Classroom of The Elite : The Marionette

Chapter 36: Preliminary

That night I had a meeting with Satonaka who had just finished gathering information for a day. I offered to make dinner but she refused because she had promised to have dinner with her friends. That's why I just made tea for her.

"I've contacted all my acquaintances from other classes, as well as some senpais," Satonaka said while I put the cup on the table.

"So what did they say?" I asked.

"Some people admitted that they saw Nanahara-san running around the park, I also went to the electronics shop and café at the intersection. Unfortunately, they say they don't know anything, because their employees are mostly indoors, so they don't know what's going on on the street."

"So no one saw Nanahara return to the dormitory?"

"Unfortunately no..."

"It's okay, at least we have a little advantage..." As long as someone saw Nanahara in the park, we could argue that Nanahara never chased Tanaka to the construction site, in other words, she wasn't the culprit. Testimony from victims also seems to support us.

"What about you, what did you find at the construction site?" Now it was Satonaka's turn to ask me.

I told her everything I experienced this morning with Shiraishi and Hayashi. We met with Teiichi and Fujimori and from them, I learned that the victim's testimony did not match the conditions at the crime scene. Shiraishi had shown how a baseball hit from the field could not possibly reach a scaffold blocked by trees. However, based on Fujimori's statement, Tanaka testified that his head was hit by something. Is he lying? But the baseball was found by security officers. Because of this, class B can currently be said to be in a slightly disadvantageous position.

"So Shimada-kun is the one who did it? But wasn't it an accident?"

"It could be. There are still some contradictions so we can't be too sure..."

Apart from that, I also feel a little curious about Fujimori Akane. She was the female student Teiichi mentioned a while ago. If I'm not mistaken, Teiichi told me that when their homeroom teacher revealed the S-system, she was the one who asked about other ways to get points. It shows that she is intelligent. Her behavior also seems quite good and friendly.

But one thing that confused me was her attitude towards this case. Somehow she looks too relaxed. From the way she spoke, she didn't seem too bothered by all this, as if this wasn't the problem. I still don't know many people from class A, but by far she's the most likely to be a Whiteroomer. I'll have to discuss this with Kasai later.

"I didn't expect class B to be involved, I was really surprised when Masaki-kun contacted me and told me about the situation," Masaki was in charge of gathering information, just like Satonaka. At my suggestion, he contacted Satonaka and collaborated with her.

"But the real problem is with class A. You met them earlier, right? How do they respond to this case?" That question reminded me of lunch earlier. At that time I was talking about the same thing with Teiichi when we were both ordering food downstairs.

***

"We haven't even been here three months, but the problems seem to never end." At that time Teiichi complained when we had just finished ordering food. The two of us spent some time chatting for a while before returning to our table on the second-floor balcony. "First there was a suspicion of fraud, then a case of voyeurism in which you were a suspect, now there is a case of abuse involving three classes...I never thought all this would happen when I came here..."

"What's the matter? Do you regret joining the student council? Want to resign?" I teased him a little and Teiichi looked at me with a concerned look.

"You know I won't do that, this is my responsibility, there's no way I can just leave when things are difficult. Besides...I am also surprised by your presence."