The Start of The War

After that incident, my school life went surprisingly peaceful. True, I was still dragged to hang out at the unused classroom—usually by the displeased-looking Ouji—every day after school, but Sakuya didn’t order me to do anything more unreasonable than buying her drinks from the furthest vending machine from the base or playing chess—her favorite game—with her.

Even though I wasn’t so bad at chess, Sakuya always mercilessly defeated me in just a few moves, as if she could read my mind. That was the reason why no one would play chess with her.

Sakuya wasn’t always around, but Ouji would always be in the base, acting like its guardian spirit. On the other hand, the guy that I met the other day, Hiiro, rarely showed up at the base. The delinquents told me that he was always busy playing around with girls, as he was a famous playboy in this school.

From spending so much time in that classroom, I started getting to know other delinquents under Sakuya. There were a lot of second and third-year delinquents, and almost none of the first-years.

“Ah, that?” Ouji replied when I asked him about it in passing. “It’s because the first-years are scared to death when they saw how Kagura-san saved you on the first day of school. You can atone by recruiting more first-year delinquents to join us.”

“So it’s my fault?!” I retorted in exasperation.

Well, despite the delinquents’ belligerent appearance and fearsome reputation, once they accepted you as their own, they were quite friendly. In no time at all, they already treated me like I was part of their gang.

My unexpected school life went smoother than I thought. Despite hanging out with the delinquents every day, I still had normal friends in class. My classmates—Shou, Minami, and Reikou—would always have lunch together with me.

Without realizing it, I started to feel comfortable in my new school—comfortable enough to start forgetting about Sakurazaki Academy. However, one day, I was harshly reminded that this school was not an ordinary one.

*****

“…therefore, you shall be our messenger, Ryuu.” Sakuya said to me while sitting cross-legged on her ‘throne’—a chair set on top of the teacher’s desk in the unused classroom. Ouji and Hiiro stood behind her like two faithful watchdogs.

I stood in front of her and crossed my arms. “First of all, do you mind telling me properly from the start and not jumping right into the conclusion?”

After hanging around the delinquents every day, speaking with Sakuya no longer scared me.

Sakuya sighed as if she found it annoying. “Then I’ll leave the explanation to you, Tarou.”

I glanced around in confusion, searching for the person named ‘Tarou’. After two months being around the delinquents, I was quite confident that I knew everyone's name. And yet, I didn’t remember anyone with the simple name of ‘Tarou’.

“Yes, yes, leave it to me, Sakuya-chan~” Hiiro stepped forward and started skillfully setting up a projector.

“Wait, are you saying that Hiiro-san’s nickname is…?!” I couldn’t even bear to say that shameful nickname.

“Yeah, it’s Tarou.” Sakuya answered nonchalantly.

“Why is it always a dog’s nickname?!” I retorted.

“Because they both act like a dog in front of me.” Sakuya shrugged.

“Ugh…” I couldn’t find anything to retort. “Speaking of which, why is Hiiro-san the one doing the explaining?”

“Oh, it’s because he’s the intelligence-gathering team leader.” Sakuya answered lightly.

“Whoa…that sounds so cool. Who else is on his team?” I asked out of curiosity.

Sakuya shot me a puzzled look. “Do you think there’s anyone here smart enough to be on his team?”

“Then why the hell did you call it a team if he's the only one doing intelligence-gathering???” I stared at her in exasperation.

“Okay, pay attention, everyone!” Tarou—Hiiro finished his preparation and faced the delinquents. “If you don’t, I’ll make sure you regret it~”

Hiiro smiled menacingly and all the delinquents that had been noisily chattering immediately clammed up. They meekly sat down on the chairs or floor to listen to him, as if afraid that another word from Hiiro would spell their doom. Their reaction puzzled me, but I figured that they simply feared Sakuya's authority behind Hiiro.

“Good. So, I got some information from my sources that the other delinquents are starting to gather around and plotting something. Hm? You’re asking me who my source is? Hahaha, of course I can’t tell you that, you dummy!” Hiiro continued speaking as if he was doing a one-man skit.

“No one’s asking you, though…” Everyone thought so.

“Um…” I raised my hand.

“Yes, what is it, Ryuu-kun?” Hiiro and everyone else ended up calling me ‘Ryuu’, following Sakuya’s example.

“What do you mean by the other delinquents?” I tilted my head.

“Ahh, sorry, I forgot that you’re new here. Basically, even though Sakuya-chan is the Banchou, not every delinquent follows her.” Hiiro’s irked smile told me that he found this unacceptable. “And so, around a third of the delinquents in this school haven’t acknowledged Sakuya-chan. I’m talking about these guys.”

“Ah.” I recalled what Shou told me back at my first day, about some of the delinquents hating Sakuya for forcing them to behave.

“Then, as I was gathering information, these happened.” Hiiro projected a photo on the screen in front of the classroom.

I took a sharp breath when I recognized the person in the photo. He was one of Sakuya’s subordinates who usually hung around the base and played trump with everyone. In that photo, he was hung upside-down on the tree, stripped naked and beaten up. His body was painted with one word, ‘THIS’.

Hiiro put up the second photo. Once again, I recognized the person as Sakuya’s subordinate. He was also terribly beaten up and tied to a tree, stripped naked and had the word ‘IS’ painted on his body with red paint.

“This is the last one. It happened just yesterday.” Hiiro said and showed the third picture.

Collective gasps could be heard all around the room. Instead of the screen, everyone was glaring at Hiiro.

“Hm?” Not expecting such a reaction, Hiiro glanced at the screen.

It was photo of Hiiro and a beautiful female student eating ice cream at a café. The girl affectionately held out a spoon at Hiiro to spoon-feed him.

“A-Ahh, wrong photo.”

Hiiro quickly switched the photo, but the next photo was also of Hiiro and a different girl, whose beauty wasn’t inferior to the first girl. This time they were standing in front of an expensive boutique with hands full of shopping bags. When Hiiro switched it again, it was of him and another different girl, also a beauty, queuing to watch a movie in the cinema. The date on those photos showed that they were all taken on the same day.

“How the hell did he date three different girls in just one day?! And while still doing his information-gathering job?! And why are all of them exceptionally beautiful?!” I retorted internally.

Hiiro hurriedly took out the right photo, but a wave of bloodlust already rose from everyone watching.

“You bastard, how dare you show such a lovey-dovey photo to us?! Don’t you know that none of us ever had a girlfriend?!”

“Right, right! I’d kill to have such a cute girl with me—and you have three!”

“Um…I do have a girlfriend…”

“Shut it, Touma! No one wants to hear your love story now!”

“Tarou.” Sakuya’s cold voice silenced everyone else's protests. “Do your job properly.”

She glared icily at Hiiro, but instead of cowering, Hiiro seemed really ecstatic, as if Sakuya had just rewarded him.

“No, well, it is a reward, in some way…” I prayed that I wouldn’t turn out like him nor Ouji.

“Ahem. This is the last photo.” Hiiro reverted back to his serious tone.

The person in the photo was definitely Sakuya’s subordinate, the poor guy who got burned cookies from Sakuya once. Just like before, he was beaten up and stripped naked. The word painted on him was, ‘WAR’.

“A letter of challenge, huh?” Ouji narrowed his eyes in distaste.

“Right. They wrote ‘THIS IS WAR’ on our comrades’ bodies, which meant those riffraffs are provoking us.” Sakuya’s lips were pulled into the ferocious grin of an angry predator. “And so, Ryuu, you’ll be our messenger to answer their challenge.”

“W-Wait a minute!” I leapt to my feet. “Why am I the messenger?! Don’t you know that I can’t fight?!”

Sakuya seemed puzzled. “Yeah, I know. That’s exactly why I chose you to be the messenger.”

“H-Huh…?” I was even more confused. “Don’t you know that they’ll attack the enemy’s messenger, regardless of what news they bring?!”

“What are you talking about?” Sakuya wore a patient look as she carefully explained, “You can’t attack the enemy’s messenger as you like—have you never heard of ‘diplomacy immunity’? There’s an international treaty that specifically protected those messengers. If they violate the treaty, it’ll be treated as a war crime. Therefore, if you just go to them and tell them that we accept the challenge, you’ll be okay.”

I stared at Sakuya in disbelief. “Are you seriously believing that a bunch of high school delinquents will follow the international law regarding messengers?”

Sakuya’s brows twitched. “Well, even if they won’t, they still have their warrior honour code. They won’t lay a hand on a messenger like you.”

I deeply sighed. “Which era did you come from, seriously? This feels like a really bad idea.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, Ryuu-kun.” Hiiro plopped his hand on my shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “If it looks bad, you can always run away.”

“So you’re already assuming that something bad will happen?!” I felt like crying.

“Or you can just surrender on the spot.” Ouji suggested.

“You’re already assuming that I won't be able to escape, aren’t you?!”

“Listen up, Ryuu!” Sakuya stood up on the desk. “You don’t need to worry about such trivial things! Even if they catch you, they’ll probably only beat you up for a bit!”

“You should worry about that!”

“But we’ll definitely come to save you!” Sakuya flashed a confident grin. “No matter what happens, we absolutely won’t abandon you! I promised that on my pride as the Banchou!”

“Sakuya-san…” I was surprised by her words.

If there was one thing I learned from spending much time with Sakuya, it was how much she prided herself as the Banchou. It was to the extent that she would never decline anyone who challenged her, no matter how disadvantageous the situation be.

“Now, go and make them regret laying their hands on you!” Sakuya ordered gallantly.

“Yes!” I turned toward the door. “Wait—you just said that I’ll definitely get beaten up, didn’t you?!”

“I said no such thing!” Sakuya snapped at me. “Now off you go!”

*****

“Haaa…” I sighed for the umpteenth time as I walked toward the location described by Hiiro. “Why did I let myself be deceived by someone like her…? This is definitely a trap, no mistake about it.” I grumbled to myself.

Hiiro told me that those delinquents—it’s troublesome to differentiate them so let’s just call them the rebels—usually hung out at the back of the school buildings. All I needed to do was tell them that we accepted their challenge and arranged the time and place for the big fight. However, I already had the feelings that things wouldn’t go so smoothly.

“Is this the place…?” I hid at the corner of the building and took a peek.

It was simply an empty lot, with few trees and overgrown grasses. While the space was big enough to accommodate double the amount of Sakuya’s subordinates, I didn’t see anyone around, which made me doubt Hiiro’s information.

“Did I come to the wrong place…?” I mulled over the route that I took. “No, I’m quite sure that this is the right place. Or did I miss something…?”

I was lost in my thoughts, so much that I only realized someone had sneaked up on me when a wooden bat was only an inch away from my head. I didn’t even have the time to think, “Oh, damn—”

THUD!!!

*****

“Is this really fine, Sakuya-chan?” Hiiro glanced at me restlessly, keeping his voice low enough to escape the chattering delinquents' attention.

It was rare of him, who usually couldn’t care less about other people if they weren’t girls.

“It’s fine. Everything is going according to the plan.” I answered calmly. My gaze scanned the classroom, where my subordinates were being visibly excited about going to war.

“But what if they really beat him up?” Hiiro argued.

“They won’t. He’s a precious hostage—they’ll treat him nicely.”

“But…”

“Tarou. You seem awfully concerned about Ryuu.” I stared at Hiiro. “He’ll be fine. He’s the perfect bait to walk into their trap, after all.”

My fingers caressed the letter that Hiiro found lying next to my beaten-up subordinate yesterday. It specified a certain time and place for a one-on-one duel, but I was willing to bet my position as Banchou that it was a trap. Those rebels were quite stupid to think that I'd agree to such a suspicious invitation, but then again, they were a bunch of muscleheads.

Hiiro smiled helplessly. “And you’re as cruel as usual, Sakuya-chan. I’m simply worried that my new kouhai will hate you for sending him into a trap. Despite what he said, I think he trusts you quite deeply.”

“Trust, huh…?” I looked away.

“Don’t trust anyone.”

“Only the weak trusts others.”

“Always doubt those who show kindness to you.”

“Those who believe will be taken advantage of.”

“The truly strong person doesn’t need any trust.”

I shook my head, chasing away those unpleasant words that kept popping up in my mind.

“Kagura-san? What’s wrong?” Ouji, who kept silent up until now by my side, peered at my face worriedly.

“No…”

Ting.

The sound of Hiiro's phone notification saved me from having to give out an excuse. I took out the phone I borrowed from him and read the message. As I read it, my lips were pulled back, forming a ferocious grin.

“They took the bait. It’s time.”