Knox remained seated before the grand piano as his final words faded from the broadcasting devices throughout Kizen. With his hands resting comfortably above the keys, he took a moment to consider what he should play first before a particular melody from his previous life came to mind.
A small smile appeared on his face.
"Alright, then. For the first song, I'll play a piece called Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence."
The unusual title immediately drew confused reactions from all across Kizen. Most students had never heard the word Christmas before, and the addition of an ordinary person's name only made the title sound even stranger.
"Merry... Christmas? What's Christmas?"
"No idea. Is it the name of some festival?"
"And who's Mr. Lawrence? How did his name end up becoming the title of a song?"
Questions like these quickly spread among the students listening to the broadcast. Even several professors found the unfamiliar word curious, especially since Knox had introduced the piece so casually, as though everyone should already know what it meant.
"Haha, I suppose I should explain that first. Christmas is the name of a celebration from a distant land, while Lawrence is the name of a soldier from an old story."
His explanation was brief, deliberately so. Just enough to give everyone some context for the strange title without revealing where the story would eventually lead.
"As for who Lawrence really is, what happens to everyone, and why the words Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence became so important..."
Knox deliberately let his voice trail off, allowing curiosity to build among his listeners.
"You'll have to find out for yourselves in my upcoming novel, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence!"
"..."
For a moment, countless students throughout Kizen could only stare blankly at the nearest broadcasting devices.
Was this supposed to be a musical performance, or had Knox somehow turned Kizen's academy-wide broadcasting system into an advertisement for his next novel?
But the silence didn't last long.
"Knox Aznable's new novel?!"
Similar reactions immediately started appearing throughout Kizen as students who knew Knox as the Genius Writer suddenly realized that his casual explanation had also contained an announcement for an entirely new work.
"Did he just announce another novel out of nowhere?!"
The brewing storm surrounding Knox's newly announced novel was rapidly gaining momentum, with some of his readers already discussing what kind of story it might be. Yet before that storm could truly erupt throughout Kizen, a clear piano note suddenly emerged from the broadcasting devices, followed smoothly by another.
The conversations gradually quieted.
The piece started at an unhurried pace, its opening gentle enough that some listeners initially continued whatever they had been doing. There was nothing flashy about Knox's playing, nor did his hands race across the keyboard in an obvious display of skill. Instead, he allowed the simple melody to speak for itself, giving each note enough room to linger before the next followed.
Before long, that melody returned. Each repetition was familiar enough for the listeners to recognize, yet the subtle changes surrounding it prevented the piece from ever feeling stagnant.
The melody remained simple at its core, while the harmonies beneath it gave the music a depth that was difficult to notice at first but increasingly difficult to ignore.
There was something peculiar about the feeling it created.
The piece carried a gentle warmth, but beneath that warmth lingered a faint loneliness that prevented it from ever becoming completely cheerful. It was nostalgic in a way that several students struggled to understand, like remembering a quiet winter evening, an old friend, or a distant place that could no longer be reached.
And yet, none of those memories actually belonged to them.
As the piece continued, the familiar melody returned again and again, gradually becoming fuller with each repetition. Knox's left hand moved more actively along the lower keys while his right continued carrying the main melody, adding layers around it without losing the gentle simplicity that had defined the beginning.
The music continued at that peaceful pace for a while, allowing its strange mixture of warmth and loneliness to settle naturally over Kizen. Then, as the piece approached its final passage, the rhythm began to change.
Knox's fingers accelerated.
The familiar melody returned once more, but this time with far greater momentum. Both hands moved swiftly across the keyboard as the once-gentle piece suddenly became brighter and more energetic, a flowing stream of notes surrounding the melody that everyone had already grown accustomed to hearing.
Despite the sudden increase in speed, the feeling from the beginning never disappeared. That same sense of distant nostalgia remained at its heart, only now it rushed forward with an intensity that made it feel less like quietly remembering something and more like being swept away by the memory itself.
The faster passage continued toward its peak before gradually easing away. Knox's movements softened along with it, allowing the familiar melody to emerge one final time as the piece slowly returned to the gentleness with which it had begun.
Then, with one last touch of the keys, the final notes of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence quietly faded throughout Kizen.
Yet many of those listening remained caught in the strange feeling the piece had left behind. The melody was already over, but its warmth and distant nostalgia still lingered in their minds, leaving them almost reluctant to pull themselves away from it.
Knox's cheerful voice suddenly returned through the broadcast, snapping them out of their lingering daze.
"Alright, next! The second piece is called Aria of the Soul."
Before anyone could wonder about the peculiar title, Knox's fingers descended onto the keys once again, and a new melody began flowing throughout Kizen. The atmosphere changed almost immediately.
Compared to the gentle nostalgia of the previous piece, the melody that now flowed from the piano was slower and more solemn. There was an almost reverent quality to it, like a quiet prayer spoken without words, while the notes carried a mysterious serenity that seemed to invite its listeners to simply close their eyes and follow wherever the music wished to take them.
As the melody continued, that sensation gradually deepened.
The familiar halls and rooms of Kizen seemed to grow strangely distant within the listeners' minds. In their place came the vague impression of another room, isolated somewhere beyond the outside world, quiet enough that nothing seemed to exist beyond its walls.
For some, it was simply an empty room, while for others, iron bars gradually took shape around them, turning that imagined place into something resembling a prison. Yet strangely, there was little fear in that confinement. It felt more like a place to stop for a while, to look inward and wait until they were ready to move forward again.
As the piece continued, another sensation gradually intertwined with the piano. Somewhere within its solemn melody, they could almost imagine a distant woman's voice singing without words, as though an unseen singer were performing an aria somewhere beyond those imaginary bars.
The piano maintained its slow and solemn flow for most of the performance, but as the piece approached its final passage, the melody began to rise, growing fuller and more intense. The once-gentle notes gained a sense of grandeur, while the distant aria they imagined seemed to rise alongside them until it filled the silent prison with its presence.
For a brief moment, the rising melody seemed to push against the loneliness that had defined the piece from the beginning, carrying with it a faint sense of hope that those iron bars would not remain closed forever. Only after reaching that height did the intensity gradually ease, allowing the music to settle back into the solemn tranquility with which it had begun.
Then, with one last gentle chord, Aria of the Soul came to an end, leaving the silent prison and its distant song to slowly fade from the listeners' minds.
"..."
For several seconds after the final note disappeared, an unusual silence lingered throughout Kizen. Then, as though the spell cast by the melody had finally broken, voices began erupting from classrooms, clubrooms, and hallways across the academy.
"Huh? Where am I? Wasn't I just in prison?"
"Wake up! You weren't in prison in the first place!"
"Holy crap... what kind of melody was that?"
Similar reactions spread throughout Kizen. The strange prison had existed only within their imagination, yet the impression it left behind had been vivid enough that some students genuinely needed a moment to remember where they were.
Among those listening, one of Kizen's elderly professors remained silent for a little longer. His eyes were closed as he contemplated the lingering impression of the performance before finally speaking.
"Serene and solemn... It felt like a space meant for introspection, where one is left alone to confront oneself, one's destiny, and perhaps even the invisible connection shared by all human souls."
He sighed in admiration. "To think someone so young could compose something with such profound meaning..."
If Knox had heard that praise, he probably would have felt a little guilty about shamelessly borrowing yet another masterpiece from his previous world.
"And with that, we've reached the last song of today's little concert."
His cheerful voice once again flowed throughout Kizen, drawing everyone's attention back toward the broadcast.
"This final piece is called... Unravel."
After a brief pause, the third and final melody began flowing throughout Kizen.
The opening was surprisingly restrained, carrying a fragile melody with a faint restlessness hidden beneath it. Compared to the serenity of the previous piece, there was something distinctly uneasy about this one, as though an emotion was being desperately held back from reaching the surface.
That restraint gradually began to disappear as the rhythm grew faster and the notes became denser. The quiet uneasiness of the opening steadily transformed into mounting tension, until powerful chords and rapid streams of notes swept through the melody with an intensity that seemed to come almost without warning.
What had sounded fragile at the beginning now felt desperate, carrying the impression of someone struggling to hold himself together while something within him slowly came apart. Even when the music briefly softened again, that conflict remained beneath every note, never allowing the melody to truly return to the fragile calm with which it had begun.
For a fleeting moment, it evoked the image of someone staring into a mirror. The face reflected there was unmistakably his own, yet the longer he looked, the less certain he became that the person staring back was still him.
The intensity continued to rise from there, with rapid runs and sweeping arpeggios driving the piece forward as the melody shifted between vulnerability and increasingly violent bursts of emotion. Anger, fear, and loneliness seemed to twist together until they became impossible to separate, all while the same fragile melody from the beginning stubbornly remained at the center of it all.
By the time Unravel reached its climax, there was almost no restraint left. The music surged forward in a torrent of notes, carrying everything that had been quietly suppressed since the opening until it finally burst free in one overwhelming release.
Yet beneath all that intensity, the melody remained painfully human, like someone terrified of losing himself while desperately hoping that, even after everything changed, someone would still remember who he used to be.
The overwhelming intensity gradually began to recede as Unravel entered its final passage. The torrent of notes that had dominated its climax slowly gave way, allowing the melody to settle until the last traces of that desperate emotion finally reached their conclusion, and the final note faded throughout Kizen.
For several seconds, the entire academy remained silent. Unlike the lingering serenity left behind by Aria of the Soul, this silence felt almost stunned, as though many of those listening were still trying to process the emotional storm they had just experienced.
Amid that silence, Knox's cheerful voice suddenly returned through the broadcasting devices as though nothing unusual had happened.
"And... that's all for today's little concert. Thank you for listening~"
A faint buzzing sound followed his words before abruptly disappearing as Knox switched off the broadcasting equipment. His voice vanished along with it, leaving Kizen in complete silence once again.
"..."
"THAT'S IT?!"
"Wait! Play another one!"
"I demand an encore!"
Similar protests immediately erupted throughout the academy, while some students had already begun arguing over which of the three pieces was the best. Before long, what had started as Knox casually testing the old Broadcasting Club equipment had turned into a surprisingly heated debate across Kizen.
Of course, whatever happened after that was no longer Knox's problem.