A World Without Teachers
A World Without Teachers
The teacher had disappeared.
Tachibana Saori first learned of this fact on approximately the eighth day after the teacher had gone missing from Academy City.
Ordinarily, it wasn't unusual for the teacher to be away for a few days.
The role of the Integrated Disciplinary Committee, which the teacher belonged to, was to mediate various disputes occurring in Academy City or to prevent them before they happened.
Students who had once received help from the teacher, or who had been interfered with by the teacher, knew this fact, so at first, they didn't think much of it.
But when the thought, 'Still, isn't this too long to be away?' began to creep in, the full-scale crisis began.
Even if only in name, the Integrated Disciplinary Committee was a subordinate organization of the General Student Council.
Because of this, no matter how busy the teacher was, they always made sure to participate in events hosted by the General Student Council. But when they missed even that event for the first time, the news that the teacher had gone missing spread throughout all of Academy City.
Needless to say, the first place the arrows of criticism turned to was the General Student Council.
"The General Student Council is also making every effort in all directions to find the whereabouts of the missing teacher, but we have yet to achieve any clear results."
"In the future, the General Student Council plans to deploy all available personnel to find the missing teacher..."
"We deeply regret that such an unfortunate incident has occurred in this garden of learning, where all students should be able to focus on their studies with peace of mind."
At an emergency press conference held shortly after, the General Student Council stated their position, but most of the students who watched the broadcast did not believe the content.
Because in modern society, it is nearly impossible for a person to disappear without a trace.
Moreover, Academy City is a place where all kinds of new technologies combining superpowers and science are introduced as a top priority.
A person who was the center of attention for all students disappears overnight in a city at the forefront of such cutting-edge technology?
It was more natural to think that the General Student Council was lying to hide information unfavorable to them.
As the number of students who distrusted the General Student Council grew exponentially due to this press conference, the student council tried to somehow restore the organization's credibility, which had plummeted to rock bottom, but such struggles only created large cracks in the stable power structure of Academy City.
And the person who most actively exploited that collapsed power structure was Tachibana Saori.
The student council president of the Ubermensch Alliance School, one of the three prestigious schools in Academy City, and the strongest mental-type ability user in Academy City, she fully utilized her abilities to instantly seize control of the General Student Council, which had fallen into chaos.
But contrary to initial speculation, the General Student Council truly knew nothing about the missing teacher, and upon learning that they were incompetent but innocent, Saori formulated another hypothesis.
'The teacher is still inside Academy City.'
If the teacher had been kidnapped by someone with malicious intent and dragged outside the city, there would have been some trace left by some means.
However, the teacher's biometric ID recorded in the database showed not a single record of leaving Academy City.
This meant the conclusion was drawn that the kidnapping of the teacher was the work of an insider.
'With every faction watching with wide eyes, no individual could pull off something this audacious.'
The first suspects Saori judged this way were the two groups boasting the greatest power in Academy City besides the Ubermensch Alliance School: Kochou Girls' Academy and Choutenjouki Academy.
If the teacher was kidnapped organizationally without leaving any trace, those two academies were inevitably the most likely candidates.
So, under the pretext of information exchange, she held an exchange meeting between the three major academies, but contrary to expectations, she couldn't obtain any information.
She only learned that both academies suspected each other as the masterminds behind the teacher's kidnapping.
As the case returned to square one, the second possibility she had been deliberately ignoring began to creep into her mind.
What if the teacher hadn't been kidnapped, but had gone into hiding of their own accord?
'...No, that can't be.'
Someone who cared so much for the students just disappeared without a word?
If so, they would have surely given a heads-up to someone trustworthy.
But if it wasn't the General Student Council, or herself, or Kochou Girls' Academy, or Choutenjouki Academy, then who on earth knew the whereabouts of the missing teacher?
And when she thought that that trustworthy someone was not her, a part of her chest throbbed with pain.
Because, for her, the only trustworthy adult was the teacher, but for the teacher, there were plenty of trustworthy students besides herself.
That's why she had no choice but to consciously exclude the second possibility.
Not only for the sake of the missing teacher, but also for herself.
'It doesn't matter how long it takes. I will find you, Teacher. No matter what.'
Two years after that, truly many things happened in Academy City.
The General Student Council, which had failed to find the teacher, was forcibly dissolved, taking responsibility. The friction between the two large academies, each suspecting the other of having kidnapped the teacher.
The intervention of the Japanese government, and the attempt of the mega-corporation Cyclops to seize management rights.
Even amidst the endless chaos, Tachibana Saori mobilized every method she could use to find the teacher.
But still, she couldn't find any trace of the teacher.
Not inside Academy City,
Not outside Academy City,
The teacher was nowhere at all.
When she was gradually getting exhausted like that, one of her subordinates said to her.
Let's give up now. After doing this much, the teacher would understand.
It was a truly tempting temptation, but she couldn't easily give up.
Because the one who had saved her, who, due to the side effects of her ability, couldn't trust anyone and was slowly falling apart, was the teacher.
That's why, the moment she saw the teacher's face through the window of light that suddenly appeared before her while she was working,
She thought she was seeing things.
But it wasn't an illusion.
The teacher's face, which she remembered as vividly as if she had seen it just yesterday, was staring intently at her from beyond the window of light, unchanged at all from two years ago.
'Still pretty as ever, seeing you after so long.'
Though she rarely showed emotional changes in front of others, the moment the thought of the teacher naturally flowed into her mind—
"Ah, ahhh...!"
She couldn't help but shed tears of joy.
It's real.
It's really the Teacher.
The teacher she couldn't even reach no matter how hard she tried, was now right before her eyes.
That's why she couldn't help but reach out her hand.
The window of light before her might be a trap.
But because the teacher, whom she had so desperately longed to meet, was beyond it, her actions held no hesitation.
After all, two years had passed, and her becoming the General Student Council president managing all of Academy City after going from high school student to university student, and seizing control of the mega-corporation that had been eyeing Academy City's management rights, were all just means to find the missing teacher.
So, the moment Saori's slender fingers touched the window of light, she found herself standing not in her office, but in an unfamiliar place.
"What...?"
The teacher, whom she hadn't seen in two years, looked up at her with a stunned expression.
And then, as if they couldn't believe this situation at all, they pinched their own thigh.
"Kkeuak!"
A silly action that didn't match a serious face.
That made her even more certain.
The one before her eyes was the real 'Teacher' she had been searching for so long.
She had a mountain of questions: what they had been doing all this time, why they disappeared without a word, if they didn't want to see her.
But she knew that if she poured out all those questions at once, the teacher would definitely feel burdened.
So, pretending to be casual, she looked around and spoke.
"Is this the place you're living in now, Teacher? It's not much different from the old school dormitory. Are you eating well?"
It started as a light remark to find a suitable topic for conversation, but suddenly the teacher averted their gaze, as if something had struck a nerve.
With a sinking feeling, she turned her head and saw a convenience store lunchbox sitting on the computer desk.
"......"
Seeing it made her heart ache.
Without someone to take care of them, it seemed they were harming their own health by eating only instant and frozen foods, just like she used to.
That might have been why she subconsciously thought.
"I'll prepare a meal for you first. Let's talk about what we want to say after that."
First, let's get the teacher to eat a proper meal.