Check out Botman’s translation of the trial:
Chapter 2 (continued)
Continuing from the trial, Chabashira explains that while protection points were temporarily invalidated for this exam, expulsion could still be cancelled by paying 20 million private points. Ayanokouji monologues that right now the class does not have that many private points, so if an expulsion were to occur, it couldn’t be cancelled. The only person in the class with a protection point was Kouenji and he didn’t mind the rule at all. Additionally, Chabashira explains that the use of mobile phones was prohibited during the exam to prevent communications with people outside of the class.
During lunchtime, Hirata walked to the front of the class to address everyone and ask for their opinions. Kushida brings up the topic of the exam probably being difficult to achieve consensus in and Horikita agrees, saying that otherwise they wouldn’t make it a special exam. Kushida then proposes that they elect a class leader to make decisions in case the class’ opinions are divided. Hirata agrees with her so Kushida nominates Horikita as the leader. Kushida says that she has been a leader for the class countless times until now and would probably not be biased when making decisions. Her proposal was accepted by the class without any objections.
For the next scene, check out Alisa’s translation:
Ayanokouji invites Horikita into his room so they can discuss the special exam without any eavesdroppers. Ayanokouji asks her whether she already has an idea for how to pass this exam, which Horikita affirms by saying that the easiest method is to have a leader with the final say. As long as the leader’s decision is final, it won’t matter how many people object to the decision. Ayanokouji is skeptical about whether that would really work. Horikita agrees that there will be some students who will be hard to convince depending on the question and she wistfully muses that this would be easier if their class was a dictatorship like Ryuuen’s. Ayanokouji again doesn’t think that will work since the fact that the votes are anonymous allows students to oppose Ryuuen. Horikita argues that there’s no benefit to opposing Ryuuen’s decision in this exam since if the time runs out while votes are unanimous, the class will lose 300 class points. Ayanokouji says if they were holding that assumption, then there would be no need to even plan out a strategy at all.
Ayanokouji then holds a thought experiment for Horikita. He asks what she would do if 38 students agree to one thing but one student opposes it. Horikita says she will try to convince that one student. Ayanokouji then asks what she will do if that student doesn’t give up. While Horikita is speechless, Ayanokouji says that the majority will not always win and there’s the possibility that while they’re trying to convince that one student, some of the 38 students may be swayed to the other side. Horikita feels a little restless at how easily Ayanokouji is giving his opinions and advice to her. He retorts that it isn’t really advice since she probably should have already thought of the possibility of these things happening. Horikita then finishes off the meeting by asking Ayanokouji to always vote differently for the first vote of every question so that they will always be able to use the break interval to discuss their ideas. Ayanokouji agrees that this will avoid the risk of everyone being blinded by biases and unanimously voting for something which they can’t revoke, however, he warns her that there’s the possibility of an originally unanimous vote becoming fragmented after discussion. He also warns her that since it’s an unanimous vote, they will never know for certain which individuals voted for which choice since people can lie. Horikita questions him on what he means and he replies that the class isn’t unified. Horikita picks up on the underlying meaning and asks if he’s referring to Kouenji and Kushida. Ayanokouji says that Kushida is willing to lie to their faces whilst Kouenji is the type of person who can shamelessly oppose the class’ decision. Once again, Horikita feels a sense of incongruence since Ayanokouji has never been this cooperative with her before. When she questions him on it, Ayanokouji replies that he determined that the current Horikita would value his opinion and understand him. She once again says that she feels restless from how different he’s acting compared to usual. Horikita’s mobile phone then receives a call and she excuses herself to reply, saying “Please let me text her back. If I handle this poorly, there’s a chance she’ll leave me on read forever.” Ayanokouji is a bit curious about who this person is but after Horikita spends two minutes writing a long text message, she says that she already said everything she needed to say and leaves.
Later that evening, Hirata and Kei visit Ayanokouji’s room. Ayanokouji explains that he gathered them together because he wanted to make some preparations for the special exam. Ayanokouji says that there will likely be some topics which will cause conflict between students with different ideologies. He gives an example question: “You are only allowed to eat either rice or bread until you graduate. Choose one.”
Hirata and Kei laugh a bit at the ridiculousness of the question. Kei says that she would choose bread because she can’t imagine going without bread all the way until graduation. On the other hand, Hirata chooses rice. Ayanokouji also says that he would choose rice but uses this to prove that it could be difficult to make all 30 people in the class’ decisions unanimous, since everyone has different personal tastes. He asks Kei whether she would follow the majority opinion if 30 people voted for rice. She says that would be impossible since she can’t go without bread and would continue voting for bread. Ayanokouji then gives his second example: “What if there were a question asking to choose whether all future exams will be judged on academic ability or physical ability?”
It’s clear that students like Sudou would vote for physical ability whilst students with poor physical ability would choose academics. Ayanokouji thinks that the current Sudou would probably be able to compromise since he’s putting all his effort into studying, but there will always be students who are poor academically and wouldn’t be able to do the same. Ayanokouji then asks Hirata and Kei to try to influence the class votes during the exam to try to make sure there will be as few disputes as possible. Hirata says he’s fine with doing that but asks why he didn’t invite Horikita to the discussion since Horikita was also in the role of a class leader. Ayanokouji then tells them that he’s going to be secretly acting as Horikita’s support from the shadows, and tells them not to tell anyone else. Kei then shows disgust at the idea of following Horikita’s orders. Ayanokouji says that the two of them are good at reading the mood in the classroom so he wants them to predict Horikita’s thought patterns and try to match her opinion. Hirata and Kei agree so he then teaches some signals to them to serve as a cue for how to act in certain situations. Finally, he warns Hirata that if the remaining exam time was less than 2 hours, there’s a possibility he will take a forceful approach to clear the exam. He wants Hirata to be prepared so that he won’t go on a rampage when that happens.
Later that night at 10 PM, Ayanokouji receives a phone call while he was lying in his blankets and browsing his phone. While he hadn’t registered the number on his contacts list, it was a number which he was familiar with. The caller was Chairman Sakayanagi who called to tell him that he’ll be providing assistance to Ayanokouji from now on. Both of them comment on the strangeness of Acting Chairman Tsukishiro’s actions and believe that he wasn’t being completely serious about expelling Ayanokouji. Chairman Sakayanagi tells him that he tried to stop the upcoming cultural festival where government officials will be invited, but he was unable to since work on it had already begun. Ayanokouji tells him that he doesn’t need to apologise since it was something that all the students were looking forwards to. Although he does mentally note that he’s skeptical whether it will just end as a normal ‘cultural festival’ for him. Chariman Sakayanagi tells him that in the October sports festival, in preparation for the cultural festival, several guests will be invited to come watch. Again, Sakayanagi says he was unable to stop this, since originally, sports festivals were supposed to be an event where parents came to watch their children compete. He says that since all the guests will be chosen by his superiors, there’s a possibility that Ayanokouji’s father might be involved. He proposes to attach security guards to Ayanokouji, who politely declines since he doesn’t want to stand out. Chairman Sakayanagi says that he has come to understand that Ayanokouji is a person who is capable of taking care of many things by himself. However, he thinks he will have a lot of regrets if Ayanokouji were to be expelled. So he asks Ayanokouji to refrain from attending the sports festival. He wants Ayanokouji to stay cooped up in his dorm room on the day with the excuse of being sick while Chairman Sakayanagi places a trustworthy bodyguard outside the dorms.
Ayanokouji was grateful for his consideration but from the moment he heard the proposal, he felt like declining. However, he suddenly thought of a new idea and asked to be given some time to think it over. Chairman Sakayanagi accepts but tells Ayanokouji to give his answer at least one week before the sports festival since time will also be required to make preparations.
The story moves to Kushida’s pov from a few hours earlier in the day. After school, Kushida met up with Yagami in his dorm room. Yagami had prepared tea for her but Kushida didn’t reach out for it. Yagami jokingly tells her that he didn’t drug or poison it. With an irritated expression, Kushida hands over her mobile phone and tells him to get on with it. On the mobile phone was a recording of Chabashira’s explanation of the rules of the exam, including all the examples that were given. After listening to the recording, Yagami says that at first glance it appears to be a very easy exam. Since the penalties for failing are severe, students will naturally want to vote unanimously to clear it. He taunts Kushida saying that even though she’s been trying to expel Ayanokouji and Horikita for so long now, it’s already the middle of their 2nd year and she still hasn’t had any success. Kushida says that she personally thinks he is partially responsible for that but bringing that up now would just be a waste of time so she urges him to continue. Here it’s revealed that Yagami was the one who told Kushida to propose the ‘everyone listens to the leader’ strategy. When Kushida asks if there was a method to expel Horikita using this exam, Yagami laughs and says that after listening to the recording, he confirmed his theory that they could use this exam to expel her. Kushida asks him how he came to that conclusion after listening to the rules since the only way to expel someone is if they didn’t vote within the allocated time. Yagami says that if his predictions are right, there will be an alternative method to expel a student and Kushida could potentially guide the discussion in the direction of expelling Horikita or Ayanokouji. He then tells Kushida about the kind of questions he predicts will show up in this exam (the readers don’t know what they are). While he hadn’t been told this information by Tsukishiro, he was able to predict the possibility of it happening from the information gathered.
Kushida is skeptical about her own ability to execute the strategy but Yagami says that he trusts in Kushida’s ability because he actually laid down a test the very first time he met Kushida. He says that usually if a stranger talks to you, you would be suspicious of them, but Kushida improvised very well in getting close to him and probing him for what information he knew. From that instance onwards, he knew that Kushida was a capable/talented person. Kushida demands to know who he is, since he knew her past despite not being from the same middle school. Yagami tells her to think of him as a special guest who was invited to this school to play with Ayanokouji. Kushida asks him what would have happened if she hadn’t responded to him in the manner he predicted. Yagami replies that it would have probably provoked Ayanokouji’s suspicion and there was a possibility they could have their faceoff earlier. Kushida suspects whether Yagami was from the same middle school as Ayanokouji but Yagami dodges her question and tells her to focus on the upcoming special exam instead. Kushida says she understands and will give his strategy a try if Yagami’s predicted questions show up. But as Kushida tries to leave, Yagami stands up and grabs her shoulders. She tries to escape but was unable to move at all as he was much stronger than she imagined. Yagami says that her determination is too weak. He says that it’s incredibly difficult to expel your own classmates at this school and that this is a one in a thousand chance that she can’t let slip. Kushida says she understands but says that if she tries too hard, she may risk putting herself in danger. Yagami says that she needs to have at least enough determination to put her own safety on the line if she wants the plan to succeed. Otherwise she will never be able to expel either of her targets. He urges Kushida to make a decision of her own free will because if he goes any further it would count as blackmail which is against the exam rules. She responds to him with the determination to expel Horikita and Ayanokouji. In her mind, she also thinks that she must expel Yagami.
Chapter 3
Chabashira is woken up by her alarm clock and tries to reach out to stop the alarm but accidentally sweeps it off her bedside table. She had only gotten 2 hours of sleep last night. Picking up her alarm clock, she apologises for treating it roughly. She stands in front of her bathroom mirror and realises that she looked terrible with dark circles under her eyes because she had been having difficulty sleeping the past few nights. After washing her face, she covered up her condition with makeup so that her students wouldn’t be worried. Chabashira had always known that someday would come when she would have to confront her past. She reassures herself by saying that this was no longer her battleground and that her current class should be able to clear this obstacle without any problems.
Since a special exam was to be held today, a meeting was held with all the teachers present. A teacher named Ikari warned the other teachers that they were forbidden from interfering with their class’ decisions regardless of how much they wanted to protect their students. Hoshinomiya asks why the teachers weren’t reassigned to look after other classes in order to avoid the possibility of interference. Sakagami muses that it was because the school trusted them to uphold a standard of fairness. However, Hoshinomiya was unconvinced and theorises that since this exam will exposes the darkest depths of every student’s heart, the school didn’t want the information leaking to teachers of other classes. Ikari expresses her annoyance at Hoshinomiya and then continues her explanation. She says that a supervising teacher will be placed in every classroom, and if any of the teachers were deemed to have provided advice to their classes, they would first be warned and then any repeat offences would result in a salary deduction and in the worst case scenario a demotion. Afterwards, Chabashira tried to act normally but lost track of time, and by the time she noticed it was already lunchtime. She had left her lunch half-eaten. Finally, the bell rang for the afternoon classes which also signalled the start of the exam. She passed by Hoshinomiya who provokes her by asking if she was having difficulty sleeping while thinking about the exam. Chabashira replies that she didn’t care about whether or not her current class passed their exam. Hoshinomiya says that she’s lying and then reminds her that she doesn’t have any right to aim for Class A. On the rest of the way to the classroom, Chabashira was unable to look up from the ground.
Ayanokouji returned to the classroom after lunchtime, five minutes before the start of the exam. He was instructed to sit in a designated seat different from the seat he usually sat in. Satou was sitting to his right and Onizuka was sitting in front of him. Ike nonchalantly asked Shinohara if she wanted to go on a date at Keyaki Mall if the exam finished in 1-2 hours, to which Shinohara replied that she wanted to get some studying done first but would be happy to go in the evening. Chabashira first collects all the students’ communication devices. As Ayanokouji was thinking about the various strict rules put in place to ensure that students wouldn’t know what everyone else voted for, he notices Haruka pushing Airi towards him. Airi asked him for some of his time after school, saying that she wanted to consult him about the upcoming cultural festival. While standing behind Airi, Haruka was putting pressure on Ayanokouji with her eyes. Ayanokouji agreed, saying he also planned on talking to her sooner or later. As soon as she got his agreement, Airi quickly returned to her seat as if to run away. Haruka says that whilst Airi’s wounds haven’t completely healed, she was looking ahead to the future. But she also warns that whether or not Airi will accept Ayanokouji’s request will depend on Ayanokouji’s own attempts to convince her.
Before the exam, Chabashira warns that they will only have a maximum of four bathroom breaks over the course of this exam. These can only be held in the 10 minute interval breaks and the timer will continue counting down during these bathroom breaks. Everyone had already gone to the bathroom before the exam and no one was absent due to being sick. However, while everyone was waiting for Chabashira to start the exam, she only dazedly stared at her class. She only finally began the test after being warned by the supervising teacher.
The first question was to choose the class to face in the end of year exam held in the third term. The subtext stated that even if there was a change in class rankings, the choices are referring to the current rankings at the time of selection. In the case that the desired matchups were not the same amongst the classes, the school would randomly decide the matchups. The class points given for winning against each class were detailed as following:
Class A (100 points) Class B (50 points) Class D (0 points)
E.g. if Horikita and Ichinose’s class both selected Sakayanagi’s class as their opponent, then Sakayanagi’s selection would determine who they face. But if Sakayanagi chose Ryuuen’s class and Ryuuen chose a different class, then everything will be randomised by the school. Since Ayanokouji had already agreed with Horikita that he would select the first option whilst Horikita would select the second option, he selected Class A whilst Horikita selected Class B. The results of the first vote were:
5 votes for Class A, 21 votes for Class B and 13 votes for Class D.
Horikita speaks up and gives her opinion that they should choose Class B because it would result in a fair battle without any dirty tricks. Furthermore, Class B had been on a downward trend and were now almost level on class points with Class C and D, making them no more difficult an opponent than Ryuuen’s class. Before any dissenting opinions could be spoken, Hirata and Kei immediately spoke out in support of Horikita’s opinion. Hirata said that whilst there was a sizable reward for defeating Sakayanagi’s class, they were also the most difficult opponent. Kei also said that beating Ryuuen’s class didn’t sound very rewarding and there would be no point if they lost to Sakayanagi’s class. The second vote was unanimously in favour of facing Class B. Ayanokouji thinks that there is a strong possibility all three classes would choose Class B since they were the obvious easiest opponent so Ichinose’s choice would likely determine the matchups. Ayanokouji prays that Ichinose will choose Horikita’s class. 😂😂😂
The second question asks the class about where they want to go for the school trip. The choices are:
Hokkaido Kyoto Okinawa
Chabashira says that this vote does not guarantee they will be able to go their selected destination. It will also depend on the other classes’ choices. (I’m assuming everyone is going to the same destination)
The results of the first vote are:
17 votes for Hokkaido, 3 votes for Kyoto, 19 votes for Okinawa.
As soon as Chabashira announced the beginning of the break interval, Hondou started laughing and mocking the special exam for being a piece of cake. A lot of other students also relaxed after realising how easy the exam was. However, several students such as Hirata and Horikita were still being cautious as they didn’t think the questions would continue being this easy all the way until the end. Hirata called for the class’ attention and told them to focus on the task at hand. Kushida asked whether Horikita had any advice for how to vote for this question. Horikita was lost in thought and after a bit of prompting, she apologised and said that it might be a bit difficult to reach unanimity for this question. Ayanokouji thought the same thing, since something like this was a matter of personal taste and not something which Horikita could decide by abusing her title of class leader. Horikita decides to start by collecting the class’ opinions. Sudou starts by saying he voted for Okinawa and he thinks they should go for Okinawa since it had the most votes. Maezono retorts that the difference in votes is too small to make a significant difference and asks the rest of the class whether they’d like to ski. Other voices in the class also start arguing amongst each other.
After a few minutes of arguing, Hirata interjected and said that while it was fine for people to vouch for their own preferences, it wasn’t nice to discredit other people’s choices. But on the contrary, he put himself in the firing line and his classmates started demanding to know what he picked. Hirata decided to keep his choice a secret. Afterwards, Sudou and Maezono continued arguing with Sudou saying that Okinawa is the only place where they can still swim in November whilst Maezono says she’s had enough of swimming after the uninhabited island exam. Kushida asks Horikita about how she plans on resolving this situation and Horikita is at a bit of a loss. Just like that, the break interval came to an end and it was time for the second vote. This time, Ayanokouji decided to switch his vote to Kyoto because it was a place with a remarkable history and he had never been there before. The results for the second vote were:
18 votes for Hokkaido, 4 votes for Kyoto and 17 votes for Okinawa.
Maezono celebrates Hokkaido’s comeback win while Sudou demands to know who changed sides from Okinawa to Hokkaido. Both sides once again started arguing. Ayanokouji was sad that Kyoto was not being considered at all. Since Horikita was forced to choose option 2 Kyoto the first time around, he thinks it’s possible that she continued voting for Kyoto this time as well. He also thinks that there was the option of going with the majority, but doing it now would definitely leave a grudge since Okinawa won the first round. Horikita decides to choose the winner by playing rock, paper, scissors. She tells the Hokkaido faction and Okinawa faction to each elect 3 participants while the Kyoto faction is represented by a single participant. By using fair rules, Horikita was trying to disperse the class’ dissatisfaction. After a brief discussion about who to nominate as the candidates, the teams were decided as:
Hokkaido team: Maezono, Ishikura, Shinohara.
Okinawa team: Onodera, Hondou, Sudou.
When Horikita called out for a Kyoto representative, Keisei raised his hand and said he will definitely bring everyone to Kyoto. It was the first time anyone had named themselves as part of the Kyoto faction. Ayanokouji also prayed for Keisei’s victory.
In the first round, Maezono and Keisei used paper whilst Onodera used scissors. The Kyoto factions dreams were ruined within 10 seconds. 😂😂😂 As Ayanokouji saw Horikita place her hand to her forehead and sigh, he was convinced that she was also part of the Kyoto faction. Onodera then continued on to defeat Ishikura as well, leaving the Hokkaido faction with their final representative. Shinohara then defeated Onodera and Hondou. In the end, Shinohara defeated Sudou as well for a come from behind victory. Sudou gets flamed by his classmates who wanted to go to Okinawa.
As a result, the 3rd vote ended up being:
39 votes for Hokkaido, 0 votes for Kyoto and 0 votes for Okinawa.
Ayanokouji is slightly disappointed that Kyoto didn’t win but he’s also looking forward to Hokkaido and there was still the possibility that Okinawa or Kyoto could win in the other classes. The third question was:
Option 1: For half a year, in exchange for all private points received by all students per month becoming zero, 3 random students will each be given a protection point.
Option 2: For half a year, in exchange for all private points received by all students per month being halved, choose 1 student to give a protection point to.
Option 3: For half a year, the bottom 5 students in the next written exam will receive 0 private points.
Chabashira warns the class that if they chose option 2, there must be an unanimous decision over who to give the protection point to. The results of the first vote are:
12 votes for option 1, 5 votes for option 2 and 22 votes for option 3.
The majority of the class who have confidence they wouldn’t be in the bottom 5, chose the option to abandon protection points in exchange for not receiving any damage to their own private point income. They preferred to instead sacrifice the 5 students with the lowest grades. Satou and Ike objected to the choice to sacrifice only five people. Sudou with the bro quote:
“Well, there’s no other way about it. Getting zero private points for half a year is a little… you know? And since it’s random, there’s a low chance that I’ll get the protection point, so please sacrifice yourself Kanji.”
(I really can’t believe Sudou is the one saying this 😂😂😂)
When Ike protests saying that he needs private points, Sudou retorts that he’s probably just going to be spending it on dates with Shinohara😂😂😂. Sudou tries to end the discussion like that but Ike continues to protest. When Sudou tells him to just study hard, Ike says he doesn’t want to hear Sudou saying that to him 😂😂😂.
Horikita says that they don’t need to think so pessimistically. The rest of the class can just make up for the loss of the five people. Each person would only be down by 6500 private points per month. Sudou begrudgingly agrees although he says he doesn’t mind if they don’t share the points. (what a nice friend)
With that discussion over, the class’ opinions started moving towards the no protection point option. But at that timing, Hirata interrupts and asks for Horikita’s opinion on what would be best for the class. She thinks that it’s a difficult choice because protection points are a very useful tool to prevent expulsions, but at the same time, private points were also very valuable. She asks Hirata for his opinion and he says that he thinks they should choose the option to get protection points for three people. Horikita objects because she thinks that not having private points may have a greater influence beyond just their day to day lifestyle, since it may even influence future special exams. From Hirata’s perspective, the existence of his classmates was priceless. Option 1 would allow him to provide protection for three of those classmates from expulsion. But as the two of them are arguing, Keisei interrupts and gives his opinion. He does some maths based on the class point trajectory and says that the class would actually stand to lose even more private points over the following 6 months if they chose option 1. Kushida sums up the situation as choosing private points would be an offensive strategy whilst choosing protection points would be a defensive strategy. Kushida says if they weren’t able to use the protection points, it would just be an expensive purchase but then adds that she doesn’t mind even if that were to be the case. Keisei says that there are alternative uses for protection points such as using it in a suicide bombing strategy.
Horikita then asks Keisei to confirm which strategy he is supporting. He says that he actually supports option 2. When Horikita asks if he wants the protection point for himself, he says that he would be happy but he doesn’t think it’s realistic. He vouches for giving the protection point to Horikita who will have to compete against the likes of Ryuuen and Sakayanagi in the future as the class leader. He says that she has a strong track record and a high OAA so there will be less objections from the class, and by having a protection point, she will not need to be afraid of Ryuuen or Sakayanagi aiming directly at her. Hondou says he understands Keisei’s point but it a little dissatisfied since he thinks it’s an expensive price to pay. Keisei says that this is an investment for the future since Horikita will help them earn more class points than what they pay with option 2. Horikita herself warns him that he perhaps has too much confidence in her and that she can’t guarantee that his investment will work out. Keisei replies that he doesn’t think they can beat Class A without taking any risks. Surprisingly, Kouenji supports Keisei’s proposal to give Horikita a protection point.
Kouenji: “Horikita girl should just work hard as repayment for the protection point.”
Sudou: “You also have a protection point and yet I don’t see you working your ass off.”
Kouenji: “That’s because working is something that only commoners do.”😂😂😂
With that, it was time for the second vote. The results of the second vote were:
0 votes for option 1, 39 votes for option 2, 0 votes for option 3.
After nominating Horikita as the candidate to receive the protection point, the vote was 39 votes in favour. The fourth question was:
In the next written exam, choose for one of the following options to be applied:
Option 1: Higher difficulty
Option 2: Larger penalties
Option 3: Lower rewards
The results of the first vote were:
6 votes for increasing difficulty, 18 votes for increasing penalties and 15 votes for lowering rewards.
Afterwards, there was a fiery argument between the students who were good academically and those who weren’t, but on the second vote, the class ended up unanimously voting for increasing penalties after Horikita said that increasing penalties wouldn’t have any consequences if everyone just took their studies seriously. After only 1 hour of the exam, the class had finally arrived at the last question. There were many students who were almost prematurely celebrating clearing the exam and almost everyone in the room was certain that they were only one step away from getting the 50 class points clearance reward. But there was only one point of concern. As they had sequentially progressed through the different tasks, their homeroom teacher Chabashira’s complexion had gradually paled and it was clear that something wasn’t right. Hirata asked her if she was feeling okay but Chabashira reassured him that she was fine. She didn’t even seem to notice her own complexion. The last question which was displayed on the tablet was:
Will you expel a classmate to earn 100 class points?
Option 1: Yes.
Option 2: No.
(If the vote is unanimously for yes, nominate and vote for a classmate to expel.)
Ayanokouji thinks that if this exam were held in the last term of their 3rd year, there may be students who choose the option to expel a classmate, but at the current moment in time, there shouldn’t be any students who were that desperate. Ayanokouji’s agreement with Horikita was to vote for the first option every time. However, he determined that rather than giving the opportunity of a break interval to change his classmates’ minds, it would be better if he just voted for the second option to pass the motion in one go. He determined that this was a question which they should quickly move on from without giving it any opportunity to go pear-shaped. The results of the first vote were:
2 votes for yes, 37 votes for no.
Usually Chabashira would call out the results of the vote. But this time around, she just stared dazedly at the results displayed on the monitor like the rest of her students. Ayanokouji realises that this was the question which Chabashira was so concerned about.
The supervising teacher called for Chabashira to continue with the exam which woke her from her daze as she started announcing the results. As soon as she finishes speaking, Sudou immediately starts demanding to know who voted yes, all while directing his gaze at Kouenji. After no one replies, he starts demanding to know which choice Kouenji voted for. Kouenji refuses to answer and says that ‘Horikita girl’ allowed every student to pick any option in the first vote for each question. Ike ignored Kouenji and demanded to know who the other yes vote was, choosing to focus on that instead. Horikita tells them not to panic and reveals that she had told Ayanokouji to always vote for the first option on the first vote so that their votes would be split. Horikita then speaks to the whole class and says that she doesn’t think it’s wrong to want to prioritise class points. But she thinks this is a question where the class should all vote ‘no’. She urges the person who voted ‘yes’ to reveal themselves and give their reasoning as to why they voted ‘yes’. However, everyone in the class held their silence.
Sudou asks Kouenji for how long he plans to stay silent for. Kouenji tells him to not just straight up assume that he voted for yes but Sudou doesn’t believe him. Horikita tells Sudou to calm down since it was still only the first vote. She says that they had no confirmation that it was Kouenji who cast the vote and she thinks the fact that no one revealed themselves as voting ‘yes’ means that they felt bad for choosing that option. She optimistically believes that everyone would unanimously select ‘no’ in the second vote. They moved on to the second vote. The results were:
2 votes for yes, 37 votes for no.
Until this moment, there had been no tension in this special exam. But the mood in the class had clearly worsened since the results meant that even after hearing everything earlier, there were still 2 people who decided to vote to expel. Horikita immediately questioned Ayanokouji as the most likely culprit. Other students such as Sudou also followed her gaze. Ayanokouji reveals that he had voted ‘no’ for both the first and second votes. He tells his classmates that he didn’t follow the plan because he didn’t think there was any discussion worth having with the exam question being what it was. He also didn’t speak out after the first vote because he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary confusion or distress. Horikita thinks for a moment then asks the people who voted yes to please explain why they chose that option if they intend to continue voting that way. Since there were 37 people opposing that decision, Horikita wanted them to present a reasonable argument to convince their classmates.
Kushida asks Horikita in a worried tone about whether they’ll be okay. Horikita once again reaffirms that her policy was to not expel anybody. Hirata speaks out and addresses the people who voted ‘yes’. He says that he even if they were to get 500 or 1000 class points, it wouldn’t be worth expelling one student for it. He says that it’s easy to earn back a measly 100 class points. Kouenji starts laughing and says that this special exam was getting interesting. He says that he thought that everyone other than him would vote ‘no’ in the second vote, thus revealing that he indeed voted yes. Horikita asks him to confirm because it would only cause extra confusion if he was the boy who cried “Wolf!”.
Kouenji reassures her by saying he voted ‘yes’ both the first and second times. When Horikita asks him for his reasoning, he says that the reason is simple since with 100 extra class points, he would get more private points every month. Hence he can’t see any merits for voting ‘no’. When Sudou asks him if he thinks class points are more important than his comrades in arms, Kouenji burns him by saying that he didn’t see Sudou as being the type of person to treasure friends back when they first enrolled at this school. When Sudou gets angry again, Kouenji replies that he’s never seen any of them as his comrades. When Horikita asks Kouenji if he plans to continue voting yes, he confirms that’s his intention. Sudou rages and tells Horikita to just order everyone to expel Kouenji. However, Kouenji uses his deal with Horikita as a shield and says that she will protect him from expulsion. He says that a leader who takes back their promises is unable to earn the trust of their classmates. Horikita agrees with him and says that she can’t expel Kouenji. Horikita asks for some time to think of a solution and instead asks the other student who voted yes to also come out and reveal themselves. Once again, silence ensues. The break interval ended and the class voted for the third time. The results of the third vote were:
2 votes for yes, 37 votes for no.
Horikita calls out to Kouenji and the anonymous student voting ‘yes’, saying that she and the other 36 classmates will continue to vote ‘no’ while the two of them vote ‘yes’. If that happens and time runs out, it will only be the worst case scenario of the class running out of time and losing 300 class points. She says that the ‘no’ faction are prepared to wait it out and protect their classmates even at the cost of those 300 class points. But the ‘yes’ faction would not only lose the only benefit of voting ‘yes’, but they would receive an even greater loss. Kouenji agrees that this would be the result. Hence, he urges Horikita to hurry up and vote ‘yes’ before that happens. Horikita says that the aftermath of voting ‘yes’ would be the even greater hurdle of choosing one of their classmates to expel. She says that would be an even more difficult task to reach unanimity in, but Kouenji says he doesn’t care since that’s Horikita’s job. He also adds that he doesn’t think it’s a demerit to expel one of their classmates. He says that they can freely delete one of the classmates who are dragging the class down and even get class points for doing that. He says if they change their mindset slightly, it should be obvious how fantastic of an option it is.
Hirata disagrees with Kouenji and says he doesn’t think expelling one of their classmates is a positive. Kushida also followed up and said that she thinks they should prioritise their classmates. As if the walls of a dam had broke, all the other classmates who had been silent up until now also started arguing in favour of not expelling anyone. However, Kouenji did not respond to any of their arguments and eventually, it was time for the fourth vote. The results of the fourth vote were:
2 votes yes, 37 votes no.
Sudou angrily asks if he can just sock Kouenji and knock him unconscious and force him to vote ‘no’. Horikita decides to change the focus of the discussion to what the other classes would choose. Sudou thinks Ryuuen’s class will definitely get rid of the person who he thinks is most appropriate to expel. Many of their classmates seemed to agree with his opinion. Horikita also thinks Ichinose’s class would definitely vote ‘no’. Sakayanagi’s class could potentially vote for either option. Sudou says he doesn’t want to be overtaken by Ryuuen’s class, especially since they currently had a lot of momentum. Horikita agreed but said that even if they were overtaken, the difference was only 100 class points. Akito interjects and reminds the class that someday they could potentially cry and regret not taking these 100 class points. When asked to clarify his position, he states that he’s definitely in the ‘no’ faction, however, he asks the class what they would choose if this exam was held at a time close to their graduation. He tells Kouenji that he acknowledges the contribution he made in the recent island exam. He thinks that even without the promise to Horikita, he wouldn’t want Kouenji to be expelled. But he doesn’t think that gives him the right to be a nuisance to the class. Kouenji mocks him for not understanding how this school works and says that everything revolves around points and that things such as friendship and comradery don’t matter. After another scuffle with Sudou, Kouenji says that the thing which was important to him wasn’t these class points.
Horikita realises that Kouenji values the private points which would be gained each month by earning those 100 class points. Kouenji says that even while holding back his tears, he agreed earlier to cut his private points income in half because Horikita’s presence at the school was necessary to protect him from their classmates. However, this time around, he had no incentive to choose option 2. Horikita proposes a deal with Kouenji to transfer him 10,000 private point every month until graduation to offset this loss in exchange for changing his vote to ‘no’. But she clarifies that this condition will only hold if the class ends up voting ‘no’. Kouenji agrees to her proposal. Ayanokouji thinks that Kouenji switching sides would usually mean the one remaining anonymous person would also switch their vote to avoid the pressure of being the only person in opposition. But at the end of the 5th round of voting the results were:
1 vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
Ayanokouji thinks that the real battle will be uncovering this anonymous voter. The school had already taken countermeasures against attempts at watching the position of people’s fingers by randomising the position of the choices. While Horikita is thinking, Ayanokouji coughed twice, sending a signal to Kei and Hirata. Kei spoke up and asked Horikita if she perhaps had an idea of who was still continuing to vote ‘yes’. Until now, Horikita would have ignored such a statement if it was said by Kei, but since Kei was now openly dating Ayanokouji, she understood the hidden meaning behind it. She agrees but says that she doesn’t plan on naming that person yet because the damage caused would be very significant if she were to be wrong. But she says that if this person continues to vote no, she would have no choice but to force her hand. Hirata objects and says that they shouldn’t recklessly name people in this exam because there’s no way of confirming whether they’re actually the culprit voting ‘yes’. Kushida also agrees with Hirata and says that she thinks it isn’t a good idea to name a student without evidence.
Horikita says she understands their feelings and doesn’t want to do it either. But she says she will have no choice if they’re running out of time. Hirata says he understands and says that he’s also a changed man. He says he will be ready to make the necessary choices if need be, but he wants to make sure they get it right. Ayanokouji then interrupts and asks whether there are any students other than Horikita who have an idea of who the culprit is. Nobody else in the class raises their hand. He then asks Hirata since he is close to many people and has many friends, but again, Hirata doesn’t know. He then proceeds to ask Kushida who coolly answers him without showing any hint of being agitated by the sudden question. On the contrary, Horikita looked shaken and glared at him as if to ask him what he was trying to do. Ayanokouji directs the class’ attention to Kushida by saying that she was the most familiar with everyone in the class and was relied upon by almost everyone. He asks her to speak out if she had heard of anybody’s complaints. Kushida says she can’t think of anything but promises to tell him if something comes up in the future. The result of the sixth round of voting is then:
One vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
The result remained the same and the same discussions repeated themselves again.
7th vote results: One vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
8th vote results: One vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
The result continued to remain the same and the classroom became silent. In the midst of that, Chabashira collapsed against the podium and started breathing heavily. She adjusted her posture and stood back up but continued looking at the class with hollow eyes. Eventually she speaks up and says that while teachers are not allowed to provide guidance, she would like them to listen to a story about her past. The supervising teacher warns her against influencing the students’ opinions, but Chabashira replies that she is speaking with the resolve to be punished if she is deemed to have broken the rules. Horikita welcomes her story since they are currently at a standstill.
Chabashira reveals that she was also a student who graduated from ANHS and she once took this exact same exam. She says that the most important part is to make a choice which they will not regret. The supervising teacher listened to Chabashira talk without interrupting or saying there was a rule violation. Chabashira was just barely skirting the boundary of the rules.
Horikita calls out and says that it’s almost time for her to come to a decision. But she first wants to reassure the person in question that she is not their enemy. Without naming this individual, Horikita continued to appeal to them that she was on their side.
9th vote results: One vote for yes, 38 for no.
Both Ayanokouji and Horikita knew that rather than the 100 Class Points, this individual was clinging on to the ‘ability to expel’ a classmate. There was no doubt that this individual would continue voting to expel, but there was no method to confirm their choice. Horikita had said she would name that individual when time was close to running out, but irrespective of how many times the class voted, Horikita didn’t name that individual. She knew that if she named that person, she would lose any hope of them cooperating with her in the future.
Chapter 4
Every teacher was confident that Ichinose’s class would successfully clear the exam, but at the same time, they were also worried that with this choice, the class would no longer be able to compete for Class A in the future. Ichinose’s classmates had finished the prior questions quickly and had just submitted their first round of votes for the last question. Kanzaki was the only one out of the 40 students who was nervous, as he prayed for a result where the votes were split as evenly as possible. Hoshinomiya looked at the results on her tablet before announcing them in a resigned tone of disappointment.
One vote for yes, 39 votes for no.
Kanzaki closed his eyes as his worst nightmare came true. None of the other 39 students felt any tension whatsoever and Shibata called out asking for the name of the person who accidentally made a mistake and pressed yes. They didn’t even consider the possibility of this single vote being intentional. That only made Kanzaki even angrier. He felt that the class could no longer delusionally continue to walk the path of protecting all their classmates. He could no longer bear this attitude which didn’t even consider prioritising class points over classmates as a possibility.
Kanzaki stands up and slams his desk. He tells the class that the fact that not a single one of them doubted whether this was the correct course of action meant that the class had already fallen into a vicious cycle of normalcy bias. He claims that for their class to climb to Class A, they need to change their way of thinking. He says that if all the other classes chose to expel someone, they could potentially fall all the way to Class D. But contrary to his hopes, all of his classmates merely looked at him with cold eyes. The only one who was listening attentively to him was their homeroom teacher Hoshinomiya. However, as a teacher, she was forbidden from making any statements to support Kanzaki’s argument.
Shiranami tried to shut down his argument by saying that there wasn’t anyone in their class who’d done anything worth being expelled for. Kanzaki’s classmates also think that other than maybe Ryuuen’s class, all the other classes will also choose the option to not expel. Kanzaki says he understands but what’s most important for him right now is the class’ mindset. He thinks the class should stop being so single-minded and there should be some students who think about prioritising the class over their friends, but they’re being suppressed by peer pressure. Kanzaki was also someone who agreed that classmates were more important than class points. However, that ideology of theirs has only made them lose whilst the two classes below them have made up that gap over time and are now almost even with them in class points. Hence he decided that something needed to change. Kanzaki desperately looks around the classroom for someone to agree with him but is met with radio silence. Even while feeling the pressure from his classmates, Kanzaki says he will not let this conclude with an unanimous vote to not expel. Ichinose says that their thoughts will not change and that she personally doesn’t want to belong to a class who would be willing to sacrifice their classmates for points. Kanzaki asks his classmates why they think this would be the last exam of its kind. If similar exams show up over and over again, their class will be left behind if the other classes repeatedly chose the expel option. Shibata replies that he doesn’t think a class which repeatedly sacrifices their friends will be able to win. He believes that the class which trusts and protects each other will end up being victorious. All his classmates nod their heads in agreement. Kanzaki tells Shibata that he’s averting his eyes from the reality. The other 3 classes which chose to sacrifice someone were steadily growing and overtaking their class. Shibata says that it’s only temporary, and even if their rank falls, they’ll be able to climb back up. Ichinose says that she understands Kanzaki’s sentiments in wanting them to welcome other methods of winning. But she says that there are some choices which must never be taken and that it’s fundamentally wrong to weigh the value of class points and classmates on a scale.
As Ichinose’s classmates grew even more resolved in their determination from her words, Kanzaki is instead greatly disappointed. From outer appearances alone, Class B looked like an idealistic class with many students who were strong academically and good at sports. Their leader Ichinose was charismatic and had unified her classmates into something almost resembling a hive mind of worshippers. They have upheld an ideal of striving to reach Class A with all their classmates intact. But if you look at it from another perspective, it also means that they are okay with being stuck as Class B as long as they don’t lose any of their classmates. Kanzaki says that he doesn’t know if he’s doing the right thing, but he decides to hold his classmates hostage. He says that even a single vote holds enormous power in this exam and proclaims that he will continue to vote to expel until the time runs out. Shibata calls him out on his bluff, saying he can’t do that since it would only make them lose 300 class points and be unable to reach Class A. Kanzaki says he doesn’t think it makes a difference whether they lost 100 or 300 class points because he thinks that if the class doesn’t make the decision to expel here, they will never be able to reach Class A. Hoshinomiya then interrupts them and urges them to vote. The results of the second vote are:
One vote for yes, 39 votes for no.
Even after he voted ‘yes’ again, his classmates aren’t angry at him and are merely exasperated without taking him seriously. Kanzaki believes that the pressure of the approaching time limit will eventually force his classmates to break out of the herd mentality and think for themselves about what would be the best solution for the sake of the class. Kanzaki says that since he’s going to continue to vote to expel, the only way to clear this exam will be switching to an unanimous vote for expulsion and choosing to expel him. He wants to become a sacrifice to forcefully change the class. He says that he doesn’t see the point of meandering about without having the courage to take the steps necessary to aim for Class A. If such a future is awaiting him, he would prefer to leave the school and seek a different future. The next 3 votes continued to be one vote for yes, 39 votes for no. Nobody was swayed by his words. One hour passed and still nothing changed. His classmates tried various methods like appealing to him in a friendly manner or shouting at him angrily, but nothing worked and Kanzaki continued to vote to expel. Hoshinomiya gets bored of the silence and tells her class that she also took the same exam during her school days. Her students are surprised since this was the first time she had talked about her time at school. Although Hoshinomiya had a good relationship with her class, she had always brushed off their questions whenever they asked her anything about her time at school. She says that her class also took quite a long time to decide. Hoshinomiya asks them if they would be able to make the same decision if they were at the end of their 3rd year and only one step away from Class A. When one of her students asks her about the choice that she made at the time, Hoshinomiya says that she chose to cut off people who she thought were unnecessary. She says that everyone is the same and when it really comes down to it, will always prioritise protecting themselves over others. She says that even if you call someone your best friend, you will still end up prioritising your own safety. She says that she can’t say any more than this since she is being closely supervised. She says she will respect the class’ decision regardless of what choice they end up making. But she wants them to make the choice that they truly think is the right thing to do. She tells them to go ahead and prioritise class points if they think the friendships they have are fake. She says that they’ve only known each other for one and a half years and likewise, the 3 students who were expelled from other classes have already moved on with their lives. She says that if they are unable to reach Class A because of this, they will remember it for the rest of their lives. However, if they truly believe their friends are important, then they can go ahead and prioritise their friends.
But in the next vote, the results continued to be one vote for yes and 39 votes for no. Hoshinomiya isn’t surprised at this result and merely accepts it as the class’ resounding answer to her question. Himeno urges Kanzaki to give up because even if people were to start changing their votes right now, they would run out of time to convince the entire class. She and her other classmates would be willing to even run out of time if it meant they didn’t have to expel one of their classmates. Ichinose then says that she understands what Kanzaki and Hoshinomiya were trying to say but she will continue to uphold her ideal of graduating in Class A without losing any of her classmates. She wants them to do their best so that they will never need to face such a choice because she thinks a Class A achieved by walking over the corpses of the classmates that they sacrificed is meaningless.
Kanzaki thinks she’s being unrealistic but Ichinose says that’s the kind of class she wants to aim for. All her classmates around her nod in agreement. Kanzaki gives up and realises that he doesn’t have the ability to change this class. He doesn’t know if this class would end up being Class B or Class D but the one thing he has understood today is that this class will never be able to reach Class A. But there’s nothing he can do about it because none of his classmates have realised that reality. The results of the tenth vote were:
0 votes for yes, 40 votes for no.
None of Kanzaki’s classmates noticed, but the expression on his face wasn’t of agreement, but resignation. Hoshinomiya tells the class that Sakayanagi’s class had already completed the exam but Ryuuen and Horikita’s class were still in the middle of theirs.
Chapter 5
In Class D, the first vote for the fifth question ended as 14 votes for yes, 26 votes for no. Ishizaki asks Ryuuen for instructions on how to proceed. The first, third and 4th questions all reached unanimity after only a single break interval with Ryuuen’s instructions on how to vote. The second question about the destination of the school trip ended up being decided by majority after 30 minutes of discussion amongst the class. Everyone had followed Ryuuen’s instructions until now and hence they naturally looked towards him again for instructions on how to vote for this question. However, Ryuuen merely walked up to the podium and asked the people who voted yes to raise their hands. After a few seconds of hesitation, 5 of the 14 people raised their hands. Komiya asked the remaining 9 people to also name themselves, saying that no one will get angry at them for voting ‘yes’ in the first round of voting, especially since there weren’t any instructions from Ryuuen. After Ishizaki shouted angrily, one more student apologetically raised their hand, bringing the total up to 6. But Ryuuen says that he’ll allow it to pass for now and tells them to spend the remaining 8 minutes thinking about what they believe is the correct decision. The class spends the next few minutes in silence but Ryuuen didn’t say anything. Ishizaki gets impatient and asks Ryuuen for instructions, but he continues to hold his silence. In the end, the first break interval ends without anything happening. The results of the second vote were:
10 votes for yes, 30 votes for no.
Everyone in the class believed that with the current trend, if Ryuuen just said a few more words, the class will unanimously reach the conclusion of voting ‘no’. However Ryuuen merely frowned and was disappointed that even after ten minutes of thinking, the results weren’t what he expected. Kaneda asked him if it was because the number of ‘yes’ votes were too few, but Ryuuen shook his head. But he didn’t confirm whether he voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’. As the class starts getting agitated, Ryuuen says his only intention with this first and second vote was to know what the class’ feeling truly were. Ryuuen tells everyone to voice their own opinions. He walked around the classroom listening to everyone talk, sometimes bringing his ear to their mouths so that they could whisper their thoughts to him. After a while, it was time for the third round of voting. The results were:
9 votes for yes. 31 votes for no.
This time Ryuuen asked everyone who voted for yes to raise their hands. The only people who did were Kaneda and Nishino, while 7 people remained anonymous. Ryuuen asked Kaneda why he had voted to expel all 3 times. Kaneda says that while he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to expel their classmates, he thinks the 100 class points will be important for attaining victory. Ryuuen asks if Kaneda considered that he might be expelled by the class if he held this stance, but Kaneda says that Ryuuen would never cut off anyone who was valuable. Ryuuen agrees with Kaneda’s self evaluation and then asks Nishino if she had the same opinion of herself. Nishino says she voted for yes because she thinks it’s a good idea to take an easy way to gain 100 class points and the reason she named herself was because she didn’t like the idea of stealthily hiding her vote like a snake. Ryuuen then reveals that he had voted to expel all three times. Ishizaki then asks Ryuuen if that meant they were going to choose to expel someone. But Ryuuen smirks and said that his decision was for the class to choose in a democratic manner. He wanted to vote ‘yes’ because the idea of getting rid of trash while earning 100 class points by doing so sounded like it only had positives. But even after three votes, the majority of the class was against expulsion. Hence, he decided that they would now unify the class in the direction of voting ‘no’. However, Ibuki objects and asks why he isn’t forcing his opinion through like he usually does. Ryuuen wonders if Ibuki was also part of the ‘expel’ faction but Ibuki says that she voted ‘no’ but doesn’t understand why Ryuuen was acting out of character. Ryuuen says that if this exam wasn’t anonymous, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use forceful means. However, with the current rules, it’s easier to just unify the class in the direction of the majority. But while everyone thought that the next vote would be the last, the results of the fourth round of voting were:
7 votes for yes, 33 votes for no.
When Ryuuen asked Kaneda and Nishino, both of them said that they had switched their votes to ‘no’. Since Ryuuen himself had also switched his vote, it either meant that one of them was lying or someone had switched their vote from ‘no’ to ‘yes’. Ishizaki roared in anger but Ryuuen calmed him down while saying that things were getting interesting. He says he welcomes the fact that there are seven ambitious students who want the class points to aim for Class A. But, the fact that they voted ‘yes’ means that they probably had somebody in mind who they wanted to expel. And that person was probably Ryuuen. He challenges the anonymous voters to name themselves but none of them reveal themselves. The results of the fifth vote were:
8 votes for yes, 32 votes for no.
Since the ‘no’ vote isn’t passing through, Yabu Nanami (Don’t ask me who she is, I don’t know) proposes that they should just first unanimously vote ‘yes’ and then expel someone who no one else minds expelling. Upon being asked to elaborate, she names Ibuki as an example. Afterwards, several other girls voice out their agreement that they’d be okay with expelling Ibuki. Ishizaki exasperatedly tries to stop them but Ryuuen says he welcomes their idea since they at least had the guts to name themselves unlike the 8 anonymous voters who kept casting ‘yes’ votes. Yabu was the leader of the top caste of girls in the class, which meant her opinion was essentially the same as the opinion of the collective group. Ryuuen says they’d just be wasting time if the votes don’t switch to ‘no’. He asks the class if anyone would be willing to defend Ibuki. No one raises their hands. When he then asks Ibuki if she is willing to just obediently go gently into that good night without raging against the dying of the light, Ibuki declines. She says that while she doesn’t particularly care about the school itself, there was someone she wanted to get revenge on. She also has no intention of being used by people she disliked for their own convenience. Yabu mocks her for putting on a tough front when in reality, she was just afraid of being expelled like the rest of them. Ibuki retorts that she’s gotten awfully arrogant for someone who used to just be Manabe’s groupie. Ryuuen warns Ibuki that Yabu had many friends who would oppose her expulsion but Ibuki didn’t have a single friend. He says that he doesn’t dislike Ibuki but the circumstances are not in her favour so he tells her to sacrifice herself to become a fertiliser for the rest of the class. Yabu mocks Ibuki, saying that her only ally Ryuuen had also turned against her. However, Ibuki continues to refuse to leave the school.
Result of the 6th round of voting: 7 votes for yes, 33 votes for no.
Results of the 7th round of voting: 6 votes for yes, 34 votes for no.
Results of the 8th round of voting: 7 votes for yes, 33 votes for no.
Results of the 9th round of voting: 7 votes for yes, 33 votes for no.
Throughout these 40 minutes, Ryuuen just sat at the front of the class and observed his classmates silently. But during the break interval before the 10th round of voting, he asked his class why none of them had the brains to think for themselves and change their votes without him giving them any instructions. He tells them to stop messing around.
Results of the 10th round of voting: 6 votes for yes, 34 votes for no.
By this time, the smirk had disappeared from Ryuuen’s face and turned into a scowl.
Results of the 11th round of voting: 7 votes for yes, 33 votes for no.
Nishino asks Ryuuen how he intends to unify their votes. Ryuuen says that it’s about time to finish this and says that after observing the class, he now knew the identity of the idiot who had been switching their vote around between ‘yes’ and ‘no’. He names a girl called Yajima Mariko who hurriedly tries to deny his accusation. Ryuuen says that he wouldn’t name anyone unless he was certain. As long as her vote is now no longer anonymous, Ryuuen forbids her from making any more ‘yes’ votes without his permission. He also warns the rest of the anonymous voters saying that if they still get caught voting ‘yes’, he won’t give a second chance to the rest of them.
Results of the 12th round of voting: 5 votes for yes, 35 votes for no.
Ryuuen sits back down in his seat and calls for the remaining five anonymous people to name themselves. He says that if they don’t want to run out of time, their only choice now is to try to bring the class’ opinion in the direction of expelling Ryuuen. At this point in time, Tokitou accepts Ryuuen’s challenge and names himself as one of the people who were voting ‘yes’. Ishizaki was about to hit him but Katsuragi restrains him and reminds Ishizaki about the rules forbidding the use of violence.
Tokitou reveals that he had always been waiting for an opportunity like this since the usual special exams wouldn’t give him any opportunity to get rid of Ryuuen. Ryuuen welcomes his challenge and relishes the feeling of someone rebelling against him. Ryuuen asks him what he plans to do since at this rate they will just run out of time and lose 300 class points. Tokitou says that wouldn’t be his responsibility and instead it would be Ryuuen who takes the blame as the class leader. He appeals to the class that following Ryuuen is wrong, listing the earlier example of Ryuuen overruling the class’ desire to pick Ichinose’s class for the end of term exam and instead choosing Sakayanagi’s class. Tokitou tells Ryuuen that if he pledges to step down from the position of class leader, the remaining votes will naturally turn into ‘no’. Ryuuen asks Tokitou if he lacks the confidence to win the class’ support but Tokitou scoffs and says that if the vote becomes an unanimous ‘yes’, then Ryuuen would definitely become the primary target.
Kaneda intervenes and says that while the responsibility for failing special exams would fall onto Ryuuen’s shoulders, right now, the first person the class would pick would definitely be Tokitou who kept trying to force through an expulsion against the class’ wishes. Tokitou says that other than himself, there were still 4 other anonymous voters who wished for Ryuuen’s expulsion and many more who merely lacked the courage to oppose him. Ryuuen then applauded him and said that his logic was a lot more sound than that of the likes of Yabu. Ryuuen then asks if he would like a duel. He proposes that everyone in the class switch their votes to ‘yes’ and then nominate one of either Ryuuen or Tokitou. That way everyone else would be able to vote knowing that their safety is assured. Tokitou warns him that Ryuuen would have no way of surviving in such a scenario but Ryuuen urges him on by saying that they were wasting time. He provoked Tokitou, asking if he was scared of losing. Tokitou then finally accepts Ryuuen’s proposal, confident in his own victory.
Katsuragi interrupts saying that with the current state of the classroom, Ryuuen had the absolute advantage. Tokitou denies his claim, saying that many students had simply been biding their time and will bite back if an opportunity arises, listing the ‘dog’ Ishizaki as an example. When Ishizaki objects, Tokitou tells him to remember the rebellious spirit he once had when he defeated Ryuuen. Seeing that Tokitou had confidence in his own victory, Katsuragi then changed the question, asking him who was going to take leadership of the class after Ryuuen was gone. Tokitou says that they can talk it out but it won’t be Katsuragi since he’s an outsider. Seeing that Tokitou was unwilling to listen to him, Katsuragi pleaded with Ryuuen to spare Tokitou. Ryuuen then laughs and says that he’s willing to give Tokitou a second chance. He says that in the next vote, everyone in the class except for Tokitou will vote ‘no’. Whether or not they pass the exam will depend solely on Tokitou’s decision. If Tokitou decides to vote ‘yes’, he will begin taking action in the direction of expelling Tokitou. Tokitou asks what happened to the other 4 votes. Ryuuen dared him to try voting ‘yes’ and says that he will see for himself. Tokitou wants to call Ryuuen’s bluff but gets nervous as he imagines the possibility of the other dissidents switching to Ryuuen’s side. In that scenario he would definitely lose. On the contrary, if Ryuuen was bluffing and Tokitou alone switched his vote to ‘no’, he would also lose all the confidence of his classmates and will definitely lose if it ended up coming down to a duel between himself and Ryuuen. Ryuuen dares him to vote ‘yes’ if he is prepared to be expelled.
Results of the 13th round of voting: 2 votes for yes, 38 votes for no.
Tokitou is relieved that there’s someone else with a will as strong as his and wouldn’t succumb despite Ryuuen’s attempts at intimidation. However, Ryuuen interrogates Katsuragi on what he was trying to to do. Katsuragi reveals that he was the other person who voted ‘yes’ since he thinks that Tokitou was a student necessary for this class. In fact, after objectively looking at the class as an outsider coming from Class A, he honestly believes that there isn’t a single unnecessary student in the class. He thinks that Tokitou’s willingness to provide dissenting opinions to Ryuuen was a valuable trait. He reveals that Tokitou’s anonymous allies were a figment of imagination all along because the other 4 votes were Katsuragi, Hiyori, Albert and Ryuuen himself. Katsuragi says that Ryuuen had given him multiple second chances but Tokitou did not recognise them and simply continued trying to expel Ryuuen. He asks Ryuuen to grant Tokitou another chance. Ryuuen says he isn’t that forgiving of a person but Katsuragi says Ryuuen was also at fault for provoking him too much.
The 14th round of voting began. Tokitou was left with his pride shattered. He had the option of either voting yes and guaranteeing his own expulsion or swallowing his pride and succumbing to Ryuuen. In the middle he thought about continuing to vote against his class’ decision and causing them to fail this special exam, but in the end decided not to involve his classmates in his feud with Ryuuen.
Results of the 14th round of voting: 0 votes for yes, 40 votes for no.
Tokitou tells Ryuuen that he hadn’t accepted his ways and that if he thinks Ryuuen makes a mistake, he will once again stand up to him and challenge him. Ryuuen welcomes him to challenge him at any time.
After the exam, Ryuuen approached Katsuragi and said that he did something unnecessary. Katsuragi theorises that Ryuuen told Hiyori to include him in the fake voting group because he expected Katsuragi to protect Tokitou after receiving information from Hiyori that Tokitou often spoke to Katsuragi. But after seeing Ryuuen’s response, he became convinced that it was actually Hiyori’s independent decision. But either way, the result was that Ryuuen gave Tokitou a lifeline and nobody was expelled. Katsuragi is convinced after today that this class had the potential to defeat Sakayanagi and aim for Class A.
Chapter 6
After just one hour of the exam, Sakayanagi’s Class A had reached the final question. Similarly to Horikita, Sakayanagi had made preparations to always split the first vote. As a result, the first vote had 2 votes for yes and 36 for no. All other students had voted for no. When Hashimoto asked Sakayanagi for her instructions, she instead asked for his opinion. He thinks that they should take some time to think about it since the correct answer was possibly less obvious than it looked. Sakayanagi think it’s nonsense to pick such an option when their class is currently head and shoulders above the other classes
(Arisu, why are you copying Kouenji’s English? 😂😂😂)
When Hashimoto says he doesn’t want to regret this decision in the future, Sakayanagi says that there are also demerits to reducing the number of people in their class. The class’ total number of private points will decrease (this is a lie lmao, since they each get 10,000 extra points) and the class will lose morale and trust in each other. Sakayanagi says that she wouldn’t expel any of her classmates who were working hard for her sake unlike Yahiro and Katsuragi. But internally, she notes that this was a lie and if they were actually in an emergency situation, she would mercilessly cut any of them off. She just judged that keeping her classmates’ trust in her was more important at the moment. Thus, Class A finished the exam on the second vote with 0 votes for yes and 38 votes for no.
Chapter 7
(the POV is back to Horikita’s class)
Results of the 10th vote: 1 vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
Chabashira: “Since the votes were not unanimous, we will now begin the interval period.”
Regardless of how much Horikita appealed, the culprit did not name themselves. Chabashira’s face was looking paler with every single time that she had to repeat the exact same words. Hirata asks his classmates to raise their hand if they voted for no. 38 people raised their hands. The only one who didn’t was Kouenji who couldn’t be bothered to raise his hand.😂😂😂
Horikita goes around the class and looks into everyone’s eyes to see if they’re lying. (what are you wasting time for if you basically already know the culprit?🤔🤔🤔)
Thus the break interval runs out and it was time to vote again.
Results of the 11th vote: 1 vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
All of their classmates thought that this anonymous individual will continue voting ‘yes’ until time is close to running out. Then they will be forced to vote ‘no’ and the class will pass the special exam without having to expel anyone. However, Ayanokouji knew. The only result awaiting for them would be running out of time and losing 300 class points. Ayanokouji didn’t think there was anything wrong with Horikita’s strategy. However, it was fundamentally impossible for them to clear this exam without expelling anyone. The main issue being that the culprit didn’t actually view time running out as a detrimental result. No forms of persuasion would work on them. The basic premise of this exam was that all the students would rank the outcomes from best to worst as:
Don’t expel >= expel > running out of time
However, there was a single student whose priorities were:
Expel > running out of time > Don’t expel
In that case, the only solution was for the class to unanimously elect to expel someone. Hence, Ayanokouji decided to make a move.
Results of the 12th vote: 2 votes for yes, 37 votes for no.
Horikita looked at the results in despair as if she were stuck in a nightmare. By casting a vote for ‘yes’, Ayanokouji broke the unified solidarity that the class had until then. Opinions in the class started heading in the direction of there being no choice but to expel someone.
Results of the 13th vote: 5 votes for yes, 34 votes for no.
Results of the 14th vote: 12 votes for yes, 27 votes for no.
More and more students started to vote in favour of expelling someone because they had confidence that they themselves would be safe. Hirata and Horikita desperately tried to resist against the class’ momentum, claiming that it would be even more difficult to get unanimity in choosing a student to expel. Ayanokouji then speaks out and says that he had voted ‘yes’ in the 14th vote which had just been held (even though he had actually been voting ‘yes’ since the 12th vote)
Ayanokouji implies to Horikita that now is their only chance to gain unanimity. If they try to vote to expel after exposing the traitor, that person would simply continue to vote in oppsoition to the rest of the class. Hirata asks him if they had the right to judge whether someone should be expelled just for voting ‘yes’. Ayanokouji answers that they have that right since this person was committing the sin of preventing their class from reaching Class A. Hirata tries to hold out on the hope that this person would change their vote once time was close to running out. However, Ayanokouji asks him if he was willing to bet their class’ future on such an uncertainty. He then reveals that just like Horikita, he also has an idea of who the traitor is. Akito tries to convince him to name that person now and let the class try to convince them together, however Ayanokouji says that this individual will never change their vote after he names them. He warns Horikita that their opponent was fighting a battle to the death. He then tells Hirata that the next vote will be the vote that decides their fate. Whether they will unanimously choose to not expel or decide to expel someone will all rest on the results of this single vote. Hirata tries to protest but eventually acknowledges that he can’t just selfishly continue being a nuisance to the class.
Hirata then announces to the class that he agrees with Ayanokouji’s plan, thus influencing the rest of the class.
Results of the 15th vote: 1 vote for yes, 38 votes for no.
Everyone in the class could understand from this vote that the traitor was prepared for the class to run out of time. Ayanokouji receives Hirata and Horikita’s consent and then warns the rest of their class that from now on, if they were to choose to vote ‘no’, they would need to provide a reason why.
Results of the 16th vote: 39 votes for yes, 0 votes for no.
Chabashira gets PTSD as she announces that the class voted unanimously to expel. Everyone looks towards Horikita and Ayanokouji to announce the name of the traitor, but neither of them say anything. Instead, Hirata nominates himself as the first target. He receives 6 votes to expel and 32 votes against. In the break interval, Sudou and Keisei demanded for Ayanokouji and Horikita to name the traitor. Ayanokouji asks them to wait. Many students start asking each other for mutual protection whilst others start crying as they regret voting to expel. Kushida starts crying as well and Mii-chan pats her back. Kushida says she already regrets that things came to this and wonders why she agreed to vote yes. Sudou and Ike start comforting Kushida and tell her not to blame herself because it wasn’t her fault. Kushida continues crying and says that she thinks they could have unanimously agreed to not expel. She says that they would definitely have come to an understanding if they continued persuading the person who voted yes. Kushida then appeals to the class, saying that there’s no metric such as sports or academics or OAA that they can use to judge whether someone should be expelled. She then says that she’s prepared to be criticised for this opinion and then names Horikita and Ayanokouji as the people who should take responsibility for putting the class in this situation. Ayanokouji notes that Kushida is playing this very intelligently. By naming himself and Horikita, if they try to accuse her back of being the traitor, there will be people who think they are just retaliating against her unfairly. But before he could say anything, Kei interrupts and says that she would never vote for Ayanokouji’s expulsion and hence the vote would fail before it even began. Hondou claims that she’s being selfish, but Kei accuses him of doing the exact same thing with Onizuka. Hondou tries to defend himself by saying he wasn’t the one trying to get the class to agree to expel, but Kei says that Ayanokouji was only voicing out the thoughts of everyone in the class. She says it doesn’t matter to her whether they rise to Class B or fall to Class D since Ayanokouji meant everything to her. But before she can continue any further, Ayanokouji stops her and tells her that if she says any more, the class will target her instead. Sudou also says he won’t allow Horikita to get expelled.
Haruka says that she thinks the class should first listen to Horikita and Ayanokouji because at the end of the day, the person who’s at fault is the one who continuously voted to expel. Kushida reflects and says that’s right but mentions the danger of Ayanokouji and Horikita naming the wrong person. But Chabashira first intervenes and says that they need to nominate a target to expel. Horikita nominates herself and receives 16 votes in favour of expulsion and 22 against. Ayanokouji thinks that this was a pretty funny outcome. Sudou yells for everyone who voted yes to raise their hands so that he can kill them. Horikita and Hirata calm him down, saying that she will be safe as long as Sudou continues to vote to defend her. Hirata then urges Ayanokouji and Horikita to name the traitor. Ayanokouji says that if he gets the traitor wrong, he will take responsibility for this incident and let himself be expelled. Kushida shows consideration for Ayanokouji and says that she doesn’t want any of her classmates, including Ayanokouji, to be expelled. Ayanokouji thanks her for her consideration but says that he’ll be fine. He then also gets Kei to promise not to block his expulsion if it ends up happening. He says that just like Kushida claimed, he has responsibility for influencing the class to choose this option. But ultimately, the person most responsible was the anonymous voter who continued voting to expel. Kei, Kushida, Airi, Haruka and Akito all agree to his opinion. Ayanokouji says that the reason why he was able to drop a name was because he was close to 100% certain that he was right. Kushida then says: “Okay, I’ll believe in Ayanokouji-kun.” Ayanokouji then names Kushida as the traitor.
A moment of silence followed before everyone in the class gasped in surprise. Kushida asked if Ayanokouji was naming her because she had requested for Ayanokouji and Horikita to take responsibility earlier. After seeing Kushida on the verge of crying, Hondou defended her by saying it was impossible for Kushida to be the traitor. Ayanokouji says that he obviously doesn’t know for certain whether Kushida was the traitor since the vote itself is anonymous. However, he had enough reason to believe he was right. Kushida tries to play the victim again by saying that she can’t complain even if she gets slandered by lies since she was the one who decided to put herself in the firing line for the sake of the class. Ayanokouji then reveals that Kushida had always tried to expel him and Horikita. He talks about Kushida’s middle school history with Horikita and the fact that she had a hidden personality. However, Ike told him to shut up because it was impossible for Kushida to be the traitor. Numerous other people also came out in support of Kushida while mocking Ayanokouji for taking so long to name a person only to end up naming Kushida. They also started badmouthing him for acting out of character even though the usual impression of him within the class was that of a quiet guy. As a result, many of his classmates didn’t trust what he said. Kushida urges everyone to stop blaming Ayanokouji since she says she can understand why he would want to blame someone else in this situation. Their classmates praise Kushida for being so kind even when someone else was talking shit about her. Hirata tries to calm the class down and get them to listen to Ayanokouji but Ike tries to shut him down by saying that no one can bear to continue listening to Ayanokouji’s nonsense. Hirata demands for Ayanokouji to show some evidence. He tries to continue but once again gets interrupted by Kushida who pleads for him to stop lying. Haruka also tries to urge him to drop the subject, saying that while she’s Ayanokouji’s ally, Kushida is also her friend. Ayanokouji says he needs to continue because he has the obligation to everyone in the class to prove who the traitor was. Haruka still can’t believe that the traitor could ever be Kushida. As Ayanokouji talked about Kushida’s dark history, Chabashira interrupted them and told them it was time to nominate a candidate. The students want to nominate Ayanokouji but Kushida nominates herself saying that she doesn’t want to make Ayanokouji to lie any more. She says she hopes that the class will return to normal once she gets expelled and then asks for everyone to please vote for her.
The result of the 19th vote: 5 votes for yes, 33 votes for no.
Ike says that they can’t possibly let Kushida be expelled and the other 32 students also nod in agreement with him. The class calls Ayanokouji pathetic for trying to expel Kushida to protect himself. They point out inconsistencies in his story such as Kushida never having made an attempt at expelling him or Horikita. Ayanokouji points out the Class Poll special exam held last year where Kushida collaborated with Yamauchi to try to expel him and then says that expelling one’s own classmates is a difficult thing to do. Hondou angrily demands that he provide evidence if he wants to continue smearing Kushida’s reputation. Ayanokouji then talks about the deal he made with Kushida where he provides half of his private point income in exchange for a non-aggression pact. Kushida tries to lie and say that Ayanokouji was merely lending her his private points for safekeeping, but he reveals that even if Kushida already moved her version of the recording from her phone to some other device, Ayanokouji himself recorded the conversation on his phone. He begins recounting the conversation but Kushida keeps repeating that he’s lying. He says that they can ask Chabashira to take out his phone as evidence but Kushida says that she doesn’t mind but it would be impossible because they’re in the middle of a special exam. Ayanokouji says that he doesn’t need to be the one to press the buttons himself since he can just get Chabashira to do it in his place. Kushida anxiously looked towards Chabashira. She hadn’t considered the possibility of phones being used as evidence in this exam since they had been confiscated beforehand. As Ayanokouji continues recounting the conversation, Kushida tells him to shut up. But he ignored her and continued until she finally snapped and forcefully screamed over him. She apologised to her classmates for lying to them and says that she actually had an argument with Ayanokouji and then made up with him in exchange for half of his private points. But she insists that she never once thought of voting to expel during this exam. She then accused Ayanokouji of perhaps being the person who repeatedly voted to expel. She theorises that Ayanokouji wanted to expel her so he took action in this exam to force the class to unanimously vote to expel. She then explains that Ayanokouji had non-consensually touched her chest soon after enrolling at this school. All the girls in the class as well as many of the boys who had a crush on Kushida immediately started sending looks of disgust towards Ayanokouji. Kushida says that she also has evidence and that she kept the uniform which had his fingerprints on them. When Kei asks him to explain himself, he says that she’s straight up lying and either way, it’s scientifically impossible to store fingerprints for one and a half years. He also adds that if he really touched her breasts like that, she would have reported it to the school immediately. Ayanokouji then revealed that Kushida had also cooperated with Ryuuen in the past to try to expel Horikita. Kushida walks up to him and grabbed him by the collar before demanding to know why he betrayed her.
Ayanokouji replies that neither he nor Horikita had wanted to do this. But he says that Kushida herself was the one who forced his hand since she didn’t accept any outcome other than expulsion. He had no choice but to expose her for the sake of protecting their classmates. Kushida’s classmates still want to believe in her and hope that Ayanokouji was lying. But Kushida admits that everything he said was true. She then goes on a rant and spills the beans on everything. Ayanokouji asks her why she uncharacteristically tried so hard to expel Horikita despite knowing how difficult it would be. Kushida averts her eyes for a second before saying that she didn’t have any special reason but simply couldn’t help herself. Ayanokouji knows that at this point it would still be difficult to convince the class to unanimously vote for Kushida’s expulsion so he needs Kushida to direct more hatred towards herself. He goads Kushida into revealing the class’ secrets. First, she says that Kei, Mori and Matsushita were laughing about Shinohara being ugly and hence she was only able to get ugly boys to chase after her. Kushida says that she tried to stop them at the time, but inside she was actually thinking the exact same thing as them. She then said that Shinohara had been indecisive about whether to go out with Komiya and Ike and asks her whether she was using Ike as a test run before going out with her true love Komiya. She then also reveals that Mii-chan had feelings for Hirata and says she finds it disgusting when Haruka calls her by a nickname and that she only does it to disguise the fact that she has no friends.
(Horikita’s pov)
Only a few minutes after Ayanokouji exposed Kushida, everyone’s attitude towards her had completely changed. Even though Kushida’s bonds with her friends should have been just as strong as those between members of the Ayanokouji group, their friendships had been completely shattered. Even though she was the first to know of Kushida’s dark history, Horikita doesn’t think she would be able to achieve the same effect if she tried the same thing. That alone showed her the infathomable depths of Ayanokouji’s true ability. As the classroom around her descended into the pits of hell, time slowed down for her as she began to think. She began to weigh Kushida on a scale. She believes Kushida is worth more than 100 class points but finds herself struggling to justify saving Kushida at the cost of 350 class points. However, by slowing time to a complete stop and reaching even deeper for an answer, she was able to find a solution which would allow her to sacrifice neither Kushida nor the class points.
(the second half of this part is translated by me on the Classroom of the Elite discord channel)
(I translated the dialogue portions of Horikita’s defence of Kushida and Ayanokouji’s subsequent nomination of Airi as the candidate for expulsion.)
Ayanokouji’s nomination of Airi and subsequent conflict
One of the notable things to mention is that in his monologue, Ayanokouji realised that Horikita was about to namedrop Airi. He took over because of two reasons.
- He needs Horikita to retain the class’ trust to continue being the class leader in the future.
- Horikita’s plan was half baked and she wouldn’t have been able to successfully convince Airi (and by extension Haruka).
Eventually, Haruka considers leaving the school together with Airi in the final vote, but Airi breaks the exam rules to shout at her and convince her to vote for her. Haruka does so out of respect for Airi’s wishes. At the end of the exam, Chabashira reveals that the they were the last class to finish the exam and that they gained 150 class points while every other class only gained 50 class points.
(This part is also translated on the Classroom of the Elite discord channel)
After the exam, Horikita apologises to Ayanokouji for leaving him alone to take the brunt of the class’ hatred. She thinks that Ayanokouji’s friendships were left in an irreparable state but Ayanokouji tells her that the current situation may end up being more convenient for him and then refuses to provide further clarification. Airi then appears so she can show her new ‘makeover’ image to Ayanokouji before she leaves the school. They say their farewells to each other before Airi turns and leaves. Ayanokouji feels nostalgic as he remembers seeing a similar scene numerous times within the White Room.
(This part is also translated on the Classroom of the Elite discord channel)
Epilogue
After the special exam, Chabashira calls Ayanokouji out for a meeting on the rooftop. She recounts her own story of this special exam from back in her school days. Her Class B were only 73 points behind Class A and this special exam was their final special exam before the graduation exam. Their class were also able to smoothly proceed to the final question. However, many of her classmates desired the 100 class points since it would allow them to reach Class A. The day before the exam, Chabashira had started going out with a leader figure in their class who she described as a mix of Hirata and Ike. She described him as someone who was cheerful and acted as a mood maker for the entire class. He was unable to bear the thought of expelling any of his classmates who he had worked alongside tooth and nail for three whole years so he nominated himself for expulsion instead. Usually there would be many detriments to expelling a class leader, however, the only exam left was the graduation exam. The only person in the class who objected to his self-sacrifice was Chabashira. No matter how much her friends tried to persuade her, she stubbornly refused to vote to expel him. Eventually, the class grew irritated of her and tried to expel her instead. But this time, her boyfriend protected her and refused to let her be expelled either. Eventually, the class ran out of time and lost 300 class points, completely ruining their chances of reaching Class A. To add insult to injury, Class A not only expelled a person to gain 100 Class Points, but won the Graduation Exam as well. Chabashira broke up with her boyfriend immediately after the exam which had left irreparable scars on their minds as they had all sorts of abuse hurled at them by their classmates.
Chabashira says that during her three years of high school, that man and reaching Class A meant everything to her. She now thinks that she was stupid since three years of high school are very insignificant in the grand scale of a person’s life. She thinks that even if she were unable to reach Class A, she should’ve strived to have an exam where she wouldn’t have any regrets. She asks Ayanokouji what he thinks was the correct answer. Ayanokouji replies that he doesn’t think there is a single correct answer for this special exam. Unless there was a truly incompetent and unnecessary student, people will always doubt whether they made the right choice. Chabashira starts reminiscing and says “If only I had a student like you in my class…” but then stops herself, saying that it’s impossible to return and fix the mistakes of the past. She then asks Ayanokouji about why he chose to nominate Airi even though she was a close friend to him and even held romantic feelings for him. She asks him if there was any option where he could have saved her and instead sacrificed another student. He replies that at the time, Horikita had the momentum and the class’ opinion was aligned with her. He says he didn’t have enough time to convince their classmates. Chabashira asks whether he felt hurt at all by expelling Airi. Ayanokouji says that he too would have preferred a different method to pass the exam. But someone needed to be expelled for them to pass that exam. He didn’t expect Horikita to protect Kushida. The moment that happened, the only method he could choose was social darwinism. Amongst the students with low grades, Airi was the easiest to expel. The other students would have many friends on their side whilst Airi only had Haruka as a major obstacle. He predicted that even if Haruka were to nominate herself, they would only waste ten minutes. Additionally, Airi’s personality also made things easier. He knew that Haruka would never cast a vote to expel Airi except for the case when Airi herself desired it. He knew that Airi wouldn’t be able to burden the class by making them lose 300 points for her sake. Lastly, if someone important to Airi were to tell her that she was the most unnecessary student in the class, she would have no choice but to listen to them.
Ayanokouji says that people may call him a demon or human trash. But he says that this was a role that someone needed to take. Chabashira says that she’s accepted expulsion as a logical everyday aspect of this school. But she will never be able to be as ruthless as Ayanokouji. She wonders how many people he’s abandoned to reach this level of emotional apathy. Ayanokouji doesn’t know either just like he doesn’t remember the colour and shape of all the pebbles he kicks by the wayside on a road. Chabashira thanks Ayanokouji for listening to her and says that she had been trapped in her past for a very long time. But she finally realised that she needs to move on and doesn’t have the time to dwell on the past. She promises to fulfill her responsibilities as a teacher so that her students will be able to continue their fight without having any regrets. In the past she often dreamed about her class helping her fulfill her unfulfilled dreams but she would always recall a painful memory and be unable to properly face her students. Chabashira smiles at Ayanokouji and promises him that she will make sure their class graduates as Class A. Ayanokouji thinks that Chabashira will be fine from now on.
Trollcity Translations 
Thanks for the summary !
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Madness. Thanks for the summary
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Great summary. One thing that should be added, in his talk with Chabashira he also mentions a solution to the situation her class found itself in. And that being since none of the students were willing to risk losing failing the exam altogether timing the vote timer with delays so that the final vote, even if yes would have no time to take place, as such the options would be Lose 350 points or gain fifty.
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