Classroom of the Elite: Free Will

V7.5: Chapter 2 - Farewell, My Friend

Shishio Tsukasa POV

December 1st

I closed the book I was reading; sat up in my bed and looked around.

My small room, that could be compared to a prison cell, contrasted with both my room back in the mansion and the immense dorm with the hundred beds we had been in initially at the beginning of our curriculum. A bed, a toilet, a lavabo, and a shelf to put some books from the library, white walls all around and my white uniform that made me feel like I was wearing pyjamas.

It had been seven months since I came back to the White Room. The training I received was even harsher than I anticipated. According to what I managed to understand, they compressed the three years I had left into one, but my rhythm forced them to condense it even more. Despite the complications, I carried the curriculum out and finally, today was supposed to be my final exam. The one that would determine if I was ready to leave this place or not.

Over the course of these months, I had been able to relegate Rin's expected progression to the third place becoming thus the second best in the overall ranking of the fourth generation.

I had no news from the outside, I hadn't talked to him about the plan with Rin, so I had no idea if she had put it in motion, and he had been prudent to talk to me about Kiyotaka and the others and how they were doing in that school. This alliance wasn't totally useless, though. I had learned a fair number of things regarding the other generations and his research on Matsuo-sensei's son gave me some ideas concerning what I could do in the future.

Regarding Matsuo-sensei himself, I had no news.

I assumed Ayanokouji-sensei had taken care of him already, but I couldn't know. I avoided asking that question to my contact, preferring to focus on things that held weight in the long run. Matsuo-sensei had done a lot for us, but as he himself recognised it, he was at the end of the run. From this point onwards, it was up to us to take matters into our own hands. In that sense, succeeding this final exam was an imperative.

Succeeding meant I would be allowed to accomplish the role I would been given. Succeeding meant that I could be in contact with the outside world once more.

Naturally, the role they would give me depended upon whether Rin acted or not. If not, I would be entering the police force and quickly climb the ranks to enforce the law of the nation. If she acted, I would go through a preliminary stage that would allow me, allow us to develop a wider network.

If this were some kind of superhero story, I might be able to rebel and take down all the guards, instructors and people present in the facility on my own destroying it and the White Room as a whole in the process. Unfortunately, things weren't that simple.

The White Room was an institution far above my personal self. Matsuo-sensei allowed me to understand the institution to a certain extent: generations, recruitment, number of facilities, locations, investors, legal covers, contracts, networks.... To take this place down, to cleanse the world from this kind of people, I needed resources; I needed a network; I needed people disposed to face them rather than joining them, face them rather than fear them.

Thanks to Nao and Mikoto, I was able to learn why I had been placed in the White Room; who my family was and why they allowed this to happen to me. And I didn't hold them accountable. They did what they had to. They were just victims. And if me being here allowed my sister to keep living, if me being here gave my sister an opportunity to get out of her coma; then all the hardships were worth it.

The ones I held accountable were these people here.

Using people's situations to create this place. Using people for their own gain as if humans were disposable.