The comments section all think I'm a really good person.

First comes the fuel; once the fuel is used up, it's time to extract what little resources she has left.

[A waste of effort.] This is what the world consciousness says: [You have damaged your foundation in this cycle of reincarnation; the next time will only be more difficult.]

The world consciousness originally planned to restart the world line before the North Cut Plain was depleted to a certain extent.

This isn't the first time this method has been used.

But this time, He cannot restart the world line without Kita-Kirihara's permission.

It's only because Beiqieyuan possesses a portion of the [World Origin] and these limited administrator privileges that the world cannot undertake such a major action as restarting the world without Beiqieyuan's permission.

This "origin of the world," in the final analysis, was given away by the world consciousness itself.

When the world's consciousness bestowed power upon humanity and created executors to drive the plot, it also transferred a portion of its essence to humanity, calculating that this essence would reach the world's protagonist as the story progressed.

The Cleansing Children of the three starter families are actually the inheritors of this part of the [Origin of the World].

Although he is called the successor, he is actually just a tool temporarily stored up for the protagonist.

In the original script, Kita Kirihara was born with a fragment of the origin, but later lost this privilege due to the experiments of the Yotsumi family.

Later in the story, when Kita Kirihara seeks revenge against the three starter families, he will reclaim what is his own and extract these primal fragments from others for his own use.

In the present moment, with the storyline completely out of control, the eyeball that Chise gave to Kita Kirihara contains only a tiny fragment of its original essence.

This little bit wasn't enough for Kita Kirihara to restore his abilities; it only changed the color of his eyes and seemed rather useless.

But possessing it means, to a certain extent, having veto power over major world affairs.

The reason why the Clean Children of the three founding families were unable to prevent the world consciousness from restarting the timeline was mainly because they did not realize what the power they possessed meant.

If you don't know you can vote, you naturally can't veto anything.

But Kita Kirihara knew very well that in these countless cycles, she had discovered this bug in the world's consciousness.

In other words, if Kita Kirihara disagrees, the incomplete world consciousness cannot restart the world line.

Even if they wanted to drag the whole world down with them, it wouldn't be impossible.

The world consciousness couldn't understand Kita Kirihara's thoughts.

What if Kita Kirihara wanted to drag the whole world down with him...?

The world consciousness, with its simple circuits, cannot yield optimal solutions.

So, as Kita Kirihara fell asleep, the world consciousness took the opportunity to try to communicate with her.

In a pristine white space, Kita Kirihara yawned, even his spiritual form was exhausted.

"Hey... can't you let me get a good night's sleep?" Kita Kirihara's eyelids were drooping as she looked at the world consciousness that had used her own image in front of her.

Two identical faces stared at each other.

272. He was simply willing to give his life for the story.

A violent coughing sound rang in Koizumi Saki's ears, startling her awake. She sat up abruptly and realized that Kita Kirihara was acting strangely.

The white-haired girl was pale and almost curled up in bed. She coughed violently for some unknown reason, and the veins in her neck were faintly visible from the effort.

Within just a few breaths, his vitality visibly waned.

In Koizumi Saki's panicked gaze, Kita Kirihara coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood mixed with pieces of internal organs, which splattered onto the bed sheet.

"Ahara?!" Although the person in front of her had a history of deceiving her with injuries and physical discomfort, Koizumi Saki's heart was still moved. She subconsciously grabbed Kita Kirihara's hand and transferred the remaining energy in her body to him to stabilize his mental state.

Then, seeing that Kita Kirihara's condition had stabilized a bit, Koizumi Saki quickly went to find the other Silver Garden members and asked them to check on Kita Kirihara's body.

Pushing open the door, Saki Koizumi keenly sensed a slightly strange atmosphere.

In the past, the corridors of the Starlight Hall were always brightly lit, enough to illuminate the way. But now, when Koizumi Saki wanted to go to the door at the end to find Akemi Homura, she found it eerily quiet.

It was pitch black and empty; even the wooden floorboards not far away were not visible.

A sense of heterogeneity.

The air was filled with an unfamiliar atmosphere to Saki Koizumi; the thick, almost solidified silence made her momentarily stunned.

This space is completely different from the Silver Garden of the past.

Rather, it is the Silver Garden that has stripped away the false and bustling surface that previously concealed it, revealing its cold and lonely essence.

"Is anyone there?" Koizumi Saki was a little flustered. She had wanted to find someone to help her, but now she couldn't see anyone.

The room with the nameplate was tightly closed, and even if the door was forcibly opened, it was empty.

In the entire Silver Garden, it seemed that only she and Kita Kirihara, who was seriously ill, remained.

Koizumi Saki was unaware that this was actually the true face of the Silver Garden.

No matter how many times the character cards are used to disguise it, or how many times the character cards are shown to the outside world, or how many happy and lively scenes are presented, the essence of the Silver Garden is still just one person.

This person is currently trapped in a nightmare.

Beneath her eyelids, Kita Kirihara's eyeballs twitched rapidly, fine beads of sweat seeped out, and her whole body felt as if it were being tortured on fire.

Kita Kirihara is enduring pain that is unimaginable to ordinary people.

They meticulously tore their own souls into threads, then, following a pre-designed procedure, attached them little by little to some enormous entity.

The veins on her forehead bulged as she endured the boundless pain with all her might. The enormous amount of computation was completely consumed and drained, leaving no free time for the character cards to move around freely.

This is also why Saki Koizumi didn't see anyone else in the Silver Garden.

Because the current Kita Kirihara cannot support such a large expenditure.

"How come there's no one here..." Saki Koizumi also realized something was wrong.

In the past, the number of people living in the Silver Garden Starlight Mansion far exceeded her imagination. Because of Homura Akemi's magic, and because the space here could be infinitely expanded, the number of rooms and the number of residents had always been incalculable.

But now, at this moment when Kita Kirihara has fallen into a coma, the Silver Garden is completely empty, and no one can be found to save him.

Before Koizumi Saki could figure it out, the painful coughing in the room behind her gradually subsided and fell silent.

For a moment, only the sound of heavy breathing could be heard in the room.

Saki Koizumi turned around and met Kita Kirihara's eyes, which had opened at some point.

Their steel blue and dark red eyes met.

Kita Kirihara sat up in bed.

She said softly, "Could you come here for a moment, Saki?"

Kita Kirihara closed his eyes.

A deep, almost suffocating weariness swept over her.

It was as if countless tentacles had wrapped around her limbs, dragging her toward the bottom of the dark sea.

She embraced the person in front of her, countless scenes flashing before her eyes:

A sea churning with thunder and flames, a collapsing and crumbling city, a forest reduced to charcoal, a crack in the sky with its edges shattered...

My body felt so light that I could fly away at any moment, yet for the first time, I didn't feel guilty about deceiving the other person.

Saki felt no guilt when she hugged herself, her skin pressed intimately against hers without any obstruction.

There was no guilt when the lips fell, softly brushing against the ear.

There was no guilt as I ran my hand across my back, tracing its curves and generating heat.

Her heart felt empty, devoid of any emotion.

The world consciousness's self-assessment is correct.

Kita Kirihara thought so.

Before being devoured by her, the world's consciousness only asked her:

[Was it necessary to go this far for Saki Koizumi—the female lead chosen by the script?]

Kita Kirihara was unwilling to be bound by the script arranged by the world's consciousness, but she always maintained her "deeply affectionate" character setting and was willing to give everything for Koizumi Saki.

Whether it was experiencing more than ten thousand worlds, or splitting herself apart, hacking into the world's consciousness, taking over the entire world system, or even disappearing her own existence... she didn't have to do any of these things.

Sometimes, even the world's consciousness can't figure out whether Kita Kirihara is still bound by the script.

Kita Kirihara should have been aware of this when leaving the instance:

Her falling for Saki Koizumi is just a poorly written plot.

Beiqie should have been angry, feeling betrayed by this relationship, or even disgusted... but she wasn't.

She even continued acting until today.

“I don’t understand those things myself,” Kita Kirihara simply said. “Love isn’t actually that important to me.”

In Kita Kirihara's mind, what she was willing to give her life for was never "love".

Kita Kiri was originally a cold and selfish person. She didn't understand why anyone would lose their mind because of "love". To be fair, she would not let herself be controlled by emotions.

“I’m just finishing my own story,” she replied.

Kita Kirihara chose to play "Kita Kirihara himself" to complete this unfinished story.

She was willing to give her life for this not-so-interesting story, for this unknown drama of fate.

Kita Kirihara believes she has never truly loved anyone, not even Koizumi Saki, who was merely a "heroine" in her choice.

She simply enjoys acting and stories.

273. Welcome to Reality (End of Main Text)

The Silver Garden has collapsed.

The collapse of space gave Koizumi Saki a very subtle sensory experience. Everything around her collapsed and cracked towards her center, like a melted and deformed soda can, but she did not feel any heat.

Sound and temperature both lost their meaning at this moment.

The person who had just been kissing her in her arms was getting lighter and lighter. Looking down, she saw that the fair skin had lost all color.

Through the slits of her slightly open eyes, Koizumi Saki could no longer catch Kita Kirihara's gaze; she could only see his dark, cracked, glassy eyeballs.