The survival skills lecture was winding down in the tiered classroom.
Tsukishiro stood at the podium, unhurriedly shuffling the lesson notes in his hands.
His movements were deliberately slow — as if patiently waiting for the students below to ask questions.
But unfortunately, the room was just as silent as it had been throughout the lesson. Every single person sat with their nerves drawn taut.
It was as though no one dared make a sound until he took the first step and left.
"Hmm..." Tsukishiro let out a quiet sigh.
He pulled out his phone and leaned back in his chair, wearing the expression of a dedicated teacher lamenting his students' lack of intellectual curiosity.
Before long, the front door — left slightly ajar — was gently pushed open.
Amase Kazuna poked her head halfway through, her wine-red twin tails swaying with the motion:
"Excuse me, teacher — is this the classroom for the survival skills course? I haven't come to the wrong place, have I?"
Tsukishiro looked up.
"That's correct. However, my lessons are structured as a continuous series. If you're looking to drop in partway through, remember to borrow notes from a classmate who's been keeping records after class."
Amase Kazuna shook her head.
She stepped freely into the classroom, turned, and gently pulled the door shut behind her.
The girl clasped both hands together, leaned forward ever so slightly, and put on the picture-perfect expression of an eager, well-mannered student as she spoke softly:
"Oh, that's not it."
"I just heard from some other students that the teacher for this survival skills class is actually the school's Vice Director himself."
"So... I wanted to come and ask you about something directly."
Tsukishiro nodded with evident interest, lacing his fingers together and resting them beneath his chin.
"Since the formal lesson hasn't started yet, I can answer you. Go ahead."
Amase Kazuna blinked a few times.
"Director, there's something that's been puzzling me."
"The school has gone to the trouble of arranging all these free, practical courses for everyone over the weekend — which suggests the school is thinking about students' safety."
"In that case... why hasn't the school arranged a dedicated course to teach us the 'Ripple Breathing' technique that the Student Council President brought out of the Black Sphere space — the one that can deal real damage to monsters?"
At those words, quite a few students who had been staring at their desks lifted their heads, attention snapping toward the podium.
Chris and Sakayanagi Arisu, seated in the front row, exchanged an involuntary glance.
Up at the podium, Tsukishiro maintained his composed, authoritative posture and spoke at an unhurried pace:
"First of all, as an educational institution, the school itself should never rashly teach a technique that even the administration hasn't fully figured out yet — not without absolute confidence in it."
"Second." Tsukishiro's gaze swept across the room. "Human energy is finite, and talent varies from person to person. If someone has a natural gift for this, they'll know to make the right trade-offs."
"But I believe the vast majority of those present are ordinary people. For someone ordinary, rather than gambling on whether you have that innate aptitude, the skills the school is providing will be far more reliably useful in a critical moment."
At that, a student in the audience finally couldn't hold back any longer and raised their hand.
"Director, are you saying that... the school itself only just recently learned of Ripple Breathing's existence?"
Tsukishiro nodded without any attempt to dodge the question.
Immediately after, another student pressed further: "Then — can we take that to mean that the school suddenly launching all these survival courses is essentially an advance warning about what the next Black Sphere exam environment will be like?"
Tsukishiro gave no clear answer either way.
He simply let his gaze drift past the crowd, landing meaningfully on Sakayanagi Arisu in the front row, and said lightly:
"As I emphasized before this lesson began — the school's position on this is still only speculation."
"But please trust that no matter what happens, the school will always stand on the same side as all of you."
Despite how he phrased it, his answer was practically a blinking neon sign. Combined with Amase Kazuna's pointed little reminder just moments ago, the implication couldn't have been clearer.
Quite a few students in the classroom shifted expressions — and then decisively rose from their seats, slipping quietly out through the back door.
It was obvious what they had in mind: to use what little time was left of the weekend to take a shot at learning Ripple Breathing, however slim their chances.
Tsukishiro neither voiced approval nor moved to stop them. He simply watched in silence.
"Hey... Sakayanagi." With half the classroom now empty, Kamuro Masumi tugged hesitantly at Sakayanagi Arisu's sleeve.
"Should we head back and try too? See if we can pick up this Ripple Breathing thing? What if we actually have a talent for it?"
"Save your energy." Sakayanagi Arisu dismissed the notion without a shred of mercy.
"On that point, I believe the technique guide that Student Council President Horikita shared with everyone already makes it perfectly clear."
"Ripple is generated by regulating blood flow through a specific breathing rhythm, allowing you to concentrate your awareness on the life energy within your own body. More critically, it requires an exceptionally strong physical constitution as a foundation."
She gave Kamuro a long up-and-down look.
"Do you honestly think your mental fortitude and physical condition are up to the standard?"
Kamuro Masumi opened her mouth — she'd been about to snap back something along the lines of "My physical condition is still better than yours, you little post-surgery invalid" — but stopped herself.
Then she remembered how she'd been gasping for breath, chest tight, legs shaking uncontrollably when she faced the Decepticons...
Kamuro Masumi had to concede that Sakayanagi Arisu might not be entirely wrong.
She had a fairly clear-eyed view of her own limitations.
Even if she somehow managed to learn Ripple, the moment she got nervous during an exam and her breathing went ragged, the ability would be as good as useless anyway.
Besides, she'd already scraped together enough points to exchange for a Combat Suit. It made far more sense to sit here and absorb some practical survival tips than to chase a long shot.
And so, Kamuro Masumi chose silence.
Having caught snatches of the exchange, Kushida Kikyo — seated on the other side — seemed to remember something and turned toward Chris.
"Come to think of it, when I was picking which classes to attend earlier, I really didn't see Koenji anywhere. And Ayanokoji — after checking the class announcement board in the hallway — just turned around and walked back toward the dorms."
"Looking at it that way, those two... did they make their decision from the very start? Going all-in on the Ripple Breathing path?"
Chris gave a small nod.
"The conditions fit. Strong mental fortitude. No Combat Suit to fall back on. For people with that kind of foundation, it really is their best option right now."
Kushida Kikyo scratched at her smooth short hair with a slightly troubled look and sighed.
"A storm is coming... and wouldn't you know it, midterms are next week on top of everything. We can't let all this distract us from studying."
"Having to guard against getting killed while also dealing with exams — there's something weirdly absurd about that combination."
Chris sighed along with her.
"That's high school for you. Doesn't matter if it's just a Black Sphere exam — even if the world were ending tomorrow, today's studying absolutely cannot be skipped."
Sakayanagi Arisu let out a soft laugh at that.
But her gaze had quietly drifted past the crowd to settle on Amase Kazuna and Tsukishiro, still at the front of the room.
For the sake of plausibility, her father would never have deliberately hidden the Black Sphere's notification email.
Which meant Tsukishiro, as Vice Director, absolutely knew about next week's Black Sphere activity.
With that knowledge in hand — and yet still playing this little act with Amase Kazuna as his straight man — what exactly was his aim?
To pressure the students? Or simply as a heads-up?
'Speaking of which...'
Sakayanagi Arisu tapped her fingertips lightly against the desk.
In this week's Black Sphere exam, every class except Class D had taken casualties.
'If someone wanted to plant their own people into those vacant spots right now... this is the perfect window to move in.'
Meanwhile, in the dormitory building.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka sat cross-legged on the floor, his chest rising and falling in a particular rhythm.
Thanks to his innate disposition — a coldness of personality so complete it could almost be called pathological — he was a perfect fit for Ripple Breathing's exacting demand for a mind as still as water.
And as the White Room's greatest masterpiece, his muscle control, lung capacity, and cardiovascular conditioning all far exceeded the limits of ordinary people.
"Breathe... in... out..."
As the breathing technique cycled through him, Ayanokoji could feel with perfect clarity that the flow of blood inside him was changing.
Thin, faint threads of life energy were slowly converging along his veins and blood vessels, gathering at the tips of his right-hand fingers — flickering into a faint golden luminescence, like tiny sparks.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka slowly opened his eyes.
He stopped the breathing technique. And felt no joy whatsoever at having cleared the entry threshold.
"Still too slow..."
He stared at his fingertips — visually unchanged — and frowned.
"I can maintain this trace of life energy stably enough, but the quantity is far too small. To train it to the point where it could actually deal meaningful damage to demons or mechanical lifeforms..."
"Less than a week. That's nowhere near enough time."
This wasn't a question of talent. It was an objective physical law.
Even if he was the White Room's devil, he couldn't make a sapling grow into a towering tree in a single day.
But Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had never been the type to sit back and accept defeat.
The moment he recognized that the conventional path wouldn't get him where he needed to go, he rapidly began sifting through his memory, searching for an alternative route around the obstacle.
It didn't take long. He recalled the item photos that Horikita Manabu had taken and that Chris had forwarded to the group chat.
Among them was an item called the [Parasyte Fusion Card].
Its description noted that after fusion, the Parasyte would attempt to seize control of the host's brain and gradually erode human emotion.
'With my level of mental control... suppressing an immature Parasyte shouldn't be particularly difficult.'
'Combined with the enhanced intelligence and shapeshifting weaponry a Parasyte provides, without a Combat Suit to rely on, this seems like the most cost-effective option available.'
And the [Parasyte Fusion Card] was actually priced at 1,000 item points — which worked out to just 2 S-Points.
Not expensive at all.
Judging by the destructive capability Goto had demonstrated... even if he didn't refine the Ripple Breathing for now and only used it as a supplementary tool in the early stages, the raw physical toughness a Parasyte offered would still be an enormous asset.
And, well — the main thing was that he could actually afford it.
The only problem he faced at the moment was...
The Mysterious Merchant only appeared inside the formal exam space once the Black Sphere was active.
God only knows when he'd actually get the chance to do business with that merchant.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka sighed, watching the faint luminescence at his fingertips gradually fade.
"Three days left... I can only hope it's in time before midterms arrive."
In truth, Ayanokoji was far from the only one who had chosen to pour all his energy into learning Ripple Breathing.
This was especially true of the seasoned veterans in the second- and third-year cohorts.
When they saw the school's suddenly added survival skills courses on the announcement board, they instinctively connected the dots to the Uninhabited Island special exam they'd weathered in the past.
As a result, compared to the bewildered first-years, the upperclassmen had a much clearer read on the situation.
If the next exam truly was going to be on an uninhabited island, at least they wouldn't be going in completely blind.
That said, not everyone could match Ayanokoji — reaching the threshold of Ripple on the very first day through sheer, absolute rationality.
Ripple Breathing was a discipline that demanded mental tranquility above all else.
Under the current high-pressure atmosphere — with the school all but openly telegraphing that a major event was coming — ordinary students were already frightened to their core.
The more desperately they tried to learn it as a lifeline, the more their minds frayed; the more their minds frayed, the more their breathing fell apart. The worse they struggled to break through, the more anxious they became.
A perfect vicious cycle. Completely stuck at both ends.
Back in the survival skills class where Sakayanagi Arisu and Chris were seated —
When Tsukishiro opened his PowerPoint at the podium and projected a detailed topographical map of a remote island as a case-study example,
Sakayanagi Arisu, seated below, narrowed her eyes slightly.
After confirming it matched the map she held in memory — the Uninhabited Island map — she lost all interest in continuing to attend the lecture.
Chris, Kamuro Masumi, and Kushida Kikyo, sitting alongside her, took the cue and followed her out of the classroom once the session ended.
Walking through the empty corridor, Kamuro Masumi finally couldn't contain her confusion at seeing Sakayanagi's utterly assured expression:
"That's it? You didn't even finish the class, and you're already certain that the map the new Vice Director showed us... is the actual venue map for our midterm exam?"
Sakayanagi Arisu paused her step slightly.
"First of all, get this straight — he's the Vice Director of this school, not some random subject teacher with nothing better to do."
"Second." The corner of the girl's mouth curved. "Do you think the school is so bored, or so strapped for resources, that they'd dispatch a senior administrator to waste everyone's time just to hand us a fake topographical map?"
"They've already hinted through every possible channel that something big is happening next week. Deliberately guiding us toward a specific map like this — what other purpose could there be besides letting us familiarize ourselves with the exam venue in advance?"
Kushida Kikyo, walking beside them, nodded along vigorously and chimed in at just the right moment:
"No wonder! When the Director brought out the map just now, I noticed some of the other students — just like us — pulled out their phones to photograph it, then got up and left with us."
"The ones who left were all unfamiliar faces. They must be upperclassmen, right? Don't tell me... they were thinking the same thing as Sakayanagi?"
Kushida blinked. "Or maybe... they've been to that place before, so one look was all it took to confirm it?"
Sakayanagi Arisu glanced at Kushida, privately noting that while this social butterfly was hopeless in a fight, her ability to read people and pick up on subtle cues was sharper than one might give her credit for.
Kamuro Masumi scratched her head, looking a little lost.
"Okay, so we have the map. What do we do next? We can't just go back to the dorm and wait around, can we?"
Sakayanagi Arisu stopped walking, turned her head toward Chris — who was standing to the side, mid-yawn — and declared with perfect composure:
"Now that the venue is confirmed, the natural next step is to give you all a tutoring session — especially our current MVP, Chris~"
"Don't forget, the midterm has a written exam component. If you two fail the academic portion and get classified as a liability and dragged in as a penalty intruder... that would be such a shame~"
"No need for that."
Chris shook his head and flatly declined her generosity.
"For the academic side of things, I have Horikita as my tutor, and the materials she's put together are more than enough to handle it."
"Besides, regarding the midterm itself... there's actually no need to stress about it that much. The school's elimination threshold is set at 'half the class average.'"
"Given that the current internal competition within the class has become meaningless, we just need the people who aren't chasing a top-three ranking to deliberately hold their scores down and drag the class average lower..."
"As long as the baseline is low enough, no one should actually end up eliminated for scoring too low."
Kamuro Masumi drew in a sharp breath.
She stared at Chris with gleaming eyes.
"That... that's a tactic you came up with?! Oh my god, Chris, you're way too smart!"
"If everyone tanks their scores on purpose, then I could literally sleepwalk through the exam and not have to worry about failing!"
Chris shook his head and clarified:
"Don't put a crown on me I don't deserve. That idea came from Shiina in Class C — I'm just passing the intel along."
"And besides, judging by the attitude the school has been telegraphing, they obviously aren't going to make things deliberately difficult for us on the academic exam at a critical time like this."
Chris gave Kamuro a meaningful look. "I'm sure the sharpest people in your class have known this all along. The reason they've tacitly kept quiet about it is simply to prevent anyone from using it as an excuse to completely check out and stop trying altogether."
Kamuro Masumi's smile froze on her face. "..."
That one landed.
Sakayanagi Arisu let out a light laugh and stopped teasing Kamuro, pivoting to ask:
"If tutoring isn't needed, then what are you planning to do with the rare free time we have left? Shooting practice?"
"No."
Chris turned his gaze toward the direction of the administrative building.
"I'm not planning to attend any classes."
"I've already sent the map photos to Hirata and had him brief the class. Next, I'm going to pay a visit to the Student Council President."
His expression grew slightly more serious. "I want to cross-reference what intel he has and check it against the map. Better to iron out any information gaps now than to have avoidable casualties later because of them."
Kushida Kikyo read the room with perfect timing and spoke up:
"Since you're going to see the President, I'm not much use in a fight anyway — no point in tagging along and getting in the way."
"I'll go find Ichinose and pass along the map information on your behalf. You go take care of what you need to, Chris~"
Chris gave a nod, then looked toward Sakayanagi.
Sakayanagi Arisu considered for a moment before speaking.
"I won't be going with you either."
"I'm going to keep working on my sprinting form and footwork. The last thing I want is to actually become the deadweight holding everyone back when the time comes."
With everyone accounted for, Kamuro Masumi looked left and right, a little at a loss.
"What about me? What am I supposed to do?"
Sakayanagi Arisu gave her a sideways glance and answered as if it were obvious:
"You're coming to the track with me as my training partner, of course."
"What — don't tell me you were thinking of using this as an excuse, with Ichinose and Horikita both conveniently absent, to sneak over and have a romantic little rendezvous with him?"
Kamuro Masumi rolled her eyes in exasperation and muttered under her breath:
"...The one who keeps bringing up dates every five seconds — I wonder who that could possibly be."
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