The final message pulsed on the screen, a chilling, definitive statement. Part of the performance. The thought lodged itself in my mind like a shard of ice. I wasn't just an observer anymore. I was drawn in, a puppet on invisible strings. And the game, whatever twisted nightmare this was, had just begun.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I typed, a desperate, half-assed bluff. "I'm not interested in this bullshit nonsense."
A low chuckle, amplified through the mic, filled my headphones.
[Oh ho ho, you surely know what I'm talking about, Kyouya.]
I heard a soft thud from their end, like a heavy book or a stack of documents being set down.
[Kyouya Kanzaki.]
My name. Just my name. No need to worry about it.
[Twenty years old, not yet married. Renowned as the brightest talent at such a young age. He was sixteen when recruited by the police institution and forced to speedrun his studies through an acceleration program for special case students.]
