He pocketed the phone, smile intact, and looked down at the crowd, waiting.
The sight of Seitenshi on that screen, and those unmistakable words, left a strange expression on face after face. The awe deepened.
She ruled the Tokyo Area absolutely. Nobody defied her orders. If she'd personally named this man commander, then his strength was worth trusting, and whatever his background was, it wasn't ordinary.
The blond who'd challenged him, Shogen Ikuma, wore a different expression entirely.
He scratched at his head, dropped his gaze, and muttered under his breath. "You've got Seitenshi backing you up, so lead with that next time... you made me look like an idiot."
Cool as anything.
Quiet as the words were, plenty of people caught them, and laughter rippled through the crowd along with a few teasing looks.
His cheeks flushed hot. Without the cloth covering his face he'd have been red to the ears with nowhere to hide.
"If he'd shown the video first, you wouldn't have believed it anyway."
The girl beside him was slight, with pale blonde hair.
Her skin was fair as porcelain, suggesting mixed blood somewhere in her line, and her blue eyes were clear and bright, holding a composure no child that age should have. Her name was Kayo Senju, Initiator to Shogen Ikuma. A dolphin-model Cursed Child with an IQ of 210, a genuine prodigy.
She said it flatly, without a ripple of feeling, her face as calm as ever.
Even with the video up front, Shogen wouldn't have accepted it. Impulsive, stubborn, and completely unmoved by anything he hadn't seen with his own eyes.
"Handing your life to a stranger who doesn't look like he can fight isn't something you'd ever do. You only believe in strength you've watched happen."
A thread of dry mockery ran through it, though nothing in her eyes moved.
His face reddened further. He coughed twice, going for gravity. "As your Promoter, I think this would be a great time for you to say nothing at all."
She shrugged, mouth twisting slightly, and let it drop.
Standing quietly at his side, she kept her eyes on the man in the air, still working at the puzzle of what he was.
None of it reached him. He hung there, smiling, watching the crowd absorb what had happened.
Command.
After the call from Seitenshi, and more to the point after that crushing invisible weight, nobody had any argument left in them.
Resist how? None of them had seen him move. None of them had understood it. None of them had been able to stand.
Fighting it would accomplish nothing except getting themselves labeled deserters.
And nobody here was stupid. They were about to walk into the worst assignment of their careers. Having someone that strong out front, someone who could keep them alive, meant better odds of coming home.
"Right, then. No objections, so it's settled."
He checked the time on his phone and turned toward Rentaro below.
"Rentaro, run a head count. If everyone's here, we move now. Time's short and I don't want to waste any more of it."
"Now?"
Rentaro's head snapped up toward the horizon, disbelief plain.
The sun had dropped low, leaving a thin wash of light across half the sky. Darkness was maybe an hour off.
"It's late. If we leave now we'll be spending the night in the field, and out there it's nothing but Gastrea. They're more active after dark and far more dangerous. Something's going to go wrong."
His brow stayed knotted.
He wasn't arguing against speed. He was arguing against sleeping in Gastrea country, where the night belonged to them entirely.
Worry spread through the crowd behind him.
Low voices picked up the same thread, unease running through all of it. Nobody wanted a night out there.
"Late?"
He rubbed his chin, glanced at the sinking sun, and frowned.
Then shook his head. "It's not late. Why would we camp? We know exactly where that thing is. We go there and deal with it."
"Let me think. At our speed we should be back before dark. Might run a little over. There's no reason to spend a night in the field."
Even having felt what he could do minutes earlier, the crowd stirred at that, doubt and worry creeping back onto their faces.
He'd made it sound like a grocery run.
Everyone there knew what waiting outside the Monolith looked like. Helicopter escort or not, reaching that Gastrea was no small thing.
The trip alone meant attacks along the way.
Losses were likely. And the helicopters couldn't fly the whole distance. Past a certain point they'd have to set down and continue on foot.
Out over the city, the quiet of the streets shattered under a roar from above.
The sound rolled in from a distance and swelled, thunder tumbling across the sky, until the pavement buzzed underfoot.
People looked up without knowing why.
Helicopters filled the sky, a long formation of them driving toward the distant Monolith.
They flew in tight ranks, dark grey fuselages marked with the insignia of the Self-Defense Forces, rotors hammering the air into gusts that set roadside trees rattling and left pedestrians clutching at their hair.
Heads turned all along the street, everyone guessing at what had happened.
"That's a lot of helicopters. Where are they headed?"
An office worker in a suit stopped walking and pushed his glasses up, staring. He'd never seen a formation that size move at once.
"Looks like they're going toward the Monolith. Something wrong out there?"
An old man frowned, worry creeping into his voice. The Monolith was the wall between them and everything outside it. Trouble there meant trouble for everyone, and the people at the bottom understood that better than anyone.
"Don't jump to conclusions. Probably a drill. Big turnout like that, has to be a large-scale exercise."
A younger man waved it off, trying to settle the mood, though his own stomach had tightened.
The talk grew louder. People stopped in the street, lifting phones to shoot photos and video, questions and unease running through all of it.
Then came the part that made the destination irrelevant.
The rotors still thundered overhead, but every eye had shifted off the aircraft and locked onto three figures in the sky, unable to look anywhere else.
Satoru, Betty, and Sumire. No helicopter under them. They flew alongside the formation, suspended in open air, heading for the Monolith.
"What is that?!"
"People are flying? How?"
"Is that some new tech? It looks incredible."
A young man kept snapping pictures, curiosity all over him. Some kind of flight rig, he guessed, hidden well enough that you couldn't spot it.
"But there's nothing on them. No rocket pack like in the movies, no wings, nothing. So how are they doing it?"
No visible equipment. Not even unusual clothing. They simply hung there, steady, matching pace with the aircraft.
"Gene mutation? Or products of the New Human Creation Plan?"
"No chance. Even that couldn't get you something this clean. Look how they move. Nothing stiff about it. They fly like they were born to it."
"It's bizarre. What's going on up there?"
The speculation ran and ran, an echo of the soldiers and operators back at the camp, everyone flattened by the impossibility of it.
Curiosity everywhere, guesses piling up about who the three were and how they stayed aloft.
"Tell me, are you keeping off the helicopter on purpose so you can show off?"
Sumire, hauled through the air by Betty in a decidedly undignified fashion, aimed a withering look at him.
Betty had her by the back of the collar, dangling her like a kitten.
Wind whipped her hair into a mess. Her expression made her opinion clear.
She hated the position. Uncomfortable, and humiliating on top of it.
"Hey now. I only came out here to give you what you asked for, and this is how you treat me?"
He pushed a piece of chocolate into his mouth and grinned at her.
"Save it. I'm not an idiot."
She dropped her voice into a flat imitation of Betty's usual delivery.
Aiming for icy detachment, and undercut entirely by dangling in midair.
"You'd have come whether I asked or not."
Satisfying her request had been an excuse and nothing more.
"Wanting an audience, though, that's got nothing to do with me."
She wasn't buying a word of it. He'd chosen the loudest possible way to travel and pulled every eye in the city up with him.
"Wrong. Not showing off. This is about protecting them properly."
He said it with a straight face, expression turning solemn, which held together poorly with a chocolate bar in his hand.
Sumire's answer was an eye roll of impressive scale.
Nobody believes that. You want an audience.
The formation pressed on toward the wall.
Inside the cabins, most of the operators sat back with their eyes closed, banking what rest they could.
Others bent over their weapons, checking them, faces grim. Everyone aboard understood what waited. This was going to be brutal, and preparation was all they had.
The three of them kept pace off the flank, neither rushing nor lagging.
He ate chocolate the whole way.
Twenty minutes or so out, the Monolith rose into view, close enough to touch.
It stood at the edge of the city, vast and dark grey from base to crown.
Fine lines covered the surface, patterns that might have grown there naturally or might have been cut by hand.
Command's voice came through every cabin at once.
Amplified, it reached every corner of every aircraft, clipped and tense.
"Attention. Attention."
"We are about to cross beyond the Monolith's effective range. All units prepare for impact."
"Repeat, we are about to cross beyond the Monolith's effective range. All units check equipment, prepare for impact, monitor your surroundings, and report anything unusual immediately."