The smell of disinfectant was strong and lingering, mingled with the rust of blood and the sour rot of vomit, permeating every inch of air in Irisu General Hospital.
This place had once been the symbol of medical excellence in the Kamiyama Region, renowned for its efficiency, cleanliness, and order. Now, it looked more like a battlefield on the verge of collapse.
"Move! Gurney coming through! Patient in respiratory failure!"
"The ventilator on Bed 12 is alarming! Someone check on it! Now!"
A young nurse's arm was seized in a death grip by a middle-aged man. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse with agitation. "My wife is dying! Why don't you have any effective medicine yet! Aren't you supposed to be the best hospital in Kamiyama! Answer me!"
The nurse's face was etched with deep exhaustion and helplessness. She tried to pull free, but the man's strength was startling.
All she could do was repeat the same words she'd already said a hundred times. "I'm sorry, sir... we truly are doing everything we can... the specialist team from Tokyo is already on their way, please just give us a little more time..."
"Time! My wife doesn't have time!" the man howled in despair.
Similar scenes played out in every corner of the hospital.
Limited medical resources were rapidly diluted against a patient count growing at exponential rates. Every healthcare worker was burning through their reserves just to keep up, but their efforts, measured against a system accelerating toward total collapse, were a drop in the bucket.
...
In stark contrast to this chaos stood the top-floor office of the Fujiwara conglomerate headquarters, on the other side of the city.
Massive one-way floor-to-ceiling windows took in the glittering night view of Kamiyama City while sealing out every scream and cry. The office was so quiet that the only sounds were the steady hum of the central air conditioning and the faint buzz of a top-grade air purifier.
Seiji Fujiwara leaned back in his wide office chair, legs crossed in a relaxed pose. On the enormous holographic screen before him, no news broadcasts played. Instead, cold streams of data displayed everything happening inside Irisu General Hospital in real time.
[ICU Bed Occupancy: 100%]
[Average Sleep for Frontline Medical Staff: 3.7 hours / 24 hours]
[Antiviral Drug "Ribavirin" Inventory: Estimated complete depletion in 8 hours]
[Irisu Family Internal Fund Movement: Emergency mobilization of 300 million yen for global medical supply procurement, 82% of orders suspended due to logistics restrictions or supplier breach of contract]
These cold figures, precise to two decimal places, revealed the hospital's true condition more clearly than any tearful news segment. It was a great ship sinking faster by the minute, its passengers and crew still bailing water with everything they had, unaware that the holes in the hull had long exceeded what human hands could repair.
Seiji's gaze settled on a real-time image captured through the hospital's internal surveillance system. In the frame, a short-haired girl in a Kamiyama High School uniform was pointing at a complex chest CT scan, explaining it to several grim-faced senior physicians. Her eyes were sharp and focused. Her face held none of the inexperience or panic expected of someone her age, only a calm that transcended her years, almost mechanical.
Fuyumi Irisu.
An interesting specimen to observe. She was convinced that rationality was the ultimate weapon for solving any problem. She had a habit of corralling every chaotic variable into a logical framework of her own design, confident she could derive an optimal solution from it every time.
The corner of Seiji's mouth curved in an almost imperceptible arc.
He liked this type of person. Because when uncomputable chaos arrived, the worldview collapse these extreme rationalists suffered was far more violent than what ordinary people experienced. The logical systems they depended on would fracture inch by inch, and that arc of falling from the heights of total control into the abyss of total helplessness was the most compelling thing to watch.
"A high schooler trying to measure a storm with a ruler." He murmured to himself, as if giving an objective definition to his observation subject. "When her ruler breaks, she'll come to me on her own."
He picked up the internal communicator on his desk and issued his orders in a flat, emotionless tone.
"Aya."
"Here, boss." An equally calm female voice came through the communicator.
"Continue monitoring all activity within the Irisu family and the hospital. Do not intervene in any way. Also, quietly block eighty percent of their standard channels for requesting outside help. I want to see the look on their faces after they've exhausted every 'rational' option."
"Understood, boss. Orders have been executed."
What he intended wasn't mere observation. He would ensure that every "rational path" she mapped out led to the same dead end. Then, like a merciful devil, he would personally show her the only route remaining, the "irrational" shortcut she had always despised most, the one that led into the abyss.
...
At the same time, the top-floor conference room of Irisu General Hospital.
Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. The atmosphere was suffocating. Several Irisu family elders and hospital executives sat with grave expressions, the ashtray already overflowing with cigarette butts.
"No! We can't wait any longer!" A slightly heavyset man, Fuyumi's uncle, slammed his palm on the table. "The media has started reporting deaths! We should immediately declare a state of emergency at the hospital and use every available fund to buy all possible medications from overseas at premium prices!"
The hospital director, a man nearing sixty, adjusted his glasses and added wearily, "Uncle Tanaka has a point. At the very least, we should show the public that we're sparing no expense. It would also take some pressure off the medical staff..."
However, the person standing before the projection screen was a girl in a dark blue high school uniform. Her composure clashed sharply with the anxiety of the adults around her, as though a wall of ice separated her from all the surrounding panic.
Fuyumi Irisu's cool gaze swept over her agitated uncle.
"Uncle Tanaka, panic is the most efficient poison there is. It solves nothing. Your so-called 'sparing no expense' would produce exactly two outcomes right now: first, it would trigger market chaos, making procurement of genuinely effective drugs even harder; second, it would send the public a signal that 'we've run out of options,' detonating a full-scale social panic."
Her words carried no trace of emotion, yet they pierced straight to the heart of the matter like ice picks. Tanaka opened his mouth, but in the end sank back into his chair without a word.
Fuyumi then turned to the director. Her tone was respectful, but her words left no room for debate. "Director, I understand how you feel. But what we need right now is confidence, not gestures. I've conducted a comprehensive analysis of the current situation and developed a three-phase response plan."
She pressed the remote in her hand, and a clear, well-organized chart appeared on the screen. The entire conference room's attention instantly shifted from the chaotic arguing to her alone.
"First, the technical layer. Through my father's connections, I've contacted Professor Masayuki Suzuki of Tokyo University's Virology Research Institute. He is the foremost authority in domestic virology. His team will arrive within thirty-six hours and take full charge of the virus analysis and the development of targeted treatment protocols. Until their authoritative conclusions are in, anything we do on our own could be wrong."
"Second, the social layer. Until Professor Suzuki's team reaches its conclusions, we need to control the narrative. I will recommend that the family deploy its media channels to focus on two core messages: 'experts are on-site' and 'the situation is under control.' This will stabilize public sentiment and prevent the kind of panic-driven runs on medical resources and social disorder."
"Third, the resource layer. Based on current staff scheduling and supply inventory at the hospital, I've worked through the night to create an optimized resource allocation plan. Through emergency process reengineering, we can increase utilization of existing resources by at least fifteen percent, buying Professor Suzuki's team critical buffer time."
Her presentation contained not a single wasted word. Every step had been meticulously calculated and considered. Around the conference room, the anxiety on the faces of the elders and executives gradually gave way to a mixture of surprise and trust.
"As expected of Fuyumi. With you here, we can rest easy."
"We'll do exactly as you say! Whatever resources you need, just name them!"
Amid the chorus of approval, Fuyumi simply nodded, her expression as unruffled as ever.
She was fully confident in her plan. In her assessment, this was the optimal solution for the current chaos.
...
...
The next morning, a commercial cooperation letter from Fujiwara Pharmaceuticals Corporation was delivered to the director's office. Coming from a direct subsidiary of the Fujiwara conglomerate, one of the nation's most powerful conglomerates, the director didn't dare show the slightest neglect. He personally brought it to Fuyumi, who was processing data in a temporary office.
"Miss Irisu, look at this!" The director's face held a thread of exhausted hope. "It's the Fujiwara conglomerate! They say... they have a solution!"
Fuyumi looked up from the mountain of documents and took the elegantly designed, carefully worded letter.
She scanned it quickly. The entire thing was polite, formulaic business language, claiming that their company's biological laboratory had achieved a "breakthrough" in related virus research and was willing, in the spirit of humanitarianism, to provide Irisu General Hospital with a "comprehensive emergency solution."
Reading this far, Fuyumi's brow only furrowed slightly.
Her instinct was to classify this as yet another pharmaceutical company trying to profit from disaster, even if this particular one had an exceptionally powerful backing.
But when her gaze reached the bolded addendum at the end of the letter, her cool eyes darkened.
"To improve cooperation efficiency and save valuable time, we recommend engaging directly with the core consultant for your crisis response, Miss Fuyumi Irisu, second-year student at Kamiyama High School."
"Core consultant," followed by nothing more than a cold "Miss." Not even a proper honorific.
The undisguised condescension and arrogance between those lines triggered something close to a physical revulsion.
While the entire Kamiyama Region's medical system was anxiously awaiting the conclusions of the nation's most authoritative expert team, a commercial company had bypassed every standard professional channel to request, by name, a meeting with her, a "high school student"?
It was laughable in its absurdity.
In her eyes, this wasn't simple commercial overreach. It was naked humiliation. Not just disrespect toward her personally, but the ultimate insult to the incoming team of Professor Suzuki, and to the entire system of science and professional expertise.
This was a textbook display of capital's arrogance. They seemed to believe that with enough financial power, they could ignore all rules and procedures, that they could use "shortcuts" to solve any professional problem.
She looked up, met the expectant eyes of the director, calmly refolded the letter, and handed it back.
"Director, please have your secretarial office decline on our behalf." Her tone was ice without a trace of warmth. "The wording can be polite. Simply tell them that our hospital trusts only professionally verified scientific processes. Thank them for their 'goodwill.'"
"But Miss Irisu, this is the Fujiwara conglomerate, after all..." The director tried to push back.
"Precisely because it's the Fujiwara conglomerate, we must hold to our principles." Fuyumi cut him off. "The harder they try to use capital to break the rules, the harder we must defend them. That is the baseline of professional integrity."
The director looked at those unyielding eyes and could only nod with a sigh, turning to leave with what he privately considered a lifeline clutched in his hands.
Fuyumi redirected her attention to the data in front of her, but the disgust born from being looked down upon hadn't faded. If anything, it burned stronger.
She would prove, with irrefutable facts, that underhanded opportunism could never overcome a real crisis.
...
The next day, Professor Suzuki's expert team arrived in Kamiyama City on schedule.
The hospital entrance was mobbed by media from every outlet, camera flashes firing in waves, as if welcoming returning heroes.
White-haired and sharp-eyed, Professor Suzuki made no effort to restrain his praise of Fuyumi before the cameras. "Miss Irisu's preliminary response work was superb. Her data organization and analysis were extremely professional, buying us invaluable time. Her composure and expertise give me a glimpse of the future of Japanese medicine."
After the press conference, Professor Suzuki sought Fuyumi out in person.
"Irisu-kun," he said, in the tone of an elder admiring a promising junior, "those initial case files you compiled were logically clear and sharply focused, better than what many frontline doctors produce. You saved us at least forty-eight hours of preliminary work."
"You flatter me, Professor Suzuki. I only did what little organizing I could." Fuyumi answered respectfully, her expression as composed as always. But inside, the public recognition of her efforts by a top-tier professional stirred a thread of pride she couldn't quite suppress.
This is the right path.
Through the most professional people, along the most professional route, solving the most professional problems. This was the brilliance of rationality.
The news spread quickly through television and the internet across the entire Kamiyama Region, effectively easing the panic that had been building among the public.
In Seiji Fujiwara's office, the enormous screen was playing that very news broadcast.
He watched the girl on screen, who looked increasingly confident under the camera flashes, perhaps even a touch proud, and his face showed nothing.
"Aya," he said.
"Here."
"The background analysis report on Masayuki Suzuki's team."
"Already completed, boss."
Aya's voice came through, and a document appeared on the side screen. "The report shows that while Professor Suzuki is an industry giant, his academic thinking has grown conservative in recent years. Particularly when facing rapid mutations in unknown RNA viruses, he has made several misjudgments in past cases. Of his two key deputies, one named 'Tanaka' has been suspected of academic fraud, and the other named 'Kobayashi' is extremely arrogant and resistant to dissenting opinions within the team."
Seiji's gaze lingered on the report for less than ten seconds before moving away.
"Good," he said. "Keep waiting."
...
Over the next two days, under Fuyumi's forceful coordination, the hospital's internal order remained chaotic but managed to avoid total collapse.
The external narrative, meanwhile, trended positive under the operation of the Irisu family's media resources.
Every news report hammered home the message that "the expert team has achieved preliminary results" and "the outbreak is expected to be effectively contained within a week."
That evening, she received a phone call from her close friend, Eru Chitanda.
"Irisu-senpai, are you okay? You must be exhausted these past few days." Eru's concerned voice came through the phone.
"I'm fine. Still managing."
Fuyumi walked to the window and looked down at the ambulances, fewer now than before. The tension that had wound her nerves tight for days loosened just a fraction. "Don't worry, Eru. Professor Suzuki's team is extremely professional. Things are moving in the right direction."
"That's wonderful! Irisu-senpai, you're truly amazing! Even my father praised how well you've handled everything!" Eru said admiringly.
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