The brief Sunday holiday had ended, ushering in Monday—the fifth day of the special exam.
Until the alarm rang a little past six every morning, most students were still lost in sleep.
But because this exam forced students to prepare their own breakfasts, some were already in the cooking room getting it ready.
The group where Momoko Inugari from third-year Class B served as leader was exactly one of them.
Since their group ran on a rotation system, it had been decided that the third-years would handle the cooking starting on the fifth day.
Akane Tachibana, who also belonged to that group, had woken up early to help with breakfast prep.
(I won't cause any trouble. If I just work hard to remove myself from being a target that drags everyone down…)
She buried those thoughts deep in her chest, stifling a yawn as she worked.
She finished her assigned tasks while maneuvering to support everyone else.
Tachibana was the former student council secretary. She hadn't gotten the position out of Manabu Horikita's pity—she'd earned it with her own skill.
Her abilities weren't lacking. She could see the bigger picture and possessed talent worthy of Class A.
Yet no matter how sincerely she proved her worth, the malice never stopped.
No matter how capable you were, sometimes one person alone couldn't do a damn thing.
"Hey, Tachibana-san. How many times is this now?"
A Class D girl in the same group called out in a thorny voice.
She held up a bowl of cut vegetables and shoved it in Tachibana's face.
"Your vegetable cutting is seriously pathetic."
The words dripped pure malice, her disgust completely bare.
The rest of the group stared at Tachibana with the exact same hostile energy.
"…Huh? I wasn't the one who cut those."
Tachibana denied it naturally.
The vegetables inside matched the batch she'd been responsible for, but the cuts were jagged and brutal, like someone had clawed them with their nails.
Tachibana, who cooked for herself every day, would never produce anything that sloppy even on her worst day.
This was deliberate.
"I saw you set them down right here, though?"
"I did put them there, but I didn't cut them anywhere near that rough.
I think someone swapped them out while you weren't looking."
"Haa? I've been standing right here monitoring the whole time?"
"M-Monitoring? What do you mean by that?"
Even though the official policy was group cooperation for the exam, she openly declared her surveillance.
The clear message that she wasn't trusted stabbed straight into Tachibana's serious, gentle heart.
"Monitoring means monitoring. Yesterday we decided someone had to watch you because you might fuck up the exam.
And just like we expected, here you are butchering the vegetables."
"Fuck up the exam!? I'm not trying to do anything like that! And the vegetables…"
Tachibana defended herself desperately.
Even if her words meant nothing coming from one person, backing down now would hand them exactly what they wanted.
"What, you're not even self-aware? Former student council secretary and everything?"
"Give it a rest already. She was just a decorative piece on the council."
"Class A is Horikita-kun's one-man show anyway, so having her around doesn't change shit."
Students from other classes giggled in perfect sync, like they'd rehearsed it, heaping on the insults.
Their coordinated attack was obvious as hell.
Malice thickened the air, growing heavier by the second.
With the teacher who should have noticed this shitstorm still nowhere in sight, the girls kept piling on without pause.
"…Tachibana-san, you're really still going through with this? Is this Horikita-kun's plan?"
The group leader, Inugari, spoke with clear exasperation.
"It's not! Horikita-kun has nothing to do with it!"
"So it's your own brilliant idea then."
"That's wrong too! I'm not trying to disrupt anything…"
"Even if you deny it, the circumstantial evidence says otherwise."
Tachibana couldn't push back hard against Inugari's calm, matter-of-fact tone.
It wasn't solid evidence by any stretch, but one testimony backed by cross-class teamwork was enough to crush her lone voice.
"Could you stop ruining our nice peaceful group already? We finally got everyone working together."
"That's exactly why I…!!"
The sheer unfairness left Tachibana unable to retreat.
She fought back the tears with everything she had and stood alone against the group's venom.
She somehow dragged her half-dead fighting spirit back to life and put on a brave front.
"You might be trying to frame me like this… but I won't break."
"Enough with the victim complex. Look around you."
Tachibana desperately glared at every face in the group like a cornered little animal, but no one even bothered meeting her eyes.
Her will to fight crumbled at that cold fact.
Crushing self-loathing slammed into her for failing to use the advice she'd finally been given.
Still, Tachibana endured. She couldn't show her pathetic side. She refused to burden Class A or Manabu Horikita.
Driven by that single burning resolve, she wiped her blurred vision and snatched the bowl of vegetables.
"H-Hey, what the hell!"
"You're supposed to be monitoring me, right? Then watch carefully. See? I'm not cutting them like that, and I have zero intention of messing with the group."
Tachibana grabbed the knife and started recutting every single vegetable from scratch.
No matter how fast she worked, doing it alone meant serious time lost.
Fully aware of that, she attacked the task with desperate fury to prove her innocence.
"…Good morning. Everything going smoothly?"
Unfortunately, the supervising teacher walked in at the worst possible moment.
Inugari caught the brief sharp glance the teacher gave but immediately dragged him into it.
"It's mostly fine, but we're hitting some snags with the vegetable prep right now…"
Inugari steered the teacher's gaze straight to Tachibana.
While almost everyone else had finished, only Tachibana—who had literally just started—was still working.
From the outside, she looked like the useless slacker holding the whole group back.
"…I see. There's still time, so please work with a little more composure."
The teacher glanced once at Inugari before addressing Tachibana.
Tachibana clenched her teeth so hard it hurt.
She fought back the tears threatening to spill over her miserable state and answered in a shaky, flat voice.
(…Horikita-kun)
The calm in her heart was slipping away bit by bit.
She sank deeper into self-hatred, her will slowly eaten away by the crushing weight of her own powerlessness.
Yet with the single-minded need not to cause trouble for anyone, Tachibana finished the job.
Surrounded by mocking laughter, unable to let a single tear fall. There was a limit to what she could endure.
After that, time passed without further incident, breakfast was served, and the day moved forward normally.
The group tackled the exam in silence, as if no malice had ever been aimed at the lone girl.
The good-natured person who had watched the entire ordeal from start to finish had turned his neat, composed expression into pure, burning rage.
...
Morning classes, after zazen meditation and cleaning, were entirely dedicated to physical exercise.
The activity involved running the actual 18km course that would be used for the relay race on exam day.
Since the real event is a relay format where each person only needs to run a minimum of 1.2km, there was no need to cover the full long distance today.
Still, today's practice would give us a solid feel for the straightaways, uphill and downhill sections, and serve as an important benchmark.
With fifteen people in our group, each running 1.2km in the actual race should be perfectly manageable.
All that remained was deciding who would run which leg, and we could safely say things were going smoothly for the exam.
"Good afternoon, Kamukura-kun."
It was now dinner time.
As I was looking for a seat by myself in the cafeteria, I bumped into Kushida-san and Horikita-san.
Kushida-san's smile was flawless as always—bright, friendly, and completely masking her true nature from everyone around her.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing special~ Can't I talk to you unless I have business?"
She maintained her perfect public face, but her words carried a clear sting.
From that subtle attitude alone, I could instantly read her current mental state.
"Stress relief, huh? You really are a pain in the ass."
"Ahaha, exactly right. Thanks for catching on so fast."
As the school's beloved popular girl, she couldn't reveal her real self in a crowded place like this.
Even though she could drop the act in front of Horikita-san, who was sighing beside her, those opportunities were extremely limited.
Just as she had declared before, she had come to use me as her personal stress toy.
"And you're playing the role of her watchdog today, Horikita-san?"
"That's correct. Well, I also remembered something else I needed to discuss."
Those sharp eyes that always tried to pierce through people's true essence were very similar to her brother Manabu's.
I already had a good guess about her other purpose, so I suggested we move and led us to a quiet corner table in the cafeteria.
"Hey, you sit here."
I was about to sit across from Kushida-san when she grabbed my sleeve and yanked me toward her side.
The result was Kushida-san sitting right next to me, with Horikita-san across the table.
"Treating me like some kind of shadow?"
"Ehehe, from this spot I can talk a little more honestly without it being too obvious. Plus, with you sitting next to me, everyone's eyes will naturally focus on you instead.
Even if someone sees us like this, I can smooth it over pretty easily!"
Kushida-san kept smiling cheerfully the whole time.
Sitting beside her made it difficult for anyone to catch a glimpse of her real expression from the side.
The tall backrest also blocked any view from behind, keeping her face safely hidden.
"…Were you two actually this close?"
"Yeah, we made up~"
Kushida answered Horikita-san's puzzled question with an instant bright smile, silently warning her not to dig any deeper.
"So, Horikita-san, what do you need from me?"
As soon as we started eating, I cut straight to the point.
Horikita-san set down her chopsticks and replied calmly.
"It's about Kushida-san's debt."
Exactly what I expected. We'd been slowly working out the details ever since we exchanged contact information on the day she cut her hair.
Having the chance to settle it here and now was perfect timing.
"Hey, I told you over and over that this has nothing to do with you, didn't I?"
"And I told you over and over that it does. This isn't just your personal problem.
If we don't take care of it quickly, it'll leave an opening for Class C to exploit."
"Even then, I don't like the idea of you paying it off for me."
Horikita-san stared straight back at the glaring Kushida-san.
Both of them were incredibly stubborn and refused to back down.
"Kushida-san, I think it'd be smarter to swallow your pride here and let her handle the payment."
"Shut up. This is my problem. I don't want to owe anyone else anything more."
"However, if you leave that debt hanging, it's a fact that Ryuuen-kun will take full advantage of it.
I may be the leader for this particular special exam, but there's no guarantee I'll be in that position for the next one."
The moment I brought up Ryuuen-kun, Kushida-san's expression turned visibly sour.
Horikita-san looked mildly exasperated at her reaction.
"…The debt is still 400,000 points, correct? In that case, I want to pay it off as soon as this exam is over."
"Are you planning to use Class D's current private points? If you do that, you'll have to explain exactly what they're being used for.
That would inevitably mean exposing Kushida-san's situation, which seems like a terrible move."
I deliberately pointed out the flaw.
Class D currently only had 85 class points and had earned a mere 8,500 private points this month.
They might be able to scrape together the amount if everyone contributed, but they'd have to disclose the exact purpose behind the expenditure.
If that happened, Kushida-san's true personality would be dragged into the light.
"You're right. We can't use the private points we earned during the cruise ship exam.
But if we earn points from this exam, we'll be able to cover it."
Horikita-san declared confidently.
Kushida-san made an openly annoyed face at her overflowing self-assurance, but Horikita-san ignored it and continued.
"If our class takes first place in this exam, we'll receive 900,000 private points and 270 class points. Paying back 400,000 should be easy, don't you think?"
"Aren't you considering the possibility of only getting second place? Class D's overall ability isn't exactly impressive, even if you're being generous."
"That's why I borrowed help from Class B too."
She answered without the slightest hesitation.
Horikita-san's current group consisted of 10 students from Class D, 3 from Class B, 1 from Class A, and 1 from Class C.
The higher number of Class B students was clearly because of their cooperative relationship.
It was smarter to boost the average ability with talented Class B members rather than adding average Class D students.
A solid strategy aimed at securing victory.
"And it looks like you've also been paired with strong groups from the upperclassmen. Your confidence seems well-supported."
She didn't look surprised that I already knew this information.
Precisely because she understood my abilities, she never lowered her guard around me.
She was one of the very few people in this school who properly recognized me as a threat.
"Very well. It's reassuring to know you have a clear plan for repaying the debt.
If you can settle it right after this exam ends, we promise not to treat it as a weakness we can exploit in the future."
When I stated it firmly, Horikita-san let out a small sigh and resumed eating.
Kushida-san watched her with obvious displeasure the entire time.
While glaring at Horikita-san and silently shoving food into her mouth, her mind was likely a chaotic mix of curses and reluctant gratitude.
"…God, you're so fucking annoying."
That was all she could manage to mutter under her breath.
"Annoying or not, this is necessary for the class's future.
I'm paying in advance, so you'll repay me with the points you earn going forward."
Kushida-san snorted and turned her face away.
Seeing her full bitch mode on display, even Horikita-san sighed tiredly.
"Is the conversation over? If so, I'll excuse myself now…"
"Hey, don't just walk off like that. My stress relief isn't over yet, you know?"
I had just finished eating and was about to stand when Kushida-san grabbed my arm, physically pinning me in place.
From how hard she was squeezing, the stress inside her had clearly piled up to dangerous levels.
I could've shaken her off, but a convenient solution popped into my head right then.
"I don't mind listening to your complaints, but if that's the deal, there's one favor I'd like to ask of you."
"A favor?"
Even Horikita-san's eyes flicked toward me at the word.
I kept my voice low and laid it out.
"In the near future, I will become enemies with Nagumo Miyabi.
When that time comes——will you cooperate with me as my ally no matter what happens?"
Both of them widened their eyes at the exact same moment.
The proposal was so sudden and insane that neither of their brains could keep up.
"…Just asking, but why me?
If you're going up against the new student council president, shouldn't you be asking Ichinose-san, who's actually on the council?"
Kushida-san released my arm, propped her cheek on her hand, and fired a sharp jab.
"Because the current Ichinose-san can't compete with Nagumo Miyabi, but you can."
"Yeah, sure. I'm in."
Her approval-seeking hunger flared up, spilling out as a pure, childlike smile.
Still, the instant decision was exactly what I expected.
Choosing her over the most outstanding first-year, Ichinose-san, had been deliberate manipulation to make her judgment looser.
Since she decided without weighing any risk or return, it proved she was still acting purely on instinct—no sign of growth yet.
"Don't get the wrong idea. I didn't fall for your sweet talk. This was my own decision."
"…Heh."
Kushida-san stared straight into my eyes with a triumphant look that screamed I know exactly what you're thinking.
Hard to read.
Even with my supreme analytical ability, I couldn't fully grasp her current state of mind.
Had her own talent evolved after being exposed to mine?
"Just to confirm, you're not planning to carry this cooperative relationship into the special exams, right?"
Horikita-san, who had been quietly watching the conversation wrap up, sought confirmation.
"That's right. Bringing it into the special exams would make things boring."
"I see. Then I permit it. Cooperate however you like."
Horikita-san spoke like she held all the authority.
Naturally, the blonde girl immediately took offense.
"Hey, why the hell do we need your permission?"
"You have a criminal record of trying to betray us during the cruise ship exam. So a review is necessary."
"…Guh!?"
Instantly shot down.
It was an irrefutable, logical argument.
"Well then, I'll excuse myself."
I picked up my tray and quickly left the area.
Having confirmed the dynamic between the two of them, this had been quite productive time.
"…Hey, what about my venting session?"
"Ah!!"
I conveniently pretended not to hear.
...
After dinner and a bath, free time finally arrived.
I left the shared room and headed outside to the meeting spot with a certain student, letting the night wind wash over me.
There was still about an hour until lights-out, so most students were awake, but almost no one would bother coming to such an unpopular location.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
The third-year wearing the school-issued tracksuit—Horikita Manabu—appeared exactly on time.
The topic we would discuss in this deserted place concerned Nagumo Miyabi, and by extension, Akane Tachibana.
"How is Tachibana doing?"
Horikita Manabu skipped any greeting and started speaking while still standing.
"It seems my warning had some effect—she worked hard during the morning. However, by afternoon and dinner time that energy had completely disappeared.
She's being treated like a villain by the other third-years and framed as the one disrupting the group's harmony."
"…So Nagumo really is dragging everyone around him into this. I thought he was the type of man who faced competitions head-on."
After relaying Manabe-san's report word for word, he showed a disappointed expression and closed his eyes in deep thought.
"Have you made your decision?"
A powerful light shone in his opened eyes.
It seemed further questioning was unnecessary.
"Yeah. If he's willing to go that far, then we'll make our move too. But I can't be the one who betrays him first and drags others in."
"…We have several plans prepared on our side, but in the end, the simplest method is for Akane Tachibana to complete the exam flawlessly and remove herself from being a target that drags people down."
"That's true. However, even after hearing your warning, Tachibana hasn't returned to normal. She's probably planning to shoulder all of Nagumo's malice alone so she doesn't cause trouble for anyone else."
Akane Tachibana is no fool. She understands her situation, the battle between Horikita Manabu and Nagumo Miyabi, and the rule about dragging others down.
She has realized she is the target and intends to accept expulsion by herself.
"As a sub-plan, we're taking steps to ensure the large group she belongs to doesn't finish in last place, but the success rate isn't high.
Of course, if we're allowed to use any means necessary like Nagumo Miyabi, we can raise that success rate to 100%."
"When you don't choose your methods, will Tachibana truly be saved?"
"Yes. She won't be expelled."
Horikita Manabu's gaze grew even sharper. An average person like Manabe-san would need everything spelled out, but as expected of the former student council president.
He seemed to have intuitively grasped what I intended to do.
"Rejected. Use another method."
"Please rest assured. I won't execute it as long as this exam continues to entertain me."
Horikita Manabu's eyebrows rose slightly, but understanding his own position, he simply gave me a dissatisfied look.
He was forced into a purely defensive stance and couldn't act freely.
That's why he couldn't complain to me—the one acting as his hands and feet.
"One of the strategies I've prepared involves interfering with a certain second-year."
"Interfering? All the second-years in Tachibana's group are Nagumo's allies. Even for you, making them betray him seems impossible, doesn't it?"
"Specifically, the night before the exam, during dinner time, I plan to apply pressure on Asahina Nazuna."
To build trust, I revealed one piece of information.
"Asahina? She should be very close to Nagumo. What exactly are you planning?"
"I can't tell you that. You can just consider it a threat."
I then explained the entire plan to him.
In response, Horikita Manabu narrowed his sharp eyes even further.
However, he didn't reprimand me. He already understood he had no right to criticize.
"…Promise me. That you won't harm any unrelated students."
"Yes, I promise. In the end, if we want to save Akane Tachibana, the fastest way is to motivate her ourselves.
Well, if we simply wait for her to be saved, there are things that will never be saved."
I deliberately spoke in a cold tone.
"If there's a way to rouse her, please tell me. I'll faithfully carry out your orders."
"…Yeah. But I'll also do everything I possibly can on my end."
As lights-out time drew near, a patrolling teacher called out to us.
We ended our secret conversation there and parted ways.
***
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