"Choose quickly," Haimer said.
"I won't stay in this world forever."
"You get one chance."
"How you decide in the end—that's for you."
He returned the Hannya mask to Rin as he passed her.
Rin remained seated on her knees, staring at his receding back.
Other worlds?
To someone like her—trapped inside a school-sized world, spending her days "correcting" boys and maintaining order—that phrase felt impossibly distant.
Almost absurd.
But before she could process the shock—
A cold, contemptuous chuckle broke the silence.
"Heh."
Amou Zanzan, walking behind Haimer, slowed as she passed Rin.
Her black eyes glittered with unrestrained mockery as they swept over Rin's uncovered, youthful face.
"What a crybaby face."
Zanzan's lips curled, words dripping poison.
"Honestly, it suits you better than that mask ever did."
Then she stepped away without another glance, striding after Haimer with long legs, leaving only her arrogant back behind.
It was a lion's final mercy to a beaten dog.
"…"
Rin bit down hard on her lower lip.
Crybaby?
No.
Rin snapped her head up, eyes locking onto the two figures about to vanish around the corner.
Her cheeks still burned with shame. Her shoulders still trembled with lingering fear.
But her body made its decision before her mind did.
Was she afraid?
Of course she was.
Who wouldn't be afraid of a monster that could shatter your will with aura alone—then perform a miracle like restoring a broken object with a casual gesture?
That fear was human instinct—like a gazelle trembling in front of a lion.
But—
Humanity didn't rise above all other beasts just by learning to sharpen stones or master fire.
There was another instinct, older and deeper than fear—
Curiosity.
When the first ape crept down from the safety of the canopy and set foot on the grassland full of saber-toothed cats and dire wolves, what drove it wasn't hunger alone—
It was the pure curiosity of what lay beyond the horizon.
That curiosity kept humans from curling deeper into caves on endless cold nights.
It made them stare into the vast stars.
It drove them across oceans and up mountains.
It even made them reach toward the domain of gods.
Fear can keep you alive.
But only curiosity makes your world larger.
Rin was no different.
If it was real…
What kind of scenery awaited?
The question ignited like wildfire in her chest, burning away everything else.
She gritted her teeth, grabbed her katana, and stumbled after them.
"W-Wait—Rin-senpai?!"
Mozunotori Nono, who'd been cowering in the background, clutched her baton with a miserable face and hurried after her.
"Wait for me, Rin-senpai!"
…
Aichi Coexistence Academy — the old gymnasium.
A building rarely visited in ordinary times was now wrapped in an unnatural silence.
Afternoon sunlight poured through high ventilation windows, casting pillars of light onto the wooden floor. Dust motes floated lazily in those beams.
A girl was already waiting.
She wore a traditional red-and-white kimono. White hair was tied into two low ponytails, hanging on either side.
Small—almost fragile. Like a delicate Japanese doll.
Inaba Tsukuyo.
The youngest of the Five Swords, and the only middle-schooler among them.
She sat seiza on a cushion in the center of the gym, eyes closed, hands resting neatly on her knees. A katana-shaped practice sword lay quietly beside her.
Her world, as she perceived it, was black.
But that did not mean emptiness.
For someone deprived of vision—the most tyrannical of senses—the world often revealed a subtler, more essential shape.
More than eighty percent of the information the human brain processes comes from sight.
Overreliance on eyes makes the mind lazy. It ignores the whisper of wind, the tremor in the floor, the shifts of temperature moving through air.
When the door of vision closes, the windows of hearing, touch, and smell open wide.
Just as creatures of deep sea and cave evolved extraordinary senses to survive darkness—
Bats hunting moths flawlessly in midnight skies; blind fish never striking rock in violent currents.
So for Tsukuyo, every movement around her built a three-dimensional world in her mind—more vivid than sight.
She could hear the entire academy with painful clarity.
Not magic.
The biological elevation of a sense trained beyond limits.
And now every sound was telling her one thing:
An unbelievable existence had arrived.
"He's here."
Tsukuyo tilted her head slightly. The pointed ears hidden beneath silver-white hair twitched once.
Her pale pink lips parted.
"He's here."
Creaaak—
Almost the moment her words fell, the gym's heavy doors opened inward.
Light flooded the dim interior.
In the backlit doorway, Haimer's shadow stretched long.
Behind him came Amou Zanzan with a cold expression, and then Oniwa Rin and Mozunotori Nono—still flushed and panting.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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