Kushida Kikyo had always considered herself a pretty lucky girl.
Sure, back in middle school, there had been a tiny little incident. Something so small and so unpleasant it barely deserved to be called a story.
But by some stroke of fortune, she had ended up here — at Advanced Nurturing High School. A completely sealed-off world. An ivory tower where no one knew anything about her past.
No one except Horikita Suzune.
Kushida had always believed that if she could just remove that one obstacle — if she could erase Horikita Suzune from the picture — she'd be free. Clean slate. A brand-new, perfect life, lived in the spotlight.
Getting rid of Horikita was supposed to take some effort.
But then, who could have predicted it? In early May, the Black Sphere known as GANTZ descended from the sky.
Kushida had been unlucky enough to get swept up in it too. But under the lead of Sakayanagi Arisu and Chris, she'd made it through every close call without a scratch.
And better yet — she hadn't been locked in as a 'fixed player' the way Chris and the others had. She didn't have to throw herself onto the line between life and death every single time.
Even better than that: as one of the first-wave survivors, she might well have earned herself three extra lives — a buffer that set her apart from the ordinary students.
And Horikita Suzune?
Kushida knew that woman better than anyone. Competitive to the bone. Ferociously proud. There was absolutely no way someone like Horikita, watching Class D rot at the bottom of the rankings, with Chris applying that quiet, ever-present pressure from the side — there was no way she'd just hide in the back row and coast.
And besides, ever since Hirata Yousuke had gone public about the death risk in the Black Sphere exams, the rest of Class D was too scared to move. Nobody was going to fight Horikita for that spot.
When you added it all up...
Hadn't she basically neutralized her biggest threat without lifting a single finger?
In a sandbox crawling with monsters like that, even with the combat suit — death was only ever a matter of time.
It was maybe a little unseemly to be quietly hoping your classmate would die. But what else was she supposed to do? She was just a girl with no combat ability whatsoever. Was it really so wrong to want to protect her small, ordinary life?
The world was full of situations where people had no choice. All you could do was accept them.
Still — it was precisely because of that shift in her mindset that Kushida Kikyo had noticed something strange. When she looked at Horikita Suzune now, that old festering hostility — the bone-stuck, can't-swallow-it feeling — had mostly faded away.
After all, it was hard to hold a grudge against someone who was already walking toward their own end.
Strangely enough, now that she'd confirmed Horikita's fate was sealed, Kushida found herself feeling something closer to the urge to make amends. Maybe a hairline crack had formed in the calculating mask she always wore, and her conscience had given her a small, quiet poke.
Or maybe it was just that she'd gone ahead and volunteered Horikita's name for the exam slot — making sure no one else in class would make a fuss and demand she step up herself.
Either way.
Before the first morning class on Monday, Kushida Kikyo made her way over to Chris's desk.
A faint citrus scent drifted with her. She leaned forward just slightly — and in one practiced, impossibly casual motion, raised her hand to tug at the hem of her cardigan, smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle, letting the red handwoven friendship bracelet on her wrist catch the light just so.
"Hey, Chris-kun~"
Chris was propping his chin on one hand, staring at nothing. At the sound of that syrupy, artificially softened voice, a visible shudder ran through him.
"Say what you need to say. And stop putting on that fake voice — it's giving me goosebumps."
"Cough..."
Kushida choked on the words before they were even out. The perfect smile froze on her face. Her cheeks went faintly warm.
She shot him a flat, unamused look and dropped her voice into something between a pout and a growl.
"Chris-kun, if you don't do something about that blunt, awful personality of yours, you're seriously never going to get a girlfriend, you know?!"
"Say what you need to say. If there's nothing, don't bother."
Chris waved a hand, utterly unmoved.
Kushida let her lashes fall in resignation and gave up on the banter.
"Fine, fine~ So, the thing is — I heard from Chabashira-sensei that if anyone fails the midterm exams, they'll be expelled. Which basically means they get turned into permanent cannon fodder for the Black Sphere exams."
"So I was thinking — would it be possible to get the students in class who are struggling to form a study group? Maybe ask the ones with better grades to help tutor them?"
Chris heard her out.
Rather than answer Kushida directly, he picked up the ballpoint pen sitting on his desk and used the cap to prod Horikita Suzune in the back.
Horikita's shoulders went slightly rigid. She didn't turn around fully — just tilted half her body, glancing back at Chris with a cool, unhurried look.
"What."
"Don't pretend. You definitely heard all of that just now, didn't you?"
Chris gave a small smile. "You were already planning to put together a study schedule for the struggling students in class — you told me that back at the library, remember? Well, here's a free PR agent walking right through the door. Opportunity like this doesn't come around twice."
Horikita pressed her lips together for a moment, as though she'd only just remembered that conversation. Then she gave a quiet nod, reached into her desk drawer, and pulled out a notebook. She set it down directly in front of Chris.
"Have them copy out everything in this first."
"It's all the key material from class. Even if they understand nothing, as long as they memorize the formulas by brute force, they'll be able to scrape together some points."
"As for the follow-up tutoring plan — give me a few days. I've been doing physical rehabilitation in the evenings lately. Once they've got the basics of what's in that notebook down, we can all meet up and continue from there."
Kushida took the notebook and flipped through a couple of pages. Her eyes went wide.
"As expected of Horikita-san — always one step ahead! You had this ready the whole time!"
Horikita did not acknowledge the compliment. She turned back to her book and resumed reading, carrying her chilly composure all the way to its logical conclusion.
Kushida didn't take any offense. She turned to Chris with a grin and made a little encouraging fist pump.
"To make sure Sudou and those other rowdy boys don't go and ruin Horikita-san's precious notebook..."
"And judging by the way Horikita-san is acting like this is completely obvious — you two must have already made some kind of backroom deal, haven't you?"
"In that case, it falls on Chris-kun to be the middleman and pass on the notebook's contents! Good luck~!"
As if on cue, the pre-class bell chimed.
Kushida gave a cheerful little wave and made her escape, leaving Chris alone to stare at the thick notebook now in his hands, sinking into quiet contemplation.
He let out a sigh, then turned to the seat beside him — Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
"Hey, Ayanokoji."
Chris held up the notebook and put on his most sincere expression.
"I seem to recall your entrance exam scores were a perfect fifty across all subjects. Meaning you're hovering dangerously close to the failing line yourself. Practically crying out for extra help."
"So what do you say — brothers stick together through hardship, right? This notebook... we split the copying, half and half?"
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka turned his head slowly and looked at Chris without a word.
He said nothing. But his expression communicated everything.
Did you actually keep a straight face while you said that?
"Tch. The moral decay of this generation, I swear." Chris shook his head with theatrical despair. "Students these days — you put the food right in their mouths and they can't even be bothered to chew?"
"Ah well. Thank goodness for technology~"
With that, Chris decisively pulled out his phone and started photographing every page of the notebook, planning to run it through a text-recognition app and dump the whole thing into a document to share with the group chat.
Hand-copying? Absolutely not. Not in this lifetime.
Who actually method-acts a school roleplay so hard they start doing real homework...?
Just then, a Line notification dropped onto his screen.
Sender: Ichinose Honami.
The gist of it was a reminder — don't forget to take her somewhere to practice swordsmanship after school. Phrased gently, the way you'd slip a note into casual small talk. Classic Japanese social grace: imply, never say directly, and trust the other person to pick it up.
That particular custom, however, was one Chris had never managed to adapt to.
His experience had taught him that if you ran into someone who genuinely didn't pick up on hints, no amount of suggestion would get through to them — they'd just stare back at you like a log.
He considered it for about half a second. Then typed back without ceremony:
[Sword practice? Then let's find somewhere empty after school... The rooftop?]
——
At the same time, in Class B.
Ichinose Honami looked down at Chris's reply and let the corner of her eye curve — just slightly — pressing down a flicker of exasperation.
She couldn't really blame him.
According to Kushida-san, Chris had only come to study in Japan after finishing middle school abroad. The fact that he'd crossed the language barrier and could communicate fluently with everyone was already remarkable enough. It wasn't fair to expect more than that.
And honestly — if she was being real with herself...
Even Ichinose herself sometimes found it exhausting. That unspoken rule everyone played by: read the room, understand without being told, never make someone say it out loud. The whole synchronized social dance.
Chris's straightforward bluntness was, in its own way, refreshing.
Ichinose smiled faintly at the thought and was just about to type a reply — when a voice cut through the air right beside her, syrup-sweet and tilted into a pout.
"Hey~ Senpai~"
"Is that the amazing hero you mentioned? The one who turned the whole exam around at the last second?"
Ichinose looked up, mildly puzzled.
The girl with the vivid red twin-tails had drifted close without her noticing. The moment Ichinose's eyes landed on her, she seemed to suddenly register how forward she'd been, and recoiled — ducking her head, biting her lower lip, flapping her hands in that endearingly flustered way.
"S-Sorry, senpai! I wasn't peeking, I promise...!"
"I just — I have really good eyesight, I happened to glance over by accident, I swear! I'm so sorry!"
Amikura Mako, seated in the desk next to Ichinose, watched the performance with a slight furrow in her brow.
A little too much, wasn't it?
Ichinose Honami, though, didn't seem particularly bothered.
She quietly tilted her phone face-down and answered in a gentle voice.
"A hero, hm..."
"I'm not sure if Chris-kun counts as a hero."
"But... he's someone very capable. And someone you can genuinely rely on."
At that assessment, Amase Kazuna followed the natural opening and chimed in.
"Even so, class rep — that 'special exam' sounds extremely dangerous, doesn't it?"
"I'm sure it's because you had no other choice, and because you didn't want anyone to get hurt, that you're looking to learn swordsmanship."
Ichinose's lashes lowered slightly. She didn't deny it. She simply gave a quiet nod.
"In that case..."
Amase Kazuna pointed at herself.
"I remember Vice Rep Kanzaki mentioning in the group chat — if you take first place in the 'Preliminary Test' before the official exam, you can choose to exempt the whole class from three forced-participation exam penalties, right?"
She met Ichinose's gaze directly, her voice going steady and clear.
"I think... I can do it~"
"If it's for the class rep's sake — I'm willing to do anything."
Amikura Mako went still.
There was no question — that was an extraordinarily tempting offer.
Especially now, with Class B still reeling from recent losses, the fear of the Black Sphere hanging over the whole room like fog. If someone stepped forward and volunteered to take that burden on, any class leader in their right mind would have seized the chance with both hands.
But Ichinose did not answer right away.
She sat quietly and studied the girl in front of her — confident, bright-eyed, utterly sure of herself.
The moment stretched.
It wasn't until Hoshimiya Chie walked into the classroom, lesson plan tucked under her arm, that Ichinose Honami finally turned toward the blackboard — her tone still warm, still gentle, but underneath that gentleness, something heavier had settled in.
"Amase-san."
"Do you understand the weight of what you just said?"
"You're still an ordinary student. Can you really carry something this heavy?"
"'I'm willing to do anything' — those words carry exactly that kind of weight."
"Once you decide to take something on, you have to follow through. There will be a cost."
"So before you make a promise to someone else. Before you make up your mind."
"Please — think it through. Carefully."
Don't treat your own life like it's disposable...
At those words, the light smile faded from Amase Kazuna's face.
Is this because of Shiranami Chihiro — the one the Black Sphere erased?
____
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