Chapter 6: It is said that he killed him.

Mika’s hand secured my chin, her intense gaze fixed on me.

As I hung suspended with both hands bound, I couldn’t resist, nor could I turn my head with my chin held, so I had no choice but to fully endure her oppressive stare.

“Come on, will you answer? I don’t have much patience.”

However, I didn’t need to avoid her gaze, so I quietly smiled and looked at her.

“······Ahaha, well? I have no idea what you’re talking about? If you ask how much I know, how would I know?”

Clutch—

Mika, who had been gently holding my chin, immediately grabbed my collar roughly with that same hand.

“I told you, Soyoka-chan? I don’t have much patience. You’d better answer properly. I’ll ask again, just how much have you found out?”

“··Wow, you’re so cold. I just tried to get closer to Mika-san, you know. That, icebreaker thing.”

I smiled nonchalantly and tilted my head.

It was clearly a situation contrasting greatly with the previous one.

If she was smiling and I was depressed back then····now it would be the opposite.

“Hmm, it’s hard to talk when you glare like that. Alright, alright. Where should I start? Perhaps from why Mika-san joined hands with Arius?”

Drop—

As I uttered the answer she likely wanted, she roughly released the collar she had been gripping.

The force was strong enough to make my suspended body swing like a pendulum.

“·····Ha, haha. So, you knew? You weren’t just saying it, you knew precisely.”

“Yes, just as Mika-san said, I’m a bit clever, you see? Pff, it was quite amusing. Imagining Mika-san and her Arius friends playing around entertainingly.”

Arius.

A group that existed in Trinity’s past history, which I learned about while investigating the Chromatic.

In the past, when Trinity was still a nascent academy formed by various factions, it was a faction that was suppressed for not aligning with Trinity’s doctrines, making it, in a way, a true heresy.

Unlike me, who ended up like this merely for the sake of research, they were heretics in the true sense of the word.

However, like most heresies, they were a faction cruelly suppressed simply for deviating slightly from the doctrines pursued by the majority.

So cruelly, in fact, that they are now forgotten by Trinity and cannot be found anywhere.

And Misono Mika, the leader of that Arius and Pater faction, was in a sort of alliance.

At least, according to what I had found out.

“Exactly, since when did you know? Since when—”

“Well, I’ve known since a long time ago, you see? When I was in my first year, back when you weren’t oppressing me, I had already completed most of my research.”

It was information I had known for a long time.

When I was in my first year, that is, before I was driven out as a heretic, I used to wander through ruins all over Trinity, deciphering books designated as forbidden to search for information about the Chromatic.

And I received requests to join various places in Trinity, along with the co-head who has now become a pervert.

In that process, I simply learned many things about Trinity.

Including hidden information, and even things they themselves didn’t know.

“I was quite surprised after finding out, you know? Who would have thought that one of the leaders of the Tea Party, the faction leader who leads the Pater faction, would join hands with the heretics who were expelled in the past, intending to break the Eden Treaty that Trinity is trying to push through? Who could have known?”

“····Ha, ahaha. You, you really know a lot, don’t you? I thought Nagi-chan was overly wary and suspicious of you·········my mind has changed. You’re truly dangerous.”

“Mhm, I’ll take that as a compliment?”

I looked at Mika, who was glaring fiercely at me with cold eyes, and smiled brightly.

It wasn’t a forced smile, but a genuine one born from amusement.

I think anyone would become like me after three days in a place like this.

No, my routine for three days has been either researching without a moment’s rest or being tortured, so there’s no way this situation wouldn’t be interesting.

When you’re in a correctional facility, even watching an ant walk by becomes entertaining.

“·········Still, it’s fortunate you’re so oblivious in these matters, Soyoka-chan? If you had known before, it would have been better to just keep quiet.”

Mika glared at me like that for a while, then let out a hollow laugh as if realizing something, and her gaze softened slightly.

As if I were completely in her grasp.

“Oblivious, you say? That’s hurtful. I’m quite perceptive, you know. I said that precisely because I knew Mika-san would react this way.”

Mika approached me and placed her hand on my neck.

As if she would apply pressure at any moment.

“So, isn’t that what being oblivious means? If Soyoka-chan had just kept her mouth shut, I wouldn’t have had a reason to treat you as extremely dangerous, like Nagi-chan does, right? Your current life must already be terrible, but if I actively step in too, Soyoka-chan’s life will become even more hellish.”

‘·····Huh?’

‘My life will become hellish? She’ll let me live?’

‘········This isn’t the answer I wanted? What is this? So, is there a different culprit? No, it shouldn’t be. There’s no one but Misono Mika.’

“Of course, Soyoka-chan’s life isn’t exactly great right now, but still, as long as you know that much—”

“Wait, just a moment? Sorry to interrupt, but you’re saying you’ll make my life more hellish? Until I completely submit to Mika-san and my sanity breaks? Is that what you’re saying now?”

I cut her off and asked again, wondering if I had truly heard correctly.

It was a statement that deviated greatly from what I had surmised, which I believed had to be the truth.

The words she was spouting now.

‘This isn’t it.’

‘These words shouldn’t be coming from her mouth.’

‘If so, it means one of my assumptions is wrong.’

‘To know this for certain, I needed to provoke a reaction from her.’

‘If there’s a flaw in my assumption, she’ll show a completely different reaction.’

“What, are you scared? Ahaha, even Soyoka-chan, who pretends to be so strong, must be scared of that, huh? To ask again about something like that? Yes, what you heard is correct.”

‘··········?’

“Until now, it’s just been simple ostracism······but the moment that turns into hatred, can Soyoka-chan endure it? This time, it won’t just be ostracism, but students who actively torment you will appear. Even if you haven’t experienced it, can’t you imagine how terrible that would be?”

‘···········???’

“So, look forward to it. I’ll break you until you give up that stubbornness and fully cooperate with the Tea Party and me.”

Mika said so, holding my chin and bringing her face close to mine.

As if she wished me to feel fear from this alone.

‘········But is this really the end? No, there should be more words to come?’

“·······Is that all? Really? There’s nothing more to say, is there?”

I asked in a questioning tone, as if asking if that was all, if she was truly going to end it there.

Because the Mika I knew wouldn’t just end things there.

The Mika in my hypothesis wasn’t like that.

Silence settled in the correctional facility at my question.

Mika frowned, wearing an expression as if wondering if she had heard correctly.

However, that was rather the emotion I should be feeling.

Because this situation, proving that what I knew, what I thought was almost precisely true, was wrong, was enough to bewilder me.

“·········Soyoka-chan, are you perhaps like Hanako-chan? Do you enjoy people’s gazes or something? Do you want something even worse than this?”

Mika remained silent for a while, then stepped back and asked in an exasperated tone.

‘No, I’m the one who’s exasperated.’

‘Surely if it were you, if it were Misono Mika from my hypothesis, it wouldn’t end here, right? If it were the Misono Mika I surmised, I judged.’

‘Did I really misjudge?’

‘No, there’s no one but Misono Mika.’

‘Besides Misono Mika, no one else could exist.’

‘All the evidence points to her, and I couldn’t conclude it wasn’t her based solely on this one situation contradicting it.’

‘·····Hmm, in times like these.’

“No way, of course not. It’s just that I thought Mika-san, the Mika-san I know, wouldn’t act like that, you see?”

‘A straightforward approach, might be the answer?’

“·········Ahaha? What’s that? Are you trying to flatter me? Saying I wouldn’t commit such a terrible act? That’s funny, Soyoka-chan. Aren’t you seeing me as too kind? Then how did you think I would have treated Soyoka-chan?”

Mika, as if finding my words amusing, asked me with a smiling gaze.

As if she mistakenly thought I considered her kinder than she was.

‘But no.’

‘Rather, the Misono Mika I envisioned was the complete opposite.’

“Hmm, you would have killed me, wouldn’t you?”

“Just as you killed Seia-san? Ah, no. Like you would kill Nagisa-san—”

Thwack—!

“—ugh, *cough*.”

Mika, seemingly swept away by emotion in an instant, plunged her fist into my abdomen, into my body that couldn’t even bend.

Hanging suspended with both hands bound, I couldn’t resist and simply had to endure that powerful punch directly.

Like a punching bag.

“··········Now—”

Thwack—!

An intense pain, so strong I couldn’t breathe or even groan, spread from my abdomen throughout my entire body.

In that pain, I looked at Mika, who was striking me.

“What—!!”

Thwack—! Thwack—!

Her eyes wavered.

Her expression was········distorted?

‘She recalled something she didn’t want to?’

‘If so, then it’s correct?’

‘My conjecture that Misono Mika was the culprit who killed Yurizono Seia, the faction leader of the Tea Party, is correct.’

‘But·······she’s flustered?’

‘No, that was the reaction of someone who recalled something horrible.’

‘To be precise, it was a face mixed with regret, guilt, and self-loathing.’

“What are you saying—!!!”

Thwack—! Thwack—! Thwack—!

‘Hmm, self-loathing and regret? And guilt········?’

‘If she had killed intentionally, if she had truly thoroughly intended to kill, would she show such a reaction?’

‘Even if she didn’t kill directly, she would roughly know what murder means in Kivotos.’

‘As students of Kivotos don’t die easily, the process of killing requires no ordinary resolve.’

Because one would have to fire cannons until the body became rags and eventually a corpse, or spray bullets at the same spot until the body was riddled with holes.

It’s not easy to kill in one go.

Therefore, murderers in Kivotos are mostly those who have committed planned murders.

‘········Even those who decided to kill on impulse would eventually break at some point when looking at a victim who continuously, persistently begged for their life without dying.’

‘That’s why murderers in Kivotos adopt one attitude, no matter the circumstances.’

‘An extremely terrible, almost impossible to shed, self-justification.’

‘That never crumbles.’

‘It never crumbles easily.’

‘······However, Mika crumbled with just these few words.’

‘If Misono Mika were a planned murderer, that would be impossible.’

‘Because she would be in a state of having rationalized it to her bones, even deceiving herself to somehow hide her crime.’

‘Therefore, this reaction is not right.’

“Are you, doing!!!!”

Thwack—! Thwack—!

‘But she did kill, right?’

‘Hmm, if so········’

‘······Ahaha, I get it.’

‘Puhahaha, what? She didn’t kill intentionally? Really? Wow, this is an unexpected gain.’

“····*Gah*, *cough*. Haa, huff.”

I writhed in agony from the finally ceased violence and the overwhelming pain, simultaneously looking at Mika.

The focus in her eyes was half-blurred.

She wore a tormented expression, as if she had heard something unbearable.

She loathed herself, and at the same time, fear—a feeling likely directed at me—was mixed in.

The fear that I knew that much, even the atrocities she had committed, and the atrocities she was about to commit.

Until now, I had thought Mika intentionally killed Yurizono Seia, the faction leader of Sanctus·······but it seems that wasn’t the case.

Because that’s an expression of profound regret over one’s own mistake, isn’t it?

‘··········Ah, what? There was a retreat route in an unimaginable place?’

“*Cough*, *gasp*—.”

I suffered from the violence surging through my entire body, yet at the same time, I looked at her with eyes full of amusement and elation.

‘If she was, in fact, just a brat who committed these acts, pushed by her own mistakes, just a naive student—’

‘·······I can use her.’

‘As a means to escape Trinity’s surveillance and carve a path to research the Chromatic.’

‘As a means to shift the title of Trinity’s heretic, this terrible ostracism.’

‘··············.’

I looked into Mika’s confused eyes, falling into elation and contemplation.

‘Alright, good. So, how should I use her? How should I use this naive student—’

‘·····to prevent these Trinity bastards from interfering with my process of reaching the Chromatic.’

I calmed my surging anticipation, putting on an exaggerated act of writhing in pain.

So that she might mistakenly believe she held the upper hand.