Afternoon, first floor of Schale, café.
The pink-haired girl took a sip of her freshly brewed coffee and revealed a faint smile.
"Hehe, after finishing the morning's work, having a steaming cup of coffee like this is especially enjoyable. Mm~ And the quality of these beans is quite good too. Well, considering it's a supplier I recommended, maintaining this standard is only natural."
Kaya opened her green eyes with their distinctive square pupils and looked at me across the table, seeking agreement.
"Right, Sensei?"
"Well..." I pondered for a moment before honestly nodding under her expectant gaze. "That's true."
First of all, I deeply doubted whether she actually worked seriously on a regular basis.
Second, Kaya was making it sound as though she had specifically come to Schale at noon, instead of enjoying her treasured coffee beans in her own office, solely to drink coffee.
Especially when this was the very next day after I had gone to Valkyrie Police Academy and helped Kirino.
So honestly, the quality of the coffee beans wasn't important at all.
And the weight that questions of coffee taste and quality held in my heart was indeed perfectly matched to the weight Kaya's opinions held.
"Speaking of which," I asked proactively, "has work been going smoothly lately?"
To be honest, this girl was pretty easy to satisfy.
Normally, because Kaya messaged me far too frequently, I mostly had Arona send lukewarm replies on my behalf, only responding personally once in a while when I was in a good mood.
Yet despite that, the frequency of her messages never changed, and her attitude remained startlingly enthusiastic.
I thought she genuinely liked me.
Unfortunately, given both her personality and position, even knowing those feelings existed, I couldn't possibly respond to them.
The General Student Council had twelve departments.
Legally, the departments were largely equal, but in practice, some clearly held more authority than others.
Among them, the most prestigious and unique was Rin's General Affairs Office. It could be said to assist the General Student Council President and oversee all matters large and small throughout the council.
As the head of General Affairs, Rin was known as the Chief Administrative Officer. When the President was present, she was essentially the President's personal secretary. After the President disappeared, procedure had almost automatically elevated her to Acting President.
As for the remaining eleven departments, they oversaw various fields of work and together formed the Administrative Committee that governed Kivotos.
Within that committee, three departments wielded significantly more power than the others, and their directors ranked just below the President and the head of General Affairs.
They were:
Treasury Director, Oki Aoi.
Defense Director, Shiranui Kaya.
...And the mild-mannered, seemingly easy-to-bully Mediation Director, Iwabitsu Ayumu.
In short, within the vast General Student Council, Kaya's status, with the President missing, could be said to be second only to Rin's, roughly on par with Aoi's.
For a horizontal comparison, Kaya's standing in the General Student Council was basically equivalent to Mika's position within the Tea Party.
The key problem was that Kaya, much like Mika, seemed to be secretly plotting something.
And unlike Trinity, the General Student Council was the legal authority behind Schale.
Mika might be a Tea Party member, but she was still just my student. Kaya, on the other hand, was not only my student but could also barely be considered my indirect superior.
At this point, avoiding any further entanglement with her was really my only option.
Returning to the topic, if casual conversations already satisfied Kaya enough that she never came to see me in person, perhaps because she worried I'd dislike being disturbed, then conversely, if she suddenly made the effort to visit, there was a very high chance she had ulterior motives.
And today's situation was exactly the kind I couldn't avoid.
After all, Kaya had invested in Schale's café, and I genuinely hadn't seen her in quite a while.
And just as I'd expected, when I asked about work, she froze slightly before forcing a smile.
"How should I put it... My actual job duties have been going fairly smoothly."
After saying that, she let out a deliberately mysterious sigh.
Meaning it wasn't her actual job that was troubling her.
Surely she wasn't about to start talking about how there were too many things in Kivotos that needed managing and too few she could actually control, then lament her helplessness before segueing into some strange speech about supporting her bid to become the next General Student Council President?
While inwardly mocking her, I continued playing the role of a supportive listener and asked with feigned concern:
"What about other areas?"
"This..." The pink-haired girl pretended to hesitate before shaking her head with a bitter smile. "No, Sensei. It's nothing."
What a troublesome woman.
After a total of three rounds of refusal and insistence, with delight practically overflowing from her expression, Kaya finally pretended to give in.
"Sigh, Sensei, thank you for caring so much about me. I'm really, truly very happy."
That part I actually believed.
Still, please get to the point already.
The pink-haired girl said:
"Do you remember the SRT Special Academy I mentioned before?"
Without changing expression, I took a sip of coffee and put on a nostalgic look.
"The academy you once said could provide suitable students to serve as temporary bodyguards? The academy directly under the General Student Council President?"
From Kaya's perspective, this should have been the only connection between me and SRT that involved her.
"So Sensei still remembers." Kaya smiled. "That saves me some explaining."
Then she sighed again.
"The academy's situation is really... not looking good."
What followed was information I had already learned through other channels.
How dangerous SRT's existence was. How nobody wanted, or was qualified, to take responsibility for it. How attempts to find meaningful ways for it to continue operating had repeatedly failed.
Since this was Kaya's own perspective, naturally she framed everything in a way favorable to herself.
Much like how Kirino had omitted certain details yesterday when talking about rescuing hostages with gunfire.
Even so, the information she provided still had some value and filled in a few details I hadn't known.
For example, the attempts made to keep SRT functioning despite the President's absence.
"You may have heard that one of their major achievements was when SRT Special Academy's third-year unit, commonly known as FOX Squad, successfully captured the long-standing scourge of Kivotos, the Fox of Calamity, Kosaka Wakamo."
Kaya explained:
"But as you should remember, on the very day you joined Schale, the Correction Bureau riot broke out, and all Seven Prisoners, including the Fox of Calamity, escaped. Because FOX Squad had successfully captured her before, we made several attempts afterward hoping they could achieve the same result again. Unfortunately, every attempt ended in failure."
Two of those attempts I knew about.
One was when Yukino had questioned me regarding my relationship with Wakamo.
The other was when I happened to run into them.
Because of Yukino's quiet and reserved personality, she'd never tried to claim credit with me. But after that first incident, she had consistently been helping Wakamo in subtle ways.
"The first attempt was especially disappointing," Kaya continued. "To suppress the worsening chaos, we even paid an enormous price to enlist the assistance of Gehenna's Prefect Team President. FOX Squad successfully restrained the Calamity Fox, but somehow she broke free and even obtained a weapon. In the end, she escaped."
My attention focused on something else entirely.
They had actually gotten Hina involved?
So that was why, despite her overwhelming workload, she had been resting on a bench in D.U. Park that afternoon.
And because I had assumed Wakamo not replying to my messages meant she had agreed to a date, while she was actually busy fighting four other foxes, I ended up running into Hina...
Following that logic, it was even possible that Wakamo's phone had been destroyed by Hina.
The realization struck me as unexpectedly amusing.
"So the thing troubling you is how to deal with SRT Academy?"
"Yes, exactly." Kaya sighed. "Within the General Student Council, there have always been voices arguing that SRT is an uncontrollable powder keg and should be abolished. Others believe the President may return one day and that SRT should remain. Incidentally, I support the latter view."
Sure you do.
After a brief pause, Kaya looked at me earnestly.
"In fact, the reason I told you back then that SRT wasn't suitable and promised to find other bodyguards for you was because I had already noticed this situation."
...Huh?
I stared at the seemingly sincere pink-haired girl in astonishment.
So this was another way to whitewash herself?
Was I supposed to thank her now?
"Sigh, anyway, that's all that's been bothering me."
Kaya smiled brightly.
"Thank you for listening to me, Sensei. Hehe, I feel much lighter now. It's getting late, so let's stop here for today."
After saying only that, she drained her coffee and stood to leave.
I rose to see her out.
Once I escorted Kaya outside, I returned to my seat, intending to finish my own coffee, which was still mostly untouched.
No sense wasting it.
But halfway through the cup, my phone suddenly rang.
And from the person on the other end, I received a piece of news so shocking that it left me stunned.
"...What did you just say?" I asked in disbelief.
"Millennium's accounting records... are all gone!?"