Tick, Tock
The ticking of the clock was relentless, unstoppable. Time was always moving forward, despite what we wished, after all.
Tick, Tock
The continuous pounding of the clock only served to emphasise its drone, preventing it from becoming ignorable background noise.
Tick, Tock
Of course, the silence might've had something to do with it as well. Despite how full the room was with people, not a single sound was being made. Everyone stood as still as stone, even the faintest breeze coming through like a monsoon.
Tick, Tock
The gaze of everyone within the room bar one was focused on a single point, their gazes filled with unreadable emotions and hard stares, bar one.
Tick, Tock
And as I knelt on the carpet in the centre of the room, feeling these gazes on me, the only thought I could rationally come up with was that I should get a quieter clock.
Tick, Tock
The rest of my being bar that part was screaming with fear.
Tick, Tock
Probably the most reasonable response to being surrounded by teenagers armed to the brink with high-powered weaponry.
Tick, Tock
As I desperately tried to ignore the beads of sweat dripping slowly down my brow, mingling with my eyebrows in a push to enter my eyes, my knees sore from kneeling for so long, I tried to push past the fear and uncertainty to remember how on earth did I even end up in this situation.
Tick, To-KERWHACK
"SHUT UP!" Without even firing a shot, Neru stopped the insufferable ticking with a healthy application of percussive maintenance, applied liberally through a strong kick. The shattered clock fell on the floor with a light thud, barely noticeable compared to its former rhythm.
Giving her a small nod, Yuuka turned back to face me. "Now, Sensei, can we return to the topic of our conversation?" The angelic smile she's giving completely at odds with the madness hiding behind her eyes, she clutched the infernal rag that started this entire thing in the first place.
On the accursed tabloid masquerading as a newspaper, proudly on the front page with all block letters was a headline and an image. The headline proclaiming to the world at large that "SCANDAL AT SCHALE? SCHALE'S SENSEI SPOTTED KISSING A STUDENT!", and the image below it a grainy photograph taken at extreme range of me bent over, and a head visible past mine.
I turned my gaze back to Yuuka.
An eyebrow was twitching, and the paper was slowly getting more and more wrinkled as she used to more force in her grip.
"Well, Sensei? Do you have any response to this?"
I stayed silent. My response would've been to use whatever remained of my youth to make a break for it, but they'd tied me up.
'They'. Such an odd term to use, when in reality the better word would be 'everyone in the city'. Even if I ran, I wouldn't be able to escape.
Not with Neru sitting on my chair, glaring at me, ready to pounce.
Not with Hina holding her machinegun and prepared to take a swipe at me with it.
Not with Mika standing guard by the door, her eyes trained to my every move.
They stare at me, and I stare back.
Heaving a heavy sigh, Yuuka holds her head in her hands. "…You know Sensei, we just need to know what was going on. We all know Kronos isn't the most reliable of sources."
I stare at them, eyes lidded. "That's what I was saying, very loudly, when you all came in here and asked for answers."
At least Hina had the graciousness to blush. "Well, we were concerned about the worst case scenario, and if you had decided to run it would be unlikely we would catch you."
"Run? Catch? With a bunch of superhumans who break through walls-" Face flushed, Mika averted her eyes from me. "-Jump off buildings-" Neru just stared at me, though she couldn't hide the faint blush that rose up from her cheeks. "-Or survive ICBM hits at ground zero?" Hina's gaze bored into me.
Yuuka had the decency to look embarrassed at that. Coughing into her hand, she tried defending herself: "W-well, we do know how you have the tendency to end up in odd situations, so we just wanted to get the answers before you went and did something to deepen the misunderstanding!"
I just stared at her, wiggling my bound hands. "The misunderstanding that would arise if Kronos got their hands on an image of me tied up kneeling to some of the most powerful people in the largest academies?" I muttered under my breath. I could feel a headache coming on.
I'd been awake the whole night trying to clear the latest stack of paperwork that formed over the latest incident with the GSC coup, and I hadn't even had breakfast (or lunch now, I guess) when they broke in shouting about "immoral behaviour, student-teacher relationships, lewd lewd lewd".
No, the last one was if Koharu was here. She wasn't, thank the heavens. I love the girl to bits, but she'd be screeching non-stop if she was here. Heck, I was scheduled to teach the Make-Up Work club in 2 days, I'd hear it then.
But right now, I needed an escape.
"Hina, could you be a dear and open the hidden cupboard at the bottom of the wall?" I could see the confusion in her eyes, but she did it anyways. Ah, you precious little cinnamon roll.
"Sensei, what are these bottles?" Her voice took on a dangerous edge as she read the labels of said bottles. "Merlot, cognac… these are all alcohol, Sensei. Why is it in your office?" The other students glared at me as Hina read off the drinks.
I just gave a gallic shrug. "I live in this building, don't really have anywhere else to put it. Be a dear, and give me a vodka, Hina."
Yuuka gave me the stink-eye. "Se~n~sei~"
Before she could go on about the detrimental effects of alcohol, I just turned on her, and stopped hiding my weariness. "Yuuka, I've been awake since 6am yesterday trying to clear the stack of paperwork that just suddenly dropped on my lap, and now I'm tied up because I might've kissed someone. There is no way I'm staying sober for this."
I received stares from all the girls, before Hina silently passed me the vodka, and Neru untied me.
"Thanks girls." I gladly opened the bottle, allowing the fake bottle of vodka to release the hidden separator between the liquids within, allowing them to react with each other to form a massive smokescreen.
"Wha- Sensei?!"
"Oi!"
"He must be escaping!"
"Don't run, Sensei~"
The voices mixed into a jumbled mess as they panicked, trying to see where I had gone, and by the time the smoke faded out the room was empty of people.
The room stood silent, as the fading sounds of shouting from the window disappeared.
Arona's voice broke the silence. "Sensei, the students are now a block away from SCHALE!"
I crawled out of the drinks cabinet.
Or rather, my hiding closet. I'd had the Engineering Club make it after the Kaiser break in.
I clutched another fake vodka bottle like my life depended on it, a parachute hidden as a jacket tightly buttoned around my chest (another Engineering Club invention). If that hadn't worked, my second plan was to jump out of the window and make for safety. Would've given me at least a sporting chance against Neru. My third plan was to wait for someone to send help, but that was the third plan for a reason.
Arona's visage appeared on the Shittim chest, while Plana just stared, befuddled. "We've hacked into their phones as well, and the Sensei tracking app they thought you didn't know about should be telling them that you're on the way to Abydos! The Abydos students have been notified, and should be ready if any of them get lost."
"Thanks, Plana, Arona." Arona gave a big smile, while Plana just gave a small nod.
Arona's face crinkled up. "But isn't it a bit mean to do this? They were just worried about you."
I took out a root beer from the minifridge beside my desk. "Don't worry, I know that. But sending them to Abydos should let them cool their heads off a little, what with how far it is from here and all that. Hey, maybe they can take it as a vacation?" I took a sip from the ice cold root beer. "It lets me get back to my work too."
And with that, I went back to the pile of papers on my desk.
A few hours later, I got messages from all four of them apologising, Mika's the most verbose, and I made a trip to see her in person for that.
After that, Kronos redacted the article due to the image being generated using AI. Arona made a big fuss over them making AI look bad.
Everything was back to normal in a few days, but afterwards, if I caught Yuuka on the phone giggling at her messages, or Neru in a more frilly dress than usual, and Mika having less issues with her stuff going missing, well, I never pointed it out.