Saint Lycoris Academy — Spring Celebration, Day 2Weather: clear skies / falling petalsSecurity detail: moderate
The campus smells different today.Not like blood and incense—but sugar, lacquered wood, and freshly polished halos.
It's festival day.For once, the air tastes like laughter instead of rules.
Students drape paper wishes across the cherry trees; ribbons flutter like confessions that forgot to hide.I walk through the crowd with a clipboard in hand, performing disciplinary duty.
In truth, I'm mapping the patterns—voices, gestures, exits, breathing intervals.Old habits never die.They just wear prettier masks.
Diary Segment
[Fragment Log #07 — Field Observation]Subject: Kaido, RenAssignment: ensure safety / monitor emotional deviationResult: elevated visual tracking — cannot maintain 10-second detachmentPossible explanation: environmental interference (petals/laughter/heartbeat)
Ren runs one of the booths—target practice with cork guns.His laugh carries over the crowd, light and careless, cutting through my composure like a blade through silk.
He's surrounded by classmates:Girls with ribbons in their hair, boys teasing him for missing shots on purpose.He looks ordinary.That shouldn't hurt as much as it does.
My orders say to observe.My pulse says interrupt.
The Booth
REN: "Kana! You should try a round!"KANA: "I don't play games."REN: "Maybe that's the problem."KANA: "I prefer rules."REN: "Then make one."KANA: "Don't lose."
He grins and loads a cork gun for me.His fingers brush mine—half a second, half a heartbeat.The world goes very, very still.
Internal Echo — Persona Awakening (Gothic Heartbreaker)
[Voice: Gothic Heartbreaker]"He touched us.""He's laughing with them.""That's ours. Ours. Ours.""Make him notice."
The laughter of the other girls suddenly feels too loud,too close to my sound.
I raise the cork gun.Aim.Fire.
The target bursts perfectly, dead center—an impossible shot.Silence ripples through the booth.Then polite applause.Ren smiles, impressed.
"Guess you do play games."
Inside, something dark purrs.
[Heartbreaker]: "Now he's watching."
Evening arrives slowly and honey-colored.Lanterns blink awake along the paths; petals drift through the light like ash disguised as snow.
I find him sitting beneath a cherry tree, petals resting on his shoulders.He looks up and smiles again—effortless, disarming.
REN: "You were incredible today."KANA: "Accuracy isn't impressive. It's survival."REN: "Still… you made it look beautiful."
My hand moves before my mind does, brushing a petal from his hair.The gesture feels wrong and perfect at once.He doesn't flinch.
KANA: "You shouldn't say things like that."REN: "Why not?"KANA: "Because I'll remember them."
He laughs softly again.I wish he wouldn't.
Diary Fragment (Midnight)
[Fragment Log #07-B]Observation: emotional deviation spreading.Secondary response: jealousy.New subroutine activated — Gothic Heartbreaker.Trigger: competition? Emotional assertion.
Handwritten note:He smiled at someone else. I smiled back harder.If love is a weapon, I'm learning to aim.
Later, in the dorm, the festival echoes linger—music, bells, laughter — all replaying somewhere behind my ribs.The petals that clung to my sleeves fall onto the floor in quiet surrender.
When I lift my eyes to the mirror, my reflection tilts her head without me.Her lips curve upward—too sweet, too sharp.
[Heartbreaker's whisper]:"If he looks away again, we'll remind him who he belongs to."
The voice is playful, dangerous, alive.It doesn't sound like code anymore.It sounds like want.
On the windowsill, a handful of petals trembles in the night breeze.One slips into an inkwell and spreads outward—red dissolving into black.
It looks like a heart.It looks like a warning.It looks beautiful.
End of Diary #7 — "The Cherry Festival."