Chapter 68: Chapter 67: The Girl with Glasses.
Takeshi left the classroom when most of the students were already in the hallway.
He was in a hurry to get somewhere he could think without anyone talking to him for the next three minutes.
’I know two things I didn’t know before. The killer has short blue hair, and I saw her face on the bridge before everything went downhill.’
The chat appeared in his field of vision with the usual welcome messages that Takeshi completely ignored.
[SHE’S BACK. SOMEBODY TELL HER WE LOST A MONTH OF STREAMS]
[bro just walked out of class looking traumatized]
[takeshi.exe initiating social paranoia sequence]
Takeshi kept walking.
’The school has several hundred students. Short blue hair is a visible trait, but not a unique one. There could be more than one person with those characteristics and, if the killer knows she can be identified, it’s possible she changed something about her appearance.’
[okay but seriously, look for someone with short blue hair, it can’t be that hard]
[they’re in a HIGH SCHOOL. there are like four girls with blue hair in any typical high school]
[additional filter: "don’t talk to me" attitude. professional killers usually aren’t the life of the party]
Takeshi recognized that the last comment had some logic to it, although he had no intention of admitting that out loud.
’If she works as a killer and operates within the school, she has to blend in. That means she probably doesn’t attract attention in either a positive or negative way. She’s not popular, nor is she someone who causes obvious trouble. She’s someone who’s simply there.’
The hallway in the central wing was packed with students moving between classes. Takeshi slowed down and began paying closer attention to the people walking in the opposite direction.
Dark hair, brown hair, black hair, a girl with green hair who clearly didn’t fit the profile, two boys arguing about an exam, and a group of three blocking half the hallway.
[suggested strategy: systematically walk through every hallway]
[that’s going to take forty minutes and make him look lost]
[or just ask Lyra. she knows everyone in the school]
Takeshi considered that for a moment. Lyra was a member of the student council and had a considerably wider social network than he did. If there was someone with short blue hair involved in any extracurricular activity, she would probably know who it was.
’But asking for information like that without context creates questions I still don’t have answers for.’
He kept walking.
He turned into the hallway connecting the central wing to the north wing, the most direct route to his next class. The hallway was narrower than the central one and had less traffic at that hour.
Takeshi was looking ahead when someone stepped out of a side door without looking into the hallway.
The collision was direct, shoulder to shoulder, causing Takeshi to take a step back while the other person did the same.
Several books fell to the floor.
Takeshi looked down to pick them up by reflex, and when he looked up, he saw the person he had collided with.
Short blue hair, thin-framed glasses, a high school uniform, and the attitude of someone who would rather not have bumped into anyone and wanted the interaction over as quickly as possible.
The chat exploded.
[THAT’S HER]
[WAIT WAIT WAIT]
[THE GLASSES ARE NEW BUT THAT’S HER]
[TAKESHI DON’T SAY ANYTHING WEIRD]
[too late, look at his face]
Takeshi processed it in less than two seconds.
The face was the same, the angles were the same, and the hair was exactly the same color he had seen on the bridge before everything ended. The glasses were different, but they changed nothing that mattered.
It was her.
’I found her.’
The girl picked up two of the fallen books without saying anything. She had the expression of someone who considered this interaction a minor inconvenience she wanted resolved as quickly as possible.
"Sorry."
She said it quietly, with the bare minimum required to end the exchange.
Takeshi picked up the remaining books and held them for a moment before handing them back. He needed those few seconds to organize what was happening in his head.
’She’s standing right in front of me. I need to be careful about what I say.’
The girl took the books without making eye contact and stepped aside to continue on her way.
[TAKESHI SAY SOMETHING]
[don’t say anything weird]
[say something that isn’t weird]
Takeshi said nothing.
The girl was already walking in the opposite direction when a voice came from the far end of the hallway.
"Sable!"
It was Lyra.
She was coming from the north wing with several papers tucked under her arm.
The blue-haired girl, apparently named Sable, stopped. Her expression when she saw Lyra was neutral, without the visible discomfort she had shown during the collision with Takeshi, but without any enthusiasm either.
Lyra reached them and looked at Takeshi first.
"Oh, Fujimoto. Have you two already met?"
"We just bumped into each other."
Takeshi commented.
"Typical for this hallway. There’s always someone coming out of that door without looking."
Lyra turned toward the blue-haired girl.
"This is Takeshi Fujimoto from the student council. Fujimoto, this is Sable Kuroe, and she’s my bandmate."
[LYRA’S BANDMATE]
[LYRA KNOWS HER]
[hold on. the killer is in Lyra’s band. this is new]
[the chat is in recalculating mode]
Takeshi looked at Sable Kuroe.
She looked back at him with an expression that conveyed nothing in particular—no recognition, no specific discomfort, no sign that she knew Takeshi had seen her before under completely different circumstances.
’Of course she doesn’t know. The bridge incident hasn’t happened yet. To her, I’m just a student she bumped into in the hallway.’
Takeshi checked Sable’s stats by reflex.
[Health: 99%]
[Sanity: 100%]
[Trust: 0%]
’That trust is the lowest I’ve ever seen in anyone.’
"Nice to meet you..."
Takeshi greeted her because it was the appropriate thing to say and because he needed this conversation to continue normally while he processed everything else.
Sable gave a slight nod.
"Likewise."
Lyra, completely unaware of the subtext of the situation, continued talking about something related to a band rehearsal that needed to be reorganized because of a scheduling conflict. She asked Sable if she was available on Wednesday, and Sable replied yes with the same level of energy she had shown up to that point.
[Takeshi’s smile looks so forced]
[it’s the face of "I’m smiling but internally I’m recalculating everything"]
[can anyone in the chat read minds because I need to know what he’s thinking]
The chat wasn’t completely wrong.
’Lyra knows her well enough. That means Sable has been at this school for a while. Long enough to join at least one extracurricular activity, and she’s probably not directly connected to Ophélia’s case. She was here before.’
That changed a few things.
A killer who arrived specifically for a job would have a low-profile, quick-exit pattern. Someone integrated into a school band had spent weeks or months in the same place. That could mean the job was long-term, that the target had a specific date that hadn’t arrived yet, or that there was another reason for being here that Takeshi didn’t know yet.
’Or simply that killers have enough resources to place someone here for months without rushing.’
Lyra finished talking about the rehearsal and looked at Takeshi with the expression of someone who had just remembered something.
"Are you heading toward the south wing? I need to talk to Merwyn about something council-related."
"No, I’m going north."
"Oh, then I’ll leave you to it."
She turned toward Sable.
"Wednesday at five. Don’t be late."
Sable didn’t respond verbally. She made a minimal gesture with her head that Lyra interpreted as confirmation and continued down the hallway in the direction she had originally been heading.
Takeshi and Sable were left alone in the hallway for approximately four seconds before Sable started walking as well.
She said nothing else and didn’t look back.
[and just like that she left]
[Takeshi let her go]
[and what was he supposed to do, stop her? with what argument?]
["hey, I saw your face in an alternate timeline where you tried to kill someone I know" sounds convincing]
[completely foolproof social strategy]
Takeshi continued walking toward the north wing.
’I can’t do anything with what I know. There’s no action I can take against her that can be justified with information nobody else has and that comes from a version of events that technically never happened.’
That was the central problem.
He knew she was the killer. He knew her face, he knew her name now, and he knew that at some point she would try to kill Ophélia.
But at this moment, she hadn’t done anything yet.
’If I confront her without evidence, all I accomplish is alerting her that I know something. If I keep an eye on her, I need to do it without her noticing, which is complicated when we just bumped into each other in the hallway and Lyra made a formal introduction.’
The bell signaling the start of class rang from somewhere down the hallway.
Takeshi entered the classroom and sat down in his seat.
[so what’s the plan]
[yeah, Takeshi, what’s the plan]
[the man just sat down with his "I’m thinking" face]
Takeshi stared forward as the teacher began speaking.
He didn’t have a plan yet.
’For now, I need to find a way to stay close to her.’
