I left the student council room, feeling relatively happy with the outcome of the trial. While it would've been more successful if Yukimura-san was expelled, getting him banned from the football pitch is more than enough. Now we can play football in peace, without any of his violence or cocky attitude.

"I'm annoyed that Yukimura-san didn't get expelled. How about you, Yahagi-san?" Kurase asked.

"That outcome was probably for the best. Though, I question Ryouta-san's decision on some choices..." I said.

"That was certainly an interesting trial. Well done to both of you for managing to convince Shinhon-kun to consider expelling Yukimu-kun." Hiden-sensei said.

Hiden-sensei creeped me out sometimes. He's a good teacher, but his personality was a little too much for me. He had a strange habit of giving everyone nicknames which I didn't understand.

For Masamoto-san, he called him Shinryourihon-kun in the beginning, but slowly over time it devolved into Shinhon-kun. For Kurase-san, he called him Daikyuu-kun, probably because he's A Class's basketball ace.

"Really, it was thanks to Ryouta-san's testimony that we won. Without him, I don't know if expulsion would be considered." Kurase said. I nodded in agreement.

"In any case, you're quite lucky that Koukaya-kun asked Torisu-kun to film the matches. If he didn't, this trial could've went much differently."

Hiden-sensei's nickname for me was Koukaya-kun. Something about my family name being related to fletchers. Ryouta-san's nickname was Torisu-kun, for some reason. It was one of the more ridiculous sounding names, but it was funny.

"Matsushita-san's testimonial was pretty good, I'll admit. He explained pretty in-depth the reasons behind Yukimura-san's actions. It almost made us look like the bad guys." I said.

"Hmm? You're singing high praises for him." Hiden-sensei said.

"He's the one of the few E Class students I respect. I was friends with him."

"I see."

Hiden-sensei just smiled at us for a little bit, then tipped his hat to us.

"Well gentlemen, this is where we part ways. Good work as usual, and have a safe trip home."

I watched Hiden-sensei enter the teacher's lounge. I still wanted to ask him about "Chacha-chan". Were he and Chabashira-sensei good friends?

"I'm gonna go to the basketball court and practice my shooting. See you in class tomorrow, Yahagi-san."

"Sure thing, Kurase-san. Thanks for helping out."

As usual, he's going off to practice to keep his skills sharp. Personally, I preferred football, which is why I had to do something about that menace Yukimura-san.

As I approached the front doors of the school building, Ryouta-san was standing in front of them, his body leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"Hey, Yahagi-san."

It seems he needed to talk to me about something. This would be a good time to ask my questions.

"Ryouta-san. Good work today."

"Good work to you guys as well. So, what were the results?"

"Yukimura-san was going to be expelled, but Tachibana-senpai overruled it and gave him a two week suspension instead, alongside banning him from the football pitch for the rest of the year."

"Oh? Well, you can't win every battle I guess."

"Say, Ryouta-san. Why did you want to take this to the student council? Wouldn't have reporting Yukimura-san to the teachers be enough?"

"I wanted to learn more about the school system and find out what different ways we could fight the other classes. Since Masamoto-san would be the judge for the next problem the student council had to deal with, I wanted to take that opportunity to see just how much power he holds. In other words, this was our very first "class battle"."

"Class battle? What do you mean?"

"A Class and E Class went into battle with each other through this trial. It might not be a war, but the deciding outcome would affect either class negatively or positively."

In our class, A Class benefitted from the trial positively, while E Class didn't. However, I didn't understand why Ryouta-san went after E Class first.

"Wouldn't going into trial with B Class be more effective?"

"That would've been a bad idea. I didn't want A Class to lose the trial or get punished, so fighting against B Class would be extremely risky. Since they have students who are good at arguing, they could possibly have won the trial through persuasion. E Class, on the other hand is made up of the worst students, so it was highly likely we were going to win. Mainly though, I just wanted to see what the trials were like. There's no point in putting us in danger for such a low-level reason. Besides, you had the perfect reasons to bring Yukimura-san to trial, and it set the stage perfectly for my plan."

Ryouta-san had a plan all along?

"This trial went extremely well in terms of my objectives. We squashed a problem of yours, saw the strength of the student council, and negatively affected D Class and E Class's points on the S System. It was surprising to hear the student council had the power to expel somebody. It seems that Masamoto-san may possess an extremely useful skill. If a trial is one way of getting someone expelled, we can use it to our advantage, if we want to... get rid of any problems that may arise to A Class."

"W-wait. You're not suggesting that we... forcibly remove students that are a threat to us?"

"If a situation like that does come up... then yes. However, it's a last resort and I doubt anyone is strong enough to bring A Class down a peg. I just want a safety net if something like this happens. On the other hand, it gives me an incentive to encourage everyone to join the student council. The more A Class students we have there, the more power and status we gain. Though, I doubt it'd be that easy. Shigeru-san from D Class got rejected... though, he's the delinquent type, so I guess they'd not appreciate having someone like him on the council."

Ryouta-san stopped, and put on a thoughtful face.

"Though... it does pose a threat to us too. Another class could use a trial to get one of our students expelled. I suppose it's a double-edged sword."

"I don't know. I'd feel like a more suitable punishment would be to send the student in question to E Class. After all, that's where all the trash of the school end up. Though, I guess that punishment wasn't available to Yukimura-san since he's already in E Class. Expulsion would be the next best thing, I guess."

Ryouta-san's eyes widened as he snapped his fingers.

"That's it. E Class students are most likely to get expelled. That's why Masamoto-san reigned such a heavy punishment on him. However, if it were a student in a higher class, you'd be correct. They'd get sent to E Class. In that case, expelling our opponents isn't on the table - but we can set them back by forcing them into E Class."

"That's a bit risky though. They can climb up the ranks again, or help E Class move up the ladder. Wouldn't E Class become a dangerous class in that case?"

"One person can't be enough to carry an entire class of twenty-five students. They all have to work together with their fullest strength. E Class is dysfunctional as it is right now, so I doubt they could promote E Class that easily. Individually moving up is a possibility, but they'd have to go through D Class, C Class and B Class before ever touching us, and who knows how long that'll take. Basically, it's the best way to deal with any possible threats. Though, we can't always defer to trials though. If we do it too often, the classes will catch on. We should try to keep it between ourselves. Otherwise, it can be used against us."

"Yeah... you're right. That trial was stressful anyways. There should be better ways of dealing with problems."

"I agree. I don't think anyone will try to overtake A Class at this stage. It's just too early. No one has sufficient resources gathered, and our only possible threat, B Class, is weak. No one can touch A Class. It'd probably be until the 2nd Year that we'll have to deal with nuisances. But it'll be fine, since we're building a strong base in our 1st Year."

"Ichinose-san looks like she might rouse B Class to storm their way to A Class."

"We'll squash her uprising before it occurs."

"What about D Class? It looks like they're building a strong base to stand on too."

"Not a problem. They're sitting on a measly 120 Cl because their class is built of primarily delinquents. With that many troublemakers, their scores were obviously going to plummet. In fact, I brought in Nakajima-san and Hiraoka-san for that very purpose. I predicted that one of Yukimura-san's testimonial speakers would be Nora-san, since they're friends and Yukimura-san tries to use "protecting him" as a scapegoat for his violence, so having two people who bullies Nora-san on a daily basis be our testimonial speakers would let E Class expose how rotten those D Class students are in front of Masamoto-san. He'd obviously make a report on it, and that would contribute negatively to D Class's overall Cl for the next month."

I was stunned. Ryouta-san made me get those two involved in the case just to expose them on their bad behaviour and hurt D Class in the process. He effectively knocked back E Class and D Class in one swoop, rather than just only E Class. Even though it was risky, he pulled it off brilliantly.

"This also makes D Class look bad, and puts a dent in their unity. They're probably one of the most annoying classes right now, because they're slowly gaining advantage. C Class could probably fall under D Class at any moment due to how feeble they are. I wanted to stint that if possible, and keep the current order of things."

I initially doubted this choice because I thought it would negatively impact our side. However, I realised that Ryouta-san managed to execute this plan because he could make our argument the one that would win due to his copious video evidence of Yukimura-san's violence. Without that, he'd never do such a reckless thing.

"I think you're slowly getting it. Your face says it all."

Ryouta-san smiled at me. I was staring at him dumbfounded by what he was trying to pull off.

"Then... you also tried to negatively impact E Class too, by getting Yukimura-san suspended and having them lose the trial?"

"Correct. This would probably set them back even more on the S System and erase any slither of Cl they've somehow managed to pick up this past month. While E Class isn't a threat, I would prefer to not let bottom-feeders enjoy any luxury this school offers. They don't deserve any of it."

"So in essence, you just wanted to hurt both D Class and E Class, while gathering more information about the school?"

"Pretty much. It was easier than I thought it was. There's only so much you can do in an environment like this."

"You've really outdone yourself for our sake... Thank you."

"It's nothing really. I just never expected things to turn out the way they did. If you asked me one month ago where I'd be now, I'd probably say living a generic school life."

"Fate works in funny ways, doesn't it?"

"It sure does."

Ryouta-san smiled, gazing at the setting sun.

"I'm going to keep our standing as A Class until we graduate. As leader, I'll ensure it happens."

※ Translation Notes

Hiden-sensei's various nicknames have been kept in the Japanese form to preserve the pun/joke/reference he uses. This following section will explain the meaning behind each nickname.

Torisu-kun: Ryouta Hane translates (literally) as "Refreshing/Thick Wing". Torisu means "bird's nest". This is a reference to the "wing" part of his name, and bird's nest drink, which is a type of drink found in certain parts of Asia. The main ingredient are nests from a species of bird named cave swiftlets. Rather than building nests from twigs, the swiftlets form intricately woven threads from their gummy saliva. These threads then harden when exposed to air, which creates the nests that are harvested for the drink.

Koukaya-kun: The word yahagi is a historical Japanese equivalent of a fletcher. Yahagi Kyoji's given name, Kyoji, means "fancy". Koukaya means "expensive arrow", and is a reference to a fletcher and the meaning of his given name.

Daikyuu-kun: Daikyuu means "great sphere", and is a reference to Kurase Takuya's love of basketball. The great sphere refers to the basketball in this case.

Shinryourihon-kun: Masamoto Manabe translates (literally) as "Regular Book Truth Pot". Shinryourihon is a combination of three Japanese words, shin, ryouri, and hon. Shin means "truth", ryouri means "cooking", hon means "book". So, altogether, it means "cooking book of truth".

Shinhon-kun: As Shinryourihon-kun is a mouthful to say, even for a Japanese person, Hiden-sensei got lazy overtime and let the original nickname degrade to it's current form, Shinhon-kun. This means "book of truth", and fits Masamoto much better as he's a student council member, and not a chef.