Independent Task

The first notice for the Independent Task Group arrived on Ryuen Kakeru's terminal at exactly six o'clock on the evening of June 1. There was no envelope, no summons, no charged atmosphere like the one in the Disciplinary Committee hearing room. Just a concise, almost cold system message titled "June Special Exam · Independent Task Phase · Notice of Personal Obligations." The sender was listed as "Advanced Nurturing High School Academic Affairs System," and the CC field contained another name—Sakagami, a retired teacher and current Special Exam advisor.

Ryuen sat at his dorm desk, staring at the few lines on the screen for three full minutes. The task instructions weren't long, but every word seemed precisely weighed. He had to fulfill three outstanding obligations left under the Old System: first, complete missing sections in the original records of three interclass disputes from last term, including the replaced fifth page of the interview transcript in Tanaka's theft case, unfiled footage from the Equipment Room entrance during the altercation between Sudo and Ishizaki, and the psychological assessment recommendation attached to Sato Kenichi's sick-leave application. Second, attend cross-class collaboration meetings during the first phase of this Special Exam as an independent observer and submit at least two observation reports. The reports would be added to the Disciplinary Committee's archives but would not affect the observed students' scores. Third, before the first phase ended, complete a literature review of the "Shared Pool Allocation" clause in the Old System's experimental records and submit it to Sakagami for review.

At the very bottom of the instructions, a line of red text read: "All of the above obligations must be completed by June 14. Any individual who fails to complete them by the deadline will have the 'Unfulfilled Obligations' marker permanently retained in their personal conduct record, and it will be factored in as a negative weighting in all future Special Exams."

Permanently retained. Negative weighting. The strokes of those words weighed on Ryuen's eyes like lead. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the fluorescent light on the ceiling. Its faint hum sounded exactly like the one in the Old School Building Archive Room. He remembered the last time Sakagami had attended a Disciplinary Committee hearing before retiring. The old teacher had paused at the door and glanced at him. Ryuen had been standing at the witness stand, presenting the findings of an investigation into a dispute. He'd spoken quickly, his logic airtight, leaving the student under investigation speechless. After the hearing, Sakagami had stopped him in the hallway. He hadn't criticized or lectured him. He'd simply pulled an old, yellowed Old System meeting record from his briefcase, turned to a page, and pointed to a line for him to read: "Under the cooperative model, Class Points will no longer be calculated independently for each class, but allocated through a shared pool within each group. This clause was abolished due to 'irreconcilable internal divisions.'" At the time, Ryuen hadn't understood what Sakagami was getting at. He'd thought the old man was using some long-forgotten grievance to scold him. Now, sitting in his dorm and staring at "Shared Pool Allocation" on his task list, he realized that Sakagami hadn't been scolding him at all. He'd left him a key he would inevitably have to use someday. Shared Pool Allocation wasn't a punishment. With that cold institutional term, Sakagami had redefined what it meant to make amends: Ryuen wasn't being asked to pay a fine, write a confession, or bow his head and apologize. He had to stand under the same scoring rules as the people he'd pushed aside last term, with the same shared pool allocating points to both him and them.

He opened the first original record he had to complete: the replaced fifth page of the interview transcript in Tanaka's theft case. When Horikita Suzune had projected two copies side by side onto the white wall at the Disciplinary Committee hearing, he'd only glanced at them before turning his pen away. Now he was alone in his dorm. There was no projection screen, no audience staring at him from the gallery—just the cold white glow of the monitor and the sound of his own breathing. He read line by line. When he reached the line Tanaka had repeatedly crossed out under Ryuen's questioning—"I took it, but I didn't mean to"—the handwriting had gone from neat to messy, the final strokes nearly tearing through the page. He remembered sitting across from Tanaka, spinning a pen with its cap off, and saying in a matter-of-fact tone, "You're not the first student to make this kind of mistake. Cooperating with the investigation is best for everyone." Cooperating with the investigation is best for everyone. He'd heard that line countless times in the White Room. Every time a trainer said it, they would lock the door, their footsteps would fade down the hall, and the fluorescent lights on the ceiling would hum just like this.

He turned off the monitor and pushed back his chair. Outside his dorm window, the last traces of sunset over the sports field were fading. Students who'd been playing soccer gathered their things and headed back toward the dorms in small groups. One of them looked a lot like Ishizaki, but he didn't turn to look at Ryuen's window like he used to. Ishizaki had always waved at this window after practice, whether Ryuen was there or not. Ryuen sat back down at his desk, reopened his computer, and started completing the first record. In the blank space in the header of Tanaka's replaced transcript, he typed a footnote: "This page reconstructs the portions altered in the original record. The reason for the alterations is noted as improper questioning by the investigator. Investigator: Ryuen Kakeru. Date: Today." Then he reread every word he'd just written from beginning to end. By the time he finished typing the last line, it was completely dark. Leaning back in his chair, he set down his pen and found himself wondering something he'd never wondered before: If Ishizaki had looked back before climbing over the wall in the Old School Building Archive Room that day, would I have gone with him to retrieve those documents?

There was a soft knock at the dorm door. Ryuen called for the visitor to come in, and the door opened halfway. Ishizaki Daichi stood in the doorway, holding takeout fried chicken and a bowl of cold noodles from the cafeteria. He set them on the desk without a word, then nodded toward the record on the screen. "You're filling in Tanaka's file? His mom sent some snacks over. She asked about the Disciplinary Committee's decision last week, too." Ryuen didn't respond. He opened the cold noodle package and took a pair of chopsticks from the holder. "Do you still have the footage from the Equipment Room that day?" Ishizaki leaned against the doorframe and thought for a few seconds. "Yeah. The full version's in my training log. I'll send it to you." He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen twice, then lowered his head to look at the tips of his shoes. "Sudo said something at the gym this afternoon. He said I wasn't the one assigned to your Independent Task group." Ryuen lifted a bite of noodles without looking at him. "Cut the crap. Send me that footage within ten minutes."

Ishizaki sent it. He paused at the doorway as he left, not turning around. In a voice as quiet as the one they'd used in the corner of the Equipment Room, he said, "Next time you need to climb a wall to look into something, bring me along." Then he closed the door. His footsteps gradually faded toward the stairs.

Ryuen set down his noodles and opened the footage Ishizaki had sent. The scene outside the Equipment Room appeared on the monitor. Sudo reached out first; Ishizaki shoved him back. They grappled and knocked over the basket of balls on top of a metal locker. A basketball rolled to the entrance, bounced lightly off the doorframe, then came to rest in the shadows. In the lower-right corner, Manabe Shiho's reflection flashed across the window as she held up her phone. Ryuen added the footage to the attachments for the completed file and credited it: "Filmed by: Ishizaki Daichi. Filed by: Ryuen Kakeru." Then he opened the second document Sakagami had sent—the requirements for the literature review on Shared Pool Allocation. The first quotation beneath the title brought him back to the Old System clause he'd read before the hearing. The familiar, cold formula surfaced again: points shared, losses shared, all of it under the same scoring rules as the people he'd once pushed aside.

He didn't start writing right away. He only dimmed the desk lamp by one notch. A narrow strip of light from the streetlamp outside slipped through a gap in the curtains and fell across the wall. The indicator on his USB drive flickered on and off as the files saved. The ventilation windows of the Old School Building were dark, but the rooftop searchlight continued its usual slow sweep across the gray walls.