Chapter 15

Year 1 ended without much fanfare. Though there was actually a lie.

There was a lot of fanfare.

Gakushuu scored rank 1 with a total of 500 marks. A complete utter domination of every test given to him.

There was screaming and crying, some not even from his own class as everyone wondered if they should say something like "that's normal for an Asano" or "HOLY FUCK FULL MARKS IN THIS HELL".

It was pretty insane.

There was some media coverage for Kunugigaoka for some reason, and the scuffle about the Principal's son getting the first full marks in the history of Kunugigaoka was pretty big news.

Gakushuu dissed his father's exam setting methods a little, but mostly, he was pretty happy about his marks. It was nice to see undisguised awe in people's eyes.

His father quizzed him about world politics and scolded him when he stuttered about some facts about a country that was so mediocre it was painful.

The thing about Kunugigaoka was that people didn't like to continue schooling in it. A lot of students of Junior High chose to not even give the High School exam and other people transferred in after listening to its reputation.

People only realised how terrible and stressful the system and being 'the best' was after they were in the middle of it, taking part in it.

No one really liked Kunugigaoka. They just liked the fact that someone was suffering more than them.

Class A had privileges, so people assumed that it had the least amount of suffering, but the thing was, suffering never just ended.

It was always there.

Class E suffered the most obviously. But they weren't even an integral part of the system.

They were cut off from the world, people who could leave and walk away.

It was class A that suffered from the envy and fear of failure. The constant keeping up, the anxieties and fears. The perfectionism was polished by grinding parts of themselves away.

There were so many different ways to suffer. And everyone was in pain.

And Gakushuu couldn't help them all.

He could help out in their home life. He did, in fact, when he became the Vice-President of the Student Council in his second year, after an election so biased towards him it felt rigged.

And he found more avenues, more ways to find information and more importantly, more power. Even if the power was easily overruled by his father, the small changes would accumulate.

So Gakushuu started small- punishments to do random errands for the students who did something that went against his own meager moral code.

He didn't have power over the class representatives yet, but he had enough to do small things for or against specific students 

He talked to students he felt were abused at homes and tended to be bullied. He made sure they had his number and asked to ask for help.

There were class E students who suffered through depression and he asked the student council president to ask for a Student Councillor but his father refused. It wasn't unexpected.

Gakushuu still did things that slowly went against his and his father's equal exchange policy.

He found a student suffering through terrible physical abuse, who had come to him willingly. He felt terrible but he made sure to make her take pictures of every single injury and send it to him.

Then he compiled it into a file and went to his father.

"What is it?" His father asked, when he threw the file down on the table.

"Abuse," Gakushuu replied. His father opened the file and looked through the file detailing incidents and causes of each injury.

The most recent one was the reason Gakushuu had come to his father. He needed to get the student out of his family situation, and it was immediate enough that the injuries could be registered legally.

But if Gakushuu didn't inform his father about his course of action, there was a possibility his father would oppose the action and hush both father and child with money, to prevent the case from being linked to his school.

Gakushuu's method could only be 'loud'. He didn't have enough connections to keep it quiet, unlike his father.

He wanted his father to hasten the whole process and solve this in the best way available.

His father hummed.

"And in return-"

"I won't publicise it," Gakushuu interrupted. His eyes were as cold as the South Pole.

"And you'll take care of your class at the same time? Surely being in the student council means that your time with you class is limited," Gakuhou said, the threat in his words to his classmates hovered in the air but Gakushuu was unmoved.

"We have an agreement you won't be going against. I'm not completely against harming myself to get back at you," he said mockingly, voice frosty.

"Should I block your card then?" Gakuhou asked, almost curiously. Gakushuu being minor meant that no matter the amount of money he gathered on his own, the bank would still give access to his father, his legal guardian.

"I have class A. They're rich," he almost rolled his eyes admitting it, instead of talking about his very illegal bunch of bank accounts he had hidden away for a 'just in case' situation against his father.

Gakuhou pretended to consider the student's file for a little more (for show, he had decided the moment he saw it).

"All right. I'll handle it. As a reward for your marks in your finals," his father almost seemed to smile and Gakushuu stopped himself from recoiling away. He didn't give away a single twitch.

His father flicked his hand dismissively and Gakushuu nodded and left. There was something cold in his heart and he wasn't sure if it was because his father had threatened him casually over many important things to Gakushuu or because of the 'reward' that Gakushuu had never received.

He barely got praise.

A reward? What was that?

It was unbelievable. But even more unbelievable was the fact that Gakushuu came out scot free. He didn't have to pay for it.

He didn't know if his father had a soft spot for the physically abused or if he was just pretending. Was it another Ikeda thing or a Gakushuu thing?

Was it actually a reward, however unbelievable it seemed?

Somehow, the sun didn't feel that bright that day.

Gakushuu's second year was pretty good. He was popular among the second and third years, and the newest batch of first years were intimidated enough by him that they didn't do much.

Gakushuu guided the lost sheep into his club and guided them on the do's and don'ts of Kunugigaoka. There was a drastic change from normal schools and he didn't want them to develop a complex about Kunugigaoka like most of his seniors.

His year seemed to be on both ends of the spectrum, but overall, it was better than his senior years.

Since he had enough power as a Vice-President, he made sure to catch the eyes of anyone who jeered at class E and punish them, deliberately letting them know the reasons and even if they protested, well, the punishments technically weren't 'punishments' and the teachers would let harm come to him over their dead bodies.

Gakushuu was their golden goose, someone who got full marks in the finals of the hell school, even if it was in the first year. But he got it for every single subject.

It was unprecedented in the short but intense history of Kunugigaoka.

The difficulty levels varied through, so even they couldn't be sure, but most people were pretty certain that Gakushuu would be in the top 2% of the best students in Japan.

But Gakushuu had never skipped years. Not that Gakuhou would have let him. He did every year thoroughly, taking advantage of his age and his skills.

A methodical way of building himself up, a step by step process that built a solid foundation for himself.

But it meant that Gakushuu had never been tested as a genius, unlike a few other students in his very own school.

Gakushuu had worked hard for every little bit of knowledge. He had learnt to be efficient, to manage his time better, to act before he thought, and think before he acted.

Gakushuu never really felt like he was special. Like he was comprehending something at an unnatural pace. People around him were awed by the skills he worked for, not the things that were inherently his.

He knew every hour, every day spent polishing those skills to perfection. The effort he spent on them.

He wasn't his father, who was a genius at education, but even his father worked harder than him. Even if education came easy, his father worked to be who he was in the realm of business and politics.

And it mostly worked.

But for Gakushuu, it was truly the reverse. For Gakushuu, business came easy. Not just because of his past life but because it really did feel easy.

Making money had never been Gakushuu's problem. He could throw money at people if that was all they needed, but you had to know how to delegate roles and how to use the money too.

Gakuhou still underestimated Gakushuu. What he had wasn't limited to just his father's Junior High, even if he treasured his classmates. Gakushuu had already reached out into the world and taken things for himself of his own power.

The second year winning class trip that Gakushuu picked at random was the wildlife.

Everyone was pretty nervous about it, and Araki spammed their chat with advice from professionals. Hinata sent anxious emoji and Kazuki got banned from texting at all.

Their living arrangement was literally…a boathouse.

They travelled through a river, stopping on islands to rest, or eat or for more wildlife watching and interaction. They tried not to get eaten by crocodiles in the river and then tried not to get eaten by the lions on land.

It was a difficult job even for Gakushuu. Especially when Chika went crazy at one point and wanted to eat a crocodile.

He wasn't even sure what to say to that.

At one point, a group of girls got pushed into the water, but thankfully, there weren't any dangerous creatures nearby and their screams alerted everyone of their predicament.

Gakushuu made the boys eat the weirdest foods they could get as punishment.

Even their guide sweat at trying to manage their mess of a class. It was already good enough that they could come out of the other end without having one of their classmates dead or dying.

Gakushuu was determined to have the school manage their trips a little better.

So maybe last time, he hadn't really said anything about the amount of things overlooked on their trips, but this time wasn't even his fault.

It's not like he deliberately jumped into a fight with a crocodile! They were literally a group of teenagers who wanted to do scary, crazy things and then the class trip was literally throwing them at crocodiles and snakes and god knows what.

There needed to be either better supervision or the pre-checks needed to be stricter.

Also, why the hell was the presence of their teachers optional? Why did their teacher decide that one or two relatively responsible teenagers was enough to manage a whole class?

Gakushuu had so many problems with their own class trips that he already had a headache.

Gakushuu was adding more work for himself and he wasn't even the Student Council President. Why was the Vice President so busy?

The class trip ended cheerfully, and everyone left exhilarated, and slightly sick of the food.

They had way too many unique things to eat. The palate of class A wasn't willing (aside from Chika).

To be fair to class A, Gakushuu wasn't aware of exactly how exceptional he was. He had high standards for others and even higher standards for himself.

He was always surrounded by people who were exceptional at their fields. So, he didn't understand what 'giving up' meant even if he understood the concept.

Class A was filled with exceptional people, like most of Kunugigaoka. They were all people who had passed the difficult Entrance Exam into Junior High.

But Gakushuu, even if he was aware of the facts, had never seen the ordinary people around him.

Ren caught his attention with his competence, so did Araki, and Akabane. His knew how exceptional his father was for years, since the age of 3.

So, Gakushuu wasn't aware that his class A was actually really amazing, even if he was comparing it to the class in the High School section.

He asked for a goal to be completed, and the students who were used to perfection reached for it. They didn't always reach it, but Gakushuu was used to finding the path for himself, and when he couldn't, he asked his father.

His father had never stifled his growth, even if he had his own bad points. So Gakushuu had watered the seeds of class A and nurtured it to grow into exceptional flowers.

Gakushuu wasn't always aware of how good his classmates were, but the better they were, the easier his own job was, and the more he could then take on.

So, class A grew and Gakushuu sheltered and nurtured them, going out into the storm first so he could show the rest a path forward.

And soon, as their second year proceeded, they could see the path themselves. They could support themselves and they grew in different, exceptional ways all on their own.

They were inspired by Gakushuu, by Ren, by the growth everyone had experienced even unknown to themselves.

Their greed for growth grew and they reached even further all on their own.

After all, that was how class A was made. It was made of exceptional students who adapted to the education of Kunugigaoka the best. They were the people who understood the rules of society, and reached for the top, and achieved it for themselves.

So just as Gakushuu grew, so too did class 2-A.