Revelation Of An Ordinary Life

The Vote's Prerequisites; Messiah and the Traitor

To bide time. That's what I must do for now.

But I'm not the only one currently thinking up schemes, many in this school are doing the same, but the one I'm most curious about is Ryuuen.

His scheme employed in the final exam is grounds for expulsion, no doubt about that. Whatever he must do to save not only himself, but also his accomplices, is something I'm looking forward to.

Ichinose will attack, and she'll do her best. She'll try to avenge and correct the wrongdoings done on her in the past, so she'll do everything correctly. However, a person who makes no mistakes isn't always the winner.

Ryuuen isn't a fool, he's cunning and crafty. There are many ways he can go about this altercation, but out of those many strategies, most will fail. The very few that will work also have a certain piece of risk involved, but Ryuuen thrives on risk.

"Let's get right into it. I've skipped quite a bit ahead to the day before the vote, but you guys will be fine... Probably."

How reassuring.

After school, the day before the vote.

Tomorrow, the decision would be made on which student to expel, and their seat in the class would be emptied.

There was a lingering feeling of uneasiness weighing down on everyone, but even so, they still had a reassuring belief that things would be alright.

This was because someone had been chosen as a sacrifice.

Ayanokōji Kiyotaka would be expelled from school.

More than half the class had already sided with this course of action.

Many of them were probably harboring some guilt about it right now.

"Why do you speak about yourself in the third person? It's weird," Kei teased.

"Why am I being bullied again?" I sighed.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll live," Kei giggled.

I'm always the first one she makes fun of, huh?

"More than half the class, huh? That's quite a large deficit to overcome. Whoever made them change their minds must have been fighting an immense uphill battle," Kanzaki surmised.

"I doubt it. People will just choose an easy target, so if another guy is exposed, they'll vote for him. It's like recency bias, in a way," Hashimoto contested.

He has a point, but it isn't as if you can pick anyone from the bottom and have it work out. There still needs to be a basis for it, and in my case, it was because I didn't stand out and didn't seem to contribute much.

But I suppose amidst the desperation, and the need for survival, irrational choices are always made.

And yet, that guilt was a small price to pay as long as they were able to save themselves.

After a while, the guilt would fade away.

A year from now, they would simply remember that I had been one of the students in their classroom.

That being said, I felt no resentment toward them. For the sake of avoiding expulsion, everyone had been desperately racking their brains to come up with countermeasures. Ultimately, I just happened to be the target.

After gaining pity from his classmates, Yamauchi skillfully won over Kushida and suggested a target for the vote based on sympathy and understanding.

"So it was him, what a surprise," Ryuuen stated sarcastically.

The students who had forgotten about Kushida's involvement are probably remembering everything now. It's as if each puzzle piece is slowly being filled in. Her fake cries, her manipulation, her false apologies, all of it would go into their brain all at once.