"So? Anything you want to say? Or are you just going to stand there feeling guilty?"
Kaito looked at Rentaro, who had gone quiet with his head down.
"I... even if I didn't come out then, I... I was going to! I really was going to go save her!"
Rentaro's head snapped up.
Kaito's expression didn't change. He looked at him with the same mild, faintly amused look.
"Oh? You 'were going to.' But did you?"
"I saw you appear, so I..."
"You're very good at explaining yourself. Cowardice is cowardice. Why dress it up?"
"If you'd stayed hidden the whole time, I'd have just written you off as a coward and forgotten about you. But you waited until I was about to pull the trigger on two scumbags and then decided to grow a conscience. What exactly are you trying to be here?"
Rentaro's face flushed red.
"That's not fair! I really was going to come out!"
"Alright." Kaito held up a hand. "Enough. I'm done listening."
He turned away from Rentaro and gently tapped Ririka on the shoulder. She still had her hands pressed over her ears and her eyes clenched shut.
She felt the touch, opened her eyes, lowered her hands. The two figures on the ground were completely still.
"Kaito-nii... is it over?"
"It's over."
He glanced back at Rentaro, who was still standing there like he hadn't decided what to do with himself.
"Why are you still here? Get out of my sight. Or are you waiting for an invitation?"
Rentaro clenched his fists. Then, slowly, he let them open. He turned and started walking.
"Hold on."
He stopped. Turned back.
"You can go to the police if you want. Tell them everything. But I'd think carefully before you do." Kaito's tone was pleasant. "You wouldn't like the consequences."
"Now go."
Rentaro stood there for another moment. He had been planning to call it in the second he was out of there. Now, thinking back over everything he'd just watched, the certainty started to crack.
'This man is dangerous. Get out first. Think later.'
He picked up his pace and didn't look back.
Ririka watched him go, biting her lip.
"Is it really okay to just let him leave? What if he calls the police? Shouldn't we run?"
Kaito reached over and ruffled her hair.
"Don't worry about it. Honestly, I'd find it more interesting if he did call."
'Go ahead, Satomi Rentaro. See if you dare. And if you do, don't say I didn't warn you.'
"But..."
"Enough about him. Your nii-chan has one more thing to take care of."
"One more thing?"
Ririka tilted her head.
Kaito didn't answer. He reached into the air and drew out a banner, black energy curling off it in thick, slow spirals.
He gave it a single quiet wave.
Two translucent shapes peeled away from where the bodies lay, rising slowly off the ground.
"What... what is this?!"
"Wait, aren't we dead?"
The two soul-forms stared at the banner and felt something in them recoil. Every instinct they had left screamed at them to run. But as souls, they had nothing to push off of, nothing to grab, nothing to fight back with. They could only watch as the banner's pull began to drag them in.
"No! I don't want to go in there!"
"Please, we'll be good, we'll be different, just let us go!"
Kaito ignored them entirely.
"Two new guests for the [Conqueror's Banner]! Welcome!"
"Aaaaaagh!"
The banner swallowed them whole. Inside, the torment waiting for them had no end.
"Done!"
Ririka stared at him. From where she'd been standing, Kaito had pulled out a dark banner from thin air, muttered to himself for a moment, then announced he was finished. She had no idea what any of it meant.
"Kaito-nii, what were you just doing?"
"Hehe. Don't worry about it. Come on, let's get out of here. This isn't a good place to linger."
"...Okay."
She gave up trying to figure it out and reached up to take his hand. They walked out together.
Before he passed through the doorway, Kaito flicked a small ball of flame back over his shoulder. By the time it hit the ground, there was nothing left to find.
Tokyo Area · Office of the Auxiliary Officer
"Sir! The satellite's picked something up. You need to see this."
A government official came in carrying a set of photographs and set them down in front of Tendo Kikunojo, who was working through a stack of documents at his desk.
"What is it? Another Gastrea irregularity outside the Monolith?"
Tendo Kikunojo looked up. Something sharpened behind his aged eyes.
"No, sir. Something different entirely. The Gastrea in a section of the outer plains have vanished. All of them."
"Vanished?"
"Yes, sir. Once the monitoring team noticed the anomaly they ran a full sweep of the area. These are the results."
He set the photos down. Tendo Kikunojo picked them up, and his pupils contracted.
"You're certain these are from the outer plains?"
"I stake my life on it, sir."
What the photographs showed was a camp. A human camp, built on the outer plains. Tents, rows upon rows of them, too many to count precisely given the satellite's resolution, but enough to know: tens of thousands at minimum.
Something of that scale, outside the Monolith walls, was not a small event.
"Understood. Get a reconnaissance team out there immediately. And I need to brief Seitenshi on this."
"Yes, sir."
The official left. Tendo Kikunojo sat back and looked at the photos again, a slow, cold smile crossing his face.
"Hmph. What perfect timing. I was just starting to wonder how to get rid of certain people."
He wasn't particularly worried about who these newcomers were. The Tokyo Area was not something that bent easily. Whatever they were, they could deal with each other.
He picked up the receiver.
"Call everyone in for a meeting at Seitenshi's residence. Make sure she's there."
"Yes, Auxiliary Officer."
He set the phone down.
"Let one group that needs to die fight it out with another group nobody knows anything about yet."
If Kaito ever found out what Tendo Kikunojo was thinking, he'd probably have burst out laughing and sent the old man a gift basket for delivering a camp full of Cursed Children straight to him.
Outer Plains · Camp
Benimaru turned to face the assembled force.
"Alright then. Move out."