"What the hell are we supposed to do!?"
"This is bad... this is really, really bad!"
Around that same time, Cyan and the other Hero Candidates had regained consciousness, and the room was a hellish scene of pure pandemonium.
Every single one of them was pale, their faces twisted in despair. The smug confidence they had displayed before the event began had vanished, replaced by a suffocating atmosphere of dread.
Cyan sat hunched over, his leg bouncing in a restless, frantic rhythm. He couldn't stop gnawing at his fingernails as his anxiety reached a breaking point.
Indeed—just as Koumaru and his cohorts were panicking over unexpected obstacles, these men were losing their minds because the scenario had veered completely off script. They had no idea how to proceed.
(How did it end up like this? We didn't even lift a finger to help Ryuga!)
They were supposed to be on the route where they left Ryuga to die, allowing the Security Force to recover the orb later. Instead, he had survived without being killed by Zaraki.
At this stage, Ryuga's death had been avoided, meaning the story was locked into one of two paths: the All-survivor Route or the Warrior Shrine Maiden Departure Route.
Normally, the All-survivor Route culminated in a final showdown against Zaraki, who would be powered up after having the orb containing the sealed Raiha embedded into his body. Naturally, to save Raiha, they would have to defeat the scenario’s boss.
But Cyan and the others had struggled just to handle the Gigantrose minions meant to stall for time. There wasn't a one-in-ten-thousand chance of them defeating a version of Zaraki who possessed strength far beyond that. Even with their game knowledge, the sheer wall of status differences stood immovably in their way.
...Actually, the problem went even deeper than that.
Cyan and the others were painfully aware that they might not even be able to trigger the All-survivor Route in the first place.
"This is a disaster! At this rate...!"
"Ryuga is going to go after Koumaru! If he does that, we'll never be able to save Raiha!"
Entering the route where all five exchange students were saved required one specific condition.
It was Ryuga's Affection Level. If they hadn't raised his Affection Level above a certain threshold before this event triggered, the All-survivor Route would remain closed to them.
If the condition wasn't met, Ryuga would prioritize cold-blooded revenge over saving Raiha, splitting off to hunt Koumaru alone. Should that happen, no attacks would work against Zaraki, and the villain would simply beat the protagonists senseless before fleeing the country.
Proceeding down that route wouldn't result in a Game Over. However, after being humiliated by Zaraki, the star heroines—the Warrior Shrine Maidens—would permanently leave the party. From the perspective of Cyan and his group, this was a route they had to avoid at all costs.
"D-Did any of us actually raise Ryuga's Affection Level...?"
"We didn't earn any points at all! Isn't that obvious!?"
They had intended to let him die from the start, and since they couldn't add Raiha to their harems if they went down the All-survivor Route, no one had bothered to befriend him. There was also the fact that he was always sticking close to Yugo, and after Egos put Yui in danger, it had felt awkward to even try talking to him.
Now, every single one of those decisions had backfired, leaving them in a total deadlock.
"It's because Egos pulled that stunt! He dragged our reputation down with him! It's all that bastard's fault!"
"Dammit! Even after he's gone, he's still screwing us over!"
Cyan and the others, failing to take any personal responsibility, pinned the blame on Egos for the time being—though that didn't actually solve a thing.
As the Hero Candidates spiraled into a mess of panic, irritation, and despair, Cyan stood up and looked around at the group.
"We have no choice but to work together! We can't let Setsuna and the others drop out of the party! You guys, lend me a hand!"
"I don't mind helping, but what's the plan? Even if we all rush him at once, we can't beat Zaraki without Ryuga, right?"
The Hero Candidates, all intimately familiar with the game scenario, nodded in agreement but pressed for details.
Cyan, his eyes bloodshot, gave his fellow reincarnators his answer.
"We don't need Ryuga himself. We just need Ryuo-ga. As long as we have that weapon, we'll have a fighting chance!"
They didn't actually need to bring Ryuga to the battlefield. All they needed was his magic item, the sword Ryuo-ga.
Asserting that the tool was what mattered, not the man, Cyan began laying out his scheme to his comrades.
"Ryuga is going to go after Koumaru. We'll get ahead of him and lie in wait... then we'll jump him all at once and take the katana. Once we have it, we'll go straight to Zaraki and finish him. How about that!?"
"T-True, that might actually work...!"
"You're right! Even without Ryuga, all we need is a weapon that can damage Zaraki! We might actually pull this off with this secret technique!"
...To be perfectly clear: even if they managed to get their hands on Ryuo-ga, their chances of defeating Zaraki remained at exactly zero.
As previously established, there was an astronomical gap in raw power. Furthermore, even if these men—who spent most of their time trying to sabotage one another—actually tried to cooperate, they were incapable of any real coordination.
Cyan’s proposal was nothing more than a pathetic, desperate struggle. It couldn't even be called a strategy.
The fact that they believed it would work, and that they felt forced to resort to the villainous act of mugging Ryuga for his sword, spoke volumes about the hopeless reality of their situation.
"Alright! Strike while the iron is hot! We're moving out to ambush Ryuga!"
"Yeah!!"
Following Cyan's lead, the Hero Candidates scrambled to execute their plan.
Using their game knowledge to predict Ryuga's path based on Koumaru's destination, they rushed out of the academy, intent on stealing Ryuo-ga for themselves.