Class Asuna chose Class D, led by Shiina Hiyori, as their opponent. That left Class C under Suzune passively matched against the strongest class of all, Class A.
Suzune didn't see anything wrong with that. It didn't matter who stood across from her. She would give everything she had and win. Her eyes were absolutely steady.
(To climb to Class B, I will play every card I have and prove that I am not some poor imitation.)
She drew a slow breath, then let it out.
(Nii-san, please watch. I won't embarrass you.)
She looked up toward the student council seats where her brother was.
Manabu seemed to sense the gaze. He turned his head slightly and gave a small nod in response.
From this distance Suzune might not have been able to see it clearly, but she felt something like encouragement all the same. She clenched her fists.
(I will not lose. I won't.)
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
In Class A, Honami had handed over all command authority to their strategist, Hachiman, with the aim of drawing out Class A's full collective potential.
Her own condition was unstable, the lingering ache of a heartbreak she hadn't asked for.
Hachiman received the responsibility with both hands stuffed in his pockets, his back already developing its habitual slouch. He scratched at his messy hair with irritation.
"What a pain. Let's just finish this quickly."
He took his seat at the command position, directly facing Horikita Suzune. The contest began officially.
The first match was basketball. Suzune sent Hirata and eleven others, five starters and seven substitutes.
Hirata was Class C's best asset in this area. With Sudo gone, no one else came close. Suzune had played a correct card, drawing from the notes Ryunosuke had prepared on each class member's strengths and weaknesses.
She felt something tangled and complicated move through her. Her debt to Ryunosuke kept growing, and she had no idea how to settle it. She pushed the thought aside. The match was in front of her.
If the opponent had been Honami, she might have been able to win with Ryunosuke's data. But with Hikigaya Hachiman across from her, she was in serious trouble.
Class A won, as expected. Hachiman placed every player in the most logically optimal position. The strongest physical performers went to defense. The tallest went to shooting guard for long-range scoring. The most agile became small forward for interceptions.
His arrangement was far more precise than Suzune's, and it extracted more from the class collectively than the raw data alone could account for. He had made one plus one equal three. His talent was on display for everyone to see.
Even Ayanokoji and Kouenji found themselves quietly reassessing this opponent. They recognized the same quality in him that they recognized in each other, the signature of a genius in a specific domain that couldn't simply be outworked.
Suzune clenched her fist and moved on to the next round: academic quiz. She sent Matsushita Chiaki and Kouenji Rokusuke.
Midway through, Kouenji decided to forfeit, leaving Chiaki alone.
Facing two opponents by herself, Chiaki, being sensible, determined that the odds weren't worth the effort and dialed back her own output accordingly.
Class C lost again.
Next came the girls' long-distance run. Suzune sent Nakano Yotsuba. But Yotsuba was still emotionally off-balance over Ryunosuke and couldn't bring out her real ability.
Another loss.
The next event was the boys' long-distance run. Suzune sent Ayanokoji.
He was generous enough not to humiliate Suzune, but he gave only the bare minimum he had promised. He won by three centimeters. Without a high-definition camera and a frame-by-frame replay, the margin would have been invisible. A true master of point control.
Out of five matches, the final score was 5 to 2. The two points Class C earned were, if one looked carefully, a deliberate courtesy from Hachiman. The outcome was settled, and grinding an already struggling opponent into the ground served no purpose. That was a lesson from living at the bottom of things. You didn't have to destroy every bridge, because the same roads tend to cross again.
Suzune, however, experienced it as an insult. Her pride was not built for pity.
Ryunosuke walked over and put his arms around her. Thrown off balance by the shock of losing, she didn't react in time to stop it and stood there without pulling away. When she came back to herself and tried to push him off, he held on, not letting go.
He had known this result was coming the moment Hachiman stepped in. There was no realistic way Suzune was going to beat one of the school's four great powers. He ran a hand gently over her hair.
She stopped struggling and held onto him in return, poised on the edge of something she was still refusing to let fall.
"If you need to cry, cry." He said quietly. "Everyone's gone. I sent them away. No one will see."
At those words, something in her finally gave way. Everything she had been holding poured out against his shoulder, though she still refused, with stubborn determination, to let a single tear actually fall. Truly impossible.
Ryunosuke pressed his forehead against hers and said softly, "Take it out on me. Hit me, kick me, whatever makes you feel better."
Suzune started to say that she didn't need to do anything like that, then felt something cool against her forehead.
(Note: The lips of a woman tend to run about 0.3 degrees warmer than a man's. Which makes a man's feel that much cooler by comparison.)
The instant she understood what had happened, Suzune's face went incandescent. She drove her foot into his with every bit of force she had, holding absolutely nothing back.
Ryunosuke immediately began hopping in place like a cartoon cat, clutching his foot.
"AHHHHH! That actually hurt! How could you kick that hard!"
Suzune paid him no attention. Face still burning, she turned and walked away.
Manabu approached with the expression of a man who had seen too much. "I'm glad you're helping her grow, but this wasn't quite the kind of growth I had in mind."
Ryunosuke stopped performing and said plainly, "I like your sister. Would you allow me to pursue her, brother-in-law?"
Manabu's glasses cracked.
The words "brother-in-law" very nearly caused him to lose his composure entirely. He removed the cracked glasses, cleaned them carefully, and said with a flat expression:
"Come to my office tomorrow. Your workload triples starting today."