Landing

The ferry carved a white wake across the gray-blue sea. Kanzaki Toru stood by the railing, watching the island slowly emerge from the sea mist in the distance. It was not a lush, tropical vacation spot, but a barren island covered in low shrubs and exposed rock strata. Its coastline was jagged like a saw, and the only visible man-made structures were a white lighthouse on the summit and a few corrugated iron shacks at the foot of the mountain. The June sea breeze, carrying a salty, fishy scent and a hint of chill, swept over the railing and into everyone's collars.

"Group 12, landing in five minutes. Landing point: South Coast Area B. Please check your equipment and ensure your communication devices are fully charged," the flat, mechanical voice of a faculty member came through the ship's broadcast. On the deck, a chorus of zippers opening and equipment clattering erupted.

Ishizaki Daichi slung the communal backpack over his shoulder and walked to the railing to stand beside Kanzaki Toru. His gaze pierced through the sea mist and landed on the craggy reef cluster on the south side of the island. The texture of the weathered, brick-red layers on those reefs was almost identical to the exterior walls of the Old School Building, only with an added sheen from the constant washing of the waves.

"That night at the Old School Building," Ishizaki suddenly spoke, his voice intermittent under the roar of the engine, "when I climbed the exterior wall to the third floor, my palm was cut by rust on the drainpipe. The blood stained the pipe, and once it dried, it mixed with the brick dust—no one would have looked twice. Back then, Ryuen told me that as long as I got those materials, the starting position would be mine." He opened his palm; the scabbed scratch glowed a pale pink in the morning light. "Thinking back now, he didn't promise me a starting spot; he put me in a position where I had to trust him. Because if I didn't trust him, I would have had nothing left."

"And what about now?" Kanzaki Toru did not turn his head, merely tightening the waterproof cover on the communal backpack.

"Now—" Ishizaki also slung his backpack over his shoulder, his movements entirely different from when his request for a starting position was publicly rejected in the gymnasium last semester. "Now I'm in your group. I won't be climbing any more walls, but I will pass the ball to the right spot."

The ferry docked, and the gangway was lowered. South Coast Area B was a stretch of coarse sand mixed with broken shells, backed by impenetrable thickets. A narrow path, trampled by students from the previous year, wound its way into the depths of the brush. The iron sign at the entrance was rusted, but the writing was still legible: "Group 12 Camp · 200 meters East."

Kanzaki Toru stepped onto the beach, his soles sinking into the mixture of coarse sand and shell fragments with a faint crunching sound. He relayed the division of labor to his group members one by one: Morishita Ran would be responsible for communication equipment and inventory; Nomura Takuya for terrain mapping; Hamaguchi Tetsuya for water source location; Shiina Hiyori for organizing the literature basis for the collaborative project; and Ishizaki for physical labor and emergencies. He himself would oversee the overall situation and be responsible for the final integration of the collaborative report.

Morishita Ran still felt a bit unnatural around Ishizaki during their first full meeting—last semester, Manabe had repeatedly forwarded a distorted version of the Old School Building incident in the girls' group chats, describing Ishizaki as someone who had actively set a trap to betray Sudo. It wasn't until Ishizaki looked down while counting the first-aid kits and pointed to his palm, saying, "I hurt my hand that time too; it wasn't a one-sided act of harm," that she finally glanced at him.

The path to the camp was not easy. The thickets were draped with thorny vines, the ground was wet and muddy, and tree roots twisted and coiled beneath the soil. Ishizaki walked in front, hacking through the vines with a folding shovel; Hamaguchi followed, marking the tree trunks with a waterproof marker; Nomura entered GPS coordinates into the electronic map one by one. Kanzaki Toru walked in the middle-rear of the line—not because he couldn't lead, but because this position was best for observing everyone's state. Ishizaki's frequency of hacking vines was too fast, forcing him to stop and pant every five minutes. Morishita Ran was so startled by a lizard that she nearly dropped the communication device. Nomura was used to marking the map with coordinates, but the landmark names Shiina needed didn't match the coordinates. No one argued, but everyone's stamina and collaborative styles rubbed against each other on this path to the camp. Fortunately, the goal was just ahead.

The camp was simpler than imagined. Three corrugated iron shacks formed a U-shape, with a flattened clearing in the center. The roofs were rusted, and the windows were just frames without glass, but at least they were dry. The water source was a tiny mountain spring on the back slope; the pool was only twice the size of a sink, and while the water was clear, it was not abundant. Inside the shacks were six folding cots, a solar-powered desk lamp, and a set of simple cooking utensils. In the corner sat a locked wooden box with a school seal on the padlock: "Project Supplies, Awaiting Unlock." Below the seal was a line of small print—Unlock Condition: Group collaboration score must reach Grade B or higher.

"So, the island isn't just testing survival skills; it's testing how to obtain the test questions," Hamaguchi crouched down to examine the heavy iron lock, feeling the back of it with his fingers. "The lock cylinder has been oiled; seniors from Class A might have tried to force it open last year, but it triggered an alarm and deducted points."

Morishita stood to the side, her tone cautious but clear: "The communication equipment still has half a bar of signal at the landing point, and it drops one bar every two hundred meters to the east. The signal-to-noise ratio at the camp can only support text transmission; images and voice packets will lose frames." Nomura immediately spread out the paper topographic map and marked the signal decay circles around the south coast—the paper map and GPS coordinates verified each other. Meanwhile, Shiina spread the literature materials on her knees, rapidly comparing the unlocking conditions with the original text of the "Collaboration Scoring" clauses in the Old System.

Kanzaki Toru told everyone to put down their equipment and rest for ten minutes. Ishizaki placed the communal backpack on the ground and walked to the mountain spring on the back slope to wash his face. Hamaguchi followed and crouched beside him, using a folding cup to catch some water for a water quality test strip. Ishizaki didn't look at him, but he didn't turn his face away either, simply asking, "Wild water needs to be boiled before drinking, right?" Hamaguchi hummed in agreement and told him to wash the cooking utensils later. The two squatted by the spring for a while, listening to the birds and the faint sound of the wind brushing over the tops of the shrubs, then together they unpacked the cooking gear and tried lighting the stove. The flame flickered, but eventually stabilized. The first wisp of smoke rose from the corrugated iron roof—not data from a report or an index from a log, but the first fire truly ignited in this cross-class collaboration.

The first official task of the afternoon was sent by the school via satellite short message to their terminals: each group had to complete terrain mapping and resource distribution marking around the camp within the day, and submit a preliminary survival plan and a division of labor assessment form by evening. While receiving the instructions, Kanzaki Toru flipped to a footnote on the supplementary page: "The scoring criteria for this project partially adopt the shared pool allocation principles from the seventh edition of the Old System's collaborative trial guidelines—the resource allocation plan within the group must be submitted to the entire group's terminals and approved by at least four members to take effect." As he read this footnote aloud, Shiina was flipping to the original text of the "shared pool allocation" clause. Morishita had already divided the fresh water into six equal portions, each with a label for the group member. Ishizaki looked down at his bottle of water, then at Morishita—the Class A girl who had been worried about old rumors just hours ago was now simply pushing the last bottle of water toward him.

"The Old System's shared pool," Kanzaki Toru put down his terminal, his gaze sweeping over the group in front of him, "isn't about equal distribution; it's about scoring and losing points together. But the reason it was abolished back then wasn't because it was too harsh, but because one person's mistake was magnified into a group-wide point deduction, leading to the penalized person being ostracized by their teammates. What the six of us need to avoid isn't making mistakes, but standing by idly when someone else does. So, when we submit the allocation plan tonight, every allocation must be accompanied by a reason—not 'equal share,' but 'why it was given to this person.' If the reason is attached to the end of the plan, the supplementary clauses of the shared pool will automatically unlock the cap on the collaboration score."

No one objected; in the brief silence, there was only the faint boiling sound of hot water in the pot. The six cots had already been set up, and a solar desk lamp quietly lit up as the sky grew dark. Ishizaki unscrewed his water bottle and took a sip, Hamaguchi continued to mark the next water source on his map, and Morishita entered each person's reason into the draft of the collaboration assessment form one by one. On the electronic screen of the division of labor table, all six lines in the signature column were filled.

The last wisp of smoke from the camp faded, and the residual light from the battery-powered lamp overlapped everyone's shadows. Kanzaki Toru pressed confirm on the submit button, and the terminal's signal light turned deep green. At the same time, the school system automatically unlocked the tightly sealed wooden box. The lid popped open; inside were not luxuries, but a set of water purification filter cartridges, a deeper folding water bucket, a set of precision map measuring wheels, and six individually packaged emergency biscuits.

Ishizaki looked at the label on his pack of biscuits; it was the same as Morishita's and Hamaguchi's, each marked with the same batch number. The first benefit of the shared pool wasn't in the report, but right there on those neatly arranged packages. He usually had a habit of mooching a bottle of water after training, but this time, he tucked the biscuits into his gear bag and began using the folding shovel to widen the water collection point on the back slope.

The sea mist grew thicker, and the white beam of the lighthouse swept over the corrugated iron roof every ten seconds. Tomorrow, the sun would rise from the horizon. And they had just completed their first day; every drop of water in the shared pool had just had its name written down.