Ah, poor Kanzaki. You had your moment. Time to step aside.
When the year began, I was so excited to go to this school. The school for the leaders of the future. 100% employment rate. Everything was perfect. And then, it only got better.
Ayanokouji cracked the system on the first day. I don't know how he did it, and I know that no one was close to figuring it out as fast as he did.
Then this school stopped being a means to an end. It became fun.
To compete with other classes, to clash and fight for the top spot. It was exciting. I was excited. I had a good class, in Class B. We had good leaders, with Kanzaki and Ichinose leading us. Ryuuen tried to mess with us, but we brushed off even that.
And then the Island happened.
We won, but at a great cost.
To be fair, I hadn't liked the decision to let Kaneda stay. It was clearly suspicious, and Kanzaki thought the same, but Ichinose was too kind. She didn't trust him, that was obvious in her efforts to keep him away from the card reader, but just letting him stay was a mistake.
And most of the class agreed with her, nearly causing our doom.
Except at the end of the day, Kanzaki is at the most fault.
The two of them were co-leaders. And yet, he allowed Ayanokouji to split them, to divide the class. A stupid, simple tactic, and it worked because Kanzaki got distracted with winning, and fed up with Ichinose's kindness, the thing that had united the class in the first place.
I was content taking a back seat. Out of our class I knew I was one of the more competent students, but up until then, I was confident in our class and our leaders.
I certainly wasn't expecting Kanzaki to fall victim to such an easy bait.
But in the end it worked, and our class split in two. Those who supported Ichinose and those who supported Kanzaki.
All of them were idiots.
Neither Ichinose nor Kanzaki were right. They had both made mistakes. Ichinose was too trusting. She couldn't be a leader. She was smart, and could unite our class easily, but I didn't think she could make the tough decisions, do the things that needed to be done.
Kanzaki could, but in the opposite sense he didn't understand people well enough. I think he admired Class C a little, simply because of how efficient it was. He was smart, and he could lead us to victory, but he wanted to be followed and obeyed. His inability to work with people was displayed when Ayanokouji put it to the test.
The first thing he should have done was go to Ichinose. Work together. But instead, his pride took a hit, as it was insinuated that because he worked with Ichinose, her failings were his, and so he stood alone. Kanzaki couldn't unite the class.
In the end there was no option. I guess I get to play in the end after all.
I'm not as smart as Kanzaki, I know that. I'm not even close to Ayanokouji, Sakayanagi, Katsuragi and the other leaders. But I was different. Unpredictable. I was lovable, and could have the class back me up, and still do weird, different things. That creativity was something no one else in our class had. I had to be the X-factor for us because there was no one else who could.
There began my partnership. Not with Ichinose, but with my secret conspirator.
Himeno Yuki.
Out of everyone in the class, she was the person I felt matched my sentiments the most. She hid them well, but it was clear as day to someone who thought the same way that she wasn't satisfied. Even winning 180 points, the damage caused to our class with bad leadership wasn't good enough.
Occam's razor, right? If everyone is focusing on me, they won't even think to look for a secret partner, especially when I present Ichinose as that person.
Himeno can help from the side, and together we can lead Class B.
Ichinose wasn't suited to be a leader. She couldn't make the tough choices. But she could back me up, get the class to unite. That was why Ayanokouji had targeted us first, had done his best to split us apart. Because if we were united, it was that much harder to stop us.
Every other class employed subterfuge, secrecy, sabotage. That was their strength, and it didn't work against a truly united class. In that case it came down to a contest of skill, and then we stood a much better chance of winning.
It hadn't been hard to convince Ichinose to betray our class. She was in a poor spot emotionally, and while it left a bad taste in my mouth to do so, it made my attempts to get her on my side that much easier.
Preying on the broken, huh. That's what I had come to.
But we couldn't afford to lose.
Out of everyone there was, I was naturally the most cautious of Ayanokouji. He was an unknown factor. The only thing I knew about him was that he cared about winning exams, and even then, only to a certain extent. If he really wanted to be class A, it was possible for him to have earned an extra couple hundred points in the zodiac exam, yet he chose not to.
I had no idea what made him tick, and that made him dangerous.
It was a risky move, sacking this exam. It could potentially backfire very severely, but I was confident enough that Ayanokouji would match our stipulation and cause Class A to come last. There was no contract, so there was no guarantee, but it was logical to target them. According to the school, they were the most capable class, and dragging them down as much as possible was the smartest choice for a reasonable human.
We couldn't get Kanzaki out yet. It was too hard to claim the exam was his fault, without revealing that one of our VIP's was leaked. He would obviously figure that out, as it was the only explanation for how Ayanokouji figured out the pattern, but most of the class would remain in the dark.
All this did was shake their already flimsy faith in Kanzaki. One more slip-up and he would fall.
Once again, it was a fine line to walk. Push too much, and the entire class would come crumbling down. Not enough, and we would lose but not take over leadership.
Kanzaki was a problem. He was smart enough to take the leadership of the class, competent enough that most of our classmates supported his leadership, but weak enough that we'd never reach Class A with him in charge. That was a guarantee.
I was under no illusions that I could easily bring us there. But the three of us were the best chance Class B had.
Anyway, things had worked out. When we got back to school, we'd be Class A. Already, one semester in, and we'd reached our goal. All I had to do was hold us here. That was a much more difficult task than it sounded.
We also had a favour from Ayanokouji, to cash in at any time. There was no binding stipulation on how to use it, but I didn't think he'd back out, even if we used it to beat his own class. That would be a stupid move. Even if it worked out, he'd decide to stomp us down himself after that.
I didn't want the Kanzaki treatment, after all.
I could tell Ichinose was still conflicted. She wanted to protect her classmates. At the start of the year, she had been so keen, so excited, ready for the competition, and back then I had believed in her. But then something changed, and the fine balance she walked between wanting to fight, and the kind caring girl was snapped.
It was around the time that Komiya got expelled.
And so, Ichinose was broken somewhat, and it was clear as day. The previous fire she had was gone, at least a bit, as she curled up defensively. I had even been afraid at one point that she'd sacrifice any chance we had of winning just to protect even one person. For a leader, that simply wouldn't do.
I'm sorry Ichinose, but you're just as bad as Kanzaki as being the leader. And now I had to force her to break her comfort zone, to sabotage the class. Luckily it reignited her flame. Ichinose was back, as the uniter of the class, ready to help me lead them. Already she'd changed so much, and I couldn't wait to see what she became.
Ah, this was going to be fun. It didn't even matter if we got crushed this year, not really. Class D had proven it was possible to come back from the depths of hell, so even if I played around too much, I didn't mind.
Where's the fun in trying too hard anyway?
This school is a competition. People like Katsuragi are fighting with all they've got. Boooring. You need to live a little. Take a risk. Make a deal with the devil. Sacrifice everything, for a chance to win.
Besides, who wouldn't want to fight against Ryuuen. He's kinda cute when you think about it.
Authors Notes:
So, most significant part of this is probably the mention of Himeno. If you don't know who that is, i don't blame you. She's only mentioned once that I can remember, and it was in Y2V4.5. I know that there are some psychopaths who skip the .5 volumes for whatever reason, so there.
I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with her yet. It was a spur of the moment idea to mention her here, but it gives some more flexibility. In the books, Class B is in my opinion the least developed, or at least close to Class A. We really don't know much about either of them, since the first seven books focused almost exclusively on C and D, so I've got a pretty decent amount of room to work.
On an unrelated note, I got to see Aria of a Starless Night yesterday. Pretty decent movie, good adaptation of the first progressive book. Unfortunately, I now have an undeniable urge to reread all the progressive books, and consume SAO fanfictions that i long ago forced myself to stop reading. It's gonna be fun to balance that and writing this.
As always, hope you enjoyed!