Monday, June 1st.

The start of a new week, and the start of a new month.

More importantly however, every class's Cl had now been updated based on their overall performance last month.

The first thing I did when I woke up was check what had changed.

1st Year Class Points Distribution
A Class - 1,000
B Class - 610
C Class - 490
D Class - 297
E Class - 20

Our class gained 20 Cl overall. Considering what we'd been through in May, regarding the midterms and the war, I think we were extremely lucky to even get that many points, especially because our allies, B Class, actually lost that much Cl.

In fact, B Class had it the worst from all the classes. While everyone else gained Cl, they were the only class to lose it. They dropped from from 630 to 610. I can only suspect this is due to their on-going internal conflict between Ichinose and Machida.

Obviously, the class that came out on top was D Class, who gained an additional 70 Cl this month, jumping from 227 to 297. To be fair to them, this was a well deserved and fair assessment, so I couldn't really complain that they were pulling ahead.

It just meant we had to work even harder to surpass them, especially in order to win the bet Yukina made on the weekend. Although, I wondered how we were going to get at least 278 Cl in a month after seeing how small all the class's monthly increases were.

In second place was A Class, who gained 50 Cl this month. They had managed to recoup all their losses from April and returned to the original 1,000 Cl every class had at the start upon enrolment.

Technically, we ranked above C Class, since they only gained 10 Cl this month. However, they weren't a troublesome class, nor did they do any big moves this month, so I suppose this was a small reward for their good behaviour.

At the very least, an additional 2,000 Pr was welcomed. While it wasn't much, points were still extremely valuable to receive. I valued any I could get my hands on very highly.

As I was getting ready for the day, I looked at the sunglasses Kurosaki gave me on Saturday that were sitting on my table. I slipped them on and checked myself out in the mirror.

...if I may have the privilege to flex just once, then I must say.

Damn. I look cool.

While taking the train to school, I got curious and checked the rankings for the other years. This was a bit harder to find, since we didn't have direct access to other year's Cl, but eventually I found some posts on the school forums where it was included, since people were talking about it.

2nd Year Class Points Distribution
A Class - 2,333
B Class - 1,769
C Class - 965
D Class - 961
E Class - 734

Immediately, my eyes focused on the 2-C and 2-D, as their difference in points was literally 4 Cl. I can only imagine how frustrated 2-D feel, knowing they were so close to overtake 2-C, yet failed to do so.

3rd Year Class Points Distribution
A Class - 5,420
B Class - 3,862
C Class - 3,709
D Class - 2,526
E Class - 2,004

Naturally, in both years, A Class dominated. However, in the 3rd Year especially, 3-A was obliterating the other classes, having more than double 3-E's Cl, as well being ahead of 3-B by nearly 2,000 Cl. If 3-B wanted to surpass 3-A, they had a lot of catching up to do.

Still though, I was impressed by how high all the 3rd Year classes had managed to climb their Cl. Even 3-E had a respectable 2,004 Cl under their belt, meaning they'd receive at least 200,400 Cl every month. That was a comfortable amount to live off of, but it probably wasn't the best position to be in, since they'd be graduating in two semesters.

I arrived at school and headed towards E Class to restart my life as a loner. However, on my way there, a big commotion had started in the corridors, blocking my path.

While I would've ignored it and gone a different route to reach my destination, I noticed that one of the people involved was Kawaguchi. As he was someone who rarely got into trouble, my curiosity was piqued and I checked out what was going on.

I waded through a crowd of onlookers and saw that a few D Class students were lined up in a row, blocking Kawaguchi's path. In particular, there were the delinquents Terasaka, Takemoto, Yoshimatsu, and Hiraoka. To my surprise, Mikitaka wasn't with them.

Rather, to round out the group, it was Yamaguchi was from my class who was joining in. I guess this behaviour of turning on his own classmates was expected though, since he did the same to me.

Together, the five of them started intimidating and making fun out of Kawaguchi by chanting insults and laughing at his face.

"Arsonist! Arsonist! Arsonist!"

However, they were also waving something colourful in front of him. At first, I couldn't make out what they were holding, but soon I realised what they were doing.

"Arsonist! Arsonist! Arsonist!"

In their hands were lighters. They were taunting Kawaguchi about his past by waving actual fire in front of his face.

"Arsonist! Arsonist! Arsonist!"

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I took off my sunglasses and rubbed my eyes, hoping what was happening in front of me wasn't real.

"Arsonist! Kawaguchi's an arsonist!"

Unfortunately, this was really happening. I could hardly believe it. As the five of them continued to belligerently shout abuse, something snapped within Kawaguchi.

Now that Shigeru had exposed his past to everyone, he didn't have to hide his past of delinquency any longer. As a man with almost nothing left to lose, Yamaguchi and the others had made a poor decision to target him today.

Utilising the feelings of being beaten down and having his spirit crushed by one of his former friends, the roots of Kawaguchi's past slowly started to leak out, awakening the slumbering beast within him.

"Ah... argh, shut up already you jackasses!"

Kawaguchi lunged, violently snatching the lighter from Yamaguchi's hand and turning it on him.

"Shut up, or else I'll set fire to all of you!"

Yamaguchi snorted, taking a step back in surprise.

"Don't laugh! I'm not afraid to burn you all to a crisp, right here and right now!"

Instead of cowering from an unhinged Kawaguchi, Yamaguchi and the others smirked, laughing even harder than before.

"You wanna become a murderer in addition to an arsonist? Be my guest."

Yamaguchi encouraged him, not taking him seriously at all. To these five, Kawaguchi's threats sounded too childish to them and they doubted he would actually go through with such an extreme action.

"If it means making bastards like you disappear from the world, then I'll do it!"

Kawaguchi screamed his true feelings in his unbridled rage before charging at Yamaguchi with the lighter's flame thrusted forward.

Yamaguchi's laugh intensified as he held his hand out, ready to snatch his lighter back from Kawaguchi.

However, before Kawaguchi could even set fire to Yamaguchi's blazer, Miura suddenly appeared and grabbed him, holding him back.

"Huh?! Let go of me!"

Kawaguchi screamed, but Miura tightened his grip on him.

"Sorry bro, is boss's order."

"Your boss can suck it, let me get that bastard!"

Just as Kawaguchi was about to set fire on Miura's skinhead, he stopped suddenly as a terrifying voice boomed down the hallway.

"Oi, you blockheads o'er there. Drop yer crap before I drop you."

The crowd, including me, started to part and shuffle to the side to make a runway for Asukai, who was cleaning his ear with his pinky finger as he approached Yamaguchi and the others with a pissed expression on his face.

"I-Itsuki-senpai...?"

Kawaguchi dropped the lighter in shock, no longer resisting Miura's grip.

"Told ya, this was boss's order!"

Miura grunted, letting go of a teary eyed Kawaguchi.

"Don't get the wrong idea. I'm comin' outta retirement just once to save yer ass."

Itsuki walked up to Kawaguchi and put a hand on his head.

"Ya did good fendin' 'em off, Masaru."

Kawaguchi tried to say something in response, but his lip quivered in hesitation as no words would come out of his stuffy throat.

"Now leave it to me 'n Masaoka!"

Asukai grinned, slamming his fists together. Following him in tow was Masaoka.

"...Itsuki-senpai! I missed you!"

As Asukai walked out in front of him, Kawaguchi managed to spit out his true feelings.

Even though Kawaguchi couldn't see it, Asukai smiled upon hearing his words.

"I missed ya too, dumbass."

While Yamaguchi and the others shuffled back, one of the D Class students, Yoshimatsu, stepped forward, completely fearless of Asukai and his reputation.

"Who the hell are you?!"

"Haven't ya heard? I'm the coolest gang boss!"

Without missing a beat, Asukai sucker punched Yoshimatsu, making him fall to the ground in one hit. I thought I could see smoke coming off Asukai's hot red fists.

"My name's Asukai Itsuki, the King Kong of Karaikai! Ooh ooh ahh ahh, bitch!"

"S-Suehiro?! Suehiro, dude are you okay?!"

Immediately, Hiraoka went to rush over to the fallen Yoshimatsu's side, but fell to Asukai's bicycle kick before he could.

"Ooh ooh ah ah ha ha ha ha ha!"

With the two lightweights down, Asukai crossed his arms and beckoned for the other three muscle heads to come at him and Masaoka.

"Mmm, Itsu-nii's gone full monkey brain again..."

"Good thing Suzui ain't here to witness this. He'd get a heart attack worrying over Itsuki."

Appearing besides me was Shimizu, sighing in disappointment at her step-brother's simpleminded behaviour. Trailing behind her was a foreign man with tan skin, a thick beard, and a Christian cross necklace around his red tie.

"Shimizu-san?"

"O-oh, Takanori-san! G-good morning..."

I guess she didn't notice me when she got mixed up in the crowd. I gently waved at her.

"He a friend of yours, Hoshimi?"

Shimizu nodded.

"Umm... J-Jouji-kun, this is Takanori-san."

Shimizu shyly introduced us to each other.

"Nice to meet ya, mate. I'm Monma Jouji, but Jouji's just fine."

From his accent, I could tell he was Australian. Since he was tagging along with Shimizu, who was Asukai's sister, I guessed he was a 2nd Year like him.

"Takanori Yuuto, 1st Year E Class. Nice to meet you too, Jouji-senpai. Were you two going to school with Asukai-senpai?"

"Y-yes... but then Itsu-nii saw one of his former kouhai getting bullied... so he wanted to help him."

I looked over to Asukai, who was jumping up and down on Takemoto's fallen body. Meanwhile, Masaoka was grappling with Yamaguchi. Terasaka was nowhere to be seen, so I suppose he ran away? Or maybe he was getting back up.

"Thank God this is happening at the start of the month. Who knows how many class points we would've lost if this incident happened in May."

Jouji laughed a little bit. Thinking about it, 2-E was falling behind really badly in their intra-class battle. With only 734 Cl, they had to gather at least 2,000 Cl to surpass A Class, which was no easy feat.

"B-but won't you lose class points from Itsu-nii's and Masaoka-kun's behaviour next month?"

"We will, but next month marks the start of the summer holidays. We won't be at school, so receiving less private points won't hurt as hard, since we're gonna save them for when we return."

"O-oh... I see."

Personally, I disagreed with Jouji's point of view, since falling behind even a little bit could mean the difference between the victory and defeat, as seen with 2-C and 2-D's four point gap.

"H-how are things going? A-about finding the stalker... I mean."

"We've had no luck so far. It's really annoying, but what can you do."

"Stalker?"

As soon as Shimizu and Jouji talked about something as serious as that, I couldn't help but ask.

"O-oh... um... is it okay to tell him?"

"I don't see why not. The more people who know, the better."

Shimizu looked a bit guilty as I overheard their conversation, but Jouji shrugged it off and offered me an explanation.

"Basically, one of my classmates is being stalked by someone."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. This stalker's a sneaky bugger, but we're trying to catch them."

"Have you guys told the teachers?"

"We tried, but it's no use. Since we're in E Class, we got told to basically figure it out ourselves."

I couldn't believe what Jouji said. Someone being stalked was a serious matter, but the school wasn't willing to help out in this issue due to their position in the hierarchy.

"T-they need to show the teachers proof... i-if Jouji-kun and the others can do that, then the school will intervene."

Shimizu added to Jouji's explanation of the situation.

"It's kind of hard to prove you have a stalker when you literally don't know who they are."

"Wait, so how do you know for sure that person's being stalked, then?"

While it may have been rude to ask that question, since I was trying to be sympathetic to their situation, my scepticism got the better of me.

"I don't know why, but they revealed their existence to Suzui."

"...huh?"

That name sounded oddly familiar. Just as I was about to ask more questions, my attention was pulled away from Shimizu and Jouji as a crunchy smack echoed through the hallway.

Asukai had kicked Yamaguchi in the nuts in revenge for Masaoka, who was just beaten by him.

"And this is why ya don't mess wiz mah bois, dang it!"

Even though I don't like Yamaguchi, I felt that.

Yamaguchi wheezed, falling to the floor. Asukai then jumped up and down on Yamaguchi's limp body, making monkey noises and beating his chest like a gorilla. For someone in the track and field club, he was surprisingly strong...

"If I see any of you— hang on. One, three, two, four... hey guys, aren't we missing someone?"

Asukai had to count how many troublemakers there were, but that made him notice Terasaka was gone.

"Ya killed him!" Miura screeched.

"Naw, I think he ran away." Masaoka nodded.

"Damn that coward!... Though, to be honest, I can't be bothered to chase after him."

Itsuki slowly reverted back to his regular speech as he dropped his delinquent act.

"Me too... fightin' that 1st Year ya kicked in the kiwis was a real piece of work."

An exhausted Masaoka sighed. Itsuki laughed.

"Anyways! If I see any of you four try and mess with my guys again, next time I'll kill you! Understood?"

Unfortunately, none of the four were in any shape to answer. They were all totally subdued after getting beat up.

"I think they understood, Miura!"

Asukai whispered excitedly. Miura nodded his head excitedly. Meanwhile, Masaoka squatted and took out a cigarette.

"Not in school, you baboon!"

Asukai smacked the cigarette out of Masaoka's hand.

"Huh?! The hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Protecting everyone else's lungs here!"

"Who cares, I need a smoke and there's free fire around here!"

Observantly, Masaoka pointed out the scattered lighters on the floor.

"It's also illegal to smoke underaged! Do it in secret at least!"

"But if I do in secret, no one will know how cool I am for smoking! I think the real baboon here is you boss!"

What a superfluous reason to smoke... Masaoka growled before butting heads with Asukai.

"Huuuuuuuuuuh?! Ya wanna go, ya one brain cell'd Masa-oaf?!"

What kind of insult was that? And why were they fighting if they were friends?

"I respect the hell out uv ya boss, but even you can't get away with smackin' my cig!"

"I'll smack you in a second!"

At this point, Jouji tapped on both of their shoulders.

"If you two don't stop, I'll start reciting the Bible."

Immediately, both Asukai and Masaoka got on their knees and bowed in apology.

"Anything but the Bible..."

"This is why I'm a Buddhist..."

Oh, so that's why Masaoka was bald. I wonder if it was the same for Miura. Though, I'll admit it was weird to see Asukai whimper in fear after the impressive display of fighting prowess he just showed everyone. Wait, the real concerning part here is that Jouji somehow managed to weaponise the Bible...

Kurosaki was right. Class 2-E really was an interesting and entertaining bunch.

"Hoshi, my lovely little sister, these guys are in your class, can you take care of 'em? We gotta dip before they wake up and smacc us back! And I really don't want a black eye!"

That reasoning was so specific, I can't help but feel like Asukai has done this before to another group and got a black eye from it.

"W-wait, but Itsu-nii, I..."

Before Shimizu could object, Asukai ran off with his posse of Masaoka, Miura, and Jouji, leaving her in charge of cleaning up after his mess.

"...can't do it all by myself. A-and he's gone."

Shimizu pouted, crossing her arms at her step-brother's antics. I turned to her.

"...want help?"

"Yes please..."

Me and Shimizu walked over to the fallen four students. Kawaguchi was doing his part of cleaning up by collecting the lighters off the floor and throwing them away into a nearby bin.

"Kawaguchi-san, are you alright?"

I asked that while Shimizu started lightly tapping the cheeks of the D Class students to wake them up.

"...yeah."

It was a dejected response, meant to make me back off. I guess he wanted some space to himself to think on his own.

"Alright."

I didn't want to bother him anymore when he wanted to be left alone, so I went over to Yamaguchi and tapped him on the cheek.

"...I'm awake, stop."

After the first tap, Yamaguchi shooed me away. However, he was still clutching tightly on his crotch, quietly hissing from the pain.

"You're not gonna have any children in the future, huh?"

"Shut up. I'm gonna kill that monkey..."

Yamaguchi muttered as he eventually got up, ignored me, and returned to class. Shimizu had also successfully woken up the other three, Yoshimatsu, Hiraoka, and Takemoto.

"Um... I-I'm going to take Gentarou-kun to the infirmary... c-can you two go on ahead?"

"Sure thing, Hoshimi-chan!"

Yoshimatsu gave a thumbs up and sleazily ran off. Hiraoka, however, raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't he too heavy for you to carry?"

"Um... well... I-I'll think of a way..."

"I'll take Gentarou. You go instead. If you got hurt while carrying him, I wouldn't hear the end of it from Zy."

"Eh?! Um... o-okay! Um... thank you, Shouhei-kun..."

"Just looking out for my friends."

Hiraoka picked up Takemoto and brought him to the infirmary.

While I didn't have a high opinion of either of them, as Hiraoka had bullied Nora in the past and Takemoto was one of the people who got Ikesugi kicked from his club, I did wish them good luck in dealing with Hinohara-sensei, or even worse, Shigaisoshi-sama.

Oh no, I called her Shigaisoshi-sama in my mind too... she was really getting to my head.

Now that our job here was done, me and Shimizu walked to class together.