"When you die, it's over and that's that... Death doesn't give a crap how amazing you were. Ain't that why dyin' is so scary to people?"
***
Kodaka Kazutaka. Ryohgo Narita.
Carnivorous.
Act 4. Egoism.
"Hope's Peak Academy. First year, classes 74-78. Early spring. Tuesday."
"Darwin's theory."
"What?"
"You remember Darwin's theory, right? About humans descending from chimpanzees, that they're close relatives of humans? But strictly speaking, that's just a superficial understanding. Originally, the theory of evolution isn't just 'man descended from apes.' It's a story about how those who adapted best to environmental changes survived. It's not the strongest or the smartest who survive, but the one who responds best to change. In that sense, 'death' is nothing more than culling."
"I still don't get what you're getting at..."
Yasuke Matsuda didn't rush to answer. He was busy writing something in a ring-bound notebook, completely new, but with coffee stains on the white cover, the same stains as on his carelessly buttoned shirt. It didn't seem to bother him much.
"The point is that your brain, Kuwata, is a perfect specimen for studying adaptation," he finally said, without lifting his eyes from the notebook. "You hate baseball, but you play it better than anyone. You want to be a musician, but judging by rumors, you can't even properly tune a guitar. Your organism has adapted to one thing, while your consciousness stubbornly pulls in the opposite direction. It's interesting how long your nervous system can withstand this dissonance before it starts malfunctioning."
Leon jerked as if struck by electricity. His right hand, which had been idly tapping fingers on the armrest of the chair, froze mid-motion.
"Hey, are you mocking me?!" Kuwata's voice boiled over instantly, as if there were no intermediate stages between calm and rage. "I came here for a medical exam, not for a session of arrogant psychoanalysis from some jerk in slippers!"
Yasuke slowly raised his head. His pale blue eyes, half-covered by heavy eyelids, settled on Leon with the same indifference with which one usually looks at a microscopic specimen.
"Jerk in slippers," he repeated quietly, as if tasting each syllable. "Amusing. The steering committee thought otherwise, by the way. Something about 'the necessity of monitoring cognitive functions in students subject to chronic stress.' Officially." He mimicked the last words in a high, unbearably dull voice, making the phrase sound like mockery. "So sit still. Or do you want me to report that you're uncontrollably aggressive and pose a threat to those around you?"
Leon grimaced. The right corner of his mouth twitched and stretched slightly further than the left—that same awkward, almost involuntary smirk that always appeared when he felt trapped.
"Threat to who?" he muttered, leaning back in the chair. "I'm a future star, you know. A musician."
"A baseball player," Yasuke corrected, lowering his gaze to the notebook again. "Don't try to convince me otherwise. I'm not like your fangirls who blindly believe every word you say."
Leon flushed—his cheekbones flushed red.
"How do you...?!"
"I know a lot," Yasuke interrupted, coldly and indifferently. "It's part of my job. Gather information, analyze, systematize. Your skepticism about your own talent is just one of many interesting cases in this academy." He set down his pen and finally turned his whole body toward Leon. "Fine. Since you're here, let's finish this quickly. I have my next patient coming soon. Follow my finger."
He extended a thin, long index finger in front of Kuwata's face—almost feminine, with a neatly trimmed nail—and began slowly moving it side to side. Leon, frowning and clearly holding back the urge to say something, followed the movement with his eyes.
"Oculomotor muscles normal," Yasuke muttered under his breath, returning to his notes. "Reflexes..." He tapped Leon's knee with a small rubber mallet, and the leg jerked. "Lively. Perhaps too lively."
"Too lively?"
"You're sweating," Yasuke stated without looking. "The room temperature is twenty-two degrees. You seem to have poor tolerance even for room temperature. Or is it nervousness?"
"It's because you're annoying!" Leon burst out, but immediately fell silent under Yasuke's cold gaze.
"Sit down."
A simple word, spoken evenly and quietly, but with such a shade of weary finality that Leon, inexplicably even to himself, lowered himself back onto the chair.
"Listen," he tried to soften his tone, though it clearly took effort. "I'm not against checkups and all that. But why does the committee need this? I haven't done anything wrong... And they just make me run in circles."
"You are against it," Yasuke corrected. "And you run around a diamond, not in circles. But that's beside the point." He snapped the notebook shut, and the sound seemed unexpectedly loud to Leon in the quiet of the office. "The committee needs data. They want to know what's going on in the heads of people like you. This is..." he paused, searching for the word, "...a precedent. And precedents scare them more than your clowning around here."
Leon was silent for a few seconds. Then he snorted:
"And doesn't it scare you?"
Yasuke looked at him. For the first time in the entire conversation, something resembling genuine interest flickered in his eyes—or perhaps the shadow of a smirk.
"Me?" He leaned closer, and Leon involuntarily pulled back. "Only one thing scares me, Kuwata. That people like you currently have a false illusion of choice and eventually break. And they break loudly. And then people like me have to pick through the pieces and try to understand why a brain capable of throwing a ball at one hundred sixty kilometers per hour is incapable of accepting an obvious truth. And that, in part, is what makes you human."
"What truth?" Leon grimaced, but uncertainty was already creeping into his voice.
"That you don't choose your talent. Talent chooses you. And resisting it is like resisting gravity. You can jump, scream, thrash..." Yasuke opened the notebook again and began writing quickly. "...but eventually you'll fall. The only question is how painfully."
Leon stood up. Abruptly, carelessly, nearly knocking the chair over.
"You know what?" His voice trembled with anger, but beneath the anger there was another note—something like hurt, or even fear. "Your Darwin theory is complete bullshit. If everything were the way you say, no one would ever dream. No one would strive for something different. The world would be full of boring nerds like you—sitting in their offices writing nonsense in notebooks."
He jabbed a finger toward Yasuke, but the other didn't even flinch.
"I'm going to become a musician. And not because 'talent chose me,' but because I decided so myself. And if you or anyone else thinks I'm going to break—let them come and watch. I'm not the type who..."
"...who what?" Yasuke raised his eyes. "Who dies quietly?"
Silence hung in the office. Spring leaves rustled outside the window, and sunlight, filtering through the blinds, drew stripes on the white cover of the notebook.
"I didn't say anything about death," Leon said quietly.
"No?" Yasuke closed the notebook for good and placed it on the desk. "Strange. Because everything you've been talking about is an attempt to die as one person and be born as another. And birth, Kuwata, is always painful. And not always successful."
He stood, brushed invisible dust from his trousers, and headed for the door.
"The exam is over. You can go. Results will be with the committee in three days. Come tomorrow to a different office—the one with the entrance from the school courtyard."
Leon stood in the middle of the office, clenching his fists. As Yasuke placed his hand on the door handle, Kuwata called after him:
"Hey, Matsuda!"
Yasuke stopped without turning around.
"Have you ever wanted anything yourself, besides your brains and those stupid notes?"
A long pause. Then Yasuke turned his head slightly to the side, and Leon saw only his profile—the sharp line of his jaw, the shadow of long eyelashes on a pale cheek.
"I never had the right to choose," he said quietly, almost soundlessly. "So all I could do was learn to play the role forced upon me well. Same as you, Kuwata. You just haven't realized it yet."
The door closed softly, almost silently. Leon was left alone, in the quiet of the office that smelled of coffee and some strange chemical scent—maybe antiseptic.
He walked to the window and looked down at the sports field, where one of the first-years was already swinging a bat, hitting balls under the spring sun. Leon's fingers involuntarily clenched, repeating the familiar grip.
"Bullshit," he whispered, but his voice sounded uncertain.
Behind him, on the desk, the notebook left by Yasuke slowly closed from the draft. On the last page, among tiny, neat kanji, stood a single phrase written larger than the rest:
"Subject demonstrates a high level of cognitive dissonance. Observation recommended."
Leon didn't move for a long time after the door clicked shut. Silence hung in the office—not the dead emptiness of abandoned spaces, but rather a taut one, as if someone invisible had strung wires between the walls and was now waiting for them to snap at the slightest touch. The smell of coffee left by Matsuda. Leon inhaled it without realizing, feeling his stomach slowly knotting.
"Bullshit," he repeated again, but now it sounded less like protest and more like a mantra.
But his body wouldn't listen. His body remembered. His body always remembered what his consciousness carefully crossed out. This was probably the same "adaptation" Matsuda had talked about. An organism adapted to one thing kept living by it, even when the mind screamed to stop. Leon raised his palm and pressed it to the glass. Cold. Hard. Impenetrable... Is Shinichi standing out there? Already finished?
He stepped toward the door, yanking the handle sharply. The upper floor corridor was absolutely empty. Not a soul—no students, no staff. Most were at the admissions committee right now, conducting final exams before the end of the school year.
Leon walked quickly, almost running, trying to leave this place as fast as possible before someone from the committee arrived. Jerk in slippers—the thought flashed through his mind, but it no longer sounded like an insult, more like an attempt to cling to something tangible, something that wouldn't collapse under the weight of its own logic.
The staircase led down to the inner courtyard. On the landing between the second and first floors, he stopped. Below, beyond the double glass doors, lay the courtyard—paved with tiles, across which rare rays of spring sunlight were already wandering. And there, at the very edge of the field, near one of the buildings where the grass hadn't yet traded its winter yellow for green, stood him.
Shinichi Sato, the ultimate connoisseur. One of the activists from the senior class, a guy with great enthusiasm. Seen from behind, he looked a lot like Kuwata, though shorter. But facially he wasn't particularly attractive: large protruding rabbit teeth, dark eyes, a plump button nose—his complete opposite.
He just stood there, his back to the building, in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and black trousers, or maybe jeans, which no student had worn since the first month—but on him they looked as if he hadn't noticed time pass.
Leon pushed the door open. Heavy, creaking. Cold air struck his face, making him squint for a moment.
"Hey!" he shouted before he could think about why he was shouting. "Has the committee already finished?"
Shinichi didn't turn around. His shoulders were motionless, the line of his back perfectly straight, as if he'd been driven into the ground like a metal stake and forgotten to be pulled out. He held something small and dark in his hand.
"They finished early. Some lunatic staged a terror attack because of the practical exams. Heard about the ultimate lucky student?"
Leon snorted—the chuckle came out more convulsive than cheerful.
"Terror attack," Leon repeated the word, and it tasted foreign in his mouth. "Are you joking? Here, where every corner is packed with cameras, and there's a guard walking around everywhere who's the ultimate boxer."
"Cameras go blind when they look at light that's too bright. The academy probably doesn't care about checking students' bags every morning, so no one noticed he didn't even bring one. But most likely, new security rules will be introduced. I doubt the director wants publicity about this incident—there were other committee members and students in the hall. The first-years have completely lost their minds."
Leon shook his head. His fingers involuntarily tightened on the chain with the lock, and he stepped closer to Shinichi.
"This time he got lucky," Shinichi smiled, and that smile was like a crack in ice. "He planned to blow up the south wing during the committee meeting, but because of the crowd, he decided to move the bomb to the gym and send a threatening letter to the director. As if it's so hard for others to come up with a number demonstrating their talents, so he volunteered as the hero."
"And what, will he be expelled?"
"Him? No. He wasn't the one who pressed the button. One of the ultimates pressed it—she'd also slipped us pastries laced with laxatives before that. It turned out that her friend somehow ended up with his bag containing the bomb trigger. And that's exactly why it won't be him who gets expelled, but three completely innocent people. What an idiot." Shinichi echoed, and there was no anger in his voice—only weariness.
"Three people? That's... that's insane. Does the committee not care about justice at all?"
Shinichi finally turned around fully. His rabbit teeth gleamed in the evening light, but the smile was bitter, almost offensive—not toward Leon, but toward everything happening around them.
"The committee isn't about justice, Kuwata. Their interest is in keeping the academy in absolute good standing in society's eyes... I know you didn't come here for idle conversation. Did you hear what Matsuda said?" Shinichi asked, not looking at Leon. "About culling."
Leon froze. For a moment, the air seemed to grow denser, thicker—like broth in which everything simmers until the meat falls off the bones.
"How do you..."
"I hear a lot," Shinichi interrupted, just as quietly as Matsuda, but without his mockery. "It's my talent, Kuwata. They're already starting to collect data on the traits of the Utypanarians."
Leon recoiled. The right corner of his mouth twitched—that same awkward smirk—but it froze halfway, because there wasn't a trace of lies in Shinichi's eyes.
"What nonsense..."
"You're scared," Shinichi continued, glancing around. "You signed that contract back then. How long have you been agreeing to the steering committee's terms? This can't go on forever, and what if the others find out? That's basically betrayal."
"Rumors from the academy have never spread that far before... And I haven't noticed anyone like us in the academy yet. You haven't been exposed yet."
"Exposed?" Shinichi snorted, and the sound was like a hoarse bark. "Kuwata, you still don't understand. We're not 'alike.' Everyone here is like us—people just don't want to admit it. The flip side of the creator's project. You've heard about it, right?"
Leon swallowed. The name "Izuru Kamukura" flashed somewhere in the recesses of his memory—a man who created not only the academy but also the very first specimens of animal-like humanoids.
"The project..." Leon drawled, and his voice sounded foreign, as if someone else was speaking through his mouth. "The one where..."
"Where they crossed ape and human genes," Shinichi finished. "Yes. The entire first generation of specimens is already dead. And us? We're the byproducts that managed to develop culturally and evolve to the level of humans, because the animal gene in us became weaker than the human one. Adaptation. Culling that the committee hid for years until they realized—we're stronger and more dangerous than humans. Because we can attack others like ourselves, just like them. We can hunt, just like them. We can dominate, just like them. But in a more primitive form. That's what scares them. Humans are egoists who fear we'll displace them from the top of the food chain. They have direct intentions of getting rid of the Utypanarians, and as for the other species—unknown."
Shinichi, squeezing the object in his fingers, held it out to Kuwata. Leon reached out without looking, as if his fingers moved on their own toward what Shinichi held. The object turned out to be thin, rectangular, like an ID badge with the academy's logo. But the smell—the smell was unbearably familiar. Chemical, medicinal, with a hint of something sweetly putrid. The same smell that hung in Matsuda's office.
"This is..." Leon squeezed the object in his palm, feeling the edges dig into his skin.
"A key to the trusted persons' office in the west wing of that new building," Shinichi interrupted, and his voice became strangely flat, as if he were reading a shopping list. "Where they keep information about Kamukura's first experiments. Where they used to keep it, rather. Until last week. The committee ordered everything evacuated to the main office. Officially—renovations are ongoing, the building is new. Unofficially—they've begun a review, possibly disposal."
Leon raised his eyes. It was already getting dark, and the light cut through the world, painting it the color of ochre. And in that light, Shinichi seemed even more menacing.
"Where did you get this? If you stole it, they could..."
"I didn't steal anything. I started working for the academy, like Matsuda, and became a new member of their information-gathering division. But not related to the Utypanarians—related to the reserve course... That same office began storing new information about the Kamukura project. Meaning it was continued. Something strange is happening on the academy grounds, I'm sure of it."
Leon wanted to laugh. It would have been natural—to laugh, turn away, and go about his business. But his throat had gone dry, and the laugh stuck somewhere between his tongue and palate, turning into a hoarse sound.
"And you... you want me to go there?" Leon squeezed the key harder, almost to the point of pain. "Are you insane? If what you're saying is true..."
"If?" Shinichi finally smiled. But it wasn't a smile. It was a grimace stretched across his face. "Kuwata, do you still believe you'll be safe?"
He took a step closer. Leon instinctively stepped back, his back pressing against the cold wall of the building.
"I saw your file," Shinichi continued, and now his voice was almost a whisper, disgustingly close. "Not the one the committee has. The real one. Your name is listed there under number UTK-04412. Sounds proud, doesn't it?"
"You..." Leon exhaled, but his voice sounded alien, distant.
"You signed the contract back then, last winter," Shinichi wasn't listening. He spoke quickly, deftly, as if he'd been polishing this speech for years. "A rights protection agreement. But essentially—an act of voluntary submission. You agreed to be a test subject, Kuwata, in exchange for safety. In exchange for not being sent to disposal—you understand that yourself. And as long as you're here, they'll be collecting information from you necessary for the start of the project. And that's why I need you—because if they find out I'm also an Utypanarian, my card will show that I entered that office—I won't be able to spread the information to others. But you'll be able to run in any case. This concerns not just you, but all of us like us, understand me..."
The committee plans to launch the project next year.
Kuwata felt the ground slip from under his feet. Not metaphorically—literally. His knees buckled, and he leaned back against the wall. The key in his palm bit into his skin with sharp edges, but he didn't loosen his fingers.
"In a year," he repeated, and the words sounded like a verdict. "What kind of project?"
Shinichi turned away. His shoulders, previously perfectly straight, sagged slightly.
"Do you know who the creator was?" he asked, gazing somewhere into the distance, beyond the academy. "Not the one they 'sculpt from marble' in textbooks. The real one. A man who decided that evolution was too slow a process. That nature was an inefficient engineer. He wanted to create the perfect human for Japan's military interests."
Leon was silent. His throat constricted so tightly that each breath came with difficulty, as if he were trying to breathe through dense cotton.
"The first generation," Shinichi continued, and his voice became monotonous, as if he were reading a death sentence aloud to convince himself of its reality, "perished. Every last one. The organisms rejected the foreign DNA; the immune systems treated their own cells as enemies. Bodies disintegrated in the womb. The few who were born..." He paused, searching for words, and in that pause hung something heavy, viscous, "...didn't live a month."
The wind picked up, and Leon suddenly caught a smell—not spring, not floral. Chemical.
"And us?" Leon breathed out.
"We're the second generation," Shinichi turned around, and the sunset's reflections danced in his eyes, red. "Or the third. The count was long lost in archives the committee carefully hides. Those whose human gene proved stronger than the animal gene—the second group of the firstborn. We survived and adapted, and then learned to pretend." He raised his hand and touched his rabbit teeth, as if noticing them for the first time. They were foreign, attached to his face by some device. "But the committee thinks otherwise. Animals are animals."
"But why in a year?" Leon broke from his spot, stepped toward Shinichi, and his shadow fell over Sato's shadow, merging into one indistinguishable stain. "Why not now? If we're so dangerous, why are they waiting?"
"Because right now they're still gathering data and evidence." Shinichi lowered his hand, and it hung limp at his side. "Matsuda isn't the only one. There are dozens of people in the academy working for the committee and sponsoring it."
"What?" Leon grabbed him by the sleeve, squeezing the fabric until his fingers turned white. "So the disposal..."
Shinichi looked at his hand. Slowly, with a kind of detached curiosity.
"A new project. Kamukura-2. Or maybe Izuru-2. The name hasn't been decided yet—too early for aesthetics; right now the mechanics matter. But the essence is simple: all those useful to society will live, because they bring benefit, they've proven their humanity." He smirked, and the sound was worse than crying, worse than screaming. "And those who don't fit their standards—they're written off. They plan to announce it publicly, to implement it as a system norm: that criminals live among them, criminals who must be eliminated."
Leon released the sleeve. His fingers trembled as if from cold, though the evening was warm. He had once heard those very words himself from the head of the committee. But he hadn't wanted to fully comprehend them.
"You knew," Leon said. "You knew from the very beginning. When you signed that contract. You agreed to become their... their what? An observer? A spy?" He grabbed Shinichi by the shoulders now, squeezing until his knuckles turned white. "Answer me, damn it!"
Shinichi didn't pull away. He just stood there, letting Leon shake him, and in his dark eyes there was neither fear nor guilt. Only the same infinite detachment Matsuda had, but laid bare.
"I knew," he answered simply. "But I didn't believe."
"Didn't believe what?"
"That they'd dare." Shinichi slowly, with visible effort, pried Leon's fingers from his shoulder. "The committee isn't a monolith, Kuwata. It's an old machine whose gears rust and creak but keep turning by inertia. They're more afraid than we are. Because we're the result of their ambitions. Their sin. And it's harder for them to get rid of their predecessors' creation."
Leon let go of him. His arms fell to his sides. He looked at his palms—at the calluses from the bat, at the thin scars that had appeared there before the academy, in a time he didn't remember but his body did.
"Why are you telling me this?" he whispered. "If everything's already decided. If in a year..." He couldn't say the word "disposal." It sounded too clinical for what it actually meant. Murder. Culling, as Matsuda would say.
"Because you're the only one right now who can help me stop this. I'm not the only one they plan to put on the list," Shinichi answered.
Leon laughed. The laugh burst out sharply, hoarsely, and echoed through the empty courtyard. Somewhere in the branches, a crow took flight, cried piercingly, and vanished into the darkening sky.
"Me?" He jabbed a finger at his own chest. "Me, who grovels under them like an obedient dog, let alone..." He waved his arms; the gesture was awkward, desperate, "...stopping an entire administration?"
"Exactly. You're the only one with access to their office," Shinichi didn't raise his voice. He spoke quietly, insistently. "You're the perfect double agent, Kuwata. Tomorrow you'll go to that office I told you about. It's on the second floor, at the end of the corridor, directly across from the stairwell."
"And what am I supposed to do?" Leon raised his head. His eyes, usually burning with brash confidence, looked different now. What smoldered in them wasn't confidence but something sharp, almost wild. "What do you think I should do if there are people there? Or if I get noticed? You're not calculating the risks. I... I... Tomorrow. Prove that I... that I'm human enough."
"Yes," Shinichi shook his head. "If you fail, you must prove it to them. You must prove it, then they'll include you in the project. They'll give you time. And time is all we need."
"Why?" Leon frowned. "Why do I need time if the project is still..."
"Because the project can be stopped from within," Shinichi interrupted, and for the first time in the entire conversation, steel rang in his voice. Cold, honed, like a scalpel's blade. "Because in a year, when they begin the selection, someone has to be there."
"You want me to become their spy," Kuwata said. "You want me to play the role of an obedient dog until they believe that I..."
"Until they believe you're one of them," Shinichi finished. "Until they're convinced you deserve to be put on the list—otherwise they might deceive you."
Leon closed his eyes. Red circles danced behind his eyelids—remnants of the sunset, burned through his closed eyes. He heard a sound. The beat that had accompanied him his whole life. Gravity you can't escape.
But gravity can be tricked. You can jump. You can fly. Not for long.
"Do you have a plan?" he asked without opening his eyes.
"There's the beginning of a plan," Shinichi answered. "Tomorrow, in the office with the courtyard entrance, in the medical wing, there'll be an exam before the end of the school year. Some official is coming. They'll try to search for more Utypanarians."
"So... What should I do?"
"They won't examine you—that was already done earlier. You'll have time while all the ultimates and the steering committee are distracted."
He turned, about to leave. But Leon grabbed his wrist—sharply, almost painfully.
"Why me?" he asked. "Why not you? You're smarter. You know more. You're already inside the system."
Shinichi looked at his hand. Then into his eyes. And in that moment, Leon saw what was hidden behind the mask of detachment. Fatigue. Not physical. Spiritual. The fatigue of a man who had carried a burden meant for others for far too long.
"Because I'm a connoisseur," Shinichi said quietly. "My talent is taste. In discernment. In analysis. I can detect poison in a glass of wine, but I can't drink it for everyone. And you..." He pulled his hand free, slowly, gently, as if saying goodbye, "...you're the one who acts when others think. Those are your skills and abilities—you're far more reflexive and agile."
Leon lowered his hand. The key in his other palm still lay there.
"And if I can't? If I fail you?"
Shinichi was already walking away, his figure dissolving into the twilight between the buildings. But his voice carried from where it shouldn't have been audible.
"Then prove the opposite," he said.
Silence. Complete, absolute, stuffed with cotton. Leon stood alone in the middle of the courtyard, squeezing the key until his palm ached, until his fingers went numb. The first stars were lighting up overhead.
He turned and walked toward the dormitory. Slowly. Step by step. He didn't run.
In his pocket, the key was heavy as sin. Or as hope. Leon could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. Maybe they'd always been the same thing.
Tomorrow he would try to infiltrate the new building on the academy grounds.
And at that moment, for the first time in a long while, Leon Kuwata thought not of baseball. And not of music. He thought about how death truly was culling. But only if you let others decide whether you deserve to live.
He clenched his fists, tighter, until it hurt.
"I can't, sorry," he whispered to the empty air. "I can't."