In Toto's Place
The meeting proceeded at a breakneck pace.
With only a single day remaining, nothing was more of a headache than stirring up trouble they couldn't manage, so the group agreed to boldly discard any proposals that weren't realistic. Trim what needed trimming, add what needed adding, and before long a fairly plausible plan had taken shape.
"Alright, then."
Meilin smacked the stack of documents down on the desk to square them up and rose from her seat.
"Professor Jane's lab is close to our dorm, so I'll deliver these and come back."
"I'll go with Meilin! Great work, everyone!"
The girls filed out first. Dick let out a strange groaning noise and stretched luxuriously.
"Simon."
"Yeah?"
"Are you seriously going to do that thing?"
"Have to."
"Hehehe! That's so you."
Chuckling as he walked off, Dick slid open a drawer in the Student Council room and pulled something out.
"Take this with you, too."
"What is it?"
"A one-use Memorial Crystal Sphere. It's Student Council inventory."
The Memorial Crystal Sphere was an artifact capable of recording video and audio. Dick tossed one of the spheres to Simon.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
Simon asked, looking bewildered.
"Beats me~ But hey, who knows? It might just come in handy."
Dick said this with a meaningful smirk, pocketed one sphere for himself, and — true to his role as treasurer — marked off two items as expended in the inventory ledger.
"Anyway, I'm gonna kill some time and head over to the Toxicology initiation right around when it wraps up."
"Got it. Be careful."
Parting ways with Dick, Simon set off on foot toward the Summoning Major dormitory.
The meeting had run longer than expected. He figured he wouldn't make it to Pier's ruins until dawn at the earliest.
Whew.
And once again, he was reminded of just how deceptively far — no, farther than he'd ever imagined — the campus core and the Summoning department were from each other.
After a long trek down the dark, secluded forest path, he finally arrived at the Summoning building. Simon stepped over the decorative skeleton guards and entered the dormitory.
The lobby and common room were empty.
"Oh! There you are, comrade!"
At the familiar voice, Simon turned his head.
His club senior, Venya Vanilla, was sprinting toward the shared kitchen with her arms loaded down with cooking ingredients.
"Senior Venya!"
She said she was making dishes and drinking snacks for the initiation rite. Several other third-year girls were gathered around her, so Simon greeted them as well.
"Back from Student Council duty, huh?"
"Yes, ma'am. Where is everyone else?"
"They're right in the middle of the department welcome party."
"Could you tell me where it's being held?"
"Head around the back of the building and keep walking toward the Forbidden Forest. You'll find it."
Simon bowed his head in thanks and hurried off at a fast clip toward the spot Venya had described.
He'd worried the darkness of the forest would get him lost, but raucous laughter carried through the trees and lanterns glowed here and there, so it wasn't hard to find.
"BLEGH! Uuuuughhh—!"
Students were scattered all around, clutching trees or collapsed on the ground, vomiting.
Red badges were pinned to their collars — second-years, then.
Did they drink too much? Or else……
A dark premonition settled over him.
Simon ran faster, toward where the shouting was coming from.
!
And at last, at his destination, he witnessed a gruesome scene.
Second-years lay prostrate on the ground, faces drained deathly pale, retching — and at the center of it all stood third-year Will, ranked twelfth in the entire year.
"Ahh~ this is pathetic. You crybabies can't handle one sip?"
And kneeling before Will was a figure Simon knew all too well.
Toto!
The color drained from Simon's face.
Before the kneeling Toto sat an enormous bowl made from a giant skull, filled to the brim with filthy, murky sludge. Unidentifiable chunks of something floated on the surface.
"Drink it, you little punk. Are you deaf?"
Will grabbed him by the collar and shook him.
"You don't set one foot back in the dorm until you've finished every last drop of this."
"I-I-I-I can't drink ith……"
Toto begged, eyes brimming with tears. But the answer that came back was ice cold.
"If you want to blame someone, blame your own classmates."
Will snickered and jerked a thumb to the side. The second-years standing there with frozen expressions hastily averted their eyes from Toto's gaze.
"It was a loyalty game, wasn't it? Huh? We all thought you'd drink your fair share out of respect for our final runner, Toto — but you're dropping out after one sip? Some of you punks just lick the rim, put on that smug face, and pass the turn along. What the hell is this, Kizen? Your whole damn generation is rotten to the core. Well, today I'm fixing that attitude of yours for good."
Will clamped his huge palm around the back of kneeling Toto's head.
"Come on, drink up. I'll even let the chunks slide this time."
His arm trembled as he forced Toto's face closer and closer to the skull bowl's contents. Toto's face was a wreck of tears.
"I-I-I-I can't dwink it! *Hic*! Please, hewp me!"
"It won't kill you to drink it, dammit! Hey! HEY! Would you put some strength in that grip?"
When Toto clung to the skull bowl and held out to the bitter end, Will's eyes turned razor sharp.
"Maybe you'll drink it once your face is shoved IN the bowl?"
Jet-Black rippled along Will's arm.
In the very instant he moved to dunk Toto's face into the skull bowl—
CHUNK!
A hand seized his arm.
"What do you think you're doing?"
The second-years, who had been averting their gazes because they couldn't bear to watch, went wide-eyed. Toto, too, turned his tear-flooded head.
"Simon!!"
Will smirked.
"……So you showed up."
Will released Toto. Simon glared at him with eyes like winter, but Will spoke with breezy nonchalance.
"Heheheh! What can I say? It's all part of Kizen's time-honored tradition. Forging bonds and camaraderie between seniors and juniors——"
"Camaraderie? All I see is hazing."
"A second-year punk cutting off a senior mid-sentence. What a mess. A real mess."
Will spat on the ground.
"You think we enjoy doing this? Wait — no, before that, you think we haven't done it ourselves? Every last third-year drank it down, and at the end we licked the skull bowl clean with our tongues! If you're going to blame someone, blame the draw of the lot that picked you, and blame the teammates with no loyalty who bailed on the game! Now, back to it."
Will grabbed Toto's face again.
"Hold on."
When Simon blocked him a second time, Will's face twisted in irritation.
"Ugh, the Student Council keeps butting into department business! What do you want me to do about it? Isn't this overstepping? You haven't even held your inauguration as president yet, have you?"
"You called it a loyalty game."
Simon took off his uniform jacket.
Shrrk.
His black jacket settled onto the grass. He shook loose his tie and dropped it, then peeled off his white shirt as well, revealing Simon's rock-solid upper body. It was as if his muscles were packed together in dense, compressed layers beneath his clothes.
"……Whoa."
The boys let out gasps of pure admiration while the girls flushed scarlet and covered their eyes — though of course, they were peeking through the gaps between their fingers.
"What's this?"
The sudden display of muscle made even Will flinch before he could stop himself, but he masked it and shot back a reply.
"What do you want, you punk! You challenging me to a fight right now?"
"In Toto's place — I'll drink it."
At that single sentence.
Silence fell over the surroundings, as if time itself had stopped.
"Is that not allowed?"
"Simon!!"
Toto shrieked in horror. Will, on the other hand, had his grin stretched all the way to his ears.
"Nothing says I can't. But you sure about this?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Simon lifted the huge, flat skull bowl in one go and brought it straight to his lips. Gulp, gulp — his throat bobbed as the contents rapidly began to drain away.
"Th-this insane little……!"
Will stumbled backward in sheer disbelief.
He's actually going to drink that.
THUD!!
Simon dropped the skull bowl