Chapter 17 - Zero

Rei tightened his boots. The thick, dirt-colored laces scraped against his fingers as he pulled on them, making sure that the shoes would not be at risk of falling off. The soles were thick and heavy, and the way the footwear felt like it was pulling him down didn't really appeal to Rei, but he was determined to give them a try after witnessing their advantage in the recent class-battle.

"I bet he's gonna fall on his face."

"You're always so negative! I know you two have this weird rivalry going on, but you should support him every now and then!" Akari replied, wiggling her finger as she lectured her classmate.

"Never."

"You're so rude, Akki. He's trying his best and considering that we'll have to fight our own battle soon, we should be happy about that and support him!" Tenji Yume scolded her older brother, smiling as her words radiated uncorrupted positivity.

"You're so right," he replied.

"Isn't that basically what I said!? Why do you only listen to your sister?"

"Shut up."

"Akki, you shouldn't be mean to your friends."

"You're right, I'm sorry."

Akari could only watch and be creeped out by her fellow classmate's behavior.

Who knew he'd turn into an obedient dog when talking to his little sister?

The three Class C students were watching Rei from the sidelines. Akki had bet 10 bucks that Rei would hurt himself, while Akari bet on him figuring out the mechanics of the boots immediately.

And so, with his gear on, Rei buckled his knees and squatted down. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, he jumped upwards with all his might. At first, it felt like he wasn't able to make it very far, as both the shoes and the gear he had on came together to be quite heavy. And yet, as he tried his best to work against the weight, he could suddenly feel something press upwards against his soles. Like magic his jump was accelerated, and he was launched into the air. It was exhilarating at first, and then, as he just kept on leaping away from the ground, he came to regret his decisions. By the time he had come to the realization of the power of these boots, Rei found himself eight meters up in the air, losing his balance as his body tipped backward, just as he started to fall back down towards the field beneath him.

Oh shit.

He tried his best to roll off his shoulder as he hit the ground with a thump, groaning as he felt the painful impact on his arm. Rolling towards the side, he finally stopped in his track right as his face pressed itself into the dirt. He was lying face down, unmoving, just happy to feel the soft earth again.

Meanwhile, Akki's loud laughter could probably be heard throughout the entire simulation as he pointed at his classmate in schadenfreude. Even Akari had to cup her hands over her mouth to unsuccessfully try to stop herself from bursting into laughter as well. She eventually fell onto her knees, giving into the temptation as he repeatedly slapped the ground while cackling at Rei's suffering.

I swear I will kill these two one day.

He turned over on his back, finding Tenji Yume squatting next to him, offering him a helpful hand. She had a reassuring smile and empathetic eyes, making her look like an angel amidst a battlefield. In other words, the complete opposite of her brother.

"Thanks, but I'm fine," Rei said, grabbing some of the dirt beneath him, standing up by himself, walking over to Akki and rubbing some of the soil into his face, which then in turn led to both insults and fists being thrown through the air.

"Men." Akari simply observed while Yume tried her best to calm the two of them down.

"Is this how you spend your precious training time?"

A rather unfamiliar voice spoke to the group, catching even the two wrestling boys' attention. Before them stood Imato Fukudachi, the head of the student council. His eyes were cold as he looked down at them, his arms crossed as his white, golden-laced jacket freely hung over his shoulders.

"...I was trying on the hover boots," Rei excused himself, quickly wiping the dirt off his uniform and standing up. He had never really talked to President Imato, but this might be a good chance. If he remembered correctly, all the current student council members were alumnus of the same training program that Rei was going through right now. In other words, he had years of experience.

"Not sure if I'm allowed to ask this, but do you have any tips for our class-battle? Maybe even the Kaisen program in general?" The question was pretty straightforward, although Rei wasn't sure how much the President was allowed to explain. After all, it might give them an unfair advantage.

In response, Imato sighed, closing his eyes, almost as if he was disappointed. "I can't say much, but let's see..."

He looked as if he was thinking deeply, seemingly browsing through his memories for any helpful advice.

"Don't underestimate the battlefield," he eventually said. Not really the kind of advice that Rei had hoped to receive. "There isn't much you can do. No matter how much you train right now, how hard you study your tactics and strategies, how well you hone your mind and body; you will not be ready for the overwhelming horrors that a battle brings forth."

The more words left his mouth, the more depressing his advice sounded.

"All you can do is to repeatedly remind yourself of that fact. There is a good chance that you will freeze up. You might even instinctively run away or make stupid decisions in the heat of the action. Be ready to accept that. That's what this simulation is for; to recognize your own fragility as a human being."

The four students listened closely, and even as his explanation was finished, none of them said a word. Any sentences felt like they would be disrespectful in the face of what they have been told. The guidance they had received was far more serious than any of them had liked it to be, and now all that they could think of were the atrocities they might have to face soon.

"Excuse me, I got a bit ahead of myself. Keep on training and you'll be fine," Imato eventually backtracked his words, before leaving them to their own devices again.

"What the hell was that?" Akki wondered, confused at the ominous shift in mood that the President had caused.

Even though it was depressing, Rei still put some trust into the words of a man who managed to graduate from this academy. President Imato was a quiet person to begin with, so having him talk this much was a refreshing change. Although Rei would still have preferred to get more concrete advice.

After this concerning intermission, Rei and his classmates went back to focus on their training. With time, he was able to get a feel for the power in the boots, using them to leap across multiple meters of ground in a single jump. That said, the process of landing on his two feet was still not perfect.

As for Rei's chosen weapons, he went for the unpopular route of carrying two automated handguns with him. He felt that it made him more agile and the prospect of being able to shoot at two enemies simultaneously sounded alluring to him. Of course, he had never trained single hand shooting, especially not with his left, and one could only continuously aim at one spot at a time, but those were all issues that he felt he could work on, even when Akki would constantly insist that Rei was just doing this for the sake of 'looking cool'.

But that didn't matter. Rei could do whatever he pleased to with his part of the budget. After a long debate and not being able to agree on a single strategy, Class C had unanimously agreed to split the budget equally amongst the members. The argument was that this way, everyone could find what worked and what didn't for themselves, and there was a decent chance that after gaining fighting experience, they would be able to use said knowledge to then agree on strategies. Even though it might sound like they had zero teamplay, in the end, it was a proposal that invested in the future.

Spending most of the day in the simulation, Rei ended up being mentally drained. Being more used to the feeling of entering and leaving the Kaisen Simulation helped a lot, but it still put a lot of pressure on his mental well-being.

After leaving the training behind him and heading to his dorms, praying that Akki wouldn't join him, Rei noticed President Imato once again. He was talking to Director Mazato, looking somewhat disgruntled as the two of them conversed in the hallway. Shortly before Rei could get into eavesdropping distance, the President had already excused himself and left the discussion. A shame, really; for some reason, Rei had found himself to be unusually interested in Imato's story. If he could know all the hurdles he went through during his training, then surely it would make his own journey much more bearable.

"Good evening, Kawakami," the Director greeted him, with Rei simply returning similar words and hoping to move on. Part of him wanted to ask about President Imato, but that would most likely make Director Mazato suspicious about his motives.

"There you are! Always immediately going off by yourself!" A loud, obnoxious voice boomed through the hallway, making Rei perk up and freeze on the spot. "Oh? Did I scare you?" Akari asked.

"No, dumbass, you just surprised me. Why are you yelling like that?"

"Why are you always running away? Immediately leaving like that without saying a word!" With very true accusations thrown at him, Rei had no choice but to break eye-contact and look away in silence, trying to hurry off again, if it wasn't for Akari grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back. "Oh no you don't!"

"What the hell do you want from me!?"

"I just wanna talk! Why are you so scared of me!?"

"I am not scared!"

"You seem to get along splendidly." The Director was standing next to them, smiling as he enjoyed the theatre.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't notice you."

This girl can be so rude.

"Do not worry, no need to apologize. I would love to watch you two squabble for a couple hours, but sadly I have work to attend to," he joked and excused himself. "Ah right," Mazato turned around after a couple steps, "I told Imato as well, but if you plan on going out this weekend, don't stay out too long near the border. There are rumors that The Alley King has been active nearby."

Rei didn't fully understand what he meant – he had never heard of someone called 'The Alley King', which sounded like the name of a fantasy character to him. But since he wasn't planning to lurk around in that area, it didn't matter anyway.

"The Alley King!? You're telling me he's basically just down this hill?" Akari had a very different reaction to the information. It was hard to tell if she was shocked, scared, excited or a weird mix of all three.

"Is that a big deal? Is he famous or something?" Despite wanting to move on and withdraw himself into the Akari-free safety zone called his bed, Rei once again found himself asking unnecessary questions.

"You've never heard of The Alley King? Do you live under a rock or something?"

Rei stared blankly at her, which probably gave Akari the clue that he really had no idea what she was talking about. "The Alley King is a mysterious, legendary drug lord who has been taking control over the western side of the Yogore district. He apparently roams around near the border, having clients from either district. They say he's two meters tall and killed multiple competitors with a single punch! Rumors say that his glare is so scary that anyone would freeze in fear."

"That all just sounds made up. Are you sure he even exists and isn't some kind of rural myth?" Rei speculated, not believing a word that was shared with him.

"Unfortunately, he does exist. And since last year we, the Kaizen Facility, are responsible for not only securing the entire academy, but also the nearby border. Pretty much the entire hill lies under our jurisdiction," the Director explained. "Which is why the Student Council will look into it, so don't worry."

"Wait, that's part of their job as well?"

"Oh of course. They are fully trained and qualified military personnel after all. If they couldn't even handle a simple drug dealer, then what image would that give our precious training program?"

I guess even the Director is worried about showing some kind of results.

"And once you've completed your first year, I'm sure you'll get the chance to accompany them," he added.

Kaizen Academy strictly speaking wasn't under the command of the military but acted as a sort of sister organization to them. In other words, they had no obligation to follow the lead of the military yet still needed to make themselves useful to the government in order to justify their existence. The political aspects were far too complex and boring for Rei to ponder – as long as the academy allowed him to get into a position in which he could make an actual difference, he did not care for the details.

"Is that why President Imato looked kind of moody today? He also sounded... depressed when we talked to him."

At this the Director mused, scratching his cheek. "Well, that might be one of the reasons. Truth be told, today marks a rather grim date for the Student Council," he started to explain. "Exactly two years ago, Generation Zero, of which the current Student Council was a part of, were sent on a mission to retrieve some hostages that were kidnapped by the Yogorian Resistance Group. Due to some incidents that occurred during said mission, out of the 32 students, only nine made it out alive. Five of which form the current Student Council we know and love."

The Director told the facts with such a straight face and unwavering smile that it took the two students off-guard. Neither of them had ever heard of such a tragedy.

"I didn't know that. I hope I didn't say anything inconsiderate to President Imato," Akari contemplated. She had rarely ever talked to him and had only really exchanged short greetings with the other members of the Student Council, but still felt like she might have said something wrong.

"Don't worry, you don't need to be too considerate of them. It's an unfortunate reality that they simply have to accept." As usual, the words of the white-haired Director felt almost heartless, and the way he treated the subject with such a casual manner kind of annoyed Rei.

"Before you go back to work, do you have any concrete advice for the class battles?" Rei decided to ask, even though he was sure that he wouldn't get a very useful answer.

"You're asking the person who grades you for advice?"

"Is that bad?"

"No, I admire your honesty," Mazato replied, smiling. "As for your advice though, there's not many helpful things I could tell you. If words carried the same value as experience, then we wouldn't need this whole program to begin with."

"But surely there are words that can work together with experience," Rei argued back.

"Sure, but first you'll have to gain the experience, and then you will definitely get the chance to reflect on it during your classes. Anything I might say right now will lose 90% of its meaning since you haven't actually had any experiences to understand them."

Rei understood that the Director wouldn't change his mind and gave up. It seems they would have to fight without an unfair advantage.

Though, to be accurate, they already did have a fairly big bonus; they were the last class to have their first fight. The next battle, which was scheduled for tomorrow, would be Class B vs Class D; in other words, Class D will have fought two matches before Rei's class even had their first.

This not only meant that they gained insight into the strategies, strengths and flaws of each class, but they could also take notes and make sure to not repeat the mistakes of the other classes.

Was there really no way to make the order of battles fairer? Not that I'm complaining...

The Director went back to work, leaving Rei alone with Akari. Before he could even attempt to sneak away, she gripped his wrist, putting on an overly happy smile that gave him the creeps.

"Please just let me go..."

"Why do you hate me so much!? Oh, the pain, the heartache!" Akari yelled, dramatically grabbing her chest as she spun around him, still grabbing onto his arm, acting like she was on a stage.

"I don't. My social battery is just empty..." Rei explained. Now that he thought about it, why was he even explaining himself? Didn't he make up his mind to keep his distance? Yet here he was, chatting and lounging around with a fellow classmate. It felt like he couldn't even stick to his own promises.

He started to walk, pulling his arm off her and waving goodbye. "I gotta go," he simply said, not even looking at her.

"Fine! But mark my words, Kawakami Rei! One day I will force you to spend time with me!"

"Why does she sound more and more like Aguchi?" Rei thought, the image of Aguchi yelling out his delusional thoughts crossing his mind.

Even though it's been over a month since Rei had joined this academy and met Akari, she still left him puzzled every time they talked. She was popular with everyone, was constantly in a good mood, lent a helping hand whenever she could, so why was she so obsessed about involving Rei in her antics? Was she really that upset that he didn't like to hang out with her?

"I miss Shi..." he mumbled to himself. His grandfather as well, of course. Those two were the only people he felt comfortable with. With them, Rei could simply let loose. He didn't have to be on guard, he didn't need to be careful to keep his distance, he didn't need to constantly think about their intentions.

"Maybe I should visit them soon..."

Kawakami Rei walked to his dorm room, where he spent the rest of his evening.

Their first written exam was only four days away. And after that, Rei would have no choice but to enter the battlefield.