[Karuizawa Kei's Self: Before each simulation begins, one random talent is upgraded to the highest gold level]
The talent [Well-Read (Blue)] has been upgraded to [Extensive Knowledge (Gold)].
[Extensive Knowledge (Gold)]: You love reading and possess a unique method of studying. Your comprehension and mastery of books and knowledge improve drastically. (Humans can never finish reading the vast ocean of books, nor master all fields of knowledge. Remember, greed will only lead to indigestion.)
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The moment Sakayanagi Arisu laid eyes on this facility nestled deep within the mountains, a wave of discomfort surged through her.
The appearance of the building, the hallways, the identical rooms—everything was painted in pure white.
It instantly evoked the image of hospitals and wards in her mind. The people walking back and forth inside all wore white uniforms like medical staff, their expressions solemn, as if carrying out some sacred duty.
Walking inside the building, with walls thickly coated in stark white, the monochromatic palette combined with unpleasant memories caused Sakayanagi Arisu to feel a wave of dizziness. She had only been discharged from the hospital a month ago. Pressing her lips together, she walked step by step. Her father, noticing her discomfort, gently placed a hand on her shoulder for support.
"Sakayanagi—no, I suppose I should call you Chairman Sakayanagi now, shouldn't I?"
A man in his forties appeared at the end of the corridor. He raised his hand in a welcoming gesture. His sharp gaze left a strong impression.
"Ayanokouji-sensei, it's been a long time."
Her father bowed slightly, his tone extremely respectful.
"Ah, what a nostalgic title."
The man referred to as Ayanokouji scrutinized them briefly, then casually waved his hand.
"So, what do you think?"
He spread his arms to present the room behind him. Through the one-way glass, children around Sakayanagi Arisu's age could be seen gathered and studying. At first glance, it seemed like a regular school setting. However, Arisu quickly sensed something off.
Pressing her face against the glass, she closely observed the students inside. Each one seemed to be desperately fighting against the others, like wild beasts. Whether in academics or physical training, the level of competition far exceeded what would be expected of children.
"That must be your daughter, right? She looks like a smart one," Ayanokouji said with a smile, noticing her movements.
"She is."
Sakayanagi gracefully accepted the compliment and returned it politely:
"But I've heard your biological son is incredibly gifted as well—even among those here, he stands out."
Ayanokouji's hawk-like gaze fixed on Chairman Sakayanagi's face. He chuckled and said:
"I can tell. You were hoping just now that he wasn't talented, weren't you?"
"That wasn't my intention. It's just… if only Sensei could show him a little more care."
Chairman Sakayanagi sighed and said:
"I just feel sorry for that child. After all, he's lived in this facility since birth. The first thing he saw wasn't a father or mother, but the white ceiling of this facility."
Ayanokouji sneered, clearly unwilling to dwell on the subject. He replied with a hint of stubbornness:
"Because I believe in the system that operates within this facility. I believe it will benefit this country for decades to come."
His tone carried the conviction of someone delivering a public speech—unyielding and filled with absolute confidence.
As if to validate his beliefs, he turned his head to follow Sakayanagi Arisu's gaze into the room. There, in an ongoing chess match, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka was swiftly defeating one opponent after another.
"Would you like to play a game with him?"
For those born into the upper echelons of society, their social circles were quite limited. The man naturally knew a bit about Sakayanagi Arisu's personality. He believed that with just a little provocation, this young lady who firmly believed that talent was predetermined at birth would accept the challenge to prove her point.
However, with her back to him, Sakayanagi Arisu seemed utterly uninterested. Resting her small head on her hands, she asked without turning around:
"Besides chess, what else can he do?"
"Piano, calligraphy, martial arts…"
The man listed a long string of accomplishments with ease, as if trying to prove that Ayanokouji Kiyotaka was a genuine prodigy—and by extension, validate the correctness of this white room.
"Can he cure Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis?"
But Sakayanagi Arisu replied with detached indifference.
The man didn't even catch the lengthy medical term the first time and frowned in confusion.
Sakayanagi Arisu sighed, then turned around to kindly clarify:
"It's what people usually call ALS."
"Can it be cured?"
Hearing the girl's earnest question, the man suddenly had a thought:
She definitely came here to stir trouble.
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Sakayanagi Arisu peeled an orange beside Kitagawa Ryo's hospital bed while chattering about her recent experiences.
"That place is so boring. Everything is white—the bed, the bookshelf, the wardrobe. There's nothing living there besides people. No animals, no plants… not even a cat."
It had been nearly a year since the two of them met. But now, their roles had subtly shifted. Arisu had been formally discharged from the hospital. Though still physically weak, she could live a relatively normal life. Meanwhile, Kitagawa Ryo, who had seemed more spirited than her when he was first admitted, now had no choice but to remain hospitalized.
Barring a miracle, he'd probably stay until his condition worsened and he was transferred to the intensive care unit. And if things went badly—he might skip straight to the end.
Neither option sounded like a good ending.
Kitagawa Ryo accepted the peeled orange with his left hand. Once, absentmindedly in front of her, he had stripped the pith from the orange slices. Arisu took that as a personal habit of his. From then on, she meticulously removed the white strands whenever she peeled an orange for him.
"Don't you need to go to school, Arisu? You always seem to have so much free time."
Though Arisu had left the hospital, she still visited Kitagawa every two days, sometimes staying the whole afternoon.
"I just leave early. Like today, the afternoon class was PE."
She casually answered while sharing her thoughts about school:
"When I was still here, my father used to say that once I got better, I could go to school like a normal kid. On the first day, he prepared every little detail. I even felt nervous myself."
"But once I got there, I realized that I wasn't considered normal at all."
"For example, I could easily skip every PE class."
"Or how they held a special class meeting before I joined, where the teacher explained to everyone how to take care of me… A disadvantaged student? I guess that's what they called it."
"I know they meant well, but it still felt strange."
Arisu placed her cane on her thigh. She'd been faced with many things she couldn't understand over the past month since being discharged.
"While I was in the hospital, my father and the doctors always told me that I was a normal child. That once I was cured, I'd be no different from other healthy kids."
"But once I stepped outside, I could feel all kinds of special treatment."
"Of course."
She lightly tapped her chest—the spot where her heart was.
"The most troublesome thing is… I know better than anyone that I'm a defective person."
Maybe because she'd spent so much time with Ryo, Arisu found herself no longer used to the outside world. Even though the biggest space here was just a tiny courtyard she could walk around in ten minutes, it still felt more comfortable. Her elementary school's courtyard was several times larger.
When defects gather together, they seem normal. But toss them into a crowd, and they become glaringly obvious.
"You shouldn't think that way."
Ryo looked up while chewing a mouthful of orange. He liked stuffing several segments in at once, filling his mouth with sweetness and juice.
His gaze toward Arisu was direct but not sharp, clear yet fearless. He smiled lightly, a bright, clean canine flashing like a glint of light piercing her pupils.
Ryo had never fully understood why Arisu became who she was. Even after a year of being together, he hadn't completely grasped her inner world.
Unlike Ichinose Honami and Karuizawa Kei, Arisu didn't seem to have a clear turning point. Or perhaps he just hadn't found it yet.
For Kei, her transformation came after the stabbing incident that nearly took her life.
For Honami, it was the shoplifting her mother had violently corrected.
As for Suzune—her turning point was undoubtedly Horikita Manabu.
Ryo knew personality flaws weren't caused by a single event. Those moments were just the triggers. People were often already on the brink for a long time before finally snapping.
He had seen all three—Suzune, Kei, and Honami—break down and cry. But he had never seen Arisu cry. He couldn't even imagine it.
Arisu wasn't lacking in emotion. In daily interactions, she seemed more approachable than pre-transformation Suzune. Even so, Suzune still displayed emotional depth in front of her brother.
So, Ryo found himself unable to offer any comforting words. He simply looked at Arisu. Her cane now rested by her foot like a small animal nuzzling her pants.
She was already used to bringing it along. A joke like "you walk like a grandma with three legs" wouldn't change that.
"Mm."
To his surprise, Arisu actually nodded in agreement. She avoided his gaze awkwardly and started peeling another orange.
The nightstand was covered with a soft orange mat. The room no longer looked like it did a few months ago. At New Year, Arisu had brought in a ton of decorations, forcibly transforming the room's theme from cold to warm.
Last month, when Ryo casually mentioned wanting to read, Arisu directly brought over the large bookshelf from her own room. It was now packed with books.
No one stopped her. Maybe their parents had silently agreed, or maybe they had just accepted that Ryo would be staying here forever.
Once Arisu realized that, she felt like she hadn't decorated a home—but a coffin.
Especially as his condition continued to deteriorate, Arisu grew increasingly distraught.
She had never witnessed someone dying before. When her mother passed away, she was too young to remember. All she had were her father's descriptions to reconstruct that figure.
Her father once told her: "Humans learn warmth through touch. That is very important." But no matter how warm Arisu's hands were, or how tightly she held on, she couldn't pass that warmth through Ryo's right hand.
And she knew… that part of him would only continue to fade.
In silence, she gently fed a slice of orange into Ryo's mouth.
She pinned down his movable left hand and pressed close to his chest, peeling each slice and feeding them one by one. His lips brushed against her palm—warm, with a trace of cool citrus juice.
But all she could imagine was that thin feeding tube, inserted through his nose, pumping liquefied meals directly into his stomach.
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Arisu didn't visit the next day.
After confirming this, Ryo sat at his desk. He was used to using his left hand now. With practiced ease, he pulled a thick notebook from the shelf.
During the Suzune simulation, he had poured almost all his energy into resolving a lingering regret about his sister—focusing intensely on Arisu's congenital heart disease (she had been assigned the role of his sister in that scenario).
Afterward, using a talent-separation reward card, he extracted that experience and gained the purple-grade talent: [Physician].
[Physician (Purple)]: You have mastered modern medical techniques and possess rich experience in clinical surgery. Your specialties include cardiovascular internal medicine and surgery.
But it still wasn't enough.
As he flipped through medical books he'd ordered, Ryo combined their contents with his own knowledge and reflections. Though the Suzune simulation had ended with her emotional resolution, his research into Arisu's heart condition had never stopped.
[Heaven's Envy (Gold)]: Your body is weak and likely won't live past thirty. In exchange, your intelligence increases dramatically.
This was one of the reasons Ryo had chosen that core talent for his first simulation—he valued the massive boost in intelligence.
And now, he felt he was closing in on an answer.
While Ryo bent over his desk, writing and thinking, Arisu was also deep in contemplation.
Finally, she brought up her thoughts to her father.
"You didn't visit that child today?"
"Mm."
She nodded, hesitant for a long time. But once she spoke, there was no more doubt.
"Father…"
"I want to try studying medicine."
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