"This year's first-years are really something."
Inside a meeting room, four homeroom teachers sat together, each holding the final results of the VIP exam.
After witnessing the contract signing the day before, they had already anticipated this outcome.
The one speaking was Mashima-sensei, formerly the homeroom teacher of Class A, now in charge of Class B.
Hearing his comment, the other three in the room showed different reactions.
"Heh, looks like I get to keep my Class A status until next semester. Lucky me, my bonus is secured," Hoshinomiya-sensei said smugly.
Mashima-sensei glanced at her, slightly furrowing his brows, but said nothing.
"But I bet the school won't be happy about these results."
At that moment, Sakagami-sensei, the homeroom teacher of Class C, adjusted his glasses.
"Spending over 80 million private points… the administration must be feeling the pressure. This could affect the future special exams."
The others nodded slightly.
While an all-group Result One outcome was rare and impressive, making it an exam that truly tested students' abilities, it wasn't exactly ideal from the school's perspective.
They all understood the situation. If only one or two groups had achieved Result One, it wouldn't have been a big deal. But with all twelve groups succeeding, the school had essentially hemorrhaged an enormous amount of private points into the students' hands.
That wasn't something the school could ignore.
"This might be the first time in Advanced Nurturing High School's history that Class A was overtaken by other classes in the very first semester," Sakagami-sensei suddenly remarked.
"Yeah~ It's really surprising~"
Hoshinomiya-sensei replied with a smile.
"This proves that this year's students aren't as bad as we initially thought."
Mashima-sensei glanced at Sakagami-sensei and said in a serious tone.
Chabashira-sensei sighed inwardly as she watched the three of them subtly competing with each other. Just thinking about Class D gave her a headache. The students in Class D were practically the "worst"—not just in terms of grades, but also in overall ability. Compared to other classes, they had more obvious and difficult-to-fix weaknesses.
In fact, the students in Class D did have the worst academic performance. Most of them had average grades and abilities, with nothing particularly outstanding. But that didn't mean there were no exceptions. Chabashira-sensei had noticed several students who clearly didn't belong in Class D—hidden talents, so to speak. Koenji, Hirata, Horikita, and later on, the unexpected discovery of Ayanokouji's hidden abilities...
But what truly surprised Chabashira-sensei was a student who seemed completely unremarkable—a boy with dead-fish eyes who had been late on the very first day of school.
Hikigaya Hachiman.
One of only two first-year students to join the student council—and from Class D, no less. At the time, Chabashira-sensei had only glanced at him briefly and hadn't thought much about it. She only started paying real attention to him after the first midterm exam, when he signed that contract with Class C.
After that, she even took the time to check Hikigaya's enrollment records, and when she saw the evaluation written there, she couldn't help but feel frustrated.
Then came the uninhabited island exam. She only found out later that Hikigaya had set up a scheme that directly tricked Class A. She wasn't sure if he was responsible for their disastrous zero-point result, but her instincts told her that he was definitely involved.
The problem was... he seemed to have no interest in moving up to a higher class. All he cared about was collecting private points.
These students were incredibly talented, to the point of being unbelievable. But at the same time, their flaws were just as obvious.
If she could unite them as a team, then maybe—just maybe—she could finally achieve the goal she had always longed for.
...
After the special exam for the "privileged students" ended, the cruise ship spent another day at sea before officially heading back. By the time they returned to school, it was already mid-August.
Unlike regular students, Hikigaya had to rush straight to the student council to start working on summer break duties. The biggest task was the summer IH tournament, which kept all the sports clubs busy. Naturally, that meant the student council had a lot of work to do as well.
"Hikigaya, I heard that this special exam for the first-years surprised a lot of people."
In the student council room, Hikigaya was handling some paperwork when he suddenly heard Tachibana Akane bring up the topic.
"This is the first time in the school's history that a special exam has caused a ranking change among the upper classes."
"Ah... Well, I guess it's because Ichinose's class—now Class A—has some really strong students."
Hikigaya replied casually.
"Ichinose... Oh, I remember. The girl with long pink hair, always cheerful and full of energy, right? She even applied for the student council back then."
Tachibana Akane recalled the details. Even though Ichinose was just a first-year at the time, she had left a strong impression, even on a third-year like Tachibana.
Hearing that, Hikigaya suddenly had a question.
"Tachibana-senpai, I have a question. Given how capable Ichinose is, why wasn't she chosen?"
"Uh, about that..."
Tachibana Akane hesitated, then sighed. "This is something you'll find out sooner or later, but it doesn't feel right for me to be the one telling you..."
"I'm listening."
"Hikigaya, you know about Nagumo from the second year, right? Once this semester ends, we third-years will step down, and the student council will be handed over to the second-years. Nagumo has already been chosen as the next student council president."
Tachibana Akane's expression grew troubled as she talked about Nagumo.
"But Nagumo's ideology is completely different from the current president's. He values personal strength above all else. So it's easy to predict that once he takes over, the student council's policies and style will change significantly."
Hikigaya remained expressionless. Situations like this weren't rare. In fact, they were quite common. Even in the workplace, different leaders had their own ways of doing things, often deliberately setting themselves apart from their predecessors.
But usually, successors were chosen based on whether their vision aligned with their predecessor's. As long as their general direction was the same, minor differences were acceptable—that was the "unspoken rule" of selecting successors.
Yet despite having completely different ideologies, Horikita Manabu still allowed Nagumo to become the next student council president. That alone said a lot.
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