The alarm on Seiji's phone went off at exactly 6:00 AM.
Seiji's eyes snapped open instantly. There was no drowsiness, no lazy yawning. He woke up with the efficiency of an assassin about to execute a mission.
But today's mission wasn't to assassinate a target; it was to assassinate laziness.
"Ritsu, status report," Seiji ordered as he put on his uniform.
"Targets 1 through 6: Active," Ritsu reported. "Ike Kanji is awake (currently panicking while looking for his tie). Yamauchi Haruki is in the bathroom. Sakura Airi has been awake since 5 AM due to nerves. Hasebe Haruka is eating breakfast. Miyake Akito and Sotomura Hideo are ready."
"Target 7?" Seiji asked, tying his shoelaces.
"Target 7: Sudou Ken. Status: Motionless. Breathing patterns indicate deep REM stage sleep."
Seiji sighed. "Just as I thought."
He grabbed his school bag and rushed out of Room 401, heading straight for Sudou's room on the same floor. He didn't knock. He used a duplicate key (which he had "borrowed" when Sudou let his guard down yesterday, specifically for this kind of emergency).
Click. Clack.
The door opened. The room was a mess. Basketball jerseys were scattered across the floor. And on the bed, Sudou Ken was snoring loudly, sprawled on his back like a starfish.
"Oi, wake up," Seiji called out, shaking Sudou's shoulder.
"Nnggh... five more minutes... Coach..." Sudou mumbled in his sleep.
"There are no five more minutes. Tip-off is right now," Seiji said.
He picked up a basketball lying on the floor and dropped it squarely onto Sudou's stomach.
Thump!
"Uwooh!" Sudou bolted upright, his eyes wide open. "Air raid?! What?!"
"Good morning, Sudou-kun," Seiji greeted him with a terrifyingly bright smile. "You have exactly 15 minutes to shower, eat, and head out. Or do you want to get disqualified before you even step onto the court?"
Sudou looked at the wall clock. 6:15 AM.
"Crap! I forgot to set my alarm!"
"Hurry up," Seiji commanded. "I'll be waiting in the lobby. Don't be even a second late."
In Classroom 1-C, the atmosphere that morning wasn't nearly as tense as one might expect. Instead, there was a strange aura of excitement.
Chabashira Sae stood at the front of the class for morning attendance. She looked at the faces of her students, who, surprisingly, did not look like inmates on death row.
"You all look confident," Chabashira commented. "Good. Maintain that mentality."
"Of course, Sensei!" Ike exclaimed. "We studied like our lives depended on it!"
"By the way," Chabashira added, as if she had just remembered something trivial. "I forgot to mention one thing. The school has a tradition for summer vacation."
Every student's ears instantly perked up.
"If no one is expelled during these exams... the school will fund a luxurious vacation trip to a tropical resort island. Blue oceans, white sand, and barbecue parties."
There was a brief moment of silence.
Then, the collective imagination of the teenage boys exploded.
"THE BEACH?!" Yamauchi yelled, practically drooling. "You mean... we get to see girls in bikinis?!"
"Kushida-chan in a bikini... Karuizawa in a bikini..." Ike muttered with a perverted look on his face. "PARADISE!"
The class's fighting spirit skyrocketed through the roof. For teenage boys, the promise of seeing the opposite sex in swimwear was a nuclear-grade fuel far stronger than the threat of expulsion.
"We have to pass! We absolutely have to pass!" yelled Sudou, who was now entirely wide awake.
In the back corner, Seiji just shook his head at his classmates' antics. However, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
A hidden island? A luxury resort?
Seiji recalled the data he had read regarding this school's educational methods. There were no free gifts.
"That's not a vacation," Seiji whispered softly, only loud enough for Ayanokouji, who sat diagonally behind him, to hear. "That's a special survival exam."
Ayanokouji didn't turn his head, but he gave a small nod. "Highly likely. But let them dream for a bit. It's good motivation."
The morning bell rang. The exam proctor walked in carrying stacks of sealed test papers.
"The Midterm Exams will now begin. You have 90 minutes per subject. No cheating," the proctor ordered.
The test papers were distributed.
Subject 1: Japanese (Kokugo)
Ike Kanji flipped the test paper over with trembling hands. He remembered how thoroughly crushed he was during the diagnostic test. He stared at question number 1.
Question: Explain the meaning of the metaphor "the moon on the water" in the following classical poem...
Ike's eyes widened.
This... this is the exact same question! Ike thought to himself. It's identical to the practice questions Koroizumi gave us!
He glanced slightly toward Seiji, then toward Kushida. Neither of them turned their heads, but Ike knew they were smiling inwardly.
Ike immediately began writing his answer. His hand didn't stop.
I know this! I memorized this!
On the other side of the room, Sotomura Hideo was working on the Kanji section.
Question: Write the kanji for "The Demonic Sword that Defends Righteousness".
Sotomura grinned broadly. "Heh. This is just the title of episode 45 of the Samurai X anime."
Seiji's method of linking the lessons to their hobbies, combined with the accurate leaked questions, made this exam feel like a walkthrough for a game they had already beaten.
Subject 2: Mathematics (Sūgaku)
This was the bane of Sudou's existence.
Sudou stared at a complex Trigonometry problem. Normally, his brain would short-circuit at the sight of all those numbers and the symbols for sin, cos, and tan.
But this time, when he looked at the question, he didn't see abstract formulas.
He saw a basketball court.
An angle of elevation of 30 degrees... A distance of 5 meters...
Seiji's voice echoed in his head: "Assume 'x' is the position of the hoop, and 'y' is the height of your jump. If you miscalculate, you airball."
Sudou scribbled on his scratch paper. He drew the trajectory of the ball.
"Got it!" Sudou whispered. He plugged the numbers into the formula. The result came out.
He looked at the next question. Differential Equations. The exact same problem he had worked on last night until midnight under Seiji's supervision.
I can do this, Sudou thought. I'm not going to get expelled. I'm going to play basketball here until I graduate!
Subject 3: Science (Rika)
Hasebe Haruka twirled her pen. She looked at an Organic Chemistry question.
Question: The Esterification reaction between a Carboxylic Acid and an Alcohol...
"Ah, this is the question about 'perfume'," Haruka muttered. Seiji had taught her that esterification was the process of creating fruity scents.
"Banana scent... amyl acetate," Haruka wrote fluently.
Her motivation wasn't just good grades. In her mind's eye floated the giant Supreme Parfait that Seiji had promised her.
For the parfait, Haruka resolved. I'm going to crush these questions.
Subject 4: Social Studies (Shakai)
Sakura Airi usually panicked during exams. Her hands would sweat, her breathing would grow shallow.
But today, she felt calm. She was holding the "charm" Seiji had given her—a photograph of a landscape that Seiji had taken (with amateurish but sincere technique), and on the back, he had written: "Focus on the main subject. Ignore the background noise."
Sakura read a History question. It was about World War II.
She remembered Seiji's stories. Not as boring, memorized dates, but as a narrative about human beings.
Sakura wrote her answers slowly but surely. She no longer felt stupid. She felt heard.
Subject 5: English
Akito Miyake worked through the Reading Comprehension section calmly. He didn't find it too difficult, but Seiji's method of dissecting sentence structures helped him work twice as fast.
He glanced at the clock. There were still 30 minutes left.
He stared at Seiji's back, who was sitting in the front row. The young man had put down his pen 15 minutes ago and was sitting relaxed, staring out the window as if contemplating his lunch menu.
He's a monster, Akito thought in awe. He's not just smart himself; he made all of us smart overnight.
The exam ended.
Seiji Koroizumi handed in his answer sheet. He didn't need to double-check his work. He knew he got a 100.
In another row, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka also handed in his answer sheet.
Ayanokouji had intentionally made a few minor mistakes on the subjective essay questions, and answered correctly on the difficult but inconspicuous multiple-choice questions.
Target: 80 points, Ayanokouji calculated.
He had noticed a drastic improvement in his classmates. Sudou wasn't sleeping. Ike wasn't scratching his head in confusion.
Koroizumi's strategy worked, Ayanokouji concluded. He used the stolen questions as a baseline, but he instilled a fundamental understanding through associative methods. So, even though the teachers modified the questions slightly (about 10%), they were still able to answer them because they grasped the core concepts.
It was a pedagogical victory.
During the break, the "Seven Dwarves" swarmed Seiji's desk.
"Koroizumi! You're a god!" Ike yelled. "All the questions were on there!"
"I could do it! I could actually do it!" Sudou clenched his fists, his eyes tearing up from sheer relief.
"Of course you could," Seiji smiled gently. "You all worked hard. Enjoy this victory."
Haruka thrust her hand out. "Where's the parfait you promised?"
"After school," Seiji promised.
From a distance, Horikita Suzune leaned against the wall, observing the scene with a faint smile.
"He actually pulled it off," Suzune murmured.
Kushida stood beside her. "He's amazing, isn't he? Sometimes I think he's more suited to be a teacher than a student."
"Perhaps," Suzune replied. "But thankfully, he's on our side."
The Midterm Exams had been conquered. The threat of expulsion had been successfully parried by a shield of scrap paper and the strategies of a former assassin.
However, Seiji knew. This was just a warm-up.
That summer vacation on a hidden island... his Reaper instincts caught the scent of a danger far greater than mere math problems.
"Brace yourselves," Seiji whispered to himself. "The true survival exam is only just beginning."
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