Kaito closed his eyes, leaning back in the train seat. The sense of peace washing over him was almost euphoric.
"MISSION 'PARADOX ASSISTANT' FAILED!" Fia's voice was sobbing, a sharp, distant noise in his mind. "SHE HATES YOU! WE'VE LOST ALL OUR PROGRESS! YOU... YOU..."
"Silence," Kaito thought back, with a lazy finality.
And, for the first time, Fia obeyed. The mental static vanished.
Kaito arrived at his apartment, the peace still intact. He dropped his bag on the floor. Ignored his throbbing foot. He collapsed onto his beanbag, exhausted but victorious. He had won. He had created a scenario where the "mission" (Mai) would actively avoid him, and the "guide" (Fia) was too upset to talk to him.
It was the perfect equilibrium.
He was just about to drift off to sleep when a blinding red light filled his apartment. It wasn't a soft glow. It was the red of a collapsing submarine's alarm.
[SYSTEM ALERT! CRITICAL DIRECTIVE FAILURE!] [AFFINITY (Mai Sakurajima) HAS REACHED REJECTION LEVEL: -50 POINTS] [WORLD SAFETY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED] [CURRENT WORLD: 'Rascal Does Not Dream'] [MODE CHANGED TO: 'HARDCORE (NO NATIVE PROTAGONIST)']
Kaito sat up slowly. "No... native protagonist?"
"YOU BROKE THE WORLD!"
Fia materialized in the middle of the room, no longer angry, but wearing an expression of pure, unadulterated horror. She looked like she was going to vomit glitter.
"What did you do?!" she screamed, her hands shaking. "You don't understand the mechanics, do you? You're just a dimensional vandal!"
"I got what I wanted," Kaito said, his voice flat. "Peace. Now, what's this 'Hardcore' mode?"
"The 'Passive Agent'! Sakuta Azusagawa!" Fia explained, her voice cracking. "He was the safety net! The System had him flagged so he could see Mai, too. If you failed, he would find her! He was the original protagonist!"
"And?"
"And you fired him!" she shrieked. "Your negative affinity was so toxic, so potent, it overwrote his perception! You didn't just make Mai hate you; you made the entire universe hate her even more! Sakuta Azusagawa can't see her anymore, Kaito! Nobody on this planet can!"
Fia took a deep, shuddering breath. "Congratulations. You are officially the only one responsible for her existence. If you ignore her now, she has no safety net. She dissipates. Game over."
The red light vanished. The apartment returned to normal. Fia looked at him with defeated eyes. "You wanted peace, Kaito? You got it. The peace of a graveyard."
She vanished without another sound.
Kaito sat in the silence. "...How problematic."
The next two days were... strange.
Kaito went to school. He wasn't limping anymore. He walked into Class 2-1, prepared for the cold war.
But the seat next to him was empty.
Mai Sakurajima wasn't there.
He sat. The day passed. No notes were passed. No invisible presence beside him. Kaito slept through most of his classes. It was peaceful.
But it was an empty, uncomfortable peace. Fia didn't say a word in his head. The System was silent.
The next day, same thing. The seat was empty.
In the middle of history class, Kaito noticed something. The teacher was taking roll. He didn't call "Sakurajima." He looked at her desk. It was just... an empty desk. It wasn't "Mai's desk" anymore.
The Adolescence Syndrome, without Sakuta's anchor, was winning. And it was winning fast.
Kaito went home. He didn't see her at the station. He didn't see her at the bakery.
He got to his apartment. The feeling of victory from two days ago was gone, replaced by a familiar annoyance. That dull ache in his chest was back, like a low hum. Ignoring someone until they disappeared... he knew this feeling all too well.
"Fia," he said aloud to the empty apartment.
Silence.
"This is irritating. Say something."
[...Target dissipation rate at 74%...] The System's voice replied in his head, cold and mechanical. [...Existence critical in 26 hours...]
Kaito scrubbed his face. "Great. You're going to guilt-trip me now?"
[...New Emergency Mission Generated...]
A blue screen popped up, urgent and businesslike.
[EMERGENCY MISSION: 'Forced Dinner'] [Target: Mai Sakurajima (Existence Level: Critical)] [Objective: Locate target. Provide nourishment (Dinner).] [Justification: Target is unable to procure sustenance. Starvation is accelerating dissipation. Intervention is required.] [Penalty for Failure: Complete Target Dissipation. Catastrophic World Failure. Reversal of the Chosen (Extremely Painful Process).]
Kaito read the "Justification" and the "Penalty."
"You're blackmailing me."
[...Correct...]
Kaito sighed, the sound of someone who had lost a long, bureaucratic battle. He pushed himself up from the beanbag and grabbed his keys.
He knew from his meta-knowledge that Mai hadn't been eating for days. In the anime, she'd been starving and gone to Sakuta's apartment. But Kaito had "broken" that scene. She would never go to his apartment willingly, not after what he'd said. She was too angry, too proud, and now, too weak.
She was starving, alone.
"How problematic," he muttered, heading out into the night.
He didn't have to look far. The System seemed to be guiding him, or maybe it was just quantum physics. He walked toward the 24-hour convenience store near his apartment complex.
And there she was.
She wasn't in her school uniform. She was wearing simple civilian clothes—a hoodie and jeans. She looked pale, almost transparent under the store's fluorescent lights.
She was standing in front of a vending machine, her hand shaking as she tried to insert a bill, which the machine kept spitting back out.
She tried again. The machine rejected it.
She hit the machine with her fist, a weak, dull thud. She looked exhausted, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. She leaned against the machine, closing her eyes.
Kaito stopped a few feet away. The "Forced Dinner Mission" glowed in the corner of his vision.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the effort.
"Hey."
Mai's eyes snapped open. She turned and saw him. The anger in her eyes was still there, but it was faint, clouded by exhaustion and hunger.
"You..." she hissed. "Come to mock me? Come to tell me how my mother is right?"
Kaito ignored her. He walked past her to the vending machine, pulled a coin from his pocket, and inserted it. The machine accepted it instantly. He pressed the button for an iced tea and grabbed the bottle.
He turned and held it out to her.
She stared at the bottle, then at him, suspicious.
"The System is making me feed you," Kaito said, his voice monotone. "I hate it when the System makes me do things. Take the drink."
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