They now stood around the meeting table, it was only four of them left in the room and Tech Tube's mocking laughter could be heard echoing all over the ship's speakers.

"AHAHAHAHA! What a performance!" Tech Tube's voice rang out with sadistic glee. "However, I must inform you all… among the four of you remaining in this room, there are now TWO Crewmates and TWO Impostors!"

Shion's breath hitched in her throat and the realization hit like ice water.

"The next round will start in one minute!" Tech Tube announced cheerfully. "Good luck~!"

Shion's mind raced frantically.

'There's now an equal amount of Impostors and Crewmates,' Shion thought, her hands gripping the edge of the table. 'So they should be easier to pick out, right?'

But no. It was not easy… It was not easy at all.

Yes, her suspicion that Yoru had been an Impostor was correct… they'd caught her red-handed killing Ichinose but the same fundamental issue remained.

She couldn't vote out Ryouma. Or maybe she could if the remaining Impostor wanted to eliminate him for the bonus class points, but that led to the bigger question.

'Who exactly is the Impostor?' Shion thought desperately. It would be between Koya and Miyuki.

On one hand, Koya had not only not killed her yet, but he had also directly led to the death of Yoru by setting up that perfect trap with Ichinose. That suggested he was on the Crewmate side but Miyuki, on the other hand, hadn't left Shion's sight since the beginning and had always stuck close with her for the entirety of the game.

They'd been together constantly, which made Miyuki seem trustworthy. Which meant...

'Koya is the Impostor.' Shion finished the thought with a trembling realization. Her chest tightened painfully.

'So all those smiles that he gave me...' Shion thought as her hand trembled in place where it rested on the table. 'All of it had been faked.'

Every conversation… Every moment where he'd seemed genuinely concerned for her safety and every time he'd positioned himself as their protector by going into an unknown room first… it had all lies.

All calculated manipulation designed to keep her trust while he systematically eliminated everyone around her.

It made her chest hurt in a bitter ache of betrayal that felt far more personal than it should have in what was supposed to be just a game but she clenched her fist and forced herself to think rationally.

'If I was the Impostor, I would do the same,' Shion reminded herself firmly. 'So I can't blame him, this is the game… this is what we signed up for and deception is literally the point.'

She took a steadying breath.

'I can be upset about it later…' Shion thought. 'Right now, I need to survive.'

Now that Shion gave it more thought, Koya would probably go ahead and kill Ryouma first once this round started… eliminating his competition for those five bonus class points then he would come for one of them to finish the round and win.

So the plan was simple: Hide.

They would hide out in one of the nearby rooms… the Medical Bay would work perfectly and from there, Shion would watch him through her cameras with her Scientist class ability.

Once she witnessed Koya killing Ryouma on camera or after some minutes, they would run to the emergency meeting button and vote him out before he could get to them.

It was a solid plan.

Koya looked over at Shion and smiled… that same warm, trustworthy smile he'd been giving her throughout the entire game.

"Are you ready to catch the Impostors?" Koya asked. Shion nodded at him while forcing a smile onto her face, hiding the turmoil beneath.

"I'm ready." Shion said, keeping her voice steady then Tech Tube's voice rang out again.

"The round is starting now!"

Koya stretched slightly.

"I'll continue checking out the Weapons Room…" Koya said casually. "See if there's anything useful there."

"We'll be at the cameras," Shion replied quickly, gesturing to Miyuki. Immediately, everyone split up and headed to different parts of the ship.

Shion walked quickly through the corridors with her heart pounding. Miyuki followed close behind looking confused but trusting.

The door to the Medical Bay slid open with a soft hiss as Shion pulled Miyuki inside by the wrist. She would have chosen the Administration Room, but that location was too obvious and too easy for someone to find them.

"What's wrong?" Miyuki asked nervously as the door closed behind them. Shion raised her hand to her lips.

"Shhh…" Shion whispered urgently.

She led Miyuki behind the large medical scanning machine in the corner of the room which was a bulky piece of equipment that nobody had used during the entire game. It provided perfect cover, hiding them from view of the doorway.

Miyuki's eyes were wide with confusion and fear. Shion leaned in close and whispered directly into Miyuki's ear.

"Koya is an Impostor…" Shion said quietly and Miyuki's eyes trembled with her breath catching.

"We're hiding here just in case one of the Impostors is looking for us," Shion continued in the same hushed tone. "We're the only Crewmates remaining. If he finds us, we're dead."

Miyuki nodded slowly with dread written across her face. Shion pulled up her Scientist interface… the camera system that allowed her to view any camera feed on the ship remotely.

"We're going to watch through my cameras," Shion explained. "And once one of the Impostors dies, once Koya kills Ryouma we run immediately to trigger an Emergency Meeting and vote out the Impostor before he can get to us or we wait about fifteen minutes at the very most."

Miyuki nodded again, understanding the plan. With that, Shion activated the camera feeds, and they waited in tense silence.

The woman had a plan, and she was going to execute it perfectly.

...

'I need a kill.'

That was what Ryouma thought as he made a beeline for the Camera Room, consulting his Impostor map that showed him where all the rooms were located throughout the ship.

He had been idle as an Impostor for most of the game… mostly because the people he'd wanted to kill off, like Hiroto and Koji, had already been targeted and eliminated by Yoru.

Ryouma had known that Yoru was the Shapeshifter from the very beginning. It was obvious once you knew what to look for and Koya? Koya had also been passive, playing the long game then he'd eliminated Yoru with that brilliant trap.

'As expected of a humble man such as himself…' Ryouma thought with grudging respect.

Now it was time for Ryouma to take matters into his own hands. He would kill one of the Crewmates and end everything so they could finally get out of this damned simulation.

'And then I can challenge Koya properly,' Ryouma thought with anticipation. 'A real fight, not this political game.'

He hadn't gotten a chance to face Koya in combat after the incident that had happened back at Familiar Isl—

Ryouma was almost to the Camera Room when movement caught his eye. To his left was an open hallway, and through that hallway, he could see someone running past… a flash of blue hair and the white armor they wore.

Miyuki.

'Oh, she wasn't in cams?' Ryouma thought with surprise. That was perfect… An isolated target.

Ryouma took a sharp swerve into the hallway and sprinted after her. He arrived at the intersection where Miyuki had run past, and he could see her turning into another corridor… just a glimpse of her blue hair trailing behind and the heavy sounds of her panicked breathing.

She'd seen him and she was running.

He summoned his Impostor Knife in a blur of crimson light as he ran with the wicked blade materializing in his hand.

"Get over here!" Ryouma yelled, his voice echoing through the metal corridors. He swerved into the next hallway at full speed and there she was.

Miyuki was standing in the middle of the corridor with her back to him as her shoulders were rising and falling with heavy breaths.

'Got you,' Ryouma thought triumphantly, raising his knife for the killing blow but then, in a flash of red light, "Miyuki" turned around.

She was holding a knife too… an Impostor knife and Ryouma's eyes widened in shock.

'Wha…?!'

Before the crimson-haired noble could react and before he could even process what was happening, "Miyuki" moved with inhuman speed. The knife drove forward and punched straight through Ryouma's left eye.

SQUELCH!

The blade penetrated the eyeball with a wet, sickening sound with fluid bursting from the punctured orb as the steel drove deeper, through the orbital socket, through bone, and directly into his brain.

Ryouma's scream died in his throat before it could even form.

"Miyuki" twisted the knife viciously and slammed Ryouma's body downward with brutal force.

CRACK!

His skull hit the metal floor with bone-breaking impact, the embedded knife driving even deeper into his head. The back of his skull cracked against the floor and a spiderweb of fractures spreading across the bone.

All the breath exploded from Ryouma's lungs in a single violent exhalation.

Blood sprayed outward in a wide arc, splashing across the walls and floor. It poured from the ruined eye socket where the knife was still embedded, mixing with the clear vitreous fluid from his destroyed eyeball.

More blood leaked from his nose, his ears, pooling beneath his head in an expanding crimson lake. The life in Ryouma's remaining eye… the intact one flickered once then it went glassy and vacant.

He was dead.

"Miyuki" stood up slowly, pulling the knife free from Ryouma's skull with another wet squelch then she looked up directly at the camera mounted in the corner of the hallway and smiled.

Koya… still wearing Miyuki's face gave a small wave to the camera with his bloody knife before turning and running back the way he'd come.

...

Back in the Medical Bay, Shion pulled up from behind the scanning machine with a horrified look on her face, her hand clamped over her mouth to suppress a scream.

She'd watched the entire thing on her camera feed and she'd seen "Miyuki" kill Ryouma which meant it wasn't Miyuki at all.

It was Koya using his Shapeshifter ability.

"We need to go!" Shion whispered urgently to the real Miyuki beside her. "Now! We have to get to the emergency button before he finds us!"

Miyuki nodded frantically as her face turned pale with terror and the two girls burst out of the Medical Bay and began running through the corridors.

It was a straight shot to the Meeting Room from here… just one long hallway with no turns or complications.

Their footsteps echoed loudly on the metal floor as they sprinted. Shion could see the Meeting Room entrance ahead, the door was already open and the red emergency button glowing invitingly on the table inside.

They were going to make it… They were going to win…

But then, from the opposite entrance to the Meeting Room… the doorway on the far side of the table, Shion saw movement.

Koya, still wearing Miyuki's face, stepped into view.

'You're too late…' Shion thought with fierce determination.

She was already closer to the button and she had the advantage. Once she pressed it, an Emergency Meeting would start immediately, and she and the real Miyuki would vote him out two-to-one.

It was game over and a victory for Class 2.

'Perhaps in a perfect world, all three of us could have been Crewmates and won the game together…' Shion thought with a pang of sadness even as she ran. 'I would have really liked that.'

She was ten feet from the button… Five feet… Her hand stretched out toward it.

But then, right in front of her eyes, Koya's form shimmered and changed as the Miyuki disguise vanished, revealing Koya's true appearance.

He discarded the knife, letting it clatter to the floor and immediately, a red glow surrounded his hand as something new materialized… A shotgun.

One of the weapons from the Weapons Room.

In that single, crystalline moment of realization, Shion understood… the weapons in the Weapons Room had been meant for Impostors to use all along.

Her hand was above the emergency button with her fingers inches from pressing it and ending the game but Koya raised the shotgun and aimed it directly at her head.

Their eyes met for one brief instant then he pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

The shotgun blast was deafening in the enclosed space and the spread of pellets hit Shion's head at point-blank range as her skull exploded.

It didn't just break or crack… it detonated like an overripe fruit with fragments of bone and brain matter spraying outward in a grotesque fan. Her face disappeared entirely, replaced by a gaping crater of mangled flesh and shattered skull fragments. Blood, gray matter, and chunks of bone splattered across the meeting table… the walls and even the ceiling.

Her body remained upright for one impossible second, held up by momentum and dying nerves and her hand came down on the emergency button.

CLICK!

But it was too late… As soon as Shion's head had exploded, the button had deactivated as the game had ended.

Her corpse slumped forward onto the table with blood pouring from the destroyed remnants of her head, soaking into her suit and pooling across the metal surface.

Miyuki stood frozen behind her, splattered with Shion's blood, her mouth open in a silent scream of absolute horror.

Tech Tube's voice rang out cheerfully.

"GAME OVER! IMPOSTOR KOYA HAS WON!"

Immediately, everything began vanishing into pixels… Shion's corpse dissolved… Miyuki disappeared… The meeting table, the walls, the entire ship… everything crumbled into digital fragments that floated upward and dissipated like smoke.

Koya stood alone in the dissolving world, still holding the shotgun, as reality turned black around him.

...

[REAL WORLD - PROFESSOR OBSERVATION ROOM]

In the meeting room where professors had been observing the students' performances, another one of the large screens turned off with a soft beep.

Tech Tube's physical avatar adjusted his tie as he turned back to face the assembled faculty.

"Well, well!" Tech Tube said brightly. "Most of the mid-terms are over! And anyone who is still in their game by now is quite dumb, honestly. They should have figured out the optimal strategies by this point."

He smiled.

"So!" Tech Tube continued. "Do we have a vote for the best Impostor in 'Impostors Among Us'?"

One of the female professors… Fujimoto Haruka, a stern-looking woman with sharp features and dark hair pulled into a tight bun spoke up immediately.

"I still believe that Misora Tachibana from Class 5 was the superior Impostor…" Professor Fujimoto said firmly. "Her kill efficiency was unmatched… seven eliminations with zero suspicion until the final round and Itsuki from Class 1 displayed remarkable strategic thinking with his alliance-building tactics."

Another professor, an older man with gray hair nodded in agreement.

"Agreed. And Itsuki from Class 1 displayed remarkable strategic thinking," the professor added. "He managed to convince three Crewmates to work with him as an Impostor by convincing them he had a 'special win condition.' The psychological manipulation was extraordinary."

A third professor chimed in.

"Misora's kill count alone should qualify her…" the woman said. "Numbers don't lie."

Tech Tube turned his gaze toward Professor Fujimoto.

"You're not wrong," Tech Tube acknowledged. "Both Misora and Itsuki were excellent Impostors. Very skilled and very efficient."

He paused.

"But let me ask you something," Tech Tube said. "What is an Impostor, fundamentally? What makes them dangerous?"

Silence fell over the room as the professors considered the question.

"An Impostor is dangerous…" Tech Tube continued, "because you cannot tell them apart from a Crewmate until the very last moment. That's the entire point. The perfect Impostor doesn't LOOK like a threat. They blend in. They earn trust and they make everyone believe they're on the same side."

He gestured toward the now-dark screen where Koya's game had been displayed.

"That is what the other candidates lacked," Tech Tube said firmly. "Misora and Itsuki were good… very good at killing and manipulating but Amagi Koya made EVERYONE believe he was a Crewmate right up until he betrayed them. He played the long game. He sacrificed short-term kills for long-term positioning. He turned his fellow Impostor into a scapegoat and used a Crewmate's willing sacrifice to eliminate his competition."

Tech Tube's voice took on an almost admiring tone.

"And not only that," Tech Tube added, "he was the ONLY Impostor in the entirety of ALI who discovered that the weapons in the Weapons Room could be equipped and used. That level of exploration and creative thinking is exactly what we're looking for."

There was a long silence then Sakura, the blonde-haired History professor with striking purple eyes nodded slowly.

"I'll nominate Amagi Koya as the best Impostor…" Sakura said clearly.

Professor Saki spoke up as well.

"I'm nominating him as well…" Professor Saki said. "Tech Tube makes excellent points about the nature of deception."

One by one, the other professors began voicing their agreement.

"Koya gets my vote."

"Agreed, his performance was exceptional."

"The psychological manipulation was masterful."

Even Professor Fujimoto, who had initially argued against him, finally raised her hand.

"Very well," Professor Fujimoto said. "I concede… Amagi Koya demonstrated superior Impostor qualities."

Tech Tube's face formed a wide grin.

"It's official then!" Tech Tube announced. "Amagi Koya is the best Impostor of the mid-terms and will be awarded his prizes accordingly!"

The professors began filing out of the observation room, discussing the results and preparing to review other student performances but Sakura remained seated, ignoring the conversations happening around her, her purple eyes fixed on the now-dark screen where Koya's face had last been visible.

She was tired of waiting… She was tired of observing from a distance, watching him through cameras like some kind of voyeur.

Right now, all she wanted… the closest way she could think of to finally interact with Koya personally, to get close to him to start her mission was simple.

'I just have to kidnap him.'