Chapter 18: Prelude Before the Memory Garden

Without making any sound, both Hitoshi-san and I are walking together towards our destination after I reach the place where we agreed we're going to meet. Even if there were alot of students that walked past us, that's within hand's reach, from the looks of it, not a single student knew or acknowledged his existence and usually only took notice of mine if they in an instance bumped onto me, with Hitoshi-san being fully ignored even they bumped into him.

As more and more time it happens, the more and more eerie it gets, "𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦'𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦? 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳? 𝘖𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦?". This are the thoughts that formed in my head whilst I was walking with him, and with it my mind went blank for a second before I was noted by him that he was asking me about something:

"How many students have you killed, Izu-san?".

"...Huh?".

Flabbergasted by his question and the surprising nature of the question, the first thing that I thought is, why did he ask about the amount of people that I killed? But knowing that it's probably wise for me to just be honest and reply to his answer.

"Three students". I replied, following his cold tone.

"I see".

Afterwards, he instantly continued walking just like before. Confused, I asked back to him with a morbidly curious voice the same question that he asked me seconds beforehand.

"How many students that you killed then, Hitoshi-san?", To which he replied after a short delay with:

"I lost count when it reached the one hundredth, well I'm going to tell you when I see my kill stats back", He said before he walk away on his own, leaving me with tension as dark and as thick as a fog, with the sensation of wanting to puke from the frightened and shocked feeling in my already sinking heart.

"That's why...I thought there was something wrong...with you", I muttered to myself with both of my eyes wide open and with my whole body trembling in fear, baffled by how many students that he already killed and how casual he sounded it to be with his attitude. "Since the beginning...I already knew that you were...something else".

He stops walking after I said that, either because of another coincidence, that he just want to stop there, or he heard all my mutters, I don't know, but the only thing I knew, is that the thing that he will say towards me, will shaped my whole view point, on how should a life be taken.

"Even if you killed hundreds of people, it's not a problem if you will save more people right?".

I was immediately speechless. This is the first time I heard, an idea so psychotic and more selfish than anything else, as it boiled my heart in anger this heated, for the very first time since a long time, but remembering that I can't shout at a person that can kill me anytime if I do something wrong, I said softly to him:

"What's...wrong with you?".

Both of us went silent, and before long, we're both walking again, with Hitoshi-san at the front and me behind him. With it, I can feel the barrier between us both in power, on how we understand and face the world. Just because I asked that single question, a single sentence of me questioning his sanity behind his words, it somehow just made both of our conditions with each other farther.

And for the rest of the day, even though we already reached our destination, which is a place upon a building where there's no one that could disturbed our conversation, for the whole time, we didn't spoke about a single thing, not an exchange on how to strategize or plan the action for gadget upgrades nor anything about personal view on the world from one side to mellowed out the quite yet hollow interaction that both of us we're having together at that time.

In the entire time of me leaning onto the building top floor's balcony and him sitting on a chair reading a tiny notebook, deep down, I knew that both of us were waiting for someone to just open their mouth and ask a question to the other, but before we even knew it, the sun is already setting, and instantly, both of us getting to the exit at the same time.

As we walk, still together before we split up and went to our separate house, both of us heard a footstep, a light footstep of probably a girl walking, but as it getting closer and closer, we can heard something is amiss from the footstep, with the more footsteps that we heard from that girl, the more that assume, until we saw the girl and to my surprise, I saw the same long white hair girl, the one that Fuyuki-san target, and slowly, my eyes widened in shocked with the thing that I can see, was just a terrible sight of a half burned, and wounded girl, as she was limping, pleading for our help.

The girl was burned on her right shoulder, with mark wounds and burned gunshots appeared on her right arm and right side of her body, as her uniform clothes were half burned, with both of her head and mouth bleeding out. After she saw me, she instantly dropped her body onto mine. My hands swoop in as I instantly hugged her small body, with the last thing she said to me before she went unconscious is a cry for help, as she said:

"Help...me".

Still in shock, I can feel my body trembling, thinking about what just happened and what action that I could take in that situation. I looked over to Hitoshi-san, seemingly unphased by the situation, but after he noticed my reaction towards this whole situation, he promptly asked me.

"So what do you want to do now, Izu-san?".

At first thought, I can only think of just abandoning that girl alone, since the girl will be a burdened because protecting her will just resulted in a wild goose chase against Fuyuki-san and his group again, but as I was thinking that, a voice immediately resonates from the deepest depths of my heart, as it sounds unfamiliar and familiar at the same time, deep down, I knew who this voice belongs to, but my mind wanted to reject it.

With the voice getting louder and clearer every second of it, my mind was trying to fight it, but finally, after five seconds, the voice escape from my mouth and with it, I plead to Hitoshi-san, saying:

"Can...I save her, Hitoshi-san?".

Without uttering any word, Hitoshi-san instantly grabbed my hand and ran, presumably to my house without any hesitation whatsoever. Surprised and taken aback by his response, I wanted to ask him about why he is doing all of this, but before I knew it, we were already at the doorstep to my house.

I quickly slide my keycard of the door and went in, and promptly place this white long hair girl onto my sofa, as Hitoshi-san, out of nowhere, started to muttered to himself, subsequently making a green light form on his hand, as I just watched quietly from the sidelines, waiting patiently and in confusion with Hitoshi-san slowly but surely, move his hand closer and closer to to the girl's body.

In a blink of a second, I saw something that was indescribable, so bizarre and out of this world, that I could only describe it as magic. I can see tissues of the skin starting to regenerate one after another, with every second passing, I can see one gunshot wound one after another starting to heal at the girl's body. In awe, I asked Hitoshi-san what did he just do to her, to which he replied with:

"I just made the cells in her body regenerates one hundred times faster than it usually does, that's all what I did", Both of my eyes instantly shines in excitement, wanted to know more, I instantly asked about more, but before I can even open my mouth, he asked me something that was so unpredictable, it caught me off guard and rendered me speechless.

"Did you help her just because it was a request from somebody that you knew, Izu-san?".

"How...did you know", The light of enthusiasm in my eyes was quickly dispatched, just by a single question from Hitoshi-san, my body trembling slightly in despair, as memories after memories rushed in, to quickly fill the gaps from what's missing in my mind. And with it, in an instant, for the first time in my life, I felt unsafe from anyone else.

With the feeling of someone outside touching your darkest secret getting stronger and stronger, my denial of my own true feelings were too, now spilling to the outside of my heart.

"Explain to me...how did you know that?". I said as I was clearly frightened by his question.

"It's not rocket science to figure that stuff out reall-".

"I wanted to know, how did you know that, Aoki-san", My body started to tremble as I utter those words.

"As I said, it's not hard you kn-".

"How did you know!?", I heighten my voice in desperation to protect myself from getting further ripped apart by his words.

"If you didn't have a secret to protect, you didn't need to get this defensive, right?", After he said that, he stopped for a second.

"I knew because of the ingenuity of your action, because of the time it took you to just make a decision to either abandon or save this poor little girl", He continued.

"I don't understand, what are you saying at al-".

"Don't lie to me, Izu-san, I knew that you prioritize logic more than anything else in the process of forming your decision, but just because of this place was devoid of logic, from the day of you knowing this school secrets, you decided that you'll only use your feeling as your shield, not knowing the consequences of it until when you almost die by Fuyuki-san's hand, is that correct?".

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT DO YOU MEAN, AOKI-SAN!".

Silence fills the room as I let out a huge scream, conveying all my feelings to Aoki-san as I hold myself from breaking down into tears, but before I knew it, he delivers a single sentence, a sentence that instantly broke me into pieces, just like Fuyuki-san did the exact thing to my pride.

"You felt hopeless and useless as you just watched an accident fall towards this person that you loved, correct?".

The first tears just rolls down on my cheek, with it, I just realize that I just lost to not let somebody invade into the deepest secret of my buried heart, as I looked down, to both of my hands, for a second, I can see pieces of glass and blood on my hands, after I looked at it, I notice that my cries were getting more hysterical the longer it goes on, as I sob and sob, I noticed that Aoki-san promptly stand up from the sofa where the girl was lying, and came to my back, and hugged me from behind.

Even though I was startled by his action, I can sense that the warmth of the hug was genuine. Even though I was scared about what he was going to do to me at first, for the first time, I felt secure, because I finally found someone that can genuinely understand me. Even though in my thoughts I thought about the possibility of him just manipulating my feelings from feeling insecure to safe in a span of ten minutes, I only move my hand to softly hold his arm that was hugging me from my shoulder and said to him without looking back:

"I hate that you can…just pry open my heart just like that…". And afterwards, my tears subside and for a minute, both of us stayed in that position, in the most secure position that I have found myself in forever since I arrived at this school, which is in the hold of the student with most kills in the school.

"Ironic isn't it...𝐈 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥".