The True Elites

Chapter 1-6: May 1st

Ayanokōjis' POV

"So we'll finally get to see what Kururugi's doing in this class, huh?"

"That's right. I've been wondering about that as well."

Arriving to class, Sora and Light exchanged casual conversation while Shiro silently held Sora's hand - mainly, they were talking about Kururugi, who was talking to Lelouch just next to me. Light and Blank arriving together was certainly unusual - it had been one week since the opening ceremony and so far everyone had arrived to class alone, save for Sora and Shiro.

Today we had swimming class, which meant that the physical attributes of Class E were going to be evaluated. Thinking about it, I wondered where I ranked within Class E - my classmates all knew about my mental capacity by now, but everyone was still in the dark about each others athletic prowess.

"Hey, Sora, will you and Shiro be all right?" I decided to call out to him.

"What do you mean?" Kururugi asked. "Are you asking if they can swim or not?"

"No. I've noticed that Sora and Shiro heavily rely on each others presence to function over the past week, and swimming isn't really something you can do while linked to another." I explained.

"Nii and I are fine as long as we're in the same room." Shiro replied monotonously.

"That's a weakness you guys should really work on. What is the reason you're so reliant on each other?" Lelouch said.

"We'd-- Rather not talk about." Sora said as he sat down at his desk.

I recalled the darkness that had seeped out of Sora's eyes when he looked into mine six days ago. Something had obviously happened in Blank's past to make them this way, to be so dependent on each other while carrying such a heavy burden.

"Alright, let's place bets! Ryuzaki has kindly prepared a spreadsheet for us to use for both the fastest and slowest swimmers! 1000 points to enter!" Sora declared, clearly changing the subject.

We all gathered around his desk as he got out a tablet and opened a spreadsheet. All the Class E students' names were displayed, and there were two columns of numbers, presumably representing betting odds, accompanying them labelled 'Fastest' and 'Slowest' .

As of right now, Kururugi had the lowest odds of being the fastest swimmer at one to four while Shiro had the lowest odds of being the slowest with one to eight. The odds assigned to me were two to three for being the fastest and twenty to one for being the slowest. In other words, the odds are low that I'll be the fastest and the odds are high that I'll be the slowest.

This meant that Ryuzaki had evaluated me quite highly. In fact, after Kururugi I had the lowest odds of being the fastest and I also had the second-highest odds if I was bet on being the slowest. If someone was to bet on me being the slowest and I was, then they would win a payout of 20,000 points. Conversely, if someone bet on me being the fastest and I was then they would only win 670 points - in other words, Ryuzaki thought it was likely that I'd be in the top two for fastest time and was almost guaranteed to not finish last.

"Can I add one rule?" Lelouch asked.

"What is it?" Sora queried in response.

Lelouch looked straight at me. "So that the betting is fair, no one is allowed to purposely lower their speed."

"Ah, so the compulsive gambler is worried about the results being skewed by ordinary-student-kun, is that it?" Sora mocked both Lelouch and me at the same time, looking smug.

"My holding back will depend on whether only Class E is present at the pool or not." I interjected, attempting to set clear conditions to my participation.