A/N: Thank you megadonkeykong for reading over this chapter and giving feedback. I've been taking a break from writing and enjoying reading other stuff at the moment but decided to finish off this chapter, hope you enjoy it.
You think it's impossible to be a passive fighter. Well, sometimes fighting just means existing. Existing, not going away, and quietly biding your time...
I'm a firm believer that there's a time and place for everything. From love and affection all the way to cruelty and punishment. People mistake doing nothing for surrender. Too many people do things pointlessly because they feel as though if they're doing nothing, they're achieving nothing.
The truth was that if the Sports Festival was only a couple of days from now, I'd be far more assertive with my plans. The reality is that at this time there really isn't much to do.
Quietly assessing the landscape and making moves based on your opponent is one of the fundamentals of chess. If there was one strategy that steamrolls every advisery then there wouldn't be a need for theory-crafting. When dealing with someone with an offensive mindset, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be defensive. Blind offense is meaningless, every strike must be tactical. Every blow has to hurt. Otherwise, you're mindlessly committing resources in places that didn't matter. You must be decisive, you must be calculating.
I could already see into Nagumo Miyabi's mind before he'd made a single move. History tends to repeat itself, leaders tend to fall back on a crutch when it comes to strategy. Falling on previously proven tactics in the face of a strong opponent because they don't have the courage to try something new and different when the old playbook never failed before.
This is a common fallacy.
Every strategy, every move. Every decision must be tailor-made to your opponent. It's the only way to maximize attacking their weaknesses. It's why I approached this fight with Nagumo the way that I did, my plan of action is to pull guard.
Nagumo thinks he wants to win no matter the cost. However, a win for him isn't as satisfying without embarrassing his opponent. He wanted to humiliate me. He wanted to prove himself. So the best course of action was to show that it wasn't affecting me. I wanted to frustrate him, make it seem like I'm not taking this seriously so that he'd act more recklessly.
Nagumo's insecurities are his weakness. He needs validation, both from his contemporaries and his opponents. He longs for admiration and popularity. Nothing infuriates him more than not being taken seriously, being belittled, or being labeled as unworthy. It's why no matter the circumstances, I will not allow him to see me in that state.
Every weapon has a purpose, every tool has a use even when deciding not to use it.
Getting me suspended from my gym was just the tip of the iceberg, he was waiting for me to go to the gym to put this into motion while keeping the second-years on standby. I only realized today how much thought he'd put into that plan, every single gym had suddenly had an influx of membership sign-ups since the day before. He'd signed up to every single gym with every second year he could and backed up their waiting list for new memberships. No matter where I went, I was knocked back. Asked to wait until after the sports festival to sign up again. All because of the sudden lack of manpower with BUDDY down, all of those sign-ups meant that I was without options.
Aside from it being annoying, the move did little to me. I don't like to have my routine broken but the effects would be minimal. I was merely going because it was part of my everyday life. My specialized training would be done outside of the gym. I didn't need to reach new heights, in my current condition I could very easily win every event. My PR's may as well have been Everest for them, they wouldn't reach those heights in a thousand lifetimes. My focus would simply be working on preventing injury and losing the unnecessary bulk Honami had been making me build.
Nagumo was spreading himself thin, he was trying to overwhelm me on too many fronts. Our group chat was chaotic, our entire class was asking each other if anyone noticed that they'd been constantly being followed and observed by second-years. The one who was feeling the heat at the moment was Kushida, people seemed to be turning to her to find out what Nagumo's problem was and why they were targeted.
I was grateful, the more effort he put in the more it would hurt when he lost. There was as close to zero percent chance as possible for me to lose this bet. The only thing that would stop me would be if Father went through with his threat to confiscate all of my points or death, no matter if it cost me every single point I had. I would empty every last Private Point to ensure I won. That smirking bastard was right, I had severely underestimated how many points I would get from launching BUDDY.
Between the transaction fees from BUDDY, my percentage of sales that were done through the app, and the tax of the people who worked part-time jobs, I was a little shaken seeing just how many points the BUDDY phone had.
43,420,200 Private Points.
Without doing a single job.
It validates my phenomenal acting skills, I must say. I bluffed Ryuen's class and made them believe that I had access to over 20,000,000 points per month but wasn't even close to reaching that amount. Even still, this amount of points was unbelievable. I could buy everything I wanted and live a life of luxury without any fear of running low on funds. Unlike the rest of the student body though, I had restraint.
When questioning Chabashira-sensei on the ship, I was able to get some insight into the spending habits of students at the school. When scrolling through transactions that observation was exacerbated. Most students didn't save, they all spent with very little care. People used BUDDY to earn points only to spend it the next day. In the history of the school, Chabashira-sensei told me that only one student had ever come close to reaching the desired 20,000,000 points, successfully reaching close to 12 million points, and was close to being able to buy a transfer.
His hopes were dashed close to his graduation though, he was expelled when it was uncovered that he had been involved in a large-scale fraudulent operation.
That record was now mine, I was the only student in the history of the school who had generated this amount of points purely on my own individual efforts. As minimal as those efforts were, all in a day's work. Now there were another 35 million odd points waiting for me in escargot for my taking.
It was so ridiculously stupid that I kept refreshing the wallet just to see if my eyes were deceiving me. I can be disciplined when I want to be and once I decided that I wouldn't check this balance until necessary I committed myself. The only reason I'm charging it now and accessing my vault is that while everyone in Class C is attacking Eiichiro, I already knew the moment I'd seen our Participation Table what his plan was.
He really was taking this seriously, I hadn't given him enough credit. People could change and grow and this chain of events was a testament to that. Eiichiro used pieces of strategies from all of our failed special tests to get ahead of the curve.
He used Koenji's plan on the island to mitigate risks. By not telling anyone his plan, not even me, he'd mitigated the chance that there was a potential leak. Eiichiro also used what I'd told him before, that sometimes it was necessary to deceive your allies as well as your enemies.
Now he was waiting, waiting for history to repeat itself and for someone to leak our participation table. He was also waiting on Ryuen's tendencies to show as well, Ryuen wouldn't be able to resist. The moment our table leaked, he wouldn't be able to help himself. Once Ryuen came to throw it in our faces, Eiichiro would use his trump card; my BUDDY points.
Eiichiro is probably suspecting Yamauchi. He probably believes that he'll sell the participation table for greed. Thinking that Yamauchi would rationalize it in his mind that this exam was a loss leader already and he may as well capitalize on it. The truth is that I'm positive that our table has leaked already and it wasn't Yamauchi who would have done it.
Kushida had been acting strangely, I'm not exactly sure what she wants but I'm positive that she was the one who told Nagumo that I went to the gym. It's why once everything started to unfold in front of me I decided to get something from a losing situation. Turn lemons into lemonade, if you will. Turn weakness into strength. Nagumo had to send someone to tape the whole thing, it was part of his perverse nature to see it all unfolding. He wanted to analyze and make adjustments, see if there was anything from the situation that he could use to his advantage and I was hoping he'd fall into my trap.
There was only one reason why the second-year boys were so willing to challenge me physically, they were more than likely scared of what I could do to them in a fight but knew I couldn't touch them while they were protected by the safety of the school. I was hoping that my little exhibition would inspire Nagumo to try something bolder, praying that he'd take a leaf out of Ryuen's book to send some of his underlings my way in a place where there were no cameras. The timing would have to be perfect but if he was stupid enough to follow through with my provocations, I could gain something more valuable than points or anything else.
It's because Nagumo is someone with overwhelming resources and is strategically sound that I am able to predict his moves so thoroughly. One only needs to analyze all the possibilities, cross reference that with the tendencies of their personality and you're able to eliminate the least likely possibilities. It's not me who's at an overwhelming disadvantage, it's Nagumo. He may have an idea of my capabilities but he doesn't know the extent of my reach, doesn't know how deep my pockets run. Financially, with all of his points tied up in escargot with that Smirking Bastard, Nagumo can only deal in promises. He can only go into debt, both financially and verbally. His capability of fulfilling those promises is contingent on winning.
However, that doesn't mean that debt goes away if you lose. Those vultures will want their pound of flesh, they won't care whether or not Nagumo has the capability of fulfilling his end. They'll take what is owed to them and I was going to make it happen. Nagumo Miyabi will rue the day he ever crossed paths with me.
It's part of the reason why this situation was incredibly annoying, I needed to meet with people but had no way of seeing them without dropping these damn ticks that kept on watching me from the shadows. It's why when you're dealing with snakes, sometimes you needed a snake of your own that could slither past unbeknownst to anyone.
Eiichiro called for everyone to stay back after class so that we could discuss the situation and figure out why all of this was happening. With the final bell of the day ringing, everyone moved to their various cliques to vent their frustrations to each other.
The ones who had it the worst were both Mii-chan and Sudo. Sudo was constantly being targeted. Shoulder checked by a second-year at almost every turn, loudly mocked in front of others and constantly having people try to pick fights with him. Eiichiro stuck by his side like glue as support but it would seem like it was unnecessary.
The previous suspension seemed to have given him perspective on the consequences of his actions but it wasn't easy for him. From what Eiichiro had told me, he'd clench his teeth and his fists while leaving as quickly as possible before pounding his fists into a wall or door the moment he was out of sight. Eiichiro was trying his best to keep him calm, not wanting to have him injure his hands but as time went on his patience was being tested.
Mii-chan had it worse though, so much worse. The poor girl wasn't built for confrontation. Second-year students complained to her in droves, claiming they got food poisoning from her food. It would appear that Nagumo-senpai also enlisted help from Ryuen's class as well as a few third-year class C students. There were so many of them surrounding her in droves and the poor girl didn't even defend herself. Meekly apologizing and refunding them their points.
Some of them more forcefully asked for compensation to which she fearfully gave in immediately. She cried all morning, telling her friends that between the refunds, compensation, and the cost of the ingredients, she had no points at all anymore. The girl's confidence and spirit were completely broken. I felt bad for her as I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she robotically took notes in class with an all-familiar dead look in her eyes.
To make matters worse, now Kushida was in tears as well. Just before our final class would end, Nagumo posted Class C's Participation Table to the school boards.
"Why the hell would you give Nagumo-senpai our participation table!?" Karuizawa yelled at Kushida.
"Hey, back off!" Ike defended her, stepping between them. "Kushida-chan would never betray the class, what the hell is your problem?"
"Easy for you to say, my name is on that list!" Karuizawa screamed at him.
"Ike-kun, Karuizawa-san is right to be angry," Kushida said, patting his back. "But I didn't give him the Participation Table... He must have got it from my phone while I was in the Student Council office..."
Kushida checked through her email, opening her sent folder and showing the screen.
"There's an email here but I promise I didn't send it," Kushida said. "Still, I don't know why he's doing this..."
"Why would you leave your phone unattended? How does he even have your passcode!?" Karuizawa shouted.
"He asked to use my phone because his battery died. I didn't think he'd do this..."
"Shouldn't you have been more careful?" Satou asked while crossing her arms, backing Karuizawa up. "Isn't it obvious that he has some kind of problem with Ayanokouji-kun? He posted up the articles about him and now Ayanokouji-kun's been getting bullied because of him. How could you be so careless? Why the hell would you agree to work with someone like that?"
"G-guys, I agreed before any of that happened," Kushida stammered tearfully. "I didn't know any of this was going to happen, I don't know why Nagumo-senpai is doing all of this..."
Mori put a comforting arm around her shoulders, the one girl who was a friend of both groups. While Karuizawa and Kushida were both queens and leaders of their own cliques, Mori was the bridge. Close friends with both girls, she acted as a peacekeeper while the members of both groups seemed to want to go at each other's throats for their respective friends.
"Guys, come on. Stop this. Kushida-chan is the victim here, we shouldn't be blaming her. You should be angry with Nagumo-senpai, not her."
"Oh, when I get my hands on him..." Satou seethed angrily, miming a choking motion in the air in front of her. "What the hell is his problem?"
"I'm not sure but tomorrow was the deadline to submit the Participation Tables," Eiichiro frowned. "It seems pretty convenient that ours leaked today. I doubt any other class has submitted theirs, they were probably trying to gather information before they made decisions,"
"You..." Horikita started before clenching her fists and forcing herself to remain silent.
Eiichiro ignored her, remaining seated with his fingers interlaced as he tried to read the situation. While the class continued to discuss Nagumo-senpai, Horikita continued to glare at Eiichiro before he sighed and turned in her direction.
"What is it, Horikita? You keep staring at me. If you're going to confess, I'll save you the trou..."
"Stop trying to act like Ayanokouji-kun, it doesn't work for you," Horikita spat.
"Where do you think he learned it from?"
"Not from you, that's for certain. Probably from that stupid toilet paper you call literature,"
"Hey!" Hondo shouted from the back of the room, clearly offended.
"This is all your doing," Horikita pounded her fist on the table in frustration. "What are we supposed to do now, oh fearless leader of ours? Surely this was all a part of your plan,"
Matsushita watched everything unfold, standing by Satou's side and patting her shoulders as she calmed down from earlier. With Horikita right by her side, she removed herself from Satou before patting her balled-up fist calmly in comfort.
"It's all going to be fine, we're going to be fine," Matsushita reassured her.
This didn't seem to calm Horikita at all. Instead, she looked defeated. She looked to deflate as her shoulders sagged and her line of sight dropped to the desk in front of her.
"Why does it seem like I'm the only one who cares? Am I the only one who wants to reach Class A? Why aren't the rest of you treating this with any sense of urgency?"
Before anyone else could continue the conversation, the door to our class slid open. All of us turned to see Nagumo Miyabi standing there scanning the room before his eyes fell on Kushida. He smiled before striding in confidently to speak to her before Satou moved to slap him. Karuizawa and Mori both quickly grabbed Satou to stop her before Nagumo turned his gaze on her glaring at him with hatred.
For barely a moment, he looked at her as if she were scum. Like she was beneath him.
However, much like Kushida, the look was gone almost immediately before it gave way to a look of complete perplexity.
"Why the hostility? I don't see why you all seem to be so angry with me," Nagumo said.
Turning to Kushida, he nodded his head towards the door.
"We have a lot to do, we're rostered on today. You were supposed to be at the Student Council office an hour ago, I've been looking for you. I was expecting a degree of professionalism from you when I recruited you,"
"I'm sorry," Kushida said quietly with her head bowed. "I'll come now, we were ju-"
"Save your excuses, we've wasted enough time. Let's go,"
"What the hell is your problem!?" Satou shouted at him. "Going through Kushida-san's phone to leak our Participation Table, exposing personal information on Ayanokouji-kun. Getting the second-years to bully us! What is wrong with you?"
"So that's what this is about..." Nagumo sighed, shaking his head.
"First of all, I resent the accusation that I'm the one getting the second-years to bully you. You have no proof of that. I have been dealing with complaints from my year for days now. A third of Class C and D are in the infirmary right now with food poisoning thanks to Wang Mei-Yu and now there are even reports of harassment perpetrated by the members of this class. If it wasn't for Kushida speaking up for all of you and insisting that it wasn't true, this class would have already been under review,"
"As for revealing Ayanokouji's past... well, I had my reasons for that," Nagumo continued. "Nevertheless, I'm surprised that you would take issue with that. I believe your anger is misplaced, isn't it? Shouldn't all of you be angry with Ayanokouji for keeping this from all of you?"
"Why the hell would any of us be angry with Ayanokouji-kun?" Karuizawa spat. "If someone has trauma from their past and wants to keep it a secret, that's up to them. How is that any of your business?"
Nagumo side-eyed Karuizawa with very little interest before ignoring her and continuing to address the class.
"Surely some of you resent him to a degree, am I right? Ayanokouji here is capable of bringing all of you to Class A, the pinnacle of what it means to attend this school. All of you have your futures and your dreams right within your grasp. What does he do though? Installs a puppet? Someone who doesn't have the qualifications, skills, or qualities of a leader who plays interference for him so that he can do nothing."
"Matsuo-kun has the qualities of a leader," Hirata spoke up. "He cares about us, he cares about getting to Class A."
"While I respect your opinion, Hirata, there have been a thousand people who care about getting to Class A in years past. It takes something more than hopes and desires. While I'm sure that Matsuo is a fine person, that does not make him a leader,"
"Just because Ayanokouji-kun is a genius that doesn't mean he's a leader," Horikita said.
"It would seem that you don't have the leadership qualities of your brother either," Nagumo scoffed rudely. "Imagine having a sister in Class D, how embarrassing."
I could see Horikita shaking in rage but unable to say anything to defend herself. The others in the room seemed to lose confidence when faced with such an opponent. I sighed to myself, all of this was a waste of time. I had such high hopes for Nagumo, I really did. I thought this would be some kind of a challenge to some degree.
Unfortunately, it wasn't. I set my expectations too high. Nagumo was focusing all his resources in all the wrong places and now I was just annoyed.
"You must be under a lot of stress, Nagumo-senpai," I said, breaking my silence. "You seem to have forgotten that we're now Class C,"
"Once Class D, always Class D," Nagumo said dismissively.
"I guess that's why you still feel like you're a Class B defect, it must be tough," I said nonchalantly.
That one hurt, I could see it. Having his shame pinpointed so directly in front of people, even if he thought that those people were beneath him, was a massive blow to his pride. Everyone had insecurities, not everyone was capable of moving forward from them. It was such a trivial thing, to need validation from people you didn't care about or even knew. Irrespective, it was a sore spot for Nagumo Miyabi. The fact that the school had deemed him to have any kind of defect when he looked at himself as the epitome of flawlessness.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again, he really does have a unique ability of being able to piss people off without saying much," Akito said quietly from behind me.
"I'll take that as a compliment,"
"He wasn't complimenting you," Hasebe muttered.
"He does have a point," Nagumo said with barely contained rage. "You really do have a unique talent of knowing exactly what to say to annoy people. It makes me wonder how many of them quietly despise you."
"I know I certainly do," Nagumo continued. "This school gives all of us a plethora of opportunities that no other institution in the country offers. All of us here give our best for opportunities that we wouldn't have otherwise. Yet here you are, making a mockery of this place simply because you're privileged and set for life. It disgusts me,"
"For others, Class A is the only way for them to have guaranteed success in the future. For people like you who will have everything handed to them on a silver platter when you graduate, it's meaningless. You're willing to drag this class down so you can have fun while not even thinking about your classmates and how it will impact their future,"
"Kiyotaka has never done anything to drag this class down," Eiichiro refuted him. "He's done more for this class than people will ever know. Just because he doesn't talk about it, that doesn't mean that he's been actively sabotaging the class."
While Eiichiro wholeheartedly believed that and knew how much I'd helped the class, one cursory glance told me that not everyone in this class believed him. To them, I was a genius who let them fall to zero class points. They had no allowance because of my laziness, not realizing that I was the one who'd given the two million points to Kushida. If they knew it was me, they'd be angered that I'd received it back without refusing to be paid back, not knowing that I didn't even have those points anymore because I'd already given them back to Eiichiro to use for the class.
They didn't know that if not for me, Horikita would have been expelled. While I had carried them in the most recent special test, there were doubts that I did it for their sake. I hadn't, but that was beside the point. No doubt there were many of my contemporaries that were sympathetic to my circumstances but still harbored resentment at the fact that I wouldn't use my God-given talent to their benefit.
Before Nagumo could say anything to counter that the door to the classroom opened. My heart sank as I saw the smirk grow on Nagumo's face as I realized that this was what he was waiting for. He'd been stalling and setting the stage to do the reveal to everyone, including the one person that I didn't want to hear about this bet.
I should have expected it, although he must have come up with a foolproof plan if he was this confident to let it leak to Honami. He had to have anticipated that there was a possibility that if he worked with Class B that she would leak information to me. Either he was naive and thought that Honami would take this opportunity to reach for Class A, or he was so confident that he could win that he didn't care if she did and this was another form of psychological torture.
Either way, it was futile. The former seemed to be unbelievable so it must have been the latter.
However, one look at Honami told me that he wasn't planning on revealing our bet in front of her. She was the one who was going to do his dirty work; she already knew. I didn't need to wait long to figure out who had done it, a fuming Asahina followed in behind as Honami walked up to me and stood there with her head down, ignoring everyone else in the room.
"Please, tell me it isn't true," Honami said quietly.
The look on Asahina's face, I never knew such a face could mould itself into that kind of expression of fury. It would seem that look wasn't solely for me as I caught her glare at Nagumo from the corner of my eye as he seemed delighted by the unfolding scene.
"My, my, Ayanokouji," Nagumo said mockingly. "Don't you know that secrets in a relationship are poisonous? How could you keep something like this from her, Ayanokouji? Don't tell me you haven't told your classmates either..."
The class was tense with confusion and apprehension. It was stifling, everyone like strings on a guitar that were mercilessly pulled past the point of being close to snapping.
"Told us what?" Satou asked.
"Ayanokouji-kun... what are they talking about?" Karuizawa asked as well, moving to my side.
"Tell me it isn't true," Honami said again.
"What have you done this time?" Eiichiro grabbed my shoulder.
When Nagumo didn't speak, standing and watching me being grilled with delight, I sighed and admitted what I'd done.
"I signed a memorandum with Nagumo-senpai. I made a guarantee that I'd win the Representative Challenge and that my class would come in first. If I lose, I agreed to withdraw from the school," I said.
While the room turned silent to the point that it resembled that place, it was as if I'd dropped a bomb and we were all collectively experiencing a nuclear winter. Everyone was too shocked to move, to speak. The only one who seemed to have any show of emotion at all was Nagumo, who drank in the shock of the class like a vampire feeding on a fresh collective of corpses that were the occupants of the room.
He relished it, watching the way Honami hung her head until I could no longer see her eyes. The bated breaths from Karuizawa and my other friends, the bewilderment of Hirata who couldn't believe what he'd just heard. It wasn't until Honami wiped at her eyes and hurriedly turned her back on me to leave that life seemed to breathe back into the room.
"Excuse me," Honami said quietly as she left with a choked sob.
The door was barely closed before Karuizawa made to chase after her, battering me with her shoulder as she passed.
"You... are unbelievable!" Karuizawa spat before hurriedly leaving and calling after Honami.
Satou and Mori both did the same, the former glaring at me as she passed while Mori didn't even acknowledge my existence.
Asahina-senpai seemed to have come back to life. Her hands balled into fists were shaking as her shoulders trembled. Without warning, she took one step forward before striking my cheek. The slap echoed ever so slightly in the silence of the darkening room.
"I expected this sort of rubbish from him, but not from you," Asahina said. "You should be ashamed of yourself,"
Nagumo smirked at the sight of me as I stood there in silence, accepting her rage without rebuttal. It was short lived as the sound of his chuckling seemed to enrage Asahina further as she whirled around and slapped him as well. He stumbled slightly in shock, righting himself and clutching at his now red cheek as he glared at her.
"You'll regret that," Nagumo said warningly.
"No, I won't," Asahina said firmly. "You'll regret this, trust me on that. You may win this bet, you may succeed in getting him out and you may end up graduating from Class A."
"Ayanokouji-kun is my friend, Honami-chan is my friend. No matter who wins this stupid bet between the two of you, everyone else loses. The two of you should be ashamed of yourselves." Asahina continued.
"Sometimes sacrifices need to be made when dealing with someone exceptional,"
Asahina didn't but I reluctantly had to agree. I don't enjoy the fact that my classmates were suffering because of this bet or the fact that Honami would be put into a difficult situation. However, sacrifices needed to be made to achieve a goal. Winning is everything, even if you lose it all in the process.
"Don't ever ask me to do something like that ever again," Asahina spat.
With that she turned and stormed out of the room, turning in the opposite direction to where Honami had gone as she slammed the door behind her. The class watched as her angry form stormed down the hall past the windows before she went out of view.
"So, all of this is happening because of Ayanokouji-kun..." Kushida said quietly under her breath.
While she said it quietly to herself, the silence of the rest of the class made it sound as if she'd shouted it. The quiet observation that I'm sure more than half of my class were thinking as well. With Karuizawa and Satou out of the room, no one else seemed to speak up to refute her.
"Did you know about this?" Sudo asked her.
"No... it's the first time I'm hearing about any of this..."
"So Nagumo-senpai is getting the second-years after us so we lose?" Ike frowned.
"As I said, everyone is acting on their own accord," Nagumo said dismissively. "It would seem that quite a lot of people want to get rid of Ayanokouji, wouldn't you say?"
"Everyone knows that the second-years are in your pocket. Spineless cowards, they start losing ground in the class battles and they start licking your shoes. It's pathetic," Horikita spat, moving to my side.
"I admire that tenacity. It's a shame that you don't have the talent to back up your words,"
"It isn't over until the last day of our third year. Matsuo-kun and I don't see eye to eye on many things, but he was right. Ayanokouji-kun has never been the reason why we are where we are. If anything we were able to come back to life because of him."
"Perhaps," Nagumo mused thoughtfully. "But you wouldn't need to come back to life if he was a more willing participant. You could have been Class B or C at the beginning of the year if he'd told you about the S-System. My sources have told me that he had his suspicions from the start.
"Even if that weren't the case, how about on the island? He could have taken charge, been a more active participant. Instead, he let all of you embarrass yourselves again and again. Even now, it doesn't look like Ayanokouji is doing very much. Maybe he looks at you as worthless defects and actually wants to be expelled because he looks down on all of you.
"However, it doesn't have to be that way. Rather than suffer because of him, you can help me. Anyone who wants to help me in this bet can contact me anonymously. I'll be sure to reward you when the time comes. Perhaps I'd be willing to leave 20,000,000 points to the person who helps me get rid of Ayanokouji before I graduate..."
While it wasn't an outright promise, it was enough to make my classmates ponder the point. I'm sure there were more than a few people who resented me for not being more helpful but that was irrelevant. Greed is a powerful motivator, even the most honourable could be tempted if the price was right. In a class like this where unity wasn't a common characteristic, I was certain that more than a few of them would be tempted for far less.
With that his job was done, the only war wound that showed was the angry slap mark on his cheek that mirrored mine. Nagumo could still feel the sting, I could tell. He was holding it together because he was in front of people but I could tell that he was still in pain and he was furiously embarrassed. Asahina-senpai needed to be careful, slights like this didn't go unpunished from Nagumo Miyabi.
Even with the slightly misty eyes and the angry red handprint, Nagumo was the picture of confidence on the outside as he rested his hand on my shoulder before speaking quietly in my ear.
"You're not doing very much. You better start taking things seriously. It's not fun to win when the other does nothing,"
"I'm doing nothing because neither are you," I said back just as quietly. "Your tactics are predictable and all of this is meaningless. You're focusing on the wrong things, I already gave you a hint on what you need to do but I guess you're even more unremarkable than I thought you were,"
The insult cut like a knife but I was sure that he disregarded it as psychological warfare. To someone like Nagumo Miyabi, it would be unfathomable that his tactics were weak. Even if the person pointing out his strategic flaws were so much more capable than he was.
"Nice try, Ayanokouji," Nagumo chuckled, patting me on the shoulder.
"Enjoy trying to get them to work together now, I can already see who's going to come to my side. I've won already, but I won't stop here. It'd be even more fun if I crushed you completely in every aspect. So keep thinking that you can win this without doing anything.
"Now you have to repair your fractured relationship with your class, make preparations for the representative challenge without a place to train and your girlfriend seems to be quite upset with you. Enjoy the aftermath," Nagumo smiled confidently before leaving the room with a dismissive wave over his shoulder.
It was only for a moment but I saw and I noticed. It was just a glance, barely a whisper. Unbridled contempt and disdain, jealousy and envy. To him, this was the clash of titans. A symphony of events in which he was the conductor. Leading his band of sycophants in a battle that I continued to disregard. All leading to a crescendo where he was hoping to see me in despair, so that he had something to brag about that he'd been the one to deal the killing blow to the 'Masterpiece' of the Demonic 4th Generation.
In the end it was futile. As events continued to unfold, the more and more I continued to be disappointed. Wasting time with spectacles like this did more to boost his ego than to win against me. He only had one chance, one course of action to beat me. I'd even given him hints but either Nagumo was too stupid to see it or he was a coward.
The only way he would beat me was through violence. To send his second-years with weapons armed to the teeth. He'd have to kill me, break my legs or force me to fight back. He could promise that he'd save them from being expelled only to turn his back on them at the last minute and victory would be assured. That was his only course of action, instead he wasted time with petty tricks.
In the end, it was my fault for expecting too much. At the end of the day, Nagumo was simply a lamb. So I would do the duty I promised when I agreed to this competition and deliver him the slaughter he so desperately desired.