Chapter 2 (continued)

Continuing from the trial, Chabashira explains that while protection points were temporarily invalidated for this exam, expulsion could still be cancelled by paying 20 million private points. Ayanokouji monologues that right now the class does not have that many private points, so if an expulsion were to occur, it couldn’t be cancelled. The only person in the class with a protection point was Kouenji and he didn’t mind the rule at all. Additionally, Chabashira explains that the use of mobile phones was prohibited during the exam to prevent communications with people outside of the class.

During lunchtime, Hirata walked to the front of the class to address everyone and ask for their opinions. Kushida brings up the topic of the exam probably being difficult to achieve consensus in and Horikita agrees, saying that otherwise they wouldn’t make it a special exam. Kushida then proposes that they elect a class leader to make decisions in case the class’ opinions are divided. Hirata agrees and nominates Horikita as the leader. Kushida also supports Horikita’s leadership, saying that she has been a leader for the class countless times until now and would probably not be biased when making decisions. Kushida’s proposal was accepted by the class without any objections.

For the next scene, check out Alisa’s translation:

Kiyokei reveal

Ayanokouji invites Horikita into his room so they can discuss the special exam without any eavesdroppers. Ayanokouji asks her whether she already has an idea for how to pass this exam, which Horikita affirms by saying that the easiest method is to have a leader with the final say. As long as the leader’s decision is final, it won’t matter how many people object to the decision. Ayanokouji is skeptical about whether that would really work. Horikita agrees that there will be some students who will be hard to convince depending on the question and she wistfully muses that this would be easier if their class was a dictatorship like Ryuuen’s. Ayanokouji again doesn’t think that will work since the fact that the votes are anonymous allows students to oppose Ryuuen. Horikita argues that there’s no benefit to opposing Ryuuen’s decision in this exam since if the time runs out while votes are unanimous, the class will lose 300 class points. Ayanokouji says if they were holding that assumption, then there would be no need to even plan out a strategy at all.

Ayanokouji then holds a thought experiment for Horikita. He asks what she would do if 38 students agree to one thing but one student opposes it. Horikita says she will try to convince that one student. Ayanokouji then asks what she will do if that student doesn’t give up. While Horikita is speechless, Ayanokouji says that the majority will not always win and there’s the possibility that while they’re trying to convince that one student, some of the 38 students may be swayed to the other side. Horikita feels a little restless at how easily Ayanokouji is giving his opinions and advice to her. He retorts that it isn’t really advice since she probably should have already thought of the possibility of these things happening. Horikita then finishes off the meeting by asking Ayanokouji to always vote differently for the first vote of every question so that they will always be able to use the break interval to discuss their ideas. Ayanokouji agrees that this will avoid the risk of everyone being blinded by biases and unanimously voting for something which they can’t revoke, however, he warns her that there’s the possibility of an originally unanimous vote becoming fragmented after discussion. He also warns her that since it’s an unanimous vote, they will never know for certain which individuals voted for which choice since people can lie. Horikita questions him on what he means and he replies that the class isn’t unified. Horikita picks up on the underlying meaning and asks if he’s referring to Kouenji and Kushida. Ayanokouji says that Kushida is willing to lie to their faces whilst Kouenji is the type of person who can shamelessly oppose the class’ decision. Once again, Horikita feels a sense of incongruence since Ayanokouji has never been this cooperative with her before. When she questions him on it, Ayanokouji replies that he determined that the current Horikita would value his opinion and understand him. She once again says that she feels restless from how different he’s acting compared to usual. Horikita’s mobile phone then receives a call and she excuses herself to reply, saying “Please let me text her back. If I handle this poorly, there’s a chance she’ll leave me on read forever. ” Ayanokouji is a bit curious about who this person is but after Horikita spends two minutes writing a long text message, she says that she already said everything she needed to say and leaves.

Later that evening, Hirata and Kei visit Ayanokouji’s room. Ayanokouji explains that he gathered them together because he wanted to make some preparations for the special exam. Ayanokouji says that there will likely be some topics which will cause conflict between students with different ideologies. He gives an example question: “You are only allowed to eat either rice or bread until you graduate. Choose one. ”

Hirata and Kei laugh a bit at the ridiculousness of the question. Kei says that she would choose bread because she can’t imagine going without bread all the way until graduation. On the other hand, Hirata chooses rice. Ayanokouji also says that he would choose rice but uses this to prove that it could be difficult to make all 30 people in the class’ decisions unanimous, since everyone has different personal tastes. He asks Kei whether she would follow the majority opinion if 30 people voted for rice. She says that would be impossible since she can’t go without bread and would continue voting for bread. Ayanokouji then gives his second example: “What if there were a question asking to choose whether all future exams will be judged on academic ability or physical ability? ”

It’s clear that students like Sudou would vote for physical ability whilst students with poor physical ability would choose academics. Ayanokouji thinks that the current Sudou would probably be able to compromise since he’s putting all his effort into studying, but there will always be students who are poor academically and wouldn’t be able to do the same. Ayanokouji then asks Hirata and Kei to try to influence the class votes during the exam to try to make sure there will be as few disputes as possible. Hirata says he’s fine with doing that but asks why he didn’t invite Horikita to the discussion since Horikita was also in the role of a class leader. Ayanokouji then tells them that he’s going to be secretly acting as Horikita’s support from the shadows, and tells them not to tell anyone else. Kei then shows disgust at the idea of following Horikita’s orders. Ayanokouji says that the two of them are good at reading the mood in the classroom so he wants them to predict Horikita’s thought patterns and try to match her opinion. Hirata and Kei agree so he then teaches some signals to them to serve as a cue for how to act in certain situations. Finally, he warns Hirata that if the remaining exam time was less than 2 hours, there’s a possibility he will take a forceful approach to clear the exam. He wants Hirata to be prepared so that he won’t go on a rampage when that happens.

Later that night at 10 PM, Ayanokouji receives a phone call while he was lying in his blankets and browsing his phone. While he hadn’t registered the number on his contacts list, it was a number which he was familiar with. The caller was Chairman Sakayanagi who called to tell him that he’ll be providing assistance to Ayanokouji from now on. Both of them comment on the strangeness of Acting Chairman Tsukishiro’s actions and believe that he wasn’t being completely serious about expelling Ayanokouji. Chairman Sakayanagi tells him that he tried to stop the upcoming cultural festival where government officials will be invited, but he was unable to since work on it had already begun. Ayanokouji tells him that he doesn’t need to apologise since it was something that all the students were looking forwards to. Although he does mentally note that he’s skeptical whether it will just end as a normal ‘cultural festival’ for him. Chariman Sakayanagi tells him that in the October sports festival, in preparation for the cultural festival, several guests will be invited to come watch. Again, Sakayanagi says he was unable to stop this, since originally, sports festivals were supposed to be an event where parents came to watch their children compete. He says that since all the guests will be chosen by his superiors, there’s a possibility that Ayanokouji’s father might be involved. He proposes to attach security guards to Ayanokouji, who politely declines since he doesn’t want to stand out. Chairman Sakayanagi says that he has come to understand that Ayanokouji is a person who is capable of taking care of many things by himself. However, he thinks he will have a lot of regrets if Ayanokouji were to be expelled. So he asks Ayanokouji to refrain from attending the sports festival. He wants Ayanokouji to stay cooped up in his dorm room on the day with the excuse of being sick while Chairman Sakayanagi places a trustworthy bodyguard outside the dorms.

Ayanokouji was grateful for his consideration but from the moment he heard the proposal, he felt like declining. However, he suddenly thought of a new idea and asked to be given some time to think it over. Chairman Sakayanagi accepts but tells Ayanokouji to give his answer at least one week before the sports festival since time will also be required to make preparations.

The story moves to Kushida’s pov from a few hours earlier in the day. After school, Kushida met up with Yagami in his dorm room. Yagami had prepared tea for her but Kushida didn’t reach out for it. Yagami jokingly tells her that he didn’t drug or poison it. With an irritated expression, Kushida hands over her mobile phone and tells him to get on with it. On the mobile phone was a recording of Chabashira’s explanation of the rules of the exam, including all the examples that were given. After listening to the recording, Yagami says that at first glance it appears to be a very easy exam. Since the penalties for failing are severe, students will naturally want to vote unanimously to clear it. He taunts Kushida saying that even though she’s been trying to expel Ayanokouji and Horikita for so long now, it’s already the middle of their 2^nd year and she still hasn’t had any success. Kushida says that she personally thinks he is partially responsible for that but bringing that up now would just be a waste of time so she urges him to continue. Here it’s revealed that Yagami was the one who told Kushida to propose the ‘everyone listens to the leader’ strategy. When Kushida asks if there was a method to expel Horikita using this exam, Yagami laughs and says that after listening to the recording, he confirmed his theory that they could use this exam to expel her. Kushida asks him how he came to that conclusion after listening to the rules since the only way to expel someone is if they didn’t vote within the allocated time. Yagami says that if his predictions are right, there will be an alternative method to expel a student and Kushida could potentially guide the discussion in the direction of expelling Horikita or Ayanokouji. He then tells Kushida about the kind of questions he predicts will show up in this exam (the readers don’t know what they are). While he hadn’t been told this information by Tsukishiro, he was able to predict the possibility of it happening from the information gathered.

Kushida is skeptical about her own ability to execute the strategy but Yagami says that he trusts in Kushida’s ability because he actually laid down a test the very first time he met Kushida. He says that usually if a stranger talks to you, you would be suspicious of them, but Kushida improvised very well in getting close to him and probing him for what information he knew. From that instance onwards, he knew that Kushida was a capable/talented person. Kushida demands to know who he is, since he knew her past despite not being from the same middle school. Yagami tells her to think of him as a special guest who was invited to this school to play with Ayanokouji. Kushida asks him what would have happened if she hadn’t responded to him in the manner he predicted. Yagami replies that it would have probably provoked Ayanokouji’s suspicion and there was a possibility they could have their faceoff earlier. Kushida suspects whether Yagami was from the same middle school as Ayanokouji but Yagami dodges her question and tells her to focus on the upcoming special exam instead. Kushida says she understands and will give his strategy a try if Yagami’s predicted questions show up. But as Kushida tries to leave, Yagami stands up and grabs her shoulders. She tries to escape but was unable to move at all as he was much stronger than she imagined. Yagami says that her determination is too weak. He says that it’s incredibly difficult to expel your own classmates at this school and that this is a one in a thousand chance that she can’t let slip. Kushida says she understands but says that if she tries too hard, she may risk putting herself in danger. Yagami says that she needs to have at least enough determination to put her own safety on the line if she wants the plan to succeed. Otherwise she will never be able to expel either of her targets. He urges Kushida to make a decision of her own free will because if he goes any further it would count as blackmail which is against the exam rules. She responds to him with the determination to expel Horikita and Ayanokouji. In her mind, she also thinks that she must expel Yagami.

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