Ryuuen Kakeru leaned back in his seat at the rear of Class 1-C, a sliver of afternoon sun cutting across his face, dividing his sharp features into light and shadow. Even outside of class hours, the room held a languid, apathetic energy that grated against his instincts. It was a displeasure he currently had to endure.
His fingertips drummed a slow, predatory rhythm on the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Securing an early advantage in class points was one thing. The raw material of Class 1-C—the sluggish, unmotivated mass of it—was another. A kingdom could not be built on the backs of a few capable lieutenants alone. The foundation itself needed hardening. The path to crushing Class A was not a sprint; it was a grueling campaign of reshaping terrain.
A faint vibration against his thigh broke his reverie. His hand slipped into his pocket, retrieving the phone with a fluid motion. The screen glowed.
*Sender: Shiina Hiyori.*
*Message: Sakamoto. Coffee shop, shopping center. Lunch shift. Position purchased with personal points.*
A slow, serpentine smile spread across Ryuuen's face.
Working. The concept was delicious. The school's public prohibition against part-time jobs was a paper shield, and Sakamoto had just calmly torn through it with the system's own currency. To the unaware observer, it wouldn't look like a transaction—it would look like privilege. Like power. The elegant boy in the apron wasn't breaking rules; he was demonstrating that the rules simply didn't apply to him. It was a masterstroke of image-crafting, using perception itself as a weapon.
Clever. Very clever, Ryuuen acknowledged silently. You're building a legend. But every legend needs a setting.
And now, he had it. A fixed location. A predictable schedule. The elusive quarry had just painted a target on his own back.
He put the phone away, steepling his fingers before him. The idle chatter of his classmates faded into white noise.
The immediate objective crystallized. Sakamoto himself was a fortress, all smooth walls and no visible gate. So, one did not attack the fortress. One laid siege to the land around it. One poisoned the wells, harassed the supply lines, and targeted those who sought its shelter.
Find his connections. Map his relationships. Who does he acknowledge? Who, in that sea of admirers in Class A, does he actually see?
Weaken the supports, and the pillar becomes more exposed. Isolate the king, and checkmate is only a matter of time.
***
In Class 1-A, the history teacher's voice rose and fell with dramatic emphasis, narrating the betrayals and alliances of the Sengoku period. Kamuro Masumi sat perfectly still, her textbook open to a page she hadn't read.
The lecture was a distant hum. Her mind was elsewhere, replaying a scene in crisp, vivid detail: the spinning tray, the stilled coffee, the impossible calm. And his eyes, meeting hers at the counter—"Points can purchase anything."
Her gaze lifted, drifting over the rows of heads until it found its anchor.
By the window, Sakamoto sat with pristine posture, the lines of his burgundy blazer sharp and clean. He was tilted slightly toward the teacher, the light glinting off his glasses, rendering his eyes unreadable. That focused serenity, that absolute containment… it was identical to the composure he'd wielded in the café. There was no distinction between the student and the cashier, between the observer and the actor. He was a single, consistent equation, operating with the same detached precision in every environment.
A shiver, cold and clean, traced Kamuro's spine. The teacher spoke of ancient strategies, of feints and loyalties tested. In the silent theater of her mind, a new war was being mapped—not in history books, but in the space between the orderly rows of desks, centered on the boy who listened so perfectly, and saw everything.
A quiet, treacherous certainty bloomed in Kamuro's chest. The "magic," the "secret technique," the unflappable calm—Sakamoto operated on a plane that made the intricate, shadowy scheming of Sakayanagi and Ryuuen seem almost… quaint. Like children plotting to trap a phantom with a net of string.
For a fleeting moment, a bizarre sense of safety washed over her. If he was this capable, then the looming threat was an illusion. Her mission, her anxieties, were perhaps unnecessary.
The thought was instantly, violently rejected.
No.
No one was invulnerable. Perfection was a performance, and every performance had a backstage. Sakamoto's flawlessness was itself the greatest clue to a weakness—a need, a desire, a vulnerability so well-hidden it defined his entire existence. What was he really building with those points? What truth was hidden beneath that bitter black coffee?
Her eyes remained fixed on his back—that straight, unwavering line against the window's light. The coffee shop. A fixed time. A fixed location. It was more than a job; it was an invitation to observation, a variable he had deliberately introduced into his own equation. Why?
And then there was her. Shiina Hiyori. Her calm walk to the counter was a mirror held up to Kamuro's own intent. They were rivals in observation, two spies from enemy camps drawn to the same luminous, mysterious source.
A resolve, cold and clear, crystallized within the turmoil.
She would go back.
Not for a mission report, not for Ryuuen's grand strategy. For herself. To parse the enigma, to find the crack in the porcelain, to understand the rules of a game only he seemed to fully comprehend.
On the podium, the history teacher's voice crescendoed, describing Oda Nobunaga's ruthless ambition to shatter the old world.
Kamuro Masumi lowered her gaze to her textbook, her finger resting on a printed phrase: "Tenka Fubu" – Unify the realm by military force.
In the quiet of her mind, a different kind of campaign was being declared. Not one of conquest, but of comprehension. The battlefield was a coffee shop. The prize was truth.
She would go again.
P@treon Rene_chan for advanced chapters, kindly support