Classroom of the Elite (LN)

When I returned from Keyaki Mall after shopping, I saw Ibuki-san standing by the elevator, glaring at the entrance. Ignoring her, I pushed the elevator button, causing her to explode with anger.

“Don’t ignore me!”

She approached me, pressing me for an answer with such vigor that she almost spit at my face. I steeled myself for a long-drawn battle of attrition, but honestly, what was this even about? From how intense she was, I’m sure she’d follow me even if I boarded the elevator now. Forced to stop, I had to watch the invitingly open elevator close and depart.

“Ignore you? Do you have something you need from me?”

“This! This message, what does it mean? Answer me!”

She glared at me and thrust her phone screen into my face. Although the bright light was streaming into my eyes, all I could see was a white glow.

“Are you an idiot? It’s too close, I can’t see anything. Move back a little?”

“Fine! Here!”

She only moved it back a teensy bit, but I could still quickly read what was written with just a glance.

“What a well written message, I’m impressed. Clearly, a very intelligent person must have written it.”

“Don’t toot your own horn! More importantly, what part of this screams intelligence?”

“Why, if you read it out loud, you might get it.”

“HUH? ‘If you get expelled because of something that has nothing to do with me, naturally, it will count as a loss against me. You wouldn’t be such an idiot, right?’… Just how is this intelligent? No, forget it, just tell me what it means!”

“You just read it, but you still haven’t understood it?”

“Not at all. I thought about it all week, and I still don’t. What, is that a problem?’

She hmphed loudly and crossed her arms. It was a very straightforward piece of advice, and for her to not take it as such, that was unexpected… Well, I would like to believe that it at least had an effect on her subconscious.

“Well, even if I tell you now, there’s no point. And it seems like it wasn’t a problem after all.”

“Haa? What does that mean? Explain it, so I can understand.”

This girl is really slow on the uptake. Could it really be that her athletic and fighting skills are all she has…

“I was giving you a secret strategy to make sure you wouldn’t get expelled. It doesn’t seem like your classmates like you, and if there was a motion that involved expulsion, it could’ve meant trouble for you. But with this, I could spur you on and make sure you stayed here even if you hated it, right?”

“Don’t tell me… You were worried about me?”

She was surprised… No, the grimace on her face showed that she was disgusted from the bottom of her heart.

“Don’t put words in my mouth. There are still things I need your help with. Being short on manpower could be a problem, and anyway, if you were expelled in the previous exam, Ryuuen’s class would have gained 100 points with no downsides by removing you. If you had to be expelled, it would be better for me if you left during an exam which has a penalty.”

Even after the explanation, it didn’t look like she understood even the slightest bit of it.

“Anyway, that’s enough. Let’s go home.”

She was still silently furious, but she let me pass. She kept eyeing me from the side as I once again called the elevator. When I entered the elevator this time, I realized Ibuki-san wasn’t following me in.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I don’t feel like getting into an elevator with you.”

“What a child. We’ve done this many times before, even as a coincidence.”

“I don’t want to right now.”

“I see. Do as you please.”

I pressed the button to close the elevator and headed towards the floor Kushida-san lived on. From here on out, I will have to persevere until she opens her door. As the elevator climbed, I wondered whether I could really get a breakthrough today. If I didn’t try different tactics, I don’t think anything would change. That being the case, what I intended to do would just be a waste of time.

The elevator reached the destination floor and opened. However, I remained stuck in place, and I didn’t take a single step to get out. What should I do, what should I do to be able to have a face to face conversation with Kushida-san… I was just wasting time, and eventually the elevator doors closed. Before I could press the button to open them again, the elevator moved, heading downstairs.

“Really, it’s all useless.”

With my mind wandering like this, even if I managed to get face to face I can’t expect to be able to convince her to return. I felt sorry for wasting the kind words Chabashira-sensei had said to me earlier.

The elevator had returned back to the first floor. The door opened, and Ibuki-san stepped into the elevator. She was looking down at her phone, so she hadn’t noticed me. Finally realizing that she wasn’t alone, she looked up, saw me and exclaimed.

“Wh, why are you here!?”

Honestly, it wasn’t weird for her to be surprised by this.

“Aren’t you getting on?”

“I said so, didn’t I!? You trying to piss me off?”

I shook my head, and then reached for the close button. At that moment, my mind got stuck on Ibuki-san as I saw her avoiding my gaze. At the last moment, I switched to pressing the open button and stared at her intensely. She looked at me, suspicious about the elevator door not closing even after so long.

Maybe the key to the breakthrough lay in an entirely unexpected place. Wasn’t this just the right time to use Chabashira sensei’s advice?

“What is it!’

“… If it’s going to be like this, I think I can use your help.”

“Huh?”

It would be quite the gamble, but she could be exactly what I needed to break this impasse. An unexpected ambush might be the way to make an invisible breakthrough. While I thought it was a harebrained idea, right now I had no choice but to do whatever it took to try it.

“Get on.”

“How many times do I need to tell you that I’m not getting on?”

“Enough already. Get on.”

“… What is with you?”

I ensured that Ibuki-san got on despite her irritation, and then I pressed the close button.

“There is something I need your advice on.”

“HAAAHH? For you? No, no way I’m taking on something like that.”

“But you got on the elevator.”

“You dragged me on!”

“You’re already on, sowhy not advise me on it too?”

“Uh, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“It won’t hurt you or anything. Anyway, it’s about…”

“Don’t keep going on your own! Just having to give you advice hurts me though?”

While we were going back and forth like that, we reached Kushida-san’s floor. I got off first and turned around towards Ibuki-san, who was still on the elevator.

“Get off. You never know who’s listening here. Just in case.”

“Don’t care. I’m going back. I don’t even understand what’s going on.”

Ibuki pressed the close button to go home, but the elevator didn’t close.

“Look, even the elevator wants you to get off.”

“That’s because you’re keeping it from closing by pressing the button outside!”

“By the way, do you have anything you like? Like anything you think is important?”

“… What does that have to do with this?”

“Just tell me.”

“───nu”

“nu?”

“No, umm, what was it? I can’t really think of anything, strawberries, something like that?

“Wow, there’s an unexpectedly cute side to you… Let’s move on and forget about this conversation.”

“YOU’RE the one one asked! More importantly, enough already, let go of the button.”

As she was getting more and more irritated, I decided to get to the topic. I’d realized that it would be better for her, too, if I quickly let her in on the situation.

“I’m about to go meet Kushida-san.”

“And? You can just go by yourself?”

She was mashing the close button but of course, that was meaningless.

“I can’t just do that. For the past week, I haven’t been able to see her, and she’s not coming to school. Even when I come to her room, she shows no signs of coming out. I want you to drag her out. Do you understand?”

“Huh? Wait, why do I have to do this?”

“You’d be helping me out.”

“Don’t care. I don’t even help my own classmates, so there’s no way I can help your class?”

When I brought this conversation up, I’d already predicted that Ibuki-san wouldn’t immediately be on board. But if there was something in it for her, it was another matter entirely.

The elevator had started emitting a warning beep since the door was open for so long.

“Fine. If that’s the case, I’ll give you a reward if you succeed.”

“Don’t need it. If you think I will work for money you are badly mistaken.”

“Yes, you are right about that. However, my reward will definitely be something that you really want.”

“… I don’t think there’s anything like that, though?”

It wasn’t easy to lure Ibuki-san, but if I used a certain something, her thinking would turn right around.

“At the sports festival, we can freely pick any 5 competitions, right? You are free to choose which competitions you want to participate in, and in which groups. This was a provision to help us clear the 5 required events, or, to put it another way, its main purpose is to allow one to avoid powerful opponents… but one the other hand, it’s also a system that also allows you to pick your opponent.”

Ibuki-san had been unwilling until now, but after that explanation her eyes lit up.

“Knowing you, in order to fight me, you’ve not reserved a spot in any competitions, and are just waiting for me, right? Unfortunately for you, I’m not going to make my decision until the last moment. Depending on the situation, it’s likely that I’d be aiming for the last open slot in the competitions. In other words, you will never get the opportunity to challenge me, the very thing you want and are waiting for.”

“… if I help you, you will let me fight you?”

“Yes. I will fight you in one competition of your choice. Of course, for the sake of my class, I won’t be holding back, so you won’t be winning any points though. If that’s fine with you, I’ll do it.”

“Ha. Isn’t that interesting. But I won’t be satisfied with just one. At the very least, three. If we have a best of three, I’ll help you.”

“Three? That’s too greedy…”

As the warning signal continued to beep, I pretended to think.

“I won’t give up otherwise.”

She’s not wrong. If we had just one competition, you wouldn’t be able to accept the result. I agree with that. That said, with two or four matches there was a chance of a draw. So, from the beginning I was expecting that we would end up on three matches, but if I had started by suggesting that she would probably ask for five matches. If you’re okay with three matches, then that was exactly where I wanted to be.

“…… Fine. As you wish, I will compete against you in three matches. Is that alright?”

“Done. You can’t back out now.”

She got off the elevator after that. I released the button and the elevator door slowly closed.

“Of course. But! You will help me until this situation is resolved.”

“Can you tell me clearly what the goal is?”

“Make Kushida-san come to school from Monday. That’s all.”

“Sounds easy enough. Wait, why is Kushida taking a break from school a big deal, anyway? Couldn’t she just be unwell? Everyone has days like those.”

Chabashira-sensei did say that Kushida-san’s secret still wasn’t widely known. But the important thing was to not recklessly leak the truth. Keeping that advice in mind, I decided to tell her everything. If Ibuki-san turned out to be the type to leak it to the people around her, that would mean I was as blind as a bat. Even if I was driving myself into a corner, right now I needed a way to break the deadlock.

I told her the details about Kushida-san. Of course, I didn’t try to strangely hide any information. Even Ibuki-san should be well aware of how Kushida-san has been so far. Even so, I explained to her Kushida’s real personality, how she thinks and even the details of how we reached this situation.

While I was talking, Ibuki-san looked uninterested, and she was listening while looking off in some other direction. Normally, someone acting this way would have made me unhappy, but seeing her do it made me feel relieved. Once I had finished explaining why she was absent from school and the current situation, Ibuki-san released an exasperated sigh.

“How pointless.”

She wasn’t particularly interested in Kushida’s true personality or anything, and so she was simply expressing that thought.

“You aren’t surprised, huh. Did you know something?”

“Nothing. But I don’t believe that anyone is that nice of a person. Not Kushida, not Hirata, not even Ichinose. I think anyone who puts on a ‘I’m a nice guy!’ image is guaranteed to have a dark side underneath.”

“That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”

It may be surprisingly accurate in some ways.

“So, do you think highly of Ryuuen-kun then? He doesn’t pretend to be good… or rather, considering what he’s like inside, he isn’t a good person.”

“I hate that more. And on that topic, I’m also beginning to dislike people who seem harmless, like Ayanokouji. Those pieces of shit piss me off!”

With all that, does there even exist a person that Ibuki-san could have a favorable opinion of?

“Well, I don’t hate dragging out someone like that. If anything, it makes me want to ask her how it felt to have her good girl front exposed as fake.”

I might have to stop her from going too far, but I also might need to learn from her how to be that kind of forceful.

“So, Kushida is holed up at home, and I just need to drag her out?”

“Yes.”

With a fair bit of confidence she casually headed to Kushida’s room.

“Do you intend to do it alone?”

“Just shut up and watch.”

If that’s the case, let’s see what she’s got.

When Ibuki-san approached the front of Kushida-san’s door, she suddenly held onto her stomach and bent over.

“…… Ah, it hurts, it HURTS!”

Her screams of agony could be heard throughout the corridor. For a moment, I couldn’t understand what was going on, and I just stared blankly at the scene in front of me.

“M-my stomach suddenly started to hurt… I… I can’t make it to my room….!”

Eh… a stomachache? Don’t tell me, this is what you came up with? You are trying to get her to open her door so you can use her toilet? On top of how cliche this is, your acting is disastrously atrocious… To start with, Ibuki-san’s room isn’t even on this floor. And even if her floor was the same, it would definitely be faster to go back to her own room.

“To…Toilet, let me use your toilet!”

Ibuki called Kushida-san as she mashed the doorbell. She kept this on for 10 seconds, but it didn’t look like Kushida-san was going to come out at all.

This was a problem I’ve had since before this case… I wanted to hold my head in my hands because of how badly I’d messed up the choice of personnel here. After the performance continued for another ten or twenty seconds, Ibuki-san got up, put on a straight face and returned to me.

“She isn’t out, is she?

“First of all, I am very sure she is in her room”

“Really? If that performance didn’t work, that Kushida is a real piece of work”

“A-ah, yeah.”

She seemed to be serious, so I should refrain from retorting.

I ordered her to follow after me quietly and opened the box that covered the electrical meter of Kushida-san’s room.

“You can see the disk in here, right? If this disk is spinning slowly, then it’s likely that she’s not in there. However, if she is in there using her TV or computer, then it should be spinning fast.”

The disk was currently spinning rather quickly.

“With this, you get that there’s a high chance she’s in there, right?”

“That’s the kind of thing a burglar would know…”

“I looked up a lot of things while waiting for her last weekend. You are prohibited from abusing this knowledge.”

Nah, I wouldn’t do that, Ibuki’s cold eyes seemed to say.

“So, have you thought of any other methods? If not, then I might have to bench you───“

“We’ve been going about this the wrong way.”

“Eh?”

“I’m gonna force Kushida out of her room. This will be all or nothing, but that’s fine, right?”

I wanted her to show me her basis for that claim, but after seeing her all revved up I decided to trust her one more time. I took some distance from her, and she once again made her way to the door.

“Hey, Kushida. I’ve heard all about you. The fact that you were deceiving everyone till now was revealed during the exam, was it?”

While I was wondering what she would do, she began berating Kushida. I considered stopping her for a moment, but even if I did that, it would be pointless. Even if I stopped her here, Kushida-san’s probably already heard her.

“Sure serves you right! How does it feel to lose your position as the most popular up until now? Well, if we’re ranking good people, then Ichinose’s probably above you. How’s it feel falling from second?”

Compared to her wooden acting earlier, the method she used to rile Kushida-san up was way better. The most aggravating part of it was probably that she was being told such things by Ibuki-san of all people. However, there was not a sound in response. I suppose such a crude measure wasn’t going to work…

Ibuki-san continued speaking in front of the door, her expression unchanged.

“Come on, show me your unsightly face!”

Using the toes of her right foot, she banged the door with considerable force.

“I’ve got a lot of pent up stress ‘cause of Horikita just now. I can’t help wanting to vent it.”

Ibuki-san’s true feelings didn’t involve saving Kushida-san in the slightest. She vented those feelings to Kushida-san, who was probably on the other side of the door.

“Kicking the door to someone’s room might not be so bad. I kind of understand how Ryuuen feels.”

At this point, it seemed like banging the door again and again was for her own sake. After several kicks, a sound came from inside the room. In spite of that, Ibuki went to kick, but then the room’s door was suddenly unlocked.

“───You’re annoying me, so could you stop it, Ibuki-san?”

Kushida-san appeared, dressed in casual clothes. To think that she would react to Ibuki’s violent way of doing things… What was all my effort for this whole past week? I was slightly struck.

“Hey, you came out! I guess you’re that kind of person after all.”

After learning of Kushida-san’s personality in detail, there may have been some things that Ibuki understood better.

“That misunderstanding is irritating, so could you stop?”

“Eh? Is that the case? I think I’m more likable than you with your fake personality.”

“I’ve never thought positively of you even once. Same as Horikita-san over there.”

Seeing that she added “san” to my name, she seems to have regained her composure. Since there was no point in hiding, I went in front of her room without reservation.

“If it’s fine, can we come into your room? I’m tired and fed up with all this waiting.”

“Well, even if I wanted to close the door, it would be pointless.”

Ibuki-san had stuck one foot firmly in the gap between the door, so she couldn’t close it. Kushida stared at the foot Ibuki had slid in and stomped down with all her might.

“Ow!”

She continued grinding her foot on Ibuki’s, but Ibuki showed no sign of pulling her foot out.

“It really isn’t closing, huh.”

“Cut. It. Out!”

As she forcibly opened the door and stepped inside, Kushida-san quickly stepped back and showed us the way in with a straight face.