Chapter 50

Was that person dangerous? No, I knew that feeling of danger well. It was the feeling of someone like me. People who didn't care where they belonged and lived for themselves all gave off that "approachable" air. I was like that within Class C, too.

"Hashimoto Masayoshi. It's nice to meet you."

After he entered my room, he politely refrained from looking around. Somehow, that made an even stronger first impression on me. Did he observe the world out of the corner of his eye, too? What a ruthless guy! We're evenly matched, brother!

"Hello! I'm Kitazawa Minya. Sorry for making you come all this way. Sakayanagi should have explained everything, right?"

"Yeah. The princess asked me to work with you and cause Katsuragi and the others some trouble."

Hashimoto nodded and accepted the drink I offered him.

"You may have heard that Class D got tricked by a fake exam paper during midterms. Now I'm planning to get that fake paper into the hands of one of Katsuragi's underlings. Do you have anyone in mind? The second-years will help out, too."

"I see. Katsuragi usually leaves this sort of busywork to Totsuka Yahiko. Totsuka's his most loyal follower, but he's pretty straightforward."

Hashimoto only needed a moment to think before coming up with a candidate.

"Then that's settled! Any idea what he'll do after finding the fake exam?"

Maybe it was because I trusted someone with abilities like mine. I made the decision on the spot.

"He might not think much of it, but he probably won't just throw it away... How about this? I'll give Totsuka's deskmate, Masumi, a heads-up and ask her to keep an eye on things."

"She's in the Sakayanagi Faction, too? Don't let this get more complicated than it needs to be..." I warned him cautiously. The fewer people who knew about this, the safer it was.

"Of course. Don't worry."

"Haha, sounds like you and her get along pretty well. Is she a beauty?"

"You could tell even that?"

Hashimoto openly admitted it to someone he'd only just met. Just as I'd thought, he was one of my kind.

"Heh heh. That's because our styles are pretty similar..."

"True. Let's be friends. You must want information about Class A, right? People like us make friends for when we need something, don't we?"

"I couldn't agree more."

We reached an understanding quite happily and exchanged contact information. As one of Sakayanagi's most capable subordinates, Hashimoto delivered as expected and slipped the fake math exam into one of Katsuragi's underlings' desks.

A few days later, the strange, unmarked exam was found by a guy named Totsuka. He assumed someone had misplaced their practice test, so he put it in the lost-and-found corner of the classroom library.

The students in Class A gradually noticed the exam, but they only glanced at it before moving on. Nobody thought it was anything special—until one day, Kushida happened to see it while visiting Class A.

"West Spring, what's this?" Kushida asked, pointing at the exam posted in the lost-and-found corner.

"Oh, it's been there since last week, I think. No idea whose practice questions they are."

"..."

Curious, Kushida read through the questions and was immediately taken aback.

"Who found this?"

"Who knows? I think Totsuka asked the class before if anyone had lost a math exam, but nobody claimed it."

"Could I take it back and have a look? Class A's practice materials must have something special about them. I want to study them."

"Go ahead. If someone wanted it, they would've claimed it already. It's probably just a piece of scrap paper."

And so the exam that nobody in Class A cared about ended up in Kushida's hands. Hashimoto, who'd been watching from the shadows, immediately reported our success to me.

Not long after, word came from the second-years. Hirata, Karuizawa, and the others had gone back to confirm the story about the fake exam. Faced with both the points and the evidence against him, the soccer club senior who'd tricked Hirata finally confessed that he'd made the deal with Totsuka from Class 1-A.

Totsuka was an idiot who didn't even think about whether his lies made sense, so this had to have been ordered by his boss, Katsuragi.

Now even the clueless students in Class A had heard what happened. Their reactions were mixed. Some approved of Katsuragi's actions, while others blamed him for not discussing it with everyone beforehand. In any case, they didn't take Class D seriously. So what if they'd tricked Class D? This was a school where strength came first; Hirata had simply been foolish enough to fall for it.

Katsuragi knew that nobody would believe him if he denied doing it now, so he accepted the blame. Since the fake exam had indeed hurt Class D—and even damaged the finances of their rival, Class B—his standing in Class A became even more secure.

Meanwhile, Class D was furious. They'd been getting pushed around for so long, and now they'd finally found the culprit. If Sudo hadn't just gotten in trouble, he would've gone to challenge Katsuragi to a one-on-one fight.

Ichinose, who'd given Class D a large number of points, naturally sided with them. She undoubtedly wanted to advance to Class A, too, though Class B was still focused mainly on Class A.

As a result, none of this had much to do with Class C, watching from the sidelines. I happily went about my daily life and waited for the end of the term.

Heh heh. What was Karuizawa going to do? She definitely wouldn't break up with Hirata and get together with me. Her choices were to play matchmaker or go back on her word.

I hoped she'd go back on her word. That would make Class D even more unstable, since apart from Horikita, I wasn't interested in any of the girls in Class D. That was how a girls' group worked. Once Karuizawa lost her authority, someone else would inevitably take her place—or the group would fall apart and be swallowed up by another clique.

More importantly, Karuizawa and Hirata were both important figures in their classes, and the two of them were bound to share each other's fortunes. If Karuizawa's standing fell, Hirata's would fall, too, unless he dumped her. But dumping her would obviously damage the class's stability.

So it wasn't as if I was actually interested in a gal like Karuizawa. I was planning to destroy her and Hirata's standing in the class and make the already fragmented Class D even more chaotic.

But lately, Karuizawa had gotten a lot more careful and was clearly avoiding me. She'd started taking another route instead of passing by our classroom, and when she saw me in the cafeteria, she'd even steer clear of me.

But I had no intention of letting her off so easily. With a large crowd following behind me, I headed straight toward Karuizawa, who was trying to hide behind Hirata, ready to kick her while she was down.

"Isn't that Karuizawa? I heard you've made some progress collecting evidence lately."

Don't blame me for reopening old wounds. I was just making sure everyone watching remembered what happened.

"What's your problem? It's not like you and I are close... Yosuke, let's ignore him..."

Karuizawa's face reddened slightly as she tried to play it off.

"Karuizawa, you blamed Kitazawa unfairly before. Kitazawa, if you're upset about that, I apologize on her behalf."

Hirata, who'd somehow heard about that bet, was every bit the good guy. He immediately stepped in front of Karuizawa, trying to take responsibility for her.

"Kneel."

"Kitazawa?"

"If you're going to apologize, get down on your knees. She made a bet with me."