A Conversation with Arisu Sakayanagi, the Girl Anticipates Another Showdown

Let's go back a few minutes.

Arisu Sakayanagi lay on her bed, wearing a cute pink nightgown patterned with numerous white dog paws. The long sleeves covered her arms, while the skirt left her slender, fair legs exposed.

She looked just like an innocent little girl next door.

In reality, however, she was one of the leaders of Class A of the First Year, currently working in the shadows to recruit subordinates she could use.

But even a leader of Class A needed time to rest.

Just before drifting off to sleep, Arisu Sakayanagi reached out, gently grabbed the teddy bear placed by her pillow, and pulled it into her embrace.

The white-haired girl closed her eyes, feeling the comfortable touch of the soft mattress, and prepared to enter a sweet dream.

Just then, her student terminal began to vibrate, emitting the sound of an incoming message.

Is it from Masumi? The girl with short white hair opened her beautiful eyes slightly, feeling a bit displeased.

Even for her, being disturbed during sleep time was enough to cause some irritation.

However, if Masumi Kamuro chose to send a message at this hour, it meant the situation was urgent.

Today, she had assigned Masumi Kamuro to tail Dokuho Kouya of Class 1-B.

She had originally requested that the report for tonight be saved until tomorrow morning.

Unless the situation was particularly critical.

"Huh?" After picking up her phone and seeing who the sender was, Arisu Sakayanagi froze for a moment.

The person who sent the message was actually Dokuho Kouya, the one being followed, not Masumi Kamuro, who was doing the tailing.

Was she discovered?

Arisu Sakayanagi opened the message and, upon seeing the photo of the purple-haired girl, a faint smile appeared on her pretty face.

Immediately after, she called Masumi Kamuro.

"Sakayanagi, I..."

"Masumi, you would be even cuter if you smiled when taking a photo."

After teasing her newly acquired subordinate, Arisu Sakayanagi instructed, "Could you trouble yourself to hand the phone to Dokuho? There are some things I'd like to discuss with him."

"Why don't you just call his phone directly?" Masumi Kamuro complained from the other end of the line.

But based on her understanding of her, Arisu Sakayanagi knew Masumi Kamuro would definitely hand the phone to the boy beside her.

This was what they called being tsundere.

"Hello—"

Sure enough, the boy's voice sounded from the other end of the phone.

"Dokuho, I didn't expect you to be able to discover Masumi. I truly underestimated you."

Arisu Sakayanagi shifted into a more comfortable position, her plump thighs spread to the sides, knees touching the sheets, sitting on the bed in a seiza-like posture.

"There are a lot of people around at noon and after school, but fewer people at night, so it was easy to spot her," Dokuho Kouya replied from the other end.

"Dokuho's answer is truly cunning."

The corners of Arisu Sakayanagi's mouth curled into a faint smile. "By intentionally using a phrasing that is easily misunderstood, you might make us think you discovered Masumi much earlier and simply chose not to say anything on the spot."

"But the truth of the situation is something only Dokuho himself knows."

On the other end of the line.

Upon hearing what the girl said.

Dokuho Kouya's expression remained calm, but he was slightly surprised inside.

Oh my.

You actually saw right through me.

I really did phrase it that way on purpose.

Just as Sakayanagi said, his statement was very easy to misinterpret.

If Masumi Kamuro had only been tailing him at night, she would have focused entirely on why she was exposed.

But if Masumi Kamuro had also been tailing him at noon and after school, she would think she had been exposed long ago.

Such tactics worked on Masumi Kamuro, but they seemed a bit insufficient against Sakayanagi.

However, since this was a special scene that would be seen by the audience later, he should say a few more words.

"I did say that there were too many people at those times," Dokuho Kouya said, leaving the rest for the girls to figure out for themselves.

Masumi Kamuro, standing to the side, was completely bewildered.

Arisu Sakayanagi, who was talking to him from her dorm room, realized what he meant.

"So, Dokuho, you were considering Masumi's feelings, which is why you didn't want to expose her on the spot?"

The girl's voice carried a faint smile. "Dokuho, you really are a gentle and kind person."

You're right, I just wanted to build that kind of persona.

Dokuho Kouya wished the girl would say a little more.

"I heard from Masumi that you stopped by the Chess Club after school?" Arisu Sakayanagi began to bring up the topic she was interested in.

"I collected their tuition fees..."

Dokuho Kouya briefly mentioned the fact that he was tutoring both the Shogi Club and the Chess Club.

"I never imagined that besides being proficient in chess, you would also be so skilled at shogi, Dokuho-kun." The girl's voice came through with a compliment.

"Actually, I'm quite good at Go as well."

Even if he were to play Go against Kebo, he would likely be the one delivering the victory speech in the end.

"Hehe..." Arisu Sakayanagi laughed on the other end of the line. "I'm quite curious about your teaching ability, Dokuho-kun."

"Then, when I have some free time, I'll have the seniors from the Chess Club play a match against you." Dokuho Kouya understood what the girl meant.

"I'm looking forward to it."

After a few more words of idle chatter, Arisu Sakayanagi hung up the phone, a faint smile still lingering on her face.

"Dokuho-kun, no matter how you tutor those seniors, there is no way they can defeat a true genius."

Arisu Sakayanagi had once been to the White Room and seen the geniuses that had been manufactured there.

For the sake of the Artificial Genius project, the White Room was secretly raising many children of her age, hoping to mold them into mass-produced geniuses.

Upon seeing those children of her own age subjected to such cruel education, Arisu Sakayanagi decided that she would crush these fake geniuses and destroy that meaningless educational facility.

Carrying this mindset, Arisu Sakayanagi didn't exactly sneer at these efforts to improve through hard work, but she felt it was difficult to bridge the gap between a genius and a mortal.

"I really am looking forward to another match against you, Dokuho-kun."

In Arisu Sakayanagi's view, once she defeated Dokuho's "disciples," Dokuho, as their master, would surely have to step in personally to save face.

Competing against Dokuho in chess was one of the things that had brought her the most joy in recent years.

Back then, she had racked her brains and thought she had secured the final victory, only to realize she had walked into a trap and had the win snatched away by Dokuho Kouya.

If a hunter can use a trap to catch their prey, it means the hunter's intellect is far superior to that of the prey.

Falling into a trap in her own field of expertise seemed to imply that Sakayanagi was inferior to Dokuho Kouya in terms of ability.

Discovering someone who might be even more powerful than herself made Arisu Sakayanagi's heart race with excitement.

Right now, this was just minor trickery.

After I bury the greatest masterpiece, the next one will be you, Dokuho-kun.

"Haa... time to sleep."

Arisu Sakayanagi felt her eyelids growing heavy. After pulling her teddy bear into her arms, she slowly closed her eyes and drifted off into a dream.