Chapter 1:
Amasawa Ichika's Soliloquy
TEST-TUBE BABY.
Have you ever heard that term before? Well, I guess people don't really call
them that anymore. They say "child of in vitro fertilization" or something.
Anyway, I'm someone born from in vitro fertilization. But aside from that, I
really don't know anything else about myself. I've never even seen my parents'
faces. Not even once.
Where are they now? What are they doing? Why did they put me in the
White Room? I don't know the answers to any of those questions, and, well, to
be blunt, I'm not interested. There was one thing I was told, though, when I was
old enough to understand it: I was told that my parents were extremely brilliant
people. That meant I was an extremely blessed child, born with the genetic
means to become a genius.
But my existence conflicts with the philosophy of the White Room. The
ultimate goal of the facility is to nurture all people equally, raising them to
identical excellence. Their aim is to prove that human limits aren't determined
by genetics, but, rather, that they are determined by environment. They didn't
want someone like me, a child with superior genes, to be the only one with
outstanding talents. I'm sure that my existence was probably just one of many
"experiments" they were doing in the White Room.
I'm not rejecting the idea behind those experiments or whatever, but did they
seriously think it could be done? Personally, I concluded that it was impossible
to make everyone identical in all things like intelligence, personality, and
mentality. I mean, the fact that I exist right now, as myself, is the best proof of
that, right?
Ever since I was really little, I prided myself on the fact that, deep down, I was
so completely different from everyone around me. Even though I hid the fire in
my eyes and pretended to be completely disinterested in everything, just doing
what was asked of me, I always had my doubts about the institution's whole
raison d'être. Did I want to grow and mature for the sake of the White Room's
ideal, foundational principles? To stake my life so that I could make a
contribution to their data?
Do I really want to be the absolute best success story for the organization and
devote my entire life to achieving that standard, day in and day out? I mean,
don't you think that all sounds kind of sad? You'd want to live more freely too,
right? Well, I do, at least. I don't want to spend the rest of my life trapped in
that world.
Oh well, that's probably all moot now anyway. Let's get back to the topic at
hand, 'kay? Even among those in the White Room, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka was
someone who stood far above the rest. He had an incredible record. Of course,
when I first heard about him, I was skeptical. How could I believe that he had
surpassed me in every way, beating every score that I had worked myself to the
bone to get?
But… Yeah. When I looked at the data and saw him in real life, and when I
finally talked to him, I understood. I knew that he was special after all.
It's just… I'm sorry, senpai. I really wanted to be your ally, but I guess that's
not going to happen. It's like, I spent way, way more time there than I have
together with you, senpai. You know, I… I guess I'm more compassionate than I
thought I was, huh?
Senpai, speaking as someone who worships you, I'll be watching you from a
distance until that time comes. Okay?
Chapter 2:
Secret Maneuvers
THE RAIN STARTED to come down harder and the fog was beginning to thicken.
Though visibility was getting worse, and it was getting harder to hear, I had a
bad feeling that someone was coming up behind me. It sounded like someone
hopping up and down in the mud, like they were intentionally and
exaggeratedly stomping about. Nanase seemed to immediately notice the
sound and the presence too. When I turned around to look, I saw that the
student approaching me had suddenly come to a halt, her red hair fluttering
behind her.
"Seems like it's gonna be an intense storm, huh, senpaiiii?"
The student who appeared out of the rain was none other than Amasawa
Ichika from Class 1-A. Though it was a well-established fact that Nanase and I
shared the same Table, I couldn't possibly imagine that her being here was a
simple coincidence. There were no other students around, and Amasawa didn't
appear to have a backpack or tablet with her.
How did she come all this way? One possibility was that she had hidden her
things somewhere in the nearby area before approaching us. Another
possibility was that she hadn't been carrying anything on her person at all this
whole time, and she'd been following me from fairly early on. I supposed it was
also conceivable that someone else had used the GPS search feature and given
her directions via a transceiver, and Amasawa came here by following those
coordinates. All in all, I could rule out the possibility of this being a coincidence.
In any case, no matter how she managed it, her arrival wasn't a welcome one
for me. On top of that, it didn't look like she came here completely emptyhanded. She was brandishing a thick wooden stick in her left hand. It certainly
looked like a dangerous enough weapon, and she could beat someone down
with it. Had she been trying to catch us off guard, and we had simply sensed her
presence? The weather was bad at the moment, though. If she had intended to
attack us, she could have crept up much more quietly.
"Please get behind me, senpai," said Nanase.
While I was trying to work out the reason behind Amasawa's arrival in my
head, Nanase stepped out in front of me, despite being physically drained
herself. I could tell from looking at her face that she made no attempt to hide
her alarm. She stared fixedly at Amasawa.
"Oh? What, you're not gonna greet me with open arms, Nanase-chan?" said
Amasawa. "Dang, you're sure giving me the cold shoulder, even though we're
part of the same group and all. Sheesh. Or maybe you're feeling a little shaken
up by this thing I've got in my hand, hm?"
Amasawa casually tossed the stick down to the ground by her feet, as if to
show that she was completely harmless. However, Nanase didn't let her guard
down at all.
"You're… You cannot be trusted," said Nanase.
"Wow, harsh. How can you say something like that? Even though I'm this
dang cute?" Amasawa teased.
I didn't think that being cute meant the same as being trustworthy, but I
supposed that didn't really matter right now.
"What's going on, Nanase?" I asked.
It was true that there was an aspect to Amasawa that made it hard to know
what she was thinking. It wouldn't be overestimating her to say that she was
someone with exceptional acting skills and capabilities. It was reasonable to be
wary of her. That was something I had come to understand well enough by this
point. But, even so, I couldn't explain Nanase's unusual degree of caution.
It was clear that there was some reason Amasawa had come here, of course. I
supposed it was conceivable that Nanase was just overreacting because she
was on my side now, but…
"Hey, I'm not a bad guy. Isn't that right, Ayanokouji-senpai?" Amasawa said.
"How about we have a little chat?"
"Please do not listen to her. She's dangerous," said Nanase.
Even though Amasawa wasn't showing us any blatant hostility, Nanase
relentlessly and sternly rejected whatever she wanted to say. Though this could
have been taken as unwarranted criticism, Amasawa didn't seem bothered by it
at all, even though she had made some comments about being hurt by this
rejection.
"Senpai… There's something that I've been hiding from you all this time,"
Nanase started. "Do you remember how Komiya-senpai and Kinoshita-senpai
from Shinohara-senpai's group were eliminated? You and Ike-senpai climbed up
the slope back then, right?"
I remembered that Ike had heard a sound coming from up above and
scrambled up the slope to investigate, thinking that it was Shinohara. Since I
had decided that it would be dangerous to let him go off on his own, I followed
him.
"After you left, I noticed that someone had been watching us nearby, so I
gave chase," said Nanase.
"So, you weren't with Sudou and the others when we found Shinohara on our
way back?"
Nanase gave a small nod.
"And?" I asked.
"Although I couldn't catch up to whoever was running away…I did happen to
see the person's rather distinctive hair." As Nanase spoke those words, she
slowly extended her right arm and pointed her index finger at the other girl,
identifying her as the culprit. "You were the one watching us back there,
weren't you, Amasawa-san?"
"Aha! So, you saw me after all, huh?" said Amasawa.
She didn't deny it. Actually, she laughed and immediately admitted to it.
Amasawa didn't appear upset in the slightest, nor did she even seem surprised
that she had been seen. It sounded as though the presence that I sensed
watching us back then was Amasawa after all.
"You were the one who hurt Komiya-senpai and Kinoshita-senpai, weren't
you?" said Nanase.
"Uh, don't you think you're jumping to conclusions?" said Amasawa. "Maybe I
just so happened to be there at the time, that's all."
"In that case, you wouldn't have needed to run away, though, would you?"
Nanase pointed out.
"Well, of course you'd run from someone if they're chasing after you with a
scary look on their face," said Amasawa. "Besides, I don't like being suspected."
"I find that very hard to believe," said Nanase.
"So, basically you're saying that you've made up your mind that I'm the one
who knocked those two off the cliff, is that it?" said Amasawa.
"I'm sure of it. There can be almost no doubt," said Nanase.
"Oh, you're sure of it, but you have 'almost' no doubt, huh?" said Amasawa.
"Doesn't that mean that maybe you don't actually know what really
happened?"
Even though they belonged to the same group, the two girls kept arguing in
circles.
"In that case, can you swear that you weren't the one who hurt Kinoshitasenpai and Komiya-senpai?" demanded Nanase.
"Sure, I can swear anything, I guess. But there's nothing you can do to make
sure what I swear is the truth, Nanase-chan," countered Amasawa, suggesting
that there wasn't any point in saying anything one way or another.
"Anyway," Amasawa added, "turning the question around, what would you
do if it was me who did it? What then?"
Rather than retreating from Nanase's accusations, Amasawa dove into them
headfirst instead. Nanase seemed a little overwhelmed, but she pressed on to
try and find out what Amasawa was playing at.
"Why would you do something like that?" said Nanase. "Please, tell me the
reason. Actually, wait, before that—why didn't your name come up on the map
when the school administrators searched for GPS signals in the first place?"
That should have been clear enough, even without needing Amasawa to
explain.
I answered for her. "Making sure you don't leave any traces on the GPS isn't
that hard. All you have to do is break your watch."
Amasawa gleefully showed us the watch strapped to her right wrist.
"Correctamundo!" she said. "Whether it's intentional or not, if the watch
malfunctions, it's all the same in the end. Besides, you can replace it for free."
"But if you broke your watch beforehand and caused your GPS signal to drop,
wouldn't the school officials have noticed?" asked Nanase.
"Sure, yeah," Amasawa admitted. "But it'd be difficult for them to notice right
away, especially if they were rushing over to an emergency to see what
happened."
There were over 400 GPS signals on the island. Even if there were one or two
missing when the school officials checked their tablets, they wouldn't notice
them immediately. They also wouldn't have the time to thoroughly check for
every signal. The teachers' only priority was the general safety and well-being of
the students.
"Even so, wouldn't the school officials conduct a thorough investigation
later?" Nanase said. "It would only be a matter of time before you were found
out."
That—coupled with the fact that Shinohara had given testimony that her
group had been attacked by someone—would naturally cause school officials to
investigate the matter more deeply. During the time of the incident, Amasawa's
GPS signal had disappeared, and only hers. That was entirely possible. However,
therein laid the problem.
"If it were only Amasawa's GPS signal that went dark at the time of Kinoshita
and Komiya's attack, then yes, it'd be inevitable that the school would become
suspicious of her," I said. "But that's not enough. Since no further evidence will
ever be found, they can't definitively declare that she is the culprit."
"But that's—"
I had guessed that Nanase was standing off against Amasawa because she
wanted to conclude that Amasawa was the culprit. However, verifying that
Amasawa was the one responsible would be much more difficult than she
seemed to think. School officials would be absolutely determined to avoid being
hit with any legal action that could arise if they were to eliminate Amasawa
because of false accusations.
Also, the entire idea of the watch, which was originally intended as a means
of keeping maintaining order and rules during this uninhabited island exam,
could be rendered null in a number of ways. These watches had to be strictly
regulated to prevent wrongdoing. We were allowed to replace watches that
stopped working due to any sort of malfunction, but only once. It would cost
you the ability to earn points whenever your watch broke down, and a broken
watch could eventually lead to elimination.
However, the stricter the regulations were, the greater the possibility that
you could find some kind of loophole and commit fraudulent activities in a
different way. For example, you could tinker with a rival's watch to make it stop
working. Moreover, if someone's watch malfunctioned due to an accident, or if
equipment failure really did lead to someone's elimination, that would probably
find that a tough pill to swallow.
"Rules are meant to be broken," said Amasawa. "Happens all the time.
Besides, it doesn't matter what you do as long as they don't find any evidence."
Though I had some issues with the way she said it, Amasawa was correct.
But Nanase went on. "If there's no other evidence, then I can testify that you
were there when it happened, Amasawa-san."
"It wouldn't make a difference," I replied. "The only facts we have are that
her GPS malfunctioned and that she was at the scene of the crime. The school
would say it's suspicious, but that's all."
If Amasawa were a student with a history of violence and significant
behavioral problems like Sudou or Ryuuen, then the school might have paid
more attention to anything suspicious. However, the person standing in front of
us right now was simply a girl in her first year of high school. There was a low
chance that anyone had a negative impression of Amasawa. More importantly,
though, Komiya and Kinoshita couldn't give testimony saying that they had
been attacked, and Shinohara could only make a vague statement about what
happened. She didn't even know who had attacked them. The same held true
for Nanase. All she could say was that she saw Amasawa near the scene of the
crime. Without conclusive evidence, it was impossible to get the school to
punish Amasawa for the incident.
"There you have it, Nanase-chan," Amasawa said.
At any rate, we still didn't know the reason Amasawa was here right now.
Nanase kept pressing and Amasawa just kept playing word games with her. The
conversation kept going back and forth, and there was no sign of any actual
progress being made. It was getting harder and harder for me to believe that
she was about to try anything funny. For the time being, I figured we should set
aside the question of whether Amasawa was really the one who had hurt
Komiya and Kinoshita.
I decided to try asking her something else so I could get this conversation out
of a deadlock.
"What did you come here for?" I asked. "Actually, how did you even find us?"
Since we still had more of this special exam ahead of us, I thought that we
should avoid standing here in the rain all day, letting ourselves get drenched. I
wanted to get my tent set up as soon as possible and get out of this downpour.
"Aww, come on," said Amasawa. "Don't be in such a rush, Ayanokouji-senpai.
Let's just be happy that we get to see each other like this here on the island!"
"Sorry, but standing out in the rain tires you out a lot faster than you might
imagine," I replied. "I'd like to make this quick."
"Okey dokey, then how about we work together and set up your tent, and
you and I spend the night here together, just the two of us?" she asked.
Amasawa should have been fully aware of the fact that men and women were
not allowed to spend the night together in the same tent. It seemed like she
was trying to buy herself time by continuing this meaningless conversation.
"Oh, are you worried about that? Don't worry, it's no biggie! I mean, it's not
like the school can monitor every single thing," Amasawa continued.
She started walking toward us to approach me, but Nanase immediately
jumped in front of her and grabbed hold of Amasawa's arm.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" asked Amasawa.
"Weren't you planning on trying to hit Ayanokouji-senpai just now?"
"When the heck did you turn into such a knight in shining armor, huh,
Nanase-chan? Weren't you scheming with Housen-kun to get him expelled?"
"Well, that's… That has nothing to do with you," Nanase said. "What is your
purpose in coming here?"
"I got lost, so I came here looking for help," said Amasawa. It was such a
blatant lie that it was like she didn't even care if she sounded remotely
believable or not.
Perhaps she had come here just to confirm whether the situation between
Nanase and I had been resolved, and to observe what developments there
might have been now that things had been settled. Judging by how Nanase was
acting right now, Amasawa should have been able to grasp that she had already
switched over to my side. Well, no, if that were true, then there would be little
point in her sticking around and engaging in such meaningless chit-chat.
"I want to talk to Ayanokouji-senpai," said Amasawa. "Would you get out of
my way?"
"You can just tell him what you want to say from where you're standing now,
can't you?" countered Nanase.
"No, can't do that. Since it has to do with the White Room, y'know."
With that, she revealed her identity all on her own. Perhaps she thought it
would be useless to try and hide it any longer.
Nanase turned to look in my direction, shocked. During the first semester of
the school year, there had been whispers suggesting the presence of a student
from the White Room, but I had never been able to ascertain who it was
exactly. I never imagined that I'd come to learn about it in this way, in the form
of a confession directly from Amasawa herself.
"Get the picture now, outsider?" Amasawa said.
If Amasawa really was a student from the White Room, then I could certainly
understand why she would call Nanase an outsider like that.
"Let go of her arm, Nanase," I told her.
Nanase, though disgruntled, obeyed my command and released her.
"There, there. Aren't you a good girl, Nanase-chan? You know, personally, I
don't really hate how much of a loyal puppy you are."
Amasawa started to close the distance between us, bit by bit. Would we
finally be able to get this conversation moving?
"Sorry, but Nanase said something similar before too," I told her. "Don't
expect that I'm going to believe whatever you say just because you said the
words 'White Room.'"
"That's totally okay. I can even give you proof. But…it might be a little
problematic if Nanase-chan were to overhear it," said Amasawa.
She flashed us that same devilish grin she always wore as she looked over at
us. Her smile seemed to say, "You understand, right?" She shooed Nanase away
with a casual wave of her hand. Nanase was reluctant to just carelessly allow
Amasawa to approach me, but she soon did as she was asked. The rain was
starting to come down harder now, so if Nanase stood a few meters away from
us, and if Amasawa and I spoke quietly, she wouldn't be able to hear our
conversation.
Amasawa, trudging along through the mud, finally came within arm's reach of
me.
"Okay then. Where should I start, I wonder," said Amasawa to herself.
She looked like she was deep in thought, like she was wondering how she
could explain things to me so that I would understand what was going on. It
went without saying that her being here right now in the first place was
incomprehensible to me. The student from the White Room had been lying in
wait to get me expelled until today. And yet Amasawa had simply revealed her
identity to me without even trying to spring any kind of trap. Even stranger was
that after all of that and revealing herself, she seemed hesitant about what to
say next. She was obviously stalling for time and was doing all of this just to
drag things out. Just as I was about to decide whether to press her on that,
Amasawa opened her mouth to speak.
"When you were ten years old, you underwent project five in the course
curriculum, which was based on social constructionism theory. When you were
eleven years old, you underwent project seven, which was based on the theory
of relativity. I took both of those courses too, so I remember them quite well,"
she said.
These were concrete details about my past; this was Amasawa's way of
offering proof that we were both from the White Room.
"It was a world of all white," she added. "Everything and anything. The
classrooms, the hallways, even our own individual rooms that we were given."
It certainly seemed like she knew far more than Nanase did about the White
Room, at the very least. It wasn't likely that she had just gotten the gist of it
from Tsukishiro either; he wasn't the kind of person who would discuss the
inner workings of the White Room with outsiders. From what I had just heard, I
could conclude that Amasawa was indeed the agent that I'd heard about. From
the things that she said to the way that she acted, she certainly fit the part of a
White Room student.
"What's the benefit for you in deliberately coming here and revealing yourself
to me?" I asked.
"Yeah, I suppose you've got a point there," said Amasawa. "I figured that's
what you'd get hung up on. That makes sense. But, y'see, I just wanted to tell
you that I'm not your enemy, senpai."
"That sure sounds contradictory," I replied. "The White Room student is an
agent sent here to get me expelled. If you're claiming not to be my enemy, then
things don't add up."
Amasawa continued. "You're a fourth-generation student, Ayanokoujisenpai." She was already soaking wet, but she didn't seem to mind. "The
students from the generation that came after you all harbor intense feelings of
jealousy toward you. They figured if they were to use another White Room
student to take care of you, that jealousy would motivate whoever they picked
to get you expelled. But the people at the top messed up when they chose me
for the task. They couldn't see that I'm just a sweet maiden whose only feelings
toward you are a secret admiration and yearning, Ayanokouji-senpai. I'm not
jealous."
"And that's why you've revealed yourself to me like this?" I asked.
Amasawa nodded in response.
"In that case, couldn't you have done this right after you came to the school
and told me then? You had no trouble making it all the way to my room before.
We had plenty of chances to talk."
"That's because no matter how much you admire someone, it's all in your
head," said Amasawa. "It's nothing more than your imagination at first. It takes
time to meet them in person, to talk to them, to come to think, 'Yeah, I'm so
glad that that I came to admire and long for this person,' y'know?"
In other words, she was suggesting that if I hadn't turned out to be worthy of
recognition in her eyes, I could still have been eliminated. This whole
conversation had been to that end, then. That made sense.
"Do you understand?" she asked.
"Yeah," I replied. "Only someone who was on my same side would bother to
talk to me this much about the White Room."
"Exactly," said Amasawa. "It kinda feels amazing, doesn't it? Being able to just
spend your time at school, as a normal high schooler, I mean."
Up until this point, I had thought I was the only one who felt this peculiar
sensation. I found it interesting that another White Room student was having
this same experience, in the same way that I was.
"If you're experiencing the same feelings that I am, then does that mean you
also find this school to be interesting?" I asked her.
"I know exactly what you're trying to say, senpai. I've definitely thought to
myself more than once that it'd be great if I could keep enjoying being a student
here until graduation, just living a fun, interesting life as a student. I'm not
particularly good at making friends though, so I don't have that many people to
talk to," she replied.
It kind of felt like she and I were similar. I could talk to Horikita and Ike and
the others, but it always felt like there was a distance between us. I
remembered that there was a lengthy period of time where I couldn't honestly
call them "friends."
"I'm not really lacking in communication skills like you seem to be though. You
know what I mean, senpai?" said Amasawa, correcting me. It was almost like
she had just read my mind. "I've basically learned the same things that you did,
senpai. But you know, there are also some things that only the ones who came
after you, the fifth-generation students, have learned."
I didn't answer. Amasawa continued speaking.
"We learned to communicate with others, at least at a bare minimum level,"
she said. "I heard that up until the fourth generation—your generation, senpai
—there was too much individualism. There were lots and lots of students who
just broke down, right? Of course, the poorly made kids were left out of the
equation. Only the best of the best of us were allowed to be in contact with one
another."
If what she said was really the truth, then it made sense that she was able to
make such rich and emotive facial expressions so easily. Personally, I could put
on an act and pretend to be someone else for a brief period of time, but it was
difficult to break free of my naturally emotionless state. It was a habit I'd had
for much of my life.
"You still don't believe me?" she asked.
"I believe that you're telling the truth about your background," I conceded.
"But I'm still not convinced that's the reason you've decided to reveal yourself
to me."
"You know, for someone who just openly acknowledged the fact that I am
indeed a student from the White Room, you're really quite calm, aren't you? Do
you think I don't pose a threat to you, senpai?"
I didn't answer her question. Amasawa simply smiled and continued talking.
"Anywho… I've said what I wanted to say to you, senpai. I think I'll be taking
my leave now."
She then turned her back to me, as if just having me recognize that she was a
student from the White Room was enough.
"What are you planning, Amasawa?" I asked.
"Hey, come on. I already told you, didn't I?" She turned around. "I just admire
you very, very much, Ayanokouji-senpai," she said, stroking my cheek with her
wet fingertips. "So… Please don't let yourself get crushed without my
permission."
Amasawa pulled her fingers away from my cheek and started to walk away
from me. Don't get crushed without her permission? Who exactly was she
implying that I would get crushed by? Tsukishiro? The students who were after
the twenty million Private Points? Or perhaps…
"Are you all right, Ayanokouji-senpai?" Nanase ran over to me, looking
worried. "She didn't do anything to you, did she?"
I told her there was nothing to worry about, and then looked at my backpack.
"It's still raining. We'd better hurry," I told her.
Although there was so much information I wanted to sort out, there were
other things we needed to prioritize right now.
"Yes. We should set up our tents," agreed Nanase.
"Oh yeah, that reminds me," I said.
There was one thing that I couldn't forget to check. Now that she was gone, I
needed to examine Amasawa's footprints.
"Senpai…?" said Nanase, puzzled.
"The footprints are going to get washed away pretty quickly in this rain," I
said.
Even though Amasawa had only just left, and her tracks were still fresh, her
footprints were already starting to lose form.
"Oh, her footprints? But, what about them, exactly?" asked Nanase.
"There were footprints near the scene of the crime when Komiya and
Kinoshita were injured. Looks like the ones Amasawa just left are about the
same size as those were," I replied.
Which meant that Amasawa was most definitely in the area at the time, just
as Nanase had witnessed.
"I knew it," said Nanase. "Amasawa didn't just so happen to be nearby by
coincidence. She was the one who did it."
"We don't know that for sure," I replied. "We can conclude beyond a doubt
that Amasawa was monitoring you and Sudou at that time. However, it still
doesn't prove that Amasawa was the one who pushed Komiya and Kinoshita."
For a moment, it seemed like Nanase couldn't understand what I was saying.
"Yes, it's true that there might not be any hard evidence, but surely we can
still conclude that she was the one who did it, don't you think?" she argued.
"If we were to make deductions based only on the information that we have
now, then yes, Amasawa would most definitely be the culprit," I replied.
"That's what I think. Once again, I did see Amasawa-san there," said Nanase.
That certainly wasn't a mistake in judgment on her part, obviously. She really
did see her.
"But it's not like you actually saw her push them, did you?"
"That's… Well… There's also that confession she just gave us just now,"
countered Nanase.
"I think we'd be hard-pressed to call that a confession," I said. "All she said
was, 'What would you do if it had been me? What then?' She never actually
said that she did it."
"Perhaps she was afraid of being recorded, or something along those lines?"
Nanase suggested.
"With all the noise from this downpour, and on top of that, considering the
state that we're currently in, do you really think that there was any need for her
to be that wary?" I asked.
Anyone could see that this environment was not exactly conducive to
recording audio.
"Even so, it's not as though we can be certain," said Nanase. "She does
understand that you in particular are someone that she should be wary of,
Ayanokouji-senpai. And it is reasonable to assume that she would have taken
the utmost precautions."
If Amasawa were trying to minimize the risks as much as possible, sure, that
would certainly have been the wise choice.
"If you intentionally harmed two students, causing potentially life-threatening
injuries if left untreated, then you should run away as fast as you possibly could
immediately. Why would Amasawa have gotten so close to us on purpose and
let you see her escape?" I asked.
Nanase pondered my question as she collected her backpack.
"That's… Well, we should consider that it could be because she was
concerned about Komiya-senpai and Kinoshita-senpai's conditions," she
reasoned. "It's the same mindset as an arsonist who returns to see the
aftermath of their fire."
True, people often said arsonists returned to the scene of the crime. There
were many theories about the psychology behind that, but it was dangerous to
apply the same idea to this case so casually. If we assumed that Amasawa was
indeed the perpetrator of this incident, then we would only end up seeing the
superficial components of the case.
"It simply doesn't make sense that someone who was prepared to do
whatever it took, no matter the consequences, would risk going back to the
scene of the crime because they were concerned about the people they
attacked," I said. "It doesn't add up. The fact of the matter is that you spotted
Amasawa from behind as she was running away. It's hard to imagine that
anyone sent in by Tsukishiro would have made a mistake like that."
I continued to track the deteriorating footprints so I wouldn't lose sight of
them.
"And why would she have gone out of her way to catch up with us and reveal
her identity?" I added.
"I thought that since she had seen me, she decided that she couldn't hide her
involvement," Nanase replied. "So, she allowed herself to be seen instead. If the
incident had been reported to the school, then it would have become a
problem for her, even if the school officials could not corroborate the details of
the crime. It would have jeopardized the role that Acting Director Tsukishiro
had entrusted her with."
"In the end, though, Amasawa coming back to the scene of the crime is
contradictory," I replied.
"Couldn't we just dismiss that as a careless blunder on her part?" asked
Nanase.
"Not a chance."
I supposed it was possible that Amasawa had intentionally let Nanase see her
for one reason or another. At any rate, though, I had successfully managed to
get a new clue from the footprints that I was tracking.
"Just as I thought," I said. "There's something that we cannot overlook in all
of Amasawa's actions."
"What do you mean?" repeated Nanase.
I traced Amasawa's footsteps, which were just about to be cleared away by
the rain.
"It seemed like Amasawa had approached from directly behind me. But if you
trace her footprints back…" I directed Nanase's attention to the footprints.
"Huh?" she replied, now noticing the bizarre inconsistency herself. "These are
someone else's footprints, aren't they?"
"Yeah."
The other set of footprints seemed to be slightly larger in size than
Amasawa's, but since they were half-gone from the rain, I couldn't determine
their exact size.
"You can see that whoever this person was, they briefly came close to us," I
said. "Here, you can see the tracks are all messed up. This is the point where
these tracks meet with Amasawa's footprints, and this is where this mysterious
visitor turned back."
"So, you're saying that…someone else was here before Amasawa-san came
over to talk to us?" said Nanase.
There didn't seem to be any way to determine whether this person was a
student or a school official at this point in time.
"Can you bring me the stick that Amasawa was holding before?" I asked.
"Y-yes," replied Nanase.
Nanase went over, picked up the stick that Amasawa had thrown to the
ground earlier, and came back over to me. After looking at it, I narrowed down
my hypotheses and felt like I could make one educated guess.
"Do you notice anything about this?" I asked Nanase.
"Do I…notice anything? Well, it does look dangerous. It would cause a lot of
harm if you were to hit someone with it. Oh, wait a minute. Is that…?" She
trailed off.
As she was feeling the wooden stick she held in her hands, Nanase also
noticed something.
"I can't imagine that this was just randomly picked up off the ground from
somewhere around here," she said.
"Yeah. The useless parts have been scraped off, so that it could be used as a
deadly weapon. Its condition is far too unnatural for me to think that it's just
some branch that naturally fell off of a tree," I replied.
"Then was Amasawa-san planning to attack you using this stick, Ayanokoujisenpai?" asked Nanase.
"If Amasawa had been planning to attack me, then she should have just hit
me with a surprise attack without a single word. But even though she was
holding onto a weapon, she didn't show any signs that she was planning to
attack me with it. Rather, I think that she specifically intended to use it to make
herself noticeable."
From that, there was something else that we could infer as well.
"That means that from the beginning, she never planned to attack you," said
Nanase. "Amasawa-san wasn't the person who originally brought this stick
here. It belonged to the other person who vanished. Correct?"
The other visitor's footprints were close together when they were
approaching us, having taken short strides. However, after they turned back,
the footprints were spread farther apart. They must've ran away, either to
avoid being seen or because they were trying to escape.
"But, why?" said Nanase, confused.
"Amasawa said that I'm someone she deeply admires," I mused. "When I
consider the possibility that she tried to protect me when I was about to be
attacked, I can start to see some connections to what's been going on."
"I can't help but feel that it's a little dangerous to determine that she's your
ally just from that though…"
"Of course. Anyway, though, I really have no clue who left these footprints,
but they must've been after me."
"Could… Could it have possibly been someone affiliated with the school?"
"That's a possibility," I agreed. "But remember, I do have a bounty on my
head."
It was quite possible that these footprints belonged to a student who was
after the prize money. And it was also conceivable that, whoever it was, they
were willing to take the risk and try and get me expelled by force.
"Oh, I've got it!" shouted Nanase, sounding as though she had just thought of
something. "Senpai, let's do a GPS search right away! Not that much time has
passed since Amasawa-san arrived here and talked to us. Even if the other
mystery person was running away at full speed, they most likely wouldn't have
gotten that far in this poor weather. Don't you think so?"
It was true that if we conducted a GPS search right now and picked up a signal
in the surrounding area, we could narrow down our list of suspects. All we had
to see who was in the area, starting with those closest to us.
"Oh, but I suppose that if this person broke their watch like Amasawa-san did,
then we wouldn't be able to identify them…" added Nanase, dejected.
"Not necessarily. If you break your watch, that means your GPS signal goes
dark. What if I did a search right now and we found that only one GPS signal
was missing from the map other than Amasawa's?"
"…Then we could confirm that whoever it is, they're the perpetrator."
"Yeah," I said, "which is why the person who came here to attack me is not
going to break their watch."
"In that case, it's well worth it for us to spend the extra point to search,
right?" said Nanase.
I figured it had only been about fifteen minutes since Amasawa had
approached me to talk. Even if this other visitor had run away as fast as they
could to put some distance between us, they would've had to try desperately
hard to get out of the area that we were currently in. If we were lucky, the
person who left the footprints and then vanished would be the only other
person in this area aside from us. That was exactly why I should have done a
GPS search right then and there as Nanase suggested, but…
"No, we're not going to do a GPS search," I replied.
"Huh?! Wh-why not?!" shouted Nanase.
"No matter what kind of person we're dealing with here, it wouldn't be
surprising if they had some kind of countermeasure if we decided to try and
search for them. It's also possible that people who are completely unrelated to
this incident might come up in our search."
We couldn't say for certain that this person wasn't hoping to get us to
conduct an investigation in order to throw suspicion onto totally unrelated
people. I figured that it was best to be wary of situations where your opponent
pushed information onto you, just like how Amasawa had let Nanase see her,
making her into a witness, and then appeared again before us just moments
ago.
"But it seems like a waste not to," said Nanase.
"At the very least, if it were me, I certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to let
someone catch me with something like a GPS search. If this person has
forgotten that that we can do something like that, then there's absolutely no
reason for us to be afraid of them," I replied.
Nanase was still somewhat unconvinced, but she seemed to go along with my
decision on the matter. At any rate, even if I wanted to take a moment to sort
out my thoughts on the matter, I figured that I shouldn't do that under the
current circumstances. I decided to stop our conversation there for the time
being and quickly started setting up our tents. To say that the rain was starting
to come down hard would be an understatement.
Nanase and I put our tents next to each other, face-to-face. After we
managed to get everything laid out, we ducked into our respective tents to take
shelter from the rain. Closing my tent, I took off my wet gym clothes, jersey,
and underwear, wiped myself down, and dried my hair off with towels. After
changing into some spare clothes that I had handy, I opened the cover to my
tent and peeked outside. Even though it was still around midday, it was so dark
outside that it looked like night had fallen.
We were probably going to be stuck here for at least the rest of the day. The
rain poured down relentlessly, threatening to seep into my tent, so I closed the
cover once again and laid down inside. I had learned about Nanase's past, and I
had confirmed that Amasawa was a student from the White Room. But even so,
that didn't mean all the fog had been lifted quite yet.
2.1
AS THE HEAVY RAINFALL continued, the school sent out an e-mail to everyone.
It announced that they would be suspending the test for the rest of the day. I
supposed that it was reasonable enough to have predicted they would do so.
The notification also said that because it would be difficult for students to make
up for the loss of points from Basic Movement and Tasks, they were currently
looking into ways to compensate us for the inconvenience. That way, students
wouldn't have to suffer for the cancellation.
This meant that the school couldn't confirm yet how exactly they would make
it up to us, at least not while the weather still showed no signs of clearing up.
Anyway, no matter how they decided to do it, the fact remained that the test
was suspended for the day. Although compensation in the form of points would
certainly be effective in the sense of helping our overall scores, the strategies
that each individual group had been using thus far would now have to be
completely reworked. As for me, I could hardly call this suspension a blessing in
disguise, even if I was being generous.
I had been planning to bring my A-game in the second half of the exam so I
could outscore the groups that had used up their energy in the first half. They
would be starting to lose steam now. However, now that the seventh day of the
exam had pretty much been rendered a free day, everyone would have an
opportunity to rest up and regain their energy. Of course, they weren't going to
be recuperating in a comfortable environment, so it wasn't like they were going
to be completely recovered. Even so, the difference between not resting at all
and having at least some rest would be like night and day.
"—pai."
"Hm?"
Huge drops of rain beat against my tent and the sound was practically
deafening, but I could faintly hear someone's voice.
"Sen—ai."
There it was again. Someone was calling for me. I was certain that the voice
belonged to Nanase, from the tent across from mine. I once again opened the
zipper to my tent and looked out, peering through the mesh fabric. Visibility
was poor, but it wasn't difficult to see as far as her tent.
"I would like to speak with you for a moment! May I come over there?!" she
shouted.
She wanted to come over. Nanase should have known that it was risky for a
man and a woman to be alone and squeezed together inside a small tent. I
supposed she must have forgotten all about that. The rules only stated that
men and women were forbidden from sleeping together. Simply spending a
short time together wasn't a problem. As long as students didn't lose their
sense of reason, then there wouldn't be any moral problems either. Still, having
said that, the rain was coming down hard. Even though the entrances to our
tents were less than two meters apart, Nanase would inevitably end up soaked
while making the trip over.
"That's fine with me, but how about I go over to your tent?" I replied.
Nanase shook her head no in response to my offer. She then unfolded a towel
and held it up above her to keep her head dry before opening the entrance to
her tent. In response, I hurriedly opened my own tent to welcome her inside. In
perfect sync with me, Nanase jumped out of her tent and flew into mine as
quickly as she could. Even though the entire process took less than a second,
she still got drenched, of course, but the inconvenience was as minimal as it
could have been.
"Phew… Please excuse me for bothering you while you're resting, senpai."
"Nah, it's all right," I replied.
Nanase was more tired than I was, anyway. On top of the fact that she really
had to push herself to reach this area, we had just fought a fierce battle right
before this, albeit one born from a misunderstanding. I wondered what she
wanted to talk to me about, but she didn't jump straight into conversation. It
seemed like she was unable to bring herself to start speaking right away. There
was a period of silence, as if we were both trying to guess how the other was
doing.
"I suppose I'm a little brazen, aren't I?" said Nanase apologetically, lowering
her head. "I treated you with such hostility just moments ago, senpai. I even
went as far as to say some cruel things to you, and yet, despite that, I've… I
suppose I'm only being a bother trying to talk to you like this, like we're close
friends, aren't I?"
I felt like this was coming rather late, but it seemed like Nanase was coming
face-to-face with those conflicting feelings now.
"I don't really care, and you can stop with the apologies. It should be clear
that there's no need for us to antagonize each other, at the very least. Right?" I
replied.
Though there were some things that couldn't be brushed aside so easily, we
were in the middle of a special exam right now. Any doubts in your mind would
cast a shadow onto your efforts, making it more difficult to think and act the
way we needed to.
"Yes, I suppose you're right," Nanase said, indicating that she understood. She
apologetically bowed her head once more.
"So? What did you want to talk to me about so badly that you braved the
rain?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," said Nanase, finally remembering the matter at hand. "I can't seem
to stop thinking about Amasawa-san, since she showed up so suddenly earlier.
When I thought about your struggles, Ayanokouji-senpai, I just felt like I had to
come out and say something to her, against my better judgment."
Apparently, she had simply been worried about me back then, rather than
having any specific motive behind speaking up for me. I found it a little
problematic that she was more upset about the situation than I was, but I
appreciated the sentiment.
"I just went ahead and decided that Amasawa-san must've been the one who
pushed Komiya-senpai and Kinoshita-senpai. I thought that Amasawa-san was
hiding her true nature because she wanted to hide the truth from us. But when
you said that it didn't necessarily mean that she did it, Ayanokouji-senpai, well, I
just couldn't quite understand your reasoning for that, and…"
"Because we're still completely in the dark at the moment. We don't know
the truth."
Amasawa was about as close to being suspicious as she could possibly get. But
she wasn't completely suspicious. She was, more or less, in a gray area.
"I'm curious about the perpetrator's motive," Nanase mused. "Whoever it
might be, why would they engage in such risky behavior?"
I decided to reiterate my thoughts on what had happened with Komiya and
Kinoshita. After all, sometimes you can come to see things more clearly by
exchanging opinions with someone else. Someone had knocked Kinoshita and
Komiya down. The fact that the perpetrator's watch hadn't given off a GPS
signal clearly indicated that this was not a spur-of-the-moment thing, it was
planned. And then—
"Hm… Wait, isn't that strange?" said Nanase.
As soon as we started talking about the issue, Nanase furrowed her brow in
apparent confusion. It seemed she found some of what I said unconvincing.
"If Amasawa-san really is completely uninvolved with this incident, doesn't
that strike you as strange?" she said. "That would mean that Komiya-senpai and
Kinoshita-senpai just so happened to be attacked when she was around. And
that Amasawa's watch just so happened to be broken at that same time. And
finally, that I discovered her just by chance. Right?"
"It's true that when several coincidences intersect, it becomes difficult to call
it a coincidence anymore," I agreed. "Certainly, if we were to make our
deductions predicated on the idea that Amasawa was unrelated to what
happened to Komiya and Kinoshita, then our case quickly falls apart."
Now, a new theory was emerging: the idea that someone close to Amasawa
had knocked Kinoshita and Komiya down.
"So, even if Amasawa-san isn't the actual perpetrator here, that would mean
that she knows who is," concluded Nanase. "If so, does that open the possibility
that Amasawa-san is an accomplice?"
"That's exactly what I'm getting at," I replied. "Those other footprints that we
saw earlier might've belonged to the actual perpetrator."
If we considered that Amasawa had been helping the real culprit, then that
would explain her actions.
Nanase nodded. "Well, I suppose if someone did want to resort to violence, it
would make sense to go about it that way," she said, connecting the dots.
"But…" I replied, trailing off before finishing my thought.
Just then, I had started to feel curious about…something completely
unrelated to the topic at hand, for some reason.
"But what?" asked Nanase.
Now that she was looking up at me with a vacant, puzzled look on her face, I
hesitated to ask her the question on the tip of my tongue. I paused because I
simply couldn't understand how any of this worked. It was our seventh day
living here on the uninhabited island. Nanase had basically collaborated with
me all this time. And we hadn't had much time to wash up properly.
Nanase did have the chance to wash off the sand when she changed into her
swimsuit for Beach Flags, of course. And when she went swimming, she would
have taken a shower when she changed back. But even so, just the amount of
sweat that you managed to produce in a single day could cause issues. Since the
tent was rather small, Nanase's scent, though slight, had filled the space. I
wouldn't say that it was an offensive odor, though. Even if you could mask the
scent of sweat by wiping yourself off, I wondered what it meant if it smelled
good? I wanted to ask her about it, but that would obviously make me a bad
senpai.
"No, it's nothing, I just misunderstood something. Don't worry about it," I told
her.
"Oh?" she replied, puzzled.
Nanase nodded, not prying any further, and apparently not sensing what I
had been thinking about either. Even though I did have a girlfriend, I was a
beginner who had just started learning about these things. There was a lot that
I didn't understand when it came to this sort of thing.
Deodorant and antiperspirant sprays were relatively inexpensive and readily
available for us to get, as per the rules. I figured that she had purchased some.
That was just about the only answer that I could come up with at the moment.
This was a random topic that I had gotten myself stuck on, but I was getting
strangely caught up in it. Nanase didn't seem to think anything of my pause
though, so I figured that I would just get back to the topic at hand.
"Although we have no way of ascertaining whether Amasawa actually did
anything to Komiya and Kinoshita, we do have a pretty good idea of who is in
which Table," I told her.
Nanase cocked her head to the side in confusion, perhaps because she didn't
understand what I meant. I took out my tablet and showed it to her.
"Wait, are you sure that's okay?" she said. "That contains your personal
information, Ayanokouji-senpai… Are you sure you don't mind showing it to
me?"
By "personal information," I assumed that she was referring to my scores. It
was valuable information, I supposed, since scores and ranks for students
outside of those in the top ten or bottom ten were not disclosed.
"I thought you and I weren't so distant from one another anymore and that
we had a relationship where we could trust each other. Am I misreading
things?" I replied, straight out.
When she heard me say that she snapped to attention, looking up at me.
"Oh no! No! I-I'm grateful for your trust in me. Thank you!" she stammered.
She sounded somewhat flustered, happy, and apologetic, all at the same time.
The face she made was typical of her. Nanase was the sort of person who
couldn't just forget a perceived act of rudeness on her part.
"Besides, we've been working together," I added. "You'd probably be able to
roughly guess how many points I've gotten anyway if you just thought about it.
Right?"
Even though I had taken on some Tasks alone, I was sure that Nanase would
have at least given some thought as to how I had earned my points if I were in
first place. I proceeded to explain things to her, without paying any mind to the
fact that I was disclosing my scores in the process.
"So anyway, as I was saying earlier, we can actually know who is in what
Table, but—"
As I started explaining things, the sharp-minded Nanase quickly noticed
something that seemed odd.
"Huh? Senpai, your score… Doesn't it seem lower than you would think it
should be?"
"What do you mean?" I asked in return, evaluating her.
Nanase started to do some calculations in her head, using her fingers on both
hands to work things out.
"Arrival Bonuses, Early Bird rewards, and Tasks… Subtract any penalties, and…
I thought you won first place in the Task that you took on while I was taking a
break too," she said, working through the problem.
She seemed to have quite a good memory. That would certainly be a useful
asset to me, and something I could use in the future.
"So, you've noticed. Yes, I should've had eighty-eight points by now. Excellent
job picking up on that."
"But you have seventy-eight now, a whole ten points less. And I don't believe
you've suffered any penalties…"
So, how—and when—did those points disappear? I went on to explain the
answer.
"In this special exam, we have four designated areas per day as part of the
Basic Movement system," I explained. "They are announced to us, and then we
move to those areas. We spend a total of ten hours on test content each day,
from seven in the morning to five in the evening. I decided to do a total of ten
GPS searches on the sixth day of the exam, when the feature was unlocked for
us. I did one search each hour, except when we were on break at noon."
Nanase didn't yet understand what I would've been able to see by doing that,
so I continued. "The GPS search is an exceptionally useful feature that allows
you to know the location of every student on the entire island. But if you only
use it once, just to determine people's location at a given moment, then its
usefulness decreases. However, if you divide the day into ten segments and
repeat the search over and over, you can see many things that you couldn't
before."
By connecting the dots, you could see the trajectories that people made
throughout the course of the day. Similarly, if someone else had performed ten
searches, they could have noticed that Nanase and I had been together
constantly during this exam.
"Hmm, okay, I think I understand now what you used those points for,"
Nanase said. "It is true that if you knew where everyone was going at each hour
of the day, you might be able to work out which people belong to the same
Table. But senpai, I don't remember seeing you fiddling with your tablet for
extended periods of time on the sixth day of the exam, and it's not as though
anyone could memorize all that information, right? Wait… Are you saying that
you memorized everything in just an instant?"
"That would be impossible. It would take a ridiculously long time to check
every single student's name and location," I answered.
I opened up my photos folder in my tablet and showed her the images that I
had saved.
"I took screenshots after each GPS search. That way, I could take my time and
go over them in detail when I had a spare moment to see what kinds of
movements other students were making that day."
It was true that we couldn't send messages or photos to each other during
the exam. However, taking a screenshot and saving it to your own tablet was a
standard feature. Also, by repeatedly zooming in and out on the images that I
had saved, it was possible to keep a detailed record of every student's location.
"By comparing the locations of each student at each hour of the day, it's
possible to see a record of everyone's daily activity," I said. "And I can check it
at any time."
I could review everyone's movements before going to bed, before getting
started on exam activities in the early morning, or when I was taking a break. I
had plenty of opportunities to look, so I could do it whenever. The map also
gave details about the Tasks that appeared during those time periods, so a ton
of information was laid bare in those screenshots. Though what I saw was only
limited to the sixth day, I could see everything, including what kinds of
strategies each group and each student adopted.
"…I had no idea you had done all of that," Nanase said. "I didn't notice at all."
"I wouldn't do something so stupid as to let myself get found out by someone
who might have been an enemy," I replied. "I had no idea what kind of person
you were as of the sixth day of the exam, Nanase."
It would've been sheer stupidity for me to let Nanase know that I was using
the GPS search function at that time when she was still my possible enemy. At
any rate, it was precisely because students often had their hands on their
tablets—doing anything from checking their current location to reading up on
details about Tasks—that it hadn't looked out of the ordinary for me to be
messing around with mine fairly often. I just did a GPS search and took a
screenshot every hour or so while making sure not to lose track of the
designated areas and Tasks.
Nanase, looking quite impressed, swiped through the saved screenshots. Each
time she slid to the next one, she saw that the GPS coordinates of each student
changed in interesting ways.
"I mean no disrespect whatsoever when I ask you this, but can you really say
that doing this was worth ten points?" she asked. "I suppose that there might
be added value in doing this if you could share the screenshots with someone,
but if you're taking this exam alone, it would take quite a bit of time for you to
analyze the behavioral patterns of the other students, wouldn't it?"
She definitely had a point there. If you could freely send screenshots to your
teammates as attachments in messages, then you could get more value out of
these images. With multiple people, you could do searches in even shorter
intervals of time, and it would be possible to check the information outside of
the regular exam hours. If the rules allowed for you to do something like that,
then it wouldn't be surprising at all if other classes put it into practice.
"Even though this is within the scope of individual use, it depends on how you
use it," I replied. "I can say that whether this strategy is ultimately worth the
ten points or more, or whether it's not worth that many points at all, is about to
be determined."