Wearing an oversized white shirt over blue jeans that still failed to hide his chiseled, muscular physique, Luke waited outside the Class 3-I dorm for the seniors of the Department of Management at UA High.
There was an exhaustion within him, like worms crawling under his skin.
The back-to-back use of multiple abilities from the Seer Pathway as Gehrman Sparrow while helping Alexander against the Rampagers, maintaining the Peaceful Hair Strands for nearly five minutes, and then the consecutive use of two Super-Complexity Quirks…
Luke's Spirit Points were so drained that he could barely keep his eyes open.
Then there was a different kind of exhaustion; the mental kind.
Mushroom-nimi had vanished into thin air, causing an explosion that had taken out the entire space station.
Miss Melissa, despite scouring the servers of the various U.S. departments aware of ORIGIN, had failed to find even a single mention of the cyborg.
That could only mean the American side was still unaware of Mushroom-nimi's presence on ORIGIN.
Even if Luke were to put aside the deeply disturbing findings he had made while playing a game of Questions and Answers with Singularity, there were mysteries that still bordered on haunting him.
Why did neither Star nor Skycrawler recognize Samuel Abraham?
Why did Star blindly follow nonsensical advice from a scientist to turn the Boundary transparent without consulting the people down on the planet?
Being a Cryptologist gifted with an ingenious mind, Luke had already considered the possibility that the entire scenario, painted so clearly for them by a lunatic, was a diversion at best, and an outright lie at worst.
Perhaps Star had never turned the Boundary transparent.
Perhaps the image that had ended up corrupting all the people at ORIGIN had been planted by Dr. Sam.
Miss Justice had already confirmed that true images of Gods and Angels held mysteries related to Them and could effectively bring about the same effect as looking upon the Gods Themselves, if They wanted.
Perhaps that was why neither Singularity nor Conformity had seen the disaster coming, as Star had never tampered with The Boundary to that extent in the first place.
Perhaps that was why Star had managed to save not only herself, but also Skycrawler, instead of mutating on the spot like the others.
Perhaps Star and Skycrawler had never even laid eyes on the Evil God's image, and the cause behind their suspended state was something else — another enemy?!
Perhaps all the Rampagers on ORIGIN had been created deliberately, carefully, one by one.
Perhaps… ORIGIN's disaster had been nothing but a show — a deceit — from beginning to end.
The only fact Luke was sure of was Mushroom-nimi's unusual decision to blow up the space station, knowing he and Nyx would be in danger, and then disappear altogether.
But that fact also raised questions of its own — why and where.
This was the greatest dilemma Luke faced as a Cryptologist.
There was virtually no end to the questions and possibilities he could decrypt from the information at hand, without ever reaching anywhere near the answers he sought.
To make matters worse, because of his innate high intelligence, he had already been having trouble with this Sequence, leading him to seek Miss Justice's help to constantly placate his mind, lest he become a simpleton.
Blessed or not, if that happened, Luke would find even ordinary thinking an excruciating task, Miss Justice had warned.
[And I am warning you again!] Miss Justice hissed. [Stop it. Relax…]
"It's all right…" Luke muttered, holding his head.
[It's all right?!] Miss Justice repeated. [I know what you are doing, Luke. You are forcing your mind to adapt to acting as two people at once. This was something I have been waiting to talk to you about all this time. But you were too busy to listen. Listen…]
"… I'm a little busy even now, Miss Justice," Luke complained.
She ignored him. [You cannot keep doing this,] Miss Justice said, assuming her most serious tone. [If it hadn't been for your extraordinary mind, I wouldn't have recommended such a method to accelerate potion digestion to anyone else. It worked. You digested the Faceless Potion. Now forget about it. You shouldn't ever need it again.]
Luke frowned.
It wasn't as though he couldn't see where Miss Justice was coming from.
In fact, he was well aware of the dangers involved in thinking like two men with vastly different personalities simultaneously with a single mind.
But… somehow… it felt right.
It felt as though it would only get easier the longer he kept at it.
[And that's why it is wrong!] Miss Justice shouted. [I understand that the digestion principles of your Faceless potion are centered around it, but you don't have to practice it constantly, do you? There's a reason I said the Sequence 6 Faceless would be one of the most dangerous Potions for you to digest, because the dangers multiply with a Beyonder's intelligence. Now, promise me you will not keep doing it, Luke…]
"But…"
[… Or I will tell on you to Mr. Fool the next time we go to the Grey Castle.]
Luke's lips flattened into a thin line.
Seriously?
First, Singularity had strong-armed him with that whole Pass business.
Now, even Miss Justice was blackmailing him?
He squeezed his temples tighter.
"Even you get headaches, you musclehead?!"
Luke let go of his head and looked toward the entrance.
Rikuya Saionji was standing there, eyeing him with clear annoyance.
Beneath that irritation, Luke also saw something his older brother was desperately trying to hide: exhaustion.
Not just ordinary tiredness, but a deathly fatigue.
Clenching his teeth, Luke stormed toward Rikuya, making him flinch and stand upright.
Before the older Saionji could even react, Luke's hand shot out like a striking serpent and… landed flat against his forehead.
"Hey! Take that filthy hand off me!" Rikuya shouted before violently coughing. "Cough! Cough!"
Luke lifted his hand as his brother collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath, burning up with fever.
"Listen…" Rikuya began.
This time, when Luke's hand moved…
… it slammed into Rikuya's face, the punch sending him rolling across the pavement!