Sunlight lay thick over the Holy Residence at the center of Tokyo.
The building that stood for the highest authority in the Tokyo Area had been raised from milk-white marble.
Gilded tiles covered the roof, throwing back a cold and expensive light.
Ring after ring of Self-Defense Forces soldiers held the perimeter, weapons loaded, faces set.
The Council Chamber on the top floor told a different story.
Around the vast circular table sat the core of Tokyo's government.
Kikunojou Tendo occupied the head seat.
Dark kimono, hair combed without a strand out of place, face empty of expression. Only in those clouded eyes did anything move, something sharp and predatory, the weight of a man who'd spent decades at the top.
Every other senior figure had come. Every seat filled but one.
None of them had been warned about the summons, and they traded low, baffled murmurs.
Soon enough the murmuring turned toward Kikunojou.
"Lord Tendo, has Seitenshi called us here to announce something urgent?"
The chamber fell quiet around the question.
Even the men from rival parties, even those who agreed with him on nothing, stopped talking. Whatever the news was, Kikunojou would have it first.
He met their eyes, his face still as standing water, and spoke low.
"Seitenshi has called us for one reason only, and the whole of it was proposed by the man called Satoru Gojo."
The room broke into noise.
Some frowned at the impropriety of it, at a foreigner's word being enough to move the government.
Others speculated with open appetite that he'd finally come to name his terms and hand that miraculous power over.
Kikunojou cleared his throat once, and silence dropped back into place.
"Every guess you've made is wrong. This concerns a single matter."
"Takuto Yasuwaki, Seitenshi's guard captain, attempted to kill a Cursed Child. Satoru Gojo caught him at it, and is at this moment bringing him to the Holy Residence."
His voice came out low and rasping.
Uproar followed.
Short as the statement was, nobody in that room needed it spelled out.
The man intended to demand an accounting in front of all of them. Or pass judgment.
"Lord Tendo, this is lawlessness! We swallowed it when he killed those two police officers. Now he lays hands on Second Lieutenant Yasuwaki? That's an open challenge to the authority of this entire government!"
A heavy-jowled councilor in a suit slammed the table, face gone red.
"He's right! Gojo is an outsider with no verifiable history. What gives him the right to do as he pleases on Tokyo soil? Who does he imagine he is? Does he think our Self-Defense Forces are ornamental?" The second voice carried more bluster than conviction.
"His capability can't be waved away. From what we've compiled, a single individual of his level matches an advanced Cursed Child, or a mechanically augmented soldier."
The mutter came quietly, with resignation under it.
"And if we break with him entirely, then any hope of obtaining that magic..."
The hall went still.
Complicated expressions settled on every face.
They hated his arrogance, hated that he ignored Tokyo's laws, hated the humiliation he'd handed them again and again.
And they couldn't stop weighing his strength, or what he might be worth to them.
"Magic?" Kikunojou cut through the whispering with a dry laugh.
"However strong Satoru Gojo is, he remains one man. This government controls the resources of the entire region. We have soldiers beyond counting and the most advanced weapons available. Are we to fear a single outsider?"
His gaze traveled the table, cold and sharp, a warning riding in it.
"We tolerated him because we wanted to understand the power he carries and turn it to our use. He has now moved past our control entirely and begun testing our limits."
"His strength is real. But surely what we take for ourselves is more reliable than what we beg through a bargain."
The words landed hard.
The men around the table looked at each other.
He was telling the truth and they knew it.
Gojo was a bomb on a timer. Two officers last time, a Second Lieutenant now. Any one of them could be next.
Better to strike than sit waiting.
"Lord Tendo is right! We've endured enough!"
"Remove him! That monster has to be removed!"
"Whatever the cost, the authority of this government must be upheld!"
Men who'd been cautious minutes before were on their feet, whipped into fury by his stirring.
Kikunojou watched them and let a thin cold smile surface.
Not long after, Seitenshi arrived with her escort.
The chamber went silent as she entered, as though that heated discussion had never happened.
"Seitenshi."
"Seitenshi."
They rose in greeting, one after another.
She'd barely taken her seat before Kikunojou opened fire.
"Might I ask what has prompted this sudden summons?"
He looked at her and asked what he already knew.
"My teacher, Mr. Gojo, is on his way here now. He has a matter to raise with all of you."
His response had left her little room, but she'd gathered them as instructed.
"Seitenshi."
His brows drew together, those imperious eyes fixing on her like a tiger's.
The others exchanged glances with faint mockery in them.
"You are the supreme ruler of Tokyo. How can a word from an outsider move this body?"
"Even if the man is your teacher, this should not have occurred."
He'd placed himself in the instructor's chair the moment he opened his mouth, an elder correcting a disappointing junior.
She let none of it show on her face and offered nothing back.
She'd sat through this more times than she could count. The shape of it no longer surprised her.
Her task today was simple. Wait for him to arrive.
When she stayed silent, Kikunojou's mouth twisted slightly.
"In that case, I see no reason for this meeting to continue." Chairs scraped. Not one of them so much as glanced at her as they moved to leave.
She drew a breath and hardened her voice.
"You seem to have forgotten something."
Her palm came down on the table.
The crack of it carried, and light burst out from her, brilliant enough to make her look like something out of scripture.
"That power you've all wanted so badly. Are you giving it up now?"
Even Kikunojou stopped, eyes locked on the glow around her.
If anything in this world still pulled at him, that power ranked among the very few.
But all this time, nothing had progressed.
Interest had cooled accordingly.
Everyone in the room understood the arithmetic. Whatever it cost to obtain that power, it would cost far more than the scraps on display.
No real bargain had been struck, so no real power would be handed over.
Which left little worth paying attention to.
"Your display is stirring, Seitenshi. But we are not children."
He spoke to her without heat.
"To gain something, one must give something. As matters stand, what we have given falls well short of any return."
"Talk of this sort carries no meaning at all, wouldn't you agree?"
A bargain? Absurd.
The tone had been set before she ever walked in.
Today's opportunity would serve to settle everything.
Magic, Cursed Energy, whatever it was called.
Children choose. Adults take it all.
She had no counter for him.
Against a room of old foxes she was raw, and she knew it. Fortunately he'd never intended to walk out. The threat had been a rap across the knuckles.
Then a shriek of tearing metal ripped through the ceiling above.
"BOOM."
The noise flattened the room. The whole chamber lurched.
Documents and water glasses slid off the table and shattered across the floor.
Color drained out of faces. Hands grabbed for the table edge.
"What was that? What's happening?"
"An earthquake? Is it a Gastrea breach?"
"Get security on the line! Find out what's going on!"
Chaos took the Council Chamber. The men who'd been roaring for blood a moment ago scrambled in panic, every trace of arrogance and dignity gone.
Kikunojou stared up at the ceiling, jaw tight, brows knotted. No earthquake. No Gastrea.
Something was coming down from the top of the Holy Residence, punching through one floor slab after another.
Guards already stationed outside threw the doors open and poured in, hunting whatever enemy they expected to find.
They found nothing before...
"BOOM."
Louder this time.
A fracture split the ceiling of the chamber.
It raced outward like a spider's web until it covered the whole span.
Then the marble came down, slab by slab, hammering the floor, stone fragments flying.
"Aaah!"
One councilor didn't move fast enough. A block caught him, and his scream tore short.
Blood sprayed the wall and the floor around him.
The rest scattered like startled birds, diving under tables, wedging into corners, shaking.
Nothing composed remained in any of them.
Seitenshi had gone white. Her body shook past her control.
She pressed into a corner with both arms around her head, terror plain in her eyes.
And this was only the opening.
Satoru came down through the Holy Residence with Betty, Sumire Muroto, and the three men still bound by an unseen grip, dropping floor by floor like a Meteor. No elaborate technique was involved. The Limitless Cursed Technique alone carried him through slab after slab.
Reinforced concrete gave like paper.
Even the alloy plating sandwiched between levels failed to slow him.
Rubble sheeted down, the ceiling opened wide, and the group appeared in the Council Chamber.
The soldiers ringing the room brought their muzzles up the instant the figures resolved, and fired.
Cracking gunfire filled the hall like a string of firecrackers.
Dozens of barrels poured rounds into a single stream of metal meant to shred whatever stood in front of it.
None of it accomplished anything.
Every bullet stopped short of his body, caught by something invisible, and hung suspended around him like moons around a planet.
To anyone who'd never seen it, the sight belonged to scripture.
But they weren't ignorant of him.
And at the Civil Security conference not long ago, another man with the same trick had made an appearance.
So the soldiers didn't drop their weapons in awe.
They also couldn't touch him.
Large-caliber weapons, anti-materiel rifles among them, and every round found the same invisible wall.
None of it mattered.