Manabu Horikita's Confession

Watching Bai Mu's carefree figure disappear, the wind swept lightly past the front of the school building, scattering the last traces of morning warmth.

Manabu Horikita still stood tall, his cool features utterly undisturbed. Compared with Akane Tachibana's astonishment, his state of mind was so steady it bordered on indifference. As the man who had held authority over the entire student body and stood at the pinnacle of Advanced Nurturing High School for three years, he had long seen countless geniuses with different talents. Ordinary excellence could not stir the slightest ripple in his heart.

He knew the caliber of this school's freshmen all too well. The geniuses admitted each year might each have their own strengths, but no one had ever been like Bai Mu—seeing through the artificial loopholes in the upperclassmen's points system and uncovering the school's hidden experimental rules within only a few days of enrollment. That level of perspective and insight had already surpassed the limitations of an ordinary first-year student.

As his thoughts settled, Manabu Horikita's mind inevitably drifted to his troublesome younger sister—Suzune Horikita.

At that thought, the student council president universally acknowledged as the school's strongest student rarely showed a trace of weary helplessness. He raised a hand and gently rubbed his brow, looking every bit like someone being mercilessly dragged down by his own family.

Others only knew him as the most outstanding student council president since the school's founding, a genius held up by the school as its model student, an all-round powerhouse who crushed every peer of his generation. Few knew just how exhausting his three years of high school had truly been.

Manabu Horikita's strength was never an empty reputation.

Gifted in both academics and martial arts, an all-rounder without weaknesses—there was no more fitting description for him. His academic performance had consistently ranked first in his grade, he had won more competition awards than he could count, and his abilities in logical deduction, rule analysis, and strategic planning far exceeded even his teachers' expectations. His physical prowess was even more terrifying: fifth-dan karate and fourth-dan aikido, strength that stood at the ceiling among all enrolled students.

Even Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, who had been meticulously trained by the White Room and specialized in combat training, could only barely match him in a pure contest of physical ability.

Beyond that, his eye for judging people, grasp of the bigger picture, and organizational leadership were leagues beyond those of his peers. By himself, he could precisely control the rhythm of his class, maneuver through the school's rules, and balance the forces of every grade. Miyabi Nagumo, the second-year's top powerhouse, was wildly ambitious and immensely proud, treating everyone as an opponent—yet Manabu Horikita was the one person he deeply feared.

Yet this nearly perfect top-tier powerhouse had been brought down by his own class and little sister. It was an absolute disaster of a starting hand.

Manabu Horikita's Class 3-A was supposedly a top class, but in reality, it could be called the weakest A Class in the school's history.

Aside from him holding up the facade alone, most of his classmates were mediocre in aptitude and ordinary in ability. They had no remarkable talent, no top-tier strength, and lacked even basic awareness of the bigger picture. Other A Classes were filled with elites who worked together and steadily held the lead. His A Class was one king carrying a pack of bronze-tier players, struggling forward under the burden the entire way.

For three years, all major and minor class affairs, every external contest, nearly every scoring task, and every plan to avoid point deductions had been handled almost entirely by Manabu Horikita alone.

It was no exaggeration to say that the only reason this A Class had firmly held its position at the top and never fallen in the rankings was not because the class as a whole was strong. It was purely because Manabu Horikita himself was too strong, forcibly dragging an entire mediocre class through the mire of brutal competition and keeping it on its feet.

Even student council secretary Akane Tachibana had bluntly complained that every member of their class was holding the president back. Over three years, Manabu Horikita had relied solely on himself to make up for every weakness in the entire class.

After enduring three years of carrying that burden, he had thought he would finally graduate smoothly, cast off the dead weight, and move on to a higher stage. Instead, his own younger sister had plunged headfirst into this hellish academy, continuing to give him headaches.

The more he thought of Suzune Horikita, the heavier Manabu Horikita's helplessness became.

To outsiders, Suzune Horikita was beautiful, academically exceptional, disciplined, hardworking, and intensely driven—a model genius girl with a promising future.

But only Manabu Horikita, her older brother, knew how many flaws lay beneath his sister's seemingly polished exterior.

From childhood onward, Suzune Horikita had worshipped him to an extreme degree, almost obsessively imitating everything about him and completely becoming his shadow—yet she had failed to learn even a fraction of his clarity and broad-mindedness.

When they were young, he had casually told a probing lie, saying that he liked girls with long hair. From then on, Suzune Horikita had resolutely kept her hair long for years, refusing to cut it short despite all the inconveniences, simply to suit his preferences.

In Manabu Horikita's eyes, this blind imitation and stubborn loss of self was especially childish and ridiculous.

More fatally, Suzune had copied his way of doing things wholesale, yet learned only the surface without grasping the core.

His aloof personality and dislike of meaningless socializing came from seeing through human nature long ago. He was skilled at operating independently and making plans, had no need to maintain his strength through cliques, and though distant with others, he understood moderation—knowing when to advance and retreat, capable of both firmness and flexibility.

Suzune Horikita's isolation, on the other hand, came purely from social anxiety, awkwardness, and a lack of understanding of human relationships.

She had mistakenly taken "being unable to socialize and disdaining group activities" for the pride of the strong, and "going it alone and fighting solo" for the standard equipment of a top powerhouse. She was clearly terrible at dealing with people, yet stubbornly pretended to be cold and distant, deliberately pushed everyone away, rejected all goodwill, and ultimately turned herself into someone completely isolated and without support.

In Manabu Horikita's eyes, his sister was not some cold and powerful person at all. She was merely making a clumsy imitation of someone else.

He did not engage in pointless socializing because he had no need to fit in; Suzune rejected everyone because she did not dare to fit in.

He seemed indifferent, yet could precisely manage interpersonal relationships, weigh advantages and disadvantages, and win people over. Suzune seemed proud and aloof, but in truth she was only avoiding social interaction and flattering herself, using a cold exterior to conceal her cowardice and clumsiness.

What gave him the greatest headache was that Suzune was completely unaware of her own problems.

She had always naively believed that as long as she worked hard enough and became exceptional enough academically, she could replicate her brother's path to success—single-handedly lead Class D to turn the tables against the odds and rise to Class A.

But she did not understand that at Advanced Nurturing High School, strength had never been measured by grades on paper alone. Social skills, teamwork, control over people's hearts, strategic maneuvering, and calculation were all core standards by which strength was judged.

No matter how outstanding her academic ability was, without any capacity to coordinate with others, understand people, borrow strength, or adapt to circumstances, she was destined to find every step difficult in this brutal academy.

When the siblings had studied in different places before, he could at least ignore what he could not see. But now Suzune had entered this school, fully stepping into this cruel chessboard, and had even been placed precisely in Class D—a class packed with problems and sharply divided extremes.

His sister was full of obsession and weaknesses, yet still dreamed of changing her fate through solo struggle, trying to break out while surrounded by every kind of monster in Class D. It was practically a hell-difficulty start—nothing but wasted effort and futile struggle.

If Suzune Horikita were not truly his biological younger sister, tied to him by unbreakable blood, he would seriously suspect that she was some top-tier troll sent to mess with him.

The more Manabu Horikita thought about it, the more exhausted he became, and the firmer his desire to persuade her to leave grew.

Rather than let his sister keep running into walls amid endless class conflicts and games of human nature, draining herself dry and being played in others' hands, it would be better for her to withdraw early and transfer away from this people-eating academy.

At least at an ordinary school, she could still be a carefree top student. She would not have to learn to scheme against others, be forced into brutal competition, or push herself to adapt to dark rules.