How Many of Those Dragged Under Will Be Innocent?

At this point, even sleeping in class wouldn't cost her any points.

"What's wrong?" A perfectly calm voice of "concern" came from her left. It belonged to the friendless guy sitting beside her.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

"Leave me alone." Horikita Suzune spoke sullenly without any intention of lifting her head.

"..."

Ayanokoji obediently fell silent.

Then the class bell rang right on time.

This should have been the time for the usual morning meeting, but for some reason, they'd been told it was postponed until the third period. So even though the students had plenty of questions they wanted to ask Chabashira Sae, all they could do was patiently sit through class.

Since Chabashira had mentioned earlier that the Behavioral Norms Exam would affect their evaluations, most of the students instinctively tried to rein in their behavior.

But they soon remembered that the Behavioral Norms Exam was only the first month's Special Exam.

In any case, the exam was over now.

Besides, they couldn't help feeling that whatever they did probably wouldn't make a difference.

After all, people like the Yamauchi Group and Koenji Rokusuke had carried on as they pleased, even knowing it was an exam. Watching them act so freely made it hard to keep forcing themselves to behave.

Faint chatter came from Yamauchi's seat. At the front of the classroom, the teacher ignored his words and continued the lesson.

"Hey, hey, why isn't Little Kikyo here today?" Though he'd lowered his voice, it still carried clearly across the room. "Now that Little Kikyo's not here, I don't even feel like taking this class."

"This is so boring."

"Hey, Kanji, wanna play a game?"

Kushida Kikyo... was absent?

Hearing that, Horikita Suzune finally lifted her head for the first time and looked toward Kushida Kikyo's seat.

It was empty. Only the textbooks and other things she'd left there last week remained, still untouched.

...Was she sick?

Whatever. It didn't matter. Kushida had nothing to do with her anyway.

If anything, it was a relief not having Kushida Kikyo come over and bother her.

That way, she could just enjoy this despair, this numbness in her limbs and chill in her body.

Hurry up. Hurry up. Let the inevitable judgment come already.

The bell rang again, but Horikita Suzune simply buried her head in her arms once more.

"..." The class grew noisy again.

The closer the end came, the more unbearable the wait became.

With every passing minute and second, Horikita Suzune felt her heart being scorched in a frying pan.

The diary had warned me. The clues were right in front of me. The free daily necessities at the store and the free vegetable meal in the cafeteria were both telling me... that someone at this school had no money at all.

But why?

"What a useless little sister."

As if she were imagining it, she thought she heard the cold voice of her older brother, Horikita Manabu, echoing in her ears.

Then, in the next instant, that voice quietly changed into Kushida Kikyo's:

"Idiot Horikita Suzune."

"A bunch of defective products." The scoffing rebuke came in Chabashira Sae's voice.

Am I... sick?

I'm actually hearing things like this.

A little timidly, she buried her head even deeper in her arms.

Her arms couldn't cover both ears, but if she turned her head a little, she could at least block one.

She should have lifted her head and argued back. She should have confidently told everyone that she wasn't the useless person she used to be.

But the truth was, she'd failed.

She couldn't prove herself. All she could do was let the defective products in Class D drag her down with them.

What am I supposed to do, Brother...

--You should download Genshin Impact right now.

If Asakusa Toru could read Horikita Suzune's mind, that was what he would have said.

Unfortunately, he couldn't.

So he could only take advantage of the break to sneak out into the hallway outside Class D. He slowly switched between a few voice models he'd already collected, whispering them one by one into Horikita Suzune's ear with Voice Transmission.

As he switched between them, he used Horikita Suzune to test how far Voice Transmission could reach, whether the transmitted sound could turn corners, and whether obstacles along the way would make the sound quieter or stop the transmission altogether.

The only reason he'd picked Horikita Suzune as his test subject was that she'd happened to be there.

After getting the ability last night, he'd done a simple test with his Voice Recorder. But mechanical recording and the human ear were quite different, and the Infinite Voice Recorder itself had excellent sound quality. Treating the data it recorded as accurate would definitely cause problems.

A sound that seemed clear might actually be as quiet as a mosquito's buzz, while one that seemed faint could be deafening.

Of course, with sufficiently professional equipment, he might have been able to measure the decibel levels precisely... but he didn't have any.

So, after thinking it over, he'd decided he might as well experiment on Horikita Suzune.

It also gave him a chance to pass along a message for the Two-Faced Person.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he transmitted, Horikita Suzune didn't react at all, as if she were dead asleep.

...What a good sleeper.

I'm pretty sure class isn't even in session. How is she sleeping that deeply?

His test of whether Voice Transmission worked, based on Horikita Suzune's reaction, had failed. He'd have to try it on someone else.

It wasn't as if he couldn't test it on someone in Class B. He hadn't spent the whole month doing nothing, after all. At the very least, by handing out Voice Recorders, he'd ruled out most people as suspects behind the Diary Copy.

But Voice Transmission was a little too strange. He didn't want to test it on anyone who wasn't "pure" enough, in case the commotion got too big.

Among those dragged down with them, how many would be innocent?

No matter how he looked at it, Horikita Suzune was the best person for the job.

She was pure.

So pure that Asakusa Toru suspected she might say, "I came from my mother," at any moment.

But since Horikita Suzune had fallen asleep, there was nothing he could do.

He didn't trust the others as much. They weren't as pure as Horikita Suzune.

Staying near Class D any longer would make him stand out too much. He'd have liked to stick around and watch the show, but exposing his identity wouldn't be worth it.

...Maybe I should go find a mosquito recording and make another voice model.

"Oh, isn't that Asakusa?" Just as Asakusa Toru was thinking of leaving, the brown-haired gal noticed him, raised her hand high, and walked straight over.

Sato Maya.

One of the more outgoing gals in Class D, she was a better representative of the class's gals than a certain parasitic girl who'd forced herself to adopt the gal persona in order to start a new life.

If he remembered correctly, Chabashira Sae had described her as "able to form friendships with anyone."

In that respect, she might even have surpassed Kushida.

Of course, it was only an assessment—and one from that idiot Chabashira Sae, at that.

Even so, it showed that she really did have a knack for fitting in with people with ease.

Was it her vibe? Or did she just seem natural?

After a few encounters, they'd become comfortable enough to chat.

"What brings you to Class D?" She leaned against the wall beside Asakusa Toru, perfectly at ease. "Are you here to sell your Voice Recorders?"

"I told you before, no one's going to spend extra money on a Voice Recorder."

"Phones can record audio nowadays. Who needs a Voice Recorder?"

She complained casually.

"...You say that, but you bought one yourself, didn't you?" Asakusa Toru paused just as he was about to take a step and replied offhandedly.

His sales pitch at the Club Orientation had worked to some extent. Though Horikita Manabu had been the only one brave enough to buy a Voice Recorder on the spot, the whole incident had made him a little famous among the first-years.

After that, quite a few people who saw him approached him out of curiosity and struck up a conversation.

Sato Maya was one of them.

In the end, she'd bought a Voice Recorder and exchanged contact information with him. They even greeted each other whenever they ran into one another.

Which guy named Chu Nan wouldn't be head over heels after that combination of moves?

Luckily, he had a heart of stone and only cared about writing his diary.

...Of course, the main reason was that he had a normal brain.

Not every girl who approached you was trying to confess her feelings, and not every greeting meant she was showing interest.

He and Sato Maya weren't close enough for that.

For now, they were probably just "friends."

Friends from different classes who knew each other and occasionally exchanged greetings so they wouldn't seem so alone?

"Well..." She idly twirled her long hair, winding a strand around her finger before letting it go. "I was just being nice."

"Being nice, huh..." There was something strange in Asakusa Toru's tone. "If good people got what they deserved, the world wouldn't be so simple."

Sato Maya looked a little surprised. "I feel like there's more to what you're saying."

She'd only come over to make small talk.

After all, social connections were maintained through meaningless conversation like this. She hadn't expected him to sound so reflective.

"There is." Asakusa Toru nodded and glanced at the Yamauchi Group, who were still making a racket, completely unaware of what was about to happen.

He didn't know whether good people got what they deserved, but stupid people were sure to get what was coming to them.

"How many of those dragged down with them do you think will be innocent?" With that, he stopped paying attention to the Yamauchi Group. He stretched lazily, waved, and said, "It's almost time for class. I'm heading out."

Asakusa Toru wandered away from Class D, leaving Sato Maya behind to stare after him and blink in confusion.

"Dragged down... what was he talking about?" She hadn't understood.

Asakusa Toru's arrival hadn't caught anyone's attention except Sato's. And aside from him, Class D probably wouldn't have any other visitors...

Oh no, there was one after all.

Kamuro Masumi had come to run an errand.

When the bell rang to signal the end of second period, she stood at the classroom entrance with a helpless expression and quietly said:

"...I'm looking for Wang Meiyu."

After saying that, she didn't wait to see whether anyone in Class D would acknowledge her or give her permission to enter. She went straight to Wang Meiyu's seat.

"Little Kikyo... I hope she's okay..." Wang Meiyu murmured softly as she gazed at Kushida Kikyo's empty seat.

As she was lost in thought, Kamuro Masumi stepped in front of her and blocked her view.

"Huh?"

"Um, what is it?" Startled, she looked up, flustered.

Wang Meiyu had assumed it was someone from her class. But when she looked up, she saw an A-Class student standing in front of her.

"I remember her as..."

The one who'd been following Classmate Sakayanagi...