“Thus, using an IS unit requires the approval of the country, and any violation thereof is a criminal offense,” Ms. Yamada recited from the textbook.
She’d lost me a while before that.
“.........”
There were five books on her table. She was leafing through the top one, rattling down vocab I didn’t know.
—I-Is it just me? Anybody else? You guys understand this jargon? Active something, wide area-whatever... What’s all that mean? Are we supposed to remember that?
I looked at the girl next to me... She was nodding as she took notes. I guess they’d had prep lessons before coming to the IS Academy.
IS pilots were the main line of national defense, so our school was rearing the best of the best. Only the very finest students passed the entrance exams. I didn’t wanna be the elite... There was no way... I didn’t wanna study. I hung my head, feeling inferior, and looked at the girls taking notes around me.
“C-Can I help you?”
Like I figured, she was nervous and surprised. She was also expecting more to come from me, and smiled.
“Oh, never mind. It’s nothing. Sorry.”
“O-Okay...”
She seemed to be disappointed and relieved at the same time, and returned to taking notes. I wondered if I’d done something to make her dislike me.
“Orimura, is there anything you don’t understand?”
Ms. Yamada had, apparently, noticed me talking to the girl next to me.
“Um...”
I looked back down at my textbook. Yep, understood nothing.
“Please ask if there’s anything you don’t understand. I’m your teacher, after all!” Ms. Yamada proudly proclaimed, posturing upright.
—Well, looks like I can depend on my teacher, so I may as well ask.
“Hey, Teach!”
“Yes, Orimura!” she replied excitedly.
“I don’t understand a single thing.”
I decided to be upfront with it. Usually people were pretty accepting of it.
“Um... E-Everything?”
Ms. Yamada looked confused and startled. The respectable teacher act had disappeared.
“U-Um... Is anybody else having problems understanding it besides Orimura?”
Silence.
Well, that was weird. Nobody raised their hand. The fools. If you don’t have the basics down, you’ll have even more problems later. They really had no idea how school worked, did they?
“Orimura, did you read the textbooks I gave you before you entered here?” asked my sister Chifuyu, from the corner of the classroom.
—Okay, let’s be honest here...
“I thought they were old phone directories, so I chucked them.”
Bam!
“I wrote you saying they were required reading!”
Another 5,000 brain cells down the drain. The brain cell undertaker was really busy.
“I’ll send you new ones. Learn what’s in there in a week’s time. Got it?”
“E-Erm, those were thick as hell. I can’t learn all that in a week...”
“You will.”
“Okay... I will.”
She was worse than the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. A human being in the shape of a demon, being human made her all the more cruel. She knew the best ways to make others suffer.
“The IS eclipses traditional weapons with maneuverability and power. Using that kind of power without understanding it invites disaster; it’s imperative you understand what you’re doing. Remember what the books say, even if you don’t get it, and act accordingly. That’s what rules are all about.”
Yeah, sure. Just so we’re clear, I wasn’t in that situation because I wanted to be. One day, men in black suits showed up and left me with an application form for the IS Academy, whatever the hell that was about. They talked about protecting me or something, but does that really mean throwing me into a school full of girls? I wanted them to protect me from that instead— especially from my sister, Chifuyu.
“Right now you’re thinking that you never wanted to be here, right?”
—Well, yeah...
“Whether we want to or not, human beings can only survive in a group. If you want to renounce that, try renouncing your humanity first.”
She was always such a bitter person. I guess she was telling me to face reality. Chifuyu had always been a realist and an extremist. I knew why, though.
“.........”
—Hmm. Fine, then.
I figured I’d at least have to make sure my sister Chifuyu wouldn’t be embarrassed at her workplace. I had to do it for her, seeing as how our parents were no longer around.
“U-Um... Orimura. I’ll teach you the things you don’t understand after school, okay? All right?”
Ms. Yamada came up to me defensively. She was smaller than me, so she had to look up.
“Okay. I’ll come visit you after school.”
I took my seat again. Chifuyu also returned to the corner of the classroom.
“I-I’ll be alone with a student after school... Oh, no! Th-This is bad, Orimura. I go along with everything when I’m pressured... And I’ve never been with a man before...”
She was beginning to turn red, and rambled on. Was Ms. Yamada really going to be okay? IS pilots couldn’t handle men at all, could they? The gazes of the other girls were painful. If their looks could physically harm me, I would have turned into Swiss cheese.
“B-But you’re also Ms. Orimura’s brother...”
“Um... Ms. Yamada, please continue the lesson.”
“O-Okay!”
Eventually, my sister called Ms. Yamada back from her reverie. Ms. Yamada rushed back to the front, stumbled, and fell.
“Uhh... Ouchies.”
—What an insecure klutz we have as a teacher.
I felt like our classes were going to be a bit of a problem.
“Do you have a moment?”
“Huh?”
I thought the class atmosphere was going to be awkward again during the break after second period, but instead a girl had come up to talk to me. I reacted nervously. She was beautiful, with natural blonde hair. She looked at me with clear blue eyes, the kind that only white people had. Her hair was curly, and she gave off the impression of someone of high birth who had already found her place in society.
Due to the IS, women received much better treatment than men in the world; to say it was favorable would be an understatement. Women just had all the power, and men were brought to be slaves, and for manual labor. It wasn’t rare to see men in town being made to do things by random women they ran into. The girl in front of me was just like that. She had her hands on her hips, demonstrating to me who she thought was in charge. The IS Academy had to allow foreign nationals to enter unconditionally, so seeing foreign girls wasn’t rare. Perhaps only half my class was actually Japanese, if even that many.
“Are you listening? What is your answer?”
“Oh, uh... I’m listening. What do you want?” I answered.
“Goodness! What sort of response is that? Don’t you believe you should address me in a way that reflects the honor I bestow upon talking to you?” she replied, having raised her voice.
“.........”
Man, I hated their type. They could use the IS, and were a country’s military strength. IS pilots had all the power, and IS pilots were always girls. That didn’t give them the right to lord it over us, did it? It was basically violence against men.
“Sorry, but that name’s not ringing any bells.”
I had no clue. She had probably introduced herself at some point, but I didn’t remember it. I’d been too shocked that Chifuyu was my homeroom teacher. The girl in front of me was shocked by this. Well, maybe she should’ve just told me her stupid name. She narrowed her eyes and continued to belittle me.
“You don’t know me? Me, Cecilia Alcott? I’m the British National Cadet, and the one who took first place in the entrance exams!”
Oh, so her name was Cecilia. Interesting.
“Hey, can I ask a question?”
“Hmph. Enlightening the rabble is part of the duties of nobility. Go on, then.”
“What’s a National Cadet?”
Dadum. Some of the girls in the classroom who had been listening were agitated now.
“A... A... A...”
“Ah?”
“Are you really asking that?!”
She glared at me menacingly. In a manga, the artist would have drawn her rage veins.
“Yeah. I have no idea what that is.”
My curiosity was genuinely piqued. Vanity wasn’t good for anyone.
“.........”
Cecilia’s rage calmed down. She put a finger on her temple and began to mumble.
“Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable. The island nations of the far east are truly a land of savages. This is common knowledge, you plebeian. Have you no television?”
Excuse me. We had television. Not that I watched it.
“Let’s say I don’t. So, what’s a National Cadet then?” I asked.
“An elite student picked as their country’s IS pilot. You should be able to understand as much from the word itself.”
“I guess so.”
I suppose it was easy to make fun of me for making a silly mistake.
“Yes! The elite!”