CHAPTER 37: ATOMIC CLONE

The snow kept falling, coating Sakura High’s courtyard in a blanket of white that looked way too peaceful for what was about to go down inside. It was exam season. Students shuffled through the gates like zombies heading to their doom, their breath forming little clouds in the cold air as they muttered prayers to whatever gods might be listening.

Haruto kicked at a clump of snow on his way to the main building, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. The guy looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world – maybe on a beach in Okinawa, or locked in his room playing video games, hell, even cleaning toilets would probably seem more appealing right now. Behind him, Jun was practically bouncing with nervous energy, clutching his pencil case like it was some kind of holy relic.

"Dude, I’m so screwed," Jun whispered as they climbed the stairs to their classroom. "I barely studied for math. I spent all night trying to cram formulas into my brain, but it’s like trying to pour water into a bucket with holes in it."

Haruto just grunted in response. The thing about Haruto was that he wasn’t actually stupid – far from it. The guy had this weird natural ability to understand complex stuff when he actually bothered to pay attention. Problem was, he never bothered. While other students were burning the midnight oil, reviewing notes and solving practice problems, Haruto was usually sprawled on his bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about everything except schoolwork.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his future or anything dramatic like that. It was more like... why stress about something that felt so artificial? All these tests and grades and rankings – it felt like playing someone else’s game by someone else’s rules. Haruto had always been the type to march to his own beat, even if that beat was completely out of sync with what everyone expected from a high school student.

They pushed through the classroom door and the atmosphere hit them like a wall. Everyone was hunched over their desks, frantically flipping through notes or staring blankly at textbooks with the thousand-yard stare of soldiers who’d seen too much combat. The room smelled like stress sweat and desperation, with just a hint of the cherry blossom air freshener someone had probably sprayed to try and make the place feel less like a torture chamber.

Haruto slumped into his seat by the window and immediately started gazing out at the falling snow. Each flake seemed to drift down with perfect purpose, following some invisible pattern that probably made more sense than anything they were about to be tested on. Jun sat down next to him, still clutching that pencil case, and started arranging his supplies with the precision of a surgeon preparing for a critical operation.

"Five minutes until exam time," their homeroom teacher announced, and the collective groan from the class sounded like air being let out of a balloon. "Remember, no talking, no phones, no cheating. You have two hours to complete the mathematics examination."

Mathematics. Of course it had to be math. Haruto actually didn’t mind math when he thought about it philosophically – there was something pure about numbers, something honest. Numbers didn’t lie or pretend to be something they weren’t. But the way they taught math in school, all those rigid formulas and step-by-step procedures, it felt like they were sucking all the life out of something that should be beautiful.

The test papers landed on his desk with a soft thud, and Haruto flipped it over with all the enthusiasm of someone opening a bill from the tax office. The first problem stared back at him:

*A particle moves along a straight line with velocity v(t) = 3t² - 12t + 9. Find the position function s(t) if s(0) = 4, and determine when the particle is at rest.*

Haruto blinked at the problem. Calculus. Integration.

He started writing, mostly on autopilot. The integral of 3t² was t³, the integral of -12t was -6t², the integral of 9 was 9t. So s(t) = t³ - 6t² + 9t + C. With s(0) = 4, that meant C = 4, so s(t) = t³ - 6t² + 9t + 4. The particle would be at rest when v(t) = 0, so 3t² - 12t + 9 = 0, which simplified to t² - 4t + 3 = 0, which factored to (t-1)(t-3) = 0, giving t = 1 and t = 3.

He glanced around the room and saw the same zombie-like expressions on everyone else’s faces. Jun was sweating bullets, erasing and rewriting the same equation over and over. Yuki in the front row looked like she was about to cry. Even Kenji, who usually acted like he had everything figured out, was chewing on his pencil with the intensity of someone trying to extract wisdom from wood and graphite.

The second problem was even worse – something about optimization involving a rectangular box with a square base being constructed with specific cost constraints for different materials. Haruto stared at it and felt his brain starting to shut down.

He found himself drifting off, watching the snow fall outside the window. Each flake was unique, they said, following its own path down from the clouds. That was kind of beautiful, actually. Maybe that’s what was wrong with school – they were trying to make every student follow the same path, solve problems the same way, think in the same patterns. But people weren’t meant to be identical, any more than snowflakes were.

The third problem involved statistical analysis of some data set.

Jun whispered something that sounded like a prayer to the mathematical gods, and their teacher looked up sharply. The old man’s eyes swept the room like a hawk searching for prey, and everyone immediately hunched over their papers and tried to look busy. Haruto started scribbling random numbers, hoping it would look like he was making progress.

Then he suddenly heard something– a soft tapping on the window. At first he thought it was just a branch blown by the wind, but when he looked up, he saw Azame standing outside in the snow. She was just... there, in the courtyard, looking directly at him through the classroom window. Which was impossible, because they were on the third floor, and Azame was supposed to be taking her own exam in a different building.

But there she was, and she raised her hand toward the window. Suddenly Haruto heard her voice in his head, clear as day.

*Don’t think I am playing with you. I know this is weird, but what you’re seeing is one of my atomic clones. This clone carries a fragment of my consciousness and can operate independently while retaining my original abilities. Just trust me, okay?*

*The third problem,* Azame’s voice continued in his mind, *you need to use linear regression analysis. The correlation coefficient is 0.847, and the slope of the best-fit line is 2.3. My clone retains all my mathematical knowledge and analytical abilities.*

*Fourth problem – optimization. Set up the equation V = x²h where the constraint is 2x² + 4xh = 1200. Use Lagrange multipliers or just substitute h = (1200 - 2x²)/(4x) and maximize from there. The answer is x = 10, h = 25.*

Haruto’s pencil was flying across the page now, but his mind was reeling. How the hell had Azame developed the ability to create atomic clones of herself? And why was she using this incredible power to help him cheat on a math exam? Not that he was complaining – his grade average could definitely use the boost – but this was so far beyond anything he’d expected from what was supposed to be a normal Tuesday morning.

*I know you’re confused,* Azame’s voice said, and he could almost hear the smile in it. *My atomic clones share my consciousness and abilities, including my combat strength. I’ll explain everything later. Right now, just focus on not failing this exam. Problem five is about probability distributions – binomial with n=20 and p=0.3. You need to find P(X≥5), which equals 0.804.*

The numbers kept flowing into his mind, and Haruto kept writing them down, but part of him felt guilty about the whole thing. This was definitely cheating, even if it was the most high-tech cheating in the history of Sakura High. On the other hand, he’d always believed that the whole educational system was kind of a scam anyway. If they were going to make him jump through arbitrary hoops, maybe it was only fair that he found creative ways to jump through them.

*Last problem,* Azame continued. *Differential equations. The solution to dy/dx = 2xy with initial condition y(0) = 3 is y = 3e^(x²). Don’t overthink it – just separate variables and integrate.*

And just like that, it was over. Haruto looked down at his test paper and saw a complete set of answers that he definitely couldn’t have produced on his own, at least not in the time he’d had left. He glanced out the window, but Azame was gone, leaving only footprints in the snow as evidence that she’d ever been there.

"Time’s up!" their teacher announced, and the collective sigh of relief from the class sounded like air being released from a pressure cooker. "Put your pencils down and pass your papers forward."

Jun looked like he’d been through a war zone, his hair sticking up at odd angles and his shirt wrinkled from stress-sweating. "How do you think you did?" he asked as they shuffled out of the classroom.

Haruto shrugged, "Okay, I guess. Could have been worse."

But as they walked down the hallway, past other students comparing answers and either celebrating or mourning their performance, Haruto couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. Azame had some kind of advanced technology that could beam information directly into people’s brains. That was either the coolest thing ever.