Chapter 8 The Trio of afternoon classes

When I made it to leadership, Ms. Isobe was sitting at her desk sipping coffee. The classroom was about half full.

She noticed me step in and gave a small, warm smile. I took a seat near the middle. A quiet buzz of casual conversation drifted through the room

nothing anxious or forced, just students settling into a rhythm. After the first chaotic day, the calm felt almost strange.

The moment the clock hit the hour, Ms. Isobe gently set her cup aside and stood. The room fell silent, not because she demanded it, but because everyone wanted to hear her.

“Welcome to leadership, Some of you believe leadership means authority. Others think it means confidence or skill.”

She began pacing at the front of the room from left to right.

“But leadership is first and foremost the ability to move others, not through fear, or title, or force… but through trust.”

“Time travel is rarely done alone. You will go into eras where you are strangers. You will rely on one another in moments where hesitation can cost lives. When history surrounds you like an ocean, you will depend on the person standing beside you to keep you from drowning.”

A quiet gust of wind tapped against the windows. No one shifted.

Ms. Isobe gestured toward the chalkboard writing: Trust, Communication and Composure.

“These are the pillars. Leadership is not about standing in front. It is about stepping forward when others cannot.”

“Some of you have already led without realizing it. You held your composure on your first day. And some of you supported classmates lost in confusion.”

I blinked. I didn’t feel like I’d “led” anything. I had barely made it through the first day without screwing up. In fact the only reason why I had made it through the first day was because I had managed to keep a copy of the day schedule on me.

Yet for a moment, the idea didn’t seem completely absurd. Maybe just being here, trying, counted for something.

Ms. Isobe must have sensed our thoughts; her smile widened slightly.

“Many great leaders were ordinary the day before they became extraordinary. People like to imagine greatness is born fully formed. It isn’t.”

She tapped her chest lightly, right over her heart.

“And it grows here in the heart long before the world sees it.”

A few students let out slow breaths. I wasn’t sure if it was awe or relief.

“However, do not take it the wrong way, leadership is not a list of virtues on a board. It is action. So today, we begin.”

Ms. Isobe clasped her hands behind her back.

“When time travelers operate, they do not command armies. They do not march with organization and certainty. They stand alone or in teams of three, four or more. They are strangers walking in unfamiliar ground, with enemies who do not yet know they are enemies. and allies who do not yet know they are allies.”

Her tone never rose, yet every word rooted itself firmly in the room.

“So today’s goal is simple.”
She pointed to the chalkboard.
“Trust. Communication. Composure.”

Then she turned to the class.

“For the next 20 minutes you will lead without authority.”

A wave of confused expressions befell the class. I personally felt as if a knot had just formed in my stomach.

Ms. Isobe walked to her desk, picked up a small wooden container roughly the size of a bento box, and brought it to the front. She set it down gently, like it was something alive.

“This is a simulation tool,” she announced. “Developed by our behavioral faculty. Think of it as a decision engine. Inside are prompts. You will draw one, pair with a partner, and attempt to accomplish a shared objective without speaking.”

That last part hit like a dropped brick.

No speaking? In a leadership class?

Someone in the front row raised his hand. “Sensei, isn’t leadership about—”

“Words?” she finished, her smile returning, warm and unshaken. “Words matter. But words are the last tool, not the first. The battlefield is loud. History is suspicious. Trust is built long before a command leaves your lips.”

She held the container up slightly.
“In time travel, you may not share a language. Technology may fail. Silence may save your life. So we are practicing now.”

The confusion became tension. The good type. The nervous, uncertain, and electric type. By this time the knot in my stomach had untangled. However in its place a new feeling of stress began to rise. I felt I wasn't ready for this. Everyone else looked more composed.

Ms. Isobe set the box on the first desk. “We will pass this around. Each of you will draw one card. Then you will find the student with the matching symbol. They will be your partner.”

She took a step back, hands folded neatly, posture elegant but grounded. “Begin.”

The first student reached in, pulled out a card, and the box slowly made its way around the room. My heartbeat synced with its rhythm, moving hands, quiet breathing, the faint slide of wood against wood.

When the box reached me, I reached in and drew a card. A feather, ink-drawn and delicate, marked its face.

Across the room, someone else lifted a matching feather card. My gaze trailed up and met hers.

It was the girl who had sat beside me in Time Engineering. The one who’d asked about practical application. Her posture was perfectly straight, her eyes sharp and clear. Her chestnut coloured hair was pulled neatly behind her head, not a strand out of place. She held my gaze for a moment, then gave the tiniest nod, not a greeting, but an acknowledgment.

Great, a competent-genius one, no pressure.

She approached with steady, confident steps. “Looks like we’re partners, Ah. That’s the last time I speak.”

I awkwardly mimed zipping my mouth shut and she blinked once, slowly. Not disapproval, just calculation. She was already evaluating me.

I tried not to sweat.

Once everyone had a partner, Ms. Isobe raised her hand.

“Each team’s prompt describes a scenario. You will have five minutes to complete it. No speaking. No writing. No technology.”

“Remember the pillars. Trust. Communication. Composure.”

She gestured calmly. “Begin.”

My partner turned her card toward me. The prompt read: “You must warn your partner about an unseen danger approaching behind them, without frightening nearby civilians.”

I stared. What kind of school makes this an exercise?

She pointed to herself, then to me, then mimed scanning the room. I nodded hesitantly. She motioned “danger” with two fingers like claws, then pointed behind me.

I nodded approvingly while giving a thumbs up

Then she tapped her chest, then pointed behind me again but more urgent this time, hand chopping downward like a blade. I raised a brow. She made eye contact, held it, then widened her eyes the slightest bit.

That did it. Subtle. Controlled. Not panicking.

I inhaled, straightened my posture, and casually leaned in toward her, as though I had merely forgotten something. When I reached her, I placed a hand on her shoulder in a calm and firm manner and then I patted my hand against her shoulder three times before leaning back.

Her eyes flickered. Was she surprised? Or maybe Was she giving approval? Hard to tell.

Then she mirrored my gesture, turning to “face” the danger too. I thought to myself she must be approving.

The air held still for a heartbeat.

Then Ms. Isobe clapped once.
“Time.”

A few students exhaled, some laughed awkwardly, some looked defeated.

My partner and I looked at each other, unsure if we had passed or completely misunderstood the assignment.

I looked at my partner. She was now staring up at the ceiling with a smile on her face. My eyes then quickly shifted to Ms. Isobe as she stepped between the desks, her heels clicking lightly against the floor. She moved slowly, hands clasped behind her back, studying each of us in turn. “Some of you panicked, some of you froze, some of you attempted to signal danger by waving frantically. You forgot panic is contagious. Fear commands more fiercely than words.”

Her gaze landed briefly on me. “But calm… calm reaches farther.”

She returned to the front. “In leadership, your first duty is to steady the world around you. The world is already loud. Be the quiet center.”

The bell chimed. However, just before we left the class Ms. Isobe gave us one last thing to reflect on.

“Authority is given, but leadership is earned, moment by moment little by little.”

Time Engineering

By the time I reached the Time Engineering the spring air felt sharper than before, as if the world itself had decided to stay alert.

Just like the day before, Mr. Kuramoto greeted me with a firm handshake, his expression unreadable but somehow approving. I nodded back and made my way to my usual seat by the window. Basically my unofficial territory.

As I sat down, I caught sight of her. the girl I'd been partnered with during leadership. Same straight posture, same composed presence. She sat in her usual spot, hands folded neatly over her notebook, gaze already forward as if she were waiting for the day to reveal itself one calculated moment at a time.

But then, as if sensing me, she turned. “I’m glad to see you again, I’m Aiko.”

“And I am Daniel, It is good to study alongside someone observant.”

“Me observant? I remember yesterday's class you and your friend looked very concentrated.”

Observant? If only she knew I was mostly guessing my way through this place like a man wandering in fog. “Well see I’m still figuring out what I’m observing exactly.”

A faint trace of a smile touched her lips “That is the first step, Most fail before even trying to see.”

Before I could think of a reply, the door slid shut with a deliberate thud behind us.

Silence spread. As Kuramoto stepped to the front, his coat swaying, chalk already in hand.

“Time is movement.”

He wrote one word on the board in sharp, clean strokes: MOTION

“You do not travel through time by wishing, nor by imagination, nor by ritual, You travel by movement. All time travel is movement.”

He tapped the chalk twice against the board.

“A clock moves forward because its gears move. A planet experiences time because it spins and orbits. A photon experiences no time at all because it moves at light speed.”

He turned, gaze sweeping us like a blade crossing a battlefield.

“To travel in time, you do not manipulate time. You manipulate motion.”

He then wrote three more words on the chalkboard: Frame, Mass and Information

“These are the pillars of temporal travel. Today, we begin with the first. The temporal frame.”

“Your time machine does not grab your body and throw it through centuries like a stone. That would tear you apart. Instead, it changes the frame in which your body exists. Imagine standing still while the world moves around you at different speeds.”

He paused. The air felt tighter, as though the world leaned in to listen.

“Relativity is not merely scientific theory here. It is our foundation. Even this building —”
He tapped his foot lightly, once, on the wooden floor.

“— is anchored to a temporal frame. Without that, we would walk into hallways that no longer exist, classrooms that have not yet been built, air that has not yet filled these lungs.”

He inhaled sharply, as if to demonstrate.

“Your machine builds a temporary frame that can detach from Earth’s flow. But frames are fragile. They must be reinforced, powered, stabilized.”

Kuramoto resumed pacing. “You see the greatest misconception in popular fiction is that time travel is a singular force, a simple jump, like jumping off a curb.”

“Oh how reality is far crueler: You accelerate, you decelerate, you anchor, you monitor vibration, radiation, gravitational drift and temporal deviation between your point of origin, your current time and your objective.”

The classroom air felt heavy. I tried to sit straighter, as if posture could somehow protect me from physics.

“In other words, you will be given the ability to outrun light itself, however I must tell you now before you even go into the simulator, this word of advice: Do not touch anything you do not understand. It is one of the worst decisions a time traveler could ever make.”

I began to zone out around this part of the lecture. If yesterday was anything to go off of, Professor Kuramoto would probably go on about something theoretical anyway. However, there was something profound, philosophical and even wise about what he just said. Like he was talking from experience. “Do not touch anything you do not understand.” It reminded me of something my driving instructor had said. “Drive the car or the car will drive you.” At first I didn't understand the meaning but as I continued to drive more and more. I began to gain an understanding of what he meant. When I first started to drive I would hold on to the steering wheel rather tightly. It seemed like the smart thing to do, however this turned out not to be the case. Every vibration from the engine and every crack in the pavement would transfer itself from the tires into the wheels through the suspension into the frame up through the wheel shaft and into my hands where it would be magnified and sent straight back the way they came. This would cause the car to wobble. Not to the point of severe danger but certainly something that should be corrected. So my instructor told me to grip the steering wheel less firmly. This successfully caused the car to stop wobbling. So I suppose a similar principle is present here: don't take firm control over a machine. Especially if you do not know what you were doing. And then suddenly the bell rang, snapping me out of the trance I was in.

Kuramoto set the chalk down, turning toward us with a calm that somehow seemed heavier than any shouted warning could be.

“For tomorrow, reflect on this question: Do you move through time or does time move through you?”

He turned toward his desk and dismissed the class without any gesture, without any formality.

We all rose at roughly around the same time. Yet none of us there said anything. When I made it to the hallway I gave some thought to the question professor Kuramoto had assigned to us. “Do you move through time or does time move through you?” First of all what does it mean for time to move through oneself and what does it mean for oneself to move through time. Well if time goes through oneself it could be an allegory to how a tree sways in the wind. The wind is a force that would rather the tree be knocked down and dragged along with it. So in response the tree flexes and bends, keeping itself intact until the wind subsides. Likewise, if oneself moves through time it implies that time drags them along. Once again this could be an allegory to nature as the sediments of a river are picked up and dragged along by the water. Then perhaps this could be a parable to how the majority of people experienced time. They're picked up at some random point in the great river of time dragged along for a while before being deposited on the beach of the ocean of death. What a cruel parable.

Communications

By the time Communications began, I was feeling exhausted. A kind of tiredness that didn’t come just from lack of sleep but from the slow accumulation of new faces, new schedules, and the constant quiet effort of pretending I had everything figured out. But I was at least motivated. Yesterday I was completely exhausted at lunch. I would say the only reason why I made it through the first day was the raw collective energy of the other students.

When I walked into class, I froze.

At the front of the room stood two enormous machines. They were polished to a mirror-like shine of silver and gold, their surfaces catching the light in the most beautiful way possible. From a distance, they looked like a pipe organ or a cluster of skyscrapers for a city forged from metal and precision. Every edge and curve spoke of meticulous craftsmanship that belonged more to an artisan than an engineer. Running between the silver towers were intricate lattices of copper wiring, thin as veins, glinting faintly in the mid daylight. And suspended glass nodes pulsing with a steady, deliberate rhythm.

Some of the other students whispered to each other in quiet awe. Someone near the front muttered, “They’re beautiful.”

Kazami-sensei stood beside the machines. She wore her usual black suit, sharp lines cutting against the soft sunlight. Even her posture seemed engineered, as though every movement was part of some unseen schematic. She looked up as the students filed in, her gaze sweeping across the room in quiet calculation, a quick assessment of who might follow the lesson and who would spend the next half hour lost. “Good afternoon. As I promised yesterday, today we begin practical work on training telegraphs. And those two beautiful machines are the said training Telegraph. They’re cut down models designed for instructional use only. They also lack quantum interlacing. Instead they rely on a standard wireless connection. I know this is a big let down. But it’s necessary to keep costs manageable. Using real quantum telegraphs for training would be tremendously expensive and, frankly, impractical. There would be little to no benefit. Anyway, this machine you have right here is identical to a real quantum telegraph in appearance and function.”

Kazami-sensei’s gaze swept over the class once more. “Today, you will learn not just how to use these machines, but how to listen to them. A telegraph real or simulated is only as effective as its operator’s understanding. Remember that.”

Kazami-sensei turned toward the machines once more. “Now, we’ll begin the pairing exercise. Each pair will operate one side of the telegraph. One student will transmit, and the other will receive. This will test not only your technical coordination but also your ability to communicate precisely under pressure. Miscommunication, as some of you will learn, can have catastrophic results in the field.”

The word "catastrophic" seemed to hang in the air, faintly metallic like the machines themselves. The low hum of anticipation mixed with the mechanical pulse of the training telegraphs. Then the teacher continued splitting the class of around 20 people into 10 groups of 2. The group seemd to be based on who shared the same home room with who. And my partner would be none other than the mechanically minded sukeban of Osaka Rieko Tachibana.

Rieko herself didn’t seem surprised by the pairing. Her movements were steady, deliberate, as if she’d already decided how she would approach the task before anyone else had processed it. She got up and walked over to my desk before saying: “Looks like we’re partners.”

I returned with a nod. “Yeah. Guess so.”

When our turn came Kazami-sensei gestured toward the machine.

“Each machine has dual interfaces as well as transmitters and receivers. Allowing both students to operate in sequence. Also, if you encounter an error, do not attempt to override the circuit manually. Just call me and I'll fix it.”

When our turn came, Rieko and I approached our telegraphs. Up close, the machine was even more impressive than it had looked from a distance. The silver plating was smooth and cold to the touch, reflecting thin ribbons of light that danced across its curved surface. It stood nearly up to my chest, taller than I expected and yet broad enough to demand its own presence in the room. I couldn’t tell exactly how much it weighed, but judging by the thickness of its metal frame, it had to be heavier than a sumo wrestler. Yet somehow, the wooden floorboards beneath it bore the load without a sound. Whoever designed these machines knew what they were doing.

Rieko studied the panel layout with quiet focus, her eyes following the copper veins that ran along the machine’s spine. “It’s well-balanced, All that weight is evenly distributed onto the pegs at the base.”

I nodded, tracing one of the seams with my fingertip. “It’s solid, built to last a century without a scratch.”

Rieko reached for the control panel first, fingers moving with a sort of practiced caution. She didn’t speak much, but when she did, her voice carried a quiet steadiness that made you listen.

I then glanced at the display screen. The interface was a mix of digital precision and almost old-fashioned simplicity, rows of buttons, a tactile dial, and a compact monitor that displayed the basic information about signals both outbound and inbound. “It feels a lot like a radio.”

“That’s one way to describe it.”

Rieko, ever keen to try out new technology, took up the position of sender. She pulled out a piece of paper from her skirt’s pocket. I could not see the diagram directly. I presumed it was some kind of instructional diagram of how to carry out the startup sequence. Her fingers then moved quickly but carefully across the panel, Eventually the machine answered with a soft click and a ripple of light through its glass nodes. “Signal ready.”

Rieko looked over at me once the machine started up. “You take the receiver,” she said. “Let’s see if this thing actually works as advertised.”

I leaned forward in my seat, the floor creaking softly beneath me. My hands hovered above the panel, uncertain at first, before settling on the dials that controlled the incoming frequency. “All right,” Rieko said. “Basic protocol first. I’ll transmit the standard test phrase from the manual.”

“Copy,” I replied automatically, realizing the word came out in the clipped tone of someone who’d been listening to too many briefings. I didn’t even know there was a manual for this thing. Where she got that “standard test phrase from the manual.” was beyond me.

She began typing. The rhythm of her keystrokes echoed faintly inside the hollow casing of the machine, and within seconds, a soft tone emerged from my receiver, three pulses, evenly spaced. The monitor displayed her message as a string of encoded dots and dashes, the letters resolving one by one into plain text:

TEST MESSAGE 01 RECEIVED

“Looks like it’s working,” I said, glancing at her through the lattice of copper wires.

Rieko smirked slightly. “I didn’t doubt it. Let’s try something manual now, no pre-coded phrases.”

Kazami-sensei, watching over Rieko’s shoulder with her usual measured calm, called out, “Good. Once you confirm transmission integrity, you may proceed with free communication. Keep your messages short. Clarity matters more than style.”

I turned the receiver dial a fraction to fine-tune the signal and tapped out my first message:
HELLO RIEKO THIS IS DANIEL DO YOU READ ME

The response came almost instantly.
LOUD AND CLEAR DANIEL

We continued like that for a few minutes. with short, efficient messages about calibration, timing, and rhythm. Then, perhaps out of curiosity, I decided to experiment.
TESTING PERSONAL MESSAGE PROTOCOL

A pause. Then her reply appeared: PERMISSION GRANTED

That earned a quiet laugh from me. “You sound like a mission control officer.”
Without missing a beat, she typed back: THEN CONSIDER YOURSELF MY SUBORDINATE

The banter was simple, but it made the exercise feel less mechanical. There was something oddly human about the nature of the telegraph, the way every word had to be deliberate. You couldn’t just speak; you had to think, to shape your message precisely before sending it out into the world.

Kazami-sensei stopped briefly behind us, glancing at the screens. “Efficient,” she said. “Good coordination. But remember: speed and precision aren’t the same thing. In a real operation, overconfidence can cost lives.” Then she moved on, her heels clicking softly against the floor.

Rieko lowered her eyes to the console. “She’s not wrong. Communication failures are the easiest way to destroy a team.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Even now, a single mistyped letter can turn sense into nonsense.”

To test the theory, I deliberately sent one line with an extra symbol embedded:
REQUESTING COORDINATE X9.14 DELTA A

Rieko frowned at her monitor. “You inserted an extra character.”
“Exactly. That could have been a decimal error in a time-jump coordinate.”
She tapped the table lightly. “And that would mean landing in the wrong year. Or the wrong continent.”

After a few more exchanges, the machine began to emit a steady rhythm of beeps, a signal that the session timer was nearing its end.

Rieko leaned back slightly, exhaling. “You pick this up fast.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but I think the machine’s doing most of the work.”
She countered. “Machines don’t make sense of meaning. People do.”

There was nothing condescending in her tone. It was purely matter-of-fact, the kind of tatement that left room to think, not shut you down.

I looked at the silver casing again, its faint reflection catching the outline of my face. “Strange, isn’t it? How something so mechanical can carry something as fragile as language.”

Rieko tilted her head, considering that. “That’s the purpose of all technology, to carry fragile meaning in durable armor.”

When the final tone rang out, signaling the end of the exercise, I felt an unexpected pang of disappointment. The telegraph went quiet, its lights fading into a dull, sleeping blue.

As the class began to file out, Rieko remained by the console, fingertips resting lightly against the machine’s surface. She then turned towards me. “Next time, I want to see just how quickly we could send messages to each other while maintaining quality. I think we can beat any other pair here.”

I smiled faintly. “Challenge accepted.”

She nodded once, almost as if sealing a pact, then walked toward the door, her steps even and measured.

I lingered a moment longer, staring at the dormant telegraph. The machine had been turned off, its once luminous glass nodes having been dimmed, but in their stillness lay a greater beauty equivalent to the mirror-like reflection of calm water.