Sometimes I wonder if I could ever care for someone.

Well, I've got three years to find out.

~

Several days passed and before long, it was the beginning of the testing period.

The students walked into the class, taking their respective seat. Each table had an exam paper on it and with a booklet and working out paper.

All of the the exams were back to back, so the entire day was spent doing them.

It took 5 hours in total.

*

Like my attitude during the Ideal Human Project, I neither enjoyed nor hated these tests.

The very next day, the results were posted on the board.

We received the class results which included the results of every student in the class and the top and bottom of each of ther other classes.

-

Class 1-C Exam Overall Results

1. Kaoru Hiroto - 327

2. Kai Furukawa - 310

~~

4. Aiko Hamasaki - 306

~~

14. Rin Takamiya - 250

~~

21. Akane Itsuki - 214

22. Honoka Airi - 211

~~

35. Lucy Fujiwara - 82

36. Yuuto Tanaka - 0

-

Well, this was the result that I expected.

Kaoru seemed shocked by Lucy's result. She rushed over to her and tried to figure out what happened.

'Lucy! You always do so well when we did practice questions, what happened?'

'A lot... I can't tell you though.'

Kaoru looked at the clearly stressed Lucy, yet she knew better than anyone else that she couldn't do anything to help. To help without consulting the class would be a betrayal to their ideology—yet consulting the class would only make it worse for her.

Well, she should be somewhat grateful that I saved her.

*

It all started a few days ago.

After the incident with Yogi, I started to think about what might be happening. I figured that there must have been something special about the student cards that I don't know about—some feature I was not yet aware of.

I decided to go out and test out things that the student card could possibly achieve. After some time of trial and error, I decided that I'd just wait for the rest of 1-C and see if they could find out. I didn't have any manpower to commit to big experiments so I stayed stationary for a little while.

It was during those days when I noticed something very important.

Earlier in the term, we were told that whilst it was best to have our student cards with us during exams, it was not necessary. However, in order to participate in the exam without a student card, you needed to pay a fine of 1000 points. It was a very small amount so it wasn't a big issue.

However, there was another condition, in order to participate, you needed to prove your identity in some way—however, they did not give the details on what they actually needed to provide. One would believe that it would need to be significant identification, such as their phone, with personal details in it.

I called Lucy's phone the day of the 'café date' yet it didn't go through.

I was just about seeing Yogi's plan.

**

It was the beginning of the first exam, Mathematics.

As I expected, Lucy was nowhere to be seen.

All the first-years had to take the exams in a large exam hall. There was a little ambient noise, however, as soon as the exam began, it was quiet enough to hear a leaf fall. There were a large number of teachers surveying the area, carefully observing for possible cheaters. I was position near a barrier that was set up to somewhat section out the students and prevent cheating.

Nearing the end of the test, the sounds of pencil scratching and page turning became more and more obtuse. It was a time where the teachers were being extra-alert, denying any opportunity of students looking at others' exams.

This made it especially difficult for me to do what I need to do.

Since Lucy wasn't here, I realised that Yogi may have gotten someone to enter using Lucy's identity. Normally, that would be extremely difficult, however, Yogi has been know to be able to have an extremely tight grasp on his classes. It was completely possible for him to organise several students to take specific exams, allowing for students in his class to do at least 3 of the 4 exams with the correct identity and one exam with Lucy's identity—subsequently giving her a score of zero or close to it.

The security of the examination was organised by staff members who weren't the teachers. Therefore, they had no method of determining whether a student was lying or not about the identity theft. There was also extremely little communication between faculty members so it was extremely difficult to report.

This meant that if someone else entered with her identity, she could be completely denied access to the exam, subsequently receiving an incredibly low score—enough to cause her to drop classes, as Yogi's pawns would purposely fail the exams for her.

As a result, during the exam, I needed to figure out who the imposters were. If I reported them specifically, it could be possible for the system to be involved and punish the offenders. However, in order to do so, I needed to pinpoint the exact students, it was almost impossibly difficult. There situation was too extreme, there were almost no opportunities to read people properly.

I was forced subtly glance around and scan the area to locate any possible suspicious behaviour or movements. I was able to sneak in looks as the supervising teachers walked by, however, my vision was partially blocked by the barrier.

Suddenly, far in the distance, beside the arm of a class 1-D student, I managed to glimpse at their answers to ten question on their answer sheet. B, B, D, A, D, B, B, A, D, C. I was able to tell that every answer they had placed was incorrect. The look on their face was also unusually calm, in contrast to the situation. There was also an overt lack of stationary on his table, he held only a single short pencil—he did not even have an eraser. The supervising teacher walked by and I was forced to look back down at my exam.

I still couldn't be sure that they were the culprit. I did not get an opportunity to further analyse him throughout the rest of the exam.

I would have to try again during the next exam.

We were given a short ten minute break as everyone was let out to have a snack and some water. I tried to glimpse at the students as we entered back into the exam hall, however I didn't get any information due to the flood of people entering the hall. There were also a very large amount of people who didn't have their student cards due to them being stolen so I couldn't gather any useful information.

Throughout the next exam, English, I was unable to identify any suspicious people.

We were once again let out for our ten minute break and I pondered if there was a better method.

At first, I didn't want to get involved in any of this, I had no reservations for Lucy and didn't really care if she was dealt with by Yogi. However, a day or two ago, I managed to get a glimpse of his true intentions. Lucy was not his main target. He was trying to force Kaoru's hand and destroy the unity of 1-C. He may have also decided to transfer into our class.

Kaoru and Lucy's friendship was what he was targeting.

That would have caused a lot of trouble for me.

In order to keep my life as quiet as I could for the time being, I would need to temporarily protect Lucy from Yogi.

Thus, during the third exam, Science, I scanned the entire exam hall again. In the corner of my eye, I noticed a girl who had answered the first five questions wrong and in record time at that. Still, that wasn't enough to incriminate her though.

However, as I subtly watched her pencil movements on the page, I managed to locate a secret message.

I feel bad for you Lucy.

She quickly rubbed it out and very subtly showed signs of laughter. I managed to witness her answer the next six questions incorrectly before I was blocked by a supervisor.

**

At the end of the exam, I approached one of the staff members and reported the incident, citing the exact student. I was forced to make up some contrived reason for why I suspected them and then they were quickly investigated.

Lucy was allowed into the examination hall during the last exam, Humanities.

There was nothing I could do to boost her score, so she needed to do as well as she could without any support from me. It didn't matter that much though, all I needed was for her to attend the exam.

I had already guessed that her score would have been the lowest in the class no matter how well she did on this last exam due to the zeros or very low scores on her previous exams. I needed to keep Yogi away from her no matter what.

I had already made preparations for this, and to do so, I was forced to choose a sacrifice—someone in the class needed to get a zero.