In April, on the opening day of the second academic year, Kanzaki Toru entered the Academic Building at 7:40 in the morning. The bulletin board in the hallway had yet to display the new class assignment list, but the announcement detailing the permanent framework of the Old System clauses had already been framed under glass and hung prominently at the entrance. He glanced at the clause index numbers at the bottom of the announcement—every one of them had been signed by his own hand. Beside the activation number for the Shared Pool Allocation principle was a line of tiny print: "Activated by: All members of Group 12." He did not linger before the bulletin board. Just as he had that April a year ago, he swung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the classroom.
Quite a few new students had already gathered before the bulletin board, fresh Class D badges pinned to their uniform collars. Someone pointed at the notice behind the glass and quietly read out the words "Asymmetric Observer System," while a bespectacled boy beside them photographed each clause with his phone, muttering, "The orientation materials didn't explain this in such detail." Kanzaki Toru slowed as he passed them—on those freshmen's faces, he saw who he had been last year.
The classroom of what had once been Class 1-D had not changed. It was still at the end of the third floor, though the plaque on the door now read "Class 2-D." Kanzaki Toru pushed open the door, and several people had already arrived. Sudo Ken sat by the window in the back row, his uniform jacket draped over his chair and a bottle of sports drink in hand. He had grown a little taller, and his shoulders were broader than last semester, but his sitting