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Sephfox

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A.I.R.RConsciousnessDataset

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There's one last component to this harebrained theory that I still haven't spoken about: inequality. During periods of prosperity, more and more economic growth is driven by diversions. And because diversions scale so easily—after all, who doesn't want to post selfies on Instagram?—wealth becomes extremely concentrated in fewer hands.

The long-term trend is toward pain reduction through innovation. But in times of prosperity, people indulge more and more in diversions, demand fake freedoms, and become more fragile.

A decline in maturity in the population will be reflected in worse elected representatives, who were Plato's "demagogues," politicians who promise everything and deliver nothing. These demagogues then dismantle the democratic system while the people cheer its dismantling, as they come to see the system itself, rather than the poorly selected leadership, as the problem.

This world is filled with flaws.

Is this what the advancement of civilization has lead to?! Urban life weeding out and killing the weak?! It's appalling!

It is your job to save people who are in trouble, not to trample them beneath your feet.

Do you think to do nothing when you see a fellow human crying?!

Because danger is hovering above this school. . .and all mankind. That is why I have emerged.

There is a devil nesting in this school. It's hidden among you now, but it poses a very real threat. It has barely begun to stir, but once it does, it will mean the end of the world.

The human psyche is open to the possibilities of both good and evil. In my opinion, multiple personality disorder occurs when one of these possibilities, suppressed by societal pressures, declares independence and begins to fight to exist.

Every person needs help when they're suffering.

When you have no dream, when you can't imagine a future, that means something in this world is flawed.

You and Miyashita Touka have your job to do, just as I have my duty. You two have to make your own world.

Suddenly, I felt a great affection for her.

She looked up at me seriously, and I bit my tongue.

Everyone wants to believe that the runaways were killed by an assassin that wanders in the shadows, fleeting as the morning mist...instead of running off to Tokyo or some other grim reality. Reality is always rather dreary. When people vanish from it, it's natural to want to connect them to some sort of fantasy, to some other world.

Even if I did say that, it was just an example,

It was like... like she was dressed for combat?!) No normal high school girl would ever dress like that. Not even a gang member. She looked more like a hitman.

But I didn't like that. Five years ago, things had all happened without me knowing about them. I only found out when everything was finished. My own will played no part in the matter. If there was danger, I wanted to see it. That's why I had chased after Boogiepop, even though there was clearly no such thing. It was all the same to me. I didn't care what it was...I just wanted to confront something. (No more blissful ignorance for me.)

When I sat there in silence, Kirima thrust a phone at me. Not one on the house' s line, but undoubtedly one taken out in her name and paid for out of her own pocket.

Her oddball behavior might be her way of preparing for her next fight, but to the casual onlooker, she just seemed insolent.

He had to stop the Manticore's slaughter. The Manticore was made from him. It was his child. She had the power of communication that even he lacked, not to mention the powers that let him blend in with this planet's ecological system.

That was a creepy type of megalomania, in which you believed yourself to be some sort of savior.

If the suspect had truly been innocent, the whole thing was a tragedy based on absurd principles, but if he had been guilty, then it was a tragedy in which justice had been utterly defeated by evil.

Yes. That was it. Justice might well prevail in the end, but ordinary people like me had no guarantee of surviving that long.

Sadly, I couldn't imagine how she would respond.

Hmm, let me see. . .for the moment, let' s put you in school. There's a card reader at the gate to get in, but I think I know a back way in.

Me? My name's Kamikishiro. Kamikishiro Naoko. I'm a senior at Shinyo Academy. You?

Don't worry. I know this kooky girl named Nagi. Anytime there's trouble, we talk to her and she usually takes care of it. Assuming you aren't a bad guy, Echoes,

She felt like there was a big, gaping hole in her heart, but she had no way of telling that her will and spirit were swiftly vanishing.

Her brain is shrinking, and she can't be bothered to make decisions on her own.

He wanted to be killed by something much more powerful than him. Even with Kirima Nagi, he had not really wanted to date her; he had wanted her to kill him.

And more importantly, she had always been alone. She'd been cloned as an 'experiment' and had no family of her own. The only person who had ever told her 'I love you' was Saotome Masami, whom normal society would classify as a crazed lunatic.

lt may have been twisted, but they were unmistakably in love.

Why don’t we just kill her?”

“Not yet. I don’t know how much she knows or how she: found out. we need to know that at least.’’

“Is that the only reason you won’t kill Kirima Nagi? There’s another reason, isn’t there?”

“You’re normal, and you shouldn’t have anything to do with this.”

It was this sort of impression that had made him fall in love with her in the first place.

Humans just aren't that great. However much our civilization advances, we can't seem to do anything to make ourselves happier.

He was sent here to test humans and see if they would be nice to him.

Isn't niceness the best motivation that someone can have?

They're farther away than our lives.

Because the story you told me leaves us no salvation.

Truth is, I'm pretty sure she never thought twice about me.

Wasn't that enough? That's all the reason I needed to love her for the rest of my life. No matter how much I fell in love with some other girl, she will always live inside of me in the way that she was then-impossible to understand, and more than a little crazy.

Life is brief, young maiden, fall in love.

I couldn't help but ask, 'Tanaka-kun, were you and Naoko-san...?'

It just occurred to me, but maybe we should use the PA system to summon Kirima Nagi. He had confirmed the presence of Echoes, and he knew that Echoes was presumably moving with Kirima Nagi. It was time to move the plan forward to stage two.

There was a sweet, strange smell in the room. The smell had been enough to knock Nakayama Haruo out, but the long, black haired, beautiful girl did not even raise an eyebrow. Of course not. She was the source of the smell.

The only reason he had survived was by the whim of a killer, the fleeting thought that perhaps she had killed too many people already.

'It's a trap?' Nagi said. She knew it too. Echoes nodded. 'That's why we have to go,' Nagi said quietly. 'We don't play into this trap and it'll change its face and make a run for it. It'll leave the school. We'll never catch it then.'

'Stop whispering cryptically at each other! And you! You aren't even a student here! I've never seen you before in my life!' I'm not bragging, but if you're on gate duty often enough, you do end up knowing everyone at school.

'I told you to explain yourself! How am I supposed to just forget a thing like this?' 'Well, well, well. I guess we see how you became committee president,' Nagi said, glaring at me. She looked like a yakuza. 'But you need to keep quiet about this.'

Nagi and this Echoes guy led us out of the lecture hall. 'Go straight home,' Nagi insisted. 'I have to give the key back,' I said sullenly. I wasn't finished sulking about not getting an explanation.

'Looking back, I'm glad you rejected me. If I had been with you, then when I met her, I would've been her enemy.' He sighed, almost happily. Nagi frowned. 'When you met who? What are you talking about?' She seemed confused.

Which is it...? He wondered inside. But only Kamikishiro Naoko could answer, and sadly, she was gone.

But the people who had saved him, the cloaked boy in the black hat, Kamikishiro Naoko, and Kirima Nagi, were all human too. Which is it? Which is the truth?

The face of someone that had lost something that they valued more than their own life. As if half of her body had been torn away. As if her capacity for joy had been pulled up by the roots.

She looked as if she could no longer perceive any meaning, like there was nothing left for her.

It can't be-?!" I shouted. There was a figure there, leaning backwards, pulling on the wire with black gloves. It wore a cape and a black hat shaped like a pipe.

I couldn’t figure out what I should say to her other lover, Kimura Akio. We would probably never speak to each other. If someday someone were to tell him, that would be- But we all had to return to our daily routine, just exactly as things had been before.

She had to say that. She couldn’t let her friend’ s death be in vain. But I couldn’t smile. Nagi hadn’t seen the end of Echoes. But I had. Clearly. That light had made it as if Saotome Masami had never existed in the first place. It had turned the nearly immortal Manticore into a burnt crisp. That was no biotechnological experiment. It had beamed itself into space, but if something like that were fired at the earth over and over again.

It’s one of many, but this “what did I do in school?” question is a pretty big trauma for me. It’s like my first love that I never asked out. Augh! I was a dirty little angst-ridden idiot without a single thought for love.

Ultimately, school is a place where you have to be with others. That’ s all. It ends without you ever really understanding much about each other, but even so, you bump into a lot of people and a lot of thoughts, and you still come back for more. Sadly, schools are not exactly set up to preserve that diversity.

I can’t help but think that’ s a crying shame, but the entire world seems to work that way, and school isn’t that unique of a place in the world. That’s why, in my dreams, I’m always thinking, “God, I really hated that guy, but now I wish I’d known him a little better.” And I do all this while sitting there in the corner of the room.

Mariko-san, there's nothing in this world that is truly decided. Birds sometimes fall out of the air, and sometimes it snows in April. Everything is uncertain, nothing is 'unnatural.'

If you jump now, you will not end up where she has gone.

Simple. You are about to end your life of your own free will. But Minahoshi Suiko did not. If there is such a thing as heaven, you will surely end up in a different place than her.

But it just isn’t healthy to get obsessed with it, you know? At this rate, you’re just going to get overwhelmed by the pressure and be in no condition to actually sit there and take the test.

All they’d ever done was study, and they didn’t know how to just let go and enjoy themselves. So they’d go off to try and pass the civil servants exam or something. They were just pointlessly limiting their options for a. . .I dunno, a decent future. They meet the person they were supposed to fall in love with, but they don't recognize how valuable they would be, and without even noticing, they wind up missing out on the most important things in life.

The reason this child was beautiful was because he had a rose within his heart.

His job at the cram school finished, he walked back to his apartment along a bustling shopping street. He couldn’t help but notice the flaws on everyone’s chests. It annoyed him, occasionally. Human effort was entirely devoted to making up for this flaw. He knew this. But he also knew that what they lacked was never in them to begin with, and it was something that could never be obtained.

Even now, she deeply recalled the feelings she had at the time. Familiar sights had flames all around them; people she knew had turned into silent corpses. A world coming to an end. A closed world. A thankless world. A world that was harsh, senseless, and brought nothing but pain. Even so, she reached out with her hand, moved her fingers, quivered her lips, and pleaded. After all, while it was a world beyond saving, it was still the only one she had.

She wanted to abruptly tear down that wall; squint at the broad, dazzling world before her; and carve into her unopened eyes the color of sunbaked skin, the color and smell of burned meat, the color of the beautiful "horns" that danced in the sky— Here was the world about to end, and what was she thinking about?

For even then, she could still remember the feelings she had at the time— Thereafter, she devoted each and every day to expunging her guilt over those feelings above all else.

Kenichi once said, life must be lived . That’s what I think, too.

I thought maids were supposed to dress modestly…but I think I’m a fan!

This is terrible, Sister. Right now, in Dear Guest’s head, you are the subject of obscene, degrading thoughts.

This is dreadful, Rem. Right now, Dear Guest’s head has become filled with completely disgusting thoughts about you.

Please forgive me, Dear Guest. Let me go and defile Sister instead.

Please stop this, Dear Guest. Let me go and humiliate Rem instead.

I get it! Whoever chose this, I get what they were thinking!

…I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to, but I’m veeery disappointed that I know it’s something meaningless.

You, ah…remember all about me, right?

Please listen, Lady Emilia. This person was terribly humiliating. For Sister, that is.

Hear this, Lady Emilia. This man has trapped and violated girls. Rem, that is.

I should be the one thanking you. You risked your life for mine when you barely knew me. Healing your wounds was the least I could do.

Do I really need a younger brother this weird?

Watching her from the side, Subaru cracked his neck slightly at being addressed.

Subaru wanted nothing more than to put his hands on his cheeks and give thanks to Mother Nature, but he abstained.

Subaru was struck senseless by the happy, carefree scene as Emilia walked over with a teasing smile.

Subaru laughed, finding it cute how Emilia tapered her lips in a pout at being outdone in their verbal jousting.

Subaru, feeling bad at how Emilia was genuinely worried, reflected upon his own behavior.

A kingdom must have a king.

It is thought that a person who cannot protect a single small badge cannot be entrusted with a responsibility as grave as an entire land.

A man should make no excuses. No reneging on his word.

You don't understand how grateful I feel. I can't repay you at all for saving my life and more, if you ask for so little!

It's not just the thing with Puck, okay? It's like when you asked me my name back in the royal capital.

At the time, I wanted to know your name. I think being in a new, uncertain land with no idea what would come the next day, if I'd stopped to think about it, there were lots of things I could've considered— But I'm a man who can't lie to himself.