Chapter 68: Operation: Storm the Castle

"Okay, Operation: Rescue Prince FujiJerk is a-go!" Toujo declares, slapping his marker on my whiteboard.

We are in my room. It is now the official "war room."

General Fluff sits in the corner, like a silent, pink guardian.

Rika is passing out snacks. Daiki is muttering at my computer. Hiroto is storyboarding.

"This plan is terrible," I say, looking at Toujo's drawing. It is a stick figure (me) karate-chopping a larger stick figure (the Emperor).

"It is NOT terrible!" Toujo defends. "It is simple! Rika, you use your cuteness to distract the guards. Daiki, you hack the security cameras. I'll grappling hook the outer wall - I saw one on Amazon - and then Aoi, you run in, find Fuji, and we escape!"

"Where does I come in?" Hiroto asks, offended.

"You, my friend," Toujo says, "are the getaway driver. You're famous. Your car can outrun anything."

"My agency limo is quite fast," Hiroto muses. "Okay, I am in!"

"You are all insane," Daiki grunts, not looking up from my screen. "I am looking at the Imperial Household's public website. The firewall is military-grade. I can't just hack it. This is not a video game."

"So what are you doing?" Rika asks, handing him a soda.

"I'm not hacking. I'm researching. His name is Prince Kenji. Second son. Not in line for the throne directly because his sister is first. He's the spare."

"The spare," I repeat, my stomach twisting.

"He was a model student. Perfect grades. Kendo champion. Then... eighteen months ago... he publicly argued with his father, the Crown Prince, at an event. He said he wanted to live a normal life. It was a huge scandal. They scrubbed it from the net, but... I found it. He ran away. To our school."

He did it on purpose. His run-down apartment. His broken AC. It was all real. It was his choice.

He chose to be normal. And he found me.

And now they dragged him back.

"We can't break in," Rika says softly. "They will arrest us. And it will make it worse for him."

She's right. My father will kill me. His father will... I don't know. Start a war.

"So what do we do?" Toujo groans, erasing his grappling hook. "We just wait? He said wait. Waiting is boring!"

"We don't wait," Hiroto says, his eyes gleaming. He turns his phone around. It's a news article.

"The Annual Imperial Cherry Blossom Festival. Open to the Public and Press. This Friday. The Imperial Family is scheduled to attend to greet the public."

We all stare at the screen.

"Open... to the public?" Rika whispers.

"He will be there," Hiroto says. "He has to be. They want to show him off. Show that he is back in line."

Daiki looks at me. His face is serious. No smirk. No jealousy. Just determination.

"We can't storm the castle," he says. "So we go in through the front door."

"But we can't just talk to him," I say. "He'll be surrounded by guards. By his father."

"He won't need to talk," Hiroto grins, pulling out his fake mustache again.

"We just need to deliver a message. A big one. A chaotic one. A message that only Aoi can deliver."

He looks at me. He grins.

"Angel... how do you feel about crashing a Royal party?"

My Bloody Twilight grin returns. For the first time in days.

"I thought you'd never ask."