Yushiro sat in front of Haruto, looking in confusion at the white-haired swordsman who had suddenly fallen asleep, then jolted awake.
Haruto opened his hand. The butterfly pin lay in his palm.
Despite its icy chill, the pin had left a fiery red burn on his palm. Holding the potion she had yet to inject, Tamayo seemed to understand something. "Did it fail?"
Before Haruto could answer her, he reached up to touch his eye sockets.
Only when he felt his eyeballs moving slightly beneath his eyelids did he let out a long breath. "Whew... I suppose it failed."
Utterly bewildered, Yushiro kept looking back and forth between Tamayo and Haruto.
What did they mean?
What had failed?
They hadn't even started anything yet!
But Lady Tamayo put away the vial of potion and spread her research notes across the table. "Tell me what happened."
I'm the one who should be asking you two what happened!
When did you reach this infuriating understanding without me knowing anything about it?
Lady Tamayo couldn't possibly be at fault. That damned white-haired swordsman must have bewitched the beautiful Lady Tamayo!
Haruto did his best to recall what he had felt after the injection, along with the mutations his body had undergone or might undergo.
"... At the thirty-eight-minute mark, my eyeballs fell out."
The pen between Tamayo's fingers trembled, leaving a blot of ink on the paper.
Yushiro was stunned. What nonsense are you talking about? Aren't your eyeballs sitting right there in your sockets?
[Thirty-eight minutes: eyeballs fell out.]
Tamayo carefully recorded it on the paper. "Perhaps the proliferation was too rapid... I'll reduce the amount of Genya's blood accordingly."
His discussion with Tamayo lasted the entire afternoon, with the pharmacist recording everything Haruto had experienced in detail.
Yushiro's expression went from