The discovery of Helga's whereabouts bring only brief cheer to the Children, as a strange explosion occurs nearby - Cooks and Hollingsworth investigate to discover a man named Kirchner abducted his younger sister from a house and made it explode with some kind of strange blue energy - Kirchner has undergone the same process as Shinon, and the Children explain it as something to do with "OSL", which emanates from the "Zone". The Children confront him, but before they can do anything for him he is shot by Phantom GED forces under Duma's jurisdiction - his OSL lashes out unpredictably, and he disappears like Shinon and Grass did before.