Savings

All eyes instantly turned toward them.

Hoshino Kanade held up his phone, its unlocked screen glowing.

Without hesitation, he entered the lock-screen password he had just "heard" from Hoshinomiya-sensei.

The phone unlocked. His movements were quick and practiced as everyone around him watched with bated breath.

A moment later, his pupils contracted and his face darkened completely.

He turned the screen toward Hoshinomiya and the onlookers. It showed not just one or two photos, but hundreds, even thousands, of female students. The pictures had been taken from concealed angles. They were clearly upskirt and other surreptitious shots!

He tapped into a hidden private social media app. The account was full of explicit sexual harassment and threats to the personal safety of a female student at the school. Her face had been pixelated, but her features were recognizable enough for her classmates to identify her!

"Tch..." The sweet smile vanished from Hoshinomiya's face, replaced by unprecedented coldness and fury. "The evidence is conclusive! This isn't just voyeurism. It's a serious crime!"

Without hesitation, Hoshino Kanade used his own phone to call the emergency contact number. "Hello! We're near the electronics store! Hoshinomiya-sensei from our school was photographed without her consent by a store employee. We also found hundreds of photos of female students from our school on his phone, along with evidence of sexual harassment and threats against students! We request immediate intervention from the school security team and the police!"

What followed happened naturally.

With Hoshinomiya-sensei decisively putting her authority as a teacher to use, the police got involved, and Sakura Airi was discreetly and carefully brought in to make a key identification.

The eyewitness testimony, physical evidence, and motive all lined up.

The lecherous store employee's future was already clear: he wouldn't get off with a mere verbal warning or a short detention.

With multiple charges brought against him, prison was all but certain. Conservatively, he wouldn't be setting foot in society for at least five years, let alone getting anywhere near the school again.

Hoshino Kanade watched the employee being led away, his heart calm.

The incident had been quietly put to rest, and the potential threat to Sakura Airi had been completely eliminated.

It had also been a perfect exercise in how to use one's identity, an information advantage, and controlled "coincidences" to efficiently nip danger in the bud without breaking the rules.

For Kiyona, and for his own possible "future," he needed to be prepared for things like this.

The afternoon sunlight slanted into Class D's classroom, where a lingering gloom hung in the air.

The teacher's desk stood empty, and the usual hubbub between the desks was nowhere to be heard.

For three straight months—May, June, and now the sweltering July—the glaring "0" for Class Points had been stamped on everyone's phone screens, and in their hearts.

The days without any personal points coming in were pushing these boys and girls to the limits of their patience.

Even the cheapest meal in the cafeteria had become a luxury. The cold drinks in the vending machines were an unattainable temptation. Even buying a new pen refill meant thinking twice.

The shoddy toiletries and monotonous food provided for free wore down their patience day after day. Suppressed sighs and protesting stomachs could often be heard in the classroom.

Every time they checked their phone balances during a break, that unchanging "0" felt like a bucket of cold water, as despair and frustration spread in silence.

During this period, there hadn't been a single Special Exam to give them room to breathe, even one that might have earned them a few Class Points. Even the final exams seemed a long way off.

Everyone was seething inside, consumed by an almost obsessive desire. If—if they really got a chance soon, no matter what kind of exam it was, as long as it offered a shot at those tempting Class Points or personal points, the students of Class D might truly fight tooth and nail to seize that lifeline.

"Tap."

A math workbook was gently placed on Kanji Ike's desk.

Ike was twirling a pen in bored fashion, his eyes unfocused.

"Ike," Horikita Suzune said coolly from beside him. She leaned over slightly and pointed to several questions circled in red on the workbook. "These are the types of problems you kept getting wrong on last week's quiz.

"There isn't much time before the next exam. You don't want to be expelled for failing, do you?" Her tone was calm, without a hint of threat. She was simply stating a cold fact, but her gaze was scrutinizing and unwavering as she looked Ike straight in the eye.

Kanji Ike stiffened, his pen-twirling stopping.

He looked up and met Horikita's gaze. There was no mockery in her eyes, only a sort of almost clinical seriousness.

The words, "You don't want to fail the exam and get expelled, do you?" pricked at the nerves already frayed by the zero points.

He opened his mouth, but in the end, he merely scratched his head in irritation and muttered, "Yeah, yeah, I get it... Jeez..." Still, he resigned himself to opening the workbook.

Horikita straightened up and glanced around the makeshift "study corner" in the classroom.

Several other students with weak foundations, like Ike, were sitting there.

She was no longer the aloof girl who only watched coldly from the sidelines, believing it was only natural for those who held everyone back to be expelled.

She had started, awkwardly and in her own way, to "manage" and "help" the class—organizing after-school study groups, analyzing each student's weak points, and pointing out the dangers they faced in the most direct words possible, sometimes to the point of sounding blunt.

She still wasn't good at offering encouragement, but faced with the pressure of survival, these blunt "reminders" proved unexpectedly effective.

Her gaze swept across the room and settled on Kushida Kikyo, who was chatting softly with several girls, her sweet smile seeming capable of melting ice.

An almost imperceptible emotion flickered in Horikita's eyes, gone too quickly to catch.

There had been a time when even asking this "angel" to help with class matters filled Horikita with a powerful sense of humiliation, as if she were bowing to rules she despised.

Horikita understood better than anyone the sharpness hidden beneath Kushida's flawless social mask. But now... things seemed a little different.

Horikita walked over and stopped a few steps from Kushida.

"Kushida," she said, her voice not loud but clear enough for the other girl to hear. "Could you confirm the list and schedule for next week's class study session groups?" Her tone was matter-of-fact. "Would you mind?"

Kushida Kikyo turned toward her, her smile unchanged, still dazzlingly bright. "Of course, Horikita! Leave it to me!" she readily agreed, even adding, "Would you like me to talk to the few students who aren't very enthusiastic beforehand? I'll make sure they all show up on time!" Her voice brimmed with enthusiasm, as if it were the thing she most wanted to do.

"Sure. Thanks for the trouble." Horikita nodded, said nothing more, and turned to leave.

She felt... surprisingly calm.

There was none of the resistance she had expected, nor any sense of being stung by that fake smile.

Asking Kushida for help really... didn't feel humiliating anymore.

Horikita wondered about it as she walked. Had she simply gotten used to it? Or had she come to understand where they each stood and what their boundaries were? Or perhaps she had realized that, as they struggled in the mire of Class D, Kushida's vast and efficient social network was a weapon Horikita Suzune could never match, no matter how hard she tried.

Though she had been working hard to change, trying to understand the whole matter of "socializing" and not shut people out quite so completely, her innate aloofness and lack of warmth made her far less capable than Kushida Kikyo at bringing people together and passing along information.

Now that she had accepted this reality, making reasonable use of every resource at hand—including Kushida Kikyo's strengths—was only natural if the class was to hold on in this desperate situation and seize its faint chance to rise.

So lately, she had been asking Kushida for help much more often.

Organizing activities, gathering information, resolving conflicts... Things Horikita struggled to handle efficiently were quickly sorted out whenever she left them to Kushida.

Every time she saw Kushida's perfect smile, a faint chill still passed through Horikita's heart. But this "convenience" really was helping Class D's machine, on the verge of falling apart, keep running at the bare minimum while it waited for a turning point that might never come.

After all, in the abyss of zero points, any glimmer was worth seizing—even if it came from someone she didn't trust.