Chapter 20: Holiday Unease

Chapter 22: Mainland Purgatory

The mainland was a brutal, disorienting awakening into a new kind of hell. Stripped of the insular, albeit perilous, structure of the island academy, and now, crucially, without his phone translator which had been casually confiscated by a bored Committee agent during the chaotic disembarkation, Arthur found himself utterly adrift in a sea of indifferent, uncomprehending faces and a language that was now an almost impenetrable barrier. The yen he’d had in “Kenji Tanaka’s” school uniform pockets had been minimal and was quickly exhausted on a few meagre portions of rice balls. He was just another nameless, homeless youth, lost and invisible in the sprawling, pitiless concrete jungle of a large Japanese port city. His limited, halting Japanese, learned through painful necessity on the island, was woefully inadequate for navigating this complex new world.

Days blurred into a miserable, exhausting cycle of gnawing hunger, damp cold, and the constant, weary, often fruitless search for some form of shelter from the elements or a discarded, half-eaten meal in a fast-food restaurant’s overflowing bin. He slept in darkened alleyways that stank of stale urine and rotting garbage, under the echoing concrete arches of bridges, the ever-present fear of discovery by police patrols or less savory, predatory elements of the city’s underbelly a constant, unwelcome companion. He missed Michiru with an ache that was a physical pain in his chest; her quiet presence, her unwavering kindness, their shared, fragile peace during the last island break, had been a small, precious light in his otherwise oppressive darkness. Now, that light was extinguished, and he was stumbling blindly.

A few desperate, soul-crushing weeks into this miserable existence, as he was huddled in a damp shop doorway, trying to escape a biting, persistent late summer rain, a sleek, anonymous black car with tinted windows purred to a silent halt beside him. A man in a sharp, impeccably tailored dark suit emerged, holding a large black umbrella with practiced ease, shielding himself as he approached. He addressed Arthur by his island name, his Japanese precise and formal.

“Tanaka Kenji-kun?” the man inquired, his voice polite but utterly devoid of warmth or inflection, his eyes cold and appraising as they took in Arthur’s ragged, rain-soaked appearance. “My employer has taken an active interest in your current welfare. He understands, through various channels, that you may be… experiencing some temporary difficulties adjusting to mainland life.” He paused, allowing Arthur to absorb the implications of being so easily found. “He is, therefore, prepared to offer you refuge, assistance, a chance to rebuild your life under more… favorable circumstances.”

Arthur stared at the man, then at the opulent, waiting car, a stark symbol of power and influence in this grimy, indifferent street. He didn’t need his phone to translate the chilling intent behind the polite words. This was the Committee. This was Tsuruoka, reaching out with a silken, poisoned glove. “Who… who is your employer?” Arthur managed, his own voice raspy and weak from disuse, the Japanese words clumsy and heavily accented.

“A concerned benefactor,” the man replied smoothly, his expression unchanging. “He believes that Talented individuals like yourself, particularly those who have endured the… unique rigors of the island program, deserve ongoing support and guidance, not abandonment.”

Arthur almost choked on a bitter, hysterical laugh. Support. Guidance. From the very people who ran a death camp for unsuspecting, Talented teenagers. “Tell your ‘concerned benefactor’,” Arthur said, the English words a sudden, angry torrent from his lips, before he caught himself and forced out a stumbling, defiant Japanese reply, “that I… I appreciate the offer… but I prefer to manage my own affairs. I require no assistance.”

The man’s thin lips curved into the faintest, most chilling of smiles. “A most regrettable decision, Tanaka-kun. My employer is not accustomed to having his… generous offers so readily dismissed. This opportunity may not present itself again.” He produced a plain, unmarked white card from his inner pocket, offering it to Arthur. It held a single, untraceable phone number. “Should you reconsider your position.” Then, with a slight, almost imperceptible bow, he returned to his car, which slid silently away into the rain-swept streets, leaving Arthur alone once more, shivering in the damp doorway, the card quickly turning to sodden pulp in his trembling hand. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he’d made the right, the only, choice, but the brief, chilling contact, the effortless demonstration of their reach, left him profoundly shaken and with a renewed sense of being hunted.

Meanwhile, many miles away, Commander Tsuruoka was indeed displeased. Not only had this Kenji Tanaka anomaly refused his "generous" offer of controlled reintegration, but Nana Hiiragi, his once-star asset, was proving increasingly problematic, her operational effectiveness compromised by sentimentality and doubt. During a particularly harsh, psychologically invasive debriefing session following her return from the island after the truncated second year, Tsuruoka informed Nana that her next assignment would be a return to the island academy, with a new, carefully selected intake of students. He then fed her a meticulously constructed, entirely false narrative: “Kenji Tanaka has become a dangerous rogue element, Hiiragi. His so-called prescient abilities are unstable, making him a unpredictable threat. He has evaded all our attempts at compassionate control and assistance. He is now, regrettably, considered a significant threat to the integrity of the program, potentially even to wider national security interests if his abilities fall into the wrong hands. Your primary, non-negotiable objective for the upcoming term will be his swift and permanent elimination. There will be no failures this time. Is that understood?” Nana, still reeling from her own recent traumas and Tsuruoka’s chilling manipulations regarding Mai, had listened with a pale face, her mind a maelstrom of conflicting emotions and a growing, terrifying dread. Arthur, a threat to national security? The haunted, weary boy who had so tenderly cared for Michiru’s lifeless body? It didn’t track, not at all, yet Tsuruoka’s orders were absolute, backed by the implicit threat of unimaginable consequences should she disobey.

Arthur, entirely oblivious to Nana’s new, horrifying directive concerning him, eventually, through sheer, desperate persistence, found work. It was grueling, back-breaking, spirit-crushing labour on a sprawling construction site on the city’s outskirts, hauling bags of cement, shoveling rubble, mixing concrete under the relentless summer sun. The pay was insultingly minimal, barely enough for a shared, flea-ridden bunk in a crowded, squalid flophouse that reeked of stale sweat and cheap alcohol, and a daily bowl of watery, tasteless noodles. His days became a monotonous, exhausting blur of brutal physical exertion and profound mental despair. He was Kenji Tanaka, anonymous construction grunt, his past life as Arthur Ainsworth, respected (if unfulfilled) accounts clerk, a fading, almost unbelievable dream; his time on the island, with its constant terror but also its strange, intense connections, a recurring, vivid nightmare. He thought often, achingly, of Michiru, wondering where the Committee had taken her, if she was safe, if he would ever see her gentle smile again. The hope of it was a distant, flickering, almost extinguished candle in the vast darkness of his current existence. The irony of his current occupation, he sometimes thought with a bitter twist of his lips, was that this was the kind of life Kyouya Onodera had apparently endured before his own arrival on that cursed island.

His miserable reprieve, such as it was, didn’t last. One sweltering evening, as he trudged wearily back towards the dubious sanctuary of the flophouse, his body aching from head to toe, his spirit numb with exhaustion, a dark, unmarked van screeched to a halt beside him on the deserted, dusty road. Before he could even register the threat, before he could think to run, several grim-faced figures in plain, dark clothes erupted from its sliding door and bundled him inside with brutal, practiced efficiency. He struggled instinctively, a desperate, futile thrashing, but they were strong, their movements coordinated, their grips like iron. A rough cloth, smelling faintly of chemicals, was pressed hard over his face, a sweet, cloying, sickeningly artificial scent filled his nostrils, and the ugly, indifferent world dissolved into a suffocating, unwelcome blackness.

He awoke, gagging and disoriented, in a bare, sterile, windowless room, strapped tightly to a hard metal chair. A single, painfully bright spotlight shone directly into his face, making him squint. Tsuruoka himself wasn’t present – Arthur was clearly not yet deemed worthy of the commander’s personal attention for this particular stage of his “re-education” – but a subordinate, a cold-eyed, stern-faced woman in a severe, dark military-style uniform, stood before him, her arms crossed, her expression devoid of any discernible emotion.

“Tanaka Kenji,” she stated, her voice flat, impersonal, chillingly devoid of inflection. She consulted a thin file in her hand. “Or perhaps, given your rather… unusual background, you currently prefer the designation Arthur Ainsworth?” She didn’t elaborate on how they might know his original name; the casual, confident implication of their far-reaching, invasive intelligence network was, in itself, a potent form of intimidation. “You have proven to be a persistent, and rather tiresome, inconvenience, Mr. Ainsworth. You were given a generous opportunity to cooperate with our organization. You unwisely declined.”

She took a step closer, her shadow falling over him. “Our organization has a significant, long-term investment in the island program, and its successful outcomes. Uncontrolled, unpredictable variables such as yourself cannot, and will not, be tolerated indefinitely. You will be returning to the island academy for the next academic year, with the new intake of students.” Her lips curved into a smile that held no warmth, only a cold, clinical menace. “Consider this your final opportunity to demonstrate your potential utility to the Committee. Or, failing that,” her smile widened fractionally, “to be… neutralized, shall we say, in a more controlled, predictable, and entirely deniable environment. The choice, as they say, is yours. Though, I suspect, largely illusory.”

Arthur said nothing. There was nothing left to say. He was trapped, a terrified, exhausted pawn being forcibly moved back onto the bloodstained, treacherous board.

The journey back to the island was a disorienting, humiliating blur of sedatives, blindfolds, and the gruff, dispassionate presence of his Committee guards. When he finally stumbled off the transport vessel onto the chillingly familiar pier, the sight of the imposing school buildings, nestled amidst the island’s unnervingly lush, verdant landscape, filled him with a profound, soul-deep sense of dread and utter resignation. A new intake of students, fresh, innocent faces full of naive hope or nervous apprehension, were already disembarking from another, larger ferry, their excited chatter a grotesque counterpoint to his own internal despair. The Third School Year was about to begin, and Arthur Ainsworth knew, with a terrifying, inescapable certainty, that he was now not just an unwilling observer or a clumsy, desperate interferer, but a designated, marked target. And this time, he had no phone, no easy means of communication, and very few allies left.

Chapter 5: Saving Nanao

The next few days following Nana Hiiragi’s election as class representative were a torment of heightened, anxious vigilance for Arthur. He knew, with the chilling certainty of his fragmented foreknowledge, that Nanao Nakajima was destined to be her first victim on the island. The image from the anime – Nanao’s trusting face, the sudden, brutal push, the desperate scramble at the cliff edge, the cut rope – it played on a horrifying loop in Arthur’s mind, a constant, unwelcome guest. Every time he saw Nana interacting with Nanao, her expression one of cloying sweetness and deep, manufactured sympathy, a cold dread twisted in his gut. She was a spider, spinning a beautiful, deadly web around the unsuspecting fly.

Arthur made it his unwelcome mission to be Nanao’s inconvenient, awkward shadow. During breaks between classes, he’d find reasons – however flimsy – to be near Nanao, offering stilted, phone-translated observations about the surprisingly aggressive seagulls, or a particularly convoluted problem in their mathematics textbook. Nanao, a painfully shy boy by nature, with a habit of staring at his own feet whenever spoken to, seemed mostly bewildered by the sudden, persistent attention from the quiet, foreign-seeming Tanaka-kun. He was too polite, too timid, to actually rebuff him, but his nervous fidgeting and mumbled, monosyllabic replies made their interactions an exercise in social agony for both of them. Arthur, however, persisted, driven by a desperate urgency.

He knew the cliff incident was typically instigated by Nana preying on Nanao's profound feelings of worthlessness, his crippling lack of self-esteem. She would suggest they go somewhere quiet to talk, somewhere with a "beautiful view" where he could "clear his head." Arthur began to pay obsessive attention to the class schedule, noting the free periods, the lunch breaks, and the well-trodden routes students took to various scenic spots on the island – spots he’d mentally cross-referenced with the hazy, half-remembered visuals from his nephew's anime. The cliffs on the northern side of the island, with their dramatic drop to the churning sea, became a focal point of his dread.

It was a bright, deceptively cheerful Tuesday afternoon, during a longer-than-usual lunch break due to a cancelled afternoon class. Arthur, forcing down a dry bread roll in the noisy canteen, saw Nana approach Nanao’s solitary table. Her smile was particularly dazzling, her body language a study in practiced empathy. He couldn’t hear their conversation from across the crowded room, but Nanao’s slumped shoulders, the way he picked at his food without eating, and Nana’s earnest, head-tilted posture as she leaned in, speaking softly to him, were damningly eloquent. Then, with a gentle, encouraging hand on Nanao’s arm, Nana gestured vaguely in the direction of the northern cliffs. This was it. His stomach plummeted.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in his chest. He had to intercept, but not too obviously. He couldn’t let Nana know he knew her intentions. That would be signing his own death warrant. He had to make it look like an accident, a product of his inconvenient, erratic "Talent."

He waited a minute, a torturous, agonizing sixty seconds, letting them get a head start, then followed, his own tray abandoned. He forced himself to walk at a casual pace, though every instinct screamed at him to run. He took a slightly different, less direct path, one that wound through a small, overgrown copse of whispering bamboo, a route he knew would converge with theirs just before the steeper, more treacherous incline leading to the cliff edge viewing area. The air in the bamboo grove was cool and damp, the rustling leaves sounding like hushed, conspiratorial whispers.

As he rounded a sharp bend, momentarily obscured by a particularly thick clump of bamboo, he saw them. Nana was a few steps ahead, her pink pigtails bouncing, beckoning Nanao forward with a bright, encouraging smile. Nanao was shuffling along behind her, his head bowed, his gaze fixed on the scuffed toes of his shoes, the picture of dejection. Arthur quickened his pace, his timing now critical.

Just as Nana was saying something about the “beautiful, clear view from the top” offering “such a wonderfully fresh perspective on things,” Arthur “accidentally” stumbled out of the bamboo path, his foot catching on an imaginary root. He lurched forward, bumping lightly but decisively into Nanao, who let out a small, startled yelp and stumbled himself.

“Ah, gomen nasai! My apologies! So clumsy of me!” Arthur exclaimed, his voice a little too loud, a little too forced. He quickly typed into his phone, his fingers surprisingly steady despite the adrenaline coursing through him, and held it up so that Nanao – and, crucially, Nana, who had turned at the commotion – could see the screen. “Nanao-san! Tanaka-kun, isn’t it? What a complete coincidence meeting you both here.”

Nana turned fully, her bright smile tightening almost imperceptibly at the edges. Her violet eyes, usually wide with feigned innocence, held a flicker of sharp annoyance. “Tanaka-kun. We were just going up to admire the view. Nakajima-kun was feeling a little down.”

“The view…” Arthur echoed, then he made a deliberate show of his eyes going distant, a slight frown creasing his brow, his head tilting as if listening to something only he could hear – his well-rehearsed charade of his “Talent” kicking in. He reached out, as if instinctively, his fingers brushing lightly against Nanao’s arm. Nanao flinched at the unexpected contact.

“Nanao-san,” Arthur said, his phone translating his low, urgent English words into equally grave Japanese, ensuring Nana, standing just a few feet away, could hear every syllable. “My Talent… it just showed me a flash. A very disturbing one. You… you were falling. From up there.” He gestured vaguely with his free hand towards the cliff edge, hidden from their current vantage point but looming in their immediate future. “Right here. On this path. Today. Please, I implore you, be incredibly careful if you go any further. Perhaps… perhaps it would be better not to go at all today.”

Nanao stared at him, his already pale face draining of all remaining colour. He looked from Arthur’s feigned distress to the path ahead, then back to Arthur, his eyes wide with a dawning, superstitious terror. Nana’s expression was a careful mask of polite concern, but Arthur could see the sharp calculation in her eyes, the way her smile didn’t quite reach them. His “prediction” was specific enough to be deeply alarming to Nanao, yet vague enough to be a lucky, albeit unsettling, coincidence from Nana’s perspective. To dismiss it out of hand, especially after his previous “accurate” forecast of her and Kyouya’s arrival, might look callous, even suspicious, particularly if something did then happen to Nanao. It complicated her plan beautifully.

“Oh my goodness,” Nana said, her voice dripping with a perfectly calibrated mixture of false sympathy and gentle skepticism. “That sounds… simply terrible, Tanaka-kun. Are you quite sure? Sometimes these strong feelings, these… glimpses… can be a little misleading, can’t they?” She was trying to downplay it, to regain control of Nanao, to coax him forward.

“It felt… horribly real, Hiiragi-san,” Arthur insisted gravely via his phone, meeting Nana’s gaze for a brief, challenging moment before turning back to Nanao with an expression of profound, urgent concern. “Perhaps another day would be better for admiring the view, Nanao-san? When the… the premonitions are less active? When the air feels less… fraught?”

Nanao, thoroughly spooked by the vivid image of himself falling from a great height, nodded vehemently, clutching at the excuse like a drowning man grasping a lifeline. “Yes! Yes, you’re right, Tanaka-kun! I… I suddenly remembered I left my history textbook in the classroom. A very important textbook. I should go back and get it. Right now.” He practically bolted, muttering apologies and thanks, scrambling back down the path the way they had come.

Nana was left standing on the path with Arthur, the silence between them thick with unspoken accusations and frustrated intent. Her smile was strained, a mere caricature of its usual brilliance. “Well, Tanaka-kun,” she said, her voice dangerously sweet. “You certainly possess a… most dramatic and timely Talent.”

“It is often more a curse than a blessing, Hiiragi-san,” Arthur’s phone replied, his translated tone suitably sombre and world-weary. He then made his own hasty excuses about needing to find a quieter spot to “clear his head” after such a disturbing “vision,” and retreated in the direction Nanao had fled, leaving Nana standing alone amidst the rustling bamboo, her meticulously planned murder for the day thoroughly, infuriatingly derailed.

He didn’t relax, however, not for a second. Nana was nothing if not persistent. For the rest of that afternoon, and indeed for the next couple of anxious days, Arthur made himself Nanao’s unofficial, relentlessly awkward bodyguard. He sat near him (or as near as Nanao’s discomfort would allow) at lunch, walked with him (or rather, a few paces behind him) between classes, manufacturing reasons to engage him in stilted, phone-mediated conversations about everything and nothing – the difficulty of certain kanji, the surprisingly palatable nature of the canteen’s curry, the migratory patterns of local birds (a topic Arthur knew absolutely nothing about but improvised wildly on). He learned, in brief, mumbled snippets from Nanao, that the boy was passionate about old, obscure strategy video games and surprisingly knowledgeable about the island’s limited local flora.

It was exhausting, maintaining this facade of casual proximity while his nerves were stretched taut as piano wire. Nana watched them, her expression unreadable but her presence a constant, simmering pressure. She made a few more subtle attempts to get Nanao alone, suggesting a visit to the library’s “quiet, secluded annex” for study, or a peaceful walk by the “tranquil, reflective pond” on the far side of the school grounds. But each time, Arthur, with a seemingly coincidental appearance and another vague, unsettling “glimpse” related to the proposed location (“I sense… a sudden, inexplicable chill… a feeling of being trapped, of deep water, near that pond, Nanao-san. Perhaps it is best avoided today?”), managed to thwart her with a maddening, if clumsy, consistency.

His repeated interventions were clearly making Nana increasingly wary of him. She couldn’t act overtly against him without potentially exposing her own malevolent intentions, especially since his “predictions,” however outlandish, kept proving… disturbingly prescient in their negativity, at least in Nanao’s increasingly rattled and grateful mind.

Nanao, for his part, was beginning to see Arthur not just as the “strange, quiet Tanaka-kun” but as some kind of eccentric, slightly frightening, but ultimately benevolent guardian angel. After the third “warning” that seemed to avert some unseen disaster, he’d looked at Arthur with an expression of genuine, almost teary-eyed gratitude.

“Tanaka-kun,” he’d said, his voice barely a whisper, as he nervously offered Arthur a small, slightly bruised apple he’d saved from lunch. “Thank you. I… I don’t know what I would do without your… your warnings. You’ve… you’ve really helped me. More than you know.”

Arthur had simply nodded, accepting the apple with a mumbled thanks of his own (via phone, of course), a complicated mixture of profound relief and gnawing guilt churning within him. He’d saved Nanao, for now. He’d bought him precious time. But in doing so, he had also firmly painted an even larger, brighter target on his own back as far as Nana Hiiragi was concerned. She wouldn’t give up on her mission to eliminate Nanao, and she certainly wouldn’t forget the inconvenient, unpredictable new student with the troublesome, embarrassing, and infuriatingly timed glimpses into the future. The game had just become significantly more dangerous. And Arthur knew, with a certainty that made his blood run cold, that Nana was already recalculating, already planning her next move.

The Council Of The Unseen Versus SPECTRE

Chapter 38: Weighing the Price of Truth

Arthur’s challenging question – “Unless, of course, anyone else has any better ideas?” – hung heavy in the smoky air of the cave, a stark invitation that no one seemed immediately eager to accept. The fire crackled, spitting a few defiant sparks, but otherwise, a profound, contemplative silence enveloped the small group of fugitives. He watched their faces: Nana, her expression a complex mixture of fear and a dawning, almost reluctant consideration; Kyouya, his gaze distant, already dissecting the proposal with his sharp, analytical intellect; Michiru, her brow furrowed with worry, her gentle eyes fixed on Arthur with a mixture of concern and a hesitant, fragile trust; and Jin, his usual enigmatic smile softened into something more thoughtful, more appraising.

It was Michiru who spoke first, her voice barely a whisper, yet carrying a surprising weight in the quiet. “Arthur-san… your idea… it is very brave. Terribly brave. But… surely there must be another way? A way that doesn’t put you in such… such direct, unimaginable danger? If we all stayed together, perhaps, found a truly remote place…”

Arthur offered her a small, sad smile. “I wish that were possible, Michiru-san. Truly, I do. But Tsuruoka’s reach is long. The Committee’s resources are vast. There is no place on this earth, I suspect, where we would be truly, permanently safe from them if they were determined to find us. Hiding is merely delaying the inevitable. We need to confront the source of the poison, not just flee its symptoms.”

Kyouya Onodera finally broke his silence, his voice cutting through the smoky air with its characteristic cool precision. “Setting aside, for the moment, the almost suicidal audacity of your core proposal, Ainsworth,” he began, his pale eyes fixed on Arthur, “let us consider the immediate logistical impossibilities. You propose to return to that island, an island where your previous persona, Kenji Tanaka, is now undoubtedly flagged as a problematic individual, possibly even believed dead or ‘neutralized’ by some. You would require an entirely new identity – one so flawless, so deeply embedded with verifiable, albeit fabricated, history, that it could withstand the Committee’s intense, paranoid scrutiny.” He paused. “Crafting such an identity, complete with supporting documentation, academic credentials for a teaching position no less, and a believable backstory for a foreigner seeking employment in such a… unique educational institution… that is not a simple task.”

He was, Arthur knew, entirely correct. The sheer bureaucratic nightmare of what he was proposing, even before considering the physical dangers, was daunting. Forging a new life from whole cloth to bring down a shadowy, all-powerful government organization… it was a far cry from his old life, from debating complex VAT codes with Henderson from the accounts department back in the Crawley borough council offices. Though Henderson, Arthur mused with a flicker of grim internal humor, in his own quiet, pedantic way, could be just as terrifyingly thorough when he found a discrepancy. Still, this was hardly the stuff of the spy thrillers one might pick up from a dusty second-hand bookshop on a dreary Tuesday afternoon in… well, any quiet, ordinary English town. This was their insane, desperate reality.

Nana, who had been listening intently, her expression unreadable, now spoke, her voice low and strained. “Kyouya-san is right. The island’s security protocols, especially for new staff, will be… extreme. Tsuruoka is no fool. After the events of the last few years, after our escape from the mainland camp, he will have tightened everything. Background checks will be exhaustive. And even if you did somehow get through the initial vetting, as a teacher, you would be under constant surveillance. Every lesson, every interaction, potentially monitored.” Her gaze flickered towards Arthur, a silent warning in their violet depths. “And my… my own file… Tsuruoka knows I was… close… to Michiru-san. He knows you interfered with my assignment concerning Nanao Nakajima. He knows you are an anomaly. If he suspected for a moment that ‘Kenji Tanaka’ had somehow returned under a new guise…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“I understand all of that,” Arthur said, his voice quiet but firm. “The risks are astronomical. But what are the alternatives? Do we have another viable plan? Another way to strike at the heart of the Committee’s operations, to reach those children before they are turned into… into what Tsuruoka intends for them?”

A heavy silence descended again. No one offered an alternative. Their current situation – fugitives, hiding in a cave, with limited resources and the constant threat of discovery – was a testament to their lack of viable long-term options.

It was Jin Tachibana who finally spoke, his voice as smooth and unruffled as ever, though his eyes, when they met Arthur’s, held a new, almost unnerving intensity. “The creation of a sufficiently robust new identity for a foreign national, complete with verifiable, if entirely fictitious, academic and professional credentials,” he began, his tone almost conversational, as if discussing the weather, “while indeed complex and resource-intensive, is not… entirely beyond the realm of possibility.”

All eyes turned to him. Nana looked particularly surprised.

“I maintain… certain connections,” Jin continued, a faint, enigmatic smile playing on his lips. “Individuals with particular… skills… in the art of information fabrication and bureaucratic navigation. It would be costly. It would be time-consuming. And there would be no guarantee of success. The Committee’s counter-intelligence measures are formidable.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over Arthur. “You would also, Ainsworth-san, need to significantly alter your physical appearance. Hair colour, eye colour, perhaps even subtle changes to your facial structure, if possible. You would need to adopt entirely new mannerisms, a new way of speaking, a new way of being. You would have to become someone else entirely, someone so unremarkable, so devoid of threat, that you could pass beneath Tsuruoka’s ever-watchful gaze.”

“And even if all of that were possible,” Kyouya interjected, his skepticism still evident, “how would you gain entry? That specific island academy is not a place one simply applies to for a teaching position through conventional channels. It is a black site, a secret institution. They recruit their staff, especially their foreign language instructors, through very specific, very carefully vetted, and often deeply compromised channels.”

Jin nodded slowly. “That,” he conceded, “would be the most significant hurdle. Finding a legitimate, or legitimately falsifiable, opening. Engineering an opportunity. It would require… patience. And a considerable degree of luck. Or, perhaps, the creation of a vacancy where none currently exists.” The last words were spoken with a chilling, almost casual quietness that sent a shiver down Arthur’s spine.

“So,” Nana said, her voice barely a whisper, her gaze fixed on Arthur with a mixture of fear, disbelief, and a dawning, reluctant respect. “You are truly… truly willing to attempt this? To walk back into that place?”

Arthur met her gaze, his own resolve hardening despite the terrifying litany of obstacles they had just outlined. “If Jin-san believes it is even remotely feasible to create the necessary cover,” he said, his voice steady, “and if a credible opportunity, however slim, can be found or made… then yes, Hiiragi-san. I am. Because, frankly,” he looked around at their tired, hunted faces, “I see no other way to even begin to fight back against what they are doing. We are currently reacting. This… this is an attempt, however desperate, however insane, to act.”

Michiru sniffled quietly, wiping a tear from her eye, but she said nothing more, her earlier protestations silenced by the grim, undeniable logic of their desperate situation.

Kyouya let out a long, slow breath. “The potential for catastrophic failure,” he stated, his voice flat, “is exceptionally high. The probability of your survival, Ainsworth, should you be discovered, is effectively zero.”

“I am aware of that, Onodera-san,” Arthur replied, his own voice equally devoid of emotion. “I have been living on borrowed time since the moment I arrived in this world. Perhaps it’s time I tried to make that borrowed time… count for something more than just my own continued, miserable existence.”

A new kind of silence fell upon the group then, no longer the silence of stunned disbelief, but the heavy, contemplative silence of individuals weighing the terrible, almost unbearable price of a desperate, fragile, and perhaps entirely illusory hope. The fire had burned low, casting long, flickering shadows that danced like accusing spectres on the damp cave walls. The decision had not yet been made, but the first, terrifying steps onto a new, even more perilous path, had been irrevocably taken.

Chapter 14: Sacrifice at the Docks

Arthur’s mind raced, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he pounded the worn pathway leading away from the deceptively cheerful gymnasium. The distant, tinny music of the leaving party faded behind him, replaced by the frantic thudding of his own heart and the lonely sigh of the wind whistling through the island’s sparse, salt-stunted trees. He had to calculate where Rentaro would take Michiru, where Nana, in her desperate pursuit, would inevitably follow. The boat docks – isolated, exposed, offering few escape routes and an abundance of shadowy hiding places – loomed large and ominous in his mind as the most logical, and therefore most horrifying, stage for the unfolding confrontation.

He sprinted towards the harbour, his unfamiliar teenage legs burning with the unaccustomed exertion, his phone clutched tightly in his hand, though he had no time for the laborious process of translation now. The air grew colder, tasting of salt and damp, decaying wood as he neared the coast.

He arrived, breathless and his chest aching, just as the scene at the end of the longest, most dilapidated pier reached its horrifying crescendo. Silhouetted against the dull, bruised pewter of the overcast evening sky, Rentaro Tsurumigawa’s spectral form – a shimmering, translucent duplicate of his arrogant human self – had Michiru Inukai cornered against the rotting railings. Razor-sharp, crystalline projectiles, like shards of malevolent ice, hovered menacingly in the air around him, glinting faintly in the dim light. Michiru was crying, her small body trembling, her face a mask of pure terror, but even so, she seemed to be trying to shield herself, a tiny, defiant figure against a monstrous, ethereal threat.

Nana Hiiragi stood between them, a fierce, protective tigress in a party dress. Her usual neat pink pigtails were askew, her clothes torn in several places, and a dark bruise was blooming on her cheekbone, but her violet eyes blazed with a desperate, almost feral fury Arthur had never witnessed in her before – not the cold, calculating fury of an assassin about to make a kill, but something raw, deeply personal, and utterly protective. She was intercepting Rentaro’s psychic attacks, her own movements preternaturally quick and agile, dodging and weaving, but she was clearly outmatched, her physical efforts largely ineffective against the intangible, relentlessly attacking projection that could still, somehow, inflict real harm upon her.

“You won’t touch her, Tsurumigawa!” Nana snarled, her voice hoarse and strained as she narrowly dodged a volley of shimmering blades that sliced through the air where she’d been a split second before. One of the shards grazed her arm, drawing a thin line of blood.

“She ruined everything!” Rentaro’s projected voice was a distorted, inhuman screech, filled with venom and thwarted rage. “She deserves to die for her meddling! And you too, Class Rep, for getting in my way!”

Just as Rentaro’s astral form lunged forward with a particularly vicious-looking ethereal spear, its crystalline point aimed directly at Michiru’s heart, Nana, with a desperate cry, shoved Michiru violently aside. The smaller girl stumbled, falling hard onto the rough wooden planks of the pier. The spectral weapon, impossibly, plunged deep into Nana’s side. Nana gasped, a choked, pain-filled, liquid sound, her eyes flying wide with shock and disbelief. She stumbled, her hand instinctively going to the phantom wound in her side, though no spectral blood flowed from the astral injury, the devastating impact on her life force, her very essence, was terrifyingly apparent. Her face began to pale with an alarming rapidity.

At that exact, critical moment, Rentaro Tsurumigawa’s shimmering projection flickered violently, like a faulty hologram. It let out a final, agonized, drawn-out shriek that seemed to tear through the very air, then dissolved into nothingness, vanishing as if it had never been. Kyouya. Kyouya Onodera had found him. He had found Rentaro’s hidden, vulnerable physical body and neutralized the threat. Arthur let out a shaky, almost sob-like breath of relief for that small, vital mercy, but his gaze was fixed, horrified, on Nana, who was collapsing slowly to her knees, her face now a ghastly, waxy white.

Michiru scrambled to Nana’s side, her face streaked with tears and grime, her voice a desperate, broken wail. “Nana-chan! Nana-chan, no! Please, no!”

Arthur finally reached them, his chest heaving, his own terror a cold, hard knot in his stomach. He saw the life visibly draining from Nana’s eyes, the way her body was becoming limp. He saw the way Michiru was looking at her – a dawning, terrible understanding mixed with a desperate, almost fanatical resolve. He knew, with a sudden, sickening certainty, what Michiru was going to do. Her healing Talent… he remembered the whispers, the theories about its ultimate, desperate application. It could, some said, even bring back the recently departed, but only at the ultimate cost: the user’s own life force.

“Michiru, no!” Arthur yelled, the words tearing from him in raw, desperate, unthinking English, forgetting the phone, forgetting the language barrier, forgetting everything but the impending, pointless tragedy unfolding before his eyes. He lunged forward, his hands outstretched, trying to pull her away from Nana’s rapidly cooling body. “Don’t do it! You’ll die! It’s not worth it!”

But Michiru was lost in her grief, her loyalty, her terrible, loving determination. She barely seemed to register his presence, his frantic, foreign words. Shaking her head, her cloud of fluffy white hair matted with tears and sea spray, she gently, almost absently, pushed his restraining hands away. “She saved me, Tanaka-kun,” she whispered, her voice trembling but resolute, her gaze fixed on Nana’s still face. “She saved my life. I have to… I have to save her. It’s the only way.”

Ignoring Arthur’s renewed, frantic pleas, Michiru pressed her small, trembling hands against Nana’s still form, over the place where the spectral spear had struck. A soft, ethereal white light began to glow around her, emanating from her palms, then engulfing both her and Nana. The light intensified, pulsing with a gentle, almost heartbreaking rhythm, bathing the grim, windswept scene in its otherworldly luminescence. Michiru’s small body began to tremble violently, her face contorting in an agony Arthur could only imagine, but her hands remained firmly fixed on Nana, a conduit for the impossible. The light flared, becoming blindingly bright for a single, eternal moment, then, with a soft, final sigh that seemed to carry all the sorrow of the world, it receded, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

Michiru Inukai crumpled to the rough wooden planks of the pier, a small, still heap, her vibrant life force utterly extinguished.

A heartbeat later, Nana Hiiragi gasped, a ragged, shuddering intake of breath, her eyes flying open. She sat up slowly, looking around in dazed, profound confusion, her hand going to her side, where only moments before a fatal wound had been. Then, her gaze fell upon Michiru’s still, lifeless form beside her. Understanding, followed by a wave of raw, uncomprehending anguish, crashed over her. A sob, harsh, broken, and utterly devoid of artifice, tore from Nana’s throat – a sound so full of genuine, unadulterated pain, so unlike anything Arthur had ever heard from her, that it momentarily stunned him into silence. This wasn't the calculated grief she’d so expertly feigned for her previous victims; this was real, shattering, soul-deep sorrow.

Arthur stepped forward, his own face a grim mask, his earlier panic replaced by a cold, weary, and profound anger. He raised his phone, his fingers deliberately, almost violently, typing out his words.

“Well, Hiiragi,” his translated voice stated, flat and devoid of any inflection, cutting through Nana’s ragged, heartbroken sobs. She looked up at him, her face streaked with tears, her violet eyes wide with a mixture of confusion, grief, and dawning horror. “It seems you finally got what you wanted. Another Talent eliminated from this island.” Nana stared at him, her mouth opening and closing, but no words came out. “You should be rejoicing, shouldn’t you?” Arthur pressed, his voice, even through the phone, laced with a cruel, cutting sarcasm. “Or,” he paused, letting the words sink in, twisting the knife, “are some Talents worth more than others, after all?”

Nana flinched as if he had physically struck her. She looked from Arthur’s cold, accusing face back to Michiru’s peaceful, lifeless body, and a look of dawning, unutterable horror began to mix with her grief.

“I’m taking her,” Arthur’s phone continued, his voice now unwavering, filled with a cold, hard resolve. “Tsuruoka and his damned Committee won’t get their hands on her for experimentation.” He saw Nana’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly at the casual, knowing mention of Tsuruoka’s name. Yes, she knew now that he knew. The game had changed. “She deserves to be treated with dignity in death, Hiiragi, not carved up like some lab specimen for your masters to study.”

He knelt beside Michiru, his own heart aching with a profound, unexpected sorrow for this gentle, brave girl he had barely known, yet had come to care for. “You killing Tachibana… the time traveler… that was your worst, most senseless act. You couldn’t even let a dying boy like Hoshino live out what little time he had left in peace.” He looked directly at Nana, who had stopped crying now, her expression a frozen mask of shock, confusion, and a dawning, terrible guilt. “There were times, Hiiragi, so many times, I was sorely tempted to stop you permanently. To end your murderous spree myself. For Michiru’s sake, for Nanao’s, for my own damn principles, I refrained.”

He paused, then added, his voice, even through the phone’s impersonal synthesizer, laced with a profound, weary sorrow, “She deserved so much better than you. Better than any of us on this cursed island.”

Without another word, Arthur gently, carefully, scooped Michiru Inukai’s small, impossibly light, lifeless body into his arms. He stood, turned his back on the stunned, grieving, and utterly shattered Nana Hiiragi, and began the slow, heavy walk back towards the distant, uncaring lights of the school buildings. He left Nana alone on the windswept pier with the accusing ghost of her actions, the devastating weight of Michiru’s sacrifice, and the first, agonizing, unwelcome taste of genuine, heartbreaking loss. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t.

Would serve her right