The three major districts on the surface had essentially been secured.
As for the collapsed Underdome, Team Snagem had worked through the night to clear the perimeter. Group after group of trapped members were pulled from the rubble, including Ryuka and the other high-ranking officers.
When they finally saw the light of day, they were a pathetic sight—covered in grime and dressed in rags. They looked back at the ruined streets and the Underdome buried under tons of rock and debris, their faces devoid of the joy of victory. Instead, they were filled with a profound sense of exhaustion.
Even Ryuka's vibrant wine-red hair had lost its luster, looking dull and gray.
The only reason they had resorted to schemes in the first place was a lack of overwhelming strength. And when you choose to scheme, you must accept that things can spiral out of control. The world doesn't revolve around any one person—certainly not them.
"So, he really chose to go down with the ship..."
Standing nearby, Kashiwagi learned what had happened underground through the accounts of Ryuka and the others.
Under the crushing pressure of the combined three units of Team Snagem, Roki's unit had been no match. They couldn't even force a stalemate; within hours, they were in full retreat, abandoning sector after sector.
Once they were cornered in their final stronghold, Team Snagem had attempted to persuade Roki to surrender to avoid further needless bloodshed. To their shock, Roki—completely disregarding the lives of his subordinates—chose to perish together. He detonated Electrode that had been pre-planted at key structural support points throughout the Underdome.
The resulting collapse trapped the Snagem army underground, preventing them from escaping immediately. They were forced to focus on survival while the ground above shifted and sank, turning a man-made conflict into a large-scale disaster.
This was entirely outside Ryuka's calculations.
He had originally planned to use the looting phase—while the three Top Executives were still in their respective headquarters—to sow discord among the three Snagem units and trigger an internal fight underground. He then intended to bait Kojiro's unit into invading the Crystal Unit's street, making the chaos complete.
He never expected Roki to be so uncompromisingly volatile.
From Ryuka's perspective, this operation was a victory in results—Team Snagem's three main units had suffered heavy losses and were now struggling to digest such a massive gain, risking internal "indigestion."
But it was also a defeat. Their psychological profile of Roki was incomplete; they had failed to predict his final move, allowing this catastrophe to happen.
Ryuka knew such a mistake could never be repeated.
With this, the operation to seize Roki's territory officially came to a close.
However, the situation in Pyrite Town did not become clearer. If anything, it became more chaotic. Team Snagem downplayed their casualties and boasted loudly about their spoils, making every other faction in Pyrite realize just how much wealth was up for grabs in their neighbors' territories.
Consequently, several other gangs declared war on one another, dragging Pyrite Town deeper into a muddy swamp of disorder.
-----
On the other hand, since the details of the Underdome disaster were unfit for public disclosure, Kashiwagi's stellar performance during the surface battles became the focal point of propaganda. His reputation reached new heights.
Yamamino told him this was a double-edged sword.
The good news was that once they began implementing their "Great Plan," Kashiwagi's fame would smooth over many obstacles. The bad news was that in the current chaotic climate of Pyrite, being too prominent made him a prime target for lunatics looking to make a name for themselves.
"As Ryuka's plan moves forward, the coming days will be grueling. You must find a way to increase your strength as quickly as possible. In the future, Ryuka and I might both have to rely on you", Yamamino said with heavy sincerity.
Kashiwagi felt the man was being a bit hyperbolic. Relying on him felt like something far in the future, but given the state of Pyrite Town, he knew he had to grow whenever the opportunity arose.
Since the riots began, many shops in the neutral areas of the Underdome had begun closing their doors, fearing that some organization would use the chaos as an excuse to loot them. The Underdome represented the "distorted" prosperity of Pyrite Town; if those shops were closing, it was a clear sign of just how dangerous the town had become.
Two days after the operation ended, while the debris in Roki's Underdome was still being cleared, Team Snagem began dividing the inheritance—manpower, territory, and mining rights.
As a "hero" of the operation, Kashiwagi was entitled to a share.
To his surprise, he was granted the very street he had first suppressed. Giving a subordinate an entire major street was virtually unheard of. This move carried an official weight: it was his formal appointment as a Sand Unit Executive, granting him all the authority and privileges that came with the title.
In truth, Kashiwagi didn't particularly covet that street. First, the three major districts of Roki's territory were now little more than ruins, having been picked clean by looters already. Second, holding that territory meant a large portion of his squad would have to be recruited from former Jackal Gang members to facilitate management.
Soshiro told him as much. Due to the losses Team Snagem sustained underground, they needed to replenish their ranks with fresh blood immediately. The former Jackal Gang members were a "ready-to-use" combat force, far superior to peripheral members who had only just received their first Pokémon.
However, Kashiwagi felt nothing but blatant discrimination toward the Jackal Gang members. He loathed these scumbags on a fundamental level. Accepting the few "honest" ones he had promised to take earlier was his limit. Being forced to fill nearly half his squad with them was a hard pill to swallow.
But Kashiwagi knew he had to take them.
As Ryuka had told him: "You have to understand, there are so many villains in Pyrite Town that you could never kill them all. Even a true 'reckoning' would take years. In the meantime, rather than leaving them to their own devices, it is much more helpful to our cause if we can reform their thinking and make them realize their past mistakes."
His "Big Brother" was being realistic. The number of people who had committed crimes in Pyrite Town was astronomical. Even if they cleared the clouds of corruption, they couldn't simply execute everyone.
Therefore, on his first day as an Executive, with Soshiro's blessing, Kashiwagi held a simple assessment to promote several peripheral members originally from Blue Iridium Street. Then, following a subtle hint from Frobo, he absorbed many members of the "Resistance" (the underground organization working to fix Orre).
Among them was the very first contact Kashiwagi had met.
Simultaneously, Kashiwagi went to the slowly rebuilding Magnet-Barium Street and accepted a large number of former Jackal Gang members. After two days of shuffling, he successfully organized a force of nearly five hundred men under his command.
He had only two Squad Leaders: Otsuka and Naruhisa.
Otsuka's strength was roughly at the level of a Squad Leader—the weakest of the bunch, perhaps, but a leader nonetheless. Naruhisa was still quite a way off, but there was no choice but to throw him into the deep end and hope he could swim.
To Kashiwagi's delight, the infiltrators from the Resistance were of excellent quality and quickly tamed their new Pokémon. Unfortunately, since they lacked official merit, he couldn't promote them immediately without causing friction.
Furthermore, Kashiwagi had to be mindful of the feelings of the crew that had been with him from the start. They were loyal and did exactly what they were told, but their lack of education meant they were slow to grasp new knowledge, making their overall growth a bit sluggish.