"Yo, did you hear the news? Some first-year girls lost their IDs. Talk about carelessness, huh?"
Toji said it casually, stretching back on his bed. His gamepad sat idle in his lap. Kaito didn't respond right away. He just leaned back in his chair, eyes on the cracked window screen. The breeze had died down, but the noise outside hadn't. Students were still moving through the halls, most of them settling into dorm routines.
"When did it happen?" Kaito asked.
"Eh, not sure. Heard someone from Class J mention it on the way back. Supposedly a couple of girls reported it to the desk, but staff just told them to be careful. I mean, how do you even lose that? It's clipped to your belt."
"It could've been stolen, maybe."
Toji laughed. "Man, who's gonna steal an ID? You can't even use it without authorization. The whole system's locked to your fingerprint."
"That makes sense... and it's not like it does anything besides recognizing you as a student on academy grounds."
Kaito didn't say more. He got up, grabbed a towel from his shelf, and left for the showers. The hallway was still lit by artificial white panels embedded into the ceiling. Soundproofing was good, so he couldn't hear anything outside.
In the shower, he let the water run without rushing. Eyes closed, hands steady. His mind replayed the details.
Students reporting missing IDs. The academy was as big as a city, but not all of it was school buildings or dorms. It was that big because it was, in and of itself, a city. Students were allowed to live in apartments with their parents. There were shops, restaurants, and everything a city could have. The first-year classes and dorms were on the north side of the school building. The school building itself was pretty far from the dorms.
The incident was small enough not to trigger an official investigation. Just enough to draw attention from the right kind of people.
Division Zero had trained him for this — low-grade, soft entry disruptions. Early warning signs. The type that spread confusion, made people lose trust in routines.
First-years were easy targets. They didn't know the rules yet. Didn't know what was normal.
Knowing what's normal... that's what makes it easy to notice what's not. There's a chance they're doing this to see who acts. If I act first, they'll most definitely figure out I'm this year's Division Zero member.
By the time he returned to the room, Toji had passed out — earbuds in, arms behind his head, light snoring. The third roommate still hadn't shown up. Kaito lay down on his bed but didn't close his eyes. He opened his phone and browsed the Academy forum app. Each class had a private board, mostly filled with meaningless posts — homework reminders, roommate complaints, nervous venting.
He scrolled through Class O's board first. Nothing useful. Then switched to Class J.
One thread near the top said,
'Anyone else have stuff go missing?'
He opened it.
'Original poster: lost ID badge and locker key. Already reported, but no help. Don't tell me I'm the only one.'
Replies were mostly jokes and half-hearted sympathy. One reply stood out:
'Class N girl here. Same thing happened this morning. I woke up and it just... wasn't there. I can't access my locker without it, nor can I register attendance.'
There was no admin reply and no warning was issued, either. He closed the app and finally let himself rest. Tomorrow, he'd start asking around.
The next morning, he left the dorm early. Classes didn't start for another hour, but the cafeteria opened by six. He got in line for a simple breakfast — rice, pickled vegetables, eggs. Nothing heavy.
He ate in silence, then scanned the room for possible contact points. Class N had morning fundamentals in Building D. That meant they'd exit the cafeteria between 7:10 and 7:20 if they followed schedule. He waited near the main hallway exit, leaning against the wall with a half-filled cup of tea in hand.
Right on time, groups of Class N students began filing past. He recognized the girl from the forum. Her name was Akiko Natsume. She was missing the ID.
He stepped forward, timing it between footsteps.
"Excuse me," he said.
She blinked, then frowned slightly. "Um... do I know you?"
"Aizawa Kaito from Class O. I saw your post last night. Mind if I ask a few questions? I—er... my friend's ID is also missing."
"Yeah, sure. What would you like to know?"
"You said your ID was gone missing. When exactly did it happen? And, uh, are there similar cases you know of?"
Natsume narrowed her eyes. She looked around, made sure no one else was listening.
"I thought I was losing my mind. It was there when I went to bed. When I woke up, it was gone. No sign of forced entry, and my roommates swear they didn't touch anything. It happened the other night. On the second day of school. Nobody in my class said anything like that until yesterday... so I'm assuming it happened the same night."
"I see... did you report it?"
"Of course I did. Front desk told me it was probably personal misplacement and to recheck my things. Gave me a temp code, that's it."
Natsume looked a little troubled.
"That's what I'd expect. The IDs aren't a big deal. They're only used for attendance, lockers, and other personal-use functions within the school building. On the academy grounds, they're used for student recognition. But neither of these things are of much use. Lockers aren't even used by first-years yet, and anybody can tell when someone has a different face than the ID when verifying," Kaito replied, trying to deduce anything from the information he had.
"Um... there's a girl in Class M who's apparently 'investigating' this issue. It might be worth asking her if you want to know more," Natsume said, seeing his expression.
"What's her name?"
"Yuika, I think. Minase Yuika. Always has a tablet in her hand and wears frame glasses."
"Thanks." Kaito started to turn but paused.
"Can I get your contact? I want you to inform me if any more of your classmates have their IDs missing."
"Huh — why? Are you part of student council or something?"
Kaito shook his head. "No... I'm, uhh... avoiding! Yeah, just trying to avoid having my ID stolen."
Natsume made an annoyed expression before agreeing and giving him her ID. He stepped back and nodded.
"Thanks. Hope you get it sorted."
Later that day, in Basic Theory class, Kaito sat through a half-hearted explanation of magical recoil and control channel alignment. His instructor spoke like he was half-asleep. The topic was useful, but the pacing was slow. Kaito took the time to plan his next move.
If Natsume was telling the truth — and she seemed like the no-nonsense type — then at least girls in two classes had been targeted so far.
The IDs are useless to anyone but the owner, and the first-years haven't even used lockers for gym, equipment, or bath yet. So why steal them? And why girls specifically?
Kaito thought.
One thing Kaito was sure of was that the IDs weren't lost. The academy had cleaning robots all around. Anything lost would be found by them — unless all the students who lost their IDs sucked at searching their belongings. But that wasn't possible.
In any case, there were two possibilities:
Either someone had an ID fetish, or someone wanted confusion.
If it was the latter, then they were most likely going to succeed. If any more students lost IDs, teachers and the student council would definitely address the issue.
Magic wasn't something people were born with, so the age of thirteen to fifteen was the toughest time for a teenager. If they awakened, they were required to attend a magic academy. Many came from very different environments, so being here was already stressful. Any more than that was going to affect their psyche — and the academy's success rate.
Out of the thirteen academies, Japan's — The Tenth Academy — was the smallest. They weren't much of a threat to the others.
However, that didn't mean they weren't on the radar.
While not openly hostile, most governments feared that power gaps could emerge based on academy output. They hired spies, criminals, terrorists — even trained magic users to infiltrate. Every academy had a different way of handling it.
In Japan's case, they built Division Zero.
Every year, they sent one trained agent to blend in as a student. This meant Kaito's high school had three Division Zero agents in total — including him. Depending on the threat, he might need to coordinate with his seniors.
He waited until after lunch to approach Yuika. She was easy to spot — a quiet girl with dark shoulder-length hair and glasses, sitting alone near the far wall of the second library wing, reading a spell theory manual two years above her level on her tablet.
He stood across from her table. Kaito asked,
"Might you be... Yuika Minase?"
She looked up. Her eyes were sharp but not hostile.
"I'm Aizawa. From Class O. Can I ask you something?"
"You just did," she said, removing her glasses.
He stayed still. She glanced at his uniform tag.
"I heard you were investigating the missing ID case," he said. "Was there something you found?"
"Your ID doesn't seem to be missing. Why are you asking about it?"
"My friend's ID is the one missing. I'm just asking questions because... I wanna surprise him by finding it, that's all," Kaito said, scratching his head with an awkward expression.
Yuika stared at him for a long second. Then gave a small sigh.
"I didn't, not really. I did ask a lot of students and... I noticed something."
"What was it?"
"IDs were the only thing stolen. Also, it happened last night too."
"Two nights in a row..."
"The first night there were five victims — if you wanna call them that. Last night, there were also five. And they were all dorm students."
"That figures. No one would aim for students living too far from school. But that also narrows it down a little," Kaito said.
"You should sit down." Yuika sighed and moved a little to the left.
"Thanks." Kaito sat beside her, leaving a bit of space.
"This year, about 1,300 first-years enrolled in the academy's high school. The average is 900. Which means the first-year dorms have way more students than normal."
"Hm... nearly how much?" Kaito asked.
"Well, I wouldn't know for sure, but there are 10 dorm buildings. Each with 10 single rooms, 15 double rooms, and 20 triple rooms. So about a hundred students per building. If you check the dorm application form on the school site, there are 7 single rooms open, 2 double rooms open, and 21 triple rooms open — with 1 triple room having a space open," Yuika counted on her fingers.
"That's space for 1,000 students, with 75 places available. Honestly, the buildings look bigger than that, but I guess the rooms are pretty big too," Kaito said, looking out the window toward the north.
"Yeah, which means over 900 students are staying in dorms out of the 1,300."
"Well, that makes 400 less to suspect. Not that it helps much at all," Kaito replied, exasperated.
Kaito leaned back slightly. He wouldn't get anything more from her without revealing more than he wanted. She wasn't dumb. If he pushed too hard, she'd get suspicious.
Kaito stood up.
"Thanks for the information. If it happens again, teachers are most definitely going to notice. We should leave this to them. Meanwhile, Yuik—"
"Who said you could use my first name?"
"Ah—my bad. Well, Minase. You can keep an eye out for more information."
"I will do that. But you should stick around until this thing gets resolved."
"Hm... alright."
Kaito got her contact and headed to his room for the day. One the way he got a message. It was neither from Yuika nor from Akiko.
'Meet me at the West-Dott Coffee shop, near the middle school building at 4:00.'