Tyrants Always Win
II-A
The teacher was late, as usual. The class was content to sit around and chat until she showed up, knowing she would, eventually. The school had fought tooth and nail to make the free study periods in the frameworks into a structured class, but they seemed to have forgotten one thing: the teachers that would work those extra periods. The end result was that only the barely passable "teachers" would be assigned to teach these classes, leading to open-ended discussions that were never meant to go anywhere. As long as you didn't light anything on fire, you'd pass the class with ease.
With the start of their new term, the teacher who would be looking over them during those periods had changed, and no-one knew what to expect.
The class had to wait a full ten minutes until they could smell their teacher coming down the hall. They couldn't see her yet, but the stench of alcohol far preceded her. By the time she pulled opened the door and peered in with bleary eyes, the entire class had quieted down and gotten back to their seats, looking to the teacher like a perfectly behaved class. The bubblegum pink hair and stunning blue eyes were unique among the teaching staff, and no-one wanted to piss her off.
You see, Takara-sensei was ex-military. She didn't fuck around with her class, and it was a miracle she had gotten the job at all; she was never sober. Her rants were legendary among the student body, ranging from why dogs should be able to receive nano-machine implants too, to the inner workings of cleaning your firearms after the insides of the barrel get coated in gore. She never wore any medals or clothing indicating what branch of the military she had served in, but from her tales, it was clear she had seen some serious action. Perhaps too much action.
The tall, drunken woman sat down heavily at the desk in the front of the room, propping her feet up onto the desk, and the other teachers' papers that lie on top. Black combat boots and baggy camo pants, mismatched with a formal button-up shirt that did nothing to disguise her impressive bust that no one would dare look at in a lustful manner, unless they lacked any value in their lives. The pink bow-tie would've made someone laugh, if they did not fear the consequences.
"Hello, *hic* everyone, I'm your teacher for the term. Y'all know me by *hic* Takara-sensei, but please, just call me Miyuki. We're all friends...here." She had stood up from her seat, and paused to steady herself, looking quite dizzy.
"Now, I'd like to start our first day with, ugh, a little bit of nostalgia on my part. You kids are just young enough to not know anything about what went down in our fair city some years back. You might have been...5 years old, maybe, when the whole thing died off? We're all peaceful and shit like that now, but back twelve, thirteen years ago, this whooooole area was a bombed out wasteland." She made a 'boooom' noise, and emoted an explosion with her hands. The class remained stark still, with nary a cough or movement.
"I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but I ordered more than my fair share of artillery strikes on buildings and streets you probably know in some form today. I saw what they looked like afterwards, too. The busted water lines and subway tunnels that were twenty, maybe even forty meters below the roads. Shit ran deep, and still got fucked up." She started pacing back and forth in front of the class, no doubt struggling to work off some of the alcohol plaguing her system.
She paused in front of one student, knelt down, and placed her elbows on the girl's desk. She stopped grimacing and adopted a look of pity. The girl gagged slightly on the overwhelming stench of booze.
"Did you lose anyone in the war, hon?" She nodded and bit her lip, looking to be on the verge of tears. This teacher had a penchant of making students cry.
Not resting on her laurels, Miyuki stood up and looked out at the whole class.
"Actually, raise your hands if you've lost someone, be it friends or family, in the fuckin' war." More than half the class raised their hands, and only a select few of those who did, did so in less than ten seconds.
She nodded, shrugging and grimacing once more.
"Yeah. That fuckin' thing took everything from everyone. No one was safe. I lost more than my fair share of comrades to that bloodbath. Watched them die by the dozen and by the hundred, their deaths never getting any more or less meaningless, in the end." She gained a thousand yard stare, looking no longer at any students, but no doubt, at friends she would never see again.
"Looking back, we weren't fighting for anything. We were without a cause, and certainly without a just cause. It didn't matter, though. We took up arms and fought, because that's what we wanted to do. There was nothing pure or noble about it. We just wanted to kill, and they gave us a reason to kill. We were more than happy to mock it up as the right thing to do, to justify it to ourselves and we murdered and destroyed and pillaged all that we could."
She looked back to the class suddenly, snapping out of her reflections.
"Does anyone here have a family member who served in the war? Either side, it doesn't matter if they were a rebel or not. Both were organized armies who had their own twisted reasons to kill. Nobody was right, nobody was wrong, in the end. Just the dead, who remain dead, and the living, who can do nothing but remember the dead."
After a long silence, two people sitting in the back put their hands up.
"My sister was a rebel...she committed suicide two years ago."
The other looked at their friend, then spoke as well.
"My brother was a member of the JDF. He lost both his legs in an explosion and lives at home and doesn't know where he is half the time."
Miyuki walked slowly down the aisle, taking her time to arrive to the two girls who seemed to shrink below their teacher's gaze.
"Was your rebel sister a good person? Did you love her anyways?"
The student sputtered and looked justifiably horrified.
"O-o-o-of course! She was my sister! I loved her my whole life, and I still love her now! She was so nice and caring, and she wouldn't hurt a fly."
Takara-sensei smirked, and not the kind of smirk that meant anything good was about to happen.
"Really? What was your sister's name? I might have...encountered her in my days in the war."
The girl looked at Miyuki strangely.
"Rika Azumi, but I don't understand how that relates to anyth-"
"Your sister stabbed seven civilians to death completely of her own volition." Miyuki cut her off with a steely tone that stopped the girl's barely-formed counterargument in her throat.
The entire class was so still, a pin dropping would have been equivalent to a 7.5 earthquake on the Richter scale. Before anything else could be said, Miyuki spoke to the other girl.
"Your brother most likely lost his legs in an explosion I indirectly caused. Sorry 'bout that."
Absolute silence.
"...What did you say about my sister?" The student couldn't process the words she had heard. No one else in the room could, either.
"She murdered innocents because she could. What, she never told you that? She kept her awful secrets hidden in order to keep up the facade of a nice, friendly person? That's a shame. She had a penchant for drinking blood of those she killed, too."
A voice shouted from behind her, towards the front of the room.
"You're a fucking rebel, aren't you!?" The teacher froze, still looking into the girl's eyes. What the student saw scared her, and averted her eyes, hiding them behind her hand.
Miyuki drew a needle from within her pants pocket, holding out her arm and stabbing the syringe into it, pushing a thick, yellow liquid into her, as she drew a shaky breath.
She stood up a little bit straighter, but didn't turn around. She spoke in a normal voice, but everyone in the room could hear her perfectly.
"What would make you say such a thing, young man?" Miyuki's steady breathing was the only sound that could be heard in the room.
That is, until the student made the mistake of speaking again, thinking him safe from her with her back turned.
"I fucking knew it! You have no right to exist! You should have died with your friends, coward!" There was a collective gasp from the classroom. This guy probably knew what he was getting himself into, and he just didn't care.
Miyuki whipped around, scanning the classroom, though she had no need to. She knew exactly where the voice had come from, she was just toying with her target. Let him think he was safe, then strike when his guard was down.
Once you became a predator, you never lost the methodology. Even when coming back to a normal life, doing normal things.
She walked towards the front of the room, standing noticeably straighter, her stride more measured and precise.
She pivoted on her toe to look down an aisle of students, and walked into the middle. She turned to face the back of the room, sweeping her gaze back and forth at the row. She then stepped backwards, to the next row of students, moving closer to the front of the room. She glanced to the left, while dropping her right arm to her side.
She snapped her head to the right as she grabbed the student in question's desk and held it aloft with just the one hand. Her arm was not shaking in the slightest. It simply held the desk aloft while the student pushed his seat back, into the desk behind him, his hands in the air, as though that would help him against whatever he was about to face.
"Now, would you kindly say that again, and to my face this time, young man?" Her tone was even, smooth, and most dangerously, biting.
The only sounds that came from the boy was cries and choking, muffled, strangling sounds. He wasn't about to do anything now, besides run home and tell his family about the demon he has received as a teacher.
She threw the desk behind her, sending it sailing over the heads of several students, and into a broken heap next to her desk, all with a resounding crash.
She backed up to the front of the class, addressing everyone with one head nod. She spoke in barely more than a whisper, and the class leaned in to catch every word she said, as though it were gospel.
"A few things you should know.
One. I served in the war. I never said which side I participated on. There are no winners in war. No one's right. It's only who's left. My side was made up of evil people who wished to kill. The enemy side was made up of evil people who wished to kill.
Yes, I have killed. I am a murderer, by any definition. Anyone's beloved family member, who served in this and any other conflict, and killed for whatever reason, is still a killer. Whether or not you respect or fear them for this is up to you and you alone. Killing is not a profession that rewards those who practice it. Those who kill should be prepared to be killed.
Two. You may want to get me fired for my behavior today, and the simple truth of it is that will not happen. I happen to have a very powerful friend in a very, very high place, and she isn't going to let the school board do shit about my antics. I'm not wound very tight, never have been, never will be. You just have to learn to deal with it; a skill that will, by the way, be absolutely invaluable to you later in life.
Three. The injection I took was nanobots who cleared up all the alcohol in my system, not a muscle enhancer. I'm just that strong normally. I prefer to stay drunk as a skunk, because I'm even even more incapable of acting like a 'normal' person when I'm sober as opposed to not. I'm smart enough to know that.
Now, any questions?"
The collective jaw height of the class was on the floor or close to it, which indicated that no, there were no questions.
Miyuki curtseyed with an imaginary dress, using her baggy pants in its' place.
"Thank you for your time. Class is dismissed!"
A/N: What more could you ask for? I like the Miyuki I've created. Crazy, but still smart. She covers her bases well, and knows what she can get away with. Which happens to be basically anything, with who her 'friend in a high place' is.
I decided to have one West (North America / Europe) chapter, one East (Japan/Asia/Countries in the Asian Confederacy either through free will or force) chapter, then a combined East/West chapter, before I continue on. East/West being the previously mentioned penpals.