Chaos in Classroom of the Elite: Class 1-C

As Sakayanagi had mentioned, the initial reason for inviting Yukio here was to witness this outcome firsthand, allowing him to directly see Ayanokōji's defeat.

Sakayanagi's timing was impeccable. She estimated around ten minutes, and it was exactly ten minutes when the officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries arrived, initiating a series of investigations.

Even with just the preliminary evidence, it was clear that Fujii was involved in fraudulent business practices. He was immediately taken away for further investigation, and the entire fish farm was sealed off. During the investigation period, no unauthorized personnel were allowed on the premises.

All students from the four classes were excused from attending, effectively ending their project early. They just had to wait until the day in December when the school would announce the results.

Faced with this situation, the students from the other classes were completely bewildered, unable to understand how things had changed so suddenly.

This was especially true for the students of Class D, who felt as though they had been knocked from the peak of a mountain halfway down by Sakayanagi, leaving them collectively stunned.

Just moments ago, they had been celebrating their victory, even thinking they had surpassed Sakayanagi's class. But in the next instant, their points were reduced to zero.

Many of them immediately felt their spirits plummet to rock bottom. The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. The higher they had soared before, the lower they now felt.

At this moment, Matsushita was also filled with shame. After a period of despair, she realized that she couldn't continue like this.

Anyone in Class D could be downhearted, but she couldn't afford to be. Now, more than ever, the class needed her to provide encouragement. How could she allow herself to sink into despair?

With this thought in mind, even though Matsushita was reluctant, she took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and pull herself out of her low spirits.

She knew all too well that she wasn't suited to be a leader. She was better suited as an advisor, someone who could strategize and offer plans, but not someone who could lead a class in every situation.

But given the circumstances, she had no other choice. She had to force herself to step forward and rally the class: "Everyone, I know you're feeling down right now. Honestly, I'm feeling terrible too."

"This loss is mainly my responsibility. I got too complacent when we had the upper hand and didn't take Sakayanagi seriously enough."

"Even though we had a significant advantage and were securely in first place for the project, an unexpected situation arose that no one anticipated."

"But, no matter what, we can't lose our fighting spirit. If we keep working hard, we can still win again and again in future special exams and continue to climb upwards."

Seeing Matsushita so determined to console the class members, Horikita, standing nearby, opened her mouth, wanting to help Matsushita, but she didn't know what to say.

In the end, she reluctantly closed her mouth and averted her gaze. Even though she had followed Yukio's advice, organizing the class with a focus on interests, connections, and individual positions, and had done well this time, comforting the members was something she was truly not good at.

To her, losing once wasn't a big deal. After all, she had lost to Yukio more than once or twice. As long as she continued to work hard and grow, she could win back those losses and even surpass him.

But even though she understood this, she didn't know how to explain it to the class members. She was also worried that if she spoke up, she might get the same backlash from the entire class as she did during the sports festival. So, it was better not to say anything at all.

Seeing this, it was up to Class D's "little angel" Kushida to step in and help: "Everyone, Chiaki is right. Let's not all be so down. At least we still have a chance to fight for second place in the project, right? That's still a 200-class point reward."

With Matsushita and Kushida taking turns to console them, the Class D students finally regained some spirit: "You know, that's true. At least with the points split, we'll each get 20,000 personal points a month, which is already pretty good."

"Wait, does that mean we've already beaten second-year Class D and third-year Class D? We're only behind Sakayanagi's class?"

"Yeah, it seems so! So actually, we're not doing that bad! At least we defeated the senior students, right?"

"That's right. Now that you mention it, I feel a lot better. Matsushita, don't blame yourself so much. Without you and Karuizawa, we might not have even secured those 200 class points."

"Exactly, Matsushita, you did really well. At least better than Horikita, you didn't let us fall to the bottom again."

This is probably how Class D students are—they speak without much restraint, immediately starting to put one down while praising another. Horikita hadn't even left yet, and it seemed as if this failure was partly blamed on her as well.

Kushida was secretly delighted, feeling as if a tiny version of herself was rolling on the floor laughing inside her mind. She even wished that the class members would continue to speak this way.

On the surface, however, she had to awkwardly maintain her facade of being consoling: "Everyone, let's not say that. Horikita-san actually did contribute a lot this time."

"Well, since Kushida-chan said so."

"I didn't see her contribute much."

Even with Kushida's comment, there were still some students who maintained their dissatisfaction with Horikita.

"Horikita..." Matsushita looked at her with concern. On the surface, she was managing the class, but her influence wasn't strong enough to stop everyone from putting one down while praising another.

If she had the influence of someone like Yukio, Sakayanagi, or Ichinose, she could make decisions with a single word. Unfortunately, she didn't have that level of influence.

Horikita shook her head, indicating that she wasn't bothered by these people's petty remarks. Instead, she brought up the main issue: "This time, we didn't just lose to Sakayanagi, we also lost to Yukio."

"!" Matsushita also realized that Horikita was right. It wasn't just about losing to Sakayanagi's class in the competition between classes.

Even against Yukio, Class D didn't gain any advantage. The bet they made was that if Class D ended up in first place after the special exam, Yukio would pay points to hire Karuizawa.

But now that they were clearly not in first place, the bet was naturally void. It meant they had essentially given away the highly popular Kei for nothing, and their class didn't gain anything in return.

Karuizawa had also communicated with them via phone, saying that when she went to Yukio's class, she didn't gather any useful information. The people in Yukio's class were too cautious; they didn't let her access anything, and she didn't even know what kind of ad she was supposed to be shooting.

Realizing this, Matsushita wobbled again, as if she was about to lose her balance: "I didn't expect this... No wonder Yukio came to see Sakayanagi today. It turns out he knew all along..."

"That's why he made such a bet, right?"

"Yes." Horikita nodded seriously, "Yesterday, we were still confident in our victory and didn't suspect anything in this regard. After all, there were no signs yesterday that Sakayanagi's class could make a comeback."

"But who would have thought... it just doesn't make sense. Yukio's class is currently ahead of Sakayanagi's class, and under these conditions where every class is aiming to advance to Class A, Yukio and Sakayanagi's classes should be mortal enemies."

"So why did they suddenly start cooperating?"

Little did they know, the specific reasons for the cooperation between Yukio's class and Sakayanagi's class, which they were questioning, were already being discussed elsewhere.

In an area of the fish farm far from the buses, only Yukio, Sakayanagi and Ayanokouji were present. They were away from the crowd, unnoticed by anyone.

Even Sakayanagi's close aides, Kamuro and Hashimoto, were not there...