“Would you like to join the student council?”
The question came out of nowhere, catching Hikaru Naruse completely off guard.
To be honest, Miyabi Nagumo wasn’t a particularly capable person himself.
He was merely obsessed with proving his own worth by defeating Manabu Horikita, nothing more.
So Naruse instantly saw through it—the reason the man was extending this invitation now was probably to lay the groundwork among the first-years and expand his own influence within their ranks.
Still, no matter what his true motives were, joining the student council was genuinely an appealing option for Naruse himself.
After all, once he was inside the council, he’d gain access to far deeper information about how the school actually operated.
Naruse remembered some of the settings from the original story, but when it came to this kind of in-depth material, only firsthand contact could give him any real certainty.
Joining the student council would be an enormous advantage.
Naruse rapidly weighed the pros and cons in his mind for a few seconds, then let a gentle smile surface on his face.
“I’m very grateful for your invitation, senpai, but this is rather sudden for me.
I’ll need some time to think it over—would you mind giving me a little while?”
Miyabi Nagumo looked at him, a subtle glint flashing through his golden eyes.
“Of course.”
The blond man’s tone was relaxed and magnanimous, betraying not the slightest displeasure at being turned down.
“The doors of the student council are always open to you anyway.
Whenever you’ve made up your mind, just come find me.”
Before Miyabi Nagumo took his leave, he exchanged contact information with Naruse.
Although he’d done his best to project the image of a big-hearted, gracious leader, Naruse still picked up on the shift in his mood.
The fact that he hadn’t accepted on the spot had left the man feeling a touch of dissatisfaction.
Heh.
What a clown.
Naruse tucked his phone away, let out a long breath, and returned to his training for the day.
Once his morning run was over, Hikaru Naruse headed back to the dorm, took a shower, and changed into his wine-red school uniform.
He straightened his collar in front of the mirror, and after confirming that there was nothing out of place with his appearance, he pushed open the door and stepped out of the dorm.
Today was the second day since enrollment.
For Class A, its significance far outweighed that of the day before.
After all, in today’s homeroom session, the two leader candidates would come forward to announce the intelligence they’d gathered—it was bound to be quite the spectacle.
When he walked into the classroom, Naruse saw that more than half of the students had already arrived.
A taut, restless atmosphere hung in the air.
Boys and girls alike wore expressions considerably more tense than the day before.
Everyone was waiting for that decisive moment.
The first thing Hikaru Naruse laid eyes on as he entered the classroom was Ai Morishita, seated right in the middle.
“Morning, Morishita.”
Since Ai Morishita had changed how she addressed him, Naruse decided to give it a try as well, dropping the ‘-san’ honorific and calling her by her surname directly.
“Good morning, Naruse!”
Ai Morishita raised her head to look at him, gave a slight nod, and continued.
“As your friend, I brought you some milk today.”
“Hm?”
Taking the milk the girl handed him, Naruse looked a little flattered.
“What’s with the sudden courtesy?”
“Friends are supposed to give and take, you know.
So you have to buy me a drink in return later.”
Ai Morishita said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“…Fine.”
After finishing his greeting with Ai Morishita, Naruse carried the milk back to his own seat.
But no sooner had he sat down than a familiar female voice came from behind him.
“Naruse-kun?”
Asuka Shiraishi’s voice was light and effortless, laced with a hint of curiosity.
“You and Morishita-san seem to get along really well.”
Naruse didn’t turn around.
He tidied up his textbooks and, in a calm, offhand tone, murmured in a low voice.
“You and I get along pretty well too, don’t we, Shiraishi-san?”
“But I haven’t called you by your surname directly, have I, Naruse-kun?”
“Is that so.”
Naruse arched an eyebrow slightly and said with a smile, “If you’d like to call me that, I wouldn’t mind at all.
After all, we are partners, aren’t we?”
He was referring to the arrangement where Asuka Shiraishi gathered intelligence on Ayanokōji Kiyotaka and then shared it with him.
“Really?”
Asuka Shiraishi was surprised by Naruse’s attitude.
After all, when it came to forms of address, the people of this island nation cared a great deal.
If two people weren’t close, casually addressing the other by name was considered quite an offense.
“That’s right.
So what would you like to call me, Shiraishi-san?”
“Hmm…
Let me think about it for now.
I don’t have a good idea at the moment.”
Asuka Shiraishi seemed to regard the matter as important, and she began pondering it with her small hand propped under her chin.
“Haha, take your time, then.”
Naruse honestly couldn’t have cared less about forms of address.
He wasn’t the type to fuss over such trivial details, since fixating on them would only wear himself down.
The homeroom session officially began.
Mashima-sensei stood at the front of the podium, his gaze sweeping across every student in the classroom, then spoke in a low, forceful voice.
“During yesterday’s homeroom, Naruse-kun proposed a method for selecting the leader of our Class A.”
Mashima-sensei’s gaze passed imperceptibly over Naruse’s seat before he continued.
“That proposal earned everyone’s approval, so today is the moment of reckoning.
Now, would the two candidates please come to the front.”
The words had barely left his mouth when the sound of a chair being pushed back came from the rear of the classroom—Kohei Katsuragi was the first to rise.
The bald man’s movements were crisp and decisive.
In his hand he held a black notebook, and his expression was grave.
It seemed that after his talk with Miyabi Nagumo, he really had come away with a fair amount of intelligence.
At the same time, from the other side of the classroom came the crisp tap of a cane against the floor.
Leaning on that silver cane, Arisu Sakayanagi slowly rose from her seat.
Once both of them had stepped onto the podium, Katsuragi stood on the left and Sakayanagi on the right, with roughly two meters of distance between them—as sharply divided as opposing banks of a river.
Mashima-sensei withdrew to one side, leaving the podium to the two candidates.
“Which of you would like to go first?”
Kohei Katsuragi turned his gaze toward Arisu Sakayanagi beside him, gave a slight nod, and said.
“Ladies first.”
“Thank you.”
Arisu Sakayanagi tilted her head slightly, her purple eyes glancing at Kohei Katsuragi, the smile at the corner of her lips growing a shade more pronounced.
In the next moment, she took a step forward on her cane and came to stand at the very center of the podium.
“Everyone, allow me to be the first to walk you through the intelligence I’ve gathered.”
Arisu Sakayanagi’s voice was calm and composed, carrying a power that made people hold their breath and listen despite themselves.
“This school has a great many hidden rules—enough to utterly overturn everyone’s understanding of this place.”
The girl paused, those purple eyes sweeping across every face in the classroom.
“And among these hidden rules, the most important is something called the S-System.
It represents the school’s evaluation of every individual as well as every class.”
“Before enrolling, I’m sure you’d all heard that this school’s advancement rate is infinitely close to 100%.”
Sakayanagi gave a faint smile, then spoke words of utter coldness.
“But according to the rules of the S-System, that advancement rate is not calculated using every single student of each cohort as its data sample…”
“The ones who can ultimately meet the conditions and graduate from this place as victors…”
“Are only the students of third-year Class A~”
The instant those words were out, a jolt ran through every student in the classroom.
____
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