That letter, written with teeth, each word and sentence like a boulder too heavy to bear, crushed down mercilessly upon everyone's hearts.
The grief that nearly spilled from the page, the despair that seemed ready to pierce through the paper, made everyone present feel as though they had fallen into the deep sea. There was no light to see, no sound to hear, no way to open their eyes. Every breath was as agonizing as having a piece of bloody flesh carved from their lungs with a blade.
And this pain had endured within Okada Daigo for several decades!
This pain tortured Okada Daigo every moment of every day, roasting his suffering soul over the raging flames of hatred and despair.
Yet the demon who should have fallen into Hell, Yamada Unko, still swaggered through the streets, still stretched out his sinful arms in places untouched by light, crushing one family after another.
Letter after letter was opened, letter after letter laid bare.
Some of the handwriting was twisted and ugly, some pages were stained with blood, and some papers were badly torn.
Every letter bore the official seal of its respective Rukongai district, yet the edges of each stamped letter had yellowed. Some had even begun to mold, clearly having been piled up in a warehouse for a long time.
Those red seals struck relentlessly against the Captain-Commander's soul. As he looked at the nearly moldy letters, the temperature around him slowly began to rise.
The scorching heat warped the air itself. All moisture evaporated, leaving throats and eyes faintly dry and stinging.
Fortunately, that power lasted only an instant. In the blink of an eye, the heat vanished completely, yet the cracked, bleeding lips of the crowd seemed to speak of the old man's terror just moments ago.