Classroom of the Elite – S2 09 – Relationship of Convenience

Ryuuen agrees to feed Kikyou with the questions he wrote for Class D, which she’ll use to win the bet and get Suzune and Kiyotaka expelled. In exchange, Kikyou will help make sure Class C wins Paper Shuffle. Ryuuen then takes his gang to go investigate the study group with Kiyotaka and Yukimura, bringing along Shiina Hiyori to try to determine if the Class D Mastermind is among them.

While the experience shakes the group, Haruka likes the vibes they’ve created and decides to formally make them a group, complete with everyone in it being on a first-name basis Airi suddenly inserts herself into the group and asks to join in, presumably to be close to Kiyotaka, and the group agrees.

That night, Kiyotaka calls Kei, but not to invite her to the movie his study group is going to tomorrow. Instead, he has a favor to ask of her. Kei, who wants to become closer to Kiyotaka, has a birthday gift wrapped and ready for him, but has to settle for a LINE sticker, to which he reacts with his usual Ayanokouji stoicism.

The next day when the study group heads meet at karaoke to discuss progress, it becomes clear what Kiyotaka asked Kei to do. She confronts Kikyou for her unrelentingly sweet good girl attitude and accuses her of looking down on her, even tossing a drink on her uniform. Yousuke scolds her and she apologizes, tearfully asking if she can get Kikyou’s uniform washed; Kikyou agrees.

The big day of the Math test that will determine both Suzune and Kiyotaka’s fates arrives, and Maya makes it a point to greet Kiyotaka, only to be shuffled off by a clearly jealous Kei. Yousuke can tell how she’s taken a liking to Kiyotaka, and suggests that having a non-fake boyfriend would probably be best for her.

Before pencils up, Kiyotaka and Suzune revel in the class unity that’s been created through their efforts. Then the test begins, and Kikyou immediately realizes that the test questions she gave Ms. Chabashira are nowhere to be found. Just like that, she’s lost the bet, and she knows it.

Kikyou can’t even pretend to hide her rage when she slams her hands on the desk and then storms out of the classroom. While she’s been a lot more bluster than bite as a villainess, it was still satisfying to see her brought low after she thought she had the Shuffle in the bag.

She meets Ryuuen to voice her anger, but Ryuuen tells her he doesn’t owe her his loyalty, since she couldn’t deliver what she promised him. The bottom line is that before she even made a deal with him, Suzune already had her beat, by going to Chabashira before her and getting her to agree to only accept questions from her, the official class rep.

Kiyotaka explains this to Kei, who then wonders why he had her plant a cheat sheet on Kikyou’s uni. That was only meant to be insurance in case Suzune’s gambit failed. But Kiyotaka has to hand it to Suzune, she achieved this victory all by herself, proving she’s grown as a person and and operator.

Considering the witness, Kikyou has no choice but to abide by the promise she made should she lose to Suzune. Suzune reaches out her hand as a gesture of trust, and is determined to get Kikyou to like her, but Kikyou assures her that will never happen. She also makes clear that while she promised not to try to sabotage her, their deal didn’t say anything about Kiyotaka.

Still, I have to think that the fact that Kikyou and Ryuuen sever their brief alliance can only hurt both parties and help Kiyotaka. He probably knows that too, which is why he presented Ryuuen with the facts on the ground; that Suzune already had Kikyou beat, and got him to agree to a deal to alter Class C’s questions.

Ryuuen doesn’t like one bit that the Mastermind used him the way he so easily uses others, so he plans a bit of revenge in the form of destroying Kei, sending Kiyotaka a photo of her to make it plain. Combined with Kikyou preparing to focus all of her efforts on getting him expelled, Kiyotaka now finds himself in the crosshairs of two adversaries at the same time.

Is that just fine with him? You bet. He welcomes both Ryuuen and Kikyou coming at him with everything they’ve got. It will only make his victories over them that much sweeter. And as huge a prick as Kiyotaka usually is, his commitment to protecting Kei, like his pride over Suzune’s growth, is genuine and admirable. I’m not about to bet against him now.

Classroom of the Elite – S2 08 – The Sword of Truth

Class D splits into study groups, with Suzune and Kikyou overseeing. When two students paired up despite having the same strengths and weaknesses ask for help, Yukimura volunteers to lead their group, and Suzune has Kiyotaka join them. After his performance at the relay, his classmates tell him he should stop holding back.

When Kiyotaka agrees to sit in on Suzune and Kikyou’s group, Maya tags along, and despite him not putting in any effort, other students still view them as a cozy couple. Honestly I feel bad for Maya, who could have had a crush on virtually anyone else and fared better.

Two notable exceptions are Ryuen and our two-faced charmer Kikyou, whom Suzune meets one-on-one in an empty classroom. She tells Kikyou that she only knows vague rumors about what went down in middle school, Kikyou has no way of trusting her. So Suzune proposes a bet.

She’ll let Kikyou choose one of the eight subjects they’re being tested in. Whoever gets the higher individual score will win. If Kikyou wins, Suzune will leave the school of her own free will. If Suzune wins, Kikyou will cease her vendetta. Suzune brings in Manabe, whom both trust and respect, as a witness, and the bet is formally agreed to.

Of course, Kikyou is well aware that Kiyotaka is listening in on Suzune’s phone, so later that night she meets with him and Suzune and proposes an amendment to the bet: if she wins, Kiyotaka leaves the school too. Suzune is against it, but Kiyotaka will bet on Suzune winning every time.

In exchange, he asks that Kikyou tell them both exactly what happened. If they’re putting their school lives on the line, they deserve that much. Kikyou agrees, and slides into Dark Backstory Mode. It all started in grade school when she’d get praised and recognized for every little thing she said and did.

When that automatic praise stopped and started to be distributed across her classmates, she vowed to become the friendliest, most helpful, most trusting classmate she could be; indispensable to all. This took an emotional toll, and she needed an outlet for her pent-up rage and resentment. Perhaps misguidedly, she chose a public blog.

While she changed all the names in her blog entries, it became a receptacle for all the class’ dirty little secrets, which she of course collected by being everyone’s best friend. The system worked until someone found the blog and exposed her, and suddenly she was everyone’s worst enemy.

Rather than cower or run, Kikyou fought back, dumping all of the secrets she hadn’t written about in her blog to that point. With that tinder she set the entire class against each other, resulting in its rumored annihilation.

Suffice it to say, she wants anyone who knows anything about this incident out of her life so she can reset things as everyone’s best friend. So now Kiyotaka and Suzune know the full story, and the full depth of Kikyou’s depraved, bottomless desire for recognition, praise, and of course, dirty secrets.

Even now she’s collected enough of Class D’s to destroy the class, but would rather not. Instead, she’s staking everything on getting a better math score than Suzune. I can’t imagine she’ll succeed. It’s not that such an outcome wouldn’t be interesting; it just doesn’t seem plausible for our two leads to suddenly drop out.

Classroom of the Elite – S2 07 – Casanova

There’s a changing of the guard at the top of the school pyramid, as Manabu resigns to make way for Nagumo Miyabi of Class 2-A, who intends to turn the school into a true meritocracy.

Meanwhile, Kiyotaka is suddenly Mr. Popular, earning praise (and a warning about Ryuuen) from 1-A’s Katsuragi to being asked out by Satou Maya, who was smitten with his athletic performance. Kiyotaka agrees to an exchange of numbers and a platonic start.

Of course, hot on the heels of the sports fest is the next special test, which is called “Paper Shuffle” and involves everyone being paired off and taking tests with questions prepared from the other classes.

As is typical of CoE the rules are stubbornly labyrinthine, but the Kiyotaka and Suzune agree that the most important aspect of the test is how people will be paired off, which will be chosen by how everyone scores on a mini-test.

Suzune, Kiyotaka, Ken, Kei, and Yousuke meet to talk strategy, and are joined by Kikyou, whose presence Suzune doesn’t protest. Hanging back with Kiyotaka, Suzune tells him that she went to the same middle school as Kikyou, and there were rumors she was singlehandedly responsible for the utter destruction of an entire class.

While Kiyotaka suggests she try to get Kikyou expelled, Suzune still believes there’s a way to make Kikyou their ally. She also makes a point to earnestly thank Kiyotaka, since she knows he was the one who saved her from Ryuuen.

With true villains like Ryuuen stalking about, that’s not an unrealistic hope. He wastes no time outing the Class C traitor, who turns out to be Manabe, a nice connection to a previous special test and the person who more or less brought him and Kei together. Manabe tells Ryuuen that the Class D “mastermind” is either Kiyotaka or Yukimura, the only witnesses to her bullying Kei.

At the cafe, Suzune leads the group in the strategy meeting, proposing that their class be split into four groups based on their academic performance, and for the lower two quarters of the class intentionally get zeros and ones on their mini-tests, so that they’ll be paired with the strongest scores and thus result in a balanced group and minimizing the possibility of any expulsions.

It’s a nifty little plan, and not only does Kiyotaka not involve himself in the meeting, but leaves it all up to Suzune to convince the class, which she does admirably due to her growth in the sports festival softening her edges.

That night, Kei calls Kiyotaka, worried about how things went with him and Satou Maya. He posits that she’s worried he may shirk his responsibility to protect her if he gets close to Maya, but he tells her that they only agreed to exchange numbers for now, and even if it amounted to more, he promises he’ll have her back come what may.

Even though I feel bad for Kei being caught up in Kiyotaka’s web of awfulness, and like Maya I’d strongly suggests not harboring a crush on him, I’m also just glad that she feels happy and safe, and equally certain Kiyotaka is a man of his word when it comes to protecting her. He doesn’t even add “so long as you keep doing as I say”.

Unfortunately for Kei, Kiyotaka ends up being paired up with Maya for the Paper Shuffle, while Suzune ends up with Ken (no surprise there). Everything’s going according to plan so far, but the threat of Ryuuen looms, as does Kikyou’s assertion that expelling Suzune and Kiyotaka is a higher priority than rising to Class A. I certainly hope Suzune makes strides in her peace talks.