As Arina landed next to the remaining six class 2 students, she barely managed to remain standing, only doing so by leaning on her sword which she stuck into the ground. Whatever Maruyama did, it made her vision blury and she was unable to identify where up or down were anymore. Even though the remaining six could hold class 3 off for a bit, that would not be for long as the two that Arina knocked out already gained back their consciousness, and instantly started attack them too. One explosion which landed too close to Arina ended up throwing her onto the ground, and as she pulled herself up again, she did not know which side was her class and which was class 3. Completely disoriented, a class 3 student eventually managed to take her armband.
Just when she was disqualified, a voice echoed through the land.
"The barrier is deactivated in ten, nine, eight…"
As professor Reed started the random, and not mentioned in any rules, countdown, both Yamato and Yuki flew up towards the island and got as close to it as possible despite the barrier. The remaining six and class 3 followed, and everyone was now in the air.
"Three, two, one! Go, go, go!"
Everyone charged forward while throwing attacks at the other, though they were all dodged by the other as well. Once they were above open water, ten massive tentacles shot out of the water and blocked the way. They seemed to he was longer than 30 meters each, with a diameter of five at the middle. Three more attacked the students with swings that could destroy buildings with ease. Yuki tried to shoot at it, but with no success as it just bounce of its skin. Class 3 looked like it was about to retreat, but Maruyama stopped when he noticed that Yamato and Yuki were flying towards it at full speed. They were completely intertwined and barely used more space than one person would, as they managed to squeeze past a small gap that allowed them to pass and crash onto the island. Maruyama flew after them, but the gap closed right behind Yamato and Yuki. Which in fact did not stop him as he used his special move to temporarily hit a tentacle, which seemed to throw it off for just enough that he could get past as well, as he crashed onto the island as well.
Pulling himself up, Yamato brushed off sand from his clothes and straightened them, which Yuki did as well.
"Phew, that was close! What a gross creature."
"Professor Reed did say something like that… The shrines won't be the only obstacle, I guess he meant that thing."
"Damn cryptic…"
Maruyama pulled himself up as well, his crash seemed to have been harder than Yamato's and Yuki's, but he healed the head wound he had and faced them.
"Urgh… I don't know what you think you're doing here… But I'm ending this right now."
"You don't look so good, Maruyama. You should sit down, take a break."
"Fuck you… I see what you are… You are like me… Empty inside… You don't care for your classmates, just like me! We are the same, except I don't have the weakness of love holding me back. You are the inferior! You two are by far the strongest out of your class, and with you here, the rest of my class won't have a problem killing that disgusting creature and reaching us first. They are not only stronger but outnumber them too. If you hadn't taken her with you here but instead left her behind to fight, you could have won. But your feelings cost you the win! Even if you two beat me there is no way you can pull that little stunt off again and go back to help your class! It's over!"
"Over… Inferior, you say? You are right… It is over… But not because of what you think. Now, Yuki."
Yuki shot a single ball of fire into the air, once it reached high enough, it exploded and left a massive cloud of green fire and smoke behind.
"…Am I supposed to applaud your little, admittedly quite pretty, light spectacle now?"
"Just wait a second…"
"…"
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the land.
"The competitive exam is over. Winner is class 2, thanks for your efforts! To everyone else, better luck next time!"
Maruyama's face went pale and he just stared at Yamato, who just stared at him with the purest expression he could muster, that being complete and utter emptiness. He walked up to him with his hands in his pockets and towered right in front of him.
"You think you are like me? You think you won? You think you achieved anything, with your little rage bait at the start of the exam? You think my connection with Yuki somehow weakens me to the point of equality to someone like you? The amount of times you can be wrong in one speech does impress me slightly, I have to admit. Let me break it down for you… The moment the exam rules were listed, I already knew exactly how I would win. "All participating students of the class must be present at the same time", is what he said, which is what everyone excluding me seemed to have missed. Everyone participating, meaning everyone that does not participate obviously not. And when does someone not participate? When they are disqualified, obviously. My signal was ordering everyone from class 2 to take off their armbands, since I and Yuki were present on the island already, and thus after everyone else disqualified themselves remained the only participating students of class 2. I wouldn't even need to take Yuki with me, or come here myself, but I wanted you to follow us, so I could face you and tell you what kind of trash you are. Born inferior, blinded by my superiority into the delusion of your own. That is all your feelings are. An illusion of greatness born from the idea to be like me. Nothing you did in this exam had any affect on the outcome at all. The moment I had two shrines, all I needed to do was move one person, preferably myself, on the island, and force everyone else to commit disqualification suicide. That is my impact. And it would have happened regardless of you beating Shin or not. Regardless of you deactivating two shrines, or four. Regardless of your ability to have people hallucinate, which I figured out how it works by the way. All you do is create a poisonous gas, which you bind to the air in circle and than shoot that circle away. The time you wait to use your ability is the time you need to gather the poison in the air, and the longer you wait the more poison and thus the more range. You could do it just now instantly because you only used it at close range on a singe target. You wonder how I know? The monster was immune to magic. But not to your attack. So your attack must be different from conventional magic, but obviously still involves some. I could tell the symptoms by watching the victims, I also saw, even though you were always pretty far away, a refraction around your hand, which aligned with my theory, and with all that information, it becomes quite obvious, don't you think?"
Maruyama fell down onto his knees, staring up at Yamato with a expression that could only be described as afraid.
"From the moment the exams rules were announced, I already won. If you would have been like me, you could have done the same, since you were here as well. You even use telepathy, don't you? In that case you could have told them to disqualify themse a lot faster than I did. But you did no such thing. The idea did not even come to that little inferior mind of yours, did it? I hope now you understand… We are not the same."
"Ah, so that was it! The thing you said I missed earlier!"
"Yes. The implication of the rule, even though everyone assumes is was given since it otherwise meant losing one student would make winning impossible, no one noticed the deeper possibility this rule opened up to everyone who understood it. Which is why I won."
Maruyama stayed silent, not blinking either, just existing in a state of stasis. Yuki was mentally cheering, with star eyes watching her one true star.
"My final words to you, so listen closely… It was almost a little fun fighting over the shrines with you and out playing Shin, or it would have been… If it weren't just a pointless, pathetic and childish attempt of delusional ambitions for victory, when in reality all you could now and will ever achieve is second place. The flaw in your mind is that you assumed you could somehow manipulate me through Yuki, because you assumed our conversation to be a weakess. Even if I were in love with her, it harldy weakens me. Love is only a weakness to those who are already inferior. I could form dozens of emotional connections and remain equally superior to you in every conceivable way. You can for dozens of emotional connections, and each only grows your inferiority to me."
"Ah… Talking down to someone who is beneath me in every way should make me feel good, should it not? Or maybe I should feel bad… But there is nothing. There was nothing special about what I did, everyone could have interpreted the rules like that. It is just so disappointing that no one but me did… I was hoping that if I played a cheap trick, I would get an outstanding response from someone… Of course, I would not have given it my all in that case, yet I might have reached a state of frustration or regret… Or maybe not. Who knows? What does anyone even know? Did I win because I knew no one else would have the ability to interpret the rules in the way I did? Or did I win became I thought I knew that, and it only ended up being true by chance? Of course, the answer is that I won because I knew… I knew it as much as I know now that there is nothing that I don't know. And Unless I happen to be proven wrong, I don't see anything wrong with that conclusion."
With that, everyone was teleported back to the space where all the classes were mixed together before the exam. Professor Reed now on a pedestal preparing for a short little speech.
"Well, that was some amazing work from everyone, though we had one clear winner here. Class 2, now class 1, due to an amazing strategy won this exam with two students remaining. Second place was class 3, who therefore ranks up to class 2 again, and had seven students remaining at the end. And finally, the last place, class 1, now dropping down all the way to class 3, which had zero students remaining at the end. These positions are final for now, as this was the last competitive exam of the year. Don't be too upset though, next year you will have another chance to prove that you can reach the top. Now you should all go into a well deserved vacation, and start fully charged up into the new year. I hope you can all see past any actions taken in the exam that may influence your relationships, as they are purely for evaluation and should not be taken personally. On a side note, the library closes in the winter due to our librarian attending a personal matter outside the country. If you should need any books for studies, you may ask a teacher for supervised access to borrow any book of your choosing. Note that this will be written down and all books need to be returned at the end of your vacation! That's all, have a great time!"