In the final week before the cross-class group project's review presentation, an eerie silence settled over the entire first year. The hallways grew quieter, and more students ate while poring over their notes in the cafeteria. Even Sudo had started memorizing his presentation points while lifting weights at the gym. Kanji Ike said he was taking it too far. Without even looking up, Sudo replied, "I'm not gonna be the one who holds us back."
Kanzaki Toru stood by a third-floor window in the Library, watching the scattered students on the field below. The late-May sun was already blazing with the intensity of early summer, shrinking the figures on the field into tiny black dots. In his hands was the cross-class group report, ready for submission, with all five team members' names printed on the cover. Sakura Airi's photo layout made it look like a professionally published book. Shiina Hiyori's citations from the Old System were accurate down to the page number. Yukimura Teruhiko's logical framework had finally taken shape after three complete rewrites, and Hamaguchi Tetsuya had dug up the original minutes for a long-forgotten cooperative program from Class B's old Student Council archives. As for the main line of reasoning Kanzaki had organized, it now rested quietly in a footnote on page seventeen of the appendix: the complete chain of evidence showing how Ryuen Kakeru, posing as a temporary investigator for the Disciplinary Committee, had fabricated testimony that directly led to a Class D student's expulsion and left another student, Sato Kenichi of Class C, on extended leave due to psychological stress. Ryuen's name never appeared in the main text, but every citation pointed to the same conclusion.
Shiina had called the report an iceberg. The main text floated above the surface; the appendix lay submerged below. If the reviewing teachers only read the main text, they would find a rigorous academic survey and give them an excellent rating. But if they turned to the appendix, they would see how one student had used the rules themselves to destroy another. Kanzaki had told Shiina that the iceberg was enough. An iceberg would never deliberately ram a ship, but if a ship crashed into it on its own, every jagged edge was real.
"Kanzaki." Sakura Airi came around from behind a bookshelf, her camera in her arms. She wasn't wearing a hat today, and her red, thick-framed glasses sat firmly on her nose. "I've finished processing the photo from the rooftop. The shot of Ishizaki climbing the wall is clear enough to submit to the Disciplinary Committee, but someone needs to formally request an image analysis."
"I've already written the request," Shiina Hiyori said from behind another row of shelves. She walked past with a stack of returned books in her arms, her light chestnut hair tied back with a plain ribbon. "We'll use the Library's interdepartmental assistance channel, not go through the Student Council. We'll say the cross-class report's appendix needs an analysis of the Old School Building's outer wall, and submit the photo as supporting evidence."
Kanzaki Toru took the image-analysis request Shiina handed him. The Library's stamp had already been placed at the bottom of the form. Ishizaki's photo of himself climbing the wall and the dust on Kushida's soles would be sent separately in the same batch of group-project attachments—one like a silent thorn, the other like an invisible net. They would travel through different hands and different channels, arriving quietly on the Disciplinary Committee's desk just as the judges convened. Until then, everything would still look like an ordinary cross-class report.
After school, he ran into Karuizawa Kei in the hallway. She was leaning against a vending machine, holding a can of sweet red bean soup. When she saw him, she pressed something she'd been clutching in her other hand against his chest—another strawberry candy. "I heard your group has finished the report. That was fast. You said before you were just meddling, but it looks like you've turned every little bit of meddling into something useful."
"It was no trouble." He unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth. As the sweetness melted on his tongue, Perception Resonance picked up Karuizawa's current mood—not worry, not pride, but a calm certainty. She was confirming that she was standing in the right place.
"'No trouble.'" She pressed the can of red bean soup to her cheek, using its chill to ease the summer heat. "Then you might as well know that Ryuen went to see Chabashira-sensei this afternoon. Nobody heard what they talked about, but he looked awful when he came out. Not angry, exactly. More like..." She paused. "Like he'd been sitting at a poker table and suddenly realized his opponent was holding a card he hadn't counted on."
Ryuen had gone to see Chabashira. Karuizawa's words carried a hint of glee, but Kanzaki connected them to something else—the message Horikita had sent that morning. She'd said Chabashira-sensei had called Sudo to her office that morning. It hadn't been a scolding, just a casual chat. She'd asked how his training was going and whether he'd bought his wrist guards yet. Sudo had come out looking puzzled and said, "Chabashira-sensei actually cares about people." Chabashira wouldn't have asked about Sudo's wrist guards for no reason. She must have heard from someone that Sudo had nearly lost control and hit someone after Ryuen's trap nearly ensnared him, but had ultimately held back. And now it was clear who that information had come from—the person who had compiled Kanzaki Toru's movements into a timetable.
"Chabashira-sensei—" He began, but Karuizawa cut him off before he could finish.
"Let's not worry about Chabashira-sensei for now." She finished her red bean soup and crushed the can before tossing it into the recycling bin. "There's something I think I should tell you. Kushida invited me to a karaoke booth this weekend. Just the two of us, she said. She wanted to catch up since it'd been so long since we'd had a proper chat. She's invited me before, but this time felt different. After she asked, she added, 'You seem to be getting pretty close with Sakura and the others lately. That's nice.' She was praising me, but I think she was checking on something."
Kanzaki looked at Karuizawa. Her blue eyes held not the slightest hint of a smile, only cool judgment and a trace of patient expectation. The queen bee who once had only pride to shield herself with was now reaching out to test the limits of another girl's disguise.
"Be careful. If she's inviting you to karaoke, she might record you."
"I know. That's why I accepted, but I brought the signal jammer you gave me." She smiled faintly, brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and straightened up. "Don't worry. I won't give her anything to use against me. She wants to find out how far I've gone with you guys, so I'll make sure she can't even tell how many steps I've taken. But Kanzaki, there's something we need to agree on in advance—if Kushida ever gets backed into a corner and lays everything out in front of me, I want to stand right in front of her and ask her why. Not just for you, and not just for the team, but because last semester, when I was at my lowest, I received an anonymous text saying, 'If you need anything, come to me.' Only she knew I got that message. I won't forgive her, but I want to hear from her lips how much of that kindness was real." She didn't wait for his answer. She simply waved and turned toward the setting sun. The swing of her ponytail was as resolute as her words.
By Wednesday night, the final version of the cross-class report had been laid out, and the entire chain of evidence had been secured in an encrypted section of the appendix. On Sakura's monitor was a newly captured image from a camera blind spot: as the rooftop lights blinked, a figure slipped soundlessly along the shadowed corner of the Old School Building's outer wall. It wasn't Ishizaki. The figure wore a school uniform jacket blown tight against their body by the wind. Their shoulders were slender, and they didn't climb over the wall; they simply edged forward along the wall within the camera's blind spot. Enlarging the image revealed a flat paper bag in one hand. Twice, the figure stopped to send a quick message with the other.
Sakura placed the two sequences side by side. At the moment of the second message, the motion sensor on the vending machine at the end of the hallway flashed on. The interval was less than half a second, indicating that the figure was using an infrared signal disruptor. Cutting the vending machine's sensor current without triggering the cameras wasn't the clumsy style of Ryuen's underlings. It looked more like someone was synchronizing and checking a separate, invisible timetable of movements.
At the same time, Horikita sent a message containing just two words: "Approved." Her evidence concerning the old records and the false testimony had officially entered the Disciplinary Committee's internal review process. She had justified her request by citing the rule that Student Council members could access complete historical records involving school regulations. Kushida had been the one to open that door for her.
In his mind, the image of the paper bag joined with that of the signal disruptor. Kushida hadn't gone to the Old School Building that night to retrieve a file. She'd gone to deliver a pair of shoes—the indoor shoes dusted with brick-red powder. They were no longer in her possession. She'd put them in the paper bag and pushed it to the edge of the high wall's shadow, leaving them as lost property for no one to claim. If that chain of evidence was broken, the Disciplinary Committee would find only an empty spot in the shoe locker and never trace it back to her.
But she didn't know that Sakura's camera on the rooftop didn't need to capture her face. It only needed the paper bag and the sensor light that had gone dark and lit up again half a second later.
At midnight, the Library was so quiet that all he could hear was the hum of the air-conditioning. He arranged all his notes in a row, and the document on his screen narrowed to its last line, waiting for a statement of cause and effect. Then he shut off the monitor and let darkness fill the entire floor. Closing his eyes, he opened the Illustrated Guide deep within his consciousness. The Goddess Illustrated Handbook glimmered, and a row of names on its spine flickered softly—Sakura Airi, Shiina Hiyori, Karuizawa Kei, Horikita Suzune. Their pages each shone with a different light, but now a faint golden line was beginning to appear between them. A new prompt emerged from the bottom of the spine: "A minimum trust loop has formed among multiple associated individuals—strategic passive ability 'Asymmetric Insight' unlocked. When a core ally reaches a critical juncture in an information contest, you can sense the direction of a hidden attack one decision cycle earlier than your opponent. Cooldown duration is proportional to the total trust within the loop."
He withdrew from the Guide and opened his eyes. Ryuen was someone who knew how to calculate. People who could calculate every move their opponent made often believed there were only two sides on the board: themselves and their enemy. But Kushida wasn't his ally. On Kushida's board were herself, Ryuen, and Kanzaki too—but that was all right. The jagged edges of an iceberg are real, he told himself, and the ship that crashes into it has no idea how many silent layers of rock lie beneath the surface.
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