With Satoru Gojo away, the person the children at the school knew and trusted most was the "doctor" who often came by to give them medical checkups and occasionally brought them snacks.
The call was answered almost immediately. Sumire Muroto's slightly lazy voice came through the receiver, carrying her usual air of indifference.
"Hello, hello. Is that Aii? You mean those soldiers outside?"
"Don't worry about them. As long as you stay inside, keep quiet in your classrooms, and make sure the doors and windows are locked, there won't be any problems. So relax."
Back in the research lab, Sumire leaned against a comfortable office chair, one hand resting on the desk while she held her phone in the other. Her gaze remained fixed on the surveillance screens in front of her as she spoke in a calm, unconcerned tone, as though they were discussing something completely trivial.
Even without Aii's call, she had noticed the intruders the moment they arrived at the school.
From the beginning, Sumire had regarded the entire school as her "home," as well as a safe haven for the children. Naturally, when their safety was at stake, she wasn't going to overlook even the smallest detail.
She had personally participated in preparing the school and setting up its defenses. Every corner had been arranged with her input, and countless surveillance cameras, both obvious and concealed, covered the entire campus. From the main gate to the classrooms, from the athletic field to the dormitories, even the most secluded corners remained within her surveillance network. The slightest disturbance could be detected immediately.
After hanging up with Aii, some of the laziness faded from Sumire's face. Her eyes sharpened as she dialed another number, lightly tapping the screen with her fingertip. Her tone became considerably more serious.
"You've got three minutes to disarm the last bomb."
"You've done pretty well with the previous ones, and your technique has gotten more polished each time. But if you fail on the last one, all that work will have been for nothing."
"I mean, you've only got one life. There aren't any second chances."
There was a faint warning in her voice, accompanied by a barely concealed trace of anticipation.
On the other end of the call, Kayo Senju stood drenched in sweat before a bomb. Her small frame looked especially frail, and her clothes were already soaked through, clinging tightly to her body and outlining her slender figure.
Sweat trickled down her forehead and cheeks, dripping onto the bomb's casing and leaving tiny wet marks. Yet her eyes remained remarkably focused as she stared at the dangerous device in front of her, its red indicator light flashing at regular intervals.
Beside her, Betty stood with her arms crossed and her back against the wall, staring at the bomb with open impatience. To her, the dangerous device seemed little more than an irritating toy.
"Well? Are you going to keep going?" Betty raised an eyebrow, her voice carrying a hint of mockery. "If you ask me, we should just throw this troublesome thing away. Why go through all this trouble and waste so much time?"
Betty was only here because Sumire had hired her with certain incentives. Her job was to protect Kayo and make sure nothing went wrong while she was disarming the bomb. What kind of protection that meant was obvious enough. If something went wrong during the process, Betty was there to make sure Kayo didn't pay for it with her life.
As a teacher, Sumire's approach to education had always been straightforward and ruthless. She never bothered with unnecessary explanations or gradual instruction.
Once Kayo had learned the basic theory behind bomb disposal and mastered the fundamental techniques, Sumire had immediately thrown her into a real situation. It was the most direct way to force her skills to improve quickly.
That was also why Sumire, despite knowing about the bombs at the school from the surveillance cameras long ago, had waited until now to call Kayo in to deal with them.
For the preceding period, Kayo had remained in the research lab studying bomb-disposal theory, learning the structures of different explosives and familiarizing herself with various techniques. Only after Sumire decided her theoretical foundation was solid enough had she finally given Kayo the chance to put that knowledge into practice.
"I'm fine. I handled all the others, so this one won't be a problem either."
Kayo gently shook her head and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Her voice carried a trace of exhaustion, but her determination remained firm.
She stepped forward and carefully extended her slightly trembling yet remarkably steady fingers toward the bomb. Her fingertips cautiously touched the wires as she began working, every movement precise and deliberate, terrified of making even the slightest mistake.
"Oh, right."
Sumire's voice came through the receiver again, once more sounding somewhat casual.
"There are quite a lot of soldiers outside now. They look pretty intimidating, and judging by their expressions, they definitely didn't come here with good intentions. I'll have to leave those guys to you, Betty."
"Otherwise, the children might be in danger."
"You wouldn't want that idiot Satoru Gojo to come back and find out the children were hurt, would you? He might get upset."
There was deliberate provocation in Sumire's tone, and she had aimed it precisely at Betty's weak spot.
"You really have a nasty way of talking."
Betty clicked her tongue, rolled her eyes, and looked thoroughly unwilling.
Still, her actions betrayed her words. After finishing her complaint, she straightened up and slowly walked over to the window. She lifted one corner of the curtain and looked out across the campus, clearly seeing the soldiers rushing toward the school building.
Yet compared with the armed soldiers below, Betty's attention was focused more on something in the sky, a figure so inconspicuous that it would have been almost impossible to notice without looking carefully.
A playful smile curled across her lips.
"Heh."
"Looks like I won't have to do anything after all. Those idiots are going to die horribly."
Her voice carried disdain, along with the calm certainty of someone who had already seen how things would end.
"Huh?" Sumire's puzzled voice came through the phone. "What do you mean? What did you see?"
Back in the research lab, Sumire frowned and quickly scanned the surveillance monitors, but she couldn't find anything unusual. Confusion filled her voice.
"Exactly what I said."
Betty spoke flatly, then hung up without giving Sumire another chance to ask questions. Her gaze remained fixed on the figure in the sky.
Click.
The instant the call ended, a crisp sound came from behind Kayo. She slowly turned around, and a relieved smile appeared on her face as she held up the core component she had removed from the bomb.
"Done."
"Then let's go. If we leave too late, we'll miss the show."
The impatience vanished from Betty's face, replaced by a hint of excitement. She stepped forward, grabbed Kayo by the wrist, and before Kayo could react, the two of them rose into the air and flew out of the school building.
Kayo instinctively closed her eyes and clung tightly to Betty's hand as the wind roared past her ears. Her heart began pounding faster, caught somewhere between fear and excitement.
It didn't take long before the two of them emerged from a corner of the school building and hovered steadily in midair. As soon as they cleared the building, they saw a strange group of creatures bouncing toward the entrance.
They were toads covered in snow-white fur resembling rabbit fur. Each was slightly larger than an ordinary toad, with eerie red eyes and thick, powerful hind legs. They bounded rapidly toward the upper floors, moving with astonishing agility and speed.
"Are those Gastrea?!"
Kayo's eyes widened as she stared at the creatures, which looked as though they had all been made from the same mold. Confusion and surprise filled her expression.
As far as she knew, only Gastrea could have such bizarre appearances. Yet every Gastrea she had encountered had looked different. Their forms varied wildly, with no two looking exactly alike.
Because the virus mutated differently from one individual to another, nearly every Gastrea had its own distinctive appearance. It was impossible for so many of them to look completely identical, right down to the length of their fur and the color of their eyes.
"No."
Betty shook her head, her tone remaining indifferent as she continued looking toward the distant sky.
"Those are Shikigami."
Before Kayo could recover or even figure out what a Shikigami was, Betty carried her toward Satoru Gojo, accelerating as she went. The wind grew louder in their ears as their speed increased.
By the time they reached Gojo, he was hovering in midair with a phone in one hand, speaking casually with his trademark smile on his face. He didn't look the least bit concerned about the soldiers below.
"Yeah, that's pretty much the situation. Give everyone an announcement and tell the children they don't need to be afraid."
Gojo ended the call and slipped his phone back into his pocket.
Moments later, the school's broadcasting system came to life. Sumire's voice rang through the speakers, spreading across every corner of the campus and reaching the ears of every child.
The message was simple. The Cursed Children were told not to be afraid and to remain inside their classrooms. They were not to come outside. Shikigami would soon arrive to protect them, and they wouldn't be allowed to come to any harm.
The Shikigami she referred to were the strange white-furred toads Betty and Kayo had just seen.
They were Shikigami created by combining Toad and Rabbit Escape from the Ten Shadows Technique.
Gojo had created them for one purpose above all else: protection.
"Hey, you two made it."
Gojo turned toward Betty and Kayo as they flew over. His smile grew even brighter, and he greeted them casually, as though welcoming old friends.
"You came back at exactly the right time," Betty teased as she released Kayo's hand and let her hover beside her. "She just finished disarming every bomb in the school. Didn't leave a single one."
"Huh? Bombs? That's pretty nasty of them."
Gojo nodded, his smile never fading as his gaze slowly shifted toward the convoy below.
"But those annoying guys happened to show up just in time to come here and get themselves killed. How convenient."
As he spoke, his eyes settled on the two men stepping out of the lead vehicle, Kikunojou Tendo and Kazumitsu Tendo. A faint smile remained on his face, but there wasn't the slightest trace of warmth in his eyes. Instead, there was a cold, restrained killing intent.
Meanwhile, the toad Shikigami that had rushed into the school were already reaching the individual classrooms. They pushed open the doors and approached the children without displaying the slightest hint of hostility. Then, with a gentle motion, each one opened its mouth and swallowed a child whole.
Not one of them was hurt.
At first, the children were frightened. They huddled in corners, staring at the strange toads with wide, nervous eyes.
But once they realized that being inside the toads' bodies wasn't suffocating at all, but warm and comfortable, and that they could climb back out whenever they wanted, their fear quickly faded and was replaced by curiosity.
Some of the children even found the experience fascinating. They occasionally poked their heads out through the toads' mouths to look around, while the more mischievous ones reached out with their little hands and stroked the soft fur covering the Shikigami, treating them like entertaining new toys.
Once every child, along with Elder Matsuzaki, had been swallowed by the toad Shikigami and safely secured inside them, Gojo was completely free of any concerns about the children's safety. The smile on his face became even more uninhibited.
"All right. Let's deal with these idiots who don't know when to quit."
Gojo stretched lazily. His tone was relaxed, but the pressure behind his words was impossible to ignore. Then he flew directly toward the convoy below, his speed unhurried yet his momentum utterly unstoppable.
Betty carried Kayo and followed closely behind without falling even a step behind.
It was Kayo's first time flying, and she had never experienced anything like the tense situation unfolding below. Her heart pounded with excitement as she gripped Betty's clothes tightly, terrified that she might accidentally fall. At the same time, curiosity kept drawing her gaze toward the scene unfolding beneath them.
Gojo's figure was spotted by the soldiers shortly after he approached the convoy.
The armed men immediately raised their rifles and aimed them at him, fingers tight against their triggers. Their expressions were tense, their eyes filled with vigilance, and none of them dared even breathe too loudly.
Kikunojou Tendo and Kazumitsu Tendo soon noticed Gojo hovering in the air as well, and their expressions changed instantly, though in completely different ways.
"Satoru Gojo."
Kikunojou's face darkened as though it might drip with water. His voice was heavy and icy, each word seeming to be forced through clenched teeth. His eyes were filled with hatred and apprehension.