Silence. A void devoid of sound, filled with an oppressive weight.
The pounding of their own heartbeats echoed louder than expected.
Friedrich Weiss—ever cold, ever rational—absently adjusted his glasses, nudging them up the bridge of his nose.
Chains of logic were already forming in his mind.
If Keito isn't lying, who else knows about this?
If it's true, who benefits from resurrecting it?
And if we're involved, what's our role in this?
He felt the familiar world crumbling beneath him. The ground seemed to slip away, leaving a creeping sense of sinking into an unknown quagmire.
Yamato Reijiro took a deep breath.
Of course, he'd heard of cults, artifacts, and ancient beings. But he'd always dismissed them as the ravings of madmen or bedtime stories for children.
Keito, however, was no child.
And he was far from mad.
His voice was too calm, too certain, for his words to be mere nonsense.
Richard Winters wiped a dry smile from his lips, trying to mask his unease.
Like the others, a quiet dread was stirring within him.
But as a diplomat, he knew one truth: fear could be a weapon.
Yet now, it seemed that weapon was turned against him.
And then—
"Absurd," a heavy voice cut through the air.
Zhao Meili.
The very same Zhao Meili, so recently humiliated in front of them all, now sat with a face as cold and unreadable as stone.
She didn't move. Didn't blink.
"Childish fairy tales," she said coolly.
Her voice was cold, but… it held no mockery. Only calculation. Zhao Meili stared at Keito, a predator sizing him up—prey, or another beast better left untouched?
Keito slowly turned his head toward her.
"So, you don't fear what you don't understand?"
Zhao tilted her chin slightly.
"I only fear reality. And even then, not always."
Her lips curved into a faint smile. Only Catherine, seated slightly to the side, noticed Zhao's hand subtly brush her knee, as if wiping away invisible sweat.
Elena Gromova clasped her hands tightly in her lap, hiding her tension.
Haruko… simply watched in silence. But her gaze was different.
She believed.
A knock sounded at the door.
A light, almost delicate sound. In any other moment, it might have gone unnoticed, but now, with the tension in the room at its breaking point, the knock rang out like a gunshot.
The door opened softly, and she appeared in the doorway.
Her beauty was too perfect to be natural. As if a master artist had painted her, not on canvas, but in reality—crafted with just enough flawlessness to remain human, yet tinged with something… otherworldly. Flawless skin, graceful movements, a voice cold and impeccably refined.
"Director."
That single word was enough to make the room's atmosphere coil tighter, like a spring on the verge of snapping.
"The Prime Minister of Japan has arrived."
Dead silence.
Utter, absolute, dead.
If a glass had slipped from someone's hand at that moment, the sound of it shattering would've echoed like thunder through the room—that's how still everyone was.
Ludwig Dupont and Friedrich Weiss were the first to react. Ludwig choked, as if the air itself had caught in his throat. Friedrich, instinctively reaching for his glasses, pressed hard against the bridge of his nose, as if trying to convince himself he hadn't misheard.
"What the… hell?" Richard Winters muttered, and for once, no one judged his crudeness.
Yamato Reijiro, the Japanese man expected to uphold dignity before his country's prime minister, looked like he'd just been told his grandmother had won an MMA tournament.
Elena Gromova, Catherine, and Haruko exchanged glances, their eyes screaming one shared thought: What the hell is going on?!
Zhao Meili remained silent. Only her predatory eyes tracked Keito, as if she were finally piecing together something crucial.
And Keito himself?
He merely sighed.
As if he'd been invited not to a meeting with the nation's highest official, but to some mundane homeowners' association gathering.
"Calm down, ladies and gentlemen."
His voice was almost lazy, but beneath that laziness lurked steel.
He took a few steps, passing by the tables, the frozen figures, and the burning questions in their eyes.
For a moment, he paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder.
"Wait here. I'll be back soon."
And with that, he vanished through the doorway.
His flawless attendant followed him, and the door closed so softly that the sound was barely audible.
A deathly silence settled over the room.
It wasn't until several seconds later that Reijiro let out a hoarse breath.
"Was that… normal just now?!"
No one knew how to respond.
The moment the door shut behind Keito, no one spoke right away.
Richard Winters was the first to break the silence.
"What the hell was that?!"
He ran a hand through his hair with force, clearly at a loss for how to even process it.
Friedrich Weiss, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, leaned back in his chair, looking like he'd just been hit by a truck.
"This… this isn't real."
"And what part of this has felt real to you so far?" Yamato Reijiro shot back with a smirk, though his voice lacked its usual sarcasm. He was trying to mask his tension, but his fingers betrayed him, tapping restlessly on the table.
Elena Gromova crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze darkening as she stared toward the door.
"So, he can just summon people like the prime minister to him?"
"Who even is this guy?" Catherine snapped, tossing her hair back. "We still don't have a clue who Keito really is."
"Oh, we know," Haruko muttered with a dry chuckle. "He's a being who can turn us all into pawns on his chessboard whenever he feels like it."
Zhao Meili sat in silence, but the way her long nails scratched at the table's surface betrayed the fury simmering within her.
"Bastard," she muttered under her breath.
"Oh? First time I've heard you talk about a man without flirting," Ludwig Dupont remarked with a smirk, but his grin faded the moment she shot him an icy glare.
"Why the hell didn't he even let me speak?" Meili pressed on, ignoring his comment. "Like I'm nobody!"
"Because to him, you are nobody," Elena Gromova said bluntly.
All eyes snapped to her.
"He doesn't see you as worth his time."
Zhao Meili's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Are you implying he sees something worthwhile in you?"
"I'm saying he only sees what matters to him."
"Enough!" Sergei roared, slamming his fist on the table. "Can someone tell me if we even realize what we've gotten ourselves into?"
Weiss adjusted his glasses, finally pulling himself together.
"We do," he said quietly. "But it's too late."
No one argued.
It was like stepping into the unknown.
"Too late, huh?" Yamato Reijiro echoed, crossing his arms. "So you've already decided there's no way out?"
Friedrich Weiss shook his head, staring thoughtfully into the distance.
"There might be a way out. But it's not in our hands."
Richard Winters licked his lips nervously.
"And whose hands is it in, then?"
Weiss's gaze drifted to the door where Keito had vanished.
"You know who."
A heavy pause settled over the room.
"Oh, come on," Ludwig Dupont muttered, kicking his feet up onto the table. "Here we are, sitting like a bunch of schoolkids, while he's out there like a professor who doesn't even need to teach the lesson. It's all already decided, isn't it?"
"You're wrong, Dupont," Elena Gromova said softly. "Keito isn't a teacher."
"Then who is he?" he asked, turning his head with curiosity.
Elena gave a cold smirk.
"A judge."
A chill rippled through the room, as if an unseen hand had brushed the air.
Zhao Meili leaned back, crossing her long legs and tapping her fingers against her elbow.
"What does it matter if he's a judge or not?" she said, irritation lacing her voice. "I don't care about relics, cults, or legends… But he dared to humiliate me in front of all of you. That, I won't forget."
"Meili," Catherine said calmly, though a faint mockery tinged her tone, "you do realize you're not the first, nor the last?"
Zhao's eyes narrowed.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You thought you could control him, but it's the other way around."
The tension in the room thickened. Zhao bit her lip but said nothing.
Yamato let out a dry chuckle.
"The real question," he said, folding his arms, "is whether we can use him the way he's using us."
"You actually believe that's possible?" Haruko shot back sharply.
"Do we have any other choice?"
No one answered.
Weiss took a deep breath and stood up.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to sit here doing nothing. We're all tangled up in this mess. And if the Prime Minister of Japan is meeting with Keito right now… the stakes are higher than we ever imagined."
Richard snorted.
"Yeah, just perfect."
He glanced at the others.
"So, what? We're all in the same boat now. Are we going to start rowing, or just wait to get sunk?"
Silence was his only answer.