Chapter 85: Nightmare

The hunt for the master keys drags on as Amane and Taro Sakamoto keep colliding across the facility. Between exchanges, Amane lets slip that his father was the one who took his mother's life. Sakamoto pushes for the rest of the story, but the boy shuts the subject down and tells him to stay out of it.

Something about his opponent unsettles Amane, whose silhouette appears to be shifting compared to how he looked in their earlier meeting. That flicker of distraction is all the boy needs to lift the keys and slip away.

Sakamoto crosses paths with an old janitor who has been tending the campus since his own student days. The man recognizes him at once, and reveals that he is Amane's grandfather. He thanks Sakamoto for keeping the boy company, since nobody else can match his energy. Elsewhere, Amane cannot pin down the database and takes a call from Kashima, who instructs him to knock out the school's missile defenses as a fallback if the records stay hidden.

Amane confesses that his own father murdered his mother, then refuses to say more when Sakamoto presses. He also spots that Sakamoto's body seems to be transforming, and exploits the lapse to snatch the master keys. The chapter's biggest reveal arrives through the janitor, who identifies himself as Amane's grandfather and a long-serving member of the campus staff. Kashima phones with a new order: if the database proves unreachable, Amane is to sabotage the JCC's missile defense system instead.

This chapter belongs to the JCC Infiltration Arc and was collected in Volume 10. Its Japanese title, Akumu, translates to Nightmare, a nod to the buried family tragedy Amane carries. The cover spotlights Aoi Sakamoto alongside Amane and Satoru Yotsumura. The grandfather revelation reframes Amane's presence at the school and sets up Sakamoto's odd bond with the boy.