Fourteen years, Rui fought for the only home he had. Fourteen years, he endured the whispers, the fear, the pain of a power that lets him read the memories of everything he touches—but never his own past. Then the Vermunt Society came for the ledgers, and the man who raised him sold him out without a second thought. Now Rui lies bleeding on a cold hill, the orphanage burning behind him, and the children he swore to protect scattered to the wind. But a blade doesn't choose where it's picked up—on
The Picked-Up Blade Eventually Finds Its Place - Snow Falls on the City of Ash Blades — The First Calculation of the Slashed Blade
Snow was falling.
The warehouse district of the Bay Side harbor area still seemed to hold the smell of blood from that night, even after three days. No—that wasn't right. The smell was already gone. What remained was only inside him.
Haiya Rui stood with his back against the wall in front of a small warehouse behind the Gant Logistics office. His short, near-black dark brown hair was turning white as snowflakes settled on it. His narrow gray eyes were looking up at the endlessly falling sky.
In his right hand, he gripped the knife "Mumei."
The blade, drawn from its sheath, absorbed the snowlight and glowed dully. Just steel—a gift from Kamiya Gen. It held no special power. And yet, for these three days, Rui couldn't stand unless he was holding this blade.
The knuckles of his clenched left hand throbbed with a dull, persistent pain.
The wound from that night, from pounding the snowy ground again and again. Not deep enough to expose bone, but the skin was split, and blood seeped beneath the scab. The pain seemed to forcibly carve the fact of Kamiya's death into his body.
(Kamiya-san.)
Rui closed his eyes.
Behind his eyelids rose the image of a red stain spreading across snow. Kamiya's eyes, left open and powerless. The words he'd left at the end—"You can stay here."
Deep in his chest, something was cold.
(Here? I can stay here?)
(Can I really stay here?)
(I'm the one who killed you.)
(Because I didn't pass Kuroda's information to Aoi.)
(Because I carried it all alone.)
(Because I was weak.)
A crunch.
The sound of footsteps in snow.
Rui opened his eyes.
Fuyuki Aoi stood before the warehouse's iron door. His golden-brown curly hair was sticking up today too, cowlicks untamed. His amber eyes held a cold light that betrayed no emotion. Snow had piled up on the shoulders of his long black coat.
Aoi glanced at Rui's face.
"...That hand. It hasn't healed."
"None of your damn business."
Rui's voice was low and hoarse.
"It is my business. You're an asset to the organization. An asset breaking itself without permission throws off my calculations."
"Calculations."
Rui repeated the word as if chewing it apart.
"...You just said calculations."
"I did. What of it?"
"Kamiya-san died three days ago. And you can still talk about calculations with that mouth."
Rui's gray eyes narrowed like blades.
"An asset that drowns in emotion and loses combat effectiveness is far more inefficient. Kamiya wouldn't want that either."
"Don't you dare say Kamiya-san's name so casually."
Rui's voice cut sharply through the snow-filled warehouse district.
Aoi fell silent for a moment.
Then he looked back at Rui with cold eyes.
"...We need to talk. Get inside."
"I refuse."
"That's an order."
"Like I care."
"I see."
With just that, Aoi opened the warehouse's iron door himself. The rusted hinges groaned. The smell of old oil and dust drifted out.
"Then I'll say it here."
Aoi kept the door open and turned his back to Rui.
"I know you believe you're the cause of Kamiya's death."
Rui's shoulders trembled slightly.
"You didn't relay Kuroda's information to me. So the organization couldn't anticipate the Vermund Society's attack. Kamiya died protecting you. That's the logic, isn't it."
"...Isn't it true?"
Rui's voice dropped to a strained whisper.
"It's not."
Aoi turned around.
"The information was already in my hands. Two days before the transmission Kuroda sent you."
"...What did you say?"
"Kuroda was testing you. Whether you'd report to the organization. And you didn't. Exactly as Kuroda predicted."
"Then why—why did Kamiya-san, that night..."
"Kamiya moved to protect you. With or without the information, Kamiya was going to be in that place. Kuroda contacted him—told him you were charging in alone."
"Kuroda... told Kamiya-san?"
"Yes. Kuroda had read your behavioral patterns. That you'd be alone in the Third Warehouse Group. That Noct Hound would come. All of it."
Rui's head spun.
(Kuroda called Kamiya-san?)
(Because I didn't report?)
(No—that's not it. Even if I had reported, Kamiya-san would have come.)
(But if I'd told Aoi from the start...)
"Don't think about it."
Aoi's cold voice cut through Rui's spiraling thoughts.
"The past can't be changed. Whatever you had chosen, Kamiya would have died. That man was that kind of man. You should know that."
"...I know."
Rui hung his head.
"I know... Because I know, it makes me even angrier."
Rui's fist slammed into the wall.
A dull thud. The scab split, and blood seeped out. Pain shot from his palm through his entire arm.
(I didn't know anything.)
(I couldn't protect anything.)
(I'm just a kid who got picked up.)
"...Aoi."
Rui raised his head.
His gray eyes pierced through Aoi like they were cutting through the snow-filled air.
"You picked me up because you knew from the start what would happen to the orphanage. Didn't you."
Aoi's expression moved for the first time—just barely.
His amber eyes narrowed for an instant.
"...On what grounds?"
"Your eyes. When you look at me, you're always measuring something. You've been calculating from the start—when I'll move, where, how. Like you know everything about me."
"...You give me too much credit."
"Is it wrong?"
Rui stepped closer to Aoi.
"You picked me up. That snowy night, half-dead. But that wasn't saving me. That was securing me. Because you needed me for your calculations."
Aoi said nothing.
The silence piled heavily over the snow-covered warehouse district.
"Wait a second."
A voice called out, and Rui turned.
Hayase Nagi came running through the snow. Her shoulder-length black hair swayed along with her red ribbon. Her large dark eyes looked anxiously between Rui and Aoi.
"What are you talking about? Aoi, what does that mean?"
Nagi's voice was trembling.
"...This doesn't concern you."
"It does! Rui looks like he's in so much pain!"
Nagi stepped in front of Rui.
"Rui, calm down. You're carrying everything alone again, aren't you."
"...Nagi, back off."
"I won't."
"Back off."
Rui pushed Nagi's shoulder lightly.
Nagi stumbled on the snow.
"...Rui?"
Nagi's face twisted as if wounded.
Rui didn't look at her.
"This is between me and Aoi. You're not involved."
"How can I not be involved! I'm your comrade—"
"I'm not your comrade."
Rui's voice was cold, pushing Nagi away.
"I'm not your comrade. ...From the start, I've been alone."
Nagi gasped.
"...Why would you say that?"
Nagi's voice wavered on the edge of tears.
"...Aoi."
Rui pulled his gaze from Nagi and turned back to Aoi.
"You picked me up because you knew from the start the orphanage would fall. Answer me."
Aoi looked up at the snowy sky for a while.
Then, slowly, he spoke.
"...That's right."
Nagi let out a small sound.
"Aoi, is that true...?"
"It's true."
Aoi's voice was flat, stripped of emotion.
"Eight years ago, I was fourteen. As an operative in the organization's field unit, I was tracking the Vermund Society's movements. That's when I caught a piece of intelligence. The Society held the hidden ledger of the Sunbeam House. A plan to destroy the orphanage was underway. That was the information."
Rui listened silently.
"My assigned mission was to secure usable ability-users amid the chaos of the collapse. There was one ability-user in the orphanage. Haiya Rui. A Reverberation user. The rare power to read the memories of things he touches. I had evaluated that ability in advance."
"...Evaluated."
"I judged it valuable. A necessary piece for the organization."
"A piece."
Rui's lips trembled.
"Yes. A piece. You were the target of my mission. I didn't save you. I secured you. As the most valuable piece in the future where the Sunbeam House would fall."
Snow fell silently between the three of them.
Rui felt his stomach grow cold.
(I see.)
(I wasn't abandoned.)
(Sakakibara Dozou cut me because he feared me.)
(Aoi picked me up because he wanted me.)
(They're the same.)
(Neither of them saw me as a human being.)
"...You've got to be kidding."
Rui's voice rumbled low, crawling along the ground.
"You've got to be kidding... You knew everything, since eight years ago..."
"I knew."
"And yet you never told me anything."
"There was no need to tell you."
"No need?"
"Yes. You were the target of my mission. Missions don't require explanations."
"You son of a bitch...!"
Rui grabbed Aoi by the collar.
Aoi's back slammed against the warehouse wall with a thud.
"Hey, Rui, stop!"
Nagi clung to Rui's arm.
"Let go, Nagi."
"I won't! You're going to hurt your hand again!"
"...This doesn't concern you."
"It does! I hate seeing you get hurt!"
Nagi's shout rang sharply through the snowy warehouse district.
Rui's hand stopped for an instant.
"...Nagi."
"I don't know everything you're carrying. But I can tell you're suffering alone. I can see it. So don't shut me out."
Nagi's large dark eyes looked straight at Rui.
"...What do you know about me?"
"Nothing. But I want to know. I want to know more about you."
Nagi's voice, though trembling, reached Rui clearly.
Rui slowly released Aoi's collar.
"...Aoi, continue."
Rui spoke without taking his eyes off Aoi.
"If everything went according to your calculations, how was I supposed to move?"
Aoi straightened his coat collar and slowly spoke.
"According to my calculations, you were supposed to abandon the children and come to me."
"...What did you say?"
"The children of the Sunbeam House were a liability to you. To demonstrate your value as an ability-user to the organization, you should have come alone. That's what I calculated."
"You—you thought I'd abandon the children?"
"You'd say you wouldn't. But that night, to protect the children, you were used as a decoy by the orphanage's adults. Covered in blood, thrashing in the snow until you couldn't move."
Aoi's voice dropped slightly.
"That was the first time my calculations went wrong."
"...Went wrong?"
"You didn't move as calculated. So I was supposed to abandon you. The mission was a failure. I should have judged it so and withdrawn. But I picked you up."
"...Why?"
"I don't know."
For the first time, Aoi showed hesitation in his own words.
"I don't know. You were bleeding in the snow, and even then, you kept trying to stand. That sight caught somewhere in my calculations. Something that couldn't be explained by the organization's logic was born inside me."
"...Do you even know what you're saying?"
"I know. That's why I won't let you go."
Aoi's amber eyes pierced straight through Rui.
"You exist outside my calculations. That's why I can't let you go. Not by the organization's logic, not by the mission's outcome—but by my own choice."
The snow grew heavier.
Snow piled on the warehouse roof slid off with a sound.
"...Aoi, that means—"
Nagi looked at Aoi.
"You saved Rui? Ignoring the mission, the calculations, all of it?"
"...That's what it means."
"Then why didn't you say so from the start! Can't you see how much Rui is suffering!"
"There was no need to say it. Even if I had, nothing would change."
"It would change! At least Rui would know he wasn't just a piece!"
"...He was a piece. At first. But not anymore."
Aoi pulled a brown envelope from his coat's inner pocket.
"...What's that?"
"There are three things I need to show you."
Aoi took a bundle of documents from the envelope.
"First. A copy of the Sunbeam House's hidden ledger. It lists the children who were brokered."
Rui took the documents.
His hand was shaking.
"Second. My Frozen Domain mission records. Surveillance logs from around the Sunbeam House eight years ago. You'll see how closely I observed you to secure you."
"...You were watching me the whole time?"
"Yes. I recorded everything—how you spent time with the children at the orphanage."
"...That's creepy."
"It is. But that was my mission."
Aoi held out the third document.
"Third. Communication records from Kuroda. It states that among the brokered children, there may be someone whose memories
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