Volume 12, The Eighteenth Question

Volume 12, The Eighteenth Question

Please answer the following question:

Beginning from ( ), females begin to develop unique characteristics when their secondary sexual characteristics are developed.

Kudou Aiko's answer:

“Menarche refers to the first menstruation. A Japanese's average menstruation during the 20th year of the Showa era occurs around 14-15, and currently, it has been brought forward to around 12. According to analysis, the improvement in nutrition is a major factor in boosting puberty. Recent results however has shown that such trends have slowed down to a point of stagnation.”

Teacher's Comment:

Who exactly are you?

Tsuchiya Kouta's answer:

“What we call Menarche refers to the first stage of menses. In medical terms, the menstrual period is called menstruation, and the first menstruation is called Menarche. The body mass is highly correlated to the age of Menarche, and in most situations, such an occurrence happens when the body mass is 43kg, so the age does differ between people. The average age in Japan is 12. Besides body mass, the age of Menarche is also affected by race, climate, social environment and nutrition.”

Teacher's Comment:

Seriously, who are you people?

Shimada Minami's answer:

“Coming-of-age.”

Teacher's Comment:

I do feel there are some personal wishes hidden in this reply.

3-B, Yamasheeta Hideo, Foreign Language, Unable to battle.

Vs

2-A, Kinosheeta Yuuko, Foreign Language, 522 points.

Yuuko's summoned beast slices down an attacking enemy.

Our job's to guard the emergency exit. The enemy can't get past Tsuchiya and Aiko, so they have to get by from the back, and that's where we deal with them. This side isn't as large as the main entrance, and there's only so much space to fight, so it's lucky that we're in this situation. As long as we have people with high scores here, we won't be overwhelmed by numbers for a short time, and even if we have few people, we can continue to defend.

And in other words—the opponent will send in those with high scores, and break through with the few elites.

“Sorry, make way for us, second years.”

“Yo, we meet again, Kinosheeta—not you. I'm depressed. Looks like it's the older sister…”

As Sakamoto had expected, the Toko-Natsu pair, which had caused us much trouble, has appeared.

“Welcome, we've been waiting for you, sempais.”

“Your treatment to me is so different from Hideyoshi, huh. Are you ready, that mohican-sempai?”

Yuuko and I decide on our opponents, and get ready for battle. Yuuko's facing a mohican upperclassman called Tsunemura, and I'm facing this bald upperclassman called Natsukawa. Now I can avenge my loss.

“That woman from before…you really won't give up huh. Isn't the winner already decided here?”

The bald upperclassman pretentiously sighed once he saw me.

It's true that I was beaten rather badly by this upperclassman, and us second years are all in an overwhelmingly disadvantageous situation, to a point of nearly losing.

But I'm definitely not going to give up.

“Of course I'm not going to give up. I'm from F class after all.”

He seems to understand somewhat once I said these words, frowning impatiently,

“Ah…that is the case now that you mention it…argh, it's troublesome…but it's my job as the upperclassman to teach my underclassmen a lesson. I'll be your opponent.”

This upperclassman in front of me mutters the word, and the summoned beast appears at his feet.

My summoned beast raises its weapon at the opponent.

“Then, let's settle this through this battle.”

I say this, issuing a challenge,

And the opponent doesn't reply,

“…”

He looks dumbfounded as he stares at the indicated scores.

“What's the matter? If you're not going to attack, I'm going to attack you, you know?”

“!!”

After hearing these words, the bald upperclassman finally recovered, but is still unable to hide his panicked look.

“Hey hey hey, I never heard of this before…someone actually managed to raise the scores to such a high level through the Center Test rules…”

“Really? It's great that you know this before the actual exams.”

3-A, Natsukawa Junpei, Foreign Language (English), 451 points.

Vs

2-F, Shimada Minami, Foreign Language (German), 639 points.

“—The 'foreign languages' here include German too.”

My summoned beast closes in on the opponent with more force in its steps.

I want to make sure that guy remains as how I like him. At the same time, I want to show him my cool side, that I'll work hard till the end, and reunite with him with my head held high.

This is everyone's determination, and also the thanks to those guys I call my friends—my fondness for them.

☆

“Muttsurini-kun, those two that went for the emergency exit are the seniors we're so familiar with, right? Are Minami and Yuuko going to be okay…?”

I control my summoned beast at the entrance of the old school building as I tried to talk with Muttsurini-kun beside me.

“…No need to worry.”

Muttsurini answers with his usual bluntness.

When we first met, we're enemies in the test summoning war, and now we're fighting alongside each other, entrusting our backs to each other. I do find this a little surprising, and inadvertently let out a little chuckle.

“…What's so funny?”

“No, it's nothing.”

“…You're weird.”

It's really interesting seeing his reaction, and I start to laugh loudly.

“…Concentrate on the battle, Kudou.”

“Oh, sorry.”

I command my summoned beast to slam the axe it has been swinging. Behind me, Muttsurini-kun's summoned beast swings its dagger around, dicing the enemies quickly.

In terms of health education, nobody can beat the combination of Muttsurini-kun and me. Because of this, Sakamoto-kun left this place to us. In fact, the 3rd years really can't break through from here, and can only watch from afar. If this keeps up, we can definitely seal them there as per our objective.

The problem after that is—

“Greetings, Tsuchiya Kouta-kun.”

A female student walks out from the crowd of 3rd year students standing some distance away.

The problem thereafter is this lewd senior.

“I'm here too, Kogure-sempai.”

“Oh? It's rude of me then. I focused too much on Tsuchiya Kouta-kun that I forgot about you.”

She said , and gave Muttsurini-kun a flirtatious glance.

The thing I'm really unhappy about is that this senior actions are all as alluring as ever. Whether it's that voluptuous chest, the wondrous long thighs shown under the skirt, or the expression she uses as she looks here, everything, I think is basically super effective against a boy in puberty. Furthermore, her target is Muttsurini-kun…

“Muttsurini-kun, I'll take this sempai as the opponent. Try your best not to you—”

“This won't do. Everyone, I'll leave this to you.”

On Kogure-sempai's command, two 3rd year girls call out their summoned beasts and attack me. Uu…! I knew this would happen…!

Even I can't possibly focus on dealing two enemies at once. My summoned beast's tangled, unable to escape, “Summon” and senior Kogure mutters this, calling out her summoned beast.

“Now then, Tsuchiya Kouta-kun, you will have to be my opponent.”

She says as she crosses her legs, emphasizing the beautiful profiles of her legs. Muttsurini-kun's going to be taken down by this move again…!

“Muttsurini-kun! Hang in there! I'll go save you!”

“…Kudou, focus on your opponent.”

I got told off by Muttsurini-kun, but even if he says so, I can't focus. I'm concerned by the battle over there, and even if that's not the case, Kogure-sempai's face and actions are distracting me.

“You should be focused on your own opponent too, Tsuchiya Kouta-kun—I hope that you simply look at me instead of looking around.”

Once Kogure-sempai said this, she places her hand on her skirt without a single word. She doesn't lift the hem of it immediately though; she starts to adjust the pleat of the skirt.

This senior's really familiar with how to attract other people's attention. She lures people with her words, charm them with her facial expression, and make her opponent anxious.

And then, after stimulating the opponent's expectations and imagination, she raises the skirt to an almost exposed region to torture the opponent—

3-A, Kogure Aoi, Health Education, Unable to battle.

Vs

2-F, Tsuchiya Kouta, Health Education, 764 points.

““……Eh………?””

“…Acceleration, ended.”

Muttsurini-kun mutters.

He wasn't charmed by that alluring figure even I as a girl kept staring at, and beat the opponent using his summoned beast.

“…Don't get lazy, Kudou.”

“Eh? Ah, yes.”

Kogure-sempai and I aren't the only ones stunned here, as the other two girls facing me are also stunned. After Muttsurini-kun prompted me, I quickly attacked and sent those girls to the detention room.

Right beside me, Kogure-sempai shows a shocked expression on her beautiful face.

“Tsuchiya…Kouta-kun…what, exactly…”

“…Don't treat me as a fool, you pervert woman.”

Muttsurini-kun declares to a stunned Kogure-sempai.

“…Why do I have to prioritize you over my friends?”

☆

“It's interesting isn't it, Sakamoto-kun?”

We're at the front of the second level stairs in the old school building.

Soon after everyone went to their positions, the enemies we missed started to appear here. For some reason, Kubo looks rather happy as he starts to chat with me, controlling his summoned beast to beat the enemies at the same time.

“Interesting? How?”

“I'm talking about the current situation.”

3-C, Yoshida Koutarou, Humanities, Unable to battle

Vs

2-A, Kubo Toshimitsu, Humanities (World History), 224 points.

Kubo deals the final blow to the last invading enemy as he answered.

“What's interesting? The situation is grave for us. Don't tell me you have unique tastes in desperate situation?”

“Hahaha. This isn't what I mean.”

Kubo starts laugh, as if it's really funny. What does he mean actually?

“You planned the strategy for Tsuchiya-kun and Shimada-san to clear the field, Kinosheeta-kun to guide, and Yoshii-kun to finish everything. Including the members who changed attire for the sake of isolating Takashiro-sempai, the keys to this war are all F class members. The summoning war itself is normally a battle between scores, and now it ended up like this. Don't you find it interesting?”

Kubo said as he smiled. Ah, that's right. Now that he says so, maybe it has gotten interesting here.

“If you find it interesting, why don't you join F class? You can join us immediately if you submit a blank script for your next exam paper.

After hearing my proposal , “This is an interesting proposal”, Kubo said with a serious look.

“But I think I shall pass. I don't seem suited for it.”

This is how he answered.

'Don't seem suited', does Kubo mean taking it easy in the exams, or fitting in with F class? Leaving aside the former, I don't think he has to be that worried about the latter…

“Oh goodness gracious…you're chatting away like that while we're walking hard here. Isn't that unfair?”

“Yeah. Don't you know how much of a difficult battle we had to face?”

While I'm chatting with Kubo, Shimada and Hideyoshi walks over to us. Shimada's probably reporting to Hideyoshi that she completed the objective and met up with him. Speaking of which, those sent in by Hideyoshi will probably begin attacking Takashiro in another 5 minutes.

“Don't say that okay. Kubo never let a single invader through, and I've been opening fields everywhere.”

“I know. Just saying.”

Since I knew there would be a few enemies appearing to fight Kubo, I deployed the field 3 times using my bracelet. When I deployed it just now, I got mathematics and language, and this time, I got the humanities field I need now. I finally managed to fulfill my basic requirement here.

“I abandoned the field as you said, Sakamoto-kun, and gathered the remaining forces on the stairs.”

“They probably will be able to hang on a little longer, but it's just a matter of time before the enemy attacks the representative.”

“…(Nods).”

Due to the massive numbers, Muttsurini's team had to deplete lots of points, and they came back as well. They're set to remain on standby and defend Shouko.

“…It's about time for us to step up, Yuuji.”

“Yeah. Looks like it's time for you to join the fight.”

Shouko, who has been on standby to protect herself, arrives on the corridor. Right now, the points she has is our important fighting strength. We need to lure the enemy deep into the old school building for this operation, so we need her to appear in front of the enemy as bait and protect herself somewhat.

“I don't like this, but right now, we can only act as shields to hold them off.”

“It can't be helped. We just fought against so many enemies.”

Kudou and Kinosheeta, who used up a lot of points in the battle before this, can only lament at this.

It's really a rare sight to see these two A class members, the top ranking ones at that, grumble that they don't have enough points.

“I say, Kubo.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“You just said that the situation's interesting. In that case, this situation is the most interesting.”

I said as I look around at everyone's face.

There's someone with outstanding grades aiming for college.

An expert in health education and an expert in drama that hopes to improve on his art.

A girl who just returned to Japan and learnt Japanese in a single year.

Everyone has their own talents, and strong wills that won't lose to anyone else.

“Just think. We have so many outstanding talents, but didn't we entrust everything on the bastards in this worst class? If this isn't a joke, what is it?”

And the opponent is also the valedictorian amongst our upperclassmen. One can't imagine this being something a normal person would do.

“Haha. That's really the case.”

“I-I just had to help because there's no other choice…”

“Ahaha, but I'm rather interested in seeing Yoshii-kun looking so stupid.”

“…If it's Yoshii, he'll definitely succeed.”

Everyone in A class expressed their own thoughts.

“Speaking of which, Sakamoto-kun, is it really alright that you let Yoshii-kun handle the best part?”

“Ah, yeah…”

To be honest, if nothing else happens, I really want to beat that bastard up. I do have my own grudges and hatred on that guy.

But right now, I don't want to fight against him personally.

This isn't because the tactic isn't feasible, or the difference in scores and skill level, or whether there's any other way to get about doing this. I just lent that guy a favor.

“To quote what a certain idiot said—I'm not the protagonist today, that's all.”

What he owes me is that he has to settle the score with an important thing to him on the line.

“Heh…so you finally understand who's more suited to be the hero between us, Yuuji.”

At that moment, while all of us are gathered here, a certain idiot's senseless voice can be heard.

“Shut up. What I just said only applies for today.”

I snorted at what that guy just said.

Seriously. He was being so useless just a while ago, and now he says he want to be a hero.

“Kept you waiting, Yuuji. Are you ready?”

“You're too slow, Akihisa. Who do you think you're talking to.”

Now then, since you're the cause of it all, it's your turn to settle everything.