Pathogen (Classroom of the Elite)

Prologue: Foreboding Feeling

Ayanokouji Kiyotaka

July 26th. The seventh day of the uninhabited island exam.

The rain began to pour down harder while the fog thickened. Although the harsh sound of drumming droplets masked all noise, I had a feeling someone was approaching me from behind. Nanase, despite being drained from our fight earlier, seemed to immediately notice the presence as well.

When I turned around to look, I saw a student sporting red hair that fluttered behind her. She came to a halt and waved at me.

"Seems like it's gonna be an intense storm, huh, senpaiiiii?"

The student who emerged from the rain was none other than Amasawa Ichika from Class 1-A. Although she and Nanase belonged in the same group, I couldn't exactly dismiss her presence here as a simple coincidence. There were no other students around, and Amasawa didn't appear to possess a backpack or tablet with her.

Since traversing this island without any supplies within your reach was essentially suicide, I supposed she might have hid her belongings in a nearby area before approaching us. She could have been following me earlier on, or perhaps a third-party used the GPS search feature and gave her my coordinates. In any case, no matter how she managed to locate us, her arrival wasn't exactly a welcome one.

"Please get behind me, senpai." Nanase stepped out in front of me, as her eyes fixated on the thick wooden stick Amasawa held. "She... Amasawa-san cannot be trusted."

"Hm, why?" I asked.

Amasawa placed her hand on her chest, making an exaggerated face as if she'd been struck by an arrow.

"Wow, harsh much? How can you say something like that, even though we're in the same group?" she asked, wiping a fake tear from her face. "Hey, look, I'm totally cute and harmless, alright?"

Amasawa tossed the stick to the ground by her feet, showing us that she wasn't planning on using it. Perhaps it had already been used? Otherwise, there was no reason why she would be carrying it around like that.

"Enough with the jokes, Amasawa-san. You were the one who hurt Komiya-senpai and Kinoshita-senpai back then, weren't you?" Nanase asked.

Those were the two Class 2-C students that were grouped with Shinohara from our class, who retired from the exam due to a bad injury. I remembered there being signs of another person present in the area as well, but I decided against investigating it because it was too dangerous to leave Ike on his own to look for Shinohara.

"Oh?" Amasawa, despite being accused of something awful, had the same grin plastered on her face.

"During the incident, I noticed that someone had been watching us nearby," Nanase began. So, I started chasing them. In the end, I couldn't catch up to them..." As she spoke, she raised her finger and pointed at the student in front of her. "But I did happen to see that person's rather distinctive red hair. That was you, Amasawa-san."

"Oopsie, I've been caught!" Amasawa spoke with a gleeful tone, not even trying to deny the accusation at all. "But, I think you're jumping to conclusions, Nanase-san. Just because I was there doesn't mean I hurt them, right?"

"Then, why did you try to run away?"

"You had a pretty scary look on your face back then. Besides, you should think about it from my perspective. Would you like being suspected of the same thing? That's why I ran away."

"I could say the same thing as well. You do understand why I'm finding it very hard to believe you, right?"

The conversation was at a deadlock, with Nanase pressing on and Amasawa playing word games with her. The two kept going back and forth without any sign of progress being made. And so, for the time being, I decided to question Amasawa about a different matter that I believed was more concerning at the moment.