Across the Pacific it was still the evening before, and the top floor of the Association's headquarters had exactly one office with its lights on.
Grace stood in front of the wall screen with her arms crossed, watching a parade ground in Tokyo lose its collective mind in high definition. The international feed's banner sat in the corner of the frame. He's here. Fighting with us.
She had been staring at the smaller line beneath it for a while now.
Kaiden Grey stands with Japan.
Behind her, the Chairman had abandoned the report in his lap around the time a foreign nation's ruling council started running attack ads.
"Listen to him," Grace said quietly. The feed was replaying the speech with subtitles. Your own people, your own classes, your own dead.
"Every audit we signed off on came back clean. Every compliance letter was answered the night it arrived. He did everything we ever asked of him, and more."
"That's right. He did."
