Rumors

At 6:10 p.m., in the alley behind the Third School Building.

The setting sun stained the entire alley blood red.

Albert blocked the entrance. His right arm was still in a cast, but he held a steel pipe taken from a desk or chair in his left hand. Daichi Ishizaki and another boy from Class C stood guard at the far end, baseball bats in hand.

A textbook pincer formation.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka stood in the middle of the alley, his uniform jacket draped over one shoulder and his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He looked at Albert, then at the pipe in his hand, and suddenly smiled.

"What, your right hand's out of commission, so you're training your left?"

Albert didn't understand the sarcasm in Japanese, but Ishizaki did. His expression darkened. "Ayanokoji, you're only talking tough because you can right now."

"Ryuen didn't come?" Ayanokoji glanced around. "He sent three dogs to bite me while he hides in the back and watches?"

"We're more than enough for you." Ishizaki swung his baseball bat. "Today, we'll make you pay back everything from the Sports Festival—with interest."

Ayanokoji tossed his jacket to the ground and loosened his collar.

"Fine," he said. "But don't say I didn't warn you—you three aren't enough."

The instant the words left his mouth, Albert moved.

His two-meter frame charged forward like a tank, swinging the steel pipe down at Ayanokoji's head. He was holding nothing back; he meant to beat him to death.

But Ayanokoji was faster.

He dodged three-tenths of a second before the pipe came down. It grazed the tip of his nose and smashed into the ground, sending sparks flying off the concrete. Almost at the same time, his right hand clamped around Albert's wrist, and his left elbow slammed into Albert's armpit!

"Ugh!" Albert grunted, and the pipe slipped from his hand.

But he could take a hit. His left fist immediately swung toward Ayanokoji's chest.

[Crisis Prediction (Beginner) triggered: Left punch trajectory predicted. Suggested action: shift half a step to the right to evade, then kick the outer side of the right knee.]

The system prompt flashed through his mind.

Ayanokoji did as it advised.

He shifted right, and Albert's fist brushed past his ribs. He lifted his foot and kicked hard at the outer side of Albert's right knee—the weakest point of the ligament.

"Crack!"

The sharp snap made everyone's teeth ache.

Albert's massive frame crashed to the ground, his knee twisted at an unnatural angle.

Ishizaki and the other boy charged from the far end of the alley.

[Prediction: Ishizaki will attack high; the other will attack low. Suggested action: take out the low attacker first.]

Ayanokoji ducked under Ishizaki's bat and swept the other boy's legs out from under him. He hit the ground, and his baseball bat rolled far away.

Ishizaki swung a second time.

This time, it was a horizontal strike aimed at Ayanokoji's waist.

Instead of retreating, Ayanokoji stepped in and slammed into Ishizaki's chest. He braced one elbow against Ishizaki's chest, grabbed the wrist holding the bat with his other hand, and twisted!

"Ah!" Ishizaki screamed as the bat hit the ground.

Ayanokoji didn't stop. He drove his knee into Ishizaki's stomach, and when Ishizaki doubled over, he struck the back of his neck with the edge of his hand.

Ishizaki collapsed limply.

The whole thing took twenty seconds.

Ayanokoji was the only one left standing in the alley.

He bent down, picked up his jacket, and dusted it off. Then he looked at Albert, who was on his knees, gasping for breath. "Go back and tell Ryuen that if he wants to fight next time, he should come himself. Sending nobodies is boring."

Albert looked up, his eyes bloodshot.

"One more thing," Ayanokoji added. "I've already backed up the surveillance footage of you attacking me. If you want to take this to the school, I'm happy to oblige."

With that, he turned and walked out of the alley.

The setting sun stretched his shadow long behind him.

At the corner by the alley entrance, Shiho Manabe was huddled in the shadows, phone in hand. The screen showed the photos she had just taken—the entire fight, with Ayanokoji taking on three opponents alone.

She watched Ayanokoji walk away, bit her lip, and typed on her phone:

"I've seen the merchandise. It's even tougher than I expected. Double the price, or forget it."

Recipient: Hashimoto Masayoshi.

At seven that evening, in Class D's clubroom.

The tension was thick enough to wring water from the air.

Kei Karuizawa stared at the laptop screen. The forum post had already reached three hundred replies. The photos hadn't been posted, but the rumors had grown more and more outrageous. Some people were even claiming that "all the girls in Class D were taking turns sleeping with people."

"Those bastards..." Her fingers clenched until they turned white.

"I've already contacted the moderators to get the post deleted." Yosuke Hirata looked grim. "But they said it doesn't directly violate any rules, so they can only mark it as 'unverified rumor.' And there's more... someone started another thread."

He opened a different post:

<Digging Deep! Class D's Kei Karuizawa's Dark Past in Middle School! Bullying, Extortion, and All the Proof!>

There were even photos inside. They were censored, but it was still possible to recognize Karuizawa from her middle school days. There were also several screenshots of chat logs, filled with vile content.

Karuizawa's face went completely pale.

"It's not true." Her voice trembled. "Those chat logs are fake... I did... I did do some things, but not like that..."

"We know." Suzune Horikita spoke up. She sat by the window, an ointment patch still on her ankle. "But the problem now is that someone wants to destroy you socially."

"Kushida." Hirata gritted his teeth. "She's the only one who has this information."

"Not the only one." Ayanokoji came in, carrying a folder. "I just checked the IP address that posted it. They used a proxy server, but the trail ultimately led to a public computer in Class C's dormitory area. And..."

He tossed the folder onto the table. "I also found something interesting."

Inside were several printed screenshots of transaction records.

"Last week, two thousand points were deposited into Shiho Manabe's personal account from an anonymous account. This afternoon, the same anonymous account sent her another five hundred points," Ayanokoji said. "The transfer came exactly ten minutes after the first forum post went up."

"Is she selling information?" Karuizawa looked up.

"More than that." Ayanokoji pulled out his phone and played a recording he'd secretly made while confronting Albert in the alley:

Ishizaki's voice: "Ryuen said to break one of his legs today. We'll drop another load of dirt on the forum, and Class D will be finished."

Albert (mumbling): "The information Kushida gave us... is it enough?"

Ishizaki: "It's enough. Karuizawa's, Sakura's, and... Ichinose's."

The recording ended there.

The clubroom fell silent.

"Ichinose?" Hirata was shocked. "Honami Ichinose from Class B? What dirt does she have on her?"

"That's the question." Ayanokoji said, "When Kushida defected to Class C, there were two encrypted files on her USB drive. One was Sakura's, and the other was labeled 'Ichinose_Secret.' I managed to recover some of the data, but the file needs a password."

He looked around at everyone. "And Shiho Manabe has the complete version."

Karuizawa suddenly stood up. "I'm going to find her."

"Sit down." Ayanokoji's voice was quiet, but he spoke with an undeniable authority. "If you go to her now, you'll be walking right into a blackmail attempt."

"What are we supposed to do, then? Wait for her to expose everything?" Karuizawa's eyes reddened. "My past, Sakura's photos, Ichinose's secret... once all of that gets out, both Class D and Class B will be finished!"

"So we make sure she doesn't dare expose it before she gets the chance," Ayanokoji said.

"How?"

Ayanokoji didn't answer. Instead, he looked at Horikita. "Did the Student Council find anything?"

Horikita nodded. "My brother helped get Manabe's enrollment records. Her father is a technician at a medical equipment company, and her mother is a housewife. But the key is her younger brother—he was expelled last year for school violence and is now staying at home. And her family still has twenty years left on their mortgage."

"Financial pressure." Hirata understood immediately. "So she needs points."

"There's more," Horikita continued. "Manabe herself was disciplined in middle school for taking covert photos of other students. But the records say the incident was 'minor and not made public,' so it didn't affect her admission."

Karuizawa sucked in a sharp breath. "She's done this kind of thing before?"

"So she's back to her old tricks," Ayanokoji summed up. "She's collecting dirt partly to get back at Ryuen, and partly for money. Kushida worked with her because they had the same goal: bring down Class D."

He paused. "But things have changed. I forced Kushida to back down, leaving Manabe on her own. And a lone wolf... is most likely to make a mistake."

"You want to set a trap?" Horikita asked.

"Not a trap." Ayanokoji opened his laptop and brought up a surveillance video. "I want to let her walk right into it herself."

The footage showed the hallway of the Third School Building at four that afternoon. Shiho Manabe met a boy wearing a hat and mask in the stairwell. He handed her a USB drive and a stack of cash.

The boy's face was hidden, but Ayanokoji paused the video and zoomed in on his wrist. A limited-edition sports watch was visible.

"Only three people in the entire school own this watch," Ayanokoji said. "Ryuen Kakeru, the second-year leader of Class C (note: this is the second-year Ryuen, unrelated to the first-year Ryuen); the third-year vice president of the Student Council; and... Hashimoto Masayoshi from Class A."

"Hashimoto?" Hirata was shocked. "Class A is dealing with Manabe?"

"And they paid in cash, not points," Ayanokoji pointed out. "That means the deal is shady enough that they don't even want to leave a record of a points transfer."

He closed the video and looked around at everyone. "Manabe's playing both sides—working with Class C while secretly selling information to Class A. Neither side knows about the other."

Karuizawa's eyes lit up. "If we expose this..."

"No." Ayanokoji shook his head. "If we expose it, Manabe will lash out and publish all the dirt at once. What we need to do is make her hand it over willingly."

"Why would she ever do that?"

"We trade her a bigger piece of dirt," Ayanokoji said. "For example, the full report on her brother's school violence last year. I had someone look into it. The victim was seriously injured and hospitalized, but Manabe's family paid to settle it privately. If that report becomes public, her brother could be prosecuted, and her family's finances could collapse."

The clubroom fell quiet for a few seconds.

Hirata hesitated. "Isn't that... a bit too harsh?"

"She's using methods just as harsh against us," Horikita said coldly. "Showing mercy to an enemy is cruelty to yourself."

Karuizawa gritted her teeth. "I agree. She made the first move."

Airi Sakura said softly, "I... I agree too."

Ayanokoji nodded. "Then that's what we'll do. I'll arrange to meet Manabe at eight tonight. Hirata, keep the class calm. Tell them the forum post is a malicious rumor and the school is investigating. Horikita, contact Ichinose and tell her to prepare herself—her secret may not stay hidden."

"Karuizawa," he said, looking at her last. "You're coming with me."

Karuizawa blinked. "Me?"

"You're the person involved, and you're the victim," Ayanokoji said. "Some things will carry more weight coming from you."