Even with Haruki’s swift intervention, the newly built school and several nearby children were caught in the fringes of the bst.

  The cssroom structure was reduced to a skeleton of twisted metal and rubble, and a dozen girls y wounded. Although their regenerative factors were far superior to those of normal humans—meaning they would heal within hours—had Haruki not been there to blunt the shockwave, the casualty list would have been catastrophic.

  "It seems they’ve truly decided they want a war," Haruki said, his gaze turning colder than the void.

  He didn't care who had physically pnted the bomb. He didn't need a single name to bme. In this city, the malice directed at the Outer District wasn't held by one or two individuals—it was the collective pulse of Tokyo. The entire popuce was the enemy.

  If they wanted a conflict, he would give them one they would never forget. Haruki had always believed that when words failed, absolute violence was the only nguage left to speak.

  Two major events shook the Tokyo District to its core that week.

  The first was the death of Special Advisor Kikunojo Tendo. The culprit had been identified as the Rank 100 Promoter, Haruki Aizawa. To the people, Tendo was the architect of their recovery, the man who led them through the Gastrea War. To see him "assassinated" by a man who associated with the "monsters" ignited a powder keg of racial hatred.

  The public didn't see Promoters as heroes anymore; they saw them as dangerous conduits for the Gastrea virus. Protests turned into riots. Thugs marched on the Outer Districts, emboldened by the chaos. The man who had bombed the school was a high-ranking member of an anti-Gastrea extremist cell—a group now hailed as "patriots" by the media.

  The Seitenshi tried to calm the waters, but her voice was a whisper against a hurricane. She could only buy time as the pressure within the "pressure cooker" of Tokyo reached a breaking point.

  The second event was the steady, terrifying advance of the Stage IV Gastrea, Aldebaran.

  The monster was so close now that citizens could see the swarms of lesser Gastrea gathering like a bck tide just beyond the Monoliths. This existential threat didn't make the people more compassionate; it made them more desperate. And desperate people always look for someone weaker to crush. The Cursed Children were the perfect scapegoat for their terror.

  Everyone assumed these two crises—the internal civil unrest and the external monster invasion—were unreted coincidences.

  They were wrong.

  The next morning, the citizens of Tokyo woke up to a broadcast that repced every news anchor in the district. A stranger occupied the screen—a bck-haired man with eyes of cold violet.

  Haruki Aizawa stood before the camera, holding a high-ranking anti-Cursed Child activist by the throat. With a single, fluid motion of his bde, he ended the man’s life on live television. Before the blood could even hit the floor, Haruki began to speak.

  "My name is Haruki Aizawa. I am a former Civil Security officer, and I have a message for the people of Tokyo."

  "Just now, I purged the leaders of your 'patriotic' movements. But I know that the rot doesn't stop with them. Every one of you who cheered for the bombing of a school, every one of you who spat on a child in the street—you are the source of this malice."

  "You cim to hate the Gastrea. You cim to be filled with righteous fury. Fine. I will give you the opportunity you’ve been begging for. I will give you the chance to face the monsters you hate so much with your own two hands."

  "I am currently standing at the base of Monolith 32. In exactly sixty seconds, I will destroy it and invite Aldebaran into your streets."

  "Let a new Gastrea War begin. Let’s see how brave you are when the monsters aren't six years old and starving."

  Haruki stepped away from the camera.

  Minutes ter, a sound like the world cracking in half echoed across the district. A massive, earth-shaking boom signaled the colpse of the city's greatest shield.

  The "Pulse of Despair" began.

  Haruki had brought the apocalypse to Tokyo with his own hands.

  He had felt this coming since the day he arrived. The hatred between the "normals" and the Cursed Children was a cancer that couldn't be cured with medicine—only with fire. The Seitenshi’s dream of peaceful coexistence was a beautiful, stupid fantasy.

  Faced with a choice between the millions of people who wanted the children dead and the thousands of girls who just wanted to survive, Haruki didn't hesitate. He didn't consider the "normals" to be his kind.

  After raiding a military depot for heavy demolition charges, he had pulverized the foundations of the rgest Monolith. As the tower toppled, the magnetic field shattered.

  "Was it worth it, Haruki-san?"

  The Seitenshi found him amidst the smoking ruins of the broadcast station. Her face was pale, her white robes stained with soot.

  Haruki looked at her, his expression a mask of indifference. "I gave them what they wanted. They were so eager to fight Gastrea that they started with children. Now they can fight the real thing. I’m sure they’ll find Aldebaran’s army very... satisfying."

  "I see..."

  The Seitenshi went silent. She finally realized that Haruki wasn't a "hero" she could lean on. He was a force of nature that moved according to its own dark logic. He was a man who would burn a city to save a single life.

  And yet, despite his madness, she didn't run. She stood her ground.

  "Haruki-san," she said, her voice steadying. "I have a formal request. Not as your employer, but as the Seitenshi."

  "Go on."

  "I want you to kill Aldebaran."

  Haruki raised an eyebrow. "You want the man who let the monster in to be the one to kill it? That’s quite the contradiction."

  "It’s logic," she countered. "If Aldebaran destroys Tokyo completely, the Cursed Children will have nowhere to go. They are resilient, yes, but they are still children. They cannot maintain a power grid. They cannot produce medicine or clean water. If the city becomes a wastend, they will starve in the ruins of our civilization. You don't have the experience to raise a nation of orphans in a post-apocalyptic hellscape."

  "You have a point," Haruki admitted.

  "Then let's make a deal," she said, her eyes fshing with a new, harder light. "I have seen that my old ways were weak. From this day forward, I will rule with an iron hand. I will enact ws that make any harm against a Cursed Child a capital offense. I will grant them full citizenship, and anyone who protests will be treated as an enemy of the state. I will give you the world you want for them—but only if there is still a world left to rule."

  "Tendo is dead," Haruki noted. "The extremists are gone. There’s no one left to stop you."

  "Exactly. Tokyo is mine now. But it won't be for long if that Stage IV reaches the residential zones."

  Haruki looked toward the horizon. He could already see the massive, lumbering form of Aldebaran crossing the threshold where the Monolith once stood.

  "Fine," Haruki said, his hand resting on the hilt of his greatsword. "I’ll handle the monster. You handle the ws. If I see one more bomb, or one more child crying in the street when I get back... I’ll finish what I started and level the rest of this city."

  "Agreed."

  The contract was signed in blood and ash.

  With the fear of Haruki Aizawa hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles, the people of Tokyo offered no resistance as the Seitenshi’s new decrees were broadcast. They were too busy screaming as the first wave of Gastrea entered the city.

  Haruki turned his back on the screaming city and began his march toward the center of the invasion. Aldebaran was waiting.

  ***********************************************

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