Mash-up Anime World: Creating the SCP Foundation to Contain Anomalies

On the screen, the woman continued her speech.

The topic: a bill soon to be presented for public vote—

The New Gastrea Law.

This bill refined existing laws in the Tokyo Area and revised several controversial clauses.

But that wasn't the most crucial part.

The key point of the bill was that it finally brought the rights of the Cursed Children onto paper. In the current legal system, Cursed Children had no human rights. They were treated as monsters—or at best, as tools meant to become Initiators.

The new law's most important purpose was to protect the Cursed Children.

The bill was proposed by the Tokyo Area's highest official—the woman on screen. This allowed the proposal to bypass decision-making and preliminary review phases.

However, unless it gained more than half the vote within the Tokyo Area,

Even a bill proposed by her couldn't be formally implemented.

And as for this woman—

She had no personal name, only a hereditary title:

The Saint (Seiten-shi).

The Saint held a revered position—

To many in the Tokyo Area, she was practically a deity.

Yet even so, even when the Saint herself promoted the new law—

"The Saint is great and all, but she's too merciful! Those Cursed Children don't deserve her concern!"

"Exactly! They're just a bunch of monsters—passing a law to protect them? What a joke!"

"If you ask me, the current laws are already too lenient. We should just drive them all out of the Monolith walls!"

"The Saint must've been deceived by their appearances. We can't let her keep making this mistake!"

The voices of opposition were unfiltered, loud enough to be heard even from a distance.

And these remarks—

Were the more reasonable ones.

Worse ones were full of vicious profanity—words too foul to even be written down.

It was only because the Saint was the one pushing this law that the backlash hadn't already escalated into stoning or public violence.

Haruto stood quietly, listening to the crowd's vile discourse.

Time passed silently.

The speech ended, and the screen went dark.

But the gathered crowd remained restless and agitated.

Their emotions had erupted into words and expressions—Yet it still wasn't enough. They wanted a target to vent on.

It wasn't until the screen shut off—That Tendo Kisara finally averted her gaze and took a deep breath.

"What do you think?" Haruto asked casually.

"Senseless. Just a pack of dogs being manipulated by Tendo Kikunojou." Kisara spoke coldly, her voice dripping with hatred.

Tendo Kikunojou—

The old man who stood behind the Saint on the screen.

He was also the patriarch of the Tendo family, and in truth, the real power behind Tokyo Area's vast machinery.

While the Saint served more as a symbolic figure—

Kikunojou was the Tokyo Area's chancellor, the one pulling all the strings. And he was an entrenched hater of Cursed Children.

Though he never acted openly, he used policies—

And public hatred—to corner Cursed Children into extinction.

However, Haruto shook his head.

"You're wrong about that, fundamentally."

Kisara blinked in surprise.

She had assumed Haruto would agree with her—Especially since he had shown great kindness toward Cursed Children.

But Haruto's next words overturned her perspective.

He raised a hand and pointed at the agitated crowd nearby.

"To me, those people... are no longer human. They're just things in human skin. The Gastrea Virus—you've read the studies. But they don't tell the whole story. It's not just a genetic virus. It's a cognitive one too.

Cognitive corruption spreads alongside the virus, eroding the minds of everyone, not just those who turn into Gastrea. Under prolonged exposure to that corruption, the human essence—our thoughts, our spirits, our very souls—becomes twisted.

Just look at them. They're completely ruled by fear. They have no courage. No hope. Nothing left of what makes a human, human. Only a few—those with high cognitive thresholds or who were born recently—can resist the pollution."

Kisara felt a chill crawl up her spine.

So that's why.

That's why the world felt so incomprehensible to her. Why everything seemed so gray and suffocating.

If she imagined the people in the streets as monsters—

Suddenly, everything made sense.

These monsters rejected true humans.

Rejected the Cursed Children.

It all seemed disturbingly logical.

Her body stiffened slightly.

"What about him? Is he just another monster, twisted by corrupted cognition?"

She asked urgently.

Even without naming him, Haruto knew she meant Tendo Kikunojou.

However—The Saint and Kikunojou were among the few individuals with cognitive levels high enough to resist the mental corruption.

"No. He's just rotten to the core."

Haruto replied plainly.

Kikunojou's evil had nothing to do with the virus—It came from within.

At this, Kisara actually breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

If her revenge target was just another mindless monster—That would've been far too anticlimactic. Her hatred wasn't meant to be some symbolic light-vs-dark battle.

Once she relaxed, Kisara smiled brightly.

"Let's destroy the world already! Come on!"

Haruto rolled his eyes.

"I told you—it has to go through the proper procedures."

Just as the two were about to leave, a figure in the distance caught their attention.

Several men in the crowd were approaching a corner of the plaza where a young girl sat.

Her clothes were ragged, her face smudged with dirt. Her eyes were covered by a tattered white cloth.

She held up a sign, "begging for help."

In front of her was a rusted tin basin—completely empty.

She was a Cursed Child.

And right now, she had become the emotional punching bag for those enraged men.

Clink...

One of them popped the tab off a soda can—And threw it into the girl's basin. The sound of a pull-tab landing on metal was very different from that of a coin.

Even an ordinary person could tell the difference—

Let alone a Cursed Child.

Yet even knowing that what landed wasn't a coin but someone's pure malice, the girl still bowed gently.

"Thank you,"

She said sincerely, her voice filled with gratitude.

Seeing this, the men burst into laughter.

"Stupid blind brat! Get out of the Tokyo Area! You're just an eyesore!"

"Why are you freaks even alive? Just die already! Even the Saint has to worry about you scum!"

"This thing's just a time bomb waiting to go off! Get her outta here!"

Their foul curses poured out one after another.

The girl froze.

She hadn't expected this.

Sure, malice was a daily occurrence—But usually, if she acted meek and polite, things would pass quickly.

This time, though—it was different.

More aggressive. More vicious.

She didn't understand the new laws. Barely knew anything about the Saint. She had no idea why the world was suddenly punishing her even more.

She had done nothing.

When the girl remained still, not showing fear—

It only made the thugs angrier.

One of them suddenly raised his foot and kicked toward her—

All while screaming:

"Die, you monster!"

Though blind, the girl could hear the rush of wind.

She could've dodged it easily.

Even fought back.

But she didn't.

She simply curled up, ready to endure the blow.

If she avoided it, they'd get even more enraged—And the beating would get worse. If she fought back—She'd never survive in Tokyo again.

She had to live.

She still had a little sister to take care of.

And just as she braced herself—

CRACK!

The sound of bones snapping echoed in the plaza.

Followed by a piercing scream.

The man who had tried to kick her—His leg was bent at an unnatural angle. White bone pierced through flesh, exposed and gleaming.

Blood dripped to the ground.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

The agonized howl was shrill and unrelenting.