D-Class had already picked an expulsion target—Sakura—and nobody had any objections. Then Yukio stormed in, transferred her to his class, and took her away.
D-Class was so stunned that, for a moment, nobody could even react. It wasn't until after Yukio left with Sakura that people slowly snapped back to reality. Almost instinctively, their eyes turned toward Horikita—she'd been the one running the Unanimous Vote process and had just declared Sakura the one to be expelled.
And now? Sakura had already moved to Yukio's class, so expelling her was off the table. That meant Horikita would have to pick someone new… and who would it be?
In an instant, the students who'd been about to celebrate early fell right back into survival mode. They looked left, looked right, subtly signaling their friends: When it comes down to it, we vote "No" for each other—no matter what.
But Horikita—whose name was sitting right there on the screen—had no mental bandwidth to deal with any of it. She still hadn't recovered. Her thoughts were basically frozen, her mind stuck on one question:
What the hell is Yukio to Sakura?
At this point, even the proctor was at a loss. A student transferring classes mid-exam was unprecedented… but when you really thought about it, it didn't technically violate the school rules. So there was nothing to do except continue.
Ten minutes were up.
"Begin the sixth round of voting."
Since no new nominee had been chosen, they had no choice but to reuse the fifth round's nominee—Horikita.
[Expulsion Branch — Round 6 Vote: Expel Horikita
Approve: 22 votes; Reject: 14 votes.]
Seeing the result finally jolted Horikita back to life. A bead of sweat slid down her forehead.
Time's almost up. There were only a little over twenty minutes left—which meant two votes, tops.
If they couldn't resolve this, D-Class would be forced to take a -300 class point penalty.
Damn it… is this Yukio's tactic again? Horikita's mind raced. He transfers out the perfect expulsion candidate on purpose, just to make D-Class bleed class points?
So did that mean Sakura didn't actually matter to him—she was just part of his scheme? As soon as D-Class was about to expel someone, he swooped in and transferred them out?
Or… did Sakura actually matter to him? If she didn't, why didn't he step in earlier? What exactly were they—No. Stop.
This wasn't the time.
Horikita shook her head hard, forcing herself to calm down. She clamped down on the swirl of thoughts and scanned the room again.
And what she saw made her head throb.
Aside from Koenji, everyone had physically clustered with their friends—practically sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. With the class arranged like that, there was no way they'd successfully expel anyone. Without someone like Sakura—someone with no friends—getting unanimous approval to expel a student was basically impossible.
And Horikita wasn't the only one panicking.
"Horikita—what now? Who are we expelling? Say something! You were so decisive before!"
"Yeah! Stop stalling! We're almost out of time—twenty minutes left! Hurry up!"
Horikita's sweat wouldn't stop. Under that mountain of pressure crushing her chest, her brain still couldn't find a clean way out.
Then Matsushita leaned in beside her.
"If we can't do it… then we take the three hundred class point hit."
Horikita froze—then understood. Her shoulders sagged with the realization.
"…Looks like that's the only option."
The moment D-Class heard that both the former leader and the current leader were talking about giving up and eating the -300, the room exploded.
"What?! Give up?! After all this, you're saying we give up?!"
"Are you kidding me? We've voted this many rounds and now we're just quitting? That's insane!"
"So what—this was all a joke? If you were going to quit, why did we open the expulsion branch in the first place?! We could've just voted 'Reject' from the beginning! Opening the branch and then giving up—what kind of clown show is this?!"
Matsushita looked cornered. There were things she could say, but saying them would piss off most of the class. Horikita didn't care. She stepped forward and cut through the noise.
"Quiet! There's no other way!"
"Every single one of you has friends who will vote 'Reject' to protect you. If that happens, we cannot reach unanimity."
"If you don't want to give up, if you don't want to fail on time-out, then don't vote 'Reject' for your friends. Can you do that?!"
"If you can promise me you'll do that, fine. I won't say another word—I'll immediately nominate someone like Sakura, someone who contributes nothing to the class, and we'll vote them out."
Her blunt, straight-to-the-gut words stunned the room for a few seconds—then it boiled over again.
"What are you even saying?! Why should my friend get expelled?! There are plenty of useless people!"
"Who do you think you are? You say one word and we're supposed to throw someone out? Even Yukio couldn't do that. Horikita, do you seriously think you're some kind of god?"
Of course, they knew she was right. If even one or two friends voted "Reject," then no matter what they did, the expulsion would never pass. Time would run out. The exam would fail.
But D-Class was D-Class. Nobody wanted to carry that kind of blame. If they could dump it on Horikita, they'd dump it on Horikita—same old routine. They'd done it so many times in earlier exams it was practically muscle memory.
So the verbal attacks started pouring in.
Matsushita couldn't stand it and spoke up for Horikita. Hirata, who'd regained a sliver of hope, backed them up too. And Kushida, desperate to maintain her "nice girl" image, added her support as well. Between the three of them, they managed to keep things from spiraling into something worse.
Eventually, D-Class fell into a heavy silence.
Koenji, meanwhile, acted like none of this mattered. Even if time ran out and the exam failed, he didn't care. He hummed a little tune, calmly combing his hair with a mirror, looking absurdly relaxed.
In the end, the seventh and eighth rounds of voting—since no new nominee existed—were still aimed at Horikita. And as long as people like Hirata, Kushida, and Matsushita kept voting "Reject," Horikita wasn't going to be expelled.
And that was that.
D-Class timed out. The Unanimous Vote Special Exam ended in failure, and they lost three hundred class points, landing on the absolute worst possible outcome.
...
For every 50 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.
Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon! [patr eon.com/METARLN]