Days turned into weeks, spring gave way to summer, and the season had quietly arrived in the Tokyo Area. Although the weather this year was unusually cool and pleasant compared to the typical sweltering heat, an inexplicably oppressive atmosphere hung heavily in the streets.
This stifling mood had a single, clear source: the Seitenshi's "Gastrea New Law." Brushing aside all dissent with an iron will, she had pushed the controversial bill through with unprecedented force, enacting it into law. For the first time, it granted the Cursed Children—the Initiators—formal protection and basic human rights.
In response, a undercurrent of resentment festered. Many citizens were already privately cursing the Seitenshi as a dictator, while others began to whisper darker suspicions about her very identity. Was she, perhaps, in league with the monsters? Could their holy ruler herself be one of those cursed Gastrea? Such poisonous rumors spread like wildfire throughout the Tokyo Area and beyond.
"So, she could do it after all."
Looking at the newspaper's bold, ink-splashed headline—"The Ruthless Dictator of Tokyo—Has Our Seitenshi Gone Too Far?"—a slight, approving smile curved Yotsuba Mahiro's lips. He had not misjudged her. When the Seitenshi truly set her mind to something, she could indeed achieve it.
In unrelated news, after a long convalescence, Rentaro had finally been discharged from the hospital. However, only Tendo Kisara herself had gone to pick him up. Yotsuba Mahiro was currently in Arcadia, buried in paperwork as he helped Kaya organize a mountain of documents. He was also handling some of the district's basic urban planning.
Managing this ever-expanding sanctuary for Initiators left him with almost no energy to spare for the Tendo Civil Security office. His days were spent assisting Kaya, and his nights… well, his nights were often busy in the laboratory with a certain doctor. Sleep had become a rare luxury, a state of affairs only possible thanks to his unnaturally durable constitution.
After finally clearing his daunting to-do list, he had managed to carve out a single day off. He had returned to his own apartment, collapsed onto his bed, and was just preparing to surrender to a deep, well-deserved sleep…
When his phone rang.
"...It's been a while, Mahiro-san."
Hmm. That familiar, formal greeting. Same as always.
"Seitenshi-sama… Congratulations. You've finally developed a bit of the spine needed to stand tall in this messed-up world," Mahiro replied, a wide yawn distorting his words.
"Mahiro-san, are you mocking me?"
"How could I? No, not at all. If anything… I'm genuinely gratified." And he was. The once pure, untouchable, and somewhat naive girl had finally, with a little nudge from him, been dragged into the mortal world, her pristine white robes now stained with the necessary colors of grit and resolve.
"Alright, let's set that aside," he continued. "I presume you didn't call just to hear me sing your praises. Why don't you cut to the chase and tell me what's the matter?"
The person on the other end of the line softly "mm"-ed in acknowledgment. There was a long pause, as if she was steadying her nerves or organizing her thoughts. After what felt like an eternity, her voice returned, laced with a new tension.
"May I ask… where you are right now, Mahiro-san?"
"I'm at home, about to sleep… Could you maybe tell me what this is about first?"
"Alright, Mahiro-san. There is a very urgent situation—one that concerns the survival of our nation. Therefore, I must trouble you with this."
"I refuse."
"Eh?!... No, wait! I haven't even said what it is yet!"
Mahiro's near-instantaneous, almost reflexive rejection left the Seitenshi stunned and flustered.
"Please don't refuse so quickly!"
"But it's definitely not going to be a simple errand, is it? And if it's a matter of 'national survival,' that's a thousand times more troublesome. Seitenshi, have you forgotten what I once told you about my stance on this world?"
"I remember… every word. But… even so, I still want you to at least hear me out before making a decision."
He was about to retort with a flippant 'I'm not listening, la-la-la,' but she spoke again, her voice firming with a resolve he hadn't heard from her before.
"...I am coming to your apartment right now, Mahiro-san. You are not allowed to refuse."
With that final, willful declaration, the call ended.
'My, my. What a strong attitude. There was even a hint of a young girl's unique stubbornness in there.'
"But… since it's the first time she's been this assertive, I suppose I can at least hear her out."
Mahiro sat up from the bed with a resigned sigh, got dressed, and walked out of his apartment to wait for her. After all, no matter how he felt about it, she was the head of state, and she was visiting in person. The least he could do was show her the basic courtesy of meeting her downstairs.
However, the moment he stepped outside the building's entrance, he felt a cold droplet splash against his cheek.
"It's raining?"
He looked up. The sky, which had been clear just moments ago, was now choked with dark, heavy clouds. A fine, misty rain began to fall, painting the world in shades of grey.
He waited under the awning for a long time, but the distinct, extended luxury limousine from the Holy Residence never appeared. Instead, squinting through the increasingly heavy downpour, he saw a lone white figure running towards him from the distance.
"...Seitenshi???"
It was her. She was running through the rain alone, without a single bodyguard in sight, having forsaken her usual armored transport. She had come to his apartment building on foot.
Perhaps because she wasn't used to such exertion, or perhaps because of the impractical high heels she wore, her foot caught on the edge of an uneven paving stone. She lost her balance immediately, stumbling forward with a gasp.
Fortunately, Mahiro moved with preternatural speed, appearing in time to catch her before she hit the wet concrete. In the process, his arms unavoidably registered the soft, yielding feel of her body against his.
"Ah… I'm sorry," the Seitenshi mumbled, looking up. Her eyes were wide and glistening with unshed tears, her snow-white hair plastered to her face by the rain. The downpour had washed away her usual aura of sanctity, leaving behind something far more vulnerable and pitiable.
Not to mention, her soaked white dress was now rendered almost completely transparent, clinging to her skin and leaving very little to the imagination.
Hmm. Even the underwear is pure white. How fitting.
"I say, my dear Seitenshi," Mahiro began, deliberately averting his gaze as he carefully helped her steady herself. He opened the umbrella he'd brought, shielding them both from the relentless rain. "Just what are you doing?"
He then activated a simple magic sequence, carefully and gently warming the air around her to evaporate the chilling rainwater from her clothes and hair, ensuring she wouldn't catch a cold.
"How amazing…" the Seitenshi whispered, blinking in astonishment as she watched the water vanish from her white silk gloves. She could clearly feel a comforting warmth spreading over her entire body, chasing away the chill. "Is this… magic?"
"Hmm. Fun, isn't it?" he replied with a nonchalant smirk.
"..."
The Seitenshi seemed to subconsciously start to nod, but caught herself at the last moment, her face immediately flushing a brilliant, tell-tale scarlet. Against her naturally cool, pale skin, the blush was incredibly charming.
Seeing her flustered state, Mahiro couldn't help but chuckle. "Never mind. Let's just get you upstairs." Despite her half-hearted, embarrassed protests, he effortlessly scooped her up into a princess carry and brought her into his apartment building, out of the miserable weather.
Once inside his home, he pressed her for details. Her explanation, however, was so comically unfortunate he could only stare at her in disbelief before bursting into laughter.
"Let me get this straight. Not only did your official limousine break down halfway here, but you got out just in time for the heaviest part of the rain, didn't bring an umbrella, and decided the best course of action was to just… run all the way here?"
The Seitenshi, who had been nodding along in agreement, puffed out her cheeks at his reaction. "...It was an emergency! I forgot about everything else! And please, stop laughing!"
"Alright, alright, I'll stop," he said, though a smirk still played on his lips. "Since it's so 'urgent,' then tell me what's going on."
Even with his assurance, she continued to stare at him with deeply resentful eyes. However, her attention soon drifted, her curious gaze sweeping around his modest apartment as if searching for something. Finally, her eyes landed pointedly on the bathroom door.
"...Excuse me, Mahiro-san. Before that… may I use your bathroom?"
"If you want to take a bath, go right ahead," Mahiro replied without refusal. While he had dried her off, the lower hem of her pristine white dress was still splattered with mud from her fall.
"Th-Then, pardon my intrusion…"
The Seitenshi rose and, with a flustered air, hurried into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
To be honest, the Seitenshi's transformation was beyond his expectations. His initial impression of her was that of an untouchable saint, as pure and distant as an angel descended to earth. But now, compared to that lofty sanctity, she was acting much more like the sixteen-year-old girl she truly was—clumsy to the point of being endearing, yet still clinging to the last vestiges of her dignified reserve.
However, as he was musing over this change, a soft, rustling sound of fabric reached his ears from behind the closed bathroom door. He instinctively glanced over and saw a silhouette moving behind the frosted glass of the shower room.
He watched as the distinct shape of a dress slid down to pool at her feet. Through the blurred glass, a slender, gracefully proportioned figure was revealed, one that made him involuntarily swallow. To be honest… even if frosted glass obstructed the direct view, Mahiro's mind, even without actively activating any special observational magic, automatically began to reassemble the tantalizingly vague shapes into a clear, vivid image.
In the silhouette, he saw the straps of a bra slip from her shoulders and fall away. Then, a pair of panties was stepped out of, revealing the long, beautiful lines of her legs. Finally, the figure moved and disappeared from view, followed shortly by the sound of the shower spray kicking on.
"Tsk…"
The show was over.
Mahiro let out a soft, frustrated sigh and forcefully averted his gaze, focusing on a particularly uninteresting spot on the wall.
About twenty minutes later, the Seitenshi finished her bath. Her soiled clothes had been tossed into the washing machine, leaving her with little choice but to borrow something of his.
After all, besides his own wardrobe, the only other clothes in the apartment belonged to Asaka and Enju, and it was painfully obvious their sizes would never accommodate the Seitenshi's more… developed figure.
Fortunately, the shirt he lent her, meant for someone over 180 cm tall, hung on her petite frame like a short, white dress.
However…
"...I-I feel a bit…"
The Seitenshi slowly cracked open the bathroom door, a cloud of steam billowing out behind her. She hugged her arms over her chest, her face a picture of shy embarrassment. The vision of the pure, white-clad girl emerging timidly from the bath, nervously pulling at the hem of the oversized shirt, was undeniably alluring.
The knowledge that she wore nothing underneath, coupled with the way the fabric hinted at the curves it concealed, made the scene dangerously provocative. Any other man would have likely lost all self-control by now.
"Seitenshi," Mahiro began, his voice a little strained. "I think you should thank Sumire Muroto."
"Eh?" The Seitenshi looked at him, utterly bewildered. "That… one of the Four Sages? Thank her for what?"
"Thank her for helping me achieve a state of… profound mental clarity," Mahiro stated with deadpan seriousness, though internally he was fighting a fierce battle to maintain that very composure.
The girl, however, just tilted her head in confusion, her damp, light purple eyes blinking innocently. She completely failed to grasp his meaning. One could only say that the Seitenshi was truly consistent, inside and out. Even after shedding her idealistic naivety, her fundamental purity remained untouched.
"It's fine if you don't get it," he waved a hand dismissively, inviting her to sit down. "So, tell me. What is this matter of 'national life and death' that was so urgent you wouldn't take no for an answer?"
The Seitenshi's face, already flushed, turned a deeper shade of red. But she quickly composed herself, her expression shifting to one of grave seriousness.
"Mahiro-san," she said, her voice low and urgent. "The Tokyo Area is in imminent danger. It is about to face utter destruction."
Isn't that a good thing? The thought sprang, unbidden, to his mind. The kind of news worth celebrating with a bottle of champagne right then and there. But looking at the genuine, deep-seated worry etched on the girl's face, he refrained from any excessive celebration.
The reason for the impending doom, as she explained, was simple, and just as he remembered from the original timeline.
Monolith No. 32—the very one Kisara had discovered was a shoddy, Varanium-deficient construction—was now being actively eroded by Aldebaran, the former right-hand of the Stage Five Zodiac Taurus, a Gastrea terrifyingly close to reaching Stage Five itself. The photographic evidence spread across Mahiro's glass coffee table showed the monolith's surface, injected with a powerful corrosive fluid, already turning a sickly, brittle white.
"So, we have six days," Mahiro summarized, his tone unnervingly casual. "In six days, the monolith collapses, a horde of Gastrea invades, causing mass infection and the total destruction of the Tokyo Area?"
"Yes." The Seitenshi nodded, her expression grave as death.
He glanced from the photos of the decaying monolith to the terrifying headshot of the multi-horned Aldebaran. "By the way, the erosion is already this advanced, and yet those pesky news networks haven't even splashed this story on their front pages... It seems you've truly changed a lot, Seitenshi-sama. Your information control is impressively iron-fisted."
"You can mock me however you like," she replied, a self-deprecating smile touching her lips. "I am well aware that the citizens see me as a witch now, as a ruthless dictator." She gently shook her head, her damp hair swaying. "But even so, it doesn't matter. I still want to make the Tokyo Area better. That is why I am begging you, Mahiro-san, to act for the Tokyo Area one more time."
The intelligence reports indicated a horde of roughly two thousand Gastrea of various stages gathering behind the failing monolith. The situation was catastrophic. Though the JSDF had issued a confident military order vowing to exterminate the threat, the Seitenshi was no longer the naive girl who would believe such hollow boasts.
She knew the grim truth—it was impossible. If Gastrea could be so easily repelled, humanity would never have suffered such a devastating defeat a decade ago, forced to huddle behind these very monoliths.
"So, I beg you," she pleaded, her voice thick with emotion as she bowed her head deeply before him, disregarding all royal decorum. "Mahiro-san, please act for the Tokyo Area one more time."
"Raise your head, Seitenshi," Mahiro said, his voice flat. "No matter what, you are the ruler of the Tokyo Area. You should not lower your head to anyone."
"...Does that mean you agree?" she asked, hope flickering in her light purple eyes as she looked up.
"No. I refuse."
"Why?!"
Hearing his immediate and resolute rejection, the Seitenshi's lips trembled. Her eyes shone with a mixture of deep sadness and desperate urgency. "If it is a matter of compensation, we can negotiate! Any price! As long as it can save the Tokyo Area, I am willing to pay it!"
"That's not the problem." Mahiro shook his head slowly, then raised a single finger. "It's that you, Seitenshi, have made three fundamental mistakes."
"Th-three mistakes?"
"First," he began, his tone that of a lecturer correcting a slow student, "this is a commission. The proper procedure is for you to go to President Kisara at the Tendo Civil Security office, and then, through her, assign the task to me. But now, you came directly to me, bypassing the agency head. This will greatly damage my professional reputation. It makes me look like I'm taking side jobs."
"...Ah?" The Seitenshi was utterly stunned, staring at him blankly. What kind of reason is that?!
"Second," he continued, raising a second finger, "I have never once fought for the Tokyo Area. Whether it was Hiruko Kagetane or the Stage Five, Scorpio, that was entirely for your sake, Seitenshi. Personally. Do not misunderstand my motives."
Upon hearing this, the Seitenshi's face grew paler. A cold dread filled her heart. Though she could already guess what his third point would be, she still couldn't stop herself from asking in a trembling whisper, "...And the… the third?"
"The third," he said, his voice dropping into a cynical, icy chill as he raised the final finger, "is what gave you the illusion that I would ever lift a finger for the scum and mongrels that infest this city?"
It was just as she had feared. On some level, she had known this all along. She had simply clung to a desperate, foolish shred of hope, which was why she had come. But to hear him state it so bluntly…
The Seitenshi's head drooped, her form casting a silhouette of profound sorrow. "...Why?" she whispered. "Why are you unwilling to give the people of the Tokyo Area just a little more time? A single chance for atonement?"
"Because it's pointless." Mahiro's reply was brutally blunt, accompanied by a derisive snort. "A car hits a wall, and then the driver knows to turn; stocks skyrocket, and then people know to buy; a criminal is sentenced, and then they know to repent… By the time things have deteriorated to this point, it is already too late for everything."
He leaned forward slightly, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "If you still aren't convinced, Seitenshi-sama, how about we make a little wager?"
"A wager?"
"We'll bet on human nature. Specifically, the citizens' reaction once the news of the monolith's albinism is inevitably leaked to the public. Arcadia's location is now known to all. If, after they learn of this impending doom, they do not retaliate against Arcadia and the Cursed Children in their panic and hatred… then I will help you save the Tokyo Area. How does that sound?"
His words made the Seitenshi lift her head again, a fragile hope rekindling within her. "What you said… is it true?"
"Of course."
"Good. Then… I accept your wager." As expected, the Seitenshi agreed without hesitation.
And in that moment, she had already lost. By her very nature, she was still that kind-hearted girl, so pure that she would still believe in the so-called goodness of humanity. In this world, that was the riskiest thing of all to bet on.
After the rain stopped, the Seitenshi changed back into her dried clothes and departed, her heart a turmoil of hope and anxiety. Once she was gone, Mahiro picked up his phone and made a call.
"Hello, Kaya?"
"It's me. You should be on your day off, Mahiro-sama. If you're calling, I assume it's an emergency?"
"You're as sharp as ever. I need you to contact Shiba Miori-san for me. Tell her I need to raise the city walls."
"...How much higher?"
"Another twenty meters."
"Ah?" A small, surprised gasp came from the other end of the line. Kyouka asked in confusion, "Why? Our current ten-meter wall is already more than sufficient to prevent outsiders from climbing over…"
Before she could finish, Mahiro relayed everything the Seitenshi had told him, holding nothing back.
After Kayaa listened to the full account, a long silence ensued before she finally spoke, her voice grim. "...I understand. I will contact Shiba-sama immediately. The reinforcement method… it will be the same as before, using the super-holmium alloy, correct?"
"Mm. That's right."
The existing walls of Arcadia had been constructed using this very method—countless panels of super-holmium alloy, a material as formidable as the Monoliths themselves. They were not only incredibly sturdy but also completely impervious to Gastrea attacks. This was precisely why Shiba Miori had once half-jokingly called his sanctuary 'Noah's Ark.'
If the day of reckoning ever came, his territory would undoubtedly be the safest place in all of Tokyo, without a doubt. He was not preparing for a rescue; he was fortifying his bunker.