Prologue
In a school somewhere in Japan, a group of teenagers opened their eyes.
They remembered nothing beyond their talent.
Not their names, status, families, or personal tastes—only the absolute certainty that they possessed high-level expertise.
A boy with black hair, golden eyes, and a height of around five feet nine inches surveyed his room with sharp scrutiny. There was no mistaking his skill: a scale ruler, T-square, set squares, compass, technical drawing pens, tracing and butter paper, utility knives, precision scalpel, steel ruler, cutting mat, specialized adhesive, and his field notebook. Noticing his own penchant for order, seeing every tool strictly in its place, he simply picked up a pen and his notebook, then stepped out into the hallway.
He knew what he was, and he knew how to deploy his ability.
He began sketching a rough layout of the venue and diagramming the materials present. When he had gathered enough, he shut his notebook and stepped outside to map the sun’s orientation, wind directions, key vantage points, and internal circulation flows.
With that, the Architect left his room behind.
His attire was precisely what you would expect of a high school student—shirt, sweater, vest, and dress trousers—except that in place of traditional dress shoes, he wore short, stiff leather boots fitted with reinforced steel toes, built to endure heavy debris.
He glanced at the door directly across from his and looked down at the floor; the person assigned to it was likely inside. But the quiet moment was short-lived. A pair of individuals, whom his memory seemed never to have recorded before, immediately drew his attention.
From the door to his left billowed a dense cloud smelling of copal incense, sacred jungle tobacco, and fermented herbal tea.
From the door to his right leaked a thick, stinging air that made the eyes burn: a harsh chemical mixture of borax, tanning agents, isopropyl alcohol, and a faint undertone of damp leather.
“Your room smells like a poorly preserved Inca mummy! That cheap incense is ruining my sense of smell, and I have to work with precision!” shouted the boy on the right, who stood around five-foot-four, with orange hair, grey eyes, and a muscular frame that lent a haughty force to his voice.
“Work? What you’re doing is nothing short of a toxic disaster,” snapped the boy at the left door, roughly four inches taller, with greyish-blue eyes and short ash-blonde hair. “I am a Forensic Anthropologist. What you smelled is copal and sacred tobacco to stabilize the microclimate of my specimens. What you call a ‘mummy smell’ is a set of millenary techniques for bone preservation. Yours, on the other hand... yours is an environmental crime! Every time you open that door, I feel like I’m breathing rat poison!”
“It’s called formaldehyde, you ignorant fool. It’s the scent of science and immortality,” the boy on the right retorted, stepping forward. “I am a Taxidermist, and I preserve nature. I restore dignity to these creatures so people can admire them!”
“You just stuff hides!” the Forensic Anthropologist countered, raising his voice higher. “Your hobby reeks of fixing solutions that are going to melt my brain cells! You work with aesthetics; I work with bone structures and the marks left by death on human tissue. My herbs control fungal growth on remains; your liquids are a constant reminder that there’s a poorly dissected carcass in there!”
It looked like they were going to argue for a while—something that didn’t particularly interest the Architect, so he walked right past them, casting a brief glance inside their rooms.
Both spaces were an absolute mess. Even though he spotted a considerable array of items, he couldn’t examine them closely without attracting unwanted attention.
In the room on the left, belonging to the Anthropologist, the Architect noted a compass, sieves and strainers, fine brushes, a vernier caliper, and a stereoscopic microscope. In the equally cluttered room on the right, belonging to the Taxidermist, he observed scalpels, interchangeable-blade surgical knives, skinning knives, polyurethane forms, pliers, and glass eyes. He registered them all, though it wasn’t strictly necessary; their rooms fully confirmed their claims.
Further along his path, he noticed a boy about five-foot-seven, with navy blue hair fading into lighter tips, white eyes held relatively half-lidded, arms crossed in a self-sufficient posture of cool confidence. He stood behind a closed door, wearing a pristine, intact uniform. The apparent lack of overt clues pointed to a talent that didn’t require external tools to prove itself. Still, the Architect noted his spotless hands—and his dry, peeling cuticles.
Yet that wasn’t what truly held his focus. He tapped against the wall structure, listening closely to the sound of the panels.
Hidden passages, he thought, scanning for a suitable spot to begin drafting.
In one of the common rooms, two boys were laughing playfully. The first had pale pink hair, red eyes, and a mischievous expression, using warm, expressive gestures as he looked the other directly in the eye; the Architect noted his long, soft fingers. The second boy, of similar height, had blue hair and bright pink eyes; though he kept his hands shoved deep into his pockets, the Architect caught sight of small red pigment or dye stains, alongside a red handkerchief peeking out. As he looked closer at their uniforms, he saw that the pink-haired boy’s clothes were noticeably loose, contrasting with the crisp neatness of the pink-eyed boy.
Too noisy, he thought, and turned toward what appeared to be a library.
Two levels. An upper balcony featuring a forged iron railing mounted on three supporting columns. However, the central column created an unnatural gap in the visual symmetry of the rear wall: an unjustified 40-centimeter offset within the external structural frame. A non-structural void. The mental note was filed away without assigning it any immediate mystery. To him, it was simply a design flaw or a blind space.
While assessing the building materials, the Architect bumped into a girl with soft grey hair and golden eyes, causing a shower of uncut key blanks and high-security cylinder lock schematics to crash onto the floor. Both stooped down to gather them. The Architect observed that the keys gathered by the girl didn’t make a single clinking sound. When he handed back her lock cylinder, he felt the smoothness of her fingertips before she nervously pulled her hands back, shoving them—along with the key blanks—into her hoodie, which stood out against her otherwise immaculate uniform.
The noise made by the falling keys triggered an alert reaction in a boy sitting at one of the library tables. He had white hair, deep blue eyes, and was surrounded by stacks of notebooks, a white board, and memo pads. Startled by the clatter, he offered a gentle hand wave to the two, who looked back at him, noting his rolled-up sleeves. The Architect bowed politely and continued on his way, soon reaching the cafeteria.
There, he spotted a boy ranting about the food quality, analyzing every detail as if it were a matter of life and death. His uniform was elegant, complete with a pocket handkerchief; his sky-blue hair and cold white eyes gave him the unmistakable aura of someone raised in high society as he adjusted his glasses. Was any of this relevant to the Architect? Not at all. He was focused on analyzing the cafeteria’s structural framing while making notes in his book—whether he bothered to record the boy’s constant habit of pressing his upper lip against his front teeth remained uncertain.
Beside him sat a massive young man, nearly six-foot-six, with long black hair gently tied back and pitch-black eyes. He leaned forward with a slight kyphosis, carrying an expression of gentle patience, though he seemed not to fully grasp the sky-blue-haired boy’s convoluted complaints and mannerisms.
Suddenly, a chime echoed through the room. A text message broadcasted on the screen in the cafeteria—and presumably across the entire facility:
«Actors are required to report to the cafeteria. Maximum time limit: ten minutes.»
Almost everyone’s eyes snapped toward the monitors, though a select few—like the boy with the navy blue gradient hair—instead watched the reactions of those around them.
Curious nonetheless, they began taking their seats.
The first to arrive was a girl with short white hair and mint-colored eyes. Carrying a confident smile and a small pouch, she pulled out a set of dice, sat down beside the tall, dark-haired young man, and struck up a conversation. Her height, paired with her choice of trousers and a gakubou cap, made her stand out sharply from the rest.
An extremely tall, lean boy entered next, walking with an exaggeratedly straight back, lowered shoulders, and a light, silent stride. He had light brown hair and violet-blue eyes. He sat down near the group, and before long, the three were laughing together.
With a cold, detached gaze, a girl around five-foot-five walked in. She possessed striking heterochromia—her right eye orange, her left eye yellow—and greyish-brown hair tied into a ponytail with a purple scrunchie. She looked at no one, but her lab coat and insulated medical briefcase clearly announced her field of work.
The other students previously mentioned arrived shortly after, filling up the remaining open seats. Interestingly, the Taxidermist was now wearing an oversized, baggy hoodie that completely concealed his hands, while the Forensic Anthropologist wore heavy gloves and carried a stainless steel case; the others showed no visible changes in their attire.
With only a few minutes left on the clock, a girl with short light-orange hair featuring a white streak and vivid fuchsia eyes arrived. She wore gloves and, unlike most of the others, wore no jacket, having rolled the sleeves of her blouse up to her elbows. She didn’t say a word, merely scanning the room with a look of deep disappointment.
Finally, just as time was about to run out, a tall girl with long reddish hair and blue eyes stepped out from what appeared to be the library direction—though emerging from an exit the Architect had not previously mapped. He promptly logged it in his notebook, alongside her silent footsteps and the faint, fine abrasions visible across her knuckles.
The Architect then glanced at the girl who sat down right beside him: short dark-blue hair, deep lavender eyes, a cheerful gaze, and a genuine interest in his architectural notes. Any notable details in her outfit? She appeared ordinary enough, wearing the standard navy blue ribbon, though her ankle boots piqued his curiosity.
He looked up at the screen. All the actors had entered, and a countdown timer began to tick.
“You finished your narration?” the Architect said to the girl next to him.
“I finished my narration,” she replied with a slight smile. “But may I know your name? I could try guessing, but you’d end up with some bizarre 15th-century Scandinavian name. I can tell you mine...”
