As I stepped onto the luxury cruise ship again, I was greeted by the familiar face of Koenji Rokusuke. Looking as pompous as ever, he sat, tanning on a chair near the pool.
"So, everything went as planned, newboy-kun?"
"I have no idea what you mean, Koenji."
"KOENJI!" Sudo screamed from behind me. "WHAT THE HELL, WERE YOU THINKING RETIRING!?"
"Fufufu, I knew everything was going to be taken care of by my fellow classmates."
"Hell! Does that matter! We lost 30 points because of you! And you obviously look fine."
"My dear, red-hair-kun. I was in a dire situation, my body was not feeling quite right. Besides, is it bad to have faith in my classmates?"
"Tch. But you-"
"Sudo, it's time to give up."
I knew this conversation was going to go nowhere, as Koenji had a multitude of reasons to 'explain' his early retirement.
But from looking at him, you could tell there was nothing wrong at all with Koenji. He looked to be in pristine condition. His retirement was probably to save himself from doing any sort of work during this trip.
Everyone in Class D had now shown up to where we were. Some came to air out their grievances with Koenji, but among the people who showed up was Horikita.
She looked pale and sickly as she joined the group. Probably, what caused her retirement from the exam. But as soon as she joined the group, her presence was made known as everyone flocked to her.
"Su-suzune... are you alright?"
Wow, did I hear that correctly? Sudo was the first to ask her if she was alright, and he used her given name. Bold move.
"I am in recovery now. My retirement was completely my fault as I couldn't maintain my health."
"Don't worry about it!" Sudo gave a big smile and thumbs up in response. Guess Horikita's sickness made her mind a little foggy as she didn't give a remark about Sudo using her given name.
"Also, Sudo-kun, don't wave around my given name so casually."
There it was, her usual cold response. It was an honest try by Sudo, though.
"A-alright..." Sudo replied with a defeated look on his face.
After that exchange, questions and phrases of praise were fired at Horikita from everyone.
"How'd you do it?"
"You're amazing! All while you were sick!"
"Thank you so much, Horikita-san!"
From the sudden ambush by our classmates, you could tell Horikita was flustered and confused by the situation.
"Horikita-san," but once again, Hirata came to the rescue of one of his fellow classmates. "We all wanted to say thank you for the effort you put into the special exam. You were the one to help us win this exam."
"But... I didn't do anyth-,"
"Ayanokouji-kun told me all about it," Hirata continued. "How you figured out the other class leaders and the traitor within our class while being sick."
Horikita's confusion seemed to only grow more as Hirata continued to explain.
"Actually," Kei spoke up from the crowd. "Hirata-kun told me how you went after Ibuki-san in the rain that final day because you found out she was the traitor within our camp. And after being so rude to you before... I'm sorry."
This must have come as a shock to Horikita. After the battle between Kei and Horikita on the island. Along with Horikita having to retire. She must have felt a heavy burden of guilt, but for Kei to apologize first; was a definite shock to her.
"Wait, a moment." Horikita blurted out. "You're all saying I was the one to find out the class leaders, but I was already retired..."
"Indeed, all your guesses were correct..." Hirata answered. "Ayanokouji-kun came and told me that you told him you found out the other class leaders and passed the answers on to him before you could retire."
It seemed that everyone blindly accepted this as the answer. Except, for Horikita.
"Wait... Ayanokouji-kun..."
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(Ayanokouji, Kiyotaka, POV)
"May I have a moment of your time?"
"Not right now. I'm rather tired, Chabashira-sensei. Maybe some other time."
"If you really don't mind, I can start talking right here. But, we may stand out a little."
"Let's get it over with, it's hot." We walked to a quiet place that not many people frequented.
"I assume you're fine with the results, sensei?" I asked.
"The results were splendid. You did a wonderful job. I'm impressed."
"I don't believe it was all my hard work, though."
"You mean, Fukumoto?"
"Yes," I replied bluntly.
"I assumed he would have some plan up his sleeve, but he did bring fantastic results too."
"How would you know that? Teachers were not allowed to make any unnecessary contact with students during this exam."
"Like you, before this exam, I had my own discussion with Fukumoto."
"Was expulsion mentioned in it?"
"Along those lines. He is also a tool to help me reach Class A, along with you."
"You're very cold, sensei. Casually tossing around expulsion like that to blackmail students is a very serious issue."
"Maybe I am." Chabashira-sensei lit a cigarette as we continued talking.
"Is it true? Did that man really contact the school to have me expelled?"
Chabashira-sensei gave no response and continued to smoke.
"Is there any evidence to prove whether or not this story is true?" I asked.
"Ayanokouji, I'd like to think of all the teachers; I know you the best. Your abilities, skills, and mannerisms. Shouldn't that be enough of a reason?"
"I'd like to think I still have some mysterious side that not even you know about," I replied.
"Do you know of the story, 'The Wings of Icarus?'"
"I don't see how this applies now, but go on."
"Icarus. A boy who loathed freedom, trapped in a tower with his father. His father, Daedalus, had invented wings that gave the boy the ability to fly. Icarus could not gain his freedom through his own ability; he needed the help of his father to do so. Icarus only flew because of his father's orders. Doesn't that sound quite familiar to you?"
"I don't quite understand."
"Your father told me this: 'Sooner or later, Kiyotaka will chase the means of expulsion from this school of his own accord.' Your end is in sight, Ayanokouji. Exactly how Icarus flew too close to the sun and burned his wings, to only die in the sea."
"Sensei, you should know; Icarus did not heed his father's warning. No matter what, Icarus flew as high as he could to search for that freedom."
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(7:13pm, Fukumoto, Akio, POV)
I had taken a rather nice and needed rest in my cabin. It had felt like a long time since I last slept in a bed. Compared to the hard ground on the island, the bed now felt like a marshmallow that could sink to the floor. Not many people were in their cabins now, I assumed everyone was having the time of their lives as they. But for me I needed that sleep after the effort I put into this exam.
After freshening up in my cabin, I left to wander the ship again. I hadn't seen what the ship deck looked like in the night, so I was eager to find out.
I took my phone out to pass the time while I walked through the hallways of the cruise ship.
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[8 missed calls from Horikita]
[5 messages from Horikita]
[1 message from Ichinose]
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Seems like I'm a popular guy now.
I opened my message from Ichinose first, as I had a vague idea why Horikita tried to contact me so much.
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[Hi Fukumoto-kun! I don't know if you remember, but I was wondering if tomorrow at 11am on the deck would be a good time to meet up? If not, I totally understand! :)]
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That's right. With all that happened near the end of the exam, it nearly slipped my mind that Ichinose and I agreed to hang out. I fired a quick 'sure thing' in response and went to check my other messages.
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[Fukumoto-kun. I would like to request that we meet on the lookout over the deck of the ship at 7 o'clock.]
[You must come.]
[Will you be attending?]
[Stop being a child and meet me here now.]
[I'll personally come and drag you to the lookout if you aren't here by 7:15pm.]
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Yep, that was basically what I thought Horikita was messaging me about. I assumed she wanted to discuss the results of the exam, seeing as it was probably a major difference from the results she thought there would be.
It was nearly 7:15pm now, so I hurried my step as I walked to the lookout.
After a few minutes of walking around the ship, I made my way to the lookout.
There was a phenomenal view of the ocean at night, with the sounds of the waves crashing around the boat. This was a good view.
Near the edge of the lookout, seated on some stools overlooking the deck, sat Ayanokouji and Horikita. They each had a drink as I approached them.
"Sorry for being late," I said, nonchalantly.
Horikita returned my response with her usual glare. "Where were you?"
"I was just napping; give me a break."
"Anyways..." Horikita continued. "Now that every one of necessity is here. I need an explanation. I've heard from everyone that this was my doing. But I can admit I played no part in our success. I can only think of two people who could produce this result, Ayanokouji-kun, and Fukumoto-kun."
I gave no response to Horikita, instead, I turned my attention to the menu to order a simple iced tea as I knew this may be a long talk.
"I want to hear the entirety of it," Horikita said.
"Where should I begin then?" Ayanokouji asked.
"From the start."
"If I am going to tell you this, Horikita and Fukumoto. I need your word that no one else learns about this. It stays between us three."
"I agree," Horikita replied.
"I have a vague idea of what you did, but I accept. Please continue."
"Once the test was officially announced, I only paid attention to the additional rules. There wasn't much specialty compared to the other rules, most were ways to lose points, but those additional rules were the only way someone could manipulate their amount of points."
"You mean the ability to guess a leader and spot occupation?" Horikita asked.
"Precisely. At the beginning of the exam, I believed it would be best to use a spot occupation strategy. Constantly gathering points, slow and steady. I volunteered to search the island to find these spots and even spent my own time searching the island."
"You say you spent multiple hours then scouring the island for spots? Isn't that a little inefficient?"
"Well, there was a way to identify spots before the exam began. Didn't you find it odd how when we arrived at the island, there was an announcement to look at the special scenery of the island?"
"I don't remember that part..." Horikita mumbled.
"You were preoccupied with being sick since the beginning of the exam, so I do not blame you for not noticing."
"Wow. Sick for the entire exam, that's rough," I mumbled.
"Continuing on, when Sakura, Koenji, and I scouted out the island, I purposefully went in the direction of what I believed to be a spot location. From the boat, I saw a path to a cave that could have been a spot."
"Why that spot, though?"
"Compared to every other spot, it had something unique. There was a hut and tower nearby that could be excellent spots to maintain control of the area."
I had noticed those landmarks too. If I could've chosen where our class would set up base, I would've picked that same cave too.
"But, what's the point of going to the cave when Class A ended up occupying it?"
"While Koenji separated from Sakura and me, we happened to catch someone from Class A at the cave."
"Katsuragi-kun?"
"Indeed, he and Yahiko emerged from the cave; while Sakura and I hid from their view. Which allowed me to catch a glimpse of Katsuragi holding the keycard."
"I would've expected Katsuragi-kun to be more cautious than that. To be waving around the keycard would be idiotic," Horikita said.
"He is," Ayanokouji replied. "He only held the keycard out in the open to bait anyone watching him."
"Bait?"
"Indeed, it was his partner, Yahiko, who was careless. When they walked to the cave, they found the checkpoint for the spot, and I suppose Yahiko got excited and claimed the spot without thinking. So, Katsuragi tried to trick anyone who may have been nearby into thinking he was Class A's leader when in fact, it was Yahiko."
"I see..."
"In the end, that spot allowed them also access to another nearby checkpoint which became their point producer. So while each other class probably maintained control over one spot during the exam, Class A had two."
"Then why did they end with such a low amount of points?" Horikita asked.
"Well, once I had determined Yahiko as Class A's leader, my strategy changed. From spot occupation to guessing the leaders of other classes. Then I set my sights on Class C, they were by far the hardest to find out, and I didn't figure it out till near the end of the exam."
"What do you mean?"
"I had my suspicions of who their leader was. But I needed confirmation. I thought Ibuki staying around for the entire test was odd. Especially if her whole class retired."
"I agree, and if she wanted to spite Ryuuen more, she could have retired early."
"Exactly. And with the one Class C student also staying around Class B, I realized those two were feeding information to Ryuuen on who all the class leaders were." Ayanokouji said.
"You mean he knew all the other leaders?"
"Yes, by the end, he knew every leader. This is just a suspicion, but I believe he formed a contract with Class A, providing points and class leaders in return for something like private points."
"Well, if he knew that, how did we end up with so many points?"
Ayanokouji fumbled around in his pocket for a second and pulled out a keycard that looked similar to the ones we used during the exam, except in big bolded letters, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka was written on it.
Horikita was speechless for a moment as she stared at the keycard.
"No one guessed Class D's leader correctly," Ayanokouji explained. "When a leader retires from the exam, if the cause is serious enough, the leader may be swapped. Do you think a serious illness is reason enough, Horikita?"
"Y-yes," Horikita fumbled with her words a bit as she was still dealing with the shock.
"When I realized you were sick and found Class A's leader, I tried my best to make you retire from your illness. It may be harsh, but it provided us with the best results. So in the end, I told Hirata that you came up with this plan, and we voted for Classes A and C, that's why their scores were so low."
The wheels in Horikita's brain were probably going 100 miles a minute as she tried to process all of this.
"Alright, if I understand you correctly, you swapped Class D's leader out and guessed Classes A and C's leader... Shouldn't that have only scored use around 225 points?"
"You'll have to ask the man to your right," Ayanokouji said nonchalantly.
I had been relatively quiet while listening to this conversation as I was interested to hear the full depth of Ayanokouji's plan also, but alas, it seemed it was my turn to talk now.
"What did you do?" Horikita asked me bluntly.
"Helped us get points, that's all."
"I want to know how?"
"My plan doesn't seem as refined or elegant as Ayanokouji's, but it did help us get more points. Like Ayanokouji's plan, in the beginning, my plan only focused on the additional rules. Specifically, Spot occupation."
Horikita nodded to me to continue.
"I too; also noticed the weird announcement before the exam started and spent my time memorizing the island's features. I did notice some spot locations but not many."
"I really wish I wasn't sick," Horikita mumbled.
"But, my plan came into action once I swiped the keycard to claim our spot."
"What do you mean?"
"I wanted to know if anyone could claim a spot as long as they had the keycard of the leader. If only the leader could, my plan would end there, if anyone could, it would produce a lot of points. There was a rule saying only 'leaders' could swipe a checkpoint. But how can the school monitor that? There's no way these checkpoints were advanced enough to know the identity of the person claiming them. Besides, there was a zero-violence tolerated rule too, but that was obviously broken when Ibuki fought you. The school can't keep an eye on everything."
"That's why you asked to swipe it on the first day?"
"Precisely. And do you know why I always asked to swipe the checkpoint for the early morning shift?"
"No."
"After the first day, everyone had gathered some intel on various locations of spot locations throughout the island. And once I had a rough outlining of where they were on the island, I would claim them every morning."
"You mean... every morning... you'd run around the island and claim spots. Didn't you ever sleep?"
"Yep. It didn't produce as many points as Ayanokouji's plan but, it did indeed help. Most classes had done their searching of the island on the first day, so I claimed ones that were of a farther distance just for added security. And the spot occupation timer would usually run out before anyone could notice too. Sleep is nice and all, but I needed to produce results."
"So, how many did you claim a day?" Horikita asked.
"Well, on the first and last day of the exam, I couldn't claim any. But I'd say roughly 5 a day."
"5 a day, huh..."
"Not only that but while I was running around the island too. I found out my own information."
"What do you mean?"
"Since we visited every base camp, I'd also spend a little time on my route checking out their camps too. I left Class A alone since they stayed behind the curtain in the cave, but I did find out Class B's and C's leader."
Horikita was once again left in shock. "How?"
"Class C's was relatively simple for me, as the presence of Ibuki in our camp worried me too. I also believed it would've been better for her to retire early instead of staying on the island. Which, made me realize it had to be part of some plan, a plan only someone like Ryuuen could come up with."
"What about Class B's then?"
"On my routes, I'd always go by their camp, and every few times, I'd see some Class B students get up to reclaim their spot. And the one student that always frequented it was Shiranami Chihiro and Kanzaki. Kanzaki is a cautious and prominent man in his class. He's smart enough to know trying to use reverse psychology of making the class leader also the exam leader isn't safe. This led me to believe she was the actual leader. But, since we established a cooperative relationship with Class B, I decided to withhold that information."
"Wait... going back to how many you claimed a day, wouldn't 5 a day be too little to score the number of points we did?" Horikita asked.
I gave a slight chuckle in response. "I think you're still sick, Horikita. We probably just saved better than expected."
"I see... I see how I was a complete tool for both of you in your own regards."
"Sorry about that," I said.
Ayanokouji gave a slight bow as his apology.
We both got up to leave and head to the cabins as we thought the conversation had finished.
"Wait, I'm not done yet," Horikita called out to us.
"About what?" I asked.
"I have no doubt now that both of you have extreme skill. But I don't understand why you both suddenly started taking the rise to Class A so seriously now."
"I wonder..." Ayanokouji responded.
"If we all put our skills together, I'm sure our rise to Class A won't be a pipe dream anymore."
"I believe I'm saying this for me and Ayanokouji," I responded. "We will help for now, but we don't want to be your sole reliances in this endeavor."
Ayanokouji gave a nod in response.
Horikita stuck her hand out and gave Ayanokouji a firm handshake.
"I don't mind helping us reach Class A," Ayanokouji said. "However, there is one condition. As long as you do not investigate me, I'll help."
Horikita responded with a nod.
She let go of his hand and stretched her arm toward me.
"I get a handshake too?"
Horikita began to retract her hand at my response, but I quickly reached out and shook her hand with a firm grip.
Our battle to rise to the top of the class had officially begun.
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(9:23pm)
It had only been a couple minutes since my discussion with Ayanokouji and Horikita. Instead of turning in right away, I went down to the deck to get one last view of the ocean under the night sky.
It was a truly marvelous sight, one that could be a core memory for anyone. The slight salt in the water stings your nose and the sound of the calm waves crashing against the boat. It was stunning.
Not too long after I had made it to the deck, Ayanokouji joined me. He looked over the ocean as well, and we stood there in silence for a brief moment.
"So we're a team now?" Ayanokouji started.
"I guess so."
"Then, as a team, I need to know, you didn't tell Horikita everything, right?"
"You're a really clever guy, you know. Yes, I didn't tell her everything. I claimed 10 spots on the island per night, I assume you figured that out when you caught me coming back to camp in the morning?"
"I got the idea then, yes." He responded calmly. "Also, you were there, were you not? Watching me as I trailed Horikita and Ibuki."
"Once again, you are preceptive, Ayanokouji. But, it did take you a while to notice me."
"That's true, your skills are above normal."
I gave a slight chuckle in response.
"So she blackmailed you too, huh?" I asked.
"Precisely, she told me she did the same to you."
"I was confused in the first place as someone like you, who seems to not really care about this class race, started to help so suddenly. I assumed it was her doing."
Ayanokouji paused for a moment and returned his gaze to the ocean. "Do you think she can really expel us?"
"Unlikely," I said. "What she used to get us to work for her may all be conjecture. But you can never be too careful, right?"
"Looks like we were thinking the same thing."
Silence fell over us once again as we stared at the ocean in front of us.
"I think I'm going to head back to the cabin," I said.
"Alright, I'll head back soon. It is getting late."
Before I left, I faced Ayanokouji and stretched out my arm to give him a handshake.
With a smile on my face, I said. "Here's to our newfound cooperation."
Ayanokouji returned the sentiment with a small nod and handshake.
When all's said and done though, will we remain allies forever?
Can I change enough to view him as a true friend?
I don't think I can.
A human's nature is set in stone from the beginning, etched in every fiber of their being from the start. There is no hope in anyone truly changing themselves. Changing from your true self is only a delusion - a mere child's fantasy.
No matter what methods I use, no one will be like me. No one will be on the same level as me. No one will be better than me.
Not you, not Horikita, not Hirata - no one in this world will rival me. For now, your only stepping stones on the path of my evolution. I will only help those who I deem as a useful tools to help me become better.
I will do whatever it takes to succeed and improve. Even if that means being the villain.
But let's be honest. In the end, you're always a villain in someone's story.
So why not embrace it.
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AN's:
FINALLY ISLAND ARC IS DONE! i'm very happy with this arc and how we see the characters tackle certain events.
there maybe some lose ends to tie up but that will happen soon dw:)
thank you smmmmmm for the support it means alot
bye, for now!