COTE\OC Unpolished Diamond Year 2

Volume 4: Doubts

Amasawa Ichika monologue

Test-tube babies. Have you ever heard the term before?

Apparently, they're no longer called that nowadays. Rather, society has taken to using the term 'IVF babies' instead.

I am one of those born from that very process. A human brought about through in vitro fertilization.

However, I don't know anything about my origins outside of that. I've never even seen my parents' faces.

Where they are now... What they're doing... Why they put me in the WhiteRoom... Nothing.

But, to be completely honest, I'm not really that interested in finding out.

There's one thing I learned when I was finally old enough to understand the world around me:

That my parents were both extremely talented people.

As such, I must be an incredibly blessed child born with the qualifications to become a genius then, right?

Though, as right as that may be, my existence runs in direct conflict with that of the White Room.

A facility whose ultimate goal is to raise all people unto equivalent superiority.

A facility where they seek to prove that the limits of humanity are decided not by one's genetics, but by their environment.

In other words, they want all people to harbor outstanding talent, not just those blessed with excellent genes like me.

In the end, for the White Room, I'm surely just another experiment.

And while I'm not really all that opposed to being an experiment, I find myself wondering if they really think they'll succeed.

I personally concluded long ago that it's impossible to homogenize intellect, personality, and ethics.

In fact, doesn't my very existence serve as the greatest proof of that?

Ever since I was a child, I've been proud of being different from those around me, though I never showed it. I'd kill off the light in my eyes and indifferently pretend to go through the motions, all the while questioning the significance of the White Room's existence.

Do I truly want to grow up dedicating my life to furthering the ideals of the White Room?

Am I really willing to put my life on the line, toiling day after day, desperate to become the world's utmost example of a successful upbringing?

Wouldn't that be like, you know, kinda pathetic? Wouldn't you want to live more freely?

I would. At least, I'd hate to spend the rest of my life locked up in such a world.

But it would be impossible to run away from the WhiteRoom. I grew up here, and I'm now tied to it. For the rest of my life, I will have a tag on my back saying "WhiteRoom product."

In the fifth generation, my WhiteRoom generation, I could observe others' reactions and apprehension of our situation about our life in the WhiteRoom.

Here, we have to survive by achieving results.

That's why everyone needed to show results not to lose their places here. We've been shown how Ayanakoji Kiyotaka was superior to and better than us at our age.

Upon this, many reactions and changes were observed in our generations.

These two stood out the most because they were the exact opposite.