Tuesday of the fifth week of summer vacation, Student Council Office.
Horikita Suzune sat at the end of the long table, three folders spread out before her. On the left was a draft of the preliminary briefing for next semester's special exams; on the right was a summary of the activation progress for the Old System's frozen clauses; in the middle was her handwritten "Individual Student Ability Assessments and Collaboration Pairing Recommendations for Class D." The air conditioning in the office was strong, and the cicadas outside had been reduced by the double-glazed windows to a distant background hum. The other Student Council members had all gone to eat, leaving only the soft scratch of her fountain pen across the paper in the entire room. She paused when she reached the line for "Sudo Ken."
At the start of last semester, she had written in that section—"Excellent physical ability, poor emotional control, highly likely to become the target of provocation in competitive events." After the Uninhabited Island, she had crossed it out and changed it to, "Excellent physical ability, capable of maintaining restraint under pressure, should be paired with a calm collaborator." After the Silent Offense and Defense Project, she had crossed it out and rewritten it again—"Excellent physical ability, possesses independent judgment, recommended as a defensive core in team events with data analysis support." Three assessments, spanning an entire semester. She looked at the old comments she had crossed out. Her handwriting had changed from careless to steady, her wording from criticism to recommendation. She used to assess people only by their weaknesses and risks. Now, she had learned to see a person's growth curve—that curve would not be completed by a single hearing or one Uninhabited Island assignment, but it had always been rising. Like Ishizaki Daichi: his