The Odd One Out

Chapter 4.5 - Declaration Of War And Love

"It's fine, Ayanokouji. You should retire from the exam. I'm sure the rest of the class will understand."

"Thanks, Hirata."

I retired from the exam, making Class D suffer a thirty-point penalty. However, I had successfully disqualified Class C, meaning the exam was now a battle between Classes A, B, and D. Classes B and D have an informal alliance, so it was essentially a two versus one situation.

It was late at night when I head back onto the cruise ship. After all, these events had happened around 8PM when the evening roll call was supposed to commence. By the time I was back in my room on the cruise ship, it was already past 9PM.

That was also when I realized Kouenji was one of my roommates.

"Ah ha ha! Welcome back, Masterpiece boy, seems like you made the right decision. It's a shame you ruined your close-to-perfect head by helping those idiots!"

"How are you spending your days on the ship, Kouenji?"

"Me? I've just been roaming around the ship as you can see. It's only right for a perfect existence like me to have this much freedom."

"I see. Well, I'm going to sleep."

"Rest well, Masterpiece boy. I'm sure dealing with those idiots hurt your brain in more ways than one! Ah ha ha!"

********

Arisu

[Meet me at the café on the fifth floor at noon]
[I want to talk to you]

[Ok]
[See you then]

The next day came, and Arisu and I decided to meet up at the cruise ship's café to discuss things. I still had a massive bandage on my head. The damage wasn't really from Ibuki's kick, but rather from the impact from when my head hit the ground.

"Oh my... Kiyotaka. Are headbands your new style? I must say you look goo-"

"I'm injured, Arisu. My head was covered in blood yesterday."

"Fufufu... I know what happened, Kiyotaka. I watched the scene from the TV in my room."

"You can watch the special exam on TV?"

"Yes, there's a channel connected to a camera that watches over the starting point at all times."

"So that means we can watch the results announcements on the final day as they happen."

"Yes. How about we watch them together? They'll likely be broadcasted on all the cruise ship's TVs. We can also watch them in my room, fufufu."

"If you say so. So? Why did you call me out here?"

"So you've successfully disqualified Class C, huh?"

"Yes. I used the rules to my advantage. Now, it's a two versus one situation between Katsuragi's Class A and Classes B and D."

"I see. I guess we'll temporarily be Class B, then."

"Yeah, Katsuragi stands no chance without Ryuuen on his side. Both Classes B and D know the leader of Class A. Meanwhile he has no clue about the identity of the other leaders. There's still two full days left though, so who knows what can happen."

"Kiyotaka, do you really think Katsuragi can turn this around by himself?"

"It is possible. However, based on his strategy, I doubt he even knows about Class C's disqualification yet. He has decided to take a defensive approach and limit his spendings. But that plan is not going to work. He's basically already lost 100 points as well as all his bonus points."