Apparently, Anna intended to become the blue king.
As he finished hearing that from Totsuka, Kusanagi sighed. Kusanagi, Suou, and the others were in Honami’s school. The sun had gone down, and the nighttime school grounds were sunk down in a creepy darkness. Honami was apparently working overtime, and was still working in the office. Anna was supposed to be reading a book beside her.
When Kusanagi had been contacted by Suou and ran to Honami’s school, there was no presence of anything suspicious around her. While being suspicious of his surroundings, he went ahead and waited for and met up with Suou and the others, and then because Anna was lonely… they claimed, they pushed her off on Honami.
“By the way, is this really okay? If it’s found out that people like us came into the school, would Honami-sensei get fired?” Said Totsuka with a smile that made it hard to tell whether he was worried or not. As he said that, he was sitting cheekily on someone’s seat. Kusanagi was lightly sitting on the desk of Totsuka’s seat. Suou was leaning at the window, while Yata, Fushimi, and Kamamoto were standing broken up within the classroom, and they were all grimacing. “The blue king… huh.” Kusanagi whispered quietly.
“I wonder if at the center, Anna-chan is… being made into a test subject for the sake of pursuing the ‘Slate’.” He couldn’t believe that Anna wanted to become a king of her own will. Thinking of how Anna was often worried about Honami, it was natural to think that she was being made to cooperate with the experiments for Honami’s safety. If that was the case, then it would stop being a problem that would simply be solved if they didn’t give Anna back to the center.
“…We might have to make this into a big deal, I guess.” Kusanagi sighed, got a cigarette out of his chest pocket, and put it in his mouth. As he was about to light it, he stopped himself. This was a school.
Putting his lighter away, Kusanagi fell into thought while moving the unlit cigarette in his mouth around.
“Weren’t that kid’s parents killed by the center?” Suddenly, Fushimi, who had been quiet until then, spoke up in a cold tone.
“Hey!”
Yata kicked back his chair and stood. Raising his eyebrows, he glared at Fushimi in a reproachful way. Fushimi glanced at Yata particularly coldly.
“Maybe that kid didn’t want to go to the center at first. Her parents felt that the center was suspicious, and tried not to hand her over. That’d mean the center would lose a good test subject… so, they killed her parents who were in the way and made it look like an accident.”
“Don’t say random things based off of your imagination!”
Fushimi went ‘hmph’ at Yata, who had stood up suddenly.
“…Kusanagi-san and everyone were thinking the same thing too, right?”
Yata quickly turned to look in Kusanagi’s direction. Kusanagi sighed lightly, and took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth.
“I’m thinkin’ the possibility isn’t low.”
At Kusanagi’s words, Yata looked shocked. Fushimi looked between Yata and Kusanagi with an uneasy face.
“Hasn’t that kid herself realized? Because there was a past case with her parents, she seriously thinks there might be a danger to her aunt… no.” It’s a bit different, Fushimi said as though talking to himself. Beyond his glasses, his cold eyes narrowed.
“Even if she’s noticed the possibility, she might be trying not to see it.”
Suddenly, Kusanagi felt like he might have heard a slight noise out in the hall. He frowned and got down from the desk he was on, going over to the door. He stuck his head out the door, but there was nothing but a dark hall and no one was around.
“Kusanagi-san? Is something up?” Kamamoto said questioningly. Kusanagi shook his head.
“Nah. I just thought I heard somethin’.” Returning to the inside of the classroom and turning back around, Kusanagi’s eyes met Yata’s, whose fists were shaking.
“If… if what Saru said was true, then we can’t forgive that, can we!”
If Anna had vaguely come to realize the truth behind her parents’ deaths and was pretending not to see.
Kusanagi thought and his mood became heavy. To Anna, ‘pretending not to see’ was different from a normal person’s. Because Anna ‘Sees’ without acceptance or denial. To look away from that would be nothing but denial of reality.
He tried to imagine how the world, how the truth reflected in Anna’s eyes… and stopped. Even if he thought about it, it wasn’t something Kusanagi could understand. It was the same as how he couldn’t truly understand how a king… how Suou saw the world, even if he thought about it.
(Ah-, this is no good. I’m draggin’ it along.)
Remembering what he had talked about with Shiotsu during the day, Kusanagi scratched his head.
“What’ll you do, Mikoto?”
Suou slowly looked up when addressed, while still leaning against the window.
“This is how things are. Like Totsuka said, makin’ Anna your clansman is one option too.”
Suou frowned in a complicated way.
“…I can’t make someone into a clansman if they’re not interested.”
“Want to try and convince her?”
When Totsuka tilted his head and said that, Suou’s face got even more complicated and he looked away.
“…it can’t hurt to not make a brat go bad, can it.”
Totsuka smiled wryly at those words that could also sound like they weren’t like Suou.
“I guess.”
As Suou looked out the window at the dark school grounds, he said ‘and before that we might as well,’
“Crush it.”
To those words thrown out casually, Yata raised his clenched fist.
“That’s right! Let’s go, Mikoto-san! There’s nothing to do but crush that inhumane facility, right! They owe me, too!”
Watching Yata who was getting all excited, Kusanagi let out a long breath.
“For now, we can finish this talk when we get home… I’ll go check on Honami-sensei and Anna-chan.”
As his head hurt because he felt like this was getting to be a troublesome situation, Kusanagi went out into the dark hall. When he walked towards the office’s light at the end of the hall, he heard footsteps following him in a hurry.
“Totsuka, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just thought I’d go too.” Smiling, Totsuka lined up beside Kusanagi.
“Kusanagi-san, you went to Scepter 4 today, didn’t you.” As he walked, Totsuka said this casually.
“Yeah.”
“Did something bad happen?”
Being asked that lightly, Kusanagi was at a loss for an answer momentarily. Stopping and looking to his side, Totsuka was watching him with a mysterious smile.
“It’s like, you’re a little tired, aren’t you.”
What a sharp-eyed guy, Kusanagi thought as he felt a complicated mix of being impressed and displeased.
“…not really. It wasn’t a real fun talk, so I just got a bit sentimental.”
“It must’ve been pretty big if it made Kusanagi-san sentimental.”
Being told that with a bright smile and teasing expression, he felt annoyed along with feeling a bit better. What a mysterious guy, Kusanagi thought rather late. He tried to start walking again, but his legs just wouldn’t move, so he opened his mouth while looking in the direction of the office.
“We can’t understand the world as Mikoto sees it.”
“Yeah.”
“We also can’t really understand the world as Anna-chan sees it, can we.”
“That’s true.”
“But… there might be just something between those two that they can share.”
“I think so, too.” Totsuka smiled transparently and nodded. Kusanagi felt like he could understand Totsuka’s feelings when he had wanted to bring Anna into Homura now.
They were holding down the things within them so that they wouldn’t spill out. That was what the two of them shared, most likely. There was no way to solve what those two were holding.
About the only thing they could do was offer momentary soothing, and continue to pull those two back from this side whenever they were almost swallowed up by what was inside.
Looking at Totsuka out of the corner of his eye, Kusanagi started walking again.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“…what’s wrong, Kusanagi-san? Are you that seriously sentimental?”
“Shut it.”
When Kusanagi opened the office’s door, Honami was just getting ready to go home. She looked in Kusanagi and Totsuka’s direction while getting papers together and smiled.
“Ah, sorry to make you wait. I just finished my work. I can go ahead and leave…”
“Huh, Honami-sensei, what about Anna-chan?” Asked Totsuka, who had peeked into the office and realized that the small, doll-like form was nowhere to be seen. Right then, Honami’s smiling expression clouded uneasily.
“Eh? Anna hasn’t gone over there? She said she was going to go to Suou-kun and everyone, and left here just earlier…” Blood drained from Kusanagi’s face. When he reflexively looked beside him, Totsuka had also paled.
Anna had come to the classroom where they were talking.
At that time, what had they been speaking about?
“I’ll go look.” Totsuka said as he swiftly moved away.
Kusanagi soothed Honami, who was worried, and said he’d go check the classroom, then rushed back to where Suou and the others were.
…Weren’t that kid’s parents killed by the center.
…I’m thinkin’ that possibility isn’t low.
…Even if she’s realized the possibility, she might be trying not to see it.
If that conversation had entered Anna’s ears… cursing their own uncarefulness, Kusanagi ran down the hall.
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(part 3)