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\'Where troublesome children are looked after.\'

A simple, concise, and elegant description of what purpose the Playground held, yet one that posed no lies.

If one wanted to hear a little further detail, then the phrase \'-in a secure environment\' would be added sweetly onto the end, and if one wasn\'t satisfied even with that much, then so might the specifications \'-unfortunate-\' and \'-with unique idiosyncrasies-\' be included somewhere in the middle.

All in all, a more full description would turn from simply "A place where troublesome children are looked after", to the following:

\'Where unfortunate, troublesome children with unique idiosyncrasies are looked after in a secure environment.\'

The Playground, summarised, would be just that; and although there may be obscured truths hidden behind its benevolent exterior, such a description contained no falsehoods.

However, despite its gentle and seemingly innocuous name, and notwithstanding the technically correct narrative it portrayed... Things might not seem so black and white if one dug even a little bit deeper.

Both literally and metaphorically.

Although, if it were taken literally, one would indeed have to look much further than that.

"...So. What were the two of you thinking?"

To be precise, approximately 1,100 metres―roughly 3,600 feet―beneath the surface.

""...""

A place far detached from any semblance of civilisation, and a place where no unrelated creature, man or otherwise, would have reason or means to approach. Even if someone or thing somehow discovered the existence of this remote underground facility, which in and of itself was a considerably difficult task, it still was not such an easy thing to infiltrate.

That included not just getting in from the outside; but getting out from within, too.

"A certain, extremely hazardous substance found its way into the hands of our two most troublesome kids, who messed around with it and caused a violent reaction, leading to a disastrous incident with numerous casualties and even more wounded."

A spectacled man with a pristine white laboratory coat sat in an office, his brows deeply furrowed.

"Honestly... What came over to make you do such a thing? Until now, none of your \'games\' have ended in such a horrific way, so was this time just an unfortunate accident? As a result of your actions this time, we need to bring in more than just a handful of capable people to replace those who have passed away or otherwise been put out of commission."

"..."

"..."

Across from him were two children, no older than 7 or 8 years old, who were being reprimanded as if they were in great trouble.

"Ruti. Cipher. Answer me."

The two kids, a boy and a girl, simply looked at the doctor- or scientist-looking man, wearing expressions as if nothing was particularly wrong.

"Um... Are you going to make us take the medication again...?"

Ruti―a girl with yellow hair like fresh lemons and large amber eyes―was the first to open her mouth as she awkwardly scratched her chin with a finger. Still, her mild response only seemed to exacerbate the Professor\'s exasperation.

"Is that all you can think about...?! Haaa, Ruti... Really, I don\'t know what to do with you two anymore..."

Sighing to himself and muttering, the man then revealed something with a sharp gaze.

"San Cinelia\'s infamous dynamic duo; it\'s because of this reputation that the higher-ups have been heavily contemplating splitting the two of you up and transferring you to another branch. Do you want that to happen?"

The process was long, complicated and expensive to transfer even a single child from one Playground to another, not to mention fraught with risk during every step of the way, but compared to how much it would cost to resolve the incident this time, that much hassle was nothing.

They had already caused more than enough trouble to warrant such action, and if it would help to reduce similar concerns or issues in the future, there would be no qualms about it on the Professors\' end.

Moving in a flash, Ruti reacted harshly to the statement.

"No!"

Grab-!

Suddenly wrapping her arms around the child who sat right beside her―an impassive boy with black hair on the longer side and blank, deep blue-tinted eyes―Ruti clung to him and shouted resentfully at the man whose words she considered a threat.

"You can\'t take him away from me!"

""...""

Neither the boy nor the Professor responded to her for a while until eventually, the boy glanced at her, whose arms around him he felt were subtly quivering, and spoke.

"...I\'m not going anywhere, you know? If they were going to take one of us away, it would be you, not me."

The boy held a special position within this place, and he knew it well.

There was no way the Professors would remove him from this place since it would defeat the entire purpose of him being here, to begin with.

Ruti, however, was less familiar with this concept than the boy, and so exclaimed.

"What? Really?!"

He nodded, to which she yelled once more.

"Then, I\'m not going anywhere, too!"

Asserting her place here, Ruti refused to back down, and anyone who had interacted with her in the past would agree that, once she had reached this point of claiming to do something, her will would remain absolute. ƌ%і@∫ςо$νҽ!г-*∫-ҭө%яιε*ѕ$-&өи-@

As one of those people who had been forced to be the one to supervise or otherwise deal with her on a matter of occasions, the Professor understood this particularly stubborn quality of hers well and thus decided it would be best to revert the subject back to the matter at hand.

"Well, it\'s still not confirmed, and I myself am not in a position to make a judgement on the matter, anyway, so we\'ll leave that there."

"In any case, I\'m still baffled at how you were allowed to go unchecked and unmedicated for two consecutive days, which never should have happened in any reality and is the spark that started this incident to begin with..."

"There will certainly be those who lose their jobs because of this; if they\'re not already deceased or hospitalised..."

The Professor used a slightly unrelated topic to distract them before leading into why he brought the two troublemakers into his office, to begin with.

"Now, I know that you two don\'t cause incidents just for the hell of it, and considering the abnormal scale and consequences of this time\'s event in particular, I am sure you both understand that what happened this time is not like the so-called \'games\' you usually like to play."

"So, I would like to reiterate my previous question again, and I would like you to answer me honestly. Since you seem so energetic today, we\'ll start with Ruti."

"What made you suddenly decide to cause such an unprecedented incident?"

It was something the Professors failed to understand from the very beginning when Ruti was first brought into the Playground a couple of years prior; and was something they still couldn\'t comprehend even now.

Fortunately, there wasn\'t a huge need to figure her "reasoning" out thanks to the assistance of the medication which helped to dull her strong sense of troubling vigour, as well as her unquenchable boredom.

Nevertheless, there were limits to medication as Ruti\'s mind and body slowly grew accustomed to it over time, and on occasions like this where she escaped taking them altogether, it only meant the risk of an incident occurring was even further heightened.

It was something they should get to the bottom of if they want to resolve it for good, and it would also save them the hassle of going through a transfer, but there still remained a problem.

"Bleh~! You said you\'d take Cee away from me! I\'m not talking to you!"

That is, Ruti\'s unwillingness to cooperate.

"Ruti..."

Evidently exhausted, the Professor pressed a hand to his temple and forehead.

"Hmph!"

Turning her head and crossing her arms still wrapped around the boy\'s, it was clear that nothing good would come of questioning her any further.

Even after being forced to take her sedative and neuroleptic medications shortly following the incident which resulted in multiple casualties and left over a dozen injured, this girl still had the energy to act like this.

He almost couldn\'t believe it, but when had things ever been different?

Thinking it might be for the best to just not bother too much with it, the Professor turned his tired and overworked gaze to the silent and inexpressive boy who hadn\'t talked much since the two arrived.

"Cipher, what about you? You\'re a smart boy, aren\'t you? Surely, you can give me even one reason for doing this? And don\'t just tell me what you think I want to hear like usual."

"..."

The boy didn\'t respond for a while and seemed to think, contemplating something as he usually did.

He was a boy who, whenever he wasn\'t \'playing games\' with the Professors, typically passed the time by messing around with whatever random items he had requested from them, commencing experiments or otherwise making tools to assist him in \'pranking\' them even further.

Although it could be seen as causing trouble, they deeply believed in a philosophy of allowing the unfortunate, yet still dangerous kids who lived in the Playground to live to their fullest and without restraint, just as they might if they lived ordinary lives, at least to the extent that they could within this limited underground space.

Outside of that, he was a boy who often kept to himself.

If Ruti hadn\'t approached him when she first entered the Playground, the two never would have interacted, just as he never interacted with any of the other kids, who inevitably grew to feel scared or intimidated by the two.

Most importantly, he was the main focus of this Playground, the San Cinelia branch.

Concept of Truth.

All of the Professors knew the boy by this title, and there was always a sense of uncertainty from those around him who weren\'t entirely sure what he was capable of.

A person with a power that was difficult to comprehend when you really thought about it.

A person who could wish for an answer and receive it in an instant.

They wondered what went through the mind of such a person, how it would affect their growth, and what the opinions of someone like that would be.

"Well then? You\'re not thinking of what excuse will work best to avoid answering, are you?"

The same was true even now.

"...I wasn\'t."

But, in the end, there was no one other than the boy himself who could know his thoughts.

And even then.

Even if they could know, they still wouldn\'t really understand.

Because, after all, just because you know something―doesn\'t necessarily mean you understand it.

"I was thinking..."

With his typical, blank stare, and without a hint of what might be lying underneath.

"What would you do if I made a threat, Professor?"

The boy\'s monotone voice resounded.