Second Stage

On the afternoon of the fifth day on the uninhabited island, four ferries carrying twelve collaborative groups departed from the south shore. The sea was as calm as gray-blue silk, and the sea breeze, carrying a faint, briny scent, blew in from beyond the high walls—the exact same scent as when they had set sail five days prior. But the people on the deck were different. Ishizaki Daichi leaned against the ship's railing, holding the group confirmation sheet that had been folded so many times the edges were already fraying. He no longer stood at the very edge of the railing staring at the reefs alone as he had on the way there; instead, he sat within the semi-circle formed by Group 12, listening to Hamaguchi recount the blunder involving freshwater testing that Class B had encountered during their field training last year. Nomura spread a paper map across his knees, using a red pen to thicken the lines of the final backup evacuation route, checking coordinate numbers with Shiina as he drew. Morishita Ran had compiled the signal strength of their communication devices into a line graph, which she pasted onto the final page of the shared pool appendix. Shiina took the chart and added a line to the index: "Signal attenuation curve is positively correlated with collaborative scoring; correlation coefficient pending verification in the second phase."

Kanzaki Toru sat on a bench by the railing, his terminal screen glowing. Horikita Suzune had sent a summary of the class point fluctuations from the first phase: Class D had a net increase of eighty-seven points, while Class C had a net decrease of twenty-three points, as Ryuen Kakeru's independent task group had incurred no penalties, but the freshwater crisis project handled by Manabe Shiho's group had dragged them down. Ryuen's independent observation report had been marked by the school's backend as "Phase One Collaborative Reference Data." Although this mark did not directly contribute to class points, it was incorporated into the initial weight reference for the second phase of the confrontation. The collaborative evaluation of Group 8, where Karuizawa and Sakura were located, had risen steadily, and Morishita Ran had forwarded their group's water quality sampling data to the inter-group channel. Karuizawa added a strawberry candy emoji to the end of her message. Sakura posted a photo in the group—not of the high walls, but of the solar-powered desk lamp on the tin roof, with her group members sitting around it, checking data under its light.

Just as he was about to put his phone away, an encrypted message popped up. The sender was signed "&." "The second phase of the confrontation project partially adopts the framework of the Old System team competition. One of the items on the confrontation list is 'non-contact one-on-one competition,' the original rules for which were retrieved from the Old School Building Archive Room and then returned. The date they were returned is the same day you entered the archive room." The end of the message included a screenshot of the clause numbers from the Old System team competition framework, with one of the numbers marked with the Disciplinary Committee clearance level that Ryuen had applied to view last semester but had never been granted.

Kanzaki Toru stared at the final line—in the last few seconds before the connection cut off at the end of the defense, Ryuen had sent an additional draft of the shared pool argument to Sakagami. After everyone had logged off, Sakagami had forwarded that draft to Shiina, and Shiina had then decoded the number of that "competition rule" and sent it to him. In his argument draft, Ryuen had used the comparison report of the pipeline coating that Ishizaki had touched the night he climbed the wall as data, deducing an old clause locked by a clearance level that even he himself had not officially applied for. Kanzaki Toru locked the message and the screenshot into an encrypted partition and jotted a line in his memo: "Old System team competition framework, partial clauses activated. Independent observer clearance level may automatically upgrade upon argument approval." After writing it, he deleted the draft, leaving only an "&" symbol.

The ferry docked. The sea breeze at the pier was mostly blocked by the gray high walls, leaving only a faint, briny scent and the lingering smell of grass from late May. Sudo Ken waited for Ishizaki at the pier exit. The two didn't say much, simply walking side-by-side toward the vending machine, their shadows cast onto the track of the playground by the machine's lights along the way. Ike Kanji followed behind, adding, "Is there any special medicine for mosquito bites on the island?" Hamaguchi laughed and tossed him a tube of leftover anti-itch cream.

That evening, preliminary briefings for the second phase were held within each class group. Chabashira projected the general framework of the confrontation projects onto the screen during the class meeting—physical confrontation, strategic gaming, collaborative efficiency assessment, and a team competition marked as "rules to be announced." She mentioned that "certain Old System clauses will remain in effect during the second phase," then switched to the independent task progress column posted by the Disciplinary Committee. Behind Ryuen Kakeru's name were three tasks: Observation Report (Submitted), Mandatory Completion (Passed), and Final Literature Review (Under Review). Behind Manabe Shiho's name was only a single line: "Counseling group assessment ongoing, temporarily not included in confrontation groups." Ishizaki's name, however, had officially appeared on the initial list for Group 12 for the second phase.

Sakagami sent a private message to Kanzaki Toru via his internal account, containing only a few lines: "Your group recorded the correspondence between the excavation angle of the drainage ditch and the flow rate during the storm. This data is important for the upcoming update to the island survival manual. Once the manual is updated, it will be used as training material for the next batch of freshmen, credited to Group 12."

After reading the message, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered his last look at the tin house before leaving; the mountain spring that had been pressed by dead wood was still silently pouring into the intake, and there was no sound when the water in the shared pool reached the full mark. At this moment, Ishizaki's unreplied voice message was still quietly floating on his phone, and half a bottle of sports drink remained in its original spot in the supply sharing area, while Ishizaki himself was already on the pier walking toward the vending machine with Sudo, only a fist's distance between their arms, as a sports drink and a soda rolled out of the dispenser simultaneously.

He opened his terminal memo and reviewed the Old System clause numbers attached to the encrypted message once more. The files Ryuen didn't have permission to view, the bloodstain comparison report left on the drainpipe when Ishizaki climbed the wall, and a shared pool derivative clause approved during the storm on the uninhabited island—all three pointed to the same soon-to-be-announced team competition rule. He drew a line under "non-contact one-on-one competition" and then placed a question mark next to it. This question mark was not out of uncertainty, but rather in anticipation of the answer that was about to change from "rules to be announced" to an official schedule—when the Old System team competition framework was activated, the person who had left brick-red shoe prints in the Old School Building Archive Room would also appear at the edge of the arena.

The storm had passed on the island, and another storm was about to make landfall on campus in late June.