The bell for third period rang, and the door to classroom 2-B slid open with a decisive thud.
Classical Japanese Literature, with Tanaka-sensei.
The chaotic buzz of adolescent energy that had filled the room a moment before died instantly. Hushed gossip about the handsome third-year from the kendo club, frantic whispers comparing answers from their last math quiz—it all evaporated. The air grew still and heavy, thick with the scent of old paper, chalk dust, and disciplined fear.
Samantha, however, was already drowning in a silence of her own. Her textbook lay open on her desk, the elegant, archaic script of the Man'yōshū a meaningless blur. She wasn't worried about an Imperial-era poetry anthology. She was worried about a four-star difficulty rating and a mission penalty titled 'Unthinkable.'
"Hey. Psst. Sam-chan," a familiar voice whispered, nudging her arm. "Snap out of it. You look like you're about to face down a firing squad, not a lecture on waka poems."
Samantha turned to see Suzuki Liza peering at her, her usually sparkling brown eyes clouded with concern.
She forced a smile that felt thin and brittle. "Just a lot on my mind."
Liza's expression softened. "Well, that's what I'm here for. To help carry the mental load. Spill it all later, okay? After school, we can hit up that new cafe with the triple-decker parfaits, and you can tell me everything."
A small, genuine warmth bloomed in the cold knot of anxiety in Samantha's chest. "Sounds like a plan."
At that moment, Tanaka-sensei reached the podium at the front of the class. He was a man who seemed to have been carved from granite, with a stern, unyielding expression and eyes that missed nothing. He didn't demand silence; his very presence commanded it.
"Settle down," he said, his voice not loud, but carrying an authority that brooked no argument. He placed his leather-bound textbook on the lectern, the sound echoing in the quiet room. "Put your books away. Today, we'll be having a… small comprehension assessment."
A collective, silent groan rippled through the classroom. It was the sound of thirty-five students' blood running cold at once. Tanaka-sensei's 'small assessments' were notoriously brutal.
Someone in the back row, a brave or foolish boy named Kenji, blurted out, "A quiz, Sensei?"
A thin, merciless smile touched Tanaka-sensei's lips. "Oh, much more than a quiz, Kenji-kun. A one-hundred-item examination covering every text we have analyzed this semester. From the Kojiki to the works of Matsuo Bashō."
The metaphorical groans became audible. Several students dropped their heads onto their desks in defeat. A girl in the front row looked like she was about to cry.
"But Sensei, you didn't announce it!" another student protested, her voice rising in panic. "If we had known yesterday, we could have prepared!"
Tanaka-sensei's gaze swept across the room, cold and sharp. "And that is precisely why I did not announce it. True understanding is not something you cram the night before an examination. It is a state of constant preparedness. A scholar does not study for the test; a scholar studies for the sake of knowledge itself. Any of you who have failed to do so… will now face the consequences."
He clapped his hands once, a sharp, final sound. "Enough complaints. The test begins now."
Panic, raw and immediate, flared in Samantha's chest. Even she, with her newly enhanced body, was still human. Her memories of the last few months of literature class were a vague soup of plots and character names, clouded by her then-constant illness. A hundred items? Covering the whole semester? She was screwed. Completely and utterly—
This is a distraction, a colder part of her mind asserted. This test is meaningless. The only thing that matters is Ren.
But failure wasn't an option either. Failure would draw attention. The sickly Kisaragi Samantha, who always hovered near the class average, suddenly flunking a major test? That was a deviation from the norm. And deviations were dangerous when you were trying to operate in the shadows.
"Mochi," she whispered, her voice a desperate, silent plea inside her own mind. "A little help here?"
"Your wish is my command, contractor!" Mochi's cheerful voice chirped in her head.
A familiar PING echoed, visible only to her.
[Skill 'Eidetic Memory' is being temporarily enhanced by System Administrator 'Mochi'!]
[Activating: Total Recall Mode.]
It felt like her brain rebooted. The panicked haze evaporated, and the classroom snapped into focus with an impossible, crystalline clarity. It wasn't just memory; it was a complete sensory reliving.
She could suddenly see the pages of her textbook as if they were floating in front of her, the instructor's notes glowing in the margins. She could hear the echo of Tanaka-sensei's voice from two months ago, dissecting a poem from the Kokinshū, his intonation and pauses perfectly preserved. The chaotic soup of information in her mind suddenly organized itself, becoming a vast, silent, perfectly cross-referenced library. Every lecture, every page, every annotation was at her fingertips.
Holy…
Tanaka-sensei began to move through the aisles, placing the thick bundles of paper face-down on each desk. The sight of the multi-page test sent a fresh wave of despair through the class.
"You have the entire period," Sensei announced, returning to his desk. "Begin."
Samantha flipped over her test paper. The first question asked for a line-by-line analysis of a specific, obscure poem by Ariwara no Narihira, focusing on the use of seasonal imagery (kigo) and pivot words (kakekotoba).
A smirk played on her lips. She picked up her pen.
This is almost too easy.
Beside her, Liza was already scribbling, but her brow was furrowed in a panicked frown. Across the aisle, Kenji was staring blankly at his paper, his pen held in a white-knuckled grip.
The boy in front of her, Ben, was already attempting to crane his neck, a well-known desperado in the world of academic dishonesty.
Samantha ignored them all. The questions flowed, and the answers poured out of her. It felt less like taking a test and more like transcribing information from a flawless source. Her Eidetic Memory didn't just recall facts; it recalled understanding. She could remember the exact moment Sensei had explained the nuance of a particle's usage, the context he had provided.
A frantic tapping on her shoulder broke her concentration. She glanced over. It was Liza, her eyes wide with desperation.
"Sam-chan," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Question twenty-seven… the one about distinguishing between giri and ninjō in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's plays. I… I can't remember anything he said about it!"
Samantha hesitated. Cheating was wrong. More than that, getting caught would be disastrous.
"Help her out!" Mochi buzzed in her ear. "Think of it as tactical support! Fostering positive relations with a key ally!"
She bit her lip, then glanced at Tanaka-sensei. He was engrossed in grading another class's essays, his head down.
Leaning slightly closer, she whispered, "Giri is the societal obligation, the duty. Ninjō is the human emotion, the personal desire. Remember he said the entire tragedy of the plays comes from the conflict between the two? The lovers who can't be together because of social duty?"
Liza's eyes lit up with sudden, brilliant comprehension. "Oh! The 'love-suicide' plays! Right, right! Thank you, Sam-chan! You're a lifesaver!"
"Just ace the test," Samantha whispered back, a small smile on her face before she refocused on her own paper.
She was just finishing the final essay question when a commotion at the back of the room shattered the tense silence.
"Sensei!" a reedy voice shouted. "Kenji copied my answer for the final section!"
Kenji, the boy who'd first spoken up, shot to his feet. "I did not, you liar! You're just jealous because I'm more well-read than you!"
"Well-read?" the other student scoffed. "You can't even write half these kanji correctly!"
Tanaka-sensei sighed, a deep, weary sound that spoke of decades of dealing with teenage drama. "Enough. Both of you, bring me your papers. We will settle this after class."
"Ooh, a classroom brawl! Maybe they'll pull out their katanas!" Mochi squealed excitedly in her ear.
"It's a classical literature class, not a samurai film," Samantha muttered under her breath.
The final bell shrieked through the halls, signaling the end of the period. A collective sigh of exhausted relief swept through the room.
"Alright, pass your papers forward," Sensei said. "Immediately."
Samantha handed hers in, feeling a bizarre sense of calm satisfaction. It was done.
But Tanaka-sensei wasn't finished.
"Remain in your seats," he commanded, standing up and collecting the massive stack of tests. "Exchange the papers I am about to hand back with the person behind you. We will be marking them now."
A new wave of groans, this time louder and more anguished, filled the room.
"But Sensei, the bell—"
"I am aware of the time," he cut in, his voice like ice. "I want you to see, with your own eyes, the fruits of your 'diligence.' The lesson is not over."
Samantha ended up with Ben's paper. A quick scan confirmed it was a bloodbath of incorrect answers and hopeful guesses. As Sensei began reading the correct answers aloud, Samantha marked cross after crimson cross.
When it was all over, he commanded them to write the total score at the top of the page.
"Okay," Sensei said, pulling out his grade book. "When I call your name, the person marking your paper will state your score. Loudly and clearly. We will begin."
He started the roll call.
"Adachi, Yumi."
A timid voice from the back: "...Sixty-two."
"Aoki, Takeru."
"...Fifty-eight."
"Benitez, Ben."
Samantha paused, then said clearly, "Thirty-four."
Ben slumped in his chair as if he'd been physically struck.
The carnage continued. Scores in the fifties and sixties were common. A few scraped by in the seventies. Kay, the other student accused of cheating, earned a magnificent twenty-one. The mood in the room grew heavy and grim.
"This is a massacre," she muttered.
"Don't worry," Mochi chirped. "You're about to be the valedictorian of this massacre."
Then, Sensei's voice cut through the tense quiet.
"Kisaragi, Samantha."
The boy behind her, a quiet, studious type named Hino, took a deep breath. He spoke with a sense of genuine awe.
"One hundred."
A hush fell over the entire classroom. Every single head turned to look at her. Samantha felt her cheeks flush, a mixture of pride and acute embarrassment at being the center of so much sudden attention. She wanted to be a shadow, and instead, a spotlight had just been slammed down on her.
"…Suzuki, Liza."
"Ninety-six!" someone called out cheerfully.
Liza turned and gave her a beaming, grateful thumbs-up.
When the roll call was finally over, Tanaka-sensei closed his grade book and surveyed the room, his face a mask of profound disappointment. "Out of thirty-five students," he said, his voice dangerously quiet, "twenty-four of you have failed this test. Twenty-four of you have demonstrated a fundamental lack of respect for your studies, for the material, and for your own potential."
Excuses began to bubble up, but he silenced them with a single, sharp look.
"Class dismissed," he said, his voice laced with disdain. "Reflect on your failure."
As the students filed out of the room, their shoulders slumped in defeat, Liza bounced over to Samantha's desk.
"You got a perfect score! A perfect score on a Tanaka-sensei surprise exam! That's legendary, Sam-chan! How did you do it?"
Samantha just smiled, gathering her things. "Lucky guesses, I suppose."
But as they walked out into the crowded hallway, her mind was already moving on from the test. The feeling of the power—the perfect, flawless recall—was intoxicating.
This changes things, she thought, her expression hardening as she scanned the hallway for any sign of her brother. This isn't just for acing tests. This is a weapon.