༺ Realization ༻
“Mr. Adler, why aren’t you responding?”
“……..”
“It seems your professor’s words no longer sound like words to you, huh?”
At that moment, Adler wondered if he should spring up from the bed and get a bottle of vodka. Anything to get out of this situation.
“Do you want to keep repeating the grade, your points deducted for unknown and unjustified reasons, thus staying in the academy until you are past your twenties?”
“Well, that’s…”
He stuttered, feeling a shiver down his spine from the Professor’s following whisper.
“Actually, that sounds rather nice.”
“…….?”
“Because it means I will get to spend my youth with you, Professor.”
As he responded with an innocent smile on his face, the Professor gazed down at him, keeping her silence for a moment.
“Mr. Adler.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“I want to hear an answer that deserves a perfect score, not from the perspective of a lover but the right-hand man that serves the ruler of the back alleys.”
A short while later, she climbed onto Adler’s bed with a frigid smile and whispered.
“Maybe it would have worked any other time, but not today, I’m afraid.”
“… When has it ever worked, anyway?”
“It always did. To be honest, it’s been quite amusing to watch my cute assistant wrack his brain and scurry about here and there.”
Her eyes shone darkly as she spoke.
“Ever since observing an ant that had strayed from its colony when I was young, I haven’t had such a delightful experience.”
“… You had a cute side even when you were young, I see.”
“At that time, I quickly grew bored and crushed the creature with my finger, but that’s beside the point.”
The professor remarked, quietly mounting atop Adler’s abdomen soon after.
“That was my first kill, I suppose.”
“……….”
“It was such an intense experience, one that I still remember to this day.”
Then, gently grasping Adler’s neck, she whispered to him in a soft voice.
“Although you’re not an ant, I think I can give you a similar experience.”
“………”
“It won’t involve taking your life, of course. But you’ll become the victim of a crime that will be the first and last of its kind, that I shall enact in this life of mine.”
“I would have enjoyed it under normal circumstances, but right now, I’m not quite in the mood, you see.”
Adler looked up at her silently as his eyes turned into a shade of bloody red.
“I won’t just sit idly by, Professor.”
“That’s a very good attitude, Mr. Adler.”
However, hearing his defiant reply, the Professor’s expression brightened instead.
“If you resist like this, what I am about to do to you in five minutes will definitely be regarded as a heinous crime.”
“……….”
“So do whatever you wish to me. Struggle as much as you can while you’re allowed.”
Upon hearing her words, for a brief moment, Adler envisioned himself slapping the Professor’s cheek with all his might.
– Swish…
“Hmm.”
As his hand quietly rose, Jane Moriarty tilted her head, her expression intrigued.
“Will you, as you have done with that pesky thief, try to subdue me with violence?”
“…….”
“Or will you break my mind and dominate me, transforming me from the inside out, as you have already done with the haughty and prideful Caroline? I’m quite curious.”
The professor’s hand, holding Adler’s neck, tensed ever so slightly.
“I don’t know what you’re planning, but you’ll have to act within the next five minutes. Although a minute has already passed, consider it a bonus minute.”
However, the professor didn’t apply further pressure to her grip and just gently stroked Adler’s neck with her hands.
“I’ll stay still, no matter what you do until the five minutes are up.”
Adler’s right hand twitched ever so slightly at her words.
“Even if you grab my hair with that hand and violently shake it, leave bruises and scars on my face, or do what you so casually did to women in the past, I won’t budge.”
“……….”
“I swear that I won’t resist in any way for exactly five minutes. So go ahead, make your last stand with all you’ve got, Mr. Adler.”
And with that, the room was drenched in silence.
– Swish…
“Honestly, I’ve wanted to see it at least once.”
Amid that silence, as Adler stretched his hand towards his own face, Professor Moriarty quietly murmured with a gleam in her eyes.
“The moment when you dominate a woman. Whether it will work on me, whether it won’t…”
– Tap.
“…….?”
However, her voice soon trailed off…
“Isaac Adler?”
“Hehe.”
Contrary to Professor Moriarty’s expectations, Isaac Adler simply placed his hand on her cheek, gazing at her with a pure smile.
“What is the meaning of this?”
As he just looked up at her, doing nothing, she asked in a low voice, bobbing her head from side to side.
“Did I ever tell you that every time you shake your head like that, you look as cute as a baby lizard?”
“Answer my question, Isaac Adler.”
“This… is my answer, Professor.”
Isaac Adler began softly caressing the professor’s cheek as he whispered.
“For the remaining time, I will simply stay like this.”
“Is this one of those sophisticated jokes of yours?”
The Professor asked with a puzzled expression, but Adler merely continued in a whisper, a faint smile on his lips.
“I have no desire to escape this predicament, even if it means defying you, Professor.”
“………”
“From the moment you first attempted to take my life, our fate was sealed.”
The Professor, looking down at him quietly, whispered in a hardened voice.
“You might never see the light of day again.”
“If that’s what you desire, all I can do is comply.”
“Do you really not know what I might do?”
“I know all too well, in fact.”
“Then how can you be so calm?”
At being asked, a simple and clear answer left Adler’s lips.
“Well, I am your probability, after all.”
Professor Moriarty’s expression went blank.
“No matter what happens, that identity will never change.”
“Then, what about your claim… that you would have me in your grasp?”
“That statement?”
Hearing the question she blurted out in a low voice, Adler asked back, a gentle smile stretching his lips.
“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”
As the Professor silently stared at him with eyes urging him to answer, Adler pointed to her eyes and responded.
“My ultimate goal is to dye your eyes in my color.”
“………”
“Need I elaborate anymore?”
Carefully, Adler caressed the corner of her eyes with his hand.
“… I want to become the consort of the queen.”
Upon hearing the statement that slipped out of his lips, for a moment, Professor Moriarty’s breathing stopped altogether.
“Before my life is over, I want to make Jane Moriarty the most sinister and powerful Evil Queen in history.”
“………”
“And I want such a being to live a life drenched in my hue.”
In a situation where time seemed to stand still, only Adler’s voice echoed throughout the room.
“I want to remain in your memory forever, even after I am gone.”
Hearing his gentle words, the professor, without even realizing it, began loosening her grip on Adler’s throat.
“That… is my sole purpose…”
He gazed into her eyes, bearing the same grey hue as when they first met, as she sat on top of him. At that instant, as Adler was about to continue his speech…
“… That was quite the performance.”
“Khek… What?”
“Indeed, befitting a former child actor known for his dramatic roles.”
Professor Moriarty began pressing down harder with her hand, pushing Adler fully beneath her.
“If your eyes had not still been dyed fully in Charlotte Holmes’ colors, I might have been truly deceived by that glorious performance of yours.”
“….. Ah.”
“Mr. Adler, it’s far too late for regrets now.”
Calmly, the professor declared those words and soon began unfastening the buttons of his shirt.
“… It’s already been five minutes.”
Upon hearing her speak, Adler turned his gaze away with a resigned expression.
“Don’t look away, Adler. Face this foolish end of our relationship that you yourself have brought…”
At that moment, as Moriarty, holding his head with her hands while wearing a dark smile, turned his face towards hers…
“… The end.”
She, hands frozen in place, couldn’t help but stare blankly at him.
“……..?”
And then, as the room was drenched in silence, Isaac Adler tilted his head in quiet contemplation,
A message from the system appeared before his eyes.
“……… Eh?”
With his eyes opened wide in absolute disbelief, Adler’s gaze began to grow vacant.
.
.
.
.
.
“You, look quite ridiculous right now, you know?”
“……..?”
With question marks practically written all over my face, unable to grasp the sudden turn of events, I suddenly heard the professor, who had already risen and stopped using my belly as a seat, whispering in a low voice.
“… Walking around like that, you’re bound to attract attention.”
“What do you mean…”
“Why don’t you take a look in the mirror?”
Turning my head in the direction her hand pointed towards, I saw my reflection in the mirror and finally… I was able to understand the situation at hand.
“Ah…”
My eyes, once both dyed completely black, were now black on the left and grey on the right.
“You should have just been honest and spoken the truth, Adler.”
The professor’s voice, laced with mirth, began echoing in my ear as I quietly stared at the puzzling reflection.
“That all this time, you’ve loved both Holmes and me exactly the same.”
At last, for the first time since I entered this world, I had no choice but to admit it.
“That’s why you’ve been unable to decide which of us to choose.”
The statement I had just made wasn’t just one of my typical quick-witted responses.
“That’s the real reason you’ve always hidden your true feelings so thoroughly.”
“……….”
“And it’s also why you’ve become so passive lately.”
Excuses like having to survive or the system forcing my hand no longer held any weight.
“… Hmm.”
I was, indeed, in love with this woman, the very embodiment of evil, as much as I was in love with Charlotte Holmes.
“Now I’m starting to feel a bit relieved.”
“………..”
“What I should do next, it feels all too clear now.”
And the crime of falling in love with both the hope of London and the queen of the underworld at the same time.
– The Professor’s Consort (0% → 45%)
– Flower in Each Hand (5%)
Somehow, I didn’t think it would be light.
