Classroom of the Elite: Black Sphere Academia

"Now that you mention it…" Something clicked for Ichinose, and her eyes lit up. "Once the Black Sphere fixed the time a test would open — if you don't count the dates being moved up — everything so far really has followed the advance-test time slot."

Ichinose turned to the companions beside her.

"So if the upper years get hit with an early exam again today, we could absolutely use that window before the notice drops to lend them our spare items!"

Amikura Mako listened, then knitted her brows in thought. "Ichinose, you're planning to lend out your Leo Cavalry Belt and Bat's Phantom Mask?"

"Mm." Honami Ichinose pressed her lips together, weighing it seriously. "Though on my own, I can't put up all that many items. I want to talk it over with Sakayanagi-san, Ryuen-san and the senpai first."

"It goes both ways. If our items help them get better results out on the exam field, we cut down on pointless casualties — and when our turn to be tested comes around, the pressure on us should be a lot lighter…"

Ichinose balled up her small fists. "Risks we don't have to take — we have to shave off as many of them as we can!"

Standing off to one side, Amanatsu Kazuha propped her chin on one hand and took in every word.

The decision happened to work in her favor too, so she just smiled and kept her mouth shut.

As for Amikura Mako — until Honami Ichinose made a serious misjudgment, she was a card-carrying member of the "Ichinose is always right" camp, so objecting was never on the table.

Pressed for time, the girls split up to hunt down each class's leader.

Amanatsu Kazuha raised her hand and claimed the job of finding Chris.

Ichinose felt a small pang of regret.

She'd been run ragged all day, and she'd finally had a perfectly legitimate excuse to go see Chris — and now even that was gone.

But the situation was urgent, so she swallowed that faint sourness, said nothing more, and hurried off toward Sakayanagi's class.

Amanatsu Kazuha stopped in the corridor.

She watched Honami Ichinose's back go — a little wistful, forcing itself to stay straight — and let her expression settle.

The corners of her lips curved up in a silent, private laugh.

'My my~ our dear class representative really is an open book.'

Ichinose wasn't like Kushida Kikyo, with a twisted little gremlin living under the sweet shell; she was more or less the same inside and out. But there was no denying it — both of them were being dragged forward by the personas they'd built.

Amanatsu Kazuha gave a small shake of her head.

Deep down she was genuinely looking forward to the day Kushida Kikyo couldn't keep that false mask in place and shattered completely.

And just as much to the moment Honami Ichinose finally lost to the stray thoughts and private desires inside her, and fell off the saint's altar.

After all… like it or not, in this world, wherever people put on a play, there are people watching one.

The actors lose themselves in the role; the audience sees flowers through fog.

And as for her, Amanatsu Kazuha —

player on the stage or spectator clapping below, either suited her fine.

So long as the play wasn't boring.

Meanwhile.

One glance around the classroom at Sae Chabashira, who'd already cut a backroom deal with Karuizawa, Kushida and the rest, and Chris lost all interest in sitting through the rest of it.

He stretched and turned for the back door of the classroom.

Horikita Suzune saw it, grabbed Nanase Tsubasa — who had only just gotten back to her seat — and hurried after him.

"Chris."

Horikita Suzune caught up alongside him. "Today, do we drill with the sword on our own first, or wait until everyone's here and train against a simulated sparring partner in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber?"

Chris, barely a step into the corridor, slowed.

He glanced back at the two fired-up girls and explained, "Special training can wait."

"I want to go see whether the upper years' exam actually runs on schedule this time."

Nanase Tsubasa blinked, puzzled. "But Senpai, the upper years' advance test… didn't that already finish early, two days ago?"

Chris nodded. "Which is why what I said was — whether the Black Sphere is going to pull their exam forward again."

"Yesterday's exam opened early, and we never found the students in distress the Black Sphere's notice talked about."

"But if the Black Sphere sends out another notice today with a rescue as the pretext… I think everyone, lower years and upper years alike, will still agree to open it early."

"So I'm going over to the upper years to see how things stand. If I happen to catch them gearing up for a fight, I'll lend them some equipment I've got no use for right now."

Chris paused. "Call it investment by another name."

Horikita Suzune picked up the thread. "If the person we lend to is Kiryuuin-senpai — like when we lent her [The World] last time — going by how they described it afterward, a high-tier item really can work wonders at the critical moment."

"Still…"

The girl frowned slightly, a hint of worry in it. "Apart from [The World] and the [Blank Card Box], the items you're holding are all fairly precious, and you use them constantly…"

"How about we lend them my [Niga Mask] instead?"

Horikita Suzune offered it herself.

"The Phantom Mask has that corruption side effect, so by ordinary standards its value isn't especially high."

"But the shadow ninjas it summons seem to have a degree of intelligence. They can serve as a second pair of eyes on the exam field while keeping themselves alive, and they're good for rescuing civilians or scouting ahead. As long as you don't wear it for long stretches, the only thing to worry about is the corruption getting out of hand."

Chris lowered his eyes, thought it over, and was about to answer.

"Heyyy~ Senpai!"

At the far end of the corridor, Amanatsu Kazuha had just lifted her gaze from her phone screen.

Spotting Chris, she waved and hurried over.

"I was just looking for you. Didn't expect to run into you this fast."

Chris swallowed the words already on his tongue and switched tracks with a resigned look. "From the way you came sprinting over — you need something?"

Amanatsu Kazuha patted her chest, hamming up a completely winded act, and said sweetly, "Class Representative Ichinose asked me to come grab you!"

"She wants you to come along and see whether anything sudden hits the upper years in a bit. If it works out, we take the initiative and lend them some idle items as support."

Amanatsu Kazuha smiled and gave a slow blink. "That way there's a foundation of mutual aid and trust down the line, right?"

"I think it's not a bad pitch at all. What do you say, Senpai?"

Horikita Suzune turned and traded a glance with Nanase Tsubasa.

She murmured, mildly surprised, "I didn't think Ichinose… would work her way to that kind of exchange of interests this time."

Chris came back to himself, glanced at the two of them and cut in with a light laugh. "All right, save the marveling for later."

"If Ichinose has already said as much, we can't be the ones trailing behind in the end."

Amanatsu Kazuha laughed behind her hand. "No rush, Senpai. The class representative and Amikura-senpai went to talk it over with Sakayanagi-senpai and Ryuen-senpai first."

"And you were already headed for the upper years anyway. Even strolling, they won't beat us there~"

That made sense to Chris, so he let it drop and led the way on toward the upper-year wing.

Somewhere along the walk to the Student Council, Nanase Tsubasa's curiosity got the better of her.

She quickened her steps to draw level with Amanatsu Kazuha and asked quietly, "Amasawa-san, this idea of lending out items… did Ichinose come up with it herself?"

Amanatsu Kazuha considered it for a moment, then answered honestly, hiding nothing.

"Strictly speaking, it started because Hoshinomiya-sensei and Chabashira-sensei both ended up as Intruders in this exam."

"We originally wanted to check whether the mechanism that drags the school's teachers in follows the same standard we'd guessed at before."

"But the sample size we have is far too small, so all we can do for now is leave it undecided."

Amanatsu Kazuha spread her hands. "Then, while the class representative was fretting that this unknown pull-in mechanism would cause a lot of pointless casualties…"

"I nudged the current along and floated the idea of 'investing early to raise the level of the people being tested.' She took it from there to lending out idle equipment."

Nanase Tsubasa's brows eased.

She glanced at Chris's back up ahead, thought about the kind of person Honami Ichinose was day to day, and said with real admiration:

"Her own circumstances aren't easy either. Death could come for her at any moment."

"And she still worries about everyone else's safety at a time like this… that kind of conviction is genuinely remarkable."

Amanatsu Kazuha's eyes tilted at the corners.

Her gaze swept between Nanase Tsubasa and Horikita Suzune, who had been listening in silence the whole time.

All that praise for Ichinose hadn't shifted Horikita Suzune's expression by a hair. Same icy poker face as always.

Amanatsu Kazuha knew perfectly well that Horikita Suzune's ambitions had never lain in dull little contests like this.

Still, no fun to be had. A bit of a letdown.

She recovered fast, though, and put on the air of someone deeply moved. "Nanase-san really is straightforward."

"Acknowledging someone else's justice that openly, without a trace of envy… in the current climate, that's pretty rare."

Nanase Tsubasa shook her head, unbothered, her face perfectly serious. "Anyone who can hold to their own justice from start to finish is remarkable to begin with."

"I'm still working toward that goal myself. But if someone has already walked that road ahead of me and gotten results, then of course I admire her."

Listening to that flawlessly noble declaration—

Amanatsu Kazuha kept the smile on her lips, but her mind went back to how strange Nanase Tsubasa had been the night before.

The moment they'd discovered that Tokinari Tsukishiro seemed to share some deep connection with the White House, the extremely subtle look that had crossed Nanase Tsubasa's face…

Amanatsu Kazuha narrowed her eyes, thoughtful.

Before she could probe any further, though—

the group had already reached the door of the Student Council Office.

Against all expectation, the place wasn't the sparse, deserted spot it usually was after school.

Among the dozen-odd people clustered in the corridor outside, Chris picked out plenty of familiar faces.

Nearly all of them were the upper-year elites selected back when the first-years and the upper years teamed up to train against the Darkness Devil in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

Amanatsu Kazuha covered her mouth and laughed softly at the sight. "Looks like our seniors took a lesson from us getting hauled into the exam field yesterday."

"No more waiting around passively. They've gathered here on purpose, ready for whatever early-exam notice the Black Sphere might drop at any second."

Chris ignored Amasawa's teasing and cut through the crowd.

He came face to face with Akane Tachibana, who stood in the office doorway looking over a roster, and their eyes met.

He raised a hand in a casual wave. "Senpai."

Akane Tachibana looked up, saw Chris and the others, and gave a small nod. She looked tired. "Are you here to split the cost of opening a simulated sparring partner in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber with us too?"

She sighed. "If you want to go in now, I'm afraid it's a no. We can't go offline — we're all here waiting on the Black Sphere's notice."

Chris shook his head. Looking down the far end of the corridor, where Ichinose, Arisu Sakayanagi and the rest were striding toward them, he explained:

"Actually, we came to wait for the Black Sphere with you."

"If you get another early advance test or a main round today, we happen to have some support items we can't use at the moment. We can loan them to you."

Akane Tachibana's lashes lowered.

One hand resting lightly against her lower lip, she was quiet a moment, and when she spoke there was feeling in her voice. "If that's the case… then thank you for the trouble."

"Honestly, though, we've got no idea whether the Black Sphere will suddenly send a notice telling us to open early inside the regular window after four."

"So all we can do is huddle here like this and wait."

Chris inclined his head, showing he understood her worry. "Caution's fair."

"Otherwise everyone burns a good thousand points in the Time Chamber summoning a sparring BOSS, and before it's done anything useful the presiding god's Black Sphere yanks you into the exam field…"

"Then it's all money down the drain. Real waste."

Chris paused, as if something had come back to him, and went on. "Speaking of… we compared the timestamps when we got back."

"When the Black Sphere asked us in reality whether to open the exam early, it was right around 3:53 in the afternoon. Senpai, do you remember what time your notice came in?"

Akane Tachibana tilted her head, brows knitting as she searched her memory.

She answered uncertainly, "Things were chaotic then. None of us really looked at a clock…"

"But roughly speaking, before four, I think?"

Just then, Ichinose and the others arrived.

Fūka Kiryūin, who had been leaning against the doorframe with her eyes shut, turned her head toward them.

Having caught the exchange between Chris and Akane Tachibana, she couldn't resist cutting in and correcting that hazy recollection.

"To be precise, it was 3:57 in the afternoon."

"The notice the Black Sphere sent read as extremely urgent. Because you lot agreed so quickly, we were actually hauled into the exam field ahead of the regular four o'clock advance-test slot."

Honami Ichinose caught that exact time.

Her eyes brightened and she pushed her way into the conversation. "Which means — if the Black Sphere hasn't given any early-exam warning by four this afternoon—"

"can we just assume by default that there won't be an early Special Exam or advance test today?"

Faced with Ichinose's optimistic deduction,

Fūka Kiryūin neither confirmed nor entirely denied it. "Perhaps."

"But when the thing you're dealing with doesn't listen to reason, we'll have to wait until after four to see the specifics."

"If a notice comes, we grab our gear and go. If not, everyone holds here a while longer as insurance, and it still won't be too late to go into the Time Chamber and train afterward."

Arisu Sakayanagi rested a small hand under her chin, her eyes going distant for a beat.

Then, with a light laugh, she pointed out the most exasperating part of the plan. "And if the Black Sphere waits until we've gone into the Time Chamber to send its notice, purely to spite you…"

"then even if we wanted to help, there'd be nothing we could do."

Fūka Kiryūin sighed, silver hair spilling over her shoulder. "If the Black Sphere really does pop up then and waste our points… nothing for it. We'd just have to call it bad luck."

"But we're the ones on the receiving end. We can't stay like this forever, waiting without end to guard against an uncertain probability and cutting out precious training time altogether."

"If it came to that, even taking long leave from ordinary class hours every day to train would end up meaning nothing at all."

If the Black Sphere meant to target you with its cards face up, refusing to play by any normal rules—

then putting up a fight would only make you look like someone who didn't understand how the world worked. Very naughty of you.

That suffocating helplessness settled over them.

Behind her back, Akane Tachibana's hands tightened on the hem of her clothes without her noticing, her face full of dread for a fate she couldn't see.

Miyabi Nagumo, who had listened to the whole thing, seemed entirely unbothered.

"Soldiers come, you send generals. Floodwater comes, you throw down earth."

"Even if it's deliberately gunning for us, I'll still put up a struggle — add a few more brilliant strokes to whatever life I've got left."

"Besides, odds are all of this is just our persecution complex talking, isn't it?"

He smiled and ran a thumb over the Black Sphere Watch on his wrist.

The win condition in the Hell instance had been the number of rooms you cut through.

Hunting Nakime had carried him through enough of them that, at settlement, he'd been fortunate enough to be one of the four people awarded a bonus extra life count.

With a spare life in hand, he no longer felt as hollow as he had at the very start.

Dying once wouldn't be a straight Game Over.

"As for now…"

Miyabi Nagumo lifted his head, gazing at the sun sinking toward the western horizon. "We wait."

"We wait for the Black Sphere to hand us a final answer."

____

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