Act 15: Scene 3

"Two potential eyewitnesses then... this changes everything. If someone had seen everything, then that's great news for us. However, depending on how things went, it might drive Miyake further into a corner, especially in the instance that the witnesses only saw the aftermath of their fight," Kiyotaka thought. He didn't feel confident about this just yet, because there's no telling if those witnesses saw the entire thing.

On the other hand, Suzune saw this as an opportunity right away. "If that's the case, then it's someone who is either from our class or another. Who do you think it was, Miyake-kun?" Suzune asked, now shifting her focus on this new knowledge so she could capitalize on it.

"I don't know. I think you're right in thinking that it could be one of our classmates or someone from another class, though," he responded.

Haruka, Kei, and Kayano all breathed out a collective sigh of relief. They felt immensely relieved that the 'witness' that Akito was referring to could be one of their own classmates. Even if it wasn't, they were just glad that there was someone who might have seen the whole thing and therefore, it's possible for the truth to come into light.

Suzune nodded slowly as she took in this information carefully. "Then right now, we have two ways of proving your innocence, Miyake-kun. The first way, like what Kushida-san said earlier, is to find the culprits from Class C and get them to admit that they were the ones who instigated the entire conflict. Since you weren't at fault, they have to acknowledge that."

Their first option was an absurdly idealistic solution.

"I agree with Sudo. There's no chance of that happening. They won't admit that they're the ones who started it," Akito said, shaking his head.

Kiyotaka retreated into his thoughts for a brief moment."It still doesn't answer why they're doing this, though. What could be their reason for putting the blame on Miyake? Is it to drag our class down the rankings because we're catching up to their class?"

Suzune nodded in agreement after hearing Akito's words. "I agree. Which is why we have the other option. The other idea is to find the eyewitness you're talking about, Miyake-kun. You spoke of two possible witnesses, which means that we can approach two people about this matter. If someone happened to see the fight, then we should be able to get to the heart of the matter."

Almost everyone nodded after Suzune's words. This was likely the only good plan of action that they had.

"So, how do we look for this eyewitness?" asked Kayano.

"We could ask people one by one, or we could ask our class as a whole if the witness we're looking for is one of them," Kushida suggested with a cheerful look on her face. "If she's not part of our class, then we can ask other classes."

"It would be great if someone just stepped forward, but..."

"But that would mean everybody in our class will know about Miyake-kun and what happened to him," Kei pointed out while folding her arms across her chest. She had her doubts about telling their classmates everything that they talked about in this room.

What if they don't trust Akito and they turn against him...?

Kikyo continued to smile despite that outcome. "That's fine. We'll just tell them that Miyake-kun did nothing wrong and he's being framed for something he didn't do!"

"Uh, this might sound kind of stupid, but... can you guys not tell anyone about this?" Akito asked them with a conflicted look on his face. It's like he didn't know whether he was fine with most of his classmates knowing about his situation or not...

"H-Huh? You don't want us to tell anyone?" Kushida asked, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"It's not because I don't want anyone to know. I just don't want our classmates to get involved," he admitted with a sigh. "Plus, what if I fail to prove that I'm innocent and our class gets punished? I can tell that everyone will hate me if that happens and I don't want to be the cause of our class falling apart."

Kiyotaka stared at him in deep thought. "Even if word didn't get out, it's impossible for this issue to stay contained between us. If other students or worse, teachers find out that Miyake 'started' a fight, our class will definitely receive the punishment and we'd likely end up losing points in the process."

"But won't the students in Class C talk about how you 'beat them up' and started a fight? That would work in their favor and students from other classes might believe them too," Kei asked, which made Akito flinch for a moment because he didn't think about that possibility.

"That's exactly what I was thinking. It wouldn't be strange for them to talk about it amongst themselves and let other classes and teachers hear about it on purpose."

Akito didn't say anything, but his gaze was drawn to the floor now as he didn't know what to do. On one hand, he didn't want anyone else to know because it might cause conflict within their classroom and on the other, it would be a worse scenario if their classmates found out about the incident from other classes, which was a completely twisted version of the incident.

"What if word already got out?" asked Onodera as she began to fear the worst.

"No, at this stage it's probably only being discussed by the school and the people involved," Kiyotaka explained, choosing to speak up this time before his classmates panic.

"Really?" asked Miyake, looking up to face his classmate for some confirmation.

The young man nodded, as everyone turned towards him. "If those students in Class C had intended to spread rumors, we probably would've heard about it already by now. Instead, they approached the teachers about the issue before anyone else."

"I agree with Ayanokouji-kun. They chose to report to the teachers and the school instead of spreading rumors. While it has given us a time limit in our search for evidence that can help Miyake-kun, we can at least be reassured that the culprits will not make up any rumors about the incident."

"So you think we're safe for now, Horikita-san?" asked Kikyo, not really convinced that they were in the clear.

Kiyotaka didn't answer her, but he didn't believe that they were safe. There's a chance that tomorrow morning, Chabashira-sensei could reveal to everyone that Miyake had gotten himself involved in an incident, should their classmates ask about why they haven't received their allotted points for this month. And then from there, everyone will start to question Miyake and, at worst, turn on him for getting their class in trouble.

Right now, their best option truly was to find those witnesses and—

"We split into groups of two," Haruka spoke for the first time ever since Akito brought up the possibility of there being a witness to the whole incident, which drew everyone's gazes towards her. "We find the person who saw the whole incident and get her to testify for Miyacchi next week. We can't waste time, so we have to start as soon as possible."

"A sound plan, Hasebe-san. I support your idea," Horikita acknowledged her with a nod, before turning to everyone else. "Is everyone else fine with this?"

"Works for me! As long as me and Sudo-kun get to team up in looking for our witness," Kayano exclaimed, as she threw her arm around Ken's neck and pulled him close to her.

"I'll roll with it. I just wish I knew who it was that attacked Miyake so I can give them a piece of my mind... seriously, beating up another student and then getting themselves injured so they can blame the one they attacked? Pathetic," the red-haired athlete grumbled, still visibly angry about this whole matter.

"If this succeeds, then there won't be any need to know who exactly are the perpetrators until the actual hearing. As long as we ensure that our eyewitness managed to see the incident from the start, then we have a good chance of proving Miyake-kun's innocence."

While Suzune explained to Ken that there is no need for him to lose his cool, Haruka walked up towards Kiyotaka, causing him to raise an eyebrow slightly at her.

"Ayanokouji-kun, I need you for this. I know we're not close friends or anything, but will you help me look for the person who can help us prove Miyacchi's innocence?" she asked him with pleading eyes.

He stared at her in confusion, wondering why she was trying to ask for his help and not anyone else's. Because of this, Kiyotaka wanted to ask her why she was asking him specifically out of the people here, but thought better about it.

This is obviously another product of the system trying to push him to raise more Affection Points with Haruka... and now he was wondering if the incident that happened to Miyake was also a product of the system's meddling with reality. This was part of a 'special event', after all. If it's true, then this eroge system just gave him another reason not to go against it...

With that in mind, he cleared his throat and prepared to give his answer to her. He just hoped that his other heroines wouldn't take this the wrong way, but he doubted it.

"You can count on me, Hasebe," he nodded.

Kiyotaka could hear the sigh of relief that came out of Haruka afterwards and for some reason, it made him strangely relieved as well.

"Thank you, Ayanokouji-kun. Really..." she whispered just loud enough for him to hear, and Kiyotaka even noticed a little tear

[You gained 20 Affection Points with Hasebe Haruka!]

[You lessened a Heroine's doubts regarding you! You gained +5 in Aura!]

"Doubts?" he asked himself upon seeing the two new notifications that appeared, before remembering her 'heroine summary' that he saw earlier. "Oh yeah, she didn't want to be near me at first because she thinks I play with other girls' feelings. I guess this is the system's plan of getting her to fall for me?"

While Kiyotaka was left unbothered in his own thoughts, Kikyo turned to Akito who had only been staring at Haruka after she stated her 'plan' earlier. "Miyake-kun, I think it would be better if you keep your head down and don't do anything that'll attract any attention."

"Yeah. It wouldn't be good if you tried anything, especially since you seem to be on thin ice with Chabashira-sensei right now," Kei added, agreeing with Kushida's judgment.

Akito didn't look pleased with that arrangement, knowing what it meant. "Hang on, I can't just let you guys do this on your own. At least let me help—"

"You don't have to do anything, Miyacchi. Just keep yourself out of any trouble. I don't know how much we can do, but we'll try our best," Haruka told him as if she was trying to say that everything will be fine.

Akito turned to Haruka with a conflicted look, listening to her every word but unsure if he was fine with being completely helpless in his own situation. He felt that he shouldn't be sitting around, doing nothing while his classmates were doing all of these things for him.

"Leave it to us, man. We'll prove you did nothing wrong," Sudo gave him a nod as a way of reassuring his classmate.

The magenta-haired boy gritted his teeth and was left quiet for a few moments, before sighing in defeat. As much as he hated the thought of not doing anything while these people were doing everything they can to help him, he understood that he couldn't act rash and he had to be careful from here going forward.

"All right. I hate being useless, but I'll leave this whole thing to you."