On the surface, campus life settled into a deceptively calm rhythm. The undercurrents of confrontation subsided, replaced by the steady hum of academic routine. Under the implicit guidance of their respective leaders, students in Classes A, B, and C acclimated to Koudo Ikusei's demanding pace—classrooms were focused, notes were diligently taken, a quiet competition simmering beneath an orderly surface.
Class 1-D, however, remained an island of noisy exception. Whispers cut through lectures, students in the back rows slept openly, tardiness and the occasional skipped class were woven into the fabric of their days. The teachers, adhering to a policy of conspicuous indifference, let the chaos bloom. Cushioned by the seemingly endless stream of monetary points, this state of indulgent torpor persisted, unchallenged, as time slid quietly toward the first of May.
On the morning of May 1st, the Class D classroom buzzed with its usual discordant energy. Students trickled in, yawning over late-night games or huddling in animated gossip. But a new, sharper note of panic began slicing through the noise.
"Hey… my points. Did anyone get theirs?"
"Nothing here. Not a single point."
"They're supposed to be deposited today, right? What's going on?"
"Mine haven't updated either!"
Ayanokōji Kiyotaka sat impassively amidst the growing alarm. He retrieved his phone, the screen glowing to life under his fingerprint. His eyes went directly to the balance.
82,235 points.
The number was identical to yesterday's. An impossibility. During the opening orientation, their homeroom teacher Chabashira had been explicit: 100,000 private points would be deposited into each student's account on the first of every month.
The classroom's agitation crested into a wave of confused voices just as a tall, severe figure appeared in the doorway.
Chabashira Sae stood framed in the entrance, her black hair pulled into a severe high ponytail. She wore a fitted black blazer over a white shirt, the top button strategically undone, and black stockings that led down to sharp-heeled leather shoes. In her hand, she held a rolled document. Her expression was one of detached, almost weary authority.
"Return to your seats," she stated, her voice cutting through the din.
The class fell into a restless quiet, the scraping of chairs the only sound.
Ayanokōji's gaze fixed on her. His prior assessment of her—complacent, uninvested—flashed in his mind. She had been a spectator to their disarray since day one.
"We will now begin the morning homeroom," she announced flatly, placing the rolled paper on the podium.
"Teacher! I have a question!"
The interruption came from Yamauchi Haruki in the back, his hand thrust high, face etched with the panic of a profligate spender facing an empty wallet. He was perhaps the student most viscerally dependent on the monthly infusion.
Chabashira's cold eyes found him. She didn't reprimand him; she merely lifted her chin in silent permission.
"Teacher, why haven't our points been deposited?" Yamauchi blurted out. "You said 100,000 every month!"
Every eye in the room locked onto Chabashira. The unspoken question hung thick in the air.
A faint, contemptuous smile finally touched Chabashira's lips.
"No," she said, her voice clear and deliberate. "This month's points have already been issued."
"What?!" Yamauchi's confusion deepened into frustration. "But we didn't get anything!"
"That's right!" Ike Kanji jumped up, brandishing his phone. "Look! The balance hasn't changed!"
"Same here!"
The protests erupted again.
Chabashira's smirk widened, a gesture of cold amusement. "They have been issued. There is no mistake." She paused, letting the contradiction sink in. "Furthermore, it is not a system error isolated to our class. The process is unified."
"Then where are they?!" Ike pressed, his voice rising.
"You all…" Chabashira began, her tone shifting into something colder, more pedagogical. She unrolled the document in her hands with a deliberate snap. "Have you truly never wondered what those points actually represent?"
Chabashira's gaze swept the room, a cold arc taking in the confusion, dawning anger, and raw anxiety on every face.
"Are truly too foolish."
The words fell like a guillotine blade, severing the last threads of hopeful denial. The class froze, a collective inhalation held in stunned silence.
Under their wide-eyed stares, Chabashira picked up a piece of chalk. She turned to the blackboard, and with swift, merciless strokes, etched two numbers that seemed to scream from the slate.
"Let me enlighten you," she said, her voice a clinical instrument. "In one month:"
Absences: 98 times.
Classroom violations—unauthorized talking, electronics use, etc.: 391 times.
The chalk snapped as she finished, tossed back into the tray. She leaned forward, palms flat on the podium, her posture one of pure, disdainful judgment.
"Astonishing 'achievements.' I'm impressed by the sheer volume of your negligence."
"In this school, your collective conduct—your performance—dictates the monthly allocation of private points."
"The final assessment is as follows:"
"The 100,000-point advance issued to each of you upon enrollment has been—entirely revoked."
"Consequently, this month's allocation for Class D is—"
She retrieved the chalk again. Below the damning figures, she drew a large, hollow circle, then drove a single digit into its center with finality:
0
"Zero."
The silence that followed was absolute, a vacuum where sound had died.
"Z-zero…?" a girl's voice finally quavered, breaking the spell. "You're… you're joking, right?"
"Does that mean…" Sudō Ken muttered, his face blank with shock, "we have to live with nothing?"
Then, the dam burst.
"This is a joke! What kind of insane rule is that?!" Yamauchi Haruki erupted, his face mottled red.
"We didn't even know about this rule!" Ike Kanji shouted, leaping to his feet.
"It's unfair! It's absurd!"
Chabashira observed the uproar with icy detachment, a faint sneer playing on her lips. She let the outrage spend itself for a moment before cutting through it, her voice dripping with scorn.
"How naïve."
"Did you truly believe the government would grant ordinary high school students 100,000 yen monthly—no strings attached—to squander as you pleased?"
"Only a fool would buy into such a fantasy. Any person with a shred of social awareness knows it's impossible."
"This is Koudo Ikusei High School."
"This institution recognizes only ability. And all of you—"
Her finger swept across the room like a scythe.
"—are worthless trash. With a score of zero."
The word trash hung in the air, a toxic vapor that seeped into every student's sense of self.
Ayanokōji Kiyotaka remained still, his phone resting in his hand. The screen glowed with his balance: 82,235. He glanced at the furious teacher, then back at the numbers. The puzzle pieces, which he had begun assembling from his observations of Sakamoto and the other classes, clicked fully into place. He had deduced the existence of a class-based evaluation system—private points as a derivative of collective merit. The deduction was logical. The severity of the result, however—the absolute zero—was a stark measure of this class's profound failure.
Chabashira, seeming to sense the blow needed a final, crushing weight, lifted the chalk once more.
"As of May 1st," she announced, writing with brutal clarity, "the class point rankings are as follows:"
Class 1-A: 1000 points
Class 1-C: 910 points
Class 1-B: 820 points
Class 1-D: 0 points
The color drained from a dozen faces. Absolute zero. Dead last. They weren't just behind; they were in a different dimension of failure, with even Class C towering over them by nearly a thousand points.
"See it clearly," Chabashira said, rapping the chalk against the blackboard with a sound like cracking bone. "Class ranking is determined by these points. Effectively, as of now, Class C has supplanted Class B."
Her eyes, cold and analytical, scanned the devastated room.
"You would do well to ponder," she said, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper, "why, starting from an identical position, they were able to build such an 'advantage' in one month."
Her gaze returned to the giant, hollow zero.
"While you… have only this."
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