Hikigaya doesn't want to be a force of strength

The hatred between the two caused Ibuki to lose confidence in being able to hide things from the other party.

Although Shiina is now competing with Manabe for the position of female leader, she is able to get along well in Class B because of her own cheerful and fan-waving personality.

Manabe also maintains a good relationship with Shiina on the surface.

So Ibuki believed that Shiina could find clues that Manabe was a traitor better than he did.

After they had decided on the format, Shiina smiled and said, "I was able to work with Hikigaya-san. It turns out that I made the right decision to join the class struggle. I really hope that the plan will be successful."

"Oh, yeah, it would be great if it worked out."

Although Shiina's words seemed to contain other thoughts, Hikigaya deliberately did not allow himself to read the hidden subtext.

He looked at Shiina silently and said calmly, "It would be best if we could have a clue about this matter before the sports festival begins. You can also keep a close eye on Ryuen. If Manabe is really a spy, she is very likely to destroy Ryuen's plan."

"I see."

Shiina and Ibuki nodded at the same time. They didn't expect Hikigaya to think so far.

However, Shiina aside, Ibuki had seen many of Hikigaya's methods in the past, so neither of them was overly surprised. They just nodded and acknowledged each other.

However, Hikigaya himself had complicated thoughts and confusion in his mind.

Regardless of whether Manabe Shiho's presence was the work of Ayanokouji, this sports festival is likely to unfold in chaos.

Ayanokouji's current actions have become increasingly overt. It seems that the opponent has realized that the number of chess pieces he can control is not enough, so he simply becomes a chess piece himself and acts.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing for Hikigaya.

The good thing is that Ayanokouji is acting so openly, exposing the other party himself, and the chances of him being exposed are getting bigger and bigger. By then, Ryuuen and others will realize the threat posed by Ayanokouji and will spontaneously take action to restrict Ayanokouji's despicable means.

The bad thing is that the threat posed by Ayanokouji himself is too great. If Ayanokouji is really an artificial experimental subject produced by the White House, I am afraid that the opponent's strength as a chess piece will be beyond imagination, not inferior to or even surpassing the student council president Horikita Manabu.

In this case, the opponent may even be able to break all other layouts and plans by himself, truly being a one-man show.

Although Hikigaya saw through Ayanokouji's plan in advance, the most he could do was to fight with Ayanokouji on the chessboard.

If it had been a one-on-one confrontation, he would probably have begged for mercy on the spot.

Of course, Hikigaya didn't think that his plan to deal with Ayanokouji would be exposed, so he kept many backup plans to prevent himself and Ayanokouji from having a head-on confrontation.

What we need to do next is for each of us to show our true strength on the chessboard as chess players.

"Well then, I'll leave Manabe's affairs in your hands. Let's do our best at the sports festival."

After Hikigaya finished speaking, he turned around and was about to leave.

But unexpectedly, when he left the teaching building, Shiina followed him out and said with a smile: "I'm going to the convenience store to buy something. Let's walk together."

"Ok."

Hikigaya naturally did not refuse Shiina's request.

Ever since the uninhabited island exam, his relationship with Shiina has been in a strange, yet distant one.

The two would meet occasionally, exchange books they had read, and discuss things from time to time, but other than that they hardly met each other. Sometimes, even when they met on the street, they would deliberately ignore each other and pretend not to have seen each other.

All this undoubtedly stems from what happened on the uninhabited island.

Because Shiina misunderstood their relationship, he forced himself to be friends with Hikigaya, but it ended up alienating the two of them.

It was also from that time that Shiina Hiyori realized that if she wanted to get in touch with people like Hikigaya, or even get along with them, she must learn to control the distance between each other.

Hikigaya didn't hate Shiina essentially, but he couldn't help but reject Shiina's behavior of getting too close to him.

Although he knew that the other party probably did not have any special purpose, because he was used to acting alone as a lone ranger, Hikigaya was actually full of contradictions and fears about the concept of "friends" in his heart.

When faced with someone who wants to be friends with him, his first reaction is not joy, but instinctively keeping his distance like a frightened animal.

Therefore, the distant relationship between the two of them, which cannot be considered as friendship, and can even be said to be not even friendly, has given Hikigaya enough sense of security.

This is also the most suitable distance that Shiina has figured out after much effort, which is really painstaking.

"I hope the investigation into Manabe goes smoothly."

Shiina spoke silently while hugging the book in his hand.

"Don't worry. Even if you can't find any clues about Manabe, we can find out the person hiding behind Class D during this sports festival."

Hikigaya spoke casually. He judged that Ayanokouji would definitely take some action in this sports festival.

With the experiences from the previous times, there is a great possibility that Ayanokouji will be exposed.

"Speaking of which, Hikigaya-san, why did you do all this?"

Shiina suddenly stopped.

Hikigaya turned his head and saw her with a serious expression.

"for what……"

Hikigaya thought for a moment and realized that his current actions were almost all for Horikita Suzune.

If it wasn't for helping the other party solve his problems and preventing him from being controlled by Ayanokouji, he wouldn't have done so many troublesome things.

Of course, the reason why he helped Horikita Suzune in this way was also because of Horikita Manabu's request.

So after thinking about it, it all comes back to him.

"For my own sake."

Hikigaya spoke hesitantly. He didn't think there was anything wrong with this answer, so his expression was very natural.

"For myself..."

When Shiina Hiyori heard his words, she seemed to think there was something wrong with them.

But she took a close look at Hikigaya's expression and found that he didn't notice anything unusual, so she didn't say much.

"Well, if that's the case, I hope your idea works out."

Gentle words emerged from Shiina's mouth, and a smile appeared on his face.

Hikigaya looked at the other person and felt that the girl seemed to have something to say but didn't say it.

He then didn't say anything else, just nodded silently and walked side by side with Shiina.

Chapter 449: Hikigaya and Sakayanagi seem to have an unusual relationship

Influenced by the atmosphere of the sports festival, all classes in the school were immersed in the craze of sports training in the next few days.

Hikigaya naturally could not stay out of it and was forced to carry out various trainings every day.

And since many of the sports festival events are group training, such as pole-tossing competitions, tug-of-war, horse-riding battles, relay races, etc., Hikigaya, as a lone ranger, has to participate in the competitions with other students.

At first, Hikigaya felt that if he forced himself to fit in, he might cause disgust among other students in the class.

However, it is not known whether it was because he had previously publicly rebuked Horikita Suzune that his reputation in Class D increased to a certain extent, or whether it was male and female leaders such as Sudo Ken and Shinohara Satsuki who were speaking for him.

In short, although he participated in the sports festival training with students from other classes, he did not cause any disgust among the other students in Class D and completed the training smoothly with others.

Of course, even though no one objected, it didn't mean that Hikigaya had successfully integrated into the class.

Not to mention Hikigaya's personality, what he did in the past still left a lot of bad impressions in the minds of the students in Class D.

Right now, most people simply don't actively reject him and always keep their distance from him.

Hikigaya himself also kept as much distance from the others as possible.

So, after the training, Hikigaya sat alone at the edge of the playground, his eyes reflecting Horikita Suzune who was also isolated by the crowd.

Compared to Hikigaya's behavior of isolating others on her own initiative, Horikita Suzune was clearly isolated by the other students in Class D.

But Horikita didn't care about it at all, and seemed to only care about winning the exam.

At this moment, the boys' discussion suddenly sounded from not far away.

Although Hikigaya didn't want to get involved in such a boring topic, the voice still reached his ears uncontrollably.

"Yamauchi, I heard that you were planning to confess to Sakura before?"

"What? Kanji, why did you suddenly bring this up?"

"Oh, I'm curious about that kind of thing, right, Jian?"

"Yeah yeah."

At the instigation of Sudo and Ike Kanji, Yamauchi Haruki was forced to reveal his previous plan to try to confess his love to Sakura Airi.

It turns out that during the summer vacation, Yamauchi asked Ayanokouji to hand over Sakura so that he could confess his love to her.

The two of them made a careful plan, but the plan ultimately failed before it could even be implemented.

The reason is simple, Ayanokouji simply has no way of calling Sakura Airi out alone.

The latter was filled with insecurity around other boys due to an incident with the electronics store owner a long time ago, and other than Hikigaya calling her, most of the others were unable to succeed.

Because of this, Yamauchi Haruki's confession plan ended completely before it even began.

"Sakura is indeed a difficult target, but I didn't expect that I couldn't even call out." Ike Kanji said and looked at Ayanokouji, "Ayanokouji, what did you say at the time?"

"I said I wanted to discuss something with her, but she ran away without even looking at me."

"It seems like I'm completely hated..."

“I don’t think I’ve done anything that would be disliked by others.”

Ayanokouji spoke with a confused look on his face. He really seemed to have no idea of ​​what he had done, and there was obvious grievance on his face.

However, Yamauchi and others did not pay attention to this, but ignored it and changed the subject.

"Can our class win the sports festival this time?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine with me here." Sudo Ken said confidently, "To be honest, no one in the first grade has better athletic ability than me, and my only rival, Koenji, is also in our class."

"If Koenji could be more serious, our class would be completely safe."

"There's nothing we can do. That's Koenji. No one can persuade him." Ike Kanji shook his head and suddenly said, "Speaking of which, there was a student named Sakayanagi in Class C. She was a girl with a disability on her feet. Remember?"

"It's that beautiful girl, right? Of course I remember."

Yamauchi suddenly spoke with shining eyes, completely forgetting that he had wanted to confess to Sakura before.

"Have you heard any gossip about that girl?"

"When you say gossip, do you mean things like boyfriends? How should I put it? That girl's presence seems a bit weak. She hasn't become a topic of conversation at all."

"Indeed, since the beginning of the school year, this sports meet is the only one that has come into the attention of other classes."

Chi Kanzhi nodded, seeming a little strange.

"Come to think of it, I have seen that girl with someone else." Ayanokouji suddenly spoke up, leading the conversation. "It was probably when school started, I saw Hikigaya from our class drinking coffee with that Sakayanagi-san in a cafe."

"real or fake?"

When this was said, many people expressed surprise.

Hikigaya, who was completely isolated and had no say in the topic, suddenly choked up. He didn't expect that Ayanokouji would be so mean as to point at him like this.

Is this guy still thinking about testing me?

"That's impossible." Yamauchi Haruki waved his hand nonchalantly at Ayanokouji's words. "It's rumored that Sakayanagi is the leader of Class C now. How could someone of that status have such a good relationship with Bipenguin? It's simply impossible!"

Compared to Yamauchi, Ike and Sudo were conservative and did not express their opinions.

Both of them had vaguely sensed that Hikigaya was different in the past, so they didn't think that what Ayanokouji said was something impossible.

But with Yamauchi's support, the topic quickly shifted away from Hikigaya.

This wave was assisted by Grandpa Yamauchi.

"Although that girl Sakayanagi Arisu is the class leader, she doesn't seem to pose any threat at all compared to Katsuragi."

"Yeah, she looks cute and gentle, but she doesn't have the qualities of a leader at all."

"The original Class A is now completely finished. They have been demoted from Class A to Class C, and now even their leader has been replaced. No matter how you think about it, they will never be able to achieve anything."

"..."

The boys in Class D all had no sympathy for the former Class A under Sakayanagi's leadership, and felt that this was the end of this class.

Many people even think that even Class D has the potential to surpass the current Class C.

Ayanokouji didn't seem to have too many doubts, and didn't think about the impact Sakayanagi would have.