Chapter 91

Chapter 91

Light's POV

After my chat with Horikita, I began walking back to the room I shared with Kururugi, Lelouch and Ryuzaki.

I had no idea what those guys would be doing right now – maybe they'd be out somewhere, or perhaps they were just relaxing in the room. I guess I'll be finding out soon enough.

As I walked, I pulled the phone out of my pocket. The phone that, of course, didn't belong to me, but to Shiro.

It buzzed as I walked, and I opened the phone to check what it was. It was a mail from the school, which read the following:

Due to the student you inputted not being a member of the group you're in, your answer has been ruled invalid, and has not been accepted.

Hah...!

Just as planned.

Composing a new mail, I inputted that same school mail address, but this time wrote the words "Inogashira Kokoro" instead of the random student I'd written earlier, in front of Horikita.

That random student, of course, was not a member of the Rooster group. The rules of this exam clearly state that answering the name of a student not in your group would not be accepted.

As a result, it was possible for me to actually send a mail in front of Horikita while not committing to a guess, since I'd already confirmed earlier in the conversation that she didn't know her classmates' groups. Of course, to sell the act, I also had to receive a mail confirming the end of the Rooster group's examination period.

The best way to do this, of course, was to create a draft email which's content was a forgery of what the school would actually send the students after a group's exam ended.

That way, I could send it to myself at a moment's notice, with the tap of just one button. All I had to do was wait until I'd sent the invalid email in front of Horikita, and then discreetly hit "send" on the draft email.

Then, I just needed to pretend to be surprised and curious when my forged school email buzzed through, sent of course by myself.

Of course, it was important to make sure that Horikita didn't notice that the sender's mail address was actually Shiro's, so I had to open it such that only the contents and subject of the mail was visible.

I hit the "send" button on the mail I'd just written, successfully answering Inogashira as the Rooster group VIP, just as Horikita had told me.

As expected, shortly after, a mail came through from the school, which read:

The test has now ended for the Rooster group. Those in the Rooster group are no longer required to participate any further. Please do not disturb the other students.

The fake email I'd created actually turned out to be pretty close to what the school actually sent us after a group ended. Since the explanation yesterday said that we would be told the detailed results at the end, I'd made the guess that they wouldn't tell us the outcome in the group-ending mails. And I was right.

This was quite convenient. Horikita wouldn't even know anything was wrong until the end of the exam, when it turns out that Class E actually lost 50 class points to Class D in the Rooster group, rather than gained.

Of course, there was the possibility that Horikita actually lied about the VIP identity in the Rooster group.

But it wasn't a big deal. Due to Shiro's circumstances, we were going to end the group wrongly anyway – it's not like we lose anything more if this tactic turned out to have failed.

Somehow, though, I felt that Horikita hadn't lied about Inogashira being the VIP. She was a stubborn and prideful girl, after all. She wouldn't do something as shameless as lying about the VIP identity during a seemingly fair trade.

Surprisingly, Horikita had actually realised that the condition regarding her contact information was nothing more than a distraction. Unfortunately, though, that wasn't enough.

You discovered the trap, Horikita, but you didn't discover the trap behind the trap.

You thought you'd caught me out, which is why you simply took my word for it when I mentioned that I wanted the VIP's identity in order to figure out a supposed pattern. You never even considered that I could've had a second trick prepared.

She was improving, though, albeit only slightly. If this was Horikita at the start of the school year, she wouldn't have even noticed that the contact information was a distraction. She would've just written me off as a weirdo betraying his class all just for a girl's contact info. She'd made progress.

There was one more thing I had to do. I opened up Kushida's contact information, and sent Horikita's to her.

One problem with this tactic was actually approaching Horikita. She was secluded and didn't give out her contact information to anyone, so getting a meeting with her was difficult. That's why I had to make use of Kushida.

Originally, I actually tried approaching Ichinose, because it was much easier to get an audience with her. Unfortunately, though, it turned out that she didn't have a VIP in the Rooster group. So I moved on to Class E instead, which did turn out to have the VIP.

It was preferable for me to target girls, because I could use the contact information trick as a decoy for my true motive. That wouldn't work with a boy like Katsuragi or Ryūen. Well... you never know.

It was a well-known fact that Horikita Suzune was a reclusive person, and it was also well known that Kushida Kikyō wanted to befriend everyone.

Therefore, it wasn't hard to guess this: Kushida wanted Horikita's contact information, like she did everybody else's, but had not managed to yet get it.

Kushida would be hesitant to call Horikita out to a meeting for us normally, but we could entice her to do it for us by promising to give her Horikita's contact information in return.

That was the reason why I insisted that Horikita give me her contact information even after admitting that I wasn't actually after it. It was so that I could make good on my promise to Kushida.

In the end, everything went smoothly, just as planned.

I'd managed to bait Horikita in even though I knew she'd have decided to reject any and all negotiations with Class D.

I managed to pull of the trickery with the submitted mail perfectly, whilst keeping my true intentions regarding my set conditions a secret.

I also managed to keep my word to Kushida, and gave her Horikita's contact information, as promised.

And I'd obtained Horikita's contact info myself to boot!

Unless Horikita lied about the VIP identity to me, which was very unlikely, I'd just managed to turn our 50-class point loss from Shiro guessing wrong into a 50-class point gain, at no cost to us.

A pretty good job done, if I do say so myself.

The plan had actually ended up being more complex than I first assumed it'd be. On paper, it's as simple as sending a fake email and obtaining the Rooster group's VIP identity, but there were a lot of moving parts to this scheme behind the scenes, and I had to be careful not to slip up during my meeting with Horikita.

I felt an unexpected grin form on my face.

My entire life has been pretty dull – repeating mundane routines and monotonous trials in order to meet expectations and be the best student possible.

But this... these sorts of special exams weren't mundane – it was a breath of fresh air to me. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to put a plan like this into motion at a regular school.

Somehow or another, I found myself genuinely enjoying myself at this school.

However, I feared that it would become routine again pretty soon. There was only so much fun one could derive by outmanoeuvring people like Horikita repeatedly, after all. What I craved most of all was a good challenge, a rival.

Yes. More than anything right now, I want to fight against them.