chapter01 · 026-ep26

Episode 26: "An Unlicensed Apology"

A silent comment section is louder than you'd think.

Not a single person had typed a word, but I almost felt I could hear more than a hundred thousand people holding their breath on the other side of the screen.

"...Let me explain why."

I set down my teacup and straightened my back.

"A lot of you have probably seen the reports that my name's been mentioned as a candidate to command the Abyss operation. It does seem to be true that my name is on the list. I haven't received a formal offer yet. I haven't decided to accept, and I haven't decided to refuse. —I can't decide."

【Sensei...】

【Of course not】

【It'd be weirder if he could decide on the spot】

"I've spent twenty years behind the scenes. When you make a mistake behind the scenes, you can usually put it right. Teach something badly and you explain it better the next day. Get a document wrong and you print it again. ...Command isn't like that. This time, one bad call from me could cost a life right there. And the lives at stake would belong to—the five people I least want to see die in the world."

I took a breath. I think I was speaking more slowly than I ever had in forty-four lessons.

"Whether I accept or refuse, I have no right to give an instant answer about a job with people's lives on the line. Please give me time to think. And I'm not good enough at doing two things at once to stand at this lectern while my mind's somewhere else. So I'm taking a break. I can't promise when we'll start again. ...I'm sorry to be selfish."

I bowed deeply. I don't remember how many seconds I stayed like that.

By the time I raised my head, the comments were moving again.

【Don't apologize】

【Sensei, apologies are for people who've done something wrong. You don't qualify】

【You've given us forty-four lessons' worth of life. With interest, this break is nowhere near enough】

【I won't tell you to go. I will tell you to think it through, Sensei】

【We'll wait months if we have to. The classroom will be right here】

Didn't qualify, huh? Apparently I didn't even have the qualifications to apologize. ...Sometimes my students were better suited to be the teacher than I was.

"Thank you. One last assignment for the break. —Don't die. When class starts again, I expect to see every one of your faces. See you next time."

That last "next time" took longer to come out than usual.

Stream ended. The lights went out in the classroom that had run for forty-four lessons.

◇

The world didn't give me even half an hour of "time to think."

Clips of the break announcement spread worldwide that night, and public opinion split cleanly in two.

【He ran. Guess that's all he was】

【You can't trust a guy who runs from a national operation with the lives of the five strongest】

【↑ So you'd rather trust a commander who says 'Sure, I'll take responsibility for all your lives!' without thinking? I wouldn't】

【Didn't you learn anything in the course? People who can't be afraid die first. Only someone rightly afraid of the weight of a decision can make the call to retreat】

【Anyone who can't tell running away from thinking it through shouldn't go anywhere near the Abyss】

On a late-night debate program, two commentators watched the same announcement and found "a lack of responsibility" and "proof of responsibility" respectively. Once again, the show ended with no conclusion. Of course it did. I still hadn't reached one myself.

Three messages from Hina-chan.

"Sensei, thank you for your hard work."

"Take your time. Accept or refuse, I'm on your side."

"...But I'm upset. Those people don't know anything about you."

I answered in one line. "Thanks. Don't worry about me, Hina-chan; keep practicing your fundamentals."

—Looking back, maybe that reply wasn't the best choice.

◇

The next afternoon, two sets of footsteps came up the outside stairs. I knew who it was before the bell rang.

"We've come with the formal request."

Makabe-san set a document on the tatami in my six-mat room. An envelope bearing the national crest. "Request to Appoint Operation Commander for the Unconquered Labyrinth 'Abyss' Clearing Project." The agency director's name was in the requester field.

"Whether you accept or decline, please reply before the launch ceremony. That's—in ten days."

"...Ten days."

"I'm sorry it's so short. The Abyss won't wait for our schedules as it expands."

Still looking at the envelope, I asked,

"Makabe-san. Are there no other candidates? Someone younger, higher-ranked, with experience leading a team in the field?"

"There are. People with experience and people of high rank." His eyes stayed level behind his glasses. "But statistically, only one person in this country has twenty years of records observing the habits of five S-ranks, putting them into words, and arranging them in an order where they fit together."

Just like what he'd said before.

"I won't ask you for an answer now." Makabe-san stood, hesitated for a moment, then added, "...Shall I tell you what the statistics say about survival rates under commanders who accept instantly versus those who accept after wrestling with the decision?"

"No," I said with a smile. "It wouldn't be fair to nudge me with numbers."

"I agree. I'm relieved I didn't have to say it."

The two officials bowed deeply and left. The state's envelope and three teacups remained on the tatami.

That night, I got every old notebook out of the closet. Rei's first step. The pauses in Mio's incantations. The soles of Maru's feet. Yagarasu's shortest route. Kokoro raising her face as she healed. The tabs for all five were still where I'd put them a few days earlier.

My hands kept turning pages. My thoughts, on the other hand, kept stopping in the same place. None of the five on these pages would die. —On paper, none of them would.

Before bed, I wrote just two lines in my notebook.

【I apologized to the classroom. Got told I wasn't qualified to apologize.】

【Ten days. Don't rush the decision. But don't run from thinking it through.】

◇

That same night, Amaha Hina stared for half an hour at the one-line message from her favorite teacher in the world.

"Don't worry about me; keep practicing your fundamentals."

"...Of course I'm going to worry."

The world called Sensei a coward. Sensei wouldn't argue. He hadn't said one angry word on his own behalf even on the night the recording leaked. He wouldn't this time either. He meant to spend ten days alone, thinking, while the whole world attacked him.

Then someone had to say how incredible he was.

If Rei-san and the others acted, they could turn the world around overnight. But, Hina thought, testimony from S-ranks was too powerful. People probably wouldn't believe half of it. They'd just call it "the strongest looking out for one of their own."

They needed testimony from the very bottom.

An E-rank at rock bottom. An ordinary washout who would've died on the third layer without Sensei. What words had changed her, in what order, and how far had she come? —Hina knew exactly one person who could tell the world that story accurately.

She opened her notebook the way Sensei had taught her. Observe, put it into words, arrange it in an order that fits. The basic step. Retreat criteria. Three lines before a dive. The direction of her heels. Everything he'd taught her since they met spread across the pages.

Once she'd finished writing, Hina opened the page to create a streaming account. Her finger trembled a little. She was more nervous than on the morning of her B-rank promotion exam.

So she decided to do what she always did. Three lines before a dive.

"Objective: tell the world in my own words what Sensei is really worth."

"Retreat criterion: keep going even if I cry (crying is within expected parameters)."

"After return: get scolded by Sensei (also within expected parameters)."

"Okay," she said aloud.

"I'll prove it. I know better than anyone that Sensei's teaching is real. —Because he taught me, from the very bottom of the world."

She typed into the scheduled stream's title field, one character at a time.

"I'm Going to Tell You About My Sensei"

She pressed Publish three minutes before midnight.

◇

Within an hour, the announcement had been shared over a hundred thousand times.

Then someone—an anonymous student nobody knew—added a short tag to it and posted:

"Let me tell you about him too. Your Sensei is our Sensei. #OurSensei"

The tag began multiplying through the night. Stories of lives saved on the third layer. Nights someone retreated and made it home. The talk about rulers they'd heard on a Monday. Students from classrooms around the world began telling their stories about their teacher.

At around the same time—in five distant places across the world, five terminals displayed the same announcement, unmoving for a long while.

The first student's first stream would be tomorrow at eight in the evening.

The day after the classroom's lights went out.