The afternoon sun was a blistering, white-hot eye staring down at the university's athletic field. The physical education department had organized a volleyball practicum, but since the intense training had run through the lunch hour, the air was thick with the scent of cut grass, sweat, and a lingering, unspoken tension..
Chizuru and Epione sat on a secluded bench near the equipment shed, the shadows of the bleachers offering a reprieve from the heat. Between them sat two snack boxes Chizuru had bought earlier—lavish sets of fruit tarts, dango, and chilled sandwiches.
"Eat, Epione," Chizuru said. Her voice was like a silver bell, clear and dangerously sweet. "You're vibrating. Your glucose levels are crashing, and a tired mind is a mind that makes mistakes."
Epione's hands trembled so violently she had to tuck them under her thighs. She looked at the monitors mounted on the nearby pillars of the stadium. The news cycle was a relentless nightmare.
"They found industrial drill bits," Epione whispered, her voice cracking. "Chizuru, they didn't just kill them. They... they hollowed them out. The report said they were violated with the same mechanical cruelty they used on those missing girls. And those marks on their necks... 'The Kisser.' Branded with irons to look like hickeys. It's too bone-chilling."
Chizuru didn't flinch. She picked up a strawberry with surgical precision, but instead of eating it, she held it toward Epione. "Is it? Or is it just... efficient?"
"Efficient?" Epione gasped, nausea rolling over her. "It's demonic."
Chizuru leaned across the bench. Her eyes, usually sparkling with bubbly light, were suddenly as flat and dark as a shark's. "Think about it, Epione. Those men treated those girls like industrial waste. So, whoever found them simply returned the favor. It's what I call the Equity of Justice. Equality is giving them a trial. But Equity? Equity is giving them the exact weight of the agony they caused."
Chizuru produced a small, silver fruit knife from her pocket. She didn't use it on the snack. Instead, she took a piece of dried meat from the side of the box and laid it on the metal lid. With a hand as steady as a master watchmaker's, she began making micro-incisions, peeling back the fibers with clinical grace.
"The human body is just a series of rooms," Chizuru whispered. "The person who 'cleaned' those men... they understood the architecture of pain. They knew that the most profound terror doesn't come from a quick death. It comes from being treated like a project."
She looked at her own untouched snack box and pushed it toward Epione. "I'm not hungry. My system is... balanced. You take mine, too. You need to be strong for what's coming."
"Chizuru... tell me," Epione breathed, her heart hammering. "If you were the one who held the iron... would you be a monster?"
"What if I got tired, Epione?" Chizuru's smile widened, but her pupils were perfectly circular, unnervingly steady. "If I asked you to do it for me... would you pull the trigger?"
"I... I don't know if I have that kind of darkness in me."
"Hahaha!" Chizuru burst into a sudden, melodic laugh. "Of course you don't! You're a sunshine girl. It was just a hypothetical, silly."
The Volleyball Court
The game that followed was a chaotic blur. Chizuru was a force of nature. Every time she spiked the ball, the sound was like a gunshot. She moved with that same "mechanical coldness," never sweating, never panting.
Epione, however, was struggling. The "Equity" conversation was looping in her head.
WHACK.
A stray ball, hit with vicious force from the elite team's side, slammed directly into the side of Epione's head. The world turned white.
"Idiot!" a girl laughed from across the net.
Chizuru was by her side in a heartbeat. Her hands were on Epione's shoulders. strong, steady, and impossibly calm. "Epione? Your ocular focus is drifting. You have a mild concussion."
"I'm fine," Epione gasped. "Just... let me sit for ten minutes."
Chizuru hesitated, her internal processors weighing the variables. "Ten minutes. If your pupils don't constrict properly by then, I'm ending this game... and the people who started it."
The Equipment Shed
Epione limped back toward the secluded equipment shed. She slumped onto the wooden bench, closing her eyes against the throbbing in her skull.
Psttt.
Whistle.
The sound was sharp, wet, and rhythmic. A dog-call.
Epione opened her eyes. Standing in the mouth of the shed were the four girls who had haunted her dreams since the rooftop. Jinhee was at the center, her eyes glittering with toxic glee.
"Hey doggy, doggy," Jinhee cooed. "Think that little 'Restorative Justice' paper protects you out here? You're an eyesore, Epione. A glitch in the system."
Jinhee grabbed a handful of Epione's hair, yanking her head back. "Do you know what happens to glitches? They get deleted. Your little Japanese bodyguard is busy playing with her ball. She can't save you."
Jinhee raised her hand. A heavy silver ring with sharp, jagged edges glinted in the sun. "In this school, people only watch, Epione. They watch you bleed, and they do nothing. So scream all you want. Nobody is coming."
Epione looked toward the court. She saw Chizuru leaping high into the air, her white sleeves fluttering like wings as she prepared a devastating spike. She looked like an angel of vengeance, but her back was turned.
Equity, a voice whispered in Epione's mind. It sounded like Chizuru. Give them the exact weight of the agony they caused.
As Jinhee swung the jagged ring toward her face, Epione didn't flinch. Her fingers, buried in the wood of the bench, found a long, jagged splinter. Her heart didn't beat for love anymore.