Ryuen Kakeru stood by the window of an empty classroom on the third floor of the Old School Building, watching the sky gradually darken outside. May evenings came a little later than April ones, and the setting sun cast a long band of orange-red light across the gray walls. Wind blew through a broken pane, stirring dust and scraps of paper on the floor. He clutched an access card in his hand—not his own. The card bore the Academic Affairs Office's blue seal and a six-digit number.
He had found the card in his drawer that afternoon. There was no envelope, no note, and no trace of where it had come from. Beneath the card was a handwritten schedule marking a gap in the Encrypted Server Room's staff rotation between six-thirty and seven that evening. He recognized the handwriting. It wasn't Kushida's, but the turns of the strokes were almost identical to the ones she'd used when signing materials for the Disciplinary Committee. She was teaching him what to do without leaving any evidence.
"I found out." Kondo came in through the door, phone in hand, the Disciplinary Committee's public search page on the screen. "Your application about Sudo was rejected. The reason says, 'The original record's Time Anchor has been verified and matches the time of case closure. Tampering is not possible.' That guy Ishizaki hasn't said a thing, even though he was the one who shoved Sudo at the Old School Building. All he has to do is come forward and give a supplementary statement."
Ryuen didn't turn around. The rejection meant someone had already taken precautions with the server logs. They'd acted before him. Kushida had been right—the Disciplinary Committee was a dead end. Someone had already drawn the blade of rules from its sheath.
"Put the Ishizaki matter aside for now." Ryuen slipped the access card into his pocket and turned to Kondo. "Kushida left us another way in. The Encrypted Server Room at six-thirty tonight. We don't need the Disciplinary Committee's seal. We can pull the footage of Sudo straight from the raw data and post it in the class group chat. Class D will blow up on its own. We won't need the Student Council's approval."
"Post the video directly? No waiting for the Disciplinary Committee's process?"
"Their process? Those people are scrutinizing every application I submit with a magnifying glass. By the time it's over, Ishizaki will be sitting at Class D's discussion table." Ryuen pushed open the classroom door, his footsteps echoing down the hall. "If the rules won't let me win by playing fair, then I'll use their methods. Let's see who blinks first when there are no rules."
The Encrypted Server Room was on the basement level of the Main Building East Wing, next to the Logistics Archives Room and the abandoned Mail Room. At six-thirty, the teacher on duty went to the cafeteria for dinner, leaving only the hum of the air-conditioning unit in the corridor. The moment the access card touched the sensor, the light turned green and the lock clicked. Ryuen opened the door to the low rumble of server racks.
He found the Disciplinary Committee's terminal, used the access card's permissions to log into the Student Behavior Record Database, and entered Ken Sudō's student number in the search bar. Dozens of records appeared. Most were routine notes about gym class and other activities, but one was marked "Verbal Warning." He opened it. In the attachments was a thirty-second video showing Sudo and Ishizaki shoving each other by the Equipment Room after gym class last term. The footage was blurry, shot only from the side, but it was clear enough to show Sudo reaching out first. If the video were clipped, cropped, paired with suggestive captions, and posted in the class group chat, the spark Sudo had barely managed to tamp down in Class D would flare up again. That was exactly what Ryuen wanted: Sudo would lose control, Class D would lose points, and the central argument in the cross-class report—that "communication between classes had improved"—would fall apart. If rules couldn't win him the fight, he'd use public opinion.
Ryuen copied the video to a USB drive and logged out. He didn't notice another window opening on its own in the corner of the server. It was locking down every data access and copying operation he performed during his login, one by one. He turned off the lights, opened the door, and disappeared down the hall without hurrying.
Meanwhile, on the roof of the Academic Building, Sakura Airi aimed her telephoto lens at the only ventilation window outside the Encrypted Server Room that faced outward. The window was at the end of the Logistics Passage, hidden behind a row of old filing cabinets. It was small, but it let through the cold glow of the server room's fluorescent lights. By the time she set up her camera, it was already dark. Only the neon lights of the distant Shopping Center cast a small glow across the horizon. She pressed the shutter, and a figure shifted sideways inside the ventilation window—Ryuen. Two minutes later, the photo reached Kanzaki Toru's terminal. It was clear enough to identify him, with a timestamp accurate to the second.
Kanzaki's phone vibrated. He looked up from the desk in his dorm room and studied the photo from Sakura and the newly surfaced server logs for a moment. Then he exported every trace of Ryuen's data activity, encrypted it, split it in two, and sent it to Horikita Suzune and Shiina Hiyori.
Horikita replied with a question mark.
"These are the complete operation logs, along with the original video he accessed. I've already compared them with the appeal he submitted to the Disciplinary Committee. None of what he did tonight was formally authorized. Hold on to this for now; don't use it yet. You're close to Chabashira-sensei, so find a chance next week—not in the office, but in the hallway, by the vending machines, or during some casual moment between classes—to let her happen to see this comparison sheet in your hand. Don't formally submit it. It's just a piece of paper. Leave it somewhere she can see it. She won't ask you anything, but she'll connect all the clues."
Horikita was silent for a while before replying, "You're becoming quite the schemer—but you're heading in the right direction." A few seconds later, she sent another message: "Who were you talking to just now? Your line was busy the whole time." He didn't answer.
Immediately afterward, Shiina called him. "I've converted the logs and organized them into an index that can be submitted directly through the Disciplinary Committee's internal channel. The evidence attachments are ready and can be linked to a submission at any time. But there's something else. Ishizaki just returned a book to the archives. Before leaving, he tucked a folded note into the title page of a collection of Old System documents. He wrote the date and time of the Disciplinary Committee's next regular meeting on it, and drew the location of the Logistics Passage door beside the Equipment Room. He didn't sign it."
"He's drawing his own way out." Kanzaki leaned back in his chair and sank into the darkness, sliced by faint light. Every move from here on was real: Ryuen's video was stored in an encrypted partition deep in the server, and touching it would leave an indelible fingerprint; Ishizaki's note had been filed with the collection of Old System documents, leaving an index number in the Disciplinary Committee's automatic filing system; and that afternoon the Academic Affairs Office had posted a new electrical maintenance notice. The power outage would begin on the floor with the Main Building's server room, cutting power to the servers one floor at a time from the bottom up, with the first outage window beginning at the exact timestamp of Ryuen's login.
Three people, three different routes. They hadn't even told each other what time to meet that night, yet each had completed a perfectly precise leg of the relay as if they'd rehearsed it in advance. One had accessed the data, one had returned a book, and one had photographed a shadow inside the ventilation window.
His terminal vibrated for the third time. Karuizawa Kei sent a voice message, her voice very quiet. In the background, he could faintly hear the echo of karaoke and the distorted tail end of someone singing the chorus. "Kushida didn't come to karaoke tonight. When she asked me to meet her, she said she'd arrive at seven, but it's almost eight and she still hasn't shown up. I called her, but she didn't answer. She hasn't replied to my messages either."
Kanzaki sat up straight. Kushida hadn't gone to karaoke tonight. She'd left Ryuen the card and the schedule, opened a secret passage leading straight to the server room—and then withdrawn into the shadows, beyond the reach of every camera. She hadn't disappeared. She was waiting for a signal. He raised his head and looked out at the night sky, now completely black. A narrow beam from the Guard Tower slowly swept across the outer wall on the east side of the Old School Building.
In the darkness, he sent an encrypted message that was delivered simultaneously to Sakura, Shiina, Horikita, and Karuizawa. The recipients didn't reply, but every branch of Class D's network flickered to life at that moment—not because anyone needed to confirm anything, but because every path knew it had reached a point of no return. The rooftop and the Library, the server room and the Mail Room, the neon-lit karaoke bar and the gravel path outside the Old School Building—all of them were waiting for a signal. And that signal had yet to come.
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