"You're late, Kikyou. What, couldn't slip past your classmates?" asked Ryuuen.

"You two again?" Ibuki eyed Ryuuen.

"Are you absolutely sure that the two of you just team-up? No relationship or anything?" Kaneda added.

"What did you say?" Ryuuen glared at him.

"Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"What are you plotting, Ryuuen-kun?" Kushida demanded. She drew closer to Ryuuen on the isolated rooftop.

"Oh? They're not teaming up?" Ike asked confused.

Kushida inwardly groaned. "Why am I always making a deal with the devil?"

"Thank God you're not gonna do it this time around." Sato put an arm around her shoulders. "Right?" She asked for confirmation.

"Right." Kushida nodded.

"Huh?" said Ryuuen.

"The questions and answers you gave me were completely different than the ones on the exam."

"Oh nevermind." Ike said.

"You asked for a the test questionnaires and its answers?" Shibata asked.

"Why do you keep on asking me?" Kushida looked at him annoyed. "Do I look like I know the answer?"

"But I was asking the Kushida on the screen." He whined.

"And you expect her to answer you how?"

"Oh, yeah. I switched 'em out before the deadline. What about it?" Ryuuen snorted derisively, then took a sip of bottled water.

"I told you, didn't I? I will get Horikita expelled, no matter what. I betrayed my classmates and switched out our questions on the condition that you gave me the math test answers. If you kept your promise, Horikita would've dropped out of school. But you betrayed me," said Kushida.

"Turning traitor again, ey?" Ryuuen smirked.

"Hell bent on expelling her, I see." Sakayanagi said.

Sakayanagi eyed him, "Though, I'm quite curious why you switched out the questions."

"Clearly because he doesn't want to expell Horikita-san without playing with her first." Katsuragi said.

"What? You mad about something so trivial?"

"Trivial? You want to win against Class D and give us nothing in return?"

"You're mistaken, Kikyou. Your questions weren't used on the exam," replied Ryuuen.

"Huh? What are you even talking about? I turned them in right away, just as you instructed me to. I even confirmed everything with Chabashira-sensei."

"You really haven't noticed? Suzune acted ahead of time to stop the school from formally accepting your questions. Thanks to that, not only did we lose, we just barely avoided catastrophe. Everyone in my class depended on that strategy," said Ryuuen.

"Huh, you instructed sensei to only accept the tests you'll submit?" Hirata said.

"It would seem so." Horikita said.

"That's smart." Yukimura nodded.

"I'm shock that sensei played along." Haruka admitted.

"She wants to graduate from Class A, even if it was through her students. After finding out that this year Class D have many promising students." Matsushita said.

"Wait. Ahead of time? That's… No way."

"Go ahead and wait for the results if you doubt me. In all likelihood, Class C lost to Class D. That rendered our agreement invalid. I'm not giving you the correct test questions if I get nothing in return," said Ryuuen.

"Grrr!"

"How about showing me some gratitude instead?"

"Gratitude? I just lost to Horikita! What should I be grateful for?!"

Despite saying that she'll try her best to change and to help the class, Kushida felt irritation creeping in. Her desire to be the best still sometime got the best of her, that trait of hers will never go away in just a week.

Kushida squashed that feeling away. She started counting from one to ten to calm herself down.

Kushida recalled the humiliation she'd felt at admitting defeat in front of
Horikita. She was so enraged that she felt her blood boiling.

"So trusting, to get snared without even knowing it," taunted Ryuuen. Grabbing Kushida's uniform, he forcefully unfastened a button on her blazer
and reached inside.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" Ike glared at him.

"What the hell!" Kushida exclaimed crossing her arms. She leaned away disgusted and unnerved.

"Ryuuen-kun!" Ichinose gasped.

"What are you doing, idiot?" Ibuki grumbled from her position.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" shouted Kushida, backing away to put some distance between herself and Ryuuen.

Ryuuen smiled.

"Come on. I'm not doing anything. Go ahead, look in your pocket," he said.

"In my pocket?" Still on her guard, Kushida slowly reached into her blazer. She felt paper, which she didn't expect.

"Her pocket?" Shinohara looked confused.

"Is... That a paper?" Hiyori squinted her eyes to see it better.

"You didn't placed a paper there?" Yahiko asked.

"Stop asking me! I don't know, okay?!" Kushida bursted out. Yahiko looked startled.

"What is this?"

Ryuuen couldn't have had enough time to put something in her pocket just then. That meant he'd placed the paper there beforehand. When Kushida unfolded it, she found a list of questions and answers for the math test.

"Test answers?" Tachibana muttered.

"If the teacher found that in my... Uniform," Kushida gaped at the screen. She quickly touched her uniform.

However, they weren't the questions that were actually on the exam in the end. They were the ones Ryuuen had supposedly given her.

"Why were these in my uniform?"

"That's probably not all there is. I assume that several pieces of evidence of cheating are scattered throughout your belongings. I'm sure you'll see them if you go digging later," said Ryuuen.

"Who would—?" Horikita muttered but glanced behind her over to Ayanokoji.

Class D noticed her actions and followed.

Ayanokoji inwardly groaned. 'What now? I'm not doing anything.'

Kushida looked deep in thought.

"I don't understand," said Kushida.

"Someone in Class D was prepared to go in for the kill. What if I had still given you the right questions? Come on. Say you scored really high on the exam and then someone accused you of cheating, and they found those papers? What do you think would happen then?"

"Wait, you mean I'd be expelled?! Even though I didn't cheat? That's stupid!" Kushida balked.

"As long as the evidence pointed at you, the school will definitely expell you." Kanzaki said.

"Won't the school hold an investigation?" Ishizaki asked him.

Kanzak looked at him, "Of course the school will investigate the matter, but Kushida did got her hands on the test questions. That alone would be the deciding factor."

"If you were innocent, it would be stupid. But you got your hands on the questions beforehand by working with me. There'd be nothing you could do about it," said Ryuuen.

Of course, Kushida could have claimed she was framed. Even if she pulled through, however, it would've tainted her reputation. It wasn't against the rules for someone to offer their class's questions to another class, but it was considered disgraceful.

That probably would've invalidated Kushida's test results and threatened her position in Class D, even if she avoided expulsion. Class C would have been in grave danger, too.

"When did this cheat sheet get in my—?"

"You really don't have any clue? Have you noticed any strange people around?"

"No way, it can't… No, wait. I went to our final test meeting at a karaoke room last week with Horikita and the others. A girl got angry and poured her juice on me. Afterward, she asked if she could take my blazer to the cleaners. It was understandable, given that situation, but…for some reason, it keeps nagging at me," said Kushida.

"And the girl was Karuizawa-san?" Sakayanagi smiled.

"How would you know that?" Karuizawa demanded.

"Easy, Ayanokoji-kun made you his pawn, didn't he? It's only natural that he would use you. If the topic of the meeting was about the test, then the most prominent members the class will be there, no?" Sakayanagi explained.

"Mainly, Horikita-san, Hirata-kun, Kushida-san, Ayanokoji-kun and you." Hashimoto guessed.

"Correct." Sakayanagi replied.

"Let me guess who that girl was. Karuizawa Kei," said Ryuuen.

"H-how did you know? Don't tell me you saw?"

"How could I have seen? It's simple deduction," said Ryuuen. He tapped his finger against the side of his head.

"Explain what happened from the beginning."

Though Kushida felt disoriented, she told Ryuuen everything. She explained that Horikita and Hirata had invited everyone, and that Ayanokouji, Sudou, and Karuizawa all sat together.

In the middle of their meeting, Karuizawa started a fight and poured juice on her. After quietly listening, Ryuuen took his deduction a step further.

"That looks like a troublesome order." Karuizawa glared at Ayanokoji.

"Don't hold me against my future self's order." Ayanokoji put his hand up.

"Oh, Sudo-kun was also there?" Hashimoto looked surprised.

"He did become the leader during the sports festival." Kamuro snorted.

"No doubt in my mind. Someone set a trap for you."

"That's not possible. It's true that my blazer went to the cleaners, but I checked my pockets when I got it back. Besides, the clerk would've told me if there was something inside it!"

"That's not what Karuizawa was going for. Did someone want to know whether you had a spare uniform?"

"A spare? That's impossible," said Kushida.

"What makes you say that with such certainty?"

"Are you trying to say that everyone there set a trap for me, and I couldn't see right through it? I'm not an idiot. I observe everyone's behavior. If they were lying to me, I definitely would've noticed."

"I wouldn't noticed it." Yamauchi admitted.

"You're an idiot, of course you won't." Ike rolled his eyes.

"Please, don't talk like you're not an idiot either." Sudo said.

"What are those three talking about?" Shinohara furrowed her brows.

"Idiot things, I bet." Sato said.

"Well, you're probably right about that. However, only one or two people at most lied to you," said Ryuuen.

"Huh? How would—"

"If someone there read the situation perfectly, then it's likely that person deceived you. Someone who could figure out everyone's thought processes, behavioral tics, and habits. Someone who guessed what kind of remarks they'd make. Someone who could read all those things perfectly. Someone who wrote the script, so that you'd act your part in their play," said Ryuuen.

"Oh, Ayanokoji-kun?" Hiyori said.

"Ayanokoji." Sudo exclaimed.

"That idiot?" Ibuki frowned.

"You did something." Horikita said to Ayanokoji.

"Oh, him?" Hashimoto looked thoughtful.

"What a great way to describe Ayanokoji-kun." Sakayanagi applauded.

"I wasn't complimenting him." Ryuuen glared at her.

"Oh? With the way you describe him, it appears like that though." Sakayanagi said.

Kushida denied it, but then thought back on what had happened. Hirata was consistently a pacifist. He would worry about Kushida's blazer being stained, and would want to placate Karuizawa's unreasonable anger. And, because the meeting took place right before the test, he would definitely ask how many blazers Kushida had.

"Once they learned that you had one blazer, the only thing left to do was plant the cheat sheet on you during gym class. The real question is, who came up with the idea? It wasn't Suzune or Karuizawa. They aren't the kind of girls who could do something like that," said Ryuuen.

"How would you know?" Horikita glared at him.

"Basic observation." Ryuuen smirked.

"So, you're saying I was tricked? By who?"

"Shortly before the test, a letter accusing Ichinose of doing something
illegal went out, right?"

"Yeah, the letter you tried to trap her with, Ryuuen. Why did you do that?"

"Huh?" Shibata let out a surprise sound.

"What the hell did you do, Ryuuen-kun?" Kanzaki glared at him.

"Don't asked me, not like I knew what I'm thinking in the future." Ryuuen smirked.

"Kanzaki-kun, calm down." Ichinose tried to stop him.

"What kind of letter?" Hiyori asked.

'Is that when I saw her—?' Ayanokoji thought back when he saw the amount of private points she have.

"It was part of the mastermind's strategy," said Ryuuen.

"Huh?"

"I wasn't the one who sent that letter. The person from Class D who set you up did it."

"There," Ryuuen pointed, "Can you calm down now?"

"Tch." Kanzaki clicked his tongue.

"I don't understand."

"Do you really think I'd put a letter accusing Ichinose of fraud in every single first-year student's mailbox and deliberately add my own name to it?
Well, putting my own personality aside, it was only natural that everyone thought that I did it," said Ryuuen.

"You did what?" Chihiro gasped.

"Ichinose-san a fraud? How unlikely." Katsuragi shook his head.

"Oi, are you even watching? I just said that I didn't do it." Ryuuen looked annoyed.

"Then—" Ichinose paused when she remembered that only one person outside of her class saw the amount of private points she have.

'Ayanokoji-kun?' She glanced at the boy. 'Why would he do that? He doesn't seemed to be that kind of person.'

"If it wasn't you, then you should've just denied it."

"Do you really think I would do that?"

"No." Kushida understood immediately.

Ryuuen tended to pursue things that excited him. If someone sent out letters and put Ryuuen's name on them, Ryuuen would find it tantalizing. Furthermore, because he hadn't heard any rumors of Ichinose's supposed fraudulent activities before, he'd be tempted to learn more.

Then why had someone deliberately put down Ryuuen's name as the sender? Because an anonymous message had less credibility.

"But what was the letter's point? To put you on your guard?" said Kushida.

"Who knows? I've thought about it at length, but it's still unclear. Did the culprit simply want to know whether Ichinose had a lot of points? Or maybe… No, that's impossible. Couldn't be something that stupid," said Ryuuen.

"What is it?" Ibuki asked.

"Yeah, I wanna know to." Ishizaki said.

"Me too."

"Me three."

"Shut up!" Ryuuen glared at them, "I'm thinking."

Whatever he'd considered was just far too removed from reality. Either way, the strategy had been well prepared and flawlessly executed. Ryuuen's interest in the person he called "X" had only increased.

'Great, another person after me.' Ayanokoji irritatedly thought. 'Seriously, get a hobby.'

"Hey, Kikyou. I don't know anything about your past, and I'm not interested. However, if you keep trying to get Horikita kicked out of school, you're going to disappear. Get it?"

"Should I be concern?" Horikita crossed her arms.

"Don't misunderstood." Ryuuen told her darkly. "You're fun to play with that's all. Don't think anything disgusting."

"You're in a dangerous position yourself, aren't you? If Class C loses collective points for this exam, isn't that bad?"

"Yep. With this stroke of luck, your class probably has a chance of being promoted to C," said Ryuuen.

"Class C?!" Ike gasped.

"We've come that far already?!" Hirata even looked surprised, but proud nonetheless.

"I don't want to be demoted to D!" Komiya lamented.

"Huh, really?" Hiyori looked surprised but calm.

"How does it feel to be knocked down a peg by the 'defectives' in Class D?"

"I feel like I don't have a care in the world right now. Whether it's Class A or D, we're only scratching the surface of our battle," said Ryuuen.

"What do you mean?"

Of course, Ryuuen couldn't answer her. However, his objective hadn't changed one bit since he'd started at the school. While there had been moments when he stumbled, his preparations to reach Class A were still progressing smoothly.

"What is really your goal?" Ibuki asked him suspicious.

"I told you didn't? I'll take our class to A." Ryuuen said.

"Preparation. Smoothly?" Hashimoto muttered.

"You have an idea, Princess?" Hashimoto asked her.

"A couple. But nothing more than an speculation." Sakayanagi answered.

"Do your absolute best," said Ryuuen, turning and starting to walk away.

"Wait—the cheat sheet! Something's not right here!"

"Heh."

"What's this all about? Tell me, Ryuuen!"

"You noticed?"

"Why did someone in Class D have these test questions? Only you and I should have them."

"Because I gave them to X, I suppose," said Ryuuen.

"You gave them to Ayanokoji-kun?" Matsushita said surprised.

"Who even said that I was the X person he's talking about?" Ayanokoji asked them.

"Uh... Who else if not you?" Karuizawa looked at him deadpanned.

"Why would he even give it to Ayanokoji-kun?" Yukimura asked no one.

"So, you betrayed me?"

"No. It was a necessary deal."

Ryuuen's eyes lowered to his cell phone. On it were pictures of the questions and answers before he'd changed them. He had sent those pictures to an unidentified email address.

"However, X understands me very well," he added.

He'd received a message from X with the word "Transaction" in the subject line.

The message read as follows: Provide me with the questions and answers that Class C devised for our final exam, or make significant changes to the questions you gave Kushida Kikyou.

"Your class was the one who devised our final exam?!" Nishikawa shrieked.

"Huh? Is that even approved?" Shibata asked.

"Unless it's a special exam." Ichinose noted.

"Huh? What do you mean, Honami-chan?" Yume asked her.

"Devising the final exam tests are not possible, unless it's a special exam. If what I heard is correct, then Class C is against Class D while we are facing Class A. Each class will create questionnaires for the other class to answer." Ichinose explained.

Normally, Ryuuen wouldn't dignify that with a response. However, moments earlier, X had freely given him information beneficial to Class C with no strings attached, by warning him that Horikita Suzune had seen through Ryuuen's plans and taken preemptive action to get her questions approved instead of Kushida's.

That had come as quite the shock to Ryuuen, whose whole strategy depended on the questions he thought Kushida had X's warning, the Class C students who didn't study enough might've failed.

"Why even warned him?" Horikita sighed exasperated.

"You mean, some of us might have been expelled?" Ishizaki flinched.

"Expelled? I don't want to be expelled!" Komiya exclaimed.

"That's why Ryuuen-kun headed Ayanokoji-kun's warning." Hiyori said. "Ryuuen-kun, not wanting us, his classmates to be expelled sent Ayanokoji-kun the questionnaires."

"Ryuuen-san didn't want us to be expelled?" Ishizaki looked touched.

"I think I'm gonna cry." Komiya fanned his eyes.

"You're disgusting." Ibuki groaned.

Knowing that, Ryuuen had had three options.

The first was to defy X and give Kushida the correct questions for the math test, letting her win her bet against Horikita. However, Ryuuen wanted to avoid Horikita being expelled at all costs.

The second was to leave the test questions as they were and let Kushida's cheating be exposed, so she'd get kicked out of school. However, Ryuuen didn't want to give X exactly what he wanted. Playing into X's ideal scenario was no fun.

"You were saying?" Ibuki raised a brow at the Class C's version of three idiots.

"Still!" Ishizaki argued.

"I'll follow you forever, Ryuuen-san!" Kondo cried out.

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Ryuuen glared at them.

"Is Class C okay?" Mei-Yu pointed at the group of students who's either crying loudly, looked exasperated and annoyed, or laughing, finding the situation funny.

"Leave them be, Mei-chan." Sato advised her.

The final option, and the one Ryuuen eventually chose, was to give Kushida the wrong questions and let Horikita win.

"So, X protected Suzune while managing to keep you in check, Kikyou," said Ryuuen. When he'd realized that X turned his strategy to use Kushida against him, he'd barely held back his laughter.

"But I'm about to drive him into a corner. If he doesn't reveal his identity—"

Ryuuen pulled up an image on his phone—the same image he'd sent the mysterious mastermind. The person in the photograph would be instrumental to discovering X's identity.

"Then I'm going to destroy her."

"Karuizawa-san?!" Shinohara exclaimed.

Ryuuen grinned, "Oho? Am I planning what I think I'll do?"

"What the hell are you planning to do with her, bastard!" Sudo growled at Ryuuen.

"Stop grinning! It's not funny or amusing!" Sato scowled at him.

Karuizawa froze, but calmed herself because no matter the situation. Ayanokoji promised her that he will always protect her.

-x-

Previous Chapter: The Turning Point.

Word Count: 3435

Hey guys! This is the last chapter for this week. I hoped you enjoyed the four chapters. If you're wondering what's with the multiple updates, I'm rushing to finish this reaction fanfiction because I planned to create another one.

Anyway, hope you had a great day!