Reincarnated as a Tsubaki sister from COTE

Vol 0.6

Sakurako POV

There's not much to add to my narration, other than the obvious fact that every few months, or sometimes years, the level of study grew noticeably harder. Two, sometimes three levels of difficulty would be added, and the shift wasn't subtle. You could see it in the faces of the children around me, the ones who were barely hanging on as it was. Each increase meant more students would fall behind, unable to keep up with the unrelenting pace.

But the most telling change wasn't in the studies themselves. It was in the way the special written tests worked. After watching carefully, I noticed something: the difficulty of the test wasn't fixed. Instead, it adjusted based on the top scorer. A perfect score meant the next test would be even harder, not just for the one who excelled but for everyone.

And if the highest score dropped, the ceiling lowered accordingly. That meant the difficulty of the test wasn't just about the material—it was a direct reflection of who stood at the top. There was no room for error. Not a single miscalculation, no careless omissions, no excuses.

I watched the other children during these tests. They would double-check, triple-check their answers, their fingers clutching their pencils like their lives depended on it. And maybe, in a way, they did. One mistake could mean failure. And failure in this place was unforgivable.

I wondered if Kiyotaka had figured it out yet. Knowing him, he probably had. He noticed everything, even if he rarely talked about it. Or maybe he hadn't thought about it in the same way I had. Either way, I remembered something important about him—something that set him apart from the rest of us.

Sooner or later, Kiyotaka would stop aiming for perfect scores. He'd deliberately hold back, just enough to keep himself under the radar. I could see it coming, the way a storm clouds the horizon. It wasn't because he couldn't handle the difficulty or because he was tired of being at the top. No, it was because Kiyotaka understood the rules of survival here better than anyone else.

Being exceptional in the White Room wasn't a gift—it was a curse. The more you excelled, the more pressure you brought upon yourself. And when the inevitable slip-up came, the fall was catastrophic. Kiyotaka wasn't going to let that happen. He would slip away quietly, unnoticed by the instructors, blending in just enough to avoid drawing attention.

And when that day came, I knew he'd be pulled out. Or maybe he'd pull himself out. Either way, I couldn't imagine this place without him, and the thought made my chest tighten in a way I couldn't quite explain.

For now, though, I had to push those thoughts aside. There was another test coming, and I couldn't afford to be distracted. Even if Kiyotaka and Shiro continued to outperform me, I refused to fall behind. Not yet. Not ever.

Kiyotaka POV

I had almost half of the allotted 30 minutes left to answer the final problem. Instead, I sat back and stared blankly at the front of the room, waiting for the signal to finish. There was no urgency. There never was.

The silence in the room was broken by the sound of the door opening. A man entered—a representative of the White Room, his face as grim and severe as always.

It wasn't unusual for an adult to appear during an exam. Sometimes it was because a student couldn't handle the stress and hyperventilated, collapsed, or even suffered seizures. Other times, a child caught cheating would be removed. But as I glanced around the room, I saw no signs of distress or misconduct from anyone else.