Chapter 4: Nanase and Amasawa's Private Pool Time
It was eleven in the morning.
High above the decks of the passenger ship, where the sea breeze softened against glass walls and the sunlight spilled cleanly across the water, lay a completely secluded private pool.
Appearing a little ahead of the appointed time, there was Amasawa Ichika of Class 2-A.
Already changed into her swimsuit, she stepped out into the deserted oasis.
“Being in a private rental really does feel special~” she said, her voice bright and teasing as she glanced around the empty poolside. “You're seriously footing the bill for this, right, Nanase-chan?”
Arriving at the pool just a step behind her was Class 2-D’s Nanase Tsubasa.
“Yes,” Nanase replied with her usual composure. “Since I was the one who selfishly called you out here today, please do not worry about the expense.”
Nanase had booked the private pool for a sixty-minute block. With another student scheduled to take over right at noon, their time here was strictly limited.
“This place was twenty thousand points last year, but now it costs twenty-five thousand, doesn't it? It's hilarious how the rental fee just casually went up. Looks like the wave of inflation has even reached us out here~”
But the clock was ticking, even as they made small talk. Amasawa immediately claimed a lounge chair and snatched up a menu.
“I'm totally ordering something expensive,” she hummed, tapping her index finger against the glossy pictures as she pondered her options.
“Please, order whatever you like,” Nanase replied. “Though, from the standpoint of preventing food waste, I ask that you try not to leave any leftovers.”
“So that's what you're worried about. Must mean you have plenty of Private Points saved up, nya?”
“Not necessarily. I am simply a saver by nature,” Nanase answered with cool indifference.
Hearing this, Amasawa narrowed her eyes in a sly smile.
“In that case, you must have paid for all this because you decided a little private time with me was worth the splurge.”
Keeping her gaze glued strictly to the menu, Amasawa casually guided the conversation forward.
“That is correct.” Nanase said. “I intend to make our time together worthwhile.”
Intentionally avoiding Nanase's expression, Amasawa gave a small nod and snapped the menu shut with a definitive thwack.
“I think I'll go with a melon cream soda! What about you, Nanase-chan?”
She held the menu out to Nanase, who accepted it only to place it back onto the table unopened.
“I am fine, thank you.”
“Hmm, really? Well, suit yourself~”
After casually placing the order for her melon cream soda, Amasawa turned her attention back to the girl standing beside her. Slowly, deliberately, she let her eyes roam up and down the length of Nanase's body, her appraising gaze trailing over her as if licking her from head to toe.
Nanase’s face remained a completely blank slate. Betraying neither anger nor amusement, she kept her true feelings perfectly concealed behind an emotionless facade.
Driven by an irresistible urge to peel that mask away, Amasawa lowered her gaze.
“But seriously, Nanase-chan, haven’t you grown another cup size this past year?” Amasawa teased. “I think I’ve developed pretty well myself, but... it looks like you've got me beat~”
“That is sexual harassment.”
“Oh, come on. It’s your fault for having the kind of body that is just asking for it~”
“Under normal circumstances, that would be an unforgivable statement,” Nanase replied coldly. “I do not believe I am at fault in the slightest.”
An ordinary high school girl would have reacted with intense embarrassment or disgust. Yet, Nanase radiated absolutely nothing. It wasn’t that Amasawa thought she was completely devoid of emotion; rather, whenever Nanase flipped a certain internal switch, her mental defenses became impenetrably high.
“That swimsuit is pretty bold, too. Quite the aggressive fashion statement.” Fully expecting a reprimand, Amasawa forcefully pressed the attack, desperate to find a crack in the Nanase's armor.
“I merely rented a design that a classmate recommended. Is there a problem with that?”
“Not a problem, exactly. I just figured the boys wouldn't know where to look.”
“Are you not in the exact same situation, Amasawa-san?”
It was a fair point. Amasawa was wearing a swimsuit a full grade flashier than any of the other girls they’d seen at the pool, proving her tastes were just as daring as Nanase's.
“In my case, it's totally fine, because I'm showing off on purpose!” Amasawa laughed. “The boys stare at me with lust in their eyes, and the girls glare at me with raging jealousy. I love being the center of attention.”
“...Is that so?”
Perhaps unable to process that particular brand of exhibitionism, a slightly troubled frown flickered across Nanase's face. It was the first genuine display of emotion she had shown, but just as quickly as it appeared, her rigid, stoic mask slammed back into place.
“Anyway, to change the subject for a sec…” Amasawa hummed. “I heard someone from Class 2-D was forced to say bye-bye during the Special Exam the other day. Is your class holding up okay, nya?”
The question wasn't born out of genuine interest. Amasawa was simply tossing it out as a way to kill time until her drink arrived.
For a fraction of a second, Nanase’s expression stiffened. Letting out a soft exhale, she averted her eyes and stared off into the distance.
While the third-year students had landed on an uninhabited island to begin their survival exam, the second-years had been locked in a fierce competition of their own through a unique Special Exam. The results had been definitive: Class A secured first place, Class C took second, and Class B came in third. That left Nanase’s Class D sitting dead last.
Up until this point, the dynamic among the second-years had been a slow, steady crawl, with Class A gradually pulling away from the rest of the pack. Now, however, that gap was widening into a chasm. But this latest exam had been more than just a simple defeat for Class D. During the course of the trial, an expulsion had been finalized. They had suffered a casualty.
“The class itself is functioning without issue,” Nanase replied quietly. “However, since the responsibility for his expulsion ultimately lies with me, I am left with mixed feelings on the matter.”
“Wait, it's your responsibility, Nanase-chan? Was that how the story went? I thought he broke a rule or something.”
Amasawa hadn't paid much attention to the Special Exam, but she had overheard a few rumors regarding the circumstances of the expulsion.
“In truth,” Nanase said. “another student was supposed to be expelled.”
“That's a pretty provocative way of putting it. Are you saying you tried to get someone expelled, Nanase-chan?”
“That is correct.”
It was the kind of statement that would earn a harsh scolding even if said as a joke, yet Nanase affirmed it instantly, without a shred of hesitation.
“However, my target realized my intentions early on and devised countermeasures,” Nanase explained. “Then, as a warning, they cornered a student in Class D who had absolutely nothing to do with the incident. Knowing full well the severe penalty he would face, the expelled student must have been driven into such a mental corner that he felt he had no other choice but to break the rules.”
Having her curiosity slightly piqued, Amasawa sat up from her lounge chair and scrutinized Nanase's face.
While she couldn't detect any hints of guilt or regret in Nanase's eyes, there was an undeniable frustration seeping through her rigid mask.
“Doesn't sound like a very peaceful story.”
“Does that interest you?”
“Eh? Sorry, not really.” Sensing she was about to be dragged into something tedious, Amasawa offered a dismissive reply.
But Nanase had clearly anticipated the evasion and pressed on without hesitation. “You are not entirely divorced from this incident, Amasawa-san. In fact, you already know the details, do you not?”
“My heart belongs solely to Ayanokōji-senpai,” Amasawa answered, her tone dripping with mock devotion. “I couldn't care less about silly squabbles between classmates, y'know?”
Unfazed by the flippant deflection, Nanase continued. “The student I was trying to expel was from Class 2-A.”
“Ah, so that's where the ‘not divorced’ part comes in. Sorry to disappoint, but I seriously had no clue. Nor do I care about this even a tiny bit. Still... who were you targeting?”
Amasawa tilted her head, genuinely curious as to who in her class could have possibly provoked Nanase into wanting them expelled.
“Ishigami-kun,” Nanase replied.
“Ishigami?” Amasawa repeated. “The cool, handsome guy? He doesn't exactly seem like the type to make moves out in the open.”
Despite sharing a class with him for over a year, Amasawa had practically zero contact with the boy. In truth, she had absolutely no interest in anyone in her own grade. Because she never bothered interacting with her peers, she barely even knew their basic personalities. It was safe to say the girl standing right in front of her was her one and only object of interest in the entire second year.
As these thoughts drifted casually through Amasawa's mind, she noticed Nanase fixing her with a razor-sharp glare.
“He is far sharper than one might imagine,” Nanase warned.
“Hmm. Well, I know he's essentially in a leader-like position, but Ishigami-kun, huh... So, what made you decide to pick a fight with him? Y'know, just to pry a little.”
“There are... certain circumstances behind it.”
The atmosphere around Nanase underwent a subtle shift. Instantly, Amasawa became absolutely certain that this topic, one she had brought up purely to kill time, was the actual reason she had been summoned here today.
“I'm starting to get the feeling that this little story and my invitation to the pool are connected.”
“Just to be absolutely certain,” Nanase said, her voice dropping a fraction, “you were not involved in this incident, were you, Amasawa-san?”
“Do I really look like a suspect here?” Amasawa asked.
“If you truly mean it when you say you only have eyes for Ayanokōji-senpai... then I concluded your involvement was a distinct possibility.”
Normally, if a girl was strictly interested in Ayanokōji, it would stand to reason that someone like Ishigami wouldn't matter to her in the slightest. Yet, Nanase’s tone implied a completely different, paradoxical logic: If you were deeply obsessed with Ayanokōji, then you would naturally be deeply concerned with Ishigami.
“Sorry, but I seriously couldn't care less, and I definitely had no part in it.” Flapping her left hand back and forth, Amasawa offered a genuine, outright denial.
“I understand. Regardless, I had fully intended to broach this subject myself.” Dismissing the slight detour in their conversation, Nanase pressed on, firing off her carefully chosen words in rapid succession. “I will speak under the assumption that you truly know nothing. He... Ishigami Kyō is not entirely unconnected to the White Room.”
With that single sentence, Nanase sliced right to the heart of the matter, abruptly dragging the core issue out into the open.
“Ishigami-kun has ties to the White Room? If he’s my age, that would mean he’s a White Room student, but that’s impossible. And Ayanokōji-senpai is the absolute only one in the generation above us... Wait, could he be younger? Hmmm... I think I'd be even less interested if he were a junior, though~”
“You are saying that while knowing full well it is not the case, are you not?”
Noting the sharp, unmistakable flicker of anger in Nanase's glare, Amasawa brought her hands together in a playful gesture of apology.
“My bad, my bad. So basically, you're saying he's connected, just not as a student. And since you actively moved to eliminate him, that must mean Ishigami-kun is working for the White Room's side. An assassin sent in to get Ayanokōji-senpai expelled, does that sound about right, nya?”
Even as she voiced the theory, an obvious contradiction sprang to mind. If that were true, wasn't Ishigami leading an awfully leisurely, remarkably ordinary school life?
And that wasn't all. The assassins specifically dispatched under Tsukishiro's orders to expel Ayanokōji were Amasawa and Yagami. If Ishigami was also tangled up with the White Room on top of that, things were certainly turning into quite a lively party. A faint smile touched Amasawa's lips at the thought.
However, she was currently taking this entire story with a grain of salt. She wasn't about to swallow the claims at face value. After all, the true allegiances of the girl standing beside her, Nanase Tsubasa, were still steeped in a murky gray area, neither definitively white nor undeniably black.
“The situation has changed drastically since you and Yagami-kun first made your moves shortly after enrolling,” Nanase explained. “The question of whether or not to expel Ayanokōji-senpai is nothing more than a single current in a much larger flow—”
Mid-sentence, Amasawa lightly raised a palm, gesturing for her to stop. Right on cue, the door to the private pool opened, and a female staff member walked in carrying the melon cream soda Amasawa had ordered.
Accepting the drink with a bright, charming smile, Amasawa waited politely for the staff member to leave before taking a generous gulp through her straw.
“Wow, so sweet! But so tasty~” Pressing a hand to her cheek, she let out a small, exaggerated shiver, playing the part of an innocently cute girl to perfection.
“May I continue?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Amasawa-san, you were ordered by the White Room side, specifically by Tsukishiro-san, to have Ayanokōji-senpai expelled. That is correct, yes?”
Amasawa nodded encouragingly, urging her to go on.
“From the very beginning, Tsukishiro-san believed the odds of you actually succeeding in expelling him were fifty-fifty.”
“Wait, so he knew right from the start that our abilities were no match for Senpai's?”
“It might be more accurate to say that he simply did not care which outcome came to pass.”
The spoon in Amasawa's hand, which had just scooped up a bite of vanilla ice cream, froze in midair.
When she had been sent to Advanced Nurturing High School, she was ordered to follow Tsukishiro's instructions. Because of that, she had indirectly assumed he was an ally. Was that fundamental premise completely wrong? She turned the thought over in the back of her mind.
“That definitely brings up a lot of things I want to dig into,” Amasawa said slowly, “but can I ask a fundamental question first?"
“What is it?”
“Nanase-chan, at the end of the day... Are you Ayanokōji-senpai's ally? Or are you his enemy?”
Ayanokōji himself had previously asked Amasawa to look into Nanase. Right now, the girl was running around acting like his loyal knight, but there wasn't a single shred of concrete proof to back up her allegiance.
“Yes, you make a fair point. It would probably be best to make my stance explicitly clear, including the matter regarding Tsukishiro-san.”
Nanase pulled a smartphone from her bag, tapped the screen a few times, and held it out.
As Amasawa reached out to take it, her gaze drifted to another phone resting innocently on the table.
“For someone playing the honors student, you're actually quite a bad girl, Nanase-chan. Carrying two phones around, and one that looks like a carbon copy of the school-issued models, no less. If you get caught with that, a simple suspension might not cover it.”
Teasing her with a playful lilt, Amasawa finally lowered her eyes to the screen she had been handed.
“To answer one of your earlier questions, Ishigami-kun is not Ayanokōji-senpai's enemy,” Nanase declared. “Putting his own personal feelings aside, his faction is unambiguously the White Room... or, to be entirely precise, Ayanokōji Atsuomi's faction.”
Ayanokōji Atsuomi was Ayanokōji Kiyotaka's biological father and the founder of the White Room. To Amasawa and the other students raised within its walls, he was their absolute ruler.
The phone contained a comprehensive dossier on Ishigami Kyō, detailing everything from his upbringing to the circumstances that led to his enrollment.
During his childhood, he had met Atsuomi and was profoundly inspired by him. Upon entering middle school, Ishigami leveraged his parents' connections to contact Atsuomi independently. He was subsequently highly praised by the man as a brilliant individual with a natural intellect, and ultimately enrolled at Advanced Nurturing High School to act as an observer over Kiyotaka.
Scrolling through the profile, Amasawa’s eyes landed on a specific passage. It noted that while Ishigami deeply craved Atsuomi's acknowledgment, he harbored a bitter resentment over the fact that Atsuomi rated his own son much higher.
“I see. It's precisely because he reveres ‘Sensei’ so much that he's jealous of Senpai, the masterpiece.”
For a moment, another figure overlapped faintly with Ishigami in her mind.
Yagami.
Imagining the undeniable parallels between both of them, Amasawa felt a slight, involuntary stir of emotion in her chest.
“That may well be the case,” Nanase agreed. “However, unlike you White Room students, he was not ordered to expel Ayanokōji-senpai. His mandate is strictly limited to surveillance.”
No matter his personal feelings, Ishigami would never defy Sensei's wishes. If anything, his position was simply to watch over and preserve the masterpiece.
“I was pretty confident in my ability to keep tabs on Ayanokōji-senpai,” Amasawa murmured, “but I never once noticed him in the picture.”
For over a year, her own monitoring of Ayanokōji had bordered on stalking. Yet, in all that time, she had never caught Ishigami attempting to make contact. Since she couldn't stick to Ayanokōji twenty-four seven, Ishigami might have slipped through the cracks here and there, but if he were making frequent contact, she undoubtedly would have noticed.
“Unless there’s some unexpected development,” Nanase said, “he may believe there is no need for him to interfere.”
“So he does recognize Senpai's abilities." Amasawa let the thought settle before shifting to the next point. “By the way, does Ishigami-kun know about us too?”
“I doubt he knows about me, but I am certain he has received detailed information regarding you and Yagami-kun directly from the White Room.”
“Makes sense. If that's the case, he must be pretty capable.”
Amasawa had never once been approached by him, nor had she ever sensed an unnatural gaze or hostile vibe aimed in her direction. That was exactly why she had paid absolutely zero attention to Ishigami throughout her entire school life.
“I cannot speak to his basic academic metrics, but in terms of deductive reasoning, I would assess him as being at least a step above you and Yagami-kun.”
“Eeeh~?” Amasawa’s voice rose with theatrical disbelief. “Aren't you just underestimating me a little? Or maybe you're overestimating him?”
“It would certainly be helpful for us if that were true,” Nanase said dryly. “Regardless, his current policy seems to be to maintain his surveillance until graduation. But should the tide change, he will likely take immediate action.”
“Meaning Ishigami-kun will make a move to force Ayanokōji-senpai out of the school?”
Even when asked this, Nanase did not affirm. Instead, she briefly averted her gaze, and looked up at the clear blue sky.
“At this point, the word expulsion alone is no longer enough to describe it,” she said. “What matters to Atsuomi is ensuring that Ayanokōji-senpai is brought back into his own hands. If he decides expulsion is necessary for that purpose, Ishigami-kun will follow his orders. If he decides it is best to leave him alone until graduation, then Ishigami-kun will do nothing until the very end. At least, that’s my understanding of the current situation.”
Amasawa stared at her. “For someone who isn't a White Room student, you're vastly more knowledgeable about this whole mess than I am, and I'm the actual assassin sent to get Senpai expelled. You got that phone from Tsukishiro, too, didn't you? Just who are you, Nanase-chan?”
That was the very core of the mystery, the absolute root of Nanase’s guiding principles, and the very thing Ayanokōji himself likely wanted to uncover.
And now, Amasawa was stepping right into it.
“Did you truly think I would just hand over that information so easily?”
“Ah, figured as much. I guess I can't blame you, seeing as I'm a White Room student.”
Thinking she might have probed a bit too deep, Amasawa was surprised when a faint smile graced Nanase's lips.
“I am joking. You respect, no, you revere Ayanokōji-senpai. Because of that absolute devotion, I am completely convinced you would obey his every word. But precisely because the Ayanokōji-senpai you are loyal to belongs to the White Room, there are certain things I cannot share.”
Amasawa understood what Nanase was implying.
If Nanase’s true intentions were brought to light, Ishigami would undoubtedly make his move. That was Nanase's rationale. That was why she had struck first, attempting to get him expelled before he could act.
Inside Amasawa's mind, the puzzle pieces rapidly began falling into place.
“However, I can tell you my ultimate objective,” Nanase offered.
“Then give it to me straight. What exactly is your goal, Nanase-chan? Y'know, within the boundaries of what you're actually allowed to say.”
“Initially, my goal was to defeat Ayanokōji-senpai and have him expelled. That was the sole reason I enrolled in this school.”
Seeing Nanase deliver this statement with such a deadpan, serious expression, Amasawa couldn't help but burst into laughter.
“A for effort, but no matter what you do, Nanase-chan, you wouldn’t be able to beat Ayanokōji-senpai.”
Even if Nanase had been hiding her true strength this entire time, that fundamental truth would never waver.
“I am well aware,” Nanase replied calmly. “But do you not think that is only true if I were to fight him head-on?”
Without speaking boastfully, Nanase continued, implying that she had a chance of winning.
“No, no, frontal assault or sneak attack, it doesn't matter. It's totally impossible.”
Ayanokōji simply wasn't the kind of opponent who would fall for conventional tactics, surprise attacks, or underhanded tricks. Amasawa felt a slight wave of disappointment, having assumed Nanase was at least smart enough to understand that much.
However, the next words out of Nanase's mouth were something Amasawa could never have anticipated.
“The enemy I must defeat is no longer Ayanokōji-senpai. It is the man lurking in his shadow: Ayanokōji Atsuomi, the founder of the White Room. And to accomplish this, I must steal Ayanokōji-senpai away, take control of him, and seize the initiative. After all, he is the most vital piece in his father's plans.”
“Hold on, there's no way I can see that actually working.”
“That depends entirely on the method. Ayanokōji-senpai is formidable. As long as I interact with him as an enemy, bringing him under my control is an absolute impossibility. However, if my goal is to induce a change of heart in him, the story changes.”
“...A change of heart?”
“Let me ask you, Amasawa-san. What do you think Ayanokōji-senpai will do once he graduates?”
“What else? Wouldn't he just go back to the White Room? Whether Senpai becomes a new instructor or follows Sensei to accomplish something massive, I wouldn't know.”
“I was told his future would be one of those two options. In other words, if that comes to pass, Atsuomi wins. I intend to prevent that at all costs. Tsukishiro-san said it himself: while Ayanokōji-senpai may have fled the White Room's environment out of intellectual curiosity, he certainly does not hate the place. Nor does he have any real intention of defying them. No, he is fully prepared to willingly return to his origins.”
“Well, I don't know how it looks from your perspective, Nanase-chan, but I don't exactly have a bad image of the White Room either,” Amasawa shrugged. “It's where I've spent every single day since I was born. Simply put, it's my home.”
Having recently lost that very place to return to, one could say Amasawa’s heart carried a quiet, hidden wound.
“That is completely unacceptable,” Nanase replied. “That man is simply biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to use Ayanokōji-senpai. To send him back to a man like that... I absolutely refuse to let it happen.”
Realizing her hands had unconsciously balled into white-knuckled fists, Nanase forced herself to loosen her grip.
“So, you're going to try your absolute best to stop Ayanokōji-senpai from returning to the White Room, huh? Nanase-chan.”
“Yes.”
“Then what? Are you just gonna bow your head and beg, ‘Please Ayanokōji-senpai, go and live a normal, happy life~’? Come on now~”
“I know it will not be that simple. Ayanokōji-senpai is not going to just nod his head and agree.”
“I don't know if he has any actual interest in a ‘normal life,’ but I definitely think returning to the White Room holds a lot more appeal to him.”
“Indeed. And on the off-chance that he did agree, there is no way Ayanokōji Atsuomi would tolerate such a rebellion.”
“Then how exactly do you plan to change Senpai's heart?”
“To be completely honest, I have not fully pieced together the answer to that yet. But I believe I have found a hint. Before I can put it into action, however, the stage must be perfectly set. Persuading him and tearing him away from the White Room will require careful groundwork. The moment I begin making overt moves toward that answer, Ishigami-kun will undoubtedly notice, and he will come to stop me
“So you tried to strike first and get him expelled to clear the board....I see.” Amasawa murmured.
But now that Nanase’s preemptive strike had failed, a dangerous new reality loomed over them. If Ishigami was truly as capable as Nanase claimed, there was a very real chance that he had already sensed the anomaly. In all likelihood, he was investigating who had targeted him, quietly preparing to eliminate the threat.
“Making that move to get Ishigami-kun expelled this time might have been a bit of a blunder on your part, Nanase-chan.”
“I will not deny it.”
Yet, Nanase didn't seem panicked in the slightest. Watching her, Amasawa deduced that the preemptive strike had likely doubled as a probing attack to test her opponent's strength and gather intelligence. And if Ishigami was truly as sharp as Nanase claimed, then targeting an unrelated student in retaliation was an absolutely brilliant, perfectly calculated move, a flawless warning shot that established dominance without escalating the situation completely out of control.
“Okay, I think I've grasped the general picture,” Amasawa said. “Though I have no idea how much of this little story is actually true.”
“Of course. I am not asking you to blindly believe every word I say.”
Even while taking it all with a grain of salt, Amasawa couldn't detect the faintest scent of falsehood from Nanase. At the very least, Nanase's claims were persuasive enough that Amasawa was willing to treat them as the working truth.
“So, what's my role in all this? It's not like you just want me to play messenger and relay everything to Ayanokōji-senpai, right?”
If that were all Nanase wanted, there would have been no reason to involve Amasawa like this.
“I want you to become my ally.”
“Ally? You mean you want me to help induce this ‘change of heart’ in Ayanokōji-senpai?”
“That is certainly part of it. But first and foremost, I would appreciate it if you could act as my backup in the event that I am expelled.”
“Heeh, so you've even factored in the possibility of being taken out by Ishigami-kun.”
“I will do everything in my power to ensure that does not happen, but there is no telling how things will unfold.”
When combining Ishigami's raw capabilities with the classified intelligence provided by the White Room, the threat level skyrocketed. Amasawa deduced that Nanase simply couldn't guarantee her own safety against such overwhelming odds.
“Sorry, but at the end of the day, I'm still a White Room student through and through,” Amasawa sighed, shaking her head. “I've lived my entire life taking pride in that, and I still have lingering attachments to it. I don't dislike you, Nanase-chan, but personally? I want to support whatever future Senpai desires. And beyond that, assisting Sensei is my true, original purpose.”
What Nanase was trying to do was no minor adjustment. It was an attempt to take Ayanokōji’s future and bend it away from its expected course, forcing it from one path onto another.
Whether that intervention was right or wrong, Amasawa could not yet judge. That was precisely why she had no choice but to refuse.
“What is your dream, Amasawa-san?” Nanase asked quietly. “To return to the White Room alongside Ayanokōji-senpai... is that it?”
“So what if it is?” Amasawa replied. “Got a problem with that?”
Of course, she already knew deep down that such a dream would never come true.
The White Room had branded her a failure, and there was no returning from that exile.
Even so, finding solace in the fact that she was still free to dream, Amasawa offered Nanase a bright, unapologetic smile.
“I understand how you feel,” Nanase said. “However, miracles do not happen. That wish of yours is one hundred percent unattainable. No matter what grand achievements you might accomplish, there is no bright future waiting for you.”
“How can you be so sure about that?” Amasawa countered lightly. “For all you know, I might just be on the verge of awakening my true potential, y'know?”
“This is a matter that goes far beyond your individual capabilities. Do you have any idea what your father is currently planning?”
“My father? Sorry, but I have absolutely zero interest in that kind of thing. Doesn't that have exactly nothing to do with me?”
“Your opinion is irrelevant. The simple fact of the matter is that the legal 'ownership' of you, Amasawa-san, lies with your father."
Nanase smoothly took back the smartphone she had handed over and began tapping at the screen.
“Even if some so-called ‘parent’ I've never even met tries to butt in—”
“I am well aware that you are an existence your father cannot control,” Nanase interrupted. “And because he knows this just as well as you do, he has been in close contact with the White Room to advance his preparations.”
As Nanase laid this out with quiet, clinical detachment, the playful smile began to slip from Amasawa's face.
“What is it, re-education? Discipline? Whatever grim future he's planning, bring it on.”
“If you were truly prepared for the reality of it, that would be fine,” Nanase warned. “However, massive fraud has recently been uncovered in his company. Short on funds and backed into a corner, he is desperate. It seems there are certain syndicates overseas willing to pay exorbitant prices for beautiful young women, and he is currently scrambling to secure a buyer for you.”
Nanase handed the phone back. On the screen Amasawa was now scrolling through was the photo and profile of a man presumed to be her biological father.
“So I've outlived my usefulness, and now I'm just going to be sold off to the highest bidder. Hilarious.”
Regardless of whether this was the truth or an elaborate lie, Amasawa cheerfully clapped her hands together and laughed out loud.
But her eyes were completely dead. It was as if the harsh reality had just been violently shoved in her face, the agonizing truth that she didn't even possess the fundamental right to dream of a future.
“If you choose to cooperate with me, I may be able to save you from that fate.”
As Amasawa continued swiping across the screen, the display switched to an English webpage. It detailed exactly which overseas brokers her father was currently in contact with. It also outlined the horrific reality of what awaited her at her destination, a living hell so depraved one would hesitate to even put it into words.
“Oh my, look at that crazy price tag attached to me,” Amasawa giggled. “I could buy anything in the world with this kind of money.”
“From the perspective of an ordinary person, yes,” Nanase replied coldly. “However, given President Amasawa's massive debts, that amount is merely a drop in the bucket.”
Amasawa thought about it over and over again. Her entire life was something she couldn't even verify as truth or lie. However, one thing was absolutely certain: the future she had just been shown held zero salvation.
“Upon successfully inducing Ayanokōji-senpai's change of heart, I will extend ample protection to you after graduation, just as I plan to do for him. If that happens, you will be able to start a life that belongs entirely to you.”
Meaning she would finally be allowed to stand on the starting line as an individual, autonomous human being.
“...Could you really pull something like that off?”
“I can. It is true that Ayanokōji Atsuomi is a man of considerable power with deep connections to the underworld. However, the faction backing me is large enough to easily swallow them whole. Given the circumstances, even you can imagine that much, can you not?”
“Well…” Amasawa said slowly, “assuming you were actually serious about protecting me, maybe so.”
But Amasawa wasn't naive enough to blindly swallow such sweet promises. If she held the same kind of absolute value as Ayanokōji Kiyotaka, then perhaps Nanase's faction genuinely would mobilize to protect her. But there was no guarantee they would afford her that same luxury. After all, she possessed no such value.
“Could you give me a little time to think about it?”
“Of course,” Nanase nodded smoothly. “I will be waiting for a favorable reply.”
Flashing a defiant smirk, Amasawa scooped up a bite of the ice cream, which had now begun to melt.
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