quote:

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Originally posted by Akuri-sensei
“I have been told to gather information about yesterday’s unfortunate incident. You will spend the ten minutes of homeroom filling in your answers and then the temporary class rep here – ”

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Yuichi looked over excitedly at me and pressed the piece of paper in my hand. I looked down at it curiously and gasped.

quote:

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"His name's Kuro. Before he became a Sokoban he was a Muromachi period Shinto monk. Now he lives in my head. And he's turning my brother into a vegetable." - Karinushi Fubi

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Kazuo-san came up the row of desks handing out the papers. I took one and gave him a small pat on the elbow and a thumbs up as he went by. Go Kazuo. What with my Go Tanaka thought earlier this wa sturning into something of a Go Class! day. I wondered if it really was.

The Shadows. The illnesses. The stupid sensei. That headmaster thing yesterday. Was it us against the rest of them? And if so whose team were the Shadows on? Ours? Theirs? (whoever 'they' were...) or their own?

AKURI-SENSEI



When the Albino was done I barked out,

“But first, registration. Respond when I call your name.”

We went through that ritual. The special girl was absent again, dear oh dear, no Kouchou-Sensei here to save you today my sweet. I marked the register. That damn weird Karinushi child was absent too. Hmmm… interesting, given the circumstances. I took out my diary and checked a couple of things. Yes. I made a note and put it away.
“Now open the papers and answer the questions as honestly as you can. This is an anonymous survey, no need to put your names. If you had no contact in this incident merely state as much. I don’t want anything made up. And be honest.”

I glared at them with that final comment, particularly focussing that stare at the people around the girl's desk by the window and the boy at the back - where people would have seen at least something.

The papers were a questionnaire about the incident of yesterday. The questions included such things as:

Did you see anything unusual in the school you cannot explain?

If so, describe what you saw.

Were you physically contacted by anything inexplicable?

Did you experience any effects? Sensations? Feelings?

Summarize what you think they might be.

And so on…

I sat at my desk and watched them working.

Soon after Sadoru-san returned to his desk, Akuri-sensei came in, looking especially murderous. Then as he forced Kazuo-san to hand out some kind of questionnaire, I got quite angry. I'd like to say it was because he was horrible enough to pick someone just for being different, but it was really because I knew what this was about.

They want to know what happened so they can try to prove it wrong. To cover it up again.

Hmm, ever considered becoming a detective?

Akuri-sensei proceeded to call out the register. I answered to my name with particular distaste, and picked up the paper.

quote:

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"This is an anonymous survey, no need to put your names. If you had no contact in this incident merely state as much. I don’t want anything made up. And be honest.”

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A soft warm handshoved something into my hand. My still-groggy eyes snapped open at the all-too-familiar touch, and turned around to see Tanaka swishing around back into her seat as Akuri-sensei came in.

I felt my cheeks fill with blood again as I turned to the front again, peering into my hand.

The note was weird, talking about Karinushi Fubi. I had a vague registration that it had something to do with the shadow issue, but having just woken from a nap, I wasn't in any mood to think at all, so I simply stuffed it into my bag.

A received the questionnaire from a very unhappy Kazuo and scanned it lazily.

Yeah, more interrogation.

I stifled a yawn and proceeded to answer the questions in as dry a humour as I was often notorious for.

See anything in school I cannot explain? Nothing I haven't seen before.

Physically contacted by anything inexplicable? Define inexplicable.

Did you experience any effects? Too personal to answer.

I stifled another yawn.

Post last edited by Roarkiller on 10.28.2007, 10:22 AM.

Are we seriously doing an assignment on this shadow stuff? Yawn, no thanks. I was bored. I didn't even really take a look at the assignment, I scribbled some answers down and left it on the corner of my desk. I then stared out the window.

I decided to pull out my art book and began browsing through it. So many fine pieces from all over the world. I then stopped at that Munakata image that I saw on the first day. The one with the two shadows. I liked it, it was odd, yet captivating. I began to wonder what was going through the artists mind, what was he thinking, where did he get the inspiration? I couldn't understand it.

I continued to stare at it, and ignore everything else going on.

I flipped through the couple of pages of questions, scanning a few and stopped. At once I began to fume, then boil with anger. That damn headmaster, this had to have come from him. Lab rats, that’s all we were. How dare the school intrude like this? I looked to my left at the empty desk and was glad Takako wasn’t here, she’d be furious at this or it would upset her, probably both. God knows what Hibiki is thinking.

I turned in my seat and looked at him. He was writing something.

Then I made up my mind. There is no way Sensei can give me a detention for refusing to do this. If he does I’ll phone dad and then what about the headmasters precious silence? Taking the blank sheets I stood up, walked to the sensei’s desk and lay the questionnaire down. I gave a small bow.

“Sensei, sumimasen, I do not think I am able to fill in these questions. I won’t tell lies but again I won’t answer. I do not accept that it is the school’s business to intrude upon pupils in this way. For those it is affecting directly I should think this is most unpleasant. Gomen.” and I made another small bow and awaited the sarcastic rebuke I expected to pour down on me.

Akuri-sensei came back in and spoke at us for a few minutes and then we were handed this survey about shadow. Shadows again, huh? What is with this school...I thought, annoyed. I had no idea what this was about and wrote about that much on the survey that the albino boy handed to me. And then, turned to look at the red-haired boy, Okayu-san I think, speak up against the survey.

An interesting turn of events. I turned to watch Akuri-sensei's reaction curiously.

I looked at the piece of paper in front of me but had to answer no or deny all the questions and that was the truth. The circle of girls I’d known so far this week hadn’t mentioned any of this. I looked to my left at the boy next to me and whispered to him, frowning.

“Excuse me… what’s all this about? Do you know?”

I woke from a short daydream involving… well you don’t want to know who was involved… and if you do, tough as this is a PG rated monologue… to find a questionnaire of some kind fluttering onto my desk. Damn, and it was just getting good too… I half listened to the sensei as I ran my eyes across it. Oh, heck, this. Again. I turned to glance back at Hikari-san, she was already filling it in. I went to pick up my pen and saw movement over by the window. The red haired boy got up and went to the sensei and refused to fill in the form. Ah. This could get messy. Wasn’t he the one who got in trouble on Monday in the gym? Baka, you’re going to get us all in trouble, there’s a time and a place for heroics, and I don’t think this is it.

Oh great, I thought. More misplaced "values" from Mister Patriotic.

He must've missed the part about not needing to write his name.

I sighed silently. Honesty is good, but not something you need to announce to the whole world.

AKURI-SENSEI



My nose flared as this impudent boy spoke out. He dares talk to me like that?

I got up from my chair.

"Perhaps detention was too light a punishment for you."

"The school may have been tolerant enough to put up with your antics, boy. But I'm not. What the school can or cannot do is not up to you to decide. Unpleasant? That's not my business."

"But since you care for your 'friends' so much, we can have a little discussion about them at lunch," I sneered.

"In the meantime," I leaned forward menacingly. "you can have the priviledge of standing by the trash bin."

Post last edited by NON-PLAYER CHARACTER on 10.29.2007, 11:54 AM.

“Hai!”

Which in the tone I used meant “Up yours!”

Leaving the blank questionnaire on his desk I walked across behind him to the door and in the space between the door and Kazuo-san’s desk stood, back to the wall and folded my arms, staring straight ahead across the heads of the other students to a certain empty desk by the window, focussing my thoughts on the person who usually occupied it.

I watched curiously as Sadoru-san suddenly stood up and approached the sensei.

quote:

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“Sensei, sumimasen, I do not think I am able to fill in these questions. I won’t tell lies but again I won’t answer. I do not accept that it is the school’s business to intrude upon pupils in this way. For those it is affecting directly I should think this is most unpleasant. Gomen.”

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The boy didn't react. He finished filling in the form and got out a book and buried his nose in it. Is he ignoring me deliberately? Feeling stupid I turned back to the form, finished filling it in and put my pen down. I glanced over at him again. Seisaku-san that was his name wasn't it? Well, he'd ignored me once, perhaps he wanted to be left alone.

I looked around the room wondering what others were doing.

AKURI-SENSEI



The end of homeroom bell sounded and I told the Satomi child to collect the papers. I watched him like a hawk as he did so, counting carefully and making notations as necessary. Without a second glance at them I put them in my bag. The door slid open and Takefumi-Sensei came in. I rose and went past him, nodding a greeting. At the door I stopped and looked down at the troublesome one.

“Return to your seat. Be at the Sensei’s lounge at the start of lunch break.” I held him with an icy gaze for a few seconds longer before departing.

TAKEFUMI-SENSEI



I slid the door rapidly open and walked briskly into class, throwing my bag carelessly down by the sensei’s desk. The homeroom teacher greeted me and left.

“Ohayo Gozaimasu class! Are we all well today? Everybody happy? Excellent! I hope you remember me, Takefumi Kensuke from last Friday. We should have met yesterday afternoon, but… never mind… So, you…” I pointed in a random direction and a girl’s face swam into focus beyond the end of my finger, “The square root of 30 is…?” She stood up and quickly gave an answer, “Good, now you…” Another random student, “State Pythagoras’ Theorem.” The boy stood and a little uncertainly did so, “Excellent!”

I turned and began to chalk an equation on the board, all the time talking, “The girl at the very back by the window, give me the definition of a prime number…” She did so, easily, “Easy that wasn’t it? Now give them to me – up to 53…” Very hesitantly she did so, faltering part way through at 31. I interrupted her,

“Boy at the very back by the door, help her out – continue to 53…”

And so it went on. I picked students rapidly and randomly, simply jerking their brains into activity, mental warming up. I finished my equation on the board.

“Right, note books out. Today we’re looking at Primes, in case you hadn’t guessed, take notes:

The fundamental theorem of arithmetic states that every positive integer larger than 1 can be written as a product of one or more primes in a unique way, i.e. unique except for the order. The same prime may occur multiple times. Primes can thus be considered the “basic building blocks” of the natural numbers. For example, we can write..."

23244 = 22 x 3 x 13 x140

"...and any other factorization of 23244 as the product of primes will be identical except for the order of the factors. There are many prime factorization algorithms to do this in practice for larger numbers.

The importance of this theorem is one of the reasons for the exclusion of 1 from the set of prime numbers. If 1 were admitted as a prime, the precise statement of the theorem would require additional qualifications...”

The lesson continued…

NARRATOR:

Takefumi-Sensei led the class through a mind-bending math lesson. This was followed by a double period of Home Economics and just before lunch, music which seemed to be popular among a lot of students in 1-A. There seemed to be an unusually large proportion of artistically gifted children in this class; music and the graphic arts and writing being favoured by many of them.

Then the lunch bell rang and the music class ended, the students packing away instruments or books and leaving the music room which was on the second floor of the second wing above the art department.

After the red-heads stint at being a hero we had maths, home economics and then music.
Music was fun as always. And then the bell rang.

I packed my stuff quickly and walked up to Kazuo who was still at his desk.
"So... whats going on between you and the sadist teacher?"