見覚える?

There are white walls everywhere. It's all there is.

One white wall and two white walls and three white walls and four white walls, closing in on her when she tries to sleep, suffocating her when she can't. A white ceiling over her head with the electric light turned full-on, glaring at the top of her head. A smooth white floor that she has fallen on when trying to walk and slipped on the blood that coated her feet, blood that seeps from the gaping cuts she opens up all over her body when she is alone after they are done with her.

Her eyes are trained on his shoe. It is black. Polished. Laces tied messily, which seems oddly in contrast with his otherwise neat and orderly countenance. He is wearing a black trousers and a pale yellow sweater under the white lab coat he dons.

White. She thinks. Why is it white? White, why is it always white? White, white, white. White.

White, white, white. Let's paint it red, Pai. Let's paint them all red.

Red...red...she thinks hazily. Red like...blood?

Let them bleed like they made us bleed.

Her mind is muddled. Slow. She knows it is because she has not completed her task, the one Akira set her to. Once she has, she knows she won't feel this tired, this drained. At least, she thinks she won't. She'll be used to it by then.

But she hasn't. Not yet. "Train your body to function normally on three hours of sleep. Do that, and I'll let you talk to her as a reward for the good girl, eh?"

She hasn't done that yet. She'll feel better once she does. She'll be able to see her once she does. She'll feel better then, she knows she will. She just has to get rid of this aching heaviness in the marrows of her bones where lead lies, pushing her down into the bed when she knows she should wake up.

"Do you know why I am here?" Kazuki asks.

It takes a while for her to understand what he has said after she hears it. She says nothing. Her eyes flick up to Kazuki when he shifts. He crosses his legs. She goes back to staring at his shoe.

Three hours. Sleep...sleep on three hours. I can do four now. Need to make it to three.

Let us out and you won't have to.

I won't. You're not coming out. It's your fault I'm here. I won't let you out.

The voice starts fading away. It is still there, she knows it by the weight in her chest, by the slight tapping at the back of her skull like a headache asking permission to wreak havoc, but it goes silent.

She wants to cry. The voice is the source of her madness, and it is the only thing keeping her sane now. It hurts her, but she doesn't want it to go away. Please don't go away, don't –

It doesn't say anything, but she feels it surge up slightly, a chill spreading through her. Her simmering panic quietens down, cooled by the frigid essence she rarely sees but always hears.

"If you don't want me to call the Doctor to check up on you, you need to speak to me." Kazuki warns, not unkindly.

She flinches.

A second passes. Two seconds. Three. Four. Five seconds. She parts her lips and words erupt. She thinks she will sound hoarse from only using her voice to scream for so long, but she sounds normal.

So normal.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

She says nothing. Unless he asks her a direct question, she will say nothing. That is what has been drilled into her since she was brought here. Speaking out of turn is not allowed.

"Can you elaborate on that, please?"

"I know why you are here."

Kazuki nods, looking pleased. "That is good. And, why is that?"

Why you're here? "You are here to evaluate me."

"Why would I want to do that?"

Don't know. "I do not know."

He looks at her for a moment longer, grizzly grey eyebrows twitching over his brown eyes as he watches her. If she looks now, she knows she will see concern in those eyes. Kazuki is one of the few here who she thinks she can say is human in his mannerisms. She doesn't know if he is. He seems to genuinely care and worry over the well-being of her and the others like her.

But she doesn't know if it's real. He works for them. He serves them. She knows that no one can remain good if they adhere to the orders of So Fu. If he is not dead, then obey he does.

She doesn't know what being good entails. Maybe he is, because he's here to check on her. Maybe she's not, for being difficult, in whatever little way she can be.

He sighs lightly. "I'm here to evaluate you because Akira-san requested it. He wants to see if you're ready for your next mission."

She says nothing. He has not asked her a direct question.

Kazuki watches her for a moment longer before closing the metal top of his sleek clipboard. There is a click as he sticks his pen into its slot at the top of the clipboard. It's painfully loud in the white silence of the room. Kazuki sits in a metal chair he has brought in from outside with him. He set the chair in the middle of the room, sitting in it with his right leg crossed over, ankle resting on knee.

He sits just close enough that it is clear he's not here to quietly observe her, just far enough that he doesn't risk setting her off with his proximity. No one ever seems to know when that will happen when someone gets too close. None of them have deigned to figure it out themselves. Or maybe they do know, but they don't think about it, ever. She's like that, knowing but refusing to think of it.

She sits on the cot built into white wall two, the wall on the left from the door. She feels heavy and limp as she sits with her back braced against the wall, staring at his black, perfectly polished shoe. She is unsure if she could move her hand if she tried.

"How are you feeling?"

Tired. I am tired.

She does not say anything. She doesn't know how to answer him. The question throws her into confusion, but at the same time she knows the answer to it.

Kazuki speaks again. "Oh, I forgot your training requires specific questions, doesn't it?" she says nothing. Her training has not hindered her from recognizing rhetoric questions. Why did he even say that? To remind her? "I meant, how do you feel physically?"

"I'm fine."

He tsk-s. "Formal speech, Pai-san. So Fu requires formal speech from all of you."

But not from you.

She swallows past the lump that is choking her. "I apologize."

Kazuki smiles. She stares at the smile rather than the shoe. She always stares at it when he smiles – she is always forgetting what a smile is. It is hard to remember why a person's lips turn up like that. She wonders how he has the strength to smile when she feels like she barely has the strength to breathe. Is it normal, not to feel so heavy as she does?

"Just don't make that mistake with the other Instructors, or the handlers, all right?"

She continues staring as she mentally debates whether or not that is a question that warrants an answer. When he continues speaking, she drops her eyes back to his shoe. It is twitching as he thumps it gently.

He is getting impatient.

"So, answer me truthfully, Pai-san. How do you feel, physically?"

Truthfully. If she lies and gets caught, they will take her back to the Doctor. They will say her lying means she is broken. Broken things need to be fixed. The Doctor is good at fixing broken things. It is what he specializes in.

"I am tired."

Kazuki nods as he uncrosses his legs and flips open his clipboard again. The pen clicks as he slips the top off and scribbles something on the paper inside. He writes loud.

"Do you know why?"

"I have not completed my task."

Kazuki frowns and looks up at her. "What task?"

"Akira-san instructed me to train so that I can function normally on three hours of sleep. I am tired because I have not succeeded. Yet." She adds quickly. I haven't succeeded yet, but I will, I promise I will.

"What?" Kazuki is annoyed. Is it at her? Did she do something wrong? "Why wasn't I told of this?"

Pai says nothing. He asked a question, but she doesn't know the answer.

He sighs, clearly annoyed, frustrated. She doesn't know if it is at her or someone else. "When did he tell you to do this?"

"Last week."

"Before or after you were given your mission?"

She thinks. "After."

Kazuki presses his lips into a tight line. He shakes his head, closing his eyes as if he is struggling to maintain his calm composure. She continues looking at his shoe. After a few moments, Kazuki shakes his head, tapping the end of his ballpoint pen on the paper attached to the clipboard. "I'll have a word with him later. After this, I want you to have a nap; keep it to four hours. Let's just finish this for now."

That is not a question.

"What is your current mission?"

Her eyes flicker, but they remain on his shoe. "Locate, track, and eliminate an Ookami."

"What information do you currently have on this particular Ookami?"

She goes on automaton as she answers, "His name is Kirishima Ken. Age thirty-two. Other specific details unknown. His current location is Aomori, as part of business negotiations to open up an Aomori branch of a multinational fisheries company owned by the Ookami."

"What is your task?"

She responds without hesitation. "To kill him."

It is Kazuki who pauses, glancing up at her from what he is writing. "Why must you kill him?"

"He is Ookami."

"Pai-san, why must you kill him?"

A pause. She feels the panic from bare minutes ago stir. "He is Hengen."

Kazuki watches her expressionlessly as she stares at his shoe. She breathes shallowly. She is afraid of his line of questioning. She is afraid of answering wrong. He leans forward, dark brown eyes gazing intently at her as she in turn stares with un-breaking focus at the tip of his thumping shoe.

"Why must you kill him?" he asks again.

The panic ratchets up. A pause that lasts an infinite heartbeat before she answers firmly. "He is Ayakashi."

"Why must you kill Ayakashi?"

She holds in a breath of relief. She's right "They are a cancerous disease that must be cleaned from the world in order for humanity to survive."

A vague smile. "Textbook answer."

She makes no response. Hers is a textbook answer, but it has never been instructed that textbook answers are prohibited, or incorrect.

He leans back in his metal chair. "This Ookami – he will be your what kill?"

This time she looks up at him. "I do not understand the question."

"Allow me to rephrase. How many kills have you made before?"

"Including or excluding the current target?" she asks. She hopes it isn't a mistake to ask. She knows that asking for clarification isn't banned, but it isn't encouraged. It is the expectation that once something is said, it is understood immediately.

He regards her silently for a beat. "You're very certain that you'll accomplish your task, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Why is that?"

You trained me to."I was trained for it."

"Very well. Excluding."

She breathes in slowly, then speaks as she exhales. "Thirty-six. The Ookami will be my thirty-seventh."

Kazuki watches her in silence for a few moments longer. She does not want to imagine what he is thinking. Pai wonders if even a little part of him is afraid to be in the same room as her, within the space of the four white walls and the white ceiling and white floor and bolted white door that is locked on the outside like the vault of a bank. She wonders if he is even a little afraid to be in the same room as a killer.

Especially one like her.

"What were they?"

"I do not understand the question."

"Pardon me, my mistake," Kazuki says.

You're making a lot of mistakes, she notes flatly.

There is a sharp beep-beep that is loud in the small cell. She does not move at the sound. She has been trained not to react to obvious non-threats that make noise. She has heard that sound from others too, knows that it isn't a dangerous one. Kazuki leans to the side as he digs something out of his trouser pocket.

He pulls out a pager that's slim rectangular screen flashes green, emitting the harsh alarm sounds that are like needles being poked into her eardrums. He looks at it for a second, then the next his eyes grow unfocused from it before he clicks a button on the side. The beeping stops.

She watches him the whole time.

Kazuki continues. "What I meant was, what race were your kills?"

Pai thinks about it.

There are many faces, many eyes and noses and mouths and cheek-bone structures and eyebrow shapes and jawlines and hair colours. There are small bodies of women, larger bodies of men, toned and fit bodies, obese and smelly bodies. There are bodies clothed in suits and dresses and shorts and shirts that she has stained red. There are many kills she has categorized in her head. They fill a void in the pit of her stomach, the centre of her chest. The void grows every time she successfully carries out a mission.

There are many kills, and she remembers the face of each and every one. She remembers a young woman who wore a flower-print dress, just come out of a bakery after having bought a cinnamon bun for her little sister. She'd bought three. One for her little sister, one for her. She was just biting into hers when Pai killed her.

She was human.

Pai had not understood why she needed to die until she saw the woman come out of the bakery holding hands with a Hengen, a Tanuki with a devilish smirk on his face as he kissed her before taking a bite into his own cinnamon bun. He is her other kill. She had understood then that the human needed to die because she was in a relationship with an Ayakashi, an abomination that should never have been permitted in this world.

The woman wasn't allowed to exist after that. She was collateral damage. So Fu does not have a problem eliminating humans who have ties to the Ayakashi world, even if they are unaware of whom it is they touch lips to. People always lie.

"Twenty-eight were Ayakashi. Different Clans, except Hebi."

Kazuki nods knowingly. "True, true. So Fu do not find it easy to track Hebi down."

Chiasa hates that. She hates that Hebi are so good at hiding themselves, to the point where they are rumoured to not even exist. Except Chiasa knows they exist. She knows it all too well.

She continues in a robotic voice, "The other eight were human casualties."

"And how do you feel about that?" Kazuki asks quietly. He is watching her with a strange intensity in his eyes as he leans forward with is elbows resting on his knees. "Most people who have killed as many as you suffer because of it. They have nightmares that feature all those they killed."

People...am I a person?

"I am not most people." If she was, she wouldn't be here. If she was, she might have been lucky enough to never have known 'here' could exist, in any realm outside of fictional, dark stories told to glorify everything that made them dark and unwholesome.

"You don't have nightmares?"

"No."

The echoes of what feels so tangibly like mania has her lips twitching with a smile that is not her own.

Liar.

She quashes the thing in her that wants to mimic that smile. I don't have nightmares.

No, you don't have nightmares of those you killed, do you, Pai?

The voice is back. Pai doesn't know if she wants to laugh and smile with relief that it is back, or scream and cry in despair because it is.

You have nightmares of what happened to us...you have nightmares of our betrayal...of how he broke his promise...

The promise he broke to you. You're betrayal. I am not you. No one has betrayed me.

No one yet. Pai can feel the smirk behind the next words that whisper in her mind. But you are more like me than you will ever know.

"How do you feel about it, then?" Kazuki asks. She is so startled from hearing him speak after what the voice said to her that she looks up at him in confusion. When he sees her look, he repeats himself. "How do you feel about those you killed?"

Pai breathes in slowly. She holds her breath for five seconds before she lets it out. Her next words are not a lie. They are the truest thing about her.

Do I feel anything do I feel anything do I –

No you don't. You've forgotten how to.

I have, haven't I?

Yes.

She looks up at him. He sits with pen poised, waiting for her answer. She wonders if what she says to him will warrant a visit to the Doctor. She doesn't know if it will. She doesn't know if there is a right wrong right answer here. She doesn't know what anything is anymore.

She gives him the correct answer he/So Fu wants.

"I feel nothing."

We don't remember how to.