Page 74 of Pandion

“That’s good, thank you,” Hase-sensei let him know to stop the test sequence. “I see you picked up the pace nicely midway. That’s a beautiful, almost perfect graph.”

Kagesawa couldn’t really appreciate the compliment. He had the familiar but annoying drive to go on his morning run despite knowing he was supposed to be tired.

On top of that, he felt a little off. Nauseated? No, that wasn’t it. It was difficult to say exactly what was wrong, but it didn’t feel good.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, he was flooded with drowsiness. The organism had learnt to make that correction from just one occurrence.

Kagesawa yawned. Oh, man. This was overkill… He slumped over the desk in front of him, feeling too sluggish to move.Help.

“Kagesawa-san?”

“Get Satoru for me, please.” He felt like he was about to pass out.Satoru, help.He could hear the door swing open and Satoru rushing over.

“What is it? What happened?”

Don’t panic. I’m just super tired. Can you give me a little boost?Oh, right, he wasn’t supposed to be using the link.

“A boost…” he mumbled. Satoru obliged. “Bloody shit on a chopstick, that was not what I’d call enjoyable.” Kagesawa pushed himself back up and stretched.

“What happened?” both Satoru and the professor asked in unison.

“It did it again, only it added that correction you did at the end, and it was not subtle.”

“That was certainly more severe than anything we’re used to seeing.” Hase-sensei checked the data. “Were you not able to control it at all?”

“No. I suppose if I knew it was coming, then maybe, but once it hits, it hits.”

“There was no forewarning?”

“No, but I was tired and needed to concentrate. That might have triggered it.”

“The output looks normal. The point of improvement is clearly visible, but we see similar spikes in people under normal circumstances when they’re concentrating.” The professor examined the rest of the data. He did not look happy. “What on earth did you do? It’s only been hours. This doesn’t look right…”

Satoru was sinking behind a desk. Kagesawa chuckled. It was a serious situation, but Satoru’s reaction was much too amusing. The professor glanced at Kagesawa and failed to notice Satoru’s efforts to hide.

“Didn’t I tell you not to use the link? What was so important?” Strangely, he was aiming his words at Satoru.

Satoru blushed and stammered, trying to form an inconspicuous answer. Kagesawa couldn’t recall ever seeing him quite so flustered. To save him from the pain of having to answer, Kagesawa offered what was probably the shakiest excuse under the sun, “I had a work assignment and didn’t think it would make that much of a difference.”

“Oh? Well, I really can’t stress this enough, but you can’t do any more of whatever it was you did. If this were a fresh link, I’d love to know the specifics of how you managed to spur this kind of growth and have you demonstrate it for some of my students, but your BtI score has reached 300 in a matter of hours. Most people stay in the 200-250 range their whole career, even with a significant workload.” He turned back to Satoru. “I’d like to check how this has affected your side of the link because I can’t imagine you’d be completely immune to it. Have you experienced any anomalies?”

“No, not to my knowledge, but I don’t have anything to compare to.”

“What was your success rate when you calibrated? Have you tested it since?”

Satoru bit his lip, clearly hoping to avoid answering the professor’s question.

“It was not very high,” he started.

“Well, it’s to be expected. He has DEFD. It makes sense you wouldn’t reach your full potential.”

“It was 78,7%.” Satoru forced it out through clenched teeth. Kagesawa had always thought his attitude toward the score was an overreaction. With Hase-sensei almost falling from his seat, doing a double-take and openly ogling at Satoru, it seemed a little less like one now.

“Did I hear that right? You did say seventy? Seventy-eight? Really? Did they make a mistake?”

“I don’t think so. It was a struggle to get past seventy-five to be honest. We had a spike of 80% for half a second so they graciously adjusted it upwards.”

“What in the world…” Hase-sensei handed him a connector to attach to the port. “I’m assuming your port is similarly modded as his?”

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