*Chapter 7: Desert Debt Decisions*
I got up at my set time of 6:45 as soon as the phone sounded out my chosen alarm. It wasn't a pleasant sleep, but I was rested enough. I put my phone to sleep and holstered the laspistol in my hands as I got off my rather flat sleeping mat.
I wasn't about to wake those girls up. They said they'd be up at 8:00, and it wouldn't do if my very sparse troops were tired and cranky, so I decided to do my exercises early. I should be finished and showered by the time they got up. I changed into another (recreated) white shirt and blue jogging pants with zippers, slapped on some gloves and made for the entrance. I had with me my armaments and both of my devices, leaving the power pack I used yesterday by the window to recharge what energy it could from the sunlight. With the desert sun, it should be charged by the time of a sortie, and I had four other spares with me.
As I got closer to the main door to the school grounds, I thought I heard strange noises coming from outside. Raising my eyebrows, I readied myself to draw my laspistol, inched an opening, and peeked outside.
I needn't have worried. Outside was, to my surprise, someone else who had the same idea of morning exercise as me. Less surprising, it was Shiroko.
She had both hands gloved instead of just one as she usually did, though of course her gun was still strapped to her side. She was riding around the school grounds with her bike with clear proficiency. The lines traced by her wheels could have been the model of the oval track, and she didn't seem to be tiring at all despite the speed she was going. In respect for her concentration, I let go of my laspistol and quietly made my way outside.
After five minutes, she eventually rolled to a stop. She was taking careful, measured breaths in order to conserve her energy and maintain her airflow, a clear sign of knowledge and practice in the fundamentals of exercise and physical activity. I didn't want to surprise her in the middle of a lap, so I made myself known.
"Masterfully done."
I called out to her from the door, and her head whipped towards me in surprise as I walked into the sunlight, her ears shaking in curiosity. I wasn't sure if I'd ever get used to those new extremities. "Cain-Sensei? How long were you there?" Now that she was still, I could pay more attention to what she was wearing. She was wearing a form-fitting athletic outfit, I realized, but it was better designed and produced than I initially thought. It was a sleek design made of material that was made to absorb heat and promote ease of movement. Notably, it had the iconography of Abydos, signifying the academy's high school cycling team. That the academy was once capable of producing such quality was a bittersweet glance of its glory, glory that ws no longer here.
"For about five minutes. How long have you been out here?"
"About thirty minutes," she answered casually. Emperor, that girl had stamina. I could already feel the scorching heat of the desert sun bearing down on me, but despite pushing herself hard under its fiery watch, she seemed raring to go for another round if not for my presence. That wasn't just natural endurance. That was a clear sign of effort, of pushing her limits to improve herself. She got off her bike, holding it steady as she stood on her own two feet. "Are you out here to exercise too Sensei?"
"My workout will be a little too noisy for everyone else." I tapped the hilt of my sheathed chainsword in explanation, and her eyes lit up in understanding. "Might I be able to use the gym?"
She paused as she considered "Well, it'll be a little sandy, and it'll be filled with unused stuff because we use it as storage, but it should be fine. I'll open it up for you."
Our meeting was quite fortuitous then. I would've been standing around like a waylaid guardsman in front of the locked gym, and I would have gotten up for nothing. I could slice through the lock of course, but did these girls really need to spend more money to replace that just because I wanted a workout? "Much obliged," I thanked her as she parked her bike by the main entrance, set down the kickstand and picked up her bag.
"You train yourself well," I told her, trying to fill the silence of crossing the field. I was being honest, because the effort she put into it was praiseworthy.
She smiled at the compliment. "Thank you, Sensei. I like biking a lot. Riding around, feeling the wind on my face as the scenery flys by…" She looked past the gates of the academy, towards the empty town. "When I do all that I feel free."
"Because you're focused so much on yourself that your other problems are the furthest thing from your mind."
She slowly met my eyes at my insight, not expecting me to be so understanding. "That's exactly it. You feel that too Sensei?"
I shrugged. "At the best of times." In my years training at the schola, my skill with the chainsword was merely a point of youthful pride, just a little feather in my hat I could hold over the others. Throughout most of my military years, my regard for it turned to the pragmatic, training my skills with the blade mostly to heighten my chances of surviving ever more dangerous ordeals. In rare times however, such as that short magical period in the Reclaimer's training chapel, even with the world closing in on me I could lose myself in refining the art of the chainsword simply to better myself. In my old age, as I spent more time in peace training juvies and away from the front lines, I could simply appreciate practicing the chainsword for its own sake, taking pleasure in it just because I could.
"I see…" She contemplated my answer as we arrived in front of the gym. She took the key out from her bag and opened up the lock holding the double doors closed. She pulled them open and welcomed me in.
"Here's our gym, Sensei."
I looked inside and couldn't help but feel melancholy. It was large enough to fit a good two hundred people. I could imagine its golden days, with fans of opposing teams cheering their brethren as they fought for glory in the sport of their choosing, or courts filled with students as they practiced their sports, advertised their clubs or held parties.
Now, the bleachers were filled with junk, unused materiel kept here to protect from the storms, or simply not filled at all. With the lights off and the sun barely seeping in from the windows, it felt all the more abandoned. Even the heat of the desert could not stop it from feeling cold and lifeless.
I took all of this in as Shiroko turned out a single light. "I realize it's still dark, but we want to conserve energy…"
The sad apology in her tone needed no more explanation. "It's fine." I was about to move to the central light before she spoke up once more.
"Sensei," she began, and I turned to her in askance. "Can I watch you?"
My very first thought was to deny her, but I held back from that. I sighed. She would leave if I asked her to, but that would be poor repayment for her guidance, both for today and yesterday. Besides, I didn't even ask permission for my own observance. Why should I be the only one with the privilege? "Very well. Just be quiet. I have to focus for this." She was silent at my reply, but her brightening face told me everything I needed to know about how excited she was.
"Can I watch too, Sensei?!"
Arona's voice sounded in my head. This was a rather inconvenient time to come asking. Shiroko would find it odd if I kept hesitating to practice for too long.
Then again, if Shiroko was watching, what reason did I have to deny Arona? She wanted to see me practice first. What would it say to her if I denied her something so simple?
"You might as well. My request applies to you too."
Her cheers echoed as she slowly left my mind and I shook my head, wondering just how strange my life had gotten, before I focused once more. I took out the blade at my side, held it in both of my hands, and focused.
I began with simple swings, trying to refine the basic principle of the chainsword: Proper activation timing. Activating the chainsword right before the moment of impact for maximum damage. Keeping it on for intimidation and constant offense. Deactivating it to better control the weapon. Balancing when to switch between the two to keep yourself ahead of the fight. I imagined myself striking imaginary targets, letting my chainsword roar to life as it ripped them apart (or as things went around here, rebound off like I'd hit them with a bat rather than a blade with adamantium teeth).
I then went through forms and patterns. Slashes, thrusts, swipes, parries. They were engraved into my very bones for years. Every second of practice let me recall those memories, transforming the movements from thought to instinct the longer I went on.
I finished my drills with a round of imaginary sparring. So far my chainsword was enough to deal with the girls easily enough, even if it didn't kill them. As fighters like Wakamo or even the students I commanded showed, that may not always be the case. I would have to prepare for the eventuality that I would fight a student far more resilient or skilled in close-quarters battle than the norm. But what to imagine? If I had a longer, more dedicated engagement with Wakamo I would have imagined her instead, her destructive nature and strange powers being a better demonstration of what more skilled combatants of Kivotos could do.
Well, I'd oft compared them to orks, so why not a warboss? The durability of the mega armor would echo the students' durability well enough, and the disparity between the mindless yet still resilient and dangerous grunt compared to their far more lethal masters would match as well. For once in the very unpleasantly short time I knew the accursed greenskin, Korbul would make himself useful.
Where instinct often guided my body, I would need my mind to lead my way as well, and so would this exercise be a physical as well as a mental one.
I started off with envisioning the warboss bellowing at me once again, a challenge that forbade any of his grunts from interfering. Unlike before, he would aim and fire at me with his weapon, and I would be poised to move out of the way as it unleashed whatever payload it had for me before I dashed in. Closing distance with a titan such as a warboss was a horrible idea in the best of times, but if I were divested of ranged weapons and unable to run, that would unfortunately be the best of many bad ones.
As I closed in, I was now in reach of two deadly weapons (because the metal barrels of a gun swung by a giant greenskin was as dangerous as any bulletstorm that came out it) compared to my not very lethal one. I relied more on evasion than blocking or parrying, as the strength behind the blows may damage my weapon and my stamina even if my body were protected. Powerful swings and deadly grabs came for me in my mind, and I did my best to deftly evade each one. These would give me the opening to constantly rain down futile blows against his armor.
As the ork and the protections he wore laughed off my strikes, he would be caught in my trap. While I gave him another ineffective barrage, he would attempt another swipe, one which I would duck and roll out of the way. I would charge in again, and he would try to smash me to the ground with his claw. I would change course at the last second to leap into his guard and then ram my blade into his unprotected face.
That would be my general rule of engagement with any of these girls with even more freakish durability: No choice but to aim for anything possibly soft and vulnerable, in the hopes that it will be enough to take them down. I switched off my blade, the silencing of the engines and slowly quieting hum of the whirling teeth cutting off all sound and activity like I'd fired a bolt pistol into the air, commanding all to be still. Now, the gymnasium was quiet once more, and all signs of life I could have imagined were gone.
"That was amazing Sensei!"
It was good that Arona followed my directions, as that distraction would have (hypothetically) killed me. Regaining my center at her exclamation, I smiled and replied to her in my mind. "Thank you Arona. I try."
I then remembered that I had one more spectator watching me and turned to find Shiroko staring at me, absolutely mesmerized. Her mouth was open ever so slightly in awe, which was a feat given her natural stoicism, and her eyes shined like a child's. I could practically imagine them shining as though she were on Holy Terra, radiating the light of the Golden Throne itself. It was the same sort of light she had when we were looting that sorry excuse of a base we saw yesterday, and I did not like being the focus of it.
"That was incredible, Sensei."
I didn't know whether or not it was more disturbing that she still had the same soft voice she usually used, except with a far stronger hint of excitement. I decided to say that I was "very unsettled" and leave it at that. "Thank you. Consider it repayment for watching you bike."
"I didn't mind you watching. I'm glad you let me watch," she replied gratefully as she walked over to me. "Close combat isn't the norm in Kivotos, so seeing a master like you was a great experience."
A master? I'd only count because I was the only chainswordsman in this entire city. Compared to people like old Myamoto, I was just somebody who managed to hack it until I survived to old age. "I'm glad I could enlighten you then," I told her instead.
"I noticed that you focused a lot on evasion and defensive fighting, with plenty of counters" she continued, causing me to look at her with a far more appraising eye. "Is that your main fighting style?"
"Yes, it is," I answered her, impressed and a little wary that she could decipher it so easily. Even with lacking experience and perspective on close combat, she already got a hold of my preferred tactics. "I generally believe in taking advantage of my opponent's mistakes over risking making my own unless I have to."
"I see." She contemplated my words, cupping her chin in her hand, and nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."
She actually might, if she ever decided to get into a scuffle like me. Clearly, she had an eye, and unfortunately a longing, for battle. Even if the school weren't in such dire straits, her position of field captain would be a fitting one. "I suppose you can call that one of my teachings," I finished as I sheathed my blade, hoping that I would never feel the results of said teachings. I unzipped my pants pocket and checked my phone. 7:30. I don't know how long I've been practicing, but my body and my schedule determined that it was enough. "It's almost call time," I announced as I kept my phone. "We ought to freshen up for the day. You go first."
"It's alright Sensei, you should-" she was about to instinctively deny me when she suddenly recoiled from me. She tried (and failed) to disguise sniffing her arm by pretending to wipe the sweat off her forehead in a bid. "Um… Sure. I will. Thank you Sensei."
Was she insecure about her scent after everything else she was focused on? That was the most normal and ladylike thing I'd ever seen from her. This girl was just odd.
—-
We only took ten minutes apiece to finish our showers. When we arrived, everyone was at the club room in uniform including us, though despite our morning exercise the two of us were the only ones that showered.
"Now what's all this then? Did the two of you get up to anything odd this morning that you had to shower?" Hoshino teased us sleepily from her place on the table.
I made a heroic effort to prevent my eye from twitching at the implication while Shiroko pointedly didn't look at me. Truth be told it was easy to control my body's responses as it always was, but the absurdity of it all still felt like a hammer blow to my sanity.
"Hoshino…" Ayane chastised her senior tiredly. "I guess you worked out Shiroko, but you did too Sensei?"
"I find it prudent to refine my skills whenever possible," I answered simply before deftly guiding (forcibly piledriving) the conversation into something more important as I took a seat. "We should start the meeting. Since research on whoever is backing the Helmet Gang will need time and information, I'd like to see how you usually deal with the debt first." Apparently they'd been meeting the interest payments all this time despite numbering only five. I wonder how they did it?
"Well, we usually just deal with requests and part time jobs," Ayane informed me. "Cleaning, hauling, deliveries, whatever odd jobs we can get. We then pool that money together and then deliver it by the end of the month."
They pay in monthly installments and have kept up all this time purely on freelance contract work? I couldn't help but applaud that as quite an achievement on their very amateur parts.
"But we need to do more than that!"
Serika's spirited declaration brought the spotlight on her. "As the treasurer, I know that we're royally screwed if things keep going on like this! We need something big!"
Somehow, I couldn't help but hear warning bells ringing in my head. They only rang even louder when she gave us a flier informing us of what she would suggest.
I wish we'd never known.
"Ready to become a boss babe billionaire? Get rich quick with the…" Hoshino's eyes opened wider and more incredulous with every word. "Germanium Granite Bracelet Network."
"That's right! We're all gonna become boss babe billionaires!"
Serika radiated a billion megawatt smile, shining with pride and anticipation. I was smiling as well, though I couldn't help but feel my face was particularly wooden.
Ayane's ashen smile was one of shattered expectations. Very, very low expectations.
"I was downtown recently, and these really cool people invited me to a seminar! They told me all about these amazing germanium bracelets! Did you know they can cleanse your aura and bring you good luck?!"
Shiroko stared at her friend like she needed to get some help.
"They're so powerful that you can boost your good vibes just by wearing them! And if you can get three other girls who wanna become boss babes like you…?"
"Motion denied."
"WHAT?!" Serika whipped her head towards Hoshino, her senior looking pitifully at her like she was a newborn. "WHY?!"
"Serika…" Ayane began a little sadly. "You know what a pyramid scheme is right?"
Shiroko didn't bother beating around the bush. "It's a scam."
"Germanium probably doesn't exist, probably wouldn't affect your luck if it did and they definitely wouldn't give it away at a seminar like that."
Serika acted as though she'd been stabbed, and then stabbed again with each point in Ayane's explanation. "B-but I bought two bracelets already," the little catgirl moaned, her ears folding down in shame.
"Awww, Serika can be so gullible!" Nonomi cooed over her. A surprising fact, given how suspicious she was of me. That only went to show that she was easily taken by emotion, her distrust likely coming more from being abandoned by outsiders (Like the GSC… Damn you for making things complicated) than natural suspicion.
Serika flinched at the rather frank but accurate assessment of her, and Hoshino mercilessly continued the onslaught on her character. "Aw, you can be so naive, Serika. Sweet, but naive. You better start wising up or else you're going to have your life ruined by one of these schemes someday!"
Hoshino was absolutely right on that. On that note, I should see how she does with a game of cards. Would be a fine way to con her into doing a few errands… So long as we keep the dealings within our house of course. She might get an entirely new unpayable debt if she ever got desperate enough to go for a casino.
"B-but it sounded so convincing… I used wasted money for them…" she whibbled, causing Nonomi to embrace her from behind.
"There, there Serika," the motherly girl consoled her, patting her head with every word. "I'll treat you to lunch one day, don't you worry."
The little cat melted in the embrace, regarding the older girl as though she'd been blessed by the presence of a merciful goddess. "Nonomi…"
"Well, that's that for Serika's suggestion," Ayane sighed. "Anyone else?"
"Me! Me!"
"Very well, President Takanashi Hoshino has the floor…" Ayane declared, a little less excited than she was before. In fairness, if my president was acting like a five year old at lessons, I'd be quite skeptical as well.
"Thank you." Clearing her throat, Hoshino began with a surprisingly logical explanation. "You know what this school's problem is? It's that the entire student body is just us. More students means more money, and influence too! More students also means more representation with the General Student Council and the rest of the city!" She became far more animated than I ever expected of her, gesturing with every important point made. "Think of Trinity and Gehenna with their five digit enrollment numbers and how much they're raking in with just monthly student fees, and how much pull they have over the city! So our top priority should be increasing our enrollment numbers!"
These were very logical points indeed, Hoshino. A fine explanation.
You can drop the act now. What madness are you planning?
"Alright," Ayane hedged, "So how do we do that?" The poor girl was likely dreading the explanation as I did.
"We abduct a school bus!"
"Excuse me?!" Annnnnd there it was. I just kept smiling as though saving this damned academy wasn't looking as impossible as finding an ork who didn't like fighting.
"We hijack a bus full of students on their way to school, and we hold them hostage until they agree to transfer their enrollment over to our school! Our enrollment will shoot for the stars!"
Ohhhhh dear, this was bad. I suddenly realized that as the lone third year and the last member of the student council that there might be a little more boiling resentment inside her than the rest. With how much her eyes were sparkling just like Shiroko's I wonder how much of this was a serious suggestion and how much she just wanted to take the piss out of the other academies.
"Interesting. We should probably target one of the Big Three for maximum effectiveness, and adapt our strategy from there."
This one needs to be headed off at the pass, our silver-haired nascent Khornate here was in support of the idea and Nonomi might throw her hat into this farce out of moral support.
"Motion denied!" Ayane practically cried out. "We need to be getting more support from the other academies! We won't be getting either students or support with this! They'll fight us for it!"
"Oh would they?" Far too much anticipation in that fight. Definitely some possible resentment there.
"... That was not a challenge." Ayane sighed. "Next."
"I have an even better idea."
"... Field Captain, Sunaookami Shiroko, you have the floor." Ayane's desperate attempt at regaining sanity using formality really didn't pan out from my view, but as I said, you just had to cling to anything.
"We rob a bank."
"WHAT?!" Oh, so just shatter any hopes of logic from the get-go? Why not?
"It's a surefire plan and we already have the perfect target. We should hit the First Central Bank downtown." This was getting worse. Not only were Shiroko's eyes sparkling as they usually did with her interests, she had already invested heavily in it. "I've already mapped out everything from the location of the vault to the positions of the guards, blind spots of the security cameras and even the armored car's transportation route." She even went to one of the room's many drawers, took out a cardboard bag and withdrew five colored and numbered masks. "I've even prepared masks."
I felt an odd sense of detached resignation as Shiroko put on her mask a blue (of course) felt design with a number 2 sewed onto the forehead area. Really, it was terrible at hiding your identity. The eyes and mouth were visible, her ears were sticking out and the frakking halo was still right there above your head.
"Wow, did you sew these yourself Shiroko?" Hoshino went over and admired the set, in particular her own pink number 1 with a tiny hole for her cowlick feather. "Dang, you got this right! Gotta go big or go home!"
"Check this out! I look like a luchador!" Nonomi skipped the admiring and went straight to testing, with her green 3 characterized with an opening for her bun to stick out. What kind of warp-spawned miracle allowed her to pack that tidal wave of hair into that tiny mask I had no clue. Also, I'm not looking up what a luchador is in the dictionary and if they look like that I never want to meet one.
"You… actually spent time to do this… How…? Why?" Ayane looked to be about one more bad idea from just sobbing.
"DENIED! We are not stooping to crime!"
Much as Serika had little right pretending to be a voice of reason here, any port in a storm helped. To her credit, Shiroko didn't voice a word of complaint, wordlessly removing her mask as though she never proposed the idea at all. The life and heart draining from her was palpable, and the slight downward inching of her face had the energy of a small child on the verge of whining.
"Pouting won't change anything Shiroko," Ayane groaned. She hesitated before she spoke once more. "... Any good ideas? Please?" she begged. The sad part is that, by virtue of having a plan, one that was meticulously prepared for as much as one student could, we just heard our best idea. I would applaud Shiroko for her dedication if she wasn't dedicated to something so insane.
"Hey, I'm next!" came Nonomi's call, sounding like a child submitting their homework or called to present in front of class.
"... What is it, Nonomi?" Ayane finally gave up on any semblance of ceremony. "No scams. No crimes. You have the floor."
"Don't worry Ayane! This is neither!" The fact that that needed to be said was sadly, not reassuring in the least. "Two words: Pop Idols!"
How is it that some hokey pict-drama plot of kids aiming to become starlets to revitalize their home was the most logical suggestion we had? "It happens all the time in anime! Nothing revitalizes a school like becoming a pop superstar!" And how is it that said tripe was literally the justification of her suggestion?!
"Denied." This time it was Hoshino who shot it down, surprisingly. "I'll just have a bunch of creeps going after me." Ah, alright then. Less of the absurdity of the actual idea, more that she didn't want to deal with questionable worshippers. Fair enough, I think even the Emperor himself would question what some particularly odd botherers were doing to worship in His name, but I'm seeing some skewed priorities here.
"Oh come on! I even made up my own pose!" In her defense Nonomi then held her hands behind her head and stuck out her body in a stance that emphasized her very large… figure. I will admit It was a pose that might have been attractive if I were a century or two younger and not whatever abomination I was now. "Christina of the Mizugi Girl Gang!"
There was a reference I missed, but Serika slamming the table showed she cared for it as much as I did. "Swimsuits?! Like HELL!"
"Aww… But I worked on that for so long…" Perhaps work on it longer. Or not at all, that would be better.
"This meeting is going nowhere…" Ayane looked dead on her seat, and I was afraid that if this kept up she might go from looking dead to actually dead out of sheer depression.
"We should decide on something then!" Hoshino said gleefully. "Sensei, it's up to you now! I'm sure whatever you pick will be the right one to do!"
"Wait, how does that make sense?!"
All of those choices were wrong ones, and I wasn't about to choose any of them. I was about to protest when Hoshino, Nonomi and Shiroko already cornered me with their eyes, all sparkling in anticipation and hope for my approval.
Also, Shiroko put on her mask. The very definition of passive-aggressive. She really knew how to say so much without a single word.
A good part of me was tempted to throw up my hands in frustration and deem this a lost cause. It was probably only due to Ayane's hard work keeping this group of headless chickens together, plus a smattering of divine providence that Abydos was somehow only on the verge of dying instead of actually dead.
After I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, I calmed down and reasoned with myself. I was confronted with the reality that for all their proficiency with guns, for all that I was able to command these girls to take on enemy forces several times their number and win, they were children. Eccentric and skilled children, but children nonetheless. Children abandoned by the equivalent of their entire hive city, forced to stand up for their little piece of the pie when everyone else couldn't or didn't want to, and their greatest enemies were a natural disaster and the perils of debt bearing down on them. Planets run by the greatest in the Imperium fell to such abandonment. Why should I be so hard on children?
I clapped my hands together to break them out of their trance. "The discussion on the debt is tabled for now."
Ayane gave a sigh of relief at the blessing of respite for her sanity, while the three who were staring at me deflated. "Aww, don't be such a coward Sensei," Hoshino whined.
Yes, they really didn't know me. I was a coward for two centuries now, breaking a habit like that was going to take more effort than I can bother with. "We have other priorities to deal with," I began. "Like the possible return of the Helmet Gang."
That caught their attention. "What? But didn't we finish those guys off yesterday?" Serika pointed out in confusion.
"I originally thought so as well," I acknowledged. "But after what you told me last night, I'm going to have to amend that point. After all, we saw their living conditions. That could scarcely be called a base. And yet, despite you repeatedly kicking them out of your school, they were able to come back for more, again and again, just to try and get your own building? Which is dilapidated, filled with sand, and in need of incredible amounts of maintenance?"
Gears started turning in their heads as the idea only seemingly dawned on them now. I couldn't blame them. They were too focused on merely surviving the siege to realize such things, and never would have been able to catch sight of the Helmet Gang base to make the connection.
"I certainly don't see them holding it ransom. People clearly have no interest in paying." It was a blunt statement, but none of them could argue that point. Especially Serika, since that was exactly what she accused me of: The lack of care. The distrust of outsiders was palpable, even justified.
Ayane gazed at me with worry. "So Sensei, if you don't think they're after the building, what are they after?"
"I don't think they're the ones after anything." I emphasized. "Very likely, somebody is paying them for this, providing them with supplies so that they can keep up the siege."
"But what would they want with the academy?" Nonomi asked.
"My hypothesis? Since kicking all of you out would lead to the dissolution of this academy, that means that that really isn't their objective. Or rather, their benefactor's objective."
I steepled my fingers together and leaned across the table as I made my conclusion. "Their objective would be the district itself."
My revelation startled all of the girls. It was simple process of elimination. The academy was the beating heart of any district. With the debt and the approach of the desert in hand, the actual value of the seat of power was so laughably small and could even be a chain around your neck. The only thing you'd get from taking over would be the inevitable catastrophe on two fronts, natural and economic.
But with the academy gone? No more Abydos academy, no more debt. While the legal and economic disaster from that tragedy was unfolding, the few people and businesses who already live here would be forced to leave, leaving the land ripe for the taking.
Of course, the land itself might not have much value either, given the encroaching trawl of the desert. But that meant our mysterious benefactor here would know something about it that would make it worth it.
Perhaps it was delusional on my part, wanting, hoping for an enemy that I could fight, but my logic made sense. After all, there were far too many potential culprits.
The most affluent, possibly influential and powerful district gets buried by sand and despite calls for help none of the other academies came in. One might wonder if the other academies were worsening this farce on purpose. Was it a power play perhaps? Strengthening their own position for the wonderful price of doing nothing, because people and money would be leaving Abydos and going for them instead? If they were innocent, perhaps they were caught up in their own problems… But the lack of even a simple reply to a cry for help gave room for doubt.
Worse still, in their darkest hour, the Foreclosure Task Force literally gambled on a brand new, barely tested investigation club instead of the General Student Council, supposedly made to look after the entire city. By everyone's words, it was clear that they never lifted a bloody finger to help. They likely haven't seen hide nor hair of the white uniform for years. I wonder, did they leave Abydos for dead as well to reduce the headaches they had? Were they just that incompetent? Or was there something else up their very large sleeves? Not even the missing President was free from suspicion in this. After all, if this was a years-long problem, why did she do nothing to address it?
By the warp. These were school children, and I was suspecting them of taking part in cutthroat politics that would make any planetary governor or upstart noble blush. And just like a foolish governor or noble may delude himself into thinking himself wise for such selfishness, perhaps leaving neighbors to rot or cavorting with the Ruinous Powers, their shortsightedness would eventually lead to their undoing.
The powers of Kivotos were guilty of either a hostile takeover or sin by inaction, intentional or not. Now, it was far too late for any quick and easy solution. Whether due to the consequences of this district falling under their management, or the inevitable devouring approach of the desert, it would bite them back HARD if nothing was done, or they had a card in play that made them think they could weather the sandy storm.
And then of course… The most painful idea. The idea that there was another party at play here. An unknown, a mystery. What an unwanted and yet painfully common occurrence in this city. I didn't even know what answer I might prefer.
I did, in fact, think of the most likely possibility for our culprit. But it was far too convenient, and I didn't want to put forth other assumptions in our current state. With students this emotional and desperate, they didn't need such a solution until ALL the facts could be seen.
"But why would they want Abydos?!" Serika cried out in outrage.
"I don't know. But that means they know something we don't, so finding that out and preventing more attacks will be our prime objective." I turned to Ayane. "Our scavenged supplies haven't seen use yet right?"
The operator's eyes lit up in understanding. "Of course! If they were being supported, there would be traces of their purchases! I understand Sensei, I'll get right to analyzing them!"
"Focus on whether they were acquired legally or illegally. That will give us an idea of who we're dealing with. Ideally, you finish that by today." Whether it was a large crime boss or a legal entity using the Helmet Gang to fight a proxy war would eliminate a good number of prospective culprits. "No one is to draw from that stock until Ayane is finished. For now, the supplies I brought will suffice. Focus on patrolling for now. If you have any jobs or requests, you may do them as well… With restrictions." I raised my fingers at every point. "First off, nobody on their own. Pairs up, every time. Second of all, no late night jobs. Are we clear?"
They seemed to agree with my suggestion, giving various responses of assent. Serika was the only one who was even vaguely reluctant, in the end our plan for the day was determined. I had a feeling it was going to be a very tiring one
"Then you are dismissed." I cast my gaze over them and sighed at one of them in particular.
"And Shiroko, please… Get that mask off your head."
Judging by the way her ears drooped, she was less receptive of that order. I didn't care. If I never saw the frakking thing again, it would be too soon.
*Chapter 7: Desert Debt Decisions*
I've done some scene reordering. I put in the debt repayment proposals first so Cain can realize that "Oh wait, I'm dealing with severely underequipped high school girls here". In his battles so far, he's seen them as very deadly fighters, possibly even battle psykers. Now that he's spending more time with them outside of a fight, he needs to get more used to the "Student" idea.
Also, the morning scene shows Cain bonding with our dear mascot wolf more, just to showcase a little how strange she is. Also, her cycling outfit, because I'm not going have our incredibly busy Sensei trek around the entirety of Kivotos for her biking trip.
Up next? The perils of part-time jobbing. See you next time!
