"A request?"
Watching Typhon, who had been so imposing just moments before, suddenly look quite flustered, Izayoi felt a flicker of curiosity.
What kind of request could this god possibly have for them?
"Have the rest of the human experiment victims been taken into your custody?" Typhon asked.
"That's right," Izayoi nodded.
"It's a bit of a hassle to accommodate over a hundred thousand people, but thankfully, modern society isn't lacking in resources. With our group's power, settling them is easy enough. The management is the tricky part."
In terms of living supplies alone, the Holy Cross Group could support not just a hundred thousand people, but a million, or even ten million.
The real trouble, however, was calming them down, preventing stress-induced reactions, and providing medical assistance.
Hearing this, Typhon let out a small sigh of relief.
"Since you don't want to see this kind of outcome either, you must protect them. Don't let them fall into the enemy's clutches again!"
Although the two sides had no basis for cooperation yet, his impression of the Savior Group was quite good.
"That's a given. We know that without you telling us," Izayoi nodded.
After everything they went through to escape, being captured by the enemy for more experiments would be far too traumatic.
"To prevent another incident like the one with the Church, we plan to transfer all one hundred thousand-plus victims to our headquarters, where we can protect them personally."
In this day and age, worldly weapons could no longer be trusted. They had more faith in their own power.
Under their protection and supervision, the basic rights of these victims would surely be guaranteed.
Hearing this, Typhon's worries were assuaged.
Just then, Izayoi seemed to think of something and clapped his hands together.
"Oh, right! My people reported to me earlier that the test subjects are still on edge and don't fully trust us. Many are refusing to board the ships to headquarters."
The psychological trauma from human experimentation couldn't be erased in a day. No matter how well the Holy Cross Group treated them, it was impossible to earn their complete trust in such a short time.
Many of the victims had been gathered from all over the world and transported to various bases by ship.
As a result, they had an innate fear of ships, believing the Group was just moving them to a new facility to conduct more experiments.
Using force would inevitably be met with resistance, and to avoid chaos, the process was currently at a standstill.
Izayoi had originally planned to take it slow and steady, or perhaps ask the eloquent Canary to go and placate them. But now, hearing Typhon's question, he suddenly had a brilliant idea.
"Since you're here, how about you meet with the other victims via video?"
"As a fellow victim of human experimentation, your words should earn their trust. If you take the lead in showing faith in us and encourage them to come to our headquarters, many of them will surely let down their guard and choose to believe us, just this once!"
The same words, when spoken by them, carried a different weight than when spoken by Typhon, a representative of the victims.
If he could show his trust in the Holy Cross Group, the others' attitudes would likely soften.
Hearing Izayoi's proposal, Typhon froze for a moment. After a brief period of thought, he looked at Izayoi with a scrutinizing gaze.
"I don't fully trust you yet."
Although from his perspective, the Savior Group did seem trustworthy, that didn't mean he could rashly entrust the safety of all the victims to them.
That would be a betrayal of his own people.
After all, the very facility he had been in was the product of a conspiracy between the highest authority and the Church.
He couldn't bring himself to fully trust the entire Holy Cross Group.
In response, Izayoi simply shrugged.
"I don't expect to earn your trust so easily. That's why I suggested bringing them to headquarters."
"Compared to other plans, you should feel more at ease with them right under your nose, right?"
"That way, if you notice anything wrong, you can come deal with us directly."
"With your power, you could destroy our entire headquarters at any time, and even pose a threat to us. No one would be stupid enough to pull any tricks under these circumstances... So, is that sincere enough for you?"
Proactively offering a way for the other party to hold him accountable—it had to be said, Izayoi's proposal was brimming with sincerity. Even Typhon had no reason to refuse.
However...
"With my power... didn't you defeat me once?" Typhon asked.
"A fight where both sides hold back can't determine a true winner," Izayoi said with a smile.
"This Great Me has no reason to lose, but I refuse to acknowledge an anticlimactic result like that!"
"Both sides held back..."
Typhon was slightly taken aback.
He had indeed kept a trump card hidden, but the other party hadn't used his full strength either?
Izayoi just smiled without a word, which faintly ignited Typhon's fighting spirit.
However, now was clearly not the time for a duel. After mulling it over for a few dozen more seconds, Typhon nodded, accepting Izayoi's proposal.
"I can't refuse this level of sincerity... I can help you persuade them, but I won't hide any facts from my comrades."
"I will have them come to the headquarters, but not with complete and foolish trust. They will come with vigilance, to measure everything with their own eyes."
Their gazes met, calm and steady.
"Good. That's enough," Izayoi nodded in satisfaction.
They high-fived, sealing the pact.
The conversation with Typhon lasted less than half an hour before Izayoi and the others were shooed out by the medical staff.
Although Typhon's incarnate body had recovered somewhat, it was still in a precarious state and couldn't handle a long conversation.
Though they had agreed to have Typhon's incarnation speak to the other victims, neither his physical condition nor the coordination of bases all over the globe was a problem that could be solved in an hour.
So the official conversation was set for the next day. The Group's personnel would arrange for all the victims to interact with Typhon through a live broadcast screen to strengthen their trust.
After leaving the hospital room, the group members went their separate ways, each with their own training regimen to complete.
Izayoi had also been preparing to leave, but under the intense pressure of his younger brother Saigō Homura's gaze, he chose to stay put.
Only after everyone else had left, certain that his friends couldn't see, did he sit down in the wheelchair Homura pushed over.
"That Last Child of Gaia is a real handful, throwing such a huge problem at us!"
Sitting in the wheelchair as his brother pushed him, Izayoi stretched his back and complained with an excited look on his face.
"Ojou-sama's path of 'everyone becomes a god' was pretty interesting, but it got shot down just like that."
"If that future is built on the blood and tears of victims, then it certainly should be rejected," Saigō Homura replied.
"But I also think it's a bit of a shame. Ojou-sama's character is trustworthy. And against a disaster like the Bull of Heaven, if she hadn't acted, there really was no other way to stop it."
"True," Izayoi nodded in agreement.
"Putting Ojou-sama's power aside, according to the general laws of history, popularizing power downwards can indeed solve old problems, but it also brings new, more troublesome ones."
"The popularization of power?"
Homura paused, not quite understanding Izayoi's meaning.
"The so-called Bull of Heaven, the willfulness of the powerful, is built on the foundation of them holding absolute power. In other words, only one person holds absolute power," Izayoi explained casually.
An individual's oppression of the world is built on the foundation of absolute violence.
"And the path Ojou-sama represents, the so-called 'Age of Gods' ending, is actually built on the proliferation of the Third Stellar Particle. Without a large number of Stellar Particle carriers, the so-called 'Head of the Pantheon' couldn't gain support."
When power is held by a select few, the whims of the powerful can destroy the world.
When power is held by many, only those with the support of the people can wield authority.
On the surface, it was Kudō Asuka who defeated the Bull of Heaven. But on a societal level, it was the proliferation of the Third Stellar Particle that broke the powerful's monopoly on violence.
"However, the proliferation of the Third Stellar Particle also brought the sin of human experimentation, which is the threat Typhon represents."
Solving one problem while creating another, bigger one—this was probably an inevitable part of technological development.
"Is that how you see it, Brother Izayoi? That certainly makes sense."
Saigō Homura nodded, accepting Izayoi's theory.
Then, his tone shifted.
"However, I think the root of the problem might not be that complicated."
"How so?" Izayoi asked, curious.
"Since the Bull of Heaven came from the willfulness of the powerful, and Typhon came from the greed of the powerful, then, Brother Izayoi..."
Saigō Homura looked at Izayoi in the wheelchair, the bangs on his forehead casting his eyes into shadow.
At the same time, he spoke in a tone that was both incredibly pure and incredibly calm.
"Since all the problems are caused by those in power... if we just get rid of them, won't we solve everything easily?"