The mission is like a shadow that never changes shape. Even when they’re laughing, eating, or pretending to care about trivialities, that shadow is there.

It’s not a question of if they’ll act—it’s when.

Looking at her now, I saw it: the stillness in her eyes, the words placed like chess moves. She wasn’t confused or conflicted. She was certain.

Which left only one question hanging between us:

If this Selene is the agent... what happened to the real one?

She might have already sent it. Maybe she really did send that doujinshi to that address—or at least, that was the mischievous image that suddenly slipped into my head that morning, when sunlight had just begun piling on the window ledge of my room.

I closed my eyes. It didn’t feel like something worth worrying about: that body now belonged to Selene, I’d signed the contract, and Selene—somehow—always knew what mattered and what could be discarded. That logic should have been enough to settle me. But my mind refused to stay on one track; it kept leaping—from small worries about a misdelivered package to an older, heavier memory: the Izumi Institute.

I forced myself to stand. In the mirror, I saw a body that wasn’t entirely mine—even if the contract stated it was, there was an alienness clinging to it like a thin sheet of fabric. I drew in a deep breath, feeling the edge of my unease harden into a faint resolve. If Selene already knew about that doujinshi, then she had surely handled it in her own way. If not? Then it was still a small problem I could deal with.

But why did my thoughts go back to the mall? Why did I suddenly remember getting lost as a child, afraid that it would be Mama who told me off—or worse—the Institution discussing it like a mere statistic?

The Izumi Institute was nothing like the schools in slice of life anime show.

No loud slogans about producing "geniuses" who defied nature. On the surface, it looked like a grand charity: educational facilities, scholarships, and a sense of safety for abandoned children. Beneath it—if you knew how to read between the lines—there were experiments. And those experiments began with something simple: give luxury to someone unaccustomed to it, then record what changes.

I’d seen those rooms up close. When I was twelve, I walked across the glass bridge that connected the institute’s building to the neighboring hotel. The bridge created the illusion of transition—from an ordinary school to a star-rated comfort—as if displaying the expected result. On the hotel side, the corridors carried a subtle scent of cleaning agents, air conditioning that whispered, heavy curtains shutting out the outside world. In the rooms, soft spring beds waited, televisions played colorful channels, and dining tables were filled with choices.

They said it was all for the children: giving them opportunity, not just facilities. But I remembered how one institute supervisor sat in his office with a list of names in front of him, jotting down small things—eating habits, bedtime, the tendency to ask for more. I peeked from behind the door and saw those notes as if they were maps.

"There’s a bridge connecting the two," I murmured to myself, my voice small. "That bridge isn’t just a path. It’s a reminder: someone built a link between two worlds so this experiment could run smoothly."

My father always spoke of results and seeds in a measured tone, like someone gauging the growth of plants in a garden. "What we plant will be what we harvest," he once said late at night in his study, holding his teacup as if weighing something unseen. "If there is no harvest, it means the seed is wrong—or the one planting it is unskilled."

When he said that, it felt like a knife to my chest. I knew what he meant—what he never stated plainly: some children are superior seeds; others are not. The Institute was his experiment. I, born from the Izumi bloodline, wasn’t placed under observation as a research subject—I was placed as an heir, given a double role: a student who had to win, and an example that had to prove a point.

"You are not a fool, Kairi," he said, voice flat yet heavy with ambition. "You will replace me. Do not let yourself be contaminated by them."

Those words hung in the air between us like an unspoken law. I trained myself to respond: lowering my head, smiling faintly, nodding. Outside, the corridor kept on running; inside, there was a subtle pressure urging me to prove something undefined.

Yet there was another side to that memory—something more human, far from lists and statistics. My grandfather, Hirotaka Izumi, was the kind of man whose voice softened and warmed whenever he spoke about the family hospital. He wasn’t the architect of experiments; he was a doctor who had eventually founded our family’s hospital. When I was twelve, I followed him into the operating room.

"Playing doctor," I had once said to a group of younger children, a toy stethoscope hanging around my neck—the innocent voice still echoing in the orphanage basement. They laughed, mimicking my gestures. There, the room felt foreign to me: the sharp smell of disinfectant, the operating lamp hanging like a false moon, the pulse of monitors, the measured steps of nurses.

A nurse had tried to refuse me entry the first time. "Kairi, you’re not allowed in yet, dear. Your father will be angry." Her voice was gentle, but carried the tension of someone guarding a secret.

My grandfather patted my shoulder and smiled. "Let her," he told the nurse briefly. "She wants to see. Let her learn."

I sat in the side chair, pressing my small hand to the cold operating table. The scalpel I had always imagined seemed like a toy—real, yet distant. A doctor picked one from the tray and placed it in my hand—not to cut, just so I could understand its shape. Its tip was sly in the light; the handle felt heavy in my small palm.