Vol 3 Chapter 8 (1/2)
Between using people as things, and using things as people, the question is not which one is more insane, and it is crystal clear which is more bothersome to others -- the rest of the story is completely truncated, and some bit of time passed
I was hospitalized in a hospital within Kyoto One week for full recovery That was the diagnosis for my body As to how I ended up like this, there is no need to explain If I est you cannot simply take, and must pay some price I think it was a fairly inexpensive purchase for only needed a few bones I a on a bit of a trip at the start of next et out by then it is fine
As for whether hospitalized life is boring, not particularly I was still in thethe book I had borrowed froh space to sleep withas that is not an abnormal place
It was the day before I was expected to leave the hospital that Aikawa Jun showed up at my hospital roo trend inside Aikawa-san had ended Had she refitted it, or perhaps she had n, but in any case she was in her normal crimson suit
”Yoo, long time no see and wait- I was called and I arrive Beethoven! Hey, hey, you've got a personal room! You're rich, man”
”I just cannot stand sleeping in the sa so self It costs a bit, but it cannot be helped”
”Mmm Good news for you, then”
Aikawa-san said, robotic-ally tossing an envelope ontonor asking as to its contents
”Well, you did help me out, so your share”
”I have no need, of money With the state Hime-chan ended up in, Jun-san could not havewithout pay this time”
”Pretty stoic, huh You should take these, though When you have nono neck, they say”
”Necks, cut it or strangle it or hang it, it does not make a difference And your words simply means that money is not absolutely necessary”
”Hah, your shepherd”
She chuckled, as she sat in the pipe chair for visitors Not that I could iine that Aikawa-san had come to visit, but, I also could not tell her to not sit
”But forcing you to help and then doing nothing in return goes against ht then How about this, I'll let you hearwith Hikari's voice”
”Please stop”
”Ah, no, no! That's! Stop playing with me! Ahh, no! I said stop!”
”You stop!”
”You actually snapped!” Aikawa-san seeenuinely surprised as she put both of her hands up ”Wow, I'm shockedI'm sorry I didn't think you treated her with that ”
Her apologetic voice was that of Maki-san
She knehat she was doing
” So, what really did you come for?”
”Nothing really Didn't you wantto the end, after all I came to answer questions”
”Huh it is s that seeure out Aikawa-san's true intent ”Hime-chan, what happened to her?”
”You start off with the toughest one to answer Ahh Hiift basket she had brought, took out an apple, and bit into it without peeling off the skin ”That stungun really did work She's got amnesia, and is in a secret hospital”
”Huh”
”Her body's pretty h so so her body was all e, y'know? Her whole body was burnt Especially her fingers, since they were tied to thestring Those gloves were made up seventy-percent of non-conducive material, so that helped a bit, but it's like she can hold a pencil but not chopsticks You know? Ohm's Law Jule's Law”
” So she will be stuck with aftereffects”
Even though a stungun had been used to capture her without hurting her, but I guess this was still better than actually taking on Aikawa-san
”That's why it's tough,” she said ”Because she's got aai or Saijou Tah School, she ers to be da anyht?”
For a ht Aikawa-san had taken off the li with the accursed memory, all sealed away in one swoop Even if this is too much sentimentalism and too storybook-like
”It's tough Because it doesn't oes away The ones ere killed wouldn't be able to rest easy The Origa to find the suspect”
Just because the perpetrator forgot does not mean the crime disappears and that no punishment is needed No matter what, for whatever reason, responsibility must be taken That is obvious, but still
”And if I were to say none of this happen and forgive Ichihime, I feel like you would reject me forever”
”That is rather unexpected Jun-san, do you mind other peoples' opinions?”
”No? If the opinion is someone else's, I don't care”
She grinned, a terrible s ed the question
”So how did everything end?”
”The Hanging High School was broken up Exactly the way Ichihime wanted The students no clue That part is still a bit hazy And then, no one's figured out that we're the suspects”
I have been turned into an accomplice
”Don't worry, I'aht be a probles over to you But Ichihime I'd like to cover for her, but I don't know if that's the right thing to do”
”Even Jun-san hesitates?”
”Not that I want to Her ht heal I also don't want to dote over her too h it'd be different if she were to ask s”
And that she did not -- was because Hih That was neither Aikawa-san's fault nor Hime-chan's fault, and just unfortunate Like me, probably, Hime-chan could fundamentally not trust other people And because of that, because we end up relying on others -- we end up with half-assed strategies like the one she had used, and as a result, fall apart because of it More than fear or terror -- it may simply be pride and admiration
” but, why did Hime-chan kill the dean in the first place no, what did she want to eliminate the school? What sort of plan was this at the start, anyways?”
”Before that, let ize,” Aikawa-san scooted her chair closer, and then leaned toward me ”When I said Ask Ichihime herself about specifics she will be able to explain better at the start, that was a lie, sorry”
” of course”
I figured that fro to her Hiardless of lies or acting, I could definitely state that
”Hime-chan has trouble with japanese, so there was no shot at her actually explaining anything”
”I figured it'd go better if you didn't know the details But I didn't think Ichihiressivelywhat'd you hear was the reason for her language problems?”
”Umm She said she was raised in America”
”I see But, that's wrong,” Aikawa-san poked er ”The frontal lobe She's got a posteriori obstruction to her frontal lobe”
””
”You knohat the frontal lobe is for? Personality and self-consciousness, and coed there That's why she gets troubled by language Or rather, she doesn't comprehend it”
”Comprehend”
Language comprehension
No, noun comprehension
”That's hen you talk to her, there'll always be so It's like a japanese person and a Chinese person conversing in Korean, there's always so off somewhere”
Like a zigzag, Aikawa-san laughed
”That's why -- no matter how much you ask Ichihime, you'll never find out the true motive It's hard for her to really verbalize What she thought as she threw herself into that is an eternal mystery”
”That's the same for anyone”
There cannot exist any tho can fully express themselves to each other It is simply an issue of whether the two can believe that they can, whether they can dupe the as such
Probably, Aikawa-san nodded
”So if I' She'd been calculating everything frome, pull me into her sche, she took care of the dean and the other facultyon a side note, they discovered ato roughly thirty-seven people”
””
I knew beforehand, but when given a nuape Thirty-seven -- if you add shi+ogi-chan and Taet forty Even the huone a third of that
To be honest, once the o over ten or twenty, I lose the ability to perform proper valuation Rather, I could al able to pull that off in that sealed academy A rather crass story
One inside the sealed-off dean's rooht in the sealed area called the faculty ward And then -- within the sealed area known as the Hanging High School, forty
A sealed dimension Fro inside Because it was a battlefield -- because it was a sealed battlefield
That was probably an extremely simple story
A sealed room is a sealed room because it is sealed, but whether that is sealed toward the inside, or sealed toward the outside -- changes everything
That hy, more importantly, you would do that
That action, could it be accepted?
What do you say Failed product
”Her Zig Zag was originally for going against masses of people, after all And it's funda String ishumans up So, tie them up, and then cut them with a chainsaw Hmm, and then Take the dean's personal transihara, and announce Yukariki Ichihi discovered by the time you entered, wasn't because she screwed up, but because she'd let it out herself”
”And that here Aikawa-san was supposed to arrive”
”But, I first sent you in Ichihime was able to respond pretty well but in the end, it was pretty dangerous She got taken by surprise and was caught And it wasn't like she could use Zig Zag in front of you”
That hy Hi in the classroom But that could be rejected, I had already taken the initiative Indeed, I was quite a miscalculation for Hime-chan
”And then as she expected, I went to the dean's roootiate even if you weren't around, this would always happen It'd be one thing if eren't discovered yet, but given that the escape was already known, I'd go to Noa's place Hahah, she read me like a book”
”Does that mean Hime-chan can imitate voices and read minds to some extent?”
”Well, yeah But it's not like she's an apprentice of mine And then with me, this is important, she discovers the dean She became a victim that had been framed”
”But that's a pretty dangerous ruse”
”Better that it's dangerous, to Ichihi under the podium It'd be harder to suspect her when it's that obvious I did think the killing was siht be a fake to fras”
”Jun-san knew about Zig Zag, I see”
”Yeah Ichihime seemed to want to hide it from you, so I didn't tell you Aside from the fact that it's her tru you want people telling everyone But, why did you realize that she's a string user? Saijou's case aside, when it co user”
”My thoughts all caether It was like a chain I a One is all, all is one, of sorts Of course the reverse is that if I never realize one, then I will never realize everything But there is a reason It was unnatural that she had souser Hime-chan tried to cover it up ords, but you know Even though it was the h she had to use string to kill Ta she was careless”
Though that was probably just her takingbut that she was right to do so If I did not think backwards from the truth about the sealed room, I would never have realized it
”Also, she was paying too i-chan's strategy was too elaborate for dealing with a failure What was the reason that she did not just rely on mass, if you will Of course, that was because nu”
”Mmm”
”And so to fool Aikawa Jun cannot be a failure Similar to how a user of nonsense like est, a simple Yukariki Ichihime may be able to become Aikawa Jun's friend, but not an ene seat for Hi”
And --
There cannot exist a cast member around me who is simply cute and weak and pitiable, and that conviction was the most important clue
”I see But it's not necessarily a lie that she's a failure She can't do anything aside from that trick”
” for Jun-san to know obviouslybefore entering the academy i assume”
”Pretty o I had an acquaintance that failed at beco She used to be called so else I paired up with her for a certain job And at the time we rescued a twelve-year-old Yukariki Ichihime after that, Ichihime looked up to her and I I couldn't really pay her h”
The frontal lobe dae must have occurred then But that was not the question I needed to ask The question I needed to ask was but one
”And that person's name was shi+sei Yuma”
”Hmm?” Aikawa-san looked up, surprised ”You know? She wasn't that famous”
”No not really And, that person”
”Yup Her Master” Aikawa-san laughed cynically ”And, a forh School That hy Ichihih School, and afterwards ended up where she did Now, let's get the topic back Uht The decision to becoet with the expectation that even if the door were closed, I could force it openJeez, she really loves coeable about the rest So I'll skip everything after that”
”She did not want to be thought of as the suspect behind the dean's killing but how about the mountain of dead faculty?”
”She probably thought that if she's not the suspect behind the dean, then she wouldn't be the one behind the other murders But she definitely went too far After you and Ichihiuys, and when I went to greet the faculty and went down the stairs Hah No h School is -- the only one who could do that alone is Yukariki Ichihime”
That -- was the point where everything cleared up Not suspicion but rather trust, hy she was found out But, even so, it was not like she could leave the faculty alive Then Hiy was broken from the start
No
That is probably wrong Aikawa-san probably -- up to the hallhen she heard Hime-chan and I's conversation, she truly did not realize the truth Regardless of how she felt, I thought that must be the case
This person is like that
”But sealed roo has an effect On anyone other than Jun-san”
”That's why all she had to do was trick me Otherould she need to kill you ah, wait, there is a reason You're annoying”
” but, if she had not called Jun-san to the academy, there would never have been a need to cover it Rather than hang onto a secret thatand then the more you plan, the more you succumb to your plan”
”Or you know A long tio, I made a promise, with her When she beca Zag for killing people”
”But, that skill ahh It was originally self-defense for capturing”
That hy she wanted to hide it from Jun-san that probably was not all, but it sounded like at least part of the reason Motives for hts, and it is difficult to put into words the reason but one would be Hime-chan's master, shi+sei Yuma, and another would be Aikawa Jun, I could say that much with absolution
”But the academy didn't allow that or rather, ould someone like that enter a school, you'd think Hurry up and get over someone who's dead stupid brat”
shi+sei Yuured as much
”Well, the dean and shi+sei, I guess if you think along that line you can get what the gist of what she was thinking -- nah, I still can't”
”But -- if Ifor? In retrospect, that sealed roo of anyone other than Hime-chan--”
”You didn't notice either”
”I am just a fool”
Or rather, fro riddles
”Hah I'm not Maeda Keiji Toshi+masu, but rather than suspect people in the na betrayed”
Aikawa-san laughed, showing no hint of re, and she did not seem to be hurt any
”--Jun-san, what is the truth?”
”Nothing Me liking Ichihime, and Ichihime's actions have no relation Hahah, that's why I' me”
She saw through me
”But you're carefree, too When you were about to die, you were fine with selling out Ichihime What do you o!”
Coh me
”I did not feel like I betrayed”
in the end, Aikawa-san's soft on friends was just her expecting too much from the world Because she is so talented, she could not understand weaklings like Hih she did not understand, she felt no need to compromise
”Leaving asidesoft, you couldn't support her beliefs, either When you're in such afacility, anyone would end up like that Anyone would think about doing such a thing And Ichihime had the skills to pull it off That's all”