> "You do not escape the darkness by running from it. You conquer it by walking back into it, holding the torch others were never allowed to carry."
— Kiyotaka Ayanokoji
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The cold was the first thing he noticed.
Not the kind that made your skin tremble or your breath curl visibly into mist—but a sterile, perfect cold, like the hum of artificial air in a world detached from reality. The kind that told you time was meaningless here. The kind that told you you'd never really left.
Kiyotaka Ayanokoji stood still at the entrance of the White Room, his breath steady, hands tucked behind his back, expression unreadable. A sharp suit replaced the white uniforms he once wore—elegant, pressed, and dark like a void reborn in formality. His name badge read simply: "Professor A."
Three years. That's how long it had been since he walked out of Advanced Nurturing High School with no celebration, no farewell, no purpose—at least not one anyone else could see.
In truth, the moment he graduated, his return here had already been in motion. Not because he had to.
But because no one else could.
Behind him, the steel doors hissed shut, sealing off the light from the outside world. He was submerged again—into silence, into control, into the belly of a machine that produced minds and broke souls. But now, he was no longer a cog in it.
He was its engineer.
---
The hallway looked the same. White panels. Surveillance nodes embedded in the corners. Zero artwork. Zero noise. Children filed past in absolute discipline, eyes forward, numbers stamped onto their uniforms. They didn't look at him.
But they all knew him.
"Good morning, Professor Ayanokoji," they chanted in unison as they passed, their voices robotic, coordinated, flawless.
He nodded once. Mechanical. Distant.
But inside… something stirred.
He hadn't come to rule this place. He'd come to reshape it.
The man who created this hell, Professor Ayanokoji Sr., was still alive—but old, politically weakened, and soon to be pushed out. The government's recent scrutiny had forced the founders to place Kiyotaka—the perfect product—as the new face of the institution.
They thought they could use him.
They thought wrong.
---
Inside his office, he sat before rows of surveillance monitors—live feeds of every room, every lesson, every child. He watched in silence, hands steepled before his mouth, eyes scanning with unblinking precision.
One screen showed a child pausing slightly before answering a logic question. Her hand trembled. A flaw in composure.
He didn't call security. He didn't log it as weakness.
Instead, he murmured:
"She hesitated… not because she failed. But because she was thinking for herself."
He marked her name: Subject 73.
No.
Name: Hana.
The first name written in his new logbook.
---
Kiyotaka leaned back, the flickering lights above catching the edge of his eyes. He had work to do. Decades of damage to undo.
But for now, he sat in the throne of silence, a king of a cold kingdom—plotting not for power, but for revolution.
The world outside thought they lost him.
But what they didn't realize was this:
The monster they feared had become the mentor their children would never forget.
And soon…
The White Room would not be white anymore.