Hearing such things from Ayano gave her a bit of a relief. She still hesitated greatly on what sort of people that they were. Even the best iions could still lead to the worst outes. And she wasn’t about to judge the whole group just off of Ayano. She still wao know what they wao do as an end goal. Resisting hting, whatever it was against the UN was merely the first step. A difficult ahy ohat wouldn’t be settled in any reasonable sort of time, but there had to be pns after.

  Saki followed the woman out of the room. It still surprised her to see that the whole group lived in the apartment. They had a very different arrahan Hiroshi’s group. However, he had the be of having someoh a very unique skill set. They had no such thing. They had no clue to what happened, who caused it or why. They had to do things on their own and she could be impressed by that.

  Ayano clicked the elevator button, giving them a few moments to wait. Saki doubted that the apartment was so busy as the wait would be long. However, it did give her the perfect ce to ask. “What’s with all of this? You don’t just e by something like this.”

  Leaning against the wall, she looked back down the hall. “A little bit of lud good opportunity.”

  “That’s not really an answer.” She wondered if she didn’t want to expin something that might have a less than shining example of who they are. There were several different ideas that went through her head on how they did. Some of them were less than ideal.

  “It’s nothing like what you’re thinking. We didn’t kick out the people living here. Quite the opposite, we were invited.”

  “Invited?” The elevator door opened with a clear chime. They eogether and Ayahe elevator for the eighth floor. Saki wondered what Ayano wao show her. She already got a small taste of their situation when she woke up.

  Crossing her arms, the serious Ayano remained in the versation. “The owner of this apartment plex invited us. He wanted prote.”

  “Against the UN?”

  “That’s right.” The chimes of the elevator moving down ticked off. Ayano remained silent for some reason waiting until the door opened. The hall looked no different than any of the other halls Saki had seen thus far.

  All of that ged though as they walked around a loop in the hall. Things suddenly opened up inte tral shaft going through the ter. Judging from the shape and size, it was a drical building that stretched from the ground to the height of the apartment and ected out to the other buildings in the plex. Gss aal railings closed in each of the floors as elevators ran up and down the wide open spabsp; Around the lower floors shops could be seen open and busy.

  Everywhere Saki looked there were people moving around talking and looking like they had normal lives. Things seemed to not be affected at all by the outside world. This was the way that she remembered things before all hell came raining down. It made her smile a little to see that there was still something of the old world held on within the chaos.

  Ayano leaned against the railing looking down at the people milling around. The thick sounds of a crowd with people’s voices filled the whole building. A seemingly fotte simple noise made such a differenbsp; “Starting to uand a little what we’re fighting for?”

  Chapter 371 – Broken Ties

  Saki stared out at the people lost irang sounds that she had surprised herself to have already fotten. It was familiar a fn. In the world that they lived in now such a thing shouldn’t have existed, yet it did. It almost made her want to cry. “…yes…”

  They stayed watg life pass by for more time than they could remember before Ayano started to move again. Saki pulled herself away and walked alongside her. “It wasn’t always like this. We put a lot of work in to get things to this point.”

  “How did all of this happen? I didn’t think there were pces like this.”

  “There might not be others like this or there may be a lot. It’s hard to know. It all started when the UN forces arrived.” Ayano guided them up stairs to reach the tenth floor of the tral building. Windows gave a good look out oy. She pointed out with her hand to a location iy. “My group is from there. The Bck Taiga Gang.”

  ‘Mixing English and Japanese? She trying to sound cool or something?’

  “I put together the gang back when I was in high school. We were just a bunch of delis that wao rule the school and silly childish stuff like that. Iy, we just hung out and did very little that actually resembled anything that you might think a real gang would do. We just hated school and blew it off.”

  Saki couldn’t help but sweat a little at heariory. Giveimidating presehat the woman carried with her, su in story didn’t really seem to fit with the image. How did they end up like they were now? The way they looked didn’t look like a bunch of pretenders. “How did you—“

  “Bee what we are now?” she finished for Saki. Ayano’s hand pressed against the gss. “That’s a bit more plicated for a simple story. The short version of it is that we crossed the wrong path one day and got our faces punched in. Things ged that day aopped being children and had to bee adults. And oal ged. We stopped being about goofing off and screwing about.” She turo face Saki wanting to see her fabsp; “Why do you do what you do?”

  “To protect those I love,” she stated without aation.

  “Exactly.” It was what she expected to see out of Saki’s eyes. The same that she knew she saw before. The boundless determination to see the course. She leaned back against the window. “From then on out, we started getting into fights and wars. It was endless, but important to us. These guys you saw upstairs, they’re the leaders of all of the gangs in the area, our enemies until two months ago.”

  “The UN?”

  “Yeah. Things had bee worse and that’s when they came.”

  “Worse?” Saki had a slight idea of what she might be implying, but asked anyway to be sure. She expected the ao be a ohat she would find wherever she went.

  Gesturing with her hand, she directed Saki to look out at the city again. With a more direct view, she saoi some ruined buildings. It had nothing on what she saw in her neighborhood from Takako’s efforts, but it was still familiar. “Once people started to discover that they had abilities the gang wars went out of trol. None of us could stop the violence from esg and it only seemed t out even stronger powers, the desperation. That was when the UN came uhe banner of peabsp; We were just criminals in their eyes and given what we were doing they’re probably right.”

  A sigh came out of Ayano’s lips, a surprising expression that Saki didn’t expebsp; Ohat hi the weight of what she bore. Something that was very familiar. “It became a rallying point for everyone. No one wahe Uaking aeople because they were afraid of us. Just showing off our powers was enough to be deemed a threat to peace.”

  “I didn’t know it was so bad…”

  “Rather than allow those that ran to the UN to support them in pig all of us off, we baogether. I made the first move, forced to crush a couple of the gangs in the process. But I was able to get the rest of the gangs in the area to pay attention to me long enough to form this allianbsp; We are the frontline in the north. We don’t allow any of their patrols in our area.”

  Saki questioned her immediately once she said that. It didn’t fit with the rest of what she wao cim. “I thought you said that you don’t fight.”

  “We do when we have to, but we aren’t fighting them at our borders. No, thanks to the abilities of a few of our people, we’ve created a defense barrier that keeps them from entering. They’ve tried to use their special teams to break the barrier, but so far they haven’t been successful. But we don’t know how long it will st. Ohing that we’ve all noticed, the powers we have are still growing. They are evolving aing stronger. But not everyone adva the same pabsp; We ’t be certain that we’ll be able to keep up sihe groups the UN has are stantly fighting and improving. Eventually, we will be forced to fight again. They mostly ignore us since we’ve cut ourselves off. But it won’t st.”

  “If you’re protected here, how did any of you get captured?”

  Slumping a little in her lean, Ayano didn’t seem to want to recall it. “I made a mistake. I thought since we had established ourselves as a force to be respected that the UN would actually honor that. So I went to iate with them for peaceful terms. We were running out of supplies quickly and needed aid or assurances while we’re gathering. But they betrayed our trust and it was just a trap to capture as many of our leaders as possible.”

  Hearing such a story made her fists tighten up. Saki khat they weren’t all like that. Masayuki was different. But Masayuki also wasn’t the one in and of the UN. Other people were, like the one she met at her senteng. Things weren’t going to be so simple. “It didn’t cross your mind that it was a trap?”

  “I sort of expected it to be one, but I hoped that they were being genuine. I hem to be if we were going to find some sort of pea all of this. So I was captured and unfortunately know that there won’t be any peace with the UN for as long as those men see us as monsters. They didn’t even see me as a human anymore when I was at the table. We see these sorts of things all the time in books and movies, but you think people would be different iy, but they’re not. If anything, they’re crueler than fi.”

  Her words weighed heavy on Saki’s shoulders. She uood that very well. The reality that she already faced wasn’t ohat she would wish upon anyone and that was without any sort of meeting with the UN. Her time before them was all too brief to get any real sense. But she had to agree with Ayano that they didn’t seem to be willing to see them as human beings anymore. It was a difficult situation to be in.

  Even more difficult now that Ayano expihings to her. She could sympathize with her and the troubles that her people went through. But it was a story that wasn’t going to be uo Ayano. It was something everyone in Japan was dealing with. It should have made things simple for Saki, but she was still human and had emotions like anyone else. She didn’t want to leave these people not knowing when their peace would be shattered.

  “And that’s the story. You seem like someohat is driven and motivated. You could help a lot of people by joining us.”

  “Yes, I know…” She looked out at the city once more. It made her think of the sacrifice that she made for her friends. She did what she could to protect them ahem above the dirt. Yet now that she was rescued she didn’t know what to do. ‘Is my inal pn even worth it anymore? Would going back mean anything? I did it all just to keep the UN off them. Is this my sed ce?’ Saki didn’t expect to find herself in such a position. She thought things were over. Yet now she was being told that the road still had further to go.

  While she thought about things she did fear something. “Do you know how the UN has reacted to you resg me?”

  “The raid? They haven’t really done anythi. They’re still rec from the attack, but I’m going to guess we’re going to be utack soon because of it. There’s no doubt that they know it was us.”

  ‘So they’re safe. But these people aren’t. Damn…this isn’t a good situatioher way. What do I do?’ Saki’s mind turned with ideas and doubt. Things quickly flew through her head as she tried to find an answer. Something that would fix things. “How long will the barrier st?”

  Ayano scratched the side of her fa thought. “We don’t know. It’s held sainst them, but they’ve got powerful people on their side. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “But it’ll hold for a bit.”

  “Yeah.”

  It came to her. The things that she set in motion already. Things would have to be accelerated but they might work. “I’ve got a pn.”