Chapter 109: Baptism (7): The Chinese’s Toy

"No, man..."

Haru looked up at the ceiling, then at the Chinese guy, then back at the ceiling.

"You’ve already initiated everyone in Room 217."

The Chinese guy just stared back, his face unchanging no matter what was happening around him. Like a sculpture someone had forgotten to finish.

"I wonder if the boss noticed I was skipping activities and told the veterans..." Haru thought. "It must be."

"Man, in my defense, I was really tired..."

The Chinese guy grabbed his ankle and pulled.

Haru flew out of bed, literally, his body going along with it, the floor approaching fast.

"Get dressed already," said the Chinese guy, already heading for the balcony. "I didn’t come to baptize you. I came to take you to the Baptism."

"But..."

"You won’t be baptized, you dumb Haruki." He planted his feet on the wall. "Let’s go."

And he walked horizontally along the building’s exterior wall, descending to the courtyard as if gravity were merely a suggestion.

Haru stared for a second.

Then he adjusted his clothes and followed, this time with mana, his feet sticking to the stone more firmly than the night before.

"My name is Haru. Not Haruki."

"It’s the same thing." The Chinese guy didn’t look back.

"It’s not."

"If you prefer, I’ll call you Chūn Tiān."

"Chun Tian?"

"Your name in Chinese." He paused. "Haru means spring, doesn’t it?"

Haru considered it.

"Haruki is better, really," he retorted.

The wind was blowing hard up there, really cold, the kind that cuts right through your clothes without asking permission.

"By the way..." Haru said, "...you know I haven’t had dinner yet."

"At this hour, the food must be gone by now."

"You’re kidding."

"Seriously. That’s how it is here, if you’re late, you’re out of luck."

"Shit..."

Haru’s stomach growled, loud and unceremonious, echoing faintly off the stone wall.

The Chinese guy didn’t laugh, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

They climbed down from the wall.

The courtyard looked different from the night before, with more veterans gathered, chatting in small groups, some already wearing masks. Low magic lanterns casting long shadows.

"Hey, the Chinese guy’s here!"

"What’s the plan for today?" asked the Chinese.

The Chinese man walked toward the center, veterans automatically making room for him, the kind of respect that doesn’t need to be asked for.

"The usual," said the MC. "Except this time we’re thinking of dealing with the traitors first."

Murmurs of approval.

"We’ll pair them up right at the start, before they run. The less time they have to choose a partner, the faster their loyalty breaks."

"What if they form groups?"

"Groups are better." The Chinese guy smiled slightly. "More people, more betrayal. All it takes is one who’s scared enough."

"But isn’t the baptism over?" Haru asked from the side. "Haven’t we already been initiated?"

Complete silence.

All the veterans stopped and turned to him at the same time.

"Chinese guy... who’s this kid you brought?"

Haru opened his mouth.

"He’s my toy." The Chinese guy answered first.

"Toy!?" Haru exclaimed.

"Ah, okay..." a veteran said, turning his attention back to the group. "The ones who arrived today are the ones who will be baptized. The whole week is Baptism week, every day, new recruits, new baptisms."

Haru processed this.

"Got it."

The Chinese guy grabbed a mask from a nearby veteran, a simple skull, unadorned, and tossed it to Haru.

"Put it on."

"Why?"

"Because you’re going to be baptized. Are you crazy? Did you forget you’re a freshman?"

Haru looked at the mask, looked at the Chinese guy, and looked at the mask again.

"Wait..."

"I’m going to baptize someone!?"

"Dumb Haruki just figured it out now." The Chinese guy was already walking away.

"GET READY!" the Initiation MC shouted. "I’ve already talked to security; the freshmen are coming back from dinner. Five minutes... we’re starting early today."

The Chinese guy grabbed the folded map from his belt and tossed it to Haru.

"Read it."

Haru unfolded it, the entire academy on a floor plan, hallways marked, routes numbered.

"Where would you hide?" the Chinese guy asked, peering over Haru’s shoulder, a pen appearing in his hand.

Haru studied the map. He pointed, three spots, then two more.

"Here. Here. And these two side corridors have double exits."

The Chinese man laughed.

Not the laugh from before, loud and predatory. This one was quieter. Genuine.

"All these places are traps."

Haru frowned. "Why?"

"Because they were designed to look four times as safe. Four times as likely to deceive the prey as they are to deceive the hunter, but the hunter is the one who drew the map."

Haru marked an X over each spot Haru had chosen.

"A double exit means veterans also enter through twice as many doors. A side corridor means isolation. And isolation in a Baptism..." he pointed to the word in the corner of the map. "...is a given."

Haru looked at the red Xs over his own points.

"Yesterday I went into one of those."

"Of course you did."

They entered through the service entrance, a rough stone corridor with no lights.

The Chinese man opened his bag and took out a small vial of dark blue liquid.

He tossed it to Haru.

"The whole building is saturated with Nelumbra. This potion will help you."

Haru drank it; it was bitter, tasting like wet grass, but the taste disappeared quickly.

"By the way..." the Chinese man said, putting the bag away, "...how did you manage to keep your mana from being suppressed yesterday?"

"Spirits."

..

"Okay."

Haru waited.

"That’s it? You’re not going to ask which ones or how?"

"Yeah. That’s it."

The silence returned, but it was different. The kind that doesn’t ask to be filled.

"He doesn’t ask because he doesn’t need to know," Haru thought. "Or because he already knows."

He hadn’t decided which of the two.

Golden returned from dinner with slow steps, having eaten so much of his own food and others’.

He opened the door.

Haru wasn’t there.

"I haven’t seen him since last night..." he thought. "Is he pissed because I left him to take a beating alone? Did he switch rooms?"

He looked at Haru’s bed, messy, with shoe marks on the edge, the window open for the cold wind to blow in freely.

"Slacker... at least close the window when you go slacking off," he said without any particular anger.

"I’m just going to sleep."

He slept for forty minutes.

When the seniors stormed the floor, Golden woke up with his heart in his throat, "again," and he stood still, listening.

He sniffed the air; nothing. With Mana being blocked, he stayed quiet.

No upperclassman entered room 217.

Golden opened the door slowly, saw the hallway with freshmen being shoved around, masks, screams, the organized chaos of the second night.

An upperclassman looked at him.

"What are you looking at, freshman? Go to sleep. Or do you want to get hunted down again?"

Golden stood in the doorway watching, head tilted, processing.

"If they poured oil in the hallways... they’d slip."

He said aloud, to no one in particular.

The upperclassman stopped, looked at Golden, and kept staring.

Then he shook his head slowly, the gesture of someone who finds a good idea in the wrong place.

"I like it."

He turned back to his work.

Golden closed the door and lay down; he fell asleep with the look of someone who had solved a problem.

The veterans brought in the first group, rookies crouched down, hands on their heads, some crying, others with blank expressions, as if they hadn’t yet processed what was happening.

Haru watched from the dark hallway.

"I was right there yesterday. Fucked up too."

He looked at their faces, that specific mix of fear and humiliation that has no substitute.

"Where would they hide?" the Chinese guy asked quietly, appearing beside him.

Haru studied the group, studied the space.

"The one on the left goes left, shoulder turned, foot pointing. The tall one goes for height. The two in the back go together, wherever they go."

"The runner behind them," he said. "They go left when they run."

The Chinese man neither confirmed nor denied it; he just waited.

The rookies were released and ran to the left.

The Chinese man looked at Haru with that unchanging expression, but his eyes said "good kid" without needing words.

"Desperate people always choose small rooms," said the Chinese man, drawing his nunchaku. "Remember that."

And he went to the room where the rookies had entered.

The sound coming from inside needed no description.

Thirty seconds later, a chain snapped from the inside.

On purpose.

The door flew open, the rookie sprinting out blindly, aimlessly, just running away.

When the rookie turned the corner, he stopped.

Haru was there.

Skull mask. Continous uniform. He was just standing in the center of the hallway with his arms relaxed at his sides.

He didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything, he was just there.

The rookie looked at him, eyes wide, breath ragged, hand still clutching the broken chain.

"I... I don’t want to die..." His voice came out small. Genuinely afraid. "Please... don’t hurt me..."

Haru just stared.

The boy was about sixteen. New pajamas. Hair tousled from running, a bleeding knee from some fall that happened before he got there.

"He’s afraid of me, even though I’m doing nothing."

The realization came slowly, no shock, no pride. Something more complex than either of those.

"I’ve become a veteran in their eyes."

"Yesterday I was that guy."

"Today I’m the reason this guy is trembling."

He was silent for a long moment, then took off his mask.

He looked at the rookie without it.

"Go down the right hallway," Haru said quietly. "There’s a service exit at the end; the veterans don’t cover it at this hour."

The boy didn’t understand immediately.

"Go."

He went.

The Chinese guy appeared beside him, Haru didn’t see where from.

He looked at the empty hallway, then looked at Haru, mask in hand.

He didn’t say anything for a while.

"Interesting."

It wasn’t approval, it wasn’t criticism.

It was an observation, the kind a scientist makes when an experiment produces a result he didn’t expect.

Haru put the mask back on.

"Let’s move on to the next one."