Chapter 15
"Unfortunately, I was far too slow. Even understanding and mastering just twenty percent of what my teacher taught me took tremendous effort."
"Even so, she never once showed any displeasure at my dullness. She accommodated me in every way and raised me as if I were her own."
Kanzaki Tomomu's gentle voice was soft, yet every word came through clearly.
"They say one day as a teacher makes you a father for life. Calling my teacher a second parent would not be an exaggeration."
"…I finally understand your answer about fate, Mr. Kanzaki."
"You're still so young, yet you already like talking about such heavy topics. When I was your age…"
Kanzaki Tomomu suddenly fell silent.
"What's wrong?" Clarisse asked, puzzled.
"…It's nothing. At eighteen I was still a clueless kid, not much different from a middle-schooler."
"But, Mr. Kanzaki…"
Worry flooded Clarisse's face. Her voice trembled slightly.
"Why… are you crying?"
Kanzaki Tomomu raised a hand to wipe his cheek and felt moisture. He stared at the tear on his fingertip, lost in a daze.
"Strange…"
He murmured, pressing his palm over his chest to feel his heartbeat.
His heart gave a sharp, momentary stab of pain.
Why?
While Kanzaki Tomomu was still lost in thought, his throat suddenly tightened.
Sensing the rapid change in his body, he forced down the metallic sweetness rising in his throat.
"Sorry, excuse me for a moment."
Kanzaki Tomomu quickly left the medical room, returned to his own quarters, closed the door, and without hesitation took out the medicine bottle.
He swallowed four special pills. As the medicine spread rapidly through his body, his face showed no relief but only deeper tension.
He had still underestimated how difficult it would be to fight aging.
The special medicine's effect had weakened dramatically. Not only did it last shorter, but the increased dosage recently had caused his body to start building resistance.
He could not raise the dosage any further. Any more and the side effects would leave him unable to last even two days.
He had to create a more effective new medicine within the next few days.
Otherwise, when his remaining lifespan ran out, he would have to spend his final days trapped in an aged body he could barely move.
Kanzaki Tomomu felt no fear toward the death that was coming. He simply did not want to leave any regrets.
There were still things he had not finished. He could not simply lie down and wait to die, and he definitely could not let Yu Qingtu find out.
He knew very little about Yu Qingtu, but he understood that when it came to extremes, she and his teacher Ruan Mei were remarkably alike.
Otherwise, they would never have become such close friends.
"Mr. Kanzaki, are you alright?!"
Clarisse's worried voice came from outside the closed door.
"I'm fine…"
Kanzaki Tomomu steadied his voice and pretended to be calm. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, white-haired, with his youthful appearance returning far too slowly — and let out a silent sigh.
"I suddenly remembered something very important I forgot to tell my teacher. It will take about half an hour."
"That's good."
Though still a little doubtful, Clarisse finally breathed a sigh of relief and went back the way she came.
On the screen inside the medical room, the treatment progress jumped from 81% to 82%.
Clarisse felt her heart settle. She looked around the room.
There were no afterimages. It was as if what she had seen before had been nothing more than an illusion.
But she knew it had not been an illusion.
She walked slowly across the area where Kanzaki Tomomu's afterimages had appeared earlier. The girl's expression was complicated, her thoughts drifting far away.
She did not know how much time had passed when she suddenly turned around, her gaze fixed intently on one spot.
No one was there…
Yet she had the strange feeling that someone had been watching her from that exact position.
Clarisse frowned and focused, trying to sense the subtle information that ordinary people usually missed.
Having been ostracized and isolated by her peers since childhood, she had learned to clearly read the emotions hidden in different gazes.
Was it Mr. Kanzaki's afterimage watching her?
No…!
Mr. Kanzaki's gaze had always been gentle. Even if he stared at her for a long time, it felt like a warm spring breeze and never made her uncomfortable.
The gaze she had sensed earlier did not seem malicious, but it did not feel kind either.
It felt more like… appraisal?
Like the way a teacher at the academy would look over every student when choosing class representatives.
Clarisse concentrated, as if trying to see through whatever had once been in that spot.
Unfortunately, even after Kanzaki Tomomu returned, she found nothing.
"Mr. Kanzaki… do you think ghosts exist in this world?"
"Why are you suddenly asking that?"
"…Just curious."
"It depends on what kind of ghost. If you mean the kind from horror movies and ghost stories, then strictly speaking, no."
"So you're saying that in a less strict sense, ghosts do exist?" Clarisse suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.
"You could put it that way."
Kanzaki Tomomu glanced at the treatment progress bar, checked the program logs to make sure everything was normal, then continued.
"I once heard my teacher mention that there are some peculiar energy-based life forms in the universe.
They do not normally have a fixed physical form. They can be visible or invisible, tangible or intangible.
Unless they choose to let us see them, or we use special abilities and methods to perceive them."
"Have you ever heard of Pathstriders?"
Pathstriders? Clarisse thought for a moment and answered uncertainly.
"There's a chemistry professor at our academy who is completely invulnerable. Whenever an accident happens during experiments, explosions and such he can neutralize it right away."
"The Pathstriders Mr. Kanzaki mentioned are people like that who possess special abilities, right?"
Kanzaki Tomomu nodded. "Not everyone with special abilities is a Pathstrider, but anyone who has walked far enough along a Path will definitely possess special abilities."
"As far as I know, some Pathstriders from certain Paths have the ability to turn themselves 'ghost-like.'"
"Which Paths exactly?" Clarisse asked.
"The ones I can confirm are the Path of Remembrance and the Path of Enigmata. I don't know about the others." Kanzaki Tomomu thought for a moment.
Yu Qingtu had told him about the Path of Mystery. Ruan Mei had only mentioned the Path of Remembrance.
"Why are you suddenly asking about this?"
"Well… Mr. Kanzaki, what I'm about to tell you please don't be scared…"
"Go ahead."
"It feels like there might be a ghost here… Not long ago, it seemed like something was hiding in the shadows, watching me."
"Is that so?"
Kanzaki Tomomu looked surprised. He thought for a moment, then his brows slowly relaxed.
"There's no need to worry. If it really was one of those Pathstriders, they most likely mean no harm and they wouldn't dare to mean any harm."
Thinking back to the warning he had written about memories, he suspected it had something to do with a Memokeeper.
This place still carried traces of Genius Society Member #55. No one would dare offend a Genius lightly.
That was something Yu Qingtu had said herself.
She had even mentioned that a Remembrance Path incinerator who once offended her had ended up turned into a special medicine…
"Then I feel much better." Clarisse gave a small nod.
...
The sky gradually brightened with the first light of dawn.
The instant the progress bar on the screen reached 100%, Mrs. Durand slowly opened her eyes.
When Clarisse met her mother's gaze and saw the familiar warmth and affection in it, her eyes quickly grew moist.
Kanzaki Tomomu performed the post-treatment check, let out a soft breath of relief, and gave a genuine smile.
"Mrs. Durand, congratulations. From this moment on, the burden of amnesia will never trouble you again."
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