Chapter 6: Faith
The collective despair in the lecture hall was a palpable fog, thick with the scent of fear-sweat and ozone. Screens cast a sickly blue glow on faces frozen in various stages of horror. Daiku’s pop quiz wasn’t a test; it was a vivisection.
Wataru Inazuma stared at his first question as if it were a live wire. Calculate the necessary cubic liters of anti-corrosion aerosol… The words swam, mutated, danced a taunting jig. He began scribbling numbers on his touch-pad, mumbled, erased violently, then started over. His stubble seemed to quiver with concentration. A bead of sweat detached from his temple, traced a path down his cheek, and landed with an audible plink on the desk. He looked at it, then back at the screen, as if the sweat droplet might hold the answer.
Around him, the ecosystem of panic thrived. A cadet named Koji was subtly—he thought—using the reflective surface of his datapad to squint at his neighbor’s screen. The neighbor, a girl named Aiko, had her hand clamped over her work so tightly her knuckles were white. Kai Tanaka’s expression was one of focused, furious calm, his jaw set so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. His answers were slow, deliberate, each one a grudging concession to the “pointless logistics” he so despised.
Then, a sound cut through the muffled curses and frantic tapping.Beep.A single, clean, affirming tone. The sound a simulation makes when an objective is completed flawlessly.Every head snapped up. The source was Cadet Shimizu Saku’s terminal.A large, holographic green checkmark rotated serenely above his screen.
He had finished.Question fifty.
Wataru, who was mentally wrestling with question four—something about protein paste rehydration ratios in low-pressure scenarios—gaped. His own screen reflected in his wide eyes, a testament to his own dismal progress.“No,” he whispered, a prayer and a curse. “No, no, no.Did you even read them? Or did you just… guess with divine inspiration? Like what the hell man?”
Daiku, who had been prowling the aisles like a discontented glacier, stopped.He turned his head with slow, predatory precision towards Saku. His eyebrows, grizzled and formidable, inched upward a millimeter. “Cadet Shimizu.” The words were ground glass.“Explain.”
Saku stood at attention beside his seat. “The quiz is complete, Instructor.”
“I can see that.” Daiku stalked over, boots echoing in the stunned silence. He leaned down, his shadow engulfing Saku’s station, and scrolled through the answer log.It was a blur of perfect, algorithmic responses. He lingered on a particularly nasty question about waste-reclamation efficiency during a phased lockdown. Saku’s answer was not only correct but included a three-point optimization suggestion.Daiku straightened.The room held its breath. This was it.The prodigy would be praised. The curve would be set impossibly high, dooming them all.Kai’s pen made a small cracking sound in his grip.
“Fifty questions,” Daiku stated flatly, “in twelve minutes. Impressive speed.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a near-whisper that somehow carried to every corner. “On the battlefield, Cadet, speed without comprehension gets your entire squad turned into a pink mist. It makes you a liability wrapped in talent.”
He turned to the class.“The curve stands. You will all be graded against Shimizu’s time and accuracy.Good luck.” Then, back to Saku. “As for you.” He paused “Report to my office after final bell.We will review every answer. You will explain the why behind every calculation. Consider it a… private lecture on the virtues of thoroughness since you have so much time left.”
A suppressed groan rippled through the room. Their fate was now tied to a genius who had just earned himself detention.The irony was not lost on them, nor was the bitterness.
The final bell was a mercy-killing.Cadets slumped from the hall, their spirits crushed. In the locker bay, the air was thick with the smell of stale adrenaline and disinfectant.
Wataru collapsed onto a bench, his long limbs folding like a broken crane. “My brain feels like it’s been through a waste-reclamation cycle,” he moaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I think I mixed up my cubic liters and my kilo-pascals. I might have accidentally calculated the aerosol needed to lubricate a small moon.”
Saku spun the combination on his locker. “You overthink the basic units. It’s a common error.”
“Common for mortals, Saku! You sprint a marathon and then wonder why we’re all wheezing back at the start line.” Wataru peered through his fingers. “What are you even going to do in Daiku’s office? Recite the logistics manual backwards for fun?”
Before Saku could answer, the atmosphere shifted.The clatter of lockers died down. Kai Tanaka arrived, Yui a silent step behind.He didn’t go to his own locker. He walked straight to Saku, stopping just inside his personal space. The engineered scent of “Frontline Resolve” was cloying in the humid air.
“Shimizu,” Kai said, his voice perfectly calm, a polished stone.“That little stunt in there.Finishing first. It doesn’t look good on the report card.”
Saku closed his locker. “The report card values accuracy and efficiency, Tanaka. My score will be high.”
“Your score,” Kai said, taking half a step closer, “makes the rest of us look bad. It makes the Academy look bad if its top cadet can’t be bothered to follow the pace. It suggests a lack of discipline.A lack of… teamwork.” He smiled his toothless smile. “People in my family’s circles read those reports.They notice outliers. Especially arrogant ones who nap during briefings and show off during tests.”
Wataru slowly stood up, his lanky frame seeming even taller. “He didn’t make the rules, Kai. Daiku did.”
Kai’s eyes flicked to Wataru as if noticing a smudge on the wall.“The mechanic speaks. How’s the coolant flow on your career going, Inazuma? Still leaking?” He returned his gaze to Saku.“This is a warning.Fall in line. Or that legendary talent of yours will find itself assigned to very, very remote Deadzone reclamation. The kind where they lose the paperwork.” He paused, letting the threat hang. “Enjoy your private lecture.”
He turned, and with Yui in his wake, walked away, the sound of his expensive boots unnaturally loud on the composite floor.Wataru let out a long breath. “He’s not wrong about the remote assignment part. His dad’s on the Oversight Board.”
“Irrelevant,” Saku said again, but the word felt thinner this time. The hallway bump, the quiz, the threat—it was a pattern of interference.Noise in the signal.He slung his bag over his shoulder. “I have to go.”
The walk to Instructor Daiku’s office was through the administrative wing, where the hum of the Academy’s outer shields was reduced to a sub-audible thrum in the bones. The walls here weren’t reinforced glass, but dull gray permacrete, lined with portraits of stern-faced Cleaners from decades past. Their eyes seemed to track Saku’s progress, judging the latest model in their long, grim line.
Daiku’s door was a slab of unadorned metal, identical to all the others save for a small nameplate. It was slightly ajar.
From within, Saku could hear the slow, rhythmic scrape of a whetstone on metal.A familiar, patient, terrifying sound. He stood before the door, the moment stretching out. Behind him lay the echoed threats of a jealous peer and the bewildered loyalty of a friend.Ahead lay the granite incomprehension of a man who measured worth in survival, not scores.
He raised his hand to knock, the sound of the whetstone pausing abruptly in anticipation.