He understood what the Monoliths were: the barrier this world leaned on, the reason ordinary people got to keep living.
Without them, a dozen Gastrea appearing at once could level a district on destructive power alone and set off a disaster nobody could contain.
Which also meant that hanging around the protagonist wouldn't produce many chances to show off or bank Popularity Points.
So he hadn't bothered orbiting Rentaro Satomi much lately.
Better to spend the time on something with weight behind it. Building the research facility. Gathering up the Cursed Children scattered across the city.
They walked out of the 39th Area and found a taxi idling at the intersection. He got the door first and waved the others in.
"Holy Residence."
The destination delivered, he settled back against the seat and closed his eyes, the picture of a man with nowhere to be.
Sumire and Betty took the back. Sumire bent over her tablet, absorbed in something. Betty watched the streets blur past, eyes unfocused.
The ride went smooth. Buildings staggered by outside, patrolling Civil Security here and there, ordinary people walking in pairs. Peaceful, all of it.
Under that peace sat a danger nobody talked about, because nobody could say whether the next second would bring a Gastrea through the Monolith line and into the city.
The car pulled up beneath the Holy Residence a little past noon.
Sunlight glanced off the white walls and threw back a glare sharp enough to hurt.
He stepped out and something crunched under his shoe.
He stopped and looked down.
"Tempered glass?"
Crouching, he picked up a fragment and rolled it between his fingers. The edge was razor-thin, catching cold light.
"Car accident?" He moved to the curb, gaze sweeping the area, and the anomaly turned up fast.
Glass littered the ground in front of the tower, scattered thin and wide, like someone had dropped an entire tempered pane from a great height.
The debris covered a decent stretch, and a few staff members were picking through it with careful hands and grim faces.
He tilted his head back and scanned upward.
The building climbed into the sky, floor stacked on floor. His eyes ran over it and locked onto one point.
Near the top, a window had lost its glass entirely.
Nothing covered the gap. Only a black opening, a mouth held shut about what had happened behind it.
"Well. Seems we missed something."
He snorted, tossed the fragment aside, pulled out his phone and dialed Rentaro Satomi from memory.
Two rings, then a pickup.
"Hello, hello, I'm downstairs at the Holy Residence. Is your meeting over? How'd it go? Did something interesting happen?"
The words came out of him like a burst from a machine gun, no space left for an answer, curiosity bright in every syllable, oblivious to whatever was wrong on the other end.
"Something happened, yeah."
Rentaro's voice came through as low as ever, though the steadiness had cracks in it now, worn and grim.
Whatever had gone on had cost him.
"If you want to know, come up and see for yourself."
Satoru raised an eyebrow at the tone.
"Oh? Sounds lively. Wait right there, I'm on my way."
He hung up and waved the other two over. "Come on, upstairs. Something fun happened, apparently."
Floor and room number confirmed, he led Betty and Sumire into the elevator.
Numbers climbed steadily and the doors opened on the right floor.
The corridor carried a thin smell of blood layered under disinfectant, and the combination sat badly in the throat.
Guards stood along the hall, faces hard, eyes tracking everyone who passed. Tension pulled the air tight.
None of it registered on him. He walked straight for the conference room with the two of them behind.
The door hung ajar, and broken conversation and low groans drifted through the gap.
He pushed it open and stepped in.
Blood hit him at once, far heavier here than in the hall.
His brow creased. Behind the blindfold his eyes swept the room.
Wreckage everywhere. Nothing about it was easy to look at.
Brass shell casings blanketed the floor so thickly they might have been carpet, some of them still warm.
Bullet holes pocked the walls in every size, several ringed with black powder burns, the plaster chewed to ruin.
Blood spattered the ground in patches, some dried to near black, some still wet and shining, freshly thrown.
Chairs lay toppled with their legs snapped, cushions caked in dust and blood. A couple had been smashed to splinters.
Medics worked over the wounded Civil Security operatives with careful hands, exhaustion plain on their faces, sweat beading along their hairlines.
The injured sat or lay where they'd been put. Some had gone paper white, jaws locked against the pain. Others had slipped under entirely, blood still tracing from the corners of their mouths.
Every detail said the same thing without saying it. A vicious fight had gone through this room minutes ago.
"Weren't these supposed to be Tokyo's top-ranked Civil Security? They look pretty rough."
He surveyed the standing, the lying, the ones being worked on, curiosity in his voice and something needling under it. To him, these so-called elites amounted to very little.
"A rabble."
Betty stood at his shoulder with her arms folded and delivered it flat, contempt undisguised.
The thought that it might earn her enemies, especially in a room where everyone was already wrung out, never crossed her mind.
Heads came up on cue, glares from every direction.
The lightly wounded, the ones still able to move, fixed her with hard stares, and a few clenched their fists like they meant to come over and settle it.
They ranked among Tokyo's best and were treated accordingly. Nobody dismissed them like that.
Betty didn't spare them so much as a glance. The scorn stayed exactly where it was.
Not unreasonable scorn, from her side of things. Operatives like these were so weak they'd fold at a touch.
Forget Satoru. She could clear the room with one finger.
Rentaro and Kisara Tendo hurried over through the crowd, Enju Aihara in tow.
Tiredness dragged at Rentaro's face, his clothes disheveled and marked with blood. He'd been in it.
Kisara looked no better, brow drawn tight, her expression heavy.
"Hey there. Looks like I missed the party."
He greeted the three of them with a grin, unbothered by everything the room was radiating.
Kisara stepped in fast, caught his sleeve and started hauling him toward the door.
"Shh. This is not the moment for saying things that'll get a mob after you."
She kept her voice down, urgency running through it, terrified he'd open his mouth again and create a problem nobody needed.
"What? Me? I didn't say anything. That was Betty."
He shrugged, all innocence, aiming for wounded.
"Same difference."
She rolled her eyes, tightened her grip and picked up the pace, towing the lot of them out.
Around the corner of the corridor, out of sight of the room, she finally stopped and let out a breath.
"What happened in there? It looks like a war zone. Don't tell me you all started brawling over who got the assignment."
Sumire pushed her glasses up, brow furrowed, and put the question to Rentaro quietly.
Years in a laboratory meant scenes like that weren't foreign to her, but they still landed.
"No."