The last class is over.
Students leave the classroom with their friends in groups.
Sonetto: Goodbye, Miss.
Sonetto: ...
Vertin: ...
Sonetto: ... I will just take another route.
Vertin: Sonetto!
Vertin: Come here.
Vertin: Is my book wall still there? She didn't push it down, right?
Sonetto: She didn't.
Vertin: Phew ... she is nice. Unlike the bad potion instructor who turned my books into a puddle of mud ...
Sonetto: ...
Vertin: Oh, right! Guess what I found today?
Vertin: Here, give me your hand.
Vertin: Look, the foreteller of the rain—the Hyla arborea!
Vertin: I caught it through the school's front gate. I even got stung by the electric fence when I took my hands back.
Vertin: It keeps croaking in my pocket! Look, it's still raining outside.
Sonetto: Aren't you aware that you've been given a time-out, Ms. Vertin?
Vertin: ...?
Sonetto: I don't understand ... why you always skip classes.
Sonetto: You know that we are not supposed to pay too much attention to affairs outside the school. Please ... don't bring me these pebbles and frogs anymore.
Sonetto: These are ... meaningless.
Sonetto: ... We are born to die martyrs.
Vertin: ... Why? Just because the Student Handbook says so?
Sonetto: That's right.
Vertin: I don't like the handbook. It smells like those stinky socks in the attic.
Sonetto: ...
Vertin: Sonetto, aren't you really curious about what is outside the school?
Vertin: You were also in that parade outside the school before ...
Vertin: The pebbles, the frogs, the attic with stinky socks ... They're just a teeny tiny part of the whole world. I once met a girl who came to our school ...
Sonetto: Pl-please stop.
Sonetto: These are very dangerous things.
Vertin: ...
Sonetto: The Student Handbook is protecting us.
Sonetto: It is protecting us from harm and regrets.
Sonetto: As the instructors have told us, to live is to lose things around us until the day we lose life itself to death. That's why we should only focus on the supreme missions.
Vertin: Until the day we lose life itself ...
Vertin: To death?
Vertin: ...
???: tut Failed.
???: Her traumatic segment has been reactivated. Increase the power, stabilize her psychube.
???: Try the next dream.
Z: The artificial somnambulism therapy may not work on her, Mesmer.
Mesmer Jr.: Hm? You're here, Madam Z.
Mesmer Jr.: All patients who have the symptoms of stress disorder need to receive treatments in the rehabilitation center. Her trauma level was assessed as Type II. I needed to take responsibility for her health.
Z: Back in the year when she became the Timekeeper ... she didn't receive any treatment. I know her well. She has enough power in her to make it through.
Mesmer Jr.: I'm just following orders, madam.
Mesmer Jr.: It's the committee's direct order to treat Vertin.
Mesmer Jr.: If you have anything to say, convince the vice president first.
Z: ...
Z: She hasn't had any food for days. Give her a glucose injection. I have a meeting later, so if you would excuse me.
Madam Z takes her thermos cup and leaves the room.
The ward becomes silent again. There are barely any other sounds except the slight electrical buzzing.
Mesmer Jr.: I did expect you would have learned your lesson in such a long time ...
Mesmer Jr.: Timekeeper ... No, I'm more used to calling you Vertin.
Mesmer Jr.: I have changed.
Mesmer Jr.: Have you? Are you still suffering from those ... pointless things?
She shakes her head; her eyes shift onto the screen.
The psychube amplitude is leaping in a repeated, fixed pattern; Vertin doesn't give her response.
