Script Breaker (1)

The class was bubbly today, foamy words and jumpy hands.

The students were positively agitated, especially because it was Friday. They knew that today was special because Monday was mundane.

Every week, the student council president had the privilege to choose what classes every grade and student would have.

Per habit, they expected Monday to be special but it ended up being physics, maths, English and history. Murmurs around the school were trendy that day, spreading far and wide that cherished sweetheart Muraoka Rii was choosing another day for custom classes.

The week went by normal, feeling old without anything like lizard vasectomies going on, making students antsy for anticipated Friday.

…

Miteki Bless would be a fool if she didn't understand what was happening. It was spelled out for her in the club room.

The strawberry shortcake, the paper, the custom classes. The entire club excluded her and planned a finale for their suicide. They wanted their last day to be entertaining.

They want a miserable loser like me to be the God overseeing their death.

Till the very end, this day was a loose screw playing with the lives of infants. Miteki Bless, an infant herself, begrudgingly finding herself as the merchant of death.

As a result, she knew that no matter what she did today, Muraoka Rii had a backup plan.

She could not make sense of the class subjects though.

Forensics… There were a few things she could attach loosely.

Miteki's experience with forensics told her that it would be less about identifying wounds, bruises and body parts—moreso, it would be ‘mapping out the last 5 minutes of the dreaded dead’s existence’ part. An underrated section of forensic science, mapping out someone's life. The same way one would dissect the history of their physiology, would one try and reconstruct their life in that manner.

Is Muraoka Rii trying to prep the school for their deaths? It wasn’t clear, yet it could not be said otherwise or argued against if the statement was: “Muroaka Rii is on a streak of hedonism, treating her friendships as game packages.”

Once again, Miteki Bless expected herself to frown. Nothing on her face moved, it was frozen and passive. A perpetual blizzard whose icicles did not seem to move as much as a life hazard should.

Miteki Bless was a group of sharp titanic-sized icicles that were safe to stand below.

She was an iceberg glacier, too big to understand itself.

Miteki Bless casually took out earmuffs from the small square storage lockers in the back of the class. The ones that were as tall and wide in diameter as those that coin locker babies were stuffed in.

She didn't quite understand why she was thinking of babies in the moment.

Nothing philosophical like, "Perhaps because a death is the sign of rebirth." Came to mind.

Instead, she thought about her entire day till now.

It's been spent angry, sulking… teary. I'm a crybaby, she concluded.

She tried another conclusion but met a dead end, looping back, I'm a crybaby.

What a shame. She wished she could disappear on the spot and never resurface. A turn around the corridor with no return, no life within miles.

Settling back to her desk, she covered her ears with the earmuffs.

A teacher was bound to enter through the door any second now, announcing their first class as forensics. An outroar would sound, and first five minutes of ten would be spent trying to calm down the class. The last half would be spent out the class door, guided towards an empty forensics lab.

The door creaked open as the last of Miteki's fingers bent away from the fuzz on the earmuffs.

She had her hair down, no longer in buns, so her hair tangled with the earmuff band like seaweeds curling around clownfish.

A teacher—she did not know the name—walked to the center of the podium and began taking attendance.

The face was familiar, as was the build, but everything else in terms of non-materialistic ideals was lost on her. She didn't know the personality, the name and mannerisms, even feeling that she did not know the male-presenting teacher's gender.

Every school she attended had a large teacher supply, and she would make effort to remember only those who would benefit her future. She wouldn't dwell too much on this random male teacher. If she forgot him, then he was not worth her time.

She rested her chin on her head and closed her eyes, counting: "Four, three, two… takoyaki one."

"Today, you all have forensic science—"

The floor rumbled from numerous marching feet, underneath callously screeching vocal chords. Miteki's desk was displaced.

No empathy for my ears.

She diverted her attention from the chaos and placed the desk back in its place.

She gripped her hair a bit tightly. She unintentionally hid it well, but she was stressed right now. Anyone looking at her from the outside would see a bored, slightly annoyed prodigy. Yet, on the inside she was melting into a black sheep. While standing out as the only passive one, she was immensely bullied by the neurons in her brain. She was centralized on the tasks she had to perform today.

She recited a sutra in her clouded mind: Do I do this? Do I do that? Can I do that? I can't do that.

The possibilities of things she could do never ceased, infinitely flooding the space inside the shuttles of her head.

Possibilities of error floated the most inside, placing flags in every inch of her creative thinking, as if exploring the unknown.

An idea would pop up and impostor syndrome would land on impact, claiming that idea and propelling it to falsities and erroneous imagination.

Miteki Bless was going to give up, until the perfect idea came to her.

She accidentally spoke it into existence, something she would do a lot in the future, "My end goal should be to win Lydie Heung over. That should make me remember that I'm God."

That last sentence was clearly sarcastic and snide.

Her desk mate however, heard this and shook their head in lament. Prodigies that let their egos go to their heads eventually plummet. What was curious, the first sentence didn't seem too far-fetched to the desk mate. In fact, it confused them. Weren't they already friends? It didn't take long for them to rationalize that as a person whose demeanor was solitary and unsociable, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that even those they surrounded themselves with weren't their friends.

A few minutes later, the forensic lab one floor down, quickly filled up with perfumed girls from one floor up, like the incense in shops clinging the entire journey till home. Their fragrance overlapped with the disinfectants and gave each of their noses a dose of chemicals. After nonstop talking and endless gossip, the scent dissolved as they got used to the swarm of perfumes. There was still an undertone of disinfectant, that could be smelled whenever one of the students was close to a simulation box.

The boxes contained soil with dna samples. They each had varying amounts of items: tweezers, microscopes, gloves, bones, acetate, rayons, cover slips etc.

The teacher announced for students to disband pair-ups, advising, "One for all. Write your names on a sheet of paper and then bring it up to me, place it in this bin."

He encouraged them to write the wrong names, and Miteki let it slip: "Okay, you want us to analyze the paper as a first test, teach? Do you have a catalogue of fingerprints for us to comb through…?"

Miteki Bless was speaking from the heart, forgetting to speaking with honorifics.

"Ahem, don't defer the class, Miteki-san."

Miteki let it slip again: "Teach. How do you know my name? I don't remember replying to you when you took attendance."

Mr. Ino coughed. Trying his best to keep his eyes from widening, he said, "I have been teaching in this class for a few weeks now, student."

"Oh. You must be bad. At teaching, then. Usually. I remember the names of good teachers. O.K. Continue."

The students whispered badly about Miteki Bless. Mr. Ino couldn't hear their exact words, occasionally hearing the end of sentences when whispers would get passionately noisier.

"… embarrassment."

"… know right, how can he be a teacher here?"

His heart was an engine beating in his ears. Though the students wouldn't care if he scolded Miteki Bless, the faculty would. This was a one in centuries prodigy on their hands. He needed to treat her with respect, if not care. He needed to remind himself that smart people had their eccentricities, reminding himself, reminding himself… eccentricities, eccentricities, in order to calm down.

He didn't know that the students were actually coming in his defense.

"Hey, don't you think for our class Miteki-san is pretty embarrassing? Ah, so embarrassing."

"I know right, how can he be a teacher here? Dealing with Miteki-san is the worst thing to have to do!" The whisper-yelling method was effective.

His blood unwarmed, Mr. Ino fortified his face. His hands lay confidently at his sides, prepared to move whenever he needed to explain and describe things to his class.

His words were smooth and hypnotic.

Even so, Miteki Bless felt that this was a performance and not anything actually helpful and useful.

What her mind looked for wasn't for teacher's who could help you pay attention, but those who could properly explain the subject.

The explanation didn't need to click immediately, it needed to simmer and allow her to hypothesize and make up gestures in her creative world. Through trials, tears, sweat and errors, she could conclusively say that this was the best method. She had enough confidence in herself to believe that all roads she ended at when it came to an academical question were better than the taught material.

Drooling and dazing off, her half-asleep state actually latched onto the teacher's explanation.

Today's class was more of a game than a lesson. The class would've rioted by normal metrics, but they remained quiet because of the words exchanged between Mr. Ino and Miteki. They felt sympathetic.

They have to deal with Miteki Bless too. You know?

Miteki Bless' eyes shifted to Muraoka Rii. They followed and traced her actions, delaying after them on purpose. They recorded the way the blood moved inside Rii's slender fingers tapping on the white counter, contouring the figure line of her back and hips, skating up to her face, that was now staring directly at Miteki.

Plum eyes fell into blackberry eyes.

Miteki Bless didn't feel ashamed, caught staring, she openly stared even more. Shifting her weight to one peculiar leg. It gave the appearance of a mean girl judging a soft, innocent bunny.

The scene was weird to look at, while Miteki Bless was blissfully unaware.

All she could think about… What the teacher was describing, it was too deliberate.

It had to have been a script written up by Muraoka Rii, it created an environment where Miteki Bless could perfectly enact more than ten of the tasks entrusted to her.

Dear student, the following is what Teacher Ino prescribed would happen within the next two hours.

You will write your name, or another's on a sheet of paper. The name must be someone within the class and no one else. Unintentionally or intentionally, your fingerprints will smudge against the paper—this part was said silently, deduced by Miteki herself.

Someone will be chosen as a hero, and someone else will be chosen as the lead detractor.

The lead detractor is someone that must fake their identity as another student, and not get caught. At any instance where a "light switch off" turns on, a discussion will be held where students can discuss who lied about their identity on a paper.

The points are multiplied if the student voted off has their history before writing down their name perfectly mapped out. (The history is the last few minutes before writing.)

It is a simple concept, yet, the chaos lies in the fact that everyone can lie about their identity and detract the cases.

Being a firsthand victim of Muraoka's schemes, the lead detractor is most surely someone who would be good at detracting. The hero would be one of the student council members, and is allowed to check two students per light switch. Mr. Ino would tell them who lied and who didn't.

The game could turn complicated because of the lack of rules and how simple it was. The unregulation made it harder to think concisely.

In situations like these, Miteki takes the backseat… She may be forced to take a stand and lead.

She raised her hand, not waiting to be chosen. "Will the hero be announced or remain hidden?"

"… Hidden." Mr. Ino replied awkwardly, using little words for caution.

"O.K. Are there benefits in finding out who the hero is?"

"If you are the lead detractor, yes."

"The hero is useless then. I want to tell everyone. I will actively hunt for the hero first."

The staccato manner Miteki blankly expressed this idea was atmospherically unsettling. A few girls shuddered, while a few others were glad they were on the outer rings of the lab.

"Aha… That's great, Miteki-san." Mr. Ino's foolish attempt to please her.

"Do not give me compliments, Mr. Ino. If they are not sincere, I really don't need them. Please be respectful."

Mr. Ino nearly spat blood. Child, are you not the one who picked a fight?

He moved on as quickly as he could. Basically begging the students to come log their fingerprints in the red ink stamps. He furiously wrote their names down next to their fingerprints and printed a whole sheet of them.

Inside the line, the last three, waiting in order, were Ketsukira, Rii and Bless.

Before both of them could go back to the upending rows of counters, Miteki stopped them in their tracks.

She needed attention fast, and to do this, she used Mr. Ino as a scapegoat, fully aware he could not retaliate against her status.

She did not bother thinking of what this meant for her psyche. Whether she was joining the people she hated (kids who abused their status) or not, didn't matter in a life or death situation.

Such a stupid scenario was being used to dictate whether a group of lovely girls should die or not. It made her sick. It angered her to no end. She wanted to kill the ongoing class, and slash the subject to pieces.

She shoved Mr. Ino aside, eliciting gasps.

It was a domino effect. One gaze turned into ten gazes, ten gazes turned into the entire class. Maybe one person was absentminded before realizing the entire class was dead-still, unable to look away from a topic ahead.

She jumped up on the lectern, balancing on the slanted part. Her arms were posed up like she was crucified, an angelic object.

Everyone knew Miteki Bless was a pretty girl, with waist length, midnight crow hair. A beauty ruined by her running mouth.

She hadn't opened her mouth yet and her image was already ruined.

Miteki Bless' knees creased, and the tensing of her body was tight enough to make her tremble.

She repeatedly reminded herself this was a crowd full of people who already hated her, descending respect for her was fine. A -1 wasn't different from a 0. She also reminded herself that this crowd was nothing compared to the eyes that used to be on her during her national competitions. Nothing compared to the times she won, expecting her mom's embrace, only for their reunion to be cut short by jealous and livid people trying to murder her.

She got hurt for sure, but nothing hurt as much as her mother taking brunt hits for her.

The memories she dared remember from those times were ones where her mom was in less danger. Like when she was egged. She wailed and cried all night in her mother's arms, feeling guilty that she had to clean egg yolks out of her hair.

While her mom slept, she lit a candle and inspected the area where she was hit. She saw a nest of purple and red bruises. And cried even harder. The next day, her mother took a day off of work and called in sick for her. They had won a lot of prize money, but her mother dared not take her out for a treat with it, claiming, "This money is yours, when you're older it is up to you to use it however you want. I promise you, I will not use it."

I want to be great for you, mama.

Returning to the present, Miteki Bless glared forward. Proud that her blood was her mama's blood.

As long as she was sure she was Miteki Amafuu's daughter, she was alive!

"Kneel down to me, unfilial mortals!" She extended her hand, spreading her fingers wide apart as if trying to mind control her classmates.

A few of them burst out laughing.

"Seriously? What are you, a kid?"

"Yes!" Miteki Bless, daughter of Miteki Amafuu answered without a single blink.

No hesitation, she put a step forward on the lectern, a hand on her head. She struggled to keep the posture, but kept her shakey voice confident. "I am a kid! What will you do about it?"

She jumped down from the lectern and rolled in front of Rii, who didn't even attempt to hide her laughter.

She smiled arrogantly, and down at Miteki's rising figure.

Miteki Bless put a hand on Rii's shoulder and gazed longingly into her eyes.

Here goes nothing.

The performance for the class has started.

Phase 1 of the cult indoctrination.

Her first plan was to make the class wholly believe this was based on her selfish whims.

"Earlier this morning, while so many human beings embraced me inside the train… I thought to myself, if I am worshipped to such extents… Could I not spread my influence further? As you human beings would call it… Further to A cult."

The hand on Muraoka's shoulder slipped down to her waist, up through her stomach, bouncing off her invisible adam's apple, then slightly above it, pinching her chin.

Miteki Bless brought her voice down to barely above a seductive whisper, loud enough for the class to hear. This act had quieted them down and earned incredulous looks with inward curses of annoyance.

Pretending to be delirious, Miteki Bless lifted Muraoka’s chin and claimed her as hers.

Not with a kiss.

She pretended. As if it were their second time meeting in the entirety of their current lifespans, where the present was their current endpoint and limit.

“To be honest, my goal is supposedly: indoctrinate you into a cult. But my first thought when I see you, has always been…”

“‘Intimacy in human form.’ It feels wrong to make of you my first minion.”

Thinking of the movies she'd seen, Miteki Bless said, "But you're so juicy."

With that, she'd completed multiple tasks for the day.

A public announcement. Yes.

Uh-huh, to declaring herself as god.

Presenting the concept of a cult lead by her. Yup.

Somewhat. Attempting her first indoctrination.

Becoming a figure seen as derisive and decisive. Depends on who you ask.

She dropped the act immediately and headed for an empty spot in the rows.

Fortunately, no one wanted to be near her and spread apart, leaving an open trail for her. It didn't take long to find a place to rest.

This girl is crazy, Mr. Ino scowled.

He didn't hide the expression well, because Miteki commented on it. "Stop showing that face to your students. Have some professionalism."

You!? You're talking about professionalism?!

Fuming, he roamed around the classroom distributing freshly made cards from two days ago.

A good portion of them noted: defunct.

The remaining two were the aforementioned lead detractor and hero.

"Wait!" Miteki said. She wanted to look at all the cards. She was extra careful when getting up, to the extent that she carried her card with her. For fear of placing it inside her pocket and it getting lost, she carried the card in her sleeve.

At the front of the class, she proceeded to follow the same trail Mr. Ino went through, left to right in every row.

She obsessively poured over every detail on the back of every card.

Unfortunately, other than scratches and marks on a few cards, she didn't see anything remotely suspicious. The card were controlled and specialized, the manufacturers making no technical errors.

She walked past Uyehara Eme. While 1/4th of her body was left in front of Uyehara, Eme's chubby hands took hold of hers unexpectedly.

Eme didn't get out of her seat, opting to look up at her with beady eyes. "You're very bold and smart for taking this approach."

"Good luck."

"… Thank you." Miteki's heart raced in all its fleshliness. Can a heart blush—and if so, what would the color be?

Once at a certain distance away from Uyehara-san, it stopped completely like it had a consciousness of its own.

So still, that she thought it'd gone dead after experiencing its first true love.

Miteki Bless recovered from her minimal shock.

She scrutinized the looks on her classmates rather than the cards.

Mr. Ino felt that the time was being wasted, so he explained the final rules.

"When the game will start, kindly place your cards inside your pockets and don't lose them. You are not allowed to exchange them. One round will last roughly 45 minutes to an hour…. Unless you all agree to finish a round sooner, rightful guessing being the causation, you might have room for two games."

That meant the lead detractor and the hero would change next round.

As a competitive person, Miteki Bless couldn't allow herself to lose the first round.

"To win, I have to limit what the lead detractor and hero can do. I should also limit the options left open to me."

Miteki was arguing that being proactive would make things easier. Proactivity was not chiming in and sliding her two cents into the coin slot. What it was, was taking as many paths as possible until the options became very closed.

Knowing she was the type to imagine a lot and come up with infinite possibilities, this was a smart way to center her brain and keep it contained. Extending it onto her potential enemies made the game an even playing field—everyone had the right amount of potential, yet because she was the only one who knew she would be limiting everyone ahead of time, she had the advantage and psychological preparation.

Pressure rose higher and higher, Miteki Bless didn't have only her ego as motivation. The fact that Muraoka Rii had plans for more than one round meant the first one wasn't there for decoration. It existed to complement the consequent rounds and make them harder, fully made in Rii's image.

Stopping the first plan's gears was the first step to foiling Muraoka Rii's suicide in progress.

While Mr. Ino continued explaining, Miteki had a chat with Muraoka.

"I can't start playing until you answer me this."

"Of course!" Muraoka Rii did not hesitate, her tone inviting the unknown. "I'd be glad to help you settle your nerves."

"Why the culinary class? I can’t connect it to the other classes."

"I told you this morning." Muraoka Rii said matter-of-factly.

"Many things were said this morning."

"I want coffee jelly." Muraoka Rii crossed her arms and leaned onto the counter. She was slightly shorter than Miteki in this posture. "That's all there is to it."

Her piercing gaze layered lights upon Miteki's own. She was forced to look away, suddenly shy and depraved. "T-Thank you, my nerves have calmed."

Realistically, her nerves had been like a shifting chameleon the entire class session. The way Muraoka Rii looked at her as if she were cake in a box made her restless.

If she won this round, she'd take a nap the next round to prepare for the rest of the day.

She wished hard, that she could return home.

This day felt complex, inescapable incomprehension. To put a scenario to it, the day was like going in the past to save someone. But saving them meant the death of another person. Going back in time to save the other person, would mean the original subject of the time loop would die. There was no way out. There was no way not for it to have any consequences.

By the time she got back to her row, Mr. Ino's speech had ended.

He scanned the classroom and saw that a few had not submitted in their papers. His course of action was to single out Miteki Bless.

"Miteki-san, your paper."

The implications of this didn't need to be questioned. He held a grudge. Miteki's classmates snickered.

She got up and walking. Ultimately, she did not directly head towards him.

She noted down those who had their papers with them.

She assumed none of them were the hero. High chances were, the lead detractor already sent in the paper to blend in. It would be okay for her to steal their cards and replace hers with theirs.

It also brought the suspect range to a lower, humbler number. Her logic here was, the first round would be a testing ground. If her logic proved true, then the hero and lead detractor would be someone in the student council. People that Muraoka Rii could properly analyze, referring metrics from.

Miteki Bless stopped by one of the students that still had a card with them. Her name was Wada Sui, a brown bob cut with eyes so light they almost looked white.

Miteki Bless leaned onto the counter surface in front of Wada Sui, hovering over Sui's card flipped over on the table.

Her sleeve secretly dropped her own card onto the table. "Wada-san, want to form an alliance?"

She did not mean the words that came out from her mouth, she did not expect anything resulting out of them as genuine. She was an honest person, so she whispered. "I'm asking you this as a diversion, reply with your heart's eye."

"N-No, I'm okay. Thank you."

Triumph. She stole Wada Sui's card, literally under her nose.

She stalled further. She wanted to steal more cards, but intuition told her she'd be caught eventually. She visited a few of those that still had their papers, hesitating between being truthful and being a liar while licking their fingers, acting as if they had multiple pages with them.

Tanaka Midori grumbled at her, "I'm not foolish."

Miteki Bless didn't reply directly. She looked away, indicating she didn't know what Tanaka Midori was talking about.

Tanaka Midori took the bait. "You're trying to see all of our papers. I know what you're doing."

Miteki Bless being the type of person to speak her mind, meant that Tanaka Midori was setting herself up.

"Humble. You should be humble, Tanaka-san. You wouldn't speak up if you weren't trying to protect your self-worth. In the chances that you are right in this scenario, your brain will latch onto every detail in the picture and inflate your ego. You'll be happy right, that you will be right?"

Tanaka Midori tried kicking Miteki under the counter.

Mr. Ino saw this, but couldn't bring it in him to lecture Tanaka. It was Miteki who had started the fight, and Miteki who he couldn't touch.

"Class!" He screamed not angrily, instead as a call to attention. "Those who do not bring their papers within the next two minutes will have to sit the game out for the entire class."

This method, was his best way at stopping conflict. Creating a greater evil worked everytime.

Miteki Bless, meanwhile, found another loophole in the loose rules. It never said you couldn't write more than one name.

Wada Sui.

Tanaka Midori.

Muraoka Rii.

She wrote those names as easy as breathing.

Maybe within three seconds, she wouldn’t remember the act, the manner a breath from a second ago is not remembered.

She was the first of the remaining students to handover the paper.

Mr. Ino's eyes widened unprofessionally as he read what was on the paper. He was a gecko, absorbing the inks of emotions, failing to camouflage himself. This didn't go unnoticed, standing out grandly. Many soon became suspicious of Miteki.

A random girl asked a question, her voice floating in the lab room's atmosphere. It was clear and poised, heads swayed to it in delight.

"Mr. Ino, do you know the hero and lead detractor beforehand?"

Gomi Fude wanted to make sure the lines between randomly chosen students and predetermined students weren't blurred.

"Yes, this is scripted."

Miteki Bless wasn't surprised at all, she'd already come to a similar conclusion. Though, having it all but be confirmed wasn't against her working favors.

Because of Gomi Fude's rabbit-hole-type of question, a few more perceptive girls understood that being suspicious of Miteki Bless was stupid. If Mr. Ino was surprised at whatever weird thing she wrote, then it was likely a thing that derailed from the script. If anything, the intelligent route would be to clear Miteki of all suspicion.

Unintentionally, Gomi Fude had brought die-hard Miteki riders in the early stage of the games.

Soon enough, all white papers had been handed into the bin's mouth.

It was like hand sanitizer, getting rid of the myriad of lies and truths acting as germs on the hands.

Paper-handed, if you will.

With everything in place, Mr. Ino's last explanation came. "To identify fingerprints on the paper, you will all be using the ORO lifting method you learned in your previous classes."

A bunch of protests erupted. And it suddenly made sense why the rounds were so long.

Miteki Bless was unconcerned, she prepared as much as she could. She'd hoped that her acting was good enough. During her card stealing, there was a very crucial moment where she had thought she'd let her emotions get the best of her, losing her poker face as a result. She was still lacking awareness in the fact that her face was devoid of any regular mortal sensation.

"Mr. Ino?" Miteki raised the volume of her voice above the protesting.

Whether he responded or not, she could not hear properly. "I'm letting you know, I'll be taking your spot at the lectern."

She didn't bother raising her voice to say this. Whether he heard her or not, it didn't matter if he processed it properly.

This was another way of taking control of the situation. A silent act that made her at the heat of attention, the loner in the front of the class with the teacher, while everyone else was circulating in the back of the class, in the endless rows of labrat whites and black.

"Make sure to put on gloves everyone!" He put gloves on himself. He needed to dig the papers out of the bin and read the names outloud.

Miteki Bless wasn't going to analyze anything, there was no need for her to grab anything. At the lectern, she told her teacher to read the names out loud in a corner. "Or something."

"What's your deal?" The pleasantries were getting hard to uphold.

"I'm God." Miteki Bless hated lying… Sucking it up, she bit down on her tongue to prevent herself from backtracking. Lying to save the lives of a few "friends," who couldn't do that?

Why can't I do that? … I literally can't.

Mr. Ino took a few steps back, feeling himself sink under his own skin. Those eyes laid upon him were not natural. Glass emptied of their shine, naturally appeared to be false things layered upon reality.

How much of Miteki Bless' body could be said to be real?

Mr. Ino didn't want to follow her words, yet he had to for his physical wellbeing. The less interactions with Miteki Bless, the better.

"You're not God." He mistakenly said.

Miteki Bless laughed. She heard it, this time.

Through her view, her laughter sounded too innocent to be the sinister vibe she wanted.

I sound pathetic!

Through Mr. Ino's own view, her laughter sounded like a haunted piano, untuned, its beauty waiting for a brave soul's hands to tune it.

The worst part about that laugh was not how creepy it was—it was how beautiful it could be.

Swiftly, Mr. Ino carried the bin away. He went into a corner and grabbed for attention. "Is everyone ready? Scream yes if you are!"

An overbearing majority screamed. He hunched and clapped for them to quiet down.

He started saying the names, carefully reading out each of them.

Even having his head down, he could perceive the eyes of his students gravitating between him and Miteki.

You're such a distracting person, Miteki-san.

"Akemi Michi."

"… Chie."

"… Marie."

Inconsequential names ran for minutes.

Until a repeat came up.

"Akemi Michi." And her name was never said again.

Importantly, it was the names that Miteki wrote that appeared again.

"Muraoka Rii."

"Wada Sui."

"Tanaka Midori."

Whispered conversations sprouted.

Someone next to Tanaka asked her, "Who do you think would target you?"

Though Miteki flashed in her mind, she didn't rush to accuse her. It didn't make sense for Miteki to write her name, she'd never been acknowledged by her before. For her to be acknowledged now wouldn't make sense. "Michi-chan?"

"Akemi-san?" The girl next to Tanaka asked, wide-mouthed. "You're so close, why would she?"

"It's because we're close! I can't think of anything else..."

A great bet. Miteki succeeded in limiting the options for everyone. It wasn't a clear-cut solution, but Miteki believed the class wouldn't be so eager writing other people's names in the first round. When things eased up, she believed the amount of duplicated names would multiply. Taking advantage of the competitive nature her classmates had, she solely believed the lead detractor would be the only one to duplicate a name.

It was left to finding the one who wrote down Akemi Michi.

"Akemi-san's name is also written down…" The discussion in the class was already hectic.

"Guys, classmates, people! Wait a moment!" Akemi Michi did not wait in place, she circulated around making a ruckus.

Not knowing how much attention was on her, she waited a few seconds before speaking.

Right as she opened her mouth, a girl beside her nudged her. She glared, "I'm getting to it!"

"Look, Muraoka-senpai's name was written down twice! The obvious answer is Miteki-san!"

The girl who nudged her cowered a bit. … She didn't think she was imagining it, but… isn't that a lot of spit flying out of Akemi-san's mouth?

Miteki Bless had her eyes closed for a few minutes now. It appeared as though she was sleeping, so the voices against her inside the room loudened and became a loud majority.

Muraoka herself, defended Miteki. "Everyone is forgetting that… as a public figure within the class, anyone could target me. It doesn't have to be Miteki-san."

Are you putting on airs?

Miteki Bless could tell with her eyes closed, Muraoka Rii was smiling, pleased at herself. There was a huge humorous organ bulging in her, fascinated—amused, salivating at the amount of accusations thrown at Miteki Bless.

Ketsukira knew no one would say the silent part they were all thinking loudly inside their hearts, so she said it. "And? Everyone loves you. But when it comes to…"

A long side glance. "Miteki-chan, there's a one-sided rivalry."

"What is this one-sided rivalry you speak of?"

Muraoka was her usual self in class. Never expressive, never too personal, closed off and calm. Because of this, the distance that Kamiya Ketsukira felt was a little comfortable.

It eased her into letting on more than she should've. It was hard to tell if she was speaking from the perspective of the general class, or her own perspective. Which was lying for fun.

"Walking faster than you… drinking more caffeine than you… speaking more words than you… speaking less words than you. Should I continue?" The picture she painted was truly emitting Miteki Bless in an awkward light.

"Miteki-san was that childish?"

Kamiya Ketsukira played the fence well. She stirred up the sentiments of everyone else, to keep the blame on Miteki Bless.

Almost as if she were the lead detractor.

One eye opened belonging to, and on Miteki's body. She had not been sleeping, merely lazing about.

"Anyone who allies with me will win." She simply said.

"Why?" Ketsukira didn't expect Miteki to show anxiety, but she at least expected a more urgent reaction. It seemed too deliberate and invalid to say in a scenario where you were the accused.

It was the equivalent of police officers attempting to bring you in for questioning, and you casually informing them, Oh, yeah, be friends with me and I'll tell you the culprit.

Although, in a lot of cases, it did work like that. What with interrogators being nice to their inmates in order to gather information.

Huh, who knew being nice was an information gathering ability?

Though, in this scenario it sounded like a bluff. It was so poorly done, Ketsukira had to ask thrice. "Why? Why?"

"Because, I know who the lead detractor is."

"Tell us." Muraoka said so fast, Miteki had barely understood her by the time she took three more breaths.

"Tell me." Muraoka Rii said less hastily.

"Sure, I can tell you. It's not you." The tone was so contrasted with the topic, the class went silent.

It sounded solemn. The tone of a "goodbye," when moving far away from a lover.

"It appears you have… unregulated emotions directed towards me, Mite-chan."

Mite-chan? Were these two always so close!

Miteki Bless ignored the tradition of name-calling altogether. "Yes, I am heavily disappointed in you. Couldn't you have made this game more fun?"

"That's a lot of talking." Muraoka Rii controlled her face well. There was zero leakage, logic masking every plane on her face. "For someone who acts like she has the entire game in her hands, you sure are taking your time to end it."

"It's exactly because I have it in my hands that I will. I'm advising you now, join me. Don't, and you lose." Somehow, she could tell Miteki wasn't bluffing.

The seriousness of it all nearly made her laugh.

It looks like she overestimated Miteki Bless. She'd been completely duped by her first plan already!

As a stage performer, she had spent various hours perfecting the art of deflecting against her urges. She deflected the urge to keel over and purge the laughs out of her system.

"I see. Mite-chan!" She said condescendingly, a fan-service smile splitting her face open. "I don't think I want to join you. I'm paired up with Higura-chan."

"Then Higura-san can join me, and you follow along with your hind between your legs." Miteki Bless pointed.

"… Classmates, resume your discussions." With a mastery of stage presence, her gestures easily encouraged her entourage. Those nearest to her had the more potent burst of motivation.

The less social girls got up and went behind the class, with the papers they asked the teacher to give them.

"This paper… It has three names, what does that mean?"

"That should be the lead detractor. The second paper… That person is a too-curious innocent?" The girl scratched her head. "That's the one way I can think of it."

"You might be right." The girls in the group agreed with her.

Luckily for the girls, they didn't need to do anything but the reagent formula for the oil-red-o that would be used to detect the fingerprints.

They comforted each other, against the soon-to-be issues they would face. Leakage, messes, stains… Worst of all, the ridges being distorted by the paper.

Preparing the reagent formula meant waiting 20 minutes. In the next round, they conveniently convinced themselves to sit out during the handson operations if there was more than two papers to analyze.

They arduously honeydipped into the process, stashed away from the discussions for 30 minutes.

—They missed out on a lot:

"The main suspects are Akemi Michi, Tanaka Midori and Miteki Bless!" Kamiya Ketsuhiko proclaimed.

She swept over the gushing faces and sheepish squirming. "You two! Up, now."

Akemi Michi kept her voice lower than her breath. "Doesn't she sound like a knight, speaking like this?”

Hearing this, Miteki Bless couldn’t blame them.

Yes… even I feel exhilarated when my name is spoken through her lips.

Heehee, I feel like such a princess.

"She does…" Tanaka Midori didn't feel insulted by the commanding tone. She was filled with admiration and aspirations. Kamiya Ketsuhiko had always been her reference point, her "this is what I want to be in the future." Like a kid waking up, and deciding which older person in their life they wanted to grow up into. Except, Tanaka Midori wanted to be the Ketsuhiko that was 'now.' A common feeling around the campus was that Ketsuhiko would grow further radiant and even more distant, like a beautiful and tall rose, further cloud-reaching than a beanstalk and a beauty only observable at a distance because of pricks that would make you bleed, leaving a leftover streak going into oblivion, non-erasable no matter what.

"We're conducting an experiment."

"I won't be part of it. Instead, welcome Higura-chan and Eme-chan!"

Miteki Bless groaned, trying to rest, the woos and clapping deeply disturbed her.

Both eyes on her body creaked opened, overviewing the experiment.

Kamiya Ketsuhiko's velvet hair flowed behind the movements of her slender waist, that moved side to side for heavy emphasis on certain words.

Hip buckle.

"Higura-chan wrote up some questions for these three. She's going to ask them, and Eme-chan will hug you for every answer."

Hip buckle—Huh? A pit formed distastefully in Miteki's stomach.

The murmurs hurt her ears and worsened the feeling.

"They get free hugs from Uyehara-san?"

"How lucky!"

"Uyehara-samaaaa, I want a hug too!"

"But why are they being hugged? If one of them is a culprit, they're being rewarded for their wrongdoings."

"Just a moment." Mr. Ino was jealous! Kamiya Ketsukira could command attention with such few words, no movements, nothing loud!

He tried it too. "Just a moment."

He was promptly ignored. Not a single glance his way. No one even noticed him.

That's what being the prince of the school gets you. Even the Ayashi side doesn't have a princely figure.

"The hug is crucial."