He told me something!, Elation

// ???'s POV //

"E-expelled? W-what? What for...?"

Horikta Manabu stood from his chair with a sigh, "We recently received a video from a student who I will not name that clearly shows you verbally and physically abusing them and as such you will be expelled. This is a prestigious school and the likes of you are not welcome here. I expect you to be gone by the days end." 

I couldn't move or speak, I know exactly who it was; Lucy Hall. I should have just done as I was told, why did I listen to him? There was clear evidence and I completely disregarded it, expelled over a small amount of 25,000 points? Why didn't I just send it?

Miyagi Nagumo, that's why. He told me not to worry about it, he told me that he would just disregard anything that comes his way involving this incident. So why? "WHY?!"

Looking around the room I saw no one, Horikita must have left already. "Haha, I hate this school anyway..."

// Nagumo's POV //

So he's been expelled huh? Good, I can't weak liabilities in my year. Having a 1st year manipulating someone who's supposed to be my subordinate is just embarrassing, it's best to just cut off such a weakness.

// Horikita Suzune's POV // 

Lucy Halls's fault? "So you made a deal with Lucy Hall? Are you stupid? That girl is worse than Ryuen, she will use you then get you expelled."

Kushida had called me and Ayanokoji out to a park to speak with us about the paper shuffle exam, "Your probably right but she's strong, if she can help me get rid of you two then I will deal with her. I think your overestimating her, I have way more friends than her. She isn't a problem."

Not a problem? *Sigh* "What do you want Kushida? What's your plan to expel me?"

If she wasn't going to tell me then she wouldn't have called me out here. So I want to hear what she has to say and end this meeting as soon as possible. "I want to make a deal."

A deal? No doubt involving my expulsion. "What deal would that be?"

Kushida sported a grin, "Ayanokoji," She shifted her focus to the boy sitting next to me, "Lets wager our expulsions on whoever gets the lower scores in 1 subject in the next exam."

Ayanokoji?! I didn't let him speak, "Don't involve Ayanokoji in this, it's between me and you Kushida."

I can't let Ayanokoji risk expulsion because of me, he wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for me being here so I must take responsibility.

"Except it's not, Ayanokoji knows about me and therefor must be expelled. This is your fault you know?"

Of course I know it's my fault, "But even so, aren't I more of a threat to you then him?"

"Of course you are, but Ayanokoji is your little soldier isn't he? You'll be weaker without him and easier to get rid of. I'm sorry Ayanokoji but you've found yourself in a bad situation, it's not your fault, but I'm sure you understand that I have to get rid of you yeah?"

Ayanokoji's grades are completely average, there's no way he'll be able to beat Kushida when it comes to academics. That and the fact that Kushida has the girl making the questions for us on her side, if Ayanokoji where to agree on this kind of deal with her then he will lose and be expelled.

"Sorry Kushida but Horikita here doesn't want you to be expelled so I'll have to decline." Good, he isn't completely stupid then, "But if you were to accept a different kind of punishment for losing then I would accept." 

"Ayanokoji, no! You won't win against her so this whole deal is stupid, you can't accept it." This boy is stupid, accepting a deal that involves risk of his own expulsion.

"Horikita it's fine, how about you promise not to target Horikita's expulsion for the next year id I win? Is that condition okay with you Kushida?"

"Hahaha! You truly are her little soldier huh? Doing whatever will help her, your such a dumb boy Ayanokoji."

"What are you doing Ayanokoji, I said not to take that deal!" In some ways Kushida is right, that was dumb of him.

"Wait Kushida what's stopping you from making that same deal with me? Surely it would benefit you more to do the same with me too?" If I can't stop Ayanokoji from making the deal then maybe I can do some damage control.

"I haven't beat you in a single subject in any tests since our first day here, it would just be stupid to make that deal with you wouldn't it?" 

She's right, but... "I'm sure you'll have the test questions before hand that class A will submit, so why not make that deal with me?"

It doesn't make sense, what's stopping her from making this deal? "Your right, I will get the answers before we take the test."

"Then why, why not make that deal with me?"

"Hahahaha!" What's so funny? Why is she laughing? "The reason is simple, I hate you Horikita. It was pointed out to me that getting rid of Ayanokoji before you will also hurt you more than just expelling you." 

What? Why is she being so sadistic? Before the last exam she would have never been like this, what changed? I thought she just wanted to get rid of me? "Kushida, what happened? Why are you being like this?"

Her smile grew wider, "Nothing happened, anyway give me a moment. I have a call to make."

She pulled out her phone and her phone started buzzing, "Hello? Yes the deal has been made, there was a slight change though... We are competing in one subject"

// Ayanokoji's POV //

"Okay, just wait here for 5 minutes and someone will come to officiate our little deal."

An 3rd party to ensure the contents of our deal are upheld? The only person I can think of that has that kind of power would be... I look at Horikita and see she hasn't reached the same conclusion as me, It seems she's in for a little shock when that person arrives.

Horikita is right about one thing though, something must have happened recently to make her think like this. Someone must have influenced her, Lucy perhaps? Well whatever it is, Kushida is undergoing a change and not one for the better.

She knows that her presence in class D is valued by Horikita and that she is unlikely to spread Kushida's secrets as that would lead to class D devolving into madness and reduce our chances of surpassing any other class to almost 0%. Kushida knows she has some room to work with and is taking advantage of it to make Horikita suffer. 

"So," I spoke to break the silence, "Who's coming?"

Kushida smiled and seemed to see someone behind me, "Someone very dear to Horikita over here." She stood up and waved, "Hey! Over here Senpai!"

Both me and horikita turn around to see the student council president, I could see the visible shock on Horikita's face as her lie upon his figure. "Ah, older brother! What are you here for?"

*Sigh* He sighed and pushed his glasses up, "Isn't it obvious? I'm here as a 3rd party to make sure each end of the deal is held up by the participants. This has nothing to do with you Suzune."

To my right I could see Horikita (Suzune) giving Kushida a hard stare.

"hehe!" Kushida let out a giggle, "So, are we ready?" 

// Ichinose's POV, 2 days later //

"So we agree that these are the final questions that will be submitted?" 

Kanzaki and Lucy was sat in my room and we were going over the previously submitted questions and what we figured out. We figured out a few things;

1. A full test sheet of university level questions will not be accepted

2. Up to 3 university questions will be permitted

3. A full test sheet of grade schooler questions will not be permitted

4. The test sheet we give in must be 'balanced' at a high school level 

5. we can balance that test sheet by giving 50% grade school level questions, 45% high school level questions and 5% university level questions.

6. Highschool level questions includes questions we haven't covered yet

7. A minimum of 50% of the questions must be below year 2 level of high school

8. A minimum of 25% of the questions must be multi choice / questions that don't require shown working outs in the case of the mathematics subject.

point 5 is a rough estimate of course, but that's most likely how the school is basing it all off; Percentages. It's clear that the university level questions hold more 'weight' than the grade school level questions though. For example we can't give 50% grade school questions and 50% university level questions to balance it perfectly towards a high school level test sheet. Were assuming 1 university level question is 'worth' roughly 15 grade school level questions based on the percentages we gathered, plus the fact that each subject must contain 60 questions. That means for every university level question we give, there must be 15 grade school level questions. 

In our final decided question we will only be including one university level question to ensure that no one in class D is able to score 100% in the exam. That means 15 of our questions will be at a grade school level but that is something we're willing to do as they will fill out the multi choice questions. For the rest of our questions, they involve a mixture of year 1, 2 and 3 high school level questions. 

We have submitted a total of 12 different sheets to our teacher to figure this information out, 7 of those 12 sheets were rejected. I feel bad for Sensei for having to do all this work but she told me not to worry as it helps the class and she was happy to do it.

"I must say it was a great idea to figure out all this information based on percentages Ichinose, at first I thought that maybe uni level questions just weren't allowed but in the end you found a way." Kanzaki sung my praises and I happily accepted them.

"Hehe, it was no problem. I just thought we should test the idea as there's no harm in doing so right?" It took a lot of work making all the test papers but in the end it was well worth it.

"He's right you know Ichinose? It was genius to attempt and 'balance' the paper after we were told the paper has to be at a high school level." Even Lucy was impressed.

I could feel my heart flutter, I don't usually take full control over these exams but when I told Lucy that this one was mine she was happy to let me. It was a risk seen as Lucy is consistently successful but it seems it payed off, the only thing she did during the preparation half of this exam was come up with a few questions that were uni level. I just wanted to show Lucy that I was capable and I did just that!

"Thanks guys but I only did what I had to... You don't need to praise me you know?" The praise meant a lot to me, I'm secretly hoping they don't stop.

"Oh, okay!" Lucy had just dropped that bomb!

WHA? WHAT DO YOU MEAN OKAY? I-I WANT MORE PRAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't just say that out loud though! Kanzaki's here, that's super embarrassing! 

"Hmph!" I pouted! I didn't mean to but it just happened!

"Huh? What's wrong Ichinose?" Kanzaki asked. 

Crap now I have to play it off, what do I say?

"It's probably just 'girl stuff' Kanzaki, maybe it's her time of the month?" 

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!???? 

I HATE YOU LUCY!

Guess I'll just have to teach her a 'lesson' later on?

// Ayanokoji's POV //

If I don't score perfectly on the math exam then I will be expelled, the terms of the deal were the lower score would be punished, if we get the same score then no one will be punished.

I don't plan on showing my intelligence to the whole school though, so I have to simply stop Lucy from giving Kushida the answers to the math portion of the paper shuffle exam paper. Threatening her won't work, I've figured that out on the cruise ship. Miyu Abe is a weakness of Lucy but where I to threaten to do anything then I'm pretty sure that Lucy will stop at nothing, even self destructing to get back at me.

Maybe give her something that is better than what Kushida is giving her? Maybe tell her that Kushida's plan didn't work as we stopped any chance for her to give in a different paper early on? That is assuming that was their deal in the first place, it seems likely seeing as that's what she did when deciding who we were going to fight against in the exam itself.

Guess I have to make a call... except I don't have Lucy's number. *Sigh* Karuizawa is likely to have it though. I scrolled through my phone to find Karuizawa's number...

// 30 minutes later outside the dorms //

I've been sitting here for 5 minutes now, early so as to not annoy Lucy for being late. It's obvious her child-like nature would get annoyed at something like that. At exactly 6:45 Lucy Hall entered my vision and walked toward me, "Hey."

// Lucy's POV //

I wonder what Ayanokoji will offer me, "Hey Ayanokoji, why dis you want to meet me alone huh? I'll say no if you confess to me by the way." Feigning ignorance of what he wants I went to the vending machine and bought a kola, a yummy fizzy drink.

"I'm not here to confess, I'm here to ask you what Kushida is giving you in return for the answers on that test." He just looked at me with those empty, empty eyes. 

"Hmmm, I don't know what your talking about. Sorry I can't help you." It's fun to play with people, we both know that I know what he's talking about but I'm dragging this out. I know he likes to think he's emotionless but that's not true, deep inside of him there is a drive for freedom and that just screams to me that there are emotions inside of him. I want to draw those emotions out.

"Lucy, tell me what she's offering you and I'll tell you everything I know about the person Kushida Kikyo." Hmph, like you could tell me something I don't know. Hahahhaa!

"Oh? Like what? Some tragic backstory? Sorry Ayanokoji but I don't care, I don't need anything Kushida. She's too weak for me to care."

"Hmm, I see. What if were to tell you that the questions Kushida submitted weren't accepted and that Horikita had foreseen that outcome already?"

He thinks were trading test answers? "What? B-but there's no way she could have seen that coming! It's like a super secret plan that we came up with!" I was being overly dramatic and sarcastic to show him that I don't care.

"Listen Ayanokoji, sure I'm giving her the answers but I'm not getting much in return for it you know? What I'm getting in return is forcing you into a difficult situation, you threatened Miyu remember? That's why I'm doing this, to show you that I am not someone you should have messed with." Back then I told him that he shouldn't have done that and this is to show him I'm very serious about the matter.

"Your going to expel me over a minor threat that I didn't even take action on?" 

"Haha! Don't be stupid, of course not! Something like this isn't enough to expel YOU is it? Ayanokoji I know more than you think I do, hey wanna know a secret?"

"Do tell."

"I met a man once, he told me I can have something of his in exchange for doing two things, one being extremely illegal, I'm talking about child abduction and trafficking here by the way." I gave it a second to see if there was a reaction, of course there wasn't one. 

"What is the other thing he asked you to do?" (Ayanokoji)

"Haha! He told me to get rid of someone!" (Lucy)

"And tell me, what did he give you in return?" (Ayanokoji)

"He gave me the most valuable thing in this world! Entertainment! Ayanokoji do you understand!? I don't care what I have to do to get what I want! And I always get what I want... You wanna know what I want right now?"

silence... he didn't speak, "I want to have fun! You my dear friend are my entertainment, I will force you to show all that lowly scum in your class just how smart you really are! I don't want you to hold back anymore! I know that you came from a facility! I know just how smart you are! So challenge me Ayanokoji! I want you to try and crush me! Show me that your father was right! The man who came to me labeled YOU as the perfect human, he told me that you would utterly destroy me!"

// Ayanokoji's POV //

It seems I've found myself in the same situation as Kushida, a person is threatening to destroy my peaceful life. Lucy Hall is a much more dangerous person than I originally thought, she has no moral compass. She has to go.

"Oh but don't worry Ayanokoji," hm? "On the condition that you don't threaten Miyu Abe, I will absolutely under no circumstances tell a soul about where you came from or anything about your past. Is that acceptable to you?"

"It is, but do know that I won't just let you destroy my peaceful life." She grinned, it seems that's what she wanted.

Lucy Hall is kind of like me now that I think about it, morals mean nothing, we both know that they just hold people back. Where we differ however is how we act, Lucy is destructive and just wants fun, meanwhile I just want a calm, peaceful life.

"Ayanokoji, I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh and one more thing, a warning if you will; your father is planning something. He told me that I'm not the only measure to get you expelled and that just doesn't sit well with me, your mine. I'd like to ask you to tell me if anything happens and I will help you deal with anything your father throws at you okay? A temporary alliance."

"Thanks for the warning." I turned and left, there was nothing more to be said after all. 

This meeting was worth it, I learned a lot in the last few minutes. 

Now onto my current issue, find a way to stop Kushida Kikyo from participating in the paper shuffle exam.

// Lucy's POV //

That was thrilling! I haven't felt like this at all! My knees are weak as I stand in the elevator, taking me to my dorm room. Those eyes! Those cold eyes that promise regret! 

I can't take it, there's this feeling in my chest that I never want to let go of. What is it? Is it excitement? It feels too strong to be that? I know what it is;

ELATION! 

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Now to scratch a certain itch, a cool wind blows under my skirt and I try my hardest to keep it down as I have nothing on underneath it.

I open my door to see Ichinose sat on my bed... "Are you ready to continue?"