3rd Person POV
It was break time and a certain group was having a chat in the cafeteria
"Everyone's hard work paid off"
"Honami-chan is right~ but she was the reason that everyone followed the idea of the tutor groups" Amikura stated the obvious proudly
"I did nothing" She said with some embarrassment visible on her face
"Honami-chan is so humble" Everyone joined Amikura teasing Ichinose
"S-Stop" She barely said with a tomato colored face
"It was nearly impossible to find a blind spot and tease you but~ thanks to Rei-chan, it's extremely easy now. I'll do it until the end of time Honami-chan~"
"Noooooooo!!!" She shouted with the same red face
Kobashi and Shiranami started laughing after they saw Ichinose's reaction
"Speaking of Rei-chan, they still call you by that nickname inside the Anime Club, they really love it"
"What nickname?" She questioned her friend
"Ecchinose"
"That makes zero sense, I'm not like that"
"It's because it fits so perfectly. She also wants to test her theory, if you remember correctly"
"I-I don't have a hidden beast named like that" She became red again
"Really?"
"Really"
"I'll test it too"
"Mako-chaaan!!!"
Amikura tried to hold her laughter but it was impossible for her and started laughing. The others followed shortly after
"That girl loves to give problems to people"
Everyone nodded at Ichinose's statement
"Honami-chan, she pulled a new magic trick" Amikura said with a chuckle
"Who's the victim this time?"
"That's a strange question coming from you, Honami-chan"
"Honami-chan became serious" Shiranami shared her own thoughts
"I know you for almost a month and this is first time I see you like that" Kobashi followed after her
"I heard a lot of stories lately of how she controls her class, she breaks people easily and expels or destroys her opponents completely. The other first years and some people from other years started calling her the Heartless or Evil Witch"
Everyone there was surprised of Ichinose's information network. She clearly made her research
"I'm pretty sure that she's proud of that"
The other girls widened their eyes after Amikura's words
"Why?" Ichinose raised a question
"Her anime recommendations after she met us were series with multiple bad endings. Do you really think that a person like that would be mad with this nickname?"
"You are right. It's impossible to analyze her"
"Hmm, here comes her future line 'They view me as Echidna, I'm so happy that I'm going to cry'. Something like that"
The other girls laughed after Amikura roleplayed as her
After that the girls had a general talk about daily things
Suddenly, two boys from class D passed near them and "accidentally" pushed Shiranami's orange juice to the ground
They said nothing and left
Shiranami was ready to cry but Ichinose saved the day
"I'll buy you another one, don't worry Chihiro-chan" Ichinose said with a smile
"Thank you, Honami-chan" She answered gratefully
Two other students were stalking the troublemakers like commandos
Amikura started laughing after she saw them
Ichinose recognized both of them and her classmate was one of them
She sent a message to her
[ What are you doing? ]
[ We are hunting different Pokemon at the moment. Two of them passed near you just now. They look like that ]
[ That's rude!!! ]
[ Sorry, wrong picture that's the real one ]
[ Ana-chan!!! ]
The pictures made the other girls laugh
[ It's not my fault, they look like ugly weak villains ]
[ That means that you followed them because you knew already!? ]
[ They are already doing that for a week. Where are you living, under a rock? ]
[ No one told me about that ]
[ You were busy and no one wanted to tell you. We can solve this ourselves don't worry about it ]
[ You already started to sound like her... be careful around her ]
[ Hai Hai~ ]
"Ana-chan said to me that our class gets attacked lately a lot"
Everyone nodded
"Everyone kept this information away from me because of my well being... That girl is right... A pacifistic scenario is impossible here and that makes me sad"
"If I remember correctly she never told you to let go of this ideology. She only said that you need to act sometimes the same way as your opponents. An eye for an eye, Honami-chan"
"Is this really possible for me?"
"You already have the brains for plans like that, learning with trial and error is possible. We are also here to help you. Isn't that right, Chihiro-chan and Yume-chan?"
"I agree with Mako-chan" they said in unison
"It's rare for you to explain something so seriously, Mako-chan"
"I asked Rei-chan to explain her actions to me and surprisingly she did"
'I also lost some points because she loves sweets and that was the only way for me to lure her away' Amikura thought
"Inside her class only one person had a high score, that's a positive development for the other classes"
Amikura chuckled
"What's wrong, Mako-chan?"
"You checked only the high scores, check their other scores too"
Ichinose texted someone from Class B and after some minutes she received a reply
"No way..."
"What's wrong, Honami-chan?"
"She manipulated everyone's scores as a joke using the tutor groups"
"She wanted to achieve the perfect average score for her but she failed"
"What do you mean, Mako-chan?"
"The perfect score for her is 69"
The other's blushed
"She views this school as a joke..."
"Not really, the scores don't matter here. Rei-chan said that we gain 100 class points either way. We only lose points right now with expulsions and bad behavior"
"Yuki-chan got a perfect score, that was unexpected" Shiranami added
Everyone nodded
"Speaking of Yuki-chan, she immediately refused the tutor groups"
"I saw her with Rei-chan a lot lately, she even joined our club"
The pieces of the puzzle came together and everyone realized that Rei was tutoring Himeno all this time
"She's a genius that is fooling around all the time. She is confident in her skills and that gives her the freedom to do anything she wants. A completely unpredictable opponent for the other classes"
"Do you have any ideas, Honami-chan?"
"For now she wants to assist us and we will accept her help. What do you think?"
"That's a good idea, Honami-chan"
"I agree with Chihiro-chan, our Honami-chan starts to act as a leader"
*Click*
"That's a nice picture, a serious Honami-chan~. It's my wallpaper from now on"
"Mako-chaaan!!!"
"I love teasing you~"
The other girls laughed again
Author's note
I loved Ichinose's craftiness in Volume 4 and I want to see her do something similar in this version at least
I think that is she out of character here. It's been a while since I read the normal Cote Volumes and I don't remember her speech patterns very well. I'll try and revisit them in the future to have a better idea in general
In the second picture, I edited some Nekkers from the Witcher franchise