He anxiously approached the office, escorted by his proctor. She walked in ahead of him into the soundproof room, closing the door behind her. She opened it again a minute later.
"Your father is ready to see you."
Warily stepping into the room, the boy stood at attention in front of a large desk. The walls of the room were wooden, decorated with intimidating weapons ranging from sharp curved knives to snipers tipped with silencers. The room contained no personal flourishes, photographs, or trinkets, with the exception of the head of an elk, leering contemptuously from its trophy mounted on the back wall. The office gave the impression that even fake plants would perish from lack of care. The desk was nearly empty aside from a laptop, a black mug, various pens, and a triangular nameplate that had only the words "THE PRINCIPAL" inscribed on it. The thick dark-velvet carpet was clean beneath one's shoes, despite its age. If one stared long enough, one would perhaps start to find frayed strands—
"Look me in the eyes, boy."
He looked up from the floor, into the eyes of his father. The man's rough face was nothing like his own, barring his right eye: a white glass sphere adorned with a crosshair on a solid black iris, rotating as it scanned every detail on his son's face. As he spoke, his mouth formed each syllable with explicit purpose.
"Miss Briar tells me that you have once again failed your mission to eliminate the Lacerator. Is this true, Leon?"
"Yes," Leon replied without hesitation. Hesitation would only make him angrier.
The Principal sighed. It wasn't that he was surprised, rather it was the opposite. He'd never been so disappointed in someone who had met his expectations exactly. He waved Briar out of the room, and she obeyed accordingly. The Principal continued once the door had closed behind her.
"Do you know why Lucille has been chosen as your target, son?"
The way he said son was not in a familial sense, but in a condescending tone he must use for any student unfortunate enough to wind up in this office.
Leon sifted his thoughts for a response. "Because she... kills people?"
He knew as soon as he said it that it couldn't be right. That's what they all did here at Dahlia; it's what they're taught to do.
Leon's father shook his head and flipped a lever beneath his desk. The wall on the left retracted, sinking below the floor as a new wall emerged. A large monitor surrounded by a system of smaller screens lit up as the wall on which they were mounted settled in its place. A graph was shown with two lines zigzagging across each other and labels too small to read. One thing was clear, though: the pink line was steadily rising and the blue line was steadily decreasing. Leon stared at it without comprehension.
"You are half right," The Principal accepted. "She has great capability to commit violence. Her ability to do so without apprehension or consequence would make her an astounding student. However, that is exactly the problem."
The graph zoomed in towards what Leon assumed represented the last week, or perhaps month.
"She is not a student, and is wasting our academy's precious resources. There are only a certain amount of disappearances the public will allow before becoming alarmed, and the cadavers she leaves behind are not compatible with our goals. This... rogue behavior cannot go on." For his final words, The Principal leaned forward, calmly putting his hands on the desk for emphasis. "We have put our trust in you to stop it."
Leon gulped. It's already been a few months since he's been assigned the Lacerator. That was far longer than any assassin should be expected to complete a job, even one in training. He could feel the patience draining from his father's voice as he lectured him.
"But I've tried! She's always slipping out of my grasp right at the last second, or something just goes wrong somehow. I mean, that time one of your people gave me a rooftop paintball sniper instead of a real one—what was the deal with that, anyway?" Leon complained, or he would have if his father hadn't interrupted him after the first word.
"You will not argue with me," the man said, more of a factual statement than a demand. "If you cannot bring yourself to eliminate a target, you have no place in this academy. You have not forgotten what you are capable of, have you...?"
As he said the dreaded words, the large monitor switched to a video, one seemingly recorded from a handheld device. Leon watched, entranced in his own horror, knowing what was to come. It displayed a flaming house at night, the smoke rising and disappearing into the dark sky. A figure wearing a gas mask exits the house unharmed from the blaze. The familiar silhouette notices the camera person, lifting the mask slightly to mutter into the headset attached to its ear. He couldn't hear what was said, but he remembered the words intimately. A thin whizzing noise is heard and the camera is suddenly dropped onto the ground, facing the sky. The figure approaches the camera, then removes the mask over its face. Leon's own younger, yet disdainful eyes look at him through the monitor before he reaches down towards the camera. The video turns to black.
Leon stared wordlessly at the now blank screen. His expressionless face reflected in it was familiar to him.
"You are dismissed. Do not disappoint me again."