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The moment Kaito's words landed, whether it was Kenshi and Doll on the ground, or the students sheltering aboard Swan and other private vessels, or Babalun inside the flagship fortress, or Flora in the armoured train — everyone felt the same thing.
The sky was getting darker.
"Why is it going dark?"
"I have no idea."
"This... this..."
The observer on top of the flagship fortress looked up.
That one glance froze him completely.
"Hello? What is happening up there? Someone answer me!"
"Nothing coming through."
"Switch the view screen to look upward."
"Yes, Babalun-sama!"
As the camera angle on the screen climbed higher and higher... clang. A soldier's rifle slipped from his hands and hit the floor. Nobody noticed. Every eye in the room was fixed on the screen.
On it, an enormous finger blotted out the sky.
Outside, Kenshi and Doll felt the pressure before they saw it. The air above them was simply gone, replaced by something vast and dark that pressed steadily downward. As the finger descended, the light at the edges of the world retreated with it.
"Kaito! This finger is coming down!"
Kenshi looked up at the closing darkness and called out to Kaito, who was floating in front of him.
"Do not worry. I will clear the area. It will not come down on me."
This did not comfort Kenshi. He pointed at himself with an expression of genuine alarm.
"What about me?"
"You? You are on your own. I believe in you. Good luck."
Kaito gave him a brilliant smile and a firm thumbs-up.
"Kaito! This is not a joke! I will actually die! I will really, genuinely die!"
Kenshi's voice was climbing steadily in pitch.
Kaito had already turned back to Babalun's projection.
"Tell me. Which is greater. This, or your Seikijin?"
"Who are you, exactly? With power like this, why spend it as an advisor to that little girl Lashara? Come and work with me. We can share this world equally."
Kaito looked at him for a moment.
"My mistake. There is no point talking to villains."
He turned away.
"Go ahead and die."
The finger began to shrink.
When it had narrowed to a few hundred metres across, it dropped.
Boom.
A vast mushroom cloud rose slowly from the site of the flagship fortress.
Everywhere across the Holy Land, enemy and ally alike stood and stared.
"This... he was not playing with me. Kaito is actually that strong?!"
Lashara had come back to herself, and what she found there was disbelief.
"Haruki-sensei is that powerful? Is he still human?"
"Will we be able to do something like that one day?"
"What are you thinking? With your current level of magic, you cannot even dislodge a pile of dirt. Do not get ahead of yourself."
"Can I not at least think about it?"
The enemy forces, by contrast, had gone very quiet.
The male students involved in the rebellion and the bandit recruits looked at each other. Opposing someone like that was not bravery. It was something else entirely.
Weapons went down. One by one, without being asked, they dropped to their knees in a row.
"Cooperative. I appreciate that. Though you did not think it would end there, did you?"
Kaito raised his right hand. Countless small flames flew from his palm, one landing precisely on each person kneeling below.
"Ah ah ah!"
"Please, I know I was wrong!"
"It was all Dagmyer who pushed me into this, this has nothing to do with me! Ah ah ah!"
The flames did not hesitate.
When the last of them had become ash, Kaito dusted his hands together with satisfaction and turned toward the Seikijin Doll was piloting.
"Miss Mexiah. Or rather, Doll. Are you going to surrender, or shall we continue?"
"Hehe. Facing someone like you, how could I possibly resist? I surrender."
She climbed out of the Seikijin's cockpit.
"Resolved. As expected."
Lashara's projection appeared before he had finished speaking.
She was staring at him with the expression of someone watching a landslide claim everything they owned.
"Little girl, I have dealt with your biggest problem for you. Why do you look like that?"
"Hehe... hehe... my money... it is all gone... hehe... money..."
Kaito looked past her to Chiaia.
Chiaia seemed to know what he was about to ask.
"Because of Babalun's invasion, all damages to the Holy Land are to be borne by Shtrayu. The primary item of compensation is..."
The projection shifted, replacing Lashara's face with an aerial view.
A pit, hundreds of metres deep and hundreds of metres wide, where the flagship fortress used to be.
"That pit."
Kaito stared at it.
He had genuinely used the minimum amount of force he could manage. He had not expected it to still come out like this.
Though, honestly, if he had not acted at all, Shtrayu would have ended up divided between the Church and several other nations, which would have meant its effective end. As it stood, they owed some money. Lashara should be lighting firecrackers in celebration.
"You scoundrel! You are paying me back every single coin!!!"
Lashara was clawing at the screen.
Kaito raised his right hand, pressed it gently to the side of his head, and stuck out his tongue.
"Ehehe."
"Ehehe te nandayo!!!"
Two days later.
"Everyone. As they say, however far we travel, all journeys end in farewell. I..."
"Excuse me, excuse me. Is this the Dimensional Gate? Incredible!"
"Is this what the Jura-Tempest Federation looks like from the other side?"
Lashara, Maria, and the others pushed straight past Kaito and crowded around the gate, talking over each other with enthusiasm.
"Excuse me. I am trying to give a farewell speech. Could you manage at least a little sadness?"
Kaito looked at them with a deeply aggrieved expression.
Aura adjusted her bag on her shoulder.
"Haruki-sensei, we are coming with you. Why would we be sad?"
"It is about the atmosphere. If I do not make something of the moment, it feels incomplete."
"Heh!!!" × all
Everyone turned to look at him with the same expression, then turned back around and walked through the gate.
Kaito shook his head and followed, muttering internally that none of them had any sense of occasion.
"Actually, where exactly did I set the gate exit in the Jura-Tempest Federation? Was it the Academy City entrance?"
He was still working this out as he stepped through with Sakuya.