Mei was alone again. Fortunately, the benevolent voices were back to comfort her after Jade left the room, unaware of what happened the previous night. She last heard these benevolent voices two days ago, before her gruesome act.

Mei liked these voices. They were helpful and didn't force her to do evil things. They praised her for being able to eat her medicine without Jade's reminder, but they vanished seconds after the tablet went down her oesophagus and churned in her stomach. She felt everything that was going on inside her body, all the cells at work. It calmed her a little and she liked that too.

Walking along the corridor, she paused in front of the room used by the Writers' Guild upon hearing a familiar voice.

"It couldn't have been a man's doing," Zayn muttered. Through the slightly fogged-up windows, she could see the Director of the Guild scribbling away and making connections. "No, this is different from the plot."

Despite the air-conditioning in the room, the boy's forehead was stippled with sweat. She watched as he dashed into a room and returned, two minutes later, with a white laptop.

What is he doing? She focused her gaze on the document he opened. He scrolled through it quickly. When he stopped, her breaths stopped.

The doorknob twisted near her and the boy she had been observing waved at her.

"How long have you been there, Mei-chan?"

Mei stepped away, imbibing unease, a thick draft fizzling in her guts. "Why? Why did you do that?"

"I was forced to," Zayn croaked. "I'm sorry. Don't tell anyone about this, alright?"

"I have to! You plotted everything! Did you plot my death, too?"

"Listen to me." Zayn grabbed her shoulders. "I never planned for you to die. I didn't plot everything. In fact, he only used my Healer Killer app idea. I'm just like a pawn, a puppet. And, I'm really sorry."

"You killed the four men, right?"

"No!" Then, Zayn softened his tone. "It wasn't me. It wasn't supposed to happen. That wasn't in my story."

"Who killed them then?" Mei asked. If she didn't take her medicine, then the voices might talk to her again. She would be saying all she had to say, except no one could hear her. Now, she was feeling ambivalent towards this. Maybe, just maybe, if she hid the bottle and stayed in her room, this would not have happened. Maybe drowning the Pidove cursed the school. Maybe Sayo cursed the school, cursed everyone.

"I'm not sure, but I overheard Madame Valencia mumbling to herself that the four people got too close to the academy. They weren't supposed to be there. She said they weren't part of the island's population. She thought someone must have killed them, but she didn't know who."

"So, who killed them?" Mei's indurated gaze shot through the boy. She felt she had to know. It was a right.

"I suspect it is a Gallade. The cut is deep, and there is a cut in their minds too. It's most likely the move, Psycho Cut. However, it can't have been a Gallade."

Mei nodded and tried to process the information. She felt a loss of appetite after consuming her medicine but this was a different kind of hunger. It was a hunger that ate at her nerves, the kind that pressured her to find answers. Her brows contracted.

"Why?" She amplified her voice a little. This worked better against Zayn than baby-doll eyes would. If she could just gain a modicum of truth, that would do.

The yellow-haired boy released his grip on her and bent down to untie his shoelaces. It seemed like a dead knot, yet one pull broke the tension in the laces.

"This," he said, "seems impossible. There is only one Gallade in Noryuku. Assume that Blade—Sage's Gallade—left his Poké Ball without Sage knowing and killed the intruders. They weren't ordinary men either, but people from the Kalos region some distance away.

"Sage knows nothing. His shock this morning tells me so. Blade usually doesn't hide his feelings, unlike his trainer, which makes it easier to tell if he's lying. Unless, both of them lied. Which seems off because Sage is not one to go around killing people. He was in Titan's room last night too. He wouldn't have killed anyone.

"Mei-chan, you write thrillers too, with a history of unreliable narrators. You'd know who to believe."

Mei ambled into the room with thoughts racing through her mind, unfiltered as usual. Only Jade and Zayn could understand whatever was going on in there, but the boy was better able to figure things out than Jade. She tried to pull her thoughts back to the issue at hand, occasionally hearing the voices as if a tape was played in her mind. Zayn had told her bits of his dorm life with Sage, and based on what she heard from him, Sage did seem to be great at lying, especially about his emotions. She had deliberately strolled past him before, to descry the despondency hidden behind his eyes.

Yes, the boy could make an exceptional liar.

She took a seat in front of Zayn's laptop and scrolled through the document titled 'Healer Killer', a thriller he had written but never published. It had six players as well, and the only similarity between fantasy and reality was that the game now existed with the same winning condition, that only one person could survive. There had to be a loophole in there. Art can't completely mirror real life, right? Or was it the other way round? Mei wasn't sure.

"How do I know if you're not lying?" Mei glanced at the boy who was now speaking on his phone after tying his shoelaces. While waiting for his reply, she scanned the document for any keywords. It was pretty much a thriller Zayn would write.

Questions surfaced in her mind. Who was forcing Zayn into this? Was it right to tell the others about this? What about Sage—does the boy know of this? And...

"Why did you make this concept alive?"

"Living is suffering and I—" The words made Mei turn such that she faced the boy. She knew the voice anywhere. Tonight, she would hear that sweet voice too, at Café Au Lait's concert. All students were cordially invited.

Knowing Loralei wasn't physically in the room, she guessed it was a video. That provided a different facet of the usually cheerful third-year.

"I'll answer your questions in sequence." Zayn kept his phone in his trouser pocket. "I have no reason to lie. Betraying the mastermind would not benefit me much. Your welfare is more important.

"And I was forced to make this concept alive. I never wanted to. It was in exchange for stopping your bullying."

But Zayn, bullying never stops. Ostracism is always there whether you like it or not. Mei told herself.

She pressed her temples. Take Ciara for example. She became famous for being... what? The only black person in Noryuku? Racism doesn't stop so easily either, but perhaps both can cease to exist if harmony takes centre stage. See the assimilation of Ciara's race into Kalos, or the conflict between blacks and whites in Unova. Why is there no peace between races? Aren't we all human? Damn. The most racist person would be Yuzu. Manipulative fre—

"Who is the mastermind?" She pretended to not hear his last sentence. Speaking aloud would break that horrid train of thoughts. If she were seconds late... Mei didn't even want to imagine herself clutching her head and bawling in a corner after subjecting herself to endless thoughts criticising the world's prejudices. It would only make her more aware of her situation. Of course, she still pictured it in her mind.

"I can't tell you. He'll kill all of the students if I told anyone."

"Did the mastermind kill the four men? Or... is this the riddle of Sir Wyatt? Invisible man of power?" Mei got up and whirled around. "We can continue discussing later. I've to meet Madame Valencia to get the special eyedrops."

"Goo in your eyes again?"

"Yes, Goo happens sometimes out of nowhere. Today's class is about controlling Singularity. Helpful much."

"By the way," Zayn said. The blue-haired girl just left the room. "Don't go to the concert tonight. You might just die."

He could only hope that Mei heard his words.

Sighing, he placed his hands on the glass table near the door. He could see his blue running shoes through it, just as well as his gaze could penetrate his roommate's mask. Sage wouldn't lie to him, would he? The boy never lied to him and was always honest to him, especially when emotions were involved. Other than Gin, the vocalist and leader of Emo-Senpai, he was the closest to Sage. He knew the boy's strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, like the back of his hand.

Sage had recovered from his low moments and this just seemed not to be the right time to tell him about how Zayn himself was involved in the Healer Killer mess.

"Sage is not depressed, he's just sad and stressed as a side effect of his Singularity. Strangely enough, only he is affected by his Singularity."

Zayn shut his laptop down.

"He knows he's just sad and emotional. I'm sure he doesn't have depression either—it's no laughing matter." He tugged his laptop under his arm. "He's just sad. I wish I could do something to cheer him up."

Does art mirror life, or vice-versa?

He picked his phone up from the table and looked at the wallpaper on the lock screen, of him and Sage smiling together. A message popped up.

Sage: Want to get breakfast together? You're treating me for making me search all over Foncrise for a girl with your vague description. And to hear whatever I already know.

Zayn: OK. Meet you outside the forest path. I've something to talk to you about. Also, I got the cereals delivered to our room thanks to SW.

Sage: Do me a favour and change your Tweet-twit username to Shitshit before meeting me. See ya soon! ;) PS. I'll be checking!

「」

The brown-haired boy stood at the back of the small hall. The previous night, he was a performer, and today, he would be part of the audience.

His mind wandered to what Zayn told him that morning, about genuine happiness. Sure, he had been an emotional wreck these couple days, but it was plain sadness. He knew better than to conclude it to be depression. It was, as Madame Valencia told him during one of his counselling sessions, simply sadness and stress. It was, as she also said, due to the use of his Singularity.

He pondered over Zayn's strange expression in the morning. The writer had kept his oceanic blue eyes on Blade's Poké Ball and when Sage asked about it, the boy simply waved it off, saying it was nothing. Yet there had to be something. The more one tries to hide something, the more he reveals about it. Sage was well-acquainted with that situation.

"Heya!" A voice screamed in his mind. "Thinking about your nice, warm Zayn? Are you going to cuddle him to sleep tonight?"

Sage loured and interweaved his arms while looking at the students in front of him. He maundered over to the grey doors with long handles and leant against the wall.

"Blade," he began. "It's just as I said, and for the millionth time, we're just roommates!"

"Look who's blushing. Three years can be more than enough for an intimate relationship. Maybe I should remove your bed tonight," the Gallade's voice exploded in the boy's mind. "Ah, two boys on one bed."

Sage groaned and gained a few quick glances from the girls in front of him. Despite having only twenty-three students in the academy, he thought it was suffocating and too much.

"Blade!" Sage gritted his teeth. "Stop shipping us together. You know I'm not into romance."

"Fine," the humanoid Pokémon muttered in his Poké Ball. "I'll stop. For now. Oh, you have no idea you are the perfect couple."

Sage sighed and pulled his hair. He met Blade when he was five, and the Gallade hadn't changed a bit. The Pokémon still read his mind and tried to create relationships between Sage and his schoolmates.

He looked at his phone when he felt it vibrate. It was a message from Zayn.

Zayn: where r u?

Sage: Café Au Lait's concert

His roommate's reply was immediate.

Zayn: it's dangerous. I forgot to tell you that this morning but Loralei plans on killing all of the students in the hall.

Sage: what? Why?

Zayn: have you heard of Karma?

For a moment, Sage was lapidified. How did Zayn know about this? The imaginary stone fragments broke away as he calmed down a little after remembering his connections to Jade and Mei.

Karma. Cause and effect. Fate.

Zayn: she wants to kill everyone

Sage: the concert's about to start and how will she kill everyone?

Zayn: I don't know! Can you leave? Promise me you'll stay safe.

Sage pushed his phone into his pocket and shifted sideways. He pressed the long handle down and pulled it. The doors refused to budge.

Yellow strobe lights flashed onto the stage as clacks filled the quietening hall. A familiar voice burst into the speakers. "Good evening Noryuku! We're Café Au Lait! Ria is sick today so you'll get my solo!"

This was succeeded by a buzz that resounded in the concert hall. Some students covered their ears and others crouched down a little. From where he stood, he eyed a girl slightly shorter than him. The wind caressed her blue hair and her white hair clip fell onto the floor. Sage did not know why, but his body moved on its own, pushing students out of his way to grab the hair clip.

"Ah, th-thank you." A dulcet voice made him look away.

He slotted the accessory into her hair and said, "You are Mei, right? I spoke to Jade just now."

The buzz came again, longer, louder.

Mei bent forward a little as if divulging a secret that could tear apart heaven and earth, and murmured, "I know. She told me about you too."

Sage beckoned her to follow him to the back of the concert hall. Titan and Ferro were mixed into the crowd and he could not find them. However, having Mei around might be good, too. The girl might be of some help, hopefully.

He took his phone out and swiped his finger across the screen. He typed a message to Zayn and waited. He gasped, almost dropping his phone and creating a record for "Consecutive Nights Sage Does the Phone Drop".

The message was not sent.

Karma had cut off all signal in the concert hall.