Landing

The ferry cut a white wake across the gray-blue sea. Kanzaki Toru stood by the railing, watching an island slowly emerge from the sea fog in the distance. It wasn't a lush island like a tropical resort, but a barren one covered in low shrubs and exposed rock. Its coastline was jagged as a saw, and the only man-made structures in sight were a white lighthouse on the hilltop and a few tin-roofed shacks at its base. The June sea breeze carried a briny smell and a hint of chill as it swept over the railing and slipped down everyone's collars.

"Group 12, you'll land in five minutes. Landing point: South Coast Area B. All groups, check your equipment and make sure your communication devices are fully charged." The staff member's flat instructions came over the ship's PA, accompanied by the sounds of zippers opening and closing and equipment clattering across the deck.

Ishizaki Daichi slung the shared backpack over his shoulder and went to stand beside Kanzaki at the railing. His gaze pierced the thin sea fog and settled on the craggy reef along the island's southern shore. Its texture was almost identical to the brick-red weathered layer on the outer wall of the Old School Building, except for the sheen left by waves washing over it again and again.

"That night at the Old School Building," Ishizaki began abruptly, his voice coming in broken snatches beneath the engine noise, "when I climbed up to the third-floor outer wall, a rusty drainpipe cut my palm. My blood got on the pipe, and once it dried, it blended in with the brick dust. Nobody would have given it a second glance. Back then, Ryuen told me that if I got hold of those materials, I'd be a starter." He opened his hand. The scabbed-over cut on his palm looked pale pink in the morning light. "Thinking about it now, he wasn't promising me a starting spot. He was putting me in a position where I had to trust him. If I didn't, I'd have nothing."

"And what about now?" Kanzaki didn't turn around. He simply tightened the waterproof cover on the shared backpack.

"Now—" Ishizaki slung his own backpack over his shoulder, his movements nothing like they'd been last term, when Ryuen publicly rejected his request to start in the gym. "Now I'm on your team. I won't climb any walls again, but I'll make sure I pass the ball to the right spot."

The ferry reached shore, and the gangway was lowered. South Coast Area B was a coarse-sand beach scattered with broken shells, with a dense thicket of shrubs behind it. A path trampled out by students from previous years wound into the brush and vanished. The metal sign at its entrance was rusted, its lettering barely legible: "Group 12 Camp · 200 Meters East."

Kanzaki stepped onto the beach. His soles sank into the coarse sand and broken shells with a faint crunch. He relayed the division of duties to the group: Morishita Ran would handle communications equipment and inventory; Nomura Takuya would mark the terrain; Hamaguchi Tetsuya would locate water sources; Shiina Hiyori would organize the references for their collaborative project; and Ishizaki would handle heavy lifting and emergencies. Kanzaki would oversee everything and compile the final collaboration report.

At their first full team meeting, Morishita still seemed somewhat uneasy around Ishizaki. Last term, Manabe had repeatedly shared a distorted version of the Old School Building incident in the girls' group chat, portraying Ishizaki as the one who had deliberately set a trap and betrayed Sudo. It wasn't until Ishizaki bent his head over the first-aid kit inventory and pointed to his palm, saying, "I hurt my hand that time too. I wasn't the only one who got hurt," that Morishita glanced at him.

The path to camp was rough going. Thorny vines hung all through the brush, the ground was slick with mud, and tree roots twisted beneath the soil. Ishizaki led the way, cutting through the vines with a folding shovel. Behind him, Hamaguchi marked the tree trunks with a waterproof marker, while Nomura entered the GPS coordinates one by one into the digital map. Kanzaki walked near the back of the group—not because he couldn't lead, but because that was the best place to keep an eye on everyone. Ishizaki was cutting through the vines too fast and had to stop to catch his breath every five minutes. Morishita was so startled by a lizard that she nearly dropped the communications equipment. Nomura preferred marking the map with coordinates, but Shiina needed landmarks, and the two didn't line up. Nobody argued, but the path to camp brought everyone's stamina and working styles into friction. Fortunately, their destination was just ahead.

The camp was more rudimentary than they'd expected. Three tin-roofed shacks formed a U around a trampled clearing. The roofs were rusty, and the windows had nothing but frames, but at least the place was dry. A trickle of spring water ran down the slope behind the camp. The pool was only a little larger than a washbasin; the water was clear but scarce. Inside the shacks were six folding cots, a solar-powered rechargeable desk lamp, and a basic cooking set. In the corner stood a locked wooden chest, with a school seal stuck over its padlock: "Project Supplies, Pending Unlock." Beneath the seal, a line of small print read: "Unlock condition: Team collaboration score must reach Grade B or higher."

"So it's not just survival skills they're testing on this island. We have to figure out how to get the test materials, too." Hamaguchi crouched to examine the heavy padlock, feeling around its back with his fingers. "The lock cylinder's been greased over. Maybe last year's seniors from Class A tried to force it open, but they triggered the alarm and lost points."

Morishita stood to one side, speaking carefully but clearly. "The communications equipment still gets half a bar of signal at the landing point. It drops by one bar every two hundred meters east. The signal-to-noise ratio at camp will only support text. Images and voice messages will lose packets." Nomura immediately spread out the paper map and marked concentric circles of decreasing signal around the southern coast. The paper map and GPS coordinates confirmed each other, while Shiina spread the reference materials over her knee and quickly compared the unlock condition against each clause in the Old System's original "collaboration score" rules.

Kanzaki told everyone to put down their gear and rest for ten minutes. Ishizaki set the shared backpack on the ground and went to wash his face at the spring on the slope. Hamaguchi followed and crouched beside him, collecting a cup of water in a folding cup for a water test strip. Ishizaki didn't look at him, but he didn't turn away either. He simply asked, "We have to boil water from the wild before drinking it, right?" Hamaguchi hummed in agreement and told him to wash the cooking set later. They crouched beside the spring for a while, listening to the birds and the faint rustle of wind brushing over the tops of the shrubs. Then they unwrapped the cooking set and tried lighting it. The flame wavered a little, but steadied at last. The first wisp of cooking smoke rose from the tin roof—not data in a report or an entry in a log, but the first fire truly lit during this cross-class collaboration.

The school sent the first official project of the afternoon to their terminal via satellite text message: each group had to finish surveying the terrain around camp and marking the distribution of resources before the end of the day, then submit a preliminary survival plan and duty assessment form that evening. As Kanzaki received the instructions, he noticed a footnote on the supplementary page: "Part of this project's scoring criteria follows the shared pool allocation principle in the seventh edition of the Old System's trial collaboration memorandum. A resource allocation plan must be submitted to every team member's terminal and approved by at least four members to take effect." As he read the footnote aloud, Shiina was turning to the original text of the "shared pool allocation" clause. Morishita had already divided the fresh water into six equal portions, labeling each with the recipient's team number. Ishizaki looked down at his bottle, then at Morishita—the Class A girl who, just a few hours earlier, had still been wary because of the old rumors. Now she was simply pushing the last bottle of water toward him.

"The Old System's shared pool isn't about equal distribution," Kanzaki said, setting down the terminal and looking around at the group. "It means everyone gains points together and loses points together. But it wasn't abolished because it was too harsh. It was abolished because one person's mistake could be magnified into a penalty for the whole team, leading their teammates to isolate them. Among the six of us, what we need to avoid isn't making mistakes. It's everyone standing around with their arms crossed when someone does. So when we submit our allocation plan tonight, every adjustment needs a reason attached—not 'equal shares,' but 'why this person is getting this share.' Add the reasons at the end of the plan, and the shared pool's supplementary clause will automatically unlock the collaboration score cap."

Nobody objected. In the brief silence, the only sound was water simmering faintly in the cooking pot. The six folding cots had been set up, and a solar desk lamp quietly lit up as the sky darkened. Ishizaki twisted open his bottle and took a drink. Hamaguchi continued marking the next water source on his map, while Morishita entered everyone's reasons into the draft collaboration assessment form. All six lines in the duty chart's signature column were filled in.

The last wisp of smoke vanished, and the rechargeable lamp cast overlapping shadows of the team. Kanzaki pressed confirm on the submit button. The terminal's signal light turned deep green, and at the same moment, the school system automatically unlocked the wooden chest with its seal still intact. The lid sprang open. There were no luxuries inside, but a set of water purification filters, a deeper folding bucket, a precision map-measuring wheel, and six individually wrapped emergency biscuits.

Ishizaki looked at the label on his pack of biscuits, then at Morishita's and Hamaguchi's. Every pack had the same batch number. The first benefit of the shared pool wasn't in the report. It was right there in the neat row of identical wrappers. After training, he was always in the habit of mooching a bottle of water. This time, he stowed the biscuits in his gear bag and began using the folding shovel to widen the water collection point on the slope.

The sea fog thickened again. Every ten seconds, the lighthouse's white beam swept across the tin roofs. Tomorrow, the sun would rise over the horizon. They had just completed their first day, and a name had only just been written beside every drop of water in the shared pool.