Early Saturday morning, Advanced Nurturing High School awoke in a thin veil of mist.
The late-May breeze carried the dampness unique to early summer. It drifted over the gray walls, across the athletic field, past the glass dome of the Shopping Center, and finally struck the rooftop railing, breaking into a soft, fragmented whine. Sakura Airi stood alone on the roof. Her camera was mounted on a tripod, its lens aimed toward the Old School Building. The viewfinder framed a rectangle of the world: the gray-white wall, a rusted drainpipe, and the third-floor rooftop door, which had been pried open and swayed gently in the wind. She had spent several evenings and mornings keeping watch here. The shutter had clicked and fallen silent again and again, filling her memory card with photos ranging from the Old School Building's outer wall to the Main Building's Mail Room, from Ishizaki scaling a wall to Kushida changing her shoes. Every frame was evidence. Every frame was silent testimony.
But today, she wasn't here to collect evidence.
She took an envelope from her backpack and set it on the ground beside the tripod. It was a backup of the screenshots Karuizawa had anonymously sent Manabe a few days earlier. On the back of the photo, Karuizawa had written: "Sakura, I sent this for you. And for myself, too." She hadn't consulted anyone before sending the letter, but Sakura had been the first to receive a backup afterward. Sakura read those few brief words over and over, then placed them in the drawer of the rooftop's metal cabinet.
When Kanzaki Toru came up to the roof, she was gently tapping the side of her camera with its lens cap. The earbud cord dangled down her chest, faintly leaking a soft melody. "You're here so early. It's the weekend. You could've slept in."
"...I couldn't sleep." Sakura didn't turn around. Her finger remained on the shutter button. A figure flashed past the third-floor window of the Old School Building in her viewfinder—Ishizaki. He had returned to the building alone, without climbing the wall or avoiding the cameras. He simply entered through the front door and pushed open the empty classroom where they had once cornered Sudo. He didn't turn on the lights, only stood by the window and looked out. Maybe he was searching for the corner where someone had ripped off a button, hoping to make sure he wouldn't have to return to that place. Maybe he just wanted to know if anyone could still find the traces he'd left behind in the Old School Building. Sakura's camera followed his path unhurriedly, taking two shots. They were the last two she would take of Ishizaki.
"Done taking pictures?" Kanzaki asked, sitting down in the folding chair beside her.
"My part with Ishizaki is over." Sakura lowered the camera and turned to look at him. Without her hat, her whole face was exposed. Her skin glimmered faintly in the morning light, and her purple eyes behind the thick red frames were calmer than ever. "Kanzaki, the first time you asked me on the roof if I was afraid someone would take pictures of me, I said I wasn't, because no one would take my picture. Actually, I was lying. It wasn't that I wasn't afraid. I just never thought anyone would want to look at me. Even when I did appear in someone's photo now and then, I was only in the background. No one had ever really seen me."
She paused and looked down at her fingers. A little of the silver paint had worn off the shutter button and stained her fingertips. "But over the past two months, none of the things you've given me have been unnecessary. You weren't protecting me in my place. You were helping me face things on my own. You didn't tell me how to deal with Manabe, but you gave me a discussion room where no one would kick my chair. You didn't ask if I wanted to be a witness, but you helped me realize that my photos could be used to protect other people. I know why Karuizawa sent that letter for me. It's because, at last, someone in this class saw me as someone worth standing up for." She took off her glasses and rubbed the corner of her eye with the back of her hand. Then she put them back on, her purple eyes shining clearly behind the lenses.
"So from today on, I want to keep taking pictures. Not because I'm your observer, but because the camera is something I want to hold. If there's another operation, I'll still be in position on the roof. Not as someone being protected, but as someone who can protect others."
Kanzaki fell silent for a long while. He looked at her, then at the morning light creeping up behind her from the edge of the roof, turning the whole gray wall a gentle gold. Then he stood and went over to her, lifting the camera strap on her shoulder to distribute its weight more evenly. He adjusted the tripod head for her. He offered no unnecessary comfort; he simply checked the position of the frame.
"...Shiina found a new detail while sorting through the old files last night. Before Sakagami-sensei retired, she made a note on an old sample of an inter-class group report. There was a photo tucked inside, almost identical to your composition. She wrote in the margin that we should pay attention to the person who took it."
Sakura took the photocopy from him, her finger resting on the date at the end of Sakagami-sensei's neat, slender handwriting. It was the very evening she had first set up her tripod on the athletic field and aimed her lens at that same high wall. She stared in surprise, then hugged the photocopy to her chest, unable to form a complete sentence. The clouds above the wall suddenly split open, and sunlight poured straight down over the entire roof like a searchlight. She returned to the tripod and pressed the shutter. That photo needed no number and didn't belong in anyone's encrypted folder. It belonged only to this moment.
For a while, they stood side by side on the roof, tidying the camera, compressing the files on the memory card, and wiping the lens. The air was still. A few students jogged on the athletic field in the distance, and the figure behind the third-floor window of the Old School Building had disappeared.
"Karuizawa invited me to a dessert shop this afternoon." Sakura put her hat back on, lowering the brim. "She said, 'We don't have to eat dessert. We can just sit and talk.' I haven't replied yet."
"Will you go?"
She put the camera in her backpack and zipped it shut. "Yes. I want to tell her that after the 'thank you' on the back of the photo she sent Manabe, there's still most of the page left blank. Next time, we can fill it up together."
Kanzaki reached out and straightened the brim of her hat, which the wind had knocked askew. She bit her lip, gripped her backpack straps, and turned toward the rooftop door. Her steps weren't quick, but each one was firm.
He stayed by the rooftop railing. At the top of the row of old lockers in the distance sat a small cardboard box covered in dust. He hadn't put it there, and neither had Sakura. A pink hair clip rested on top. She had still been wearing it in her hair yesterday afternoon when she brought cookies to the Library. She had visited the roof before him and left something for Sakura. She had used the cookies as a cover to pass Ryuen an access card, while leaving the hair clip in this corner with everyone watching her movements. Beside the box was the question-mark note he'd tucked into the front of his memo pad two days earlier. It had been unfolded and refolded, its turned-up corner shaped like a paper bird with its head raised. The bird faced Sakura's viewfinder.
He turned over the hair clip. A tiny slip of paper was attached to the back, bearing delicate handwriting: "She's been photographing the high wall for a whole month. The first day she aimed at the Old School Building was the same day Ryuen started requesting Sudo's records so often. Tell her not to stop." There was no signature, only a bellflower sketched in pencil.
Then he stood alone at the edge of the roof and opened the Goddess Illustrated Handbook in his mind. Sakura Airi's page had automatically updated when she'd claimed ownership of her camera. Her favorability had exceeded 85, unlocking the third-tier passive reward, "Freeze the Moment." Description: When she senses that she is needed, she immediately steadies her emotional fluctuations and captures unusual movements in her surroundings with extreme precision, making her especially suited to long-term surveillance and covert reconnaissance. Beside Karuizawa Kei's Perception Resonance label on the next page, a line of golden calligraphy had appeared: "A balance of pride and tenderness—she is learning how to protect both her own secrets and those of others." Shiina Hiyori's Silent Archive continued to run. While he slept, she had re-marked all the data points from the previous night and written the first question on a new index card that was completely independent of Ryuen and Kushida: a pencil-drawn question mark had appeared beside Chabashira-sensei's name.
He placed the hair clip and the note bearing the bellflower sketch in a small evidence bag, then stored it safely in the depths of the rooftop's metal cabinet. After putting away the handbook, he went downstairs. The clouds above the high wall slowly closed over the opening again. Ryuen was holding back, waiting for everyone to make a mistake. Chabashira-sensei's clues at every critical juncture had been timed with almost deliberate precision. And in corners beyond their reach, Ishizaki had already pushed open the window facing the athletic field. Manabe was crying with her head on her desk, while Morishita and several girls from Class C huddled around her, whispering. Before the coffee stain had dried, Horikita had opened her silent keyboard again and begun writing a new memo. The title field held only two words: Trust.
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