Unveiling the Mastermind - Classroom of the Elite Reaction

Chapter Six - Saving Sudo

"Yes, I recognize that. You all did very well. However—"

Chabashira-sensei held a red pen in her hand.

Sudou unintentionally let out a "Huh?"

She drew a red line right above Sudou's name.

"Wh-what is that? What does that mean?"

"You failed, Sudou."

"Wait, after all that celebrating, you actually failed?" Ryuen laughed, louder this time, "I am quite interested in how you are still here though,"

Saying that, he subtly threw a look in my direction. I don't think I could really call it a good deduction as he seemed to think I was behind everything that happened in my class.

"Horikita-san saved him, I remember this!" Ike shouted. He had seemingly gotten over the verbal assault he had received due to the last video.

"Suzune, eh? We'll see..."

Let's skip the teacher's reasoning for the passing grade, seeing as you should all know it by now. Just know that Sudo was a single point off of passing the exam.

"A single point? That must have sucked!" Hashimoto laughed.

"Maybe they gave him a pass because it was the first exam and he was that close?" Shibata suggested.

"Do you really think this school would take pity on someone like that, Shibata?" Kanzaki argued.

"I feel like it would feel even worse to fail like that than if you were to score zero," Amikura said.

If he had scored zero, then even if I would have included the entire class in my plan to save him, we still wouldn't have had enough points.

"I must say, this has piqued my interest. What method did they use to revoke the expulsion, I wonder?" Sakayanagi mused.

"How would you have done it, Sakayanagi?" Katsuragi asked.

"Me? I would have let the failure fail. Then, I could have confirmed the penalties for expulsion from an early stage,"

"What? You'd let a classmate get expelled just to test something like that?" Sato asked, perplexed.

"Absolutely. Though perhaps in Sudo-kun's case, I would have kept him around. He certainly has some uses," Sakayanagi changed her mind.

"How would you have done that then, Sakayanagi-san?" Ichinose repeated the question.

"Hm, I can think of a couple of ideas. But I think we are about to see the best option right now so I wouldn't want to spoil anything," she grinned as she said this.

"I didn't know you were so confident in Suzune's ability, Sakayanagi," Ryuen said.

Sakayanagi didn't respond but wore her trademark smile that seemed both cruel and playful.

Chabashira-sensei had heartlessly announced Sudou's expulsion without offering him a second chance or the faintest bit of sympathy. Ike and Yamauchi, knowing that words of comfort would probably have the opposite effect, stayed silent. Hirata remained quiet, too. Sadly, some of the students appeared relieved by this. Were they happy that a nuisance like Sudou was being removed from the class?

"I guess I can kind of understand why, but he was your own classmate, shouldn't you at least try and help him," Ichinose said with a sad expression.

Those that had shown relief at Sudo's expulsion either ignored her or wore a regretful look. Not only had they gotten to know Sudo better during the past year, but also saw how the class had benefited from his presence. Of course, their reactions to his expulsion were understandable and, going solely from his behaviour, I couldn't fault them for it.