This chapter is more so an analysis of past events, and my justifications for the changes I made. It is mainly an Ayanokouji analysis. (~3600 words 0_o) Feel free to skip this if you want to enjoy the show-don't-tell experience I've been trying to do. I use justifications in future volumes in the original light novel, so if you haven't caught up to at least the whole of the 1st year series, feel free to skip this.
There is a paragraph which is more of a spoiler for the future of Hirata's and Ichinose's characters in this fanfiction highlighted in bold, so skip it if you want to avoid such. All the other paragraphs should be safe to read if you have read the whole of the 1st year series. If not then I am wondering why you are on Wattpad, go read the original series please, or read this if you want to I guess.
I compare Hirata and Ichinose together as they appear to be quite similar as characters on the surface due to their utilitarianism ideology. See the link below, or look up Ichinose's character analysis on reddit by atlantisisablackhole. The link analyzing Ichinose's character does spoil events in the 2nd year up to year 2 volume 4.5 so read with caution.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassroomOfTheElite/comments/s3a46m/kiyotakas_keis_and_honamis_relationship_summary/
This is an analysis about both Kei and Ichinose's character analysis. Pretty much Ayanokouji wants to be defeated in such a way that his core beliefs instilled by the white room, by his father, is disproven/shown to be inferior. This would mean that Ayanokouji himself can change if his own core beliefs fail despite him trying to go all out using them. As it would give himself a reason to change his faulty beliefs, his trauma forces him to use these core beliefs as it has so far worked in protecting Ayanokouji as a defense mechanism, he wants to find justification at a core level. He hates his father due to what he did to Ayanokouji so he doesn't want to follow them, but is in a prison trapped by these beliefs due to the extreme trauma and is forced to use them anyways. It is like how Karuizawa is forced to act as the part of the bully despite being bullied a lot in the past and not enjoying playing the act as a bully, in order to avoid being bullied, as a defense mechanism from the trauma.
One way of doing that is by showing that nature wins in nature vs nurture. Koenji is the natural genius while Ayanokouji is the artificial genius. In the original series Sakayanagi was the natural genius challenging Ayanokouji but now it is Koenji, so there are parallels between the two. Pretty much it is saying that no matter how well Ayanokouji is nurtured in the white room, in the perfect environment, there is a ceiling that Ayanokouji simply can't surpass without genetics (that is what Ayanokouji hopes will be the case). This would mean that there would be no point in continuing to follow the faulty beliefs Ayanokouji's dad has believed in as in the end there will always be someone else who can defeat you. Hard work vs talent, Ayanokouji vs Koenji.
The other way is to show that Machiavellianism is inferior to Utilitarianism, in other words "The ends justify the means" which is also what Ayanokouji's core beliefs are vs what Hirata and Ichinose are advocating. Or in other words Ayanokouji protects himself and puts himself above everyone, his own safety is the number one priority. But Ichinose and Hirata are self sacrificing, choosing to instead focus on protecting the community first, putting everyone else above them first. Ayanokouji's views are the polar opposite to Hirata and Ichinose's views. So if Ichinose and Hirata's beliefs succeed, then Ayanokouji's beliefs fail and now they are faulty, meaning there is justification for Ayanokouji to change himself at a core level.
Ayanokouji now has a strong desire in wanting to be defeated earlier on in the series compared to how this desire only started with Sakayanagi at the end of volume 5, and now he sees Hirata as another way to potentially destroy his core beliefs for him to change. But he actually doesn't know that he has this desire to be defeated by Hirata. Of course this strong desire started with Koenji challenging Ayanokouji right at the start of this fanfiction.
Ayanokouji is also a character who is perfectly logical, and right now he is coming up with justifications as to why he must be investigating Hirata and Ichinose, seeing them as potential threats to his existence at this school, just like what he did stating that Ryuuen, Sakayanagi and even Sakayanagi's father were threats to his existence at the school in Volume 7 and Volume 7.5 despite them clearly not being threats at the moment.
(See the analysis videos by Saadisfy for Volumes 7 and 7.5. Pretty much Sakayanagi wasn't a threat as she was clearly going after Ichinose (Ayanokouji even set up the whole thing). Ryuuen is not a threat as Ayanokouji can simply get Ishizaki and Albert to drop out, and Ryuuen clearly didn't want that as he would have dropped out if he didn't care about them (see the end of volume 7), and Sakayanagi's father straight up protected Ayanokouji when Ayanokouji's father met with Ayanokouji in volume 7. And yet for some reason Ayanokouji saw him as a threat, just to use that as an excuse to use Karuizawa in the future. This is because he couldn't accept the fact that Karuizawa loved him and that he could even love Karuizawa, so he found logical justifications just for the two of them to work together. Ayanokouji copes hard.).
In reality he is coping hard, and is obsessed with the idea of being defeated, which is why he hopes that Hirata is a genuinely good person at the same time. Ayanokouji has a major bully victim mindset, where he sees his dad as the bully. But he doesn't really know about the fact that he has this obsession, (he just knows he wants to be defeated by Koenji at this point in the story) so he came up with logical justifications for his actions. The main justification is regarding how Kushida was a fake and even attempted to expel Ayanokouji, despite seemingly being just like Hirata on the surface. Kushida's act did have Ayanokouji fooled right at the start, but he did have some clues about Kushida due to her going after Horikita, so Ayanokouji purposefully tested Kushida during the café trip where he intentionally left holes for Horikita to find out that it was a set up in this fanfiction in chapter 3.2, and then continued to test Kushida by investigating her using Manabu after deducing that she was possibly from the same school as Horikita, so Ayanokouji met up with Manabu in secret to confirm if she recognized Kushida, leading to their two deals as well as stalking Kushida to see if she would trip up her possible facade. So Ayanokouji is projecting his experience of Kushida not actually being a genuinely good person onto Hirata.
And now Ayanokouji has another justification about Hirata being a potential threat due to him being in class D and not revealing his full backstory, leaving holes in his story. Ayanokouji didn't trust Hirata in the original series as well due to this same reason when he told Karuizawa in the end of volume 4.5 that there were holes in Hirata's story. And Ayanokouji now even sees Ichinose as a potential threat to his existence, projecting his experience with Kushida onto Ichinose now. Ayanokouji sees Ichinose and Hirata as potential Kushidas, but that is because he is trying to find logical justifications to justify why he is so invested in going after Hirata and Ichinose (which in reality is because he is obsessed with wanting to be defeated by them. He wants to see them as enemies and threats as their ideologies are in direct conflict.). Furthermore, the idea of a good person alludes Ayanokouji due to the white room and how he saw the worst of the worst. And of course, Kushida hasn't helped with that. This is why when Horikita asked if Ayanokouji believes there is a truly good person in this world at the end of chapter 10.1, Ayanokouji says he doesn't think so, despite hoping that Hirata is a genuinely good person just before in his monologue.
There is a contradiction between Ayanokouji thinking that Hirata isn't a good person due to his past experiences with Kushida and the trauma from the white room and so Ayanokouji won't allow himself to get expelled even if it is a 1% chance that Hirata is a fake. Ayanokouji's protection, not wanting to go back to the white room is his number 1 priority. This is compared to him wanting Hirata to be a genuinely good person so that Hirata can be someone who could defeat Ayanokouji, become his enemy, clash with polar opposite ideologies.
This same idea happens with Ichinose in the original light novel starting with Ichinose after seeing that even Horikita thinks that Ichinose is a truly good person, but she hesitates, so Ayanokouji chooses to test Ichinose to see if she truly is a good person or not, and eventually deduces that she is, and then considers Ichinose as his enemy due to the clashing ideologies.
Another thing that I am doing is how I am trying to make parallels with how in the original light novel Ayanokouji feels undeserving of love due to his experience in being the white room and seeing himself as a horrible person due to being just like his father, and how he hates his father. As a result, he projects his own views of him being undeserving of love onto other people and comes up with logical justifications as to why people like Sakura and Karuizawa apparently love him, e.g. Sakura is inexperienced so it doesn't count, or Karuizawa is doubling down on being a parasite so she doesn't love Ayanokouji even though Karuizawa broke away from being a parasite and loves Ayanokouji. Ayanokouji copes extremely hard by projecting his own views and comes up with logical justifications. So I guess you could expect Ayanokouji to be thinking that he feels undeserving of love from Satou at the moment, thinking she is probably just inexperienced.
In other words, expect both Hirata and Ichinose to be tested by Ayanokouji later on in this fanfiction, just like what Ayanokouji did to Ichinose in volume 6, 10 and 11.5 onwards.
The next paragraph is the spoiler about Hirata's and Ichinose's future character arcs in the story.
However, Hirata isn't necessarily someone who ended up completely following the utilitarianism ideology, but that is something Ayanokouji would have to discover for himself. This is shown starting from volume 4 when Hirata knew Ayanokouji was going to do something unethical regarding the bullying situation with Karuizawa and the class C bullies, but he still let that happen. This is because of Hirata's inability to act, but Hirata didn't want Ayanokouji to tell him what he was going to do as to not trigger Hirata's own trauma, being Hirata's messiah complex. Doing/letting something bad for the greater good is Machiavellian. He is utilitarian on the surface but a Machiavellian on the inside. Note that Hirata wants to be Utilitarian, but he also ended up respecting Ayanokouji for his ability to act despite being Machiavellian. This is especially seen in volume 10 when he wanted Ayanokouji to take up a leadership position and when Hirata said that Ayanokouji is similar to him. Ichinose also fails at this in Year 2 Volume 4 due to all the pressure starting from Volume 8, choosing to help Ayanokouji who is at risk of getting expelled instead of saving 3 people at risk of getting expelled. Utilitarianism dictates that in order to maximize the happiness, the community takes priority so the 3 people should have been the priority in Ayanokouji's eyes. As a result Ichinose is a hypocrite. However, Ayanokouji at this point realizes that his obsession went too far and caused damage to people around him and damage to Ichinose so he did want to mitigate the damage. Ayanokouji wasn't aware just how obsessed he was with wanting to be defeated and let his emotions control him. In other words Hirata will eventually fall, disappointing Ayanokouji, and Ichinose would probably fall after being lead on and cracking under the pressure, even just for the slightest moment.
The paragraphs underneath are safe to read.
Also another thing. Ayanokouji's character was challenged right at the start of the series by Koenji so Ayanokouji thought that there would be little point in pretending in being a normal student if he was going to be challenging someone like Koenji since Koenji was very public with Ayanokouji. Koenji is also someone who could potentially permanently destroy his core beliefs in Ayanokouji's perspective. It is better to destroy the beliefs and change for the better than to simply suppress it like what Ayanokouji originally planned in the light novel. That is why Ayanokouji said that he is no longer a fool in chapter 9.4, "Only a fool wouldn't use his innate abilities.". This is pretty much the reason that in the original series he chose to hide his abilities as a way of going against his father due to hating his father, and his abilities are a reflection of the white room and his father. So now Ayanokouji is using his abilities now so that he can potentially destroy them.
Koenji himself is also someone who is very public so Ayanokouji would find it difficult to try and stay in the background. And Koenji is surprisingly a competitive person, although it is only with those he acknowledges. This is with how he acted in Volume 8 when he indirectly challenged Ayanokouji as well as Nagumo. Koenji is an attention magnet if he wants to, who wants to prove himself as superior to those who threaten his superiority complex. That is one of the reasons why in the earlier chapters Ayanokouji chose to give himself some breathing room such as mentioning how he can handle himself at sports and listed some hobbies back at his self introduction as he would inevitably attract attention towards himself competing with Koenji. He still plans on being somewhat normal/not being a weirdo like Koenji, but not someone hiding in the backgrounds either.
Ayanokouji did want to experience a normal school life, but there is no reason for him not to continue that anyways. But now Ayanokouji can work on that same goal without minding about attracting attention as that is an inevitable thing due to him wanting to go all out against Koenji. So Ayanokouji saw a perfect example of what not to do when making friends, which is being Koenji (and Horikita). So in other words, do the opposite to what Koenji does (and do what the opposite to what Horikita does as well). Ayanokouji then also realizes that being too normal is not normal as well, and that having one or two things unique about him is normal. And making connections is also quite important in gaining power at this school, his most notable connection being Horikita Manabu. Might as well make friends with him while he is at it.
Also, Ayanokouji has made two deals with Horikita Manabu as you can see in the end of chapter 10.1. The first one is pretty obvious as Manabu has wanted Ayanokouji to join the council in the original series, but the second one, you can choose to figure out what that could be.
I left some hints that Ayanokouji has done his research, trying to take the initiative to make friends.
For example, with Sudou it is pretty much what happened in the original light novel when he went to Sudou at the shop. No changes there when it comes to making friends. This has made it easier for Ayanokouji to invite over Sudou and the idiot trio as a whole to go to Horikita's study group, due to being friends with them. Also, Ike and Yamauchi do not hold resentment for Ayanokouji's talents at swimming as he didn't hide the fact that he was at least somewhat capable unlike what he did when he raced Horikita Manabu resulting in them not being friends with Ayanokouji anymore.
During the time when Hirata wanted to invite people to go on a trip to the café, Ayanokouji chose to take the initiative with Hirata as he is someone who would be very easy to make friends with but is someone who could attract too many people, which would be very intimidating to approach. That could help him make new connections given all he people surrounding Hirata but could also make it difficult to join as well if he didn't act fast, which is what happened in the original light novel. Of course, Hirata also wanted to invite Ayanokouji due to wanting to make sure that both Horikita and Koenji are doing fine at school (e.g. not getting bullied, Hirata wanting to help everyone is a core part of his character. Hirata noticed that Koenji went up to Ayanokouji just before Koenji revealed the S system so maybe they could have been friends before going to this school.) as well. That made it easier with getting Ayanokouji to join in the trip to the cafeteria.
With Albert, Ayanokouji researched about gym habits and the idea of spotting during heavy exercises. And it was also Ayanokouji who initiated the complex hand shake as well. Going to the gym was not just to maintain his physical abilities ready for Koenji, but also as a chance to enjoy life and freedom and to make friends.
Ayanokouji is still interested in the idea of friendships and love and how they form as Ayanokouji is a very curious person, there is no reason for that to change. His communication skills are still terrible, but he is trying to improve them as it is a useful skill when forming useful connections and gathering information.
Ayanokouji straight up hates attention due to the white room, as seen with how he still wanted to shift Sakayanagi's attention away from him even though she knew about Ayanokouji, as well as in year 2 volume 4.5 during a white room scene. Ayanokouji thought that it was an inevitability with someone like Koenji. Might as well get used to it if it means that he can avoid going back to the white room. That doesn't mean he will throw himself in the center of attention all the time, but he won't hesitate if necessary. Afterall, he did end up racing Manabu in volume 5 despite it garnering the attention of the entire school as it was fun (Ayanokouji is also very competitive and Manabu is actually someone who gets it, someone who knows how to play the game.) and to appease Chabashira while also taking attention away from himself from Ryuuen, as the mastermind in class D wouldn't have been so public like that. Bringing attention towards himself in the short term can also take away attention from Ayanokouji in other ways too.
In a sense, he has like a list of priorities, the main one being to not get sent back to the white room being first and utmost, followed by destroying his core beliefs by being defeated, followed by avoiding unnecessary attention, followed by making relationships etc. friendships and love. Though now I make avoiding unnecessary attention and making relationships have a sort of interchangeable priority depending on the situation, in this case making friendships with the right people also satisfy his goal of avoiding being sent back to the white room by making him gain access to information and important connections to protect himself e.g. Manabu, and how Ayanokouji and Manabu have become good friends while also making background deals. That is one of the reasons why Ayanokouji has become more social, as a way to make the right connections necessary in order to combat against people, specifically Koenji, Ichinose, Hirata and Kushida. Obtaining information and having support is going to be even more important in the future. That is how I plan on making Ayanokouji operate. And he does contradict himself as well quite often. So keep this paragraph in mind whenever Ayanokouji does something that would attract attention towards him, he is supposed to be a purely logical person but there is no harm in wanting to make friends if possible during these actions. That's why I emphasized on the idea that Ayanokouji enjoyed his time around people.
Pretty much Koenji lead to Ayanokouji speed running events like friendships due to being an attention magnet. And of course he also helped Ayanokouji get the desire to be defeated at the start of the series, which is why Ayanokouji has been unconsciously drawn towards Hirata. This also meant that Ayanokouji and Horikita doesn't end up being as close, as Ayanokouji actually made friends, causing some other events to change as well slightly with Horikita.
I also plan on adding images to past and future chapters as well, maybe I will make some drawings of my own for some scenes as well :P
As for Koenji's character oh god he is hard to write at times, but that isn't because I don't enjoy his character. Genius characters like Koenji and Sakayanagi tend to be extremely indirect and extremely round-about when it comes to things in the actual light novel. I am trying to make some funny Koenji scenes as well that should be in character for him. There is also a good reason as to why Koenji hasn't been acting much in this volume so far.