Book 17: Chapter 1: Intro - Price of Victory
After the unanimity special exam, the weekend ended and the following week opened. September 20.
I woke up half past six in the morning, turned on the television and started preparing breakfast.
A new monday had come. My daily life from now on would probably be dramatically different from my life until last week.
I didn’t even need to rigorously reason out why that was.
Roughly divided, there were two main factors casting a shadow on me. Kushida’s display after she got cornered had caused cracks to form in the relationships between my classmates. By overturning the premise that we would have the betrayer, or Kushida expelled, trust in Horikita and people associated with her like myself is wavering.
To expel or not to expel? I had everyone agree to expel someone by promising that only the betrayer would get expelled. Then using the groundwork I had laid, I cornered Kushida, had her confess that she was the betrayer and executed my plan to see her expelled.
Kushida got protection from students with whom she had curried favor and students who wanted to believe in her, but in the end, after her true nature was laid bare and she started exposing others’ secrets, trust in her fell.
I moved one more piece towards her expulsion, but something unexpected happened.
It was Horikita Suzune’s declaration as despite knowing everything, she appealed that Kushida was necessary for the class.