COTE - Rising From The Dust

Prologue

On May 1, the morning bell rang for our very first day of class. Soon afterward, Chiyabashira-sensei strode into the room, holding a rolled-up poster. Her expression today was even more stern than usual. Had she started menopause, I wondered? If I made that joke out loud, I think she would have swung an iron bat at my face with full force.
“Hey, sensei, did you start menopause or something?” Unbelievably, Ike actually let that joke fly. Honestly, it was more shocking that I’d thought the same thing as Ike.
“All right, your morning homeroom is about to begin. Before we get started, does anyone have any questions? If so, now is the time to speak.” Chiyabashira-sensei completely ignored Ike’s sexual harassment. She appeared totally convinced that the students had questions they wanted answered. Immediately, several students raised their hands.
“Um, I checked my point balance this morning, but I didn’t see any deposits. Points are given on the first day of every month, aren’t they? I couldn’t buy juice this morning.” “Hondou, I already explained this before, didn’t I? Points are deposited on the first day of the month. I’ve confirmed that points were wired this month without any issues.” “Um, but…nothing was deposited into my account, though.” Hondou and Yamauchi exchanged glances. Ike appeared too shocked to notice them looking at each other. I’d checked my point balance that morning as well, but saw that it had remained unchanged from the day before. No more points had been deposited into my account. I’d simply thought that the points would be wired later.
“Are you kids really that dumb?” Was she angry or delighted? I was getting an ominous vibe from Chiyabashira-sensei.
“Dumb? What?” As Hondou stupidly repeated her words, Chiyabashira-sensei looked at him sharply.
“Sit down, Hondou. I’ll explain once more,” she said.
“S-Sae-chan-sensei?” Hondou, taken aback by her unusually strict tone, slumped in his seat.
“Points were deposited. That much I know for certain. There is absolutely no chance that we forgot about anyone in this class. To think so is ludicrous. Understood?” “Well, even if I tell you that we understand, we haven’t received any points…” Hondou, still perplexed, began to look dissatisfied. Supposing that what Chiyabashira-sensei said was true and that points had been wired to us,
then that meant…
Had there been a discrepancy, then? Did that mean that zero points had been deposited into our accounts? My vague doubts quickly grew.
“Ha ha ha! I see. So, it’s like that then, teacher? I think I’ve solved the mystery,” Kouenji boomed, laughing.
He propped his feet up on his desk and smugly pointed toward Hondou.
“It’s simple. We’re in Class D, so we didn’t receive a single point.” “Huh? What are you talking about? They said that we’d get 100,000 points every month—” “I don’t remember hearing that, though. Do you?” Chuckling, Kouenji boldly pointed at Chiyabashira-sensei.
“While he certainly has an attitude problem, Kouenji is exactly right.
For crying out loud, barely anyone seems to have noticed the hint I gave you.
How deplorable.” In response to this sudden turn of events, the classroom exploded in an uproar.
“Sensei, may I please ask you a question? I’m afraid I still don’t understand."
Hirata raised his hand. He appeared to ask on behalf of his classmates rather than out of selfish concern. Just as I’d expect of the de facto class leader. Even now, he took the initiative.
“Can you please tell us why we didn’t receive any points? We won’t completely understand otherwise.” That was certainly true.
“A total of ninety-eight absences and late arrivals. Three hundred ninety-one incidences of talking or using a cell phone in class. That is quite a few infractions over one month. In this school, your class’s results are reflected in the points that you receive. As a result, you wasted all of the 100,000 points that you should have received. That’s what happened.” “I should have explained this all to you on the day of the entrance ceremony. This school measures its students’ true abilities. This time, you were evaluated as being worth nothing. That’s all.” Chiyabashira-sensei spoke in a robotic fashion, devoid of any emotion.
The doubts I’d had since coming to this school were finally confirmed,
though, in the worst way possible. Even though we’d started with the huge advantage of 100,000 points, Class D had lost it in just a single month.