Vol 3 Chapter 6 (2/2)
high schools Students still study their backs off just to pass a test to get into
college, and with all the high expectations for the student body here, that
fact is only doubly true In truth, I suspect the school took me in because
ofme as someone they can proudly send off to
Tōkyō University (which had been ement
in this place ht be a bit too focused on what numbers they can
boast about, it doesn’t really bother ive me
the freedoo out
I snap out of my reverie in time to notice that we’ve exited the main
building, and that besideat it with listless eyes
for quite so of it, she looks back at me while idly
fondling the cross hanging from her neck
“Weird place Can’t rightly tell if the teachers are primarily teachers, or
dedicated to being nuns, or whatever Oh yeah, and didn’t we pass by a
chapel earlier? Is that where they do the whole ‘? Our Father,
with art in heaven and all that?”
Oh, shi+ki you ignorant fool What would God do with art?
“There’s aservice,” I reply, “and a mass on Sundays
Students aren’t obligated to participate, though People like me who transferred
to Reien froely aren’t Christian,
so we don’t go The nuns would rather we do, but…well, you know the
law The sudden influx of rich-but-not-necessarily-Christian fa
their well-to-do daughters here increased dramatically over the past
decade, which, coupled with the nu to put
their children in schools that force a Catholic education, forced them to
tone down the mission school vibe”
/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - II • 15
“What a pain in the ass,” shi+ki sighs “I’ to bet God doesn’t care
either way”
To see her dressed in the unifor such a
vulgar tongue makes me feel a little uneasy I quickly dispense with the
subject
“Well, never ?
Any weaving of the Art?” I ask as we continue to walk the carounds
shi+ki shakes her head
“Not a glance Guess we’ve got no choice except to wait until tonight,”
she says, casting her sleepy eyes across the buildings, the abundant foliage,
and the stone ays that adorn the school
shi+ki, like es, can see what is hidden from most normal
people The hosts and
spirits…and even things withimplications Her breed of
sight grants her dominion over death and entropy, and it manifests for her
as patterns of lines on an object, and supposedly, by tracing them she can
weave entropy into it and destroy it Apart from that, her family claims a
strong martial tradition, and whatever else may be said about her, she has
still lived up to it exceptionally Because of that, her reflexes are as fast as
she is efficient and brutal
In other words: a woman quite the opposite of my brother Mikiya
Totally unsuited for him Above all other people, it is perhaps shi+ki who
annoys me theup
Miss Tōko’s tutelage in the Art is shi+ki herself Because if Mikiya’s girlfriend
was any norirl, she would never measure up to someone like me But
obviously, shi+ki is a far more troublesome sort So I put aside my common
sense and took Miss Tōko up on her offer
Now, I’, but I don’t feel I’ve measured up to her just
yet, so I spendmy time between
h I consider
shi+ki the enemy, there is one truth about her that I have so far refused to
give voice to
“I’ll have to spend the night in your dorine Normally, I
don’t like sleeping on a bed I haven’t checked and prepared myself, but in
this case I’ll have to lower my standards” shi+ki bookends the sentence with
a sigh of surrender
See, the truth is that shi+ki doesn’t really hate me And I don’t really hate
her either I’ve always thought that if only Mikiya wasn’t between the both
of us, I would probably be the best of friends with her
“So where to next, Azaka?” shi+ki asks as she looks at me “To the dormi-
16 • KINOKO NASU
tory?”
“It ht be better for us to use what little ti
and not idly resting in my room, I should think We’ll talk to class D’s
ho-eye dog for
the duration of this case, and you’d do well to use those Eyes to scrutinize
everyone you come across”
“Wasn’t the houy called Hayama or somesuch?”
“Old news Mr Hayama left the institution in November The homeroom
instructor now is Mr Satsuki Kurogiri, the only male instructor in the
school” I start to walk back inside, heading toward the English language
teacher’s quarters, while shi+ki tags along dutifully beside me
“A guy teacher in an all-feuess that must stir up some
latent feelings in soirls, huh?”
I don’t answer her right away, but in her own crude way, she’s right The
students of Reien are brought up to be to the school’s vision of ideal young
worowth One of the main
reasons the school strongly discourages venturing outside the grounds is
because they think that a boy and a girl interacting at their age is a slippery
slope to an illicit sexual relationshi+p But I’ve always thought that having
male teachers undermined that philosophy anyway
“Well, yes,” I finally answer after a moment’s pause “But that topic’s
practically a minefield in this place, so keep your voice down Hideo Hayama
wasn’t a popular teacher here not only because of his suspected lack of an
actual teaching license, but also because there were rumors that he’d sexually
harassed a student once”
“What? Why the hell wasn’t he out of here sooner, then?” shi+ki asks
with cocked eyebrow
“The sisters and the Mother Superior were forced to turn a blind eye to
it because…well, let me put it this way: The surname of the school board’s
chairman is Ōji, but before he married into his wife’s family, he shared a
surname with Mr Hayama”
“Oh ho,” shi+ki whispers conspiratorially “The chaired
brother or souess the question
becon like he did”
I scan my head around quickly just to check if no one’s around Satisfied,
I turn back to shi+ki and say, “Remember last November ere in
Miss Tōko’s office? I said it then too, but the short of it is that a fire broke out
in the high school Only the dormitories of class C and beloere affected,
but the fire itself supposedly started in class D’s section, and they said Mr
/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - II • 17
Hideo Hayama was behind it Obviously, the chairman himself sacked him,
but Mr Hayaone by then Perhaps he ran”
News of the arson never really slipped outside the walls of the school
All the firemen were purportedly bribed, as were an ample number of the
student’s parents and guardians Wouldn’t want to tarnish the good name
of the school where their precious daughters went to after all It took one
other toll
There was…someone that died in that fire
“So this Kurogiri guy—what’s he like?” shi+ki asks
“Very little to say about hi quite the polar
opposite of Hayama I don’t think there’s anyone in the school that hates
him He started only last summer, and unlike Mr Hayama, he didn’t have
a crutch to get hih I hear the Mother Superior was quite
enthusiastic to have him From what I hear, she actually wanted to have a
teaching staff that was native English—like our long gone sister school—
but were able to speak japanese Of course, such people are rare But Mr
Kurogiri was just such a man”
“So he’s one of those English teachers, I take it?” Strangely enough, shi+ki
scowls as she asks this Perhaps her preference for all things japanese has
given her solish related
“Yes, but with a license to teach French and German too He’s even
studying Mandarin now, and soe It’s no secret
e call hieek I confess, it sometimes makes him a
hard person to deal with”
I stopasfind
ourselves in front of the door to the English language teacher’s quarters
In Reien, teachers do most of the paperwork in the faculty office, but all
of them are quartered in their own accommodations This room is for the
English language teacher, and is the same room that Hideo Hayama once
used
I inhale a gulp of air, careful not to let shi+ki notice it Then I rap gently on
the door two ti it
Once iri with his back
to us in the far end of the room, concentrated on the work at his desk
His workspace faces the , froht
enter froood professor, thick stacks of
paper lie in heaps in seely random places all over the room: on top of
a chair, or a cabinet, or peeking out from inside a drawer, all in some kind
18 • KINOKO NASU
of order known only to him
“Mr Kurogiri I’m Azaka Kokutō of class 1-A Did the Mother Superior tell
you about my business?”
“Yes,” he replies, accompanied only by a curt nod as he looks over
his shoulder He only swivels his seat around to face us When his face
meets ours, I do not fail to detect shi+ki’s sharp intake of breath It doesn’t
surprise me In fact, I expected it I too, reacted in much the same manner
of momentary confusion when I first saw him
“Ah, Kokutō Yes, I have been informed Please, both of you, take a seat
I trust there will be soentle as the
se seems to be around his mid-20’s which, if true,
wouldfeatures,
coupled with his black-ri one
of the least i ones as well “You are here for my account on class
D, I iine”
“Yes, sir Specifically, your account on the students that tried to hurt
each other with box cutters” My reply aze
placed far beyond , for a moment, a heavy sadness and
disconsolation
“It is regrettable that I cannot help further in that regard I myself remember
little about what actually took place My ue, but I know
that I could not stop the two girls in time before they hurt themselves I
knoas there in the scene, but everything after that is unreliable, I’m
afraid” He closes his eyes
Why is this man and he so alike? So ready to throw himself at another
person’s problems when it isn’t his turn to bother himself with it? Both of
them don’t seem to be the kind of person that would harm anyone else,
erous situation as with the two students
“Sir, did you know the reason for their quarrel?” I ask, if only to make
sure, but Satsuki Kurogiri only shakes his head silently in reply
“According to the other students, I was the one that stopped them, but
I certainly don’t recall such a thing happening I’ve been called a forgetful
person otten so
so iument, I honestly don’t
know It’s possible it could even have been me I was, after all, in the same
rooh reason to
investigateexpression darkens as he says this
I cannot say that I wouldn’t doubt myself either if I was in his place
It would seem suspicious to anyone that he was there when the actual
event happened, and yet he couldn’t do anything, and doubly so when
/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - II • 19
he can’t re self-doubts would be
the sensible progression from there He doesn’t knohat he did, if he
were in soue state, what kind of time and memories
he lost But while suspecting yourself ht be reasonable, especially
with a lack of any co more
and more about what happened would eat away at you, until you couldn’t
escape
“But sir, couldn’t it be possible that some students of class 1-D were still
in the classroom as the entire event unfolded? Have you asked all of your
students?”
“Yes, but they reet
about it Me, and I cannot rely on theirs just now to be
entirely truthful The question of how involved I was is still very much up
in the air Regardless, I think you will gain littleme
about it I know I ht seem unreliable at present, but if you have
more questions left, I will be happy to answer theain, more
weakly now, and I nod at him and answer
“Yes, let’s continue You said that they don’t want to talk to you about
what happened What do you think ht be the reason they hesitate to
confide?”
“I can’t say for sure The class has always been particularly…strained,
even on the day I took charge of them Maybe it is not my place to say,
seeing as I haven’t been their ho, but they
are unusually quiet”
“Do you think they ht be scared?” As I ask that, I wonder why no
other student could have stopped the two girls fro each other
Could the letter have found all of the students of the class instead of just
two? It could be an explanation It makes everyone a suspect for the sender,
and instantly irls Perhaps they would
have seen the fight as the two girls outing each other as the real sender
But Mr Kurogiri’s answer doesn’t support my theory
“No,” he replies slowly, letting it churn in his mind “Not scared I think”
“Then what?”
“It would probably be ht to say that they are…reserved, maybe
guarded Against what, I cannot really say” I don’t fail to take note of the
nuance
In other words, hethat the problem has always remained
internal to the classroo any other third
party
“Sir, can your students be contacted at present?” I feel like I have no
20 • KINOKO NASU
other recourse except to be direct and ask the students The whole affair
aboutlost makes Miss Tōko’s fanciful fairy theory more
likely by the second, and I’ll have to ask the people spreading the rumors
about that as well
“There is no need to contact them They are all here in campus, so you
can talk to them immediately if you want to”
That genuinely catches uard All of them, here in school? Is that
coincidence or so else at work?
“Perhaps later For now, though, I have another engagement I may have
ht shi+ki, let’s go”
The girl has been uncharacteristically silent for the last few minutes I catch
her attention and motion for her to follohen I stand up It is then that I
notice Mr Kurogiri staring blankly at
to shi+ki in particular
“Uiri can
answer, shi+ki finally speaks for the first time
“Miss Azaka refers to me by name, sir My name is shi+ki A pleasure to
some effort
of supreently as she does now, and I can’t tell if it’s
dripping with sarcasm or not With her, you can never really tell
“Yes, your silence made you a bit conspicuous I am sorry,” the instructor
says “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before A freshman, I presume?”
“Perhaps Only ti the school’s facilities, you see
If I find it satisfactory, I ht transfer”
“Clearly you’ve already found the uniform satisfactory Do consider hastily”
says Mr Kurogiri with another curt nod He looks at shi+ki with a look
of positive delight bea every detail on her like an
artist would on a model
A gentle knock on the door interrupts their conversation Then a voice
from outside, muffled by the wall
“Excuse me”
The door opens with a slight creaking, and in steps an upperclassman,
her al over the room with a cold detachment, and the
slight breeze drifting in through Mr Kurogiri’sher back
length black hair ripple slightly Reien is already ho
woirl stands out Her face is known to me
I wouldn’t forget the face of our student council president since last year
When she looks at you, she al you from above,
and the long, thin eyebrows give her a countenance of stately command
“Ah, Ōji Is it tiiri says to the student, Misaya Ōji
/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - II • 21
“Yes, it is, sir Well past the appointed time,” she replies confidently
“You were expected in the student council room at one o’ clock Time is
not eternal, so we have to make use of it as best we can, do we not?
Without even batting an eyelash, Ōji berates the erring instructor She
carries her race only she can muster, and it is an asset she
uses to rule the student council as tightly as she can By the time I had
transferred, she was already in place at her position, but according to what
Fujino told me in the past, not even the sisters could touch her And if the
rumors are to be believed, nor can the school board chairman, hom
she shares a surname
It’s only natural, considering the family they hail from The chairman,
who married into the fae discrepancy
of influence frohter The
Ōji are plutocrats; oldor
street or two They have a strange practice of adopting female babies for
daughters, and their rooms
into their fahters of the family force
the grooht up
to be individuals of strong force of will to become scions to their financial
e has made Misaya Ōji a woman with a heart of
iron Still, she is not a co
sense of justice She shows no ulations,
but to those that uphold it, she is a sister and a role model She is
even devoutly Christian, and goes to the noon mass every Sunday without
fail
“As strict as ever, Miss Ōji Perhaps a more flexible view of time and
eternity would be wise” Grinning, the instructor stands up and leaves his
seat, Misaya Ōji watching his every move with visible impatience Surely to
a woman who values discipline like her, the leisurely pace of Mr Kurogiri
Ōji glances for aa
doubtful eyebrow as to our identity and presence Realizing that we’re
surely bothering her just by being here, I pull on shi+ki’s arnal to her
that we shouldn’t press our luck, and had best get out now
“Let’s move on, shi+ki,” I whisper as we move to the room’s exit Mr
Kurogiri opens the door for us in aoff
some visitors, and I’m compelled to mutter a quick sorry and a bow before
I step out
“No, no,” the teacher quickly says “It is I who a of
ives us a last
22 • KINOKO NASU
soodbye
“Do you always smile so sadly, sir?” I whip my head around just in time
to see shi+ki say that to Mr Kurogiri He only widens his eyes, not in surprise,
but more of expectation, and nods
“Hiven you a sh
the fleeting expression on his face seems to say otherwise
After leaving the English instructor’s room, me and shi+ki make our way
quickly toward the dorle on the
way there Reien Girl’s Acade as a university,
and the layout of the buildings reflect this The junior high school, senior
high school, the gymnasium, and the dormitories are all located in separate
buildings, in what see
as s and the
dor you to pass through a small
forest located on the grounds Fortunately, a ith a roof exists so
you don’t get lost and can travel through it in just your indoor shoes
After going through the quad, we find ourselves in this path toward the
dor a subtle echo I glance
over at her, and recognize that she seee…more so than
usual, at any rate So her I think I know
what it must be
“Surprised to see Mr Kurogiri look so alike to Mikiya?” I ask her out of
the blue
“Yeah,” shi+ki says, nodding meekly
“Yet a bit handsomer than Mikiya, I’d say”
“Maybe Can’t see with him”
Ah, so we agree When I first saw Satsuki Kurogiri, I was taken aback—
much like shi+ki was—at how similar he was to my brother, in both appearance,
and the at
everything as it is seee
To people likedisjointed to
the people around us,a person like that is always somewhat of a
shock
To look at Satsuki Kurogiri is to remind myself of the truth that I can’t
bear to face: that I’ll never be norer remember
when it was exactly that I realized this to be fact, but I know that I cried
Sootten memories of my earlier years, lies the
scene of the moment when I understood him; understood that as I lived
/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - II • 23
under the sarew to love him more and more The paradox
of my existence Brothers and sisters aren’t supposed to entertain such
thoughts, I know, but I regret nothing about it If there’s one thing I regret,
it’s my inability to remember that pivotal moment
“Still, no matter how much he looks like him, that man is not Mikiya
Kokutō, but still a iri Don’t mistake one for the
other,” I caution to shi+ki I can tell, even as she walks beside me, that she
holds the sa, she frowns and murmurs
“It’s not that they look like each other It’s more like—” Her words fade
away by the deep into the forest
that surrounds us “Azaka, there’s so inside the forest Some kind
of wooden building, maybe? What is it?”
“Oh, that That’s the old junior high school building It hasn’t been used
for a long ti to be torn down this winter break
Why ask?”
“Gonna take a look at it Thought I saw so Go on ahead without
me” With a rustle of the uniform robe she wears, she starts to run double
time to venture into the wood
“shi+ki! Wait! You pro around by yourself!”
I shout after her, but I realize it is futile The brat is so willful, it’d take
a er shouts
“Azaka Kokutō?” Before I can start after her, I am stopped by someone
calling my name from behind me
24 • KINOKO NASU
/ 1
Got a new job for you, shi+ki
In the evening of January 2, Tōko said over the telephone the words
that set me up for a job that has so far been completely different from
anything she’s sent h incident occurred in
Azaka’s school, Reien Girl’s Acade out its source
was barely enough to get me motivated at all
I, shi+ki Ryōgi, joined Tōko Aozaki’s outfit soo purely on the
promise of the possibility of murder But this job? This is about as far as
you can get fro the polar
opposite It’s not nearly sufficient to fill me up, let alone satisfy me Yet
even as I think that, I recognize that despite the promises of opportunities
that Tōko said she would have in spades, I know that I’ve yet to truly kill a
single person
Oh sure, there was that one tis
just by looking at them, but that didn’t pan out as well as I’d hoped At the
last h the bloodlust filled me more than it ever had, I
couldn’t take her down Not as she was at that particular moment But we
had a good fight One of my best I suppose it’s a compromise I’ll have to
live with
The past feeeks held little opportunity for any similar excursions,
however, so a hungry dissatisfaction had its grip on me Surely it must
have been the cause forsuch a dreary job as the one I’m in
now Besides, I had nothing better to do anyway As I see it, there’s little
difference in sleeping into Reien Girl’s
Acade in Azaka’s dormitory out of boredom At least in the
latter, there are et out and move And so I’m here,
in this stuffy girl’s boarding school, posing as a touring prospective transfer
student intending to go in on the third ter to find fairies that
Azaka can’t see
As I pass the tree line, I slow my pace down to a brisk step, and when
I realize Azaka doesn’t see, I walk Deeper into the
foliage lies the wooden school building I’ for, just visible within
the shroud of green and brown that obscures my vision in all directions
Whether because of the cloudy skies or some other, unseen influence, the
sunlight peeking through the treetops is a shade of gray more akin to mist
/ 1 • 25
The distance between the buildings of Reien Girl’s Academy is so unnecessarily
vast that tiely
unchecked except a the most travelled paths The majority of the
ca a forest inside
the school, try saying that there’s a school somewhere in the forest
The soil is das to my boots, and it fills the
area with a farance, the color and air of bittersweet ripened
fruit And as it unites with the noise of the insects on the leaves, I am
almost intoxicated by it Time seems to take its leisurely pace here, and
there is a co the deceptive illusion of
being apart fro
a reality all his own, and the old i estate, walled off
froreater society Both of them, I realize, are places isolated from the
normalcy of the world So it is with this school
Soon, I reach the building, which I now see is in the center of a clearing of
long cut-down trees The design of the building itself is old-fashi+oned, even
without recognizing its wooden make, and it sits breathless at the center of
the trees like a creature asleep, or afor the
end to corass weeds, and
my steps areacross
the the silence of the place,
I enter the building
Inside, I discover it isn’t as run down as its façade would have me
believe I get the feeling that the structure is smaller than it looked somehow,
possibly because Azaka said this was the forh school
building Every footfall on the wooden floor gives an audible creak The
noise echoes across the desolate hallway, growing uishable
the farther it travels, and blending with the noise of the insects outside,
still audible even in such a dead space
As I walk further inside, hts turn to the teacher Azaka introduced
me to earlier Satsuki Kur