In the first week after the second phase ended, Advanced Nurturing High School fell into a peculiar silence. It was neither the oppressive silence before an exam nor the restless unease before a break, but something closer to the calm surface of deep water. Undercurrents still moved slowly beneath it, yet there were no longer any obvious ripples above. More people had begun playing soccer on the field. The clang of barbells in the gym returned to its usual rhythm. Library borrowing, which had peaked during the special exam, dropped back to normal levels, though Shiina Hiyori added a note to her duty log: "Most returned books are on wilderness survival and topographical surveying." In the cafeteria, the popular nutrition sets from the exam period gave way once more to fried chicken bites and cold noodles. Sudo Ken had started agonizing again in front of vending machines over whether to buy a sports drink or soda.
Kanzaki Toru sat by the window on the library's third floor, with the Summary of School System Changes he had brought back from the Old School Building spread open before him. It was turned to page thirty-seven, where pencil writing along the margins looked faintly gray in the afternoon sunlight. He was waiting for Shiina to finish organizing the filing index for the final batch of cross-class reports, and for Sakura to develop the last few photos of the high wall she had taken on the rooftop last week. The exam was over, but the ripples it had left behind were still spreading. Some were at the school level—the final evaluation had yet to be announced, and the activation progress of the Old System clauses was still being updated. Some concerned people—Ishizaki no longer went out of his way to avoid Class D students