Welcome to the Classroom of Espers (Classroom of the Elite x The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

Bonus 1: Saiki C Class Route

At the start, until Ryuen becomes king, Saiki doesn’t do anything (or rather, there’s no need for him to).

Since he’s in Class C (a class that’s about average or below average), he keeps his strength in check.

He goes to the library and gets bombarded with spoilers by Shiina, same as in the Class B route.

Even if he stays in the classroom, he’ll get hit with spoilers like: “So, Saiki-kun, how far have you read? Did you get to the part where the protagonist is revealed as the culprit in the third incident?”

By May, Ryuen had finished bringing Class C under control with violence.

He’s got Albert, Ishizaki, and Ibuki as his subordinates.

He makes Kaneda and Shiina run a study group.

Through Shiina → Ibuki → Ryuen, he learns that Saiki has somehow obtained past exam papers on his own.

“Past exams, huh? Pretty crafty of you. Depending on how you perform from now on, I might even make you my right-hand man.”

↑ I’ll pass.

“What? You know what’ll happen if you refuse, right?”

Albert and Ishizaki move into position.

↑ Anyway, I’m going home.

“Hey, don’t just walk away, you four-eyed bastard! (He slipped cleanly between Albert and Ishizaki…?!)”

↑ Don’t think you can move people against their will without offering anything in return. That’s arrogance. If you want to move me…

Ishizaki & Albert: “…… (gulp)”

↑ At least bring me some coffee jelly.

Ishizaki: “Huh?” Albert: “Why??” Ibuki: “Wow, that’s… cheap.”

Ryuen: “Kuh… kukuku, hahahaha! My bad! You’re right! Proper compensation for proper work, huh?! Hahaha!”

And so, in order to get Saiki to do anything, Ryuen ends up sending Ishizaki and the others to buy coffee jelly or sweets. But Saiki tells him, “No, you go yourself. You are the one who wants me to do your orders after all.”

Which leads to the amusing sight of Ryuen going to the supermarket or convenience store himself to buy sweets whenever he wants something from Saiki.

From May onward, Saiki’s actions are mostly support for Ryuen and scouting the movements of other classes.

He had no intention of interfering in the trial with Class D, but after seeing through psychometry and telepathic recollections from Ishizaki and the others how dirty their tactics were (provoking Sudou, insulting what’s precious to him), he had Shiina mediate to resolve it with: “We’ll withdraw the complaint, so back off.”

Ryuen: “Because of you, now it’s harder to tell how far the school will intervene.”

Saiki: I let the first trial slide. The school holds the evidence and the trial is run by the student council. That’s enough to understand the basics. You should be satisfied.

Ryuen: “Tch.”

On the side, Saiki also notices that Airi has a stalker. He plans to quietly take care of it, but seeing that Ayanokoji shows signs (telepathy) of being aware, he helps out behind the scenes to speed up the resolution.

During the deserted island test, Saiki gets bribed with sweets into staying behind on the island with Ryuen, Kaneda, and Ibuki, and they successfully deduce the leaders.

On the first day, he spends his time relaxing—drinking ice floats, or even making a Rainbow Road out of sand.

From the second day on, he hides together with Ryuen to avoid being spotted by the other classes (though whenever there’s no roll call, he just goes home).

Kaneda and Ibuki infiltrating other classes isn’t really necessary, but when it comes time to guess the leaders, there’s a risk people will realize Saiki is using telepathy, so he lets it slide. (He doesn’t have the heart to deliberately injure Ibuki’s face, so he uses points to buy cosmetics, applies them roughly, and then casts hypnosis so that everyone else sees her as having an injury.)

Ibuki: “The girls are gonna see right through this, you know.”

Saiki: It’s fine if they realize you’re a spy. You’re the decoy. If you and Kaneda disappear before the final day, Class B and D will drop their guard. That’s when I, who they assume already retired, will peek at the cards during the spot updates.

Ibuki: “Does Ryuen even know about this?”

Saiki: Yeah. If we don’t guess them all, I’ll end up working for free without any reward from now on.

Ibuki (thinking): (If that happens… maybe I’ll buy him something myself.)

Ishizaki: “Whoa!? Ibuki, are you okay!?”

Ibuki: “Huh? What are you on about?”

(Thanks to the hypnosis, everyone except Saiki sees Ibuki’s face as swollen.)

Ibuki (thinking): (Saiki’s good at this kind of thing…?)

Saiki: Not really. It’s pretty sloppy. To me, you look like Koume Dayu. Sorry about that. Just wash your face every day starting tomorrow.

Ibuki: “…? If I wash my face, the makeup will come off though.”

Saiki: Good grief.

He correctly identifies that when Horikita retires due to illness, the leader role passes to Ayanokoji. For Class B, instead of using threats, he simply uses telepathy to find out and frames it as: “Good thing we stuck it out with the spot updates.” In the end, he guesses every class.

During the shipboard test, Saiki wants to end things quickly, so he reads the rules from the teachers via telepathy, drops a hint to Shiina so she can solve it, and then dumps the results on Ryuen to handle. Of course, Shiina gets mad about being used like that, and to make it up to her, Saiki is often dragged along to bookstores or the library afterward.

Saiki (thinking): …Should I have asked Kaneda instead?

He steps in when Manabe is about to make Karuizawa apologize, since it looks like trouble waiting to happen.

During the sports festival, he criticizes Ryuen for trying to crush Horikita or using dirty tricks, and even uses his powers to prevent or interfere with them. This earns him Ryuen’s anger.

Ryuen: “So if I don’t give you rewards, you won’t do anything, huh…? No, if I give you nothing, you might just run wild on your own…!”

Saiki: If you play dirty, I’ll stop you. If you compete fairly, I won’t do a thing.

The whole Ayanokoji = X situation never comes to light because the Manabe incident gets erased, so Ryuen ignores him.

Ryuen: “X forced Suzune to retire, only to get tracked down by Saiki instead—what a pathetic outcome. I’d love to see his face, but it ain’t even worth it.”

From Ryuen’s perspective, it’s like: (There might be some mysterious guy, but with Saiki around, he hasn’t managed to do anything.)

In reality, Ayanokoji has no moves he can make. Even if he tries, Saiki detects it through telepathy or precognitive dreams..

In the original Saiki Kusuo manga, Saiki butted in when Saiko tried to bribe Takahashi, it seems he dislikes dirty tricks. That makes him fundamentally incompatible with Ryuen. Still, as long as things aren’t underhanded, Saiki won’t interfere, which forces Ryuen into a corner:

Ryuen: “Damn four-eyed bastard…!”

He has no choice but to search for ways to win without resorting to dirty tactics.

Tokito also sees Ryuen managing to produce results without foul play, so while the anti-Ryuen faction is practically holding its breath, they try bribing Saiki with sweets in hopes he’ll take Ryuen down. But Saiki just eats the sweets and lets them fight it out among themselves.

How Saiki is viewed in Class C

Ryuen:

Four-eyed bastard. Annoying as hell that he’s actually useful. And those damn sweets orders—don’t act like they’re different, they’re all coffee jelly! What’s with “look closely”? Don’t “look closely” me. 

A win’s a win, who cares if it’s dirty!? What do you mean, “play fair”!? I am being serious, hairpin boy! You even stopped me from crushing Suzune! And when I tried to get Kikyo to leak the Paper Shuffle test questions, you blocked that too!

—Not that we didn’t win anyway, but how the hell did you nail the exact range of questions they’d use!? Creepy as hell! …Tch, well, not having to take risks isn’t so bad, I guess. Hey, Albert, grab some pricey coffee jelly—we’re going to Saiki’s room.

Shiina:

A mystery-novel buddy. She finds it odd that someone with such high academic ability deliberately scores lower than he could.

The matter of past exams came up because Saiki, suspecting they might exist, asked the student council president, and it turned out they did. Later, at a study session, Shiina told Ibuki:

“According to Saiki-kun, it seems past exams exist. But if you study properly, they aren’t necessary.”

That led Ibuki to tell Ryuen:

“There’s this guy Shiina hangs out with. Wears glasses, hairpins in his hair—Saiki, I think. Word is, he’s got past exams.”

During the shipboard test, when Ryuen orders Kaneda and Saiki to help Shiina solve the VIP pattern, she works hard on it—but Saiki keeps dropping hints from the side until she realizes she’s being subtly guided.

Shiina: “You knew the answer before me, didn’t you?”

She presses him, and only forgives him on the condition that he accompanies her to the library and bookstores afterward.

If asked whether she’s dating Saiki, she’ll reply:

“We’re just reading buddies. But recently, I watched a movie with friends for the first time, and even saw a drama in a boy’s room. It was a lot of fun.”

She enjoys films and dramas at home, but admits she doesn’t really get the appeal of going to the theater.

Since Shiina tends to spoil stories, Saiki counterattacks by showing her adaptations of novels they’ve both read, dragging her onto his own turf. She doesn’t get hooked, but tells him:

“Invite me again sometime.”

For movies, he only shows her B-grade or lower works, since famous titles are always spoiled. He also screens carefully—no romance, horror, or creature features.

Ishizaki:

He’s come to think of Saiki as the most reliable classmate after Ryuen. At first, once Saiki and Ryuen began cooperating, Ishizaki wondered:

(Why this plain-looking guy…?)

But after seeing Saiki’s reliability and the results of the deserted island and shipboard exams, he’s come to place complete trust in him.

Since he thinks Saiki is physically weak, he's sworn that if upperclassmen or students from other classes ever try to target him, he’ll step in alongside Albert to protect him.

Albert:

Ryuen sees him as the man essential to being his right-hand man. Not so much a “second boss”, but more of a strategist figure. (Since depending on Ryuen’s methods, Saiki won’t necessarily cooperate.) Thanks to telepathy, Saiki understands Albert’s intentions better than other classmates, so communication between them is smooth. During exam periods, Saiki relied on him quite a lot.

Together with Ishizaki, he’s promised to step in if Saiki is ever in danger of being subjected to violence.

Ibuki:

Her impression at first was just “he’s smart,” but she’s come to see him as someone with all sorts of weird skills.

After learning he likes B-grade movies, she sometimes goes to watch films with him. Eventually Shiina started tagging along, so she’s gotten closer with Shiina too. But the movies Saiki picks with Ibuki tend to be splatter or creature flicks, which are hard to show Shiina. If they leave Shiina out, though, she sulks, so they end up watching mysteries and thrillers as well.

She doesn’t harbor any romantic feelings for Saiki. She envies the fact that Saiki is in a position where he can say whatever he wants to Ryuen, but since Saiki became a collaborator, Ryuen has mellowed out quite a bit, so her resentment has faded.

When Ibuki is alone with Saiki, Shiina sometimes gives her a sulky look, leaving Ibuki unsure what to do. Part of her finds it cute and wants to see more, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to damage her friendship with Shiina.