After much back and forth in my mind, I decided to split up the chapter I made. I'll post this one first, then later on after some edits I'll post the other part. This chapter properly ends the day started way back in chapter 4. At least Cain had breakfast and a workout this time instead of coming back to life and then spending the rest of the day trying to not die and/or go crazy. The next one takes place the morning after. Hopefully, this will end up being the right decision.

Enjoy!

*Chapter 6: Foreclosed Futures*

Following our triumphant assault, we looted the base. With Abydos as it is, law enforcement would be quite lacking in keeping these delinquents confined, so the best we could do was disarm them. We commandeered one of the vehicles, a black van with a decent amount of space in its trunk, and threw whatever weapons and piles of ammunition we could fit inside, while the rest we destroyed to deny any chance of reprisal. Shiroko's eyes sparkled at every cache and piece of arms and ammo we requisitioned, uncomfortably reminding me of ratlings on a particularly bountiful day of "borrowing". Worse still, I had the disturbing thought that it was less the loot but the act of looting itself that was making her feel this way. I tried to pretend that wasn't the case, but this was the girl who numbered her rifle 465 after herself. She was far more eccentric than she seemed.

It was a quiet drive back, with the girls spending most of their time marveling at our haul and our ease of victory. It wasn't much darker by the time we arrived. The streets outside the academy were devoid of unconscious bodies, and our comms sounded out with a warm voice to assure us we were in safe holdings.

"Great job dealing with the Helmet Gang everyone!"

Ayane greeted us with both relief and pride. "We're back Ayane! The Foreclosure Task Force wins again!" Nonomi cheered from behind me.

"And with tons of supplies," Shiroko said, her unusual enthusiasm shining through her smooth voice. "We took a bunch of ammo and guns from them, just like here."

"Speaking of which, how did you handle them anyway?" Serika asked as she looked around, noticing the lack of bodies.

"I ransomed their phones, just as Sensei told me to," she said cheerily. "Used a drone to hold the pack high above the academy and threatened to drop the whole thing if they didn't do what I wanted."

A chill thrummed down the spines of the rest of the FTF, disturbed by the actions of our operator. "Ugh… As usual, Ayane is the scariest person here," Serika moaned.

I wouldn't consider that particularly threatening, but I suppose if you were strong enough to take bullets you'd have other things to fear. Given how desperate these gangers were just to go for a school in this pitiful state, I found it logical that simply holding the few belongings they had for ransom while leaving them unarmed and barred from the gates would be enough to "convince" them to leave. I gave her the goal, it was up to her to determine the method, and I was right in assuming that her astute mind would figure one out.

"It's nice to know you think of me that way, Serika." I had to pause at the chilling voice that terrified the other girls. It appears that Serika was right. Anyone who could pull off the kind of sweet voice that still promised a knife in your back, a voice that reminded me rather terribly of a certain fetching Inquisitor, was absolutely scary. "Anyway, it's time to debrief. Let's all meet up here before ending for the day. I'm sure Sensei wants to know what's going on."

Well, she was right on that account. I gratefully acknowledged her consideration. "Thank you Ayane. We're on our way up."

We parked the car inside the school grounds and closed the gate as we hauled ourselves and our supplies into the academy. Not much proper parking space, but this was the best security we'd get.

Ayane directed us via her drone to one of the many (unfortunately) unused rooms where she kept the confiscated weapons, and I approved of how she grouped them up based on the specific weapon type. We then placed all the ammo for sorting another day, while placing the rest of the weapons as Ayane arranged for us.

It was time for our debrief.

"Hey Ayane. We're heeeere."

Hoshino lazily slid open the doors as she haphazardly leaned her weapons on the wall of the room before unceremoniously plopping down on a chair and slamming her head on the table.

"So you are, senpai," Ayane said with an almost motherly fondness. "Welcome back everyone. You did great."

"You too Ayane. Your support helped us a lot."

It's amazing what a little change in lighting can do for a place. When I arrived here hours ago, the light of the afternoon shined through the far window, the perfect ambiance for a crowd of students meeting together to discuss important matters. Now, with everyone gathered in the dimly lit room in the dark of the late night, it brought back memories of cramming a project or being forced to do litanies and verses after a day of drills.

Now that I think about it, this was basically an after-school activity, which I found soundly ridiculous yet depressingly fitting.

I took a chair from one of the other classrooms and seated myself at the end of the table close to the door while Ayane was at my opposite, the other girls taking up places across the other sides.

"I realize that we're all tired right now, but we need to process what we learned from the Helmet Gang." She looked around, ending once her eyes were upon me. "I think we also need to tell Sensei what's happening here in Abydos."

"Ayane!" Serika immediately stood up in protest. "We don't need to do that! He's an outsider!"

"He is, but he can help us out. He's the only one who has," Shiroko pointed out to her, calm in the face of hotheaded protest as she emphasized just how depressingly rare that was. "At the very least, he's been thinking about it all day. He deserves to know after helping us protect the school at least."

She was right on all those counts. Serika turned back to me before sitting down, crossing her arms in grudging acknowledgement. "I guess that's fair."

With her cat-eared friend holding back her complaints, Ayane nodded and turned back to me. "Sensei, do you know why we're called the Foreclosure Task Force?" I indicated that I did not. It was a strange name, though asking about it slipped my mind in the face of so many things to deal with. "It's because the academy is on the verge of being lost, and we formed our club in order to make sure that doesn't happen and protect our home."

"The reason we named it 'foreclosure' is because one of the main problems the entire district is facing is a massive debt."

A debt. It was already starting to sound bad. A debt big enough to turn an entire district into a shell of its former self like this? This was already starting out horribly.

"Years ago, a powerful sandstorm hit the area around the academy. Sandstorms are common around here, but this one was particularly devastating. Some areas were completely buried in sand."

A particularly powerful sandstorm… That only heightened my suspicions. Could you really call this natural? If sandstorms were common, surely the city would be more used to them and have measures in place, but if so much sand came in and rendered them useless?

"Of course, that led to our other problem," Shiroko continued. "Naturally, the school needed to raise funds for disaster relief, but no one bank would risk giving that much money."

Ah. I already had an idea of what was coming next. If all the good ideas weren't working, you unfortunately had to gamble on the bad ones. "Loan sharks then."

Ayane nodded gravely. "The school thought things would get better and they could pay it off as soon as they did. But the storms only got worse, so the debt kept piling on. Now, half of Abydos is buried under sand, and the debt is astronomical. We can barely keep up with the interest. Our ammo and supplies are dwindling too. If you hadn't come this time…"

Emperor on Earth. What kind of warp-spawned death spiral is this? Both of these problems would be catastrophic on their own, but both at the same time? The academy was the center of a region in this city, and with people unable to or justifiably refusing to go, a huge blow was dealt to their economy. With the worsening storms, they had to borrow money just to keep themselves above the sand, only to tighten the noose of the lender.

And the prime force of dealing with these problems? Five students. Excellent and talented students, but still just five.

"How much debt are you dealing with?" I didn't want to know the answer, but I needed to know just how bad this was.

"962,350,000 yen." Ayane recited the figure in a dead, robotic voice that would have made a cogboy proud. Given her role as keeping up with records and operations, even with a clubmate two years her senior, she probably looked at that number and agonized over it more times than anyone else here. And what a number that was. Put that into Imperial money and that would be enough to support a few guard regiments with people, materiel and supplies for quite a while.

"Please don't take any offense when I ask this," I began delicately, "But why didn't you leave?" The city provided a monthly spending limit for its students, which is why all of these girls in front of me were decently clothed, fed and not begging on the street, and the academy was still here because their herculean efforts kept up with the academy's monthly interest. If they instead used the interest money for themselves, they could easily transfer out to a far less stressful environment, and yet here they were. These were awful, horrible problems that required people with more experience and power. Why did these girls stubbornly refuse to leave?

"I knew it!" Serika gnashed her teeth and hissed angrily at me, ready to attack me at the first sign of movement. "He doesn't care about this problem! Nobody does!"

"Serika."

Hoshino's calm voice instantly silenced Serika's incoming rant. The haloed cat-human went still, looking at the blank expression on her senior's face. There was no threat in those words. Merely a warning of regret.

"It's alright. He's being smart and logical. Something like this oughta be left to more people, people who are better than us, not a little club like ours. He's new here. He doesn't know the situation." She looked towards me once more, and the sleepiness was gone from her eyes. "The reason we're still here is because the moment we leave, the student council will disband and the school along with it. And with that, Abydos will be dissolved."

My breath nearly caught in my throat.

Of course. How could I not have seen it? A region's sovereignty was based on the academy, I knew. I didn't know that if the students left, the entire district would immediately lose its autonomy. There would be no seat of government, no independence… Gone.

That explained much of our last engagement. Suddenly, one more piece came into the puzzle that was Abydos.

"We want you to know that we aren't pressuring you to do anything Sensei," Hoshino declared, and it was clear pride wasn't speaking for her. Simple resignation was. "You probably have lots to do around the city, and helping us out will take your time away from them. The fact that you came here at all was more than enough."

Logical indeed. It would take far too long for the rest of the city to properly stabilize Abydos, let alone by myself. I had a little bit of a head on my shoulders, but I was a warrior most of all. Resolving the debt was a paper pusher's job, and disaster relief required far more than the touch of a solo investigator.

Unfortunately for ALL of us, she was a little shortsighted in that regard.

"This kind of crisis is exactly what I'm here for."

All of them stared at me in utter shock. "Between the desert and an entire district being left in ruins, I would unhesitatingly consider this a crisis that could affect the city." One that would eventually reach my nook of the woods if I didn't do anything, so I might as well see what I can do to slow it down now, while I had some people willing to help me at all.

"Ayane is right though," I acknowledged. "The hour is late and we are all tired. For now, we can continue any discussions on our future plans tomorrow. Rest assured, I'll be staying in Abydos for the foreseeable future. I may not be able to solve your problem, but I'll try to leave you in better straits than before." I gave them the most assuring smile I could. "I won't be abandoning you over this. I promise." Not immediately. That might change soon enough, though they didn't need to know that. At the very least those were very convincing words to hear from a teacher.

"Cain-Sensei…" Ayane's eyes sparkled with joy. "Thank you so much."

"Thank you for helping us even that much Sensei," Shiroko continued gratefully.

"Well, looks like we got another one in our corner now!" Nonomi cheered happily.

Serika crossed her arms, not bothering to meet my eyes. "If you say so…"

For a moment, I could only see a blank expression on Hoshino's face. It seemed she didn't know what to think of those words, but when I noticed her, she immediately hid her expression by closing her eyes and slumping down on the table.

"Hungry…" the apparent sleepyhead groaned. "I don't feel like eating at a restaurant now… Just something small will be fine…"

"I have just the thing." I scanned the room for the cart, and to my delight found that it was still there alongside most of the ammo boxes. I made my way past the confused girls and opened a lone ammo box with nothing stacked atop it. Bending down, I picked up the smaller white box inside. "I didn't expect for us to wait this long for us to have this…"

The girls' eyes lit up as I opened up the meat buns I bought at Angel24 right before I left for Abydos. "Wow Sensei! Is that for us?" Nonomi's asked, clasping her hands in excitement.

"I decided to max out my loyalty card at the convenience store and brought it along as an arrival gift," I explained. "It'll be a little cold, but…"

"No, no, it's OK!" Ayane insisted as took the box. "Thank you so much Sensei!"

We spent the next few minutes partaking of my "housewarming" gift, so to speak, and I blessed my foresight. I was famished myself, but I knew how to buckle down and deal with it more than these kids. An afternoon engagement with my last meal being breakfast wasn't exactly a pious fast for me, and the 18 buns (a dozen to a box plus half as many more) I brought was enough for all of us. I had helped myself to two, while the girls had the rest.

As expected, Ayane and Nonomi ate neatly and delicately, holding only the wrapping and taking great care to immediately clean their mouth of any stains. Shiroko wasn't really a sloppy eater (and given that I knew Jurgen, I felt that I was a good judge of that particular measure), but she often forgot to clean any stains on her mouth, needing Nonomi to wipe it off for her. It was a task the older girl took to without complaint, and I had a feeling this was a common task for her. Serika was hesitant, eyes wandering between me and the food I brought. She immediately looked away when I made a point of looking, never realizing that her staring was more obvious to me than she thought.

Hoshino spent a little time staring at the food. The wistful smile on her face told me it wasn't sleepiness holding her back from taking a bite, but eventually she joined us. Sometimes she would look at me too. This time, she didn't do much to hide it.

—-
After dinner, since none of the girls wanted to go home for the night, they decided to stay here. They always made sure to bring toiletries to school, and have also purchased sleeping bags, mats and blankets. Bittersweetly, due to the abundance of unused rooms, we weren't exactly lacking in places to sleep. They were embarrassed when all they had for me was a small sleeping mat and a spare blanket, but I told them I didn't mind. I might have been a commissar and a highly regarded one at that, but I was no stranger to uncomfortable nights on the field. At least I had cover this time, and I could lock every window.

The girls were taking turns to use the lone shower that had any water left, so I bid them to go first, leaving me to my own devices. As I sat in the classroom that would eventually become my bedroom, thoughts of the current crisis took over my head.

"Sensei?"

It took a controlled effort not to jump in undignified surprise at the voice surging through my mind. The fact that the voice was very familiar to me comforted me very little. I looked down at the tablet in my pocket. "Arona? Is that you?" I whispered as quietly as I could.

"You don't have to talk Sensei! Just think about what you want to say!" she told me.

Telepathy? Worrying. Could she read my mind like a psyker? "So I just have to say it in my mind?" I hedged mentally.

"Yup!" she clarified. "I can't hear anything unless you want me to!"

Well, I've had experience guarding stray thoughts from psykers before. Perhaps this childlike AI would be the same. I went back to merely sitting down on the classroom seat, pretending nothing was wrong. "And why did you choose to speak this way?"

"Don't you want to keep me a secret?"

Fair enough. No conversations would be heard if there was nothing to hear. "Quite. So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Well…" And here, the AI's voice became far less cheery. "I didn't realize things were so… bad here."

In this I had to agree. "It boggles the mind just how catastrophic things are." Two crises that would be death sentences for any city in the Imperium, and my help was five stubborn students who had no choice but to stay. Talented, determined, yes… But those could only go so far without support. And they had awfully little of that. "And I'm the only one they have."

"I want to say I was here too, but it sure didn't feel like it today," Arona sighed glumly. "I didn't think things would be so bad when I told you what was going on, and I couldn't really do anything to help you fight today. You were so good that I didn't need to do anything."

"You would be able to do something?" I asked her, intrigue and discomfort mixing in my head. Did she have special powers beyond what she'd already displayed?

"Well…" She began, drawing out the word. "I could analyze stuff for you. If there's anything strange I can feel, I can tell you."

So limited scanning capabilities? I could live with that. "That just means the battles today were easy. In more unusual scenarios, don't hesitate to tell me."

"You got it! Good night Sensei!" Assured by my future reliance on her help, I could feel her presence recede. My thoughts were about to wander once more when she came back.
"You're wrong about one thing Sensei," she began, and I could practically see her giving me a determined smile. "The fact that you're here means more to them than you think. I'm sure you'll be able to help."

I remained silent as she left me once more. Until I was called by Hoshino to the showers, freshened up and went to sleep on my mat, the weight of her words never left me.

How dreadfully mistaken they were. They didn't really know me, otherwise they wouldn't think that at all.

*Chapter 6: Foreclosed Futures*

As you can see, Cain still has to deal with a few confidence issues, imposter syndrome… You get the drill. What, you thought dying solved all your personality problems?

The gang has a car now! An original thing from me. This is mostly for time purposes as walking 30 kloms through the night after a firefight would've ended the day late and made exposition and bonding a little harder. Plus, it'll tie in to some future chapters.

Ayane's helicopter? Please, wait for the summer chapter. Far, far in the future…

Arona's telepathy will show how Cain will keep the secret of the Shittm Chest while still being able to get the little AI's support in battle. I generally won't have her interrupt most conversations though. She knows when our dear Sensei needs to concentrate or can afford a little multitasking with her.

Expect the next chapter within the day, if I find it satisfactory. Hope you liked this one!