When Ichinose Honami arrived at the designated meeting spot, there was no sign of Amase Kazuna. The message she'd sent on Line had vanished into the void — no reply, no read receipt, nothing.
Left with no other option, she pulled out her phone. Thanks to the location-tracking intel she'd traded from Nagumo Miyabi earlier, she knew school-issued phones had a feature that let you pinpoint anyone you'd added as a friend.
She and Amikura Mako followed the signal — and when they finally found the girl with the striking red twin-tails, they both stopped cold.
Amase Kazuna was standing right in front of Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
For a moment, neither of them said a word.
"Ichinose..."
Amikura Mako's brow creased. She dropped her voice low. "The way Ayanokoji's reacting — he clearly doesn't recognize her. Does that mean Sakayanagi was right? That this transfer student came here with some kind of objective?"
The words pulled Ichinose back from her momentary daze.
She shook her head gently. "Until we have concrete proof, let's treat her as an ordinary student who doesn't know anything."
"Like Kushida-san said — against monsters that don't play by any rules, we need to unite every ally we can find. We can't let unfounded suspicion push someone who could be a teammate straight onto the opposing side."
Amikura Mako opened her mouth — and then closed it again. She said nothing.
She knew Ichinose's nature. And she understood that right now, this might be the only way to hold the group's trust together.
A moment later, not far from where they stood, Amase Kazuna seemed to follow Ayanokoji's line of sight and notice the two of them.
"Oh!"
The girl startled as if she'd just remembered something, then broke into a light jog toward them. She stopped just one step away from Ichinose, rising slightly onto her tiptoes. Her bright, dewy eyes were full of apology.
"Sorry about that, senpai~"
"I'd just finished the enrollment paperwork at the office when I ran into someone I used to know — a senpai from before — and we ended up chatting for a bit. I didn't expect you to get here so fast... I really thought I'd make it in time."
Ichinose blinked. "A senpai from before... Amase-san, does that mean you were held back a year?"
Standing a short distance away, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka felt a similar jolt of surprise.
But where Ichinose had taken the words entirely at face value, Ayanokoji read straight through to what they actually meant.
'A senpai from before?'
That was practically broadcasting it directly to his face — that she came from the White Room.
But he knew for a fact that of the Fourth Generation, he was the only one who had survived and graduated. Which meant the girl standing in front of him had to be from the Fifth Generation or later.
That, at least, explained the breezy lack of deference she showed toward him. No reverence, no wariness — just that easy, unguarded smile.
But...
Voluntarily exposing herself. Zeroing in on him the moment she arrived. What was the play here?
Surely it wasn't as simple as that man sending her here just to pressure him into dropping out. That would be embarrassingly unsophisticated.
His thoughts moved fast. And then — a flash. An offhand remark from Chabashira Sae, not long ago, surfaced in his memory.
A more logical explanation took shape in an instant, and the pieces clicked into place.
She's here because of the Black Sphere... so that's how it is.
And Amase Kazuna, for her part, seemed to have zero intention of hiding it. She turned to Ichinose Honami and admitted it with complete, breezy frankness.
"Technically speaking, I'm not actually old enough to be a first-year high schooler yet."
"But since Advanced Nurturing High School specifically invited me, I figured — why not give it a shot? And honestly... I'm pretty confident I can keep up with the coursework here!"
Amikura Mako shot a sidelong glance at Ayanokoji.
The brief silence, the slight stilling of his expression — it told her everything. This girl calling herself Amase Kazuna wasn't lying.
She really did come from the same place as him.
Ichinose Honami noticed it too, and something in her chest sank quietly.
If she was Ayanokoji's junior from that place, then the suspicion that she'd been sent here to work against them was more or less cleared.
But what troubled Ichinose even more was something else entirely —
The school. Or rather, the Black Sphere. It had actually pulled in a girl who wasn't even high school age yet — someone who knew nothing about what was waiting for her.
Was that a surprise? Or was it perfectly in line with everything they already knew?
These cold, indifferent rules had never cared about whether the people caught up in them lived or died.
Amase Kazuna tilted her head, looking between Ayanokoji's shuttered expression and Ichinose's complicated one, and put on a look of innocent puzzlement.
"...? Why did the mood get so heavy all of a sudden? Is skipping grades and jumping into high school really that shocking?"
She patted her chest with a confident little thump and beamed. "C'mon~ Please don't worry, senpai, and definitely don't underestimate me, okay? Honestly, I'm pretty confident in myself across the board!"
Mid-sentence, her gaze caught something at the edge of her vision and her voice brightened a few notches.
"Hm? Looks like a seriously handsome guy is heading this way. Senpai, is he here for you?"
Ichinose looked up.
Chris was approaching with one hand tucked in his pocket, giving her a casual, unhurried wave.
He seemed mildly surprised to find her standing there. Before he'd even come to a full stop, he spoke.
"Ichinose — weren't you two going to pick up the transfer student? Why are you just standing around here?"
His gaze drifted naturally to the red-haired girl. He looked her over briefly.
"Ah... so this is your class's new transfer student?"
Before Ichinose could get a word of introduction out, Amase Kazuna had already tilted forward in a small, cheerful bow, flashing a smile that showed off two adorable little fangs.
"Hello there, senpai~ I'm Amase Kazuna, your new junior who skipped ahead a few grades to transfer in. I'm in your care from now on — and please don't go underestimating me the way class rep Ichinose-senpai seems to be doing!"
"Yeah, hey."
Chris's response was a single, low murmur. Acknowledgment delivered. That was it.
Not a scrap of courtesy beyond the bare minimum. The indifference was almost artistic.
An irrational flicker of irritation sparked inside Amase Kazuna — though she let none of it show on her face. Her smile held perfectly. Only her eyes narrowed, just slightly.
"By the way, senpai — did you come all the way out here specifically for class rep Ichinose?"
She blinked, playfully innocent. "I'm afraid, as her appointed guide for today, I'm going to have to monopolize the class rep's time just a little longer~"
"You're overthinking it," Chris said, cutting her off.
He tilted his head back slightly toward Ayanokoji. "Ichinose and I aren't even in the same class — I'm not here for her. I was actually looking for him. Sent a message and got nothing back, so I figured I'd swing by the student council room. Didn't expect to run into all of you on the way."
At that, Ayanokoji naturally fell in.
"I got interrupted earlier — didn't have a chance to reply. As it happens, I was heading to the student council room myself." He paused. "Together?"
Chris thought about it for a second. "Is this about what happened at the end of yesterday's exam?"
"I don't remember how it wrapped up — but going by the look on your face just now, something happened that neither of us knows about. Yeah, let's go together. Honestly... I'm curious too."
He turned to Ichinose. "We'll head out first, then."
"Sure, go ahead."
Ichinose gave a small nod.
Ayanokoji turned. Without sparing another glance at Amase Kazuna, he fell into step beside Chris and the two of them walked away in the direction of the office building.
Amase Kazuna watched their retreating backs, her eyes tracking with quiet, calculating interest.
Then she turned to Ichinose, curiosity bright and unhurried in her voice. "Senpai — what's this 'exam' they were talking about? And... usually when there's something exam-related, you go to a teacher, right? Why the student council?"
Ichinose Honami stood where she was.
She looked at the wide-eyed, innocent girl in front of her with an expression that held more weight than she could easily put into words.
After a long pause, she let out something that was almost a sigh.
"Well... that's a long story."
——
In the corridor leading toward the student council room.
Chris and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka walked side by side in silence.
Neither of them spoke for a while. It felt less like patience and more like two people waiting each other out — a quiet, low-key standoff against the strange tension hanging between them.
In the end, it was Chris who broke first.
"So... I heard the girl back there is your junior?"
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka kept his eyes forward. "She's irrelevant to me."
"Is that so."
Chris nodded, and continued.
"That wasn't actually what I wanted to ask, though."
"I was just thinking... since she's your junior, and you happen to be someone the Black Sphere seems particularly fond of — always crashing into exams in the most spectacularly inconvenient ways —"
He laced his hands behind his head and let the thought drift out, casual as breathing.
"...Isn't there a possibility that the reason she suddenly transferred into this school in the first place, is actually because of you?"
"Or to put it more plainly — Ayanokoji, is there something about you that the Black Sphere finds valuable? Valuable enough that it's started pulling the people around you into its orbit along with you?"
It was a precise, surgical probe — one that pressed right up against the edges of Ayanokoji's most sensitive territory.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's steps slowed.
He turned his head and looked at Chris steadily. His tone didn't waver. "I've been wondering about that myself, actually."
"But compared to me — the perpetual outsider who keeps crashing other people's exams — I'm far more curious about something else." He held the pause. "Why the Black Sphere designated you as a fixed player from the very beginning."
"Who knows," Chris said, with an easy shrug. "Maybe the Sphere just randomly landed on me as its unlucky pick."
"In that case," Ayanokoji replied evenly, "why can't I be the one it randomly landed on too?"
"Heh..."
Chris couldn't quite stop himself from laughing. "You're a slippery one, aren't you."
"That said — just like you're quietly sizing me up right now, I'm doing the same to you."
The lightness dropped out of his voice. For once, he sounded almost genuinely serious.
"I know your background isn't simple, and I'm sure you don't trust me. But in the situation we're both standing in right now — we don't have any real reason to be enemies, do we?"
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka said nothing.
He held Chris's gaze for one long, quiet moment — then turned, reached out, and pushed open the heavy red-wood door marked Student Council.
Chris watched his back disappear through the doorway and shook his head with a wry, resigned smile. He followed him inside.
Everything he'd said out there had been improvised on the spot, of course. Mostly just casting a line to get a read on Amase Kazuna.
After all — she wasn't the same year as his current cohort, and she hadn't started out at Advanced Nurturing High School. But as a named female character from the original Classroom of the Elite source material, Chris had never intended to let her — or any of the others like her — slip through the cracks.
Naturally, an opportunity like this — one that could accelerate her growth fast — wasn't something he could afford to let go to waste.
So: Shiranami Chihiro's exit had served a purpose.
And so: Amase Kazuna had been smoothly dispatched to this school by Ayanokoji's father, under entirely plausible pretenses — even though the White Room's Fifth Generation hadn't technically completed its full curriculum yet.
Everything, as always, was written into the script of the Lord God's design.
Though for some reason — maybe because he'd eaten something that didn't agree with him — when Chris had seen Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Amase Kazuna standing side by side, the urge to mess with the little devil of a junior had quietly gone flat.
He'd found himself far more interested in poking at Ayanokoji instead.
Probably because of the whole Nagumo Miyabi situation, Chris thought. Finding it a little too funny watching someone else take the hit.
No — wait. He was a benevolent Lord God. This wasn't schadenfreude. This was... compassionate attention extended to a fellow victim.
Chris nodded, satisfied with that framing.
He was, after all, a man of clearly defined preferences. He knew exactly what he was about.
Because if he ever woke up one day and found a gender-bending drug in the system store — like the kind that character Oriyama Minori cooked up in Please Stop Calling Me Big Brother! — he would never, not even out of pure morbid curiosity, in a moment of brain-completely-off madness, go anywhere near a "female Ayanokoji."
"..."
Chris shuddered violently.
God.
Just the mental image alone — that utterly blank, stone-faced, emotionless girl staring at him with dead-fish eyes and calling him big brother —
Absolutely not.
That could never, under any circumstances, be allowed to happen.
____
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