I took the elevator to the fourth floor and headed to Rinbayashi's room, 413.

For some reason, I started to get nervous as I stood in front of her door. It wasn't that big of a favour I had to ask of her, yet I was getting cold feet regardless.

It might be the fact that Rinbayashi was just an unapproachable person in general. Even though she wasn't labelled as a loner, she didn't hang out with anyone at school. Even though she didn't say anything, she commanded the presence of an ice queen.

And during the few times I did manage to talk to her... it was really awkward.

Regardless, I had to do this for the sake of Suzune, and for the sake of E Class. If we could make enough D Class students fail because of how difficult our finals was... then we had a chance of surpassing them in this special exam.

I knocked on the door, taking a deep breath to steady myself.

Rinbayashi answered the door, her static face meeting mine without any change in expression.

I could physically feel the temperature drop once I was within her presence.

"...hey."

Since she wasn't saying anything, I greeted her. Rinbayashi blinked.

"Hello."

"Uh... I have a favour to ask of you."

"I see."

Rinbayashi paused, breaking eye contact with me momentarily.

"Would you like to come in?"

"...sure thing."

I nearly hesitated after hearing how off-putting she asked that question.

Was she being courteous to me out of politeness? Or rather, did she not want me to be here at all?

I cautiously entered her room. However, once inside, I felt a strange sense of similarity to it.

Then, I realised it.

Her room looked exactly like mine... because we were both minimalists who chose not to customise our rooms.

Everything here looked the same as it did when we first received our dorm rooms upon moving here. If you didn't know any better, you would think this dorm was vacant due to how basic and empty it was.

In some ways, her room was even more primitive than mine. For example, she didn't even have a sofa in her living room. Even I installed that much so I had a place to sit.

Rinbayashi stood in the middle of her spacey living room, hands behind her back demurely. Was she waiting for me?

Since I didn't know where to place myself in her room as there were no seats, I just stood across from her awkwardly.

"So... about that favour."

"Yes?"

I took out the exams me and Nora made from my bag and showed them to her.

"Basically, me and Nora-san made some exams for the upcoming test shuffle, and we wanted to test out how they'd fare under exam conditions. Since you got 50% on all of your papers, we thought you'd be the perfect candidate to see how difficult they are, since you're perfectly average. If it's okay with you, could you trial run these exams for us? There's five in total, so it's going to take about six hours, give or take. We can split it up over two days, or we can spend the rest of today doing them if you're free."

After explaining the situation to her thoroughly, Rinbayashi broke eye contact from me again briefly to think about it.

If she was thinking about turning me down because of how long it will take, I don't blame her. Doing this is a commitment and a half.

"I can."

However, to my surprise, she made up her mind very quickly.

"Great. Where would you like to do them, then?"

Since there were no seats in her living room, I assumed she had somewhere else she could sit and do work.

"My bedroom."

Makes sense. All bedrooms were installed with a table and chairs. Though, I felt strangely anxious at the idea of entering a girl's bedroom.

It felt like I was crossing forbidden territory, despite the fact her room probably looked exactly like mine, if her living room was anything to go by.

"Alright. Shall we begin?"

Rinbayashi nodded as she led me inside her bedroom. As expected, it looked no different from mine, except for the things scattered (or rather, neatly placed) on her desk and the severe lack of books on her shelf. I relaxed a bit due to the familiarity.

"You can sit on the bed."

Even though this was a suggestion, it felt more like an instruction instead. I nodded and sat down on Rinbayashi's bed, trying to be careful not to mess up how neatly she folded her blanket.

"This is pretty comfy..."

Although, some part of me felt awkward for sitting in a girl's bed. It can't be helped, I guess...

Rinbayashi sat at her desk and took out her stationary. I took out the first exam from my bag, which was Japanese, and got up to place it in front of her face down. I then took out my phone and got my stopwatch app ready. I set it for two hours.

"Ready?"

Rinbayashi nodded.

"Start."

I clicked start on the timer and watched Rinbayashi flip the test over to begin tackling the exam. We kept doing this for the rest of the exams, until it became 7pm.

To put it into perspective, we started at 1pm. Doing all these exams took six hours. I'm sure Rinbayashi was exhausted by the end of it. I felt exhausted just watching her answering all these exams consecutively with only ten minute breaks between them.

However, while she was taking our exams, I was spending my time marking them. The results were... not what I was expecting.

Rinbayashi watched closely as I finished marking her last exam, which was English. I put down the test and scratched my head.

"...since when were you fluent in English?"

"I've been studying it since I was a child."

If she was this skilled at English, then how did she only score 50% on the English midterms?

"I feel even less special now..."

Too many people on this island can speak English. Maybe Alice and Mikitaka were onto something when they chose to learn French as their secondary language.

"Well, I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?"

"The bad news."

"The bad news is... me and Nora-san have completely failed at making these exams, apparently."

"I see."

The lack of reaction from this girl was scary... was she not worried by the fact that our questions weren't good enough?

"The good news is... well, come see for yourself."

Rinbayashi got up from her seat and sat on the edge of her bed, peering over my shoulder to see her results.

"You got 100% on each exam. Congratulations."

"Thank you."

She had no reaction from seeing this, but I was baffled by the result.

I couldn't fathom how easily Rinbayashi aced everything, ranging from the difficult essay topics in Japanese and history, to the obscure questions in science and English, to the highly complex and multi-faceted problems Nora came up with for mathematics.

In every single question, she never missed the mark. Both her answers and essay writing were sharp and concise. If she was so good at academics, then how did she only end up with 50% on the midterms?

It made no sense to me...

Did Rinbayashi improve that much since the time between then and now? Or was she hiding the fact she was good at academics to prevent an uproar, like Machida's wreckage of our classroom? I couldn't understand.

"...Rinbayashi-san, can you be honest with me for a second?"

"Yes?"

"How did you become so good at academics?"

Rinbayashi looked at me briefly.

"The same way you did."

"So... studying, huh? Guess I should've expected that."

"No."

I raised an eyebrow.

"...no? What do you mean?"

"I mean the other way."

"Other way...? That's a bit vague, isn't it?"

"If I tell you, you may hate me."

I had no idea what Rinbayashi was going on about. Unless she did something extremely heinous to somehow become good at academics, then there was no reason I'd hate her over it.

If anything, knowing that she was good at it was more reason for me to become closer to her, since she'd become a useful asset alongside Nora when it comes to exam season.

"I wouldn't."

"You will. I know you will."

She wasn't a very talkative person, so this might be the most I've heard her speak all day.

"In the first place, I genuinely don't know what you're talking about..."

For some reason, Rinbayashi hesitated to speak.

"If I say it explicitly, will you understand?"

"Yes."

Rinbayashi scooted closer to me and cupped my ear, whispering into it.

"The Under Doctrine."

When she said those words, my mind broke.

"I was in the same programme as you, Muteki-san, and Saori-san."

My chest felt like it was being crushed.

Rapid memories of <that> started surfacing on my head suddenly.

"You're a fool to not use the power you've been given."

I tried to suppress them and keep it together, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

My breathing grew ragged as the world around me became ever so distant.

"He died because he was weak. Do you want to end up like him?"

There was yet another person who knew of my past that was attending this school.

And this time... it was my own classmate.

"You're the reason why Rukia cries."

Everything about Rinbayashi made sense now... she was just like me.

In order to live a peaceful school life, she concealed her abilities and kept to herself as not to stand out.

In that sense, she actually succeeded at what I was trying to do.

"I-I see..."

Eventually, I managed to choke out a response.

However, knowing that she came from the Underworld, this was the perfect chance for me to ask whether or not she had been attacked by Nakajima, since he mentioned something about trying to kill two others before me.

At first, I had no idea who those other people could be, but now that I know there's three of us from <that> on this island, there's a high possibility that Nakajima might have targeted me, Rinbayashi, and Shimada on purpose.

"Did anyone try killing you with a knife recently?"

"That's oddly specific."

"It happened to me the other day by someone connected to the Underworld. I was wondering if it happened to you too."

"Who did it?"

"I don't think I should be telling you... and hey, don't ask a question if you haven't answered mine."

"My bad. No, I haven't been attacked by anyone with a knife."

While not the answer I was hoping for, it was relieving to hear.

"However, I do know someone who has."

"Who might that be?"

"Saori-san. Do you remember her?"

"I remember you mentioning her name earlier... but aside from that, no I don't."

I don't remember a single person who was in the same programme as me.

"I see. She goes by the name "Oshita Saori" now."

"Wait... isn't that someone in C Class?"

"Yes. She attends this school too."

"...you're kidding me."

Another one? This is getting ridiculous. There were now two other people who knew about my past that I have to worry about.

"I'm not."

"Does that mean you've been in contact with her recently?"

"Yes, but only briefly."

"I'll have to try myself later then."

Despite my annoyance over the fact there was a third person from <that> here, at least I now have a lead to follow up on.

The more pressing matter right now is the reason why Rinbayashi decided to go all out on these exams. If she wanted to keep her cover, then why did she choose to ace the exams me and Nora made?

Did she really just want to signal to me that she was from the Underworld? If that was her goal, it was a really shallow one that could be achieved in a more simple way, such as directly telling me. There had to be something more to it.

"If you were trying to conceal your abilities, why did you score 100% on all of these exams? It doesn't make sense to me."

"It was to show you that I'm a flawed subject to test these on."

"Prior to asking you, me and Nora-san had no clue you were actually this good at academics."

"My grades on the midterms should've tipped you off that there's more to my scores than meets the eye."

"I did keep that in mind when I came here... guess today was not my lucky day."

That's six hours of my life I'm never getting back.

"For the most part, yes."

"You aren't even denying it..."

Rinbayashi was unbelievably blunt. It was a more tolerable personality than Shimada's, at least.

"If you knew your input was going to ruin this sample, then why bother going through it?"

"Because you asked me too."

"Aside from that."

She was also incredibly straightforward too.

"I wanted to help."

"I'm failing to see how it helps. Unless..."

That's when I noticed something.

"...did you ace these exams on purpose to try and convey to us that they aren't good enough to fail someone?"

"Yes."

Rinbayashi didn't even need to think about it. She ruthlessly cut me down, making it clear that what me and Nora made needed major improvements.

"At this level, it won't be enough to stump A Class."

"Makes sense. How about against D Class?"

This is what I was most interested in getting an answer for. Rinbayashi's opinion on this after taking the exams would be invaluable for us.

"There's enough easy questions for them to get a pass."

In other words, the complex questions could probably stump them, but Nora was too fair in his structuring and made the tests legitimately passable regardless of what level you were at academically.

It seems I didn't catch this at first due to how used I am to the regular structure of easy questions at the start and hard questions at the back. Nora probably didn't even notice this either, since he was so used to going through and making mock exams this way.

Looks like me and Nora have a lot of editing, tweaking, and improvements to do.

"I see... thanks for the feedback."

"No problem. Anything for you."

"I should get out of your dorm now that it's so late... Fumio-san won't be happy if she sees a guy loitering around in a girl's dorm, especially in her bedroom no less."

"Yeah. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble either."

I got up and packed my stuff, including Rinbayashi's exam results. I guess me and Nora are going to have to try piloting these exams again somehow. I wonder who we could ask this time?

"Thanks for the help. I'll see you at school."

"You too."

"Later, Rinbayashi-san."

"Bye, Takanori-san."

I left Rinbayashi's room and cycled back to Nora's place to report on my findings.