cote react to

part 19

"You're delusional," he answered.

"I don't care if I'm being delusional. But I'd like to ask you why you did it."

"It's quite a long process just to get you to kneel." Ryuuen-kun laughed as if he was enjoying himself. "Before the sports festival, I had Kushida get her hands on Class D's complete participation table. I put the right people in the right places to ensure good match-ups, and took the wins. Of course, that's not all. I thoroughly researched Class A as well," he added.

"All for Horikita-san to kneel before you?" Ichinose asked in disbelief.

"You're obsessed, dude." Shibata added.

"Did you also thought of that, Ayanokoji-kun?" Sato asked Ayanokoji.

"Who knows? I may have or may have not." Ayanokoji answered.

"What's with the vague answers?"

"Hmm. It seems like Ryuuen have the upper hand in this sports festival." Sakayanagi said. She eyed Katsuragi on her peripheral vision and sighed.

"Brilliant leadership. You beat us both," I replied. Although they'd fallen short of Class B in terms of overall strength, there was no doubt that Class C had fought well.

"But couldn't you have won more effectively? To crush me, you pitted two of your aces against me, and even had one of them withdraw after she was injured. That's incomprehensible."

"I wanted to crush you. That was reason enough. I had no interest in winning the sports festival," he replied.

"But your strategy also relied on luck. Good for you. When you ordered Kinoshita-san to knock me over, two coincidences saved you. One, that I just so happened to be unable to continue participating, and two, that Kinoshita-san injured herself. You couldn't plan for either of those factors," I told him.

"And you're using Kinoshita-san's injury to humiliate Horikita-san?" Sakayanagi smiled. "I got to hand it to you Ryuuen-kun, that was a brilliant strategy."

"All credits belong to my future self, Sakayanagi." Ryuuen smirked.

Kinoshita winced. Just imagining the pain almost made her puke and never follow Ryuuen's order.

"That must have hurt." Ishizaki clicked his tongue.

That was where my world had fallen apart. If Kinoshita had only been slightly injured, the situation wouldn't have gotten this serious.

"Your injury was coincidental, yes. If Kinoshita deliberately aimed to injure you, that would've been obvious. That's why I had her carefully practice hitting an opponent and making the fall look completely natural," said Ryuuen-kun.

What had he done to make her obey him to that extent?

"Private points?" Ike suggested.

"Who would deliberately hurt themselves just for measly private points?" Shinohara disagreed.

"Actually, about Kinoshita's injury," Ryuuen said. "Do you really think it was an accident?"

"Huh?"

"She certainly did fall, yes. But injuries that serious don't just happen at the drop of a hat. That's why I had her pretend to be in pain and then drop
out of the sports festival. Before she got medical treatment, I injured her myself. Like this."

He stomped on the floor with all his strength. BAM! The sound echoed
unnervingly through the hall.

Kinoshita held her arms. Yes, that must have hurt big time.