Chapter 275: Alive and Kicking

"Good morning, Rinji."

"Morning, Nanami."

It was Rinji's second day at Hyakkaou Private Academy. He and Nanami met at the Anti-Gambling Club room and exchanged greetings.

Why weren't they in their own classroom?

Simple—there was no class anymore.

Word had spread throughout the school that on his first day, Rinji had hospitalized an entire class of students.

People were no longer just curious about him—they were terrified. Even more so because the student council hadn't done anything about it.

And naturally, the new "Anti-Gambling Club" had drawn more attention as a result.

That said, not all students from Class Tsubaki Year 2 were in the hospital.

Two slipped through the cracks.

One had his eye stabbed by Rinji.

The other was a man named Kiwatari Jun.

"You know this Kiwatari guy?" Rinji asked.

"Yeah…"

Nanami trembled slightly and stroked her shoulder-length hair.

"He's the one who cut my hair. Said he wanted to 'try what it felt like to cut someone else's hair.'

After I became a 'pet', he'd gang up on me with others—take my money, beat me… it was constant."

"I see."

Rinji silently nodded, then took out a file with Kiwatari's details and marked an 'X' over his photo.

Knock knock knock.

The door rattled.

"Come in," Rinji said.

The door opened, and Ayame peeked her head in timidly.

"Um… Rinji, I'm here. I'm not late, right?"

"No… technically, you didn't even have to come. Nanami and I are only here because our class doesn't exist anymore."

"...Oh."

"Well, since you're here, come in. Why are you standing in the doorway?"

Rinji gave her a puzzled look as she lingered.

BANG!

Before Ayame could respond, the clubroom door burst open.

"Rinji! I came to play with you!"

"..."

It was Midari Ikishima.

Rinji frowned slightly, clearly annoyed.

"I thought you'd still be in bed today."

"Hahaha, it was just a gunshot wound. A day's rest and—ow ow ow!"

She clutched her stomach mid-sentence.

Yesterday, during their game of Russian Roulette, Rinji had shot her.

But the bullet wasn't fatal—it had avoided all major organs and arteries and lodged in a non-lethal part of her body.

Rinji had tampered with the gunpowder amount himself.

To ensure the shot landed perfectly in a non-lethal zone, he'd calculated the firing angle, distance, humidity, and wind direction.

This level of precision could only come from someone like Rinji, who had once been a sniper.

His goal had been simple—to give Midari a brush with death.

Most people, after such an experience, would undergo a dramatic shift in personality and behavior.

But…

Looking at the smiling Midari, who had recovered and come right back, Rinji realized he had miscalculated.

Of course—this was a girl who gouged out her own eye.

No normal method was going to work on her.

"What do you want?"

"I came to play with you, obviously."

"I don't want to play. Go back to your student council."

"Nope. I quit the council."

"...Hah?"

"The council's too boring. You're way more interesting."

She leaned over his desk, putting her face close to his.

"I want to join your Anti-Gambling Club."

"No."

"Why not!?"

"This club helps people quit gambling. It's not your playground."

"Ugh, so boring!"

Midari ruffled the back of her head in frustration.

"I was hoping to do something fun with you later."

"Forget it. You should focus on getting that bullet out of your body first."

"No way!"

Midari suddenly clutched her stomach, her face flushed red as her body writhed.

"This pain was given to me by Rinji. In that moment, I truly felt death... and the way you looked at me when you pulled the trigger, like I was trash! Ahh~ this is what I've been searching for. I want to keep this bullet inside me forever, wrapped in the embrace of my warm flesh and blood~"

"…"

Rinji crossed his fingers and rested them on the bridge of his nose, expressionless as he stared at the disturbingly smiling Midari.

No doubt about it—she was a pervert.

At that moment, Midari noticed a file on the desk with Kiwatari Jun's information and asked curiously, "Are you investigating this guy?"

"Yeah, I was planning to look into him today…"

"He used to be in Class Tsubaki of Year 2, but since that class no longer exists, he was transferred to another class," Namishima explained. "His father's a county councilor. The student council's kept his records from way back."

"What does the student council want with his file?"

"If we can make him a 'livestock' through debt, we can control his father. I bet that's what Kirari was planning," she said. "The student council's used similar methods to deal with rich or influential students before."

"Cut off from the outside world, manipulating everything with their own rules... Looks like it's time to reassess Momobami."

Why had Kirari brought him to this school? Why did she vanish the moment he arrived? Was her family involved somehow? Rinji didn't know.

Not because he couldn't, but because he didn't care to. In his heart, he had already branded Kirari as the enemy.

Everything he was doing now—picking fights, protecting 'livestock', founding the Anti-Gambling Club—was just to disgust her.

Disrupting the ecosystem of this school in a single month—that was Rinji's goal.