Mashima Tomoya paused, his gaze sweeping across all the students of the four classes.
"From this point on, I will announce the results starting with the class that scored the lowest, and proceeding upward in order."
Hearing this, the hearts of more than a few students in the Class D line gave a sudden lurch. The final result had yet to be read aloud, but the outcome was, by and large, already known to everyone.
"In last place — Class D, with a final score of: 210 points."
Even so, upon receiving that score, the Class D students still let out a quiet sigh of relief. Most of them, in fact, managed to wear rather pleasant smiles. After all... a class point total of 210 was nothing to scoff at. Combined with their existing class points, the basic guarantee of a month's worth of living expenses had effectively been secured.
"Third place — Class B, with a final score of: 295 points."
"Second place — Class C, with a final score of: 315 points."
Reaching this point, Mashima Tomoya paused for the briefest of moments, then turned his gaze toward the line of students standing on the far left — Class A.
"First place — Class A, with a final score of: 480 points."
In this exam, Class A had not been caught up to by any of the other three classes; on the contrary, they had actually widened the gap further.
Prior to the exam, not a single teacher had anticipated that, in this Deserted Island special exam, all four classes would unanimously choose to abstain from speculating on each other's leader keycards.
Looking back across the entire history of the Advanced Nurturing High School since its founding, never once — in a special exam as fiercely competitive as the Deserted Island one — had there ever occurred so bizarre a situation as all four classes coexisting peacefully, mutually abandoning the option to attack.
And precisely because no class had chosen to attack, none of the four ended up with an excessively high score, nor an excessively low one.
Even Class D — the same Class D that had, in the very first month of school, set the record of zero class points — managed in this exam to earn well over two hundred class points.
Of the 300 dedicated class-exam points initially distributed to each class —
Class A had spent the least, expending only enough for a single set of tools. Class D, without question, had spent the most. Even though some had been unwilling, in the end the majority had wanted to guarantee a certain quality of survival.
On top of that, of course, Class D had a deduction that none of the other classes had suffered — that being the matter of Kouenji Rokusuke, who, on the very first day of landing on the island, had cited bodily indisposition as his reason for unilaterally and capriciously withdrawing from the exam.
That single act, in accordance with the rules, had cost Class D a full 30 class points right off the top.
Then, during the daily morning and evening roll calls, Class D had also lost further points when some students overslept and arrived late.
Had it not been for Kushida Kikyou and the others toiling away, doggedly going out each day at the appointed times to occupy those five Base Camps and slowly bleed back points —
Securing even this final score of 210 points for Class D would have been, frankly, as difficult as scaling the heavens.
Mashima Tomoya lowered the loudspeaker and addressed everyone gathered on the beach.
"With that, this Deserted Island special exam is now fully and officially concluded."
"Now then — each class's homeroom teacher will lead their respective students to begin boarding the ship in sequence. Return to the cruise liner and rest."
Hearing this, the students could not help the looks of joy that surfaced on their faces — at long last, they could finally rest.
Even the students of Class D, ranked dead last though they were, could not at this moment hold back cheerful cries of delight.
At last they could take a hot shower, lie down on a soft bed, and sleep properly. Spending such an excruciating stretch of time in a place like that — heaven only knew how they had managed to endure it.
As for the members of Class A, their joy was etched even more plainly across their brows.
They high-fived one another in celebration. For Class A, these seven days had, on the whole, been relatively easy-going — except, of course, for those who had often gone out with Katsuragi Kouhei to occupy the Base Camps.
After all, the Base Camps refreshed every eight hours, and if one failed to occupy them promptly upon refresh, they could very well fall into the hands of another class.
After this exam, Class A's class-point lead over the other three classes had not only failed to be narrowed by any of them — it had, in fact, widened by a significant margin.
Their position as the absolute dominant force of Class A had become more unshakeable than ever.
As Mashima Tomoya finished delivering his instructions, the students lined up and walked across the gangway connecting to the cruise ship, returning one after another to that luxury vessel — a veritable palace upon the sea.
The moment they stepped into the cool, air-conditioned cabin with its soft carpeted floors, every student felt as though they had been delivered out of hell and back into the human world.
Everyone was inwardly already calculating: once they got back to their rooms, they were absolutely going to take a proper, long soak in the bath, then head to the dining hall for a feast, and compensate themselves wholesale for the seven days of suffering they had just endured.
This beautiful mood, however, was instantly shattered the very moment the members of Class D set foot in the cruise ship's grand lobby.
Upon the supremely comfortable leather sofa in the center of the lobby —
Dressed in a set of well-tailored, exceedingly comfortable-looking sleepwear, holding in his hand a brightly colored tropical chilled drink, Kouenji Rokusuke sat there with one leg crossed languidly over the other, the very picture of leisure.
His head of long golden hair had been combed without a single strand out of place, and the entirety of his person radiated an aristocratic air that stood utterly at odds with their bedraggled, refugee-like band.
Catching sight of the Class D students walking in,
Kouenji Rokusuke not only showed not the slightest trace of guilt — he actually lifted the glass in his hand and flashed them a radiant smile.
"Oh my, welcome back, girls and boys."
His tone was airy.
Seeing Kouenji Rokusuke in that leisurely above-it-all posture, as though none of this had anything to do with him —
The Class D students were practically ready to explode with rage.
One had to understand — had Kouenji Rokusuke not capriciously withdrawn from the exam on day one, Class D's final score would have, at the very least, retained an additional 30 class points!
Those were genuine, hard-earned points!
Sudou Ken, who possessed the most volcanic temper of all of them, was the first to lose his composure.
He stormed forward two steps, jabbing his finger at Kouenji Rokusuke's nose, and launched into a torrent of cursing.
"You bastard! You actually have the nerve to sit here sipping a drink?!"
Sudou Ken's eyes blazed with fury.
Right on his heels, Ike Kanji and Yamauchi Haruki also leapt forward, joining the chorus of denunciation.
"That's right! If it weren't for you running off on the first day, you selfish jerk, costing us 30 points right off the bat — there's no way our class would've ended up dead last!"
Yamauchi Haruki clenched his fists, refusing to be outdone as he bellowed.
"We were starving on that island, working ourselves to death holding the Base Camps, and you're over here lounging around enjoying yourself? Have you no shame?!"
In the face of all three of them and their spittle-flying accusations and tirades —
Kouenji Rokusuke displayed not a flicker of anger.
He merely gave the glass in his hand a light swirl, listening to the crisp tinkling of the ice cubes within, then ran a hand through his golden locks and let out a single contemptuous, dismissive laugh.
"Heh heh."
Kouenji Rokusuke spoke with utter, uncaring nonchalance.
"Blaming one's own failures on another's withdrawal?"
"Truly an ugly line of argument."
He lifted the cup and took a sip of his drink, his tone steeped in arrogance.
"Can it be that you lot cannot manage even arithmetic this simple? Even with the 30 points I cost you added back in, your final score would amount to only 240 — still leaving an unbridgeable chasm between you and the other classes."
"When all is said and done, it was not my withdrawal that left you at the bottom — it was simply your own incompetence."
Kouenji Rokusuke's words landed like a finely honed dagger, striking with precision at the nerves of the Class D students.
This merciless mockery once again stirred up the fury of even more of them.
Yukimura Teruhiko, who had been standing in the crowd this whole time pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, could no longer hold himself back.
"Kouenji! What kind of twisted logic is that?!"
Yukimura Teruhiko retorted indignantly.
"As a member of Class D, you ought to be contributing to the class! Not running away from responsibility like this and then standing around making snide remarks!"
For a moment, the entire cruise ship lobby descended into chaos as a fierce battle of words erupted within Class D.
Yet, no matter how many facts Yukimura Teruhiko and the others marshaled, no matter what reasoning they laid out, Kouenji Rokusuke remained as impervious and indifferent as ever — not even bothering to spare them so much as another glance.
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka stood at the very back of the crowd, both hands tucked into his pockets.
Those dull, lightless brown eyes of his quietly watched the unfolding farce, his expression undisturbed — for all the world like a complete bystander, utterly detached from the affair. This time too, he did not intervene; or rather, there was simply no opening for him to do so.
Meanwhile, at the center of the crowd, Kushida Kikyou — who had been playing her angelic role all along — was right now breaking out into an anxious sweat.
She did her utmost to mediate between the several of them.
"Everyone, please don't fight — calm down, all right?"
Kushida Kikyou tried with her sweet, lilting voice to soothe the flames of their anger.
"The exam is already over now — let's all stick together, okay?"
Yet her efforts produced no effect whatsoever.
Within this Class D, brimming with eccentric personalities and personal flaws, becoming a binding agent capable of winning everyone's trust was far, far more difficult than holding court in that ordinary middle-school classroom of hers had ever been.
Even when Kushida Kikyou took it upon herself to step in and make excuses for Kouenji Rokusuke, offering him a graceful out —
Kouenji Rokusuke would not accept her kindness at all. Not only did he ignore Kushida's goodwill, he continued sitting there as he pleased, sipping his drink.
And Sudou and the others, deep in the throes of their fury, could not hear a single word of her dissuasion either.
Seeing the situation, Hirata Yousuke also hurried forward, stepping into his usual role as the peacemaker.
"All right, that's enough, Sudou, Ike — everyone, let's all just say a little less."
Hirata Yousuke stood in their midst, trying to use his own standing to help smooth over relations between his classmates.
"Arguing here is not going to solve anything, and it'll only give the other classes something to laugh at. Let's go back to our rooms and rest first — we can talk about whatever needs talking about later."
However, this too proved useless; Sudou Ken, with his fury still raging, was buying none of it.
The internal conflict within Class D had erupted in full, and the situation could only be described as utterly atrocious.
The students of the other classes who had just entered the lobby, upon witnessing this scene, had basically come to a stop, arms folded, standing off to one side and watching this Class D farce unfold.
Just as the lobby was descending into uncontrollable bedlam —
Horikita Suzune, however, paid no mind to those messy class affairs.
Carrying her luggage, she walked straight through the crowd and made her way over to the side of Shikime Natsu, who was standing off watching the spectacle.
The black-haired girl came to a halt, her ruby-red eyes fixing themselves upon Shikime Natsu.
After these past few days of recuperation, the color had returned to her cheeks.
She looked at him, lowered her head ever so slightly, and in a tone notably softer than her usual one, spoke to Shikime Natsu.
"Shiki-san."
"For this exam... thank you for your help."
"Had it not been for your assistance, Class D would have been docked an additional 30 dedicated class-exam points on account of my own withdrawal."
Had such a situation truly come to pass, then Class D would not have even retained 200 class points to its name — and Horikita Suzune's hopes of becoming Class D's leader would have been utterly out of reach.
After all... a person who drags her own class down was scarcely qualified to be a leader.
Hearing Horikita Suzune express her gratitude with such candid frankness,
Shikime Natsu was a touch taken aback, before the corners of his mouth curled into a gentle smile.
He looked into the girl's wine-red eyes and acknowledged her thanks with a smile.
"It was nothing — barely a lift of a finger. There's no need to dwell on it."
Inwardly, he gave a quiet nod of his own.
Not bad, not bad at all — Horikita Suzune was indeed progressing in a positive direction.
Seeing that Shikime Natsu had accepted her thanks, Horikita Suzune did not linger any longer.
"Well then, I'll be heading back to my room first."
With that, Horikita Suzune turned, lifted her luggage, and walked away from the clamorous lobby on her own.
Not long after Horikita Suzune had left,
Hashimoto Masayoshi, both hands pillowed behind his head and a thoroughly excited grin across his face, slipped out from the Class A crowd and sidled up to Shikime Natsu's side.
"Leader."
Hashimoto Masayoshi addressed Shikime Natsu with a cheeky grin, putting forth a proposal.
"Since this Deserted Island exam is finally over and we're all back on the cruise ship now —"
"To celebrate Class A's overwhelming victory this time around, what do you say we throw a grand party of some sort tonight on the ship?"
Hearing this proposal,
Totsuka Yahiko, standing off to the side, immediately crowded in too, his face plastered with approval.
"Great idea! I'm completely in favor!"
Totsuka Yahiko chimed in excitedly.
Looking at the faces of his Class A classmates, every single one of them written over with anticipation and excitement,
Shikime Natsu knew that, after these past few days, everyone genuinely did need an outlet for blowing off steam.
He smiled, gave a nod, and agreed to it without hesitation.
"Sure."
Upon receiving Shikime Natsu's reply,
The members of Class A immediately erupted into cheers, the entire group brimming over with an excited, festive atmosphere.
At once they clustered together in chattering little groups, beginning to discuss what kinds of fine foods they should prepare for the evening's party and what sort of performances or programs they ought to put on.
Then, by unanimous decision —
Before attending the party that evening, everyone would first head back to their own rooms to take a proper soak in the bath, get a good afternoon nap in, scrub off the exhaustion of these seven days completely, and properly relax themselves first.
As the members of Class A departed in high spirits,
The students of the remaining classes — having had their fill of watching Class D's farce — also found the spectacle had lost its flavor, and one after another, dragging their weary bodies along, dispersed in search of their own rooms.
The boisterous lobby gradually grew quiet.
Just as Shikime Natsu was about to turn and leave —
His gaze fell, fairly and squarely, upon the dark-red-haired youth who was walking straight toward him.
It was none other than Class C's leader — Ryuuen Kakeru.
Ryuuen Kakeru had his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. Though his gait was as arrogant as ever, on that vaguely sinister face of his there was now visibly suppressed a certain measure of displeasure.
As Ryuuen Kakeru came to a stop in front of him,
Shikime Natsu halted his own steps as well, the corners of his lips curling into a slightly teasing smile as he addressed Ryuuen Kakeru.
"My, my — what a rare sight indeed."
"I truly hadn't expected — that you, Ryuuen, would choose to behave yourself so dutifully in this Deserted Island special exam."
Hearing this teasing remark from Shikime Natsu, Ryuuen Kakeru's eyes blazed with fury, his brow furrowed tightly together.
He let out a cold snort.
"Cut the snide remarks, Shiki."
Ryuuen Kakeru glared at him fixedly, speaking through gritted teeth.
Had it not been for this guy Shikime Natsu, Ryuuen Kakeru would have opted to employ slightly more violent means in order to secure Class C's absolute victory. But with this Shikime Natsu in the picture — and with this Shikime Natsu holding a piece of leverage over him on top of that — Ryuuen Kakeru had been forced, in this exam, to settle for none but the conventional methods. And that left Ryuuen Kakeru thoroughly incensed.
Of course, it was not as though Ryuuen Kakeru hadn't considered taking advantage of the cooldown periods of the Base Camp refreshes to tear a chunk of flesh out of the other classes. But even when he had wracked his brains and managed to seize a Base Camp from another class, the moment he turned around he would find that the Base Camp he had originally been holding had slipped from his grasp.
Someone behind the scenes had been pulling the strings of the entire affair. The final result was Class A immovably holding ten Base Camps, while the remaining three classes each occupied five.
Ryuuen Kakeru drew in a deep breath, pressing down the fire burning in his chest, and looked at Shikime Natsu as he spoke.
"Shiki, you've been controlling the entire situation from the shadows, haven't you?"
"But — your approach was far too conservative."
"If you had agreed to my proposal back then — if the two of our classes had joined forces in secret to thoroughly crush Class B and Class D —"
"Then Class A's current standing, with the bonus from correctly guessing the leaders factored in, would have absolutely netted you at least 500 points or more!"
Shikime Natsu chuckled softly upon hearing this, those pale-gold eyes settling upon Ryuuen Kakeru.
"Ryuuen."
"You seem to have misunderstood something."
"If I truly had wanted to win even more class points out of this exam —"
"I would not have needed to expend any effort cooperating with you in the slightest."
"At the very end, when filling out that form to guess the holders of the leader keycards, I could simply have written down every answer and walked away with the full score."
Upon hearing this,
Ryuuen Kakeru sneered, taking it for nothing more than empty bluster on Shikime Natsu's part.
"What grandiose talk."
"You think guessing the leaders of the other classes is so easy a thing? Even I don't have absolute certainty on that..."
However —
Before Ryuuen Kakeru's words were even finished —
Shikime Natsu went ahead and named three people outright.
"Class C's leader is you yourself, Ryuuen."
"Class B's leader is Shiranami Chihiro."
"As for Class D — that would be Kushida Kikyou."
Ryuuen Kakeru had no way of knowing whether the other two were genuine or not, but he most assuredly knew that he himself was indeed Class C's leader keycard holder. His pupils contracted.
How was this possible?!
One had to understand that he had never told Shiina Hiyori about Class C's leader keycard holder. Because Shiina Hiyori was Shikime Natsu's girlfriend, and because Shiina Hiyori had also spent most of her time outside the Class C Base Camp besides — so... there was no possible way Shiina Hiyori could have leaked the information.
Even though Ryuuen Kakeru had known Shikime Natsu might well refrain from attacking Class C because of Shiina Hiyori's presence there, he had still maintained a degree of caution.
But now, Ryuuen Kakeru found that before this fellow Shikime Natsu, he seemed to have nowhere left to hide.
As for the other two — Ryuuen Kakeru did not believe that the man before him would casually rattle off fake names. There would be no point in it.
It had to be that Shikime Natsu had grasped the precise intelligence.
And indeed, such was the case. Ten minutes before today's filling out of the leader form, the intelligence system had directly informed Shikime Natsu of the leaders of the other three classes — quite considerately, one might say.
Ryuuen Kakeru still couldn't bring himself to believe that this fellow Shikime Natsu would, for the sake of nothing but a girlfriend, throw away the 150 class points on the table — and, beyond that, the chance to further widen Class A's lead over the other classes in one fell swoop.
Just what, exactly, did this fellow take the rules of a school built upon meritocratic supremacy for?
Although in this exam, because of Shikime Natsu's abstention, Class C had not had its leader keycard guessed correctly — thus sparing it from the 50-point penalty —
This brutal truth nonetheless filled Ryuuen Kakeru with a sense of vexation and humiliation even more potent than being docked points outright would have been.
This fellow Shikime Natsu was simply too damned arrogant!
Carrying his belly full of frustration and rage, Ryuuen Kakeru turned and strode in great long steps straight out of the lobby.
Watching Ryuuen Kakeru's somewhat unkempt retreating figure, Shikime Natsu simply gave a soft chuckle, then turned and walked toward his own room.
Nightfall.
In the top-floor lounge of the luxury cruise ship, the lights blazed brilliantly.
To celebrate the successful conclusion of this special exam, as well as the widened gap in class points,
Class A had outright reserved an entire luxurious section of the dining venue, hosting a lavishly bustling party.
The long tables were laden with exquisitely prepared foods of every variety and top-shelf beverages.
Everyone had changed into clean, neat casual wear, raising their glasses with one another in the dining hall and chattering on about the amusing happenings and gripe-worthy moments of these seven days on the Deserted Island. Laughter and cheers rose and fell on every side.
It was not until deep into the night that the party finally drew to a close.
The clamor dispersed.
Shikime Natsu did not immediately return to his room.
Alone, with a half-finished glass of iced water in hand, he made his way down the stairs at a leisurely pace and emerged onto the cruise ship's expansive deck.
The night sea breeze, carrying with it a faint salty chill, brushed against his face — invigorating to the spirit.
And it was precisely then that a certain figure entered Shikime Natsu's field of vision.
____
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