—"That curse user who 'died' by my hand."
"Huh??"
The moment those words hit him, Todo shot to his feet—too fast. The blood drained from his head, his vision went black, and he collapsed right back onto the tatami, staring at Kira in utter shock.
"Hey, you're kidding, right, brother? The old man's annoying, sure, but there's no way he's a curse user in disguise... His cursed energy signature, his face, even the way he talks—it's all exactly the same as before!"
"Which is exactly why I said 'not entirely,' Todo."
Though he was answering Todo's question, Kira's gaze never left the old man. He continued:
"You didn't use a disguise at all. You took over Gakuganji's body directly—that's why the resemblance is so perfect. Perfect enough to fool every Grade 1 sorcerer in this school."
Gakuganji smiled faintly, took another sip of tea, and asked, "Do you have any proof?"
His palm was already sweating.
"Simple. Remember the first time I came to you with my theory about the location of the curse site?"
"What about it?"
"That theory was complete nonsense."
"What?"
Kira rested his chin on his hand, his expression as calm as a man working a bakery counter, and enunciated each word with deliberate precision:
"I. Made. It. Up."
"I did study psychology, but I'm not skilled enough to produce that level of behavioral analysis. A person's inner state can't be quantified—the slightest margin of error, and when you plot it on a map, you end up miles off."
"You knew at the time that my deductions were entirely wrong. But you played along and pretended I'd convinced you."
"When I said our anxiety levels were identical? Nonsense. When I said our cursed energy capacities were comparable? A lie. I was testing you."
So that was why Kira had considered that conversation utterly pointless. He'd just wanted to go home.
Both parties had been acting. The content of the conversation was meaningless—only the conversation itself mattered.
"What's the point?"
"The point is simple, once you understand your objective."
"Why would you fabricate a disaster of that magnitude—a fake one? I can only think of one explanation: you needed a crisis, a catastrophe, to draw the attention of every sorcerer in the school, so you'd be free to accomplish your real goal."
"But the curse plague alone wasn't enough to mobilize every last sorcerer. Only the emergence of a second King of Curses carried that kind of weight."
"During our first conversation, you appeared to be questioning the existence of a King of Curses, but in reality you were steering me the entire time. You performed your shock, your anger, and finally your reluctant acceptance—all to reinforce my confidence in my own theory. Credit where it's due: your straight-man routine was flawless."
That was also why, at the end of their last conversation, Kira had silently cursed the man as a drama queen.
—This man had been acting the entire time.
Gakuganji laughed—a short, exasperated laugh. His fingers tightened around the ceramic teapot's handle, and he licked his dry lips.
"You still haven't told me why."
"You've already figured it out, haven't you?"
Kira toyed with his fingernails, his voice perfectly level:
"You just won't admit your own stupidity."
"I fabricated a perpendicular bisector and told no one but you. And then the actual curse site turned up right on that line. What are the odds?"
"You thought you were the actor on stage, congratulating yourself on how brilliantly you'd fooled the audience. But in truth, it was the audience's performance that fooled you."
Eliminate every impossibility, and whatever remains—no matter how absurd—is the truth:
After that conversation, Gakuganji had moved the curse site onto the very bisector Kira had fabricated.
His motive wasn't hard to deduce:
"Gakuganji" wanted to engineer a crisis big enough to draw everyone's attention—the emergence of a King of Curses—but it couldn't seem forced. He needed the sorcerers to discover it, yet not in too obvious a way, or it would look staged and defy logic.
Under normal circumstances, a villain engineering a world-ending catastrophe wouldn't let the heroes find out before it succeeded. Even if it were exposed, it would have to be through the heroes' own painstaking investigation.
And so the perfect front man, Nanami Kira, appeared. Given his reputation, it was perfectly reasonable for him to lead an investigation team to the curse site.
After hearing Kira's absurd theory, Gakuganji had voluntarily relocated the curse site to match it. He'd been eager for them to find it.
Then the battle would erupt, every sorcerer in the school would deploy, and only the "principal" would remain behind—free to accomplish his true objective.
That was why Kira had been so half-hearted during the search. He knew the curse site would be found eventually. It was only a matter of time.
From that moment on, Kira had seen through Gakuganji's entire plan.
His absurd theory had been a trap—bait to guide Gakuganji, to call his bluff, to verify his identity.
His own acting had been equally convincing, making Gakuganji believe that Kira had genuinely been reasoning through the problem and simply failed.
"I imagine you were secretly laughing at my stupidity, and then rushed to relocate the curse site onto my perpendicular bisector."
Kira gazed out the window at the drizzling rain, covering his mouth with slender fingers, and murmured:
"That flustered look on your face is really quite adorable."
Gakuganji stared silently into his teacup and said in a low voice:
"Then how did you conclude that I'd taken over Gakuganji's body? 'Gakuganji is a curse user who's been hiding in the school for years'—wouldn't that be more logical?"
"And how did you know my name is 'Hasegawa Kaede'?"
"That's a separate matter."
Kira kept his eyes on the rain outside. It was coming down harder now. The window was open, and every gust of wind brought a faceful of damp, cold mist.
"This rain will last a while yet. We have plenty of time."
"Let's take it slow."
After all, opportunities to slack off during work hours in broad daylight didn't come often.