"Something you need?"
Chris asked, studying the girl whose hair color inexplicably called to mind a certain pink dumpling character.
Ichinose Honami's step hitched. The opening line she'd carefully rehearsed died somewhere in her throat.
Kushida Kikyo covered her mouth with one hand and laughed — gracefully, naturally, already smoothing things over:
"As a transfer student, I suppose Chris-kun still hasn't quite picked up on how things are done around here~"
"The Japanese way of getting to the point," she continued, counting it off with the ease of someone explaining folklore, "is to first pretend you haven't noticed the other person at all. Then, as though you've only just spotted them, react with a delighted little gasp — 'Oh my, isn't that Ichinose-san from Class B?!' And then you spend a bit chatting about something completely irrelevant — the weather, hobbies, whatever — before you veeery gradually ease into the actual topic~"
"That's what they call 'reading the room.'"
"Ehh?!"
Ichinose's fair cheeks flushed crimson on the spot. She waved both hands in rapid denial.
"N-no, it's not that extreme! Kushida-san, you're exaggerating! Please don't take that seriously, Chris-kun!"
Chris didn't bother engaging with any of it.
He glanced down at his phone to check the time.
"So. Do you need something? If it's not urgent, I was actually about to go grab a Dr. Pepper. Class is about to start."
"Ah! Sorry, sorry!"
Ichinose snapped back to the reason she'd come, hurriedly setting the embarrassment aside. Her expression shifted — lighter mood tucked away, something more serious taking its place.
"The reason I came to find you — I mainly wanted to ask what you thought about the Black Sphere trial. And specifically..."
She paused for a beat.
"...that reinforcement suit."
"I want to know how it actually performs in practice. Whether it's worth pooling the whole team's resources to prioritize getting one for everyone."
Chris looked at her — that earnest, dead-serious expression — and wasn't surprised in the least.
As Class B's de facto leader, Ichinose Honami had always operated with a big-picture mindset and a capacity for selflessness that outstripped pretty much everyone around her. After last night's brutal near-victory, she was hungrier than anyone to improve their team's survival odds.
He thought about it briefly, then gave her a straight answer.
"Effect-wise... personally, I'd say it's pretty solid."
"But just telling you that probably doesn't give you much to work with."
Chris turned it over in his head for a moment, then offered:
"Don't we have a combined PE class this afternoon — Class B and Class D together? I can put it on and give you a live demo. Convenient timing, actually. I brought it with me."
"Wait — you'd really do that?"
Ichinose Honami's eyes went wide.
She'd half-expected him to keep it close to his chest. Use it as leverage. After all, as the first person to redeem a combat suit, he had every incentive to stay ahead of the curve and let the advantage compound.
"Why wouldn't I?"
Chris said it like it was obvious.
"We're almost certainly going to keep teaming up anyway. The stronger my squadmates are, the less I have to babysit. That works out for everyone."
Hearing that, Ichinose visibly exhaled — some tension she'd been carrying quietly letting go all at once.
"I... honestly don't even know what to say. Thank you, Chris-kun. Really."
She meant every word.
Even in a school that preached survival of the fittest, she thought — good people really were still out there.
Ding-ding-ding——
The sharp peal of the bell cut through the air without warning.
"Ichinose — class is starting."
Shiranami Chihiro came walking over at a brisk pace and looped her arm through Ichinose's with practiced ease.
Her tone was gentle. But the moment her gaze crossed Chris, it sharpened — just for an instant — like a cat puffing up and hissing at a stranger.
"Ah! Right, sorry!"
Ichinose startled, reached into her pocket, and began rummaging around with sudden urgency.
"Um — Chris-kun!"
She produced a small bottle of Max Coffee — still faintly warm from being in her pocket — and held it out with a slightly sheepish look.
"It's nothing expensive, but — please take it. Consider it an apology for taking up your time!"
Chris accepted it without ceremony.
"Thanks. Saves me a trip."
"See you this afternoon!"
He watched Ichinose get pulled away — and caught, clear as day, Shiranami Chihiro throwing one last sharp glare over her shoulder at him before she disappeared around the corner.
That look...
Territorial, huh.
You're a menace, Ichinose. Collecting people like that.
Not that Chris particularly cared. He cracked open the coffee and took a sip.
Yeah. Coffee was still terrible.
Only useful for looking cool. Barely.
Give him a cola any day. Or better yet, an ice-cold Dr. Pepper. Nothing came close.
"Mind if I walk with you?"
Kushida Kikyo spoke up as they started moving.
"Sure," Chris said, glancing over. "You're the group chat admin, after all."
Kushida blinked.
She was the admin. She'd been in the very first trial. She'd even had the luck of not being locked in as a permanent participant — meaning she had two extra lives on top of that, more than any student who'd never set foot in the Black Sphere.
By every rational measure, she should feel lucky. Ahead of the curve. Maybe even a little smug about it.
And yet.
For some reason she couldn't quite name, she didn't feel that way at all.
"Right... I'm the admin."
...
Time slipped by, and before long the afternoon had arrived.
Out on the schoolyard, the students of Class B and Class D were running warm-up drills.
Under normal circumstances, PE for Class D was basically unsupervised chaos — the boys shooting hoops, the girls gossiping in clusters, the whole thing operating on a philosophy of cheerful zero-effort. Freedom as a lifestyle choice.
But now, with daily performance scores tied directly to class rankings, even the most dedicated slackers had been shamed into performing something that vaguely resembled effort.
Not everyone, of course.
There were a few die-hard holdouts — Sudou and his crowd, who had apparently decided that since they were already at rock bottom, one more person not trying wouldn't change anything.
And then there was Chris.
Using the roll call chaos as cover, Chris had pleaded an errand to the equipment room and slipped away without a second thought.
This was peak "minimum presence, maximum absence" operating procedure. The crowd was thinnest right now — easiest time to move without being noticed.
He dropped a location pin to Kushida and Ichinose in the group chat, then ducked into the equipment room's back partition.
A few minutes later.
He had the combat suit on underneath his school gym uniform and was about to pull the outer layer straight when the equipment room door eased open — quietly, carefully, like someone trying very hard not to look like they were sneaking in.
Kushida Kikyo and Ichinose Honami slipped inside one after the other, every bit as conspicuous as two people trying not to be conspicuous.
"Chris-kun!"
Kushida barely had the door closed before she was already complaining, voice low but pointed:
"Our performance scores are tied to class rankings, you know! If a teacher catches you skipping, it's going to cost us points! I already covered for you and put in a leave request — next time, please at least give some advance notice!"
"Hm. Right, forgot about that."
Chris said it with the sincerity of someone reading off a grocery list. "Won't happen again."
Kushida puffed out her cheeks — visibly unimpressed by the total lack of remorse.
Ichinose, meanwhile, had already stopped paying attention to either of them.
Her eyes were fixed on Chris — specifically on the collar of his gym top, where a thin strip of black material with a faint metallic sheen peeked out underneath.
"You're already... wearing it?"
Chris skipped the preamble entirely.
He walked straight to the equipment rack, eyes locking onto a dumbbell labeled 20kg.
Then.
In front of two pairs of very wide eyes — he extended one finger. His pinky. Hooked it around the dumbbell's handle.
And lifted.
Like it was made of styrofoam. Like it weighed nothing at all. He even gave it a casual little swing midair — not a flicker of strain anywhere on his face.
"This..."
Ichinose Honami stepped forward and reached out with both hands to take it.
"Ngh!"
The full weight hit her instantly. Her whole body lurched downward — she barely kept her grip, nearly fumbling it straight onto her toes.
Actually twenty kilograms. Real weight. No tricks.
"...That absurd?"
Kushida's eyes were round as plates, mouth slightly open. For once, the expression looked completely unscripted.
Chris took the dumbbell back and returned it to the rack without ceremony.
"That absurd."
"As for jumping..."
He bounced lightly on his heels a couple of times — just warming up.
Then bent his knees slightly. Built the tension in his legs.
Fwoomp——
With both girls watching in open disbelief, Chris launched straight upward — four, five meters of clean vertical height — and caught one of the steel structural beams running across the equipment room ceiling with one hand, effortless.
Thud.
He let go and dropped back down, landing without so much as a wobble. Steady. Composed. Not even breathing hard.
"That's incredible..."
Ichinose Honami was already typing on her phone, recording it all, her voice laced with genuine awe.
"This combat suit... the value-to-cost ratio is completely off the charts."
"Lifting a twenty-kilo dumbbell with one finger, clearing four to five meters vertically without a running start..."
She looked up.
"We need to prioritize getting everyone their own suit. That's non-negotiable."
"Actually, Chris-kun."
Something seemed to occur to her. Ichinose hesitated for just a moment, then spoke.
"There's another thing I wanted to verify while we're here."
"Go ahead," Chris said.
Ichinose Honami glanced around — checked that no one else was near — and dropped her voice slightly.
"Inside the Black Sphere Space, the X-GUN and Y-GUN aren't personally bound items. We were able to pass them between teammates freely, right?"
"That's right."
"So what I want to know is... is this combat suit the same way? Or is it bound to whoever redeemed it?"
"Because if it can be lent out..."
"...then in future trials, teammates who are already on their last life, or new people who get randomly drafted in — they won't have to go in completely unprotected."
Chris went quiet for a moment.
Of course.
Patching the loopholes was the right call.
And sure enough — standing right in front of God, someone's already trying to find an exploit.
He looked at Ichinose's hopeful expression and kept his face carefully neutral.
"And how exactly do you plan to test that? Call Ryuuen and Katsuragi in here?"
"N-no..."
"That would be way too much trouble!"
The girl seemed to make up her mind about something. She bit her lower lip, then looked at Chris — then at Kushida Kikyo standing nearby — with quiet, firm resolve.
"I'll do it."
"As long as no one says anything outside this room, it should be fine..."
"You've both already gone out of your way for me so much. I can't keep piling more onto you. This one I can handle myself."
Kushida Kikyo looked momentarily thrown — then snapped back and waved her hand in a rapid oath of loyalty.
"Don't worry, Ichinose! Not a word from me, I promise! My credibility score is actually pretty decent — and if it does leak somehow, it'll obviously be Chris-kun talking in his sleep!"
Chris: Debatable.
Good thing Horikita Suzune wasn't anywhere near this room right now.
Not that he was about to refuse.
"I did shower when I got back last night," he added, matter-of-fact. "And it hasn't been that hot lately. Should be fine on the smell front."
"P-please stop talking!"
Ichinose's face bloomed red — a slow, warm flush spreading across pale cheeks like the first light of dawn bleeding into white clouds.
"Those kinds of... unnecessary details... you really don't need to say them out loud!"
——End of Chapter——
Author's Note:
Recommendation: "Arknights: Loot, Fight, Extract — Starting by Finding Texas"
"Doctor, they've entered the facility."
"This day was always going to come. Go. Get the countermeasures in place."
On the night Chen Shi'an pulled his 100th off-banner in a row, the universe rewarded his suffering in the most unexpected way — a flash of light, and he found himself deposited directly onto the continent of Terra.
No time to mourn the lost pity counter. The Loot-Fight-Extract system was already booting up.
Search containers + complete objectives.
——
[Combat Sector Mission (II): Defeat the slum district street gang leader (0/1)]
[Reward: Gheros Trial Card ×1]
[Note: If other squad members are present, objective progress may be contributed by the full squad.]
....
[??? Direct Jurisdiction: Defeat the "Demon King" and the "Specter of Babel Tower" → Acquire partial Originium administrative permissions and successfully EXFIL from inside Babel Tower.]
[Reward: AWM Sniper Rifle blueprint unlocked, .338 Lap Mag AP rounds ×5]
——
But for Chen Shi'an, the most pressing problem right now was figuring out what to do about the Lungmen girl apparently unconscious in the corner.
____
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