Infinite Stratos, Volume 1, page 2
Wow, what a tyrannical teacher. She was a demon in my sister’s skin. No, a demon would have been more flexible; they’re not human, after all. The human in front of me was so nasty because she had an idea of the limitations of human beings. You see, Orimura Chifuyu was the former Japanese first-gen IS pilot. She was unbeaten in official competitions. One day, she retired and disappeared— or rather, she became a teacher, which she apparently hid from even me, her family. I shouldn’t have worried about her.
“Sit down, fool.”
—Okay, the fool will sit.
◇
“Oh...”
—Damn. This is bad. Really bad. I yield.
“.........”
The first period was “Basics of IS Theory,” and when it ended, we had a break. However, the weird atmosphere in the classroom made it hard to do anything. The IS Academy had regular classes right off the bat so they could drill IS knowledge into us until we almost passed out. Need an orientation? “Look at the map,” they said.
I wasn’t sure if there even was a resolution to my situation. Again, everyone was a girl, and it wasn’t just my class. The whole school was like that. And since the news that I was the only man who could pilot an IS went around the world, there wasn’t a single person in there who didn’t know about me. Outside, the hallway was packed with second- and third-year students. Nobody really talked to me, though. Perhaps they were too used to being only around girls?
The girls in my class were the same. They all wanted me to talk to them, and were afraid their friends would talk to me. By the way, this was the only IS Academy in the world. There were a lot of other schools that had classes to prepare their students for it, though. And everyone in them was female. The girls clearly weren’t used to seeing a man, and besides, men were in a bad state in the world, anyway.
It was soon going to be 10 years after the IS was unveiled to the world. That was when everything changed. All the other war machines were just hunks of steel to an IS. It toppled the established military balance. Since a Japanese citizen had invented it, the Japanese then had a monopoly on IS technology. Foreign nations, in their fear, made the IS Usage Treaty, also called the Alaska Pact. This meant the release of all IS information, formed a supranational body for research and training, and outlawed military usage. So, now the number of IS pilots of a country represented how much military power it had, in cases of emergency self-defense and so on. And the pilots were all girls... So all the countries immediately started giving girls preferential treatment.
The concept that “girls = powerful” had spread and conquered the world. Now, after 10 years, women held all the power over men. If a man appeared to challenge that, well, that would make them curious, wouldn’t it?
So there we were. I looked over at the girl next to me, and she blushed and looked away. I could tell she still wanted me to talk to her. When you think about it, they were all looking up to my sister Orimura Chifuyu, so that made it harder to talk to me as well.
—Someone save me from this...
I remember an old friend of mine, Gotanda. He’d said he was super jealous of me, but I couldn’t see why. If he could’ve taken my place, that’d have been perfect.
“Can I have a word with you?”
“Hm?”
Someone was talking to me. Had she won the knockout tournament among the girls regarding who got to talk to me? No, there was sudden unrest in the class. One of the girls had decided to make a move on her own.
“Houki?”
“.........”
My childhood friend from six years back was standing in front of me; Shinonono Houki. I used to take lessons at her family’s dojo. She wore a ponytail like she always had. The ponytail was long, going below the shoulder, and she’d bound it with a white ribbon. Probably white because her father was a priest— they ran both a dojo and a shrine.
She was of average height for a girl, but because of years of training with a sword, she seemed taller than she was. She always looked like she was in a bad mood, but that was genetic, or so I was told. I figured chances weren’t all that low that she hated me, though. Like, I wasn’t imagining it that she glared at me when I called her by her first name. Houki always looked kind of like a sword herself in my mind, but the years since I’d seen her had only made her sharper and harder, it seemed.
“Can we talk in the hallway?”
I guess she didn’t want to talk in the classroom. Nonetheless, I was glad to get a chance to escape. Bless childhood friends.
—Cold, my ass. Whoever said that should apologize. Guess that was me.
“Get going.”
“R-Right...”
Houki strode away into the hallway. The girls there opened a path for her, like Moses parting the sea. We were out in the hallway, but at about four meters in every direction were more girls. They were all listening to us. I could feel it. It was no different than talking in the classroom, if you asked me.
“So, by the way...”
“Yeah?”
I remembered something, and talked first. Houki hadn’t talked to me after dragging me out into the hallway. Pretty wild.
“I heard you won the national kendo tournament last year. Congrats.”
“.........”
Houki turned red after I said that. Was she upset? Why the hell would she be? I was complimenting her.
“H-How do you know that?”
“I read it in the papers...”
“Why are you looking at the papers?!”
What was Houki talking about? I didn’t get it. Let me read the damn papers. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention it, but she always talked a bit like a man, or a samurai.
“Oh, also.”
“Y-Yes?!”
“.........”
“No, never mind...”
Houki looked uncomfortable now. Maybe she was trying to glare less? At the same time she looked worked up, though. She was weird.
“It’s been a while. Six years, right? But I knew it was you right away, Houki.”
“Really...”
“You’ve got your hair the same.”
I touched my own hair as an example. Houki touched her long ponytail.
“I-I’m surprised you remember.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t forget my childhood friend.”
“.........”
Whoops. Glaring at me again. What did I do now?
Ding-dong. Break had ended.
The bell rang to signal the beginning of the second period. The cordon of girls around me and Houki disintegrated. It looked like little spiders scattering into every which direction. IS pilots were so swift in how they moved.
“Let’s head back.”
“I-I know we have to.”
Houki averted her eyes and walked away at the same brisk pace.
My childhood friend had no intention of waiting for me, it seemed. Six years change people, don’t they? As if. She’d always been like that. Stubbornness, daily training, steady progress... Those words suited Houki better than most boys, and had all the way since elementary school. Personally, I’d love it if she could be a bit more spontaneous, but...
“.........”
She glared at me again. Maybe she read my mind? Houki had always been very attuned to when people were insulting her. But I wasn’t even insulting her. That was just the story I went along with in my head.
Bam!
“Sit down, Orimura.”
“Thank you for your guidance... Ms. Orimura...”
20,000 brain cells were lost before lunch.
◇
“Thus, using an IS unit requires the approval of the country, and any violation thereof is a criminal offense,” Ms. Yamada recited from the textbook.
She’d lost me a while before that.
“.........”
There were five books on her table. She was leafing through the top one, rattling down vocab I didn’t know.
—I-Is it just me? Anybody else? You guys understand this jargon? Active something, wide area-whatever... What’s all that mean? Are we supposed to remember that?
I looked at the girl next to me... She was nodding as she took notes. I guess they’d had prep lessons before coming to the IS Academy.
IS pilots were the main line of national defense, so our school was rearing the best of the best. Only the very finest students passed the entrance exams. I didn’t wanna be the elite... There was no way... I didn’t wanna study. I hung my head, feeling inferior, and looked at the girls taking notes around me.
“C-Can I help you?”
Like I figured, she was nervous and surprised. She was also expecting more to come from me, and smiled.
“Oh, never mind. It’s nothing. Sorry.”
“O-Okay...”
She seemed to be disappointed and relieved at the same time, and returned to taking notes. I wondered if I’d done something to make her dislike me.
“Orimura, is there anything you don’t understand?”
Ms. Yamada had, apparently, noticed me talking to the girl next to me.
“Um...”
I looked back down at my textbook. Yep, understood nothing.
“Please ask if there’s anything you don’t understand. I’m your teacher, after all!” Ms. Yamada proudly proclaimed, posturing upright.
—Well, looks like I can depend on my teacher, so I may as well ask.
“Hey, Teach!”
“Yes, Orimura!” she replied excitedly.
“I don’t understand a single thing.”
I decided to be upfront with it. Usually people were pretty accepting of it.
“Um... E-Everything?”
Ms. Yamada looked confused and startled. The respectable teacher act had disappeared.
“U-Um... Is anybody else having problems understanding it besides Orimura?”
Silence.
Well, that was weird. Nobody raised their hand. The fools. If you don’t have the basics down, you’ll have even more problems later. They really had no idea how school worked, did they?
“Orimura, did you read the textbooks I gave you before you entered here?” asked my sister Chifuyu, from the corner of the classroom.
—Okay, let’s be honest here...
“I thought they were old phone directories, so I chucked them.”
Bam!
“I wrote you saying they were required reading!”
Another 5,000 brain cells down the drain. The brain cell undertaker was really busy.
“I’ll send you new ones. Learn what’s in there in a week’s time. Got it?”
“E-Erm, those were thick as hell. I can’t learn all that in a week...”
“You will.”
“Okay... I will.”
She was worse than the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. A human being in the shape of a demon, being human made her all the more cruel. She knew the best ways to make others suffer.
“The IS eclipses traditional weapons with maneuverability and power. Using that kind of power without understanding it invites disaster; it’s imperative you understand what you’re doing. Remember what the books say, even if you don’t get it, and act accordingly. That’s what rules are all about.”
Yeah, sure. Just so we’re clear, I wasn’t in that situation because I wanted to be. One day, men in black suits showed up and left me with an application form for the IS Academy, whatever the hell that was about. They talked about protecting me or something, but does that really mean throwing me into a school full of girls? I wanted them to protect me from that instead— especially from my sister, Chifuyu.
“Right now you’re thinking that you never wanted to be here, right?”
—Well, yeah...
“Whether we want to or not, human beings can only survive in a group. If you want to renounce that, try renouncing your humanity first.”
She was always such a bitter person. I guess she was telling me to face reality. Chifuyu had always been a realist and an extremist. I knew why, though.
“.........”
—Hmm. Fine, then.
I figured I’d at least have to make sure my sister Chifuyu wouldn’t be embarrassed at her workplace. I had to do it for her, seeing as how our parents were no longer around.
“U-Um... Orimura. I’ll teach you the things you don’t understand after school, okay? All right?”
Ms. Yamada came up to me defensively. She was smaller than me, so she had to look up.
“Okay. I’ll come visit you after school.”
I took my seat again. Chifuyu also returned to the corner of the classroom.
“I-I’ll be alone with a student after school... Oh, no! Th-This is bad, Orimura. I go along with everything when I’m pressured... And I’ve never been with a man before...”
She was beginning to turn red, and rambled on. Was Ms. Yamada really going to be okay? IS pilots couldn’t handle men at all, could they? The gazes of the other girls were painful. If their looks could physically harm me, I would have turned into Swiss cheese.
“B-But you’re also Ms. Orimura’s brother...”
“Um... Ms. Yamada, please continue the lesson.”
“O-Okay!”
Eventually, my sister called Ms. Yamada back from her reverie. Ms. Yamada rushed back to the front, stumbled, and fell.
“Uhh... Ouchies.”
—What an insecure klutz we have as a teacher.
I felt like our classes were going to be a bit of a problem.
“Do you have a moment?”
“Huh?”
I thought the class atmosphere was going to be awkward again during the break after second period, but instead a girl had come up to talk to me. I reacted nervously. She was beautiful, with natural blonde hair. She looked at me with clear blue eyes, the kind that only white people had. Her hair was curly, and she gave off the impression of someone of high birth who had already found her place in society.
Due to the IS, women received much better treatment than men in the world; to say it was favorable would be an understatement. Women just had all the power, and men were brought to be slaves, and for manual labor. It wasn’t rare to see men in town being made to do things by random women they ran into. The girl in front of me was just like that. She had her hands on her hips, demonstrating to me who she thought was in charge. The IS Academy had to allow foreign nationals to enter unconditionally, so seeing foreign girls wasn’t rare. Perhaps only half my class was actually Japanese, if even that many.
“Are you listening? What is your answer?”
“Oh, uh... I’m listening. What do you want?” I answered.
“Goodness! What sort of response is that? Don’t you believe you should address me in a way that reflects the honor I bestow upon talking to you?” she replied, having raised her voice.
“.........”
Man, I hated their type. They could use the IS, and were a country’s military strength. IS pilots had all the power, and IS pilots were always girls. That didn’t give them the right to lord it over us, did it? It was basically violence against men.
“Sorry, but that name’s not ringing any bells.”
I had no clue. She had probably introduced herself at some point, but I didn’t remember it. I’d been too shocked that Chifuyu was my homeroom teacher. The girl in front of me was shocked by this. Well, maybe she should’ve just told me her stupid name. She narrowed her eyes and continued to belittle me.
“You don’t know me? Me, Cecilia Alcott? I’m the British National Cadet, and the one who took first place in the entrance exams!”
Oh, so her name was Cecilia. Interesting.
“Hey, can I ask a question?”
“Hmph. Enlightening the rabble is part of the duties of nobility. Go on, then.”
“What’s a National Cadet?”
Dadum. Some of the girls in the classroom who had been listening were agitated now.
“A... A... A...”
“Ah?”
“Are you really asking that?!”
She glared at me menacingly. In a manga, the artist would have drawn her rage veins.
“Yeah. I have no idea what that is.”
My curiosity was genuinely piqued. Vanity wasn’t good for anyone.
“.........”
Cecilia’s rage calmed down. She put a finger on her temple and began to mumble.
“Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable. The island nations of the far east are truly a land of savages. This is common knowledge, you plebeian. Have you no television?”
Excuse me. We had television. Not that I watched it.
“Let’s say I don’t. So, what’s a National Cadet then?” I asked.
“An elite student picked as their country’s IS pilot. You should be able to understand as much from the word itself.”
“I guess so.”
I suppose it was easy to make fun of me for making a silly mistake.
“Yes! The elite!”
Back to business for her. Truly, the elite National Cadet.
She pointed her finger at me. It was so close that it almost touched my nose.
“Ordinarily it would be a miracle if someone exceptional, like myself, would share a class with you. Appreciate your luck. I recommend being a little more aware of it.”
“Right. Lucky me, eh?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
—You’re the one who brought up luck in the first place...
“I’m stunned that you were able to enter this school despite knowing nothing about the IS. I heard that you are the only man able to pilot the IS, so I expected a little more knowledge from you... But I was disappointed.”
“It’s best not to expect anything from me.”
“Hmph. On the other hand, I am a person of vast magnanimity. I will treat you properly.”
How very... “magnanimous” of you. Never met anyone half as good in my 15 years on this Earth.
“If you don’t understand something about the IS, well... Cry to me that you need help and I might just help you. I am, after all, the elite of the elite who managed to beat a teacher during the entrance exam. The only one.”
—The only one...? Wait a sec.
“Entrance exam? Like, the one where you move the IS and fight and stuff?”
“There is no other, is there?”
