After comforting Nanase, Yukio told her to go back and get some proper rest first. She had spent the whole morning busy with the cultural festival, then spent the afternoon taking revenge. She was definitely exhausted.
Nanase obediently agreed and returned to the dorms.
Yukio, meanwhile, headed back to the chairman's office.
Ryuen and Ayanokoji were already there waiting for him. From the look of things, they had clearly pried open Atsuomi's mouth and gotten the information they wanted.
When Ryuen saw Yukio return, he gave him a simple summary. It was a story even more rotten than Tsukishiro's. In the end, it all came down to one thing: Atsuomi's ambition was too great. Blinded by profit, he had been determined to make the White Room project a success.
That way, he could seize enormous wealth, gain great prestige, and obtain overwhelming power.
To accomplish that, Atsuomi had invited the White Room's doctor to perform neurological surgery on his two newborn sons.
Yes, neurological surgery.
Specifically, the infamous frontal lobe surgery that had existed since the last century and was later gradually banned.
When it was first invented, it had been widely used on psychiatric patients. After the operation, patients who were prone to agitation would calm down, almost as if all human emotion had been stripped away. In general, they became indifferent, unable to experience much emotional fluctuation.
But later, it was proven that the surgery impaired human thought processes and memory, and could eventually lead to cognitive and intellectual impairment. That was why it had been banned.
Of course, the only reason Yukio even knew about the procedure at all was because in his previous life he had read a certain novel that mentioned it. Otherwise, there was no reason he would ever have gone out of his way to look up some archaic surgery from the early twentieth century.
Still, knowing about it was one thing. Hearing how ruthless Atsuomi had actually been was another. Even Yukio felt shaken. Even a tiger wouldn't eat its own cubs, but Atsuomi, for the sake of profit, had gone that far. In that sense, he really did qualify as a tyrant.
"I know about that surgery," Yukio said.
"It does explain the emotional deficiency in both you and Ayanokoji. But from what I know, that procedure comes with major, obvious side effects. And Atsuomi still dared to use it directly on his own children? Wasn't he worried about the complications?"
Ryuen rubbed his forehead and let out a cold, mocking laugh. There was not a shred of respect in his voice for that biological father of his.
"That old bastard was different."
Kiyotaka picked up from there, speaking in a much more organized way.
"It's like this. Atsuomi is a special case. He was born with abnormal frontal white matter in his brain."
"That was discovered when he went to the hospital years ago complaining about headaches. But at the time, the doctors concluded it wouldn't interfere with his normal life, so he didn't take his condition seriously at first."
"But later, when the White Room project hit a dead end and nearly ground to a halt, he remembered that detail. So he decided to have both of his newborn sons—Ryuen and me—examined as well."
"Because we inherited his genes, the tests showed that we had inherited that same abnormal frontal trait. According to him, that meant we could undergo the surgery without suffering the usual side effects."
Yukio nodded. There was no need for anyone to spell out the rest.
Atsuomi, for the sake of profit, had literally cut into his own sons' frontal lobes.
Yukio then turned to Ryuen.
"And what about your side of things? Going by that story, you should've been part of the White Room too."
At that, something warm—rare, strikingly out of place—flickered in Ryuen's eyes.
"Heh. I don't even know whether you'd call it good luck or bad luck."
"Basically, when they started the frontal lobe surgery on me as a baby, they realized halfway through that I wasn't special enough. I'd inherited that trait, but not completely. So that old man treated me like worthless trash and discarded me on the spot."
At that point, Ryuen's face twisted into a sneer that was half hatred, half ridicule. Back then, he had been discarded as something with no value whatsoever. Yet today, he had bitten that old bastard hard enough to leave a mark. The thought alone made it funny to him.
But when he continued, the look in his eyes softened again.
"In the end, it was one of the assistants helping with the surgery who couldn't stand it. She took me with her, disappeared to another town, changed her identity, and raised me on her own."
"Runa Ryuen. She wasn't my biological mother, but she's the only mother I've ever had. And in my eyes, she's the greatest mother in the world."
"Oh, right." Ryuen seemed to remember something and looked straight at Yukio. "I want to go out for a bit. Two days, maybe."
Yukio blinked.
You want to leave?
Dream on. Advanced Nurturing High was sealed off from the outside world. There was no way a student could just walk out on their own.
Then he remembered.
He was the chairman now.
So that made things different.
Yukio turned to Kiyotaka.
"And you? Are you asking to go out with Ryuen?"
Kiyotaka gave a silent nod.
By all logic, he had inherited Atsuomi's abnormal trait completely, which meant he should have had even less emotional function than Ryuen. And yet, after hearing about the woman named Runa Ryuen—the woman who had once helped with his own surgery—some strange urge had risen inside him.
He wanted to go with Ryuen and meet her too.
"You two really do know how to make things difficult for me," Yukio said, but then he nodded anyway. "Fine."
"Even as chairman, I can't simply approve a currently enrolled student leaving campus whenever they feel like it. The S-System wouldn't allow that. Its authority outranks even the chairman's."
"But since I am the chairman, there are still ways for a human to get around what the electronic brain won't approve."
Yukio thought for a moment before making his decision.
"Here's what we'll do. Tomorrow I'll design a special exam. One student from each second-year class will be allowed to leave campus for two days to complete some off-campus task or other. The student council will approve it without conditions."
"When the time comes, Ayanokoji, you figure out a way to make yourself the chosen student. Once you're out, make sure you come back on time."
Ryuen clicked his tongue.
He had almost forgotten. Yukio was not only the chairman now. He was also the student council president.
With those two roles combined, that meant he could create virtually any special exam he wanted, with no one in a position to stop him.
It made him, without exaggeration, the most powerful chairman Advanced Nurturing High had seen since the school was founded.
Just thinking about it made Ryuen's scalp tingle.
"Everything's settled, then," Yukio said. "Let's go. It's just about time for the cultural festival to end anyway."
Kiyotaka nodded and left first.
Ryuen, however, stayed behind. He looked at Yukio with a gravity he almost never showed.
Yukio raised a brow.
"Something you want to say?"
"Yeah."
Ryuen nodded, more seriously than Yukio had ever seen him.
"You've been paying attention to Ayanokoji, and not just because of me, right?"
"Ayanokoji's the White Room's only successful result. He's got enormous value. Yukio, before anything else, tell me this—what exactly do you plan to do with him?"
Now that was interesting.
They'd only found out they were related less than half a day ago, and already there was a bit of real brotherly solidarity there.
Yukio laughed inwardly at the thought.
"Don't get the wrong idea," Ryuen said when he noticed Yukio's expression, though he was still serious. "It's just... for these next two days, I'm taking him to meet my mother. And I don't know how she'll see him."
"If she doesn't accept him as family, then do whatever you want."
"But if she does accept him... then I don't want to make my mother sad."
Even Ryuen knew that was asking a lot. But for the sake of his mother, he still wanted to say it.
Yukio chuckled and stepped forward, then patted Ryuen on the shoulder.
"You don't need to act all formal with me."
"I told you before—I don't go easy on my enemies, but I've always looked after my own people."
"So stop worrying. Ayanokoji's value may be huge, but even then, all that means is that after graduation he'll probably cooperate with the researchers on my side and let them study him a little. There's no threat to his life."
"You can think of it as me hiring him to be a volunteer in something that isn't dangerous."
"I'll leave him time to go back and visit your family once a year too."
That was enough.
Ryuen finally relaxed and smiled.
He raised a fist, and Yukio bumped it with his own.
No thanks were necessary.
Everything that mattered was already understood.