Chapter 22

"Fancy seeing you here."

"What an unfortunate coincidence."

I decided to drop by the cafeteria after school and grab something to eat before I went back to my dorm. There, I ran into Horikita, who was deep in thought about what to get from a vending machine. She wrinkled her nose as I approached her and vocally complained about my existence as usual.

"You seem to be stuck on what to buy," I ignored her provocation.

"I'm simply comtemplating why anyone would ever actually buy juice from one of these."

"Not everyone is so serious and strict about their expenses, you know. Some people just want to enjoy flavour."

"Being cautious about your spending habits is natural. Everyone who has blown through all their points in this one month is a fool."

Horikita gave a different reason than before for why students should save their money. When Light and I had encountered her at the convenience store, she said that it would be hard to adjust should you lose your luxurious lifestyle - this time, she was acting like keeping points for the next month was an imperative. Could she have learned something, perhaps?

"Oh? And why do you think that?" I prodded her.

"100,000 yen per month seems excessive for a first-year high school student, don't you think? Initially I chalked it up to this school being a very generous government-funded establishment, but after that irritatingly smug Sora you seem to be friends with confronted me I can't help but think that there's some kind of catch."

It looks like Sora's provocation had planted the seeds of suspicion in Horikita's mind. Of course even if Horikita did have her suspicions, that would probably not be enough for her to make a meaningful conclusion. It was a start though, I suppose.

"Some kind of catch, you say? Now what possible basis could you have for that?" I asked.

"That Sora said 'keep going on as you have, and you'll be in for a rude awakening.' just before leaving the Class D room. Looking back over the last month, students in Class D have been extremely disruptive during class but none of the teachers seem to care. It all just seems a bit too lenient." Horikita explained as she pushed the button on the vending machine for water.

So students had been explicitly breaking the rules during class but none of the teachers took any notice, huh? I thought back to what Ishihara-sensei had said about our points during our first day at school. The amount you've been given reflects the evaluation of your worth. In other words, if we were evaluated to be worse than we are now, then we would be given less.

The logical conclusion to come to, then, was that the teachers had been leaving the students to do as they wish for the first month for the sole purpose of evaluating what they would do if left alone. I couldn't help but imagine that Class D would be evaluated very badly, based on what Horikita had said.

"So? What are you going to do?" I asked her as she picked up her bottled water from the vending machine's hatch.

"There's nothing to do, is there? It's pretty much impossible for anyone to have figured the school out at this point so all we can do is wait, can't we?"

"I suppose so," I affirmed, approaching the vending machine myself.

I pushed the button for milk and swiped my student ID card across the scanner. The machine rumbled and, after a few seconds, spat out the drink into it's output hatch. I reached down and pulled it out, noticing Horikita's bewildered expression.

"Milk?" she questioned, seemingly in disbelief.

"What's wrong with milk?" I asked.

"I thought guys like you only drank energy drinks and juice."

This girl really likes to make assumptions about people, doesn't she?

"You know, that stereotyping you do will make it hard for you to make friends." I told her.

"Make friends? I already told you, didn't I? I have no interest in 'friends,' much less with lesser individuals." she stated rather complacently. "And what about you? I suppose you've accumulated some more friends since the last time we spoke?"

"I have a few, I suppose."

In the end, it seemed like Horikita and I were never going to see eye to eye. She seemed convinced that she is a superior student, and that friends would only drag her down. I parted ways from Horikita and briefly wondered if she would ever change her mindset. It's unlikely she'd change without something pusher her, was the conclusion I came to.

On May 1, the morning bell rang signalling the start of homeroom. Ishihara-sensei calmly walked into the room, holding a rolled-up poster. She had an expression that, while still lighthearted as normal, was a bit more stern than her usual look.

"All right, your morning homeroom is about to begin. Before we get started, do any of my lovely students have any questions? I'm sure there's some things you want to ask me so feel free to speak up, 'kay?" Ishihara-sensei seemed certain that we would have something to ask her.

Contrary to her expectations, however, nobody made any move to ask a question. In fact, most of the students just looked disinterested and were waiting for her to continue. I took a glance at Lelouch next to me, who looked just slightly less apathetic than usual.

"Does no one really have anything to ask?" Ishihara-sensei asked, seemingly amazed.

"If it's about our points, sensei, we pretty much already figured out what was going on during the first day here. There's no reason for us to ask any questions at this stage." Light spoke up on behalf of Class E.

7

Ishihara-sensei looked genuinely shocked at this. She'd known that we were apparently once-in-a-generation talents, but she'd probably never expected us to figure out the S system so quickly.

"O-oh, right... Well, I'll move onto the main topic then!" Ishihara-sensei mostly returned to her cheery attitude.

From the tube she carried, she removed a white rolled-up poster and spread it out. She stuck the poster to the blackboard with some magnets. All of the previously apathetic students now looked at the poster with intrigue.

"Are these... the results for each class?" Lelouch muttered under his breath. He was more than likely correct. On the poster, classes A through E were listed and were accompanied by a column of numbers that went up to a maximum of four digits. The poster read:

Class Point Standings:

Class A - 940

Class B - 650

Class C - 450

Class D - 0

Class E - 310

By the way the standings looked, it seemed like our conjecture about students being sorted from classes A to D based on their ability was correct. This also meant that the 'Class Points,' system was the missing piece of the puzzle we had been looking for. I couldn't help but think though, that since our class points were listed in a format called 'Standings,' that pretty much confirms that we'll be competing with other classes. However, since it seemed that Class A had been attributed all the superior students while Class D had the 'defectives,' I failed to see how it would ever be a fair contest.

"I see how it is now. Today, we received 31,000 points rather than the 100,000 we received during the first month. In other words, each 'Class Point' corresponds to 100 private points." Sora deduced, as quick as ever.

"Sensei. I think I have a question now." Kururugi said, raising his hand.

"Go ahead," Ishihara-sensei beamed.

"Is this exact poster currently being shown to all the other classes, as well?"

"Mhm, that's right. Every other class is also being shown the same thing as you guys during their homeroom today." Ishihara-sensei confirmed Kururugi, and my, suspicions.

I also raised my hand. I had a hypothesis, and wanted to confirm it.

"What is it, Ayanokōji?" Ishihara-sensei prompted me to talk.

"I understand that we probably started the month with 1000 Class Points and that we had lost some based on our evaluated merit during classes. Our class has been very well-behaved during classes; nobody has done anything to disturb any of our lessons. Isn't it a bit harsh for us to have lost 690 Class Points?" I asked the question that was probably on everyone's mind.

"Aha, about that, that's something unique to your class. Since there are only seven of you, you will each be evaluated multiple times more harshly to make up for the missing number of students. Each other class has forty students which is just under six times the amount in this class. Consequently, each reduction imposed on your Class Points in this way is multiplied by six." Ishihara-sensei told us.

I see. I had guessed so, but it seemed that deductions in Class Points were calculated multiplicatively rather than additively. Meaning that when one of the students misbehaved it wasn't treated as an instance of one student misbehaving, it was instead treated as 1/7th or around 14 percent of the whole class misbehaving. It looks like because our class is much smaller than the rest, our individual actions carried much more weight than they would if we were in a normal forty-student class.

"May I ask something, Ishihara-sensei?" Lelouch said.

"Of course!"

"Okay, then. Previously, Ayanokōji mentioned that we hadn't done anything to disrupt any of our classes. What is it that we have done that's caused our evaluation to plummet?"

A good question. It would be nice to know what exactly had caused the school to decide that our evaluation was the second-lowest in the school.

"Well, that's simple. There's a surveillance camera in every classroom which is used to track these things. Because this class is so small, it's much easier to notice when you aren't paying attention and when you're neglecting to take notes."

It was a reasonable explanation, but I still had my doubts.

"Excuse me, Ishihara-sensei, but is it really a problem if I don't take notes for things that I already know how to do?" I asked.

"Yes, it definitely is! In society you will be expected to keep up appearances among many other things. When you're in the workforce, even if you finish your work early you'll still be expected to conduct yourselves properly; this is one of the many things this system is going to help teach you."

13Apparently we still had a lot to work on even though we all have exceptional ability. Indeed, talent often also came with other negative traits like a big ego, arrogance and a lack of respect or interest. This school aimed to correct these flaws, so that we can become superior members of society and not just superior talents.

"There's one thing I want to ask, too." Sora said. "Since our Class Points are higher than those of Class D, does that mean that we will ascend to that position and Class D will drop down to E?"

I had been wondering that as well. It seemed logical, but since we were an 'experimental class,' there was a possiblity we would be exempt from the normal system as well.

"Yes, that's right. Starting from tomorrow, you'll become the new Class D. Congratulations on your promotion! The nameplate on your classroom door will be changed overnight, as will everything important in the database."

So, we were in fact a part of the regular school system meaning we were also tasked with the goal of eventually graduating as Class A, just like everyone else. To be honest, I was grateful for this. If we were left as Class E forever, then I don't think we'd really have anything to strive for at this school.

"Is that all the questions for now~?" Ishihara-sensei asked.

Everyone nodded in response, to which Ishihara-sensei simply smiled and continued on to the next thing that she needed to address.

"I'll move on to the next thing I'm obliged to tell you then, 'kay?" I detected a hint of joking sarcasm in Ishihara-sensei's voice.

She proceeded to stick another sheet onto the blackboard. This one had all the names of our class' students on the left with a column of numbers on the right. It read:

Ayanokōji Kiyotaka - 100

Shiro - 100

Sora - 100

Yagami Light - 100

Ryuzaki Rue - 100

Lamperouge Lelouch - 100

Kururugi Suzaku - 90

"Are these our pop quiz results, sensei?" Kururugi asked.

"That's right." She replied.

It looked like our entire class got perfect scores except for Kururugi, who had still gotten over ninety percent. Overall, it seemed like Kururugi's physical abilities were the best in the class while his academic prowess was the worst.

Ishihara-sensei pulled out a red marker and used it to draw a red line beneath Kururugi's name.

"Congratulations! You all got a passing grade by scoring above forty-nine, which means that even if this was a real exam none of you would've been forced to drop out!" Ishihara-sensei said in a jovial tone.

"D-drop out?!" Kururugi sputtered, his face washed with concern.

"Yes, drop out. At this school, anyone who falls below the passing grade in an exam is expelled on the spot, no questions asked." Ishihara-sensei said that disturbingly happily.

Kururugi seemed to be deeply unsettled by this revelation.

"There's no need to worry, though! Everyone in this class has excellent grades, so you should never be in danger of being expelled through this way."

"I'm more concerned about how easily this school dishes out expulsions rather than it being tied to our grades, sensei. If they'd expel us for just failing one test then who knows what else in the future could result in our expulsion?"

Kururugi said something surprisingly perceptive - for him, anyway. Perhaps it was just because of the students that surrounded him, but I felt that I'd misread Kururugi a bit. If you compared him to the students outside of Class E, soon to be Class D, then he would be praised as excellent in both athletics and academics. He was certainly Class A quality in both, but his intellect was often overshadowed by his classmates.

"You'd better stay vigilant, then! Teehee~" Ishihara-sensei teased him in response to his concerns, as if to say we can't confirm anything right now. With that, Ishihara-sensei turned and exited the classroom.

"Passing grade of forty-nine, huh... That's quite the arbitrary number." Ryuzaki murmered.

"No it's deliberate. It's exactly half of the class average of 98.8; it's likely that 49.4 was rounded down." Shiro returned values like a calculator.

Spotting things like this was probably something that only Shiro could do. Everyone had realized by now that her calculation and memory ability was nothing short of superhuman - her brain put supercomputers to shame, in fact. Shiro's pattern recognition was apparently a weakness of hers, so it was likely that she had used a brute-force method to find the link between our scores and the passing grade just now. How terrifying.

"So we were right about having to compete against other classes, then." Light said.

"Looks like it. Our class only got 217,000 private points total this month. Compared to Class A who got 3,760,000 total we are severely disadvantaged." Sora added dejectedly.

"Could be worse. Those Class Ds got 0 total." Lelouch replied condescendingly.

"Ah right, speaking of Class D, we're going to become Class D tomorrow." I said.

"So, our objective is to aim for Class A just like everyone else, then?" Kururugi asked.

"Yes. Even though I don't really see a benefit to being in Class A other than the amount of private points you get, it'll still be fun to compete for the top ranking I suppose." Sora said.

I noticed Lelouch crack a smile, which was rare for him. Usually, he just looked apathetic to his surroundings.

"Seems like something interesting is going to happen soon," he said. "I can't deny that I'm excited for the competitions between classes to start."

"Oh, don't you know, Lelouch?" Sora asked.

Then, he grinned wider than he ever has before speaking his next words.

"The game has already begun."