Chapter Forty-Four: Truth (Part Two)

“…Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by death.

Maybe it’s because, from a very young age, I knew that almost everyone around me loathed me.

Except for my father, whether it was my mother or the neighbors, they could never quite hide their dislike when they saw me. No matter who it was, the moment they laid eyes on me, it was as if they had seen something filthy. So, from early on, I understood that I was someone ‘not permitted’ to exist, a life born in error.

Later, I learned that the birthmark on my face had been there since I was born. It covered so much of my face that even surgery wasn’t possible. While other children were born into blessings, I was brought into the world under the gaze of nurses and doctors in the operating room, their eyes filled with the same fear one reserves for a demon.

My mother was no different. That’s why she so readily accepted the idea that I was a ‘child of misfortune.’

The cold, empty voice echoed through the bookstore. For the first time, Mio Ito shed all her masks and revealed the deepest part of herself to another.

This world has never been fair.

Some are born intelligent; some are born beautiful; some are gifted with athletic prowess. But there are also those like me, who from birth are the sum of every mistake.

Even in kindergarten, I realized—when I did the same things as the other children, they would be praised, but the teacher always looked past me. At home, other children could return to their mother’s smile, but mine only looked at me with a frown.

That’s the imbalance of life. I, living, could find no place in the world of the living.

But death is different.

In life, people come in all shapes and faces, but after death, every body decays and dissolves in the same way, until all that remains are bones so alike they are indistinguishable. That uniformity enchanted me.

Death by illness, fire, nature, falling, suffocation—there are so many ways to die, but the end result is always the same: as pure as crystal. In a moment, warmth turns to cold, activity to silence. The human body is so frail; a tiny error, just a few centimeters wide, can mean the end of life.

No one is different. In the world of the living, I had no place, but in death, I could feel the warmth of equality.

Back then, because my father was a police officer, I was allowed into his study and read many of his books—Criminology, The Secrets of Corpses, Principles of Investigation… My father thought I was interested in his police work and let me be, but he never knew that what fascinated me was not the work but the criminals and the dead. They were like the pianist and the orchestra in a concerto, coming together to create the concept of ‘death’ that so captivated me.

And through death, the essence of life seemed to reveal itself. Life and death are like twins, born together. Whenever I considered their overlap, I felt an incomparable calm, as though I floated in distant space, in a place where no one could see me, and I could see no one.

So, not long after I started elementary school, I killed my first living thing—a rabbit.

At the time, I only chose a moment when no one was around for convenience. From the start, I never intended to shift the blame.

At this, Mio Ito paused slightly.

Shiguya gazed at her in silence, his eyes silently asking:

If that’s so, why did you change later?

Mio Ito met his gaze.

Because of my father.

Just when I was about to be transferred to another school, my father stood up for me.

Standing before me then, he was like a wall, shielding me from every gaze. He always believed I couldn’t be the culprit; among everyone who thought I was a mistake, he alone believed I was not.

His trust shook me to my core. So… at that moment, I chose to hide my true nature, so as not to disappoint him.

A faint, faraway smile touched Mio Ito’s lips as she lost herself in memory.

So I began a secret investigation in my class and obtained everyone’s schedules.

Thanks to the investigative knowledge I’d gained from my father’s study, I devised a plan and selected Mia Mineyama. Using her outdoor shoes, I made footprints leading up the hill to bury the weapon during a time when she had no alibi, then planted a series of false clues nearby… In the end, I succeeded in shifting suspicion onto her.

Later, I confessed the truth to Mia Mineyama and apologized… but her hatred endures to this day. She has never forgiven me.

Mio Ito let out a soft laugh, but her gaze grew vacant.

Typically, for someone with abnormal psychology, after killing a living being, their methods of killing escalate—rabbits, cats, dogs… even humans. Have you killed anything else since?

Mio Ito shook her head.

That rabbit was the first—and last—living thing I killed. Because…

About a month after the incident broke out, one night when I returned home, my father looked unusually old. He sat on the sofa, silently watching me.

Then he brought me to the tatami room, and we sat facing each other.

He bowed his head deeply; I couldn’t see his expression, only hear him speak in a tone more complex than I’d ever heard: ‘Mio… I hope that, no matter what, you will never hurt anyone.’

He knew from the start?

Perhaps.

After that, my father came home less and less. He threw himself into his work more than ever. And just over a year later, I received news of his death. That talk in the tatami room became the longest time I ever spent alone with him.

But the words he left became a commandment fixed in my heart. ‘Never hurt others.’ Even if death is the only thing that brings me joy, I cannot kill.

Because, if I did, the figure who stood before me that day would lose even the last, fragile meaning it had.

The distant smile on Mio Ito’s face faded, her consciousness sinking as if into the depths of the sea.

But though I could not hurt others, no one ever said I could not hurt myself.

Pain accumulating in my body is almost a comfort, because it brings me closer to ‘death’… that eternal, equal, absolute peace.

I have hidden this very well. Until now, aside from you, the only one who saw through me was Mia Mineyama. When she realized that no suffering could break me and could only bring me closer to the serenity of death, she fell into spiritual exhaustion herself, descending into despair…

In fact, that night—the night Manami rescued me—Mia Mineyama had become so desperate she was almost mad, determined to end things with me, to truly eradicate me, willing to sacrifice her comfortable, affluent life to kill me directly… But she didn’t expect that a girl would interrupt it all.

For her, the world must be full of regret and resentment. I do believe she wouldn’t really harm Manami, because Manami, to her, might be a tool to use against me.

Mio Ito murmured, her voice tinged with hesitation and an unrecognized, faint sorrow.

And what about you? Do you feel regret or resentment?

Her vision was fading into darkness.

Shiguya’s voice seemed to come from an infinite distance, drawing Mio Ito’s mind into a strange state, half dream, half real.

Regret… resentment…

Perhaps there is.

In truth… my longing for death comes from despair at myself. When everyone despises you, even you cannot help but despise yourself.

And yet, I am still alive.

So I must exist in constant self-loathing.

Death is the only place that can embrace everything, dissolve all this loathing in absolute peace.

But my father’s words have become my commandment. Maybe only in dying myself can I be freed at last.

Her vision was now completely dark.

Mio Ito felt her consciousness rising, as if floating among the clouds.

It was a silent, empty place.

Was this… truly the end?

In that moment, her only feeling was a surge of joy.

You know… you don’t need to die to be set free.

A familiar voice called out.

And then, a blaze of light split the darkness—

A tree appeared, towering as if it pierced the heavens, shading the entire world—a supreme tree unfurled within her consciousness!

Awe and wonder flooded her heart.

And in that instant, divine revelation flashed inside her:

Pierce your heart, excavate your soul, offer up all your obsessions—

The power to change reality, to fulfill your deepest desires… lies in your hands!