Rebellion (II)

"Let's go. There's no point anymore."

Amid the chaotic crowd, Ayanokoji quickly shifted position and came up behind Horikita Suzune, who was trying to stop the Out-of-Control Ones.

"No, we can't. If we let them keep fighting like this, someone might die."

"Besides, plenty of normal students are being beaten up. Can't you see that?" Horikita covered her mouth and nose. As she struggled to knock out the attackers one by one, she replied firmly.

"Bang!"

"How many of all these people do you think you can stop on your own?"

"And besides..." As he spoke, Ayanokoji struck the man who had swung at him from behind with a sideways blow, knocking him out as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Then he turned to Horikita, his expression serious. "You think you're helping them, but if you get hurt, do you think they'll help you?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"Heh." Ayanokoji chuckled softly and said nothing more.

"But... I didn't expect you to be this strong. You've been hiding your abilities well."

If she remembered correctly, that man had been Kanzaki Ryuji from Class B, someone whose martial arts skills were certainly no weaker than her own.

Even in his out-of-control state, his sturdy build made him more than a match for an ordinary person.

Seeing him knocked unconscious with a single casual move—and noticing that Ayanokoji's technique bore a faint resemblance to Rinya's—Horikita couldn't help feeling astonished.

"Are you coming or not? I'll only ask one last time." Ayanokoji didn't respond to her comment. Instead, he continued asking with an expressionless face.

But Horikita seemed not to hear him. Hope suddenly flared in her eyes, and she said excitedly, "Ayanokoji, if you're here to help..."

The girl hadn't finished speaking before Ayanokoji turned and walked away.

"Ayanokoji, you..." Horikita felt both angry and hurt.

The class was in danger. As one of its members, how could he just abandon them?

Besides, he had promised to help her reach Class A.

"Is... this what you call an answer?"

Watching him walk farther and farther away, Horikita bit her lip. For some reason, she felt an inexplicable sense of loss.

But as she let her guard down, the two Class A boys she had just knocked over—perhaps because of their exceptionally sturdy builds—suddenly got back up and lunged at her from either side.

"Oh no!" Horikita cried out inwardly. Though she reacted as quickly as she could, she still couldn't stop them from sending her flying with a heavy punch apiece.

"Boom!"

The force of the impact sent the girl sprawling a short distance away.

"Cough..." Bright red blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

Grimacing against the pain in her abdomen, Horikita wiped away the blood. One hand was still needed to cover her mouth and nose with a strip of cloth, and just as she managed to push herself up with the other, someone kicked her hard and knocked her down again.

Her strength was already nearly spent. When she looked up, she realized that three or five Out-of-Control Ones were now watching her.

Just as she realized she had no strength left to escape, her gaze fell on several Class B students she had just rescued. They were hunched over, passing right by her.

Driven by instinct, Horikita cried out, "Cough, cough... Help me! Please, someone!"

After she called out, she saw them look her way and felt a moment of relief. But then she heard their slightly trembling voices, and froze.

"S-sorry, Horikita. We still have to go save Class Ichinose's class representative. We're really sorry."

"..." Horikita stared at them, mouth agape. She had a thousand things she wanted to say, but now she couldn't utter a word.

"Bang!"

Another Out-of-Control One kicked her hard, slamming her into the wall. But Horikita seemed no longer able to feel the pain. Her gaze gradually dimmed, and even the hand covering her mouth and nose fell away.

Seeing this, the gaze fixed on her from afar grew even more anxious.

"Master, since she's the only opponent I recognize, I'd like to—"

Ibuki Mio turned to look at the young man standing with his hands behind his back, his face full of amusement. She didn't need to say the rest.

"Hehe. Go ahead."

"Mm. Thank you, Master."

Watching the girl hurry off, Rinya smiled meaningfully, then turned his attention back to the middle-aged man in the arena, who seemed to be searching for something.

Seeing this, Kushida, who was operating the camera beside him, couldn't help asking, "Master, I've noticed you've been watching him from the start. Was he the one who caused all these Out-of-Control Ones?"

"Him..." Rinya trailed off, as if recalling something. Then he suddenly sneered. "He's not worthy."

"Is... that so?" Kushida's face was full of question marks, but she didn't feel comfortable pressing him.

"Let's wait a little longer. He won't be able to hold back. Hehe."

"Oh." The girl answered blankly, then seemed to remember something. She cast a hurt glance at her own ample chest.

A worry rose unbidden in her mind: Could what Ibuki said about big breasts meaning a small brain be true...?

Meanwhile, just as Rinya had predicted, the middle-aged man, who had searched the arena for ages without finding his target, grew increasingly grim.

"Damn it, how can I not find him? I clearly saw him come in."

"Could that guy have spotted me back then?"

"But even after the Berserk Liquid's fumes took effect, how can I still not see a trace of him?"

"Unless..."

The middle-aged man's eyes shifted as he suddenly remembered that, among the people in the know whom his boss had mentioned, there was someone else besides him: his son.

"Could it be..."

"Right. That's the only explanation!"

He slapped his palm as if struck by a sudden realization, then hurriedly called his boss...

Seeing this from the top floor in the distance, Rinya also clapped his hands, though his applause was unhurried.

The young man's face was full of amusement. As the clapping continued, he finally couldn't hold back a cold laugh. "Hehehehe... The situation I wanted has finally come about."

"Kushida, take some snacks out of your bag. The show's about to begin."

"Huh?"

Kushida scratched her head, still full of questions, but didn't forget to quietly remind him, "Master, isn't that little backpack with Ibuki?"

"Uh..." Rinya's laughter abruptly stopped.

Meanwhile, after the middle-aged man finished his call, he seemed to have been given a new mission. His previously troubled expression turned instantly fierce.

"Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, your boss was willing to trust you one more time, and this is how you repay him. You brought this on yourself."

After sending a message with some special content, the man put his plan into motion. No one would have expected a member of the school's administration to dare use the Security Department as his own private weapon.

"Hehe, good thing the boss prepared in advance. Let's see you get away this time," the middle-aged man said with a cold laugh.

Sure enough, not long after the message went out, Ayanokoji, who was walking back alone along the road outside the gymnasium, ran into a group dispatched by the school's Security Department.

Seeing them fully armed, each with the grave expression of men setting out to catch terrorists, Ayanokoji naturally assumed they had been sent in response to the call for help from the gymnasium.

But when they got out of their vehicles and surrounded him with stun batons, he immediately realized what was going on. It seemed that foolish man had set him up.

"You're Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, right?" asked the tall, thin man in charge, wearing an officer's uniform. He looked at the photo on his phone, then compared it to Ayanokoji.

"Yes. What is it?" Ayanokoji didn't beat around the bush. Since he had been ambushed today, he had immediately guessed that these people had been duped into coming by that man.

"Good. Take him away." The tall, thin man didn't bother giving him a chance to explain. He simply ordered his men to cuff him.

But Ayanokoji seemed to have expected this. He smiled faintly.

He knew that if he resisted, they would seize on that as an excuse, blow the matter out of proportion, and eventually expel him.

But if he didn't resist, once he arrived at the Supervision Center, that man would probably get involved, and even if Ayanokoji was innocent, they would make him out to be guilty.

So, before getting into the car without resisting, he silently handed a recording to the tall, thin man in charge, then sat down without saying a word.

"Oh, what's this...?"

"Listen to it."

The tall, thin man was a little puzzled, but human curiosity got the better of him, and he played the recording in the car...

The recording was long, but its gist was this: how the middle-aged man's boss had used internet technology to infiltrate the system, secretly tampered with Chairman Sakayanagi's work computer, then used the fabricated evidence of crimes to send him to the Supervision Center, before spending a huge sum to help the undercover agent he had chosen get into the school as a senior administrator.

"What!" When the recording ended, the tall, thin man, who had just seemed so composed, slapped his knee and abruptly stopped the car.

Then he turned to Ayanokoji in disbelief. "You... are you sure this recording is genuine?"

"Look at whose recording device it is."

Ayanokoji pointed without expression at the special symbol on its surface, the one reserved for Chairman Sakayanagi. That alone was proof that it couldn't be fake.

"Still... If I remember right, wasn't this a hidden recorder in his computer?"

"How do you know about it, and how did you get it?" The tall, thin man's eyes widened with curiosity.

"About that... I happened to pass by his office that day and overheard some suspicious conversations outside the door. So I went to the Supervision Center. You know I visited the chairman then, right?"

Of course, Ayanokoji wasn't going to explain whether it had really been a coincidence.

"Heh, you make it sound so easy..." The tall, thin man was at a loss for words.

If Ayanokoji hadn't then shown him the message that Sakayanagi Arisu had sent personally, he wouldn't have dared believe him completely.

After all, he had served as the Security Department's second-in-command for many years. Now that he had stumbled upon such a major hidden case, he naturally couldn't sit by and do nothing.

Besides, if he could earn credit for this, a promotion to first-in-command might soon be within reach.

So, under the tall, thin man's orders, the group originally headed for the Security Department followed Ayanokoji's lead and surged toward the gymnasium in a crowd.