Mayumi Aikawa − Last Hour in the World (and Goodbye to Familiar Faces)

While all the relevant parties waited in the classroom, the tension was palpable. At this point, Mayumi thought to herself that it would basically be inevitable that Masaru and Noboru be punished not only for the false accusation against Tommy, but also for the fabricating of evidence for the cigarette accusation as well as the testimonies of Shirou and his friends to back up the claim that Tommy was acting in defense. Of course, there was no way Tommy was getting off easy for breaking Johnny's nose, but it would still be put in the records as self-defense, alongside the records of all of Masaru's lies.

Mayumi couldn't help but watch Shirou. His face had returned to that familiar, stoic expression, but she could tell that something had changed. He didn't even look at Kazuya, despite the fact that Kazuya couldn't take his eyes off of him as he was comforted by the girl who Mayumi learned was his girlfriend, Naoko. He looked like he was constantly on the verge of tears, while Shirou seemed like he didn't even want to look at him. Masaru and Noboru were separated from the other students, with Ana watching them while they all waited for Hiro to return with a teacher.
Mayumi moved away from the door and sat down next to Shirou. After she sat down next to him, Shirou turned his head to look towards her before looking away and scoffing.
"This'll put a lot of work on your table, right Ms. Secretary?" he said in a joking way, as if to try and ignore everything that he had learned in the past hour. Mayumi squeezed her hand, considering putting it over his, which was on the desk in front of him in a fist.
"It's not his fault. He couldn't have known," Mayumi said, trying to appeal to Shirou's sympathy. Shirou turned his head slightly away from her.
"Bullshit. How could you hang out with someone like that for so long and not know," he replied, "It's almost as unbelievable as a student government body not knowing that there's rampant bullying among some of their student body." Mayumi froze at what he last said, before she turned her whole body to face him,
"What are you saying? That we... that I was... complicit?" Shirou turned back to her, but refused to look at her in the face.
"I don't know," he answered. Mayumi was stunned for a second before she continued.
"We couldn't do anything without evidence. That's what people like Masaru are good at, lying and hiding evidence," she continued. Shirou raised his head to look at her face. He saw her dejected face, saddened by the idea that she could be complicit or even ignore what had happened to him. With an anxious gulp she put both her hands over his fist on the table. He seemed to flinch, but didn't pull his hand away. She looked him straight in his eyes,
"I promise you. I would never, ever do that," she said, her own eyes started to well up, "If I knew what they were doing I would stop at nothing to make sure they were punished. You know that, right?" She looked to him with desperation. She needed him to know that she would never do that to anyone, especially him. Shirou didn't say anything for a couple seconds before he loosened his fingers out of the fist and took a hold of hers.
"I know," he said to her, "and I'm sorry I implied that. I'm sorry I never said anything about it. I just didn't want to worry you about me when you had so much going on already." Mayumi did her best to try and stop herself from crying and instead gave a smile to Shirou, which he reciprocated.
"No more secrets?" he asked Mayumi.
"No more secrets."

Eventually, Hiro returned with Miss Fujiwara, whom he had explained most of the details. After talking with Lia and Yuko, Miss Fujiwara was fully briefed on everything that had happened. She took Tommy outside the room to talk privately before both of them came back in the room. After Tommy sat back down on a desk, she snapped her fingers to draw the attention of everyone still in the room. As everyone looked at her at the same time, she seemed to shrink for a second before regaining her composure.
"Having been briefed on everything and speaking with student council president Lia and vice president Yuko, I think I can tell you what will happen because of this incident. While it may not be exact, it should be something along the lines of this."
She turned to Kazuya, Shirou, and all their friends, who sat down at the desks.
"Given that most of you will only be involved in the process as it relates to testimonies regarding the actions of Tommy, Masaru, and Noboru, this incident shouldn't have to be added to any of your records."
Mayumi could feel some of the tension disappear after she finished speaking. An event like this could be a big mark on any of their records, even if none of them were technically involved in any malicious activity. It was good to know that for most of them, this would just be a bad memory and nothing more. Miss Fujiwara then turned to Tommy.
"Now, I've already discussed and come to an agreement with Tomoki on this matter. Even though his actions were all in self-defense, as I assume most of you would attest, I don't believe the school board would agree that breaking someone's nose is a reasonable response to being pushed against a wall. So, Tomoki has agreed to contact his guardian and return to London."
Mayumi turned to Shirou as he stood up, "What? He has to leave? Why? Cus he stood up for us?"
"Yeah, that's not fair to him," Jun added as he also stood up. Rio and Ichika stood up after him and the four of them stayed standing, much to Miss Fujiwara's surprise.
"Look, I understand that you care about him and I agree with you that he was right to protect you from bullying. But the school isn't going to think that way given his past records and his previous behaviors. This'll be the last straw and if he doesn't leave, they'll expel him anyway."
At her response, Shirou and his friends all sat back down.
"It's not fair," said one of his friends with long hair sitting behind him.
"I know," Miss Fujiwara said, "And I am very sorry. But there's no other option."

After pausing for a brief minute, she turned her attention to Masaru and Noboru who had been sitting on chair away from the others at the front of the classroom.
"Now, when it comes to you two, there will probably be even less leniency. Yes, Masaru is an important part of the school's basketball team, but that won't be enough for the school to ignore that you have not only been bullying other students but also attempted to fabricate an assault to get another student expelled. Not to mention how Noboru both lit a cigarette on campus and didn't put it out before throwing it in a trash can full of paper in a classroom. Quite frankly, you're lucky Hiro found it as early as he did or you could have been charged by the school for attempted arson."
Mayumi observed Masaru's face as Miss Fujiwara recounted everything that the school board would have to consider before she gave her educated guess on what they would do to him and Noboru.
"Given the plethora of information available to the school; I see no other path forward then for both of your impending expulsions."
At the word 'expulsion', Masaru stood up completely distraught.
"But... what about the game next week?" he asked. Mayumi was almost shocked at his seeming incapability to understand the gravity of his situation.
"You won't play basketball next week, Masaru," clarified Miss Fujiwara, "In fact, you won't be on the basketball team next week. Neither will you still be attending this school."
Masaru took a second to absorb the information in front of him before he fell back into his chair. He looked as if his whole spirit had left his body. He had nowhere to go now and the one thing he was good at that had carried him throughout his time at the academy would now be lost to him.

An awkward silence held in the classroom before Takumi, one of Kazuya and Johnny's friends, stood up.
"I told you including him was a bad idea, Johnny," he said, "I knew something like this was inevitable."
Emi stood up next to him and tugged at his sleeve, trying to get him to sit back down.
"Oh, don't say that," Emi asked, "It's not his fault that he couldn't see through Masaru."
"Uh, stop it, Emi," Takumi replied before turning to face Johnny, "I told you from the first day you invited him that he had no goddamn respect for people who weren't a part of the sports programs or just physically strong. Every time I told you he acts like someone who saw everyone else as inferior to him, you told me I was imagining things."
Johnny looked up at Takumi before turning his head back down. Mayumi couldn't tell by the glance she had gotten of his face whether he was more embarrassed that he had fallen for Masaru's lies or ashamed of what he had allowed himself to do because he blindly trusted Masaru.
"Just because he was 'one of you' you gave him special treatment and let him walk all over us," Takumi continued before pausing, "Maybe he was making up for the fact that he was so stupid that he got caught in this big lie because he didn't consider how there were four witnesses who would say that he was lying about Tommy. I mean, how stupid do you have to b−"

Before Takumi could finish his thought, an enraged Masaru yelled as he charged at Takumi. But before he could reach him, Mayumi saw a swift interception as Hiro slammed into him and sent him back towards the front of the class. As Masaru fell onto the ground, Noboru fell out of his chair and crawled away backwards as Hiro walked towards Masaru, who was picking himself up. After finished standing up, he yelled again before running at Hiro with a fist. As he threw the punch, Hiro moved out of the way and slipped behind Hiro before grabbing his torso and swinging around to pin his face and front again the blackboard. Hiro held Masaru up the blackboard before asking,
"Are we going to calm down?"
Masaru didn't respond. He tried to get out of Hiro's grip but he was too strong. Eventually Masaru stopped struggling and Hiro sighed, still waiting for a verbal surrender.

As they all waited, Mayumi noticed that Masaru started to twitch a bit while pinned against the wall. It wasn't the same movement as when he had tried to escape Hiro's hold, but was more like he was trying to escape the blackboard. Eventually, the twitching became struggling, and the struggling was then joined by noises of pain. All the students started to get up from their desks in confusion as Masaru started to convulse while being held to the blackboard, his grunts of pain becoming pants before becoming screams of pain. Almost instinctively, Hiro removed himself from Masaru only for Masaru to fall onto the ground and convulse, screaming louder and louder as the pain seemed to get worse for him. What no one except Mayumi noticed was that where Masaru had been placed against a blackboard was a strange symbol that seemed like it was growing and spreading across the wall. However, it didn't take long for people to see the symbols spreading across the blackboard. Not only that, but the symbols seemed to spread across Masaru's body as well.
Immediately, Hiro stepped away from the wall and Masaru. However, before Lia could step in and tell him, something was wrong; he looked down at his hands. The second he and the others saw the symbols on his hand, they immediately started to spread across his hands and up his arms. Immediately, the other's could see it's affect as Hiro also fell over in pain, panting as he tried to hold back the urge to scream.

Almost immediately, panic arose among the students. Tommy and Lia both ran to the separate doors to get them to open. Lia, who reached her door first, reached out to grab it before recoiling in pain as the strange symbols seemed to spawn onto the door from where she touched it. Like Hiro and Masaru, she fell to the floor and started yelling in pain, which seemed to originate from the part of her hand that touched the wall. Seeing this, Tommy picked up one of the chairs and tried to slam it against the windows into the hallway. Every time he swung the chair at the window, the points of contact spawned the symbols and spread across the window, pushing back against the chair and keeping the window unbroken. Eventually, after trying over and over again, he suddenly dropped the chair before also dropping to the floor. As Mayumi looked at the chair, she saw that it too had the symbols spreading over it. 
Upon this revelation, a bunch of the students tried to call for help to the students walking past the classroom. But no one outside the classroom responded to their cries for help, almost as if they could not register anything that was happening from within that classroom. As the symbols spread to overtake the walls, they spread to where the walls meet the floor and started to move across the floor. Mayumi immediately grabbed Shirou and ran towards the center of the room as she turned to see Ana, unaware of a patch of symbols spreading from the wall to the floor that she was standing on, immediately fell over the second the symbols on the floor made contact with her. One by one, as the symbols reached the floor and moved closer to the center, more and more of them made contact and fell to the ground, writhing in pain or screaming or both. 

Eventually, it was just Shirou and Mayumi left. Mayumi hugged Shirou tightly as she started to cry. When she saw that the symbols were finally going to close in on them, she closed her eyes, readying herself for the pain. However, she instead felt herself be picked up as Shirou held her in a princess carry as the symbols reached his feet. The second they hit him they started to grow and spread onto his legs. In one swift motion his legs gave way and he fell onto his knees on the floor, somehow still carrying Mayumi so she wouldn't feel anything. It spared her a couple seconds to look at him and see how much pain he was in. How much strength it was taking him to not lower his arms every so slightly so that she wouldn't have to touch the ground. But it was inevitable, as the symbols spread farther and farther up his body, they both knew they would spread to her eventually. Looking around the room, she saw everyone else completely covered in the symbols, still moving around the floor, screaming. As the symbols made their way up his torso, she saw Shirou shed a tear as he involuntarily moved lower and lower to the ground. Mayumi brought herself close to Shirou around his neck and closed her eyes as the two became completely covered in the symbols.
The pain was indescribable. The only way she could stop herself from screaming was to hold onto Shirou as tightly as she could. Somehow, she mustered the courage to open one of her eyes to see what had become of them and the classroom. Every surface and person was now covered in the strange, moving symbols. She didn't know if the pain was making her sight go away, but she thought that the symbols were slowly starting to glow, changing colors from their deep, dark shade of red to a brighter white. As the symbols changed and grew brighter and brighter, Mayumi was forced to close her eyes again as the symbols seemed to explode around them in a brilliant flash of pure white. And then... there was nothing. As the strange light slowly faded, Classroom 1-B of Shin Shiten Academy was completely empty.