Chapter 225: Chapter 13
The climb out of that hollowed-out grave felt like dragging their souls through knee-deep sludge.
The physical exertion was nothing compared to the psychic weight of the secrets that had been unearthed in the dark.
Seijirou hauled himself over the jagged lip of the concrete, his muscles straining as he reached back down into the abyss and gripped Rindou’s hand, her palm was cold and clammy, and pulled her up with a sharp, forceful tug.
The mont they reached the relatively "clean" air of the lobby, their strength evaporated as they both collapsed onto the soot-stained floor, limbs tangling in their exhaustion.
Rindou fell forward, her forehead resting against Seijirou’s chest, her breathing coming in ragged, shuddering hitches.
Physically, they were fine; the spirit wasn’t particularly strong, and they didn’t exert themselves as hard as when they fought the elites of Saint Shinomiya.
But ntally, they were utterly exhausted.
The stench of the hidden necropolis below, combined with the visceral, bone-chilling horror of Tamaki’s final confession, had carved a hollow space in their chests.
The image of the girl, the real girl, rotting in the dark while her spirit begged for a fairytale ending was a phantom that wouldn’t easily leave them.
"We need to give them a proper burial," Rindou whispered into his shirt, her voice was thin, stripped of its usual crystalline authority. "All of them. Not just her. They’ve been forgotten in the dark for too long."
"Yeah," Seijirou nodded, his gaze fixed on the peeling paint of the ceiling. "They deserve it. They deserve to have their nas rembered and spoken again."
Silence perated the place for a mont, heavy and suffocating, with the only sound being the distant whistle of the wind through the broken window panes and the fading sizzle of the exorcism seals.
Then, Rindou shifted as she sat up, straddling his waist to steady herself, her eyes suddenly clearing.
The grief was still there, but it was being rapidly overtaken by a sharp, icy resolve as she looked down at him, her expression serious and firm.
"Seijirou, I want to destroy the Blowers," she said. It wasn’t a suggestion; it was a vow.
"Yeah. They deserve to rot in hell," Seijirou replied, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, lethal intent as the silver-gold light in his eyes flared with a dangerous heat. "They were using my na. My reputation. They used
as a lure to commit those heinous acts. I will not let them get away with this. I will make them pay in ways the law can’t even describe."
Rindou stared at him, the tension in her shoulders softening just a fraction as she leaned down slightly and whispered, "I really didn’t make the wrong choice."
"Hm?" Seijirou raised an eyebrow, he was so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard what she had just said.
"Nothing." She stood up abruptly, brushing the dust from her skirt and taking out her phone, which is just a cheap device she bought casually since she doesn’t really used phone tha much.
Surprisingly, it had miraculously survived the chaos of the pit without a single crack on the screen.
"You’re calling the police?" Seijirou asked as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, then finally to his feet.
"Yes. And I also want them to begin the process of informing the families. The parents of these girls... they’ve spent years wondering if their daughters ran away or if they were still out there sowhere. They need closure. They need to bring them ho," Rindou said, her thumb already hovering over the speed dial as she put the phone to her ear.
"...Yes, it’s , Dad. You see... we found it. All of it. You need to send the forensics team and a heavy recovery unit to the Otsuka Sanatorium. Now."
Seijirou didn’t bother listening to the rest of the conversation as he turned away, his mind occupied by that final, shimring farewell he had shared with Tamaki.
For so reason, despite the victory of the exorcism, he couldn’t help but feel a gnawing sense of guilt.
He knew, logically, that he wasn’t responsible for the gang’s actions, and he hadn’t asked for a reputation that could be weaponized.
But he still felt the weight of it.
It couldn’t be helped. It was his na, the King of Shinji Highschool, that had been used as the honey to draw those girls into a slaughterhouse.
Every atrocity committed in that basent was a debt written in his handwriting by soone else’s hand.
In fact, thinking about it now, he realized that half of the dark rumors circulating about his "depravity" and his "predatory nature" probably originated from these Blowers.
They had been building their empire of filth on the back of his shadow.
He let out a long, weary sigh as he found himself hoping, truly hoping, that Aphrodite was watching him and actually granted the wish of that girl to be hugged by him again.
She’s the Goddess of Love, isn’t she?
So he wanted to believe that sowhere, in another ti or another life, he could actually fulfill that promise to the orange-haired girl.
He wanted to hold her until the cold finally went away for good.
"...Yes, Dad. Thank you. Bye." Rindou ended the call with a sharp click and turned toward him. "They’ll be here in ten minutes."
Seijirou nodded, his face a mask of cold stoicism. "Let’s wait outside. The sll in here is killing . It feels like I can taste it."
Rindou agreed imdiately and they walked out of the skeletal building, stepping back into the overgrown courtyard.
The evening air felt like a blessing for them, finally breathing the fresh breeze, no longer having to endure that foul rotting scent.
They then found a low, crumbling concrete wall near the gate and sat down, side by side, watching the stars of the night sky.
Seijirou sighed once more, the sound heavy with the night’s burden.
Rindou stared at him, her gaze lingering on his profile. "You know, back then, I always used to see you smoking. You were never without a cigarette even in school, no matter how many tis I or the teachers scolded you. But now, I haven’t seen you even hold a lighter. You stopped?"
Seijirou nodded, a ghost of a smirk appearing on his lips. "Yeah. Turns out smoking is bad for your health. Who knew? The labels weren’t lying."
He said that, but the truth was a bit more personal.
You see, when Touka first started hanging out with the group, Seijirou instantly noticed the way she would subtly frown and wrinkle her nose whenever the acrid scent of tobacco drifted her way, and how her eyes water during long conversations.
So even though she never really told them to quit, or even told them to stop when she’s with them, he and the boys had decided to simply drop the habit out of a silent respect for her, though Renji and the others would still occasionally sneak one when the world felt like it was crashing down.
"Although, now I think I could use a smoke." Said Seijirou.
"I think I do too."
The two of them then lapsed back into silence, both lost in their own thoughts.
Rindou was likely ntally preparing the report for her father once he and the police arrive, while Seijirou was thinking back to the ga, trying to find so clues that would be useful to them now.
Then, exactly ten minutes later, the silence of the outskirts was shattered as the wail of multiple sirens cut through the air, and a fleet of police cruisers and blacked-out vans screeched to a halt in front of the gates.
The flashing red and blue lights painted the charred walls of the hospital in a rhythmic, frantic strobe
.
The first to step out from the lead car was Kobayashi Ieyasu, Rindou’s father.
He looked grimr than usual, his hand resting on his sidearm as he surveyed the scene.
"Dad!" Rindou ran toward him, her exhaustion montarily replaced by the need for official protocol. "You’re finally here."
Ieyasu nodded, his eyes darting to Seijirou before returning to his daughter. "Yes. We brought the specialized recovery unit. Can you show us exactly where that hole is? I want my n to know what they’re walking into."
Rindou and Seijirou nodded in unison and led the way back into the dark maw of the hospital.
Ieyasu motioned for a team of masked officers and forensics experts to follow him, while the others moved to secure the periter.
It didn’t take long before they arrived. And as they approached the center of the lobby, the foul, rotting stench hit the newcors like a physical wall.
Despite their training, several officers faltered, their eyes watering behind their masks.
"This is it," Seijirou said, pointing to the shattered concrete and the yawning darkness beneath.
Ieyasu nodded grimly as he took out a high-intensity tactical flashlight and pointed the beam directly into the hole.
He stood there for a long ti, the light illuminating the tangle of white bones and the lting, oily remains of the victims.
His jaw tightened so hard it looked like it might snap.
The other police officers who gathered around the rim could barely stomach the sight.
One rookie began to gag audibly, doubled over as if he were about to puke his guts out right onto the evidence.
"Fuck," Ieyasu cursed, his voice a low, vibrating growl of pure fury. "I’ve seen so dark things in this city, but this... this is a graveyard of children."
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