As everyone else left in a rush to board the buses, I waited patiently in my seat until me and Ichinose were the only ones remaining in the war preparation room. She turned to me with a smile.

"Well, this is it. I'm passing the baton over to you, Takanori-kun!"

"Thank you again, for doing this unreasonable request of mine. I'll do my best as Commander."

"Let's beat D Class together!"

"Yeah. Glory to the loser faction."

"Glory to the loser faction, nya ha!"

Ichinose laughed as she cheered that. Waving goodbye, she left to board the bus like everyone else. I got up from my seat and stood next to Chabashira-sensei on the platform. She looked at me with an amused expression.

"To think you'd go so far for this war."

"100 Cl is something worth fighting for."

"I take it you're going to be the Class Commander, then?"

"Yeah. Ichinose-san let me have the role instead."

"That's fine."

Chabashira-sensei registered me as Commander. I could now see a wealth of information on the screens that I didn't before. In particular, I could now see the position of where everyone was. I guess our visors had a built in GPS tracker of some sort. Other nifty features included multiple camera views being visible at once and a map showing the layout of the mall.

Of course, all this information was supplemented by other miscellaneous features and was only relevant to E Class. There was no way to access any information on D Class whatsoever, which was annoying. As I was getting to grips with how the screens and functions worked, a communication line had been opened up and the protesting voices of multiple students pierced my ears.

"Takanori, could you explain what's going on? Why does it say you're Commander and not Ichinose-san?"

I focused my communication line onto Matsushita, who was the calmest from among the outraged. Even though he appeared calm, I could feel his vitriol towards me through the bitter tone of his voice, as he knew that this was my plan from the very start.

"It's simple. I switched roles with Ichinose-san."

"Are you insane?! Everyone agreed she would be Commander, not you!"

"It's not everyone if I disagree. It'd be "everyone except Takanori", right?"

"This isn't the time to act like a smartass. Leave your post and get onto the bus as quick as possible! We're about to depart!"

"Sorry, but I'm a slow walker. I won't make it in time."

"You literally sprinted back to class to get those cards!"

"Ah, I twisted my ankle while doing it. Curse you, smooth linoleum floor."

My continuously sarcastic answers only angered him further.

"Stop joking around! Are you even taking this war seriously?! Stop trying to sabotage E Class!"

"I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure that I'm helping E Class by taking up this role."

"You're helping nobody by doing this! You're just neutering our chances of winning against D Class!"

"Huh, I think the Takanori group would like to disagree."

"Of course they would, they're your friends after all."

"Wow, thank you for acknowledging I'm not a loner anymore. I'm flattered."

"Can you stop giving non-answers for once?"

"Only when you stop complaining about me being Commander."

By this point, Matsushita stopped replying. On the GPS, I saw that Ichinose had now boarded the bus. I guess he was talking to her now? I wondered how she would handle it.

After a few minutes, I saw that the bus had began to move. My stalling for time had paid off. Matsushita and his group had no choice but to accept that I was Commander. A communication line from Matsushita opened up again.

"Regardless of you being Commander, our deal from Thursday still applies. I'll lead my platoons, you'll lead your platoons. However, I'd like to add another condition: we won't interfere with each other's groups during the war. Is that fair?"

"That's fine by me. Though, it'd be counterproductive if we searched the same areas. Since we have three platoons each and there's three levels in the mall, how about we send a platoon each onto every level? That way, we'd be splitting up the workload between us, and D Class would have to deal with two platoons per level."

"Hmm. I guess I'm not against that, but what if D Class is concentrated in one level more than the rest?"

"Then you adapt to the situation. We can tell our platoons where to go, after all."

"A change of plans, huh? Well, we can start with that idea of yours, but what happens after that is on us."

"Yeah. You do things your way, I'll do things my way. I'll try not getting in the way."

"Me too. Just... at least try to keep your platoons alive by the end of it."

"You don't have to worry about me."

The communication line ended there. Strangely, we managed to have a non-hostile conversation. I suppose it's because we were discussing a serious matter. Though, the tension between us was palpable. I was more impressed by the fact that Matsushita was still concerned about all of his classmates, even if they weren't on his side. At the very least, I could respect that.

"And to think you two hated each other."

Chabashira-sensei coldly commented on the conversation between me and Matsushita.

"Do I give off that impression?"

"You have a good poker face, but it's not good enough."

"Well, I guess you're not wrong..."

Chabashira-sensei was about to reply, but instead she shut her mouth and stayed quiet. The detached look in her eyes returned. It reminded me of one of the reasons why I worked so hard preparing for this war.

I wanted to show to her that I had the power to rise E Class to A Class by winning it. That way, I could gain her faith in me as our homeroom teacher. This war just as important to her as it was to me.

It was 3:30pm. The buses had just arrived at Higashi Mall. According to the logs provided, D Class had already arrived at the mall fifteen minutes earlier. There was no doubt in my mind that they'd already set up traps for us.

E Class disembarked the buses and stormed inside Higashi Mall. Just as I was about to open a communication line to my group to instruct them on what to do, a loud voice rang out in the mall.

"Welcome to yer personal hell, E Class!"

Standing in the centre of the middle floor's central balcony was Mikitaka, laughing at everyone standing below him. Everyone looked stunned that he revealed himself to them so easily.

"D Class is waitin' at every corner and at every shop, so y'all better keep yer guard up! If ya don't, we might just kill ya, ha ha ha!"

Mikitaka pointed finger guns at everyone and pretended to fire them, blowing imaginary smoke off his fingertips.

"Pissed off yet? Good. If ya wanna fight me, come get me!"

With that bold taunt and challenge, Mikitaka ran away. While this was an obvious trap, I also knew that Nora desperately wanted to fight him as a way of standing up against his bully.

Originally, I had planned to put Yukina's platoon on the ground floor, since that's where I thought most of D Class would be, but since Mikitaka revealed his position on the middle floor so brazenly to us, it was best if I sent her platoon there instead.

I opened up the group communication line as planned and started explaining to everyone what the plan was.

"Alright, everyone, listen up. We're going to do a sweep of each level, similar to the way we hunted for Kaido-senpai last war, but this time the chance of us seeing our enemies will be much higher. If you encounter or see an enemy, try and notify me about it so I can give advice or instructions, if not, just enter battle and do your best. Akihiro-san, your platoon will be searching the ground floor. Yukina, your platoon will be searching the middle floor. Taiga-san, your platoon will be searching the top floor. When you're done sweeping the area, inform me and I'll give further instructions. There's also a chance I'll pull people away to different floors if things get hazy, so be alert for my commands. Got that?"

After receiving a verbal confirmation from everyone, I took a deep breath and raised my fist into the air.

"When it comes to losing, we're the strongest! Glory to the loser faction!"

"Glory to the loser faction!"

The Takanori group echoed our chant and split off to each their respective floors. On the ground floor was Akihiro, Akari, Kawaguchi, and Tadokoro. On the middle floor was Yukina, Nora, and Katsumi. On the top floor was Taiga, Tanaka, and Rinbayashi. Similar to how Rinbayashi switched to my side, Misogi (who was originally in Taiga's platoon) did the same, so me and Matsushita just essentially ended up trading members.

"You've sure grown to like that phrase."

Chabashira-sensei teased me a little.

"Please... we might be the losers now, but in due time, we'll be the winners."

"...good luck."

Even though her eyes were focused on the screen, Chabashira-sensei still mumbled that bit of encouragement to me. She really does care deep down. It only makes me more motivated to rise this damned class to A Class as soon as possible.