cote react to

part 16

By holding onto the card and displaying it, even in the unlikely event that a witness was present, he could mislead them into thinking that he was the leader.

"So, aside from their base, Class A held down at least two spots, but we didn't confirm how many they were occupying by the end of the test. If I correctly guessed the identity of their leader, though, I could invalidate all of their points."

After I'd narrowed it down to Yahiko, putting effort into anything else would've been a waste of time.

"I'm still not convinced. If he figured out the spot's location at such an early stage, and if he were acting alongside a lot of other people, shouldn't he have avoided trouble? Even if he just had someone standing watch by the cave, it should have been sufficient claim of ownership. Why would they occupy it?"

"That was probably Class A's disadvantage."

Their overall points on the test were high, and they didn't receive a negative assessment due to behavior in class like Class D. However, their class was divided internally. In other words, there was a reason why Katsuragi couldn't rely on other people.

"Horikita's right!" Sudo cheered.

"I wonder why didn't Sakayanagi-san participated?" Airi whispered to Haruka.

"Maybe she's sick? She's also holding a cain when we saw her." Haruka suggested.

"That must have been sad. She can't participate in any physical activity because of that." Airi said sadly.

"Their class appears perfect at first glance, but it actually has a huge schism in it."

That was why my methods had revealed Class A so easily. Well, that was simple luck. It was like getting a good score by exploiting a mistake. Class A wasn't vigilantly watching for a surprise attack from overhead, so there was nothing to be done.

"That's why I excluded Class A at that stage, and turned my attention toward Class C. Katsuragi was easy to understand, but with Ryuuen, there
were many unknown variables. To tell you the truth, he was gathering more information than I was. He'd found out the identities of all of the leaders."

"Wha...?" Ike was lost for words.

"How did he?" Yamauchi frowned.

"Ibuki-san was in our camp, right? That must be it." Sudo said.

"Are you stupid? Horikita-san chased her that's why she fell sick and retired." Shinohara shook her head.

"Oh right."

"I forgot for a minute."

"You did forgot. No excuses."

"W-wait, he found out the identities of all of the leaders… So not only Class D, but also the leaders for Classes B and A? But that's strange. We were far from being penalized; we ended up getting first place by a wide margin. How do you intend to explain that?"

"This is a little difficult to explain, but the reason I made you retire is the answer."

Made you?" Ike whispered to Sudo, he doesn't want to be called idiot, stupid and dumb again, thank you very much.

"I thought Ibuki was the reason Horikita retired?" Sudo whispered back.

"Ayanokoji must have chased after them and made Horikita retired after passing out?" Yamauchi said.

The two stared at him.

"What?" He asked.

"I didn't know you can say something smart. That's something." Ike and Sudo said in unison.