Cardfight!! Vanguard: Generations Volume 4 [Ryouta Rival]

Chapter 4: A Trade Offer

Me and Ryouta stared at each other with hard gazes.

"So you admit to being the traitor...?"

"I believe it." Machida said.

"Takanori-san, this entire time, it was you...?"

Matsushita couldn't believe it. After revealing this, suddenly our conversation from last night had taken on a completely different meaning. Zyriot, who had overheard us that evening, crossed his arms and sighed.

"I'm disappointed in you, Yuuto-san. I thought you were better than this."

"You're blind to not see he's always been like this. If anything, guys like him are the most dangerous." Machida said.

"Most dangerous, huh...?"

"They pretend to be friendly and nothing special in order to lower your guard, but the moment they have what they want, they'll pull the rug out right from under your feet. This bastard succeeded in pulling the wool over our eyes and tricking us."

"It wasn't that hard. I just had to help the group from time to time to make it look like I was a team player." I said.

"Come to think of it, Takanori-san only helped us in the Scavenger Hunt and Creative Auction... during the other two challenges, he did nothing at all." Ikeda said.

"And both times, he made great contributions to obscure that fact. It made him look like he was useful to our group when he could be, when in reality he was just doing it to parse suspicion away from him." Satou said.

"It all makes sense now... Takanori-san's plan was the reason why we came in 3rd place at the Scavenger Hunt, and the money he and Matsushita-san raised for me and Satou-san could've gotten us 2nd place at the Auction. By becoming someone who creates such good results, it almost lifted all suspicions from him being the traitor. After all, why would someone who is trying to help our group win sabotage us?" Ryouta said.

"I also just noticed that every time he did help, it was only just enough for us to get on the podium, but not enough for us to get 1st place. It's almost like he stopped us short on purpose so we'd never win any challenge." Zyriot said.

"That sneaky bastard..." Satou muttered.

"He also took great advantage of Machida-san being in our group to keep himself hidden while causing unnecessary conflict, as the existence of a traitor made everyone turn on him under the assumption he was the culprit. No... it's more closer to say that you planted him in our group for that very purpose, didn't you?" Ryouta said.

I nodded.

"Yeah. During the group formation, after you told me about uniting all the class representatives in one group, I approached Machida-san and asked him if he wanted to join my group. Between the two of us, it's more likely for him to accept an offer from me, rather than you."

"Let's make it clear that I still hate the both of you. But between spending a week with Ryouta-san or Takanori-san, I'd choose the loser loner with a crush on his mom any day of the week." Machida said.

"The next step was to unite our two halves, but that was easy. I just had to wait for the numbers to dwindle down and force us to come together as a group."

That's the reason why I wasn't acting urgently during the group formation session. While I could've went around and asked those strong students to join me, I let all those opportunities slip by me so I could infiltrate Ryouta's group and rope Machida into it.

Since I knew Ryouta was trying to make a group with all the class representatives, it was the perfect opportunity for me to set this up.

Having Machida in the same group as me would make him the perfect scapegoat for my actions, as his divisive and combative personality would make everyone suspect him over me.