After Housen's scheme failed, he finally behaved himself and had the First-year Class D students team up with Second-year Class D.
With strong students pairing up with weak ones on both sides, they managed—just before the school's five-week deadline—to secure teammates across the board. They then made it through midterms with a few scares, but no disasters.
This exam's scores were mostly solid. At the very least, no team's combined total dropped under 500, which meant nobody was expelled.
And the average-score ranking turned out exactly as expected:
1st — Sakayanagi's class, average 920 points, earned 200 class points;
2nd — Yukio's class, average 740 points, earned 100 class points;
3rd — Class D, average 640 points, earned 50 class points;
4th — Ichinose's class, average 620 points, no class-point reward.
[Current overall second-year standings:
Class A , Yukio's class — 2640 points;
Class B, Sakayanagi's class — 1630 points;
Class C, Ichinose's class — 1440 points;
Class D, Matsushita's class — 320 points.]
Once the homeroom teachers announced the full results, nobody was surprised.
Sakayanagi's class had always been stacked with top students. On top of that, they deliberately sought out first-year prodigies and formed powerhouse pairs to sprint for the individual ranking rewards.
Getting an average that high was completely within everyone's expectations. Honestly, if two grades' best students teamed up and didn't score high, that would've been shocking.
And beyond the relatively small 200 class points, the real prize for Sakayanagi's class was the private points from the individual ranking rewards.
Sakayanagi's class also successfully flipped back ahead of Ichinose's class—overtaking them from second-year Class C and returning to second-year Class B.
They'd shaken off the slump they'd suffered at the end of first year, when challenging Yukio's class tanked their ranking.
Yukio's class, on the other hand, had their underperformers pay to pair up with top students. The stronger students naturally linked up with other strong students to chase personal rankings—but they were still dragged down by the average scores of over a dozen weaker students, which kept them from catching Sakayanagi's class.
The poster child for that was Ishizaki, who was nervously sneaking glances at Yukio.
Yukio waved him off. "This special exam wasn't something we needed to take that seriously."
"Even the first-place reward is only 200 class points. That's stingy as hell—what can you even do with that? Whatever."
Hearing that, Ishizaki, Nomura, and the other "anchor weights" all breathed a sigh of relief.
But on the podium, their homeroom teacher Sakagami—smiling warmly—announced he'd be giving those guys extra tutoring after school from here on out.
That instantly made Ishizaki and the others start wailing like their world was ending.
Still, under Sakagami's gentle smile, they could only nod and accept it in the end. After all, none of them wanted to be the class's weak link.
Over in Second-year Class D, Horikita, Matsushita, and the rest had gone in thinking, If nobody gets expelled, that's already perfect. Who cares about rank?
They never expected they'd actually take third place.
After all, their partners were First-year Class D.
In terms of overall academic strength, they simply couldn't compare to the teammates other classes found—though "teammates," in this context, didn't include the kind Ichinose's class chose.
Because once you thought about what Ichinose's class did in this special exam, the outcome made sense.
Ichinose's class finished last for one simple reason: they provided unconditional help to first-year underachievers.
As a group, Ichinose's class had academic strength second only to Sakayanagi's—honestly, you could call them near-geniuses on average, but instead of forming powerhouse duos with first-year elites, they actively helped weaker first-years and carried them through the exam.
Even though, in this special exam, a first-year failing wouldn't mean expulsion—it would only mean losing the school-issued private points for three months.
Ichinose's class still chose to help anyway.
And because of that, among the weak students across all the first-year classes, they earned an incredible reputation and trust—just from this one exam.
Most of Ichinose's class members were actually pretty happy with the result.
"Some underclassmen came by to thank us today. Honestly, it felt really good."
"Seriously. Only Honami could take care of everyone like that among the second-years."
Even with a dead-last finish, most people didn't blame Ichinose's decision at all. If anything, it felt like they'd done a good deed, and the whole class mood was bright.
Ichinose herself looked a little embarrassed.
"I-I just thought… the new students only just got here, and then they immediately ran into an exam like this. They must've felt so anxious, so lost… I didn't really do anything. This is just what we all achieved together…"
The others nodded, remembering last year.
"That's true… I remember when we first enrolled, we were totally lost too. And then Hoshinomiya-sensei told us we'd get 100,000 in allowance every month, and we freaked out."
"Yeah. And back then, Honami was the one who stepped up and helped everyone settle down."
"Thank goodness for Ichinose. Being in the same class as her is seriously the best~"
In that cheerful, harmonious classroom, only Kanzaki stood out.
Ichinose's right-hand man wore a heavy expression that didn't fit the atmosphere at all.
"What's wrong, Kanzaki?" someone asked, concerned. "You look pretty grim."
Kanzaki frowned. "Do you all really think this is fine? We finally climbed back to Class B… and then Sakayanagi's class just snatched it away again."
"Huh? Th-that's not a big deal, is it? We helped the first-years, didn't we?" another student said, coming over to reassure him.
That one sentence made Kanzaki feel even worse.
Inside his desk drawer, where no one could see, his hands had already clenched into fists.
"Helping others and staying united are good virtues. There's nothing wrong with them."
"But in this school… if you don't graduate from Class A, then even the best virtues are meaningless!"
"…What? Kanzaki, what are you even saying?"
"Hey—are you feeling okay? I mean, I get it. Placing last on a special exam for once would sting. If you need to, you can take the day off and go rest. You alright?"
Normally, classmates' concern would feel warm.
But to Kanzaki right now, it felt unbearably sad.
Had Ichinose—an angel in human form—already shaped the class into this without anyone noticing?
Being kind, being helpful—none of that was wrong.
But you still had to think about yourselves, too.
Kanzaki clenched his jaw and kept what he really wanted to say locked inside.
He endured it alone—waiting for the moment he could wake the entire class up.