She wasn’t like her, she’d just acted like it.
Since that kind of person doesn’t really exist.
“Yeah. I thought so too. I told myself that this kind of person shouldn’t exist. Which is why─I smashed that kind of thing to bits. Goodwill is fake, and trust is counterfeit, so I ruthlessly stomped it all to pieces.”
“…”
“It was incredibly cathartic. The best feeling ever. Just thinking about it makes me feel like the sun’s come out. That must be what people mean when they talk about happiness. And…I fell straight into the jaws of regret. I’d destroyed something authentic and irreplaceable. And that girl wasn’t strong like Aikawa. Being deceived by me, the person she loved, that could only have been the end for her. And I knew it, or should have─”
Why was I waxing on about this?
About my sins.
Was it repentance? Not a chance. Atonement? Not quite.
Yeah─I was just hoping for a do-over, it was that simple.
Because even if Hime-chan coming after me out of concern was a lie, the conversation we had when she did wasn’t. Even if her words had been directed at herself instead of me.
Hime-chan had said it was all lies.
And I think that was the truth.
And yet─honestly. Honestly. Honestly, I’m telling you.
If this world were truly just as Hime-chan says it is, just as I think it is.
Then we’d be able to get by without this much suffering.
Don’t you see?
If even the way you were trembling when you protected me from Shiogi was an act─if even that was a lie, then this world holds nothing but lies. And if everything’s a lie and there’s not a shred of truth anywhere─if there’s no point of comparison, then that’s the same as saying that everything is true.
“Why did you kill the Director?”
“Is the fact that she was the Director of this academy not reason enough? Would you be more satisfied if Hime-chan had been through alls kinds of horrible experiences at her hands? If my friends had been killed? If I’d been raped? If something important had been taken from me? Would that be a thoroughly satisfying, neatly wrapped up happily-ever-after for you? Do you think I’m an idiot? That’s not how killing someone works, Master.”
I was being lectured about the meaning of murder by a teenage girl. A seventeen-year-old girl, going on about the finer points of crime, and punishment. It was an abnormal situation. So abnormal that it was hard to accept, even within the precincts of the academy known as Hang ’Em High.
“Then let me ask you a different question. Did you kill the Director because you wanted to get out of here? Or did you decide to get out of here as part of your strategy to kill the Director?”
“Both. And neither,” replied Hime-chan coldly. “I wanted to destroy this school. I wanted to pull it up by the roots, to do away with the whole place in one fell swoop so that not a single blade of grass remained, so that not a trace, not an ounce, not a hint of a shadow of a memory was left.”
“When we were first discovered by those two girls, you did that on purpose, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t tell me anything upfront.”
“That’s right. Since if we succeeded in escaping, we couldn’t go to the Director’s office. And I was pretty sure that was what Ms. Jun would decide to do.”
“And while we were running away, when I had you tucked under my arm, you took the campus map out of my pocket.”
“If you had a map, you wouldn’t be able to gets lost.”
“And you didn’t use Zigzag to dismember the Director because if you had, Aikawa would’ve been on to you.”
“Yup. You might be able to fool insight, but you can’t fool sight.”
“So you fooled her by using a chainsaw to dismember the body instead.”
“It’s like you were rights there in the room with me.”
“And you tricked Shiogi and company by posing as the Director on the walkie-talkie, so you could move them around like chess pieces and get them to do whatever you wanted.”
“Exactly. Though they didn’t do what I wanted, did they.”
“That leaves─well, some puzzles that need solving, but that about covers the preface. So let’s get to the real topic at hand, Hime-chan. Let’s talk about the future.”
“Huh?”
Hime-chan looked at me dubiously. A swirling maelstrom of overpoweringly negative emotions lodged in those pupils of hers. Not like I gave a shit about getting killed, not like it wasn’t a completely futile non-action, I couldn’t care less…
But I would do what I could.
That was─my job.
Everything around me goes insane. Strategies and calculations go off the rails, nothing goes as planned.
Hime-chan.
I’ll help bring your goals to nothing. I’ll help bring your determination to ruin. I’ll help bring all your hopes and dreams, your wishes, your prayers, crashing down around your ears. How does that sound?