Chapter 38

Ayanokōji's POV

"So, your trial is today huh, delinquent-kun?"

Lelouch mocked Light as he sauntered into the classroom, being the last to arrive. He planted himself down in his seat and leaned back as he observed Light, who was resting his cheek on his palm at the centre of the room.

"That it is," Light responded amicably.

Light, to his credit, never showed any reaction to Lelouch's teasing even though he seems to be the target most often. To be fair, though, Light's polite demeanour never falters. It made me wonder whether it was just a façade or not.

"I hope your little plan doesn't fail. If it does, we'll be holding you accountable."

"Yeah yeah, don't fret. Justice never fails."

"Justice again?" Lelouch gave a bored sigh.

It appeared that Lelouch was fed up with talk about 'justice' and whatnot already.

Shortly after that exchange, Ishihara-sensei walked casually into the classroom with a smile on her face.

"Good morning~"

"Ishihara-sensei, would you mind answering a question for me?" Kururugi raised his hand.

"Oh, here we go, this'll be good," Lelouch snorted from beside me.

"What?" Kururugi asked, confused.

"Oh, nothing. It's just that, usually, when you ask a question, it's something stupid that everyone else already figured out the answer to ages ago."

Lelouch attacked Kururugi mercilessly, to which he merely laughed and scratched his cheek. I felt bad for Kururugi, who was usually out of the loop when it came to things that required deductive reasoning.

"So, what did you want to ask?" Ishihara-sensei interrupted.

"Oh, I was just wondering why Class E got 87 class points, the second most out of all the classes, from the midterms, even though they had by far the lowest average score of 0."

I watched as everyone's gaze slowly turned to stare at Kururugi. Sora in particular looked incredulous.

"Kururugi... Could it be that... You're actually an idiot?" Sora asked in disbelief, garnering a few chuckles from around the room.

"Huh? That isn't a stupid question, is it?" Kururugi asked, perplexed.

Sora simply sighed in exasperation. "Kururugi, did you ever hear anyone say that the class's average score was linked to the class points gained, at any point in time, even once?"

"U-uh, well, no, but I just assumed..."

"Then take this as a lesson not to make baseless assumptions. Excluding us, Class A had the highest average score out of all the classes. However, they gained less than both Class B and Class E, who both got a lower average score than them. This alone should've tipped you off. Do you seriously take everything at face value?"

Kururugi looked down in a mixture of shame and embarrassment. Even though he would be considered smart among the masses, he must feel quite dumb when placed in our group.

"Besides, it wouldn't make any sense for the rewards to be based off of a constant metric while the rest of the exam is based off of class-relative grading." Light added.

"Hmm, looks like I don't need to answer the question anymore, right~?" Ishihara-sensei asked sadistically cheerfully. Was she enjoying herself?

"Y-yeah..." Kururugi muttered.

"So, pretty much, the amount of points we all gained from the midterms is just an arbitrary number. There's no point trying to look into it." Lelouch concluded on behalf of the class.

As far as class points from the midterms go, none of the obvious conjectures stand. Class E alone proved that they aren't linked to the score of the class. I also thought that perhaps they were based off of how much we improved since the pop-quiz, but our class debunks that theory as well.

Apart from those two theories, anything else would just be pure guesswork since we don't have any data to work with apart from the scores. Therefore, it would be a waste of energy to theorize about it.

Light's POV

As the bell rang to signal the end of class, Ryuzaki and I stood up.

"Are you nervous, Light?" He asked me.

"Not at all. We've got everything we need, after all." I replied self-assuredly.

We walked out of the classroom and made our way to the faculty room. When we got there, a teacher waved at us to come inside.

"Yahoo! Hello, Class D students!"

The homeroom teacher for Class B, Hoshinomiya-sensei, gave us this happy-go-lucky greeting. "It seems like something rather incredible has happened, hmm?"

Her eyes sparkled, as if she enjoyed sticking her nose into other people's business. What a troublesome woman.

"Hoshinomiya-chan! Stop teasing my students!"

Ishihara-sensei exclaimed with a pout as she poked her head out of the faculty room.

"Ishihara-chan found me already?!"

Ishihara-sensei cutely grabbed Hoshinomiya-sensei's arm with both of hers and wrestled her back into the faculty room. A high-pitched yelp echoed from inside and, after a few moments, Ishihara-sensei emerged and closed the door behind her.

"Let's go~." She said in an unnervingly happy tone.

"So, we aren't doing this in the faculty room?" I asked politely as we walked.

"No no, there's something in the rules like, in cases like this we have to reach an agreement between the homeroom teachers and the student council, see?"

The student council, huh? I didn't expected that they would be the mediator for cases between teachers. How much authority did they hold in this school? Perhaps, it was something worth looking into, especially since Sora declared his disinterest in joining.

We left the first-floor faculty room and walked up three floors to the fourth. A placard that read "Student Council Room" was affixed to the wall near the doorway. Ishihara-sensei knocked, and we went inside.

Inside, long tables had been arranged in rectangular formation. The three students from Class C had already arrived and were seated. Beside them sat a bespectacled male teacher in his 30s.

The three students looked much worse-for-wear than they did when I last saw them. That meant that Ryūen had moved exactly as I'd expected him to. I felt a smirk form on my face.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting~," our sensei said brightly.

"It's before the scheduled start time. There's no need for apologies."

"Have you already met?"

Ryuzaki and I did not know the teacher.

"This is Sakagami-sensei, the homeroom instructor for Class C. Now then."

One lone male student seated in the back of the room attracted everyone's attention.

"This is the student council president."

The domineering student council president, Horikita Manabu, pored over the documents on his desk. Ryuzaki and I sat down in front of the Class C students, and I placed the bag we'd brought with us down next to my chair. Sakagami-sensei briefly looked at it suspiciously, but said nothing.

"Well then, I would now like to discuss the violent incident that occurred last Tuesday with the members of the student council, the involved parties, and their homeroom teachers. You may begin the proceedings, student council secretary Tachibana."

Secretary Tachibana, a woman with short hair, gave a slight bow.

"Of course, considering the magnitude of this dispute, there are times when the student council president will take over. There are several unusual things about this incident. Other than that, the bulk of the proceedings will be handled by solely by Tachibana, as usual."

"Because I am quite busy, there are certain agenda topics upon which I will defer. As a general rule, though, I would prefer to attend to these issues, as I'm entrusted to lead this student council."

This is all by chance, then. How intriguing. If the student council president acted, there was nothing we could do, even if we didn't like it. Apparently, he'd enrolled in Class A and immediately taken office as secretary for the student council. In December of his first year, he became the student council president after receiving an overwhelming amount of support in the election. Although some senior students had naturally voiced their displeasure, our current situation spoke to his incredible abilities.

Secretary Tachibana summarized the situation from both sides in an easy-to-understand manner. There wasn't any need for further explanation.

"Based on the aforementioned facts, we would like for you to identify which version of events is true." After completing her explanation and the preface to the proceedings, Secretary Tachibana turned her eyes toward us in Class D. "Komiya-kun and two of his friends went to the special building after Light-kun called them there. There, they claim to have been beaten up in a one-sided brawl. Is this true?"

"Of course not," I answered politely yet confidently. "One day, while I was minding my own business, I was called out to the special annex by those three, where they started an altercation with me."

Sakagami-sensei stared at me in wide-eyed amazement, but I paid him no mind. My primary objective here was to dig Class C into as deep a hole as I could.

"That's a lie. Light-kun called us over to the special annex!"

"Say what you will, it doesn't bother me. However, interrupting the other party hardly looks good on you, does it?" I replied provocatively.

What the hell did you just say?!"