The Heroines Want to Confess.

Saturday, the first day of summer vacation.

Today, the Kendo Club unusually had no activities. Daimon Saburou—the supervising teacher—said they would be going for a training camp tomorrow, and of course, the location was in Fukuoka Prefecture.

He had found a kendo dojo there—since the place hosts the Gyokuryuu-ki tournament every year, finding a place to practice wasn't difficult.

It's said that other schools might come as well, so consider it a warm-up.

Every year, the number of teams participating in Gyokuryuu-ki is no less than 300 teams. After all, this tournament has no qualifiers, no selection standards, just pay the fee and you can register, so you can imagine how competitive it is.

This time, the Kendo Club would be taking a total of over ten people, including a few reserves.

Although Sakurai cared a lot about kendo tournaments, he wasn't so obsessed as to think about them all the time.

Because today, the final exam results were out.

Shuchiin's grading speed was frighteningly fast—just finished the exam yesterday, and by this afternoon, the results were out. No time for students to mentally prepare at all.

"I probably didn't lose to Shinomiya Kaguya, right?" Sakurai sat in front of the computer, logged into the school website, glanced at the newly posted notice, skipped the first item, and clicked directly on the ranking list.

He only looked at the top 4.

Why the top 4? Because he cared a lot about Shijo Maki's results, absolutely not because he wanted to see her looking like an abandoned puppy.

Maki: .°՞(っ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ ς)՞°·.

That Shijo Maki, when she's tsundere, she's not cute at all, but when she's taking a beating, her moe level triples — this is truly bizarre — so Sakurai always secretly hoped she'd suffer a little.

"Let's see, Shijo Maki… ranked fourth."

Perfect.

Seeing Maki not in the top 3, Sakurai felt as refreshed as walking in a light, cool rain—fourth place is fine too. Sakurai thought darkly.

He looked up a bit more.

"(⊙ _ ⊙ )?"

The smile on Sakurai Saki's face vanished instantly.

He hurried to check his own score.

471 points.

The total is only 500! And I still lost?!

————

At the same time, Kaguya Ojou-sama was commanding Hayasaka Ai:

"Hayasaka, hurry up, help me check."

She wasn't good with computers, and there wasn't one in her room, so now she was in Hayasaka Ai's room.

Ai-chan casually replied: "Yeah yeah~"

Hayasaka Ai glanced at the notice on the screen.

"Notice: There was an error in the grading process. In the Math test, one multiple-choice question was imprecisely worded, so both answers C and D were correct. Scores for affected students will be adjusted after review."

"Kaguya-sama, which option did you pick for question 4? Do you remember?"

Kaguya thought for a moment: "D."

"Oh, then it's fine." Hayasaka didn't really care.

If she had picked C, she would have gotten 2 extra points.

Immediately after, they checked the score.

"472 points? A bit lower than expected." But Shinomiya Kaguya was still quite satisfied.

After all, she didn't cheat to win—it was based on her own strength.

Hayasaka Ai then glanced at the ranking list.

"Kaguya-sama, you won. This time you're ranked second."

Hearing that, Kaguya quickly leaned in to take a closer look several times.

After confirming the victory was secure, Kaguya exhaled in relief internally, but outwardly kept a calm demeanor:

"Isn't that only natural?"

She casually took out her phone.

Opened Sakurai Saki's LINE account.

...

At this moment, Sakurai was chatting in the group with the five Nakano sisters and Shijo Maki.

Shijo Maki: Boo hoo~ I lost again! I don't want to live anymore! Just let me die! I scored 470 points, and I'm still only fourth place, why is that!!! [Crying cat with teary eyes.jpg][Cat pounding the ground.gif]

Maki: ┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

Ichika: (~˘▾˘)~ Sensei-chan~ assistant-chan~ I got 153rd place! Improved by 15 ranks!

Nino: Ranked 135, not bad. (─ω─)

Miku: Ranked 144, all thanks to Saki-kun. (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

Yotsuba: ...Ranked 156… Why did you guys all do so well!? Does that mean I'm the only idiot left!?

.·°՞(¯□¯)՞°·.

Sakurai Saki didn't type anything; he just silently sent a screenshot of his score to Maki.

A few seconds later—

Shijo Maki: Saki-chan, where do you live? I'm coming over to "pay you a visit" right now.

Maki: (≖ᴗ≖ ✿)

Sakurai Saki quietly left the group chat.

He didn't expect that he beat Shijo Maki by just one point—almost fell out of the top 3 in the grade. That was close.

Looking at the Nakano sisters' rankings, it seemed like everyone was above average; Sakurai felt a little helpless. Initially, he planned to get them around rank 130, the average level in the grade. But clearly, that goal hasn't been reached yet.

Still, this was within his initial expectations—it seems like he'll have to keep tutoring them next term, or they'll fall back into the "bottom group" for sure.

These five "ships" are the type that need constant refueling to keep running… And by "fuel," I mean tutoring sessions, don't misunderstand it into something weird.

'Now then… how am I going to face Shinomiya Kaguya?' Sakurai leaned back on the sofa, letting out a long sigh.

Maybe… just pretend to forget? But someone with superpower backing out on a bet sounds… disgraceful.

Sakurai Saki didn't like losing, but he hated breaking promises even more.

A moment later, while he was still hesitating whether to text first—the message came from the other side.

"I scored 472 points." — A message from Shinomiya Kaguya.

————

"Hayasaka, Sakurai-san said he got 471 points, ara ara~ what bad luck." Kaguya smiled, barely hiding the smugness at the corners of her lips.

(≖⩊≖)

She definitely had to pick a day to call him to her room, make him wear a miko outfit and dance for her.

And not just any ordinary dance…

Maybe make him do ballet instead?

"...Kaguya-sama, just saying, what if Sakurai-chan is among those affected by that question?" Hayasaka Ai brought up a terrifying possibility.

"Hayasaka, I know you have confidence in your boyfriend, but surely he's read that notice, right?"

...Actually, he hasn't.

"Well, I'll just casually ask him then." Kaguya spoke as if it didn't matter.

After typing the message, a few seconds later—

Shinomiya Kaguya turned back to Hayasaka Ai with a horrified expression:

"Hayasaka, I think he really doesn't know… He said he noticed both C and D were correct, but he chose C…"

It's over——!!!

If answer C is also correct, then he'll get extra points, and Kaguya picked D…

Which means the loser… is her!!!

In that moment, both Kaguya and Sakurai Saki fell into a state of extreme panic.

Sakurai was afraid she'd call him over to dance right now.

Kaguya was afraid he'd find out and didn't dare bring up the bet herself.

'What do I do now?' Kaguya Ojou-sama buried her face and flopped onto Hayasaka's bed.

If she doesn't say anything now…

Then by tomorrow, or in a few hours, someone will definitely tell him about this!

"Hayasaka..."

(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )

In the end, Kaguya turned to her long-time advisor and pillar of support.

"Tell Sakurai-chan that you're in a good mood this time, so you're letting him off the hook. What do you think, Kaguya-sama?" What Hayasaka Ai said would completely destroy Sakurai's sense of victory.

But she didn't regret it.

Because…

If Sakurai-chan wins, then Kaguya-sama will have to wear a miko outfit and dance for him!

'Sorry, Sakurai-chan, this is the privilege of the official girlfriend!'

She had to cut off any chance of him wandering off with some thief cat!

Hayasa-nyan: (｡>﹏<) Achoo~