Trouble on the Tracks
"Over here. Come here."
Students wearing black armbands approached.
"Hey! You two, this way!"
When one of them barked from a distance, a startled Camibarez clung tightly to Simon's side.
"It's okay, Kami."
Simon reassured her in a gentle voice.
"They're on our side. Looks like there's just been a little misunderstanding."
Since they were approaching from over there anyway, Simon walked toward them with Camibarez in tow.
The Disciplinary Prefects — the organization Dick had established under his new policy. Students tasked with guiding outside visitors and keeping their fellow students in line during the Dark Festival.
Hm.
Simon quickly scanned their appearance. All three were second-years; two wore the black armbands of the Prefects, while the third was an ordinary student. Hands shoved in his pockets, grumbling with evident displeasure — he'd clearly been out where he wasn't supposed to be and gotten caught by the Student Council.
Simon stopped and raised a hand in greeting.
"Morning. Thanks for all the patrolling this early."
Camibarez, catching on, gave a polite little bow.
"Good morning! Keep up the good work!"
"???"
Caught sneaking around outside and yet greeting them with total nonchalance — the Prefects' faces twisted in bewilderment.
"Huh? Wait, what—"
Only then did something register as off. A flicker of alarm crossed the faces of the two armband-wearers, and the one on the left pointed a trembling finger at the Student Council armband.
"W-wait a second. Don't tell me those two are—"
The one on the right nodded.
"They're our superiors. Sorry about that."
It was a more straightforward admission of fault than Simon had expected. The left one scratched his head sheepishly.
"S-sorry, President. We thought you were first-years who'd busted out of the dorms."
"No, no. Anyone on duty could've made that mistake."
This much, Simon could brush off coolly.
That said, the Prefects did have one defining trait.
Eccentrics.
Unpaid volunteer work, dragging themselves out of bed before dawn, missing out on the very festival they were supposed to be enjoying — and yet these were the students who had *volunteered* for the job.
Simon had never thought badly of the students who applied to the Disciplinary Prefects.
"Well, this is a bit of a surprise."
Simon looked at the Prefect on the right.
A blond man with bangs grown long enough to swallow one eye, both hands stuffed delinquently into his pockets. His face was set in a hard scowl, gum snapping between his teeth.
Less a disciplinary officer than a textbook delinquent.
"I never expected you to apply for the Prefects, Malcolm Randolph."
Malcolm's expression crumpled at once.
"Wh-what! You got a problem with me being a Prefect?"
"No, not a problem. Just—"
Come to think of it, they'd never had much to do with each other, yet somehow they kept crossing paths. Son of the boss of the Randolph Gang, one of the continent's three great crime syndicates, and a last-minute Special Admission No. 10. And then, at the end of the semester, the ill-fated boy whose signature Doppelgänger had been cracked open, knocking him out of the top hundred.
His gang-boss father had forbidden Malcolm from returning to Kizen and pushed him toward a life of crime — but Malcolm had turned his thinking around, cooperated with the kingdom to bring about his own father's arrest, and returned to the academy.
"Yeah, I bet you do have a problem."
A voice piped up out of nowhere, and every head turned. The second-year student who'd been caught by the Prefects clicked his tongue.
"A gang brat as head of the Prefects? A criminal *guiding* students? How far does this clown show go?"
He snickered, sneering openly. The Prefect on the left stepped forward, looking ready to throttle him, but Malcolm raised an arm to stop him.
"Right? I'd like to ask something, Mr. Student Council President."
His gaze swung toward Simon this time.
"Why exactly would you hand student discipline to a criminal from the Randolph family? Asking as one Kizen student to another."
"……"
Truthfully, Simon found it surprising too — the fact that Malcolm had applied for the Prefects at all.
"Makes me sick! Dammit all!"
The student's voice rose.
"Where's the payback for everything that criminal scum did, huh? Now he's a second-year and suddenly he's milking sympathy and playing the hypocrite doing Prefect work? Pathetic!"
"……"
"A criminal's a criminal, plain and simple! He should keep acting like one! Seeing him like this is disgusting!"
Malcolm simply said nothing, only holding back his fellow Prefect, who still looked ready to lunge.
And then—
"Th-that's not—!"
Camibarez squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.
"You got caught doing something wrong too, didn't you!"
"…Huh?"
The boy's gaze dropped, lingering for a long moment on the top of the much shorter Camibarez's head. Malcolm gave her a somewhat startled look.
"N-no, that's not the same! He's a criminal, and I just—"
"All the things you said."
This time Simon stepped forward. His black coat fluttered as his expression hardened into something grave, and the boy instinctively shut his mouth.
"I can understand why it doesn't sit right with you. Malcolm did wrong. He'll keep getting cursed at and pointed at for a long time — but that's a burden for Malcolm himself to carry."
"Yeah! That's exactly my point!"
"But."
Strength gathered in Simon's eyes.
"You said it just now. It makes you sick. It's pathetic."
"……"
"Are people not allowed to change? Because he came from a gang, is he a bad person forever, doomed to do nothing bad but bad things for the rest of his life? Why mock the effort of someone trying to change? Why sneer at it as pathetic? What gives you the right?"
Malcolm's lips trembled. Tendons rose and fell in his clenched fists, again and again.
"I know people don't change easily. I'm no prophet — I can't tell you how Malcolm's story ends. But laughing at the *effort to change* itself."
Simon cut the air with a firm, final tone.
"That, I won't accept."
A heavy silence settled over the scene for a long moment.
The student, who'd been opening and closing his mouth in search of a comeback, finally clicked his tongue and scratched his head furiously.
"Fine. We'll see, President."
As the Prefect on the left dragged him away, the boy muttered quietly:
"That bastard is never gonna change."
The storm had passed.
The Prefect and his prisoner receded into the distance, leaving only Simon, Camibarez, and Malcolm behind.
Shaaaah—
The sound of waves rolling crisply onto the shore drifted up. The sky had deepened into a full indigo; dawn couldn't be far off now.
"…Why would you go that far for me?"
Malcolm plopped down on a nearby rock and said it under his breath.
"Defending me could get ugly for your own reputation."
Simon shrugged.
"I just said what I think."
"He's right!"
Camibarez nodded along eagerly. Malcolm gave a dry cough, then opened a subspace.
"Anyway, I was headed to the Student Council Room myself, so good timing."
Malcolm held out a clipboard with the patrol logs, and Simon took it, skimmed through, and signed with a quill.
"By the way, Malcolm — you're the head of the Prefects?"
Dick had handled the Prefect roster, so Simon didn't know the details, but he'd at least heard the head was someone else. If Malcolm had been the head from the start, there was no way he wouldn't have remembered.
A faint smirk crossed Malcolm's face.
"The old head told me — said he'd earned the post through his rank, and if I had a problem with it, to come say it to his face. So I challenged him to a duel evaluation and took it off him. Kizen's a meritocracy, after all."
"…Ah. I see."
As Simon remembered it, the former head had been a capable fighter, well inside the top fifty.
"Sounds like you've got your confidence back."
"I upgraded my Doppelgänger."
Malcolm's mouth curled up at the corner.
"If we run into each other at the Dark Festival, don't expect any handouts. Whatever you saw from me at Parona or on the peninsula over the break — forget it."
"Good. I'll look forward to it."
Camibarez took a step toward Malcolm.
"Oh, Malcolm! I'm curious about something!"
"About what?"
"Your real reason for joining the Prefects!"
A good question. Simon was curious about that one too.
As both pairs of eyes bored into his face, a faint red crept up Malcolm's cheeks.
"Ugh, damn it! Do I really have to spill that embarrassing stuff to you two?!"
He barked it out as he sprang to his feet.
"Same thing that guy said — I'm just trying to look good for the school! Happy now? I'm out!"
"Keep up the good work."
"Have a good patrol!"
Malcolm turned his back and started walking. But as he went, more Malcolms began converging from every direction — from all around the shoreline.
People identical to Malcolm, every one of them.
All of them were Doppelgängers.
They were hauling in first-years who'd escaped their dorms and violators of every campus rule imaginable.
"Not that it matters now, but the Prefects are severely short-handed."
Malcolm called back over his shoulder.
"Means I have to do ten people's work."
Watching him say that while dutifully hauling off a fresh batch of offenders, Simon and Camibarez exchanged smiles.
"We picked a good Prefect head, don't you think?"
"Yeah! Absolutely."
Camibarez answered, then went on with a faint flush in her cheeks.
"And, Simon?"
"What?"
"When you stood up for Malcolm just now — I really thought, that's exactly what a Student Council President should be!"
This time it was Simon's turn to redden. He scratched the side of his head and laughed.
"If… if you saw me that way, then… thanks."
Day two of the Dark Festival.
Ringcastle Stadium.
"This is your commentator, Olendo Sray! Here at Ringcastle Stadium, bringing you live coverage of the second-year morning matches!"
The stadium floor was covered in enormous rails. Freight-laden trains rumbled back and forth across the intricately interwoven tracks.
"Today's event is the Train Seizure match! The rules are simple! Maneuver the track-switching levers — the 'rail controllers' — to route the trains into your department's station! Naturally, the department that delivers the most trains to its station wins!"
Clank! Clank! Clank!
Simon was competing in this match. He stood atop one of the trains, guarding it in person.
Combat matters, but understanding the rails is essential too.
Simon was studying the stadium map he'd received before the match. It was enchanted, displaying not only the rails but the trains' real-time movement paths.
Where's the best place to send this train?
Trains only ever ran forward. According to the map, a rail controller waited eight hundred meters ahead — throw that switch, and the train could go right or left.
"Simon! Tell me where to go!"
Toto, competing alongside him, shouted. Simon, brow furrowed over the map, quickly thrust his hand forward and yelled:
"Got it! Eight hundred meters up — turn that rail lever to the right!"
"On it! Going now!"
Hearing the order, Toto leapt down off the train.
A Death Worm burst from the ground, scooped him up with flawless timing, and barreled forward faster than the train itself.
There it is!
Before long, Toto spotted the rail controller. He vaulted off the Death Worm and seized the lever.
Got it!
He had to switch the direction before the train arrived. Rolling his sleeves up to the elbow, he began to put his weight into the handle.
"Right! Right! Rii—riiight thiiis waaay……"
Mid-pull, Toto suddenly felt his vision blur, and he swayed on his feet.
H-huh?
Weakness flooded his whole body, his eyelids growing impossibly heavy. It felt like sinking into a warm fur blanket in the dead of winter — soft, cozy, safe.
Why am I… sleepy…?
And then, too late, he saw them.
Three Spirit Studies students, sprawled unconscious all around him.
The Spirit Studies department was coming to raid our train? And something took them down… before it got me.
"Sleep well."
Tap.
A hand gently stroked the back of Toto's head — and he crumpled to the ground, out cold.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
Meanwhile, Simon — riding the slow train, absorbed in his map — remained entirely unaware of any of it. Only belatedly did he look up.
The rails hadn't switched.
Toto!
Something had definitely gone wrong while Toto was pulling the lever. Feeling the flow of Jet-Black shift, Simon looked to the sky.
Flap!
A blanket, floating inexplicably in midair, drifted into view. Simon's eyes sharpened to blades.
No way—!
"Hello, Simon."
Beside the floating blanket, a mint-haired girl peeked out, blinking drowsily.
Merida Hugh Ikel — the Spirit Studies department representative of the second years, and Rank 4 of the entire batch.
"…Merida!"
"I've wanted to fight you properly, just once."
She slowly closed her eyes.
"To see which of us is stronger… mmh……"
Her eyes slid shut, and a colossal wave of Jet-Black rolled across the stadium.
A single bead of sweat traced down Simon's forehead.
Oh no.
Merida had fallen asleep.
Phantasos Original — Dream State of Selflessness