Looking at the message on his terminal screen, Subaru replied immediately.
"I should be free. Is something the matter?"
"I found a few quite interesting books today and wanted to share them with you, Subaru-kun."
Hiyori Shiina's message was sent almost simultaneously.
"Okay, please tell me the time."
Subaru nodded.
"How about tomorrow afternoon?"
"Mn."
"See you then."
Subaru put down the terminal and prepared to rest.
Although he called it resting, it was at most just closing his eyes to refresh his mind slightly.
Because Subaru could not fall asleep.
Ever since he was nearly killed by Ram, Subaru hadn't been able to sleep properly for a long time.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Darkness descended.
Then, memories seeped in through the cracks of his consciousness like an uncontrollable tide.
It was the early morning after Rem died.
He couldn't remember the exact day anymore; after a certain point, it lost its meaning. Just as pain turns into numbness after reaching a certain degree, and numbness, after a long enough time, transforms into something sharper and more indescribable.
He was standing in the forest outside the mansion.
He only remembered Ram standing in front of him.
Her eyes were filled with an angry red.
That was the last color Subaru saw before he lost all color in his eyes.
Did he speak at that time?
He probably did.
What did he say?
He didn't remember.
He only remembered Ram raising her hand and strangling his throat with a death grip.
It felt exactly like drowning.
At that time, Subaru only felt that he wasn't trusted by anyone.
That feeling made him think that perhaps dying right then and there wouldn't be so bad.
However, when drowning, people have a survival instinct.
It was because of that instinct that the Subaru of that time picked up a nearby rock and smashed it against Ram.
He survived.
At the same time, he lost all color.
Back then, he clearly could have killed Ram, but Subaru didn't choose to do so.
Perhaps, it was because of that color.
Subaru opened his eyes.
The dormitory ceiling was ordinary white, and the faint sound of insects on a summer night drifted in from outside the window. The air conditioner hummed low; everything was so calm, safe, and completely different from that world.
He raised his hand and pressed it against his chest.
No wound, no blood.
Only a heart beating at a steady pace, performing the physiological functions a living person should have.
Alive.
There was no wound on his neck, yet waves of phantom itchiness still transmitted from it. Phantom pain?
In this timeline, in this world without Witches, without Authorities.
And what was Ram doing at this very moment?
Carrying that patch of bright red he saw last.
There were once two other people who allowed him to see color.
Except one of them faded in the end.
And the other had her life ended by his own hands.
Subaru felt he increasingly understood Beatrice's distress.
Eternal life is not happiness, but a curse.
If Beatrice saw him now, what kind of expression would she have?
Disappointment?
Subaru lowered his hand, the expression on his face unchanging.
There were no ripples in his heart, only waiting.
Waiting to see if, in this new, color-deprived world, he could once again encounter that kind of pure color.
Just then, a knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
It wasn't an inquiring tap, nor was it urgent pounding.
It was three knocks—steady, rhythmic, and almost devoid of any emotional suggestion.
Subaru didn't respond immediately.
He slowly sat up straight in his chair, his eyes turning toward the door.
If this were when he was the Purge King, anyone disturbing him at this time likely didn't want to live anymore.
But Subaru didn't want to kill anyone for the time being.
At least not right now.
Three seconds later, he spoke:
"Come in."
The door was pushed open.
Ayanokoji stood in the doorway.
He was wearing the casual clothes issued by the school, his posture relaxed, his face bearing that habitual, expressionless plainness. But Subaru noticed his gaze was slightly different from usual—it wasn't that transparent sense of having nothing to do with anything, of blending into the background, of being able to disappear at any moment.
Instead, there was a hint of... focus.
"Excuse me."
Ayanokoji said.
He didn't make any polite preamble, nor did he ask "is it convenient" or "what are you doing," simply stepping into the room.
Subaru didn't stand up, nor did he invite him to sit.
He just watched Ayanokoji walk to the window, stop in front of another chair, and then sit down in an unhurried manner.
The two looked at each other in silence.
In this small space, the air slowly, yet inevitably, became dense.
Ayanokoji spoke first.
"You can't sleep."
It wasn't a question.
Subaru didn't answer.
"Me neither."
Ayanokoji said, his tone as flat as if stating the weather. "To be precise, I rarely truly 'fall asleep.' Most of the time, I just let my body rest while keeping my consciousness awake to a certain degree. This is a habit from the White Room. To prevent sudden attacks during training."
He paused.
"And you?"
Subaru's eyelids lifted slightly.
"Habit."
He said only one word.
Ayanokoji didn't press further.
He turned his head slightly, as if thinking about something, or perhaps just temporarily averting his gaze. Silence descended again.
But this time, there was something different in the silence.
It wasn't hostility, nor was it probing.
It was more like the mutual attraction of similar creatures.
At least, that was what Kiyotaka Ayanokoji thought.
"You went to the Student Council today."
Ayanokoji said; it was a statement.
After parting ways with Sae Chabashira, Ayanokoji happened to pass by the administration building, noticed the lights inside, and waited nearby for a while.
Afterwards, he first saw Subaru walk out, and a short while later, he saw Nagumo.
Subaru didn't deny it.
"Miyabi Nagumo's state,"
Ayanokoji paused, seemingly choosing appropriate wording. "Has changed. There was something wrong with his posture when he left the administration building. Several of his fingers were bent unnaturally."
He looked at Subaru.
"You did it."
Another statement.
The corner of Subaru's mouth twitched—an extremely faint, almost imperceptible arc.
It wasn't an admission, nor was it a denial.
It was merely a sort of... confirmation of the other party's observational skills.
"You came to find me,"
Subaru spoke, his voice without fluctuation. "To confirm something?"
Ayanokoji didn't answer immediately, just looking at the other party expressionlessly.
The only sound left in the room was the low hum of the air conditioner.
Subaru didn't rush him either. He leaned back into his chair, calmly looking back at Ayanokoji, like stagnant water waiting for a stone to be thrown in.
Neither of their gazes betrayed any emotion.
A few seconds later, Ayanokoji spoke.
"What is your view on the class's future?"
His voice remained steady, but the question spanned a wide gap—suddenly jumping from the direct confirmation about Nagumo just now to a more macroscopic, vague level.
Subaru didn't answer immediately.
He tilted his head slightly, as if assessing the interestingness of the question itself.
"No view."
After thinking for about a second, he said.
"Whether the class rises to Class C, or drops back to Class D someday, whether points increase or are deducted completely. These things have no meaning to me."
"So you won't participate in various class affairs?"
Ayanokoji asked. "Just like Koenji, staying completely out of it?"
"It's different."
Subaru said flatly. "Koenji doesn't participate because he feels those things aren't worthy of his talents. I don't participate because I simply don't care."
Ayanokoji fell silent for a moment, seemingly digesting this distinction.
"Then, what about Kikyo Kushida?" He said.
This time it wasn't a question, but the preface to a statement.
"She is destroying the class from the inside. Rumors, suspicion, division—these are not damages that can be repaired in the short term. From the perspective of the class's future, her existence is a pure negative asset. The intelligence value and social skills she brings are far insufficient to offset the collapse of trust and the surge in organizational costs she causes."
Ayanokoji paused deliberately.
"If using a medical metaphor, she is a cancer cell. If not excised, the lesion will spread, eventually leading to the failure of the entire organism."
His gaze focused on Subaru.
"But you want to keep her."
The corner of Subaru's mouth moved slightly.
That arc was shallow, as if he had taken an interest in something.
"Cancer cell."
He repeated the word, his tone flat. "A nice metaphor. But your metaphor implies a premise: that the class is a single entity, and the goal is health and survival."
He paused.
"What if I have zero interest in the health of this body?"
Ayanokoji didn't answer immediately.
His expression didn't change, but deep within those eyes that always lacked emotional fluctuation, something extremely subtle seemed to be adjusting its focus—like a precision instrument recalibrating its observational parameters for a target.
"...So, you're keeping Kushida not to utilize her abilities."
Ayanokoji said. "You're not even doing it to observe how the class survives under her destruction."
"Correct."
"You just..."
Ayanokoji paused, seemingly processing a variable outside his conventional logical framework. "Want to see how her color changes."
"Mn."
"Even if this process causes the class to disintegrate?"
"Even if this process causes the class to disintegrate."
"Even if—"
"Even if the class is left with only her and me."
Subaru interrupted him, his tone devoid of any undulation. "That doesn't matter either."
Ayanokoji fell silent.
That wasn't the silence of being refuted, nor the silence of organizing a counterargument.
It was a more fundamental, almost perplexed silence.
In the White Room, there were no such cases.
"...I understand."
Ayanokoji finally said. "This isn't a divergence in strategic judgment; it's a difference in goals."
His voice remained steady.
"My goal is to make this class rise to Class A."
"You shouldn't be interested in that sort of thing either."
Subaru looked at Ayanokoji, as if seeing through the other party's essence at a glance.
"This is a deal between Chabashira-sensei and me. It's also the stage I need to observe this school and verify the White Room's errors. For this goal, I need a stable, controllable, competitive organization. Kikyo Kushida's existence is a systemic threat to this organization, so she must be purged—or at least thoroughly subdued, losing the ability to destroy."
Ayanokoji spoke slowly.
"Your goal is to observe color. Kikyo Kushida is currently the most active sample, so you refuse to purge her. Our goals, at this node, are in conflict."
He stated this fact. There was no accusation in his tone, no hostility, not even a desire to win.
He was merely describing an objectively existing contradiction.
Then, he asked:
"So, will you stop me?"
This question was light, yet like a precise scalpel, it sliced open all the probing on the surface of the conversation.
Subaru looked at him.
In those eyes, there still wasn't much emotion.
"No."
Subaru said.
"Why?"
"Because your goal,"
Subaru paused. "Doesn't have a fundamental conflict with what I want to observe for the time being."
"For the time being?"
"Mn. You want the class to rise to Class A. You need the class to be stable, controllable, and competitive. These things are not mutually exclusive with the changes in Kikyo Kushida's color. In fact,"
He tilted his head slightly.
"Under certain circumstances, your cleanup plan itself might become a catalyst for her to display color."
Ayanokoji didn't respond immediately.
He seemed to be calculating the implications of that sentence.
"...You're treating me as another stressor, aren't you?"
He said.
"Mn."
"You went to find Nagumo today for this reason as well."
Ayanokoji quickly understood the reason Nagumo had turned out that way.
He had likely been unable to accept the facts and was ruthlessly taught a lesson by Subaru.
"That is indeed the reason, but it's not entirely the same."
Subaru said flatly. "Nagumo doesn't know he's being used as fuel. You do."
Ayanokoji fell silent for a moment, seemingly realizing something.
"...I see. This is part of your observation of me."
He said, not as a question.
Ayanokoji thought that perhaps Subaru also regarded him as a test subject like Kikyo Kushida.
Did he want to see what kind of changes would occur in him, a test subject of the White Room, within this environment?
"No, I don't want to observe you."
However, Subaru gave a negative answer.
"Is that not it?"
Ayanokoji was somewhat surprised.
"Ayanokoji, you are unworthy."
Just then, Subaru spoke slowly.
"In you, there exists no possibility for color to appear. You are even more pathetic than Nagumo. There is nothing inside you, only void."
Subaru narrowed his eyes slightly, and his gaze seemed to turn even colder.
"I have no interest in you whatsoever."
____
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