“Alright! That’s the last match, we have our top 16, among those are there any who think they can beat the 7 next to me?” shouted the man that Alan had now identified as Principal Zei, “No? Good. I want everyone but Sara, Alexis and Kirimara to go back to class now. Also it should go without saying but, I don’t want anyone to hear about this before the assembly.”

Hearing that, the remaining few students started to file out of the room back to their classes. Alan took a single look back as he left, watching as Key strolled over to the principal while casually scratching at the back of his neck. After that he turned and left with the throng of other students.

________________________________________________________________________

Alan, while walking back among the throng of other students, couldn’t help but notice the whispering that was accumulating from the classrooms they passed. Watching carefully, he could see some students craning their necks to check the faces of the individual people within their little mob. The Student Council room was in the center building and most Senior and Junior classes were on the extreme sides of the school, so the original group of 40 students split into to two groups and went in their respective directions, but either way they would be unable to avoid the attention of classes already in session.

“Hey, Alan!” called out one man from behind him, he was of average height with a thin but toned body and build. With his dirty blonde windswept hair he ran to catch up to Alan. This was the number two fighter, John Mallory, and he wasn’t very happy about that. He also now happened to be the new Secretary of the Student Council.

“What’s up? So it’ll be me and you on the Student Council huh, Mr. Treasurer? Listen, I know we don’t know each other too well, but if you don’t mind I’d like to make a proposal. What do you think?”

Pausing for a moment, Alan carefully responded “I’m not against the idea, what is it?”

“The way I see it, me and you are outsiders here. The President and Vice President are both girls and childhood friends to boot, Kirimara has nothing at stake, and Daniel would stab his own mother in the back if he thought it could help him out. I say we help each other out, you know what I mean?”

“Not really, in fact I don’t think you could help me and I definitely can’t help you” Alan bluntly retorted.

Raising his hand quickly as if in defeat, he smiled and said “Alright, I see where I’m not wanted, but I think you should give it some thought. Hell, I’m fine as long as we agree to stay out of each other’s way. If you change your mind just tell me.” before quietly stopping and taking an abrupt left into, what Alan presumed to be, his classroom.

Mallory was truly one of the Student Council members, showing his adept political talent within seconds. In fact he was one of the five that had only previously been disavowed earlier in the day. He barely skated by in becoming a student council member, remaining as the 7th name that was called and he knew it which is why he wanted to get an ally as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately now that he was a member of such a ‘prestigious’ group, Alan had his own problems to deal with. Mainly the fact that he was now in the public eye, and had no way of getting out of it. His goal was to lay low and off the radar so he could investigate quietly, but now he had to adapt. Rather than lay low, why not use his newfound renown to his advantage? It might be difficult but It would be the only way to do things without looking shady. He had to think of how to—

“Ah, Mr. Custos, so good of you to join us” The reprimanding of his teacher broke him from his thoughts and he turned to observe the class for a second before turning back to his teacher.

Nodding politely and smiling, Alan responded “Sorry sir, the meeting lasted rather long and only just now finished.”

“Will Mr. Zei be joining us sometime soon as well?”

“No sir, he and a few other students were held back and will probably stay there until the assembly later today.”

Accepting his explanation with a nod the teacher went back to describing whatever it was that he was teaching moments before Alan came in, while the man himself returned to his seat.

_________________________________________________________________________

Peaking out from behind the curtains on stage, Alan watched as students streamed in from the sides. Turning away from the stage he walked back to where the other 39 students were waiting. Even if they hadn’t made it to the top tier of the list during the match, these 40 were selected because they were the best even among the Black Cards, they would come along regardless.

Finally after about another minute, the principal strolled onto stage and ushered everyone to quiet down and begin the assembly.

“Today is a grand day! Today, I announce the revival of the annual Spitze tournament. The country wide event to decide who is the best of the best!”

In between the pause for theatrical effect, Alan could hear the murmurs of confusion in the crowd most likely because of the fact that they, like himself, had no idea what is was at first.

“Now, not only is this a great honour, and a chance to earn prestige and fame for the participants as well as our school as a whole, but is an extremely dangerous and deadly competition. It would not be an exaggeration to say we are lucky if half of the original team is alive by the end. That is how serious this tournament is. That is the risk these students take in order to gamble for the chance to bring home the title of ‘The Best’.”

Again another theatrical pause. However Alan couldn’t help but think about the blatant lie the principal just told this time, hadn’t he essentially forced them to be participants? The way he was saying it, they might as well have given themselves up on a golden platter!

“Now, as per school tradition, the participants all need to be members of the student council. However due to the tournament being so soon, we cannot wait for elections and so through a series of matches we have determined the best fighters and operators that will be this year’s student council.”

This time a definitive unruliness took over the crowd. Some looked like they were about to stand up and protest, if they didn’t have elections then there was no chance that they could even attempt to be on the student council this year after all. The student council was the most important organization in school, and being on it meant you had become one of the elite. The best part was anyone can be on it, or at least they could be before this year. At the same time this ruined their future chances as well, who would want to participate in a death game like that for only a short period of power?

The Principal roared angrily cutting them off “Settle down now, or I’ll have you suspended!” and with that shut down those few who had started to rise.

“Now, despite your feelings, nothing can be done, we can’t send anyone unfit to this tournament, and it would be a stain on the school to say our best contestants aren’t leading the school as they should. So, without further ado I shall introduce you to your new class leaders. Starting with the President, we have Sara Armini. For Vice President we have Alexis Serrano.”

Armini, the smartest student in the school followed by Key and then Alexis. The Childhood friends as well as some of the best combatants in the school. Armini with an emphasis on ground combat, and Alexis as the better operator, a complimentary duo.

“General Secretary is John Mallory, and General Treasurer is Alan Custos. Finally for the Head of Morals is Kirimara Zei, and Head of Academics is Daniel Harrison. I’ll now have these two introduce you to the rest of the student council.”

As the Principal called out names, one by one the students stalked onto the stage and took a place behind the podium the principal was speaking at. After the last two names were called, Principal Zei took a step back from the podium and turned to walk away. After he had left, Key and Daniel both stepped forward toward the podium to take his place.

Daniel quickly spoke first, almost fumbling over his words as he did so “Starting with the Academics Committee, Club treasurer will be Victor Pascusto...”

With nothing else left to do but stand there, Alan went over the rest of the information floating in his head as Daniel spoke. The main break down of the Student Council was that it was really 3 separate entities. Separating them were the 3 ‘Heads’ in charge of them, namely the President, the Head of Academics, and the Head of Morals. Those 3 positions are considered of equal power and counted as part of the main branch of the Student Council.

The main branch, run by the president, was in charge of the general things, and mostly directed the separation of the two other branches. Essentially they made sure each branch got what they needed to operate, which was represented by the 2 Heads. They also had the final say, on everything.

The ‘Academics’ half was more specific, they were in charge of controlling funds to the clubs, holding class events and functions, making sure classes had the equipment they needed, things like that. The ‘Morals’ half did everything else, they were in charge of security and the safety of the students. They had control over disciplinary actions with the exception of highly controversial or serious cases, and had the most influence in deciding which Club got space and where.

The Morals Committee was also in charge of ensuring students are acting properly according to schools rules, as well as the maintenance and the purchasing of new combat equipment when needed. They were also the only ones authorized to use force of any kind on campus, with the exception of the main branch.

“And now for the Morals Committee...”

The breakdown of the Committees was also interesting. On the Morals side, it was generally a chairman for disciplinary action, a treasurer, a secretary, and then members who specifically only go on patrol or were in charge of security. On the Academics, there were three treasurers, one for clubs, another for school functions and events, and a third for classes and school maintenance. There were also a few sub positions that had really no power, just to ensure there was some semblance of equality in power between the two committees.

“Thank you, now please stand and rise to congratulate your new student council!” Principal Zei announced.

‘When did he get there?’

Despite his confusion, Alan simply accounted it to the fact that he had been engrossed in his thoughts, perhaps too much so? Regardless he simply shrugged it off and left stage with the rest of the Student Council.

_____________________________________________________________________________

“Are you sure about that?”

“Absolutely, I have the files right here.”

As if to confirm everything he had said, Alan waved the files at his handler.

“That makes more sense then, what about Kirimara, what have you found on him?”

“Mostly what we already know, he popped up 12 years ago in some border town claiming his village had been attacked, spent 2 years there, then left to Ersatz-Domum, here, when the war ended with Alexi Zei. What about you? Did you find anything on his barcode?”

Raising a hand to try and calm Alan’s eagerness, the man in the coat softly said “Thats, if it’s a barcode. I went through the files, I couldn’t find anything on projects after yours, especially in zone 1 or here in zone 3.”

“Really? You’re sure? 42 was the last one you could find?”

Pausing for a moment, Alan looked away while rubbing his left bicep. Somehow he couldn’t believe it. He definitely saw a bar code on Key’s neck, and Alan would have known if it was a previous project. Was it possible he just happened to have something that only looked like a bar code?

“There’s a library here right? What if we check floors 5 and 6?”

Sighing, Alan’s Handler replied with a “I’ll see what I can do… try to find his numbers in the mean time ok?” before melding into the shadows of the forest.

Alan was again left standing alone at the edge of the forest, unsure of what to do. This is the first time in all his life he had such difficulty with a case, and this technically wasn’t even a case! sighing in frustration he began to trek back to his dorm.

He needed to think of some way to get closer to Key, and to see that tattoo. There was no doubt in his mind that Kirimara wasn’t the one who put that tattoo there, the real mystery was who did.

(A/N): So I had this pretty much done save for that last part there, since like 2 days ago. For some unknown reason I just procrastinated so hard and ended up making 2 different collab stories, one with Cpt.Rachet and Daz/Dac, the other with Lv1Slime and Vanillaface. So yeah… Sorry it kind of got a bit like an info dump towards the middle there, I just had no real spot to put it elsewhere, and got it out of the way quickly. Plus i’m introducing the student council members later so there was no need to hear it now and make it more info dumpy.