By the ti Chris and Ichinose Honami arrived, the battle was already over.
Katsuragi Kohei was gasping for breath, hauling Frenzy's mangled wreckage out from a crushed shipping container.
On paper, Frenzy had possessed an alloy body impervious to bullets, could emit high-frequency sonic waves to stun enemies, and even had optical camouflage for stealth.
But after witnessing what Chris and the others were capable of, Frenzy's one and only thought had been to run — desperately trying to use its small size to blend in among the intruders like Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and hide in the chaos.
Unfortunately for it, the Black Sphere's X-GUN didn't just co with built-in X-ray vision. It also ignored all forms of camouflage and locked onto a target's position in real ti.
Chris looked down at the heap of scrap tal and shook his head inwardly.
'Information asymtry — turns out it's not just lethal for these students. The Decepticons aren't immune to it either.'
Still, even though every monster on the field had been eliminated, Chris made no move to have the Black Sphere announce the end of the exam.
"GANTZ — has sothing gone wrong?"
It wasn't until Ichinose walked up to Frenzy's remains and triple-checked that Katsuragi Kohei's X-GUN radar showed no red blips — confirming the monster was deader than dead — that she finally couldn't hold the question back any longer.
The mont she asked.
"Hmmmm—"
An enormous holographic countdown appeared abruptly in everyone's field of vision, hovering directly overhead.
[06:35]
[06:34]
[...]
"What does this an?" Ichinose Honami furrowed her brow.
"Isn't it obvious, Class Rep~"
Accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps, Amase Kazuna walked in from a side passage alongside Sakayanagi Arisu, who was being supported by Kamuro Masumi.
The red-haired girl tilted her head, eyeing the countdown floating in the air, and offered a pointed hint. "That's the countdown for the preliminary test, you know. Strictly speaking, the 'King of Clubs' ga between us intruders isn't over yet."
Ichinose Honami's frown deepened.
Kanzaki Ryuuji stepped forward and gave a brief explanation of the King of Clubs match rules.
After hearing them out, Ichinose's mouth fell slightly open. It took a long mont before she found her voice again.
"The loser gets docked a life? That ans..."
"Yes." Kanzaki Ryuuji gave a single nod. "And it seems there are mbers from every class who are already down to their last life."
"This is probably an adjustnt the Black Sphere made on purpose — to prevent us from ending things peacefully through negotiation like last ti."
If you wanted to survive, you had to climb over the bodies of students from other classes.
Sakayanagi Arisu thought for a mont, then spoke.
"That wretched sphere's twisted sense of humor really never changes. Though I must say, I'm genuinely curious — under rules this extre, how on earth are they going to calculate the scores once the test ends?"
Kamuro Masumi quietly reached over and pinched Sakayanagi on the waist, whispering urgently, "Hey... now is really not the ti for snide comntary!"
Sakayanagi Arisu slapped Kamuro's hand away with an irritated swat, then shifted her gaze toward Chris and Ichinose.
"Then let's talk about sothing practical."
Sakayanagi Arisu's voice was calm, but her words carried enormous weight.
"As Qualifiers, our standing is inherently above yours as intruders. Since the monsters are all dead, and yet the Black Sphere is allowing us to remain in this space... does that not imply it's permitting us to interfere in your match?"
She paused.
"In other words — who wins and who loses this match right now rests entirely on whatever Chris and Ichinose decide to do."
The mont those words landed, every eye in the area snapped instantly to the two of them.
It was undeniable. In this brief vacuum where the monster threat had been eliminated, the two of them in their Combat Suits could effortlessly farm points for their own class or block any other class from touching a base if they chose to. It would be child's play.
"No! No, no!" Ichinose Honami flinched back half a step under the weight of all those stares, waving her hands frantically. "Everyone, please don't misunderstand — I really don't think things need to go that far—"
Chris, however, was considerably more pragmatic than she was.
"What are everyone's current scores?"
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka said nothing. He simply raised one hand and pointed at the sky.
Chris looked up.
Floating in the air — he hadn't noticed when it had appeared — were the real-ti total point rankings for all four classes.
[Class B: 124,000 points]
[Class D: 122,000 points]
[Class A: 120,000 points]
[Class C: 120,000 points]
The gaps were razor-thin. You could practically call it a dead heat.
Faced with these ruthless rules that would cost at least three students their precious lives no matter what, Ichinose Honami stared at the numbers with a darkened expression, unable to produce a single word.
If she stepped in to help Class B hold onto first place, she'd be personally shoving the others into the abyss. But if she did nothing and Class B got overtaken, Kanzaki Ryuuji would face the penalty.
Chris watched her struggle with the dilemma, then reached over and gave her shoulder a light pat.
"Ichinose — do you know the trolley problem?"
Ichinose stared at him blankly, not following.
"The thing about the trolley problem is, you're only blaless when you stay out of it."
"The mont you actively involve yourself — the mont you pull that lever — whoever ends up getting crushed, you bear the responsibility for that death."
"And since the scores are this close right now..."
Chris lowered his hand, sweeping his gaze across everyone present. "Let them compete on their own rits. Let's see whose luck holds out."
Ichinose Honami opened her mouth as if to object, but in the end, she fell silent.
She turned her head — eting Amikura Mako's eyes, full of anxious concern — then looked around at the students from other classes, her own eyes a battlefield of conflicting emotions.
Ibuki Mio, who had just confird that Ryuuen Kakeru and Yamada Albert were both eliminated, bit down hard and stepped forward.
"You're saying the two of you aren't going to get involved — is that right?"
Sakayanagi Arisu gave a light, good-natured laugh and helpfully pointed past Ibuki Mio's shoulder.
Behind her, Katsuragi Kohei, Kanzaki Ryuuji, and the others had already quietly begun to move.
"If you don't hurry, soone's going to get a head start~"
Sakayanagi continued serenely, "Besides, Chris's and Ichinose's classes are already in the lead score-wise. They have absolutely no reason to resort to sothing as underhanded as interfering in the match and inviting criticism — wouldn't you agree?"
Ibuki Mio's expression went cold. She turned and sprinted toward her class's base without a backward glance.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka exchanged a glance with Koenji Rokusuke and Matsushita Chiaki.
"Then we proceed as planned."
Ayanokoji spoke.
Koenji flipped back a lock of hair. "Mmm, indeed~ May fortune favor you all in battle!"
With that, the four of them scattered, heading off in four different directions.
Watching the area empty out in an instant, Ichinose Honami's brow knitted softly. She pressed her lips together, then released them, over and over — as if repeatedly asking herself whether doing nothing was truly the right call.
Chris paid no attention to Ichinose's internal battle.
He walked straight to a wooden railing at the edge of the port, overlooking the stretch of water between the shipping containers and the sea, and stood there quietly.
He watched the seconds tick by in the sky above, one by one.
With his current level of heightened senses, he could faintly make out — even from this distance — the barely-suppressed, feather-light exhales of Shiranami Chihiro hiding sowhere in the crevices of the rocks below, half-subrged in seawater.
Keeping his expression perfectly neutral, Chris spoke in a deliberately casual tone.
"With these rules and five minutes left — it all cos down to who can hold their nerve and be the first to reach another team's base."
Sakayanagi Arisu linked her arm with Kamuro Masumi's and drifted leisurely to Chris's side, the sea breeze stirring strands of her silver-white hair.
"Aren't you worried your class might lose?"
"Of course I am."
Chris's expression didn't flicker. "But this is their match. Win or lose — it shouldn't be outsiders like us forcing the outco... After all, their lives are what's on the line."
Kamuro Masumi nodded thoughtfully from beside them.
"Exactly. Everyone deserves to have their choices respected, because no one can live soone else's life for them."
She finished the sentence, then her eyes suddenly lit up.
"Wow... wait! Was that actually profound just now? Did I just say sothing genuinely deep? Like, did that hit different?!"
anwhile, Karuizawa Kei and Amikura Mako — who had been silently watching Ichinose this whole ti — finally couldn't bear to see her standing there looking so quietly devastated any longer.
They gently took Ichinose by the hand, and amid the cool sea breeze, spoke softly to comfort her.
"Ichinose-san, it's okay."
"You've already done everything you could. These rules were designed by the school and the Black Sphere to guarantee soone gets hurt — there was never any way to prevent that for everyone."
Karuizawa Kei's eyes dimd slightly, as if sothing had crossed her mind.
"Maybe one day, sothing like what happened to Shiranami-san might happen to us too..."
"I know."
Ichinose took a slow, deep breath, forcing the fragility back down beneath the surface. "I just... I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Chris added quietly.
"Didn't Ichinose say she wanted to 'keep trying for the rest of her life'? How are you already at a loss?"
Sakayanagi Arisu caught that, and her gaze drifted aningfully between Chris and Ichinose, her expression turning subtly intrigued.
'Keep trying for the rest of her life?'
So sothing rather significant had happened between these two during that rooftop sword training session~
Kamuro Masumi gave Sakayanagi's arm a weary tug, trying to rein her in.
She got an eye-roll in return.
'Honestly, no sense of hierarchy whatsoever!'
Ichinose hadn't noticed Sakayanagi's gossip radar pinging wildly. She tilted her face up toward the cold numbers suspended in the sky and replied with quiet bitterness.
"Senpai... The Black Sphere does have the miracle of being able to resurrect the dead. But I'm genuinely terrified..."
"I'm afraid the rate of resurrection won't even co close to keeping up with the rate of loss. If everyone starts doing whatever it takes to collect points, it'll spiral into a cycle of killing each other with no end in sight..."
"Heh."
Sakayanagi Arisu shook her head with an amused smile.
"Ichinose-san, I genuinely cannot fathom what you're so anxious about."
"You always insist on shouldering bla for things that were never your responsibility to begin with. If you actually had the power to fix it, fine — but the question is, you... no, more accurately, do any of us have the ability to save everyone?"
Sakayanagi's words landed with the weight of a verdict.
"The only thing you can do right now is protect yourself and collect as many points as you possibly can! Whether it's to resurrect fallen allies or to trade for weapons to protect everyone, it all leads to the sa place in the end, doesn't it?"
"Stop walking around with that defeated look on your face..."
Sakayanagi Arisu raised her chin just slightly, a note of wry self-deprecation in her voice. "I'm a frail girl born with a congenital heart condition, carrying a crippling debt of thirty points from the mont I entered this world — and even I'm more cheerful than you. What's your excuse?"
Ichinose Honami listened in silence, knowing Sakayanagi wasn't wrong.
She was simply, by nature, soone who felt things deeply.
The thought of soone like Shiranami Chihiro — soone she should have protected, and failed to — filled her with profound guilt.
If she had been sterner from the very beginning, if she had put her foot down and stopped Shiranami Chihiro from participating in that godforsaken exam, maybe things would have turned out differently.
Sensing the mood growing heavy, Chris smoothly stepped in.
"You know, channeling grief into motivation isn't a bad strategy either."
"If Lazy-Ichinose keeps marinating in that misery, the Combat Suit's 'emotional synchronization amplifying combat power' mode might actually be sothing worth leaning into."
"There's a book I read once — it had a sword called 'Dream-Shatter.' The more utterly the wielder was betrayed and heartbroken, the stronger the blade beca!"
Sakayanagi Arisu stared at him, visibly pained.
"Please, for the love of— stop trying to map wuxia novel chanics onto reality..."
Chris responded with complete seriousness.
"You can't say that so fast. We've already got resurrection on the table — who's to say we won't end up learning actual martial arts techniques from this thing? Or developing superpowers, even?"
He glanced up at the sky. "Speaking of which — why is nothing happening? The test is almost over and they're moving this slowly?"
Sakayanagi Arisu pursed her lips and laid out her analysis.
"Setting aside whether the terrain — wrecked into rubble by the Decepticons — even allows them to reach each other's bases in ti..."
"The thing is, ever since they exploited the mutual base-touching exploit earlier, straightforward dueling has beco aningless. Now the only way to settle the outco is to touch the opposing base again."
"But... a guarded base is a death sentence to force your way into. Unless..."
Sakayanagi hadn't finished her thought.
"Beep—!"
With just seconds left before the countdown hit zero, the scoreboard hanging in the sky suddenly shifted!
[Class D points 10,000 — Current Total: 132,500]
Watching Class D pull ahead of Class B, Chris knew at once — Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's plan had worked.
The tactic itself wasn't complicated.
The premise: everyone except Ayanokoji — Koenji and the others — would proactively pick fights and deliberately trigger the Ti-Stop Watch's forced 'lock' state.
Then, these untouchable, electrified human landmines would fan out to the bases of every other class — not to touch the bases and score points, but purely to be an absolute nace.
Using the threat of high-voltage shocks and their own raw combat ability, they'd force their way into position and prevent anyone who might touch a base from getting anywhere near it.
And while the frontlines were in complete chaos, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka would slip through the confusion and fish for points where it mattered most.
Honestly, Chris thought the plan was a bit rough around the edges — one slip and the whole thing would fall apart.
But it didn't matter. These guys were simply on another level individually.
One White Room devil. One beautiful specin whose pure physical ability was a match for any devil. And one hidden superhuman who had already dominated his class by force back in middle school.
Matsushita Chiaki was the only one with sowhat more ordinary physical capabilities, so she'd been assigned to hold down Class D's base.
Even so, three people deployed purely as chaos agents was more than enough.
Chris sumd it up.
"As expected — Ayanokoji's got more than a few tricks up his sleeve."
Well, whatever. Let the guy savor this long-overdue victory.
A long, clear chi rang out.
[Preliminary Test complete! Winner: Class D.]
[Target Reduction]
[Mission Complete]
Just as everyone was bracing for the teleportation back.
Amase Kazuna — who had been standing quietly in a corner the entire ti, never once joining Class B in the scramble for points, looking for all the world like a detached observer — suddenly spoke in a low, unhurried voice.
"And yet..."
"It would seem that compared to you, Senpai."
"That little bit of cleverness still falls just a touch short~"
Chris glanced at her.
Before he could say anything, Sakayanagi Arisu had already laughed.
"Isn't it perfectly natural for that dump of a class to lose to soone like him?"
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: COTE: Confessing to Sakayanagi From the Start
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