Independent Mission

The first notification for the independent task force was sent to Ryuen Kakeru's terminal at exactly 6:00 PM on June 1st. There were no envelopes, no summons, and none of the tense, confrontational atmosphere found in the Disciplinary Committee hearing room. There was only a system message, concise to the point of coldness, titled "June Special Exam: Independent Task Phase: Individual Obligation Fulfillment Notice." The sender was listed as "Advanced Nurturing High School Academic Affairs System," and the CC line included another name—Sakagami, a retired faculty member and current special exam consultant.

Ryuen sat at his dormitory desk, staring at the lines on the screen for a full three minutes. The task description was not long, but every word felt as if its weight had been precisely calculated. He was required to complete three unfulfilled obligations left over from the framework of the Old System: first, to complete the missing original records of three inter-class disputes from the previous semester, including the replaced fifth page of the transcript from the Tanaka theft case, the unfiled footage of the equipment room entrance during the shoving incident between Sudo and Ishizaki, and the psychological assessment recommendation attached to Sato Kenichi's sick leave application. Second, to attend the inter-class collaboration meetings of the first phase of this special exam as an independent observer and submit at least two observation reports; these reports would be filed with the Disciplinary Committee but would not affect the scores of those being observed. Third, to complete a literature review on the "Shared Pool Allocation" clause from the Old System's experimental archives before the end of the first phase and submit it to Mr. Sakagami for review.

At the bottom of the task description was a line in red: "The above obligations must be completed in full by June 14th. Failure to complete them by the deadline will result in the 'Unfulfilled Obligation' mark remaining permanently on your personal conduct record, which will be calculated as a negative weight in all future special exams."

Permanently. Negative weight. The strokes of these words pressed against Ryuen's eyes like lead weights. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the fluorescent light on the ceiling; its faint humming was identical to the sound in the Old School Building Archive Room. He remembered the last time Mr. Sakagami had come to observe the Disciplinary Committee before his retirement, stopping at the door to look at him. At the time, Ryuen had been standing at the hearing podium stating the investigation conclusions for a dispute, speaking rapidly, his logic airtight, leaving the investigated student speechless. After the meeting, Sakagami had stopped him in the hallway—no criticism, no lecture, just pulling a yellowed Old System summary from his briefcase, flipping to a page, and pointing to a line for him to read: "Under the collaborative model, class points are no longer calculated independently by class, but are instead subject to Shared Pool Allocation. This clause was abolished due to 'irreconcilable internal division'." He hadn't understood Sakagami's intent then, thinking only that the old man was using ancient history to knock him down a peg. Now, sitting in his dorm staring at the words "Shared Pool Allocation" on his task list, he suddenly realized Sakagami hadn't been knocking him down, but leaving him a key he would eventually have to use. Shared Pool Allocation was not a punishment. Sakagami had used a cold, institutional term to recalibrate the definition of "repayment"—what he had to hand in wasn't a fine, a reflection paper, or a submissive apology, but to stand within the same scoring rules as the people he had pushed aside last semester, allowing his score and theirs to be distributed from the same shared pool.

He opened the first original record that needed completion: the replaced fifth page of the transcript from the Tanaka theft case. When Horikita Suzune had projected the two copies side-by-side on the white wall during the Disciplinary Committee hearing, he had only glanced at them before turning his pen away. Now, sitting alone in his dorm, there was no projection screen, no eyes staring at him from the gallery, only the cold white light of the monitor and the sound of his own breathing. He read line by line. He read the line Tanaka had repeatedly scribbled over under Ryuen's questioning—"I took it, but I didn't mean to"—the handwriting shifting from neat to sloppy, the final strokes nearly piercing the paper. He remembered sitting across from Tanaka, spinning his uncapped fountain pen, saying in a businesslike tone, "You aren't the first student to make this mistake; cooperating with the investigation is best for everyone." Cooperating with the investigation is best for everyone. He had heard this phrase countless times in the White Room; every time the instructor finished saying it, they would lock the door, the footsteps in the hallway would fade away, and the fluorescent light on the ceiling would hum just like this.

He turned off the monitor and pushed his chair back to stand up. Outside the dorm window, the last of the sunset was fading over the playground, and students playing soccer were packing up and heading toward the dorms in twos and threes. One figure looked very much like Ishizaki, but he didn't look back at the window as he used to. In the past, Ishizaki would wave at this window every time he finished practice, regardless of whether Ryuen was there. He sat back down at his desk, reopened the computer, and began to complete the first record. On the replaced transcript page for Tanaka, he typed a footnote in the blank space at the top: "This page is a reconstruction of the altered portion of the original record; the reason for the alteration is noted as improper questioning method by the investigator. Investigator: Ryuen Kakeru. Date: Today." Then he reread every word he had just written from start to finish. It was completely dark by the time he typed the final line. He leaned back in his chair, set his pen down, and suddenly thought of a question he had never considered before: if Ishizaki had looked back before climbing the wall at the Old Archive Room that day, would he have gone with Ishizaki to retrieve that material?

There was a light knock on the dorm door. Ryuen said "come in," and the door was pushed halfway open. Ishizaki Daichi stood in the doorway, holding fried chicken packed from the cafeteria and a bowl of cold noodles. He placed the items on the table without a word, merely tilting his chin toward the record on the screen. "You're filling in Tanaka's material? His mother sent snacks over, and she was asking the Disciplinary Committee about the results last week." Ryuen didn't take the bait, tearing open the cold noodle packaging and pulling a pair of chopsticks from the holder. "Do you still have the footage from the equipment room that day?" Ishizaki leaned against the doorframe, thinking for a few seconds. "Yeah. The full version is in the training log; I'll send it to you." He tapped his phone a few times, then looked down at his shoetips. "Sudo said something in the gym this afternoon—he said the person in your independent task group isn't me." Ryuen picked up a mouthful of cold noodles without looking at him. "Enough talk. Send that footage over within ten minutes."

Ishizaki sent it. He paused at the door as he left, not looking back, and spoke in a volume only heard in the corner of the sports equipment room: "Next time there's something that needs to be checked by climbing a wall, call me." Then he closed the door. The footsteps in the hallway gradually faded toward the stairs.

Ryuen set the cold noodles down and clicked on the footage Ishizaki had sent. The scene at the equipment room entrance lit up on the monitor—Sudo reached out first, Ishizaki pushed back, and the two tangled together, knocking over the ball basket on the metal cabinet. A basketball rolled to the door, tapped lightly against the frame, and stopped in the shadows. In the bottom right corner of the screen, the reflection of Manabe Shiho holding her phone flashed across the glass window. He placed this clip into the attachment folder for the completed material, signing it: "Filmed by: Ishizaki Daichi. Filed by: Ryuen Kakeru." He then opened the second piece of material from Mr. Sakagami—the literature review requirement for Shared Pool Allocation. The first line of the citation under the title returned to the same clause about the abolition of the Old System he had seen before the hearing. The familiar, icy formula resurfaced: points shared, losses shared, bound to the same scoring rules as the names he had once pushed aside.

He didn't start writing immediately, only dimmed the desk lamp. Outside the window, a streetlamp cast a thin, long strip of light onto the wall through a gap in the curtains, and the indicator light on his USB drive flickered on and off with the storage process. The ventilation window of the Old School Building was dark, but the searchlight on the rooftop swept slowly across the gray high wall, just as it always did.