Mashiro, at Miyoshi's suggestion, sends an email to Azuki to begin correspondence with her. During the first day of high school, Mashiro and Takagi submit their new pseudonym, "Muto Ashirogi". Hattori is impressed with their work, but Mashiro notices that he is not expecting Money and Intelligence to be serialized, wondering if it is because of his desire that they wait until after high school to get serialized. Money And Intelligence gets first place in the early results of the NEXT polls, but drops to third place in the actual results, with Nizuma's work getting half the votes. This development convinces Mashiro and Takagi that they must make a mainstream work to go for first place, and resolve to make one better than their previous efforts.