Code and Roses

The moment the High-Frequency Particle Blade cleaved through the clone, a blood-red warning exploded across Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's retinal interface.

The severed limbs did not bleed; instead, they gushed fluorescent blue data streams that coalesced in the air into a system pop-up he knew all too well:

"Memory formatting process initiated—countdown 3 minutes 29 seconds."

His future self continued to stir his black tea unhurriedly, his mechanical prosthetic eye refracting the cold light cast by the Blood Moon Space Station.

"It's painful, isn't it?" He scooped up a spoonful of crystallized sugar, the cubes emitting a crisp, metallic clink as they dropped into the tea. "When I first saw this option, it took me a full ten minutes to make up my mind."

Ayanokoji stumbled, bracing himself against the desk, his fingertips digging deep into the wood grain.

Lin Yuan's memories were boiling—the humidity of a rainy season in a small Chinese town, the aroma of instant noodles while binge-watching anime late at night, even the high beams of the truck he saw just before transmigrating—these fragments were curling and charring deep within his consciousness like pages of a burning book.

"Why... me?" he rasped, his throat churning with the static of misaligned data.

"Because you are the only variable that has survived for more than three months."

His future self suddenly pulled back his suit jacket, revealing a transparent artificial heart in his chest, sparks flying as the gears meshed. "The other 479 test subjects were either formatted into idiots or..."

He glanced at the burning campus outside the window, where Karuizawa Kei was being held against the fountain edge by three clones, electronic patches on her forehead sparking with electricity. "...became Cleaners."

The countdown ticked to 2 minutes 17 seconds. Ayanokoji suddenly grabbed a paper cutter from the desk and stabbed his wrist; the pain brought him a moment of clarity—a folk remedy from Lin Yuan's memories, using physical agony to fight mental collapse.

Fresh blood dripped onto the keyboard, unexpectedly activating a hidden program, and a holographic projection suddenly unfolded:

"White Room 2.0 Project: Screening for the perfect specimen through 479 parallel world experiments, ultimately mass-producing absolutely rational humans at the Blood Moon Space Station."

Countless familiar scenes flashed across the screen: Horikita Suzune repeating combat training in a culture tank, Ichinose Honami being forced to watch war footage to test her empathy threshold, and even Ryuen Kakeru experiencing a cycle of ten thousand betrayals in a virtual prison.

And the monitor of all these experiments was that figure wearing a fox mask.

"It seems you've discovered it." The future voice finally rippled with emotion. "The so-called Advanced Nurturing High School is nothing but a camouflage shell for a petri dish."

"Even your transmigration..." He suddenly reached out and tore open Ayanokoji's shirt, revealing an E-Series serial number below his collarbone identical to the one on Karuizawa. "...was a fixed script for the 48th experiment."

An explosion suddenly echoed from the corridor. A blood-soaked Ryuen Kakeru burst through the door, his High-Frequency Particle Blade broken, yet he still gripped the hilt tightly.

"So noisy!" He hurled a spherical device at the future version. "If you want to be sentimental, go to hell!"

The moment the device cracked, Ayanokoji's Combat Module automatically parsed its composition—it was hundreds of Nanoscale Mechanical Bees, and they were frantically devouring the future version's mechanical heart.

Taking advantage of the gap, Ryuen grabbed him and ran: "Don't be fooled by the countdown, that thing is a two-way trap!"

They sprinted through the burning corridor as clones swarmed from all directions like zombies.

Ryuen suddenly tore open his own uniform, revealing a black code tattooed on his chest identical to Karuizawa's: E-127. "Did you think only girls were branded?" He grinned hideously. "All Class D students are just scrap from a failed experiment recycling bin!"

Countdown 00:59, data streams suddenly began to seep from Ayanokoji's left eye.

Only the final fragments of Lin Yuan's memories remained: the latest volume of Classroom of the Elite he had read before transmigrating, where the author wrote in the afterword, "Ayanokoji Kiyotaka is not human." He had thought it was just a metaphor at the time, but now it seemed...

"Catch!" Karuizawa Kei vaulted over the second-floor railing and slapped a USB drive into his palm.

Her right eye had already been mechanized, with blood-red gears rotating in her pupil. "This is what you buried under the cherry blossom tree last week; it's time to return it to its rightful owner."

The moment the USB drive was inserted into the port at the base of his neck, a massive surge of memories flooded in. Ayanokoji finally saw that rainy night clearly—it wasn't an accidental car crash at all, but him voluntarily lying down in front of the truck.

Because three months before he transmigrated, a voice had been whispering in his dreams: "Do you want to know the truth of the world?"

The space station began to project beams of light toward the surface; the teachers and students caught in the light instantly crystallized, becoming floating data modules. Ayanokoji stood atop the clock tower, looking at the final options on the interface:

"A. Format Lin Yuan's personality, become the perfect vessel."

"B. Retain memory fragments, initiate self-destruct sequence."

Tears suddenly flashed in Karuizawa's mechanical eye. "If you choose B, all E-Series test subjects will be buried with you."

She lifted her skirt, revealing dense, densely packed serial numbers on her inner thigh—E-129 to E-153, each followed by a different date of death.

Countdown 00:07, Ayanokoji suddenly smiled. He remembered the taste of instant noodles on the night before he transmigrated, and he remembered his mother in China always saying, "A person should keep a bit of humanity."

As his fingertip touched option B, he whispered to the void: "You know? The most precious bug in humanity is that we never learn how to be 'absolutely rational'."

The core of the Blood Moon Space Station suddenly overloaded. Amidst the fire of the explosion, countless memory fragments fell like meteors.

The last thing Ayanokoji saw in the torrent of data was the White Room twenty years ago: his younger self was stuffing a wild rose into the observation hole of a culture tank, while inside the tank, sleeping, was...

The moment the High-Frequency Particle Blade cleaved through the clone, a blood-red warning exploded across Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's retinal interface.

The severed limbs did not bleed; instead, they gushed fluorescent blue data streams that coalesced in the air into a system pop-up he knew all too well:

"Memory formatting process initiated—countdown 3 minutes 29 seconds."

His future self continued to stir his black tea unhurriedly, his mechanical prosthetic eye refracting the cold light cast by the Blood Moon Space Station.

"It's painful, isn't it?" He scooped up a spoonful of crystallized sugar, the cubes emitting a crisp, metallic clink as they dropped into the tea. "When I first saw this option, it took me a full ten minutes to make up my mind."

Ayanokoji stumbled, bracing himself against the desk, his fingertips digging deep into the wood grain.

Lin Yuan's memories were boiling—the humidity of a rainy season in a small Chinese town, the aroma of instant noodles while binge-watching anime late at night, even the high beams of the truck he saw just before transmigrating—these fragments were curling and charring deep within his consciousness like pages of a burning book.

"Why... me?" he rasped, his throat churning with the static of misaligned data.

"Because you are the only variable that has survived for more than three months."

His future self suddenly pulled back his suit jacket, revealing a transparent artificial heart in his chest, sparks flying as the gears meshed. "The other 479 test subjects were either formatted into idiots or..."

He glanced at the burning campus outside the window, where Karuizawa Kei was being held against the fountain edge by three clones, electronic patches on her forehead sparking with electricity. "...became Cleaners."

The countdown ticked down to 2:17. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka suddenly grabbed a letter opener from the desk and stabbed his wrist; the pain brought him a moment of clarity—this was a folk remedy from Lin Yuan's memories, using physical agony to combat a mental breakdown.

Blood dripped onto the keyboard, unexpectedly activating a hidden program, and a holographic projection suddenly unfolded:

"White Room 2.0 Project: Screening for the perfect subject through 479 parallel world experiments, ultimately mass-producing absolute rational humans at the Blood Moon Space Station."

Countless familiar scenes flashed across the screen: Horikita Suzune repeating combat training in a cultivation pod, Ichinose Honami being forced to watch war footage to test her empathy threshold, and even Ryuen Kakeru experiencing a cycle of one hundred thousand betrayals in a virtual cell.

And the monitor of all these experiments was that figure wearing a fox mask.

"It seems you've discovered it." The voice of the future self finally rippled with emotion, "The so-called Advanced Nurturing High School is nothing but a camouflage shell for a petri dish."

"Even your transmigration..." He suddenly reached out and tore open Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's shirt; beneath his collarbone appeared an E-Series serial number identical to Karuizawa Kei's, "is a fixed script from the 48th experiment."

An explosion suddenly erupted in the corridor. A blood-soaked Ryuen Kakeru smashed through the door, his High-Frequency Particle Blade already snapped, yet he still gripped the broken hilt tightly.

"Shut up!" He hurled a spherical device at the future self, "If you want to be sentimental, go do it in hell!"

The moment the device cracked open, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's Combat Module automatically analyzed its composition—it was actually hundreds of Nanoscale Mechanical Bees, and they were frantically devouring the future self's mechanical heart.

Taking advantage of the gap, Ryuen Kakeru grabbed him and ran: "Don't be fooled by the countdown; that thing is a two-way trap!"

They sprinted through the burning corridor as clones surged from all directions like zombies.

Ryuen Kakeru suddenly tore open his own uniform, revealing a black code tattooed on his chest identical to Karuizawa Kei's: E-127. "Did you think only the girls were branded?" He grinned hideously, "All Class D students are just a recycling bin for failed experiments!"

Countdown 00:59, data streams suddenly began to seep from Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's left eye.

Only the final fragment of Lin Yuan's memory remained: the latest volume of Classroom of the Elite he had read before transmigrating, where the author wrote in the afterword, "Ayanokoji Kiyotaka is not human." At the time, he thought it was just a metaphor, but now it seemed...

"Catch!" Karuizawa Kei vaulted over the second-floor railing and slapped a USB drive into his palm.

Her right eye had already been mechanized, and a blood-red gear rotated within her pupil: "This is what you buried under the cherry blossom tree last week; it's time to return it to its rightful owner."

The moment the USB drive was inserted into the port at the base of his neck, a massive surge of memories flooded in. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka finally saw that rainy night clearly—it wasn't an accidental car crash at all, but rather him lying down in front of the truck of his own volition.

Because three months before his transmigration, a voice had been whispering in his dreams incessantly: "Do you want to know the truth of the world?"

The space station began to project beams of light toward the surface; the teachers and students struck by them instantly crystallized, becoming floating data modules. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka stood atop the clock tower, looking at the final options on the interface:

"A. Format Lin Yuan's personality and become the perfect vessel."

"B. Retain memory fragments and initiate the self-destruct sequence."

Karuizawa Kei's mechanical eye suddenly flashed with tears: "If you choose B, all the E-Series experimental subjects will be buried with you."

She lifted her skirt, revealing dense serial numbers engraved on her inner thigh—E-129 through E-153, each followed by a different date of death.

Countdown 00:07, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka suddenly smiled. He remembered the taste of instant noodles on the night before he transmigrated and remembered his mother in China always saying, "A person should keep a bit of humanity."

The moment his fingertip touched option B, he whispered to the void: "You know? The most precious bug in humanity is that it can never learn to be 'absolutely rational'."

The core of the Blood Moon Space Station suddenly overloaded, and amidst the flames of the explosion, countless memory fragments fell like meteors.

The last thing Ayanokoji Kiyotaka saw in the torrent of data was the White Room from twenty years ago: his younger self was stuffing a wild rose into the observation port of a cultivation pod, and inside the pod, sleeping soundly, was...