Founding Members (5)
Atsuki had been raised in a family of promise.
No matter how hard he tried, he could never live up to his parents' expectations.
He was ordinary. And the ordinary cannot become geniuses.
Once that truth settled in, Atsuki simply let go.
Already mediocre, and now without even effort to his name, he fell and kept falling. His parents never hesitated to call him what they thought he was: a disgrace to the Watanabe name. How could someone who carried their blood be capable of so little?
Something in Atsuki withered, day by day.
In the end he entered this school on connections rather than ability, and drifted through days that held neither meaning nor worth.
Then, one day, he met Masaru.
Masaru reached into the pit and hauled him out in a single pull. Masaru told him he was useful.
That was the only light he had, and Atsuki followed it all the way here.
And now that light was going out…!
Masaru…!
Atsuki couldn't believe it. This was the first time he had ever seen Masaru so completely broken.
"I refuse!"
A pink-haired girl. This girl, smaller than Atsuki himself, had dropped Masaru in a single exchange.
Masaru, of all people, going down!
It was impossible. Atsuki knew better than anyone what the president of the Black Society was capable of.
"Yuria, hold her tight."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Let go of me!! I—I…!"
Yuria locked down Atsuki's thrashing body. Being pinned by a kid in a middle-school uniform, unable to move an inch—Atsuki was stunned.
Mediocre or not, subdued by a middle schooler!
He, who would one day join Masaru's organization and take Japan!
The humiliation was enough to make him want to die on the spot.
Noah approached slowly, armband and clip in hand. Atsuki thrashed like a man about to be executed. The squirming made the clip nearly impossible to fasten, which irritated Noah enough to put some steel in her eyes.
"Hold still. Unless you want this to get ugly."
"H-hiiik."
What… that's terrifying!
The instant Atsuki's body locked up on instinct, Noah didn't miss the opening. She fastened the armband neatly, gave the arm a couple of pats, and smiled, satisfied.
"Looks pretty good on you, actually."
"D-does it? Hehe."
Atsuki glanced at the armband and gave an awkward little laugh—then reality crashed back in and he shouted.
"I mean—what do you think you're doing?!"
His face went serious as he tried to tear the armband off.
That was when Noah's voice turned ice-cold.
"Take it off if you want. I'll take whatever's sitting on your shoulders along with it."
"……"
Atsuki carefully lowered his hands.
"I'm grateful for the offer." He had recovered his composure. "I don't have the luxury of joining in on a children's game!"
"I wonder if you'd say the same thing pinned under that kid. Could be fun to find out."
Yuria stared at Noah with a look of genuine horror.
"M-Minamoto-senpai… if you weren't a high school girl, that last remark would be a crime in progress."
"And?"
This is bad. I have to get the president out of here. Revenge can wait.
Atsuki grimly mapped out an escape route.
Brute force was clearly off the table. Masaru had gone down in one hit.
Which meant…
Use status!
If I tell them I'm with the Black Society, they'll be scared, right?
A flicker of confidence returned. Atsuki spoke with authority.
"I am Watanabe, a captain of the Black Society. I'll overlook this discourtesy as the thoughtless act of a first-year—but there won't be a next time. Consider yourself warned."
At Saints Academy, the Black Society was an object of longing. And of terror. No one, Atsuki was certain, could keep their composure before that name.
He gave a little shrug.
"No need to be so frightened. I'm more merciful than I look. Cute little first-year."
Noah stared at him, thinking.
Doesn't look strong at all.
Weren't the Black Society kids supposed to be useful? Just punks playing yakuza, they'd said.
Didn't look like it at all. Because Atsuki was incredibly delicate.
Cowering in front of a brat like this? Who even would?
And another thing. Something had been bothering Noah from the start.
She pointed at Atsuki and asked,
"Why are you wearing a boy's uniform?"
Atsuki exploded.
"Because I'm a boy!"
"?"
Yuria was just as startled. So was Chise, who had been poking at what remained of Masaru's vaguely human-shaped form in the background.
Noah's eyes narrowed.
She bored a hole through one particular spot.
Atsuki covered below.
"Where do you think you're looking?!"
Even with eyes that could pick out incoming bullets, the terrain was spectacularly flat. Not a hint of volume. You'd have to touch to be sure, of course. And if Atsuki really was a guy, that was even more pitiful.
Living with that size, you'd be better off as a girl.
Noah snorted and waved it off.
"Lame joke."
Atsuki felt a deep, cutting humiliation.
"I really am a man!"
He was so furious that tears even started to well up. Rage boiled up from somewhere deep inside.
At this rate, my very existence is being denied…!
His face shadowed, Atsuki put a hand on Noah's shoulder.
"You're a junior, aren't you, Minamoto?"
Noah glanced at the hand on her shoulder, then nodded easily.
"Probably?"
"I'm a second-year…!"
"So?"
Atsuki flinched at her gaze for a second but pressed on.
"Shouldn't you be calling me senpai, you insolent underclassman?"
"Sure. Got it."
Noah had no particular attachment to titles. She said it so readily that Atsuki was the one thrown off—
"Get your hand off me. If you don't want to die. Watanabe-senpai."
"Y-yes."
The only thing that had changed was the honorific!
Atsuki's confidence evaporated in an instant. He stared at the floor.
But it was a feint!
Now that it's come to this! There's only one way!
"Presidennnnt—!"
Crash!
Atsuki hoisted Masaru onto his back and leapt out the window!
"Is it all right to just leave them like that?"
Noah waved the papers.
"Yeah. I got the signature."
Yuria let out a breath of relief. There had been more than a few twists and turns, but they had their members. At least they didn't have to worry about the Public Morals Committee vanishing after they'd only just joined.
"All that's left is… finding a teacher, right?"
Noah popped a candy into her mouth.
"Let's go get one now. While we're submitting this anyway."
She opened the door and went out. Chise and Yuria followed. Their destination was the faculty office.
"Have you decided what kind of teacher you want?"
"If you have criteria, please tell me in advance, Minamoto-senpai."
Knowing how picky Noah could be, Yuria eyed her with suspicion.
"First, they have to be a pushover."
"Um… Minamoto-senpai. We are looking for a faculty advisor, right?"
Yuria asked as if she'd just seen a ghost. Noah didn't even register what the problem was.
"And?"
"Th-that 'first' means there's more you want, doesn't it?"
"Yeah. They have to do as they're told."
"…Excuse me?"
"And they have to be nice. Like a sucker."
"Those are all the same thing!"
Which, to be fair, they were—a pushover who did as they were told was, by definition, a sucker.
Yuria sighed. Noah was the chair either way. She couldn't go against the chair's wishes.
"We're short on time, but I'll look into it as thoroughly as I can."
"Why?"
"Why…? Because we have to know who fits those criteria before we make an offer."
"Nah. You can just tell by looking."
Competent people were hard to spot at a glance. Suckers, on the other hand—Noah had an instinct for picking those out.
"Don't worry, Ichinose. Noah's eye for people is actually pretty good."
Chise smiled kindly. Yuria nodded with a dubious look.
Noah walked on without hesitation. Watching her, Yuria said,
"You're surprisingly good at getting things done, Minamoto-senpai."
"Yeah. Noah's the type who piles it all up and knocks it out at once."
At this rate we'll be fine, Yuria thought.
Chise checked her wristwatch and frowned.
"We're cutting it close, though. It's already seven. At this rate they might all have gone home."
"Sh-should we run?"
Chise reassured her.
"It's tight, but we'll make it."
They had just stepped out of the building when Noah's brow furrowed slightly.
Gunpowder.
That tickle in her nose. A smell she had known countless times.
Are they aiming this way?
It was faint, carried on the wind. Someone was definitely on campus—but whether she was the target, or whether they had some other purpose, she couldn't tell.
At the very least, a shot had just been fired, or the shooter had passed through this spot.
Better be careful.
Noah took Chise's hand. To shield her, in case of a sniper.
Those two, I knew it…
Seeing that, Yuria quickly turned her head and pretended she hadn't. To keep things from getting awkward, Noah changed the subject.
"The Public Morals Committee deadline. Chise, you said we had until a month from now."
"W-well." Chise ducked her head, embarrassed. "For some reason the regulations changed. I wouldn't have known if my homeroom teacher hadn't come to tell me."
The faculty office was a fair walk away. Saints Academy was vast, and Building 7, where the Public Morals Committee was housed, sat well apart from the main building where teachers without class schedules waited.
The three of them climbed an outdoor staircase. At the top was a fountain; the building behind it was the main hall.
Noah rolled the candy around in her mouth, checking useful sniper positions.
And then.
From a recessed corner beside the building flanking the stairs, faint voices drifted over.
"To think we spent two years serving a shrimp like that as president. I want to erase the last two years from my life."
"The president's one thing. But the captain? That was a girl? Ha… fuck. All that time taking orders from some bitch."
"We'll have to work this frustration out properly."
"Heh, senpai. Can I have a turn too?"
"Go nuts."
The words themselves didn't come through clearly. But between the buildings, a gesture like a slap across the face flickered into view.
Yuria's expression hardened.
Noah caught her arm as she started to bolt.
"What are you doing?"
She looked at her indifferently, still working the candy.
Yuria tried to shake the hand off.
"Can't you hear that? Someone's in trouble."
"So?"
"We're supposed to help, aren't we? Maintaining campus security is the Public Morals Committee's entire job!"
Noah let go of Yuria's hand with a warning.
"Didn't you hear Chise? We're short on time. You fine with the Public Morals Committee getting shut down?"
That wasn't what she really meant.
A moment ago, faint as it was, she had smelled gunpowder. She hoped the smell was just her imagination, and that what she was thinking now was shadowboxing—
But you always planned for the worst. From that angle, taking Chise to rescue someone she didn't even know was too much risk.
If the enemy is watching from the main building… that's the perfect spot.
The fight was happening between buildings—three of four sides boxed in. If the enemy was on the main building's roof, it was a location with a clean frontal view.
Noah might manage on her own, but dodging a sniper in that spot with Chise in tow was close to impossible.
Yuria put a hand on her hip, full of confidence.
"You're underestimating me. Senpai, you two go on ahead. I can handle this alone."
But what if they're not after Chise or me?
What if the person with the gun had another objective?
No matter how you looked at it, Yuria going over there was extremely dangerous.
Noah looked at Chise. Inwardly, she hoped Chise would come up with a plausible excuse to stop Yuria.
"You okay with this?"
Unfortunately, Chise had no grasp of the situation at all.
"Yeah. We just have to submit the roster. Only the chair needs to go, so should I go with Ichinose? She's an outside student—they might not listen to her."
Noah tightened her grip on Chise's hand, her voice turning frightening.
"It's too dangerous."
"O-okay…"
Yuria pouted at the double standard, then turned her back as if it didn't bother her.
"I'll wrap this up in style, so don't worry, senpai. I may not look it, but I'm Level 17. Ranked first in all of Asano Middle School…"
"Here."
Noah held out a pistol.
"Huh?"
Yuria, who had been puffing herself up, blinked. Noah forced it into her hand.
"If it gets dangerous, shoot."
"If it's a taser… I already have one…"
Yuria's voice trembled. It looked… an awful lot like a real gun.
"If it gets dangerous, shoot. And don't hesitate. That's an order."
Only then did Chise roughly piece the situation together. Her face went tight.
"You're worrying far too much!"
Yuria tucked the pink pistol into her jacket. She strode off, then stopped and looked back.
"This… isn't a real gun, right?"
Chise looked at Noah with an awkward expression. Noah smiled as if to say don't worry.
"Yeah."