"Is this... enough?"
Sakura stepped out from the shadows, hesitating as she looked at the lonely figure standing in the ruins, looking like he stood in a collapsed monument.
"I was going to do this anyway. You just accelerated the process."
He looked down at Aponia, who he was holding; she had been injected with a sedative and was fast asleep.
"You've finished your mission. Take her and Kalpas back."
"...Why don't you tell them the truth?"
Lin looked around the ruins that were once the sanatorium without a word.
If there is no hope from the start, the pain lasts until one is numb. But losing hope after having it causes double the pain, enough to hate the world and the person who gave it.
At least they truly felt they had hope. That wasn't a fake emotion. The only thing they needed to hate was the person who lied to them.
Was Sakura wrong? No. She was just carrying out a mission—clearing threats and infection sources, arresting suspects.
Was Aponia wrong? No. She was just spreading her kindness, caring for the sick and the children.
He was the one who was wrong.
He was the one who forced Aponia to become a "suspect," and he was the one who forced Sakura to kill.
He was even the one who caused Kalpas to end up like this.
"What color is that flower over there?" Lin pointed to a flower slowly turning to ash in the fire.
Sakura pursed her lips: "White."
"..."
White...
He remembered why the flowers in Sundown Alley looked familiar. Although his consciousness had been blurred then, he had a lingering impression. Those were the white flowers the Sixth Herrscher had spread across the city using the Authority of Creation before she died. They continuously absorbed all vitality from the land, turning it into a dead zone.
So that was it... The reason the Honkai Sickness in Sundown Alley was so unique and worsened so quickly wasn't because the concentration was too high, but because the land was "contaminated."
During the Sixth Herrscher's activity, the number of Honkai Sickness patients worldwide increased sharply, and their condition worsened far beyond normal. It was as if they were touched by the Herrscher's Authority of Death, causing the disease to mutate.
Some residents of Sundown Alley likely fell ill then, and because of the area's isolation, they weren't discovered by Fire-Moth. Eventually, the fast-killing variant of the disease spread throughout the alley.
Sakura was right.
If he had been more decisive and handled those infected children and adults instead of giving them hope and then snatching it away, he would have just been an assassin performing a cleanup. He wouldn't have caused Aponia and Kalpas to become like this, nor would he have forced Sakura to kill ordinary people.
All because... he didn't want those people and those children to suffer what he had suffered.
"Lin..."
Sakura stepped forward, but Lin flinching movement froze her in her tracks.
His face was turned away from her, and he put on his mask—cautious and utterly cold.
Lin left Aponia and Kalpas there and walked away without looking back.
Sakura opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her raised hand slowly fell, and she silently covered her inhuman ears with her hat.
...
Lin returned to his base—the property bought by the Councilman. He needed to pack and prepare to leave.
This had lasted too long—a farce, a game of "house," a script he had planned from the beginning that had no happy ending.
He wasn't the children's gentle teacher, he wasn't Kalpas interesting friend, and he wasn't Aponia soulful pen pal.
Just a mask-wearing man who wasn't good-looking, didn't speak well, and was a black-bellied bastard.
When Lin pushed open the door, the lights were on.
...On?
"Teacher!" Daniela excitedly hugged Lin waist, her body trembling from either fear or cold.
Lin looked around in a daze, finding most of the sanatorium children there. They all looked at him like people in a frozen wasteland seeing a bonfire. There was even a severely ill child with them.
Why...
His body moved before his brain. He crouched down and hugged Daniela, and the other children were drawn in, rushing forward to surround him in a circle, wailing loudly.
"Teacher..." Daniela sobbed as she told him what happened. "I... I went to see Xiao Ke... but suddenly I heard... Brother Kalpas shouting from upstairs... then the whole building shook... I remembered what you taught us... so I told everyone to cover their faces... and we ran here..."
Was it because Sakura was fighting Kalpas that she didn't notice these children who had covered their Honkai infection marks?
When he played with these children, taught them how to take cover, and brought them here, he never expected it to become their chance for survival.
But...
Lin suddenly pushed them away. He stood up and said in an indifferent tone: "The sanatorium is gone. I'm taking Kalpas and Aponia away. I lied to you. My associates and I only planned to clear out the sick. Your disease can't be cured."
This unexpected turn left all the children stunned, frozen in place.
"Him, I'm taking too." Lin pointed to the severely ill child. Looking at his condition, he was the only one left among the children with acute Honkai Sickness; the others had been cleared by Sakura. If he left the boy, he would only accelerate the erosion of the others.
His hesitation had already caused irreversible damage. He couldn't repeat the mistake.
Lin pushed through the children without a word, picked up the unconscious boy, grabbed his helmet from the table, and turned to leave.
"Teacher! Why..."
"There is no 'why.' Because I'm bad, and you're stupid, so I played with you." Lin stopped at the door. Facing over a dozen pairs of eyes full of disbelief, he said calmly: "Don't go back to the sanatorium. Just live here. I won't be coming back."
Don't become a lying adult like him.
Daniela asked tremblingly: "Teacher... then all the things you said... everything outside Sundown Alley..."
"Yes, all fake. Whether Aponia said it or I said it, it was all to lie to you. Stop longing for the outside." He replied decisively.
Lin tossed the card he had given Aponia and his mask to the floor, then carried the child away without looking back.
"Teacher!" Daniela chased after him, shouting through her tears at Lin receding back. "Don't go... Teacher... I knew you were lying to me long ago... I beg you... even if you're lying... don't go..."
"Don't go..."
But those fragile words could not reach the man's ears.
...
"Teacher..."
Perhaps it was the jolting, but the severely ill child woke up. He saw Lin face and gave a weak, relieved smile.
Then he looked around at this unfamiliar place he had never seen before.
Inside a small room with several small windows. Outside the windows was a deep blue sky and a white sea of clouds.
"Is this... outside... Sundown Alley?"
"Yes."
His eyes widened involuntarily, and then he smiled.
"It's so pretty... Sister... Aponia... and Daniela... where are they..."
"They... didn't come."
"Then next time... we must come together... Daniela will definitely... like it here..."
"Yeah."
"I'm so sleepy... Teacher... I..."
"Go to sleep."
He smiled and closed his eyes.
And never opened them again.
...
The sanatorium in Sundown Alley was turned to ruins overnight. The nun vanished, causing an unusual stir in that restless street.
But soon, the commotion was replaced by new news.
Somewhere in Sundown Alley, a new sanatorium appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Surprisingly, this facility—originally a private residence—was full of children. Some recognized them as the children from the old sanatorium.
A little girl named Daniela became the nun. Although young, she patiently and gently helped everyone who came seeking aid, bringing homeless children back to the facility and teaching them to read, write, and cook.
Though she suffered from a severe illness, she remained optimistic and strong. Her attitude inspired many who had lost hope in life.
For some reason, she would occasionally look at an Ultraman mask hanging in the sanatorium.