18 Chapter 18

"Yes," Lelouch cleared his throat. "Class C is ran by a dictator who wields violence in order to supress any and all opposition within his class. Even though it's only the second day of school he seems to already have most the class under his thumb - mainly because most people are hesitant to fight him. His name is Ryūen Kakeru, but he isn't actually the strongest person in his class. There is also a very largely built guy with a dark skin complexion named Albert Yamada who always wears sunglasses, he is incredibly strong but doesn't seem to like resorting to violence."

"When did you find out Albert's name?" Kururugi asked quizically.

"I checked his desk's nameplate before we left. It looks like Class C still hasn't removed them."

"O-oh... Obviously..." Kururugi said, probably feeling like he was stupid for asking an obvious question.

Lelouch had given us a brief rundown, and then proceeded to explain all the events that happened when he visited Class C. About how 'Green-aka-Ishizaki-kun' had been beaten by Ryūen, and how 'Sunglasses-aka-Albert-kun' had stood up for the class, beating Ryūen with relative ease. Ryūen simply got back up though, which is when Lelouch and Kururugi had entered the classroom and spoken with him.

Apparently, Lelouch asked the Class C students why they didn't report Ryūen to the school and Ryūen had stopped them from answering him. Thus, Lelouch deduced that Ryūen knows he can't be reported for assaulting his own classmates since a punishment to him would also be a punishment to Class C by extension, but didn't want him to know that he knew that. Lelouch came to the conclusion that he was an incredibly dangerous opponent due to the fact that he was not hesitant to use violence and was seemingly very observant and intelligent. From what I'd heard, I'd be inclined to agree.

After hearing Light, Ryuzaki and Lelouch's intel, I couldn't help but feel like I was inferior to them. I didn't even manage to find out Strawberry-chan's name meanwhile everyone else had figured out the identities and personalities of all the important figures in their respective classes. My last hope was to pray that Blank had also not gotten much information but it didn't seem likely at this stage.

"That's why those Class C girls approached you, then." Shiro deduced quietly.

"Yeah, I bet they thought you were so cool standing up to their scary leader like that." Sora sneered in annoyance.

"Are you really still bitter about that?" Lelouch asked in seemingly genuine confusion.

"Nii will go back to normal tomorrow don't worry." Shiro said as she started to pat Sora's head with her right hand. "He's just upset because he's never even touched a girl other than his sister before."

Don't go slandering my name! That's defamation!" Sora protested loudly.

He didn't shake off Shiro's hand, however.

"Now it's your turn, Blank." I said.

Their story was the one I was most interested to hear. Horikita had looked repulsed by Sora and Shiro's mere presence in the gymnasium, even more so when they had approached us. Sudō's group had also acted unnaturally hostile towards them when they spoke to me. My curiosity was piqued by what they possibly could've done to become hated by multiple members of Class D so quickly.

"If we're talking about influential figures," Sora began, leaning forward in his chair. "Then Class D has Yōsuke Hirata, a boy who is adored by the Class D population, especially among the girls. Then, there is also Horikita Suzune who doesn't seem very well-liked by her classmates but from what I can tell is pretty smart. Her weakness is that she thinks of herself as superior to everyone around her, which is preventing her from becoming a good leader. Lastly, a boy caught my interest; his name is Kōenji Rokusuke. His physical build is excellent and he gives off an aura of arrogance, as if he thinks of himself as the absolute pinnacle of humanity. This wouldn't normally be enough to intrigue me but you'll see why I took notice of him in a minute."

So as it turns out, everyone other than me had obtained highly detailed information about the class they were assigned to. I was banking on Blank doing badly to cover my own incompetence, but it looked like they had actually been the most thorough out of everyone.

After noting potentially important students of the class, Sora recapped what had happened when he arrogantly burst into Class 1-D. He had provoked them all by calling them 'defective' and 'trash' which caused Horikita, being the prideful girl she is, to challenge him. Sora had used a deck of playing cards to propose a simple game where they would try to guess which card was on the bottom of the deck. However, what he didn't mention and what Horikita neglected to consider was that the deck was freshly-opened and, as such, was still in its default order. Sora used this to predict with near guaranteed success that the bottom card would be the Ace of Spades, since almost all decks of cards are packaged in that order and seeing as he hadn't explicitly looked at any of the cards in the deck, it couldn't be considered cheating.

One student, Kōenji Rokusuke, had apparently seen through Sora's trick but chose to stay silent. Even though in hindsight it seems like an obvious trap, during the moment 99 percent of people wouldn't even stop to think about the possibility of the deck never having been shuffled before. Kōenji was apparently in the 1 percent though, as he had been smirking with satisfaction at the result of the game. It seemed that quite a troublesome one was lurking in Class D.

"From the impression I got of him, Kōenji is far too flippant to be considered a threat at this time. However, should he get serious and start leading his class against us, we may actually have to tread carefully." Sora concluded his findings with a warning.

In summary, the ones we had to watch out for were Sakayanagi and Katsuragi of Class A, Strawberry-chan of Class B, Ryūen of Class C and Kōenji of Class D. Honestly, even without including Class E, this year of students was very impressive.

Then, something hit me. I saw an opportunity to somewhat redeem my earlier failings, and spoke up.

"There is one thing that I found out about Class D as well," I interjected.

"There is?" Kururugi asked.

"Yes. At lunch today I met a girl named Kushida Kikyō. From what I can tell she's very popular because of her outgoing and cheery attitude; she won't hesitate to talk to or help anyone, even those who are deemed unpopular. She said that her goal is to become friends with everyone in the school and asked me for my contact information which leads me to think she'll end up having the most vast social network within the school."

I had accidently learned more about a single student in Class D than I had about the entire class I was supposed to be investigating. I internally kicked myself, but hoped that my classmates would forgive me a bit since I supplied them with some useful knowledge.

"That is definitely good intel. A vast social network is the one thing our class will lack, since we only know each other and none of us are particularly outgoing. She could turn out to be a dangerous entity." Ryuzaki praised my findings.

I felt a mixture of happiness and relief. It looked like my contributions weren't completely useless after all.

"Kushida Kikyō, huh..." Sora muttered to no one in particular.

"Nii, she was silent the whole time we were in Class D. You couldn't have noticed her." Shiro comforted him.

Apparently, Sora was annoyed that he hadn't noticed this vitally important asset to Class D himself. This was something I'm sure only Shiro could discern, having known him for her entire life.

"Well, that's pretty much it for our class investigations, right? We've learned everything that there is to learn at this point in the year." Kururugi said, to which everyone nodded.

"Well, today's been quite exhausting so I'm heading back to my dorm now. There isn't anything else to discuss, I take it?" Lelouch said as he stood up from the table.

"I think there is one thing," I said, prompting him to sit back down.

"What?" he asked.

"What should we do about clubs? We're still in the dark about how important they are and we can't join one because trying to do so would cause widespread confusion, especially amongst the upperclassmen." I stated dryly.

"I think the best move is for us to just wait until next month to try and join one, since by then we may end up learning how imperative clubs really are. If we flaunt our abilities a bit I'm sure they'd welcome us with open arms." Light theorized.

His assessment was more or less correct - clubs would probably accept any student with outstanding capabilities even if it's a month late. Since it seemed that the school was purposely waiting until May to reveal more about how the school works to us, there was a decent chance that we were going to learn more about clubs as well.

"Yeah, our hands are tied right now. What about the student council? I think at least one of us should try to get into it, since there's a good possibility that they have a large degree of influence." Sora added.

"I agree. Having a student from Class E in the student council seems like something we need if we're to make up for the disadvantage we have compared to the other classes." Ryuzaki said. "But who will join? I am definitely not a candidate myself."

"Wait until next month to decide." Shiro said simply, but I'm sure we all got the message she was conveying.

No one in our class stands out as a particularly great choice, so we should wait until next month when we know each other better before deciding. This was undoubtedly what Shiro had meant, and the fact that she didn't say it probably meant she was confident we'd pick up on her meaning.

"That's probably the wisest decision. Much better than rushing into everything, anyway." I said my piece.

"Mhm. Can I go now? All that troublesome information gathering with Class C, this discussion and that Monopoly game have really tired me out." Lelouch complained.

I couldn't help but agree. I had done enough theorizing, information gathering and dicussing for one day. Everyone else also seemed to share the sentiment so we stood up from our table and started walking back to our dorms.

I thought back on everything that had happened today as I walked. Namely, my ordinary life had already come crashing down, at least within the walls of Class 1-E. Alternatively though, you could look at it as if I was finally fitting in since everyone else was also allegedly an outstanding talent - being known by my classmates probably wouldn't change much. In fact, they'd all probably suspected me from the start anyway.

"Thinking about something, Ayanokōji?" Lelouch laughed a few feet in front of me.

Light and Ryuzaki had split off from the group during our return walk to the dorms, saying they were going to drop by Keyaki Mall before they headed back. This just left the five of us, walking back in silence. That was until, of course, Lelouch had shattered the tranquil atmosphere like thin glass.

"I guess." I gave him an expressionless reply.

"Hmph. I'll wipe that apathetic look off of your face one day, ordinary-student-kun."

I'll look forward to it, I thought to myself. If Lelouch really could do it, then coming to this school was definitely worth it after all. I wonder what awaits me in the future. Can I really experience something new here?