Thursday morning.

I woke up extra early today so I could have ample time to find Tadokoro this morning. I was secretly hoping she was working in the garden to make things easier for me, but she wasn't there. Just Himeji checking the crops.

I took the train to school and entered class. The classroom was mostly empty aside from Nora, who was reading a book, and Ayano, who arrived at a similar time I did.

I waited patiently for Tadokoro to come to class in my seat. I watched as people came and left, settling in their seats or going out to buy breakfast before lessons started. This morning I had Japanese, huh?

Eventually, Tadokoro entered class. She came alone, so I decided to strike while the iron was hot and approached her directly myself.

"Morning, Tadokoro-san."

Tadokoro squeaked in surprise as I called out to her. Composing herself, she waved at me slightly.

"G'morning, Takanori-san..."

Tadokoro yawned as she said that. I guess she had some rough sleep last night. I decided to cut to the chase and ask for what I wanted from her.

"Can I borrow your deck during break time?"

"E-eh?"

Tadokoro snapped out of her sleepy daze as I asked that. She raised an eyebrow, unable to understand why I would need her deck.

"Please. I need it to do something."

"Um... I mean... if it's just for this break time... it should be fine..."

Tadokoro quietly mumbled to herself, rummaging around her bag to find her deck.

"Tadokoro-san, is everything alright?"

Interrupting me and Tadokoro was the vigilant Matsushita. Since she belonged to his group, I guess us conversing with each other did seem suspicious to him. It made sense that he wanted to check I wasn't doing anything bad to Tadokoro.

"E-eh? M-Matsushita-kun?"

"Is Takanori bothering you?"

Even now, Matsushita's hostility wouldn't stop.

"U-um... n-no, he isn't."

"What are you doing, talking to her then?"

He then sharply turned the question to me. I replied calmly, not letting his aggressive slights get on my nerves.

"I was just asking to borrow something from her."

"Is that true?"

She nodded her head reluctantly. Matsushita raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Tadokoro-san, don't feel pressured to give anything to him if you don't want to."

She shook her head, trying to explain the situation, but due to her shy personality, she had difficulty expressing it clearly.

"N-no, it's f-fine, Matsushita-kun... r-really, Takanori-san isn't d-doing anything..."

Matsushita, who took Tadokoro's stammering as a sign of fear, narrowed his eyes towards me. Seeing the tension grow between us, Tadokoro hurried to get her deck from her bag.

"H-here you go, T-T-Takanori-san! P-please return it by l-lunch! T-t-thank you!"

Tadokoro, wanting to escape the uncomfortable position she found herself in, shoved her deck in my hands, and ran away.

"Ah...?"

I couldn't even thank her before she whizzed back to her seat. Matsushita scoffed under his breath, his gaze never breaking away from me once.

"Her deck? That's what you wanted?"

"I need it to test something."

"Couldn't you borrow it from someone in your group instead? I know you told Tadokoro-san to join my group, but this reeks of you trying to get her onto your side."

"I get your concerns, but I don't have any intentions to do that. Tadokoro-san is free to choose whichever side she likes. I asked her only because her deck fit the qualifications of what I wanted to test."

"What are they, then?"

"You wouldn't understand even if I explained it."

"Don't act cheeky with me. Tell me, Takanori."

His indignant and self-righteous behaviour was starting to get on my nerves now.

"If you really want to know, I need her deck because it's a budget deck. I chose to ask Tadokoro-san ahead of time because Akari-san informed me she used the Blue Wings from Aqua Force."

"Why do you need her budget deck specifically? Couldn't you just use your one? Eradicators aren't exactly expensive either."

"The highest rarity in Blue Wings is RR, but the majority of the cards are commons. Meanwhile, Eradicators use a myriad of RRR and higher cards. It's not very helpful if I'm trying to test out a deck with only RR and below cards."

Matsushita continued to glare at me, but I was genuinely telling him the truth. Tadokoro's deck fit all the requirements I needed for my plan.

"Fine. I'll accept that explanation for now."

Finally.

"However, I wanted to talk to you for another reason."

"And that is?"

"I had a talk with my group last night over the class split, and everyone agreed that we should at least make a truce until the war is over. How do you feel about that?"

"A truce, huh?"

It certainly wouldn't be bad to have a ceasefire, since we had a common goal of defeating D Class. However, if I agreed to a truce now, it would become much more difficult to manoeuvre later when I ask Ichinose to become commander for the war, as I'd be going against the truce. By sabotaging the preexisting plans like that, I'd be painted as a selfish backstabber by Matsushita and Sakigamiya later.

That's why I wanted insurance if this truce were to happen. My primary concern was with the positions in the war, since most of the platoons contained a mixed split between my supporters and Matsushita's supporters. I needed to sort out which platoon belonged to which group. If negotiations are on the table right now, this would be a good opportunity to discuss it with Matsushita and come to a conclusion.

"I'll only truce with you under two conditions."

"What are they?"

"First, I get to be commander of the war instead of Ichinose-san. Second, I get control over mine, Akihiro-san's, and Taiga-san's platoons for the war. You can have control over yours, Ayano-san's, and Fujimura-san's platoons. An equal split."

Of course, I'd be sacrificing orders to Rinbayashi and Kouji, but they were barely involved with me anyways, so I didn't feel too bad losing them to Matsushita temporarily.

"You drive a hard bargain. I can't believe you were serious about being commander."

"Of course I was. I wouldn't say that just for a laugh. I truly want to be commander for this war."

"I see. Well, I can agree to the second condition, but I absolutely cannot allow the first one."

"Unfortunate. The reason I listed that one first is because it's the more important condition for me. We can squabble about the platoon distribution for each group later, but I want that position no matter what."

"Why though? Why can't you be satisfied with just being on the front lines? Why do you want to be commander so badly? Don't you have faith in Ichinose-chan? She has an ability to bring people together. In our current state, she's necessary for us to win the war!"

"I don't doubt Ichinose-san's ability at all. She's in B Class for a reason."

"Then why? Why do you want that stupid role?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Matsushita's eyes widened slightly, before narrowing again. The wrinkles of anger started growing on his face.

"...you want to be commander so you can claim credit for being the one who gave all the orders if we win the war. That way, you can convince everyone you're the better leader between us."

"Correct."

There was no point hiding my true intentions if he had already figured it out.

"Takanori... you really are despicable."

"Talk about the pot calling the kettle black."

"I knew it... there was no way you'd agree to a truce. I was naive thinking you had a bit of heart left in you. Guess I was wrong. You're rotten to the very core."

"At least I'm aware of it. I'm open to negotiations, you know? If you can persuade me out of being commander, then I'll back down."

"It's pointless. I can tell you've made your mind up on the matter. Being adamant won't work on you. You'd still reject it either way, without second thought or hesitation. The only way you'd accept is if things go your way. Isn't that true?"

For better or worse, Matsushita hit the nail on the head with his analysis of the current situation.

"Yeah. That sums it up nicely. While the truce is off, I'll keep the platoon distribution on the table. It's better to sort this out now than later, for both training and strategy purposes."

"Like I said, I can accept your proposition. It only makes sense considering who's on what side."

"Then I'm glad we can agree on something."

I stretched out my hand as a formality. Matsushita, with a blatant face of disgust, reluctantly shook my hand to confirm our deal.

"Just so you know, I'll be keeping an eye on you. I don't trust you to lead our classmates. If anything, you'll end up hurting them."

"That's fine by me. You can stalk me for all I care. You still won't find the incriminating dirt that you're looking for."

Matsushita walked away, a brooding dark aura leaking out of him. Day by day, the perfect shell he built for himself is cracking. I wonder when our classmates will realise who the man beneath the mask really is?

I returned to my seat to check out Tadokoro's deck. As I sifted through the cards, a problem arose. She had two RRR units inside it, Coral Assault and Wheel Assault, which would be going against the idea of a limited deck. (For the unaware, limited is a format where all RRR and higher cards are banned from being used, so I was essentially using a deck built for the limited format.) I had to replace them with low rarity Aqua Force cards, but I didn't have any, and no one else in our class played Aqua Force.

I racked my brains, thinking of people who used Aqua Force in this school. To help me, I searched the school app for those who displayed Aqua Force as their main clan in their public account bio. As I was scrolling, a memory from yesterday hit me, coinciding timely with a student I had landed on while scrolling.

It was none other than Hashimoto Atasuke, who used Maelstrom in the war yesterday.

"...am I really going to ask this guy for help?"

Whether I liked it or not, he was the only student on the list that I had a connection to. His deck, Maelstrom, also had support which was low rarity, so if I borrowed a random grade 2 and grade 1 from him, they would be perfect replacements for Tadokoro's deck. In fact, it would make it even more impressive if I won, since the Maelstrom pieces added nothing of worth to the deck. If anything, it made it more difficult to use and conflicted with the main archetype.

The most difficult part would be convincing him. It's indirectly my fault that he's become the new laughing stock of the school. After going through that myself, I actually felt kind of bad for Hashimoto. That aside, I genuinely considered the options of what I could I do to persuade him to let me borrow his cards.

The easiest solution would be to threaten him by bringing Yamamoto along with me to force him to hand over the cards, but after seeing Yamamoto's attitude in the war yesterday, I think he was genuinely sick and tired of dealing with Hashimoto.

Another idea I had was to blackmail him, saying that I'd tell everyone about the embarrassing defeat he experienced by Yamamoto in the war. That would shake him up a little, since friendly wars weren't broadcast live. It should've been impossible for me to know, but because I visited the war preparation room yesterday, I got to see it myself first hand.

My only other option was to be civil with him. Though, because of our soured relationship, I doubt this would work. Instead, my best bet was to get someone else to convince him to let me borrow the cards. I checked his public friends list, hoping he was on good terms with Kuwahara so I could have him help me, but unfortunately, he wasn't on the list. Instead, I found someone interesting from the football club, Andou Hiruma.

There was a chance I could use this connection to my advantage, because I've heard of Andou before from Yukimura and Akihiro, who were also in the football club. Like Hashimoto, Andou was from 3-E, but he was actually well respected by students in the classes above him due to his good-natured personality and skills as a left wing, from what I heard.

However, the fact he was in E Class only made me remember Isen's warning from yesterday. Could I really trust these guys? All I know about Andou is hearsay from Yukimura and Akihiro. In reality, he could be like Hashimoto.

Still, this was probably my best bet in convincing Hashimoto to let me borrow the cards. If one of his friends tried to convince him to do it, he'd be be more inclined to hear them out. If it was me, I'd get shut down immediately.

I just somehow had to get into a situation where I found Hashimoto and Andou together before before break ends. There was no guarantee of this happening, and if anything, this was one tall order...

The easiest way was to visit the 3-E classroom right now, but going there by myself seemed daunting. It would be better if I had someone else with me, preferably someone who could help persuade Hashimoto into letting me borrow some of his cards.

Then, that's when it hit me.

There was just the person, right here in this room. I needed to talk to him privately anyways, so our walk to 3-E would be the perfect opportunity to do it. Plus, since he was from the football club, he could talk to Andou and get him to help persuade Hashimoto for me.

That person was none other than Ishima Akihiro.

Right now, Akihiro was sitting at Mitsuba's desk, looking through Mitsuba's collection of cards with a disheartened face. I went over to them.

"Akihiro-san."

"Hm? Takanori, sup?"

"Can you come with me quickly? I need your help with something."

"Sure thing."

Akihiro got up, leaving the classroom with me.