She held almost no real power. Against men who'd spent decades sharpening their politics, she had nothing to push back with.
None of it was her fault.
"Teacher..."
She lifted her head, and her voice caught. Her eyes had gone redder.
The determination and hope she'd carried before were gone, replaced by exhaustion and something hollow.
Someone had drained the strength straight out of her.
"Can I truly do what you've said I can?"
Doubt filled the question, and timidity, and a good deal of confusion.
She'd believed she could change this world through her own effort, that she could shelter the Initiator children everyone else discarded.
Today had landed hard.
She couldn't control the people in her own household. She couldn't keep her own council chamber standing. What business did she have imagining the rest?
The girl who'd been so full of conviction spoke now in a voice with nothing behind it.
She'd always assumed that good intentions plus honest work had to move something.
Set against entrenched power and rules rotted through, her intentions and her work amounted to nothing.
Not even a ripple on the surface.
What Takuto Yasuwaki had done cut deepest of all.
She'd chosen him herself. One of the few guards near her she'd counted as reliable.
She'd taken him for a decent man, and he'd gone behind her back to commit something unforgivable.
Now she doubted everyone around her, and worse, she doubted her own judgment.
She couldn't work out why wanting something so simple had bought her betrayal and lies.
Maybe nobody in this world could be trusted at all.
"Of course you can."
No hesitation whatsoever in his voice.
He said it the way a person states the obvious.
"There's nothing worth agonizing over. This is a straightforward problem, isn't it?"
He smiled at her, relaxed, treating the thing that had crushed her as a chore he could handle between errands.
The smile was bright and warm, and it carried a steadiness that settled the room.
While he stood there, nothing seemed unsolvable.
"Take the simplest route. If something like this happens again, do you know what to do?"
He held her eyes as he asked, guiding her toward it.
She thought for a long while, then gave a bitter shake of her head.
Her head dropped. Her mind churned through option after option, and each one collapsed on inspection.
At last she looked up and shook her head, lost.
"I don't know."
Barely a whisper, thick with helplessness.
"Kill every one of the Higher-ups."
The smile stayed on his face while he said something that curdled the air.
The office went still.
Even Sumire blinked, caught off guard by how blunt the answer had come out.
"Kill... all of them?"
Her eyes flew wide, disbelief written across her face.
Her voice shook and stumbled over itself, as though he'd proposed something out of a fever dream.
She'd never had the heart to crush an ant.
Slaughtering the entire leadership of the Tokyo Area sat so far outside her world that her mind refused to hold it.
She swayed on her feet, color draining from her face.
"Yes."
He nodded, unbothered.
"Clear out the current crop. Put new people in."
He might have been recommending a change of tablecloths.
Those men had rotted from the core outward. Nothing was going to reform them.
Replace them. That was the whole solution.
"And if the new ones repeat the same mistakes, do it again."
Killing people registered with him at roughly the weight of changing a shirt.
Anyone willing to shove children out to die was someone he was willing to remove. Once, twice, three times, as many rounds as it took until nobody dared try.
"Ah... but that would..."
She never finished, though the refusal on her face said the rest.
Something in her couldn't accept a solution built out of violence.
However corrupt those men were, killing them wasn't the answer. It broke the law. It broke everything she stood on.
Facing a choice like this for the first time, she had no idea where to put her feet.
Her thoughts tangled.
On one side, the direct answer he'd handed her.
On the other, principles and a decency she'd held onto for as long as she could remember.
She didn't know which to choose, or which was right.
"So train your magic properly. If you mean to take care of those children."
The smile faded and he met her eyes, serious now.
He'd given her the simple route knowing full well she'd never walk it.
Which left one path. Protecting what she wanted to protect, changing this world, all of it ran through becoming strong enough.
Strong enough to hold those men in check. Strong enough that nobody dared cross her.
The grin returned, and the lightness with it.
He had no interest in loading more weight onto a girl already buckling.
One step, then another. One bite at a time.
As long as she wanted it, she'd get there.
"By the way, I'll go take a look at that relic business."
The change of subject came out offhand, tossed over his shoulder.
"The children from the 39th Area are moving tomorrow. You should come see."
A suggestion, lightly placed.
He knew she'd wanted contact with the Initiator children, wanted to know them and shield them.
Moving day made a good opening.
She nodded before her mind caught up.
The words about killing the Higher-ups still had her reeling, and her thoughts hadn't reassembled.
So she nodded like an obedient schoolgirl.
"Wait, teacher, you said you weren't interested in the relic..."
Her head snapped up as it registered, surprise breaking across her face.
She'd heard him. He hadn't wanted anything to do with it.
Now he'd turned around entirely.
"Him? He never says what he means."
Sumire jumped in, grinning.
With her laboratory practically in hand and a front-row seat to Satoru fighting a Gastrea, her mood had gone through the ceiling.
Both prizes at once. Combat data she'd been starving for, and the top-tier lab he'd promised her, now days from becoming real.
"He can't stand pointless deaths."
She turned to the girl, still smiling.
"That thing has run a long way out. If those Civil Security teams have to bring it back on their own, there's no telling how many won't come home."
The last part came out serious.
The hollowness in Seitenshi's face gave way. She tugged her mouth into a small smile aimed at him.
Whatever had been weighing on her lifted considerably.
Light came back into her eyes.
She understood at last. However careless he acted, he was gentler underneath than anyone she'd met.
"Thank you, teacher..."
Gratitude thickened her voice, and something caught in it as she bowed deeply again.
"If you want to thank me, pull yourself together."
He waved it away, easy, reassuring.
"Keep training and you'll reach where I am eventually. Then you can handle every bit of trouble yourself."
Encouragement plain in it.
If the girl kept at it, she'd have the strength to protect herself and everyone else besides.
A phone chimed, breaking the quiet again.
He raised an eyebrow, pulled it out, glanced at the display, and a knowing smile crossed his face.
"Right then."
Pocketing it, he stood and brushed off his clothes.
"That's about everything. Nothing else pressing, so we'll head off."
He gave her a wave.
"Oh, and I broke your ceiling. I don't have to pay for that, do I?"
He turned back, teasing.
That was what finally did it. A laugh burst out of her.
Every bit of the hurt, the loneliness, the fear went with it.
She'd never met anyone who combined absurd strength with such thorough childishness.
"Of course not, teacher."
She shook her head, smiling, and the gratitude ran underneath.
Forget the ceiling. He could have taken the Holy Residence apart brick by brick and she wouldn't have voiced a complaint.
He'd already given her more than she could repay.
"We're off."
He waved once more and headed for the door.
Betty hopped off the sofa and trotted after him.
Sumire grabbed her coat and followed, excitement she made no effort to hide sitting all over her face.
Out in the corridor he checked the screen again. Rentaro Satomi.
He leaned against the wall and put the phone to his ear.
"Rentaro. Something up?"
Idle amusement in the greeting.
"Gojo, did you get the alert about the Gastrea?"
Noise crowded the line behind him, voices overlapping, gear knocking against gear.
He'd clearly started prepping to move out.
Urgency in his voice, and unease underneath it.
"Got it." He stayed leaned against the wall, unhurried.
"Are you coming?"
Rentaro's grip tightened on his phone, hope leaking into the question.
He understood exactly how bad this one looked.
With Satoru along, the odds shifted enormously and far fewer people died.
Enju Aihara crowded in beside him and pressed her ear to the phone, listening with her face lit up.
"I am. A certain researcher spent a long while begging me, very sincerely, for a close-up view of me fighting a Gastrea."
He turned his head toward Sumire and raised his voice deliberately.
"So you see, I had no choice but to agree."
He held the deadpan while barely containing himself.
"Excuse me, when exactly did I beg you for anything?"
She rounded on him, indignant.
Laughter sat underneath it anyway.
On the other end, Rentaro let out a long breath, and the tension went out of his shoulders.
The weight that had been sitting on his chest finally dropped, and relief spread across his face.
If Satoru came, the mission had a chance.
Nobody could blame him for the reaction. This one crossed into territory he'd never worked before.
Years as Civil Security, more high-risk assignments than he could count.
Never once had he been asked to push twenty kilometers past the Monolith to kill a Stage 4 Gastrea.
The mission and a suicide run read identically on paper.
Twenty kilometers beyond the wall.
At that distance there was no backup, no resupply, and no way home.