An Adult's Responsibility Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

I spread my arms, despite the intense pain I could feel permeating my body. I was basically held together by hopes and prayers after the explosion and was keenly aware of the fact. Just as keenly aware as I was of the young woman pointing a gun at me.

At this range, even if I was perfectly healthy and moved as soon as I saw her tense, I doubted I would be able to dodge anyway.

Truly, this was check mate. The Chest was out of power to project a barrier, and Arona was fully focused on keeping me in one piece. I had no allies, no weapons, no outs to play to.

Still.

Still, I put myself between the student lying on the floor and the one with the gun, and spoke my message to her. I could see it in her eyes, the indecision, the hesitance, but most of all...

The pain.

Pain I wanted to help reduce, in whatever small way I could, but that was looking increasingly unlikely.

There was only one thing left to do. The one thing I have been doing for such a long time now.

Trust in my students.

The stand off continued, her conflicted expression showing that she did not just dismiss my words out of hand. Still, her piercing blue eyes hardened and her lips moved.

I let her words wash over me as I closed my eyes, accepting her decision. Even with the knowledge that she will be my killer, I still could not bring myself to hate her. The thing that hurt the most about this situation is how it would affect the others.

Even now, their faces swam to mind, each one was going to take this exceptionally hard.

I'm sorry, all of you. I should have worked harder. I should have been better. But you are strong. I know you will get through this.

As the gunshot rang out and I felt the impact of the bullet, I opened my eyes in surprise at a sudden crashing sound, seeing before me a...!

---ARARAR---

Rin sighed, massaging her temples. The GSC president had left suddenly, only leaving instructions for a new 'Federal Investigation Club' and to trust the strange man that she had apparently summoned to Kivetos to run it.

However, looking at him now, staring at the screen with a confused look on his face, the same befuddled expression he had on since she first started to explain the situation to him, she was not filled with confidence.

It would not be the first time someone broke under the President's over-estimations of them.

Already, she was making plans for how to fix the various problems facing the city without him. It would be hard, likely even impossible, but what other choice did she have?

The Gehenna Student, watching from the other side of the useless adult, lightly touched his shoulder, "Sensei? Are you going to give any orders?"

"Ah." The man started, speaking in his strangely warm baritone, "Thank you, Chinatsu. Yes, I was just a bit... swept away by things."

He leaned over the screen, displaying basic tactical information, stroking his beard, "Let's see..."

Rin rolled her eyes. Looking at the numbers arrayed against the three representatives and how poorly they were doing against them, she wasn't expecting any miracles.

Which is why she was so surprised when the man started an endless stream of directions, "Suzumi, Flash bang the group on the left. Yuuka, activate your shield and vault the cover on your right. Hasumi, snipe those that are flushed out by Yuuka."

Rin narrowed her eyes, watching the battle on screen unfold as the students followed the man's orders. The group behind the cover that Yuuka moved over were taken out in short order, as the only hostiles with a clear line of sight to help provide covering fire for them were disabled by Suzumi.

A pretty text book tactic, but the fact that he seemingly came up with it from a glance was surprising.

Chinatsu smiled at the man, "Well done Sensei! I'm going to go out and support them, keep us safe okay?"

She left the Command Post and moved onto to the battlefield. Rin watched as the man took a deep breath and leaned over the table, eyes locked onto the feed from the drones.

"Yuuka, draw their fire with your shield. Suzumi, take out the two on the right."

"Hasumi, sniper in the building across the street, second floor. The window with the red... yes that one, well done."

"Yuuka, you are clear to take out the group in front of you, they have no support. Good work girls, we're moving up."

The commands flowed freely, allowing the academy representatives to not only regain their ground, but start pushing through to the SCHALE office. Rin saw the adult take in all the information provided to him by the GSC tactical surveillance and react to it neigh on perfectly, assigning the correct job to the correct student.

The only incident was Yuuka taking a burst of fire, but with Chinatsu almost immediately topping up her Mystic it was quickly dealt with.

Still, Rin could not figure out why the GSC President was so insistent on this man becoming a Teacher of Kivetos and the Head of such a powerful organisation as SCHALE. She would just have to trust that her Senpai knew something about him that led her to put so much trust in him.

She sighed, feeling the weight of incoming paperwork setting up SCHALE would cause. She would go along with this for know, but would keep her eye on the newcomer.

Trust but verify and all that.

Her musings were interrupted by the new Sensei exclaiming, "Is that a tank?!"

Indeed, displayed on the screen was a live feed of an outdated Crusader Tank, painted in black, parked in front of the SCHALE building. Rin pinched the bridge of her nose, already seeing the massive pile of reports and forms that investigating where this gang found a tank of all things would generate.

"Sensei," The cool, collected voice of Hasumi came through the communicator, "I can use my Mystic to empower a bullet to pierce through that tank's armour."

The teacher nodded, exasperated expression still on his face as her gave out orders, "From the feed it doesn't look like it has any MG mounts. Suzumi, Yuuka, you'll need to blitz their position at the start, try and get as close as you can. It won't be able to hit you at close range."

Rin furrowed her brow, thinking as he explained the plan further that this was against the tactics she had learned in her classes. Still, she stayed silent and watched how it would go.

With a flash grenade from Suzumi on the group to the left, Yuuka activated her shield and charged into their formation, closely followed by Suzumi. The tank tried to fire on the approaching students, but it's turret turned too slowly to properly track them. After the group was defeated, Yuuka and Suzumi proceeded to use the tank itself as cover against the shaken and confused gang members that were left over.

Before the tank operators could decide what to do, an extremely powerful shot flew out from the flank, slamming into the exposed side of the vehicle and punching through. The engine cut off and the turret was no longer responsive.

Soon enough, the flanked hostiles were cleaned up and Yuuka had popped the hatch of the Crusader, pacifying any of the remaining crew inside.

Well, whatever else this man was, he was at least a competent commander.

---ARARAR---

"Well done, Sensei." The Angel in front of me curtsied, the slit in her dress swaying to show a glimpse of her garters. I was still baffled by her choice of such a... stimulating outfit to wear in combat.

"You managed to command us surprisingly well in that battle, I suppose." Yuuka, the treasurer of Millennium chimed in, "I wouldn't be against fighting alongside SCHALE in the future."

"Indeed." Hasumi nodded, "Please stop by Trinity sometime, Sensei. We would be honoured to host you."

Suzumi, the other Trinity Student present, nodded at Hasumi's words,while the Gehenna member of the group pouted and interjected, "Come by Gehenna too, Sensei, Hina-senpai would want to talk to you."

I smiled at the students, already seeing there was some sort of rivalry between them, but diplomatically responded, "Thank you all as well. You preformed amazingly out there, we would not have been able to retake the building without you."

The students beamed proudly at my words, all of them seeming the type to treat praise from a teacher highly. Rin, who had been standing off to the side working on a tablet, moved up after I finished my sentence, "Thank you, Sensei, Representatives. With your help we have successfully retook the SCHALE building and will soon have the Sanctum Tower back to full functionality."

The elf turned to me then, "Sensei, I have some things to discuss with the representatives for their Academies. Can you see if the SCHALE offices are up to your standards? Meet me in the building's basement when you are done."

"Of course," I replied, "I'll leave you girls to it."

I headed into the building, letting my shoulders relax as soon as I was out of sight. Sighing, I took off my glasses and rubbed the bridge of my nose, fighting off the quickly oncoming headache. The last thing I expected when I woke up today was being transported to a whole different world, but that is indeed what happened.

The being that had snatched me up from my workplace left little doubt, however. Looking like a monochrome child, he had merely smiled at me before pushing me through a glowing portal, not even saying a word.

I'd read stories about this, of course, but this was still a little hard to accept. I even had an idea of where I have ended up, a Korean Gacha game called Blue Archive. I had played it when it first came out on the recommendation of friends, but stopped shortly after. The only thing I could remember was the city run by College students with guns and Halos, for some reason.

Still, thinking about how this crazy situation was would not help me. I need to breathe and focus on what I can do in the moment. With that in mind, I opened the door into the main office of the building, before pausing as I came face to face with a Japanese style Kitsune mask, worn by a brown haired fox girl.

I blinked, surprised at seeing such a thing being worn, but looking past her choice of face wear I could make out the red halo, shining through her fluffy fox ears. Does that mean she's a student?

"Oh." I said, getting my bearings back while the Kimono clad girl merely stared at me, "I didn't realise anyone was here. Do you need any help?"

"A... ah... I..." The girl started stuttering as she tried to get out a sentence, slightly shaking.

Ah, I see, she's shy.

"It's okay." I smiled gently at her, bringing my hands up in a reassuring gesture, "Take your time."

"I'VE GOT TO GO!" She suddenly shouted, blitzing past me and running down the hallway.

Perplexed, I stared after her before shrugging. If she needed something, she'll be back eventually.

"Is everything to your liking, Sensei?"

"Well I have several questions for why so much space was set aside solely for me, nothing comes to mind as missing immediately. I assume if I find things like that there is some form of requisitions process?"

"Yes Sensei, I can walk you through the process once we have reactivated Sanctum tower. Follow me, please." The elf turned and started walking, leading me further into the SCHALE offices to a small elevator.

Pressing the button for the basement, Rin turned to me and elaborated, "SCHALE was designed to work closely with numerous volunteers from different Schools and Districts. The offices were set up to facilitate this."

I nodded, that making sense to me. One of the things I was confused about is how exactly I was supposed to acquire said volunteers, but that's a problem for Future Me. Present Me has his hands full with this surly elf.

The elevator doors opened and Rin walked into the SCHALE basement, looking around before exclaiming, "Ah, there it is."

She strode over to the desk, picking up a plain white tablet and turning back to me, "Sensei, this is the Shittim Chest. The Council President said that it allowed the control of the Sanctum Tower, but she was the only one who could use it. I was instructed give it to you when you arrived."

"I have no clue what the tablet does, or how to operate it. It seems to require a password, but the only one that could have known it..." Her voice trailed off as I pressed the button to turn on the screen, being greeted with a black square and the word in white:

PASSWORD?

A strange force overtook me, and I knew exactly what to say, "We long for the seven wailings. We bear the koan of Jericho."

The blue haired elf was not amused, "I doubt that was it, if you aren't going to take this seriously..."

The screen went white and Rin's mouth hung open in shock at the next words displayed by the tablet:

PASSWORD ACCEPTED.

WELCOME BACK, SENSEI.