“Okay, everyone sit down. I’m Mitsuko Torii, I’ll be your homeroom teacher for this year, too. Nice to meet you all. Although, for the most part this is the same class from the middle school, isn’t it? I’ll run through attendance. Absences are... Oh, looks like Soga is absent again, as usual. I wonder if she’s off sleeping somewhere. Can someone give her a call?” Speaking in a half-hearted tone, Miss Mitsuko closed the roll book and looked towards Junko.
“With attendance over, normally I’d have you decide on a class representative. But since we mostly have the same students as before, it’s fine if we just ask Junko Hattori again, right?” Just as Miss Mitsuko was confirming with Junko, who was nodding her head in agreement, suddenly a voice interrupted them.
“Miss Mitsuko! Electing the class representative without a vote would invite autocracy into our academy, and would hinder progress!”
Akuto felt a bad sense of foreboding at the sound of the voice, as it sounded like it was copying Akuto’s own speech. When he looked towards the one who had spoken, his apprehensions proved to be correct. The boy who had called for the speaker the night before was sitting diagonally in front of Akuto. He was giving him a thumbs up with the same wild and unruly look as before.
“I nominate Akuto Sai to be our class representative! Everyone heard his speech, and I believe that he can prove to us that he won’t become the Demon King by becoming the class representative and helping everyone!” The class was immediately in an uproar.
“Okay, quiet everyone!” Miss Mitsuko clapped her hands.
Akuto unconsciously looked towards Junko. She averted her eyes, but for just a second, Akuto was able to get a peek at her expression. Rather than anger, her face looked like she had been unfathomably humiliated and was desperately trying to endure the shame.
—Suhara’s followers take pride in their official posts, and value loyalty above all else, after all...
Akuto panicked. He had already betrayed Junko on several levels. Even though she had been the first friend he’d ever made.
“Miss Mitsuko, is my own will not taken into consideration? I refuse the nomination,” Akuto said, raising his hand. “Instead... I would like to join the cleaning committee. If you have that here.”
Miss Mitsuko’s face had been carefree, but when Akuto said this, it suddenly stiffened.
The mood in the class completely changed as well. Up until then it had been a slightly unsettling atmosphere, but with Akuto’s remark it was as if the temperature had suddenly dropped below zero.
“Wait... Akuto...” Finally, Miss Mitsuko opened her mouth. “Do you know what you are saying?”
“What?” Akuto didn’t understand what was happening. He couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what had made the air in the classroom become so tense.
Then, as if just speaking the words itself was revolting, Miss Mitsuko informed Akuto,
“When a war with another country or demons occurs, and the secrets of the Academy need to be protected, the cleaning committee is entrusted with ‘cleaning up’ the secrets of the school... in other words, they destroy the school and murder all the students. This committee existed only during the war, and now it is a loathsome group that exists in name only. I can’t believe you’d say such an awful group’s name...”
—What the hell?!
Understandably, Akuto balked at his own bad luck. Although he didn’t know anything about the group the teacher mentioned, he had still ended up using the exact terminology to refer to it.
“No, no! I just wanted to become a committee member, nothing more...”
As he let these words out without thinking, the classroom froze over once again.
“No, I don’t mean like that—” Akuto tried to clarify, but it was already too late and his words didn’t reach anyone.
This was because at that moment, Junko let out a shout — closer to a shriek — and stood up from her desk.
“Akuto Sai! How dare you toy with my heart?!” She glared at him, hair disheveled and with a bloodcurdling expression.
Akuto thought it was natural for her to be angry, but...
—That’s a really awkward way to say it.
Still, Akuto managed to stay strangely calm. Even as the rest of the classroom looked back and forth between Akuto and Junko. As he’d feared, they seemed to be misunderstanding the situation.
“I thought I said that if one of us breaks our vow, that betrayal would be paid back in blood!” Junko pulled a wooden sword out from the side of her desk.
—If you start talking about vows and stuff, then the rest of the class is definitely going to misunderstand what kind of relationship we have... If she would just cool off a minute and think about it, she’d realize this isn’t good for her either...
“Right, the vow... but it’s not as if it was a vow of marriage or anything like that, right? Although it was between a boy and girl, wasn’t what we did in the empty bus together nothing more than two friends having fun?” Akuto said.
Everyone in the class suddenly had looks of comprehension on their faces.
—Crap.
At that moment Akuto finally realized his mistake, but it was already too late.
Junko was so beside herself in rage that Akuto could imagine a bright red aura emanating from her body, and she pointed the end of her wooden sword at Akuto. The sword was a magic item — an artifact — the light radiating off of it was not Akuto’s imagination this time, but a torrent of mana.
“H-H-H-How humiliating! I challenge you to a duel! Right here, right now!”
Junko pulled out another wooden sword from a bag hanging on the side of the desk, which seemed to be filled with them. She pointed the hilt at Akuto and threw it to him. He instinctively caught the sword, but without knowing what he should do, all he managed was a look towards Miss Mitsuko.
“She’s a Suhara follower, right? They are allowed to challenge others to duels. It’s in the school regulations,” Miss Mitsuko said coldly. It appeared that Miss Mitsuko also thought of Akuto as an enemy of women everywhere.