Chapter 526: 524
The sun had set, and darkness had settled over Tokyo Area once more.
The two destroyed Monoliths stood tall again, as though they had never collapsed.
As though the Gastrea had never invaded.
But the heavy stench of blood still lingering in the streets left no doubt about the horrors of the day.
Even with the Monoliths rebuilt, it was too early to relax.
The surviving troops were conducting thorough sweeps of the city alongside the civil security force. Ironically, the military's dislike of the civil security officers had worked in their favor. After being ordered to run back and forth all day, they had suffered almost no losses.
"Why do those monsters get to go to a new world?"
"Shut your mouth! Haven't you figured out what's happening yet?"
"Oh, quit pretending! You were cursing them too! You wanted them dead just as much as... Mmph!"
Some people still directed their resentment at the Cursed Children.
Those around them blanched, then rushed forward to silence them. A few even started throwing punches.
A civil security pair witnessed the scene but made no move to intervene.
"Brother, I'm regretting it now. I should've gone with them. Just look at the kind of people we're protecting."
The young girl shook her golden twin tails, looking as though she truly regretted staying.
She was a Cursed Child too, but she had chosen not to leave.
The main reason was her biological older brother, who took good care of her. Thanks to him, her life had been far better than those of most Cursed Children.
"It's all right. You'll have another chance next year."
The young man patted his sister's head.
Still, was that other world really as wonderful as they claimed?
It probably was. With technology that powerful, he couldn't imagine what they would gain by plotting against this world.
They had even helped develop a vaccine against the Gastrea virus.
However, it wasn't something that could be easily mass-produced.
Some of its raw materials had to come from Gastrea. Their blood had to be processed to isolate the original virus, which then had to infect human genes again, or something along those lines.
He didn't really understand the details.
What mattered was that producing the medicine, both a cure for the Cursed Children and a vaccine against Gastrea infection, still required material obtained from Gastrea.
If they wanted more, they would have to venture outside and hunt the creatures themselves.
Hm?
He spotted some familiar faces. Two other civil security pairs.
Their Initiators hadn't left either.
That made sense. Both men treated their Initiators very well. The girls would never have wanted to abandon them.
"Huh? What happened to your ears? Did you take the medicine?"
"Yeah."
"But they were so fluffy and cute!"
"You just liked rubbing them."
The three Initiators began teasing one another.
Back in the operations room, Seitenshi watched the bloody scene before her with a deathly pale face.
A grandfather and granddaughter, bound by blood, were trying to kill each other.
Their duel had begun as soon as the warship from another dimension disappeared.
Both now bore obvious cuts, and blood had soaked through much of their clothing.
"Enough of these tiresome games."
Kikunojo shifted his stance as he spoke, preparing to settle everything with his next strike.
"Yes. It's time to end this."
Kisara gave him a dazzling smile and assumed a sword-drawing stance.
Clearly, both intended to decide the battle with the next blow.
"Don't go near them!"
Miori caught Seitenshi as she tried to step forward and stop them.
Both combatants were consumed by bloodlust. Getting between them now would be suicide.
"But..."
Her protest stopped abruptly.
In that brief instant, the two fighters exchanged positions so quickly they seemed to teleport.
A sharp crack rang out.
Miori saw Kisara's sword shatter.
No, not just her sword.
The entire arm holding it had been torn apart.
"Hehehe... Wonderful."
Blood poured from Kisara's mouth as she spoke.
She should have been turning pale from the sheer amount of blood she was losing. Instead, her face was flushed, and her smile had become disturbingly bewitching.
To Miori, it looked as though losing had shattered her mind. Perhaps she simply couldn't accept the outcome.
Kikunojo, after all, appeared to have suffered no new injuries.
He was even returning his sword to its sheath.
"Lady Seitenshi, please turn around. Do not look at me."
"What?"
"Turn around!"
She didn't understand, but she obeyed.
Miori hurried to Kisara's side and supported her.
She was losing far too much blood. More kept spilling from her mouth, now mixed with fragments of internal organs.
"Miori. The box I gave you earlier. Take it out."
Miori immediately pulled the box from her pocket and opened it.
Realizing what it contained, she snatched up the syringe and moved to inject Kisara.
"Not me. Give it to that old man. He doesn't get to die yet. My revenge isn't finished."
"What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?"
Kisara was clearly the one who needed treatment.
"Stop struggling and let me..."
Pop!
The sound wasn't especially loud. It resembled a bursting balloon.
Miori's pupils trembled.
At the edge of her vision, Kikunojo had suddenly burst open.
"Go give him the injection!"
"What about you?"
"I have something better."
Kisara produced another vial.
Miori recognized it.
The super-drug made from Kain's blood.
That idiot had made her worry for nothing!
With an irritated huff, she let go of Kisara and hurried over to Kikunojo.
The sight of him made her scalp crawl.
What kind of monstrous killing technique had Kisara learned?
His body resembled a porcelain vessel riddled with cracks. It hadn't fallen apart yet, but the liquid inside was gushing through every opening.
Some patches of skin had been blown away entirely, making him look half flayed.
Two objects lay conspicuously beside his fallen body.
His kidneys.
How had she managed to cut those out?
His legs were even worse. Almost nothing remained on them but bone.
Miori had a feeling this sight would haunt her.
She drove the needle into him and pushed down the plunger.
The bleeding began to slow almost immediately.
It was as though the medicine were sealing the cracks in his body.
"Lady Seitenshi, don't turn around! Don't look!"
She hastily warned the girl, who seemed about to turn.
But Seitenshi didn't listen.
She looked back and froze.
Then a strange sound made Miori glance over her shoulder.
Her scalp prickled again.
Kisara had taken out a small knife and was cutting open both sides of her own abdomen, slicing out the artificial kidneys inside.
Her expression remained terrifyingly calm.
Then she bit the stopper out of the vial and drank its contents.
If that medicine didn't work as spectacularly as promised, she was going to die.
"Ghh!"
Pain twisted her beautiful face.
Miori's eyes widened.
Kisara's missing arm was regenerating at an impossible speed.
Within the span of a breath, a flawless, pale arm had grown back.
The two wounds in her abdomen closed as well, leaving no scars.
Then Miori noticed something else.
Her pupils widened, and her expression changed.
"Kisara, watch...!"
Before she could finish, the man attempting to attack Kisara from behind lost his arm.
He was another member of the Tendo family, one of her older brothers.
His severed arm flew through the air, and he was hurled backward as though struck by a truck, slamming into the wall.
The person who had stopped him was Kain.
When had he arrived?
He seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
"Brother Hinata. Attacking me from behind? How rude."
Kisara rose with a smile.
Like a magician, she produced another sword from somewhere and walked toward her brother, still smiling.
"S-Stay away! You demon!"
His terrified scream ended as her blade flashed.
Another human balloon burst.
Two people immediately bolted for the conference room doors.
They were members of the Tendo family too.
"Hehehe."
With a chilling little laugh, Kisara overtook them in an instant.
Two more human balloons burst.
Everyone else in the room stared in horror.
Then every hair on Miori's body stood on end.
Kisara seemed to be losing herself.
Her eyes almost appeared to glow red as she surveyed the remaining people in the conference room.
She looked ready to kill every official with even the slightest connection to the Tendo family.
At this rate, she might truly become a monster who lived only to kill.
Once she crossed that line, there would be no coming back.
She would become even more dangerous than Hiruko Kagetane.
"That's enough."
The voice was quiet and level, yet it reached her unmistakably.
Kisara paused as though startled awake.
The unnaturally sinister expression faded from her face. She turned toward the speaker, Kain, with a trace of fear in her eyes.
Now she looked like a child who had done something wrong, anxious about being scolded.
The abrupt change left Miori unsure whether to laugh or cry.
Still, she breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed he was the only person who could keep Kisara in check now.
(End of Chapter)