Chaoskouji

Arc 6 Chapter 6 - Festival Part 1

Finally, the day of the sports festival had arrived.

To start the day off, all the students gathered together for the opening ceremony, led by Fujimaki of 3-A, before splitting off into our two teams, Red and White, and eventually our individual classes.

The school had spared no efforts in setting up the festival. Both teams had a tent, along with individual ones for each class, separated on either side of the track. A medical tent had been set up, complete with air conditioning.

All across the track I could see adults setting up. Not only were hurdles and other such requirements being placed on the ground, but cameras and all manner of recording devices were being laid out, ensuring a complete coverage of every event. There would be no easy way to cheat without the school finding out.

But for now, my class was dealing with a different issue.

"What the hell is this?!"

Chabashira had given out the program for today, which included the real participation table. As expected, it wasn't what people had been expecting.

"That's the participation table the class submitted," Chabashira replied, bored.

"Sensei, this isn't what we agreed on. I thought we could only decide with a class concensus?" Hirata questioned. He was acting calm, but it was clearly a thin façade. Hirata was very mad about this turn of events.

"I was told the whole class had agreed to it, so I submitted it. Besides, there's nothing you can do about it now. This table has been finalised and that's what you're using today." Chabashira clearly had no intention to sugar-coat the situation. The class had to get their head around the change in the situation, and quickly.

Horikita narrowed her eyes. "Could you at least tell us who it was that submitted it, Chabashira-sensei?"

"No. The person in question requested their identity to be protected."

I felt a small amount of relief. I hadn't expected Chabashira to give me away, but it was always a possibility.

Horikita sighed but understood that there was no sense asking any more of Chabashira. Taking a copy, she began to look it over closely, before recognising the biggest change.

"This turned out pretty well for you, Ayanokouji-kun. I'll ask you honestly: did you submit the altered participation table?"

"No." It was true. Theirs had been the altered one. Mine was the original table submitted, so in a sense, I wasn't lying. "But I'm pretty happy with this turn of events."

Horikita and Hirata both gave me a searching look, before giving up on being able to tell if I was lying.

"I guess there's nothing we can do. Whoever submitted this definitely thought it through at least. It's not a complete attempt at sabotaging our winning chances, just a moderate one," Horikita determined, giving Hirata a suspicious glare.

"I wasn't the one to submit this table, Horikita-san. But you're right, there's nothing we can do. For now, it shouldn't matter for our races. We'll have to talk to Class A about the team events."

That was the biggest issue with the changed participation table. For our individual events there was no problem, but when we were grouped with Class A for events, certain strategies would go out the window since different people were involved.

Before any more discussion could be held, the school began calling for the students for the first 100m sprint. There were a lot of events to get through in one day, and there was no time to waste. If we didn't turn up, we would be disqualified.