Classroom of the elite 23 Classroom of the Elite Vol. 3 Epilogue

Raising the Curtain

August 7th. At last, our never-ending short life on the uninhabited island was reaching its end. Was our minimal salvation lying in the fact that we spent our time having modest fun in this cruel survival?

There was still no sight of Mashimsensei and others when noon arrived. It was time to end.

"I'll announce a tally of the trial's result. Please wait for a moment. Due to the trial being already over, we're kindly asking people wanting to use toilets or drink to use the rest spot."

With this announcement, the students went to gather in the rest spot in unison. Among others, there were tables and chairs prepared under the temporary tent and it seemed as if you could take plenty of rest. There was no sign that Kouenji, Horikita or retired students were waiting on the cruise ship. Sudou who was always with Ike and the others was standing still, looking up at the cruise ship.

"Ayanokouji. You're close with Horikita, right? … How close, actually?"

Rather than getting mad or making a fuss, Sudou seriously wanted to know.

"There's nothing between us. We're just friends. Not more, not less."

"…Even that makes me jealous. I'm still treated as a friend."

Sudou seemed a little disappointed, maybe because he was irritated he couldn't find the girl.

"But even Horikita noticed you for a moment on this occasion?"

Without causing troubles, I took the initiative and acted in the name of the class while having Horikita in mind. A huge step-up.

"I hope so. After all, she couldn't call me by my first name."

"Good job, both of you. Thank you for everything this week. You really saved us."

Having said words of gratitude, Hirata appeared. He handed me one of the two paper cups he had. A cold sensation crossed my palm when I grabbed it with my hand. He handed Sudou the other one.

"It's me who should be thankful. You followed me, a classroom's outsider. Moreover, you covered up the fact that Horikita retired or when I got late for roll calls."

"I couldn't condemn you when I heard the reason. Besides, Horikitsan gave us a big information."

"Do you believe what she said?"

"She isn't a type that would say irresponsible stuff. That's why you got close, didn't you?"

This guy would protect a colleague even if he had to gamble his pure reputation.

"I'd be lying if I said there's no risk, but I have to act for Horikita."

"That's my friend," said Hirata softly. His profile was like that of a phantom. As if there was a non-comprehensive part in our dialogue, Sudou tilted his head.

"Information? What's that about?"

"I think you'll figure it out pretty soon. Even so, C class is strange… On a whole other level."

Due to most of C class' students retiring during the roll call of the second day, there was no one left in this spot. I couldn't find Ibuki anywhere on the sandy beach as if she had also retired. Only the bizarre sight of Ryuuen was ahead us.

"Why is he… Why only Ryuuen hasn't retired?"

When Hirata and I peeped from a distance, he turned his head in our direction as if being aware of our gazes. He then slowly moved closer as if thinking something. Tension arose in the air.

"Oi, stalkers. What happened to Suzune?"

Ignoring Hirata's presence, Ryuuen came closer with a paper cup in his hand. Hearing "Suzune" coming from Ryuuen's mouth, I became aware of Sudou's head vein pulsing due to his glare.

"It'd be a problem if you hear it from us."

"I know you chased around Suzune's ass. We were together before that."

Having drained its content, Ryuuen lightly crushed the paper cup and threw it at my feet.

"Throw that thing for me."

Sudou, after ignoring it with all his strength, kicked the paper cup covered with sand back.

"What a childish thing to say. Pick up your garbage."

"Picking up garbage suits well with defectives."

Unlike Sudou who was radiating intimidation, Ryuuen didn't show signs of caring about anything.

"Calm down, Sudou-kun. I'll throw the garbage away."

When Hirata hurriedly picked up the garbage, Sudou clicked his tongue and kicked the sand. Ryuuen tediously moved away his gaze. He had dirt all over his upper body and his pants and jersey were also full of dirt. I didn't think he had given up on his efforts.

"You didn't retire, Ryuuen-kun."

"Who are you? And where is Suzune? I thought of sweetly grabbing her ass."

The second time he said "Suzune", having associated it with an insult again, Sudou approached Ryuuen while kicking the sandy beach and grasped his collar.

"What are you doing?"

With zero agitation, Ryuuen accepted Sudou's intense gaze straightforwardly.

"Next time you say a stupid thing, I'll kill you."

"Huh? What is it punk, getting excited all by yourself."

With even Hirata slipping away from a fight that was about to start any second, Ryuuen was tearing off Sudou.

"Horikitsan retired yesterday. She's not here."

"… Retired? Suzune? She doesn't seem like a girl that would retire"

"That's…"

The squeaky sound of the speaker's switch-on enveloped the beach and Mashimsensei appears. The first years hurried to form a line, but Mashimsensei stopped them with a sign of his hands.

"You may relax, now. The exam has already finished. Now, this part is our summer vacation. It is alright to act more freely."

Even so, the students were still naturally tense and their chatter disappeared instantly.

"This past week, We, the teachers were able to keep an eye on your efforts in the special examination. There were students who took this exam directly up front and those who used their scheming abilities into this exam. Various things happened, but I think that the test results were splendid, overall. We appreciate your hard work."

The students felt kind of relieved hearing the praise from Mashimsensei. Finally, we were starting to feel like we had finished this one week exam.

"Well, then, without further ado, I would like to announce the final result of the special exam."

Perhaps no one, including our homeroom teacher, had seen through the results of this test.

"We will not accept any questions or inquiries about the test results. You should accept the outcome of the exam and then we would like you to analyze them and use them to help you for the next exam."

"It is what it is. Do not lose your temper. Accept the reality, properly, alright?"

"It is you guys from Class C that should be worried, you used all your points, right? Ridiculous!"

Sudou made fun of the well-known recklessness of Class C.

"We are left with 125 points, including the bonus points that we accumulated. I think that we are going to be fine."

Hirata may have felt a little irritated by Ryuuen's unreasonable provocation. So he answered with a sense of pride. Ryuuen on the other way, acted disgusted towards Hirata's immature words and made a gesture like vomiting.

"Oh! I envy the nerve of the small fry, when they are satisfied with such a small amount of points."

"It does not matter what you say, Class C still gets 0 points."

"Oh ho ho. You are not to decide on your own. Certainly, we have used up all our 300 points. However, have you forgotten the additional rules of this exam?"

"… You are saying that you are going to expose our class leader, that's what it is."

"That's right. I wrote it on the paper, didn't I? The name of the leader of your Class D!"

Me and also Hirata tried not to show any emotion on our faces, but Sudou felt the shock of these words in his face.

"And I did the same thing to our colleagues from Class A and Class B. Do you understand what that means?"

"Wait a minute. What do you mean? Hey!? If this is true…"

"Your false assumption against Class D, along with your other wrong guesses will result in a penalty and you will lose 100 points in total."

That moment, I heard Mashimsensei's voice from the loudspeaker.

"Well, now we will announce the ranking of the special exam. The lowest is Class C with 0 points."

"Bwahahaha.. Look! I told you! No points at all! Laughable!"

As soon as he heard the results, Sudou laughed heartily holding his belly, ridiculing Ryuuen.

"0 points?"

Ryuuen didn't seem to understand the situation, he was rather in shock. Mashimsensei continued with the announcement of the results without hesitation.

"Subsequently, in the 3rd place is Class A with 120 points. Second place is Class B with 140 points."

A commotion broke out. They were rankings and points that no one had expected.

I wondered if it was because they couldn't hide their embarrassment about their mistake on the numbers they calculated.

"And Class D…"

Instantly, Mashimsensei's movements stiffened. However, his speech soon resumed.

"… Got first place with 225 points. This concludes the announcement of the test results."

The students of Class D, except for Hirata, were the most confused by this situation. Even Hirata, just smiled excitedly, not being able to believe it either, even if he was the only person who was aware of the situation, beforehand.

"What is the meaning of this, Katsuragi?"

From the other side of the rest area, voices echoed, as the students of Class A encircled Katsuragi.

"Something is wrong… What do they mean with these results?"

"Yahoooooooo! We did it! This serves you right!"

Along with Sudou's screams, all students of Class D gathered together, at once.

"Hey.. Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!.. Hey!"

Ike was full with excitement along with confusion, so he leaned towards Hirata, asking for an explanation.

"I will explain everything, over there. Well, then, Ryuuen, we will excuse ourselves from here."

Leaving these suggestive words behind, Hirata set out on his way to the boat along with Ike and Sudou. Sudou held up his middle finger while sticking out his tongue. Ryuuen had no choice but to watch in silence.

The exam was over and the first year students scattered around. Two hours later, when the ship seemed ready to depart, we still played in the sea. We took our time to get on board feeling relaxed. I also began to walk, boarding the ship.

"Yo! Ladies and gentlemen. How was your week on the deserted island?"

On the deck of the ship, with a drink in one hand, Kouenji greeted Class D.

"Kouenji, you jerk! Because of you, we lost 30 points, you know what am I talking about, right?"

"Calm down, Ike boy. I was sick in bed, in bad condition. I had no other choice, right?"

Shiny and glossy, I could tell that he tanned his skin spending the whole week on the ship. Also, saying these things while looking perfectly fine, gave you not even a fragment of persuasive power.

A little later than the moment when Kouenji was blamed all at once by the boys, Horikita showed up. She was still pale as if she hadn't been in good shape yet. The students who noticed the presence of Horikita gathered naturally around her.

"Su.. Suzune, are you feeling better, now?"

Sudou spoke hesitantly, but approached Horikita anyway, by calling her by her first name.

"Not too bad. I can't say that I am in perfect condition, yet. Above all, retiring was my big failure."

"Don't worry about it."

It seemed like Horikita accepted to be called by her first name, so naturally. That was unexpected.

"By the way, Sudou. Do not call me Suzune without my permission, got it?"

"Oops… Understood."

Apparently, she didn't accept it. Sudou had no other choice but to bow in agreement.

"But what is the meaning of this? How did Class D get the 1st place?"

They had gained evidence of who was our leader, so I made Horikita retire. If I let this happen, in terms of calculation, I guess we would have been close to 0 points.

"That's right. How did this happen Hirata! I do not get it, at all!"

Hirata is asked to give an appropriate answer, but there seemed to be something that needed to be solved before that.

"Well… Karuizawa. First of all, I think you have something to tell to Horikita, right?"

Having said that, he called out to Karuizawa who was hiding behind Shinohara. Karuizawa after being called, approached Horikita, slowly.

"… Horikita, can I talk to you for a second, please?"

"Yes. There is something that you should talk about with me. Isn't that right?"

Horikita closed her eyes as soon as she saw Karuizawa making a small nod in agreement. Karuizawa answered about things like the underwear theft incident and about using our points selfishly and acknowledged that since the identity of our leader became known, Horikita had to retire.

In other words we had to accept her words, no matter what she had said before. That's what her facial expression was telling us.

"I'm sorry."

Karuizawa apologized, just a little bluntly but with a regretful expression on her face.

"It was Ibuki the one who stole my underwear. I heard it all about it from Ayanokouji."

"Eh?"

Horikita, who was prepared to be abused, was puzzled by an apology she did not expect about actions she did not remember.

"Horikita, you realized that Ibuki was the thief, and you questioned her, so she tried to escape, didn't she? I was told that this is the reason why you ended up sick."

Horikita turned to me, startled by Karuizawa's unexpected words.

Somehow I felt awkward and averted my gaze.

"And I heard it from Hirata first. He said that you, Horikita had seen through the leaders of Class A and Class C. That's why this time, our points were this high, so… I'm sorry for all the things I said."

Having said this, Karuizawa returned immediately close to the other girls.

"Wait a minute. I… found out about the other leaders, you say. But I retired."

"You do not have to be humble, Horikita. I am sure we had this result because your answers about the leaders were absolutely correct."

I felt the doubts rising up in Horikita's head. About this enigmatic result on the test, I think it made sense to everyone but her, at least for the time being.

"Wait, Ayanokouji…What are you…"

Horikita tried to talk to me in the midst of the confusion and joy of many students.

However, Horikita, being the leader of this victorious test, was surrounded by our classmates at once.

"Horikita, you are really awesome! A true genius, right?!"

"When I heard that you retired, I was concerned about what would going to happen, but everything turned out to be okay."

"Just, hold on a second!?"

As she was bombarded with questions from girls and boys, alike, I clasped my hands in prayer for the successful result and then I retreated.

Well, I was glad that it ended good. Our Class took first place and Horikita became popular. I guess, she could make it through, just fine. Meanwhile, I woule try not to get caught up by somebody else and rest in my room. Just when I thought so, I ended up meeting a death god, instead.

"Can I have a few words with you?"

"It is really a bad time for invitations. Chabashirsensei. May I refuse?"

"If you don't want to, then I guess I'll just start talking here. Is it okay with you if we attract attention?"

"Because it's hot, be brief please."

I walked to the opposite side of the ship so that Chabashirsensei could take the lead. People were completely out of sight here. When there was silence I broached out the topic.

"Is it okay for me to think that you are satisfied with this for the time being?"

"Yeah. Firstly, let me say that it was admirable. Honestly, I was impressed."

"Then tell me now, is it true that «that man» demanded that I drop out of school?"

Chabashirsensei leaned her back on the palisade and and looked up at the sky.

"….Is there an actual basis that make you say that this story is true?"

"I know a lot more than you think about you. Don't you think that's enough basis? Other faculty members and teaching staff don't know about your true abilities. But I have no doubt about them."

Something else was in doubt. It was true that I did something that made me stand out for the entrance examination's question, but none of the teaching staff should have known about my insider knowledge. This time, the order of things will be amusing. Chabashirsensei said she had been in contact with that man recently. As expected, this person was hiding something.

"You've probably heard about the famous myth of the wings of Icarus."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Icarus flew away from the tower he occupied to gain freedom. But that didn't happen because of his own power as a person. It happened because his father Daedalus designed and constructed the wings and made them fly. He didn't fly because of his own intention or purpose. Don't you think this is the spitting image of you right now?"

"I don't understand."

"That man...no, your father said this. Kiyotaka will choose the way and the road that, in the end, will make him drop out on his own. It means that your ending will be like Icarus'. The same Icarus who burned his wings flying too close to the sun. The same Icarus who fell into the ocean and died."

So that's what Icarus' wings is about.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"You should know, Icarus will continue not to follow Daedalus' advice."

Despite the burned wings, Icarus will continue to fly as much as he can. Seeking freedom.

***

When I got inside the ship, I headed immediately back to my room. A tired Hirata was laying, sleeping in the room. I changed my clothes quietly to the corridor so as not to wake him up.

When I turned on the mobile phone, the electronic tone repeatedly ringed and the incoming call history was filled up. For the time being I would just answer the emails and then I waited in the lounge while taking a break.

She won't be satisfied unless I explained everything to her sooner or later.

Then, a few minutes later, an angry Horikita joined me, releasing a silent pressure upon me.

"What is the meaning of the test result? What on earth is going on?"

"You got an expression like you do not have the slightest idea"

"Yeah, I cannot comprehend it. I cannot comprehend it at all. There are a lot of things I want to ask you"

Horikita ordered drinks to the barman who was standing right in front of us. I began talking without waiting for her reaction.

"I'll tell you everything. However, the minimum condition is that you stay silent on this matter. I won't compromise, otherwise"

I anticipated that it would come to this situation, since Horikita didn't want to retire on her own will. It was a story that should be kept secret, or rather, Horikita would be the only one obtaining these information.

"Where do you want to begin with?"

"What were you doing on this test? Tell me about it"

It was a much better question than I expected. In brief, she wanted to know everything, at once.

"When this special examination was announced, I didn't pay attention to anything but the additional rules. How to manage 300 points was pretty much a simple task and not something that you could manipulate personally."

"But the additional rules were very difficult to follow."

"Even if you followed them religiously, you still wouldn't be able to identify the leaders. Right?"

"Indeed. So first of all, I raised my hand and volunteered to search for a base camp. I planned to search spot by spot so I could get ahead of everyone else and have the freedom to act when needed."

"To put it simply, so that no one else could have known the position of the spots"

"That's not the case. You didn't understand because you were feeling sick already, but the school already gave you clues about possible spots while the ship was still sailing"

Katsuragi was also aware of this, but when he told her that the ship was circling the island at an unnatural high-speed, Horikita silenced him. It was nearly three times faster than a usual cruise ship. Moreover, if it was just for sightseeing, it was quite unusual to talk about «An important scenery» in the announcement.

At that time I didn't fully understand what I was looking at, but Kouenji had already noticed that hint.

Well, it was a waste of time thinking about Kouenji, now.

"When, I reached the cave I thought that it was the best base with the most important location"

"The cave as the best base? Don't you think that rivers and water wells would have been more convenient, though?"

"It's not the spot itself that matters. But where it is located"

There were no spots close to the water well or the river. On the contrary, there were two spots prepared connected to the cave, a cabin and a tower. In other words, it was a great place to use as headquarters. Horikita seemed to show a certain level of understanding while I was explaining it.

"But what is the advantage that you've got in the cave, when you don't have the key-card?"

"Well, I intended to explore various things, but it turned out that I find out the true identity of the leader"

"Katsuragi was so careless that he made you realise that he is the leader"

That's not the case, not really.

"There was a guy called Yahiko, right? The guy who always follows Katsuragi. That guy was the leader. I saw Katsuragi and Yahiko close to the cave but I didn't see them clearly in that moment to confirm that they were indeed the ones that occupied it. I was sure they were occupying the cave after they left."

I will explain the situation of that time again. The moment I saw them, Katsuragi, was standing at the entrance, carrying the key-card. Yahiko, who came out of the cave, joined him and they left together.

"So, by looking at this sight, wouldn't be natural to mistake Katsuragi as the leader?"

"Really? Do you think that a leader would show the key-card in such a careless way, in public?"

Because Horikita was the leader, I could understand how foolish she was and that she wouldn't be able to carry out that role.

"But why?… Why bother to have the card in his hand?"

"Because he had to do so. Katsuragi is a calm, composed and extremely cautious man as far as I examined. There is no reason he didn't understand the high risk of occupying such a spot as soon as they found it. In other words, the one who occupied it was the one who was caught in the act of immediate greed."

"That… Requires the presence of another person"

"So it seems. When he found the cave, Katsuragi, didn't intend to occupy it, but he kept it all to himself, which may have been due to the fact that Yahiko had taken possession of it beforehand by a mistake. He was thinking that nobody was watching, yet, he insured himself just in case. By standing around holding the key-card in his hands, he thought that he could mislead any possible witnesses that he was the leader"

"A class had two spots except for their base, but I didn't know exactly how many spots they occupied in the end of the test. If I just guessed their leader, all their points could be invalidated"

Well, it was a waste of time to devote myself to it when I had narrowed it down to Yahiko.

"I'm not quite convinced. If he had marked such a spot at an early stage, wouldn't it be easy to avoid such trouble if he used help from his classmates? It would have been a sufficient claim on his right of possession that it would have allowed him to keep a watchful eye upon the cave. Why occupy it, exclusively…"

"That's the disadvantage of A class"

Their overall score for the test is high and they haven't received a negative assessment in overall class attitude like D class. However, their class is divided internally. In other words, there was a reason why he couldn't use help from a large group of people.

"Their class, which looks perfect on the surface, has now a big hole in it"

That's why I pierced through A class so easily, this time. Well, it was just luck. A kind of score that was obtained by exploiting a mistake. It's like A class had no way of beating an unguarded raid over their head.

"So, at this stage, I excluded A class, and I turned my attention to C class's movements. Katsuragi was an easy-to-understand type, but there was quite an unknown quality about Ryuuen. In fact, he was gathering more information than I was, and he saw through the leaders of all the classes"

"Wai…wait. He was able to see through all the classes. Not only D class, He knew B class and A class leaders too. But that's odd. Aside from receiving a penalty, we were ranked first by a large margin. How are you going to explain this?"

"Although this story is a little hard to explain, the answer to that question is the reason I made you retire"

"Retire…the answer…What the heck did you do?"

"Oh, didn't you return it to the school yet?"

I took out a card from my pocket and handed it to Horikita.

"This is a key-card. Why do you...…"

Horikita was surprised to see the letters carved on that card.

"Why, this is…"

The letters engraved on the card were «Ayanokouji Kyotaka».

"The trial must be fair. That's why all the rules are created fair"

That's quite natural. It's something that can be seen clearly in the additional rules. Only one leader can be chosen. The leader can't change. In other words, the leader is the only one who has the right of exclusive possession.

"What do you think would happen if the leader retired because sick?"

"That's….The leader will be absent. So the right of exclusive possession will also disappear"

"You're wrong. In the manual, it was written like this: «The leader cannot be changed without a legitimate reason». Don't you think that «retirement» is a valid enough reason?"

The only way through which additional rules could be broken is if the leader is in a poor physical condition or if he or she has been injured. I could predict the we would need to find a new leader.

I was able to discover this by looking and analyzing the other rules. For example, it's established that a base camp cannot be changed without a justifiable reason, but even here the reason was valid enough.

For example, when we were occupying the river side we were unprepared for something like another class taking our spot, and so this applied for a «justifiable reason» to occupy. You won't be able to stay at the base camp itself, so if there's no arrangement and no plan to find a new base camp, you will collapse.

"Then, you, to me..."

A leader named Horikita Suzune retired and at her place I found myself in her place. Of course, the leader guessed at the end of the exam should have been me. There's only one leader.

"That's also the reason C class knew that and we didn't receive any damage"

"But wait. Even though Ibuki stole my card, if I had thoroughly protected it...."

Horikita recalled what happened on the day of the accident.

"Did you drop the card on purpose in that occasion? Well, maybe also Yamauchi's action gave way for Ibuki to prepare an opportunity to steal the key-card —-"

I was holding the muddy Horikita and I had no choice but to give up the key-card.

"I couldn't do anything..not knowing what was Ibuki aiming at from the start..."

Right. I mean a girl named Ibuki was suddenly found and picked up by D class.

Firstly, it was necessary for us to know such a thing would be strange.

However, I was almost convinced when I heard a story about a boy called Kaneda who has been helped in the same way by B class. He was a spy sent in by Ryuuen. It wasn't pleasant to hear that two people were helped by two different classes, all by chance. And it wasn't pleasant to know that they were believed to be genuine.

"Furthermore, Ibuki has the habit of looking in a person's eyes when speaking and lying"

The bigger the lie, the more strikingly obvious this habit became.

"When you tell a lie, you look in the eyes of a person…Isn't that normal?"

"Generally speaking, when you have a guilty conscience, you will avoid eye contact. But she's the other way round. I think she talks with eye contact because she wants you to think that the lie is actually the truth. So maybe the person talking with her wouldn't have noticed anything"

Even when the story of the underwear thief came out, she kept talking looking at me in the eyes.

"Perhaps, she only had the goal of searching high and low for a key-card, and after that her goal changed to simply disturb D class"

What happened to Karuizawa and what was in Ike's bag should only be seen as a mere coincidences.

"But I wonder why Ibuki specifically steal my key-card. If it was only to confirm my name, she still didn't understand anything"

"At first, she was supposed to. But an unforeseen trouble happened"

Then that has triggered to founding out C class leader.

"Ibuki had prepared a digital camera in her bag. Probably because she was supposed to shoot the key-card"

"To shoot....with a digital camera...Why has she gone to such extent?"

"If there was a picture, maybe the existence of the leader would have been clear for everyone to see? She reached a conviction that for the first time she would get profit"

"Well I don't know…Maybe Ryuuen didn't trust Ibuki?"

"That's not it. If this kind of talk only got around in C class, then there would be no need to shoot with a digital camera or to steal it"

In other words, Ibuki is a person who doesn't trust easily what other people say, so she wanted a reliable evidence.

"There's no evidence of that though. Listen, I'm just thinking that my prediction derived from the result of the trial. At the end of this test, A class had 270 points"

In other words, that meant that they didn't even use 1 point during the exam.

"C class and A class were both connected and in contact behind the scenes and C class sacrificed their points to buy what was necessary for A class. In addition, by transferring to A class all the tools used by C class, A class was able to spend a week here without using points. I think that's about it"

An extension of this connection was that Ibuki obtained the evidence and spilled the information to someone in A class.

"By the way, the realization that I'm C class' leader came after half of the students had retired. It was certain that someone who remained on the island from the students will become a leader, right?"

"Even so, we weren't supposed to know who remained in the morning."

"Nah, I was about 100% sure Ryuuen stayed on the island"

I realized this when I came across Ibuki hiding a transceiver that was buried in the ground. It was used so that Ryuuen could stay in contact with Ibuki. Retired students couldn't be using a transceiver. It became a proof that someone must have certainly stayed on the island in order to use it.

Actually, the transceiver was carelessly laid on the table while he was enjoying the vacation. No one else was controlling it but he himself. It was his mistake that he hadn't trusted anyone.

"Really… I have no words"

Horikita answered, facing the truth. If I were to recap this trial in my way, A class didn't function well due to internal division in addition to their first mistake that ended up haunting them until the end.

B class carried out a thorough defense-oriented trial that did neither harm nor good. That's right. But the sole mistake was that they forgave the existence of Kaneda in a group since there were a lot of credulous and gullible people. Then, about my theory. I'm not sure how it was carried out, but Kaneda told Ryuuen he acquired the proof, even though he couldn't get any physical evidence once he saw that A class wasn't obtaining points.

Then, C class. With me becoming the leader we managed to avoid damage at last but, besides feeding the spies and pulling off the stunt of realizing all classes' leaders, we were supposed to obtain an advantage with A class due to negotiation of some kind. One person we should have been on guard the most was probably Ryuuen.

"I'm not happy. You used me as a foal in a terrible way"

"Indeed. I can't deny that. I wouldn't be surprised even if you say you won't come near me ever again"

I was self-conscious of that.

"Well, I'm going back to the room. I'm still tired"

"Wait. We didn't finish talking here"

"What? I also want to rest in the room as much as possible"

"Once you explain to me everything. We still have things to discuss"

"Well… What is it?"

"The reason of you challenging this special trial. Was it to compete alone or use me – it's okay if you tell now. I want to know the reason of you, who wouldn't rock a boat, joining this trial"

"… I see."

Maybe the explanation until now wasn't so important for Horikita.

"You were great at realizing things quickly without suspicion at this occasion. Since you lent your hand to us, aiming at A class became fully realistic. However, what was the principle of your action? Why did you do that?"

Still, I wasn't bothered telling my personal problem to Horikita because I only did it to pull out of the promise from Chabashira sensei this time.

"It's because I was impressed by you. You were trying to fight to the bitter end alone in a bad condition."

"… You don't say often lies that are easy to see through"

"I'm in no mood for explaining"

I stood up from the chair and held out my hand.

"I don't mind if you help me advancing to A class. But there's one condition – do not investigate me. If you promise not to touch me under any terms next time, I'll help you out"

As if wanting to check what would happen next, Horikita took my hand with no hesitation.

"If you don't want to tell me that's fine. There's no reason to refuse a lent hand without prying. I have no interest digging up something that's peacefully lying in the past."

Horikira shook my hand firmly.

I am for me. You are for you.

The battle of rising this class from the rock bottom was just about to get started.

Chapter end