Classroom of the Elite: Standing Firm in Class A — Chapter 48

Chapter 48: The Failing Students

A new day dawned over the Advanced Nurturing High School.

Tetsu felt a rare sense of having absolutely nothing demanding his immediate attention. He had no intention of visiting the library this morning. Instead, he wandered aimlessly along the pristine, tree-lined walkways of the campus, casually observing the ebb and flow of the student body.

As he approached the open plaza situated between the main academic building and Keyaki Mall, a familiar silhouette drifted into his line of sight.

Suzune.

Her posture remained characteristically rigid, her spine straight as a ruler, with her long black hair cascading smoothly over her slender shoulders. Yet, even from a distance, Tetsu could tell at a single glance that something was fundamentally fractured in her current state of mind.

She was not reading a novel. She was not scrolling through her phone. She simply sat on a wooden bench, staring blankly at the paved ground in front of her shoes. On that delicate face, usually sealed beneath a thick layer of unapproachable frost, there now lingered the heavy, crushing shadow of pure exhaustion.

Tetsu allowed his footsteps to come to a gradual halt.

He observed her in silence, his dark eyes gleaming with deep interest. He had already gathered the necessary intelligence regarding the midterm exam results for Class D. Just as he had anticipated, several of their students had failed to meet the baseline requirements.

However, the school had yet to issue any public announcement regarding expulsions from Class D. The only logical explanation for this silence was that the class had somehow scraped together an astronomical sum of Personal Points to forcibly redeem those defective products who rightfully deserved to be eliminated from the system.

A faint, mocking smile touched his lips as Tetsu resumed his pace, closing the distance to her bench.

Suzune’s shoulders gave a sudden, minute tremble. Her unfocused gaze snapped back to reality, sharpening instantly as she looked up with high alert at the uninvited shadow falling over her.

When she registered the face of the boy standing before her, the crease between her brows deepened into a harsh glare.

It was him.

The very same man who, back in the quiet confines of the library, had used a string of surgically precise, vicious remarks to carve out the deep-seated anxiety hiding within her heart.

Tetsu stepped up to her side and casually plopped down onto the empty space on the bench.

“Enjoying the morning breeze all by your lonesome, Classmate Horikita?” His voice carried a smooth, teasing warmth, adopting the casual cadence of a very close friend checking in.

Suzune refused to grace him with a verbal response. She simply tore her gaze away from his face, locked her eyes straight ahead, and projected her intense desire for him to leave through a wall of absolute, freezing silence.

“There is a cafe just around the corner with rather excellent reviews. Would you care to join me for a cup? My treat, of course,” Tetsu offered smoothly.

“No need.”

“Is that so? What a shame.”

Tetsu arranged his features into a mask of polite regret, though he made absolutely no move to stand up. “However, Classmate Horikita, your complexion looks rather dreadful today.”

He pressed the issue, fully aware of the bleeding wound he was poking, playing the role of a deeply concerned peer to perfection.

“You look exactly like someone who poured their entire heart and soul into building a magnificent sandcastle, only to realize when the tide rolled in that everything you fought so desperately to protect was just loose dirt, ready to be washed away into the abyss. That crushing sense of futile exhaustion… am I hitting the mark?”

Suzune’s slender hand, resting quietly on her knee, suddenly clenched into a tight fist.

Her manicured nails dug viciously into the tender flesh of her palm, using the sharp jolt of physical pain to anchor her fracturing composure.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

She delivered the words slowly, deliberately, squeezing every single syllable out from between her gritted teeth.

“True, it really has nothing to do with me. I am merely feeling a bit sentimental this morning,” Tetsu replied, leaning back against the bench and staring up at the sky.

“Saving your companions… that concept always sounds so wonderfully poetic, doesn’t it? But beautiful ideals usually come with a cripplingly expensive price tag attached. When a collective is forced to bleed dry and sacrifice everyone’s hard-earned interests just to fill a few bottomless pits, how long do you honestly think this fragile illusion of unity can last?”

He turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto her rigid profile.

“When those who sacrificed their all finally look back, only to see that the precious companions they bankrupted themselves to save are still the exact same hopeless burdens… will they feel relieved? Or will they feel… resentful?”

Suzune’s body betrayed her, a faint tremor running through her shoulders.

It was not born of anger. It was the visceral reaction of hearing the ugly, unspoken truth dragged out into the harsh light of day.

She knew he was right. She had witnessed the entire pathetic spectacle with her own two eyes.

Time dialed back to the afternoon the midterm results were officially announced.

Inside the Class D classroom, the air was thick with a suffocating mixture of nervous tension and desperate anticipation.

When the final bell rang and Sae strode through the sliding doors, her hands clutching a stack of printed report cards, the entire room instinctively held its breath.

She walked straight to the podium. Her beautiful, mature face wore that signature mask of total apathy, a blank slate that offered zero comfort and revealed zero emotion.

Sae slowly swept her cold gaze over the silent rows of seated students.

Then, with a sharp, echoing thwack, she slapped the master report card directly onto the surface of the blackboard. Her movements were crisp, efficient, and entirely devoid of any wasted energy.

“Woohoo! I passed! I actually passed!”

The very first voice to shatter the silence belonged to Kanji. He pointed a trembling finger at his printed score, practically launching himself out of his chair in pure ecstasy.

“Hell yes! Me too!” Ken roared right alongside him, his aggressive features melting into the wild, unrestrained joy of a man who had just narrowly dodged a firing squad.

In a matter of seconds, the classroom erupted like a boiling pot spilling over the stove.

“Awesome! We all made it!”

“I knew it! As long as we memorized last year’s questions, a stupid exam like this was no big deal at all!”

The infectious wave of relief spread rapidly from desk to desk. Ken even slammed his heavy fist onto his wooden desk with a resounding thud, his face flushed with an irrepressible cocktail of excitement and sheer arrogance.

The students who traditionally occupied the absolute bottom of the academic barrel were now loudly celebrating their grand victory, acting as if they had just conquered the world. They were completely lost in the intoxicating high of the moment.

Sae simply stood there behind the podium. She crossed her arms over her chest, her cold, piercing eyes quietly observing this pathetic display of dancing and cheering monkeys.

She did not raise her voice to interrupt them. She merely allowed that cheap, unearned joy to ferment and expand until it filled every corner of the room.

Only when the initial tidal wave of excitement had finally begun to recede did she part her lips, her voice cutting through the lingering chatter like a serrated blade.

“Are you all celebrating a bit too early?”

That single, quiet sentence acted like a basin of freezing water poured directly over their heads.

The raucous classroom instantly flatlined into absolute silence.

“What do you mean, Chabashira-sensei? Didn’t we all clear the passing line?” Kikyo asked, her sweet voice laced with genuine confusion.

“Who exactly told you that the passing line for a midterm was calculated the same way as your trivial little quizzes?”

Sae picked up a piece of red chalk. She turned to the blackboard and began to write out a simple mathematical formula in large, aggressive strokes.

Subject Total Score / Number of Students / 2 = Passing Line

“Anyone who scores even a fraction of a point below this calculated threshold will be officially classified as having failed.”

The red chalk in her hand dragged against the slate, producing a harsh, screeching sound that made several students wince.

English Passing Line: 41 points.

Math Passing Line: 40 points.

The oxygen seemed to instantly evaporate from the room. The air grew so heavy it threatened to crush them.

“H-how could this be…” The triumphant smile plastered across Kanji’s face shattered into pieces. His eyes bulged out of his skull, staring fixedly at the damning red numbers on the blackboard before snapping down to the paper in his trembling hands, comparing the two figures over and over in desperate denial.

Kanji Math: 38 points.

He was exactly two points short.

Across the aisle, Ken’s situation was equally catastrophic. His rugged face, which had been flushed red with arrogant excitement just moments prior, had now drained into a sickly, deathly pale.

Ken English: 37 points.

Four points short.

“Fuck! What kind of bullshit rule is this?!”

A furious, animalistic roar shattered the deathly silence of the classroom.

Ken violently shoved himself up from his desk, kicking his chair backward with a loud crash that echoed off the walls.

“Why the hell did the passing line suddenly change?! Are you just playing games with us, you crazy woman?!”

Kanji finally processed the reality of his doom, his voice cracking as a pathetic sob tore from his throat.

“Chabashira-sensei, please! You can’t let me get expelled! I’m only two points short! Just give me one more chance, I swear I’ll study until I bleed for the next exam! I’m begging you!”

He babbled incoherently, his dignity entirely forgotten as tears and snot began to mix on his pale face.

Through all the screaming and begging, Sae’s expression remained a flawless portrait of absolute indifference.

“I told you all from the very beginning: the fundamental rule governing this institution is strict meritocracy. This school is not a charity ward. It will not bend or alter established regulations just because you shed a few tears and beg for mercy. I am merely an executor of the system. I have neither the ability nor the slightest obligation to change your fate.”

Having delivered the final verdict, she completely ignored the escalating chaos and despair erupting across the classroom. She calmly gathered her teaching materials, turned on her heel, and walked out the door with measured, steady steps.

The heavy sliding door clicked shut behind her, sounding exactly like the heavy iron gates of a prison sealing off the very last shred of hope for Kanji and Ken.

Inside the classroom, an absolute, suffocating despair took hold.