Ryuen

Two days after the incident at the Old School Building, Kanzaki Toru was intercepted in the hallway.

It wasn't Ishizaki, nor that sandy-haired Kondo, nor the second-year student who had previously troubled Yoshida. It was a boy he had never seen before—the Class C badge pinned to his uniform collar. His black hair was slightly long, tucked carelessly behind his ears. His features weren't particularly striking, but his eyes were unsettling. It wasn't a fierce look; it was cold. This coldness was different from Horikita Suzune's. Horikita's coldness was like a blade—pure, sharp, and hiding nothing. This person's coldness was like a sheet of ice; you couldn't see how deep the water ran beneath it.

"Kanzaki Toru?" The boy leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, his tone casual, as if he were addressing an old friend.

"Who are you?"

"Ryuen Kakeru. From Class C." He smiled, a faint expression that barely moved the corners of his mouth. "I heard you were nearby during that business at the Old School Building last time?"

Kanzaki Toru didn't answer. He was observing. Ryuen stood by the window in the hallway; the window behind him was open, and the May breeze blew in, ruffling the hair on his forehead. His posture was relaxed, his center of gravity shifted back, showing no signs of aggression. But his eyes were moving—in just a few seconds, his gaze had swept over Kanzaki's stance, the position of his hands, the direction of his eyes, and even the rhythm of his breathing.

"Silence is consent, then." Ryuen pulled one hand from his pocket and made a slight gesture. "Don't be nervous; I'm not here to fight you. I'm just curious—that siren, that was your doing, right?"

Kanzaki Toru looked at him. He neither admitted nor denied it.

Ryuen tilted his head, the curve of his mouth deepening slightly. "Using a siren to drive people away, avoiding a direct confrontation, achieving your goal with minimal cost. Quite clever." He shoved his hand back into his pocket, pushed off the wall, and took a few steps forward. As he passed Kanzaki, his voice dropped, low enough for only the two of them to hear. "But if you get in my way again next time, it might not be so simple."

With that, he continued walking, his pace steady and unhurried. As he passed the stairwell, he raised a hand without looking back, as if greeting someone who wasn't there. The gesture wasn't a provocation; it was more like a declaration. I know who you are now.

Kanzaki Toru stood where he was, watching Ryuen's back disappear around the corner of the stairs. He slowly unclenched his fists—not out of fear, but as an instinctive bodily reaction to a threat. Ryuen Kakeru was a man far more dangerous than the buzz-cut, the bald guy, and Ishizaki combined. The keyword in that sentence was "next time." He had said, "If you get in my way again next time," not "Let's call it even for this time." This meant Ryuen had not abandoned his plan to target Class D. He only bothered to step into the fray himself when he deemed his opponent interesting enough.

When he returned to the classroom, the lunch break was nearly over. Sakura Airi sat in the corner, flipping through photos on her camera. Seeing him enter, she looked up, her purple eyes beneath the brim of her hat lingering on his face for a moment.

"Kanzaki-kun, just now in the hallway... who was that?"

"Ryuen Kakeru from Class C."

Sakura's finger pressed lightly on the camera shutter—not to take a picture, but as an unconscious reflex. She was silent for a few seconds before handing him the camera. On the screen was a photo. It showed the bulletin board at the entrance of the Academic Building, displaying the previous week's club activity schedule. In the bottom right corner, a blurry figure was walking past the edge of the frame—it was Ryuen. He was followed by someone else: Ishizaki. The two were talking; Ryuen's expression was indifferent, while Ishizaki's was clearly impatient.

"I took this three days ago. I was trying to photograph the club schedule," Sakura said. "I only noticed the bottom right corner when I was organizing the photos later. They talked for a few minutes. When Ryuen left, Ishizaki chased after him to ask something, but Ryuen didn't look back."

Kanzaki Toru stared at the photo. Three days ago, Ishizaki and Ryuen met at the bulletin board. Two days later, Ishizaki was able to lure Sudo to the gymnasium with precision. The timeline matched. Ryuen was the one weaving the web, while Ishizaki, Kondo, and those two second-years were merely nodes in that web. And his intercepting him in the hallway just now wasn't just to say those few words. He was confirming whether Class D had anyone worth his personal attention.

After school, he told Horikita Suzune about the incident on the rooftop.

Horikita leaned against the railing, her black coffee already cold. She didn't speak immediately after hearing him out, just stared at the distant gray-white wall.

"Ryuen is probing," she finally said. "The fact that he came to find you personally means you've entered his field of vision. This implies two things: first, there is one more person in Class D he has marked; second—" She turned, her purple eyes meeting his directly. "—he won't move against you for the time being. Because you've piqued his interest. To Ryuen, an interesting opponent is more valuable than a hundred cannon fodder he could wipe out at will. His interest is your temporary safety buffer, but that doesn't mean you'll be safe forever."

"I know," Kanzaki Toru said. "What about Sudo?"

"He still wants to join the basketball team. Kondo hasn't come to find him these past few days, but Ishizaki is still hanging around the gym. Sudo isn't saying anything out loud anymore, but I can tell from the details of his training movements that he's likely to choose to settle things privately." Horikita paused. "I may need to apply more pressure on Sudo so he realizes this can't be solved by a one-on-one fight."

"Your methods might backfire on him."

Horikita didn't refute this; she simply finished her coffee and crushed the empty can. "What do you plan to do about Ryuen?"

"Nothing for now. If he doesn't attack, I'll stay put. But I need your help with one thing—regarding the bylaws of the student handbook. You mentioned before that individual student actions are recorded in their files. How long does it take to look up a name?"

"Depends on who you want to check. If it's someone from Class C, I need to look at their public disciplinary records and club registration status. One day at the shortest, three at the longest."

"Ryuen Kakeru. I need to know how he's able to use second-year students as pawns."

Horikita nodded, not asking why he needed this information. As she turned to walk toward the rooftop door, her steps faltered for a second at the threshold. Her profile looked sharp against the sunset, her lips moving as if she had more to say. Then, she pushed the door open, and her footsteps vanished into the stairwell.

Kanzaki Toru stood alone by the railing, watching the sunset sink bit by bit behind the high wall. The May evening breeze carried the scent of grass from the sports field—faint and real. He sank his consciousness into the Goddess Illustrated Handbook. Sakura Airi's page glowed quietly, her affection at 70. Horikita Suzune's affection had risen to 42, and a new line of description appeared in her status bar: "Bonding through trust." Karuizawa Kei's page outline was becoming clearer, with 35 points of affection, and her title had taken on a precise four-character form: "Proud Guide." But what concerned him was something else. At the end of the handbook, a new page that had never appeared before was slowly taking shape. The edges of that page shimmered with a cold light, unlike the texture of any page he had seen before. It wasn't a soft glow, but a cold, metallic sheen.

He steadied himself and focused his consciousness entirely on it. The Goddess Illustrated Handbook was only open to girls. This meant that the face emerging beneath this cold light was a woman he had yet to encounter. But the handbook couldn't clearly present her full appearance yet—only a silhouette, and a few scattered features faintly emerging around it: the letter 'C', and a line of status description that was currently indecipherable.

C. Class C. The handbook was actively searching for a target in Class C for him. He opened his eyes; the streetlights had already flickered on across the campus below. Each light illuminated a small patch of ground, slicing the darkness into a grid of light and shadow. People walked through some of these squares, while others remained empty for now.

And in a square he had yet to step into, a new page of the handbook was waiting for him.