Classroom of the Elite: Shadow puppeteer

Chapter 12: Study Group Formation

"If we don't get any more points, what I am gonna do?"

"I used up all of my points yesterday..."

During the break, the classroom erupted into an uproar...or rather, chaos.

"Forget about the points. What the hell about this class? Why was I put into Class D?!" Yukimura cried resentfully. A thin layer of sweat covered his forehead.

"Wait, does this mean that we can't get into college now? Why did we even go to this school? Does Sae-chan-sensei hate us or something?"

None of the other students could hide their confusion.

"I understand that you're all confused right now, but everyone needs to calm down." Hirata, sensing the classroom tipping toward crisis, stood and attempted to rein everyone in.

"How are we supposed to calm down? Aren't you frustrated that she called us a bunch of failures?!" Yukimura said.

"Even if I was, isn't it better for us to band together so we can turn things around?" Hirata asked.

"Turn things around? I don't even agree with how we were sorted in the first place!"

"I understand. However, sitting here whining won't help us right now."

"What did you say?" Yukimura quickly went to Hirata and forcefully grasped his collar.

"Calm down, you two, okay? I'm sure that the teacher talked to us harshly so we'd be inspired to do better, right?"

That was Kushida. She slipped between the two and separated them, gently taking Yukimura's balled fist. Just as anyone would expect, Yukimura didn't try to hurt her and reflexively took half a step back.

"Besides, it's only been one month since we started here, right? Like Hirata-kun said, it's better if we all do our best together. Do you think that I'm wrong about that?"

"N-no, it's... Well, I certainly wouldn't say you're wrong, but..."

Yukimura's anger had almost completely vanished. Kushida looked at everyone in class, and it was almost as if her eyes reflected a sincere wish for us to work together.

"Yeah, it's better for us to band together. Right? There's no need for you to fight, Yukimura. Hirata."

"I'm sorry. I lost my cool," Yukimura said.

"It's all right. I should have chosen my words a little more carefully."

Kushida's presence brought everyone together. I took out my cell phone and snapped a picture of the paper with the class point totals. Horikita, taking notice, looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I haven't been able to figure out how points are calculated yet. You've also been taking notes, haven't you?"

If I could figure out how many points were deducted by being late or talking in class, it'd be easier to come up with countermeasures.

"Wouldn't it be difficult to figure out those details at this stage? Besides, I don't think you can resolve this simply by investigating. Everyone in our class arrived late and talked too often."

As Horikita had said, it certainly was difficult to conclude anything based on the current information. Also, Horikita's usually cool, composed attitude was gone. She seemed rather impatient.

"Are you trying to get into college, too?" I wondered.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, when we learned about the differences between A and D, you looked shocked."