This was one hell of a tedious event, that has now ended.
Inadvertently, it was my win and the loss for Horikita & Co.
However, it's not over yet.
Every war has it's consequences, which the survivors have to face and endure.
And with the end of this war, a new storm would start brewing.
Well, it's not like I would be affected in any way, so I don't need to bother about that.
Now, it's time for the epilogue, or more like an explanation of what happened.
There were two unexpected events that happened.
First one was, even though I got the highest number of criticism votes originally, how did it turn out that the only discrepancy was my praise vote for a student of another class was not casted.
And the second one is how was Sakura's message in my pen drive.
The first one is a little trickier.
It's a fact that on the ballot papers, I got the highest number of criticism votes.
So, if someone were to calculate manually after I altered the results again, then it would have shown the true results.
For that we have to rewind to a few days before.
***
"VICTORY"
It's my first win after losing so many times in a row in this video game.
And, at the same time, the DM I sent, was replied back.
This was my last resort for this kind of situations.
Because the receiver of my message was none other than, acting director Tsukishiro himself.
For the past few days, I was analyzing his personality, motivation, and other trivial things.
Afterwards, I deduced that he would be the perfect one to contact in this case.
Why?
That's because, if this fraudulent activity is found out, then apart from me, the one who would be affected the most would be him.
Being the one to propose such an outrageous test and to expel an innocent student on top of it, all of the blame would fall on Tsukishiro.
He would be debarred from his position and penalized heavily, without fulfilling his target of expelling Ayanokouji.
That's why, I just sent this information to him from an anonymous account, with a suggestion to alter the ballot papers instead, by which the number of votes would be tallied with the result.
However....
"Who are you? How did you get my number?"
That's the reply I got.
It was a natural response, considering, the director's contact information is not disclosed anywhere, except to the instructors.
And instructors need not send him messages from an unknown account, unless they are scheming something.
Well, I got his number when I was logged in during the in-class voting special exam.
It was written with all the other instructors' contact information.
I didn't call him, because it would be bad if he finds out about me from my voice somehow.
Changing voice during calls is not my forte.
So, I preferred contacting him through text message.
"It doesn't matter who I am. The thing that matters the most right now is, the actual result and the declared one, of the in-class voting special exam for class 1C are totally different. You can confirm it by rechecking yourself."
I replied back.
Tsukishiro is not actually aware of this discrepancy, so I let him know by this message.
He was just concerned with getting Ayanokouji expelled.
When, the results said that he got the highest number of praise votes in class 1C, Tsukishiro just ignored whoever got the highest number of criticism votes.
And he is aware of the weight of this discrepancy, and the consequences, if it's ever found out.
Hence, I did inform him that class 1C is planning to file a rechecking request for that exam.
Moreover, I offered him a suggestion to alter the ballot papers manually by himself or by any other means, since I am aware of the fact that he is a capable man appointed by Ayanokouji's father himself.
But for a long time he didn't reply to my suggestion.
Well, by going through common sense, it would have been obvious to Tsukishiro that I, Yamauchi, was the one, sending those messages, because I would be saved from expulsion that way.
However, considering Yamauchi's previous achievements, which Tsukishiro has all the data on, he would never think Yamauchi would be able to know about these things.
So, a false picture of an unknown mastermind, probably an instructor, would be created in his head, whom he would want to single out like Sakayanagi did to me initially.
Therefore, I was sure of the fact that he would most probably accept my suggestion unless he wanted to be punished himself.
But, then arises the most important question, which he asked by replying to my message.
" If I were capable of altering the ballot papers, then wouldn't I just alter Ayanokouji-kun's, to expel him?"
I had already told him that I knew about his motive of getting Ayanokouji expelled.
So, he is asking me a quite valid question by neither confirming nor denying my claims.
It is undeniably true that if someone were able to interfere with the exam process that much, then wouldn't it have been better if he just altered Ayanokouji's number of votes only, to expel him?
"Just to make sure you don't misunderstand, I am saying this prior. I am not Sakayanagi."
That's the reply I sent.
What does me not being Sakayanagi signify?
Before that voting exam started, Tsukishiro contacted her and instructed to expel Ayanokouji by whichever means possible.
However, she not only refused to obey Tsukishiro, Sakayanagi, in fact directed the whole of class 1A students to cast their praise votes for Ayanokouji, making him the one getting the highest number of praise votes in class 1C.
So, if Tsukishiro were to alter Ayanokouji's number of votes to expel him, then he would have to face Sakayanagi, which he would want to avoid the most.
So to sum it up, I proposed Tsukishiro to alter the ballot papers manually, so that the results would tally up with the declared results, by technically reminding him of the consequences he would have to face.
And I thought that he would most probably accept my proposal, considering his position would be in danger otherwise.
However, there was one thing I overlooked.
I am just acting upon my knowledge of this light novel, which I have read just upto the year 1 volume 10.
Therefore, the information that was given on Tsukishiro till that volume is very limited.
Basically, I didn't have the complete idea of what kind of person he was.
"I refuse."
That's the reply he gave to my proposal.
Indeed.
It was naive of me to think that he would accept something like this too easily.
Moreover, after he finds out about the discrepancy, he can appoint a team of CS experts to find the digital footprints left after the SQL injection I performed.
That would be the end for me.
And, Tsukishiro is, ideally, an unknown element to me.
So, there might be some ways I am missing in my deduction.
Therefore there was only one way for me to seal this deal.
It's undeniably a drastic measure, for sure.
But, my survival takes top most priority here.
Hence I sent the final proposal.
"If you do as I mentioned above, then I am willing to co-operate with you to expel Ayanokouji."
And, finally, he agreed.
***
That brings us to the present scenario.
And about Sakura's video message, it was quite simple.
Sakura Airi is good natured by heart.
She can't just sit still, if she gets to know that her friends are suffering.
So, I just sent her some pics of Haruka's pale and thin body with some sympathetic message about how she is dead set on expelling me through her SNS from that article that was sent to me.
This time I decided to reveal myself as Yamauchi to her, to get her sympathy.
After that, she was the one who came up with the idea of video message.
And, I just wrote some code to automatically open the video if ran through, in any device.
It's effectiveness is yet to be seen though.
By the way, as for punishment, Chabashira told me that, the higher ups decided to suspend me from school for a week until the last special exam, on top of writing an apology letter for not following the rules of a special exam.
Well, it's not that much of a problem for me, so it's all good.
The afternoon classes were over, when I completed writing my apology letter and hanging around the nurse's office.
After that, I waited for a few minutes until everyone in our class was gone, and started moving to pick up my bag.
On my way there, I was confronted by a familiar face again.
"I have been waiting for you. Yamauchi-kun."
"Me too, Horikita."