Once it was time for the homeroom, the assembly begun.

Even though all five homeroom teachers were on stage, the one presenting to us this morning was A Class's homeroom teacher, Hiden-sensei.

With a microphone in hand, he danced around happily, before getting straight to the point of why we were gathered here today.

"Good morning 1st Years! Welcome to your very first special exam—"

Immediately, a quiet murmur swept across the students.

"The test shuffle!"

On the screen behind Hiden-sensei, a set of rules were put on display.

"There's a lot of information to take in, so listen carefully! At this school, you will go through special exams that will test more than just your academic capability. Much like how wars test you on every aspect of your abilities, these special exams aim to do the same thing! I hope you're prepared, because there will be plenty more of these unorthodox exams in the future!"

A low groan swept across the students.

I guess this is just another method of how GEN Academy measures their students. I wondered what kind of special exam this would be.

"Now, allow me to explain what the test shuffle is! You will be participating in the finals as normal. However, there is a twist to it."

A smile crept up on Hiden-sensei's face.

"The finals will be created by you, the students!"

Shock and bewilderment filled the hall. None of us had expected this at all, especially since it would directly impact how we would perform on the final exams. Hearing this task felt more like a game than an exam.

What an interesting concept, though.

"Each class will be making exams for another class and receiving final exams from another class! As you can see, there are numerous stipulations regarding to how you can make your exams."

The whiteboard zoomed into the sections Hiden-sensei was talking about.

"Firstly, your exam must be doable by a high school student! If the question cannot be applied to the subject syllabus, it will be rejected. Make your questions reasonable."

On the whiteboard, there were two math questions showing this example clearly. The question with a tick on it was one we had done in class before, whereas the question with a cross on it was a complicated college level question.

"Secondly, you must make an exam for the core five subjects: Japanese, mathematics, science, history, and English! The contents of each exam are up to your discretion, but the total mark for each cannot exceed 100 and the maximum amount of questions that can be included is fifty."

For essay subjects like Japanese and history, these restrictions didn't matter that much. However, for subjects like math and science, where multiple questions made up the bulk of the exam, these restrictions were placed to stop us from making a ridiculously long exam that no one could answer fully within the time limit.

"Thirdly, these questions must be made by you! It may sound obvious, but some of you are probably thinking of repurposing past papers as your own to save time, but we will not allow that! You may work together to create tests, ask the teachers and other students for help, or use the Internet. We don't care if the exams you make are easy or hard as long as the content is doable by a student at your level. Don't forget to attach the mark scheme as well!"

Those were the core three rules we had to keep in mind while creating the exams.

"Once you've completed creating your exams, all you have to do is submit them to your homeroom teacher! Note that only your class representatives may submit the exams. The school will check over your questions and see if they are suitable for the finals. If they are, great! You don't have to anything else. But if problems do arise... well, your exam will be rejected and you'll have to start over again. Don't worry though, you can submit your exam as many times as you like!"

During the rejection process, the school would also tell us which questions were deemed unsuitable so we can remove them and resubmit that exam without them, if we so wished.

"Naturally, there is a deadline for this! You have to submit your exams before the 22nd of June, which is the first day of finals week. If you fail to submit an exam before then, don't panic. The school has prepared relief exams in advance for you to use, but they will be significantly easy to pass. Also, keep in mind that once you finalise your test, you cannot change anything about it. No take backs!"

The latest we could submit was at 11:59pm on June 21st, a Sunday. I checked my calendar to see how much time we had to prepare.

Today was the 8th June, meaning we had about two weeks to make the questions.

Actually, come to think of it... I looked over to Fujimura.

The 8th was her birthday. Today she would turn sixteen, huh?

I guess I'll have to congratulate her after assembly.

"Now, time for rewards and penalties!"

Just like in wars, we would also receive these based on how we performed in the special exam.

"The class that performs the best will gain 50 class points. The class that performs the worst will lose 100 class points."

How harsh... because of the penalty being greater than the reward, the school was placing more importance on avoiding getting last place than it was aiming for first place.

"In addition, for each student that fails an exam in the finals, the class that made the exam will gain 30 class points, and the class of the student who failed will lose 50 class points. Do note that this only applies once, so if you somehow fail two exams, you won't make your class lose 100 Cl."

Gasps and shocked faces spread throughout the crowd.

In order to add individual responsibility to the exam, the school made failing not an option. If we did fail, not only would we be dragging down our class with us, but it'd also benefit the other classes, thus widening the gap.

While it was relieving that failing multiple exams didn't stack the penalty, it didn't change the fact that this was an incredibly harsh punishment. To put it into perspective, 50 Cl was the equivalent of 5000 Pr. We only managed to gain 20 Cl this month.

It was a really good way of incentivising us to pass, even though it was quite threatening. Although, this did add a unique way of attack in the exam, since it gave the lower classes a chance to take down the upper classes through making students fail.

It was also the perfect opportunity for our class to overtake D Class in one fell swoop. I looked over to Yukina, who was sitting at the front with her friends. Her concentrated look means she was thinking similar thoughts of strategy like I was.

However, this aspect depended entirely on who were we matched up against.

"Now, you're probably wondering which class your class will be making exams for. Well, wait no longer! The school has already decided in advance who will be facing against who. If you may please!"

On cue, the information on the whiteboard changed into who each class was facing.

Maker (Attack) -> Receiver (Defend)
A Class -> B Class
B Class -> C Class
C Class -> D Class
D Class -> E Class
E Class -> A Class

In other words, we were defending against D Class and attacking A Class. How troublesome...

We really drew the short end of the stick here. Our class, the weakest in the year, was somehow pitted against the two strongest classes in our year. It really did feel like the school was trying to screw us over on purpose.

Although, I felt some relief that it was D Class who were making our final exams. The only outstandingly studious person in their class was Shirogane, but he was on a lower level than Nora. Otherwise, we had a similar power level academics wise.

Unless they somehow come up with ridiculously hard questions, I think we'll be able to manage to pass their exams. Passing was all that mattered, since we wouldn't lose Cl from it.

What I was more concerned about was A Class, since we had to make exams for the strongest class. No matter how you looked at it, we were at a massive disadvantage.

On the surface, it looked a losing battle due to A Class's near perfect academic ability. No matter what kind of questions we threw at them, they would probably answer it correctly without any difficulty. We were going to hand them the easiest finals in their life.

However... E Class did have one trump card up our sleeve— Nora Takayuki.

Although slim, we might actually be able to stand a chance against them because his academic ability rivalled theirs. If Nora handles creating the questions, then our chance of beating them would increase exponentially.

Altogether, the maximum amount of Cl a standard class can lose in this exam is 1,350. This is under the conditions that all twenty five students failed and that the class also ranked the worst performance wise. Naturally, this would send any class who faced this harsh penalty down to 0 Cl. Not even A Class had that many Cl in the bank.

At the same time, this outcome was unrealistic. Since our opponent was A Class, it would be better to estimate less than 1/5th of the class would fail, meaning we were working from a range of possibly catching out one to five students in our exam and making them fail. I'll just take the midpoint, three, and use that as my basis.

If we can fail three A Class students, that would give us 90 Cl while making A Class lose 150 Cl. Currently, we were sitting on 20 Cl, so in this scenario, we would be bumped up to 110 Cl alone. That was an undeniably massive boost, one far greater than the increase we received last month.

For A Class, since they're sitting at 1000 Cl, if we fail three of them, they'd go down to 850 Cl, which would be the lowest they've ever been at before. If we can fail even more, then that number would dwindle even further. There was a slim chance that we could dethrone A Class altogether, but that was wishful thinking.

Besides, after what Machida faction did to us, I don't think anyone in E Class would be willing to cooperate with B Class to tear down A Class for their sake.

What I was more focused on however was how we could defeat D Class. Since we were defending against them, there wasn't much we could do attack wise. However, since it was C Class that was attacking them, it would probably be beneficial to ally with them in this exam and help them out.

If they can fail enough D Class students to make their class lose Cl, there was a chance we'd be able to overtake them. That was the most important outcome in this exam: overtaking D Class.

If we manage to do that, then Yukina would win her bet against Yogen. Not only would we rip someone out of the strongest but class, but we would also gain a powerful new ally.

I couldn't let this blessing in disguise slip by us. We had to capitalise on this chance no matter what.

"If you have any other questions, please ask your homeroom teacher, but anymore explanation is unnecessary. You may either stay here or return to your classrooms to discuss. That's all for today! Dismissed!"

Hiden-sensei wrapped up his explanation of the special exam and put away the microphone.

Immediately, the idiosyncrasies of each class begun to appear. Without wasting any time, D Class moved together a singular, cohesive unit, returning to their classroom to discuss how they'd approach the exam.

Similarly, B Class, or at least Ichinose's faction, also left class. Machida's faction hung around, with Machida himself being in deep thought. Once he got an idea though, his faction also left the hall.

The next to leave was A Class. While the majority left under the leadership of Ryouta, a few stragglers stayed behind. In particular, they were Hanahaki Aka-li, Hachiman Yuuhei, Maehara Ryuuji, and of course... Shimada.

Hachiman left after a little while, but those three remained in their seats nonchalantly. Hanahaki was on her phone, Maehara was staring at himself in the mirror, and Shimada was sucking on a lollipop while gazing out at the window.

I looked over to C Class, where it seemed lots of fragmented conversations were happening at once. While half of them returned to class, the other half stayed behind. This disjointed cohesion reminded me of our class a little bit.

Strangely however, after resolving our civil war from last month, E Class had somehow gotten closer.

"Everyone, if I can have a moment?"

Standing up at the front of our section, Matsushita clapped his hands to get our attention.

"Let's return to class... or rather, let's go to the class in the special wing to hash out what we're going to do for this special exam."

Since there was no objections, everyone agreed to leave the hall so we could discuss this in private.

As we made our way out, I approached Fujimura, who was walking besides her best friend Suzuki.

"Uh... Fujimura-san."

I quietly called out her name, expecting a snarky response from her back.

"What?"

However, it seems she was in a good mood, since she stopped and turned around to talk to me.

"Happy birthday."

"Aww, that's sweet of you. Thanks!"

Fujimura threw up a peace sign and smiled. It was strange seeing her act nice.

"Though, it's weird that you remember that... I don't remember telling you about my birthday."

Immediately, she pointed out the fact that we weren't close at all, and that me knowing this information should've been impossible.

"Oh... well, Nora-san mentioned it once. We were talking about birthdays, since it was Matsushita-san's one last week."

"His party was super fun! It's a shame Takayuki-chan didn't go."

"Was I not good enough company?"

Suzuki teased Fujimura about her crush a little bit.

"Ahh? Of course you were! It's just that, like, the party would've been a good way to get closer to him! That's all."

"These days, all you can ever think about is that guy. I seriously dunno what you see in him, Shouko-chan."

Suzuki shrugged, texting away on her phone.

"Mou, of course you wouldn't get it, you're into guys like Oozora-senpai."

"What can I say? Ikemen are the coolest."

So that was Suzuki's type, huh? A handsome and popular man. It was a complete contrast to Fujimura's type, which was cute and docile boys.

"Too bad Takanori's neither of those things."

Fujimura laughed, finally making fun out of me. Even though she was being mean, I somehow felt more comfortable with her acting this way towards me.

"I'm fine with being the plain one."

"Though, you could totally be an ikemen if you tried."

"Right? Takanori looks cooler with those sunglasses on."

Strangely, Fujimura and Suzuki were now complementing my appearance because I started wearing these sunglasses.

I half expected this behaviour from Fujimura, since she completely flipped personalities towards Nora after his makeover, but I didn't expect it at all from Suzuki.

"Uh... thank you, I guess?"

"Like, if he wore his uniform more loosely..."

Suddenly, Suzuki got close to me and unbuttoned the top of my shirt.

"You're seriously touching him?"

Fujimura showed mild disgust as Suzuki pulled down my tie slightly.

"He won't bite."

Suzuki shrugged before putting her hands on my lower shirt.

"Uh... what are you doing?"

"Untucking your shirt, obviously. Ain't it uncomfortable like this?"

"Not really... hang on, I'll do it."

"Aight."

I thought this was becoming a little inappropriate, so I pushed Suzuki's hands away and untucked my shirt under her orders.

Ah, what was I getting roped into? All I wanted was to say happy birthday to Fujimura...

Taking a step back, Suzuki stared at me like I was some kind of zoo animal.

"Hmm, Shouko-chan, doesn't he look much better now?"

"Wow, he looks like a completely different person!"

Fujimura covered her mouth in surprise.

Just by changing a few things about my appearance, the two girls were now staring at me in awe.

"You should keep this look, Takanori!"

"Totally, totally."

I myself didn't know what I looked like, but if it received the approval from two fashionable gyaru, I guess they were right.

"Sure... by the way, we should get going. The rest of the class is waiting for us."

"Ah, true. See you in a bit."

"Thanks for the happy birthday!"

With a small laugh, the two girls left the hall. I did as well.

Well, that was weird.