The ride to Kivotos was intentionally silent. Not a single rumble of the train was heard, like an engineered factor into the more advanced life within Kivotos.

Miharu wasn't sure what to make heads or tails of it, but it sure informed her as much. With her luggage beside her and all the mementos she could humanly carry with her to remind Katashi of his past, gifted by his parents and all, she had to make her chance. She especially clung to the scarf that now wrapped around her neck.

The one scarf she managed to not just haggle, but force Katashi to buy for her.

Forced was an overstatement, but she got what she wanted, and Katashi got his just desserts by getting her to buy him a fountain pen.

She wondered where that pen was all this time.

"... Do you think it'll work?" Ayumu asked beside her, tilting her head in the faintest hopes that maybe... It will.

"Maybe. We won't know--"

A ringtone rang in. Sensei picked it up first, sliding his tablet to his hand.

"Hello? Rin?" Sensei called out, his eyes slightly wide as he prepared for the voice call.

"Evening, Sensei. I'm sorry if it seems like I called in a rush," Rin clarified, before she heaved a sigh.

"We've received updates. The Prophets have been dealt with. Decagrammaton is gone for now."

Sensei stared at the screen... Before he smiled.

Kize did it. He went up against an entire AI and 'prophets' and won with his students.

His students. Kize's.

"That's great! No one got hurt, right?" Sensei asked.

"...... About that..."

The silence kidnapped everyone, and they had no say on the matter.

"Rio was shot."

"............." Sensei and Ayumu blinked, with Sensei's lips slowly curving downwards. It... Should make sense, right? Eventually, when you get shot enough times, you bleed. That was the nature of the halos.

"Don't the halos..." Ayumu trailed off, letting the question imply itself. Rin understood what she meant, and dropped the truth with no pretense.

"She was shot by a bullet that bypassed her halo."

Ayumu immediately shot up.

"How?! There's no technological capability of such a thing!" Ayumu replied.

"We don't know... We don't know..."

"Now how the fuck is that even possible?" Miharu questioned under her breath. The rundown they gave her was enough to let her know that the students should be protected.

But this? This was a new danger.

Sensei watched as Rin slowly lurched forward to the camera. He saw her hands shaking, the sheer violation of a status quo utterly palpable.

"Sensei... I'm scared."

Sensei gripped the tablet. Never enough to crack it, these tablets still had value. But the very thought of something that was formed specifically to bypass halos, the student's very own defensive measures, was a repulsive thought that violated the very essence of Kivotos.

Kivotos was the place where miracles begin, not the place where one can violate the sanctity of it all.

"We're heading back as soon as possible, Rin. Just..." Sensei inhaled shakily. "Be careful. Stay safe."

"I told you, your guns are going to get someone killed one day," Miharu pointed out.

"No. This is different." Ayumu stated. "Bullets by itself can't singlehandedly bypass a halo's natural defence."

"... So someone manufactured them," Sensei concluded.

"........ Wait whoa whoa, you are not insinuating that Katashi did this?" Miharu stood up, the implication of silence getting to her.

"We are uncertain at this time. Sensei had already left the scene after he was patched up. We haven't contacted him yet. We think it's best we don't for now. Let him cool down."

"... Yeah. It's better that way," Sensei agreed. "Rin..."

"I'm... Trying..."

"That's all that matters, President..." Ayumu assured. Miharu looked at the two, and slowly reminded herself.

They were just kids. Teenagers. And this was a new danger they can't ignore as the burden of responsibility.

"Rin." She leaned forward. "When I get there, I'm going to ask you for a smartphone specifically to let me track Katashi. Can you do that?"

"What... Why would..."

"Because I believe that he could piece things together better than we do. And if anyone has the capability to outthink an asshole, it's him."

——

Kize never stayed with them long enough.

He thought he shouldn't.

He influenced them too much. His tinge of mannerisms, action over words...

His brash, self-sacrificialism...

He hissed.

The alcohol stung against his cranium, as he took the nearest tram away from Millennium. Bandages and gauze was wrapped around his head, the blood that was once there no longer. The tram, for its own part, creaked softly against the world. And in Millennium? That was an imperfection that should be improved upon.

To Kize, it may as well be the indicator to prove that he was alive.

He still remembered how Rio clung to the sleeve of his jacket. How she seemed desperate to stay alive.

How she pleaded him to save her with her eyes.

An impossibility.

An irony.

A ghost who had revived Arius. The catalyst to an unprecedented alliance between two calming former enemies. The commander of a new Special Rescue and Tactics team. The revived spectre of Hyakkiyako. The virus that destroyed Kaiser and saved Abydos.

A force of nature who is claimed by many districts in Kivotos.

A man who was too broken to care for any of that.

A man who failed to save a single student from a gunshot.

She was alive. Undoubtedly so, due to the quick actions of Arius.

"She'll live," Save Squad of Arius assured.

But in all his clouded judgement, he had no one to blame but himself.

"The bullet injury and entry looks familiar to the girl in the depot, though. Think there's a correlation?"

The question that was left unanswered, as he left.

The question that now left him in a solution that sharpened his thoughts.

The Stranger and Beatrice are colluding with each other.

He glanced outside the window. An evening sky that began its descent to a sleeping night. A night he can't simply sleep into.

"Sensei..." Arona called out from the Shittim Chest. Kize glanced at his pocket, where the tablet lit up, with Arona looking at him in that same concern she had when he disassociated.

"We should talk. Okay? Come in the Shittim Chest, please."

"......."

He slipped the Shittim Chest into his hand.

"We thirst for the seven wailings....."

He hesitated. Was this the right decision? To just head into the Shittim Chest? Did he even trust them enough to allow himself to head in?

A sigh. He knew it was going to be unpleasant.

"We bear the koan of Jericho."

A flash of light came about from the Shittim Chest, all encompassing and could even be seen from the outside.

And then, it died down.

—

The world within the Shittim Chest never changed. It never will. It never should.

The same endless ocean. The same ruined classroom. The same concrete of a hole that overlooked the ocean. The sun.

The lack of wetness and dryness. The lack of sleep.

But the one thing that it never lacked was life.

"Sensei..."

Kize slowly opened his eyes, and this time, he appeared to be sitting on a chair, with a desk in front of him. Like how a student would typically be. Arona and Plana appeared at the corner of his eyes, before finally appearing properly.

"You're blaming yourself again."

"Your cortisol levels are increasing again."

Kize heaved a sigh, his hands shoved immediately in his pockets as it gripped from within. This again...

"It's nothing of concern."

"Stop saying that, Sensei."

"Heartbeat increased. Analysis: Lying. Query: Why?"

Their stares, both of judgement, of worry, all prevalent altogether.

He already knew they were genuinely expressive.

He knew that they chose him.

He knew that they recognized him as a Sensei. They said it outright before, as they clung onto him when he was pulled out of that ink in Hyakkiyako.

"You don't need to be worried about me."

"BUT YOU'RE SENSEI!! I... WE... WE DON'T WANT TO LOSE ANOTHER SENSEI!!!!"

"Rectification: She refers to the comatose Sensei... However. She is correct."

That was what he said.

That was their response. Arona cried her tears into his shirt, arms wrapped so tightly, so softly... Painfully caring. Plana slowly wrapped her arms behind his neck, as he remembered her whisper.

"Welcome back, Sensei."

A repetition of words, a different action. All for the same reason.

A cycle he keeps spiraling into for the sake of his own self denial.

An inevitably fatal one.

"Because I'm a repla--"

"YOU AREN'T, SENSEI!!" Arona screamed suddenly, a hand weakly slamming against the desk. Her eyes seem to threaten itself to tears. "PLEASE! SEE YOURSELF AS ONE FOR ONCE!"

"... No." Hesitation was ever so audible in Kize's voice.

"No?!!"

"Observation: Sensei denies being Sensei..." Plana sighed, her small hands gripping the rifle she held. In this world, it does nothing. Just dressing.

But it was the one tether to the world she once was in. A world that no longer exists.

A world where there were no miracles. Only despair.

"Sensei." She continued. "Plana begs of you. Please don't be like Phrenapates."

She glitched in place, before a screen emerged before Kize. A file appeared.

Phrenapates

"....." Kize felt his muscles stiffened. His quote lived in his head. The sheer antithesis of everything he ever thought.

Your life matters.

That's not your fault.

You weren't born to suffer. And you shouldn't. No child should ever feel that way.

He should agree to it.

But when a child hurts you in a way you can't recover, how do you even act?

The file opened.

The first thing that appeared was a steel mask. A steel mask that resembled a face, yet hollow.

"If you see this..." A hollow voice. Pained. Heavy breathing was sewn all across.

"Then you're spiraling, Sensei."

"I'm not Se--"

"No. It doesn't matter if you, dear listener, are Sensei or not. Because you matter. You."

Kize flinched. The AIs watched as he seem to shrink into his seat, the same way he did when he disassociated during the CEO's bluff.

Plana went first, approaching from one side to take hold of his arm, holding him up.

Arona followed suit, grabbing his arm tightly, as if he'd leave any time soon when she would least expect it.

"I am... Dead. As dead as I'll ever be. But you're not. My students may be unruly, but they're mine. Just as I'm theirs... And I failed."

"...."

The AIs felt his muscles stiffening, how his Adam's Apple gulped down. The doubt, the endless stream of spirals he had relentlessly dove into and came out with more scars than he could heal from. It hurt them.

And here, another Sensei. Plana's Sensei, Phrenapates. One who was just as kind, just as forgiving as Sensei.

The Sensei. Not Kize.

But Phrenapates failed?

"I failed... For the Nameless Priest had awoken. A power beyond our own. My own. And my students... All perished. Because of me. For me. And they failed, too. Shiroko is all I have left."

"... What about yourself..." Kize's unanswered question hung silently.

"I'm dead. I told you that already. I'm a walking corpse, still breathing for one final mission. A mission I know you can succeed. Or perhaps it was already succeeded by someone."

Kize glanced at Plana. An implication of another world struck him blind. But to see Plana, the typically emotionless AI, streaking tears down her cheeks, clinging onto Kize while looking at Phrenapates with those eyes of grief...

"Please... Protect your students. Cherish them. Always. Because you never know when you'll see them again."

Kize opened his lips. Phrenapates continued regardless, his breathing a struggle. His life dangling as it seemed like he limped.

"Sensei. You and I are alike. But you're different. You always will be. Your methods may be different. Perhaps it's the same. But you do it for them, don't you?"

A breath. A shallow inhale, followed by a cough. Blood seeped out from the prodding lips of the mask.

"So... Don't run anymore. Stand. Fight. They choose you, not to disappoint you. But to pride themselves in you. And isn't that the greatest achievement as a Sensei?"

Another inhale. Weak.

"Please. Live. Not to suffer. But for purpose."

The screen disappeared for one second, before appearing again, Phrenapates's mask replaced with the sole image of a man in a suit, smiling, surrounded by students of familiar faces, all with their own smiles of glee. Of joy.

Of painful eventuality at the end of it all.

Arius. Shanhaijing. Gehenna. Trinity. Hyakkiyako. Abydos. Millennium. Red Winter. RABBIT Platoon.

'For the memories we continue to make.'

A signature written below the image.

Kize felt a hand clung to his.

He looked towards Arona, who was silent. Tears streaked down her cheeks, a sniffle or two escaping her every now and then.

"Don't leave... Please."

He couldn't bear to look at her.

"Query: Why do you still deny?" Plana asked, her grip on his sleeve tightening.

He couldn't bear to look at them.

"... You wouldn't understand."

"Then tell us, Sensei!" Arona pleaded, on her knees while she clung to his hands. "Tell us in a way we'd understand! You shouldn't carry your burdens alone, Sensei....."

A sniffle. Arona's lips quivered, and the tears only grew in quantity, before soon pressed her face against his lap, tears streaming down her face and staining his trousers. Sobs left her lips, like a child begging a parent not to go.

"We just...!! We don't want you to keep hurting yourself again--!"

"............"

Misuzu.

The crocodile tears.

The court.

And then, for that single moment, he chose not to remember them.

His hands shook, biting his inner lip as if to stop himself from giving in to his emotions. He can't. He shouldn't.

He shouldn't cry. That's what he's supposed to do.

Instead...

He held Arona's hand back.

Plana saw this. Making sure his head hung low, focused solely on Arona, she slowly kneeled beside Kize, and gently pressed her own face against his lap.

In this moment, two AIs surrounded a broken man.

And in this moment, something fragile had formed.