Epiones' POV
The morning hits like feathers as the high-tech air conditioning of the room hummed quietly. As I lay on the warm mattress, my muscles finally stopped aching whilst the fog in my brain was clearing, but my mind kept spinning, for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about Phelia, the strange metal collar wrapped around her neck, her sharp foreign words, and the dangerous people hunting her. Just all those thoughts made me feel like I had stepped into the dark underworld.
A soft electronic chime echoed as my bedroom door slid open, interrupting my train of thoughts,
Chizuru walked in. she changed into a comfortable silk lounge set as she stood flawlessly straight. She was tapping rapidly on a sleek digital tablet.
"You're awake", Chizuru said, her dark eyes locking onto me. The cold look usually gave the world vanished. Instead, she offered me a warm, reassuring smile. "Your heart rate is back to normal. You should be feeling much better."
"I am," I replied, sitting up against the pillows. "Just still trying to process everything. Thanks for the ride back by the way, and for…everything."
Chizuru pulled out a chair and sat near the bed. She placed the tablet face-up on the mattress, just right beside me. The screen showed a messy grid of school files, video logs and student profiles.
"No need for thank-yous," Chizuru said with a playful smile "While you were sleeping, I simply started to take out the trash."
I blinked, looking up to her from the pillows. A wave of relief washed over me. "Oh, well, good job! Honestly, the bins outside were getting pretty full, so thank you.:"
Chizuru stopped tapping on her tablet. Then stared at me, as if she just noticed something.
"Oh, Indeed," Chizuru said smoothly, tilting her head. "Well, gathering the database information was quite crucial, especially since they had advanced and strict security."
I paused, squinting at her. "Ehh? The garbage cans have advanced security?"
Suddenly, Chizuru's face shifted into those classic anime expressions where her eyes turned into two happy, closed upside-down U's, and her mouth curving into a bright, cheerful smile.
"I was talking about the antagonists in your, not the inanimate scraps outside" she said brightly, before casually listing off names. "Kiro, Ssatihs, and the rest of section dream 5…NPC's are not included though:"
My jaw dropped. "oh…eh?"
Chizuru's smile turned mischievous again as she shifted the tablet screen toward me, showing a giant red 'EXPELLED' stamp across their files.
"The gang war footage I deep faked is just a temporary distraction to keep them down," She explained, her voice returning to its intelligent, calm tone. "As we speak, I am actively uncovering the deepest secrets of their family network. And I won't stop until their entire reputation is brought to ruin."
I stared at her, a sudden chill running down my spine. The way she spoke about completely dismantling people's lives was so calm, so methodical. It wasn't just a protective friend acting on emotion anymore. It felt calculated. Like a directive…
"is that your mission here?" I asked quietly.
Chizuru stopped tapping her screen. She froze for a split second, then slowly turned her dark, empty gaze directly towards me. Her tone dropped, turning sharp and quiet.
"How do you know that?" Chizuru asked, her eyes searching answer from my face. "Who told you that?"
For a moment, I wanted to lay out all my pieces. I wanted to tell her about the patterns I had noticed, the way she never seemed to panic, and all the quiet analysis I had been doing on her behavior since the day we met. But looking at her intense stare, I bit my tongue.
"Just a hunch," I said, forcing a casual shrug.
I noticed the tension on her shoulders vanished, and her playful, coy smile returned as if it had never left.
"Well, it is still part of my job as the inheritor to take care of our company's partner establishments, is it not?" Chizuru replied, lightly tilting her head. "Think of this as me simply removing the dirt from a clean reputation. Treat it like doing laundry."
I was speechless. She had completely rewritten the power dynamic of our classroom in a single afternoon, treating the destruction of our enemies like a household chore.
Before I could panic about what might happen next, Chizuru stood up, with a swift swipe of the thumb, the tablet's screen went dark, then snapping its slim magnetic cover shut with a crisp clack.
Holding it easy with one hand, she simply stood at the side of my bed, without moving any muscle, I noticed a brief, sudden blink of light flash deep within her eyes.
Instantly, a soft mechanical hum echoed through the room. Without touching a single switch, the motorized heavy curtains smoothly parted on its own, letting the warm morning sun flood across the bed.
I jumped slightly, staring at the automatically moving windows, then looked back at Chizuru. For a second, she completely froze. The subtle tension in her frame told me she was bracing herself, fully expecting me to call he out on using her internal wireless connection to hack the room's smart system.
as if she didn't reveal her true form back then, ever since that day she literally stretched her arm meters across the lawn like a terrifying silver snake to drag me back. There was absolutely no point in her trying to act subtle since there was no point of pretending now.
Instead of giving her a technical interrogation, I just opted for a deadpan stare.
"Hey…I'm starting to notice the pattern here. First the hospital thermostat, now the curtains, Is your house haunted or are the ghosts just on your payroll?"
Chizuru blinked. The realization of what I had actually asked hit her, and the strict, robotic composure she usually held completely cracked. A soft chuckle escaped her lips. A genuine, amused sound. And for some reason, it felt exactly like Chizuru, the sweet and friendly girl I had met at the very beginning of all this madness.
But just as quickly it appeared, the warmth vanished from her features. Her face went entirely blank for a split second like a sudden, cold reset passing over her eyes before they settled back into that deep, cynical sapphire calm. For a second, it was the absolute creepiest personality flip- she had pulled yet, like someone had flipped a breaker switch inside her head the exact millisecond she started having fun.
"The sunlight should help you stimulate your cortisol levels and clear the remaining grogginess," Chizuru said softly, recovering with that flawless, practiced poise, though a tiny ghost of that previous smile still lingered on her lips. "Let me know if anything happens today, okay? Call me anytime. I transferred sections specifically so I could be in the same room and look out for the environment more, on the other hand, You don't have to deal with people alone anymore."
The heavy weight of the upcoming school day still lingered, but having Chizuru standing guard beside my bed made the morning sun a little brighter. She had already rewritten the rules of our entire environment just to keep me safe, and even if I was living with a weaponized android who had the emotional stability of malfunctioning motherboard or I think so, I couldn't deny the relief of it. The monsters were still out there, but today…I honestly don't feel scared anymore…because it's not the dark that's keeping me scared, it's the feeling of being alone in the dark, but since now I have some hand to hold…I can see in the dark.
"So…" Chizuru started, her Just one thing expression softening into that warm incredibly sweet smile as she stepped a little closer to the bed. Her voice was gentle, full of genuine affectionate concern "about the proposal of extracting your neurons and transferring them to your –"
"no chance," I caught her off instantly, pulling the blanket right back over my face.