Ayanokouji POV
"What would you like to ask?" I asked.
"What were you doing during the test? Tell me," Horikita said.
That was a much better question than I'd expected. She wanted to hear everything at once.
"When the special test was announced, I didn't focus on anything except for the additional rules. I roughly understood how to manage the 300 points, but you couldn't manipulate them as an individual."
"But the additional rules were really difficult to understand. If you did things normally, you wouldn't have been able to identify the leaders. Right?"
"Yeah. First of all, I volunteered to join the search for the base camp. Able to move freely, I planned to search out spot locations ahead of everyone else."
"You make it sound simple, but no one should have known the spot locations."
"That's not true. You didn't understand because you were ill and holed up inside the ship, but the school already gave us hints about the locations when we were sailing around the island."
Katsuragi had also noticed this when the ship circled the island at an unusually fast speed. Horikita fell silent. The ship had been traveling nearly three times faster than a usual cruise ship. Besides, if it were just for sightseeing, it wasn't normal to use a strange expression like "significant scenery."
Kouenji had noticed this hint, too. Well, it was probably a waste of time thinking about Kouenji, anyway.
"Then, I reached the cave. I thought it was the most important base."
"Sorry for intruding. But how was the cave, the most important place? Shouldn't it have been the river?" Itsuki interrupted.
"The spot itself wasn't what was important. Its location was."
There were no spots close to the river or the well. However, there were two spots near the cave: the hut and the tower. It was the perfect place to exercise control. Horikita looked like she understood once I explained, unlike the quintuplets who failed to understand the cave can be used to monitor the other classes.
"But what advantage is there in going into the cave if you don't have a keycard?"
"Well, I'd intended to explore various things, but in the end, I discovered the leader's identity."
"Well, I suppose that Katsuragi-kun was careless."
No, that wasn't it.
"There was that guy, Yahiko, remember? The one following Katsuragi around? He was the leader. I saw Katsuragi and Yahiko at the cave, but I didn't see the moment they occupied it. After the two of them walked away, I checked if the cave was occupied or not."
I explained the situation. When I saw them, Katsuragi had been standing near the entrance with the card in his hand. Yahiko came out of the cave, and they left together.
"Wouldn't you have mistaken Katsuragi-kun as the leader?" she asked.
"Do you think that the leader would have shown off the card so carelessly in front of people?"
Horikita should have known how unbelievably stupid that was, precisely because she'd been appointed as the leader.
"But why? Why bother deliberately holding onto the card, then?"
"Because he didn't have any other choice. As far as I can tell, Katsuragi is a calm and collected man, excessively cautious. There's no way he didn't understand the high risk of occupying a spot immediately after finding it. In other words, the person who occupied it was enticed by short-sighted greed."
"That's...why there was another person."
"Yes."
When Katsuragi found the cave, he didn't intend to occupy it. Nevertheless, he was holding the space down, probably because Yahiko had been careless. Even though he thought no one would be watching them, he'd probably wanted insurance. 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 a 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.
"Their class appears perfect at first glance, but it has a huge schism in it."
"You mean how the class is divided between Arisu-chan and Katsuragi-kun?" Ichika asked
I replied with a nod
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."
"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."
"Wait, the answer is you made me retire? What in the world did you do?"
"Oh, that reminds me. I didn't return it to the school yet."
I took a single card out of my pocket and handed it over to Horikita.
"This is a keycard. Why do you...?!"
Horikita was astonished when she saw the letters engraved on the card.
The Nakano quintuplets were curious, so they leaned over to see the card
"Wait, why does...?"
The name read "Ayanokouji Kiyotaka."
The quintuplets were both shocked and amazed by this reveal
"WHAT THE HELL?" Nino yelled.
"We knew you were going to make Horikita-san retire, but your true plan is this? How did you change the leaders, Kiyotaka-san." Yotsuba was clearly confused and astonished.
"Unbelievable," Itsuki mumbled.
"The test had to be fair. The rules were fundamentally created to be fair."
That was quite natural, something you would have seen if you'd carefully confirmed the additional rules. Only one person could be chosen as a leader. The leader could not be changed. Only the leader held the rights of exclusive possession.
"What do you think would happen if the leader retired because of poor health?"
"That's... The leader would be absent. So the rights of exclusive possession would disappear..." Miku answered.
"Wrong. In the manual, it says, 'It is impossible to change the leader without suitable justification.' Don't you think that retirement is suitable enough justification?"
It seemed like the additional rules had been made to be broken if someone were absent due to poor health or injury. I could predict setting up a new leader. I was able to figure this out by looking at the other rules. For example, we couldn't change the base camp without suitable justification after we'd first decided where it would be, but there were suitable reasons.
"We'd occupied the riverside area, but if we were careless and it was taken by another class, then that would have counted as "suitable justification."
You couldn't stay in the base itself, so if there wasn't a system where you could search for a new base camp, everything would collapse.
"So then, you made me...?"
Horikita Suzune had retired, and I was appointed in her place. Of course, that meant that I was the leader they were supposed to guess at the end of the test. There can only be one.
"That's why even though Class C knew you were the leader, we avoided penalties."
"But wait. Ibuki-san stole my card, but what if I'd protected it really thoroughly?"
"It's not it Horikita-san. We helped Kiyotaka-kun to lead you to the point where you were spied by Ibuki-san so she can take your card."
Horikita was flabbergasted. Her mouth was wide opened. In a split second, she looked at me
"Ibuki had been picked up by Class D purely by chance. I'd been almost convinced until I heard about the guy named Kaneda in Class B. He'd been sent as a spy by Ryuuen. I wasn't so good-natured as to believe that two people just happened to be saved by two separate classes completely by chance." I said clearly not letting Horikita ramble
"Besides, Ibuki has a habit of looking people in the eye when she's lying," I added.
You could say that the bigger the lie, the more obvious the habit.
"Wait, when she lied she would look the person in the eye? Isn't it usually the opposite?"
"Generally speaking, you avoid eye contact if you have a guilty conscience. However, it was the opposite for her. I think that she made eye contact to make the person think that the lie was the truth. She probably didn't even notice it herself."
Even when we were talking about the underwear theft, she looked me straight in the eye.
"Her goal was probably to find the keycard, but she might have intended to disrupt Class D at the same time."
"But I have to wonder why Ibuki-san specifically stole my keycard. All she needed was to check my name."
"That was likely Ibuki's intention from the start. However, she ran into unexpected trouble."
That was the catalyst that led to verifying the leader of Class C.
"Ibuki had a digital camera in her bag to take a picture of the keycard."
"To take a picture...with the camera? Why would she go so far?"
"If she had a picture, then the leader's identity would have been clear for anyone to see, right? If she had convincing evidence, she would have profited."
"I don't quite understand... Did Ryuuen-kun not trust Ibuki-san?"
"That wasn't it. If the discussion only stayed within Class C, then there shouldn't have been any need for her to take a picture with the camera or steal the card."
In other words, that meant there had been people involved who didn't trust Ibuki's words alone; they'd wanted reliable evidence.
"From here on out, I don't have any evidence of what I'm saying. Think of it as my intuition, which I derived from the test results. At the end of the test, Class A had 270 points."
In other words, they hadn't used a single point during the test.
"Classes A and C were connected, working together behind the scenes. Class C sacrificed their own points and bought whatever Class A needed. Also, by taking all of C's tools, Class A was able to spend the week without using any points."
Ibuki had obtained evidence and given it to someone in A-Class.
"By the way, I became aware of Class C's leader after half of the students retired. It was certain that the leader would have remained on the island, right?"
"Even so, we weren't supposed to know who was left."
"No, I was almost one hundred percent sure that Ryuuen was still on the island."
I figured it out when I saw Ibuki hiding a wireless transceiver in the ground. Ibuki had used it to stay in contact with Ryuuen. Retired students shouldn't have been able to use a transceiver. In other words, someone was left on the island for her to communicate with.
He'd casually set the transceiver on top of a table while enjoying his vacation. No one else was controlling it, just him. His mistake was that he didn't trust anyone.
"My god... I don't even have the words," Horikita answered, facing the truth. (A/N: To be honest, this bitch should've understood that Kiyotaka is far superior to her.)
"How c-can you know everything?" Miku gulped.
"It's just a loner's thing."
"Yeah, no shit." Nino retorted
If I were to summarize this test, I'd say that Class A's first mistake carried through to the end. They didn't function well due to an internal rift. Class B went through the test with a thoroughly defense-oriented strategy, which did neither harm nor good. Their only mistake was that, because there were so many good-natured people in Class B, they'd permitted Kaneda to stay, and they'd believed him.
I don't know how Kaneda got the evidence, but he'd obtained something and probably told Ryuuen. If you looked at the fact that Class A didn't get any points, you might think it was because they hadn't obtained any physical evidence. Then there was Class C. We were able to avoid damage because I'd been appointed as the leader. In addition to sending people off as spies to find out the identities of the other leaders, Class C had profited from some kind of negotiations with Class A. Ryuuen might be our number one enemy.
"I don't like this. You completely used me, as a pawn. " Horikita looked at me with an expression filled with betrayal. She couldn't digest the fact that the only person she thought as a friend had used her as a pawn.
The Nakano's couldn't deny it either. They also should've known I've used them as my tools
"Yeah. I can't deny that. I wouldn't be surprised if you never want to speak to me ever again."
Of course, I was aware of what I'd done.
"Well, I'll be heading back to my room now. I'm really tired," I said.
"Wait. We're not done talking."
"What? I just want to relax in my room, if possible."
"After you explain everything. There are still some things we need to talk about, right?"
"Well...like what?"
"The reason why you participated in this special test. Was it to fight alone? I don't care that you used me this time. I want to know why you put in the effort when you dislike trouble."
"All I could say is it's not your business, Horikita," I replied her with a cold tone.
"W-what?" was all she could mutter.
"From now on, I'm going to take things somewhat seriously. I will control the class from now on."
"EHHHH?" They all yelled. Even Horikita who was usually calm and collected was gaping her mouth wide-open
"KIYOTAKA-KUN. I REMEMBER YOU SAID YOU DIDN'T WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN CLASS POLITICS, RIGHT?" Itsuki said... no she yelled with surprise and excitement.
"YES. KIYOTAKA, WHAT'S WITH YOUR TWISTS?" Wow. This is the first time I heard Miku screaming
"Yay, a bird is flying. Nino, Ichika look there." Yotsuba's brain was short-circuited and she was mumbling nonsense.
"Yotsuba! Yotsuba?! She's gone insane. Come back to your senses." Nino was shaking Yotsuba until Yotsuba came back to her senses
"UWAHHH! What happened?"
"Well... I don't even know what to tell." Ichika said.
"Ayanokouji-kun, there is no way we believe someone like you going to participate in the class competitions seriously."
"I'm not joking. Circumstances have changed."
"Why the sudden change?" Horikita narrowed her eyes and asked.
"It's personal."
"Ok, then." She sighed. "So, what are you gonna do now?"
"For now. I will control the class within shadows. I need you to support me." I asked them.
The quints replied with an enthusiastic nod
While Horikita smirked "I guess, you are somewhat serious about reaching class-A, Ayanokouji-kun. Fine, I will assist you. But don't think too highly of yourself."
She reached out her hand for a handshake. I inclined by shaking my hand with her's.
The battle to raise our class from the very bottom to the top was about to begin.
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CHAPTER 8.7 ENDS
I HOPE YOU LIKED THE CHAPTER.
I'M SORRY IF IT WAS TOO SIMILAR WITH THE LN. I JUST WANT TO DECLARE THAT KIYO IS GONNA GUIDE THE CLASS FROM NOW ON.
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PUBLISHED ON - 22 MARCH 2022