Chapter 48: A New Beginning

"Alright then, I’ll hang up now! Once again, thank you so much, Sensei!"

Mayumi’s cheerful voice came through the communicator, her usual bright and lively smile shining on the hologram.

…Though in truth, that brightness was nothing more than an act—a calculated way to avoid answering questions about the spy cameras and listening devices.

Sensei probably wouldn’t take it well if she found out, and she might even take countermeasures. That was exactly why Mayumi chose to keep her plan to continue using them a secret.

"Let’s keep working together from here on out—oh wait, it’s a hologram, so we can’t shake hands! Asiri!"

"E-Eh!? Me!?"

Caught off guard by the sudden callout, Asiri froze, eyes wide. It wasn’t quite dramatic enough to be called “the sound of silk tearing,” but her startled yelp and over-the-top reaction came close.

"Of course! We’ll be working with Sensei for a while under the Volunteer Activities Club, right? So come on, shake my hand!"

"Uh, um…! Eeehhhhh…!!"

Asiri tried to argue, but Mayumi’s rapid-fire words gave her no opening to respond.

The serious expression she’d worn earlier was long gone; her eyes spun in confusion, steam practically rising from her head.

For someone as socially awkward as Asiri, even a normal conversation demanded focus and courage—let alone a handshake.

"S-So then… l-let’s get along forever!"

"…That’s not quite what that means, but… yeah, let’s."

Given her flustered state, it was no surprise she couldn’t choose her words carefully.

"Oh? Is this a confession?"

"I-It’s not!!"

Naturally, Mayumi teased her without the slightest restraint.

"Hey, I don’t mind, but you know, rumors tend to spread before you even notice, right?"

"A-Auuhh…!"

"…Okay, that’s enough."

Even Sensei had to step in, unable to watch Asiri squirm any longer.

Asiri’s face burned bright red, her eyes darting around like a bomb about to explode.

And in fact, she was about to—but Sensei had no way of knowing that.

"Alright, that’s enough for now. Bye, Sensei!"

"Yeah. If anything comes up, just contact me anytime."

"Of course! I’ll let you know once the figure’s finished!!"

"Wait—you were serious about that!?"

"Obviously! Don’t tell me you still don’t understand the romance of robot figures!?"

—Ah. This is bad.

The instant Asiri thought that, it was already too late.

"Listen carefully! First of all, there’s a huge difference between the kind of figure you’re imagining and the kind we collectors truly appreciate! Ours are more sophisticated, weighty—and they actually move! We bring to life, with our own hands, those intricate motions that budget limitations once made impossible! And the moment they move—! It all comes flooding back! The days we saw, recorded, and etched into memory! Those vivid, unforgettable days—!"

"Yah!"

Before Mayumi could finish her impassioned speech, Asiri abruptly cut the call and powered down the device.

"…Eh?"

"It’s fine. Once Mayumi-chan gets like that, she’ll just keep going forever."

"R-Right…"

"Let’s go home too, Sensei."

"Y-Yeah…"

From Asiri’s pocket came a string of pings—probably endless Momotalk notifications.

Sensei, intimidated by the icy glare Asiri shot at her phone—so unlike her usual self—quietly followed her home.

"Hmm… I see. So that’s what was going on."

…And then.

"But maybe Sensei really is trustworthy…? Trying to help Asiri-chan and the others, huh… Still, I’ll have to keep watching for now…"

No one noticed the figure hidden in the shadows, her long peach-colored hair and large halo swaying gently behind her.

"Ah, Sensei! And Asiri-san too!"

"Good morning, everyone. Sorry we’re late."

"G-Good morning…"

Returning from their secret meeting, the two greeted Hifumi and the others a bit awkwardly—the conversation earlier had gone on longer than expected.

"N-No problem!"

"Sensei, that’s not right. I heard that in such cases, you say ‘good late morning.’"

"That’s definitely not something you should take seriously!"

As usual, Azusa’s odd remark was swiftly met with Hifumi’s sharp retort.

"Coming back together in the morning, are we? My, my. You two seem awfully close, don’t you?"

"Wh—!? T-That’s not what this is!!"

"…!?"

Asiri instantly caught the implication, her face turning crimson as she frantically waved her hands in denial.

"W-What are you even saying!? That’s totally not allowed!"

"Oh? I only meant that you seem close. Is there something wrong with that?"

"U-Ugh…!"

Koharu, trying to come to her defense, was silenced in an instant.

It wasn’t just that Hanako’s words were sharp—it was that Koharu was simply too easy to fluster.

"But really, think about it. Are you sure nothing happened? All alone together from dawn… no one around to interrupt… You could’ve been indulging in something so sultry, so indecent, so—"

"We didn’t!!"

Even Sensei had to jump in at that point.

"I’m serious!"

"S-Stoooop!!! Don’t make me say it again!!"

Asiri’s patience had reached its limit.

After everything that had happened that morning—so much chaos, embarrassment, and stress—she was completely spent.

Even though the day had only just begun, Asiri already felt like she was at her breaking point.

"Hah… hah… H-Hifumi-chan! How are everyone’s test results!?"

"Eh—ah, right!"

Still shrinking back from Asiri’s intensity, Hifumi hurriedly handed over the collected test sheets and grading results to both Sensei and Asiri.

"Oh…! This is…!"

Sensei flipped through each paper, confirming the scores one by one.

Urawa Hanako: 8 points. Exactly double her previous result. Her progress graph looked almost exponential.

"Oh my, twice again? At this rate, in just a few more tries…"

"W-Well, who knows what’ll happen, but… let’s keep at it!"

Shirasu Azusa: 67 points. Her first passing grade. She’d been bouncing in excitement for a while now—probably because it meant the promised Momofriends merch was officially hers.

"…Yeah. You passed comfortably. Hifumi, really? You’ll give me that cute one…!?"

"Yes! You did amazing, Azusa-chan! As promised, you can pick one item you like!"

"J-Just one…? Hmm…"

Azusa frowned in deep thought, humming as she pondered her choice, while Sensei moved on to the next paper.

Shimoe Koharu: 55 points. Not quite a passing score yet, but a remarkable improvement nonetheless. She’d probably just needed proper guidance all along—someone to teach her the right way. There was clear potential for growth.

"H-Hifumi, look! Don’t you think I did great!?"

"Yes, really! You showed the biggest improvement out of everyone! You’re so close—just a little more and you’ll pass for sure!"

Ajitani Hifumi: 76 points. Since she was both teaching and learning, there was still room for her own progress too.

"You all did so well!"

"Yes, exactly! Everyone worked so, so hard…!"

Their progress was truly remarkable.

Of course, it was the result of their own effort above all—but the Volunteer Activities Club’s support had clearly played a big part too.

"Thank you as well to the members of the Volunteer Activities Club! They’re not here right now, but please be sure to thank them too—"

"Not enough."

"…Huh?"

Asiri’s quiet words cut through the celebratory mood like a drop of cold water.

"U-Um, if I recall correctly… the passing score was sixty points, wasn’t it?"

"…"

Those words stirred a memory from the previous night.

‘A passing score of sixty points? Impossible.’

Mayumi had dismissed it immediately, with sharp certainty.

"You’re saying they might expel everyone because there could be a traitor in Trinity, right? Then why would they set the bar so low and give them a chance to escape it?"

When Asiri had asked for an explanation, she had to admit—it made sense.

Nagisa’s goal was to uphold the Eden Treaty—and at the same time, to eliminate the traitor within Trinity.

Then why set such a lenient passing score?

When Asiri had voiced that doubt, Mayumi had answered:

"It’s just for show. She wants it to look like everything was fair. That way, she can claim it was a proper evaluation. And on top of that, she can justify it by saying ‘they were expelled due to poor performance.’ If she sees they’re doing too well, she’ll just raise the cutoff or make the tests unreasonable. Honestly, if it were me, I’d absolutely do it."

If you ignored that last part—“if it were me”—there wasn’t much to argue against.

Asiri was a fundamentally good person, and most people around her were the same.

…But such people didn’t make up the entire world. There were others—those who’d use any means necessary to reach their goals, people who couldn’t be called good by any measure. Some even harbored outright malice.

Asiri herself had been on the receiving end of that malice before. At Trinity, if you couldn’t handle that kind of thing on your own, you wouldn’t last long.

That was why she couldn’t deny Mayumi’s words.

"So if you really want to make sure those girls pass," Mayumi had said, "then they’ll need to master everything they’ve already learned—completely. Every subject. They should be able to score at least eighty points, even on mini-tests. If they can’t reach that level, it’s hopeless. They won’t make it."

And after that… came the cruel part.

Even as Asiri faltered under her own momentum, Hifumi handed over the collected test papers and results.

“…W-What…”

“Oh my, getting a little timid, aren’t we? Don’t worry, I’ll help you too. If it’s just mini-test level, it’s not impossible.”

“…But… what if they drastically raise the test difficulty…?”

“…Then we deal with it when that happens. Realistically, it’s about expanding the scope and improving the scores. If they can’t manage that, it only proves their fundamentals aren’t solid. That alone justifies poor performance."

She added, with a heavy sigh, that if the difficulty went up, success would naturally become impossible.

“Still, they really never change… so underhanded…”

“Never change? Mayumi-chan, have you even met Nagisa-san…?”

“Nope. But I know how sly Trinity can be.”

“…Geez. Now even Mayumi-chan’s saying that.”

Recalling the same words she’d once heard from that scoundrel in Gehenna, Asiri tried to respond—but her heart sank.

“But well, we do what we can. I anticipated this, so I’ve sent you some helpful items. Make good use of them.”

“…Y-Yeah… thanks…”

“You’re welcome.”

And then Mayumi added:

“Just… don’t let the Supplementary Lessons Club find out. That would only make things worse. If they catch on, your scores won’t rise at all.”

That was quite the unreasonable demand.

“E-Ehh…!? Th-Then what should I do…!?”

“Simple. Just act like a character believable enough that aiming for high scores doesn’t seem strange. In other words…”

Recalling that conversation, Asiri understood what she had to do—and made her decision.

Normally, sixty points would be enough to pass. That much was true and indisputable.

But beyond merely passing—beyond that line—she had to create a character who could naturally strive for more.

“U-Um…?”

“Everyone can still aim higher!!”

—In other words: a hot-blooded character.

Remembering Mayumi’s advice, Asiri forced herself to embody that persona.

Of course, the ideas she clung to were outrageous—normally the kind of foolish strategies no one would take seriously—but there was no other choice. In short, with Mayumi acting like a bomb, Asiri as the stopper simply didn’t work.

“Don’t you all feel frustrated!? You’re told about poor grades, given extra lessons, and then just settle for barely scraping by!?”

“…N-No way!”

But there was one student confident enough to ride this wave—Shimoe Koharu.

“Right!!? Then it’s still not enough! Let’s all go for perfect scores and really shock everyone!!”

“Eh, w-well, I… I’m not really…”

“What did you say!?”

“…N-Nothing.”

Azusa tried to protest, worried about losing her chance at the Momofriends merch, but she was instantly overruled.

The sheer momentum rivaled even that of her “self-proclaimed older sister,” Suou Kirihana’s wild antics. In short, Azusa lost.

“Ah… Asiri-san? What’s going on…?”

“H-Hanako-chan! H-Hifumi-chan!! You can still aim higher!!”

“Eh, ehh!? Me too!?”

No one could stop Asiri anymore.

Having reached her limit—and slightly lost in the role she was playing—her normally quiet, introverted self no longer knew how to hold back.

“Everyone!!! Do you want to get a hundred points!!?”

“E-Er…”

“Answer ‘yes’!! Do you want to get it!!?”

“Y-Yes!!”

Hifumi couldn’t help but respond instinctively.

Yes—she had affirmed it.

Unaware that this was the entrance to hell.

“Then, for the next week, there’s no holding back!!! Using the full force of the Volunteer Activities Club, I’ll massively boost your scores!!! Brace yourselves!!”

“…U-Um… what about Momofriends…?”

…And so, the new hellish study regimen for the upcoming exams began.