Attempting to court death within the Zoldyck training grounds, right under their noses, is not easy.
As expected, I failed. The familiar failure.
I awoke on the familiar bed in the infirmary, my fervor long extinguished. I could feel the dull ache from the wound on my chest.
The clearest pain was the conscious sensation, pressing down on me, keeping me from moving.
I didn't want to move anyway. I felt like I had fallen apart, drained of all energy.
Staring at the clear liquid dripping drop by drop from the IV bag into the soft tube, I began to stare blankly, devoid of thought.
"Mōru... Mōru?" Kikyo called my name several times. Seeing my lack of response, she cupped my face with her hands, turning my head towards her. "...Mōru."
"..." I withdrew my gaze from the IV drip and let my eyelids fall, looking at the pale yellow blanket.
The infirmary beds were originally all white. Perhaps I had spent too much time here, as one bed had become my exclusive space. The energetic Kikyo had readily custom-made my "second bed outside my bedroom" as well.
It was soft, spacious, and comfortable, just like the one in my bedroom. I liked it a lot.
Grateful for the well that quenched my thirst, I finally slowly looked at Kikyo.
"Mōru," Kikyo said, sitting by my bedside. "Do you still recognize me?"
"..." I moved my lips, forming a shape. "...Mama."
"Do you remember what happened last?" she asked softly. "Mōru?"
"..." How could I answer without being considered mentally unstable?
Speaking of which, why had Kikyo become so quiet? She wasn't shouting or making a fuss, and it made me feel unaccustomed.
I slowly blinked, my gaze shifting to the ceiling. It was white, spotless, and very clean.
This purity helped clear my mind of extraneous thoughts.
It wasn't that I didn't remember; I remembered too clearly. The pain and fervor, my thoughts and desires, the words I had "spoken," the things I had done, Illumi's reaction – I recalled it all with chilling clarity.
I remembered my final "question" to Illumi: "My heart... what does it feel like to touch?"
An ineffable expression of shock had frozen on his face. He seemed to have been put on pause, unable to answer my question.
Kikyo was unusually quiet at this moment, giving me ample time to calm down and prepare my response.
"I just..." I answered with lip movements. "I was just acting on impulse. I wanted to... play a prank and see how Illumi would react."
The impulse was real, the prank, in terms of the outcome, was almost real, and wanting to see Illumi's reaction was also real. It was a truth with nine-tenths purity, which, rounded up, was equivalent to one hundred percent truth. Thus, I met Kikyo's gaze and "replied" with complete sincerity.
"And then?" Kikyo asked. "What conclusion did you reach after playing the prank?"
"I was a little disappointed, and also a little amused. I won't play the same prank again."
I turned my gaze back to the ceiling, continuing to stare blankly.
Kikyo sat quietly by my bedside. When a talkative character suddenly changes their demeanor and becomes silent, it's never a good sign.
I didn't want to dwell on things that were clearly not good. I deliberately ignored Kikyo's presence, my eyes fixed on the ceiling, lost in thought.
"Mōru... Mōru, what do you want to do the most right now?"
Snapping back to attention at Kikyo's call, I realized the IV drip had finished, and the needle had been removed. Kikyo was holding my hand.
"..." I closed my eyes, then opened them again. "Nothing."
Both my body and mind were exhausted, the latter even more so.
Calmness followed impulse, and weariness followed calmness. I had entered a period of burnout.
I had experienced burnout thoroughly in my "real world." Having no interest in anything, wanting to do nothing, work that I was forced to do became highly inefficient, perfunctory, painful, and numb.
The only solution was to endure this low fever, to push through for a while, and to do a lot of time-wasting activities to relieve it, such as continuously reading novels and playing games, treating time as trash and squandering it freely.
If I still couldn't bear it, I could just die in the end. For the dead, there was no meaning in striving, no value in cherishing time.
Besides, with my aptitude, I wouldn't achieve anything anyway; it would just be a repetition of yesterday's dull life.
"...Is that so?" Kikyo reached out and brushed my hair from my forehead, stroking it from top to tail, again and again.
"..." I closed my eyes.
As I drifted between sleep and wakefulness, Kikyo began to caress my cheek. Her breath was close to my ear as she confessed her thoughts with affection and heartbreak. "Mōru... Mōru, I am so sad."
"The pain of almost losing you hurts more than here," Kikyo said, her hand resting on my chest, over the wound that led to my heart. "Do you know what my heart feels like to the touch?"
"..." I neither opened my eyes nor replied.
"Illu already has the demeanor of an older brother, Mōru. It's perfectly fine if you don't want to do anything," Kikyo said softly. "Stay by Mama's side and always be Mama's good child. I love you more than anyone, Mōru."
Her current expression might have been genuine, but "love" was the most unreliable emotion in the world; it came and went quickly. Moreover, according to the original setting, her favorite child was Killua, to the point that Killua himself found it annoying.
Once Killua was born, I suspected she would change her mind, no, ninety-nine percent she would.
I had experienced this in my "real world." Depending on my mother's mood, I could be the apple of her eye or something she couldn't bear to look at.
["I want to give up everything, but I can't let you go."]
["You are a piece of flesh that fell from me."]
["Whatever you want, we will have no more to do with each other."]
She said she was going through menopause, had bipolar disorder, whether I believed her or accepted it, it was already like this, already this painful.
In the end, only I would grovel, wagging my tail like a stray dog.
Only me.
I loved her as much as she loved me.
I hated her as much as she hated me.
I was tired, just as she was tired.
All love came with a price.
If I didn't refuse, Kikyo might interpret it as consent. I opened my eyes and looked at Kikyo without a hint of a smile.
"...Mōru." Kikyo wasn't foolish enough to miss such a cue. She understood my refusal, and her tone carried a hint of indignation. "Mōru!"
"I'll return your heart, Mama," I said with lip movements.
Physical body and hair are gifts from parents; returning them to "parents" was most appropriate, not to Illumi.
"Mōru," Kikyo gritted out.
"..." I closed my eyes.
If it weren't for the concern that "the game might reset indefinitely if the objective isn't completed," I might have already...
So tired. Why did I feel so tired?
Was this game a first playthrough?
Or... the nth playthrough?
"Mōru," Kikyo said, cupping my shoulders and pulling my upper body into her embrace. "No, you can't. You can't leave me."
The air grew colder, chilling as if pricked by needles.
I remembered the torture device called "Iron Maiden." It was a coffin-shaped figure from the outside, with a woman's face carved at the top. When the entrance was closed, the nails on the inner walls would pierce the body – a fatal embrace.
One minute: pupils dilate, circulation stops.
One hour: body temperature drops, body stiffens.
Eight hours: purplish-red patches.
Swelling, blackening, rotting.
Turning to bone.
If I had to leave, I wished it would be me leaving first, because I was a despicable and selfish person.
I didn't want to experience the feeling of being abandoned later, so I pushed Kikyo away.
Kikyo didn't use force against me, just like her unsuspecting nature towards Killua in the original work, which was why she was injured.
"I want to be alone," I said to her with lip movements.
"Mōru," she repeated the name, seemingly having lost her usual verbose ability and unable to say anything else.
She had called my name so many times today, and I found it incredibly irritating.
I lay back down on the bed, pulled up the blanket, and covered my head.
Corpses lying on beds have their faces covered.
"No... no, Mōru," Kikyo said, grabbing my hand pulling the blanket through the fabric. She began to scream, "Don't do this, don't do this, Mōru!"
*Clatter—*
The curtain used as a partition by the bedside was pulled open in one go.
"Quiet." It was Silva's voice.
"It's time to go." He paused, then added.
Both sentences were directed at Kikyo. Kikyo did not continue her unusual behavior; she obeyed Silva's words, stopped screaming, and released my hand.
The sound of the curtain being pulled closed again, the presence of the people completely vanishing.
After a long time, so long that I almost fell asleep, I lifted the blanket, revealing my head. The cold air took away the heat from my face, making me slightly more alert.
The curtain that enclosed this bed seemed to separate me from the entire world.
A five-square-meter box. This was my entire world.
The infirmary did not let in sunlight. The indoor lights were never extinguished. This was perpetual daytime.
I slept and woke, woke and slept. There was no sound around me, nor did anyone disturb me. It was as if I were in another dimension.
After lying down until my body felt stiff and uncomfortable, I got out of bed and walked along the edges of the curtain, measuring the perimeter with my footsteps.
Originally, I hadn't planned to leave this space, but this space only had a bed and no water or food. As I stayed longer, the feeling of thirst and hunger intensified.
Even with the relevant training, my body was still a human body. It couldn't surpass human limits.
Appetite was secondary. It would be good to drink some water, at least. I remembered there was tap water in the infirmary.
Carefully pulling open a small gap in the curtain, I saw no one. So I stepped out, found the sink, turned on the faucet, and leaned in to drink.
Drinking my fill of water made me feel much better. After wandering around the infirmary, I finally decided to head for the door. The door was not locked. I pulled the handle, and it opened a crack.
"!" As soon as I poked my head out, a black figure caused me to quickly retract it.
A voice that respectfully addressed me as "Miss Mōrus" was shut outside the door.
I was careless; it was a butler who had hidden his aura.
Since I had discovered him, he stopped hiding his aura. His presence remained close to the door, showing no intention of leaving.
The infirmary door could not be locked from the inside. I sat down with my back against the door, attempting to use my body to block it, preventing anyone from entering.
"Miss Mōrus, do you require a meal?" the butler asked from outside the door.
"...May I come in?"
"Then I will leave it here."
Without needing any response from me, the butler carried on the conversation unilaterally. I heard the slight sound of him placing down a meal tray.
*Tsk—*
Don't underestimate me.
The butler's presence disappeared. I also moved away from the door, slipped back through the curtain, and lay back on the bed.
In a state between sleep and wakefulness, I heard the cries of New Orleans. Just as I was wondering if it was a hallucination, I heard the sound of birds pecking at the door.
It pecked for a long time. After much deliberation, I opened the door. It stood by the food bowl. The food in the bowl was still warm. It looked up at me.
I closed the door, and it began to peck again.
So I brought it inside, leaving the food bowl outside the door.
In my "real world," I had considered death by starvation. Having the chance to experience it, why not?
Hunger was a strange thing. No matter how strong it was, after a certain period of persistence, it would suddenly disappear.
Disappear, disappear.
I no longer had the strength to get up and drink water. I lay on the bed, not moving.
Before, when I opened the door for New Orleans, it didn't go out but stayed with me. It was also hungry and lay down, spreading its wings, resting on the blanket.
Stroking its head, I felt happy.
There was a creature willing to die with me.
This was my endurance match with the Zoldycks. I didn't want to lose... perhaps there wasn't even a competition. They had done their best, and it was I who refused to eat, so they gave me freedom, or rather, they gave up on me, letting me fend for myself... After all, their family rules stated they couldn't kill family members, so my self-destruction wouldn't count as them taking action.
I embraced New Orleans, just as I had embraced my first hawk.
It was too smart. It let out a low cry and closed its eyes first.
I fell asleep holding it.
When someone entered, took my hand, and inserted a needle into me... death? No, this was superfluous... This wasn't death; it was likely glucose or something similar to sustain life, an infusion. I lacked the strength to resist.
"Mōru, do you have something you want to do now?" Silva asked, holding my arm as he administered the shot.
My vision was darkening from hunger, and I couldn't see my surroundings clearly. Hearing his voice, I realized it was him.
"Mōru, don't make everyone sad for you." It was Kikyo's voice. Unlike Silva's rough hands, hers were delicate as she touched my cheek. "If you continue to act out, everyone will lose what they don't want to lose. Is that really okay?"
"..."
"New Orleans, whom you like, is going to die because of your stubbornness. Is that really okay?" Kikyo said. "Mōru, because we are your parents, we won't just watch you die. But this hawk, to us, is just a hawk. You like it very much, don't you, Mōru?"
"..."
"Mōru, tell me, do you want to save it." Silva placed my hand in his palm. "There isn't much time left."
"..."
"You've already lost once. This time, you still have a chance to salvage it," Silva said. "Tell me, Mōru, do you want to salvage it?"
"..."
"Mōru."
"Mōru."
My other hand was still on New Orleans. I could feel its extremely weak breathing. Time was indeed running out.
I felt as if I were touching a cold birdcage, smelling the smoke from an incinerator.
I was killing it.
It shouldn't have died. I was using its loyalty to kill it. I deserved to die.
I was too greedy. I should have died alone.
Squeezing out my last bit of strength, I clasped Silva's fingers. I no longer had any remaining strength to "speak."
"Okay." Fortunately, Silva understood. "I will save it. I hope that when it gets better, you will also pull yourself together... You know, the pets we keep are all very loyal."
Yes, very loyal, except for me.
"If there's a game you don't want to play, you can say so, and we will consider your opinion. If you don't communicate, how can we understand you?" Silva's large hand closed, engulfing my entire hand. "You are my first child. They say the first child is special... Yes, I must say, understanding you often gives me a headache. I've fought with countless people, and even through many twists and turns, the outcome has almost always been victory."
"Mōru, you are the most difficult and tenacious opponent I have ever met. I have always searched for your weakness, wanting to defeat you."
"But I now realize that I will likely never win."
"Because..."
He sighed deeply and ruffled my hair.
"Because you are my weakness."