by Tsutomu Sato
Thanks to the proliferation of educational terminals, a theory was once popular that school was unnecessary. It supposed that because you can have class over a network, taking such long trips to and from a school was a waste of time and energy.
In the end, this “unnecessary school theory” never evolved out of a fad. However far interfaces advanced technologically, virtual experiences would never be reality. For things like practice and experimentation, sufficient learning effects couldn’t be gained unless it was a real-life experience accompanied by real-time question-and-answer sessions—and there was learning promotion effect in learning in a group with others of the same age. These two points had been proven by trial and error using human experiment-like trials.
Class 1-E was currently right smack in the middle of one of those practicum classes.
That said, there was no teacher present for the real-time question-and-answer session. It was an easily understood example that the fruits of academic research weren’t necessarily adopted logically.
The students of 1-E were following the control procedure displayed on the wall monitor and manipulating the stationary educational CAD. Today’s class was a primer to a primer—learning how to control this machine used in class.
It was real-life guidance, but there was still a task to perform. There was no teacher overseeing them, so submitting a task was the only standard of this course. Today’s task was to use this CAD to make a small push car about thirty centimeters long move from one end of a rail to another, then back, three times over.
Without actually touching the push car, of course.
“Tatsuya, how was it in the student council room?”
As Tatsuya was standing in line waiting to use the CAD, no sooner had he been poked in the back than Leo shot him a question. His face didn’t seem to be hiding anything, so he must have just had a keen interest.
“It got a little weird…”
“Weird how?” Erika, who was in front of Tatsuya, spun around and tilted her head.
“They told me to be on the disciplinary committee. It was so sudden. I wonder what that was all about.” Tatsuya, too, tilted his head in thought. What was that about? was really the only thing he felt like he could say about it.
“Yeah, that is pretty sudden.” Leo seemed to feel the abruptness as well.
“But isn’t that pretty impressive? You got scouted by the student council!”
Mizuki, however, seemed to feel differently. She had stopped on her way back to the end of the line to rechallenge the task (not that she had failed or anything) and was looking at Tatsuya with admiration. The lines to the left and right of them getting a little noisy was probably because his other classmates felt the same way as Mizuki.
But Tatsuya couldn’t honestly accept Mizuki’s words of praise. “Is it? I was just along with my sister.”
Erika gave a small, wry smile at Tatsuya’s stubbornly skeptical attitude. “Oh, don’t be so mean to yourself. What does the disciplinary committee do, anyway?” she asked. Tatsuya explained in summary what Azusa had told him, and the three’s eyes went wide.
“That definitely seems like a troublesome job…” Leo sighed; beside him, Mizuki flip-flopped and gave a worried expression.
“Isn’t that dangerous, though…? Erika, what’s wrong?”
Erika looked displeased—actually, she looked angry for some reason. “…God, so selfish…” Her gaze was strangely averted. Her words, spoken while glaring at empty space—were they rebuking someone not here?
“Erika?” repeated Mizuki.
“Eh? Ah, I’m sorry. What a terrible story. Tatsuya, it’s dangerous. Just turn it down!” Erika tempted in a purposefully bright voice, her stern expression giving way to a mischievous smile.
“Huh? No, it sounds fun! You should do it, Tatsuya. I’ll root for you!”
Tatsuya knew she was trying to cover something up with a joking tone, but what was she trying to cover up?
“But if you have to mediate in fights, you could get mixed up in some attack magic, right?” asked Mizuki.
Now he thought he knew who she was referring to when she said “selfish.”
“Yeah. And there will probably be guys who would hate you for no reason because of it, too.”
But the atmosphere wasn’t right for him to get more information from Erika.
“But don’t you think Tatsuya would be better than some overbearing Course 1 kid walking up uninvited?”
And he had no intention of barging in on the conversation with the question.
“Hmm… You might be right.”
“Erika, don’t be so easily convinced! If that’s the case, he just shouldn’t get into fights, right?”
“But, Mizuki, even if we don’t intend to, sometimes you have to put out the fires before they start, right? Like what happened yesterday.”
Mizuki groaned. “That was—”
“People get away with false accusations and charges all the time. It’s the world we live in.”
In fact, the winds had started blowing in a bad direction, making Tatsuya feel the need to block it off. “Hey, Erika, it’s your turn.”
“Ack, sorry, sorry!”
Urged on by Tatsuya, Erika, panicking a bit, took her position. He could tell just by looking at her back that she was giving it her all. She didn’t seem at all like the idle chat had dragged her down. She appeared to be the type of person who could switch her brain quickly from one thing to the next. Frivolous though she might seem, perhaps she was actually serious at heart.
Erika’s back moved up and down slightly—she was probably taking a breath.
After a pause, he “saw” the psionic waves—a form of light invisible to the naked eye, but detectable by magicians—from behind her. It was the light of the extra psions not used for the activation program deployment or the execution of the magic program that followed. There wasn’t as little excess psionic light as a well-finessed magician, but for a freshman in high school, it was pretty high level. When the excess light reached a certain level, it would be accompanied by a physical luminescence because of photon interference, but perhaps the fact that it didn’t happen that way meant that she had it well under control.
The cart placed in front of the CAD began to run, then looped back again. It repeated the process three times. She must have been satisfied with the result herself—Tatsuya could see her making a furtive fist with her right hand as if to say, Nice! The cart was certainly moving more briskly than in the previous practice session. Specifically its acceleration and deceleration both were quick.
For this practice, you accelerated the cart to the halfway point on the rail, then decelerated it to a stop at the end, then accelerated and decelerated in the other direction, making three full round trips. The activation programs registered in the CAD were magic program “blueprints” implementing six acceleration/deceleration technique sets. There was no designation for how great the acceleration should be, so that part of it ended up reflecting the student’s capacity. The fact that the cart had moved energetically meant that her magic had been that good.
Erika went around to the back of her line with an unconcerned face—you couldn’t tell at all that she had just done a secret fist pump. To replace her, Tatsuya stepped up to the stationary CAD.
He adjusted the height of the legs supporting the CAD with a pedal, then pressed the palm of his hand against the translucent white panel covering the entire surface of its housing, which was about the size of a filing cabinet, and began to circulate psions.
Resisting the urge to grimace at the noise feedback in the activation program, he constructed a magic program.
After appearing to stumble two or three times, the push car safely began to move.
Today’s practicum was purely to get the students used to the CAD they’d be using in class—time wasn’t being kept. But that was something that nobody but Tatsuya himself was aware of.
The time it took to get the push car moving was clearly
longer than when Erika did it. No, not only Erika. It might be faster to count up from the bottom of the twenty-five students in 1-E.
The energy of the push car itself didn’t unfavorably compare to the other students. So it didn’t stand out in particular.
But Tatsuya himself was acutely aware of the results, and it made him want to heave a sigh.
He was grateful they hadn’t been envious or jealous of him, but being sent off with a hearty “Good luck!” sort of ruined the mood—it would just bring his spirits down instead. It was all the more difficult, because Tatsuya himself didn’t have any enthusiasm in the first place.
After school, he trudged to the student council room, his feet even heavier than they had been during lunch.
Atmosphere-wise it was a slightly miserable composition, but Miyuki held her tongue out of understanding for his warped sentiments.
Their ID cards had already been registered with the authentication system (he was opposed to already considering himself to have entered the disciplinary committee, but Mayumi and Mari had both had their own way with him), so they entered without incident.
He was greeted by a sharp gaze teeming with distinct hostility. The origin was on the other side of the workstation console buried in the wall. Sitting in the seat that had been empty during lunch.
“Excuse us.”
Again, he couldn’t brag about it, but Tatsuya was used to this type of look and atmosphere. Is that sad? When he maintained his poker face and bowed slightly without a word, the hostility dispersed as though it had never been there. Although it wasn’t as if the hostility toward him had disappeared—it had just shifted to interest in Miyuki, who had taken her place standing in front of him, and nobody needed to explain that to him.
The glare’s owner rose and approached the siblings. No—maybe it was more accurate to say that he approached Miyuki. Tatsuya recalled his face. He was the second-year student who’d sat right behind Mayumi during the entrance ceremony—which meant he was the vice president of the student council.
His height was about the same as Tatsuya’s. His breadth was a little on the thin side.
He was put together, but his features bore no special mention, and his physique was nothing particularly special. He didn’t give an impression of being very physically strong, but the radiance of the psions encroaching upon the surrounding air spoke to the young man’s excelling magical power.
“I am the vice president, Gyoubu Hattori. Miyuki Shiba, welcome to the student council.” His voice seemed a little wound up, but considering his age, he was exhibiting enough self-control. His right hand twitched—perhaps because he considered shaking hands, then stopped himself.
Tatsuya didn’t have the mind to inquire why he stopped.
Hattori returned to his seat after that, completely ignoring Tatsuya. He felt a hint of indignation from behind Miyuki, but it disappeared instantly. Nobody other than Tatsuya, who was standing right behind her, would have noticed it. Tatsuya privately put his hand to his chest, relieved she had managed to control herself.
Without a care to his anxiety—though considering that they were strangers he just met, there was no helping that—they were welcomed by two casual greetings, without touching on the vice president’s action, which had caused it.
“Hey, you’re here.”
“Welcome, Miyuki. And thank you for coming as well, Tatsuya.”
The one who lightly waved to him and who was already treating him like a friend was Mari, and the one who naturally treated him differently was Mayumi. Of course, neither of those things exactly got on his nerves.
Tatsuya had already arrived in the state of mind that said worrying about these two wouldn’t get him anywhere.
“Sorry to get right to it, but Ah-chan, could you…?”
“…All right.”
Her state of mind was one of resignation as well. Azusa cast down her eyes in sadness for a moment, then smiled awkwardly and nodded. She guided Miyuki over to the terminal on the wall.
“Okay, we should get moving, too.”
He felt like her tone of voice had changed quite a bit in just one day, but Tatsuya figured that was probably because this casual way of speaking was more Mari’s thing.
“To where?”
Tatsuya, however, hadn’t been given a royal upbringing, and didn’t care how she talked. He simply responded to what he was told.
“The disciplinary committee HQ. I figure it’ll be easier to have you see everything. It’s the room right under this. Oh, but it’s connected in the middle.”
Tatsuya paused before replying to Mari’s answer. “…That’s an odd structure.”
“I agree,” she said, rising from her seat. However, before she got all the way up, she was stopped.
“Please wait, Watanabe.”
The one who stopped her was Vice President Hattori. Mari responded to him using a name he wasn’t yet familiar with.
“What’s up, Vice President Hanzou Gyoubu-Shoujou Hattori?”
“Please don’t call me by my full name!”
Tatsuya unthinkingly glanced at Mayumi. She bent her head a bit, wondering why he did so. I never thought “Hanzou” was his real name… It was completely unexpected.
“Okay, then Vice President Hanzou Hattori.”
“It’s Gyoubu Hattori!”
“That’s not your name; it’s just your official position. In your family.”
Indeed, the term gyoubu-shoujou referred to a junior to the traditional “minister of justice” position in premodern Japan.
“I have no rank right now. The school has accepted my registered name of Gyoubu Hattori! …But that isn’t what I wanted to say!”
“You were the one hung up on it.”
“Now, Mari, there are some things that Hanzou won’t give ground on,” remarked Mayumi.
Everyone turned to glare at her, as if to say, You’re not one to talk.
But she showed no signs of responding to them.
Maybe she didn’t even realize it.
And for some reason, Hattori didn’t say anything, either. But it wasn’t quite like he didn’t know how to deal with her—Tatsuya got a glimpse of a different sort of emotion than the one he’d had with Mari, and it was quite interesting to him.
Insofar as he was a third-party witness to it, anyway.
But he couldn’t remain a spectator for more than a few moments. “Watanabe, what I wanted to talk about was the disciplinary committee replacement.”
The blood that had risen to his face all receded. Hattori regained his composure as if this were a time-lapse video.
“What?”
“I’m opposed to naming that freshman a member of the committee,” opined Hattori calmly—perhaps suppressing his emotion.
Mari frowning at that didn’t seem to be an act, necessarily. He couldn’t tell whether her expression was one of surprise, one of being fed up with him, or what emotion she had, though. “Don’t be silly. President Saegusa is the one who nominated Tatsuya Shiba as the student council’s selection. Even if it was an oral nomination, it doesn’t change the effectiveness of the nomination.”
“I heard he hasn’t accepted yet. It isn’t an official nomination until the person accepts it.”
“That would be Tatsuya’s problem. The student council’s opinion has already been articulated by the student council president. The decision is for him to make, not you,” said Mari, looking between Tatsuya and Hattori.
Hattori didn’t spare a glance for Tatsuya. He was purposely ignoring him.
Suzune looked at the two of them calmly, Azusa in a fluster, and Mayumi with an unreadable, archaic smile. Miyuki was meekly keeping herself by the wall. However, Tatsuya was on edge, though in a different way from Azusa—he didn’t know when his sister might spontaneously discharge again.
“There is no precedent for nominating a Weed to the disciplinary committee.”
The epithet in Hattori’s response raised Mari’s eyebrows slightly. “That�
��s a prohibited word, Vice President Hattori. The disciplinary committee has decided that it’s a discriminatory term. You’ve got some balls using it right in front of the committee’s leader.”
Hattori didn’t appear frightened by her words, which could be taken either as a reprimand or a warning, or both.
“There’s no point in keeping up appearances, is there? Or do you plan to reprimand more than a third of all the students in this school? The distinction between Blooms and Weeds is recognized by the school and built into the school system. And there’s enough of a gap in skill between them to form the foundation for that distinction. Members of the disciplinary committee are tasked with using real ability to crack down on students who don’t follow the rules. A Weed’s real ability is inferior, and thus they cannot serve in it.”
Mari answered Hattori’s arrogant declaration with a cold smile. “The disciplinary committee does see real ability as more important, but there are many kinds of ability. If we just need someone to be overpowering, we have me. Whether I’m against ten people or twenty, I can deal with them all myself. The only ones who can fight on an even level with me are President Saegusa and Chairman Juumonji, after all. By your logic, we wouldn’t need talented people lacking in real combat abilities. Or do you want to fight me, Vice President Hattori?”
Mari’s words had confidence and results backing them up. But though Hattori winced and lost the mental battle against her, he didn’t seem to have any intention of raising the white flag. “I’m not making myself the problem. It’s a matter of his aptitude.”
Of course, Hattori firmly believed what he was saying was correct. Less powerful Course 2 students couldn’t be part of the disciplinary committee, since it demanded the use of force. That fact was proven by the reality that no Course 2 student had ever been chosen for the disciplinary committee.
But Mari’s own confidence was stronger than his. “Didn’t I just say there’s more than one kind of ability? Tatsuya has the eyes and mind to read into activation programs as they’re expanding and predict the magic they’re executing.”