Special Martial Law

The Bureau investigator handling Melody — heartbeat 'precise as an atomic clock' — proposes wiping out the higher-ranked princes with slow poison during her performances, and confesses he loves her. Melody agrees while privately assuming he is manipulated or a mastermind's tool.

Kaiser hands Steiner a panic device and explains the stakes: the Justice Bureau is the ship's last neutral institution, and the moment special martial law is declared it becomes a dictator's base — insurgents charged and executed within ten minutes. Steiner realizes he has just been designated the surviving witness.

Alone, Balsamilco loads a shoe-mounted dispersal rig with TSK-17, a failed military pathogen that denatures in seconds in open air but kills by organ failure in half a day if inhaled — then erases itself from the corpse. His target: erase Halkenburg at their courthouse cross-examination.

Kaiser escorts Fugetsu to hand-deliver 'Kacho's final letters' to each prince — cover for marking rooms Fugetsu's door can later reach, and for watching each prince react to Bureau-leaked secrets. Benjamin's beast incidentally screeches Fugetsu's evil spirits away; Basho slips her a protective haiku charm.

Kaiser traces a stray fainting to Worio Bay, a Bureau staffer bearing Halkenburg's pinion mark, pre-briefed to speak if Kaiser raised Nen on his own. The message waiting for him: the Ninth Prince intends to die — soon — and expected Kaiser to come asking.

Mid-game, the ship's speakers announce Special Martial Law — not a drill. Every royal soldier now holds shoot-without-warning authority; the game between Morena and Borksen continues under the sirens of the ship's new order.

The broadcast walks down the ship: Tier 3 civilians kneel against walls under shoot-to-kill orders; Tier 2 returns to rooms, hands visible; Tier 1 awaits military inspection. Borksen mines the announcement order for her position — and realizes the hideout hears every tier's broadcast.

Forty minutes into martial law, Benjamin walks into the Justice Bureau and informs Mizaistom, Botobai, and Kaiser that the government is now consolidated under military force, with the Bureau as his command center and the three of them as witnesses. His pretext: bio-terrorism 'orchestrated by Tserriednich and Halkenburg.'

The reader learns why the First Prince is moving so fast: he is infected, roughly 9.5 hours from coma and 12 from death. He means to purge the remaining princes and be anointed successor in time to pass the throne to his child under the State of Emergency Act. Botobai reads his pallor; Kaiser counts his hours.

On Tier 2, Kaiser hosts the Fugetsu protection cell: the sleeping prince, Melody, and the beast-Kacho who frets that her own upkeep drains her sister. Kaiser's read on the funeral: grand, solemn, and to be survived before whatever comes next.

Bound to a chair in his own late quarters, Halkenburg-in-Balsamilco fires Grimmel the Dissonance at the First Prince, powered by the same followers from the Ministry ambush. Benjamin, feeling the rumble, finally assembles the truth — Balsamilco is Halkenburg, and the soul outlived the body — and dispatches soldiers to Room 1009.

Mid-crisis, Benjamin retches and recognizes his own weapon's symptoms. The safe shows only Balsamilco's vial missing — so the dose came from somewhere else. Working the timeline, he lands on Furykov, who leaned close while delivering news, and on the only person who could bypass every safeguard: his mother.

Furykov confesses freely: he poisoned Benjamin under Queen Unma's 48-hour ultimatum — she is backing Halkenburg — and he is Beyond Netero's son, carrying the eye-mark curse under his tongue. His true fear was the curse erasing Benjamin's Guardian Spirit Beast's ability; if Benjamin dies to the poison instead, the curse reflects back onto Furykov, sparing the beast. Benjamin, following the logic, accepts him back.

Citing a Tserriednich–Halkenburg conspiracy, Benjamin schedules Special Martial Law for 2:15 p.m.: rival princes' guards executed on sight (Hunter Association members exempt), princes assembled in Room 1001, the 'Grand Hall,' by 2:30. His private goal: merge with his Guardian Spirit Beast's ability and transcend kingship — to watch over Kakin as a god.

Fifteen minutes before the deadline, Kanjidol knifes two of Luzurus's bodyguards in their bunks, savoring it — martial law means never having to think again. Behind him, one 'corpse' slowly raises an arm.

Told Benjamin's riflemen already flank Room 1009, Luzurus — far sharper than his stoner image — calls it: martial law is starting, resistance is suicide. He orders all guards disarmed and gathered, the drugs burned immediately, and sends Ridge to keep Benjamin's embedded soldier 'busy,' since Hunters are exempt from the kill order.

Ridge opens the servants' quarters on Kanjidol kneeling over a corpse. 'Self-defense,' says the man with the knife. Both flare their aura; both jump. The first Hunter-versus-soldier fight of martial law begins over two murdered sleepers.

No answer at Halkenburg's door means treason against the Royal Army. Yushohi — an En user whose Stand By Me leaves him nearly defenseless while extended — audits his own odds of dying; Chiyamasi activates Muteking the Invincible Hero, accumulating time-limited invincibility with a hand on his partner's shoulder. Inside sits one person: the bound Balsamilco.