"From this moment forth."
"All those who have persecuted, despised, or turned their backs on the children I cherish——"
"Are sinners."
"Sinners shall die in the jaws of monsters."
"Only the pure light shall find a place in the Judgment to come."
"Regardless of race. Regardless of rank or birth. Regardless of distance."
This divine proclamation rang out in the same instant beside the ear of every sentient being on the planet. As the oracle faded into silence, the vast dark-crimson eye above the heavens slowly closed — yet it did not vanish. It merely receded into the churning, blood-colored clouds, becoming the Sword of Damocles suspended over the crown of this world.
The sky remained that twisted, deep crimson.
On the commercial streets of the Tokyo Area.
The Holy Emperor slowly opened her eyes.
Everything around her had fallen into a deathly stillness. The fat patrol officer who had been swinging his baton at her only moments ago was now slumped on the ground, face twisted in terror, staring blankly up at the sky, a broken whimper leaking from his throat.
The onlookers around him — some had collapsed to their knees, some were clutching their heads and weeping openly, some trembled where they stood, mouths moving with soundless, incoherent mumbling.
The Holy Emperor snapped her head to the side.
There was no one there.
The man with hair black as ink and an authority that belonged to something beyond human — he had vanished without a trace, just as he had arrived. All that remained was the verdict still echoing through the heavens and the earth.
"Truly pure light..."
The Holy Emperor murmured the words softly to herself, then lowered her gaze to the cap-wearing girl still curled in her arms, clinging to her half-empty can of luncheon meat with a death grip.
Then she looked around at the people who had crumpled to the ground in fright at the appearance of the Divine Eye — people now with all their ugliness laid bare.
These people.
Before the weak, they were thugs. Before the strong, they were slaves. Their souls had long since been eaten through by greed, arrogance, and cowardice — riddled with holes, rotten to the core.
And yet the ones they had called monsters — the Cursed Children — had been surviving in the cracks of this world, clinging to the most humble thread of life.
Who was filth? Who was light?
The answer was self-evident.
This was — an opportunity.
The last opportunity. The final thread of hope that God had left behind for this rotting world.
"Cursed Children..."
The Holy Emperor lowered her head, looking at the two girls still shaking in her arms.
The blind girl whose eyes had been destroyed by her own mother with molten lead — and then healed. The cap-wearing girl who had nearly been beaten to death over a single can of luncheon meat. Their red eyes. What this world had once branded as the mark of a curse.
Now, they were —
"The pure light."
The Holy Emperor gently drew both girls into her embrace.
She understood now. The true meaning behind that God's words.
These children — discriminated against from the moment of their birth, persecuted, stripped of every human right — they were the purest existence in this world. Because they had never once wished harm upon anyone. They only wanted to live.
---
At the same time.
Tokyo Area. The Ministry of Defense Underground Command Center.
This reinforced fortress, buried dozens of meters beneath the earth, had once served as humanity's nerve center in the war against the Gastrea threat. Its concrete walls were five meters thick — capable of withstanding a direct strike from a Stage IV Gastrea.
Inside, the most advanced surveillance systems in existence maintained real-time connections to the status data of Monolith defense lines across the globe.
But right now, this fortress was anything but calm.
The cascade of events from the outside world had already driven everyone inside to the brink of breaking.
"R-Report!"
The one who shattered the silence first was a young communications officer. He spun around in his seat, his voice cracking with a sob he could no longer suppress — not even noticing that his headset had slipped halfway off his neck.
His trembling finger pointed to a corner of the main screen.
What had once been labeled: 「Tokyo Area — Monolith Defense Line No. 32」.
A green status bar — the spiritual pillar everyone had relied upon to feel safe — was now completely swallowed by a tide of red.
The Minister of Defense lunged to his feet.
He all but threw himself at the operations console, hammering the keyboard with both fists.
"Pull up the live feed for Defense Line 32!" "NOW!"
The screen changed.
And then the entire command center sank into an even deeper silence.
What the screen showed was a sight that exceeded every person's capacity for comprehension.
Countless Gastrea. Some as large as small mountains; some no bigger than a house cat or dog. Some with compound eyes; some trailing masses of tentacles; some armored head to toe in razor-sharp carapace; some oozing corrosive slime from every pore. They packed the area outside the Monolith defense line in a black, endless mass that stretched beyond the eye's reach.
By every right, this should have been a vision of the apocalypse — a sight to freeze the blood.
But what was actually sending ice down everyone's spine was not the sheer number of monsters.
It was their posture.
Every single Gastrea — regardless of size, regardless of species — held the exact same position.
They had lowered their heads.
The crimson eyes that had once blazed with insatiable bloodlust were now terrifyingly calm. The mouths that had never done anything but drip with ravenous hunger were pressed shut.
As one, they lifted their gaze toward that vast eye — now hidden within the churning blood-red clouds, the Sword of Damocles hanging over this world — and held it there.
And then —
They knelt.
Yes.
Knelt.
These creatures born of the Gastrea Virus — creatures that had known nothing but devouring other living things — were now prostrating themselves before the Divine Eye in the sky.
"This... this is impossible..."
"Those Gastrea are... making a pilgrimage?!"
The Minister of Defense stared, slack-jawed. The words clawed their way out of his throat in a tremor of pure, surreal disbelief.
Ten years. A full decade.
From the moment the Gastrea War broke out, humanity's research into these creatures had never stopped. They had no social structure, no organizational capacity. They operated on pure instinct — consuming every living thing in their path. That was the conclusion agreed upon by every biologist in the field. It was one of the most critical foundations upon which humanity had managed to cling to survival beneath the protection of the Monoliths.
But now —
Right now —
This sight — a sight that violated every principle of biology, that demolished decades of established understanding about the Gastrea — was more horrifying to him than if the monsters had simply smashed through the walls and started eating people.
The true nature of fear lies in the unknown.
When the beasts that had only ever known slaughter suddenly changed — when creatures once declared "incapable of higher intelligence" began to exhibit organization and purpose — then what did humanity have left?
"Move!" the Minister of Defense bellowed.
"Contact Tendou Kikunojou immediately! And the Holy Emperor!"
But no one answered him.
Because every person in that room had already heard the voice. That voice that resonated directly from within the soul.
"All those who have persecuted, despised, or turned their backs on the children I cherish — are sinners."
"Sinners shall die in the jaws of monsters."
The Minister of Defense's throat worked up and down.
His mind went to documents he had once signed. Resolutions regarding the disposal of the Cursed Children. Purge operations for the Outer Districts. All those things labeled "necessary sacrifices for the survival of humanity."
Cold sweat traced a slow path down his spine.
And then.
At that very moment.
A technician responsible for satellite data analysis let out a sharp, piercing cry.
"S-Sir — look at this..."
With trembling hands, the technician pulled up a series of satellite images. Real-time footage of the Earth, captured from orbit.
On the screen.
It wasn't just the Tokyo Area.
Every green zone of human habitation across the planet was being surrounded by an uncountable sea of red dots — Gastrea, countless in number.
And those Gastrea were using their own bodies — arranging themselves across the surface of that blue planet — to trace out vast and immeasurable symbols.
— Ancient script. — Sacred insignia.
An offering of tribute to the primordial chaos of creation's first dawn.
And at the same time — a final declaration of war, delivered unto the rotten, arrogant civilization of the old humanity.
---
At the same time.
Tokyo Area. The Tendou Family Estate.
The place had long since become a living hell.
The once-grand Japanese-style courtyard was stained a deep, dark crimson. Severed limbs hung from the branches of meticulously pruned pine trees. The carefully arranged dry-landscape garden had been soaked through by warm blood until the soil was nothing but patch after patch of jarring red mud.
Corpses. Everywhere, corpses.
Tendou Hinata. Tendou Gentaku. Tendou Kitoshi. And countless servants, bodyguards, and family members who had tried to flee but hadn't made it far enough.
Their deaths were varied in form — some beheaded by a single clean stroke, some split vertically down the middle, some cut apart into several pieces — but without exception, every face had been frozen in the exact same expression.
Terror.
As though in the final moment before death, they had all laid eyes on something unutterably frightening.
In the center of the courtyard.
A single figure stood in silent stillness amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
She wore the black uniform of Miwa Girls' Academy. Her long, lustrous black hair fell loose over her shoulders — now streaked with dark stains. The face that had once been breathtakingly beautiful was speckled with a few vivid drops of red. That crimson liquid traced slow, unhurried lines down her pale cheek, yet diminished her beauty not at all — if anything, it added to this young woman an aura of terrifying, soul-seizing killing force.
— Tendou Kisara.
The cast-off daughter of the Tendou family.
A swordsman who had received complete mastery of the Tendou-style sword-drawing arts.
And —
The executioner of every last member of the Tendou household.
The cursed blade Yukikage in her hand was still dripping. Warm blood fell from it, tap by tap, onto the ground.
"Haah..."
Tendou Kisara gave the blade a slow shake and exhaled a long, deep breath.
Revenge. So this was what revenge tasted like?
No hollowness, as she had imagined. Only an exhilarating sense of release — ten years of suffocating pressure finally breaking free.
Her father's brutal death. Her mother's brutal death. The agonizing, sleepless nights of dialysis after losing her kidney. The humiliation of being discarded like garbage by the Tendou family. The grueling years of surviving hand-to-mouth alongside Rentarou...
All of it. Every last piece of it. Had finally come to an end tonight.
Tendou Hinata. Tendou Gentaku. Tendou Kitoshi. Tendou Kazumitsu.
Tendou Kikunojou.
Every one of those names had once been a boulder crushing her chest. Now, each person those names belonged to had been reduced to a corpse.
"Done."
"Farewell, Grandfather."
Tendou Kisara pulled a lighter from her pocket and tossed it aside.
Whoooosh——!!
The moment the flame made contact with the fuel she had already doused the place in, crimson lotuses bloomed. Fire swallowed the entrance corridor in an instant, then climbed up the wooden pillars and swept toward the entirety of the estate.
Flames roared skyward. Waves of heat rolled outward, warping the very air of the courtyard in its wake.
Amidst the sharp, rapid crackling of burning wood —
"HAGH!"
"HAGH — HAGH!!"
"HAAAAAGH!!"
Deep within the inferno.
Tendou Kikunojou — his limbs shattered by Tendou Kisara — had his face painted hellfire-red by the blaze, and could do nothing but watch with his own eyes as the estate that had borne witness to generations of the Tendou family's history was consumed by the roaring flames.
"Done."
Just as Tendou Kisara drew a deep breath and began to settle the storm within her —
She glanced slightly to the side, and found the black-haired, black-eyed man — whose face was too flawlessly beautiful to belong to any ordinary mortal — standing at one end of the courtyard, watching the blazing estate in silence.
Tendou Kisara reacted quickly. She dropped to one knee at once, assumed the posture of a swordsman offering formal gratitude to her benefactor, and lowered her head.
"I give you my deepest thanks, Kami-sama."
"Without your aid, this revenge would have been impossible."
Her voice carried a reverence unlike any other. Haimer looked at her — kneeling directly in the pool of blood without hesitation — and raised an eyebrow slightly.
"There is no need for these formalities in my presence."
"Rise."
"Kami-sama."
Tendou Kisara pressed her lips together. Something stubborn flickered through those dark eyes.
"My father once taught me — when you receive a kindness from another, you must repay it a hundredfold."
The sea of fire danced with furious abandon against the night. The Tendou family estate — that structure which had stood for decades — was now one enormous torch, painting half the sky in blazing red. The wooden beams let out sharp, anguished cries under the extreme heat, then collapsed with a thunderous crash, sending cascades of sparks spiraling up into the darkness.
Haimer watched in silence.
His gaze passed over the black-haired girl still kneeling in the pool of blood, and came to rest on the rolling flames beyond. In this moment, he saw no retribution. No karmic reckoning. Only the straightforward sight of a rotting family walking toward the end it had always deserved.
The Tendou family. Once a force of immense weight on the map of power in this world.
And yet it was precisely this distinguished clan that had personally orchestrated an "accidental" Gastrea attack — to bury the evidence of their own corruption. Such was humanity. When faced with power and profit, bloodline was nothing more than a scrap of paper that could be torn up at any moment. "Family honor" was nothing but a signboard propped up on a mountain of nameless corpses.
The most darkly absurd part of all —
This was not, in the span of human history, an isolated incident. Not by any measure.
From the chieftains of ancient tribes killing brothers to secure their throne; to imperial crown princes slaughtering fathers and sons alike for the seat of power; from medieval nobles wiping out entire families over a stretch of land, to modern dynasties erasing their own consciences for profit — in a certain sense, the history of human civilization was nothing more than a chronicle of betrayals, page after page.
Only this time, the hunters had become the hunted.
The ones who had grown accustomed to pulling strings from the shadows had finally felt a blade pressed against their own throats.
With that thought, Haimer withdrew his gaze.
He looked down at Tendou Kisara, still holding her kneeling position.
The firelight danced in the girl's black hair, casting her blood-streaked face in shifting alternations of light and shadow.
"Repay a hundredfold..."
Haimer repeated the phrase quietly.
"The lesson your father taught you is not wrong in itself."
"But — that is a principle meant for mortals."
"It presupposes that you are expressing gratitude to another ordinary person."
"But from this point on, you have become a member of my Familia."
"Between a God and a mortal, there is no such thing as a debt of grace."
Haimer did not leave her kneeling any longer.
He simply raised one hand, and made a gentle, pulling motion through the empty air. An invisible force cradled Tendou Kisara's body and lifted her steadily to her feet from the pool of blood.
"In my eyes, you are no different from the other children I have taken in across another world."
"Among those bound to a God's Grace, there is no reckoning of favors owed and repaid."
"I granted you power because I recognized your talent and your potential."
"I helped you take your revenge because the obstacles on that path happened to be the very same ones I intended to clear away."
"Therefore, you need not feel indebted to me, and you certainly need not shackle yourself with any notion of repaying a hundredfold."
As he said this, Haimer tilted his head slightly, his gaze passing through the roaring flames and settling on the Tendou estate now being wholly devoured by the fire.
From deep within the inferno, the sound of Tendou Kikunojou's howls still drifted out — scraped raw and nearly voiceless.
That old fox, who had once commanded the political machinery of the Tokyo Area and maneuvered from behind the Holy Emperor's throne, was now meeting his end in the most humiliating manner imaginable.
Both hands broken. Both feet broken. A gash carved into his throat, leaving him unable to produce a complete human sound — only the broken, intermittent snarling of an animal with its neck in a stranglehold.
And forced to remain alive through all of it.
Alive to watch the family he had spent decades painstakingly building crumble to ash. Alive to hear that divine proclamation reverberating through heaven and earth outside. Alive to endure every last moment of it.
That was a ruthless play. Haimer had to admit.
With that thought, his gaze settled back on Tendou Kisara.
"Now that your revenge is complete, there is only one thing left for you to do."
"What is it?"
Tendou Kisara raised her head. Haimer's reflection shimmered in those dark eyes of hers, and a flicker of puzzlement passed through them.
"Live."
"And live more brilliantly than anyone else."
____
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