Light Novel 2nd Year Volume 4.5/Summary

Prologue
Ayanokoji mentions in the prologue the importance of the smartphone in our life nowadays. He mentions that the students are glad to have their cell phones back after spending two weeks without them in the uninhabited island exam. He proclaims that using a smartphone is not a necessity for him since he is a high school student. He also says this year's summer vacation is very different from the summer vacation he spent last year. Last year he couldn't even say whether he had any friends or loved ones. The number of people now he can call by name has also increased.

He then mentions the various facilities provided by the cruise ship, such as swimming pools, meals, sea view area, etc.

Then he tells about the strict rules put forward by the school and the need to follow them. E.g., A student can't leave his room after 10 pm.

Also, the rules this year seem to be much stricter than the rules last time around. There will also be strict penalties in place for the students who don't follow them.

In addition to all of these, there are only a fixed number of floors a student can enter. Also, within the permitted floors, there are areas off-limit for a student.

Chapter 1
After the exam, students will be spending a week on a luxury cruise liner. They were promised by the school that there wouldn’t be any surprise special exams like last year’s ship exam. But on the first day, rather than partake in any of the amenities and entertainment options available, Ayanokouji was simply lazing in his room and playing with his phone, which had been confiscated for the two-week island exam. Since the island exam ran over into August, they received updated class rankings later than the usual changes at the beginning of the month. The current class points of year 2 were as follows:
 * Sakayanagi-led class A with 1206 points
 * Ichinose-led class B with 578 points
 * Horikita-led class C with 571 points
 * Ryuuen-led class D with 551 points

This huge point gain was all the result of Kouenji achieving first place by himself. Although many people in the class only viewed Kouenji as a nuisance up to this point, after this achievement, his classmates had no choice but to change their evaluation of him. But Ayanokouji was sceptical of how long this newfound appreciation for Kouenji would last since it also meant Kouenji would be exempt from cooperating with the class until they graduate. Ayanokouji notes that even though Ryuuen’s class fell to D after this exam, their increased academic ability from gaining Katsuragi as well as the uncertainties surrounding Ryuuen’s deal with Sakayanagi meant that it was the class he was most wary of. On the contrary, Ichinose’s class only had a lead of 27 points over D class and was probably very anxious right now. Whilst she received Sakayanagi’s help for this exam, it was likely that school-wide exams such as the uninhabited island test wouldn’t happen very often in the future, meaning that the majority of exams will be returning to competition between classes in the same grade. Lastly, he commends the ability of Class A to accumulate class points steadily. There were many excellent students, and Sakayanagi had perfect control over her class.

Furthermore, she was a flexible leader who could use both clean strategies and wasn’t afraid of using dirty tricks. To defeat that class, it was necessary to find some way of breaking them. The quickest way would be to expel Sakayanagi, but a protection point protects her, and even without it, she would be extremely difficult to expel. The other way would be to remove the people who act as her limbs to limit Sakayanagi’s possible moves, but it would take more than simply expelling one or two.

In contrast to last year where everything was free, this year usage of the provisions aboard the cruise ship required the expenditure of private points. The only thing anyone could do without paying points was staying in their room and eating the free meals. Ayanokouji is grateful for the increased class points, which improved his private point situation. He sends a text message to Ichinose, asking if she can meet him in the evening in 3 days time.

Ayanokouji is in a group with Akito and two classmates in his class. Akito isn’t fussed about checking his ranking in the island exam since he’s satisfied with just not being expelled, whilst the others are all lazing around and being couch potatoes, unwilling to leave the comfort of their beds. They tease Akito about being in paradise surrounded by two girls whilst they were in groups that only had sweaty boys. Akito scoffs and says that it was hell because he was too concerned about various things to enjoy the experience. Meanwhile, as they both insist the other got the better group, Ayanokouji is just glad that he didn’t enter a group at all. Ayanokouji also says he’ll see the test results later since he doesn’t like crowds, but Ishizaki barges into their room and tries to drag him along to see the test results. Akito is surprised by how friendly Ishizaki seems to be with Ayanokouji and asks when the two of them got so close. He is wary of Ishizaki since he has a reputation for being a rival class’ delinquent. Ayanokouji tries to decline by saying that he’s tired but, Ishizaki doesn’t believe him and forces him to come anyway. Ayanokouji finally relents on the condition that Ishizaki lets him change his clothes first, to which Ishizaki happily agrees. Akito tries to caution Ayanokouji but, Ayanokouji says it’s fine because Ishizaki isn’t a bad guy. Akito says he doesn’t have a good impression of Ishizaki and thinks Ryuuen might be trying to pull something behind the scenes.

Ayanokouji asks Ishizaki why he wants to see the results so much, to which Ishizaki replies that it’s like seeing a new movie on its release day. Ayanokouji can’t understand that sentiment. Ishizaki comments that he finds Ayanokouji easier to talk to than his classmates, which Ayanokouji finds strange since he considers himself antisocial. Ishizaki is in a delicate situation where he supposedly defeated Ryuuen and received gratitude from many of his classmates. Still, since he has now become Ryuuen’s subordinate again, he receives their ire. Ayanokouji wonders whether he’s partially at fault for this, but Ishizaki reassures him that it was a situation which they one-sidedly pushed him into, so Ayanokouji has nothing to apologise for. Besides, in exchange, Ishizaki made a new friend in Ayanokouji, so it all balances out.

There’s a huge crowd of people surrounding the test results. Ayanokouji is about to give up on seeing the test results but notices a huge number of people gazing at him. All of them are in their 3rd year. Ayanokouji isn’t sure what’s going on but is sure Nagumo is involved. Ishizaki doesn’t notice anything but agrees to turn around and head for lunch. Ayanokouji is confused about why Ishizaki is being so friendly with him. Ishizaki says that he isn’t inviting him to eat lunch because he wants to invite Ayanokouji to his class, but because he is genuinely fond of Ayanokouji as a friend. But as they are about to leave, Nanase calls for him from behind. Apparently she had also come to see the exam results but was turned away due to the 3rd years monopolising the monitors. Ishizaki is confused because he doesn’t know Nanase and accusatorially asks Ayanokouji if they’re dating to which he quickly denies. When asked on whether she needed him for something, Nanase says she just called out to him instinctively because she saw him and then leaves. After she left, Ishizaki continues interrogating him.

When Ayanokouji returns to his room, he finds Ike waiting for him. Ike invites him to go visit Komiya with him because it would be too awkward if he went by himself since he just started dating Shinohara after the exam. Ayanokouji congratulates him. Ike feels like he did Komiya dirty by not waiting until after he healed completely to confess. Ayanokouji deduces that half his reasoning for visiting Komiya is to prevent him from confessing to her after he reports their relationship. Ayanokouji warns him to prepare to get punched. Ike is scared since Komiya is in the basketball team, but Ayanokouji says that it probably won’t hurt too much since Komiya can’t stand on his legs right now. In the health room, Komiya is surrounded by several classmates: Ryuuen, Albert, Kaneda, Kondou and Yamawaki. Seeing someone from outside of the class coming, Ryuuen leads the others out of the room. Ike is surprised that Ryuuen would be the kind of person to pay a visit to an injured classmate. Komiya also agrees that the Ryuuen from last year wouldn’t but happily says that Ryuuen has also changed a lot over the past year. He says that he feels he has no objections to following the current Ryuuen as his leader. He says that he is a little concerned for Ryuuen who is trying to search for the culprit who pushed Komiya down the cliff. Ike tells Komiya that he started going out with Shinohara. Komiya says that Ike seems to be nervous so Ike confesses that he thinks Komiya will hit him. Komiya calls him over and as Ike braces, he lightly taps a fist onto Ike’s chest, telling him he won’t forgive him if he ever makes Shinohara cry.

Komiya thinks it didn’t matter whether Ike’s confession came first or his came first, saying that Shinohara had liked Ike for quite some time. He says his only chance was if Ike continued to run away. Ike thanks Komiya and then leaves when Komiya asks if he can have some private time with Ayanokouji. Komiya tells Ayanokouji that he is concerned about Ryuuen’s search for the culprit, and personally he wants to just write it off as an accident, but Shinohara’s presence as a witness means that he is unable to. He asks Ayanokouji to keep a lookout for Ryuuen. Ayanokouji leaves feeling like he gained Komiya as a new friend and notes that the number of his friends at school was slowly increasing one by one.

Chapter 2
The next day, Kiriyama calls out Ayanokouji to meet up at the public pool. Ayanokouji considers refusing but feels that it would be better to listen to what he has to say to avoid further complications in the future. He is also curious about why Nagumo has all the 3rd years monitoring him. As he is waiting at the pool, Kiryuuin calls out to him from behind and pities him for being monitored by all the 3rd years. Kiryuuin says that considering his overall ability, Ayanokouji is the perfect kryptonite to her, but Nagumo is his natural enemy. When Kiriyama finally comes, he frowns when he sees Ayanokouji talking to Kiryuuin. When Kiriyama tries to drag Ayanokouji away, Kiryuuin comments on Kiriyama’s hypocrisy in choosing a public place like the pool as a meeting place if he wanted to talk about something he didn’t want anyone else hearing about. Kiriyama says that their discussion is none of Kiryuuin’s business, to which she responds by saying that as Ayanokouji’s girlfriend, she is a related party. When Kiriyama looks shocked, she laughs and says it was a joke. Unable to bear listening to her any longer, Kiriyama storms out with Ayanokouji in tow. At a place where there weren’t any 3rd graders, Kiriyama asks Ayanokouji what he did to Nagumo on the last day of the exam. Ayanokouji asks him to first tell him when Kiriyama switched sides to Nagumo. Kiriyama says that he didn’t switch sides, but Ayanokouji replies that Kiriyama should also know there’s no real difference between switching sides and admitting defeat. Kiriyama then explains why none of the 3rd years are able to rebel against Nagumo’s orders.

He says that the most important thing in this school is to graduate from Class A, with that holding priority over everything else. At this point in time, Nagumo’s Class A holds a 900 class point lead over Class B with only half a year remaining. It is already impossible to catch up to his class. That leaves 20 million private points as the only remaining way for people outside of Nagumo’s class to graduate as Class A. Nagumo proposed a system where everyone in the grade gives him their private points to pool together several ‘tickets’ to class A. He would then let everyone compete for those tickets amongst each other. Kiriyama says that to the students in Class C and D, he must have looked like a saint. Nagumo doesn’t let any 3rd year students hold over 500 thousand private points and has them check each other to make sure no one cheats. Kiriyama says that with all the special cards Nagumo’s group was holding, by preventing Nagumo from placing first in the island exam, Ayanokouji cost the 3rd years 15 million private points which is almost enough to pay for one ticket to Class A. He says that this in addition to the fact three 3rd year groups were expelled have lead to a fall in trust towards Nagumo amongst the 3rd years. Kiriyama doesn’t want this because if any 3rd years think that they don’t actually have a chance at making it to Class A anymore, there’s a chance they might try to take down Nagumo with them. That would be the worst outcome for Kiriyama because they would lose all of Nagumo’s private points if he were to be expelled, along with any last hopes of reaching Class A. He requests that Ayanokouji stop interfering with Nagumo to which Ayanokouji replies that it was Nagumo who wanted to keep fighting. Kiriyama says he will do something about the hostile actions taken by Nagumo on his end and so asks for Ayanokouji’s cooperation. Ayanokouji asks Kiriyama to give him some time to arrive at an answer, which Kiriyama agrees to but warns him to give a reply before Nagumo’s next move.

As Ayanokouji leaves the pool, Nanase calls out to him with a happy expression. Apparently she wanted to tell him something, but they’re interrupted by Kobashi Yume from Ichinose’s class. Since the contents of her talk were confidential, Nanase decided to leave and let Kobashi talk to Ayanokouji. Kobashi thanks Ayanokouji for his help in finding Chihiro during the island exam and invites him to a girls’ after exam party. Ayanokouji keeps trying to find excuses to refuse but Kobashi puts on a pitiful act, asking if he’s refusing because she said something bad. Feeling sorry for her, he agrees to come and she instantly brightens up and holds him to that promise. Ayanokouji doesn’t think too much of it since it’s a class party and there will probably be other boys present.

Later that evening, when he goes to the designated party room which was one of the ship’s guest rooms, he could only hear girls talking and laughing while he was standing outside the door. As he starts to think that this was a bad idea, Kobashi calls out to him from behind with a plastic bag full of snacks and drinks in her hand. With his escape cut off, Ayanokouji enters the room which has 10 girls from Class B in it. Even though it is cramped with so many people despite it only being a 4 person room, very conspicuously, no one took the seat next to Ichinose. The girls all usher him into sitting next to Ichinose who is surprised and the two of them sat in an awkward silence for the duration of the party. One of the girls, Himeno, says that she has a headache again which is apparently a recurring medical condition for her since all the girls seem very understanding and let her retire to her room. Ayanokouji uses this opportunity to excuse himself and follows her out. But he notices that rather than returning to her room, she is standing on the deck of the ship and looking out towards the sea. Ayanokouji tries to talk to her but she says her headache is getting worse and tries to leave. He asks her if her headaches are just an excuse to escape from an uncomfortable environment, but Himeno refutes him by saying that it’s a real headache. He threatens to tell her classmates that she has a fake illness, but Himeno says headaches can’t be proven and says that even though everyone only has good things to say about him, he has a nasty personality. Himeno says she thinks the class, especially the girls, are too friendly with each other.

Ayanokouji says that if she wants to relieve some stress, she should let out a scream here since no one else would be able to hear. Himeno says if he wants her to scream, he should do it first but to her surprise, Ayanokouji lets out a (not very loud) scream. Himeno asks if he’s messing around with her but decides to scream anyway when Ayanokouji holds her to her word. Ayanokouji is surprised by how powerful her voice was. After Himeno finishes, she says that she feels refreshed. Ayanokouji says he feels refreshed after screaming too but Himeno retorts that his wasn’t a scream at all.

Chapter 3
The next day, Ayanokouji had an early breakfast so he feels hungrier than usual. On this ship, buffet meals are prepared for free in the morning and evening but if students wanted to eat lunch, they have to buy it themselves. He buys a rice ball and goes to eat on the deck but finds Nanase eating a sandwich. When he greets her, she speaks back to him with food still in her mouth. She quickly scarfs down her food causing Ayanokouji to feel bad for interrupting her meal. He is about to leave but she asks him to wait. As she finally swallows, she says “Gulp… Um sorry, I was actually eating lunch” as if she was giving a guilty confession for something she was secretly doing even though anyone could clearly see she was eating lunch. Ayanokouji asks her what she wanted to talk to him about the previous day but Nanase says that it’s okay since she changed her mind and will take care of this problem by herself.

Afterwards, Ayanokouji leaves and goes to the fifth floor of the ship where there were fewer people. Sakayanagi greets him and says that she chased after him after seeing him. Ayanokouji is confused since he saw her earlier when he was talking to Nanase but Sakayanagi says that she deduced the location he would move to in advance by taking into consideration his personality and tendency to avoid crowds. She recounts a meeting with Ichinose who apologised for her independent actions on the final day of the island exam. Sakayanagi said she doesn’t mind, especially since it didn’t cost them anything as they still managed to place 3rd. She said Ichinose brought more than enough contribution during the island exam, always managing to place high in the academic tests as well as smoothly acting as a mediator between the two class’ students. Ichinose still wanted to apologise though since that was just results based analysis so Sakayanagi decides to ‘punish’ her by making her chat with her for 30 minutes. Sakayanagi says that usually every person has a dark side to their personality but in the case of Ichinose, she can’t feel anything like that which scares her. Ichinose says that isn’t the case and points to the shoplifting incident but Sakayanagi says even that was done out of family love. She warns Ichinose about her goodwill being potentially exploited by the likes of her, Ryuuen, Horikita and even Ayanokouji.

Later that day, Ichika is walking around on the ship but Sakayanagi suddenly greets her and introduces herself since this is their first time meeting each other. Ichika is disinterested but Sakayanagi catches her attention by mentioning that she knows Ichika is a White Room student. Ichika realises that Sakayanagi was Ayanokouji’s support at this school. Ichika asks Sakayanagi what she wants and Sakayanagi simply replies that this was merely a self-introduction. As Sakayanagi is about to leave, Ichika asks her if this means that she will finally be set free from surveillance. Sakayanagi apologises for making Ichika feel uncomfortable and mentions that she told them to make sure not to be noticed but says she didn’t have any other choice since otherwise she wouldn’t be able to catch Ichika. Ichika tells her that she’s the type of person who doesn’t feel any hesitation towards hitting a disabled person. Sakayanagi replies that violence is a strong weapon, but not always the strongest. She gives a signal and Kamuro comes out from the place where she was observing Ichika. Ichika laughs and asks if Sakayanagi plans to have a mental battle with her, to which Sakayanagi says that any White Room students other than Ayanokouji are probably failures and she doesn’t expect much of Ichika, implying that she’ll win no matter what contest. Ichika asks her whether that includes violence to which Sakayanagi smiles and replies yes. Ichika says she may be able to enjoy this high school life even without Ayanokouji-senpai by playing with Kushida or looking at Sakayanagi’s crying face.

After Ichika leaves, Kamuro says that she has developed a sense of judgment after being near Sakayanagi for such a long time and feels that Ichika is dangerous and doesn’t want to be involved any further. Sakayanagi tells her to treasure that sense of judgment but says they can’t afford to let Ichika act freely.

Chapter 4
Other than the free to use public pool, the cruise ship also has a private pool that is available for hire at a cost of 20,000 private points per hour. If an entire class books it, it comes down to a cost of just 500 points per person. Ayanokouji and Akito are waiting for Haruka and Airi to change. Apparently, Airi is trying to change herself to be more confident and decided to wear a revealing bikini swimsuit with Haruka also wearing a similar one to encourage her.

“Hey Ayanokouji. How do you feel about Airi?” Even though only a moment earlier his attention was focused on the girls, I suddenly found him looking at me. He clearly wasn’t joking around. “What do you mean by how?” I could immediately see where this conversation was heading but decided to play dumb. “Mixed gender groups can sometimes be a bit complicated, right? It’s not rare at all for someone to fall in love with someone else within the group.” I could have given him an ordinary reply but instead I— “What about you?” When I asked him back, Akito showed a slightly troubled expression. “Well, let’s see…” After a short period of silence, Akito spoke up again. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested at all.” He didn’t deny that he had someone like that in his mind and answered in a way that was practically a confirmation. “But if those feelings would break apart this group, I have no intention of pursuing them.”

Keeping those feelings of his hidden in the depths of his heart, he would set them aside. Right now, I’m unable to tell if that person is Airi or Haruka… I wonder what the correct answer is? Unlike maths, the answer isn’t always going to be clear.

Later, they play beach volleyball and Keisei defeats Airi and Akito defeats Ayanokouji. Airi talks to Ayanokouji about recognising her weaknesses and wanting to improve so she doesn’t drag the class down. Ayanokouji thinks that she is currently the least valuable student in the class but thinks with this attitude, she will no longer be in that position in half a year or a year’s time. Haruka then talks with Ayanokouji and despite knowing how bad it sounds, she expresses her relief at his low island exam placement since recently, a lot of people had been suspicious of Ayanokouji’s abilities. They talk about what Airi needs in order to reach the next level of her development. Ayanokouji believes Airi needs supportive friends to develop but Haruka disagrees and says she believes Airi will be able to reach greater heights if she is powered by love. She knows that Ayanokouji knows about Airi’s feelings and asks why he won’t accept those feelings. Ayanokouji silently ponders that romance isn’t something one can do with more than one person so that was never an option. Ayanokouji warns Haruka that in the near future, Airi’s heart will be broken and tells Haruka to be there for her when that happens. When Haruka questions him more, he refuses to elaborate any further.

After they leave the private pool, the boys shower and change their clothes before waiting outside for the girls. At that time, Nanase calls out to Ayanokouji who then introduces her to Akito as an underclassman who helped him find a partner in the first special exam and helped him a lot in the island exam. Ayanokouji wonders if Nanase had the next booking for the private pool but she said she was just passing by. Ayanokouji is suspicious since there’s nothing in this area other than the private pool. Akito mutters that Airi has another strong rival. As they keep waiting, Ike and Shinohara arrive and are apparently the next booking for the private pool. Akito is shocked as he realises that they’re in a relationship but Keisei is dense and doesn’t understand until Haruka spells it out for him.

When they returned to their room, Miyamoto tells them that Class D’s Katsuragi and Tokito are in the middle of an argument. Akito wants to go and break it up but Miyamoto persuades him not to go since Ryuuen is scary. Ayanokouji says he’s going out to buy a drink and then heads in the direction that Miyamoto mentioned. He meets Hiyori who then brings him to the scene of the argument. Apparently, Tokito wants Katsuragi to be the flag-bearer for a rebellion against Ryuuen whilst one of his allies is trying to persuade him that Katsuragi is just Ryuuen’s dog. Katsuragi says he fought Sakayanagi in Class A because the leader wasn’t established yet at the time, but he has no intention of disturbing his current class which already has Ryuuen as the leader. He says he doesn’t agree with Ryuuen on a lot of policies but will work together with him to aim for Class A. Katsuragi criticises Hiyori for bringing the unrelated Ayanokouji here but Hiyori says that it could be a good thing to hear an outsider’s perspective. Ayanokouji tells the two of them that he believes Ryuuen brought Katsuragi to their class to help him unite the class and mediate with the factions that don’t like Ryuuen’s way of doing things. Katsuragi thinks he has a point and apologises to Hiyori for criticising her earlier. He tells Ayanokouji that during the island exam, Ryuuen told him about everything that’s happened until now. He hopes he can compete against the ‘real’ Ayanokouji at least once before they graduate from this school.

In the afternoon, Kei called Satou out to a café to talk to her. Apparently the two have grown closer ever since Kei spilled the beans about her relationship with Ayanokouji and currently they can even be called best friends. Although there are a few 3rd year girls, she decides it’s safe to talk since there aren’t any 2nd years around. She tells Satou that she’s decided to reveal her relationship with Ayanokouji once the new school semester starts and decided to tell Satou because she has the right to be the first one to know. Satou wonders how far they’ve come and whether they kissed, to which Kei replies just once and that it was her first kiss. Satou is surprised that Kei never kissed Hirata before to which Kei panics since her fake persona at school could break apart if people realised she never had a boyfriend in middle school. She apologises to Hirata internally before throwing him under the bus, saying he was too passive. Satou grins and says “I see, so contrary to appearances, Ayanokouji is quite a beast.” Satou teases Kei, asking if it’s okay for her to take Ayanokouji if they decide to break up since ‘Kei is someone who always tries to move onto better men”. She lists Nagumo and Tsukasaki as examples but apologises once she saw Kei’s facial expression, saying that it’s clear she thinks Ayanokouji was the best. Afterwards, they moved on to talking about other people’s love stories.

Later that day, Horikita called out Ibuki to talk. Apparently, it was a massive pain to get in contact since she didn’t have Ibuki’s phone number and had to ask a roommate to call Ibuki out for her. Ibuki complains and warns her not to do something like this again to which Horikita asks her to just give her phone number to which Ibuki also refuses. Horikita asks Ibuki how she wants to be contacted and Ibuki says she doesn’t want to be contacted at all. Horikita moves on to discussing about Ichika’s abnormal strength. She says she is trying to find the person who sent her the note, going off their neat handwriting, but she’s finding it difficult since Ichika ripped the note to pieces. Ibuki warns her that it’s better not to get involved with someone so dangerous. She says that she is confident she is the strongest amongst the girls in the 2nd year but Ichika was on a completely different level. Horikita says she trusts Ibuki’s judgment as the 2nd strongest girl in their grade, which obviously makes Ibuki angry and she asks if Horikita is mocking her. Horikita says this conversation will take a while and offers to buy her a drink. Ibuki scoffs at her attempts to help Ayanokouji, saying that he isn’t someone who needs saving. Horikita realises Ibuki knows something she doesn’t and asks her to reveal everything she knows. Ibuki mentions a few keywords such as ‘rooftop’ and ‘Karuizawa’ but is shocked when she realises Horikita doesn’t know about it. She tells Horikita about the rooftop incident which leaves Horikita slightly surprised but she says she feels she should have expected something like this when Ryuuen stopped pestering their class. She asks Ibuki who she thinks is stronger between Ayanokouji and Ichika and Ibuki says she doesn’t really know since neither of them were using their full strength, but probably Ayanokouji since boys are generally stronger than girls. Ibuki offers to help Horikita find the unknown student with the neat handwriting since she doesn’t want Horikita to be beaten by anyone other than her. Horikita finds it strange that Ibuki would want to cooperate with her not just once but twice. Ibuki guesses that Horikita came looking for her to ask for her cooperation but Horikita denies it. Ibuki asks her “really?” and Horikita says Ibuki’s help is completely unnecessary. Ibuki gets angry and bids farewell but is stopped by Horikita who tells her to work for the drink that she got. When Ibuki questions her, Horikita says there is nothing more expensive than a free gift. Ibuki says she’ll just pay for it instead and is about to transfer 700 private points but Horikita said, since it was a gift from her, it adds three million points to the value of the drink. Ibuki is exasperated and says she should’ve just been honest, adding that Horikita has a terrible personality. Horikita replies to her saying that it goes both ways.

At sunset, Ayanokouji goes to the promised location to meet with Ichinose. They talk about the current state of Ichinose’s class, and she asks him what he thinks her class needs. Ayanokouji replies that he feels Ichinose’s class are all very sincere people with good personalities, but that leaves them vulnerable to enemies who prefer to use dirty tactics. Just as he is about to respond to her confession, Nagumo shows up and says he apologises if he got it wrong but he wonders whether Ichinose knows about Ayanokouji going out with Karuizawa Kei. He says normally he wouldn’t get himself involved, but he didn’t want to see his underclassman in the student council cry. He asks whether Ayanokouji was thinking of two-timing. Ayanokouji soon admits that he had a secret relationship with Kei. Nagumo says he feels sorry for interrupting the two, but he needed to protect Ichinose as she was a candidate to possibly become the next Student Council president. He asks Ayanokouji to introduce his girlfriend next time, before leaving. When Ayanokouji starts to give his reply again, Ichinose broke down and apologises for confessing and being so self-centred, saying she was a fool to think that she had a chance and that someone as kind and cool as Ayanokouji would obviously already have a girlfriend before bidding farewell and running away. He decides not to chase after her and gave her time to sort out her own thoughts first.

Chapter 5
The next day, every student receives a notification on their phones about a treasure hunt game. It has voluntary participation and every participant needs to pay a 10,000 point entry fee. Ayanokouji decides to participate and heads to the meeting spot. Nagumo explains that it was a game hosted by the student council who obviously were non-participants. Male and female students can form pairs and participate, but participating as an individual was also fine. Participants were to find QR codes, scattered around the ship and scan them using an app on their phone. But there was a limit where each group could only scan 1 code, with the prize shared if it was a pair. There were 200 participants competing for 50 codes of 5000 points, 30 codes of 10,000 points, 10 codes of 50,000 points, 5 codes of 100,000 points, 3 codes of 300,000 points, and one each of 500,000 and one million points. The value isn’t listed on the QR codes, but in general, the harder a QR code is to find, the greater the value of the reward. If every participant paired up, there would be enough codes for every group, but pairing up also reduced the rewards gained. Ayanokouji originally planned to participate by himself since his relationship with Kei was still a secret and she paired up with Nene. But Satou invited him to pair up. Ayanokouji was still hesitant since Satou was a girl who had just recently and was the first to confessed her feelings to him, but before he could get a word in, Satou professed that she won’t make a move on him and reveals Kei already told her that the two of them were going out.

As Satou goes to visit the restroom, Ayanokouji comes across Matsushita who is paired with a 3rd year student. Ayanokouji deduces that the 3rd year student probably has a crush on Matsushita but is trying to avoid Ayanokouji due to Nagumo’s orders. When the 3rd grader tries to tell Matsushita to hurry up and move along, Matsushita refuses and says that if he wants to do that, he should find a different partner. They split up and the 3rd grader moves away. Matsushita then invites Ayanokouji to form a group with her but Satou rushes out of the restroom and says that he’s taken.

They continue to look for QR codes and find a few in difficult to reach places, but Ayanokouji simply takes a photo so that they can scan using Satou’s phone later if they need to. An hour after the treasure hunt started, they ran into Nanase. Nanase introduces herself to Satou who comments that she doesn’t look like a first year. Nanase doesn’t think she seems that much more mature than her age but Satou keeps insisting that she is and asks whether she drinks milk and uses massages. They continue having their dysfunctional conversation even though Nanase is clearly talking about her mental maturity whilst Satou is talking about Nanase’s breasts. Nanase excuses herself and Ayanokouji notices that she is following a first grader since he also noticed that she started quickly eating her sandwich the other day when that boy stood up to leave. Ayanokouji and Satou continue looking for QR codes and use a few interesting strategies to find some of the QR codes such as using the torch of one person’s phone to light up a QR code while the other person takes a photo using their phone.

Ryuuen and Housen passed each other in the hallway. Housen confirms that Ryuuen is now the second person at this school on his murder list. He also reveals that he knows Ryuuen paid 30,000 private points to buy a 1st year student’s piggyback card and used it on Nagumo’s group to earn 280,000 private points. Meanwhile, Nanase is following the first grader taking part in the treasure hunt game. But unbeknownst to her, she is being tailed by a student from Ryuuen’s class. Ryuuen has Nishino trap her while he comes to interrogate her. He reveals that he had tracked everyone who had first arrived at the scene of crime, including Sudou and Ike. But whilst those two merely spent their days playing like idiots on the ship, Nanase kept following around a first grader named Kurachi. Nanase says this was unrelated to Komiya’s case and refuses to talk but Ryuuen says that it’s for him to decide whether they’re related. She reveals that even though Ayanokouji told her not to bother with GPS tracking, she secretly used the GPS tracker and found Kushida and Kurachi nearby. She decided to focus on Kurachi since Kushida was Ayanokouji’s classmate. She asks that Ryuuen let her interrogate Kurachi by herself, which he agrees to. He uses Ishizaki to separate Kurachi’s partner before Nanase walks up to talk to him alone. She asks him why he tried to attack Ayanokouji and after he tries to say he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, she reveals she has evidence in the form of both the GPS and finding a weapon at the scene. Kurachi folds and reveals someone paid him private points if he would attack Ayanokouji. He says that he was broke at the time and the person said all he would have to do is pretend to attack. Kurachi agreed because he thought he could pass it off as a prank. Nanase asks for the identity of this person but Kurachi says he doesn’t know. Nanase intimidates him by saying that both Ryuuen and Housen were looking for the person who disrupted their plans, which fears Kurachi into action as he gets her to promise to not tell Housen before revealing that this mysterious person was his classmate Riku. Nanase relays this information to Ryuuen but asks him to hold off on interrogating Riku and leave it up to her. In exchange, if he doesn’t make a move on Riku, she promises that she’ll reveal the identity of one other person who she knows was at the scene of crime (Ichika). Ryuuen agrees but tells her not to make him wait too long.

At the starting place of the treasure hunt game, Yagami (with Kushida in tow) offers to switch with Horikita to let her take a break. When she tells him about the number of people redeeming cheap rewards, Yagami muses about the psychology of people redeeming any QR codes they find because they’re afraid of other’s taking it away from them. Horikita considers Yagami a reliable underclassman who is very sociable and is much more capable than the other two first graders who joined the student council. Horikita takes up Yagami’s offer and then invites Kushida for a talk. She asks Kushida why she’s sticking so close to Yagami when she’s never expressed much interest in boys up until this point. Kushida replies that it’s because it’s easier to get rid of people in her way by first getting close to them. She says that since he seems to be infatuated with her, she just needs to wait by his side for an opportunity to expel him. She also says that as long as Horikita remains at this school, she won’t feel any peace. Horikita asks why she puts more emphasis on her than on Ayanokouji or Yagami. Kushida says that she will have plenty of opportunities to expel Yagami whilst Ayanokouji is cautious so he isn’t easy to expel. But at the same time, since he didn’t go to the same middle school as her, people wouldn’t trust his words if he were to expose her past. She also thinks Ayanokouji is scared of her because he chose to form the private points contract to guarantee his safety. She believes that if she gets Horikita expelled, Ayanokouji will stay quiet out of fear so she will then be able to take her time thinking of a plan to expel him. Horikita says that she is certain neither she nor Ayanokouji will reveal Kushida’s secret but Kushida scoffs at her. Kushida asks her if she can guarantee that she won’t use her secret as a weapon against Kushida if Kushida were to betray the class or leak important secrets to an enemy class. When Horikita is unable to answer, Kushida says that’s why she’s unable to let Horikita stay at this school.

After 2 hours, Ayanokouji decides to pick out 3 of their QR codes which were the most difficult to find and tells Satou to choose one of them. The first 2 QR codes were already taken but Satou jumps for joy as the third one worked. They are a little disappointed when the reward was only 100,000 points but the game was mostly about luck so they couldn’t do anything about that. When he returns to the starting point to redeem the reward from Horikita (who is in the student council), he asks her whether anyone in their class got a bigger reward. She says the Kouenji-Mii-chan pair got the 500,000 reward. Ayanokouji expresses his surprise that Kouenji actually teamed up with someone.

Ayanokouji calls Kushida and meets up with her to transfer half of his treasure hunt reward to her. Kushida says he doesn’t have to since it was just a game, but Ayanokouji says that he’s doing it to show his sincerity and looks into her eyes and says he hopes she will show him the same sincerity in return by honouring their agreement. Kushida accepts the private points and says that she thinks he’s a lot smarter than Horikita. She says she doesn’t want to make Ayanokouji into an enemy so she hopes he will continue to support her in the future.

Chapter 6
At night, while Ayanokouji was talking with his roommates, Kei texted him to ask if they could call each other. With the expectations that she would call him to say that she was lonely without him and wanting to hear his voice, he told Akito and co. that he was going out to buy a drink. But on the contrary, when he called Kei, she started interrogating him about rumours of him meeting a 1st year girl every day and pairing up with Satou in the treasure hunt game when Kei secretly wanted to pair with him. Ayanokouji retorts that the treasure hunt game was her fault since their relationship wasn’t made public yet. She asks him to say “I love you” to her, and after looking around at his surroundings and confirming there wasn’t anyone else, he quietly said it to her. Kei chuckles since she realises what he just did and teases him by asking him to say it again. After she gets him to quietly repeat it and breaks out chuckling again, she asks him whether he wants her to say it back to him. When Ayanokouji asks whether she’ll do it, Kei teases him but then complains when he says “see you tomorrow”. She doesn’t like his attitude of not really caring about it but after a period of silence, in the end she still said “I love you” back to him.

During the night, Mashima, Hoshinomiya and Chabashira met up at a bar. The first bit of the conversation goes: “I’m tired! Why do us teachers have to work every day until so late? My skin is going to be ruined. Even teachers would like to have a summer holiday” Hoshinomiya let out her complaints while hitting the bar counter. “You already rested plenty, didn’t you? You got day 5 and 6 off.” “That’s only 2 days. I was so busy both today and yesterday. What the hell was that treasure hunting bonus game? I’m the one who wants a bonus.”

Hoshinomiya continues complaining and drinking non-stop. It makes for the funniest scene in the entire volume. Later, Mashima reveals that because there are too many 2nd graders remaining, the school has decided to pull out a special exam that they haven’t used in 11 years. In other words, it was the special exam during the 2nd semester of their 3rd year when they were at school. Chabashira and Hoshinomiya are shocked since they thought the class vote was supposed to replace that exam. They express concern for the 2nd graders. Hoshinomiya gets drunk and blames Chabashira for some kind of mistake she made in that exam which cost Hoshinomiya the ability to climb up to Class A (it seems like their 2 classes were cooperating in that exam). Apparently the relationship between the two of them was so bad for a while that even though they were roommates, Chabashira was forced to move out to a different room. Hoshinomiya openly admits that she has already given up on Ichinose’s class catching up to Sakayanagi’s class, but says she won’t ever let Chabashira’s class climb up to Class A after what she did. Mashima scolds her and says that the current batch of students are completely unrelated to Chabashira and Hoshinomiya’s quarrels. Chabashira who was relatively quiet throughout all this, stands up and decides to leave.

On that same night, Horikita goes to the private pool and asks the receptionist if she can book a time spot. She borrows the tablet from the receptionist and looks through all the bookings. Horikita actually had an ulterior motive for being in charge of giving out rewards in the treasure hunting game. It gave her an opportunity to check everyone’s handwriting when they came to claim their prize. Unfortunately, she didn’t find the handwriting she was looking for during that event. Logically, it was likely that a lot of people would be taking advantage of the large number of participants in the treasuring hunt event to look to monopolise the private pool. Horikita was now searching for the handwriting of everyone who had made reservations. She came at night so that there wouldn’t be many other people coming to book the pool, but contrary to expectations, an unfamiliar 1st grader also arrived after her. She pretended that she was still consulting with her friends on her phone about which time slot to book and offered to let him go first. This 1st grader was almost as tall as Sudou. After receiving the tablet back from him, Horikita confirmed his name on the booking as Ishigami Kyou. His handwriting looked very neat and up until now, it was the closest to the handwriting from her memory. She quickly searches up his OAA on her phone. As he is about to leave, Horikita calls out to him and says that she just finished talking to her friends but the time slot they were going to pick was the same as the one Ishigami picked. She asked if she could talk to him about it for a bit. Horikita didn’t care what topic they talked about, she just wanted more information about him to see if he was the one who wrote the warning note. When he replies “of course Horikita-senpai”, her heart beats faster and she questions why he knew her name even though it was their first time talking to each other. He replies that he had memorised the names and faces of every 2nd grader with high academic ability for the Y2V1 exam. Horikita commends him for his memory seeing as she thought she had remembered every 1st grader with high academic ability but clearly forgot about Ishigami. But Ishigami questions why she knew his academic ability if she didn’t know him and was supposedly texting her friends on her phone and wouldn’t have enough time to open up OAA, considering it takes a while to start up. Horikita panics a little but manages to smooth it over by saying she had OAA open on her phone and just looked up his portrait photo to see if it was the same person. Since Ishigami’s physical ability was listed as D, Horikita came away with the conclusion that he was only mildly suspicious but would immediately upgrade that rating if it was revealed that he concealed his true physical ability.

As Horikita is about to leave, she encountered Hoshinomiya and Kanzaki. Hoshinomiya asks about the ‘cool guy’ who just passed and Kanzaki answers that he was the first grader Ishigami. Suddenly Hoshinomiya rushes to the deck of the ship and pukes over the edge. Apparently she was suffering from a combination of a hangover and seasickness. She apologises to Horikita while continuing to vomit. According to Kanzaki, he’s already seen this kind of scene about 3 times during homeroom in the mornings and is used to it already. Since Kanzaki asked her what her relationship was to Ishigami, Horikita deduced that he knew something about Ishigami. When she tries to ask him for details, Kanzaki proposes an information exchange in return for information about Ayanokouji. Horikita says that she doesn’t know anything about Ayanokouji even though he is her classmate because he doesn’t trust her. Horikita doesn’t feel like she gave sufficient information but Kanzaki is satisfied and starts giving his impression of Ishigami. According to him, Ishigami is very compassionate to his allies and has been recognised as the leader of Class 1A with a combination of the strengths of Sakayanagi and Ichinose. However, he is also merciless when dealing with enemies who threaten his classmates. He takes an indifferent attitude towards anyone who doesn’t fall into those two categories. According to Kanzaki, since Ishigami remembered Horikita’s name, she definitely falls into either the category of ally or enemy. He warns her against getting involved with Ishigami and labels Ishigami the 1st grader who is most worthy of paying attention to. Horikita asks whether there’s any other first years who Kanzaki thinks are dangerous but contrary to her expectations, he says “Aside from Ishigami? No, there aren’t really any” and doesn’t even name Ichika.

With that all said, Kanzaki walks away. He passes by Ibuki who walks up to Horikita and asks if she’s close to Kanzaki. Horikita says no and explains that she was simply having him describe Ishigami to her since she suspects he might be the person she was looking for. When Horikita questions whether Ishigami’s D physical rating was fake, Ibuki looks at his naked upper body in the pool and instantly denies that possibility. She says that strength was closely linked to body type, and she was usually able to determine how strong someone was just by looking at their muscles to see whether they had trained. With this, Horikita decided to clear the suspicions from Ishigami.

At a time when other students were busy enjoying the ship’s facilities, Ichika headed to Yagami Takuya’s room. She asks what Yagami plans to do with Nanase, Ryuuen and Horikita all looking for him. He says that it’s fine and that everything was going according to plan. Ichika becomes alert as Yagami walks towards her and doesn’t even blink. Because in the instant that she blinks, she’d be giving him the opportunity to launch a fatal attack. Yagami assures her that he won’t use violence against her in a place like this. Ichika replies that she wants to believe him but can’t, to which Yagami laughs and replies “That’s right, you’re no longer someone from the White Room. Which means you’re my enemy.” But then he patronisingly says, “Or so I thought but I don’t really see you as a threat”. Ichika threatens to expose everything to Ayanokouji but Yagami says if she was truly on Ayanokouji’s side, she would have already told him. Yagami asks her whether she’ll continue to interfere in his plans such as taking out Kushida and Kurachi who he sent after Ayanokouji. Ichika asks him if he’s angry but Yagami laughs and says that conversely, he learnt a lot about Ayanokouji’s personality and improved the accuracy with which he can read Ayanokouji’s actions in the future. According to him, Nanase and Ryuuen’s chase after Riku will lead to nothing but conversely, he wants Horikita to find him and suggests that with a few more hints, she eventually will. Ichika feels sorry for Riku since he only teamed up with Yagami to help protect his classmates yet it was Yagami who orchestrated the expulsion of his classmates in the first place. Yagami suggests that Riku’s the type of person who develops a sense of crisis after you expel a few of his classmates and will willingly become an ally if Yagami creates a common enemy such as Housen for him to direct his anger towards.
 * Yagami says that the strategy this time exposed Sakayanagi as Ayanokouji’s ally and that he will have to think of countermeasures for her in the future
 * Yagami threatens Ichika but then says that he doesn’t like using more than the minimum level of violence
 * We learn that Shiba was the one who ‘disciplined’ Ichika and Yagami praises Ichika for not fighting back against the onslaught
 * He says that he will fight a mental battle against Ayanokouji and won’t use violence against him. He will set up a match where either he or Ayanokouji is forced to withdraw from school

Chabashira calls Ayanokouji out to a concert hall at around 2 AM in the middle of the night. He complains that they’re breaking protocol but Chabashira reassures him by saying the teachers don’t patrol any more after 12. She reveals that they will be receiving a new special exam right after they return to school. She asks Ayanokouji whether he thinks they can reach A Class. Ayanokouji said that their class had the highest potential out of all the classes, but it is very difficult to overcome the gap to Sakayanagi’s class. He accuses Chabashira of not giving her utmost effort for her students and abandoning them because she didn’t want to believe in a false hope that they could reach Class A. He asks Chabashira whether she is willing to buy in. He says that if she gives up now, he will also give up on reach Class A. But if she is serious about aiming for Class A, he won’t spare any efforts to reach it either. Chabashira doesn’t give a clear answer but murmurs that if he were to come to the forefront of the class, the class would also surely change. Ayanokouji still feels that his evaluation of Chabashira as a teacher remains low, but he now has a bit more respect for her as a human being. He then randomly decides to play the piano.

After the performance, Chabashira applauds him, saying that she wouldn’t be able to reach that level even if she practised for a lifetime. Then Tsukishiro also comes in and praises Ayanokouji’s skills, leaving Chabashira looking for excuses. Ayanokouji deduces that he tracked them using the security cameras. Tsukishiro says that since he was dismissed today and Director Sakayanagi is returning as chairman, he is now only an ordinary person and won’t report them to the school. Ayanokouji asks whether it’s okay to trust him and Tsukishiro replies that there was clearly no perturbance in his piano playing. Ayanokouji says this was because the battle between him and Tsukishiro was purely over expulsion and that this isn’t something he can be expelled for. Tsukishiro asks Ayanokouji one last time if he is willing to withdraw from school. Chabashira gets angry at Tsukishiro for intervening in a special exam to try to expel Ayanokouji but Tsukishiro points out that Chabashira was also about to break the rules by leaking special exam details to her student in advance. Furthermore, they broke curfew rules and met up alone in the middle of night even though they’re a man and woman. Chabashira backs off with these words but Ayanokouji says he won’t withdraw voluntarily and will stay in this school until graduation unless he is expelled within the rules of this school. Tsukishiro praises him saying that he is smarter and stronger than anyone, but warns Ayanokouji that he is still just a child and that his father will have taken all those factors into account regarding any attempts to take him back. He offers Ayanokouji a handshake with his left hand before leaving. Chabashira notes that shaking hands with one’s left hand holds the symbolic meaning of having remained enemies until the end. Chabashira apologises for giving Tsukishiro an opening to take advantage of, but Ayanokouji says that it was all within his expectations. Before leaving, he warns Chabashira one more time that the success and failure of the students wasn’t unrelated to her and that students relied on their teachers to lead the way.

Epilogue
The cruise ship holiday is over and they’re back to the dorms. Ayanokouji spends his days in the dorms and going back and forth to Keyaki Mall. He interacted with his friends in the Ayanokouji group, with old friends such as Sudou and Ike, and with people from other classes such as Ishizaki, Hiyori and various people from Ichinose’s class. But with the end of the summer holidays, it was the last day before he and Kei were to reveal their relationship to the public. Kei is nervous but determined to go through with the reveal and asks Ayanokouji to protect her if her social standing takes a dip. He kisses her twice by surprise and even engage in a few deep kisses with her. Going forward, he reflects on their relationship progression and how she needs to be able to survive by herself without a host, especially if he ever go directly against his most formidable adversary, his father, and how she needs to be ready for any pain when it comes down to it.

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