The moment boots touched ground, they'd be facing an endless stream of Gastrea, plus that one nightmare sitting at Stage 4.
One mistake and the whole force went into the dirt.
Even a child could grasp that much.
Enju Aihara, standing right beside him, understood it too. She'd stayed quiet the whole way, none of her usual noise, which said everything about how heavy this felt.
Civil Security operators who worked the front line year after year knew better than anyone what lay past the Monolith.
They knew what twenty kilometers meant.
Which was why he wanted Satoru Gojo on this so badly.
"You're heading out now?"
Satoru looked down at the packed rows of towers outside the window, at the traffic threading through the streets below, fingertips tapping the sill without thinking.
"Yes. We're short on time. Everyone's converging on the staging point."
Rentaro's voice came fast and clipped. Behind it, soldiers shouting, horns, the heavy chop of rotors spinning up. The urgency carried straight down the line.
"Send me the address. I'll come to you."
He turned as he spoke, gave Betty and Sumire a small nod, and started toward the edge of the rooftop with a light step and a faint smile.
The call ended. A second later the address arrived, pinning the staging area precisely.
He glanced at the screen, swiped once, pocketed the phone, and lifted his chin toward the other two. "Let's go. It's not far."
He launched first. Betty and Sumire went up behind him, and the three of them punched through the cloud layer like arrows off a string, leaving nothing on the rooftop but wind tugging at empty air.
Sunglasses still on, smile still in place, he rode the high-altitude gale as if it were a spring breeze.
Before long the three descended toward a crowded encampment sprawled across open ground. The Civil Security rally point.
Temporary cordons ringed the perimeter. Dozens of helicopters sat lined up on the flat. Uniformed soldiers moved between them, checking gear, counting heads, testing comms, every face grim. The air had a compressed, waiting quality.
Rentaro and Enju already stood at the entrance, glancing off toward the horizon every few seconds, clearly watching for them.
Neither had expected an arrival quite this theatrical.
They weren't the only ones present. Other Civil Security pairs filled the ground, along with the soldiers assigned to transport them. Well over a hundred people.
Into all that motion and purpose, three figures drifted down out of the sky like something divine that had wandered into the wrong world.
The camp stopped.
Every hand went still. Every eye locked onto them, filled with shock, confusion, curiosity, and a thin edge of wariness. Men traded looks and muttered to each other, disbelief plain on their faces.
Satoru and Betty's abilities, the sheer scale of what they could do, had been known to almost no one. Rentaro, Enju, a handful of others, and the leadership of Tokyo. Nothing more.
The information had been sealed. They'd avoided using their power in front of ordinary people, and had certainly never announced themselves like this.
Now the lid came off entirely, in front of everyone.
Telling the world plainly that people with power like this existed.
Rentaro didn't need to turn around to picture the expressions behind him. The collective hiss of indrawn breath made it clear enough.
"Is that some new equipment?"
A young soldier recovered first, pointing at the three descending figures, a tremor running through his voice. He'd never seen anyone fly without a single piece of gear on them.
"There's nothing on them. No pack, no thrusters, nothing. How is that even possible?"
Another soldier squinted, studying them, and nudged the man beside him, hoping someone had an explanation that made sense.
"Even the New Human Creation Plan couldn't manage that, could it? Where's the energy coming from? Some new power source nobody told us about?"
A man in Civil Security colors muttered it half to himself, eyes narrowed, trying to force the impossible into a scientific frame.
"Quit guessing. Couldn't it just be that Initiator's ability?"
Another one gestured at Betty, tone uncertain.
To him, an Initiator was the only plausible source. They carried spliced animal cells, and their abilities ran the whole spectrum.
"You're talking nonsense too. Which Initiator has an ability like that? I've worked alongside eighty of them, maybe a hundred, and I've never once seen anything that lets a person fly."
The reply came fast and dismissive. Years in the field had given the man a thorough catalogue of what Initiators could do, and flight had never appeared in it.
"Right. They're spliced with animal cells, not handed superpowers. Speed, strength, animal traits. That's the ceiling. Flying doesn't fit any of it."
The man agreeing had a cat-model Initiator at his side, and she was staring up at Betty with her head tipped all the way back, eyes wide with curiosity.
The muttering swelled and spread. The silence broke, and the camp came alive again, though every conversation now orbited the same three people.
The entire operation had ground to a halt over their arrival. A hundred pairs of eyes tracked them, guessing at who they were and what they could do.
Under all that attention, Satoru showed no trace of self-consciousness. He might have been born into it.
He behaved more like a celebrity spotting a crowd of fans, grinning wide, waving cheerfully at people he'd never met in his life.
The three touched down and settled onto solid ground.
Rentaro stepped forward, mouth already opening to greet them.
Satoru said a few words into his phone first, then hung up.
"Quite the turnout. Lively."
He raised his head and let his gaze travel over the assembled crowd, easy amusement in his voice as he addressed Rentaro.
He took in the operators and soldiers, the neat lines of helicopters, the cordons strung around the perimeter, without a trace of tension anywhere in him.
"Is this really all right?"
Rentaro followed his line of sight to the crowd still buzzing away, and his brow drew tighter. He kept his voice low, worry threading through it.
Displaying that kind of power so openly seemed like an invitation to trouble.
"Is what all right?"
Satoru said it offhandedly, smile unchanged, apparently missing the point entirely.
He scratched at his white hair, then his face cleared and he smacked his own forehead with a laugh. "Oh, you mean just now. It's fine. Nothing worth getting worked up about."
Rentaro didn't know yet what had happened at the Holy Residence. If he had, he'd never have asked.
A man who'd executed a Second Lieutenant in front of the entire Tokyo leadership, then threatened them all without leaving a shred of their dignity intact, was not going to lose sleep over a hundred witnesses.
The way Satoru saw it, letting these people see what he could do only helped. It would make the next few hours easier to run, with fewer arguments and fewer people dragging their feet.
"Besides, they'll find out sooner or later. Might as well let them get used to it early."
He glanced around at the faces still frozen somewhere between shock and confusion, tossing the words out like they cost nothing.
Let them adjust. Let them understand that with him here, this operation had better odds.
"Who's running this thing?"
He turned back to Rentaro.
"Colonel Sato of the Self-Defense Forces has the transport operation. He's over there getting supplies loaded. We can move any time."
Rentaro answered quickly, pointing toward a tall man in uniform near one of the helicopters, issuing orders to the soldiers around him, expression severe.
"Not the transport. After we're past the Monolith, who's commanding the fighting?"
Satoru shook his head lightly, cutting him off, tone still relaxed. Getting there wasn't the problem. What happened once they landed was.
"Outside?"
Rentaro blinked. The question clearly hadn't occurred to him. He frowned, thought it through, then shook his head. "Civil Security teams work alone. Large coordinated operations barely ever happen."
"So once we're past the Monolith there's no clear chain of command on the ground. Everyone carries a comm unit, and there's staff in the rear handling some dispatch and coordination. If someone hits trouble, they call for support over the radio."
He explained it patiently, resignation creeping in. He knew perfectly well what an operation this size looked like without a commander. Chaos, then casualties.
But operators had spent their careers working solo. Each one had their own style, their own logic, and getting them to fall in behind a single voice had never worked. It was the standing flaw in how Civil Security functioned.
"I see."
Satoru nodded, understanding settling across his face. He rubbed his chin. "Then I know what to do."
No command structure wouldn't fly.
He had no intention of playing sheepdog out there, chasing scattered operators down one at a time.
"Is everyone here?"
His voice came out serious this time as he scanned the camp. He wanted a head count so he could set the plan. Time was short.
Rentaro gave a helpless shake of his head and a rueful smile. "I only got here myself a few minutes ago. Even if you ask, I don't know. I haven't had a chance to count anyone." He hadn't linked up with the man in charge yet, hadn't tallied the operators or the soldiers, and had nothing accurate to offer.
"What are you actually getting at? This is starting to feel weird."
Enju had been standing at Rentaro's side through the whole exchange. She tilted her head, staring at Satoru with open bewilderment.
Questions about command, then questions about numbers. None of it matched the man who usually drifted through everything without a care.
The way she saw it, everyone went out together, everyone killed Gastrea, done. No need to complicate it.
"It's nothing much, really."
He turned toward her, eyes crinkling.
"I just want to keep everyone safe. This one's dangerous. Past the Monolith it's Gastrea in every direction, and without someone calling the shots, accidents happen."
He paused, and the next words carried real weight underneath, despite how careless he usually seemed.