Second Phase

On the afternoon of the fifth day on the uninhabited island, four ferries carrying the twelve cooperative groups departed from the southern shore. The sea was calm as blue-gray satin, and the sea breeze carried a faint salty tang over the high walls, just like the day they had set sail five days earlier. But the people on deck had changed. Ishizaki Daichi leaned against the railing, holding the group assignment confirmation sheet that had been folded countless times, its edges already frayed. Unlike on the way there, when he had stood alone at the very edge of the railing, staring at the reef, he now sat in the semicircle formed by Group 12, listening to Hamaguchi tell a story about Class B's freshwater testing mishap during last year's field training. Nomura spread the paper map across his knees and traced the final backup evacuation route in red pen, checking the coordinate numbers with Shiina as he went. Morishita Ran had turned the signal bars on the communication devices into a line graph and attached it to the final page of the Shared Pool appendix. Shiina took the chart and added a line to the index: "Signal attenuation curve positively correlates with cooperation scores; correlation coefficient to be verified in Phase Two."

Kanzaki Toru sat on a bench by the railing, his terminal screen glowing. Horikita Suzune had sent a summary of the first phase's Class Point changes: Class D had gained a net eighty-seven points, while Class C had lost twenty-three, since Ryuen's independent task group had incurred no deductions and Manabe's group had been held back by its freshwater crisis project. The school's system had marked Ryuen's independent observation report as "Phase One cooperation reference data." The designation did not directly contribute Class Points, but it had been incorporated into the initial weighting reference for the Phase Two competition. The collaborative evaluation for Group 8, which included Karuizawa and Sakura, had steadily improved, and Morishita Ran had forwarded their water-quality sampling data to the intergroup channel as well. Karuizawa added a strawberry candy symbol at the end of her message. Sakura posted a photo in the group chat—not of the high walls, but of the solar-powered lantern on the tin roof, with the group members sitting beneath it as they checked their data.

Just as he was about to put his phone away, an encrypted message appeared. The sender's signature was "&." "Some Phase Two events will follow the old group competition framework. One item on the competition list is 'one-on-one competition without physical contact.' The original rules were once taken from the Old School Building Archive Room and later returned. They were returned on the same day you entered the archive." Attached to the message was a screenshot of the clause numbers in the old group competition framework. Beside one of them was a Disciplinary Committee permission level that Ryuen had applied to access last term but had never been granted.

Kanzaki Toru stared at the last line—during the final seconds before his connection cut off after the defense, Ryuen had sent Teacher Sakagami an additional draft of the Shared Pool proposal. After everyone had signed off, Sakagami forwarded the draft to Shiina, who then encoded the number of the "competition rules" clause it contained and sent it to him. In the proposal draft, Ryuen had used the report comparing the pipe coating touched by Ishizaki the night he climbed the wall as his data source, deriving an old clause whose access level even he himself had never formally applied for. Kanzaki Toru locked the message and screenshot in an encrypted folder and noted in his memo: "Old group competition framework: some clauses activated. The independent observer's permission level may automatically increase upon approval of the proposal." Afterward, he deleted the draft, leaving only the symbol "&."

The ferry docked. The gray high walls blocked most of the sea breeze at the pier, leaving only a faint salty tang and the lingering scent of grass from late May. Ken Sudō waited for Ishizaki at the pier exit. The two didn't say much; they simply walked side by side toward the vending machines, their shadows cast by the machine lights onto the track around the field. Kanji Ike followed behind and added, "Did anyone bring anything that works especially well for insect bites?" Hamaguchi laughed and tossed him a partly used tube of insect repellent.

That evening, each class held a Phase Two briefing for its groups. Chabashira-sensei put the general framework for the competition up on the classroom screen: physical contests, strategic games, cooperation efficiency assessments, and a group event marked "Rules to be announced." She mentioned that "some old system clauses will remain in effect in Phase Two," then switched to the Disciplinary Committee's public listing of independent task progress. Three tasks appeared beside Ryuen Kakeru's name: Observation Report (submitted), Mandatory Supplement (passed), and Final Literature Review (under re-evaluation). Beside Manabe Shiho's name was only one line: "Advisory group assessment ongoing; not yet included in competition assignments." Ishizaki's name had officially appeared on Group 12's initial Phase Two roster.

Teacher Sakagami sent Kanzaki Toru a private message from his internal account, only a few lines long: "Your group recorded the relationship between the drainage ditch's excavation angle and the water flow rate during the storm. This data will be important to the upcoming update of the Island Survival Manual. Once updated, the manual will be used in training materials for next year's new students, with Group 12 credited."

After reading the message, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered one last glance back at the tin-roofed cabin before leaving: the mountain spring, pressed beneath a dead tree, had continued flowing silently into the water intake, and the water in the Shared Pool had made no sound as it reached the full mark. At that moment, Ishizaki's voice message, still unanswered, rested quietly on his phone. Half a bottle of sports drink remained in its original spot in the supply-sharing area, while Ishizaki himself was already walking beside Sudō toward the vending machines at the pier, their arms barely a fist's width apart. A sports drink and a soda rolled out of the retrieval slots at the same time.

He opened the memo on his terminal and reviewed the number of the old system clause attached to the encrypted message. The files Ryuen had no permission to access, the bloodstain comparison report from when Ishizaki climbed the wall and left blood on the drainage pipe, and a Shared Pool derivative clause approved during the storm on the uninhabited island—all three pointed to the same upcoming group competition rule. He drew a line beneath "one-on-one competition without physical contact," then put a question mark beside it. The question mark did not mean he was uncertain. He was waiting for the answer that would soon turn "Rules to be announced" into an official event schedule: when the old group competition framework was activated, the person who had left brick-red shoeprints in the Old School Building Archive Room would also appear at the edge of the playing field.

The storm had passed over the island. Another storm was about to make landfall on campus in late June.