As soon as they were all out of the classroom, Keia grabbed Soren, Devin, Haruka, and Kana.

“If we want to survive this, we need to study together” she said.

Kana looked at Keia and replied, “I don’t need your tutoring”

“Great, then you can help tutor Soren.”

After a few minutes of going back and forth, Kana eventually gave up, and agreed to help tutor Soren. Keia smiled as she thanked Kana for helping out. “I think there was an empty classroom up ahead,” Keia said, and walked just a little bit faster

A minute later, she turned into a room, which turned out to be, as she had said, an empty classroom. Soren and Kana walked in right behind her, followed by Devin and Haruka.

The room was just a bit smaller than their old room. There was a desk at the front of the room, but it appeared to be made of Oak, unlike the Mahogany desk in their room. At the center of the room, there was a large table with chairs all around it. Keia sat down in one of the chairs near the desk at the front of the room, and gestured for everyone else to sit down near her.

“What should we discuss today?” Keia asked. “Well,” said Soren “Earlier today, when Fabio was explaining the purpose of The Academy, I didn’t quite understand how he rationalized it. To me it seems like no matter how you look at it, killing people is wrong, and even if there is an exception, I don’t see how killing schoolkids is that exception”

“I agree” Keia responded, “It doesn’t make sense no matter how you look at it.”

Devin and Haruka agreed with Keia, and so everyone looked at Kana.

“Fabio is an Idiot,” Kana started off, “He doesn’t seem to be able to think for himself at all, just some automaton, but that doesn’t mean he is wrong. He just repeats what he’s been told, like everyone else nowadays.” “Once there was a time when you had to think about things to learn, and where learning was thought to be very important. Now, the only thing education is good for is priming the next generation to think the way you want them to, and believe what you want them to believe. That’s how most politicians and government officials see it anyway” “Honestly, we’re lucky. We get to learn from someone who knows a lot of facts, in a classroom that allows for discussion, and actual learning.”

Kana smiled to herself. “Now, about what Fabio said. He said that his boss wants only the finest of students to be entering society. That he wants to increase the quality of the average person, and he’s not actually all that wrong. Maybe killing is a bit too extreme for the average person, but you have to remember that these orders probably came from one of the most powerful people in the world, to whom a few lives are worthless.”

“Put simply, Fabio was trying to tell you two things: that the world isn’t fair, and that only the strongest survive. He was trying to say that Humanity has destroyed that natural process which made humanity so prosperous in the first place.”

Soren was dumbfounded. It made sense. Maybe it was deranged, but then again, maybe it was just society telling him it was wrong. Maybe everything Soren knew was just a big lie. “Then what is the point of life? People are always saying “Just do you” or “Anyone can be anything” but they never say what the end goal is. So what if I can do anything…. All they ever tell me is to be a good member of society, but what does that really do in the end?”

Kana smiled at him. “Now you get it” “Everything you’ve been told up until now is a lie. There is only one true meaning to life.”

Keia interrupted her. “Yeah, to have fun, live life to the fullest and most importantly, LOVE EVERYONE!!!”

Kana looked at her with a slightly amused look on her face. “That’s a good philosophy Keia. It’s not what I was going to say, but It’s probably more Soren’s style that what I had in mind.”

“So what were you going to say?” Keia asked.

Kana looked at her, and then replied “To survive, to try harder that you though you could, and to always keep on winning.”

Soren thought to himself: to try harder than I thought I could… but that would be impossible, right? He grinned to himself. Insanity.

After an hour and a half, Keia let everyone go. As Soren walked out of the room, he could have sword he felt someone staring at him, but when he turned around, no one was looking at him, so he turned back around and kept walking.

He didn’t really have any place in mind that he wanted to go, he just knew that he wanted to test out exactly what Hijoshiki could do. He ended up at the gym. He walked around for a few minutes, but couldn’t decide on how he wanted to test out Hijoshiki. If I’m your Child, then teach me what I can. Gladly. The voice replied. He started off with pushups, but ran out of energy at 25, I need more than that! His blood started to boil. Hijoshiki had told him that he could do anything, right, but he couldn’t even to 30 pushups. He left the gym in a rage he didn’t quite understand. He was so mad at Hijoshiki, but there was no good reason for him to be unhappy with her, It’s not like he actually needed the help.

He walked to dinner, but was still just as mad as before. He sat down between Keia a Kana, and started eating. Fifteen minutes later, Kana was staring at him, along with Keia, Devin and Haruka. “What” he asked. “When I said to try harder than you thought you could, I didn’t have eating in mind, but I guess it works” Kana said. “That’s just too much, no matter how you look at it.” Haruka commented. “There’s no way your stomach can fit all of that!” Keia exclaimed.

Soren looked down and realized that he was on his 12th plate of food. He also realized that he wasn’t mad anymore. You tend to believe things more easily when you’re distracted. You didn’t actually believe that you could do the pushups, but you just took the food for granted. That’s how it works. If you can truly believe that you will succeed, you can do anything through me.

As soon as he realized how much food he had eaten, he felt a little sick, but not overfull, just worried if the food would stay down and how big his stomach must be.

He quickly made his way back to his room, and promptly fell asleep.

The next day at class, something unexpected happened. Fabio walked into the room and made an announcement.

“The test at the end of the month will be a math test. With that in mind, please prepare accordingly.”