Rumors

6:10 PM, the alley behind the Third School Building.

The setting sun stained the entire alley the color of blood.

Albert blocked the alley entrance. His right arm was still in a cast, but his left hand gripped a steel pipe stripped from a desk. Daichi Ishizaki and another Class C boy guarded the exit, holding baseball bats.

A standard encirclement formation.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka stood in the center of the alley, his school blazer draped over his shoulders, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his forearms. He looked at Albert, then at the steel pipe in his hand, and suddenly smiled.

"What, did your right hand break, so you're practicing with your left?"

Albert didn't understand the sarcasm in the Japanese, but Ishizaki did. His expression darkened. "Ayanokoji, enjoy your sharp tongue while you still can."

"Ryuen didn't come?" Ayanokoji scanned his surroundings. "Sending three dogs out to bite people while he hides in the back to watch the show?"

"We're enough to deal with you." Ishizaki swung his baseball bat. "Today, we're collecting on the Sports Festival debt, with interest."

Ayanokoji threw his blazer onto the ground and loosened his collar.

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

The moment his words fell, Albert moved.

His two-meter-tall frame charged like a tank, the steel pipe swinging in a wide arc toward Ayanokoji's head—he wasn't holding back at all; he intended to kill.

But Ayanokoji was faster.

He sidestepped 0.3 seconds before the pipe descended, the metal grazing his nose as it slammed into the concrete, sending sparks flying. Almost simultaneously, his right hand clamped onto Albert's wrist, and his left elbow slammed into the man's armpit!

"Ugh!" Albert grunted, the steel pipe slipping from his grip.

But he was truly resilient; his left fist immediately punched toward Ayanokoji's chest.

[Crisis Prediction (Beginner) triggered: Left fist trajectory predicted. Suggest shifting half a step to the right to evade, while simultaneously kicking the side of the right knee.]

The system prompt flashed through his mind.

Ayanokoji followed suit.

He shifted right, and Albert's fist grazed his ribs. He lifted his leg and kicked hard against the side of the man's right knee—the most vulnerable point of the ligament.

"Crack!"

A sickening, crisp sound echoed.

Albert's massive frame collapsed to his knees, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle.

Ishizaki and the other boy at the end of the alley rushed forward.

[Prediction: Ishizaki attacking the upper body, the other person attacking the lower. Suggest neutralizing the lower attack first.]

Ayanokoji ducked, evading Ishizaki's baseball bat, and simultaneously used a sweep kick to take down the other boy. The boy hit the ground, his bat slipping from his hand and rolling far away.

Ishizaki's second swing came.

This time it was a horizontal sweep, aimed at the waist.

Instead of retreating, Ayanokoji stepped forward, crashing into Ishizaki's guard. He drove his elbow into the boy's chest, clamped his other hand onto the wrist holding the bat, and twisted!

"Ah!" Ishizaki screamed, the baseball bat hitting the ground.

Ayanokoji didn't stop; he drove his knee into Ishizaki's abdomen and, as the boy doubled over, delivered a hand-blade strike to the back of his neck.

Ishizaki slumped to the ground.

The entire process took twenty seconds.

The only person left standing in the alley was Ayanokoji.

He bent down to pick up his blazer, brushed off the dust, and looked at Albert, who was kneeling on the ground and gasping for air. "Go back and tell Ryuen: next time he wants to make a move, he should come himself. Sending small fry is pointless."

Albert looked up, his eyes bloodshot.

"Also," Ayanokoji added, "I've already backed up the surveillance footage of you attacking me. If you want to take this to the school administration, I'll be happy to oblige."

Having said that, he turned and walked out of the alley.

The setting sun stretched his shadow long.

At the corner of the alley, Shiho Manabe huddled in the shadows, clutching her phone. On the screen was a photo she had just taken—the entire process of Ayanokoji taking on three people alone.

She watched Ayanokoji's retreating back, bit her lip, and lowered her head to type on her phone:

"Saw the goods. He's tougher than expected. Double the price, or no deal."

Recipient: Hashimoto Masayoshi.

7:00 PM, Class D activity room.

The atmosphere was so stifling it felt like it could wring out water.

Kei Karuizawa stared at her laptop screen; the thread on the forum had already reached three hundred replies. Although no photos had been posted, the rumors were becoming increasingly outrageous, with some even claiming that "Class D girls are collectively engaging in compensated dating."

"These bastards..." Her fingers turned white as she gripped the desk.

"I've already contacted the administrator to delete the thread," Yosuke Hirata said, his expression grim. "But the administrator said the thread doesn't contain direct violations, so they can only mark it as 'Rumor pending verification.' And... someone started a new thread."

He clicked on another post:

<Deep Dive! The Dark Middle School History of Class D's Kei Karuizawa! Bullying classmates, extortion, and a compilation of hard evidence!>

It even contained photos—though blurred, one could still recognize Karuizawa from her middle school days, along with several screenshots of chat logs containing truly appalling content.

Karuizawa's face went completely pale.

"This isn't true," she said, her voice trembling. "Those chat logs are forged... I did... I did do some things, but it wasn't like that..."

"We know," Suzune Horikita spoke up. She was sitting by the window, her ankle still bandaged. "But the problem now is that someone wants to socially execute you."

"Kushida," Hirata gritted his teeth. "Only she would have this information."

"Not just her," Ayanokoji said, pushing the door open with a folder in his hand. "I just checked the IP address of the post. They used a proxy server, but it ultimately points to a public computer in the Class C dormitory area. And..."

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

Inside were several printed screenshots of transaction records.

"Shiho Manabe's personal point account received a deposit of 20,000 points last week from an anonymous account. And this afternoon, the same anonymous account transferred another 5,000 points to her," Ayanokoji said. "The time of the transfer was exactly ten minutes after the first post appeared on the forum."

"She's selling information?" Karuizawa looked up.

"More than that," Ayanokoji said, tapping his phone to play a recording—one he had secretly made while confronting Albert in the alleyway:

Ishizaki's voice: "Ryuen said, break one of his legs today, and once the forum releases another wave of dirt, Class D will be completely finished."

Albert (muffled): "Is the info from Kushida... enough?"

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

The recording ended there.

A deathly silence filled the activity room.

"Ichinose?" Hirata was shocked. "Honami Ichinose from Class B? What kind of dirt could they have on her?"

"That is the problem," Ayanokoji said. "When Kushida defected to Class C, there were two encrypted files on her flash drive. One was Sakura's, and the other was labeled 'Ichinose_Secret'. I recovered some of the data, but the file requires a password."

He looked at the group. "And Shiho Manabe has the full version."

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

"Sit down," Ayanokoji said, his voice low but carrying an unquestionable weight. "If you go now, you're just handing yourself over for her to extort."

"Then what do we do? Wait for her to leak everything?" Karuizawa's eyes were red. "My past, Sakura's photos, Ichinose's secret... once all of this is public, Class D and Class B will both be finished!"

"That is why we must make her afraid to release them before she gets the chance," Ayanokoji said.

"How?"

Ayanokoji didn't answer, instead looking at Horikita. "What did you find out from the Student Council?"

Horikita nodded. "My brother helped me pull Shiho Manabe's enrollment file. 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 currently at home. And their mortgage... they still have twenty years left."

"Financial pressure," Hirata realized immediately. "That's why she's desperate for points."

"That's not all," Horikita continued. "Manabe herself received a warning in middle school for secretly photographing classmates. But the file says 'minor offense, not made public,' so it didn't affect her enrollment."

Karuizawa gasped. "She's done this kind of thing before?"

"So this time, she's just returning to her old ways," Ayanokoji summarized. "She collects dirt partly to get back at Ryuen, and partly for the money. And Kushida is working with her because they share the same goal—to destroy Class D."

He paused. "But the situation has changed. Kushida was forced out by me, and Manabe is now fighting a lone battle. And those who fight alone... are the easiest to make mistakes."

"Are you planning to set a trap?" Horikita asked.

"Not a trap," Ayanokoji said, opening his laptop to display a surveillance video. "I'm letting her walk right into one."

The footage showed the hallway of the Third School Building at four o'clock this afternoon. Shiho Manabe was exchanging a flash drive with a boy wearing a hat and mask in the stairwell, and the boy handed her a stack of cash.

Although the boy was hiding his face, Ayanokoji pressed pause and zoomed in on his wrist—revealing a limited-edition sports watch.

"Only three people in the entire school own this watch," Ayanokoji said. "Ryuen Kakeru from the second year, the vice president of the Student Council from the third year, and... Masayoshi Hashimoto from Class A."

"Hashimoto?" Hirata was stunned. "Class A is trading with Manabe?"

"And it's in cash, not points," Ayanokoji pointed out the crucial detail. "This means the content of the trade is illicit; they didn't even dare to leave a digital trail of point transfers."

He closed the video and looked at the group. "Manabe is playing both sides—working with Class C while secretly selling information to Class A. And neither side knows the other exists."

Karuizawa's eyes brightened. "If we expose this..."

"No," Ayanokoji shook his head. "If we expose it, Manabe will be cornered and might just dump all the dirt publicly. What we need to do is make her hand over the dirt voluntarily."

"How could she possibly hand it over?"

"By trading it for something even more damaging," Ayanokoji said. "For example, a detailed report on her brother's school violence from last year—I had someone look into it. The victim was seriously injured and hospitalized, but the Manabe family paid to settle it privately. If this report goes public, her brother could be prosecuted, and her family's finances would collapse."

The activity room was silent for a few seconds.

Hirata hesitated. "Is this... isn't this too ruthless?"

"She is using equally ruthless methods against us," Horikita said coldly. "Being kind to the enemy is being cruel to yourself."

Karuizawa gritted her teeth. "I agree. She started this."

Airi Sakura whispered, "I... I agree too."

Ayanokoji nodded. "Then that's the plan. I'll arrange to meet Manabe at eight tonight. Hirata, go stabilize the class and tell them the forum posts are malicious rumors and that the school is already investigating. Horikita, go contact Ichinose and tell her to prepare herself—her secret might not stay hidden."

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

Karuizawa was stunned. "Me?"

"You are the party involved, and you are the victim," Ayanokoji said. "Some things carry more weight when you say them yourself."