Inside the principal's office of Shuchiin High School Division.
Shirogane Miyuki stood straight before the broad ebony desk, his fingertips unconsciously clutching the hem of his uniform jacket.
Having just won the election for the new student council president of Shuchiin High School Division with overwhelming results, this should have been a moment of triumph. Yet at this moment, there wasn't a trace of joy on his face. Instead, his brow was furrowed, his dead-fish eyes—looking somewhat lifeless—were filled with intense confusion as he slowly repeated that unfamiliar term.
"Are you saying... a collaboration...?"
Behind the desk, Shuchiin Principal Adolphe Pestarollo sat stably in his large leather executive chair. Leaning forward slightly with hands clasped under his chin, he struck a poised expression reminiscent of a certain commander in an anime, casually uttering a single, succinct word.
"Oui, a collaboration."
Shirogane Miyuki's brow furrowed even tighter as his mind rapidly processed the gap between the two schools. Utterly unable to fathom the reasoning behind this proposal, his tone was filled with confusion.
"But... there's no reason for it?"
He said in bewilderment.
"After all... the gap between Shuchiin and that school called Sobu High... is just too big."
It wasn't that he looked down on Sobu High as a commoner school—after all, he himself was a commoner of ordinary origin—he was simply stating an undeniable fact.
Shuchiin was Japan's top elite academy, one of the few prestigious schools in the country that gathered children from major prominent families and top financial conglomerates. This was a universally recognized fact in Japan's educational sphere.
Of course, this school wasn't entirely occupied by elite noble scions either. The number of top prominent families in political and business circles was limited, so eligible children were naturally few, nowhere near enough to fill a proper school. Furthermore, if the entire school consisted solely of pampered noble offspring, the campus culture would eventually become narrow-minded and impetuous, running counter to the founding purpose of the institution.
Therefore, Shuchiin would also exceptionally admit a batch of students from ordinary family backgrounds. However, these students were by no means ordinary people—they were either top students who consistently ranked among the top of their grade with excellent academics and conduct like Shuchiin Shirogane Miyuki, or prodigies with specialized talents far exceeding their peers in art, sports, academic competitions, and other fields. Only then could they enjoy the school's top-tier teaching staff, lavish educational facilities, and various campus resources out of reach for regular people.
The sentence on the admissions brochure, "Shuchiin gathers the nation's top students, whose academic literacy and comprehensive talents are at the top level domestically," was never empty promotional rhetoric, but a solid reality.
Shirogane Miyuki knew this firsthand. He was a super-high-school-level honor student who consistently placed near the top in national standardized tests. Yet even with such strength, in a place brimming with hidden talents like Shuchiin, there were at least five other powerhouses at the same level—more than enough to assemble a so-called 'Four Heavenly Kings'.
Not to mention the school's various clubs—basketball, soccer, kendo, chess... practically any student capable of serving as a club captain possessed near-professional standards. Compared to clubs in regular schools that were merely gatherings of hobbyists, the gap was like a dimensional strike.
For such a Shuchiin to suddenly engage in a collaboration with an obscure commoner school like Sobu High was simply far too abrupt and completely devoid of logic.
One must realize that to average students, Shuchiin was like something that only existed in anime or eroge. Even nationwide, it was arguably a top-tier noble school, yet now it was suddenly announced that it would collaborate with a mediocre school like Sobu High—not to say Sobu High was bad; after all, its college acceptance rate was right there, making it a strong school in Chiba.
However, setting aside the whole country, even within Tokyo alone, there were plenty of public high schools whose overall averages surpassed Sobu High in every metric.
To use a simpler and easier-to-understand anime analogy: Sobu High's position in the Tokyo high school circle was like Asuma in Naruto, Kensei Muguruma in Bleach, or Gekko Moriah in One Piece—you couldn't call him weak, but if you asked how strong he was, he certainly wasn't that strong...
Behind the desk, Adolphe twirled the small mustache at the corner of his mouth. His expression remained calm as he gestured with his hand, his tone light and breezy, as if he had merely finalized a trivial matter.
"Don't worry about it, it's just a normal collaboration."
"Ha..."
Shirogane Miyuki let out a helpless sigh, the corners of his mouth pulling into a forced smile.
Although he held the position of student council president, he was merely of commoner origin. His status in the school was already a bit delicate, and on core matters such as major school activity decisions, he had no authority of absolute veto. In the end, he could only obey the arrangements of the school leadership. Even with a heart full of doubt, he could only temporarily accept it.
He secretly calmed his emotions and tried to speculate in a logical direction.
Perhaps the principal felt that the noble students in the school spent the whole year up in the clouds, raised in greenhouses ignorant of the world, and needed a goodwill activity to get in touch with ordinary students, understand commoners' daily lives, and balance the campus atmosphere. That was why he specifically arranged this cross-school collaboration.
Thinking about it this way, it didn't seem like a big deal after all.
"So, as for the codename of this collaboration..." Principal Adolphe continued.
We even need an activity codename? But since it's a goodwill activity, it should probably be something like 'Snow, Moon, and Flowers', right? Considering it's summer right now, it should probably be 'Sparkling Waters' or 'After the Rain Clear Skies Will Surely Bring Blooming Blossoms' or something.
Principal Adolphe tapped his fingers lightly on the desk and slowly spoke to finalize the codename.
"Let's call it 'Distant Trampling Domination'."
"That doesn't feel like goodwill at all, hey!" Shirogane Miyuki instinctively roasted.
Adolphe froze for a moment upon hearing this, looking as if he completely didn't understand what Shirogane Miyuki was talking about, and asked in return, "Goodwill? What goodwill?"
"Isn't this collaboration supposed to showcase to the outside world the friendly and goodwill side of our Shuchiin students toward students of regular schools?" Shirogane Miyuki felt something was off.
"Ahaha, no such thing."
Adolphe burst into hearty laughter and waved his hand. His tone abruptly turned sharp, his eyes flashing with the edge of competition, without a single shred of friendliness. "As long as there is competition, they are the enemy! Facing the enemy, we must overwhelm! Crush! Thoroughly trample them to succeed!"
"Generally speaking, are cross-school collaborations really this vicious...?"
Shirogane Miyuki looked at the principal in front of him who was laughing with sheer delight, silently speculating in his mind: Could it be that the principal of Sobu High owes this Principal Adolphe a huge sum of money and hasn't paid it back?
"After the summer vacation, the preliminary rounds for various national tournaments will start soon." Principal Adolphe said solemnly: "Let's use the line 'experience real battle with other schools in advance' to have similar clubs from both sides hold friendly matches, which can count as accumulating a certain degree of experience."
I don't think beating up kids accumulates any experience points, Shirogane Miyuki complained in his heart.
"I think school is primarily a place for studying..." He pressed on bravely.
"That's right, so academic scores will also be compared—Shirogane-kun, you won't disappoint me, right?"
"...Yes." Shirogane Miyuki could only answer like that.
However, no matter how he thought about it, the students of that school were just too pitiful.
So Shirogane Miyuki still tried his best to make a slight rescue attempt.
"Although it's not impossible to pull off, if we really do this to another school without rhyme or reason, won't it leave a less-than-positive impact on Shuchiin's reputation?" He tried his best to persuade the principal using words that weren't too harsh.
Upon hearing this, Adolphe rubbed his chin with his fingers, lowered his head, and pondered for a moment. The smile on his face gradually faded, clearly taking those words to heart.
After all, he was merely the principal of Shuchiin's High School Division. If his personal whim resulted in damaging the school's reputation, he would definitely face backlash from the school's board of directors, which would inevitably affect his future career development.
Seeing this, hope instantly flared up in Shirogane Miyuki's eyes. Thinking his persuasion had worked, he quickly tried to push forward to wrap up the result of canceling the event.
"Since that's the case, as expected, we should cancel..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he was abruptly cut off by Adolphe. The principal raised his head, his eyes lighting up as if he had hit upon a brilliant idea, finalizing a new plan with an absolute tone.
"If beating up one school is too much of a take advantage of move, then let's change it to beating up two."
"...Huh?"
Shirogane Miyuki froze on the spot entirely, the expression on his face instantly solidifying. His eyes were completely blank, failing to follow Principal Adolphe's train of thought at all.
He opened his mouth, but before he could utter a word of rebuttal, Adolphe had already spun his chair around to face the computer at the corner of the desk. His fingers rapidly tapped on the keyboard, performing a quick search on the webpage before stopping to point at the screen, settling on the second target school in a crisp and decisive tone.
"This one will do—Toyonosaki, which just completed its merger with Tsukinomori. In a moment, I'll have my assistant contact their administration immediately to finalize the details of the collaboration."
"Umm... isn't that a bit... far too abrupt?" Shirogane Miyuki attempted to awaken the other man's rationality: "Do you have some sort of grudge against Toyonosaki?"
Even if the principal of Sobu High really owes you money and hasn't paid it back, there's no need to drag another school into this, right?
"I don't have any prejudice against Toyonosaki... But Tsukinomori," the old man snorted softly, expressing his disdain with a nasal hum, "in the past, some people rejected our Shuchiin's olive branch to let their daughters attend Tsukinomori, only for it to end up forced into a merger with a small school in the middle of nowhere like Toyonosaki due to poor management! I just want to see their painful and regretful expressions when they see their children crushed by the very Shuchiin whose admission offers they once threw away!"
"..."
"Oh, I accidentally let a slightly ungraceful expression slip out there. But Shirogane-kun, you won't blab about this to others, right?"
Principal Adolphe said in a drawn-out tone as he looked at the newly appointed student council president standing respectfully before him.
In the past, the student council president of Shuchiin's High School Division was always either wealthy or of noble birth, making it difficult even for a principal like him to force them to do things they were unwilling to do. Originally, Adolphe thought this term wouldn't see much difference either, expecting the daughter of the Shinomiya family to easily claim the crown of student council president.
As it turned out, the throne of student council president was intercepted by a student from the general track.
Not only that, but Shinomiya Kaguya—whose top academic performance during his tenure was originally set in stone—and the second young lady of the Fujiwara family, Chika, actually expressed that they wanted to transfer from Shuchiin to Sobu High...
One had to understand that to the people of Shuchiin, Sobu High was far too remote and unfamiliar. In fact, before those two mentioned the name, Adolphe didn't even know a high school by that name existed...
That was why he felt indignant and dissatisfied.
Since he couldn't break the two young ladies' intentions through sheer personal influence, he would use overwhelming power to make them understand just how insignificant the place they wanted to transfer to truly was, forcing them to re-examine whether there was a problem with their transfer aspirations.
As for Toyonosaki, just as he said, there wasn't much of a personal grudge. He only had an impression of the name because that Spencer diplomat's daughter hadn't enrolled in Shuchiin and had run off to Toyonosaki instead.
"I didn't see anything." Shirogane Miyuki naturally wouldn't talk back to the man at a time like this. Standing in his position, directly confronting school authority or heavy capital head-on was the dumbest possible move; if he wanted a certain outcome, he just had to guide things along according to circumstances as much as possible during the process.
However, that meant his already pitifully scarce rest time would have to take another hit. He just hoped it wouldn't affect his part-time job.
Speaking of part-time jobs, Shirogane Miyuki couldn't help but remember the junior who used to work at the same place with him half a year ago.
Compared to his current clumsy juniors who only got in the way, that smart, capable Asakura Takuma—whom he got along with very well—was much more to his liking. Unfortunately, for some reason, the guy stopped coming later on, probably having found a better part-time job somewhere else.
Just then, Principal Adolphe's voice yanked Shirogane Miyuki's thoughts right back to reality from the fond memories of half a year ago.
"Well said! Then we'll proceed according to the plan just now—the collaboration events will be divided into three categories: Club Competitions, Mock Joint Exams, and a Grand Adventure."
"A Grand Adventure?" Shirogane Miyuki froze for a moment, asking in confusion.
"A gameplay format similar to those on quiz shows to raise the entertainment value. Just as you said, Shirogane-kun, showcasing the wonderful and fun side of the competition for others to see—that way, they won't criticize Shuchiin for crushing those two bugs," Adolphe said.
Shirogane Miyuki: "..."
So basically, as long as we stomp Sobu High and Toyonosaki in the first two events, it doesn't matter how the final showcase segment goes, right?
"However, since this is a joint project among three schools, it can't be called a simple collaboration anymore," Adolphe mused for a bit. "Let's change it to another name."
"How about 'Three-School Joint Mutual Aid Society'?" Shirogane Miyuki tried to offer a proposal for a name that at least sounded friendlier.
"No," but Principal Adolphe shook his head in rejection without a second thought, stating firmly: "We'll call it the Triwizard Tournament."