During break time, three unexpected visitors came to E Class.
Approaching Matsushita and Sakigamiya were three A Class students: the two student representatives, Ryouta Hane and Senzaki Kanami, as well as Shimada Kuroshi.
I had no idea why these three were together. It was an extremely unusual combination, as Ryouta and Senzaki were both outstanding model students whereas Shimada was a massive problem child. It was almost like they were babysitting him...
"Yoo-hoo, Matsushita-san, Sakigamiya-san!"
The eccentric Senzaki stretched her arm into the air and waved brightly at the two of them. Ryouta had a pleasant smile on his face, but carried an intense aura. It was like he was elevated by an air of pressure, looking down at the rest of us like royalty.
"Hey, thanks for letting us in."
Ryouta greeted Matsushita, extending a hand towards him. The two boys shook hands, but it was clear who was superior in this situation just from their body language alone.
"No problem..."
Matsushita easily succumbed to Ryouta's imposing pressure, as he shrunk a bit while awkwardly greeting him. In comparison, Ryouta held a confident posture and kept his head upright, maintaining eye contact with Matsushita.
The intense gaze from Ryouta's eyes were akin to an eagle, scouring his prey and examining them thoroughly with broad vision. It looked like he would pounce at any moment, ready to hunt them down and tear them to pieces.
The least threatening looking person here was Senzaki, due to her cute face and bubbly smile. However, I knew not to underestimate her, since her pressure was just as dark as Shimada's, but seemed to linger more subtly like an electromagnetic field.
Her relaxed gaze was comparable to a raven, small but darting. Her quick scan of the class gave off the impression that she was highly intelligent, extremely perceptive, and incredibly fast at thinking.
Meanwhile Shimada, chugging on a bottle of cola, was acting like his usual scruffy self. Like Ryouta, he exuded an air of pressure, but his was one that struck fear. The casual way he flaunted himself made him seemed completely unfit to be an A Class student.
If anything, Shimada looked like he belonged to our class.
Seeing me sitting at the same table as Matsushita and Sakigamiya, he grinned maliciously.
"Yo, Yuuto."
"...Shimada-san."
Sakigamiya looked at Shimada and shuffled away, keeping her distance from him.
"Oh, do you two know each other?" Senzaki said.
"Me and Yuuto go way back."
Since I didn't want him to mention anything about <that> in front of the others, I was forced to play along. I nodded slightly.
"What do you guys need?"
Sakigamiya, who was conscious of the fact A Class were our enemies in this exam, wasn't so amiable in her greeting. She went straight to questioning why they made the long trip here.
"We were wondering if you guys would help us out."
Sakigamiya raised an eyebrow upon hearing Senzaki's reply.
"Huh? You're joking, right? A Class wants help from us?"
"Not all of A Class, just the three of us. See, Ryouta-san and Shimada-san are having a competition on who can score higher in the Japanese, maths, and science finals."
"So how does this involve us?"
"Because of the test shuffle, your class is making the questions for us, which is a problem. In order to have a serious competition, the exams need to be difficult enough to challenge them, but we're not sure if your class is capable of producing that."
Sakigamiya furrowed her eyebrows, ready to speak out against Senzaki's assumption that we wouldn't be able to make good enough exams, but Matsushita signalled for her to stand down.
This wasn't even a case of us being academically deficit because we were E Class. It was a case of Shimada and Ryouta being that good at academics. In the midterms, they stole 1st and 2nd place respectively.
Regardless of who or which class made the finals, they would probably ace the exams without breaking a sweat.
When dealing with students as powerful as them, having a calm mind was most important. Sakigamiya was quick to make snap judgments, so Matsushita was the better choice here to handle the discussion.
"That's why we came here to propose a deal."
"What is it?"
"I'd like to create the exams that A Class will be taking."
"...huh?"
Matsushita was dumbfounded to response to Senzaki's wild suggestion.
"Think about it! I'm the third best student academically and the mediator of their competition, so I'd be capable of making an exam that's challenging enough for these two to compete in. Obviously, I wouldn't share the exams with anyone in A Class, these two included, and I'd tank my own results as compensation."
"But what do we get out of it?"
"Less work load?"
Senzaki joked, but Matsushita gave her a serious look. Ryouta nodded, as if giving Senzaki permission to tell them their offer.
"Well, we have a couple different options available, but I think this would be the most enticing for your class. How does 100 Cl sound? We'll pay you 50 Cl upfront and the other 50 Cl after the special exam's over."
Matsushita's eyes widened.
"Hang on, where would these Cl come from?"
"Straight from A Class. We'll pay for transfer the Cl too, so you don't have to worry about cost. Alternatively, we can instead offer a small sum of private points to everyone in your class, or a concentrated sum to you two."
The generosity and flexibility of their offer meant that they were serious about making this challenge happen no matter what.
"And if that's not good enough, we'll even pay for your spot in A Class."
Shimada suddenly spat out an irresistible offer to Matsushita and Sakigamiya.
"Hey, that was our trump card! Why'd you tell them so easily?"
"Cuz I wanna get this over with? I'm getting sick of staring at that stinking old goat and baguette on legs."
Shimada crudely compared Matsushita to a goat and Sakigamiya to a baguette. Sakigamiya looked like she wanted to retaliate, but bit her tongue down since the person insulting her was Shimada.
"As a side note, we won't combine any of the offers. We'll only do one of these things. Regardless, you can take your pick. If you think of something else you want, feel free to suggest it."
"...what should we do, Alice-chan?"
"I have no idea... the offer for Cl is tempting. We'd go straight up to 120 Cl without doing anything."
"But at the same time, we'd essentially be giving up on the exam. If we agree, I'm not sure that I trust them enough to not share the exams around to make sure everyone passes."
"I hate to admit this, but do you seriously think A Class would feel the need to sabotage us? No matter what we submit, they'll all pass. We never had a chance to fail any of them from the beginning. Getting 100 Cl is the same as failing two students. That's better than nothing, isn't it?"
"It's better than nothing... but what about all the hard work me, you, and Takanori-san put into the exams we've made? Do you really want to throw it all away?"
"I don't, but we've only done less than a week's worth of stuff. We aren't losing that much. Besides, if we let Senzaki-san handle making it, then we can dissolve the creator group and move to the mentor group to help everyone revise for the exams. Passing is most important, since we'd lose all our Cl from a single failure!"
If even one person failed, we'd plummet straight back down to 0 Cl. If we accepted the 100 Cl offer, we'd have a cushion of Cl to land on in case someone does fail. And if we don't, then we would've increased our Cl by literally doing nothing.
"If it helps you make your decision, I'd only be handling the exams for Japanese, maths, and science. The competition doesn't include English or history, so you guys can still use whatever exams you've made for it." Senzaki said.
"That's even better, since you and Takanori-san were doing history and English! The only exam we'd be trashing is Japanese, and Nora-chan hasn't stared drafting the math exams. Since Ayano-san refused to help us, we don't even have to worry about science. This deal is... really good, you know?"
After considering everything, Sakigamiya decided the benefits outweighed the consequences. While the risk of Senzaki sharing the answers with all of A Class existed, the most they could do was rig the outcome of the special exam by having the best results, earning them 50 Cl.
Assuming that does happen, if we take the 100 Cl deal, they'd still be in a net loss of 50 Cl. They'd have to make up the deficiency by failing B Class students, which didn't sound bad at all.
However, the integrity of the exam would be compromised, which is what Matsushita was mulling over in his head. As he was someone who valued honour and fairness, he still had reservations about accepting despite Sakigamiya being completely on board.
"Don't you think we'll get in trouble if we accept this? If not with the teachers, then the rest of the class. Imagine trying to explain this to everyone... it's needlessly complicated and would plummet class morale."
"How though? Wouldn't everyone be happy that we found a way to gain more Cl?"
"At the expense of A Class looking down on us."
Hearing this, Sakigamiya stiffened. She hadn't considered how accepting this deal would look to others. By accepting the deal, it was an admittance of E Class's weakness and our laziness. It would make our class look like it had given up.
"I'd like to get the class's opinion before we selfishly make a decision. If we said yes now, and explained the situation later to everyone else, there would be obvious questions such as why we did it. And I fear that would actually hurt everyone's spirits."
Matsushita calmly continued to explain his rationale.
"Right now, E Class is the most cohesive it's ever been. We've all finally found a goal to work hard towards. However, that would disappear if we brought up the reasons you used to justify why we accepted. If we told everyone that we stood no chance against A Class, even if true, it would give them no reason to work hard anymore. We'd be destroying their motivation as well as shattering their confidence in us too."
That was true. Matsushita and Sakigamiya would be humiliated as leaders if they took a concession rather than fight back against A Class, who were marginalising us with this proposal.
"Yuuto, what do you think of all this?"
Shimada threw a question my way. I wasn't sure how to answer, since I hadn't formed an opinion yet since I wasn't involved in this situation. However, if I was in Matsushita's and Sakigamiya's situation...
"I'd accept the deal, but change some of the conditions."
Shimada smirked.
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Either who makes the exams or how much you guys pay us."
Matsushita looked at me.
"What do you mean, "who makes the exam"?"
"I'd get someone from a different class to do it. Probably someone from 2-A or 3-A."
"Oh, that's not a bad idea at all." Senzaki grinned.
"Would they be willing to help us out though? I'd imagine they'd be busy with preparing for their exams too..."
Matsushita raised a concern I had too. However, I had a few people in mind on who I could ask for help from, but I wasn't going to reveal that in front of them.
"Who knows. If we ask nicely enough, maybe they will."
"If we make that change, I'd be more willing to accept the deal. It'd sound better if we could tell everyone that we got an A Class senpai to help us make questions."
In that sense, it would seem like we gained a powerful ally, rather than have given up against A Class.
"I don't mind that change either, it'd be less work for us." Senzaki said.
"Then does anyone know who the class representatives of 2-A and 3-A are?"
"In 2-A, it's Oozora Yuudai and Kurosaki Ginko. In 3-A, it's Mikazuchi Kaido and Rossiya Sovetskaya." Ryouta replied.
I was surprised to hear that Kurosaki was the class rep. I thought she wouldn't want to bother with such a position, but considering she wanted to climb to the very top of GEN, to one day discard it all, it made sense why she'd pick up the title. It would help her get there, essentially.
"Didn't you fight Mikazuchi-senpai once, Takanori-san?"
Ryouta turned to me and asked. I nodded.
"I lost though."
"Do you think we could ask him?"
"He'd probably refuse, knowing his personality."
"Isn't his cousin in B Class? Ichinose-san, right?" Sakigamiya said.
"Maybe we could get her to help convince him..." Matsushita stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Shimada smashed his empty bottle on the floor to get everyone's attention.
"How about we ask them instead of sitting on our asses and theorising? I'm getting bored listening to your yapping."
"Hey..."
Matsushita looked at the shattered glass on the floor with disdain.
"Whoops, my hand slipped."
Shimada grinned tauntingly at Matsushita, as if challenging him to say something back.
"I'll clean it up."
To diffuse the situation, Ryouta grabbed a brush and pan from the cupboard and got down to sweep up the glass.
"It's fine, let me handle it. You're the guest."
Matsushita knelt down besides him, taking the pan and brush from him.
"But it's our classmate who made the mess..."
"Hane, just let the goat do it."
Ryouta nodded and got up. It felt like Shimada had control over him, somehow.
"In any case, Shimada-san's right. Talking between the six of us won't go anywhere. Let's see if the upperclassmen are willing to help us out."
"Yeah, that's fine. Which class should we visit then?" Matsushita asked.
"To be honest, I want to visit 3-A. There's a chance we could run into the King!" Ryouta said excitedly.
"That's fine, you guys can take the scary class!"
It felt more like Sakigamiya just didn't want to deal with the stress of meeting someone as powerful as the King for the first time, which is fair.
"Should I come along...?" I asked.
"I mean, getting help from the upperclassman was your idea. I think you should." Senzaki said.
"You don't have to come if you don't want to." Matsushita said.
"...I'll come."
I didn't mind tagging along, it was just I was wary of who was in 2-A. Especially my half-siblings, Ken and Shiori.
"Great, let's meet back here in ten minutes."
I got up from my seat and followed Matsushita and Sakigamiya to 2nd Year A Class.