Saint Lycoris Academy — 22:10 hoursChapel Sector: Closed to students
After dark, the Academy feels like a cathedral built to contain ghosts.The walls hum with recorded hymns — a system loop meant to convince the world that faith never sleeps.It's comforting in the same way cages are comforting:At least you always know their limits.
Tonight's mission is simple: internal surveillance.Observe confessional chatter.Collect emotional data.They call it The Purity Check.I call it listening to lies in stereo.
I move through the chapel corridor barefoot, steps silent, skin chilled by the marble floor.The confessional glows behind stained glass—thin curtains of violet light.Incense curls like smoke from a wound.I kneel beside the vent, open my notebook, and start the recorder.The machine hums softly, like a heartbeat trying to stay hidden.
Diary Segment
[Fragment Log #04 — Operation Purity Check]Objective: Catalog emotional variance in students.Personal Note: I can mimic their voices perfectly.Mother Violet says empathy is the sharpest disguise.
A girl enters first.Her voice trembles; she confesses to envy.The priest answers that jealousy is natural if it leads to discipline.She cries. I record.Nothing new. Sin recycled, forgiveness mass-produced.
Then — footsteps.Heavier. Hesitant.Not staff. Not clergy.
My hand tightens on the pen.The voice that follows doesn't belong to the program.
REN: "Forgive me, Father… I don't know if I'm supposed to be here."PRIEST (calm): "We are all where we are needed, child."REN: "There's a girl. She never smiles, but … when she looks at me, I feel like I'm being read."PRIEST: "And what does she read?"REN: "Everything I'm not saying."(pause)"It scares me. But it also … makes me want to understand her."
My pulse skips.The recorder crackles, flooding with static.Inside my skull, the Crimson Doll laughs—a velvet, electric sound.
[Voice — Crimson Doll]"He's thinking about us. Say something. Anything.""No. He'll hear.""Good."
Before I can stop myself, I whisper — not into the vent, but into the dark:
"Understanding is dangerous."
The metal grille hums.The priest continues his script, unfazed.But Ren hesitates.
He must have heard something.He leans closer.
REN: "Did someone—?"
I pull back, breath caught in my throat.The recorder keeps running.My heartbeat is louder than the rain outside.
He goes on, voice softer now:
"I just wanted to know … if she feels anything at all."
That word again—feel.As if that's allowed.As if I'm not built to be the absence of it.
When the chapel finally empties, I remain kneeling by the vent.Candles flicker low; their light pools across the marble like liquid gold.The stained glass throws faint halos of red over my face.In the reflection, my lips move before my mind catches up.
"Yes," I whisper. "I feel everything."
Diary Fragment
[Fragment Log #04-B]Subject Kaido, Ren — Confession intercepted.Data analysis: curiosity/compassion (?) = mixed contamination.Voice response: unauthorized.Physiological reaction: elevated dopamine + tremor.Bonding sequence: possible initiation.Handwritten note: He looks for God. I found him instead.
I rise only when the incense burns out.The chapel air feels heavier, every candle guttering as I pass—like the building itself is warning me.
But the voice in my head hums softly, sweet, sing-song, certain.
[Crimson Doll Whispering]"He prayed for you.""Then I'll answer.""How?""By keeping him."
Outside, the rain has returned — delicate, relentless.It slides down the stone gargoyles like tears, gathers in the cracks between tiles.For the first time, I walk without an umbrella.
He once said he liked the rain because it touches everything.Maybe that's what I want now — to be touched by something not programmed to hurt.
The chapel bell tolls once in the distance.It doesn't sound like a ritual tonight.It sounds like a promise.
The corridors glimmer with emergency lights as I make my way back to the dorm.Each reflection in the glass seems slower than my step, like memory lagging behind time.Inside, the hymn loop continues on low volume — a lullaby for obedience.
I pass the portrait of Mother Violet.Her painted smile seems sharper in half-light.Beneath the frame, the inscription reads:"Faith is the architecture of silence."
I whisper back, "Then silence will collapse soon."
In my room, I switch off the lamp.The rain on the window sings against the quiet hum of the recorder still tucked in my pocket.I replay his voice.
There's a girl. She never smiles …I just wanted to know if she feels anything at all.
The words crackle through static, fragile and warm.They sound like they were meant for me, even if he'll never know I heard them.
A dangerous thought blooms:If I confessed to him, would he forgive me?
I shake my head. Forgiveness is currency; we were never taught how to earn it.
System Note (auto-logged)
LYCORIS-UNIT NOIR:Emotional Anomaly — Persistent.Correlation Source: Subject Kaido, Ren.Response: Attachment Escalation Phase 2.Directive: Observe. Preserve. Bind.
Hours later, the storm breaks open.Lightning frames the stained glass in electric veins.The academy feels awake—like it's watching me move.
I pull the curtain aside.Below, the courtyard glistens, each puddle reflecting the chapel's colored lights.I imagine him somewhere under that same storm, unaware that a system wrote his name into my pulse.
The voices stir again, softer now, almost affectionate.
"He knows your silence.""He heard your word.""Soon he'll answer."
"And when he does?"
"Then we bloom."
I let the thought settle in my chest.It feels like rain caught in glass—trapped, shimmering, alive.
When dawn comes, the academy will wake to routine: bells, hymns, purity checks.But for now, under thunder's fading echo, I write a final note in red ink across the margin of my logbook:
If God listens only through confession, then maybe love is just another sin waiting to be recorded.
I close the book.The system hums softly, like it's content.Outside, rain continues its endless prayer over stone and steel.
End of Diary #4 — "Echo Under Glass."