Team Registration (2)
"State the purpose of your visit."
Her voice made no effort to hide her displeasure as she asked our business, and I answered without letting it touch me.
"We've come to apply for team registration. Her and me."
I cast a single glance at Lianna, and Sophia looked her over with doubt written plainly across her eyes.
"You... with that girl, is it?"
"Yes. Is there a problem?"
"Not formally, no. As long as the parties themselves agree..."
Leaving it there, she turned her gaze on Lianna.
"Cadet Lianna. Do you truly wish to form a team with that man?"
"Uh... yes!"
"There, you have it. Our side's answer is... yes?"
She looked as though she suspected something had gone wrong with her own ears; my expression, by contrast, had the corners of my mouth curling faintly upward.
"Did I mishear you? Cadet Lianna?"
"Pardon? Uh... I mean, I did tell you we're forming a team..?"
"..Truly? With that man?"
The finger she pointed at me trembled a little, as though her understanding had simply refused to cooperate. I ignored it and stepped forward.
"You heard her — wouldn't you kindly process the application? I've found myself rather busy as of late."
"..And what have you done this time?"
What had I done? Could I recall doing anything to Lianna at all? I didn't think I'd so much as gone near her recently.
"I'm afraid I haven't the faintest idea?"
"..The man I knew would have flown into a rage right about here, demanding why I was casting suspicion on him. This reaction is... unexpected."
"I'm hardly the type to fly off the handle."
She stared at me again as if I were some raving lunatic; I ignored the look and pressed on with the registration.
"So. How does one go about applying for a team?"
"..Here is the form. Write your name and Lianna's here, and it will be accepted automatically."
"Thank you."
Sophia looked ready to make one more attempt at persuading Lianna, but I pulled the girl along and had the form filled out in short order, leaving the president no choice but to take it with a sigh.
"..Well then. Do your best."
"..."
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"It's only that... I never expected the president herself to be cheering me on..."
It was the truth. She, too, seemed to believe the rumors that had spread through the Academy, so I had simply taken it for granted that she despised me.
"I wasn't exactly cheering for you."
"Cadet Lianna is on your team. I was cheering for her."
"And there's another rumor making the rounds these days... I thought I might try believing it."
Another rumor? What could it possibly say, that she of all people would believe it? This was a woman who trusted no rumor without solid proof, who judged by nothing but what her own eyes had seen.
"And what rumor would that be?"
"..You truly had no idea?"
"Was I required to know?"
"It's a rumor about you. I'd have thought it something you ought to know."
A rumor about me, hm. Weren't rumors about me always vicious slander anyway? I hardly cared enough to go digging for them.
"I make no hobby of listening to slander about myself."
"..What on earth are you saying?"
"Aren't most of them that I've gone mad, or that I'm a good-for-nothing? I'd rather not have my delicate heart wounded by such things."
"Honestly, the nonsense you come out with. No — it's a different rumor."
"A different rumor, you say?"
"Yes. You truly didn't know?"
Had anything happened that could spawn a different rumor about me? Turn it over as I might, I couldn't recall committing any act that would spread worse slander or tales of bizarre conduct.
I glanced at Lianna, but she only dodged my eyes; no answer came back to me. When nothing surfaced no matter how long I chewed on it, I asked her outright what rumor was spreading.
"I honestly never expected you to be in the dark. Do you have no interest in yourself?"
"So? What is this rumor you keep dancing around?"
"That you've changed. That's all it is."
Changed? Me?
"And whatever is that supposed to mean..?"
"Do you not remember? You used to be pathetically weak."
"..."
"And then that same person suddenly tramples Leon — a cadet of middling rank, no less — and has been keeping quietly to himself ever since. Isn't that worth a little attention?"
"So the gist of it is that people took an interest because I got stronger?"
"And since your deranged antics seem to have tapered off lately as well, quite a few people are wondering whether you might actually have reformed."
So that was it. The rumor had begun with the people who had watched me go for that son of a bitch's throat and been stunned by the strength I'd shown — and with the fact that I hadn't tormented a soul lately, the opinions of those who wondered if I might have changed had piled one atop another until this rumor took wing.
"And honestly, the you of now has changed in some way. That's why I have no intention of provoking you."
"..And what, exactly, has changed?"
I was curious. She was not the sort to hand over her trust merely because my behavior had changed. So I wanted to know — what it was about me that had conveyed trust to her.
"You see... watching the old you was unpleasant."
"That's what I felt, watching you play the rascal to the hilt everywhere you went."
"How should I put it? Like watching someone perform behind a mask that fit him nowhere."
"A play like that sours even the audience in the seats."
"But now... something is different."
"If what I felt back then was closer to disgust... what I feel now is pity."
"Pity for whatever it was that made you this way."
"I don't know what you spent those fifty days doing in your dormitory."
"But so long as it isn't headed somewhere wrong, I have no particular intention of reining you in."
"Keeping that from happening is part of my role, after all."
"And if you truly wish to move in the right direction, then I'm confident I can give you my full support."
...It was warm.
It wasn't as though I had never been comforted before. If anything, the moment I seemed even slightly out of sorts, there had always been plenty of people ready to come running.
But this was different.
Different from the consolation offered by people whose eyes were fixed somewhere else entirely — on their own appetites, or on the name of my house. Words spoken to me now, when I had nothing at all — no backing, no title, no money. Warm words she could have offered to any cadet. Warmth I could only receive by casting everything away from the highest place and climbing down under my own power.
A small but fierce happiness spread through my chest as though it would swallow me whole, and before I knew it, tears were sliding down my face.
And the two of them, flustered at the sight, moved to soothe me.
"..Jenison, are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?"
"No, hold on — why is a grown man crying?!"
The girl I had tormented and the woman who had despised me were comforting me in turn. The absurdity of it wrung a hollow laugh out of me before I could stop it, and there I sat, head lifted, a fool laughing through his tears.
Apparently the sight struck them as remarkable: Lianna went wide-eyed and speechless, and the president, too, looked faintly startled, her lips slightly parted.
"..Is something the matter? Both of you."
"..You know, until today, that face of yours never once lived up to itself. Damn shame, really."
"..I think so too, Jenison..."
I couldn't tell whether my expression was truly that strange, the way they were spouting nonsense at me.
In any case, Sophia accepted our team application just like that, and we offered her our farewells and stepped out of the room.
Only once we were outside did Lianna's tension seem to dissolve; she exhaled what sounded like a sigh of relief and sank down on the spot for a moment.
...Still, I suppose I ought to at least draw up a plan.
Had I been alone, I wouldn't have cared what happened. But now she was in this with me. My grades were tied directly to hers now, so I intended to take it seriously — after all, taking full possession of the magic tools hinged on earning excellent grades, and out of consideration for Lianna's marks alone, phoning it in would have been plain discourteous.
And so, fixing a date for our next meeting, we each headed back to our own dormitories.
A room where dead, silent air hung. The only sound to be heard was the scratch of a pen.
Light scarcely reached within — a near-perfect sealed chamber. And inside it, a figure was moving its hand.
"Kill... kill... kill..."
Darkness far too black to look at directly swayed and rippled around the figure, and every word it spat was steeped in murderous intent.
It went on scrawling, writing something without pause; even when the pen snapped in its grip now and then from too much force, it simply took up another and never stopped writing.
Then the space beside it warped, and a man stepped out from within.
Shuuuk──
He watched the thing at its work for a moment, then, evidently pleased, addressed it.
"Why, you seem to be coming along quite smoothly?"
"..So it's you, is it?"
"Do you hate him that much?"
"..That bastard..!! He's the one who reduced me to this!!!"
The thing showed not a glimmer of acknowledging its own fault, not a trace of remorse in its bearing — and watching it, the man sneered inwardly while his face remained perfectly composed.
After all, this was nothing more than a diversion to him — an amusement that would be pleasant if it bore fruit and no great loss if it didn't.
"If you hate him that much, then hurry and finish the work you've begun."
"You'll have your chance to kill him, after all."
"..I heard you, so quit grating on my nerves and get lost.."
Shaking the image of that insolent wretch from his mind, the man settled his smile back into place and vanished as though to say as you wish — and once more, only the scratch of the pen remained in the room.
"At this midterm evaluation.. without fail.. you, above all, I will kill.."
"Jenison.."
That thing — if thing were even a word fit for it — went on muttering, over and over, and that was all.