Homeroom today was again extremely silent and suffocating. Chabashira-sensei entered the classroom, and stared holes into pretty much everyone sitting on their chairs.
She then spoke up.
"I'm genuinely surprised that everyone in Class D this time was able to pass the Midterm Exams. This is the first time in the history of Class D that there have been no expellees for this long. Congratulations."
The class openly gasped. The cold and rude Chabashira-sensei was actually being nice? Well, I guess no one else in the class has actually seen her softer side. I was a bit privileged when it came to that. She glanced at me once, furtively, and I caught her gaze.
Was she attributing her change in behavior this time to me? Did she, perhaps, change her demeanor because she thought that Class D this time actually might have a chance to ascend into a higher Class?
Is she planning to change her stance because she now knows that I can lead the class to Class A?
"You praising us feels weird," Horikita murmured, but most of the class had caught on to her statement. Everyone else in class seemed to agree as well; after all, everyone in the class is well aware that Chabashira-sensei never ends her speeches on a positive note.
Sensei ignored Horikita's assessment, and slowly walked around the class, as though trying to gauge a reaction out of the students. She stopped in front of Ike's desk.
"Ike, what do you think of this school? Give me your honest opinion."
Ike thought about it for a bit. "Umm, well, I'd say it's a good school. If you score well in your tests you get a lot of money to spend. There's tasty food, individual dorm rooms. You can buy games and stuff. There's movies and karaoke as well. Plus, the girls are cute....."
I don't think the last one has anything to do with the school.
"D-did I say something wrong?" Ike asked fearfully.
"No, not at all. In fact, I would say it is paradise. Even as a teacher, I feel that this school is excessively lavish. It almost defies common sense."
Chabashira-sensei remarked as well, and continued to patrol the class. She stopped in front of Ayanokoji's desk for just a second, but continued without asking him anything.
She then stopped in front of my desk. Of course she would stop in front of my desk. OF COURSE.
"What do you think of this school, Takeyama?" Chabashira-sensei asked me. "Give me an honest opinion."
So she wants an honest opinion?
But I thought she knew what I think of this school as a whole? Why is she trying to get me to express my thoughts in front of the class?
If I lie here, then she'll point it out. I cannot afford to have any of my classmates lose their faith on me.
"I think this school is extremely strange."
Whispers echoed throughout the classroom, and I could see Chabashira-sensei crack an almost invisible smile. But she quickly reverted back to her usual stoic expression.
All the attention on class was on me now.
"Oh? And why is it strange, Takeyama?"
"Isn't it fairly obvious? There's no limit to the amount of freedom we have here in this school. Like Ike said, we can do pretty much everything that is allowed by the law inside this school. It's like a mini-city. But it's the flip side of the same coin. There's how Class D students are treated in this school. Inferior to every other class. On one hand, we have a school that endorses freedom above all values. On the other hand, the school openly discriminates against defective students. It is, in simple words, hypocritical behavior."
"But that's how it is everywhere, is it not? The school prepares you to face the worst."
"Have you ever thought about it from a different perspective, sensei? The so-called 'values' that this school promotes?"
Sensei raised her eyebrows. The class was deathly silent; the only voices were of the 2 of us in a back-and-forth word tumble.
"Different perspective, you say?"
"Yes. It's all about perspective. A thief who steals bread for his family is seen as a nuisance by the shopkeeper, a liability by society. But what is he seen as by the person he feeds? A hero. He's seen as a savior by that person."
".....what are you getting at?"
"I'm saying that the school wants to teach us how real society works. And in my opinion, the only set of students that the school is teaching," I took a slight pause for added effect. "Are students in Class D."
Chabashira-sensei widened her eyes, and could not hide the smirk that arrived on her face in time. The class let out audible gasps, and tried to reconstruct my statements.
"Why do you say so, Keisuke?" Yosuke Hirata asked the question the entire class wanted to ask.
"Think about it this way. What exactly is the school teaching the students in Class A?"
"What the school is teaching students in Class A..... teaching them the importance of being first?" Kushida-san replied uneasily.
"Wrong. The only thing that the school has managed to drill into the heads of these Class A students is that they're the best. The cream of the crop. They're naturally instilling a feeling that all the classes below them are inferior to them. In other words, a mild version of Kouenji's case of narcissism. But for Class D students, this, instead of being turned into hope and despair, gets turned into a competitive fighting spirit. Granted, not all students in the higher ranked classes get influenced by these methods, but it is an undeniable fact that the school encourages us to undermine weaker people."
"What?"
Ike, Yamauchi, Sudo and a select few others mumbled incomprehensively. Looks like they did not get my point. I slowly turned to look at Chabashira-sensei, who had the most amused expression on her bewitching face.
"Marvelous," she muttered under her breath. "I didn't know you had such deep rooted thoughts, Takeyama."
"I just have a lot of free time to think about this stuff, I guess," I said nonchalantly.
"My, my, how utterly convenient of you to use my name as an example," Kouenji said, with his legs propped up on the table. "Looks like my perfect existence has finally been noticed and acknowledged by Handsome-Boy-kun."
I ignored his comment. Kouenji did not seem perturbed anyway, and he continued to do whatever he was doing.
"Wait, what was the point in asking this to us, sensei?" Karuizawa-san asked.
Sensei again did not respond, but continued to stare at me the entire time. It was getting a bit uncomfortable, so I cleared my throat a bit.
She smirked slightly, and proceeded to take centerstage on the podium.
"Next week, in preparation for the Second Semester's Final Exam, there will be a short test with problems from 8 subjects. I'm sure that some of you have already started studying, but I just wanted to remind you."
"Haw!? Another test!?" Yamauchi wailed. "But we just cleared one! Why were we not told of this earlier!"
"Don't sweat it, Yamauchi. There will be 100 questions on the test, for a total of 100 points. However, the questions will be of your third-year junior high level. This test is just to confirm your fundamentals. Furthermore, much like the mock test, it won't reflect on your grades."
The class breathed a sigh of relief. But it was short-lived.
"However, this test will play a major role in your next final exam."
Of course. The school never does anything without a reason. There must be an underlying reason as to why we would suddenly be tested on third year junior high things.
"Let me explain. This next exam will determine certain partners that would pair up for the actual Midterm Tests."
"..... partners?" I murmured under my breath. It seemed no one in the class understood what that meant either.
"Pairs decided based on this test will go on to take the Midterm together. There will be 8 subjects in the Midterms, each worth 100 Points. There are certain possible ways to fail this exam. One, if your pair scores below 60 points collectively in any one subject, then both students in that pair will be expelled."
"I assume that this score is a collective of the students in each pair?" I asked.
"Correct. In other words, the combined score of both students in a pair must be greater than 60. For example, if Ike and Takeyama were to be paired together, and Ike scores 0 points on one subject, both students will pass as long as Takeyama scores above 60 points in that subject."
The class seemed to understand where this was headed. This meant that it would be pretty easy to clear this exam as long as you're paired along with an academically capable student.
But that would become too easy. 60 points is too low of a threshold, considering it's out of 200 Points (because each pair attempts a particular subject twice). There is definitely something else. Another way to fail.
"There is another additional hurdle to overcome. The school has decided that you must secure a certain overall score to avoid failing. Even if you manage to get 60 Points or more in each individual subject, failing to meet the average will result in expulsion. The average has not been decided for sure yet, but it's usually around 800 Points."
800 points is the total score that a pair must cross to avoid this method of expulsion.
To sum it up, 2 students attempt the test together for 1600 Points, and must score at least above 800 points on it. Since each student attempts a total of 8 subjects for 100 Points each, only someone gets full 100's across the board will be able to save their partner from expulsion even if they score 0's across.
But since that is mostly impossible, it would mean that both students in a pair must score some amount of marks to cross the average of 800.
Thinking about it logically, even students like Hirata and Horikita will not be able to score the entire threshold marks alone. You can score only a maximum marks of 800 alone, which is the maximum. Your partner must be willing to score something, otherwise it will be impossible to clear this exam.
"Ahem," Chabashira-sensei cleared her throat. "There's another part of this exam which will challenge you."
Hirata, the class mediator, looked a bit uneasy. "There's another part to it?"
"Yes. First, the school will ask you to concoct your own questions to appear on the final exam day. They'll use the questions you come up with as a question paper for one of the other 3 classes. That means classes will be able to attack one another, so as to speak. The school will compare your overall class's score to the overall score of the class that received your test questions. The class that scores higher will take 50 Class Points from the losing class. Hence, this exam has gained an interesting name — 'Paper Shuffle'."
This exam was getting more and more academic-based as sensei continued to drone on. There was no possible way to actually 'strategize' for this exam — you'll really need to work your ass off if you want to win this exam. Balancing both the creation of 400 test questions and your own preparations for the exam is crucial.
But the last rule sensei said accounted for some very interesting possibilities.
For instance, it was clearly mentioned that the 'class with your questions' will be targeted as your opponent for the calculation of the overall score. But that basically means that the class you attack, and the class you defend against, does not have to be the same class.
In other words, we can launch our questions to Class B, and get questions from Class C. In that case, if we manage to successfully both attack and defend at the same time, we can score up to 100 Class Points in a single strike.
But that should count for one-on-one battles as well. In the case that the entire situation ends up as Class C vs Class D, then we should get 50 Points for defending, and 50 Points for successfully defending — 100 Class Points again.
Which option would be better for us? Clearly, everyone should see Class C vs Class D as the better option. They're the lowest Class academically, so it would only make sense to attack them. But that would not essentially close our gap with Class B.
For instance, currently, the Class Points stood at :-
Class 1-A — 874 CP
Class 1-B — 753 CP
Class 1-C — 442 CP
Class 1-D — 433 CP
In the best possible scenario, we would gain 50 Points from Class C for defending, and also gain 50 Points from Class B by attacking them.
It would lead to Class B sitting at around 650 CP, considering that Class A will probably defend against Class B and win as well, Class C at 392 CP and Class D at 533 Class Points.
In one shot, we can both overtake Class C and close the gap between Class B.
But as much as I wanted to go ahead with this idea, I knew inwardly that this was impossible. Our academic abilities weren't enough to pull one up against Class B. I could only hope for the second best scenario — where we both attack and defend against Class C.
Now that I think about it, that is the only choice that will probably work out practically as well. I'm almost 120% sure that Ryuuen will appoint Class D as his attacking class. He will definitely come back after me for revenge.
"-eyama-kun? Takeyama-kun?"
I felt a soft hand try to shake me up. I zoned back into the classroom from my dream world.
"H-huh?"
"You completely zoned out," Horikita said. "We're having a short meeting on the exam now. What were you thinking about?"
"Oh, it was, umm, nothing," I said. "Nothing important."
"You were probably coming up with strategies to win this exam, right?" Chiaki gleefully poked me on my ribs. "Now that you're Mr. Leader and stuff."
"Of course Takeyama-kun was coming up strategies and ways for us to win!" Ichihashi-san squealed.
"Yeah, you're right! He's always coming up with crazy ways for us to win!" Nishimura-san said.
"And all of them have always worked as well!" Inogashira-san shyly commented.
"Kyaaa~"
"Hmph," Chiaki snorted at the random girls who fired their random comments. I chuckled. She was like a mom now.
"So, shall we get started?" Horikita impatiently said. "We're wasting time with your harem."
"Harem? Now that's kinda rude. There's a free seat, you know? You're welcome to join," I scoffed.
"Over my dead body."
"You're so mean. I offered you a free ticket and all."
"We still haven't stopped wasting time."
"Right. We can discuss later, though? At the Pallet, maybe," I suggested. "If we find an empty table, we can discuss without much hassle."
"That's fine by me. I'll be waiting," she said crisply, and she gracefully headed back to her seat. Kiyotaka glanced at me once as well, and I sent him a curt nod.
"So what do you think of this exam, Keisuke?" Hirata turned around to talk to me. Chiaki tuned in to the conversation as well. "It seems like a very open-ended fair competition to me."
"Yeah, it doesn't look like there's a way to fool the other classes this time," Chiaki agreed.
"There's still one question that I need to ask sensei," I pondered. I raised my hand, and sensei immediately looked at me.
"Yes, Takeyama?"
"If one class makes questions for another class, how do we confirm the difficulty level of the questions?"
It seems this was a question on the minds of most of the students in our class, because Ike screamed out right after I asked.
"Gah!? If the other classes make super-hard questions then we'll have no chance of passing!" A few other academically inept students vigorously nodded along with him.
"To answer your question, all the questions will be reviewed and assessed by the teachers. If any of the questions is deemed to be unsolvable by the textbook formulae that you possess, the class will be asked to revise their questions. There is no room for foul play. Plus, in the case that a class does not submit their written questions to their respective homeroom teacher before the deadline, then questions premade by the school will be used. But beware that these questions will be easier than the normal ones."
So there was no way to make extremely difficult questions and try to screw with the other classes. We had to rely on our own academic capabilities to pass this time. But we can't expect the questions to be simple this time — since we'll be receiving questions from another class this time, we'll mostly be asked trickier questions. But that applies to us as well.
"Sensei," Horikita raised her hand this time. "In the case that someone's partner is missing or absent during the day of the test, what are the procedures to be followed?"
"Thorough checking and confirming will be done on the person's reason to check for its legitimacy. If the reason is valid, then they will receive marks based on their performance in the previous tests. In the case the absence is unaccounted for, then both partners will be expelled. Of course, cheating and malpractices are forbidden. But I shouldn't have to remind you that."
No way to bunk the exam either, eh? I was planning to somehow get Yamauchi and Ike paired up and then have them both drop out of the exam, but it was pretty obvious that that wouldn't work.
This exam was going to be a pain in the ass.
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