Ayanokoji Kiyotaka POV
Today was a particularly interesting day. Our Homeroom Teacher, Chabashira-Sensei had informed my class, Class D about a special announcement happening in the Auditorium. As we traverse towards the Auditorium, most of my class is divided into groups of friends chatting and goofing around, while a few loners (like myself) are walking by themselves.
This announcement holds substantial weight as the second years and third years will also be there. This brings up a rather interesting question. What exactly is the special announcement? A new system added to ANHS? A Special exam that insists on all years to clash against each other? Or is it that Man influence coming into ANHS? The last one seems most unlikely since He would rather be secretive about expelling me than doing it upfront. I hope it can't be so bad, but there's this uncomfortable feeling about this announcement.
"Say Ayanokoji, what's your opinion about this announcement?"
Looking to my right I see a person with long black hair with one braid tied with a white bow. Her gradient red eyes and slim but well-endowed body told me it was Horikita Suzune who was talking to me.
Usually, she would ignore my existence unless I could help her achieve her goal of getting into Class A, but now she's interested in my opinion about this?
"Well..I think this announcement will have to do with ANHS adding a new system to school"
"I share that sentiment, all 3 years coming to together in the Auditorium to hear an announcement from the school suggest unparalleled significance"
"I agree with you, knowing ANHS, this announcement might have an effect on class competition"
We as Class D students are at a massive disadvantage in class competition. Currently we have 87 points due to the Midterms exams. However, that wasn't enough. The difference between our class and Class A is 917 points. As of right now, it looks impossible for us to get into Class A, however people like Horikita, Kushida, and Hirata have hope we'll get into Class A despite 3 of them having differing reasons for it.
"Nevertheless, you will assist me in attaining Class A, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka" Horikita declares, expressing as an opinion but an indisputable fact
She then walks away without me disapproving her claim
"Sigh, what an unpleasant women"
With her gone, I silently walk by myself with my hands in my pockets
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka POV
Arriving at the Auditorium, I notice how the second and third years are already seated in their seats and in their respective class (A - D) both years chatting around with their fellow peers.
We the first years were the last ones to arrive and our teachers, Chabashira-Sensei, a middle aged man of average height with grayish color hair, Sakagami-Sensei, a young adult woman of average height with chest-light brown, Hoshinomiya-Sensei, and finally a tall adult male with brown hair and green, Mashima-Sensei move us to our assign seats which goes from 1-A to 1-D. There were five rows, each hosting eight seats. Rather than promptly taking my seat, I opted to allow my classmates to settle first.
Most sat near their friends. Notably, Kushida Kikyo, the "angel" of 1-D, positioned herself in the center effortlessly engaging with everyone around her, showcasing her impressive communication skills. It's impressive how well her communication skills are. I would have drain from talking that much.
Horikita sat in the front with Sudo sitting to the right of her. Kouenji Rokusuke sat in a spot in the back, engrossed in self-admiration with a handheld mirror.
Huh? When did he have that in his pocket?
...Anyways Ike and Yamauchi sat right next to Sudo. Hirata also sat in the front with his girlfriend, Karuizawa Kei, who was clinging on his hands to the left of him while talking to a girl with upper-back length brown hair with blue eyes, Maya Sato, while another girl with long brown hair that has bangs to the right with blue eyes, Matsushita Chiaki silently listening into their conversation.
Behind Hirata was a girl with indigo hair tied up in twin-tails and pink violet eyes, Mei-Yu Wang or Mii-chan. Right next to her was a girl with neck-length blue hair that has a pink hair-clip in the middle with bluish-pink eyes, Shinohara Satsuki. She was talking to her while Mii-chan sometimes peaks at Hirata.
Because I prefer solitude, I chose a seat towards the rear on the left. Surprisingly, my seatmate turned out to be Sakura Airi.
"Um h-hello Ayanokoji-kun," she stammered
"Greetings Sakura-san, how has your morning been?"
"It's been great..I'm just worry about this special announcement..hopefully it doesn't take too long"
"Indeed. While I appreciate the serene ambiance of the Auditorium, I would rather be in my dormitory"
"Me too..."
Sakura Airi doesn't speak at all to people, but it seems she has warmed up to me after my assistance with her involvement in the Class Trial against Class C and the resolution of her stalker predicament
Click
Suddenly, a resonant click echoed throughout the whole Auditorium as a microphone activated instantly hushing the entire room.
Everyone look upon the stage to see a man who looks to be in his 40s casting a gentle smile while examining everyone
"Greetings to you all, you may remember me from the entrance ceremony, but if not my name is Sakayangai Narumori, also known as Chairman Sakayangai"
I wasn't paying attention to the entrance ceremony because I found it boring.
However Sakayangai...where have I heard that before?
"As you all know, each year from 1-3rd accumulating into around 480 brilliant students have gathered into the Auditorium to hear a special announcement. You're all wondering what exactly it is? To be truthful, I'm not the one who'll be telling you what it is, infact---
"Alright no more patronizing your "precious" students"
Suddenly, a man appeared from the shadows behind Sakayangai and swiftly seized the microphone from his hands nonchalantly.
Sakayangani did not appear mad from him taking the microphone away from, however he had a wry smile while looking at this individual.
This individual was an Asian man slightly around the same age and height as Chairman Sakayagngani with slicked-back black hair.
However the thing that made him stand out the most was his eccentric attire.
He was wearing a black suit and pants covered with chess pieces.
Pawns, Bishops, Knights, Rooks, Queen, and King all plastered across his outfit
Even his shoes had chess pieces on it too.
The Man look across the room eyeing and examining every single person in here
However, he glance at me for a mere second and a smirk appear on his lips
Huh?
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but this chess-themed man might be associated with that Man.
The atmosphere was very silent, so silent you could hear a pin drop.
However...
"Kukuku!"
A lone man from our section, the first years, laugh at the sight of the unorthodox man on the stage
A young man of average height with shoulder-length magenta hair with a weird laugh
It was none other than Ryuen Kakeru, the tyrant of Class 1-C.
The man looked at Ryuen with a bored expression
"Kuku, are you that in love with that banal game of chess? You're probably some "grandmaster" or whatever corny title you describe yourself as"
This got a couple of laughs and snickers across the Auditorium. With my classmates Ike, Yamauachi, Karizuawa, and Sato holding themselves from laughter.
"Hmph, why should I concern myself with the commentary of an edgy Class C delinquent?"
The man spout back those towards Ryuen immediately
Ryuen found amusement rather than irritation in the retort
"Edgy? What about you, a grown man arguing with a teenager merely for mocking your ridiculous outfit, quite edgy behavior amirite?"
The man had a scowl on his face after Ryuen's comment
"Tch, I wouldn't be wearing this attire if it wasn't the main theme of this special annoucement"
"Oh? Are we having a chess tournament or something? Sounds boring as hell"
Ryuen says as he leans back on his seat while yawning
The man ignores Ryuen's last comment and redirects his attention to the assembled audience
"Like Sakayangai had stated before, this special announcement will be told by me"
He said while pointing at himself
"You don't need to know my name or affiliation, just know what I'll be presenting to you students and teachers will be something truly unthinkable"
Unthinkable? This piques my interest and curiosity even more.
"Now before I start, I want to ask you all a question, How do you all reflect upon your current tenure at Advance Nurturing High School? What are your sentiments regarding the ongoing class competition? How do you assess your individual disposition and contributions to your class? Would you categorize yourself as a leader or a follower in the context of your efforts? Do you contemplate the prospect of betraying your peers for the chance to ascend to Class A, or have you resigned yourself entirely to forgoing such ambitions, languishing until the culmination of your school journey?"
What a heavy question. As for me, I want to live a peaceful life in this school for the next three years without any problems. I don't care about Class A or D. However, due to Chabashira-Sensei and Horikita, my peaceful life is slightly on hold right now.
Casting a sidelong glance to my right, I observed Sakura with her head subtly lowered, her attitude pertaining dissatisfaction and disappointment
I understood the rationale behind her demeanor, considering that, apart from my own interactions, Sakura has refrained from actively engaging socialization within our class. Were it not for the circumstances surrounding Sudo and her unforeseen entanglement in that affair, she might have occupied a rather inconspicuous position amongst our classmates. Regrettably, her excessively reserved nature impedes her prospects of cultivating connections and participating in social exchanges within our class
Apart from her, I cast a gaze to see my most of my classmates pondering about this question.
Horikita with a contemplating expression
Sudo with a scowl on his face
Ike with a somewhat uneasy expression on his face
Matsushita with a thoughtful expression on her face
Hirata emanated a radiant smile while casting glances towards our classmates and me
Kushida expressing her pensive mood with a cutesy face accompanied by a subtle sound of "hmm" to further accentuate her sentiment.
Sotomaru had an "otaku" expression while thinking
Unsurprisingly, only Yamauchi and Kouenji didn't care about this, their lack of interest apparent.
From other first year classes, Ryuen seemed to have a mild interest in the question
To Ryuen's right was a tall dark-skinned man with above average height and very muscular stature who had a stone face expression. I couldn't even see his eyes under the sunglasses he's wearing.
To his left was a girl of average height who had short blue hair and had a disgruntled expression on her face.
A boy with light beige hair and purple gradient eyes had a thoughtful expression on his face
Right next to the blue hair girl was a girl with mid-back length silver hair that has black ribbons tied with light purplish eyes. She had her hand on her chin with a thinking expression on her face
(Unrelated note but she looked real cute while doing it)
Anyways..
Honmai Ichinose, a girl with back-length strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes had a cheerful smile smeared upon her face. Almost blinding
Her right-hand man, Ryuji Kanzaki, a boy of average height with violet-bluish hair and purple eyes had a captivated expression on his face
"Fufu"
This wasn't noticeable if you didn't have good hearing, but a petite teenage girl with lilac colored short hair that reached her shoulders and had violet eyes was giggling. She was wearing a black beret on her head with a gray ribbon connected to it. The most noticeable thing about her was that she was holding a cane while sitting elegantly, like a Princess for example.
I wonder what was so funny that she giggled?
Besides her right, was a girl with a thigh-length purple hair that is tied in a long ponytail on the right sides with bangs to the right side and purple eyes
Like the short hair blue girl, she had a disgruntled expression on her face.
On her left, was a boy with long blonde hair tied in a ponytail and blue eyes. He had a teasing smirk on his face with his hands behind his back.
Sitting right next to the girl with thigh-length purple hair, was a boy with long black hair that reached his shoulders with a stone faced expression on his face.
He doesn't look like a highschooler.....
In the upper grades, a tall, well-built boy with short black hair is sitting in a perfect manner with his face casting solemnity.
It was none other than Horikita Manabu, Horikita Suzune's older brother
Their relationship is very strained, due to Horkita's position in our year's Class battle and undisclosed family problems which I don't need to know about.
In section 2-A, a tall, fair-skinned boy with light blonde hair and light blue eyes bore a smirk on his face. He had an unmistakable aura of supremacy, like a King.
In section 2-B, a beautiful and charming girl with long platinum blonde hair and crimson eyes had a smirk on her face. She sat the same way like the girl with lilac colored short hair, but she had an aura that of a Queen.
I glance to the teachers section in the Auditorium and Chabashira-Sensei, who's stone face expression somewhat crumble and was slightly clutching her hands,
Hoshinomiya-Sensei, with a smile on her face that was laced with venom (creepy...) was side-glancing at Chabashira-Sensei. Mashima-Sensei glancing at both of them with a sigh and a somewhat sad expression on his serious face.
I find myself contemplating the sudden shift of their attitudes
Sakagami-Sensei had his eyes closed, slightly humming to a song.
"To those who thought about an answer to my question.."
The Chess-themed Man spoke into the microphone again which gather everyone's attention to the stage
"I would like you to present all of you an interesting proposal, Im confident all of you have heard the concept of Alternative Timelines"
An Alternative Timeline is a divergent version of a supposed "main" timeline, usually stemming from a specific point where events unfold differently.
But how does that relate to assessing ourselves?
Then the Chess-themed Man said something that was absolutely appalling
"What if I told you I was able to project an Alternative Timeline of Advance Nurturing High School?"
The room bore an impenetrable silence
You would assume people would disregard the crazy proposal and make fun of the Chess-themed Man, but his aura was utmost serious. From his stance and voice, what he was saying was 100% serious and possible.
"In a few minutes, you will all be watching an Alternative Timeline of Advance Nurturing High School that will be projected onto the big screen behind me"
"To give you an idea what the Alternative Timeline is...I'll present you the title card"
The Man then took a remote out of his pocket and turn around to turn on the Big screen
The screen illuminated a bright light, shining and sparkling, before a title card appear upon the screen
Classroom of the Elite: Checkmate
Interesting, this Alternative Timeline has a theme around chess. A Checkmate is a term used in chess to indicate that a player's king is in a position to be captured and there is no way to escape capture. It's the decisive moment when a player wins the game
Since I was born, I have played a lot of chess so my knowledge of the board game surpasses most people who are not familiar with chess and even the best chess players.
"Checkmate? Fufu, that's very interesting...."
The girl with lilac colored short hair said that comment somewhat loud with a smug expression
The girl with a thigh-length purple hair that is tied in a long ponytail glance at her with an annoy expression
"Stop with that face, it's creepy..."
"Kamuro-san I can't help it, this has really hooked me, you see chess is one of the things I am the best at"
Kamuro looked away in annoyance while the boy with long blonde hair tied in a ponytail was amused by her reaction
"If I may I would like to ask a question"
Horikita Manabu raise his hand while directly looking at the Chess-themed Man on the stage
"Sure, go ahead"
"While intriguing, ANHS has a multitude of students freely navigating the campus based on personal comfort and routine, how could we effectively watch all of ANHS? "
"The answer is that we won't focus on the perspective of inconsequential students, but rather on students who have a significant impact in the Alternative Timeline"
The answer to Horikita's question was very simple, instead of observing everyone, key figures from the 3 years will be shown and their impact on the Alternative Timeline of Advance Nurturing High School.
"Nice going Horikita-Senpai, I was just about to ask that question!"
The blonde-haired upperclassman smiles smugly at Horikita 's question. In response, Horikita sighed
"Nagumo Miyabi, don't have a condescending attitude to your upperclassmen!"
Sitting to the left of Horikita, was a somewhat short girl with purple hair that is tied in two buns with bangs glaring at Nagumo
"It's alright Tachibana-san"
Horikita was able to completely extinguish Tachibana's anger by a simple sentence.
He really has the power to do that, impressive.
"Kukukukuku...."
"What the hell are you laughing about you creep"
The girl with the short blue hair said while glaring at Ryuen
"What Mio, am I not allowed to find this amusing? If we're going to watch influential figures in the school, then I'll undoubtedly be feature in it and everyone will see my ruthlessness"
"It's Ibuki to you, Asshole!"
Ibuki said gritting teeth
"Ibuki-san please calm down, and Ryuen-kun please don't use Ibuki's first name as that gives her discomfort"
The girl with mid-back length silver hair reprimanded both Ibuki and Ryuen.
What a ballsy decision!
Ryuen stare at the girl with an amuse smirk
"Sure but in exchange I'll call you Hiyori and I'll leave poor Ibuki alone"
"That's fine with me Ryuen-san!"
Hiyori beam a smile at Ryuen
Ibuki did a small huff and look away from both Hiyori and Ryuen still anger
"Ichinose-san you're definitely going to be shown!"
Multiple Class B students bombarded Ichinose with their excitement of her possibly being shown on the screen
"While that may be true, I hope you all will be shown as well!"
Ichinose said with a brightful smile that caused both men and women of Class B to blush at her praise.
"We're definitely going to see Kushida-chan and all of her glory!"
Ike shouted with excitement.
"Hell yeah Kushida-chan!"
Yamauchi also agreed with Ike's opinion
"You flatter me too much Ike-kun and Yamauchi-kun but we're also definitely going to see Hirata-kun and Horikita-san in it too!"
Kushida says with a joyful attitude.
"Yeah Hirata-kun will definitely be in it"
"He sure will!"
Some of the girls started praising Hirata while he had a flatter expression to it
"Yeah Hirata-kun! You're going to be so cool when you're shown on the screen!"
Karuizawa said while tugging on her boyfriend's arm
"Thank you everyone for your compliments, but we should also acknowledge Horikita-san as well!
All eyes (Except for Kouenji) went onto Horikita
"Frankly, I haven't achieved anything that meets the standards set by Hirata-kun and Kushida-san for the class"
"What?! If it wasn't for you, I would have faced expulsion due to my Midterm Exam and would have been in serious shit if you hadn't defended me for the Trial against Class C!"
Sudo says quickly while slightly blushing
"That's right Horikita, you've done feats that are amazing, you deserve the praise!"
Kushida vehemently says which led to a majority of my classmates to give praises to Horikita
"..........Thanks, but this also give us an opportunity to watch and observe our competitors of our year"
Collecting and gaining information for the future is very important. Good thing Horikita brought that up.
"It would also uncover people who are possibly hiding in the shadows..."
...She's definitely referring to me....
Sighhh
"Ayanokoji-kun why did you exasperated sigh?"
Sakura asked me
"...It's nothing.."
After what the Chess-themed Man had said, I knew I was most likely going to be featured on the screen. My peaceful is going to be over....
But it can't be that bad right? They'll just know I'm just holding back a bit. I can easily come up with some excuses and lies about it.
The Chess-themed man tap onto the mic to silence the room
"Prior to commencing our viewing, I would like to address a few points. Firstly, each video we are about to witness will carry a distinct title, and those titles bear significances, so kindly remain attentive. Secondly, considering this an Alternative Timeline, expect numerous deviations from how you would typically conduct yourself and relate to others. Lastly, refreshments will be provided for everyone's enjoyment during the viewing"
"Without further Ado, it's time to watch Classroom of the Election: Checkmate"
The Chess-themed man press on the controller to begin the screening
Chapter 1 - Opening Move.
AN:
Hello Everyone, thank you for reading the Prologue to my reaction fic! This is my first time ever writing a fanfiction so don't hesitate to bring up criticism and tell me how I can improve my writing. Hopefully you enjoy this Prologue.
Again Credit goes to Syougo Kinugasa and Kiku_6037.
See ya next time!
(Words: 3537)