"Inaction"-Asher

In that moment, every single eye on the room turned to face Jean, boring down into her. Slowly, with shaking hands, Jean pulled out her phone and punched in the password, the screen illuminating the red room with bright white light. All 20 students in the classroom stood crowded around Jeans desk. With a deep, shaky breath, Jean opened up her text messages and began to scroll. She didn't linger in one area too long, but just enough for everyone to get a grasp of what was going on. The group chat was a mass group chat between different students of different classes and different years. The group chat was very obviously created to form the, popular kids of the school. Multiple of the conversations seen where criticizing other students. One of those side conversations, was about how Mina was so uptight, and how she had basically made enemies with the whole class. Another one was about me, and how clumsy and unserious I was. There was a picture of me bumping into Mina. Glaringly, however, the main topic that the group chat focused on was Charles, and his friend group. The slander was absolutely brutal, and Jean was one of the main ones taking part in it as well. Finally however, She scrolled down to find a picture of Charles, walking out of school alone. The timestamp read, '4:30 p.m.'.

"4:30 P.M!" Liam exclaimed. He turned to face the rest of our classmates, a undeniable gleam of hope shining in his honey colored eyes. He turned to look at me, then Mina. "You do know what that means right." He asked. Hikaru answered for him.

"The camera's! We can check the camera's!" Murmurs of excitement of triumph began to arise among the students gathered around Jeans desk, from everyone but Jean and Charles friend group. Jean stared down at her desk, clutching her phone tightly in her hands her eyes locked to the ground, while Charles friend group stood off to the side, muttering darkly.

"If we could get administration to show us the camera footage from 4-6, around the time that the school building official closes, we could probably figure out exactly who did it." Liam began to pace, everyone eyes on him. "Even if we can't find the exact point of when and where he was murdered, we could figure out all of the students who stayed after school from 4-6." Liam stopped in his tracks turning to face me. "What do you guys think."

Mina's eyes snapped directly towards me as soon as Liam asked his question. I knew exactly what she was thinking in that moment and I knew that she knew that what Liam had just done was 100% subconscious. I pretended not to notice the look she gave me, as I answered Liam question. "Go for it. I think I know who you have in mind specifically. "

Liam nodded. "Hikaru, would you mind coming with me." Hikaru nodded, walking by Liam side with a determined look on her face and purpose in her stride. "Liam looked back at Arthur and Luis . "We will find out who did it, or at least get really close."

Arthur looked back at him with a look of disgust. "What do you even care?" He snapped harshly. Liam took a step back, surprised by the hate in his voice. Hikaru's eye's widened at the unexpected outburst, and all the idle chatter that had begun in the classroom came to a stop instantly. Luis jumped in next, not giving Liam a chance to try and formulate a response.

"Exactly!" He shouted, standing up and looking at the entire class. "None of you guys gave a shit about him until he was died. In fact, I was sure that most of you guys hated him!" He turned, pointing a finger at Jean, who flinched backwards almost as if a gun had been pointed to her head. "And you! You knew where he was, and instead of telling anybody, you mocked him, you mocked nearly all of our classmates!" Luis launched a multitude of accusations at Jean, all of them with some truth behind them, and all of them with a more sinister meaning. Jeans inaction was what killed Charles. "If anyone deserves to be expelled its you!" Luis launched the heftiest accusation of them all. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only sound was that of footsteps outside. The class as a whole ignored them, the only people taking note being me and Mina. Mina looked towards me, and I nodded my head.

"Calm down, you two-" Liam tried to keep the situation under control, but it was clear that he was overwhelmed.

Luis wasn't done yet however. He walked over to Liam, getting in his face. "I don't really care what the hell you do," He aimed this next part at the entire class, "I don't care what any of you guys do anymore, just leave me and Arthur out of it. Luis stormed over to his seat in the far right corner of the room. It was completely silent in the classroom, all the hope that had been built up from the prospect of the security cameras forgotten. I stood up, my chair scrapping against the ground loudly in the otherwise silent classroom. All eyes in the room turned to me. I payed no attention to them however and walked out of the classroom into the hallway. Thankfully, no one followed.

I had decided to step outside just in time to see a girl turning to walk down the hallway. She froze at the sound of my footsteps. Turning around slowly. She was of average height, with black hair that was up in to pigtails that hung from the side of her head. She sucked on a lollipop, and her hands rested in the pockets of her gray sweater. I walked over to window slowly, leaning against it. "That broadcast sure was something." I began, deciding to pretend I didn't know what was happening, and instead was just a stressed student stepping out to gather his thoughts. My position by the window allowed the sun to shine so brightly on my face that it would be impossible for her to read my expression.

"I know right." I could hear how she slightly relaxed. "That crazy assembly followed by that broadcast is one way to shock the first years. Ever since the broadcast ended I had to take a walk across the campus. Didn't mean to eavesdrop but I could hear the commotion coming from your classroom from all the way down the hall." Taken at face value, from the way she had phrased it, and the knowledge of all the events that had just transpired, it would be easy to believe that she was just a student blowing off steam after listening to Heaths message, however, even if that was the original goal she had when she set out, I was 100% sure that by the time she returned to the first year hallway, that goal had shifted.

"I understand, in fact, I'm surprised more students didn't come out to do that exact same thing. I find it difficult to believe that nearly all the first years classes are caught up in internal conflict." It was more of a question than a statement, one I was hoping to use to gauge what this girls true objective was, however, she saw right through it.

"I guess everything Heath laid down really had the intended effects." She responded with a vague statement, twirling the lollipop in her mouth and adjusting her skirt. I nodded, satisfied with the answer she gave me.

I pushed myself off the wall, heading to the classroom door. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Riko." I didn't turn back to look at the expression of bewilderment that was probably on her face currently.

 * * * 

"Riko Yotsuba is a member of class 2-b." Hikaru read the information from the KlP app. She looked back up at me "Are you sure this is the girl you talked to outside." She asked, very obviously skeptical and I didn't blame her. We were sitting inside of the cafe that was located on the school campus, which was very impressive. It housed multiple malls, stores, restaurants, and even bars. That was odd, considering the schools plaza was mainly used by students, but I assumed that it was more of a hangout for teachers, which made sense, seeing as Ms. Yukimura always walked into class with a hangover. I set down my cup of coffee, and looked around the cafe one more time. It was currently lunch period, and we had decided to head to the cafe as the cafeteria was nearly full, and after what happened with our eavesdropper the period before, we had decided to head to the cafe to hold this meeting. Sitting at the table were me, Liam, Hikura, and Mina. The rest of the class had split up to different locations, all trying their very hardest to avoid everyone else. Especially Jean. Everyone made a point to avoid her, and according to Hikura, she had found more refuge talking to students from class 2-a. That also just happened to be the same class that Masaki Tanaka was from.

I took a sip from my cup of coffee before setting it back down on the floral designed tea plate. I made sure to look around before answering. The cafe was in the shape of a rectangle, with five circular tables. We sat on the table one away from the far left, as to not be to too conspicuous. Even the cafe was relatively bustling which could be a good thing, or a bad thing, considering our conversation would blend in with the white noise of the cafe, but it would also make it much harder for us to notice if anyone was spying on us. "I spent nearly all night studying the KLP, and specifically our year. I 100% sure that its Riko. Not to mention when I entered back into the classroom I called her by her first name and she froze complete. If that isn't a telling sign I don't know what would be."

Liam tossed a crumpled up piece of paper in the garbage before turning back to me. "So you're saying that a student from the same year as us, from class 1-B is spying on us? I mean, it's not ridiculous to assume, seeing as we know next to nothing about the other first year classes. This is something I might expect from class 1-c, that class that that blue haired freak that had attacked us came from, but this seem's like a bit of a stretch."

"I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was actually just going for a walk, and only happened to overhear what happened to us by complete accident, there's no reason to assume she had bad intentions." Hikaru said.

"That doesn't change the fact that she did overhear what happened, and is probably going to inform her classmates, and with the basically none exist information we have on class 1-B we can only assume the worst, and that their class is completely united and currently planning a strategy on how to take our class down."

Hikaru's face flushed slightly. "How can you just assume the worst of people like that. It's only the second day of school, these are people, not unfeeling killing machines! They're probably in just as much distress and confusion as we are! And why do you assume that their out to kill us?

"That's the problem with your way of thinking, it leaves you open to betrayal, open to unneccesary misfortunes. After everything that's been announced, we have to treat everyone like our enemy or we'll pay the price dearly. No help is coming. See what happened to Charles? That's the only thing that naive way of thinking is going to get us." Mina stared into Hikaru's eyes with a fire in hers. Liam on the other hand had sobered at the mention of Charles, a death that he took all the blame for. I looked around the cafe. No one had noticed the commotion just yet.

"Liam, what of the camera's, did you manage to narrow anything down?" I shifted the topic of the conversation, away from Riko Yotsuba. It would serve no purpose to have the only other classmates willing to take action to help the class fallout in the middle of a cafe filled with out peers and upperclassman.

Liam's face fell further. "When me and Hikaru requested to see the camera's something… unexpected happened. We were turned away, but not for some reason like privacy, or laws, no, we were turned away because someone had paid them with class points too." I paused. I shouldn't have been shocked however, considering the fact that Heath did mention that there were no limits to how your class points could be spent. Whoever had come up with this plan was obvious very creative and open minded.

"Did they happen to mention how many points it would take to buy access to the camera footage?" I was hoping to figure out if it was an amount that would be worth spending.

"500,000 points." That only served to kill the mood even more, and once again I was shocked by the guile of the person who came up with this idea. Essentially placing all 500,000 of their points in a gamble that we wouldn't be willing to spend all of our points in order to recover the footage of the camera. Mina seemed to reach the same conclusion that I did because she was the next to speak up.

"Whoever did this either has something up their sleeve, or they made a massive mistake." Liam asked why she thought that and Mina then explained, "By paying the main office 500,000 to keep the camera footage a secret, they essentially locked themselves into being unable to do anything for the next two weeks. Not to mention if we did decide pay the points to gain access to the cameras, and we did manage to gain undeniable evidence of who the perpetrator was, this would put us at an undeniable advantage." Mina laid out a list of flaws and holes in the plan of whoever had tried to set this up. It made it seem clear what our next move should be.

Liam spoke up, riding Mina's wave. "And because they decided that they needed to set up a defense for students trying to take a look at the camera footage, it makes it clear that there is some form of incriminating evidence on that tape." Just as Liam rose to declare that we must bring this information to the class, I raised a hand.

"Hold on, there is something that I would like to confirm. I'll be back next period." With that I got up from my seat and headed towards the main building of the school.

***

When I arrived at the main office of the school building, I walked in on a scene of multiple first year students swarming the receptionist, begging her to let then go home, or to call the police or, to call anybody. However, the receptionist remained unnervingly calm before turning away telling them that everything they were asking was simply impossible. "Your energy would be better spent preparing yourself for the next trails of the school." After the scene cleared away, I approached the lady before asking,

"If I was willing to pay the 500,000 class points required to gain access to the security camera footage from 4-6 pm yesterdays, what would I need to do?" The receptionist turned to look at me, analyzing the expression on my face before finally responding.

"If your class is ready to pay the necessary points to gain access to the camera footage, then you will transfer your points into the schools main system, and access to all camera footage from the beginning of the year to today will become available to you.| The receptions calmly answered my questioned, while providing me with no useful information. So I pressed on, unsatisfied by the response she had given me.

"What will happen to our points after we make the transaction, and who proposed this in the first place." I knew that the second part of my question wouldn't be answered, but it was a good try. The receptionist once again made eye contact with me, trying to read my expression once again.

"I cannot divulge any information regarding to the contractor who originally proposed this deal. However, due to stipulations in the original contract, any points used to pay for access of the camera footage will be transferred into the account of the contractor." There it was. The whole plan was simply a set up in order to try and convince us that who ever had come up with this strategy was simply making a risky gambit, in an attempt to bait us into spending points, therefore replenishing their points. It also left whether or not it was a bluff or if there really was any incriminating evidence on the tape shrouded in mystesry, leaving the decision in our hands.

"Thank you." I replied, before exiting the main office. Just as I had stepped out side I took notice of two students having a conversation. I decided to walk over to a nearby vending machine and eavesdrop. The two students were both first years. A short blue haired girl from class 3, and another girl, a white haired girl with glasses from class 1.

"Are you saying that in return for a certain number of class points you would be willing to refrain from targeting our class in any matter?" This was the white haired girl. I couldn't see, but i guessed that the other girl nodded.

"20,000 points to be exact. Along with promising not to attack your class for the remainder of this first trial, we will lend you a hand in any troubles that you may come across in the next two weeks." By this point, I had already obtained my item from the vending machine, and it would be suspicious to linger. Just as i was making my way out, taking a sip of iced tea, I felt a pair of eyes looking at me. I turned away to see someone standing on the second floor railing looking down on everyone below. I couldn't remember her, but I quickly memorized her face. Blue eyes, Long brunette hair, and a scar above her lip.

***

When I arrived back at class I walked into the class in the calmest manner it had been in since Heath made the announcement. Which wasn't saying much considering many students were still on the verge of crying or seemed to have shut down completely. I approached Mina Liam and Hikaru, who were all gathered by my seat in the corner of the classroom. Mina was the first to speak up, obviously very unhappy that i forced them to wait without saying anything of where I was going. "Are you going to explain yourself now."

I considered making a joke but decided against realizing that the atmosphere was simply too dark for that. "I went to the main office and after asking a few questions, I discovered that whoever decided to pay 500,000 points in order to keep the security camera footage hidden, also set up a hidden clause that any points used to pay and gain access to the footage would be transferred into their account." Liam's eyes widened.

"So, your saying if we decided to go through with our plan and pay the class points, we would essentially be refueling their own points as well?" Liam summarized the new information I had just brought up.

"Not only that, but there's no guarantee that the footage contains any incriminating evidence." Mina added. There was simply no 100% guaranteed solution that we could turn to, that would get us out of this situation. Just then, my mind flashed back to that conversation between the students i had eavesdropped on. I didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but I was sure that the deal those students made was a contingency plan, just in case we didn't bite. I revealed this information and once again, I noticed the look on Hikaru face fall once again.

"I just can't believe that all of the other students are so ready to accept this. Plotting, scheming? We've just been told to kill each other!?" Mina shook her head once again, having obviously grown tired of Hikaru's inability to understand the situation they were currently in. Mina was just about to speak up when suddenly Hikaru rose, mumbling something about needing to o use the bathroom, before hurriedly exiting the classroom. I looked over to Liam, who simply nodded at me, before following suit. I looked back over the classroom, noticing that there was a missing seat in the center of the classroom.

It belonged to Jean.