Eight Months After the Proposal
Tatsumi was in a mad rush to put on his uniform. He had overslept, and it was nearly time for the school trains to depart for their destinations. Consequently, the young man was panicking about his enormous delay.
"Shit, shit, shit!" he cursed as he ran half-naked through the halls, all the while hastily pulling on a crisp white shirt and a thick vest with a black-and-white pattern. He dashed downstairs, stumbling over his own feet and nearly missing the final four steps. Luckily—or perhaps miraculously—he landed on his feet. Though still dazed, he continued sprinting toward the kitchen, where his father was calmly enjoying a cup of coffee.
Mr. Kiryuu looked at Tatsumi with a hint of confusion, but in a moment he grasped the situation.
"So, you're late again, my son…"
"Shut up, old man! Remember, it's thanks to you I don't have to work today," Tatsumi shot back.
Mr. Kiryuu took another sip of coffee, a teasing glint appearing on his face.
"Oh, and I'm very grateful. But remember, this matter concerns both of us."
Tatsumi clicked his tongue and gave his father an exasperated look—as if trying to say everything without uttering a word.
"Come on, don't dawdle any longer—you're going to be late, and the infiltration will be ruined."
Glancing at his watch, Tatsumi's eyes widened in surprise once again. He muttered another curse under his breath, grabbed a piece of toast from the table, topped it with the fried egg from the pan, and bolted toward the train station—eating his egg toast as he ran.
"From my house to the station is twenty minutes…" he thought, then clicked his tongue, "Damn, I don't have enough time. I'm gonna have to do that."
In that moment, a plan crystallized in his mind. He had already concluded that catching the train at the station was impossible. So, Tatsumi ran in the complete opposite direction from where he was supposed to go—circling around to the back of his house—and descended the hills, almost as if hiking.
After running through the wild, barren terrain beyond the hills for a while, he came to a stop at an old, worn concrete platform overlooking a steep cliff. Peering down, he saw them: the tracks of the magnetic train. If he jumped at just the right moment, he could land atop the moving vehicle, ride it to the station, and then, when it stopped, board it. It was a risky plan—but the only solution if he wanted to make it in time for the school entrance ceremony.
Attending that ceremony was the perfect cover if Tatsumi didn't want to draw attention. Moreover, it would enable him to meet people with whom he could mingle and help him survive the challenging social atmosphere of Hinen High School. After all, his infiltration target wasn't just any place—it was a high school.
At that moment, Tatsumi remembered what his father had told him several months earlier. They were seated at the table, an oppressive tension hanging between father and son. Tatsumi sat motionless, listlessly poking his beef steak with a fork. Then a stack of papers slid into his view—enrollment documents for Hinen High School.
"I need you to infiltrate this place,"his father had said.
Tatsumi raised an eyebrow awkwardly.
"Hinen High School? That dump?"
"Yes."
"Where students form gangs of delinquents and commit crimes?"
"Yes."
"Where new enrollees are treated like scum and the principal does nothing about it?"
"Yes."
"Can you say anything other than 'yes'?"
"Yes."
Tatsumi ran his hands over his head and started swaying from side to side in exasperation.
"What does that school have to do with IVY?! I don't understand you! Every task you give me only grows more confusing and infuriating."
Mr. Kiryuu then activated a holographic screen in front of Tatsumi. On it appeared various photos of the crime scene alongside a recording showing several individuals in hats and corporate suits entering an office where a murder had occurred—all their faces obscured by a spiraling mosaic.
"Someone infiltrated the offices of The Third and killed several secretaries, executive directors, and technicians. Not only that—they burned all the documentation in that meeting room and hacked the server to erase the information transferred to those papers."
Raising an eyebrow as he watched the video, Tatsumi turned to his father.
"But they have the recording, right? Just scan the suspects' faces and—voilà—they've got the culprits."
"If it were that simple, I wouldn't be asking you to infiltrate the school."
"I don't understand. The police have technology to bypass any filter or mosaic. How is it possible that you haven't verified it?"
"No, we can't decipher this mosaic."
Mr. Kiryuu gestured with his fingers, and the holographic screen shifted to the left, revealing several statistical graphs and distorted images.
"When we tried to decode the mosaic with AI, we got the statistics you see here. We also presented the images to some experts, and the results were those very distorted pictures."
"Impossible…"
Mr. Kiryuu's gaze grew more focused and serious.
"Tatsumi, IVY isn't an organization that can be easily caught. The government and Interpol have been after it for years. They have experts and very powerful people on their side, but my team and I believe we've finally uncovered a crucial lead."
Tatsumi pressed on.
"But my question still remains—what does IVY have to do with Hinen High School?"
A sly smile crossed Mr. Kiryuu's face.
"I thought you'd already figured that out on your own."
A vein pulsed on Tatsumi's forehead as he struggled to contain his irritation at his father's comment.
"What a bastard"
Tatsumi took a sip of water, then cut off a piece of the juicy beef steak in his hands and bit into it.
"I'm still trying to figure it out for myself, yet even after gathering all the facts, details, and data about the school, I still can't find anything."
Taking his time to chew before swallowing smoothly, he continued,
"The school is so awful that it was disconnected from the educational system. But thanks to its principal—who was, or maybe still is, a big shot in the corporate-education world—the school has managed to stay afloat through private investments. However, although the student body once tried to set a good example, their bad behavior soon resumed, and on top of that, they began forming gangs of delinquents and anarchists. It's said that many major criminal gangs have emerged from that place. In short, a complete disaster."
Tatsumi looked his father straight in the eye.
"I don't see the point in investigating a place like that. It's nothing but chaos and crime—a situation excused because those who commit them are considered just kids.
Without wavering, Mr. Kiryuu reached out and retrieved the holographic screen, leaving only the school enrollment papers before Tatsumi.
"What would you think if I told you that the entire school might actually be a single organization?"
Tatsumi's eyes widened in astonishment at his father's words. He had never considered such a possibility, and his curiosity was instantly piqued. Raising an eyebrow, he motioned for his father to continue with his theory.
"Think about it: the school has been disconnected from the Educational System for years now, so anything could have happened. Since they're no longer obliged to report their status, we have no internal information about what goes on there. All we know is that bad things occur, but we don't know what kind of crimes or who is committing them."
Mr. Kiryuu took another sip of water, cleared his throat, and pressed on.
"Then there's also the detail that someone managed to enter one of the offices in the Education Sector without even having to go through biometric screening. That means…"
"They have the card…"
"Exactly, my dear son, and so far only those in education have access to that card. So it's not too far-fetched to think that those who infiltrated that office and committed the murder could have been deeply connected with the educational system. But there are no records of them, which is why…"
They gathered evidence—crossing out suspects and suspicious organizations—and concluded that there was a gap in all of this, and that gap…"
"Is Hinen Academy. Correct.