Chapter 9: Immortality And A Doomed Boy

Chapter 16: A Fragile Return

The new term, the second year of Arthur’s nightmarish island sojourn, arrived with the noisy, unwelcome, and almost aggressive intrusion of the returning ferries. They disgorged their reluctant cargo of students onto the familiar, weathered pier – a chaotic, uneasy mix of fresh, unsuspecting new faces, their expressions ranging from nervous apprehension to a misplaced, naive excitement, and the more hardened, deeply wary, haunted-eyed returnees from the previous, blood-soaked, traumatic year. The island, which had been Arthur’s silent, mournful, and strangely, almost peacefully, isolated kingdom for many long weeks, was suddenly, jarringly, violently alive again with the cacophony of shrill youthful chatter, the thud of hastily unloaded, battered luggage, and the forced, brittle, almost desperate cheerfulness of the few remaining, equally traumatized teaching staff.

Arthur had somehow survived the long, profoundly solitary inter-term break through a combination of meticulous, desperate scavenging from the surprisingly well-stocked (if obscurely located and heavily fortified) emergency food larders he’d discovered deep in the school’s damp, echoing basement, and a grim, almost monastic, unwavering determination. His solitude had been absolute, his only constant, silent companion the still, unnervingly unchanged form of Michiru Inukai in her sealed, undisturbed dormitory room. He’d kept the room cool, the heavy blackout blinds permanently drawn against the harsh, unforgiving summer sun. The official story of her "tragic, contagious illness" and subsequent "peaceful passing" meant her room remained a sealed-off, almost taboo memorial, a place none of the superstitious or frightened staff dared enter.

But Arthur knew – or rather, desperately, fiercely hoped for – something more. Her body, even after all these weeks, was inexplicably, almost unnaturally, warm to the touch – a faint, persistent, life-like warmth that defied all rational explanation for someone supposedly deceased. This, for Arthur, was a stunning, almost terrifying confirmation that Michiru wasn't truly, irrevocably dead; that her extraordinary healing Talent could well be working in some profound, unseen way, fighting a slow, silent, almost impossible battle against the finality of death.

He hadn't breathed a word of this astonishing, terrifying possibility to a living soul. The reasons were manifold, each one a cold knot of fear in his gut. Firstly, any hint that he believed Michiru might return from the dead would invite immediate, intense, and deeply unwelcome scrutiny of his own "Talent." How could he possibly know such a thing? What "glimpse" could have shown him that? His fabricated abilities were already a precarious balancing act; any further probing could bring the whole charade crashing down around him. Secondly, and far more chillingly, was the thought of The Committee. If, by some infinitesimally small chance, news of Michiru's anomalous state, of his secret vigil and his bizarre hope, were to leak out, to somehow find its way back to Tsuruoka’s ears… they would undoubtedly descend upon her. They believed in the potential of powerful Talents to regenerate, he recalled that much with a shudder – it was probably the only vaguely true or insightful thing they’d ever inadvertently let slip about the true nature of these strange abilities amidst their mountain of lies. But their interest would be purely exploitative, monstrous. And if they discovered someone actively tending to such a phenomenon, actively hoping for it, they might see it as something more than just grief – they might interpret it as… defiance. Specks of resistance to their grand, evil designs. And if word of that got back to Nana, likely twisted by Tsuruoka to paint Arthur as an even greater, more unpredictable threat… That was a scenario Arthur certainly didn't want, a prospect that filled him with a unique and specific dread: going up against the full weight and force of the Japanese government, with all its shadowy resources, as well as a potentially re-conditioned, lethally focused Nana Hiiragi. The thought was unbearable.

So, he kept his vigil, his astonishing secret, locked tight within his own breast, the faint, persistent warmth of Michiru's hand beneath his own questing fingers his only, fragile confirmation. It transformed his lonely watch from one of hopeless grief into one of almost unbearable, anxious expectation. The terrifying unknown, of course, was the timescale. If such regeneration were even possible, how long would it take? Days? Weeks? Months? Or, God forbid, years? He didn’t know. Nobody did. But he had vowed to watch over her, to protect her, for as long as it took. He would not let her become an experiment. And he would not, he swore, allow her, if she did somehow return and was left alone, terrified, and uncontrolled, to eventually transform into one of those monstrous “Enemies of Humanity” that Tsuruoka cultivated, a fate he dimly understood from his anime memories to be a horrifying potential endpoint for unchecked or traumatized Talents.

When the other students returned, flooding the familiar corridors and common rooms with their unwelcome, boisterous vitality, Arthur Ainsworth was a visibly, profoundly changed individual. He was thinner, almost gaunt, his ill-fitting school uniform hanging loosely on his still-teenage frame. His eyes, sunk deeper into their sockets and shadowed with a perpetual weariness, held a haunted, faraway, almost unnervingly intense look. His interactions, always stilted due to his lack of a phone and his painfully rudimentary Japanese, were now even more clipped, his pronouncements, when he was forced to make them, often bleak, cynical, and unsettlingly prescient. He had become a pariah, an outcast, a figure of fear and morbid curiosity amongst his peers – the “creepy Tanaka-kun.” This strange, unending May, which had bled into a sweltering, oppressive summer on the island, felt so utterly disconnected from any concept of season or normalcy he had ever known; it was just an endless, timeless expanse of dread.

Nana Hiiragi was among the returnees. Her own transformation, Arthur noted, was less overtly physical but no less profound. The almost manic, candy-coated cheerfulness that had once been her primary, impenetrable camouflage was noticeably, significantly muted, replaced by a more sombre, introspective, and almost melancholic air. When her violet eyes, shadowed with a weariness that seemed too profound for her young face, inevitably met Arthur’s across the crowded, reawakened canteen on that first chaotic day back, he saw a complex, unreadable flicker of emotions – surprise at his continued, stubborn presence, perhaps a lingering trace of the raw guilt and profound confusion from their last terrible encounter, and a renewed, deeply wary, almost fearful assessment. The air between them, whenever their paths crossed, was thick with unspoken things.

Arthur knew he needed an ally, or at least, someone who wouldn’t immediately dismiss his dire warnings as madness. His thoughts, inevitably, reluctantly, turned to Kyouya Onodera. Kyouya was a consummate observer, a cold, logical, and entirely dispassionate analyst. He was, Arthur suspected, perhaps the only person on this godforsaken island who might, just might, possess the intellect and the detachment to believe even a fraction of the unbelievable truth, or at least to find his warnings pragmatically useful.

He found Kyouya in his usual self-imposed sanctuary in the furthest, quietest, most dust-laden corner of the school library. “Onodera,” Arthur began, his Japanese hesitant but firm. “We need to talk. Urgently. About what is coming.” Kyouya slowly closed his ancient book. He regarded Arthur with that unnerving, unblinking stare. “Tanaka. You look… remarkably unwell. Even more so than before the break.” “This island… it has that effect,” Arthur managed. He sat. “Listen to me. The Committee… they will create food shortages. Severe ones. To make us fight. Civil war.” Kyouya raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Your ‘glimpses’ tell you this?” “Among other things,” Arthur confirmed, his expression grim. “And Nana Hiiragi… she uses blackmail, manipulation. She is a tool, yes, but a thinking one.” He paused, a bitter irony in his voice. “I’m supposed to see the future. But I’m trapped in this bloody, repeating past, watching it all happen.” Kyouya listened with an unnerving, focused stillness. He had witnessed too many of Arthur’s strange, unsettlingly accurate “predictions” come to pass. “Deliberate food shortages,” Kyouya mused aloud after a long silence. “That would create precisely the chaos you describe. And Hiiragi… I have had my own suspicions.” He looked directly at Arthur. “What do you propose, Tanaka? Given your… unique perspective?” “Propose?” Arthur echoed, a harsh laugh escaping him. “I propose we try not to starve. We watch our backs.” He then hesitated, the weight of his incredible secret about Michiru immense. He couldn’t reveal the full truth, not yet, not even to Kyouya. It was too dangerous, for Michiru, for himself. But he had to say something. “And… I am keeping Michiru Inukai… safe… in her room. She deserves that. The Committee… they would not understand her… her condition.” He chose his words carefully, hinting at something beyond mere death, hoping Kyouya’s sharp mind might grasp the unspoken. “She is still… warm.” Kyouya’s expression didn’t change, but Arthur saw a flicker of something new in his eyes – not disbelief, but a profound, analytical curiosity. “Inukai Michiru sacrificed herself,” Kyouya stated, his voice flat. “A most… perplexing event. Her current… anomalous condition… is noted, Tanaka.” He paused. “If what you say about the Committee’s intentions is true, then this year will be… significantly more trying.” It wasn’t an alliance. Not yet. But Kyouya Onodera was listening. And Arthur, though still burdened by the full weight of his secret hope for Michiru, felt a fraction less alone in the encroaching darkness.

Would serve her right

Chapter 40: The Unwritten Page

The days that followed their desperate covenant in the firelit cave settled into a strange, new rhythm, a tense counterpoint of meticulous preparation and gnawing uncertainty. Jin Tachibana had vanished as silently and enigmatically as he had arrived, presumably off to navigate the treacherous labyrinth of the Committee’s bureaucracy and the shadowy underworld of forgers and information brokers, on his near-impossible quest to craft a new life for Arthur Ainsworth.

In his absence, the remaining four became a study in focused, if often fearful, resolve. Arthur, with a grim determination that surprised even himself, began his daunting studies. Kyouya, using his sharp intellect and surprisingly broad, if eclectic, knowledge base, became his reluctant, if exacting, tutor in the complex, often heavily redacted, history of this Japan, this unfamiliar world, carefully guiding him through the official narratives and hinting at the unspoken, darker truths that lay beneath. Nana Hiiragi, her own past a raw, open wound, offered bitter, insightful, and often terrifyingly personal commentary on the Committee’s methods of indoctrination and control, her words painting a chilling picture of the psychological landscape Arthur would have to navigate. There were no illusions between them now, only the stark, shared understanding of the monstrous enemy they faced. Michiru Inukai, a quiet, steadfast presence, ensured they ate what little they had, tended to their spirits with her gentle optimism, and created a small, fragile pocket of normalcy amidst the overwhelming abnormality of their existence.

Arthur would spend hours poring over scavenged textbooks Kyouya produced from some hidden cache, his brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to make sense of timelines and political shifts so alien to his own lived experience. He, Arthur Ainsworth, former accounts clerk from Crawley, a man whose most pressing historical concerns had once revolved around the Tudors or the English Civil War for a pub quiz, was now attempting a crash course in the socio-political development of an alternate, Talent-riven Japan. The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of it would sometimes strike him with an almost physical force, leaving him breathless. He thought of the quiet, predictable order of his old life, the mundane certainty of a bus arriving (usually) on time, the fixed point of a well-earned pint at the local on a Friday evening. Even the most chaotic council meeting back in what felt like a distant, almost imaginary England – perhaps debating fiercely over planning permission for a new supermarket on the outskirts of a town like Chichester, or some other sleepy southern borough – paled into utter insignificance compared to the life-or-death stakes of this new, terrifying "career" he was so desperately, so improbably, preparing for.

He looked at the crude map Nana was still meticulously sketching by the dim firelight, a map of an island that had become the nexus of his impossible new life, a place of horrors he was now planning to willingly return to. Back in his small semi-detached, the most pressing map he’d ever seriously consulted was likely an A-to-Z of Greater London for a rare trip up to town, or perhaps a well-worn Ordnance Survey map detailing the familiar, gentle contours of the South Downs for a bracing bank holiday ramble. This new map, sketched in rough charcoal on a salvaged piece of slate, its lines imbued with Nana’s painful, intimate knowledge, led not to quaint country pubs or historic, sun-dappled landmarks, but into the very dark, beating heart of a monstrous, inhuman deception.

Whether this path, this desperate, insane gamble, would lead them to any form of liberation, or simply to a new, even more terrible form of annihilation, was a page yet to be written, a future no story, no matter how bizarrely prescient or tragically detailed, had ever truly foretold. The narrative he remembered from his old world was now just that – a memory, a collection of increasingly unreliable echoes. Their lives had diverged, their choices now entirely their own, each step taken into a vast, terrifying, and utterly unscripted unknown.

And as the persistent May chill of the deep mountain cave – so unlike any English May he could recall from his past, a month that should have hinted at warmth, at summer, at hope – seeped into his weary bones, Arthur Ainsworth could only cling to the fragile, flickering ember of their shared, defiant purpose. He could only hope, with a desperation that was almost a prayer, that they possessed the strength, the luck, and the sheer, bloody-minded, stubborn resilience to survive the terrible, uncertain writing of it. The future stretched before them, a blank, ominous, and unforgiving page.

Chapter 26: Reunion in the Rain

The chaotic, premature end of the third school year on the island had seen Arthur, along with the other bewildered and traumatized student survivors, unceremoniously dumped back onto the mainland like so much unwanted refuse. For him, it meant a grim, dispiriting return to the life he had briefly, miserably known before his forced return to the academy: the anonymity of the teeming city, the gnawing ache of poverty, and the soul-crushing, repetitive labour of a sprawling construction site on the urban fringe. The bitter irony wasn’t lost on him; he was now walking the same path of grueling menial toil, enduring the same casual cruelties from foremen and co-workers, that Kyouya Onodera had apparently walked before his own arrival on that cursed island. He endured the harsh, unforgiving conditions, the meagre, often insufficient pay that barely covered the rent for a shared, squalid room in a decaying lodging house, and the constant, wearying taunts from his fellow labourers who mocked his still-halting Japanese and his foreigner’s awkwardness. Each day was a fresh testament to his unwanted, unwelcome survival. His phone, his former lifeline to communication and understanding, had been confiscated during the island evacuation, leaving him to navigate this complex, indifferent world with only his painfully limited vocabulary and a profound, isolating sense of linguistic inadequacy.

Months bled into one another, a dreary, monotonous procession of exhausting physical labour and long, lonely nights spent staring at the cracked ceiling of his cramped room. He heard nothing of Nana, nothing of Michiru, nothing of Kyouya. The island, and the unspeakable horrors it held, began to feel like a distant, terrible fever dream, its sharp edges softened by time and the sheer, grinding drudgery of his current existence.

One particularly bleak, miserable evening in late autumn, as a cold, persistent, sleety rain lashed the city, relentlessly turning the streets into slick, reflecting rivers of neon and grime, Arthur trudged wearily away from the cacophonous, muddy construction site. His body ached with a bone-deep exhaustion, his spirit felt numb, hollowed out. He took a shortcut through a narrow, dimly lit, garbage-strewn alleyway, more to escape the biting, rain-laden wind than to save any appreciable time. And there, huddled in a recessed, darkened doorway, trying desperately to find some meagre shelter from the relentless downpour, was a figure he recognized instantly, despite her ragged, filthy clothes and the haunted, almost feral terror in her eyes. Nana Hiiragi.

She looked up with a start as he approached, her eyes – those once bright, violet, calculating eyes – widening in shocked, terrified recognition. She was thinner, almost skeletal, her once vibrant pink hair now lank, faded, and plastered to her skull by the rain, her face smudged with dirt and etched with a weariness that went far beyond mere physical exhaustion. She looked like a cornered, wounded animal, a desperate fugitive who had finally run out of places to hide. On top of a nearby overflowing, reeking rubbish bin, a scrawny, spectral white cat sat preternaturally still, its intelligent, luminous eyes fixed on them both, seemingly entirely unfazed by the driving rain or the charged atmosphere in the narrow alley.

“Tanaka-kun?” Nana whispered, her voice hoarse, cracked, barely audible above the drumming of the rain, disbelief warring with a flicker of raw, desperate fear, and perhaps, Arthur thought with a jolt, a tiny, almost imperceptible spark of desperate, unwelcome hope. She looked utterly broken. She began to stammer, incoherent words of regret, of apology for… for everything, her body trembling violently.

Arthur, his own weariness a heavy, sodden cloak upon his shoulders, cut her off, his voice flat, the English words falling like chips of ice in the damp, cold air. “Save it, Hiiragi. Just… save it.” He saw the last vestiges of fight, of defiance, go out of her. She sagged against the grimy, graffiti-covered wall, the rain plastering her thin clothes to her shivering frame.

“Tsuruoka,” he began, speaking slowly, deliberately, still in English, knowing she had some comprehension, and needing the precision of his own tongue for what he had to say. “Commander Tsuruoka… he killed your parents, Nana. Not you. He did.” He saw her flinch as if he had physically struck her, her eyes widening in stunned, uncomprehending horror. “He hired two Talented criminals to do the job, individuals with existing convictions, easily manipulated, easily controlled. They were likely… disposed of… after they’d served their purpose. Silenced. Standard Committee operating procedure.” Nana stared at him, her mouth agape, rain dripping from her chin, her breath catching in her throat. “Your parents,” Arthur continued, his voice relentless, a grim, emotionless recital of terrible truths. “They supported Talents. They were actively opposed to Tsuruoka’s ideology, his methods, his growing power within the Committee. He decided not only to eliminate them as a threat but, as the ultimate, monstrous act of revenge against their memory, to take their only daughter and twist her, mold her, into the very thing they fought against. It was so much easier to shape you, to control you, if you could be blamed for their horrific murders, wasn’t it? If you truly believed yourself a monster from the very start.” He saw the dawning, unutterable horror in her eyes as pieces of her shattered, manipulated past began to align with his brutal words. “You running to that police station, a terrified child clutching your own father’s severed head… the accusations, the recriminations you faced there… that was all part of Tsuruoka’s meticulous, diabolical plan. The reason you were shunted from one uncaring, abusive foster family to another. It was all designed to break you, to isolate you, to make you utterly pliable, to make you his perfect, unquestioning weapon.”

He paused, letting the crushing weight of his words sink into her already fractured psyche. “You could have asked more questions, Hiiragi,” he said, his voice softening almost imperceptibly, a hint of weary sorrow creeping in. “You could have done more research. Yes, many Talents are bad, dangerous, destructive. But it was never your place to be their judge, their jury, and their executioner.” He looked her directly in the eye, his gaze unwavering, trying to convey the full import of his next statement. “And Talents, Hiiragi,” he added, his voice dropping to a low, pointed near-whisper, “they don’t have a monopoly on doing bad things.” The implication that he knew she, Nana Hiiragi, the Committee’s most feared assassin of Talents, was herself entirely Talentless, hung heavy, unspoken but deafening, between them in the cold, rain-swept alley. “Now, perhaps, after everything, you finally understand the full, terrible extent of my ‘Talent.’ My ‘predictions.’ And believe me, Hiiragi, things are going to get much, much worse. For all of us.”

Nana, looking utterly numb, her face a mask of dawning, unbearable truth and profound, world-shattering despair, finally spoke, her voice a mere breath, almost lost in the relentless drumming of the rain. “I’ve seen them… Tanaka-kun. I’ve seen… the Enemies of Humanity.”

Arthur, who had almost turned to leave, to walk away from her and the vortex of pain and violence she represented, froze in his tracks. Her words, so quiet, so full of a new, specific terror, stopped him cold. He knew, with a sudden, sickening lurch, where this was heading, to the most bizarre, the most terrifying, the most inexplicable aspect of this twisted, nightmarish world. He turned back slowly to face her, the rain dripping from his hair, from the collar of his thin jacket. He struggled for a moment with his limited Japanese, then resorted to blunt English again. “Tsuruoka. He’s shown you, hasn’t he?” he asked, his voice grim. “Two of them, I’d wager. Two of those… monsters. And he told you that Talents don’t truly die when you kill them? That they just… change? That they turn into those things?” Nana, her eyes wide and haunted, brimming with a fresh, unspeakable horror, nodded slowly, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on her cheek.

“He was telling you the truth, Nana,” Arthur said, his voice heavy with a weariness that seemed to age him decades in that moment. “Up to a point, at least. My own… additional information… it may not be entirely precise, you understand. It’s… fragmented. But from what I’ve managed to piece together, from what I remember… when a person with a Talent reaches a certain point in their life – late teens, their twenties, sometimes as late as their forties, it varies – their Talent can undergo a kind of… profound, often terrifying metamorphosis. Think of it as… as puberty, but with new, often unstable, uncontrollable superpowers. A secondary, more monstrous blossoming.” He saw the flicker of horrified understanding in her eyes. “Unfortunately, from what I know, it’s not long after that stage, that secondary manifestation, that they can… they can transform. Become those creatures Tsuruoka so proudly, so callously, displayed for you. The process, I believe, can also happen, perhaps even accelerate, if a Talent appears to be dead to our eyes, like Etsuko, the girl he showed you in that body bag. Their essence, their Talent, it just… festers, corrupts, transforms.”

He saw the recognition of Etsuko’s name, the confirmation of her own terrible experience in Tsuruoka’s charnel house, reflected in Nana’s horrified gaze. “I don’t know what the Committee’s ultimate, endgame plan is, Nana,” Arthur admitted, running a hand through his wet hair. “I truly don’t. But I strongly suspect Tsuruoka will use – or perhaps already is using – these so-called ‘Enemies of Humanity’ as a potent, terrifying tool. Maybe, just maybe, it’s to keep the current Japanese government in power, by presenting these monsters as a constant, existential threat that only he, and the Committee, can manage, can protect them from. Or, and this seems far more likely given his megalomania, once he’s successfully eliminated all other Talents he deems problematic or uncontrollable, he’ll use these monsters, these transformed Talents, to try and take over the world himself.”

He looked at Nana, her face a canvas of shock, dawning comprehension, and utter, soul-crushing despair. “He played you, Nana,” he said, his voice softer now, almost gentle. “From the very beginning. He played us all.” With that, Arthur Ainsworth turned and began to walk away, his shoulders slumped, leaving Nana Hiiragi alone in the cold, dark, rain-lashed alley to absorb the full, crushing weight of his devastating revelations. As he reached the grimy, graffiti-scarred end of the alley, he glanced back, a brief, almost involuntary movement. Nana was slowly, unsteadily, pushing herself to her feet, a small, broken figure in the vast, uncaring city. The scrawny white cat, which had been watching their entire exchange with an unnerving, almost sentient stillness from its perch on the overflowing rubbish bin, hopped down with a silent, graceful leap and, with an almost imperceptible flick of its tail, began to follow Nana as she stumbled out of the alley and disappeared into the rainy, indifferent labyrinth of the darkened city streets. He knew, somehow, with a certainty that settled like a stone in his own weary heart, that their paths, his and Nana’s, were still destined to cross again. The island’s dark, insidious tendrils reached far, even into the deepest, most anonymous shadows of the sprawling mainland.

Heh

Nana is an evil little bitch

Chapter 6: The Camera Fiend

With her meticulous initial plans for Nanao Nakajima temporarily, infuriatingly, thwarted by Arthur’s unsettlingly accurate (or so it seemed to Nanao, at least) premonitions, Nana Hiiragi was a coiled spring of suppressed frustration. Arthur knew her handler, the enigmatic and ruthless Tsuruoka, wouldn’t tolerate delays or failures indefinitely. The invisible pressure on her to perform, to meet her quotas, would be immense. This, Arthur suspected, made her even more dangerous, more volatile, more likely to lash out with cold precision if another complication, another unforeseen variable, arose.

That complication promptly presented itself in the unctuous form of Ryouta Habu. Habu was a lanky, sallow-skinned boy with greasy hair and a perpetually smug expression, rarely seen without a bulky, professional-looking camera slung around his neck. Arthur had already clocked him as a minor creep from his hazy anime memories – the sort of boy who used his proclaimed Talent, the ability to photograph events moments before they happened, for leering, voyeuristic purposes rather than anything noble. His photographs often focused on unflattering angles of female students, or "accidental" upskirt shots, all passed off with a knowing smirk as the unpredictable nature of his future-capturing lens.

The evening after Arthur’s third successful, if nerve-wracking, intervention to keep Nanao safe from Nana’s clutches, the students were gathered in the noisy, brightly lit canteen for their evening meal. Arthur, as had become his habit, was seated alone, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible while keeping a wary eye on Nana. He saw Habu, a predatory glint in his eyes, saunter over to Nana’s table, where she was picking at her food with a distinct lack of her usual cheerful appetite. He was clearly agitated about something.

Habu leaned in conspiratorially, a greasy lock of hair falling into his eyes, and with a theatrical flourish, showed Nana a photograph on his camera’s small digital display. Even from across the crowded, echoing room, Arthur could see Nana’s posture stiffen, her perpetually bright smile dimming for a dangerous fraction of a second before being quickly reasserted, albeit with a noticeable strain. He couldn’t hear the hushed, intense exchange over the din of the canteen, but he could guess its ugly nature. Later, through snippets of terrified, whispered gossip from students who had been seated closer, and by piecing together the grim fragments of his own foreknowledge, he confirmed the sordid details.

“Interesting shot, isn’t it, Hiiragi-san?” Habu had apparently leered, his voice a low, suggestive drawl. The photograph on his camera clearly showed Nana looking intently over the cliff edge where Nanao had nearly been lured just days before. It was a damning image, especially in light of Arthur’s public “prediction.” “I was up there myself, you see, testing out a new telephoto lens. A bit suspicious, you standing there all alone, Hiiragi-san, looking down like that, especially after our peculiar Tanaka-kun had that little ‘vision’ about Nakajima-kun taking a tumble. I think you were going to kill him. I think you were planning to push him.”

Nana, ever the consummate actress, had feigned wide-eyed, innocent confusion, her hand flying to her mouth in a gesture of shock. “Kill him? Nakajima-kun? Why on earth would I ever contemplate doing something so utterly horrible, Habu-kun?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Hiiragi,” Habu had sneered, his confidence bolstered by her apparent dismay. “I know what I saw. Or rather, what I think you were about to do. It’s a very compelling photograph, don’t you think? The kind of thing that might make people ask… awkward questions.” He paused, letting his threat hang in the air. “Now, if you don’t want this rather incriminating picture, and my… very strong suspicions… shared with, say, Mr. Saito, or perhaps that nosy Onodera Kyouya, or even the entire class, then perhaps you could pay me a little visit tonight? My room. Number 207. We can discuss how to make this… misunderstanding… go away. Maybe you could start by giving a hardworking, stressed photographer a nice, long, relaxing back massage?” His leer intensified.

The sheer, idiotic audacity of it was breathtaking. Blackmailing a highly trained, deeply ruthless government assassin. Habu was either incredibly stupid, dangerously overconfident in the protection his Talent supposedly afforded him, or, most likely, a lethal combination of both. Arthur felt a familiar wave of helpless dread wash over him. He knew, with a sickening certainty, where this was heading. He couldn’t warn Habu; the boy was far too arrogant and would either dismiss him as the “weird Tanaka kid” or, worse, report his ‘meddling’ to Nana herself, further complicating Arthur’s already precarious position and possibly accelerating Habu’s demise. All he could do was watch, a silent, horrified spectator, as the grim pantomime unfolded.

Nana, trapped and seething internally but maintaining an outward composure of reluctant agreement, had acquiesced with a tight, saccharine smile. “Of course, Habu-kun. I’d be happy to come to your room and clear up this… unfortunate little misunderstanding. A massage sounds… lovely.”

Later that night, the inevitable occurred. Nana, her face a mask of calm but her eyes glinting with cold fury, visited Habu’s cluttered, untidy room. Arthur, lying awake in his own dorm, his ears straining for any unusual sounds, could only imagine the scene. He knew from the source material that Nana, while giving Habu a perfunctory, unwanted back massage, would be seriously contemplating snapping his neck then and there. She would refrain, however, her cold logic overriding her immediate anger. She needed more information about his Talent’s specifics – its range, its limitations, how far into the future it could truly see. Knowledge was power, and Nana always sought to maximize her power before striking.

Instead, as her fingers worked his tense shoulders, she would deliberately, with surgical precision, press a sensitive pressure point, just hard enough to cause a searing, unexpected jolt of pain. Habu, arrogant and foolish, would yelp, then snap, “You stupid girl! Watch what you’re doing! Be careful!” Nana, Arthur pictured, would then offer a profuse, deeply insincere apology, her eyes wide with feigned innocence, claiming it was a complete accident, that her hands had simply slipped. This calculated incident would not only test his reaction but also fuel her resolve to eliminate him swiftly and efficiently once she had the information she needed.

The next day, Nana approached Kyouya Onodera in the library, her face a carefully constructed mask of terror and distress. She clutched a photograph in her trembling hand – one Arthur knew she had expertly faked in the intervening hours. It depicted Nana herself, seemingly unconscious, tied up with rough-looking ropes, in a grimy, unfamiliar room, a faint bruise artfully applied to her cheek. “Onodera-kun!” she’d cried, her voice breaking with convincing panic. “I… I found this! Slipped under my door! I think… I think it’s my future! Someone is trying to kill me! Could it have been Habu-kun? He was acting so strangely towards me last night!”

It was a brilliant, if diabolical, move, Arthur acknowledged grimly. She was establishing a preemptive alibi with the school’s most persistent, logical investigator, painting herself as a potential victim, and simultaneously casting suspicion on Habu. Kyouya, though perpetually suspicious and likely sensing the theatricality of her performance, would have little choice but to take her claim seriously and investigate.

The actual murder happened later that same evening, or perhaps in the early, silent hours of the morning. Nana, having deduced the limitations of Habu’s precognitive camera – likely that it couldn’t photograph events too far into the future, or in areas he hadn’t physically scouted and focused on, or perhaps that it only showed potential futures he was actively trying to capture – would have cornered him in his room. Arthur didn’t know the exact method beyond strangulation, but he imagined it was quick, brutal, and terrifyingly efficient, Nana’s smaller stature no impediment to her lethal training.

The discovery of Ryouta Habu’s lifeless body the following morning, his camera lying broken beside him, sent a fresh wave of genuine panic and fear rippling through the already unsettled student population. Mr. Saito was visibly distraught, his attempts to calm the students increasingly futile. The other teachers were tight-lipped, their expressions grim. Nana, of course, played the part of the shocked and grieving classmate to absolute perfection, even “confiding” in a few tearful girls that Habu had been acting strangely and aggressively towards her, subtly planting the idea that he might have been a dangerous individual who had brought his grim fate upon himself.

Kyouya Onodera was, as expected, intensely, almost ferociously, investigating, his impassive face a mask for a keen, analytical intellect piecing together timelines and inconsistencies. He questioned Nana again, who recounted her faked photo and her “fear” of Habu, her performance flawless.

Arthur watched it all from the periphery, a knot of cold fury, frustration, and a growing, weary despair tightening in his chest. Another death. Another victim he couldn’t save without revealing his impossible knowledge and immediately making himself Nana’s next, and undoubtedly final, target. He hadn’t even liked Habu; the boy had been an unpleasant, sleazy individual. But did he deserve to be murdered, his life snuffed out so callously? The question was a bitter, unanswerable torment.

The weight of his foreknowledge, his terrible prescience, was becoming a crushing, unbearable burden. Each death he failed to prevent, each life Nana extinguished, chipped away at his already fragile psyche. He was an unwilling observer of a horror show he’d already seen the grisly highlights of, powerless to stop the actors from hitting their gruesome, predetermined marks. His phone translator, his only means of coherent expression, felt less like a lifeline and more like a cursed tool for documenting a tragedy in a language he was only beginning to comprehend on a visceral, soul-deep level. Nanao was safe, for now, but at what cost? And who, Arthur wondered with a chilling certainty, would be next on Nana Hiiragi’s ever-growing list?