All or Nothing

Volume 1: Chapter 4 Intro

Chapter 4: Unanimous Decisions

Intro

It was Friday, which meant the day of the unanimous special exam finally arrived. It was not due to start until after lunch time, so lessons had gone as normal before then. When it was near the end of the lunch break, the teachers in the staff room prepared to pack up their belongings and head to their respective classrooms.

For the second year teachers, they were mentally preparing themselves for the next 5 hours of sitting in the same classroom with their students. Whether or not they were ready for such a feat did not matter. They just needed to get through it and let the students handle everything.

That's what Chabashira kept reminding herself as the day kept going in preparation for the upcoming exam.

For a teacher like her, it was pretty easy to get distracted during the day since she had a lot to do. It wasn't just preparing for classes and teaching students. Chabashira also had to check emails, inspect school properties such as the swimming pool's water quality and other means of tasks.

But even then, on extremely important days where special exams were being held such as today, there were other things teachers like Chabashira had to complete. Before homeroom started for her and her class, she had partaken in a morning meeting with the other second year class teachers.

As she got close to finishing her packing up belongings, she recalled that morning meeting.

.

"I want to remind you all about this in case you forgot. In this special exam, our utmost concern as teachers should be to not intervene in the exam. We want to protect the students in our own class. That is a given. But we can't help them intentionally and unintentionally. Please avoid doing this."

The four second year teachers Mashima, Hoshinomiya, Sakagami and Chabashira had gathered around a business meeting table. The one who gave the warning with a stern face was a third year teacher known as Ikari. Despite not sitting in the main chair of the business meeting table, he appeared to be chairing the meeting about the special exam as he was the one auditing it.

"Um, I know it's a little late, but do you have a minute?"

"What is it, Hoshinomiya-sensei?"

Seeing an opportunity to speak up, Hoshinomiya raised her hand, causing everyone to look at her.

"If I recall correctly, the last time this exam was held was 11 years ago, right? Wasn't there a measure that was taken to shuffle the teachers so that they wouldn't be assigned to the same class? Why is it that this time the homeroom teacher is still looking after their own class? If you are concerned about fairness, I think you should change it."

Even though they wouldn't go that far, the second year teachers, and this included Chabashira now, were very close to their students and would help them as much as they could. The school knew this. By that logic, it would make sense to assign teachers to other classes as they wouldn't go to the risk of helping another class's students.

"What an interesting statement. Do you not believe that you can maintain fairness in this exam? Anyway, I can't tell you the real reason other than because that was the decision that was made. Once a decision has been made, we can't change it anymore."

The one who answered was the one who was really chairing this meeting, Chairman Sakayanagi. He had been silently listening, observing and analysing the conversation calmly.

"So the top brass decided it..."

Teachers could not decide what would happen in special exams. The people who truly held the power to do so in Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School was Chairman Sakayanagi and the others involved with the management and operation of the school. All Chabashira and the other teachers could do was follow the rules and try to make it work.