Noticing Mayumi Saegusa looking at him, Yunyi chuckled. "Looks like the problem's been solved? Then I'll wait to hear from you."
With that, Yunyi walked backstage into the auditorium as Mayumi Saegusa watched. In a blind spot out of the cameras' view, he removed his mask and climbed out a window to leave the auditorium.
Almost all the students at First High School, apart from the Public Morals Committee and Student Council members, had gathered in the auditorium. As a result, Yunyi was the only person wandering around campus.
Just as he was about to leave school, someone suddenly called out behind him.
"Liu Yunyi, please wait a moment."
Yunyi turned to look and saw a student from the Public Morals Committee. Unlike the other Course 1 Students, he did not draw such a clear distinction between Course 1 and Course 2 Students. He also seemed to think highly of his junior, Tatsuya Shiba.
"Can I help you with something?" Yunyi looked at him in confusion.
"Chairwoman Watanabe sent me. We saw you just as we were wrapping up, so she asked me to call you over and have you go to the infirmary."
Yunyi was at a loss for words. He had slipped away precisely to avoid Tatsuya Shiba and the others, so there would be no unnecessary complications later over who got Hajime Tsukasa. Yet Mari Watanabe had spotted him before he had even left campus?
"Well, I have some things to take care of at home, so I need to go back first. Sorry for the trouble, but could you tell Chairwoman Watanabe for me? I don't have her contact information."
Yunyi had phrased it tactfully, but his meaning was clear. The other student was no fool and naturally understood what he meant.
"Oh, I see. All right, I'll let the chairwoman know for you. But things got a little out of hand today, so please be careful on your way home."
With that, he gave Yunyi a slight nod, then turned and left.
Yunyi watched him leave and breathed a small sigh of relief. Fortunately, the student hadn't been too inflexible, or things really would have been troublesome.
"Now I just have to wait for Mayumi to tell me where Hajime Tsukasa is hiding. Tsk, tsk, a rat in the gutter. Hopefully he knows where that old black bug is hiding."
In First High School's infirmary.
Mayumi Saegusa and the others were questioning Sayaka Mibu.
Because Yunyi had revealed Blanche's objective in advance, Mayumi Saegusa had specifically arranged for Katsuto Jumonji to lead the school's defenders in an ambush near the practical skills building. As a result, the detachment Sayaka Mibu had led was subdued as soon as it entered the building.
But the detained Sayaka Mibu was not in a normal state of mind. Sitting on a hospital bed, she stared resentfully at everyone in the infirmary.
"Saegusa, what do you think?"
After an unknown length of silence, Katsuto Jumonji finally spoke. He looked at Mayumi Saegusa, who was standing beside him, and asked for her opinion.
"Mibu's emotional state is very abnormal..."
Suddenly, Mayumi Saegusa remembered something. A piece of information Yunyi had given her the night before came to mind.
"That guy's name is Hajime Tsukasa. He's the older brother of Kinoe Tsukasa, the captain of First High School's kendo club. He specializes in an inferior form of hypnotic magic that imitates Evil Eye, a consciousness-interfering non-systematic magic. He used it to control and brainwash Kinoe Tsukasa."
"I remember now!" Mayumi Saegusa exclaimed. "The intelligence I received included some information about Blanche's Japan branch chief! He specializes in a form of hypnotic magic. Mibu may well have come into contact with him, so she may have been hypnotized and placed under his control!"
Everyone in the infirmary was startled by Mayumi Saegusa's words.
"Saegusa, is your intelligence reliable?" Katsuto Jumonji pressed.
"Yes, I can guarantee it's reliable. I made today's arrangements based on that intelligence too. Jumonji-kun, you saw the results yourself," Mayumi Saegusa explained.
"I see," Katsuto Jumonji said.
"Oh, so she was hypnotized?"
Erika Chiba, standing beside Tatsuya Shiba, suddenly murmured under her breath. She had come along with Tatsuya after hearing some things about Sayaka Mibu, but she hadn't expected to hear a conversation like this.
"Hypnotized!? Nothing of the sort happened! I volunteered to help the captain and the others!"
Unexpectedly, Sayaka Mibu, sitting on the hospital bed, suddenly erupted after hearing their conversation.
"There is unequal, discriminatory treatment, so why won't any of you take it seriously! Why are you blaming someone else! I'm not wrong! I'm not! You're the ones who are wrong, you people who look down on Course 2 Students!"
As they listened to Sayaka Mibu's furious accusations, a hint of helplessness finally appeared on the faces of Mayumi Saegusa and the others.
But just then, Tatsuya Shiba suddenly spoke. "Mibu, face reality. An equal world where everyone receives the same treatment exists only in fairy tales. If we ignored natural gifts and talent, as you and the others say we should, this world would become a world indifferent to everyone."
"What! What do you know! We work so hard! We..."
"Don't be so naive, Mibu!"
But Sayaka Mibu had barely begun her rebuttal when Tatsuya Shiba rudely cut her off.
"Everyone in this world is different, so naturally the magic they excel at is different too. Talent isn't something that exists only in the concept of magic. Take the kendo you excel at, for example. Do you think the honors you've earned should also be awarded to people of average skill who only treat kendo as a pastime?"
At Tatsuya Shiba's mention of kendo, Sayaka Mibu's expression finally shifted. In fact, at the root of her feeling that she had been treated unequally was, in part, the fact that her own achievements in kendo had put her on too high a pedestal.
But when she entered high school, she failed to gain recognition in the field of magic and could only attend First High School as a Course 2 Student. The stark difference in treatment left her lost.
Of course, there was another reason she had ended up this way.
Suddenly, Sayaka Mibu raised her head and looked at Mari Watanabe, questioning her in an icy tone. "Then what about Chairwoman Watanabe? When she humiliated me in kendo back then, wasn't it because I was a Course 2 Student and she was a Course 1 Student? I was just moved by her swordsmanship and wanted to ask her for some instruction! Why did she have to belittle me! Just because I'm a Course 2 Student?"