A day had already passed since Fukuoka.
The Tokyo compound had that particular quiet of places that are always in motion but know when to stop. The internal passageways, the low buildings, the morning light coming through the windows — everything held a normality that contrasted with the last four days of Yūta's life in a way he had still not quite finished processing.
Amane, Shirogane and Tsukino were in one of the corridors of the main wing, talking about what had happened in Fukuoka — the merger, the white remnant with blue veins, how it had ended — when Kato Ginjiro appeared with his hands in his pockets and the expression of someone who has things to do and an order in which to do them.
"Right," he said. "Now I'll show Shirogane and Tsukino to their rooms."
Before he could finish the sentence, he smiled.
Not the supermarket smile, nor the one from the hospital corridor. Something closer to the satisfaction of someone who had been waiting for something to happen and it had just happened.
At the end of the corridor, a figure was approaching.
"Since he's arrived," said Kato, "allow me to introduce you. Ishida Taro. From Sapporo. Hunter family."
Ishida Taro walked up to where the four of them stood and looked at them with an assessment that lasted exactly as long as it needed to. Black hair, straight posture, the expression of someone who does not spend energy on things that do not merit it.
"Ishida," he said.
The others introduced themselves. Amane with his usual smile, Shirogane with her habitual calm, Tsukino with the same economy of words as Ishida.
Ishida looked at Kato.
"I finished what you asked me to do."
"Good," said Kato Ginjiro, nodding.
Then he looked at the group.
"Amane. Ishida. Go to your rooms and get ready. Tomorrow will be important." He gestured towards the girls. "I'll show you both to yours."
The group divided. Kato went down the left-hand corridor with Shirogane and Tsukino. Ishida took the one on the right.
Yūta smiled and put a hand on Ishida's shoulder.
"Looks like we're going to be companions," he said.
Ishida moved the hand from his shoulder. Without brusqueness. With the calm of someone who has a position on such things and applies it without drama.
"I hope you're not going to be a hindrance," he said, looking at him directly. "The others come from hunter families or grew up with this from childhood. You arrived knowing nothing whatsoever."
Yūta held his gaze.
"Don't worry," he said, evenly. "I'll give it everything I've got."
Ishida looked at him for one more second. Then he continued walking towards his room without adding anything further.
Yūta was left alone in the corridor.
The room was small but tidy. A bed, a desk, a window overlooking the compound's inner garden. Yūta dropped his rucksack on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed.
He thought about his father. About the blue plastic chair in Room 304 that he would never sit in again. About Seki Haruto asking practical questions that were really his way of saying he was going to miss him. About Mori Daiki hugging him with too much force. About Fujiwara Nao telling him that if he ever needed to tell someone something, he knew where to find her.
About what he had left behind to be here.
But after yesterday — after the house in Fukuoka and the merged remnant and his arms that were still protesting mildly from the effort of holding something that did not want to be held — there was something he knew with more clarity than before.
It was time to rest.
He lay back without taking off his shoes and was asleep before his head had finished settling into the pillow.
The cold water arrived without warning.
Yūta sat bolt upright with soaking hair and eyes that had not yet finished processing what had happened, and found Kato Ginjiro standing beside the bed with an empty glass and his usual smile.
"What—"
"Good morning," said Kato. "We have training today."
Yūta looked at the glass. Then at Kato. Then at the door, where the other three were standing in the corridor waiting.
"Get changed and we'll be off," said Kato Ginjiro, grinning from ear to ear.
The room he led them to had wooden chairs arranged in rows in front of a blackboard, with tall windows that let in the morning light. The sort of room that in any other context would be a perfectly ordinary classroom.
The four of them sat down.
Kato Ginjiro stood before them and cleared his throat with the specific solemnity of someone enjoying the moment more than the situation calls for.
"Kato Ginjiro," he said. "Forty-eight years old. First-class hunter. As of today, your official master. Responsible for teaching you everything I know."
He waited with his arms open and a smile, in the manner of someone expecting applause when they take the stage.
The silence in the room was complete.
Yūta clapped.
He was the only one. The sound of his palms lasted three seconds in the silence of the room before he let it trail off, mildly aware that the other three were looking at him.
"Thank you, thank you," said Kato Ginjiro, smiling broadly and taking a bow. "At least one of you knows what's good."
Ishida stared straight ahead. Tsukino looked at the ceiling. Shirogane looked at her hands with an expression that was not entirely neutral.
"From today," Kato continued, "you will call me Master Kato." He paused. "This afternoon you have training in the garden with weapons. On the table at the back I have left training clothes for each of you. A second-year student will be waiting there with weapons to practise with." He looked at the four of them. "The three of you can go and get ready."
The three of them.
Yūta noticed the number before Kato had finished saying it.
Tsukino, Shirogane and Ishida stood, collected their training clothes from the table at the back, and began to file out. Yūta stood as well and walked towards the door.
Kato Ginjiro's hand landed on his shoulder.
Yūta turned.
Kato was looking at him with a smile that was neither the supermarket one nor the corridor one. It was something quieter and more particular, the kind that appears when someone has something important to say and knows exactly how to say it.
"You're staying," he said.
Yūta looked at the closed door. Then at Kato.
"Why?"
"Because you're not like the others," said Kato, not with the tone of something negative but simply of a fact. "They grew up in this world. You came to it differently. Before you start training, I need to explain to you how this world works. The hunters. The remnants. All of it."
Yūta's eyes went bright.
Not with sadness. With relief. That specific kind of relief that appears when someone is finally going to explain what you have spent days trying to understand on your own.
He went back to his chair and sat down.
"Hunters," began Kato Ginjiro, "are people with abilities superior to those of ordinary humans. They have mana. You can call it magic if that's clearer to you — for our purposes it amounts to the same thing." He perched on the edge of the table with his usual informality. "Every hunter has the basic powers we all share — channelling that mana through the body, fists, kicks, the core, general endurance, so that blows and stamina are far above normal. And the ability to see the remnants, which other people cannot do." He paused. "But beyond that, each hunter has an ability different from the rest. Almost always different. Tsukino Hina, for instance, has the power of her axe, which she can change in size, while Shirogane Mei has two fans that can launch blades of cutting wind."
Yūta nodded, his eyes fixed on Kato and his mind following each word as though he wanted to make sure he did not lose a single one. But at that moment he interrupted. "What's your power, Master Kato?"
Kato smiled the smile of someone wanting to conceal something. "You'll see that in due course."
Yūta was left slightly puzzled by Kato's words, while Kato asked, "Do you have another question?"
Yūta raised his hand.
Kato looked at him.
"Yes, student Amane."
"If hunters have this mana," said Yūta, "why can't I use it yet? At the hospital I didn't do anything special. I didn't channel anything. I just hit with a rod."
"Because you have been a hunter for three days," said Kato. "The other three learned it as children, gradually, when their bodies were still forming. You are going to have to learn it now, consciously." A pause. "Which is why, as well as being the master to all of you, I will be your master in a specific sense for that as well. Two jobs in one, you might say."
Yūta nodded. Then he raised his hand again.
"Student Amane."
"Why do the others have their powers from coming from hunter families, when I don't come from one and I'm a hunter too?"
Kato Ginjiro stood from the table and walked to the window.
"It doesn't necessarily have to come from a hunter family," he said, looking out at the garden. "For the eye to open, sometimes all it takes is for the person to be close to death, or for something to upset the balance in a particular way." He turned towards Yūta. "In your case, a few weeks ago one of our hunters was near your neighbourhood in Nagoya, fighting a remnant. When it was over, he noticed you. And he could see that you were carrying a small amount of mana in your body without knowing it. That's why we put you under observation. And when your father died, that mana activated fully. The eye opened."
Yūta listened without moving.
He processed that.
Then, unable to contain himself entirely, he raised his hand with something in his voice that was more urgent than the previous questions.
"Master Kato."
"Student Amane."
"How are remnants formed?" he said, slightly nervous. "And... are they all evil?"
Kato Ginjiro returned to the table and sat on the edge.
"Remnants were people," he said. "People who died with something unresolved. A regret, a debt, something they left unfinished and the soul cannot release. When that happens, the soul does not pass on to the other side — it stays. And over time that burden transforms it into what you saw at the hospital, in Fukuoka." He paused. "Not everyone who dies becomes a remnant. It is a very small number. But they exist. And that is why hunters exist — to give them the push they need, so they can continue on their way without causing harm to anyone."
Yūta nodded.
"And are they all evil?"
Kato Ginjiro raised a finger.
He paused.
"I don't know," he said.
Yūta looked at him.
"You don't know."
"No," said Kato, with his usual calm. "And anyone who tells you yes with certainty has either not thought about the question enough, or is lying to you."
The silence that followed was the kind that does not ask to be filled.
Kato Ginjiro stood.
"I've told you what I wanted to tell you," he said. "The rest you will learn with time. You can go and join the others."
Yūta stood. He walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the frame, turned, and gave a brief bow.
"Thank you, Master Kato."
Kato Ginjiro looked at him for a moment without saying anything.
Yūta stepped out into the corridor at a quick pace, almost running.
In the compound garden, under the morning light of Tokyo, the three of them were waiting for instructions from a young man of about twenty — tall, black-haired and broad-shouldered, with a canvas bag at his feet from which protruded several weapon handles of different shapes and sizes.