"..." Sakayanagi Arisu.
As expected, all eyes in the class turned to Sakayanagi — both from Katsuragi's side and her own.
Because Byakugan was being way too sneaky.
He basically pulled the rug out from under her and made it sound like they were allies.
Since the two were from different classes — obvious rivals — and yet he offered her such a position, it's easy to imagine how everyone else would start misunderstanding their relationship.
And yesterday during lunch break, after returning from the student council, Sakayanagi had gone straight to Byakugan Miyuki's class. Back then, she thought she could catch him off guard.
But now it looked like… it seemed more like she couldn't wait to see him.
There was no way to explain that away.
Even if she denied it, the doubts wouldn't go away.
Sakayanagi knew very well that Byakugan Miyuki had planned this on purpose, aiming to weaken Class A's unity.
And the fact that students around her, even those in her own group, were now giving her surprised and confused looks proved that Byakugan's plan was working.
After putting the pressure on Sakayanagi Arisu, Byakugan fell completely silent.
Or maybe, ever since Horikita had trusted him and agreed to that bet — promoting him if he raised his class — Byakugan Miyuki had already become Class A's biggest enemy.
At this point, he had nothing to fear. He could only push forward.
And up on the stage—
"Now that everything has been announced, the students whose names were called will officially start tomorrow after school."
"Each grade will now leave in order, starting from third years, then second years, then first years, following the A, B, C, D class order."
Horikita Manabu handed the microphone to Tachibana Akane and stepped off the stage. He then walked over to the third-year Class A group and stood at the front.
Even though Horikita Manabu was the student council president, he was also his class's representative.
So it was natural for him to lead the way.
The students began leaving the hall in an orderly manner.
First the third years, then the second years.
"Nagumo!"
Since A Class always went first, second-year A Class should have been the first to leave. But the students noticed that Nagumo, who was at the front, seemed completely lost in thought.
For the students of second-year Class A, the fact that the president didn't appoint Kiriyama as the vice president was actually a good thing for their class.
Normally, Nagumo didn't even see Kiriyama as a serious threat, so Kiriyama only getting the accountant position wouldn't really throw Nagumo off.
The second-year Class A students were finally starting to notice that something seemed wrong with their representative.
"My plan was ruined," Nagumo muttered to himself.
Unfortunately, no one around him understood what he meant. That was because his plan to push Horikita Manabu into appointing Kiriyama as vice president had been carried out in secret, and no one else even knew he had been working toward that.
In the end, he failed.
After putting so much effort into it, there was no way he could just shrug it off.
Still, it wasn't a complete loss.
Nagumo Miyabi was still Nagumo Miyabi — ever since he was young, he had been better than most people. Things that were hard for others were easy for him.
You could say that everything had gone smoothly for him until now.
Even after entering this school, he was surprised to find himself placed in Class B instead of A, but he quickly led his class to rise up anyway.
In other words, this was the first time Nagumo was really feeling what it was like to lose.
But.
He was still Nagumo Miyabi.
Confident and capable, he quickly pulled himself together.
After all, failing once wasn't a bad thing — it could even keep him from getting too full of himself.
Because.
He hadn't really lost yet.
Even though he had spent over a month setting up the plan to have Horikita appoint Kiriyama as vice president, and even though that plan had failed and ended up creating a new rival for himself —
Still.
He was an upperclassman, and for the second-years, even though right now it looked like three classes were teaming up to crush Class B, it wouldn't take long for him to take control of the entire second year.
Once that happened.
It wouldn't just help him lead his class better through the special exams every month — he would also have an entire year group backing him.
And by then, he could collect points from the whole second-year group too.
A huge sum like twenty million points would be easy to gather.
So he still had plenty of cards left to play. Could Shirogane, a first-year, really pull that off?
There was no way he could unite his whole year like Nagumo had.
Besides.
Even if Shirogane wanted to become vice president, it wasn't going to be that easy — he would first have to beat the current first-year Class A.
So.
If Shirogane's first-year Class B couldn't climb up, wouldn't that mean Horikita's plan would fall apart too, and in the end, they might still have to support Kiriyama?
Which meant.
He hadn't lost yet.
"Let's go!"
Nagumo Miyabi said.
So, leading the 2nd-year Class A, Nagumo left with a big group, and there was no longer any sign of defeat on his face.
But when he walked out of the gym, Nagumo still felt a bit regretful.
Because yesterday, he had run into Sakayanagi Arisu again—the silver-haired girl who looked like a high-end doll.
She was so cute that he felt a strong urge to protect her and wanted to get closer.
But now, Sakayanagi had been pulled into Shirakinu Miyuki's group.
At the very least, even though it wasn't clear what kind of relationship Sakayanagi and Shirakinu had, when Shirakinu personally invited her to be the Vice President, it was obvious that there was no chance of winning her over anymore.
That made Nagumo a little disappointed.
Still, if he wanted to make things harder for Shirakinu's 1st-year Class B, there were still ways to do it.
For example, the point gap between 1st-year Class A and 1st-year Class B was less than 200 points.
Nagumo thought that, even though yesterday he had used the excuse of "teaching Sakayanagi Arisu" to show off as a senior, he could have still convinced Kamuro to cheat a little and grab those 50 points.
As long as he could persuade Kamuro, it would be fine.
Even though the deadline for claiming rewards had already passed, in this school, strength is everything, and so are points.
Points are basically like rewards or bonuses given by the school.
So, the more points you have, the stronger you are seen to be.
In that case,
using enough points could still make up for missing the deadline.
They could give 1st-year Class A an extra 50 points and make it harder for Class B to catch up.
Now that Sakayanagi had this connection with Shirakinu, there's no way she would agree to help even if Nagumo supported it behind the scenes.
But Katsuragi, the student he met yesterday, would probably go along with it.
Nagumo quickly ran through these thoughts.
After the 2nd-years left, it was time for the 1st-years to exit.
"Let's go," said Katsuragi. "Everyone stay calm. What just happened was probably just Shirakinu Miyuki trying to divide us. We're Class A students. We shouldn't fall for it so easily."
Even though Katsuragi himself was surprised that Shirakinu had publicly announced that he was the new student council president and immediately invited Sakayanagi to be Vice President,
as one of the class leaders—one of two—he wasn't going to lose his cool that easily.
So right now, he didn't believe Sakayanagi would betray them.
Which meant, it had to be a trick by Shirakinu.
Or maybe,
it was like how Nagumo suddenly realized that he had overlooked this kid from the old Class C, who turned out to be a real boss.
And for Katsuragi, it was an even bigger shock.
They had all entered the school together, and Katsuragi was still in Class A, but Shirakinu, who had started from Class C, not only led his class to move up in just the first month—a record in the school—but also joined the student council even earlier than him, and not just in some minor role either.
He started out directly as the secretary.
And to make things even crazier, the president had even promised that if Class B could rise up, Shirakinu would be given the Vice President position too.
If Shirakinu actually pulled that off, it would be a huge blow to Class A, who would fall behind.
Instead of staying ahead safely like Katsuragi had hoped, they would have to keep chasing after Class B.
It would be exhausting.
Even though they were just freshmen, the 1st-years quickly cleared out of the gym.
Because after Class A left, the other homeroom teachers mentioned that since there was still time, they would explain the rules for this month's special exam once everyone got back to their classrooms.
But,
half of the class meeting time was already over.
They had said yesterday that the announcement would come in a few days, but now it was happening this fast and so suddenly.
...
Shirogane followed his class back to the classroom.