The main hall was still the same wreck as before. The walls kept the cracks caused by the impacts, the floor was covered in marks and fragments of stone, and dust continued falling from the ceiling every time something gave way in another sector of the compound. In the distance, explosions, shouts and strikes could still be heard, though they were becoming more and more spaced out. Not because the battle was necessarily ending, but because there were fewer people left capable of continuing to fight.
In the centre of the hall, the remnant was still standing.
So were Hiroshi and Ryuichi, though neither of them could any longer conceal the toll.
The wound on Hiroshi's right side had ceased to be something he could ignore until the fight was over. Every movement pulled at it, every breath cost a little more, and the blood had soaked through his clothing again. All the same, he kept his fists raised and his posture firm.
Ryuichi had fewer fragments than at the beginning. Some had been severed by the remnant's Bond Severance. Others were still dispersed in different parts of the headquarters, helping hunters he had decided needed them more than he did.
Hiroshi had not gone back to arguing with him about that decision.
But he did not need to.
Ryuichi knew what he thought.
The remnant watched both of them with the same calm as before. Not the calm of something resting, but of something that seemed not to need to.
"You have been on your feet too long," it said, "for what little you have left."
Ryuichi held its gaze.
"We still have enough."
The remnant barely tilted its head.
"That is also relative."
And it charged.
The Bond Severance came first.
Two of Ryuichi's fragments went out before they could reposition. One fell to the floor as a shapeless mass of mana; the other simply disappeared.
The remnant did not wait to verify the result.
It went directly for Hiroshi.
Hiroshi managed to read the movement and concentrated the Compressed Impact in his left hand. It was not his stronger arm, but it was the only one available at that angle.
Both attacked at the same time.
Hiroshi's fist struck the remnant's shoulder and released all the pressure inward. The creature's body shuddered and new cracks appeared around the struck area.
But the enemy's attack also landed.
Hiroshi was sent flying several metres and managed to stay on his feet only by driving one foot into the floor before losing his balance completely.
Ryuichi intervened.
Three fragments attacked in sequence.
The first blocked the remnant's advance.
The second struck its right flank.
The third sought the back, attempting to repeat the strategy that had worked previously.
The remnant raised a hand.
The connection broke.
The third fragment went out.
Ryuichi gritted his teeth.
And then something changed.
Not a strike.
Not an explosion.
It was the presence of new mana entering the hall.
All three looked towards the door.
Kana was standing in the doorway.
The wounds from the fight against Gareki were still visible on her body. Part of her clothing was torn at the side, her arm still bore marks from the impacts she had taken, and the hand she had used to block the remnant's central flow was still trembling slightly.
But none of that was the first thing Ryuichi noticed.
It was the box she was holding.
Hiroshi looked at her.
"What are you doing here?"
"I came to help."
"You should be with the children."
"The children are fine," replied Kana. "You're not."
Ryuichi looked at the box for a second.
He recognised the symbols.
His expression changed.
"Not yet."
Kana understood.
She nodded and kept the box closed.
The remnant looked at the three hunters.
"Bringing another one won't change the result."
Kana entered the hall.
"We'll see."
With three hunters, the fight changed.
Not its result.
Not yet.
But its shape.
Kana did not have Hiroshi's physical power nor could she control the field like Ryuichi. Her way of fighting depended on a completely different kind of precision. She needed to get close, observe the path of the mana within the enemy's body, and find the exact points where the flow could be interrupted.
Against Gareki she had had time to study.
Against this remnant, every second she used trying to understand it could be her last.
Kana advanced along the right side while Hiroshi forced the remnant to keep its attention to the front.
She tried to touch the shoulder.
The point where she had seen the mana concentrating each time the remnant used the Bond Severance.
She did not reach it.
The remnant moved first.
Its arm struck laterally.
Kana blocked with her forearm and the impact made her step back. The pain ran through her entire arm, from wrist to shoulder.
One of Ryuichi's fragments appeared between them.
The remnant tried to sever it.
Hiroshi arrived first.
Compressed Impact.
His fist found the same point on the torso it had struck before.
The cracks spread.
Further this time.
The remnant stepped back.
Kana saw it.
Not just the cracks.
The flow.
For an instant, the path of mana inside that body altered.
It was minimal.
So brief that any other hunter probably would not have been able to notice it.
Kana did.
"Hiroshi," she said.
He glanced at her.
"Keep striking the same point."
He did not ask why.
He simply did it.
The remnant charged again.
Ryuichi sent four fragments.
Two were destroyed.
The third forced the enemy to change direction.
The fourth found its leg.
Hiroshi took advantage.
He struck the torso again.
Exactly the same point.
The Compressed Impact travelled inward.
The remnant made a sound for the first time.
Not a shout.
An involuntary exhalation.
Hiroshi smiled.
"That hurt."
The remnant looked at him.
"You're also wounded."
"Yes."
Hiroshi raised his fists again.
"But I didn't make any effort to hide it."
The combat continued.
And as it did, the remnant began to change its priority.
It was not immediate.
First it observed Kana.
Then the way she moved.
The manner in which she avoided attacking directly and looked for specific points.
It understood.
She was not the strongest of the three.
But she could become the most dangerous.
The first time it went for Kana, Ryuichi stopped it.
The second, Hiroshi.
The third, the remnant changed strategy.
It did not attack directly.
It used the Bond Severance across a wider area.
Two of Ryuichi's fragments went out simultaneously.
Ryuichi took a step back.
"Damn."
The remnant was already moving.
Kana tried to move away.
It changed direction.
She understood too late.
It was not simply trying to reach her.
It was trying to isolate her from the other two.
Ryuichi sent another fragment.
The remnant severed it.
Kana felt the strike coming.
Hiroshi arrived first.
He placed himself between them.
Zetsuen's impact found his body.
Hiroshi had concentrated mana in both arms to resist, but the force sent him back four steps. His knee ended up striking the floor before he could recover his balance.
"Hiroshi!" shouted Kana.
He raised his head.
The remnant was not looking at him.
It was still looking at Kana.
And it advanced again.
Hiroshi understood.
He had no time to get up properly.
No time to measure the distance.
No time to think about how much mana he had left.
He simply moved.
Kana saw Hiroshi's body interpose itself again.
"No!"
The remnant attacked.
Hiroshi used everything.
The mana concentrated in his right fist with a density that none of his previous strikes had reached.
It was not an ordinary Compressed Impact.
There was no reserve.
There was nothing kept back for afterwards.
Everything he had was there.
Hiroshi struck.
His fist entered directly into the centre of the remnant's torso.
And released.
The sound was not an explosion.
It was something deeper.
The creature's body bent slightly, as though for the first time something inside it had given way.
The cracks opened from the chest down to the abdomen.
Kana saw it.
She saw what had happened inside.
The flow of mana had lost stability.
For the first time since she had entered that hall, it was not perfect.
Hiroshi had reached it.
But the remnant also responded.
Its arm went through Hiroshi's chest.
Kana stopped breathing.
For a second, Hiroshi remained standing.
His fist was still resting against the enemy's torso.
He looked down.
Then he raised his eyes again.
The remnant withdrew its arm.
Hiroshi fell.
"HIROSHI!"
Kana's shout crossed the hall.
Ryuichi did not shout.
He was already moving.
Because he had seen the same thing Kana had seen.
The remnant's flow was broken.
Not destroyed.
Not blocked.
But unstable.
And he knew that window would not last.
The remaining fragments attacked from the front.
The remnant destroyed one.
The second exploded against its face.
The third sought the side.
Ryuichi went around.
He arrived from behind.
He wrapped both arms around the creature's torso and held it with all his strength.
"Kana!"
She was still looking at Hiroshi.
"KANA!"
She reacted.
Ryuichi pressed the remnant's body against his while the Bond Severance tried to extend towards him.
"Now!"
Kana ran towards the box.
The remnant struggled.
Ryuichi felt one of his arms temporarily lose its connection to the mana.
He pressed harder with the other.
"Hurry!"
Kana reached the box.
She lifted it.
The remnant managed to move one arm.
Ryuichi felt the grip beginning to give.
"Kana!"
She opened the box.
What came out of the interior was not exactly light.
It was mana, but of a kind Kana had never seen.
It did not behave like the energy of a person or like that of a remnant. It seemed to have been enclosed within that object for so long that it had acquired a function of its own.
From the opening came several long shapes.
Whips.
They extended across the entire hall.
One wrapped around the remnant's right arm.
Another around its left.
Two closed around the torso.
One reached the neck.
The remnant stopped pulling for an instant.
Not because it had stopped trying.
Because it could no longer move in the same way.
The whips tightened.
The Bond Severance tried to cut the connections.
It did not work.
The object did not depend on an external connection like Ryuichi's fragments. There was no hunter at the other end controlling each movement.
The box knew what it had to do.
Kana held it with both hands.
The mana began to leave her body.
Too fast.
She felt her legs tremble.
"Don't close the box!" Ryuichi shouted.
"I wasn't planning to!"
Zetsuen turned its head.
It looked at Kana.
For the first time, its expression had changed.
It was not fear.
But it was not the absolute calm of before either.
"You can contain me," it said, "but you cannot contain that which created us."
The whips pulled.
Ryuichi gritted his teeth.
"We'll deal with that afterwards."
Zetsuen began to be drawn in.
Centimetre by centimetre.
Its body deformed as it approached the box, compressed by a force that did not obey the proportions of ordinary space.
"As long as you keep deciding who has the right to exist," it continued, "there will keep being remnants who want to see you disappear."
Kana felt her hands burning.
"Then we'll keep fighting."
Zetsuen looked at her.
"That is exactly what I mean."
The whips gave one final pull.
Ryuichi released the body at the precise instant.
Zetsuen disappeared inside.
The box closed.
And for the first time since the battle had begun, the hall fell completely silent.
Kana released the box.
She did not fall to the floor because Ryuichi caught her first.
But Kana was no longer looking at the object.
She was looking at Hiroshi.
She ran to him.
He was sitting against the base of a wall, where he had ended up after falling. One hand rested on his chest. The blood was coming through his fingers.
Kana knelt.
"Hiroshi."
He opened his eyes.
"It worked."
Kana pressed her lips together.
"Yes."
"Good."
He tried to breathe deeply.
He could not.
Kana brought her hands towards the wound.
Hiroshi took her by the wrist.
"Don't."
"Be quiet."
"Kana."
"I told you to be quiet."
She tried to move his hand away.
Hiroshi did not have much strength.
But he had enough for her to understand.
Kana stopped trying.
Hiroshi looked at her.
"How is Ginjiro?"
The question caught her off guard.
For an instant, the entire hall disappeared.
There was no Zetsuen.
No box.
No Ryuichi.
Only a father asking about his son.
"He's fine," Kana answered. "He was with Nori, Sae and one of the guards when I left them."
Hiroshi closed his eyes for a second.
The relief was visible.
"Good."
Kana watched him.
"He's an idiot."
Hiroshi opened his eyes.
"He's my son."
"That doesn't contradict it."
Hiroshi managed to smile.
It was small.
But it was there.
Then he looked at the ceiling again.
"And Michiko?"
Kana took a moment to respond, not because she knew something he did not.
Simply because she did not have an answer.
"I didn't see her."
Hiroshi turned his head slightly.
"She didn't arrive?"
"There were many hunters coming and going. Daigo said they had called in everyone available. She could be anywhere in the headquarters."
Hiroshi nodded slowly.
"Then she'll find him."
Kana looked at him.
"Yes."
Hiroshi breathed with difficulty.
"When you see her..."
He stopped.
Kana waited.
"Tell her to look after Ginjiro."
"I'll tell her."
Hiroshi closed his eyes again.
For a few seconds he did not speak.
Kana thought perhaps he had lost consciousness.
Then she heard his voice again.
"You too."
Kana went still.
"What?"
Hiroshi looked at her again.
"Look after him."
"Hiroshi..."
"He's insufferable."
Kana felt something close in her throat.
Hiroshi continued:
"Stubborn. Gets himself into things he shouldn't. Never knows when to stop."
"He takes after his father quite a bit."
"No. I'm much more reasonable."
Kana let out a brief laugh.
A laugh that broke before it finished.
Hiroshi watched her.
"Promise me."
Kana stopped smiling.
She looked at the man in front of her.
At her friend.
At the father of the boy she had spent years training.
"I promise."
Hiroshi nodded.
"Good."
Kana took his hand.
"You're going to tell him yourself when—"
Hiroshi closed his eyes.
Kana did not finish the sentence.
She waited.
One second.
Two.
She squeezed his hand.
"Hiroshi."
Nothing.
"Hiroshi."
The silence answered.
Kana lowered her head.
Ryuichi was a few metres behind her, holding the box.
He said nothing.
Several seconds passed before Ryuichi approached.
His breathing was still heavy and barely any trace remained of the fragments he had used during the fight.
He stopped beside Kana.
He looked at Hiroshi.
Then he lowered his eyes to the box.
"It's all over."
Kana lifted her head.
Her eyes were wet.
"No."
Ryuichi looked at her.
"What?"
"Look around."
Kana gestured at the hall.
The bodies.
The cracks.
The blood.
Hiroshi.
"This doesn't feel like an ending."
Ryuichi was silent.
Then he looked down.
"For me it does."
Kana looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
Ryuichi took a few seconds to respond.
"When we leave here I'm going to resign."
Kana frowned.
"Ryuichi."
"Listen to me."
"No."
"Kana."
"You're not making a decision like that now."
"I made it long before the fight ended."
She stood.
"It wasn't your fault."
Ryuichi looked at her.
"I didn't say it was all my fault."
"Then stop talking as though it were."
"I said it was my responsibility."
Kana opened her mouth.
Ryuichi continued before she could respond.
"I sent the hunters north. I decided to leave Tokyo with a reduced last line of defence. I believed I could control every front at the same time. Even during the fight with Zetsuen I kept dividing my mana to help in other sectors because I convinced myself I could save them all."
He looked at Hiroshi.
"And I couldn't."
Kana tightened her fists.
"Nobody could have known what was going to happen."
"I know."
Ryuichi breathed.
"And still it was my responsibility. Both things can be true at the same time."
Kana had no answer.
Ryuichi looked at the box.
"I'm going to present myself to the council."
She raised her gaze.
"Present yourself?"
"They're going to judge what I did. My decisions. The dead. Everything."
"Ryuichi..."
"And when they decide to confine me, I'm not going to oppose it."
"You don't know that's what they'll do."
Ryuichi smiled with weariness.
"Yes I do."
Kana shook her head.
"It's not fair."
"Probably not."
"Then don't accept it."
"It's not about what's fair to me."
Kana looked at him with anger.
"And what do you want me to do? Stay here while you decide to disappear?"
"No."
Ryuichi moved his hand to one of his fingers.
He took off the ring.
Kana recognised it.
It was not ostentatious. It had no stones or special decorations. To anyone who did not know its meaning it would have seemed a simple object.
To the hunters it was not.
It was the symbol of the central headquarters leadership.
Ryuichi extended his hand.
Kana did not take the ring.
"No."
"Kana."
"I don't want your position."
"I didn't want it to come this way either."
"Then stay."
Ryuichi looked at her.
"I can't."
"Yes you can."
"I shouldn't."
The silence settled between them.
Ryuichi extended the ring again.
"You'll achieve what I couldn't."
Kana looked at him.
"You can't know that."
"No."
A small smile appeared on his face.
"But I believe it."
Kana looked down at the ring.
"That's not enough."
"Sometimes it is."
She still did not take it.
Ryuichi took one more step.
"I believed I could keep everything together. Tokyo. The hunters. The north. Every person who was still alive."
He looked at the box.
"Zetsuen was right about one thing."
Kana raised her gaze.
"About what?"
"Everything that is joined can be broken."
Silence.
"But that doesn't mean something new can't be built afterwards."
Ryuichi took Kana's hand and placed the ring on her palm.
She did not close it.
"Don't repeat my mistakes."
Kana looked at him.
"I don't know if I can do this."
"I didn't know either."
"That doesn't help."
Ryuichi smiled.
"I was never good at helping."
Kana exhaled through her nose.
Ryuichi began to move away.
"Ryuichi."
He stopped.
Kana was still holding the ring.
"And the box?"
Ryuichi looked at the object in his other hand.
"I'm going to make sure nobody ever opens it again."
He turned again.
"Look after them."
And he continued walking down the corridor.
Kana watched him until he disappeared.
For a few minutes she did nothing.
Not because there was nothing to do.
There was too much.
The wounded.
The dead.
Parts of the headquarters destroyed.
The children.
Ginjiro.
Ryuichi.
The box.
But during those minutes, Kana was not a teacher.
Not an heir.
Not a future deputy head.
She was only a woman sitting on the floor of a destroyed hall beside the body of a friend.
She looked at the ring in her hand.
Then at Hiroshi.
She remembered his last request.
Look after him.
Kana closed her fingers around the ring.
She had spent the entire morning moving.
Fighting.
Giving orders.
Finding solutions.
She had not had time to stop when she found the first dead.
Nor when she fought Gareki.
Nor when Daigo handed her the box.
Nor when she saw Hiroshi fall.
There had always been something else to do.
But now, for a few seconds, there was not.
And when at last there was nothing immediate left to do, Kana wept.
Decades later, Ginjiro Kato was leaning against a wall of the Tokyo headquarters with his arms crossed and his gaze lost on a point that did not really exist in front of him.
It was not the posture of someone resting.
It was that of someone who was physically in that corridor, but whose mind had returned to another place.
To another headquarters.
To another time.
"Are you all right?"
Kato raised his gaze.
Yuna was a few metres away.
She had her arms crossed and that expression she used when she already knew something was happening and was simply waiting to see how long the other person would take to admit it.
"Perfectly."
Yuna looked at him.
"That isn't what I asked."
Kato sighed.
"I was just thinking."
"I see."
"It's an activity I engage in from time to time."
"I hadn't noticed."
Kato smiled.
"How aggressive."
Yuna did not respond immediately.
She moved a little closer.
"Kana told me."
Kato's smile diminished barely.
"Told you what?"
"What happened when you were a child. The war. Your parents. Ryuichi."
Kato closed his eyes and sighed.
"That blasted old woman made us hide everything that happened and she's the first one to go around telling people."
Yuna could not help a small smile.
"She told me because she thought I should know."
"Of course. She always has an excuse."
Yuna became serious again.
"I'm asking you properly, Kato."
He looked at her.
"Are you all right?"
Kato did not respond immediately.
Yuna continued:
"With the new remnants. With the ones that speak. With the organisation. With everything that resembles what happened back then."
Kato looked at her for a few seconds.
Then he smiled.
It was not a completely false smile.
But it did not show everything.
"Don't worry about me. I'm perfectly fine."
Yuna raised an eyebrow.
"I don't believe you."
"That wounds my feelings."
"You'll survive."
"I hope so."
Kato pushed himself off the wall.
"Besides, I have things to do now."
Yuna followed him with her gaze.
"What things?"
"I need to look into some information."
"I'm coming with you."
"There's no need."
"I'm coming with you."
Kato looked at her.
"I just told you there's no need."
"And I just ignored you."
"How professional."
"Where are we going?"
Kato sighed.
"Machida."
Yuna stopped smiling for a fraction of a second.
It was so brief that almost anyone else would not have noticed.
Kato did.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"That sounded exactly like something's wrong."
"You said Machida."
"Yes."
"And who are we going to see?"
Kato began to walk.
"Someone who has some interesting information."
Yuna stayed still for an instant.
Machida.
Someone with information.
She did not need more.
The memory came immediately.
White hair.
A smile that was too sure of itself.
A way of talking to Kato that Yuna had never quite liked, though she was not especially interested in analysing why.
Kasumi Shirogane.
Yuna smiled.
It was a completely functional smile.
"Perfect," she said.
Kato glanced at her sideways.
"That smile is frightening."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't."
Yuna walked past him.
"Are you coming or not?"
Kato watched her walk away.
Then he smiled and began to follow.
"And they say I'm the difficult one."
Yuna did not turn round.
"Because you are."
The two of them continued walking down the corridor.
And behind them, the headquarters carried on functioning as though the past had truly been left behind.
But Kato knew better than anyone that some things never quite finished leaving.