Chapter 86

Chapter 86

Ayanokōji's POV

It had been around twenty-seven minutes now, since Sora had left Shiro and I alone in this room. I'd spent that time completely silently, while Shiro curled up into a ball on her bed, trying to take up as little space as possible.

Taking the initiative to talk to Shiro right now would be a bad idea. What Shiro needs is the knowledge that she can place some level of trust in people other than Sora. For that reason, pressuring her into talking would be a great misstep.

There was a decent chance that the meeting we'd all been called to wouldn't be the only one. In that case, it was likely I'd be asked by Sora to stay with Shiro again in the future.

Therefore, I decided to stay quiet, and simply wait. Eventually, Shiro will break out of her shell, and say something, even if it's just one word. That much, I was sure of.

A familiar clicking sound reverberated within the walls of the room, causing Shiro raise her head from its position buried in her knees.

A beat or so later, the door swung open, and in stepped the spiky maroon-haired boy with whom I shared this room.

"Nii!"

Like a bulb suddenly being given electricity, Shiro flicked from one extreme to the other – from a state of crippling anxiety to one of being overjoyed.

"Shiro!"

Sora was similarly over the moon about seeing his sister again, and swiftly pulled her into a tight embrace.

"I-I was so scared..."

"It's okay now. Your brother is here."

The two held each other lovingly for a while before eventually parting.

Sora sat down on the bed opposite mine, and Shiro laid her head on his lap, at ease after being finally reunited with Sora.

"Thanks for looking after her, Ayanokōji."

"It was nothing," I replied. "All I did was sit here."

"Even so, knowing that there is someone other than me who won't do something unnecessary like forcing her to talk is good enough for Shiro at the moment."

Shiro raised her head for a brief second to look at me. "Thank you, Ayanokōji," she said before resting her head down once more and closing her eyes.

"You're welcome." I said to her in as soft a tone I could muster, before making eye contact with Sora. "So, how was it?"

"It was only me and Mashima-sensei in there, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. I couldn't do anything about my erratic nerves, though." Sora gave a self-deprecating laugh as he spoke, clearly unhappy with himself.

"It's okay," I told him. "Just being able to go there is progress enough. You did well."

"While I appreciate the gesture, such words won't do much to comfort someone like me,"

He rejected me like that.

Well, it was only to be expected. Sora's problems were entirely his own, after all. There was nothing an outsider like me could do to assist him at this early stage.

"Light should have gone in by now," Sora said, changing the subject as he noted the time. "Hopefully, he'll have more insight than I do."

Sora insinuated that he hadn't been able to gleam much out of the explanation, likely as a result of him being parted from his sister.

"Well, all we really need is the details of the exam. Then we can discuss it as a group in more depth." I responded.

"I can't help but feel useless, though."

"We all get that feeling sometimes. Nobody can be good at everything all the time."

"Of course not. But this is something that I should be good at."

Sora argued, advocating for his own incompetence. This was quite unlike him, I thought.

I closed my eyes for a moment before speaking. "If you want to be good at something, you must strive for it, starting right from the bottom and working your way up. Nobody is good at anything at the start. You've spent your whole life with Shiro, which means you've never tried to be independent before. That's why you're not very good at it. However, if you keep working at it, you will improve, like with everything else."

Silence befell the room as Sora narrowed his eyes and pondered what I'd told him. Eventually, he let out a disappointed sigh, and ran his fingers through his sister's hair.

"Yeah, you're right. No matter how hard I try, I won't be able to be my normal self while alone right from the get-go. I was being an idiot." Sora laughed. "Thanks again, Ayanokōji."

"Well, in my opinion, it's admirable that you went there on your own at all."

I gave my honest thoughts. For Sora, who had spent his life with extreme dependence on his sister, just being apart from her for half an hour was a big step, especially seeing as he had to worry about the special exam on top of all that.

Sora seemed to accredit greatness to Shiro while discrediting himself a lot, however I thought that he was doing himself a disservice. Sora was pretty impressive in his own right.

"Well, let's head to the other guys' room. By the time we get there, Light will be coming out soon, anyway."

Shiro drowsily lifted her body up and stretched as Sora stood. I followed suit, and made way toward the door.

I had to say, I was quite intrigued to hear the details of this special exam. It seemed quite a bit different than the island exam was.

Well, I won't have to wait long to find out.

At 18:50, the door to the room clicked open, and the brown-haired boy we'd been waiting for finally stepped into the room.

"Look who finally decided to join us," Lelouch said as Light sat down on his bed.

Currently, I was sitting beside Ryuzaki on his bed. Next to us were Sora and Shiro, sitting on Kururugi's bed which he'd gladly given up. Next to them were Lelouch and Kururugi, who were both seated on Lelouch's bed. Light had came in and sat down on his own bed, the only one which was vacant.

"Hey, it's not like I deliberately chose to waste time. I had to walk quite far to get back here, you know."

Light explained the reason for his lateness matter-of-factly, excusing himself of any fault.

"Well, whatever. It doesn't really matter."

Lelouch dismissed it apathetically.

"Well, let's not waste any time. Let's get started." Ryuzaki announced, perched in his signature sitting position.

"Just a little disclaimer," Sora spoke up. "I probably won't be very insightful. I had to go there without Shiro, after all – my skills were dulled as a result."

"That's fine. We only need to hear the general framework of the exam, anyway."

Ryuzaki said a similar thing to what I'd told Sora back in my room. Apparently, my thoughts were shared by others in my class, too.

"Light, you can start us off, then. Tell us the details." Lelouch ordered.

"Right,"

Light took a moment to order his words coherently before he began.

"For this exam, it seems like there will be twelve different 'groups,' each assigned a different animal of the zodiac. Every student in the first year was assigned a zodiac animal, and the meeting that Sora and I just went to consisted of every student in our class that we shared the same animal with. In other words, no one. After that, we'll apparently be grouped up with students from the other classes who all share the same zodiac as us."

My suspicions were confirmed. The reason why we had all be called separately to the meetings was not because each meeting consisted of only one student from our class deliberately – no, our class was a special case due to our small number.

The other classes most likely had three or four students per meeting, if you use the average group size that forty people would be split up into if there were twelve groups total.

"Every group is completely independent of the others. Whatever happens in my group, the 'Horse' group, will have no effect whatsoever on any of your guys' groups." Light continued.

So, this exam was scarcely class-oriented, like the last one was, and was much more dependent on your group alone? If that's the case, then how will the rewards for this exam work?

"As for the actual exam, the actual gist is this: each group will be assigned one 'VIP' student, and will have to meet twice every day for the duration of the exam for at least one hour. At the end of the exam, there will be a half-hour period where every student except the 'VIP' must submit an answer as to the identity of the 'VIP.' If everyone is correct, you get Outcome #1: every student in the group gets 500,000 points and the 'VIP' student gets 1,000,000. If somebody is wrong, or if someone doesn't submit an answer, only the 'VIP' gets 500,000 points, which is Outcome #2."

The exam seemed simple in principle. However, there must be more to it – if these were the only rules, every 'VIP' would simply reveal themselves and the whole group would get points.

"However. It is also possible to betray your group, and submit an answer before the allotted answering period. If you do so and are correct, you get Outcome #3: you get 500,000 points and your class earns 50 class points, while the 'VIPs' class loses 50. If you're wrong, the 'VIP' gains 500,000 and their class gains 50 class points instead, while you lose 50 class points – this is Outcome #4. Neither of these can occur if the traitor is in the same class as the 'VIP' – the submitted answer will be ruled invalid."

And, just like that, everything changed. With these additional rules, it now becomes much, much riskier to reveal yourself as the 'VIP,' as you will almost certainly be pounced on by traitors.

"Hmm..." Ryuzaki narrowed his eyes in thought. "During the half-hour period, it's impossible to betray, correct?"

"Right," Light affirmed.

Everybody went silent for a short while as they thought about the exam's contents, until Lelouch finally broke it.

"Huh... this exam is stupid."

"Hm? What do you mean?" Kururugi asked quizzically.

"Well, at first glance, Outcome #1 seems the best, right?"

"Obviously. Everybody gains the most points that way." Kururugi agreed confidently.

"Well, aside from Outcome #4 which only an idiot would ever get, I'd actually say it's the worst outcome possible."

"What?! How?"

Kururugi seemed unable to comprehend why the outcome that gave by far the highest net gain to the students was labelled the worst possible by the raven-haired boy, but I understood what he was getting at.

"For the other classes which will have three or four students per group, it will be different, since Outcome #1 nets them upwards of 2,000,000 private points. However, we only have one student per group. In other words, we get 500,000 points no matter which outcome we get, aside from the stupid Outcome #4. The only difference is that with Outcome #1, the other classes also get private points, and Outcome #3 also gets us some class points."

Paradoxically, Outcome #1 was also by far the hardest to achieve. Why would we in Class D ever go for such an outcome when we could instead simply betray, and get 50 class points on top of the 500,000 we would've got from Outcome #1 anyway?

"Mhm. I'd have to agree with Lelouch. This exam is stupid." Ryuzaki affirmed. "Unlike the island exam, where there were many different paths and approaches to take, there is literally only one logical strategy for us this time."

"In the groups where we don't have the VIP, we figure out who it is and betray. In the groups where we do have the VIP, we try to get someone else to guess wrong."

Sora stated the strategy that we'd all thought of. The only logical path for us to take.

"The chance of us getting the VIP in a group is one in twelve, and we will be in seven groups total... Shiro, what is the chance of us even getting a single VIP?" Kururugi asked.

With no hesitation, Shiro replied immediately. "45.476 percent. Less than one in two."

"That's..." Kururugi began, before trailing off.

"A good thing." I interjected, speaking for the first time in a while.

"What? It is?"

"Yeah. It's easier for us to find out who another VIP is that it is to convince someone else that another person is the VIP. In this exam, people will be suspicious of anybody who claims to be the VIP. It would be difficult to frame another student convincingly as a result."

On top of that, if somebody accuses another of being the VIP, they themselves would also come under suspicion. It would be too risky to do the framing directly yourself. You'd need the help of a third party for it to be convincing.

Usually, it would be good enough just to have your classmate who isn't the VIP do it, as it would achieve the intended result if suspicion fell on them regardless. However, we don't have that option, as we are the only students from our class in each group. We'd have to use a third party from another class.