A new day starts as students gathered up in the teaching hall. There stood Miranda waiting for them standing in front of the dice.
“Sit down all of you,” said Miranda. Everyone sat down facing forward, but Neiji only had his face turned to the side.
“What do you think they’ll tell us now?” Haruki to Itsuki.
Itsuki shrugged his shoulders, “Who knows.”
“All students be attentive, and listen carefully to this. I’ll say it once, and not repeat.”
All students prepared themselves for what she was about to say.
“I’ve got one thing to tell…”
The night before. During teachers’ meeting,
“So telling them about the attack would alert them?” Asked Shiji.
“Of course. We can not hide this fact now,” said Aira.
“No. Telling them would only erupt panic,” Miranda refuted her.
“So then what do we do? They’ll come to know now or then,” Aira replied her.
“We can care for it later,” Miranda.
“A solution. We need a solution to this mess,” Shiji.
“From now onwards, your training will be heavily gruesome.”
The whole room went silent.
“In 4 days, you’ll have a tournament. Jack, Itsuki, and Neiji. By seeing your talents, we have decided to train you personally. Jack will be trained by Banko and Aira. Itsuki by Shiji, and Neiji by me.”
Subara confronted her, “But why these 3 Miss Miranda? Are they better then us?”
Miranda didn’t respond to him instantly, “…You all need to prepare for something coming, and these 3 are chosen for their different capabilities to handle that coming. We’ll inject Justice in them,” Neiji whose face was to the side the whole time quickly turned to her, “To fight with strength and dignity,” Neiji’s eyes widened.
“Now, I have things to ask. Jack and Itsuki, meet me in Shiji’s office. I’d like to know your reason for refusing Ashgrave.”
Itsuki, nervous about his meeting with her, meanwhile, Jack clenched his fist, “She wants to know why I refused the killers of my mother?!”
“And one more thing. The day after tomorrow, you people will learn about the hierarchy of THE CASTLE.”
“Hierarchy?” asked Subara.
“You at least want to know what you’re up against.”
“?!”
“Class dismissed.”
After the class had ended, Itsuki went towards Shiji’s office, where Aira had been arguing with Miranda.
“Now you decide to tell them?!” Said Aira.
“No, I never told them.”
“Then what the hell is, ‘You at least want to know what you’re up against,’ called?”
“Truth by omission. I never said we’ll never tell them this. I only said telling them outright would erupt panic. Preparing them to hear this is what I want.”
“There’s no time for this! An attack lingering upon us, so why slow now? We’ve been doing this the whole time. Fastening their training by any means possible. And now when they need to be trained the fastest, we’re giving them chunks? Now it’s either we tell them bluntly and let them see the full scale of this, so they train harder themselves, or we let them die in ignorance while we prepare them.”
KNOCK! KNOCK!
“Come in,” said Miranda.
Itsuki opened the door and entered the office.
“We’ll continue this later,” said Aira and walked out the door.
After she left, Miranda asked Itsuki, “Where’s Jack? I asked both of you to come here.”
“I asked him. All he replied was, ‘I don’t need a reason to refuse the killers of my beloved,’ and went away,” Itsuki to Miranda.
“SIGH... What the hell’s gotten in all of you?… I’ll ask him later, you begin your reasoning.”
Dorm room 69,
Neiji entered the room and sat on the bed. There was no one in the room. Itsuki was in Shiji’s office with Miranda. Jack training his Shinseiryoku in the training grounds, and Haruki in the eating area with other students. Neiji laid down on the bed to his left side. Under his pillow he saw a piece of paper.
“What this?”
He picked it up and read it. It said, “Under your bed, I’ve left a diary I copied from someone else’s diary. Hope you find it and read it. But read it when no ones near you. A dear friend of ours has a dark history behind him.”
Neiji sat confused, “Who? Who wrote this? Who’s this friend he’s talking about?”
He looked down his bed and found a diary lying down there. As he picked it up and saw it, he thought to himself, “What dark history does this contain in it?”
When he opened the diary, the very first page read, “Jack.”
“Jack? Why is Jack’s name’s on it? Is this the diary Itsuki mentioned in their fight?”
While thinking this he flipped another page, and it read, “My village, Larsk-spur. My past, me and my village.”