Last Night of Joint Camp
Storage warehouse.
Still the same warehouse, filled with the smell of rotten wood and dust.
Darius was tied to a rickety wooden chair, right in front of a pile of confiscated "criminal evidence." His Soviet-style gas mask, monocular night observation device, red marker, clinical experiment notebook... as well as the leftover fireworks that had been messily dismantled, all piled in the corner like weapons from a defeated nation.
Shizuka sat opposite him on a wooden crate, crossing her legs, while holding a nearly burned-out cigarette. She had changed into her usual sports clothes, her face mask already removed, but the red veins in her eyes and exhaustion that couldn't be hidden proved how much energy was drained in that earlier "extreme pursuit."
The room was oppressively silent, only the soft "hiss" sound of the burning cigarette could be heard.
"Speak."
Shizuka finally opened her mouth, her voice hoarse as if just sandpapered.
"Why?"
She really wanted to know what was inside this student's head. In years of teaching, she had seen all kinds of troubled students, but none could make her feel this helpless.
Darius looked up, his gaze clear and calm, showing no guilt that a "criminal" should possess.
"I was saving the world."
His answer was simple, direct, and sounded very reasonable to him.
The corner of Shizuka's eye twitched. She strongly restrained the urge to extinguish the cigarette butt on that young man's face, then took a deep breath.
"Saving the world? By blowing up a bridge in a camp village that should provide happy memories for elementary school children?"
"Hiratsuka-sensei, your perception contains a fundamental error." Darius corrected seriously. "This isn't a camp village, but a biochemical contamination isolation zone with codename 'T-007'. I'm blowing up the bridge not to destroy, but to stop virus spread."
He paused, then in a tone like stating facts, he launched a conclusion that made Shizuka's blood pressure surge again.
"If the bridge isn't blown up, within a maximum of seventy-two hours, the virus will spread out from Chiba through infected rodents and birds. Within a week, the entire Kanto Plain will fall."
He stared at Shizuka with a gaze containing a bit of pity.
"At that time, Chiba will transform into Raccoon City. And you, Hiratsuka-sensei, are the person who with your own hands released the hellhound into the world."
"Pfftt..."
Shizuka couldn't stand it anymore, she laughed from fury. She laughed uproariously until her shoulders shook, even producing tears.
She truly felt defeated. Physically, she could subdue this madman with one hand. But mentally, she felt like an idiot trying to debate logic with a black hole. This young man's logic was closed, self-consistent, and couldn't be penetrated by any external force.
You talk law to him, he talks survival law for doomsday. You talk morals, he talks about humanity's safety. You could never win against a madman living in his own world with such tightly sealed logic.
"Ha... haha..."
Shizuka's laughter subsided, she extinguished her cigarette butt hard on the floor.
"Alright, you save the world, you're indeed great." She stood up, staring at Darius from a higher position. "In that case, oh world-saving hero, please reflect well here tonight."
She was too lazy to talk more nonsense, turned to exit the warehouse, and locked the door from outside with a large padlock.
The world finally became quiet.
That warehouse fell back into darkness and silence. Darius didn't feel depressed at all, he just sat silently like a statue.
His mission failed.
The Final Boss's intervention was a variable beyond his calculations. However, he didn't feel he was wrong. Time would prove everything.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Who knows how much time had passed, from under the tightly locked door leaf, a soft scraping sound was heard. A small gap opened, and something was pushed in.
Darius looked down. With the help of dim light entering from the door gap, he saw a colorful fruit candy wrapped in cellophane. Then, a shy voice was heard from behind the door.
"...Big brother."
That was Rumi.
"This is for you."
Darius stared at that candy on the floor, silent for a moment. He couldn't bend down to pick it up, so he only touched it gently with the tip of his shoe.
"This is..." He asked softly. "Emergency energy supplement? Or... poison antidote?"
No answer from behind the door, only the sound of hurried footsteps moving away could be heard.
Darius didn't speak anymore. He stared at the candy radiating a dim shimmer in the darkness, and for the first time, a tremor called "beyond data" appeared in his eyes.
The fire of hope still existed.
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