Unclassified; Zero and Still Standing

11-A."

The room fell silent.

Unlike before class pairing revelations, there was no shouting. No complaints. No disbelief.

Just a long, heavy, silence.

No one said anything for a long while.

Each member of Squad 11-D sat with their own thoughts, staring at the floor, the wall, or simply into nothing.

Yesu looked from one face to another, thoroughly puzzled.

She didn’t understand.

A few moments ago everyone had been enthusiastically discussing kidnapping. Now it was as though someone had announced the end of the world.

Her eyes drifted to the watch on the wrist of the student beside her.

Time was slipping away.

She looked back at the others.

"Time’s running." She said plainly. "Shouldn’t we start moving if we’re going to kidnap someone?"

Several heads turned toward her.

Carrots stared for a long second.

"Were you never taught how to read a room?" She asked flatly.

Yesu blinked.

Carrots sighed.

"Can’t you see everyone is rethinking the decision?"

"Rethinking?" Yesu repeated. She looked around the circle again. "Everyone had been so into the idea of the kidnapping a few minutes ago. So why are we rethinking it now?"

Carrots groaned dramatically and rubbed her forehead.

"I can’t."

She leaned back against the wall instead.

Farida shuffled a little closer to Yesu.

"It’s because it’s 11-A." She explained quietly.

Yesu frowned.

"What’s wrong with 11-A?"

"Nothing."

Isaiah answered before anyone else could. He sounded almost defeated.

"Nothing’s wrong with them. And that’s exactly the problem."

Yesu looked at him.

"I don’t get it."

Isaiah scratched his cheek thoughtfully.

"Okay let’s see. At your previous school, did you guys have..." He searched for the right words. "...that one class?"

"What class?"

"The class that just had everything."

He countered on his fingers.

"The smartest students. The strongest. The most talented. The ones who won almost every competition. The teachers’ favourites."

Yesu immediately thought of a class from her previous school.

A year above hers.

They had dominated everything. Quizzes. Essay competitions. Science fairs. Sports.

Even discipline awards. At a whole Zero district.

Most of them had been well-behaved. And, annoyingly enough, also ridiculously good-looking.

She slowly nodded.

"Yeah. We did have a class like that."

Isaiah gave a tired smile.

"11-A is that class."

The room remained quiet.

Farida hugged her knees.

"They’ve been first in practically every Academy evaluation since we arrived." She said.

Grover nodded.

"They don’t just win. They make it look easy. They’re ridiculously high in Ranks too. Well, most of them."

"Even seniors are jealous of them." A student chipped in.

"And they never seem to argue among themselves," another student added.

"Or panic," someone else muttered. "At least not openly."

Carrots finally spoke again.

"They’re the class everyone secretly compares themselves to."

Reggie snorted.

"And loses."

No one contradicted him.

Soraya spoke last, like she had been reserving the most important detail.

"Not to mention they’re the junior class with the most Prep students."

Everyone immediately knew what and who she was talking about. The squad sank further still.

Yesu looked around the room once more.

"So..."

She tilted her head, studying her squad members, trying to identify the feelings around her.

"We’re scared of them then?"

Several students immediately opened their mouths but no words came out.

Because none of them could honestly say she was wrong.

Yesu sighed at the confirmation.

"What are we going to do now?"

She looked around the room, genuinely confused.

"We can’t just abandon our decision because of one perfect class."

Nobody answered.

"Wouldn’t that be unfair to ourselves?"

Isaiah rubbed both hands over his face.

"How do you possibly expect us to successfully capture someone from 11-A?" he asked.

Then shook his head rapidly as a more important thought occurred to him.

"Forget capturing them. How are we even supposed to get them all the way back here without anything going wrong?"

A few students released quiet, uneasy breaths. The thought alone sounded impossible.

Reggie scratched his head.

"Maybe we should just go along with Soraya’s original idea."

Everyone looked at him.

He cleared his throat.

"We hunt Scales."

Curiously, nobody pointed out that he had spent the last several minutes arguing against that exact plan.

At the moment, it simply sounded like the most obvious option. Sensible. Safe.

Yesu frowned.

"But we didn’t find any Scales yesterday."

The room quieted again.

"We came up with theory after theory and still found nothing. At this point, finding Scales is starting to feel more like luck than skill."

Her eyes moved across the squad.

"How can we be so sure today will be any different?"

Nobody had an answer.

James finally spoke.

"I’m willing to take my chances." He folded his arms. "Any option is better than trying to kidnap someone from 11-A."

Several voices immediately agreed.

"Same here."

"Definitely. I’d rather search all day."

"If only 11-A feels the same."

Every head turned.

Soraya leaned comfortably against the wall, looking far too entertained.

"You all might decide that hunting Scales is easier." She shrugged. "Safer."

A faint smile crossed her lips.

"That doesn’t mean 11-A will reach the same conclusion."

Silence.

"To them," she continued, "we’re just like mushrooms. And I’m a hundred percent certain they’re probably busy planning how to harvest every single one of us as we speak."

Several students frowned.

"Which means," Soraya concluded, "we don’t actually have a choice."

She looked each of them in the eye.

"It’s either we attack and get attacked."

A pause.

"Or we don’t attack and still get attacked. Any road leads right back to conflict, the way Directives are made to play out."

Nobody argued. Because she was right.

Soraya pushed herself away from the wall.

"Seeing as we’re still hopelessly undecided." She said, "Shall we take a vote?"

The squad exchanged uncertain glances. Not a single hand moved. Not a single opinion came forward.

Soraya raised an eyebrow.

"Or," she said dryly, "Shall I monotonously make a decision?"

Several exhausted students gave tiny, defeated nods.

Soraya sighed.

"For a moment, I honestly thought we had moved past this stage."

She shook her head.

"But then again..." Her voice softened ever so slightly. "Growth is supposed to be gradual."

Her gaze swept across the room one final time.

"I have made my decision." She straightened. "We will be capturing members of 11-A."

The Base fell into silence once more.

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