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“It’s not too late to turn over a new leaf. If you can turn away from this depravity and change your ways–”
With a huff, Fuuta slammed the door on the little missionary in front of his cell. How was she still standing under the pressure of this verdict? The voices wouldn’t let up.
And neither would she.
"Kajiyama Fuuta, what is bothering you so much?" she asked for what must have been the hundredth time. Why he bothered answering the door, he couldn't say.
"What do you think?" he responded with utter exasperation.
"I am asking you a question. Do not turn this on me."
"You're smart enough to know, so why bother asking?"
Before the trial rolled over, he would have expected this girl to smirk as he complained about the jab at his intelligence. But there was no hint of humor in her eyes, just the abyss of her gaze.
"I want to hear it from you."
Fuuta sighed. "It's the damned voices!"
"We all hear the voices. It is something deeper than that." Her voice bore the weight of hundreds of spirits, which made him tremble.
"And- and what of it?"
"The voices would not be anything of concern to you… if you firmly stood for what you believe in."
"What- what the hell are you on about?"
"If you cannot defend yourself against the voices, could it be…?" She paused for a moment too long.
"What? If you're going to act all mysterious-"
"Regret is rooted deeply in your heart, letting them worm their way in through the cracks."
He stared back at her, dumbfounded.
…And slammed the door again.
Fuuta had to admire Amane's persistence in reaching out to him when he kept shooing her away. Desperate to know how she managed this peace of mind, he finally accepted her offer.
“Good job. The first step towards salvation is to admit you need guidance.” Amane grasped his hand in hers through the sleeves. “We meet at 6 tomorrow morning.”
“Got it. Cool.” No way did she seriously mean to meet that early.
Rat-ta-ta ta-ta-ta ta-ta-ta-ta
Brrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
A rolling drum and alarm clock bells assaulted Fuuta’s ears at an ungodly hour in the morning. He buried his head under the pillow and pressed it to his ears.
“Goooooooooood morning, Kajiyama Fuuta! It’s the beginning of a most wonderful day. However, there are blasphemers and silent bystanders who would have it otherw-”
“Shut up!” he yelled.
Amane quit drumming and turned off the alarm clock. “It is 6 in the morning. Just as I said, it is time for lessons to begin.” She pulled on the pillow, and he strengthened his grip around it.
"What the hell? I'm trying to sleep here!"
"We agreed to meet at this time." The strength of the pull increased.
“No way were you serious!”
“Did you ever take me for anything less than serious?”
The pillow flew off, and Fuuta turned his head to find Amane stumbling backwards with her arms wrapped around it. Beside her was a marching snare and harness.
“You're out of your damn mind! Nobody wakes up this early.” He sat up like a grouchy bear and swung his legs over the edge of his bed.
Amane didn't miss a beat. “Yuzuriha Kotoko wakes up early to patrol the panopticon. Kirisaki Shidou does so to carry out his forbidden practice.”
“But you have no reason to wake up this early.”
“I sleep at 9 in the evening, so sleeping 9 hours means waking up at 6 in the morning. That gives me adequate time to prepare for school.”
“But we’re not going to school. And there’s no way you are getting any restful sleep in this hellhole.”
Amane's patient demeanor was beginning to crack. She tsk-ed and crossed her arms. "I think you are due for some lessons in kindness and politeness."
Yeah right. As if. Fuuta searched her expression for any hint that she wasn't serious. Maybe, just maybe, this was all a childish joke.
She was dead serious.
'Tis ordained, thou shall follow thine destiny
Fuuta leaned on the dining table, wishing he could get one more wink of sleep. "So… you drag me out here at an ungodly hour. For what?"
"To guide you on the path of salvation."
"This again? I was just-" He looked up to find Amane smiling placidly, folding her hands in a prayer pose. It was surprising how sincere she looked, with not a trace of mischief in her eyes.
"Kajiyama Fuuta, we are all here for a reason."
"Yeah, yeah, because we're murderers. I know that."
"Not that. We have all been given trials to face."
"No kidding, genius. We're already on our way to the third."
Amane shook her head. "No, not MILGRAM's trials. Trials given by God, which we must overcome. That physical suffering? Mental anguish? Those are all trials."
Fuuta wanted to roll his eyes—well, one eye—at such cliché platitudes, but the way she said it commanded more respect.
"These trials are wrought from our own sins, in part," she continued. "To overcome them, we must face them head-on."
"What are you on about?"
She reached across the table, placed her hands on his shoulders, and shook him once. "You can't keep running away from your actions. You must come to terms with them, or else the voices will swallow you up."
"I… I get it… But…"
"It would do you well not to lie. Not even to yourself. Omission counts, you know."
Fair point. He was taking the coward's path, and that only made him more vulnerable to the voices. Still, he couldn't shake his underlying fears. "If you knew what I did, you would be so disgusted with me that you'd leave and never speak to me again."
"You wouldn't know that." Amane stood up and made her way to his side of the table. "I tell you, nobody is beyond salvation, so long as they recognize their faults and work towards their own betterment. I'll let you think about it for some time."
She patted his shoulder and walked away.
’Tis ordained, thou shall discard vulgarity
"I've given it a lot of thought. And… I'm ready to tell the truth."
It seemed like such an awkward time to bring this up, interrupting Amane's craft session. She was digging through a bin of colored feathers, picking out the white ones. But she didn't seem to be bothered by Fuuta's interruption. As he took a seat by her, she patted his head as if he were a curious stray cat.
"I'm proud of you," she told him.
Wasn't it too early to say that? He hadn't told her anything just yet. "But I warned you, it might make you turn away from me."
"And I promised I would hear you out without judgment."
She promised. Throughout her entire outreach, she had never made light of anything. Even while she was in the middle of that little feathery craft, she set it aside to listen to him. How could he hold back the truth from her?
After a deep breath, Fuuta began. "All my life, I felt like I've been wandering without any purpose. Sitting through classes, scrolling on social media, just going about my day…"
Amane nodded along. Fuuta had explained the basics of the modern internet to her before, but it would be impossible for her to get a full grasp on it without seeing it first-hand. She didn't seem entirely lost, at least.
"And one day, I blew up an inappropriate post by a restaurant employee. All the heat on them forced them to make a public apology. It was thrilling, using my powers on social media to bring justice to the common people."
As he continued to relate his story, he tried to gauge Amane's reaction, but she maintained a stoic expression.
"And then I stumbled upon a post of a girl posing with a hat she hadn't paid for. That faux pas could be spun into something huge. So I did what I always did, and the scandal spread like fire. It turned out that she was my neighbor. Was. Because when I decided to visit her house, I saw a funeral lantern."
He bowed his head and exhaled sharply.
"She was in middle school, not much older than you."
Amane's face remained unchanging, and Fuuta realized she was expecting him to continue. He nodded to signal the end of his story, and her expression finally shifted. Her eyebrows turned in, and her eyes darkened just a shade. "I'm sure, then, that I don't need to tell you not to cause trouble for others," she told him. He expected her to sound more stern, but he could sense it all the same.
"Hah. I wouldn't put it past you to lecture me on that."
"I'm sure that's a lesson you have already learned. But tell me this… the thrill you have been seeking… What does it satisfy?"
He stared at her for a moment, waiting for another clue. "What are you getting at?" he asked once he figured she wasn't going to volunteer that clue.
"It only sates your surface-level desires. Would you agree? Once the rush dies down, you're left feeling hollow."
Nonsensical babble, he thought, but at the same time, it was dead-on. He nodded half-heartedly as Amane continued.
"You must discard such base desires. Personal fulfillment is something you can only find if you dig much deeper."
Seriously, this girl was incomprehensible.
But somehow, in the aftermath of such a heavy conversation, the atmosphere lightened considerably. Amane continued working on her craft, and Fuuta decided he might as well join in. He plucked a few black feathers from the bin and placed them in a pile. It resembled a sad, dead, little crow.
Amane, on the other hand, had a lovely doll dressed in a majestic white costume.
She really was just a kid, wasn't she?
’Tis ordained, thou shall deliver unto those thou believest in
"Kajiyama Fuuta, what is it that you believe in?"
"Huh? What's this about?" It was an odd thing to bring up while they were crafting a flag, tying a tablecloth around a stolen pipe. He'd think this question was more suited for a quiz after a rigorous lesson.
"What is it that you give everything to? Your time, effort, resources…"
Scrolling for hours on social media, looking for the most sensational target to call out, finding the subtlest clues to link their profiles to their real lives to prevent them from hiding behind a screen…
"I… I thought I believed in justice, but…" He turned his head down, but Amane snapped her fingers in front of his face, forcing him to look up and face her.
"But what?" she asked.
"What are you asking me for? You cracked the case before I did!"
Amane set her end of the pipe on the ground and turned to Fuuta. "I want to hear it in your words."
"I was idling away in life without a sense of purpose, seeking out only a surface level of satisfaction," he responded vacantly.
"Your own words."
Fuuta sighed and thought for a moment. "I… I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be someone important. And in the echo chamber of my community, I believed what I was doing was just. But… it was all for the sake of clout and smug satisfaction."
"It goes without saying-"
"Don't take joy in others' misfortune. You told me that a bunch of times already."
Did Amane always regard him this harshly? Was she finally seeing what a hopeless case he was? Was she going to leave him, like everyone else who'd given him the time of day out of simple curiosity?
Or was it all just his self-loathing imagination?
Amane brought her hand to her chin and frowned. "You believed in justice, but you were hit with the earth-shattering truth that what you were doing was not just."
"See, you knew what the answer was all along."
"But if I said it at the start, you wouldn't be thinking this hard."
Ouch. He had no retort for that.
"But what do you believe now?" She wasn't going to let up, was she?
Fuuta looked at the edges of the flag he had tied, torn dangerously close to the center. What did he believe in now? "I'm… not sure."
"Then why don't we take this from a different perspective?" Amane took the pipe out of Fuuta's hands and laid it on the floor, giving it a gentle tug to realign the fabric. "What are some facts you know about your case?"
Facts… He could try to hide from the guilt all he wanted, but it was based on a cold, hard truth that he could never escape. "The girl died because of my online harassment campaign against her. I never meant for her to die, but once I lit that fire, I could no longer take it back."
Amane nodded nonchalantly. Did she consider his "own words" adequate?
"I owe her an apology," Fuuta continued. "That, I know. But she's dead, so she'll never hear it."
"Have you tried praying for her soul?" Amane had her hands placidly folded as if she were praying.
What? "I don't believe in God," he responded flatly.
"Oh? Why is that?"
"Is there really any point? We know there's a mundane explanation for every phenomenon that once befuddled our ancestors."
"Like this prison that seems to have no exit, no matter how much we rip at the walls. Or the barrier that activates when we attempt to attack the warden."
"Okay, fine, you have a point there."
Amane started realigning the torn sections of the flag. "So, what do you think happens after death?"
Fuuta shrugged. "You go into the ground, and that's it."
"A bleak idea, is it not? If death is the end, then what is the point of life?"
"You're asking me? I already told you I've got no purpose."
"If you ask me…" Amane smoothed a piece of fabric tape across the flag. "The purpose of life is to prepare for what lies after."
"Whoa, slow down. I thought we were just making flags, not getting all introspective."
"So I believe that death is not the end of the line. The girl's soul must still be floating around, trying to find peace. Pray for her, and both of you may one day find rest."
Fuuta wasn't sure what he believed in, nor did he think this could be one of those things.
And yet, once the day was done and he was all alone, he decided to kneel at the side of his bed and clasp his hands…
And give prayer a try.
’Tis ordained, thou shall stay thine course, then perish
Amane emerged from the hallway with blood splattered on her uniform. She was empty-handed, with no sign of the large bread knife that Fuuta had seen her carrying earlier. It didn't take much to put two and two together.
She had said not to cause trouble for others, so why…
"Why'd you do it?" he blurted out. Then he chided himself for picking such an inopportune time. He could have asked when she first headed out, but for some reason, he didn't. It seemed like a question better asked when she wasn't wielding a knife long enough to impale a person.
As he saw the frenzied look in her eyes, he regretted accusing her even more. The murder had evidently taken its toll on her.
"Kirisaki Shidou…" she muttered.
The doctor. Of course. She never really liked him. Fuuta had overheard her confronting him several times. But was it so bad that she would resort to murder?
"Multiple warnings, and he continued to desecrate God's will…"
It was the medical stuff, wasn't it? She'd been trying to convince Fuuta to take his eyepatch off all this time, even offering a handmade eye covering with a roughly-drawn symbol on it. She wanted to guide him back on the path of humanity, she'd said. He'd turned it down at first, but he couldn't help but notice how much effort she had put into it.
Shidou had saved his life; that much was true. But once Fuuta was well enough to be discharged, the doctor had shifted his focus away from him in favor of the other patient.
A few patches over the injuries did nothing to quell the voices. What did? The teachings of a persistent little girl who saw hope in him, no matter how bleak he had become. She saved him.
And now his savior was trembling like a small, frazzled kitten.
"Amane," he whispered, "what can I do to help?"
"Huh?" She brushed her sleeve across her hair.
"I want to do whatever I can to support you. So just tell me what you need."
Fuuta straightened his new eye covering in the mirror. His whole ensemble looked incredibly corny, especially with the cover and shawl bearing matching symbols, but it made him feel like he truly had somewhere to belong. No more hiding behind thick layers and masks. Now he was a sharp-dressed, clean-cut man prepared to uphold true righteousness.
He stepped out of his cell and was greeted by Amane, who was wearing a matching shawl and hat. Her bangs were sloppily chopped, courtesy of him. He'd first offered to wash the blood out of her hair, but her reaction was so frightfully abrupt that he had to reconsider. They agreed on a haircut, but it turned out so badly that he was surprised she didn't murder him on the spot.
"Good day, my disciple," she said.
"Good day, my leader," he responded with a bow. "How can I serve you today?"
"It is not me that you serve, but the great one above us. Now go, chosen emissary."
The command was clear: spread the message.
He stepped out into the panopticon feeling right and just. Now, who should he save?