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Even if we were able to steal him from President Tendo, after that, there would be a bloody battle between you and me. In that case, I would rather not have any allies from the start.”
    Enju widened her eyes in shock and earnestly gripped the fabric on her chest. The letters C.B. were written on a pin arranged there.“Then, what about the anti-boob organization we formed,
Counter Breasts
?”
    Tina shook her head again. “Today, we will disband.”
    Tina tore off the C.B. pin on her chest and threw it to the ground, stepping on it with her heel.
    “Whoaaaaaa! Wh-what are you doing, Tina? After we went through all the trouble to make it!” Enju fell at Tina’s feet in tears and hugged the pin close.
    Tina snickered coldly, gazing down at Enju. “Besides, look. I have a bigger chest than you do.”
    “T-Tina. You traitor! Homewrecker! Female panther! Female cat!” Enju screamed.
    It was hard to believe that this was a conversation between two ten-year-old children. Rentaro sighed as he watched the political violence of the Counter Breasts as their internal rift started. In any case, Tina appeared to be getting along in the Tendo Civil Security Agency just fine.
    The warm night air floated through the eight-tatami-mat room. It was filled with the medicinal smell of mosquito repellant, but outside the window, Rentaro could hear the reserved chirping of bell crickets and pine crickets.
    It was past 10 p.m., and it had been a while since they turned off the lights. Rentaro’s eyes were already used to the darkness. He was deep in thought as he lay in the middle futon between Enju and Tina, gazing at the complex wood grain in the ceiling.
    As they ate, during the height of their feast, Rentaro tried explaining to the two of them about the collapse of the Monolith and the worst-case scenario of the Gastrea invasion after that. As expected, the two of them paled for a second, but then Enju retorted angrily, without a moment’s delay: “We will fight as well! It’ll be fine as long as we do something, right?”
    “Enju, are you…okay with that…?”
You might die, you know
, he started to say. Enju and Tina had experienced battling against theGastrea many times as civil officers. He did not think that they misread the threat that a faction of two thousand Gastrea would be.
    “Big Brother,” Tina said as she stepped forward. She had a stern look on her face. “The Initiator ranked ninety-eighth by the International Initiator Supervision Organization, Tina Sprout, once fought the one thousandth–ranked Rentaro Satomi and lost. She died once. The life I’m living now is without a doubt my second life. Please use it as you wish.”
    Rentaro was taken aback both by Tina looking up to him and by Enju’s dignified eyes. Rebelling against death, or resigned to living—where did the core of their strength come from? Even he and Kisara, who were closer to being adults than the two of them, could not come to an immediate decision after hearing the Seitenshi’s request.
    Rentaro shook his head. “Very well. I will definitely tell Kisara of your determination.”
    He found Enju snoring on the futon to his right as his consciousness came back to him. The silence hurt his ears. The sound of the clock’s second hand ticking away seemed louder than usual in his ears.
    “Big Brother, are you awake?” He heard a voice that sounded like the buzz of a mosquito. It was Tina.
    Rentaro tried to sound as calm as he could. “You can’t sleep?”
    “Yeah.”
    It wasn’t surprising. With the nocturnal animal factor in her, this was when she would have been the most active.
    “Will you talk to me for a little bit?” she asked.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “I thought it over, and I was thinking of taking sleeping pills at night to change my sleep cycle so I can wake up in the morning.”
    “You don’t have to force yourself.”
    “No, I want to. Because I want to live in the same time as you, Enju, and President Tendo.”
    After