Fractures in Memory

Amidst a piercing electronic buzzing, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka felt as if his skull were being crushed by a hydraulic press. Countless garbled codes exploded across his retinas, while the laughter of Alpha and the warnings of a mechanical female voice roared in overlapping dissonance—

[Countdown 30 seconds, memory erasure progress 9%... 17%...]

He gripped the stair railing so hard his fingernails scraped sparks against the metal surface. The chip in his palm grew scorching hot, and a ghostly blue light began to race along his veins toward his heart.

"Data consumption begins at the peripheral nerves," Alpha crouched down, the data streams in his irises flickering like a viper's tongue. "Once the program breaches your hippocampus, you'll become an empty shell... or perhaps I should say, you'll return to your status as a 'native'?"

The excruciating pain blurred Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's vision, but a specific detail suddenly pierced his consciousness: when Alpha mentioned the "Shuiqingshen System source code," his left pinky finger had twitched unnaturally—a telltale sign of a short-circuiting household robot from his past life.

"You... are not human..." Ayanokoji Kiyotaka sneered through gritted teeth, suddenly slamming the chip toward the center of Alpha's forehead. "If you're an AI, then you should get a taste of a virus!"

Alpha's sneer froze instantly. The moment the chip touched his skin, his entire body shuddered violently like a holographic projection with a bad signal, and a synthesized scream erupted from his throat: "Error! Core protocol tampered with—"

Taking advantage of Alpha's stiffened body, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka rolled down the stairs. His five senses were rapidly fading, but he still recognized the footsteps coming from the third floor—it was Horikita Suzune!

"Stop!" Horikita's command carried a rare note of panic. The student roster in her hands scattered across the floor; she had clearly discovered a shocking secret in the faculty office.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka burst through the fire exit door, only to collide head-on with someone. A scent of citrus washed over him as Ichinose Honami wrapped her coat around his trembling body, her fingertips pressing rapidly against the pressure points on his neck: "Slow your breathing. I'm blocking the spread of the neurotoxin."

"So you really... are a system host too..." Ayanokoji Kiyotaka grabbed her wrist, catching a glimpse of the binary code engraved on the inside of her earring—01010011 01000101, which translated to "SECRET."

"There is an 'Administrator' in Class B, Class C, and Class A each." Ichinose dragged him into the chemistry supply room. The moment she locked the door, the sounds from outside vanished instantly. "Tsukishiro turned the school into a petri dish, and we transmigrators are all test subjects... The Shuiqingshen System periodically clears abnormal data, which is exactly the state you're in now."

She suddenly pulled open her collar, revealing a rose totem made of electronic circuitry beneath her collarbone: "My erasure program started two hours ago, so—"

Before she could finish, the clanging of steel boots echoed through the hallway. Through the crack in the door, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka saw three "teachers" in white lab coats searching every classroom with infrared scanners. Their heads were twisted at ergonomically impossible angles, and embedded in the napes of their necks were the same chip slots as Alpha's.

"Hold on." Ichinose suddenly plunged a syringe into Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's arm. The moment the pale golden liquid surged into his veins, a sound like shattering glass rang out in his mind—

[Warning! Memory erasure process interrupted]

[Illegal protective program detected, identifying version...]

[Affiliation confirmed: Shuiqingshen Sub-system, ID B-09]

Countless fragments of unfamiliar memories exploded outward. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka saw himself standing in Principal Tsukishiro's office, holding a blood-stained paper cutter; he saw Karuizawa Kei struggling on an operating table as mechanical tentacles burrowed into her spine; finally, it froze on a rainy night where Ichinose Honami pointed a gun at his forehead, pulling the trigger while weeping...

"What... are these..." He curled up in the corner of the room, dry-heaving, only to find Ichinose wrapping a bandage around her own bleeding left eye.

"To prevent us from colluding, the system implanted different memory chains into every transmigrator." She pulled off the blood-soaked bandage, revealing the red light flickering in her mechanical prosthetic eye. "What you saw might be my death loop, or it might just be a false narrative fabricated by Tsukishiro."

The sounds of the search drew closer outside the door, and Ichinose suddenly pushed Ayanokoji Kiyotaka behind a storage cabinet: "Listen, the thing that can truly kill the replacements is in the old school building's clock tower. But there is..."

"Bang!"

The chemistry classroom door was ripped off its hinges entirely. The lead mechanical teacher rotated its neck 180 degrees, its synthesized voice coldly declaring: "Abnormal individual liquidation initiated."

Ichinose threw three diamond-shaped darts, but the mechanical teacher crushed them with its bare hand. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka grabbed a liquid nitrogen canister used for experiments and smashed it against the floor. As the white mist filled the air, he grabbed Ichinose and vaulted out the window—

"Grab the pipe!"

The two hung swaying from the drainpipe, but a cry of alarm rose from the plaza below. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka looked down to see a blood-covered Karuizawa Kei standing in the fountain, her right hand transformed into a Mantis Blade, buried deep in Ryuen Kakeru's chest.

"Cleanup complete." She tilted her head and smiled, her mechanical pupils contracting into pinpricks. "Next target: Ayanokoji Kiyotaka."

"Bang!"

The door to the chemistry classroom was torn off its hinges, and the lead Mechanical Teacher rotated its neck 180 degrees, its synthesized voice coldly declaring: "Extermination of anomalous individuals initiated."

Ichinose flung three shuriken, but the Mechanical Teacher crushed them with its bare hands. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka grabbed a liquid nitrogen tank used for experiments and smashed it against the floor; the moment white mist filled the air, he grabbed Ichinose and vaulted out the window—

"Grab the pipe!"

The two of them dangled from the drainpipe, swaying, but a cry of alarm rose from the plaza below. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka looked down to see Karuizawa Kei, covered in blood, standing in the fountain pool, her right hand transformed into a Mantis Blade and plunged into Ryuen Kakeru's chest.

"Cleanup complete." She tilted her head and smiled, her mechanical pupils contracting into pinpricks, "Next target, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka."