Chapter 41: The Unlucky Guy and a Visit (Patreon)

Chapter 41: The Unlucky Soul and the Visit

...

Whatever the case, after Ai Morishita's confession, the dynamic between the two of them had shifted in a new way.

Satoru Anjouin found it hard to see her as some clueless little sister anymore. Since she was willing to take on a share of the faction's management work, that freed up more time for him to improve himself.

Still, at night she'd pester him for chicken nuggets, looking both silly and adorable while doing it.

In fact, the girls in her class had gone to check on Ryoko Nishikawa again last night, but still got no response.

It was only when Ryoko Nishikawa took another sick day today that her classmates realized something was seriously wrong.

Of course, the reason Ai Morishita hadn't tagged along as his little shadow this time was simply that she didn't feel especially close to Ryoko Nishikawa.

At least on the surface, the one closer to her was Asuka Shiraishi.

So it was Asuka Shiraishi who accompanied Satoru Anjouin to the dorm during lunch break.

The two of them stopped by the cafeteria first. Since Ryoko Nishikawa had likely gone without food all day yesterday, they packed her a warm bowl of soft food.

Then they went to the first-floor dorm manager to request a keycard for Ryoko Nishikawa's room.

As Ryoko Nishikawa's friend, Asuka Shiraishi naturally knew which room was hers.

Since a girl's keycard had to be requested by another girl, and given that Nishikawa was out sick, it was naturally easier for Shiraishi to get one than it would have been for a boy.

Or rather, boys couldn't request a girl's keycard at all to begin with.

After all, this dorm housed boys and girls together. If a boy could request a girl's keycard, there was no telling what kind of chaos might ensue.

Incidentally, Anjouin had originally planned to have a Class 1-A student negotiate with the dorm manager to prohibit keycards from being duplicated by students outside their own class,

and hand the spare card over to Yamamura for safekeeping. Who could have guessed that before the plan could even be put into place, Ryoko Nishikawa had already been 'sick' for two days.

Taking the keycard from the dorm manager, Asuka Shiraishi bowed deeply in thanks.

"Oh my, how polite of you — not like those boys from Class D, who went and copied a classmate's keycard without permission, breaking dorm conduct rules. Heh, oops, I said too much."

Satoru Anjouin: "..."

How to put it — not the least bit surprising.

Asuka Shiraishi noticed the shift in his expression and shot him a questioning look.

So Anjouin lowered his voice and explained that duplicating someone's keycard privately, without permission and without a valid reason, counted as a violation of dorm conduct rules.

After all, it could practically be considered trespassing.

Honestly, some students in Class D didn't even grasp the most basic sense of morality or law.

In the original story, there was even an attempted crime as vile as trying to secretly film the girls' changing room.

And the attempt failed not because the culprit had a change of heart, but because someone else stopped him — that alone was what kept the vile crime from being exposed.

The island nation had explicitly classified acts like secretly filming women's changing rooms as criminal offenses and enforced severe legal penalties for them.

The base penalty could go up to three years in prison, and if the footage was shared with others, the sentence escalated to as much as five years.

Asuka Shiraishi's expression froze slightly.

She probably hadn't imagined Class D students could be foolish to that degree.

"Just wonder who the unlucky one is this time," Anjouin murmured with a sigh.

For what it was worth, Anjouin had once warned Kiyotaka Ayanokoji to steer clear of those Class D apes — that getting close to them would bring nothing but bad luck.

Still, the sheer inertia of fate never failed to feel uncanny.

"Whose keycard did those boys copy?" Asuka Shiraishi asked, simply out of curiosity.

The dorm manager chuckled and, without any coyness, answered outright.

"Seems like it was some student named something-koji. Handsome, just like the young man next to you, though a bit on the gloomy side."

"Something-koji?" Asuka Shiraishi's breath caught. She jerked her face up in alarm.

"Mm, I think it was Ayano-something-ji, or thereabouts."

"Ayano-something-ji?"

"Right, right, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji — that's the name."

Probably thanks to Shiraishi repeating the fragments back, the dorm manager quickly recalled the unlucky boy's surname.

All Anjouin could do was think to himself, 'What rotten luck.'

He could only hope the White Room's greatest masterpiece wouldn't be led astray by the Black Room's greatest masterpiece.

"Shiraishi, are you okay?"

"..."

Anjouin knew Shiraishi had come to the school with a mission.

That mission was to keep watch on Kiyotaka Ayanokoji.

Behind it, naturally, lay the factional struggles within the Cabinet Secretariat. Everyone in the know understood exactly what kind of institution the 'White Room' really was, but this island nation excelled at nothing so much as doctoring data and dressing things up with catchy hooks.

They'd throw around titles like 'strongest Student Council President in decades' at the drop of a hat... though Manabu Horikita's stats really had been padded at random.

Or 'the sole success of the fourth, most difficult phase,' hailed as their greatest masterpiece.

Or the so-called White Room Project for mass-producing geniuses.

To Anjouin, the White Room — that facility taking in bastard children and orphans of every stripe — brought to mind a movie called The Island.

Including Ichika Amasawa, cultivated through test-tube baby technology — she too was nothing more than a spare part, prepared by those conglomerate heads and politicians for themselves, for their true heirs.

Of course, The Promised Neverland would work just as well as a comparison.

Next to the far more inhumane practice of raising spare parts, does an inhumane educational institution start to look like a lesser crime?

Using one crime to conceal another was practically an old tradition of this island nation.

After all, the 'White Room' itself was an institution built on the orders of Naoe, leader of the Citizens' Party, with Papa Ayanokoji carrying out the construction — ostensibly meant to artificially manufacture geniuses, but in truth used to deepen ties between factions.

Even though Anjouin felt his own theory bordered on malicious slander, it really was the kind of filthy scheme this island nation's business tycoons and politicians were fully capable of.

Still, officially speaking, that was the White Room's greatest masterpiece after all.

If the White Room really could cultivate artificial geniuses, then, well, 'that changes things.'

At that point, it would simply mean 'protecting' Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, studying the methods for mass-producing artificial geniuses, and striking a blow against Papa Ayanokoji while they were at it.

Shiraishi had probably never imagined her surveillance target would turn out to be that unlucky soul.

"This..."

"Shiraishi, let's deal with this later."

"I understand."

Shiraishi murmured, trying to steady her feelings.

Anjouin quickly led her away, but once they stepped into the elevator, an endless silence spread between them.

Though Shiraishi had gone through professional training, she was still a girl of fifteen or sixteen at heart, and it was only natural she'd harbored a few fantasies.

If her surveillance target seemed utterly ordinary, of course she'd assumed he was playing dumb, hiding his true strength.

That in time he'd surely reveal his abilities, rise above the rest, and eventually lead Class D to challenge Class 1-A.

Who wants their surveillance target to be some meek pushover — ordinary in behavior, ordinary in appearance, not worth watching at all?

One who might even get bullied by a bunch of apes, no less.

People like that were a dime a dozen on any street corner — hardly worth the effort of surveillance.

All that could be said was that this had dealt Shiraishi quite a blow.

"Should we go through the discipline committee to handle this? That way you could also get Kiyotaka Ayanokoji's contact information in the process, which would make it easier to keep tabs on him going forward."

"Um..."

At Anjouin's suggestion, Shiraishi hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.

"No, with how sharp Kiyotaka Ayanokoji is, he'd see through it too easily."

"Then let's leave it at that."

Since Shiraishi had said as much, Anjouin didn't try to push the matter.

The two of them soon arrived at Ryoko Nishikawa's dorm room. Rather than using the keycard right away, they knocked on the door.

"Nishikawa, it's Shiraishi. Are you okay?"

Shiraishi called out a few times, but there was no response from inside. She glanced over at Anjouin.

Anjouin nodded, and Shiraishi swiped the keycard over the electronic lock.

They pushed the door open. The first thing they saw was a room in complete disarray, and a girl curled up on the bed, wrapped in a tattered blanket.

"Nishikawa, I'm coming in."

Shiraishi spoke up first, and the shape beneath the blanket seemed to shudder.

"Nishikawa, it's me."

Anjouin said in a low voice.

It was the first time in his life he'd ever set foot in a girl's dorm room. The place was a wreck — a metal thermos lay warped, as if it had taken some kind of blow.

The desk looked as though flattened by a heavy truck, reduced to nothing but a heap of splinters, and the walls were covered with gashes like claw marks from some wild beast.

It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say the room looked like it had been swept through by a typhoon.

Whether or not it was really his voice that did it, something about it seemed to bring comfort.

Wrapped in the ragged cloth, Ryoko Nishikawa lifted her head.

Her usually smooth black hair was hopelessly tangled, her eyes bloodshot, her eyelids swollen and red. She'd always given off such a clean, tidy impression before, but now she looked utterly wrung out.

It was enough to make anyone's heart ache.

And around her mouth, black markings had formed into a shape like a serpent's eye.

"A curse mark..."

"So it really is Cursed Speech?"

It was a Kotodama-type technique — one where speech itself generated a curse effect.

With Cursed Speech, the curse mark forms directly around the mouth, so the technique triggers the instant she opens it. If the mark were on the hand instead, she could cover her mouth first before activating it.

That meant the moment Ryoko Nishikawa spoke, the technique would activate — her once-clear voice now carried a curse.

"I already told you — if you run into trouble, you can come to me first."

Anjouin walked over, crouched beside the bed to meet her eyes, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the tears from her face.

This wasn't, of course, the same handkerchief he used to wipe Ai Morishita's mouth.

Resources on this island nation were relatively scarce, which had fostered a strong environmental consciousness. It had also been influenced by Western aristocratic culture — in social settings, wiping sweat with a handkerchief was considered more proper.

Most boys carried just the one handkerchief, but Anjouin kept two — one for himself, one for Ai Morishita.

"Even if I can't manage it myself, I can find someone who can."

"You've been crying a while, huh. Go wash your face first — your 'voice' will come back soon enough."

"Ah, don't force yourself to talk."

Anjouin pulled Ryoko Nishikawa up off the bed, then stopped her before she could speak.

Right now, any word she spoke could turn into a curse, harming others and herself alike.

Her cotton pajamas, damp with tears and sweat, clung to the graceful curves of her body. Anjouin caught a glimpse and quickly looked away.

"Shiraishi, I'll leave her to you."

"Right. Nishikawa, come with me."

Shiraishi gently took Nishikawa's hand.

Then she led Nishikawa, who seemed to have left her soul somewhere else entirely, toward the bathroom.

Before they left, she shot Anjouin a reproachful glance.

Anjouin, a little embarrassed, found himself staring up at the ceiling, which was scored with several long gashes. Her cotton pajamas were just as torn, and a flash of pale skin had inevitably shown through.

He told himself it had been unavoidable.

But once the two of them were in the bathroom, his gaze drifted to somewhere empty and unfocused.

He turned his attention to the intel that had refreshed yesterday, mulling it over carefully in his mind.