Ayanokouji Kiyotaka POV
I walked out of the building and took a look around to try and find Karma.
Parked not far from where I was, several buses were being prepared by staff members. It wouldn't be long before we begin boarding the buses and go back to school.
The sky was turning dark already, and the weather was quite cold. It would be late in the night by the time we arrive back at school.
I spotted Karma gazing at the forest at the edge of the road.
I walked up to him and stood by his side.
"If I achieve such a victory again, I shall be undone," Karma quoted. "I believe that's what Pyrrhus said after his victory in Asculum."
"Something like that, yes," I acknowledged.
"Why didn't you expel me?" he asked. "You would've spared yourself a few headaches."
Why didn't I expel Karma, huh?
It was certainly the easier option.
And as Karma said, I could have spared myself more than one headache.
Still, that wasn't a long-term solution. He would have been expelled and left the school to go back to the White Room, nothing more, nothing less.
He would have learned nothing, just more hatred towards me, his fire would have just burned all the brighter, his desire to prove himself the best greater than ever, which would in turn drive him to do some folly outside of this school, in that place.
By keeping him here, on the other side, I would be able to watch him and monitor his progress.
This feeble victory would help him grow; see his mistakes, what he did wrong, what he did right, what he could do to be better....
Moreover, having someone with his abilities and resources by my side would be beneficial in the long run. Now that that man was coming for me, I would be an idiot if I got rid of that which Karma had to offer.
"I would've gained nothing," I simply stated.
"Right..." he placed his hands in his pockets with a sigh; probably expecting an answer such as the one I gave him.
"Thank you, though."
He frowned. "What for?"
"Thanks to you, I was able to find an answer."
"An answer? To What?"
"Trust. I understand it now. What it is... to me, at least."
In the dictionary, it was common to find something along the lines of: Confidence in or reliance on some person or quality, or the dependence upon something in the future; hope.
At its core, it wasn't wrong. You could trust in someone because of their personality like people trusted Ichinose or rely on someone because of their abilities like Karma's classmates decided to rely on his initial plan and carry out the rest of the exam as if this had been a normal school camp; you could also hope something would happen in the future, like Karma hoping his classmates would pay any heed to his warnings.
If we fail to trust someone, we will end up monitoring the other person's actions.
Therefore, granting trust is of particular importance.
But why grant it? Do we trust others because of an element of goodwill or is it a necessity to the well-functioning of a society?
Trust was something indispensable to the success of almost every kind of human activity. If we ordered something at a restaurant we would trust in a stranger to prepare it and give it to us, meeting the expectations we had. If the meal was satisfactory, there was a high chance we would return and our trust in that stranger, in that restaurant would grow; if the meal wasn't satisfactory, however, we would discard that restaurant, considering the trust we placed on that person was broken, as they failed to fulfil the promise made to us.
That was the danger of placing our trust in someone or upon something happening in the future, the person may not pull through for us, the future might disappoint us. In that scenario, it was our emotions that paid as a result, the deeper our connection, the greater the trust that shattered, all the more painful was the wound. A wound that could go from an irritation of a few minutes to a shattered heart.
Trust is a kind of dependence. One accepts to depend on someone on the limits of that goodwill. Amikura accepted to trust in Karma's abilities to win the exam as Karma had proved the efficiency of his strategies in the Sports Festival and the Paper Shuffle; however, her trust ended when he asked her to doubt and be suspicious of the goodwill of their allies.
After all, what reason did she have to doubt the goodwill of those with whom a bond of trust had formed for almost a year? what reason did she have to trust someone that had proved how malicious he could be in that same period of time?
The limits of the trust Class B had in its leader showed in this exam.
Nagumo, Horikita, Karma, Ichinose...
This exam only showed to everyone in the school what happened when one trusted too much or not enough.
"I see... At least, this exam wasn't a total waste," Karma huffed.
"It wasn't a waste."
"You know, I'm getting tired of those answers of yours. Explain yourself clearly for once."
"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them."
He snorted. "Ha! You're fantastic, Kiyo! I tell you to speak clearly and you start talking philosophy. You know I couldn't care less about what Marcus Aurelius had to say right now, do you?"
"Why do you think I said that?" I interrogated, ignoring his complaining.
"I have no idea, Kiyo. I'm not exactly in the mood to question the meaning of life."
"You have no purpose, Karma."
"Huh?"
"You're ambitious, but then what? Why do you want to be at the top? Why do you want to be the best? For the sake of being number one?"
"And what's your motivation?" he questioned bitterly.
"Survival, curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, Karma," I replied bluntly. "Tsukasa was pushed by his ideals. Rin wished to meet the expectations placed upon her by her family and worked hard for it—"
"How do you know about Rin's motivation?"
"—What moved you, Karma? You wanted to be at the top because that's what they pushed us towards." I finished, ignoring his question.
"I told you what I wanted—"
"You want me to disappear? To lose? That's just your hatred speaking. Back in the island you asked me whether you'd lose that which made you if you became more human. The incident with Kocho-sensei happened because she learned your secret. You wanted to escape, you had a plan, and she wouldn't keep silent. So, you lost all rationality and did what you did. You have ambition, but there's no true meaning to your actions. You want freedom? Feel empathy and compassion? Winning for the sake of winning? If you get to the top, then what? What will happen? What will you prove?"
He bit his lip. "To think you'd be lecturing me," he muttered, visibly bitter; then something appeared to have come to his mind. "Ryuuen was in your group... Tell me, did you nurture him as well? Explain to him why he failed?"
"I just showed him the starting line."
He huffed. "Right. Because you never give straight answers."
"I don't think there's a utility to that."
"How so?" he raised an eyebrow.
"It's the question we can't answer that teaches us the most, Karma." I recited. "They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers... That way, when he finds the answers, they'll be precious to him. The harder the question, the harder we hunt, the more we learn."
A lesson which Matsuo-sensei and Tsukasa helped me understand.
"And what question did you ask him?" Karma raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious.
Behind us, students began walking out of the building to get on the buses that seemed to be ready. Their chattering distorted the calm and peaceful atmosphere that had been present until now.
"I told him to look at the landscape and tell me what he saw."
Karma snickered, having understood the answer.
"What a way to explain how different factors affect the picture."
"It's not just different factors."
"I know, I know," he brushed it off. "All the elements that play a role in shaping the picture we see. What's obvious, what is not, what meaning each element has, what might enter, what might leave and so on. I know the story, Kiyotaka."
"And yet you didn't apply it," I said, referring to how Karma didn't pay attention to all the elements.
"If you're talking about the trust issues in my class, I understand. I'll fix that," he stretched himself and yawned. "In the meantime, I'll sleep on the way back. I haven't been able to have a good night's sleep since we got here."
"...Sleep well then."
"Oh, I intend to." he said joyfully. "Then, I'll resign from the student council and see how to proceed with Class B."
"You won't resign," I declared.
"What do you mean?" he didn't seem to understand. "I failed to fulfil the favour I owed Runa when Tachibana was expelled. I have to resign my position as a consequence."
"That won't be necessary," I refused his resignation again. "Don't worry about repercussions. That's been addressed already."
"Does that mean... what am I saying, you plotted with Horikita-senpai, of course that's what it means," he laughed bitterly, passing a hand through his face. "I suppose the condition is that I must help you with your father..."
"You're one of the most influential students in the school. I won't let you throw that out the window for some favour you owed."
He took a deep breath. "Very well then. My resources are at your disposal. But don't expect me to continue the alliance between our classes."
"Don't worry, I don't."
He nodded, satisfied by my answer, and began to leave. However, I decided to show him some goodwill of my own.
"You should keep an eye on Ichinose."
He turned to meet my gaze. His eyes were full of suspicion.
"What do you mean?"
"You'll have to make a choice," I said. "This will affect her, and according to Chiaki and Kei... Well, Ichinose has some secrets of her own."
"Everyone has secrets."
"Why wasn't she placed in Class A?"
"Why wasn't Matsuo placed in Class A?" he retorted. "The school just balances the classes so there's competition."
"Perhaps. But maybe you could see if there's something else." I shrugged. "It never hurts to dig a bit."
"What are you doing?"
"Just giving some advice to a friend."
"I see... and can I trust this advice?"
"That question is up to you to answer," I shrugged, turning back to gaze at the forest, but addressed Karma one final time. "Oh, and Karma," he looked at me. "When you find that purpose of yours. Do tell me about it, I'm curious to know."
"Around a coffee?" he chuckled light-heartedly.
I showed a faint smile. "Around a coffee."
__________________________________
I kept the monologue about trust simple. There's really so much about the nature of trust and such that I could've written a whole essay.
This chapter ends volume 8.
There's still the SS left, which there will be several since I'll be mixing volumes 9 and 10 into one. Some SS will be during V8, others will act as a set up to some things for next volume, so it'll be a sort of volume 8.5, I guess.
Class Rankings after the Mixed Training Camp:
Class A (Sakayanagi): 822 + 55 = 877
Class B (Karma): 696 - 430 = 266
Class C (Ayanokouji): 455 - 43 = 412
Class D (Mikoto): 280 + 22 = 302
The mathematics for this exam are a mess, but that's the result I got. Karma's class loses 130 points for the results of the exam and 300 for the revocation of expulsion.
Second Year Class A falls to Class B starting February.
The difference in class points between Third Year Classes A and B is less than 20.
Students Expelled:
Boys:
None.
Girls:
Ichinose Honami, First Year Class B: Saved by the Revocation of Expulsion.
Asahina Nazuna, Second Year Class A: Saved by the Revocation of Expulsion.
Tachibana Akane, Third Year Class A: Saved by the Revocation of Expulsion.
Ikari Momoko, Third Year Class B: Expelled.
If you have any questions feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer.
I also want to ask you what you enjoyed the most until now, and if you have any complaints or things you'd like to see.
I won't change Ichinose's backstory, so I'll work with the hair clip story as best as I can.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the volume.