The research room was quiet, removed from the bustle of the entry hall. Dark wood bookshelves lined the walls, the aroma of cedar polish and aged books present but barely detectable.
Maria closed the door gently behind them.
Alya leaned back on the desk, arms crossed, eyes narrowed as if trying to penetrate him. "Okay, classmate. You've got thirty seconds before I start calling you something else."
Hayato stood, giving the silence time to mount before he spoke. "Three men came in. I reacted. That's all."
"That's all?" Alya's voice was biting. "I saw one of them. Camo wear. Military boots. You don't 'respond' to that and win unless you're-" She bit back an unkind word, eyes flicking toward Maria.
Maria, for her part, sat gracefully in the armchair by the window, posture perfect, expression unreadable. "Alya, let him speak."
Alya scoffed. "He's not speaking. He's dodging."
"I've… been in situations before," Hayato said slowly. "I know how to handle myself."
"Situations," Alya repeated, as if tasting the word. "What kind of high schooler talks like that?"
Maria had spoken in a quiet, almost contemplative voice. "The kind who either has a dangerous history. or a dangerous present."
Hayato said nothing. He couldn't. Without betraying the way he'd already lived this night already, how in a former loop, Maria got shot before he even made it to the upper levels.
Maria took a step closer. "You didn't blink. Not once. Most people would freeze up, scream, or run."
"Most people are dead," Hayato murmured.
Alya frowned. "That's a hell of a thing to say in a family study."
Maria's eyes narrowed a tiny bit, as if connecting dots in her mind. "You navigated as if you were familiar with the house. I never took you on a tour."
That was enough to give Hayato the flicker of hesitation, the briefest delay, but it was long enough for Alya to hit back.
"Ha. See? He's been here before. How? And don't tell me 'lucky guess,' I'll throw you out myself."
"I deciphered the floor plan in my mind," Hayato lied politely, though he could sense the tension rising into his own voice. "The way the hallways were audible, the breeze from some of the windows… it's not difficult to place where you are if you listen."
Alya didn't buy it. Maria hadn't told her she didn't buy it, but the set of her head cautioned her she was saving that answer for later.
"Still," Maria said, her voice as oily as silk on a steel wire, "you chose to fight. That wasn't an act of desperation. That was a choice. You knew you'd win."
Hayato kept her gaze level. "I knew I couldn't let you lose."
For the first time all night, Maria's expression relaxed, just a little, but it was genuine. Alya's eyes flicked back and forth between them, as though trying to translate what just hadn't been said.
"Fine," Alya muttered, pushing off the desk. "Keep your secrets. But if you're taking us along for a ride-"
"I'm keeping you out of it," Hayato cut in.
Maria stood up, adjusting her skirt. "We'll see about that. People who have answers get into trouble. And I think you have more answers than a girl your age should."
The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Outside, the muffled hum of police voices drifted from the foyer.
Finally, Maria moved toward the door, pausing just before opening it. "For now, you're our guest. But understand this, Hayato, next time, I'll be the one asking the questions… and I'll expect better answers."
She opened the door and stepped out, Alya following reluctantly. Hayato stayed behind a moment longer, staring at the quiet shelves.
The air in the room was the same as it had been the first time he was here, before the shooting, before the scream, but now it was heavier with something.
Suspicion. And curiosity.
He wasn't sure which was more lethal.
The Kujou mansion was quiet now. The police had come and gone, the chaos of before replaced by a chilling silence.
Hayato had slipped out onto the garden deck, leaning against the railing and letting the evening air cool his mind. The koi pond mirrored the silver moonlight, ripples distorting the pale glow.
Footsteps came, light, deliberate. Not Alya.
Maria.
She wore a makeshift silk cardigan now, her hair unpinned so it fell across her shoulders. The cool of the night air did not deter her as she stepped up beside him, her hands lightly on the railing.
"You don't sleep well, do you?" she asked.
Hayato did not look at her. "Not after such nights."
Maria glanced over at the pond, her expression serene. "You see… when I was a child, my father used to tell me that you could measure a person's character by the way they behaved under pressure. Tonight, I suspect that I saw more of yours than you intended to show."
"Maybe I simply react quickly," Hayato said, his voice not wavering.
Her lip curled. "On purpose? No. Prepared. You responded like someone who had rehearsed that scene specifically."
Hayato's face twisted. "You think I planned a break-in?"
Maria shook her head back and forth slowly. "Planned. Expected."
That word hung between them.
"You think I knew," Hayato ventured cautiously.
"Tell me, I knew," Maria said her voice soft, almost gentle. "The way you reached the second floor before the burglars… the way you stood precisely at the spot they would turn. It wasn't an accident."
Hayato said nothing.
Maria moved slightly, gazing at him with those unyielding, ice-blue eyes. "You saved my life tonight, Hayato. Thank you. But thanks do not erase questions."
"Questions are dangerous," he whispered.
"So are answers."
She let the silence linger, not taking her gaze from his face. "If you're carrying a secret… one that's going to impact this family… I want it. Because I don't like surprises."
Hayato paused for a fraction of a second, considering telling the truth about the loops, the failures, the dead. But the possibility that she wouldn't believe him was too large.
Rather, he said, "I will do whatever I can to make this night not happen again."
Maria's mouth twisted into a fake smile. "You say that like you have control over the future."
Hayato finally looked at her. "Maybe I do."
Her eyes pinched infinitesimally at that, as if memorizing the very words themselves.
With a word, she turned to leave, her steps silken on the wood floor. In the doorway, she paused.
"Goodnight, Hayato. And… thank you."
And she was gone, leaving the night air behind, colder than it had been.
Hayato took slow breaths. Maria wasn't suspicious; she was patient.
And patience, in one as clever as she, was a far more deadly weapon than curiosity.
...
Miura Yumiko.
Her presence was the kind that you could not help but register, not necessarily because she was stunning, chestnut hair perfectly framing her face, but because she radiated this sense of confidence that fell just short of arrogance.
A smaller girl trailed behind her, shopping bags full in her arms. Family resemblance was evident, the same eyes, the same fine bone structure, but the girl's quiet manner was a discomfiting contrast to Yumiko's exuberance.
They reached the curb, chatting freely. Yumiko gazed down the street, irritation crossing her face as the pedestrian light stayed red.
Hayato's eyes shifted to the black sedan halted some distance along the road. Nothing seemed unusual at first, until the engine rumbled once, then twice. The driver's hands were tense, fists clenched around the wheel. The sedan crept by the stop bar.
Something within Hayato triggered, not mistrust, but complete certainty.
This was not a time bomb waiting to go off. This was deliberate.
His heart pounded. The back window of the sedan caught the setting sun for a moment before it crashed forward, speeding straight into the crosswalk where Yumiko and her sister were walking.
Hayato did not think.
He ran, shoving into the stunned throng of pedestrians. The car traveled the distance in seconds, too quickly, too precisely.
Yumiko's head snapped at the movement, her eyebrows creasing, not at the vehicle, but at him, sprinting towards her. Pride in her eyes, bewilderment in her stance. She didn't know she was in danger.
And the first lesson of the loop to Yumiko was to be recorded in shattering glass and screeching metal.
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Thanks for reading. You can also give me ideas for the future or pinpoint plot holes that I may have forgotten, if you want.
Powerstones. Me. Give. Now.