Reiko's words exploded through the ruins like a heavy bomb.
Rokuro let out a thunderous peal of laughter. "Well said! Humans are such hypocritical creatures! Their mouths are full of justice and morality, but behind everyone's backs, they're all selfish scum! Boy, stop hesitating! Abandon those civilians and run away with your woman! Let me see the ugliest true face beneath that hypocritical mask!"
The screams inside the Earth Prison Cage grew fainter, which meant more people had been squeezed unconscious.
Kanae looked increasingly frantic. She tried with all her strength to push Rokuya's arm away. "Rokuya! Go! Don't listen to what she says! Hurry!"
But Rokuya did not move.
He remained on one knee, his head lowered, without a word.
He was reflecting.
He was being forced to confront Reiko's accusations, forced to confront the incident he had deliberately forgotten, an incident he had even subconsciously considered "only natural."
Did I... actually do anything wrong?
The question coiled tightly around Rokuya's soul like a venomous snake.
A pure bleeding heart would probably have immediately burst into tears of repentance, then chosen self-sacrifice under the lash of morality. A pure villain would probably have sneered, cut Reiko down, and strode away with Kanae.
But Rokuya was neither.
He was merely an ordinary person who had crossed into this cruel world, struggling through blood and fire to survive and protect the people around him.
In his mind, it was as though he had split into two selves, engaged in an exceptionally brutal courtroom debate.
Tanaka's face appeared before Rokuya's eyes. That face twisted with fear, those eyes that had tried to push him toward a Demon to save his own life.
He nearly got me killed. Why should I have saved him? Rokuya told himself coldly.
Back then, Tanaka had concealed