Blades of Despair

-Chapter Two-

The Headmaster

The room that I walked into was not at all what I was expecting. Beyond the blue doors was a large cafeteria; four long, white tables lined the length of the room, surrounded by dozens of tightly-cushioned, black leather stools. The room's carpet was blue, and it struck me as odd that the cafeteria would be carpeted; if anyone were to spill food or drink, the stains would be very difficult to remove. Perhaps there is an Ultimate Maid who can easily take care of things like that, I thought. Then it occurred to me that I hadn't seen any other students other than those  from my class. Where were they? There had to be more students, otherwise the number of chairs couldn't be explained for a class of sixteen. I should bring this up with the headmaster when we met him, I thought. On the topic of the headmaster, not much was known about Kinji Ishotaru. Nobody had ever seen him, and the tone of my invitation letter didn't really give away any clues about his personality. I wondered what he would be like, and why he kept himself so hidden from the public eye. Miyagawa and I caught up to the others, who had all seated themselves at one of the large tables. The discussion about the video we just watched was being continued.

"I think it's pretty unusual," Morihei was saying, "that there was no one to greet us all at the academy."

"I also have some concerns," agreed Hatanaka, "I don't know anything about any of the teachers. Hell, I don't even know what classes we're going to be taking."

"Now that you mention it," mused Yoneda, "there was very little information about the academy altogether. I tried to read up on it before coming her, and I found almost nothing. There's no information about the staff, the curriculum , and there was no information about past students or graduates. It's very suspicious, too suspicious to be dismissed as an academy wanting to protect its secret to success."

"So not even the nerd can help us," mocked Sanda, her subtle but biting tone provoking a hurt reaction from Yoneda.

"At least he did some research, Sanda," defended Iowa. "What did you do, make a vlog about how entitled you are?"

"Not really important what I did, sweetie," sneered Sanda, "but whatever, I have another question."

"What now?" asked Saza irritably. Sanda pointed to the other end of our table. "Whose stuffed bear is that?"

We all looked in the direction of Sanda's outstretched arm. Sure enough, what looked like a large stuffed bear was sat on top of the table. It was about the size of a small child, and it had the most unusual design. Its fur was white and wore a cute, smiley expression. A monocle was delicately positioned over its button-eye. By contrast, its left eye was a red and in a shape similar to a lightning bolt. Despite the cuddly appearance, I felt almost unsettled by its unannounced arrival into the room.

"That bear... wasn't there when we came in," remarked Miyagawa, "so when did it appear?"

"Also, is it just me, or is it moving?" I asked, certain my eyes were playing a trick on me. However, as if on cue, the bear stood up and started walking towards our group.

"Holy shit, it is moving!" cried Mina, "but that doesn't make any sense, how can a cute little teddy bear walk?" And as if answering a second cue, it stopped walking, opened its mouth and spoke:

"How do I move, you ask?" it said. Inexplicably, the bear seemed to possess a very strong, refined British accent. I tried to fathom what was happening, however I had never encountered a teddy bear that could seemingly walk and talk independently, so there was no fathoming to be done. "It's really quite simple, I'm a robot. But that's a conversation for another day, methinks."