Life Will Change

Chapter 13: Infiltrating the Castle

Begin!

~Normal POV

4/18 - Monday

When Akira arrived at school the following day, with Morgana in his bag, (it'd be too much work to have him sneak into the school on his own, so coming to school with Akira was the better option) he was greeted by an unusual sight at the front steps.

Kamoshida was standing there, greeting students as they passed. His smile was bright and cheery. He was clearly having a terrific day in his mind. If only he knew that today they would begin their trek through his Palace. As Akira approached the steps, Kamoshida finally noticed him. The teacher's smile became rather fixed.

"Good morning," He greeted, stiffly.

Akira, wanting to remain unassuming to his nearby peers, answered him with a polite, "Good morning, sir." He couldn't help forcing that last word.

The boy went to move past him and was stopped by the man's hand on his shoulder. Kamoshida muttered softly, in a threatening tone, "That 'admirable behavior' won't do you any good once you're expelled." He let go and quickly told the boy to get to class without another word.

He may not have been aware that they had a plan, but he was definitely going to enjoy every moment of their suffering if they didn't work fast. Akira wondered if he'd greeted Ryuji and Mishima the same way.

"He seemed happy today," Morgana muttered from inside the bag.

"Yeah, but we'll fix that..." Akira replied, quietly. For now, all he could do was go to class.

~...

It was just after school when another interesting thing happened.

"Mr. Kurusu, can I speak to you for a moment?" Ms. Kawakami asked, after she dismissed the class.

Akira left his bag behind, Morgana waited inside his desk. As the boy went to follow his teacher out of the room, he noticed Ann gave him a worried look. Perhaps she was fearful that they'd already run out of time. Akira gave her a brief, reassuring, smile and left with the teacher. Kawakami led him to the guidance office down the hall.

Once inside, she started by saying. "Don't worry this will only take a minute."

Akira kept his poker face. Whatever she had to tell him, it couldn't have been that bad. Maybe it was completely unrelated to the expulsion?

"Mr. Kamoshida asked to speak with me in private this morning and your name came up..."

"So much for it being unrelated..."

"Along with Mr. Sakamoto and Mr. Mishima. He said something about the dangers of 'unsupervised students.' I'll get right to the point, did you do something to upset Mr. Kamoshida?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did you provoke him in some way?"

"No."

"Have you broken any other school rules or regulations, since being late last Monday, that might have drawn his attention?"

"No," Akira had to wonder if she even believed him. Everything he was saying was quite true. All grounds Kamoshida had for trying to expel the three of them were entirely his doing, not theirs. (Though he guessed that Ryuji cussing out a teacher wouldn't have looked very good on his record.)

Kawakami seemed too tired and jaded to argue further. "Well, I'll have to take your word for it. Just continue staying out of trouble, ok? That's all I wanted to talk about. You can go now."

When Akira returned to the classroom to get Morgana; he found Ann waiting in her seat for him as well. There were a few other students lingering around so they had to keep quiet. Akira discreetly let Morgana back into his bag, and he and Ann left the room together to head up to the roof.