(Kanna POV)

The rather young man approached me, he was about an inch or two taller than me. He wore ragged tattered clothing and worn tired boots. Curly brown hair, long eyelashes, young complexion twenty or twenty one I wager, also clean shaven. It matches everything acting student council president Rin gave me. But his facial expression and eyes are hard to nail down. Usually even the best poker faces have dents or cracks. What I'm looking at isn't a poker face, it's a wizened expression. If it ever displayed emotion or feeling it lost that ability long ago. I shift my attention to his eyes next-.

The outer area of his iris color is a steely oceanic blue, green streaks are within the blue. His inner iris is completely lusterless yet it carries an uncanny sharpness. Although I can feel a bit of aloofness from them and a softness that is very earthly in feeling, accepting almost. That stare is confusing to feel.

"Hey there miss officer." Also a voice that doesn't match the face or appearance at all. His voice was squeaky, in fact it's so squeaky it gave me whiplash. How can someone look like an absolute train wreck with such strange eyes, yet sound like they just got out of middle school?

"Greetings, I'm Kanna Ogata, Public Security Bureau Captain." I flash my badge at him, then extend my hand out for a shake.

"Vagues substitute teacher of Schale." He gently grabs my hand for a shake. The feeling of his hand is rubbery, soft and hard as well in certain areas. He must have put his hand through the grinder. As our hands retract from each other I steal a glance at his. They look completely fine, whoever painted them did a masterful job.

"I came today because Seminar Treasurer Yuuka Hayase informed the general student council of a probable case of homicide." His expression doesn't change at all but he brings his phone out and hands it to me.

"Yeah, Miss Hayase sent me some texts earlier to ask if I was okay. But I had my phone on mute and I turned the vibration off." I look at his phone and see the rapid fire texts she sent him. Based on the timestamps she texted him first before informing the general student council.

"You should keep your phone's vibration mode on in case someone needs to desperately contact you." I hand his phone back, he takes it and shrugs as if to say mistakes happen.

"Regardless, I'll have to ask you some questions if you don't mind. Since the cameras in Schale aren't fully operational we couldn't view the stairwell." He waves his hand to usher me to ask away, at least he's cooperative.

"Did anyone else come to Schale after Miss Hayase left?"

"No."

"I see, next question, did you leave the Schale building at 3:45pm?"

"I didn't check the time. But if the lobby camera is active I'm sure it'll give you the time from playback."

"Alright, was there anyone else in the Schale building?"

"Sora is the clerk in Angle 24 in the western wing of Schale."

"Hmm, I'll have to speak with her later."

"Go easy on her, she spooks easily."

I nod my head to him. Honestly I was expecting more from his answers. The fact he answered so bluntly and quickly is supscions. Though I'm unsure if he's lying or not. I didn't notice anything unusual about his body language either. Still I'll have to ask acting president Rin for his file, since no other records exist for him. I want to know the kind of person I'm dealing with.

"So are we done, Miss Ogata?" I nod my head towards him. He simply walks on by straight into the Schale building. As he goes to open the door he turns towards me.

"Happy trails Miss Ogata." Is all he says, before entering into the Schale building. Well for first impressions, his eyes and face have piqued my suspicion. Though he feels somewhat mundane

(Substitute POV)

Man at least that conversation with that doberman went along fine. But tack on another weird trait of the students of this place. They also can get animal ears, weird. Are any of these students even human? I'm actually starting to doubt it slowly but surely. Hell I'm starting to believe this is truly the reality I'll be forced to live in.

I eventually make it back to the stairwell entrance door, it's been taped off as a crime scene. I haven't found an elevator yet in Schale, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is one. I turn away and survey the rest of the lobby. The elevator is near the eastern side of the building. I walk on over, ding the elevator to come on down, then board it once the doors open.

I hit the 30th floor button and stood in silence. I should see if I can give the elevator music. However I have to list all the problems I've encountered so far.

One multiple languages exist in Kivotos, meaning I need to learn and fast. Two I stick out like a sore thumb since I'm a human without a halo. Three, I'm stuck here teaching and don't know when the actual teacher will show up. And finally even when I'm finally discharged from this position. I don't know how I can possibly get home, I also doubt Rin knows how to send me back. So I might as well focus on what is easily achievable first, which is ironically learning multiple languages.

The door to the elevator dings and opens up. Walking out I proceed through the hallway until I'm back into the main office. The rather barren office greets me. I walk past the desk with the computer screens on it and stare out to look at Kivotos. The bright expansive city lights greet me. My eyes sting a little staring out at it all. It's quite a large city in all honesty, I wonder if cities in my home were as expansive?

I try to focus on home but it's nothing but a blur. I recall bits of architecture and a couple sites that people visited but that's it. Nothing really pops out. The only difference I can make out is Kivotos architecture is drastically different from my home's architecture, yet so similar.

"Damn." Is all I can mutter. I turn away from the sight of the window. Pulling out the desk chair I take a seat and pull out the chest. Setting it against one of the computer screens I tap its screen. As the screen boots back up I notice Arona is still sound asleep on a desk. She's happily drooling away as she dreams. That's when it clicks inside my head, I can have Arona help me out.She said it herself she's a super advanced AI, so if she really is helping me she wouldn't mind teaching me new languages. Besides, if she was made in Kivotos then she must have the knowledge to be able to speak the languages of the city itself. Afterall it would be strange if she didn't know at least a good chunk of the languages spoken here. I tap the screen and just like before when I first turned it on I find myself inside the chest.

Walking towards the desk she's sleeping at, I start slowly extending my finger to poke her cheek. I give her one nice poke, her face frowns and she buries her head into her arms. I start tapping her head with my fingers instead, she flails one arm out to fend me off. I lazily dodge it and counter by poking her cheek again.

"Noooo, stop it." She sounds completely annoyed and tired. I guess even something like her gets exhausted huh.

"Alright I guess I'll leave you be." I say quietly and exit the shittim chest. I'm able to keep my guts in this time. Slapping my cheeks to regain myself the rest of the way, I decide to head back to the downstairs office. The only book in Schale is residing there anyways, so I might as well begin my language studies downstairs. I take the elevator down all the way to the basement of the building. I enter back into the office and make my way to the bookshelves.

I scan the bookshelf looking at the only book on it. I'm hoping this is a book similar to the old books from my home that help in teaching new languages. I know they existed back home, I also doubt everyone here is born able to speak every language. "Honestly that would be the most normal thing done here." I mumble after thinking about my earlier thought. I continue scanning the one book there. It's sitting by itself, in fact the entire shelf is empty bar it. Perhaps the rest of the books needed to fill the shelf are somewhere else. I grab the book and it's titled Temporal Mechanics for Dummies, guess the actual teacher was nerd. But, it will probably be a fun read, I got nothing to lose afterall and literally anything to gain.

I flip the book open to find the name of the owner scribbled out, the purchased date is still there however. March seventh two thousand and two. Unlucky bastard, buying it on mankind's most cursed day. I flip to the first chapter and notice sticky notes in it, all in arabic.

"Guess they weren't bilingual either?" Is all I mutter as I proceed through the book. Most of the pages were sticky note free. The occasional random sticky in a different language was there. The first dozen were all arabic, the next few were russian. The deeper I got into the book the more I saw differing sticky notes and the more frequent they became. Eventually I slam the book shut in disgust, who would vandalize a perfectly fine book. The last four chapters are just covered in sticky notes. I set the book back on the shelf, shaking my head as I walked away from the bookshelf. Welp might as well head back up, after all I've got a computer to set up.

Taking the elevator up to the main office I walk through the hallway towards it. Now that I think of it, I should check out the rest of the upper floor. So at least I have a secondary objective after setting up the computer. I press the computer screen and the brightness of the light begins to assail my eyes.

"WHY, GOOD GOD WHY!?" I scream while covering my eyes, who keeps a desk computer at max brightness. Especially with an all white background?! "I MY BE FILLING IN FOR YOU, BUT THAT DOESNT ME I WANT TO BE BLINDED!" Eventually the pain fades allowing me to stare at the screen. I find the settings then search through them until I find the brightness slider. Turning it down to the default fifty, since some maniac had it at hundred.

Clicking out of the settings, I'm greeted to the most barren desktop ever. Only three icons exist on it. The browser, emails and the recycling bin, wow just wow this desktop is kinda depressing. Add in the background you start to see how work oriented this computer is. I guess that's fair though, it is a work only computer. But you think the bastard would've at least used a different background. Also no password? What if someone else got into the computer other than me. I notice the taskbar below has icons as well. One being files, the other three not having names and their icons are unrecognizable to me.

Alright I guess I might as well get a password setup for it. Going through the settings eventually I find what I'm looking for. Apparently there are a multitude of ways to lock the computer. Facial id, fingerprint and a regular password to put onto it. There's an option for all three so I click that one, after all it's better safe than sorry. The fingerprint reader was the one I was most curious about, apparently it's located in the mouse, neat! The password is what's stumping me right now. From what I've seen so far in Kivotos I wouldn't be surprised if this damn thing would be easy to crack, seriously there's AI and synths in this place meaning there's bound to be someone quite good at hacking. So a password has to be hellishly good after all.

"Alright how about this then?" I type my password in at the first few things that come to mind.

Leaving(area)please*wait*forsevicemen?1789!

Yeah that password should do it, I mean I spelled service wrong but that actually helps. But now I need to write that down somewhere. I whip out my phone and go through the apps until I see the notes icon. I hesitate for a second, I don't know Pandora's security capabilities so this may be a massive risk.

'I can easily keep would be intruders out'

Yeah I'm definitely not trusting you now.

'How uncouth.'

The messages disappeared from my phone's screen. I look towards the chest, before shaking my head. I don't know Arona's capabilities either so best not to chance it. Instead I look at the drawers on the left and right of the desk. Sure the cabinets were empty but that doesn't mean the desk drawers will be. Opening the top right drawer I'm greeted by a single bullet casing. I close it and open the middle drawer, a lot of pencils and pens. The third and final drawer, I'm greeted by example document sheets, useful but not needed right now. I swap on over to the left side of the desk and riffle through the drawers. The top was empty, the middle had some other office supplies like whiteout, ink cartridges and the like. The third and final drawer was a holy grail however. So many sticky notes, while I would've liked a journal, these will suffice.

I take out one sticky note, write the password down then pop my phone out of its case and put it on the back of my phone. I put my phone back in it's case, so that's sorted now let's see if there's any files that can help me or need my attention. Clicking on the icon I proceed into the files. Most of them are tax forms, business expenses and meeting notes. Some blank others completely filled out. Sadly they are in chinese so I can't really read them at all. It does give me insight into how these forms will probably need to be filled out however.

"Welp, guess I better search the web for language classes." I sigh and begin my dive into the internet.

I don't know how long it's been, but I've just barely learned the sounds of certain characters. Damn I shouldn't be cramming all this knowledge in my brain but it needs to be done. As much as I hate it, I need to keep this job just to live. I don't wanna be homeless while I try to find a way home. Besides I don't wanna fight a hobo for food, especially since guns seem to be a regular commodity here. Maybe fighting hobos won't be as bad as teaching hormonal teenagers. At least one can be reasoned with.

I let some dark thoughts run through my head for a moment, then look at all the sticky notes I've made. Each one in a different language with common phrases. Greetings, farewells and directions everything you need when visiting places that are foreign to you. But I can feel the burnout from forcing this info in my head. The entire time I've spent learning is just blending together.

I hear a light ding, I turn towards the chest. I see it come on. Arona yawns, stretching and scratching her head. Finally opening her eyes she looks around the classroom then at me.

"Good morning S.Sensei." She waves at me while teleporting to the front of the screen.

"Wait, it's morning?" I could've sworn when I last walked into Schale it was 9:53pm. I look at the time on the computer, the clock below says 6:12 am.

"So whatcha doing?" Arona asks while suddenly appearing on the computer screen. She walks around looking at all the different tabs opened.

"Just shoring up my knowledge." I mumble since my will has long since faltered. I notice a ping on the notification bell. Clicking on it, an email from Rin opens in front of me.

"Woah!" I spot Arona tumbling down onto the taskbar. Being knocked out of the earlier window.

I divert my attention back to the email I was sent.

Good Evening substitute,

It has come to my attention that I've mistakenly given you the wrong information earlier yesterday. As you are not the actual sensei of Schale I've gone to lengths to find your file. Which after much searching, was eventually located.

I'll be coming to Schale to discuss said contract of yours at 6:30 am.

Regards,

Rin Nanagami

Huh for a kinda normal first name she's got a weird last name. Wait a minute, coming to discuss my contract at 6:30. That's only eighteen minutes away.

"Fuck!" I yell while scrambling to clean up my 'desk'. I've left notes and empty ink cartridges all over it. While I could care less about impressing her I do care about my living space when someone comes over. After all, you don't want guests being uncomfortable in your abode. So cleaning this office is my new top priority.

I situate the desk dilemma with rapid speed and make sure to get all the sticky notes off of the computer. I place the notes in the top empty drawer and throw away all the empty cartridges. I set the keyboard back the right way, move the mouse back onto its proper position and slap my face to shake off any fatigue. I shake my face and scan the room to see if anything is out of place.

"Good everything is fine." I sigh with relief. I look at the time on the computer, 6:28 am meaning Rin's almost here.

"S.Sensei someone is at the front entrance." I look at Arona who's finally back up after falling. She shows me the window from the security camera. Low and behold it's knife ears Rin herself. Huh knife ears, that's a good nickname for her.

"Alright I'll let her in, be right back." I say while getting up, noticing Arona wave at me.

I made sure to take my sweet time to get to knife ears. I even silently wished the elevator would suddenly slow down. But no dice, when I was in the main lobby I locked eyes with knife ears. I made sure to move extra slow, her scowl had gotten bigger. I eventually made it over to the door and let her in. To say she seemed annoyed was definitely an understatement. She's also holding a rather big folder.

"Morning Rin." I wave while opening the door.

"Good morning substitute." Oh yeah she's irritated, her voice though sounds like irritation close to snapping.

"So what's got your knickers in a twist?" I walk her over to the elevator, clicking the button while turning towards her.

"What's got my knickers in a twist is you and the president not informing me of you." Her voice is cold like ice, she hands me one of the documents she has in the folder. "Here for you to read and keep."

I look at the document, it's a file based on me. Well the image is of my face, although a lot of my information is redacted. Like black bars on name, age, height, weight, date of birth, place of origin, previous occupation, skills, and blood type. The hell kinda file is this? Who puts this much red tape on one person. Besides you could have at least left my weight, age and height unredacted. Hell, my blood type seems important to save my life! If it wasn't for Pandora I would've been dead twice already!

"I can see you're annoyed by your own file." I walk out of the elevator with Rin. We enter the main office and she sets multiple pieces of paper on the desk. "Now then on to your actual contract."

She takes out another one, I can only guess she's given me a copy. Meaning the file on myself is also a copy too. I also noticed right away where I supposedly signed my name was once again redacted.

"Now then starting with subsection two, paragraph three, line four it states the following." I quickly go to find the thing she's talking about. Thank god she said all that, allowing a memory to surface of business classes from college. Quickly scanning until I reach the stated line I read along with what she says.

"The substitute teacher will adhere only to the council president or acting president." Ok so only knife earns can boss me around. "The substitute is expected to work until the designated teacher returns or until a month has passed. If it is required for the substitute to remain, their contract can be extended by one month." Alright so when the teacher gets here I'm relieved of duty or if a month passes.

"However if the substitute is unfit for his duties, a school may demand a strike be done to them. When three strikes are accumulated his contract is to be terminated." Okay, so I'll be fired if I get three strikes. "These strikes cannot be overruled, unless the general student council believes the strike to be unjustified. The strike will be considered unjustified if two thirds of the council vote against it." At least not everyone on the council has to agree that it's unjustified. Still difficult to achieve especially if some of them hate me. "A school can only give one strike, to prevent a school from expediting his dismissal." You know I was worried about the strikes, now not so much.

"The substitute is allowed to resign from his position at any time, his position will also be absolved after the passing of great calamity. A new contract by the current acting head must be made for them at that point." Knife ears looks slightly miffed by the line.

"The first bit sounds normal, the second though?" I say looking at it. What hell does calamity constitute as, why bring that up?

"Probably just the president's humor." She sighs, I can only rub the back of my head. Weird humor "Carrying forward with the non joking information." I could swear I saw her ears wiggle in annoyance. "The substitute will need to list a finely detailed after action report, this report will also be cross examined with a school's student council report. This is to ensure anything done at the school has no discrepancies." If I had to guess this is based on my performance.

"Any questions so far." She looks at me

"None." I give her an okay gesture.

"Good, we have another three hours of contract to get through." Oh boy is all I think as she brings out more sheets.

(Three hours later Schale office)

"Any questions about everything we spoke about?" She asks, looking me dead in the eyes.

"None at all." I'm not having her explain any of that again.

"Here these are yours as well. Originally I thought they were a students, but after examining your background or the parts that aren't redacted." She hands me a glasses case and a wooden cross on a string. The cross has seen better days.

"Thanks I guess?" She nods her head, stands up and proceeds to leave.

"I look forward to what you can accomplish as a substitute, Vagues." Ah I guess someone told her my name, probably the doberman.

"Hopefully I won't disappoint knife ears!" I wave her off, before realizing my mistake.

"Yes well-" She stops dead in her tracks and turns to look at me. "What did you call me?" Such a cold voice. Too late now to back out. I've made my choice. Time to double down.

"Hmm, I was sure you've heard me knife ears. You must have with ears like those." I might as well start to finish digging my grave. That contract already got halfway started.

"Goodbye substitute." That voice could freeze the oceans.

"Happy trails knife ears." I wave as she goes.

As she finally completely leaves I sink into the chair. From that contract to the extent I've got to help students is ridiculous. While I wouldn't mind resigning, I don't have a backup job. Getting fired extra early on is also an issue as well since that'll look bad on a resume. So for now I've got to do the best I can. I flick the mouse for the computer so the screen comes back on. My eyes hurt when the screen comes back for a little while. Ugh I turn the brightness down too, are you serious. I notice Arona on the taskbar messing with the icons there. She eventually noticed me staring at her.

"So how did the meeting with Rin go?" She asks while renaming one icon to momotalk.

"Fine I guess, it could've been better." I go back and look at the computer screen trying to figure out what to do.

"Well if you're not busy at the moment how about doing a recruitment!" She sounds really excited.

"I don't have any proxies though, remember I've got zero." That's what the chest last counted

"Well lucky for you I've found enough to get you ten recruitment envelopes." Well she's quite proud based on her voice.

She disappears from the computer screen, suddenly the chest flicks back on. It's already at the recruitment screen. Arona presents the recruitment option, specifically the ten one. I press the button and suddenly the screen changes and Arona looks at me. She shows me an envelope then hits me in the face with it! When did I enter the chest, what the hell!

"Why did you hit me in the face with the envelope!" I yell.

"I'm sorry you suddenly appeared in the chest." She backs up a little her halo turning to a dark blue and becoming liquid.

"Fine I believe you, now what?" I'm slightly irritated, seriously that packet packed punch. I look at it, it's glowing pink for some reason?

"Just sign the line, you can sign it with anything as well!" She comes next to me and points at the line.

I sign a smiley face and suddenly the packet leaves my hands. It flies up and we're greeted by multiple applications. Two pink, three gold and five blue. They suddenly begin flashing in front of us displaying multiple students. The purples being two little ladies Hibiki and Hoshino. The three golds come out as Tsubaki, Akane, Fuuka. Finally the blues Asuna, Pina, Serina, Juri and Haruk. A wide selection and half of them don't even look like they're wearing attire highschoolers would wear.

"So what do you think of your results?" I look at Arona.

"Ok, I guess? Actually why did any of them apply? Schale just became functional today technically." I'm a bit mirthed there would be applications already. They don't even know me or Schale for god's sake.

"Good question, I don't have an answer." She shrugs at me. "Best not to worry about." I look at her as she tacks that bit on.

"Right, just go with the flow, I can do that." I noticed a new resource eligma. Wait isn't that the stuff Sora told me about in the shop. "I get eligma from doing these."

"Yup, they can be exchanged to strengthen students. In fact every time you get a student application you've already received you get a copy of their fragment." She shows me all the eligma I got along with a window displaying elephs.

"So can we shorten all that info?" I ask her. I really can't be bothered to remember everything.

"Yup, we'll just call all of it divine fragments, for your convenience!" Hallelujah I'll be able to shorten it further to dfs from now on.

"So I guess I got work to do, as my assistant do you have any clues?" I ask her and suddenly a mission screen appears in front of me. Area one, first mission. Aoba Central building thirty-five.

"This area will be the first place you should get under control." She says bringing up a screen of a bunch of girls wreaking havoc. They are wearing black school uniforms and have masks with x's printed on them.

"Shouldn't the school they're all attending do that?" I zoom in on one of them, a blonde girl wielding a mini gun and she has her shirt open. At least she's wearing wraps on her chest.

"Well, these smaller schools do try to keep their students from doing stuff like this. They kinda need help from time to time." Arona clicks on the first mission while I think about what she says. So not only is Valkyrie trying to keep the peace, but smaller schools are trying as well.

I look at the mission screen and see two girls labeled as enemies, ones a boss on octagon tiles. Another octagon tile has start labeled on it, Arona taps it and then selects the first team we made yesterday to be the intercepting the rabble rousers. They appear and before Arona taps to start the mission I gently grab her hand.

"Hang on, there's no way all these students from different schools can get there." It isn't possible no matter how you look at it. Sure Arona or the chest can teleport me around, but the students probably still have to take transport to and fro.

"There's not a lot of time to explain. So instead I'll ask do you trust your super advanced a.i. assistant S.Sensei?" Her question throws me off a little bit.

"I guess." I don't have a choice when I think about it. I would rather talk to her than Pandora.

She smiles and suddenly I'm transported to a combat zone with the students of the selected team. I look at them, they look at me and before I can utter a word, bullets begin to fly. You know, this job is going to be the death of me.


A/N as I stated this was the last one of the clumps. Therefore the next one won't be for maybe a week or two. So I hope you enjoyed and happy trails.