The hostel rooftop had that specific view of small towns seen from above — the low roofs, the narrow streets, the lights beginning to come on as the afternoon fell over Misato in the way it falls over places that are in no hurry for night to arrive.
Kagami took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with the automatic gesture of someone who has done this enough times for it to require no attention.
Yūta was leaning on the railing looking down — not at the school, not at any specific point, just at the street and the town being the town while the gymnasium was still the gymnasium, even though it could not be seen from here.
"How are you?" said Kagami.
Not in the tone of someone asking the question out of protocol. In the tone of someone who wants the answer.
"If I had arrived earlier," said Yūta, without taking his eyes off the street, "maybe Toma and Masa wouldn't be dead."
Kagami exhaled the smoke slowly.
He moved to the railing and leaned beside him.
"I arrived late too," he said. "If I had gone first, before you, maybe I would have saved them too." He paused. "But you shouldn't let that weigh on you."
Yūta glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
"These things are always going to happen," said Kagami, looking straight ahead. "At the end of the day, we're hunters. And we have to live with this."
The cigarette did its work in silence for a moment.
Kagami stepped back from the railing.
"We leave tomorrow morning," he said. "If you want to speak with Sota before going, you have tomorrow before we set off."
Yūta sighed.
"All right," he said.
Kagami nodded and went towards the rooftop stairs without adding anything more.
Yūta was left alone with the town of Misato below and Kagami's words resonating in a way that did not quite settle.
These things are always going to happen. At the end of the day, we're hunters. We have to live with this.
He thought about Kagami — about that seriousness he had had from the beginning, about the calm that was not indifference but something built over time. These things had probably happened to him before. Not once. Many times. And at some point he had learned to keep walking afterwards.
This is what he meant, thought Yūta. About being a hunter.
The following morning Yūta came down the hostel stairs with his bag over his shoulder and took out his phone.
He sent a message to Kagami first — going to see Sota, we'll meet after — and then one to Sota — can I come and see you? I have something to tell you.
He put his phone away and headed for the Miyazaki house along the route he already knew by heart.
Yuriko Miyazaki opened the door before Yūta had finished lowering his arm after ringing the bell — like someone who had been near the entrance and was expecting someone to arrive, even if not necessarily him.
"Good morning," she said, with something in her voice that was between relief and the specific gratitude of someone who has spent days waiting for things to get better and is seeing signs that they are. "Are you coming to see Sota?"
"Yes," said Yūta. "And to say goodbye. We've finished the work here, we're leaving today."
Yuriko Miyazaki looked at him.
"And your companion? The older one."
"He's not good with goodbyes," said Yūta with a smile. "So he won't be coming."
Yuriko nodded with the expression of someone accepting that as a sufficient answer.
"Come in," she said, stepping aside. "Sota is in his room. You can go up."
Yūta went up the stairs with the same silence of the corridor as always. The door at the end. He knocked.
"Come in," said a voice from inside.
Sota was sitting on the bed with his phone in his hands and the expression of someone who has been looking at something for a while without quite seeing what they are looking at.
His left shoulder had bandages — white, clean, the kind hospitals apply when something has bled enough to require attention, but not enough to require more than that.
He looked up when Yūta came in.
"Why does nobody remember Toma and Masa?" he said.
No preamble. No building towards the question. Just the question, direct, with the weight of someone who has had it inside them for hours and no longer has the energy to go around it.
"So you remember them," said Yūta.
Sota looked at him.
And then something in his face gave way — not all at once but in the way things give way that have been held up too long, which is slowly and all at once at the same time.
"Why did they die?" he said, in the broken voice of someone who knows the question has no sufficient answer, but asks it anyway because it is all they have.
Yūta looked to the side for a moment.
Then he looked at Sota.
"When someone dies inside the veil where the remnants are," he said, in the calm voice of someone giving a truth that hurts and knowing it will hurt more if it is dressed up, "the people outside forget everything about those people the following day. As though they had never existed for them. The only ones who remember them are hunters. And the remnants themselves."
Sota looked at him.
"Why them and not me?" he said.
"Because you can see," said Yūta. "That works differently for you."
Sota nodded slowly. The tears came without announcing themselves — not all at once but in the way they come when they have been waiting a while and there is no longer any reason to keep waiting.
Yūta stayed sitting beside him without saying anything for a moment.
"Forgive me," he said at last. "For not arriving in time."
Sota wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"Thank you," he said, in the voice that remained after crying. "At least the others are safe. Thank you for that."
Yūta did not respond because there was nothing to respond to that with that would be sufficient.
"My work here is finished," he said at last. "I have to go."
Sota looked at him.
"What if those monsters come back?" he said.
"They won't come back here," said Yūta.
"How are you so sure?"
"If they do," said Yūta with a smile, raising his thumb, "so will I."
It was not a complete answer and both of them knew it. But it was what there was.
They stood. They looked at each other for a moment — two boys in a room in Misato with the morning outside being the ordinary morning of a town that did not completely know what had happened — and said goodbye with the simplicity of two people who have been through something together and do not need more words than the ones already said.
Yuriko Miyazaki was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
When Yūta came down she looked at him with that expression she had had since the first day — between assessment and gratitude, between not knowing completely what had happened and knowing enough to be thankful for it.
"Thank you," she said. "For bringing my son back. He can go back to school. He can go out. That is because of you."
Yūta looked at her.
"Please don't thank me," he said. "I don't deserve it."
"You don't have to be so formal," said Yuriko, with something in her voice that was genuine and direct. "You've done a wonderful job. Both of you."
Yūta smiled.
It was the smile he kept for moments where telling the truth was too complicated and the alternative was this — the smile that said nothing, but did not completely lie either.
Inside he was thinking about Toma and Masa.
"I'll be off," he said. "Take care."
He said goodbye and went out.
His phone rang when he reached the pavement.
Kagami.
"Are you done?" he said, without preamble.
"Yes," said Yūta. "Sorry, it took a little longer than expected — I'm on my way now."
He hung up and walked towards where they had arranged to meet.
Kagami was leaning against the car with the cigarette between his fingers and his usual expression — the calm that was not indifference but something built over a long time.
Yūta arrived and stopped beside him.
"That many cigarettes aren't good for you," he said.
Kagami ignored him.
"Good work," he said. "With everything."
Yūta lowered his head.
"You need to understand," said Kagami, in his usual direct tone, "that this is your new life. You need to stop being like this. And if you need to let something out, let it out. Don't carry it alone."
Yūta opened his mouth.
He closed it.
Because what Kagami was telling him was not what he would have expected to hear from him, and precisely because of that, what he felt on hearing it was that it was true and that he had no available response that would be sufficient.
Kagami exhaled the smoke.
"Also," he said, in the tone he used when changing the subject without announcing he was doing so, "you noticed your power improved."
Yūta looked at him.
"Yesterday you fought using the mana for more than thirty seconds," said Kagami. "And you brought it out again and again during the fight. And your movements are more precise than the first time I saw you fight."
Yūta spent a moment processing that.
It was true. He had done it without noticing — without counting the seconds, without thinking about the flow in the way he thought about it in training. It had simply happened because his body had learned something his mind was still finishing registering.
"Thank you," said Yūta. "For everything." He paused. "Though I'm sorry I couldn't catch the remnants."
"Don't worry about it," said Kagami. "It's my fault too. Neither of us knew there were remnants this powerful and intelligent." He stubbed out the cigarette. "I'll speak with Kato about all of this."
"All right," said Yūta.
Then he stopped before opening the car door.
"Kagami?"
"What?"
"Is Sota going to be left alone with all of this?"
Kagami looked at him.
"A hunter is arriving in this town," he said. "To speak with him. Don't worry so much."
Yūta looked at him.
"Is it a good one or a bad one?"
"It's time to go home," said Kagami.
Yūta looked at him for one more second.
Then he smiled — not the false smile from Yuriko's house but something closer to the real one, smaller, with the visible cost of recent days, but there all the same.
"Yes," he said.
The two of them got into the car.
The Miyazaki house was quiet when the doorbell rang.
Yuriko Miyazaki opened the door with the expression of someone who has had enough unexpected visitors in recent days for one more not to surprise them entirely.
"Hello, can I help you?" said Yuriko.
The person on the other side was a woman with loose hair, straight posture, a presence that had something of authority without needing to impose it.
"Good afternoon," said Kirino Yuna, with her usual professional calm. "Is Sota at home?"