The Service Club room was filled with a studying atmosphere for the first time.
On the long table, textbooks and reference materials from various subjects were scattered. Yukino was holding a red pen, patiently circling mistakes in Yui's practice book.
"Yuigahama-san, look here, the use of this particle. Since before this is the ren'yōkei conjugation verb form, then you should use 'wo' and not 'ga'..."
"Oh... oh!" Yui nodded though looking not quite understanding, but her eyes occasionally glanced toward the window.
There, Darius was standing in a difficult pose; standing on one leg on a chair, eyes closed, and not moving at all.
"What is he doing?" Yui whispered.
"Don't mind him." Yukino didn't lift her head, her voice cold. "As long as he doesn't make noise, consider him large non-burnable trash."
She had given up trying to correct Darius's behavior. Exam week was the only last holy ground for her. She just wanted to help Yui study quietly so her friend wouldn't fail.
"I'm not playing around."
Darius's voice suddenly sounded. He opened his eyes, his gaze deep, as if penetrating the truth of the universe.
"I'm performing the final calibration before 'IQ Filtration'. Exams aren't to test what you've learned, but rather a standardized mass obedience test. Exams use a fixed logic framework to filter out the most obedient individuals most suited to the system's needs, then throw them into the giant machine slot called society."
He jumped down from the chair, walked to the table, and picked up a history textbook.
"And I, refuse to be filtered."
"You talk big, when you're just too lazy to study." Yukino stabbed him with cold facts.
"Study?" Darius smiled. "Why should I use incorrect information to overwrite correct perceptions already in my brain? For example this," He opened a page about the Sengoku period and pointed to an illustration of Oda Nobunaga, "This book says he died in the Honnō-ji Incident because he was betrayed by his subordinate, Akechi Mitsuhide. How shallow and dramatic this explanation is."
"Then if not that, what?" Yui approached out of curiosity.
"The truth is, Oda Nobunaga, as the observer closest to the concept of 'Tenka-fito' (ruler of the world) at that time, produced too strong an observational action on his own future as 'world unifier'. According to the observer effect in quantum mechanics, his observation caused his own wave function—which was previously a superposition between 'unifying the world' and 'death'—to instantly collapse into a definite result, namely 'death'."
Darius's voice wasn't loud, but heard clearly by everyone.
"So, what killed Oda Nobunaga wasn't Akechi Mitsuhide, but the laws of physics. Akechi Mitsuhide was just the 'dice' tasked with executing the result in that 'collapse event'."
Yui opened her mouth wide, her eyes sparkling as if just receiving enlightenment.
"Oh! I see! I also found it strange if he failed just because of betrayal, turns out it was the laws of physics' fault!"
"Yuigahama-san!" Yukino's voice suddenly rose, she felt her blood pressure skyrocket. "Don't listen to his nonsense! It's just history!"
"History is a collection of quantum states that have collapsed into definite results." Darius closed the textbook and concluded, "The reason you consider my theory nonsense is only because your brain is locked by a 'Newtonian classical mechanics' worldview, thus unable to understand higher-dimensional reality."
"I..." Yukino was so angry she couldn't speak.
Seeing Yui's expression that seemed to say "I understand now." unbearable anger surged to her head. She grabbed the thickest modern Japanese dictionary nearby and threw it at Darius's head.
"Today I'll let your high-dimensional reality experience the purest physical impact from the low dimension!"
The dictionary shot through the air with a whooshing sound.
However, Darius's body like a weightless leaf; he bounced backward at an unreasonable angle. The dictionary passed almost touching the tip of his nose and struck the wall behind hard.
"Physical attacks are ineffective against me." Darius straightened his body, tidying his collar that wasn't even messy. "This action of yours, in ancient times, was called a 'curse'. By throwing a container containing the concept of 'knowledge' at the target, you tried to contaminate the opponent's perception. I call it: 'Curse of Knowledge'."
"I'll kill you!"
Yukino truly lost control. She grabbed the stationery on the table; pencils, erasers, compass, everything was thrown at Darius.
The club room instantly turned into a "weapon rain" battlefield.
Darius calmly dodged amidst the rain of "secret weapons," as if leisurely walking in heavy rain.
"It's useless, Yukinoshita. The more your logic breaks down, the more chaotic your attacks, and the lower the threat you pose to me."
Yui stared at the scene in a daze, then whispered to Saki who at some point had been standing at the club room door: "Yukinon... seems to have just been convinced again by Commander."
The corner of Saki's mouth twitched.
Convinced? This looked more like one-sided mental harassment.
She came today because ordered by Darius to "attend a pre-war meeting." She thought there would be something serious discussed, but it turned out... just a chaotic study session.
Finally, this absurd drama ended with Yukino exhausted and panting at the table. She lost. Both physically and mentally, she lost completely.
Darius walked leisurely back to the window, stood again on the chair, and closed his eyes.
"Calibration continued."
Yui looked at the collapsed Yukino, then at Darius by the window. After hesitating for a moment, she picked up a pencil and beside her answer about the Honnō-ji Incident in her history practice book, she wrote a small note:
[Real reason: Quantum Collapse]
She felt what Darius taught made far more sense than textbooks.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
On exam day, the air at Sobu High was filled with a tense atmosphere. In the corridor, students walked hurriedly with faces full of tension.
Darius walked among them, but he looked like a tourist leisurely strolling in a park. He entered the exam room, looking for his seat. Coincidentally, his exam proctor was Shizuka.
Seeing Darius, Shizuka's temple began throbbing as usual. She walked to Darius's desk, knocked on the table surface, and warned in a low voice:
"Darius, I don't care how you usually behave, but this is an exam. Sit nicely. Dare to act strange, you're dead."
Darius looked up, showing her a very sincere and innocent smile.
"Sensei, don't worry. I will use this small test paper to ignite a war of truth that will sweep the entire education world."
Shizuka's fist immediately hardened.
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