Chapter 92: Act 16: Scene 1
The next morning, before classes would begin, the various groups who spent the day before searching for a witness were gathered at the back of the classroom. Even those who didn't help in the search had joined and all of them were busily exchanging information with each other.
Hirata stood in the middle of the whole group, his eyes roaming around as he stared at the people who dedicated their time in helping to find their person of interest yesterday. It was really only supposed to be him and his other classmates who were also aware of Miyake's perspective of the incident, but they were fortunate that a few others were willing to help.
"Do we have any leads on the identity of our eyewitness, everyone?" he asked, internally praying that one of his classmates had made some progress on their end.
"Me and Kiyopon walked around the mall area yesterday, but none of the people we talked to was the witness that we're looking for," Hasebe spoke up for herself and Ayanokouji with her arms folded across her chest. She had a frown on her face, indicating that she felt frustrated about not being able to get any leads.
"We asked our teammates and a few other athletes. Got the same results," Onodera spoke with a frown of her own while Sudo nodded along in agreement.
"Me and Horikita-san asked several students around the school, but none of them was the person we're looking for," Kushida said sadly, while Horikita only shook her head.
"Same here," said Matsushita with Wang standing beside her. Both of them bore apologetic looks on their faces for not succeeding in their goal of finding a witness.
"We didn't learn a thing, either. Sorry..." Sato and Shinohara were on the same boat, shifting their gazes to the floor sadly.
"We asked the people who were right by the dormitories yesterday. None of them said they witnessed any fight that took place by the Heaven on Earth bathhouse," Yukimura explained while pushing his glasses up as Sotomura bowed his head.
"We were checking the dorm buildings too. All of the people we asked said the same thing," Ishikura explained as everyone's attention went towards her. Minami shook her head in disappointment as well.
"I see," Hirata sighed at the disappointing results of their search yesterday. However, it didn't really surprise him because he had a feeling that things wouldn't be easy for them. "In our case, Karuizawa-san and I were unable to produce results as well. We went to the bathhouse itself and the areas near it to ask the students passing by. None of them knew anything either."
Karuizawa scoffed, feeling frustrated with this turn of events. She felt that they should have gotten a reliable lead at the very least, with 8 groups working together to search the campus yesterday. "Yeah, we couldn't find anyone..."
"Sorry, Miyacchi. We couldn't find that eyewitness of ours..." The blue-haired girl turned to her friend with a sad look. Haruka couldn't even bring herself to look at him, feeling that she had disappointed Akito.
Kiyotaka stood beside her, staring at the distraught girl in concern. Feeling as if his body was moving on its own, the young man raised his hand and let it rest on his heroine's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. He even waited for a few moments for the system's overpowered skill to activate but strangely, nothing happened.
As she felt a hand touch her shoulder, Haruka turned her head to see Kiyotaka staring at her with that impassive look of his. However, she could tell that his eyes were full of concern despite his expression, and it was enough to calm her down. Haruka took a few deep breaths as she sent him a grateful smile, one that was enough to make Kiyotaka feel something weird in his chest.
[You gained 3 Affection Points with Hasebe Haruka!]
"It's fine. I didn't really expect this to be over in one day," Akito told his friend while shaking his head. He didn't look bothered at his classmate's failure and if anything, he wanted to help them out in the search.
Meanwhile, the other people with them who didn't help in the search were also helping in their own way, to say the least.
Among them were Ike and Yamauchi. Both of them shared a common hatred for ladies' men like Hirata and Ayanokouji (especially the latter) but while Yamauchi only looked interested in this because of his chance to talk to their female classmates, Ike wanted to prevent their class from losing points like everyone else. Plus, his chance of going on that luxury vacation to an island was at stake!
"Can we even prove that those Class C guys were in the wrong?" Ike asked, expressing his doubts about being able to win this case. "I mean, can't you remember who the people who attacked you or something?"
Akito shook his head. "I can't really remember. But if you have a picture of all the students in Class C, I could probably point out who were the ones that did it."
"Then why can't we do that instead?" asked Ike, now wondering why they would even need a witness when they could just point out who the culprits were by taking a simple picture of Class C.
"We've already thought about that, idiot. It won't work. Even if we find out who did it, it won't change anything. Miyake will still be treated as the one who started everything. Those Class C bastards won't admit to anything," Sudo scoffed at his suggestion as he had already heard it before.
"Then how the hell can we even win this if there's no proof that it was those students who started it?!" Ike snapped, with Shinohara quickly telling him to calm down before he could get into an argument.
"As long as we can find a witness, it's not impossible. Let's keep trying our best, Ike-kun." Like the hero that he was, Hirata was quick to defuse the growing tension with his kind words. While Ike didn't look convinced, it got him to stop complaining at least.
"Before we try our best, though, is there even a witness in the first place? Maybe Miyake-kun was just imagining things when it happened," asked Chiaki. It's not that she didn't believe Akito, she was only concerned for her other classmates because they might be looking for someone who doesn't exist all this time, which would render their efforts useless.
This time, it was Suzune who chose to speak. "The more we place doubt on our classmate, the more we'll be unable to focus on the task at hand. None of us knows what truly happened except for Miyake-kun, Matsushita-san. Right now, his words are the only source of information we have, whether he was imagining things or not."
The brunette considered those words for a moment, before shrugging in defeat. "I guess you're probably right about that, Horikita-san..."
"We still have 5 more days before Miyake-kun's trial, right? We still have plenty of time, everyone! As long as we don't give up in our efforts, I'm sure we'll be able to find our witness!" Kikyo exclaimed in an attempt to raise everyone's spirits.
"Furthermore, our class itself is at stake," Hirata said. "If we fail to prove Miyake-kun's innocence, everyone will suffer from the consequences. Our class went from 97 points to 212 points in the span of a month, which puts us right behind Class C. Surely none of you would want our progress to be wasted, correct?"
"Yeah, think about it. If our points as a class gets decreased because of this, then we'll have a huge cut on our monthly allowance. I don't want us to go back to getting only 9,700 points or worse, something lower than that," Karuizawa added, folding her arms across her chest.
Upon hearing those words, something clicked in everyone's minds. Just the mere mention of their points decreasing as a consequence of this incident was enough to motivate them to continue with this. They couldn't let such a thing happen, especially when they had made significant progress in increasing their points in such little time.
Kanji shifted his gaze downwards, now truly understanding how big this issue is and what's at stake. "Alright, point taken. I don't want us to go back to only 9,700 points every month or worse, no points at all. Doesn't stop me from feeling jealous of the people in Class A, though. They got more than 80,000 for this month, right? I wish we could be like them, but we're at the bottom of the barrel."
"If you want that to happen, then you have to be a better student first, moron." Satsuki deadpanned.
As soon as the boy brought up the topic of Class A and the points that their rival class currently possessed, many of them were starting to feel envious as well. Yes, they were known as Class D, the worst out of the four class in their year, but it didn't stop them from imagining how it
"Why couldn't I have been in Class A from the start? If I were in Class A, I'd probably be loving every second of my student life."
"I wish I was in A too. I'd be doing so much fun stuff with my friends and we'd have a lot of points to spend!"
"Chabashira-sensei called us 'defectives', remember? There was no way for us to be Class A with that kind of moniker for us."
"Maybe so, but we can focus on improving our class to get ourselves out of our current dilemma. Getting jealous of other classes instead of raising our own points will only backfire on all of us."
And so, in no time at all, the little meeting that was supposed to be a discussion of Akito's situation had turned into a talk about the various classes and their respective points. Kiyotaka sighed at this turn of events and simply went back to his seat along with Suzune, both having no further interest in the conversation. At the very least, they were updated on everyone's current situation regarding the search for the eyewitness to Akito's altercation with those Class C students the other way.
Besides, they were already aware of the possibility of their class being the new Class A, which required them to improve upon themselves, of course. Imagining a scenario of them being the top class was different than actually accomplishing it was a completely different thing, so they simply stopped listening to the group's conversation from there.
"What if there was some secret trick we could use to turn into Class A in a snap? Heh, imagine how much easier our lives would be if we could be the new Class A without a sweat..."
"Then cheer up, Ike, because there is one way to instantly reach Class A."
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