Teary Promise (Part 19)

We walked towards the local school together with Nishizawa and Saeko. Nishizawa revealed to me that Saeko is like a programmable robot that is immortal, but defenceless, with an actual person's soul inside.

Right now, Saeko has been put on the command to behave like a high class hotel receptionist serving important guests, which is so unnatural from Saeko's usual behaviour. I wonder if Saeko is cringing in her mind with this forced behaviour, or has she been brainwashed to behave as such? If it is the former, maybe I can make her say or do something that would make this obvious. The tricky part is with the presence of Nishizawa, who made her behave as such, and not being obvious that I wanted to check on Saeko.

Me: "How did the school turn out to be this bad? Surely the education ministry or the city mayor would have done something about it."

This town does not have a town hall, so all admin matters fall in the charge of the nearest city, which is where my high school is. However, the city council there does not monitor much of what happens outside the city they are directly in charge of, so things like education doesn't get monitored much.

Nishizawa: "Well, it started many years ago. You can say it is something like a continuous cycle of seniors teaching stuff to their juniors. To make matters worse, the teachers were graduates of that school, or for those from elsewhere, made them swear to not tell about it or they would find something that would dismiss them as a teacher. During some of the few official visits from the city hall, the bad things that the school is known for gets covered up and..."

Saeko: "I would appreciate it if someone were to stop stepping on my feet."

I had Nishizawa to look at me as we were talking and walking in a way that one of Nishizawa's feet would keep stepping on Saeko's feet, with she herself unaware of it because of the shoes they wear. I'm surprised Saeko did not yell in pain despite the way her feet was stepped on would have been painful, but it certainly seems that she could feel it.

As we were having our conversation, I couldn't help but to feel that my phone, which was in silent mode, kept vibrating. I think Saeko is trying to tell me something, but with Nishizawa talking to me practically non-stop, the opportunity to check what the message says without her raising the topic is non-existent.

Moments later, Saeko tripped over something and fell down. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but she seem to have tripped with the foot Nishizawa was stepping on earlier. What is even weirder are how her arms and legs are positioned as she lay on the ground: they are positioned the same way as if she was standing earlier.

Nishizawa: "What are you doing? Get up."

She turned Saeko around as she said this so that her face is not facing the ground.

Saeko: "My deepest apologies, but my body is restricted to be unable to do that without assistance."

Nishizawa: "Okay, you made your point. Here, you look silly."

Almost as if having ran a marathon, she got up and went gasping for air.

Saeko: "Don't ever do that again to me. It reminds me of what Itsuki did to me on my birthday."

She said that in an almost crying tone, even though the words she said was supposed to be in an angry tone. By the way, who is this Itsuki guy Saeko is talking about? I'm also guessing that the same thing happened on her birthday.

Nishizawa: "Are you angry? You sound like a crying child to me, and i lifted your behavior control. Oh yes, you can't get angry in that body as any anger gets expressed as sadness instead. I only controlled how you behaved, and no, I did not forget about unlocking all of your body's moods: your body just wasn't even designed for being able to express anger at all, which the designers seem to have either forgotten about, or just didn't want to see their own invention to get violent at them. It is because of this fundamental design feature (or depending on who you ask, a flaw), you are unable to fight someone without being scared, if you could fight at all. It seem very odd to make an immortal body like yours to also be scared and defenceless, but that itself can be useful for deception. Of course, you have to feel the actual pain incurred in order for you to express the appropriate action, including ones that results in death which your body would react as if you actually are, though you don't actually die and automatically revived when only a Hatsuya staff, someone you trust, or with nobody looking at you. If it weren't for the director saying that having your mind controlled may caused long term damage to you, I would have also tried to brainwash you to see how you would react in certain mindsets of various situations."

Saeko seemed as if insulted at that comment, but did not respond to it either which tells me that everything Nishizawa said was true. It must be suffering to be controlled by someone else and unable to escape.

...Hold on, did she say that Saeko was immortal? How did I not know of this before?

Part 18 | Part 20