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Although Yukinoshita Yukino seemed to have a problem, she didn't ask directly. Instead, she waited until Yanami finished her snack and left the activity room contentedly (Asakura: What exactly is this guy doing here?) before looking at Asakura again.
"No, if you have something to say, just say it directly. Always staring at me silently is a bit scary..."
Asakura couldn't help but put down his phone, looked up at her, and complained.
"What's wrong with your eye?"
Yukinoshita Yukino asked.
"Saw something I shouldn't have..." Asakura said seriously: "Got a sty."
The girl's brows furrowed slightly, her delicate features seemingly covered by a thin layer of frost.
Her lips were lightly pressed into a straight line, not appearing too tense, yet exuding an undeniable coldness. Her slightly raised smooth chin and slightly straightened spine silently conveyed her dissatisfaction with Asakura's perfunctory explanation.
"Do you know? In addition to providing a more intuitive sense of three-dimensionality, human binocular vision also helps in judging distance. Since just now, you've been standing at that angle when talking to people. Whether it's something Yanami or Yui handed to you, there's always a subtle error when you take it—the loss of vision in your right eye does affect the judgment of spatial distance."
Her gaze fell on Asakura's empty right eye, her voice a few shades lower than usual. Her fingers unconsciously caressed the edge of the book page, her tone still maintaining its usual coldness, but with a little less sharpness: "This is just my objective advice as an observer... If you need any help, it's best to say so now. I don't always have this kind of leisure."
"Yukino says she's very worried about you."
Yuigahama Yui translated from the side.
Yukinoshita Yukino turned her face away, her expression clearly saying, 'I'm not, I didn't'.
"Don't worry, this has nothing to do with going to see those Human-Faced Sore patients with you before. Something happened a little after that... Although my right eye can't see now, it's not permanent blindness; it will recover after a while."
Asakura said in a relaxed tone.
But Yukinoshita Yukino was clearly not as easily fooled as Chihaya Anon. She stared at Asakura's expression for a long time, then let out a light hmph, sat back in her seat, and began to read, not knowing if she believed him or not.
"Speaking of which, Anna just said Takkun was writing something in the classroom?"
Yuigahama Yui, as always, acted as the mood-maker, trying to liven up the atmosphere: "What were you writing? A novel?"
"It was a haiku. mochi sways; clumsy, falls again; smile like spring morning. Mogami River."
"...It's very Takkun's style that it's unclear whether it's praise or insult."
Yuigahama Yui puffed out her cheeks, trying to feign anger, but seeing Asakura's serious expression, she couldn't help but let out a giggle, her cheeks deflating all at once, emitting a cute, soft chuckle.
"I didn't realize you had this hobby."
Yukinoshita Yukino's expression was a bit strange.
"Does Yukinoshita also want a Mogami River?"
Asakura asked with a smile.
"No need."
The girl immediately refused.
"No more jokes, I was actually writing this."
Asakura pulled a piece of paper from his backpack.
Yuigahama Yui and Yukinoshita Yukino both instinctively looked at the paper upon hearing this.
It was an ordinary piece of paper, and from its slightly rough edges, it seemed to be a page torn from a notebook.
However, the paper was covered with the character 'Snake' written in ballpoint pen.
When the girls tried to focus on reading, they immediately felt that every stroke of the characters seemed to wriggle, carrying an unsettling vitality. Then they began to twist and deform, as if breaking free from the paper, transforming into countless tiny Snakes, coiling and crawling. Their scales shimmered with an eerie glow, and their eyes were like specks of stars in an abyss, dark and profound.
As their gaze deepened, the edges of the paper began to blur, as if the boundary with the real world was collapsing.
The walls, the floor, the ceiling of the room, and even their own bodies began to be corroded by Snake-like patterns.
The 'Snake' characters were no longer confined to the paper but spread throughout the entire space, as if some ancient curse was awakening.
The girls felt their consciousness being dragged into an endless vortex; everything around them was turning into Snakes, and even time and space became distorted and unnamable.
"Clap!"
A sudden clap brought the two back to their senses. After a moment of stunned, they realized it was Asakura clapping his hands, waking them from that state, and they simultaneously showed expressions of lingering fear.
"What is this? Why does it feel so weird...?"
Yuigahama Yui swallowed, looking at the paper cautiously.
And Yukinoshita Yukino was even more concise: "Evil."
"It's just ordinary paper."
Asakura folded the paper and casually stuffed it back into his backpack, making the two frown. Is it really okay to casually stuff something that could be used to film a horror movie into a backpack?
Probably noticing their expressions, Asakura then explained: "I'm really not lying. I just tore it from my homework notebook, but I used a special technique on the characters..."
[Flash Pattern], a technique to transcribe Curse in the form of patterns onto other places.
This was a Curse application technique that Asakura had developed a long time ago. The most intuitive use of it currently was the three [Scale Flash Pattern] he gave Yukinoshita Yukino earlier—one was used to resist the malice of the Human-Faced Sore at the hospital, but as a thank-you for the girl finding other Human-Faced Sore patients for him, Asakura replenished her [Scale Flash Pattern] to three.
Why was there only [Scale Flash Pattern] before? The answer is simple: it's because [Scale] combined best with the [Flash Pattern] technique among the Curse Asakura mastered, with the highest success rate. For some reason, the success rate for [Snake] and [Candle] was much lower.
Asakura guessed it might be because Curse [Scale] itself is relatively stable, while [Snake] is a Curse positively correlated with life, and [Candle] is a Curse representing the concept of burning out completely. Their stability couldn't compare to [Scale], which is why the success rate was so low.
The reason it was a guess and not confirmed was because Asakura had so little Curse power before, using some meant having less, so after several failures, he temporarily gave up on this research, as he simply didn't have that much Curse power to squander.
And after repelling Great Light Kuri Tia and acquiring the fourth authority, 'Limited Infinity', Asakura naturally put this research back on the agenda.
And that paper covered with 'Snake' characters was one of the few successful [Snake Flash Pattern] creations after his many experiments.
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