[Burn It All Down]
[Burn it.]
The voice echoed inside my head. The moment I thought to obey, flames erupted. [Burn it all down.] Every time that voice spoke, I felt my heart heave and roil. The fire that had started within my body began to spread slowly.
[I hate being in pain. Yet even though I hate it, they make me hurt. You were angry every time, weren't you? You hate the things that make you hurt, don't you? Don't you wish the things that cause you pain would just disappear?]
That emotion, so much like the flames themselves, was a deep, vivid red, as if it were pouring out from within my very core. The fire was dyed in the color of that feeling that set my heart into a frenzy. My insides felt as though they were burning from the boiling intensity of it all. The flames, burning hotter than ever before, began to engulf the narrow room.
[If you hate the pain, all you have to do is burn everything that ever made you hurt.]
At the voice ringing in my head, I slowly lifted my head. I looked toward the other side of the transparent wall, where the one who always made me hurt resided. Though, it was no longer just beyond the wall. I took a step forward. The transparent wall, which hadn't even flinched at the flames I had been spewing, was now gone. Everywhere my feet landed, the fire spread, and everything I had seen with my eyes was now burning.
The flames grew hotter and hotter. For the first time, I felt the heat, and that heat was agony. [If you burn it all, you won't have to hurt anymore.] I followed the voice, scanning to see if anything remained unburned. In one spot, I saw flames greedily devouring their surroundings, where black smoke moved in a strange, unnatural way. [Burn it all.]
Passing through that place led to a wider area. The fire jumped to it. The larger space began to burn, but the pain grew increasingly severe. It was a pain worse than having my fist crushed, my arm severed, or my body covered in blood—it felt as though my very existence was being incinerated. As I writhed in agony, I saw someone through the flames. Mister.
At the sight of that familiar face, I stopped my footsteps, which had been burning everything they touched. Mister spoke.
“......So, you hated the pain that much.”
I slowly nodded my head toward him.
“......Did you stay still all this time because you were told not to resist?”
I nodded once more.
“......You don't have to do that anymore. Whenever you hate something, just say you hate it.”
That was what Mister said. So, I answered.
[Burn it.]
......No.
To the voice that kept echoing in my head, telling me to burn, to burn it all—I answered that I hated it, that I couldn't do it. For the first time, I offered resistance to someone’s words. As I desperately tried to suppress the flames erupting from my body, they began to die down little by little. As the pain subsided along with the fire, the strength left my body. As I collapsed, I saw a girl with red hair reflected in Mister’s eyes.
It was the dead of dawn, when everyone was asleep. A single vehicle was driving down a quiet street. Sator, his hands gripped on the steering wheel with white gloves, checked the location indicated by his tracking magic and recalled the conversation he’d had with his friend yesterday. The way he had begged for just a little more time when told that 'Number 10' would be disposed of according to the family's orders was quite laughable. He couldn't even count how many times he had sneered at him internally. After all, he had no intention of following the family's orders in the first place.
How much time and effort had he poured into that plan? The elders of the family had long since compromised with reality. He was the only one left who truly dreamed of the great Astra that had once commanded the world. Even without the family's support or proper facilities like in the old days, he intended to continue the experiments to the very end, even if he had to do it alone to complete the plan. However, to continue the experiments, he had to recover the most important item required.
Sator confirmed he had almost reached his destination and looked out the window; his face twisted significantly at the sight of the building. It was a shabby, dilapidated building so old that one couldn't even tell when it had been built. It was surprising that such a decrepit structure still existed. Looking at the building, Sator clicked his tongue and muttered.
“......Truly, you live in a place as disgusting as yourself.”
If she had hidden in a place like this to avoid his eyes, it was an excellent judgment. Just looking at it made his discomfort soar. But to recover the item without resistance, it was most certain that he should enter inside himself. It was a task hard to do while in one's right mind. Irritation surging, Sator scratched his neck vigorously. That I have to do such an unpleasant thing because of one disgusting, dirty thing.
Sator’s gaze flickered strangely. It was an unpleasant task, but one that had to be done. Sator, who had taken the large trunk bag he had loaded in the back seat and gotten out of the car, stood in front of the door on the second floor of the building indicated by the tracking magic. There was a lock, but the door itself wasn't made of a very sturdy material. Using magic he had learned for research purposes, he was able to drill a hole of a suitable size next to the doorknob. It should have been a time when she was sleeping, but if she woke up and resisted, it would clearly become troublesome.
Before opening the door, Sator opened the trunk bag, pulled the pin on the gas generator inside, and threw it into the hole he had drilled in the door. A few minutes were enough for the powerful sleeping gas, also used for anesthesia, to fill the room. Seeing the gas leaking through the cracks in the door, Sator put on the gas mask he had brought, reached into the hole, and opened the locked door.
It was a room as narrow as a pigsty, a place he didn't want to stay in for even a moment. In that room, the creature his friend and he had created was sleeping soundly on the bed. For some reason, her hair color had changed, and she had lost an arm somewhere, but such things weren't very important. Sator, who had opened the trunk bag with a calm face, put the thing that had been lying on the bed inside, and was about to close the bag when he frowned. It was because he saw a ring with a red gemstone embedded in the right index finger of the thing that had curled up inside the bag.
She had the form of a human, but she was a created existence anyway. The very fact that something born from the dregs of the Witch of Sloth was acting like a human and staying around Astra was something Sator could not forgive. A disgusting thing—she should know her place. When he pulled the ring off forcefully, a streak of blood flowed, perhaps scratched by the gemstone ornament on the ring. After quickly closing the bag to avoid getting that dirty thing on him, Sator left the unpleasant room, took off his gas mask, and threw the ring he had pulled off onto the street.
Sator, who had loaded the trunk bag, which had become heavier than when he came, into the car and changed into new gloves in case something dirty had gotten on them, gripped the steering wheel with one hand. His other hand was constantly scratching his neck. His gloves were slowly stained red with the blood flowing from the skin he had peeled off by scratching his neck too much. However, Sator did not notice that fact.
A vehicle left in front of the old building, and only the ring dropped on the street at the brightening dawn glowed red.
The phone rang. Luke, who had been hesitating for a moment while holding the phone that was ringing with a number he had been refusing to answer lately, pressed the call button. Naturally, the voice of the person he had heard yesterday was audible.
"It's been a while since we talked, Luke. Have you had lunch?"
“......Not yet.”
"No matter how busy you are, you should at least eat. After you've had lunch, could you come to the address I sent you for a moment? It seems like rebuilding the lab will take a while, so I've prepared a temporary one, and I wanted to show it to you."
With those words, a text message arrived. Honestly, Luke stiffened because he didn't really want to go. He was sick of experiments. Just hearing the word made him feel guilty, and his mood sank. However, because of what he had asked for yesterday, he was hesitating for a moment when he heard something shocking.
"By the way, it would be better not to refuse. Number 10 is with me right now, too."
It felt like his blood was running cold in an instant. Recalling the word 'disposal' he had heard yesterday, Luke asked in a trembling voice.
“......Sator, what are you trying to do?”
"Haha, I'll tell you that when you get here. You know you have to come alone, right? It's not something that would be good if others found out. Then, I'll assume you're coming and hang up. Enjoy your lunch."
Sator’s laughter-filled voice rang out. Since it wasn't a situation where he could have lunch, Luke quickly checked the address that had come by text. It was a mountain valley outside the barrier.
Scarlet hadn't come to school. Sylvia looked around the classroom for someone who might know what had happened.
'She definitely said she was following Miss Jessie to get a prosthetic arm yesterday.'
As Sylvia looked at Jessie quietly, Jessie trembled and shouted.
“I... I was definitely fine until we parted ways yesterday! We were even fine enough to test various things together after she got the prosthetic arm, so I don't know why she didn't show up suddenly today!”
She didn't know why she was so scared, but she really seemed not to know. According to what she heard from Eve, there hadn't been any contact with the school either. She also said that since only the principal knew the students' personal details to treat them fairly, there was no way to find out what was going on right now. Mei, the class representative of Class A who knew her number, had tried calling, but only the signal sound continued, and she didn't pick up.
She felt a little jealous as to why she knew a number that even she didn't know, but that wasn't important right now. Sylvia, who was worried about what was going on, wondering why she wasn't the type to skip school without notice, discovered Yoon Siwoo, who had a serious expression in the seat next to her. He was a slightly uncomfortable subject, but he seemed to know something no matter how she looked at it, so Sylvia asked.
“Do you know anything?”
When Sylvia asked, Yoon Siwoo thought for a moment and answered.
“......Scarlet lives alone. I was wondering if she might be very sick.”
At those words, Sylvia imagined her friend suffering alone and shouted.
“Then that’s a big problem! Do you happen to know where she lives?”
“For now...... she lives not that far from my house, so I was planning to stop by on the way back.”
Sylvia imagined him nursing Scarlet at Yoon Siwoo's words. A man who likes a woman entering the home of a woman who lives alone, and just the two of them? Feeling like she shouldn't leave it like that, Sylvia thought of her schedule for this evening and made up her mind. She hadn't been able to visit the hospital last time, so this time, she really would.
“Then I’ll go with you. To visit.”