The medical quarantine area of the cruise ship was permeated with the smell of disinfectant, the lighting cold and white. Most of the injured students from Class C were being observed here. Aside from the occasional groan, the air was filled with constant complaints.
"Why... why did something like this happen..."
"That was a man-made trap! It definitely was!"
"It hurts, it hurts."
The medical staff on the ship were in a chaotic flurry; they were clearly understaffed. After all, the school administration had never expected something like this to happen, no matter what. However, some students in Class C knew very well who the mastermind behind all this was.
Subaru.
Daichi Ishizaki lay on the bed, his right hand bandaged. The image of being beaten by Subaru earlier remained vivid in his mind. A heartfelt fear permeated him. It was as if what he had fought against back then was merely a monster wearing human skin.
However, what he was most worried about was not himself. Ishizaki walked to the door of the innermost room and spoke softly, "Ryuen-san..."
But the only response he received was silence. Ever since the exam ended, Kakeru Ryuen had been somewhat listless.
"What on earth is wrong with this guy?"
Mio Ibuki, leaning on crutches, frowned as she looked at the room's door. "Ever since the exam, it's like he's become a different person. What is going on?"
"I don't know..." Ishizaki shook his head. He also didn't know exactly what had happened to Ryuen at that time. No one knew.
The other students who were with Ryuen at the time had also fallen into comas, and by the time they woke up, the teachers had already arrived. And immediately after, Ryuen announced Class C's withdrawal from the exam.
"Ibuki, what happened on your end?"
"We fell into a pit... even looking closely, you couldn't tell it was there at all."
"Did Subaru do it?"
"I don't know... but if it really was him... then isn't that too terrifying? How could he possibly know our plan? And even if he knew, how did he know which route we would take?"
Ibuki shook her head. If this was truly Subaru's doing, then there was no difference between him and a monster. She was more willing to believe it was a coincidence. Only... it seemed there were a few too many classes encountering this kind of coincidence.
Just then, the sound of footsteps rang out from behind. Subaru walked through the slightly messy corridor, ignoring the Class C students whose faces instantly turned pale upon recognizing him as they hurriedly averted their gaze. He walked straight toward that single room at the very end.
"You bastard!"
Ishizaki wanted to stop Subaru, but the instant their eyes met, his body stiffened. He felt that familiar fear.
"I'm here to find Ryuen," Subaru said expressionlessly.
"What do you want with Ryuen-san?"
"Let him pass." Ibuki stopped Ishizaki. They couldn't stop Subaru at all. Moreover, the current Ryuen had practically given up on himself. Perhaps Subaru could change all this.
Subaru didn't respond; he simply walked past the two of them. He had not the slightest interest in either of them. Soon, Subaru arrived in front of the door. He pushed it open and entered.
Ryuen sat leaning against a simple hospital bed, bandages wrapped around several treated abrasions on his body. But his heaviest wound was obviously not physical. He lowered his head, his unfocused gaze falling on his own open palms. Those eyes, which had once burned with tyranny and calculation, were now as dim as extinguished charcoal.
Even when someone entered, he only rotated his eyeballs extremely slowly. Catching a glimpse of Subaru, his pupils didn't even contract; they merely drooped with more dead silence. His body shrank back almost imperceptibly—it was a fear and avoidance of a natural predator that bordered on instinct. There was no anger, no roaring; even resentment seemed to have dried up. All that remained was a pile of rotten mud named "collapse."
Subaru stood at the door, watching him quietly. A few seconds later, he closed the door behind him with a backhanded motion, cutting off the sounds from outside.
"It looks like the school doctor treated you well," Subaru spoke. His voice was exceptionally clear in the quiet room, yet devoid of any emotion.
Ryuen didn't react, as if he hadn't heard. Subaru walked to the bedside, pulled over a chair, and sat down. His posture was relaxed, like he was visiting an inconsequential acquaintance. His gaze landed on Ryuen's face, which had lost all its spirit.
"I heard you want to drop out," Subaru said indifferently. It wasn't a question, but a statement.
Ryuen's shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly, but he remained silent. Dropping out... this word, which would have never appeared in his dictionary before, had now become the only escape he could think of. To escape this school, escape these gazes, and even more so to escape... the fear and sense of nothingness branded into the depths of his soul by the monster before him.
That sensation of death had caused Ryuen's heart to collapse completely. But dropping out was merely a thought in Ryuen's mind; he didn't plan to tell anyone else about it. Why did the Subaru in front of him know?
Ryuen did not know that Subaru had already arrived from a farther future. After learning that he wanted to drop out, Subaru had chosen to return here.
"Because you lost?" Subaru asked, then shook his head himself. "No, you've lost before, but you wouldn't want to run just because you lost. It's because of something else."
Ryuen's breathing seemed to stagnate for an instant.
"It's because... you saw something you couldn't understand and couldn't fight against, right?" Subaru's voice was very level, yet like a cold scalpel, it cut precisely into the wound Ryuen was least willing to face. "You saw the true 'abyss' and found that everything you took pride in—violence, intimidation, calculation—was as laughable as a child's toy before that abyss. Then, fear swallowed you, chewing up all your fighting spirit and meaning of existence along with it, and spat you out to become this state you are in now."
Ryuen's lips moved, emitting an extremely faint, muddled syllable that couldn't form a word.
"Disappointment."
Subaru spat out the word, his dark grey eyes holding no warmth at all. "Kakeru Ryuen, I am very disappointed in you."
This sentence, like a fine needle, caught Ryuen off guard and pierced into his numb nerve endings. In his gray eyes, a different kind of fluctuation appeared for the first time—not anger, but a deeper, duller pain mixed with disbelief. This monster who had destroyed his everything... was expressing disappointment in him?
"I originally thought," Subaru continued, his gaze seeming to penetrate Ryuen to look at some place much farther away, "that a tyrant like you would have something different in your bones. Being driven to a dead end, having your dignity crushed, even... when facing a true threat of death, perhaps you could burst forth with some interesting color. For example, a more insane counterattack, a resentment regardless of the cost, or... some kind of pure will to survive twisted to the extreme. Perhaps it would be red."
He paused, his line of sight refocusing on Ryuen's face. That gaze carried an undisguised implication of scrutiny toward a failed product. "The result? You just shattered. Like a piece of glass struck by a heavy hammer, crashing down and scattering into a floor full of worthless fragments. There wasn't even a decent 'lingering sound'. Your 'color'..."
Subaru clicked his tongue lightly, as if tasting some bland food. "At the last moment, it faded into the ugliest, coward-like nothingness. And then, you just thought of walking away? You aren't even as interesting as Kikyo Kushida."
"Shut up!"
Ryuen finally made a sound. It was hoarse, dry, like sandpaper rubbing together, so weak it was almost inaudible.
"Shut up?" Subaru tilted his head slightly. "Why? Because I hit the mark? Because even you are disgusted by this piece of trash who only wants to run away now?"
"I'm not trash... Did you come here just to mock me?" Ryuen's voice was a little louder, carrying a tremor, but still lacking strength.
"Not trash?" Subaru suddenly smiled. That smile was very faint, yet bone-chillingly cold. "Then prove it to me, Ryuen. Prove that you aren't just a pitiful worm who collapses instantly once he encounters a terror that can't be understood by his own set of rules. Prove that in your bones, there is still that tiny bit... of something worthy of being called Kakeru Ryuen."
He leaned his body forward, closing the distance, his voice lowered but carrying a strange, bewitching penetrating power: "Drop out? That is the simplest escape. Escape back to your familiar little gutter where you can continue to lord over others, pretending everything here never happened. And then? In the dead of night, will my eyes flash through your mind? Flash through that... look regarding you like an ant that you absolutely cannot understand? Will you live in the shadow of that glance for your whole life, turning into a coward in the truest sense, one that even you look down upon?"
Ryuen's breathing became rapid. He suddenly raised his head, meeting Subaru's gaze which was close at hand. In those eyes, there was no killing intent, no mockery at this moment, only a kind of near-pure curiosity. And... a trace of extremely subtle expectation, as if saying, 'Come, let me see if you can still ignite.'
"You... what on earth do you want?!"
Ryuen squeezed this sentence through the gaps of his teeth. His voice finally carried a trace of something belonging to anger—that was the rage of a trapped beast having its wounds repeatedly torn open and being driven into a corner, even though it was still weak.
"What I want to see has never been a walking corpse."
Subaru straightened up, restoring the previous distance. His tone became flat again, but his words carried the weight of a thousand pounds. "Kakeru Ryuen, your stage is right here, in this school. Your enemy—me—is also here. You don't even dare to face it, and you just want to tuck your tail and run?"
He stood up, looking down from above at Ryuen curled up on the hospital bed.
"What exactly are you trying to say? You just don't want me to drop out so you can use me to deal with other classes?"
"Other classes? I have zero interest in playing house between classes. If it were a competition where people actually died, perhaps it would be slightly more interesting. After all, when dying, there is a possibility of revealing color."
A smile appeared on Subaru's face. "Ryuen, I look forward to your color. Even if it dims—at least, as fuel, let's see if you can make others take on color."
Subaru wanted to use Ryuen's violence. Such violence could perhaps provoke colors from others. This was the final value of the existence named Kakeru Ryuen.
"You keep talking about color. Are you colorblind?"
He did not know—in Subaru's eyes, there had long been no colors at all.
"Maybe. Do you hate me? Then pick up that hatred and wipe it clean, even if it has already been polluted beyond recognition by fear. Afraid of me? Then live on carrying that fear. Let it become a thorn in your every breath, reminding you how vulnerable you once were. And then..."
Subaru's eyes suddenly became sharp, like a flame ignited in the darkness. "Then, use everything you have left and crawl back. Use your methods, whether within the rules or outside the rules. Find a way to become strong, find a way to deal with me, or at least, find a way to stand straight in front of me without trembling. Don't you like domination? Then start by dominating your own fear."
"I originally thought your color was tyranny, control, and the obsession to win by any means necessary. It used to be very turbid, but it counted as vivid. Now it's covered in gray, almost invisible."
Subaru turned and walked toward the door, his voice echoing in the room. "Will you let it extinguish completely, turning into a laughable and pathetic memory as you drop out; or..."
His hand rested on the door handle. He turned his head to the side, leaving his final words. His voice was as light as a sigh, yet carried an unquestionable intensity: "Or will you reignite it? Even if what burns is a darker, more twisted flame. And then... Come before me again. Let me see what kind of brilliance a person who has been gazed upon by the abyss can actually radiate. At least as fuel, burn yourself out."
After saying this, he pulled the door open and walked out, not looking at Ryuen again. The door closed gently.
Silence returned to the isolation room, save for Ryuen's heavy and unsteady breathing. He remained slumped on the bed, head lowered. But this time, his unfocused gaze was fixed deadly upon his own trembling hands.
"Trash...?"
Subaru's words, like the most vicious curse and yet the cruelest spur, repeatedly whipped his nerves that had long been numb. That glance of dark fear swept over him again, but this time, amidst the fear, something else seemed to have mixed in.
It was humiliation. It was unwillingness. It was... the rage of being thoroughly denied, of being deemed "worthless."
At the bottom of his ashen eyes, an extremely weak but exceptionally stubborn flame tremblingly lit up again. He slowly, slowly clenched his fists. His fingernails dug deeply into his palms, bringing a clear stinging pain.
Drop out? No...
Ryuen slowly raised his head, looking in the direction of the door where no one remained. The shadow of fear still lingered in his eyes, but that dead gray silence was being replaced by something more complex, more profound—a dark determination mixed with bone-deep hatred, humiliation, and a forcibly injected, twisted fighting spirit.
"Subaru."
"You will regret coming to find me today."
____
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