Exam

Monday.

In a classroom at Marineford Military Academy.

Vice Admiral Tsuru sat in a chair on the podium, her hands folded atop the desk as she gazed calmly at the students below.

Among the thirty academy students, some were sprawled over their desks, snoring away; some held pens as they stared at their exam papers in deep thought; others were writing furiously.

The exam was worth a hundred points. Sixty percent covered basic knowledge taught in class, thirty percent consisted of questions requiring a certain amount of thought and calculation, and the remaining ten percent were difficult score-separating questions that required students to combine military theory with navigation in order to solve them.

Whenever Vice Admiral Tsuru looked at these academy students below the podium, she could not help sighing inwardly. She seriously doubted whether the number of students who passed this time would even fill one hand.

Not even five minutes after the exam began, twenty people had already collapsed onto their desks and fallen asleep. Most of those remaining were frowning and hesitating, racking their brains without knowing where to begin.

Ring, ring, ring...!

As the dismissal bell rang, the academy students who had been asleep immediately woke up full of energy. After collecting the exam papers, Vice Admiral Tsuru turned and left the classroom to grade them.

Tokikake, who sat nearby, asked the silver-haired youth across Smoker.

"Hey! Sephiroth, how did you do?"

"I think I did all right," Sephiroth answered casually.

"Haah! Exams are such a pain."

The delinquent student Smoker yawned, stretched lazily, and voiced his opinion.

After saying that, he casually pulled out two cigars, lit them, and stuck them in his mouth.

"Hehehe! I thought this exam was especially difficult. There were so many questions I couldn't solve no matter how hard I thought about them," Tokikake said with a grin.

"Hmph! That's because you never paid attention in class. Vice Admiral Tsuru had actually covered much of what was on the exam. Only the last question was relatively difficult, and it took up quite a bit of my time."

Komei, who sat in front of the three, turned around with a smug look and flaunted his intelligence.

"Giggle! This exam was indeed rather difficult, wasn't it, little Hina..."

Gion, seated behind the three, chuckled as she reached out and repeatedly kneaded Hina's oval face.

"Hmph! Hina is very angry, and the consequences will be severe!

Hina warns Gion to stop this behavior at once!" the pink-haired girl said with dissatisfaction.

"Okay, okay! Be good, Hina. Don't be angry."

Gion withdrew her hands with a grin and stopped teasing her.

As they chatted, the brief break soon came to an end.

Ring, ring, ring...!

Before long, Shuzo, tall and dark-skinned, walked in.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Shuzo raised his fan-sized palm and slammed it hard against the desk several times before shouting loudly.

"Wake the hell up! Class has started!

If any of you dare sleep again, get the hell out there and run two hundred laps around the field."

The moment he said that, the effect was immediate. Those who had been asleep instantly became alert, their eyes wide as they stared at Shuzo on the podium.

"In this class, we'll continue discussing the principles of firearms..."

As the Longarm Tribe man lectured in a booming voice, the academy students below gradually developed blank looks in their eyes and entered a state where everything went in one ear and out the other...

Ring, ring, ring...!

After a long hour, the dismissal bell finally rang. Shuzo stopped teaching on time, but instead of leaving immediately, he remained standing on the podium.

A faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Before long, Vice Admiral Tsuru entered the classroom with an expressionless face. After placing a stack of exam papers on the podium, she turned and left without a word.

"Hehehe...! The results of the exam you just took are out. When I call your name, come up and collect your paper."

With a wicked grin, Shuzo began calling out the names of everyone below the podium one by one.

"Smoker... zero points!"

Hearing Shuzo's slightly teasing voice, Smoker's eyelid twitched. His old face could not help reddening slightly.

Having the whole class know he had scored a zero was truly rather embarrassing!

"Maynard... zero points!"

"Frel... zero points!"

Very quickly, Smoker stopped feeling embarrassed. Plenty of people had scored zero just like him, and he immediately felt much more at ease. He even felt that he had perfectly blended in with the rest of the class.

"Tokikake... fifty-three points!"

"Ah! So I still didn't pass?" Tokikake scratched his head in mild frustration, then walked up to the podium and took his exam paper back from Shuzo.

However...

He suddenly discovered that the looks everyone in the class gave him had changed. He could even sense surprise, admiration, praise, and other emotions among them.

Tokikake: "..."

What was with this feeling of standing out like a crane among chickens?

Fortunately, after Shuzo announced a few more scores, that strange sense of discord quickly faded.

"Domino... sixty-six points!"

"Hina... fifty-nine points!"

"Gion... seventy-two points!"

"Komei... ninety-five points!!!"

When Shuzo read that score, his tone could not help carrying a trace of surprise.

"Wow!"

"He actually scored that high."

"That's ridiculous! I only got twelve points, but he got ninety-five!"

More than twenty academy students cried out in unison, nearly all turning their gazes toward Komei as they whispered among themselves.

"Ah! Who would've thought? Who would've thought? I actually didn't get full marks...

Was it because I didn't answer the final question completely correctly?"

Komei could not stop shaking his head and sighing, but the smug smile stretching nearly to his ears was impossible to hide.

After leaving his seat and walking to the podium to collect his exam paper, he held his head high and puffed out his chest. With an imposing stride, he returned to his seat.

"We're all classmates. If there's anything you don't understand in the future, feel free to ask me!

I'll tell you everything I know."

Komei held up his exam paper and waved it back and forth before Sephiroth, Tokikake, and the others, flaunting his high score and leaving everyone speechless.

"Daddy Masterson... forty-two points!"

"Karl D. Sephiroth... one hundred points."

Gasp!

A chorus of sharp breaths rang out through the classroom. The academy students all stared at Sephiroth in shock. None of them had expected that what they thought was Komei's ninety-five points being the highest score would be followed by a perfect hundred.

"That makes no sense!"

"Unbelievable!"

"Terrifying!"

Amid everyone's exclamations, Sephiroth walked up to the podium and retrieved his exam paper...