Chapter 217: For All the Alices (2)

A white-haired girl lay neatly before us.

For a moment, I examined the unconscious Unknown's condition.

'This isn't good.'

As her presence gradually faded, stark white cracks spread across her entire body with a crackling sound.

She was clearly on the verge of vanishing.

At this rate, the girl would evaporate without leaving a trace.

As though her soul were a flower, it was slowly shedding its petals from the tips of its branches.

"V-Viktor..."

As I sank deep into thought, Alice grabbed my sleeve.

"How is my sister? She was definitely fine, so why did this suddenly happen...?"

"Well... I can't honestly say she's in good condition, not even as a polite lie."

"Th-that can't be..."

"I think your sister is refusing to wake up."

"My sister...?"

"Yes. More precisely, she has no will to wake up. There may be several reasons her condition has worsened, but I believe this is the most decisive one. I can't feel any desire to live from her. She's quiet, as though she's waiting for death. Her inner self is so unstable that the collapse of her soul is accelerating."

Unless I had read her wrong, Unknown clearly wanted to die.

I had never seen anyone so sick of living.

"Until now, she seems to have lived as Oz's puppet, bound to him... but now even that connection has been severed. She's become a balloon that slipped from someone's hand. A balloon that flies away without any thought of returning, until it eventually bursts."

"M-My sister... But she doesn't want to live...?"

Her blue eyes filled with shock.

Quietly, I stroked her black hair.

"I'll try to persuade her. So please wait, and don't cry."

"Viktor..."

Alice bit her lip as though trying to hold back her tears.

Even with the crown on her head, she was still the same fragile girl before me.

'You lived up to my faith in you. Now I should repay the faith you have in me.'

I tightly gripped the clock in my hand.

A vibration came from its hands.

The second hand moved forward one tick, then returned. It moved back one tick, then returned again.

The current time was 12:00:00. The pocket watch was traveling back and forth between the past at 11:59:59 and the future at 12:00:01.

'One chance.'

I poured mana into the clock face.

A faint glow ticked away.

"Then I'll be back."

I left her with a reassuring smile.

Before I knew it, a brilliant flash had engulfed me.

A blue window appeared before my eyes.

Ding!

[Phenomenon 'Memories, Recollections, Imagination (S-)' is activating.]

[Entering the deep consciousness of the designated target, 'Project-Unknown'.]

The next moment, my bright vision went dark.

* * *

My severed consciousness.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a completely white room.

'Did it work?'

The place looked like a vast isolation chamber.

The walls were entirely white, and aside from two beds, there was nothing inside.

A silence that gnawed at the air.

A large glass window stood before me.

Beyond it, several figures watched this side while writing something down.

'...This is.'

The stinging smell of chemicals.

I quickly realized where I was.

'Oz's old laboratory.'

The hell where the Alice sisters had been born and spent their childhood.

I instinctively knew this place was Unknown's deep consciousness.

It was probably a space recreating her trauma.

'If so, she should be nearby...'

I looked around.

Before long, I found a girl curled up in the farthest corner.

"......"

She crouched there without a single sign of movement, muffling even the sound of her breathing.

Her hair was as white as the isolation chamber itself.

I carefully approached.

From a distance, I made sure she could hear me coming so I would not startle her.

Even so, Unknown merely remained still with her knees hugged to her chest.

"Um."

"......"

Soon, I was standing right beside her.

I carefully spoke to her.

"Excuse me, hello...?"

"......"

My greeting went unanswered.

Still, she had definitely heard me.

"You're Miss Allie, right? Alice... I mean, Miss Liss asked me to come."

Liss.

Perhaps that word made her react, because Unknown briefly lifted her head.

"...How did you get in here?"

Her voice was hoarse, as though she had cried herself raw.

Her red eyes were listless, like a trampled flower.

"To begin with... why did you come in? What could you possibly want here...?"

I was reminded of when I was tackling the ninetieth floor of Purgatory.

As with Javert, this was a place where Unknown's nightmares and trauma repeated.

I answered calmly.

Meanwhile, the girl did not even look at me.

"I told you. I came to take you with me, Miss Allie."

"Leave quickly. You can't stay here. You'll get dragged in too."

"Miss Alice misses you very much."

"......"

"Don't you want to see your little sister too, Miss Allie?"

"...It's none of your business. I just want it to end."

Clank.

The closed isolation chamber door opened.

White-coated figures walked in behind it.

<There we are, morning has come again.>

<Time to start the day, isn't it?>

Across from us stood a familiar face.

The faceless man.

'Oz.'

The real Oz was dead, so this was probably the Oz recreated in Unknown's nightmare.

He stood there accompanied by other researchers.

"......"

Unknown's lips, which had opened for a moment, closed again.

Perhaps because she was facing the source of her trauma.

The girl's shoulders trembled.

"Miss Allie?"

"Haa... haa..."

She let out ragged breaths, as though she could barely breathe.

I recalled what Alice had once told me.

-My sister... was a strong person.

-Whenever I trembled before an experiment, she would step forward and say she would take it in my place.

-How could she do that? She must have been scared too... She must have been in as much pain as I was, and suffered just as much...

The sister Alice had described was someone who tried to ease her younger sister's pain, even if it meant forcing herself. A sister who took everything upon herself and smiled brightly, saying it was all right.

I looked down at the girl, comparing her to that image.

Allie's hunched shoulders looked terribly small.

'She was this much of a coward, yet she tried to step up for her little sister every time...?'

The utterly broken girl could only sit there helplessly.

Oz looked down at Unknown and spoke.

<Let's go, Project Alice-01. Five experiments are scheduled for today. We need to get moving.>

"...I don't want to."

A quiet murmur.

Regardless, the researchers lined up like attendants roughly pulled Unknown to her feet.

Though the girl flinched, she seemed to know resistance was meaningless as they dragged her away.

It seemed they were about to take Unknown outside the isolation chamber and into another laboratory.

"Father."

Then I raised my hand.

I called to Oz.

<What is it, Project Alice-03?>

This place was recreated from Unknown's nightmare.

Since I was in this isolation chamber, I must have been assigned the role of an experimental subject like her.

"My sister doesn't seem to be in good condition today."

<Hm... Is that so? Now that you mention it, perhaps she does seem that way.>

"Could you excuse her from the experiment? If she undergoes it in this state, I think it may negatively affect the research results as well."

<Unfortunately, that is impossible. We cannot cancel a scheduled experiment. This is something she must endure.>

"Then I'll take it instead. That experiment."

<Oh?>

"I think it would be better for me to take it than for my sister to undergo it while she's unwell."

Perhaps because of that, Unknown, who had been staring blankly all this time, looked at me.

"You... What are you..."

I merely gave her a soft wink.

Oz seemed to consider it for a moment, then nodded.

<Very well. Cooperative test subjects make things easier to proceed with. However, should you become even slightly uncooperative, we will replace you with No. 1 immediately. Please do your best to cooperate.>

"I'll keep that in mind. Also, I'd like to take all the experiments scheduled for the next while."

<By scheduled experiments, you mean three months' worth. Including the experiments originally assigned to you, that would be 1,198 in total... Your mind will not endure that. You will need to undergo experiments continuously for some time, without even a break to rest.>

"That's fine. I'll endure."

<Very well. Still, we cannot afford to lose a valuable test subject, so if you appear to be in danger, we will replace you with No. 1 once more.>

"Sounds good. Thank you."

The matter was settled dramatically.

At Oz's gesture, the researchers released Unknown's arms.

I approached the girl, who had collapsed onto the floor.

"Miss Allie."

"What are you doing...? Are you insane? Do you want to die?"

"Though you said you wanted to stop... I won't give up on you."

"Get out now! At this rate, you too...!"

"I promised Miss Alice. I promised I'd bring you back with me."

Good.

Just as my teacher taught me, stay positive. Always keep a smile on your face.

"I'll definitely save you."

Then, the researchers' arms grabbed hold of me and pulled me away.