A Sacrificial Pawn

“—oi, wake up!”

I jolted awake from a slap on the back of my head. That spot throbbed painfully, as if it was hit by a blunt object.

“No, wait, it did get hit by a wooden bat.” I recalled the moment I realized someone was swinging a wooden bat at me. “I don’t want to admit it, but…”

I glanced at my surroundings. We were at the vacant lot behind the school buildings that was supposedly empty when I checked it earlier. My body was tied to a chair and a cloth was stuffed into my mouth, preventing me from making any sound. I was completely surrounded by the rebels, who glared at me in hostility. I also saw Delinquent A and B among the rebels.

“Heh, so this is Kagura’s newest toy.”

I focused my gaze to the male student in front of me. He seemed to be in the same year as me, with a muscular build and a tall stature. His dark red hair was definitely dyed, unlike Hiiro’s natural blonde, and his razor-sharp black eyes were staring at me intently.

“Don’t worry, I’ve called your owner to come and pick you up.” He threw my phone up and down in his hand.

I narrowed my eyes. “So I walked right into their trap? Sakuya-san must’ve known about it and sent me, the most useless person around, to spring their trap. How irritating.”

Surprisingly, I felt more irritated at my useless self who couldn’t even fight like the other delinquents—although it didn’t erase the fact that I was still angry at Sakuya for using me as a bait.

“Ah, that’s right, I haven’t introduced myself to you.” He recalled that I was a new student. “I’m Karasu Takashi, the one who will become this school’s Banchou! It’ll be better for you to remember your new leader’s name.” Takashi smiled confidently.

“My, someone is getting quite cocky here.”

That amplified voice caught all of our attention. Takashi turned around and I peeked from his side. The other rebels started making a ruckus when they recognized that voice.

“Just be careful so that the rug won’t be pulled from under your feet, okay?” Sakuya smiled cynically while holding a megaphone that she procured from who-knows-where.

She was sitting—reclining, to be exact—on a chair that was set on top of the teacher’s desk that she always used. Four of her subordinates slowly yet very carefully carried the desk like slaves carrying the princess’ throne. Following closely behind her were Ouji, Hiiro, and the rest of Sakuya’s subordinates.

This weird procession stopped a few meters away from where the rebels stood, creating the situation of two armies glaring at each other.

“Hey, Ryuu. Still alive and well, I see.” Sakuya grinned at me without any hint of remorse for sacrificing me as the bait.

I couldn’t speak with the cloth in my mouth, but I hoped my glaring eyes were enough to tell Sakuya of how I felt.

“Oh, how kind of you to grace us with your presence, Princess?” Takashi quickly regained his composure and started to mock Sakuya loudly. “Surely it’s not because you miss your new toy?”

“Hmph, aren’t you the one begging for me to come?” Sakuya opened the phone and started reading Takashi's message out loud. “I have your precious subordinate in my hand. If you don’t want to see him get hurt, I suggest you come to the specified place. Isn’t this just a roundabout way to say that you really miss me?”

Takashi’s face darkened with anger. “Let’s see if you can say that again after I teach you your true place! Listen well, Kagura Sakuya! I challenge you for your position as Banchou!” Takashi pointed a finger at her. “If you manage to defeat me, then it’s my loss, but if I defeat you, then you’ll hand over your position! We’ll both fight without holding anything back! However…”

Takashi’s eyes gleamed cunningly.

“…Mikado and Mikoto will stay behind. As for the reason…” Takashi roughly brushed my hair, implying his threat to harm me. “…you already know, right?”

I widened my eyes and strongly shook my head, asking Sakuya not to comply with his demands. While Sakuya’s side outnumbered the rebels, they weren’t exactly good with fighting. Most of them had never even gotten into a fight with delinquents from another school. The strongest and most reliable fighters among them were Ouji and Hiiro. If the two were taken out from the field, then Sakuya’s side would be hard-pressed to win against the rebels.

However, Sakuya didn’t seem perturbed by Takashi’s demand. On the contrary, she sighed, as if she had foreseen his demand…or she simply just found it troublesome.

“Hey riffraff, I think you’re mistaking something here.” Sakuya spoke up. “I can see you’re trying to use the hostage against me, but it’s not going to work. After all, he’s just a sacrificial pawn.”

At her remark, the rebels instantly raised a commotion, clearly disturbed by Sakuya’s words. I clenched my fist, feeling vexed that I couldn’t even refute her harsh words.

“W-Wha—”

“I thought maybe you're a bit smarter than the rest, but apparently I was mistaken. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that the letter was a trap?” Sakuya smiled mockingly at the dumbfounded Takashi. “Even if, for argument’s sake, I didn’t notice your shallow scheme, did you think I would only send one person who can’t even fight as a scout? No matter how you look at it, that boy was just a bait to make you think that you can win against me.”

Sakuya’s mocking smile widened into a grin.

“He’s a chess piece that’s completely and utterly useless—a mere sacrificial pawn.”

“Y-You…!” Takashi stepped toward Sakuya, anger filled his eyes.

“So, go ahead! You may beat him up, torture him, or even cut a finger or two!” Sakuya’s grin twisted into a sinister smirk. “It won’t change anything.”

“Grrr…! All of you! Go and drag her down from there!” Takashi roared with bloodshot eyes. “Anyone who can bring her to me will be my right hand-man! Beat up anyone who stand in your way! GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

With a deafening battle cry, the rebels rushed toward Sakuya and her subordinates, completely leaving me behind as if I was an insignificant burden. No, I already realized that I was a burden no matter which side I stood with. Thus, I contented myself by watching the war unfold.

“You lot! Just move as we planned and it will be fine!” Sakuya bolstered her subordinate’s fighting spirit. “They’re just riffraffs after all! Now, go and beat down those fools to a pulp!”

“UWOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

With a ground-shaking cry, led by Ouji, Sakuya’s subordinates rushed to meet their enemy. In a few seconds, both armies clashed and brawled with each other, some using their bare fists like Ouji while others used wooden bats to slug their enemy. Hiiro stayed next to Sakuya, acting as the last line of defense.

I thought Sakuya would just sit back and watch the war like me, but instead she raised her megaphone.

“Touma! Dodge to the left and switch enemies with Kikuta!” “Yuuji, hit him in the left flank and knock him out!” “Abe, that guy on your right is limping! Kick his other leg too!” “Kazu, roll forward and take his back!” “Pochi! The commander is at your 3 o’clock! Push your way through!”

Sakuya kept barking out specific orders through her megaphone, all while monitoring the whole battlefield. What was more surprising was the delinquents’ reaction. Despite their inexperience, they were able to swiftly move as Sakuya instructed without any delay, so that even if their enemy also heard the instruction, they couldn’t act upon it.

“Shit! What the hell is that little girl doing?! Is this some kind of witchcraft?!” Takashi cursed as his side started to get overwhelmed by Sakuya’s subordinates.

“Hmph.” Sakuya’s lips curled into a fearless grin. “War is simply a chess game. If you can’t move your pawns right, it’ll ultimately be your loss.”

“Ugh!” Takashi gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t possibly block Sakuya’s extremely specific orders from his current position. “I’ll definitely make you regret insulting this great me!”

He lunged forward, skillfully dodging any attacks coming his way and smoothly counterattacking, taking down many of Sakuya’s subordinates.

“Hou, so the king isn’t so useless after all.” Sakuya let out a voice of admiration at Takashi’s display of skill. “Tarou, it’s your turn now.” She told Hiiro.

“Finally! I’m getting bored here!” Hiiro replied with a wide grin. “Ah, please don’t misunderstand, Sakuya-chan, I’m not saying that you’re boring or anything, in fact it’s a great honor for me to stay close to you and admire your beauty up-close…”

“Yes, yes, just get going!” Sakuya cut Hiiro’s chattering and sent him into the battlefield. “Pochi! Keep the commander company, will you?” She raised her voice at Ouji.

“Roger!” Ouji swiftly abandoned his opponent and lunged straight towards Takashi.

“Ukh…!” Takashi groaned as he barely blocked Ouji’s heavy blow. “You, how could you follow that little girl’s orders and let her treat you like a dog?! How far have you fallen?!” He protested.

“The loser has no right to argue with the victor’s decision.” Ouji calmly answered. “Besides, if I can be useful to Kagura-san by becoming her dog, I’ll gladly do it.”

“You’re insane!” Takashi grimaced as he realized Ouji’s fanatic devotion toward Sakuya.

Meanwhile, Hiiro slipped into the battlefield, but instead of using his fist, he sidled up close to one of the rebels and started whispering in his ears.

“Hey, hey, I heard you like Mitsuki-san from Class 2-C?”

“W-W-W-WHA—?!”

That rebel instantly fell into a fluster as Hiiro revealed his biggest secret.

“If you quietly surrender, I’ll introduce you to her, how about it?” Hiiro grinned devilishly, living up to his nickname of ‘Blonde Devil’.

“Ugh…I-I give up…” That rebel slumped to the ground, unable to win against the temptation of having a chance at high school romance life.

Hiiro patted his shoulder and went to another rebel.

“Hey, the other day, I saw you went into a cosplay shop, you know?” Hiiro whispered to him.

“T-T-That’s not…!” This rebel also fell into a panic.

“Hm? Are you saying that the person cross-dressing in this photo isn’t you? Then it’s fine if I spread this photo to everyone at school, right~?”

Hiiro gleefully held up a photo that portrayed a high school student cosplaying as a very beautiful maid.

“I-Impossible! H-How did you get THAT?!” That rebel backed away from Hiiro in pure terror.

“It’s a trade secret~” Hiiro grinned. “Since this person isn’t you, I’ll go ahead and spread it, okay?”

“NO! I GIVE UP! PLEASE! ANYTHING BUT THAT!” That rebel crumbled to his knees, sobbing as he pleaded.

“Okay, okay, good boy.” Hiiro patted his head in satisfaction before moving on to his next target.

“Uwaa…how merciless.” I shuddered at seeing Hiiro ‘persuading’ the rebels one by one using devilish schemes. “As expected of the intelligence-gathering team leader. No wonder the delinquents are so afraid of Hiiro—they're scared he'll reveal their deepest secrets.”

“Damn! Oi, what happened to you all?!” Takashi finally realized that his allies were diminishing rapidly, most of them were kneeling on the ground without any fighting spirit left. “Is this your doing, Mikoto Hiiro?!”

“Hmm? What are you saying? I just persuaded them a bit.” Hiiro’s smile was perfectly pure and innocent. “They suddenly fell to the ground on their own, so why are you accusing me?”

“No, no, that’s because you blackmailed them, isn’t it!” Everyone who witnessed what happened retorted internally.

“Tch, why is nothing going as planned?!” Takashi cursed as he desperately dodged Ouji’s deadly blows.

From the look of it, there was only a handful of his allies left standing. The rest of them were either knocked out or fell victim to Hiiro’s blackmail.

“Now that it’s come to this…!”

Takashi leapt backward and rushed towards the hostage—namely, me.

“Nobody move!” Takashi roared and the noise of fighting died down.

Everyone was staring at Takashi, who held a pocket knife at my throat. I went completely still, fearing that a single move might cost me my neck.

“Kagura Sakuya! If you value his neck, then come here on your own!” Takashi glared at Sakuya, who was still reclining on her seat.

“Hmm…so he’s finally cornered to a ‘check’, huh?” Sakuya muttered to herself, but she still stepped down from her throne and walked casually toward Takashi and me.

The delinquents, whether they were rebels or Sakuya’s subordinates, hurriedly moved out of her way, paving a straight path toward us. Everyone was holding their breath, watching anxiously as this war headed to its climax.

“Hey riffraff, didn’t you hear what I said earlier?” Sakuya started speaking as she approached us. “That boy is just a sacrificial pawn—an insignificant hostage…”

“Shut up! To hell with your nonsense! I don’t believe you!” Takashi snapped at her. “If he’s really that insignificant, then why did you bring all of your subordinates here?! This guy clearly has value in your eyes, isn’t he?!”

Sakuya’s brows twitched as she smiled sarcastically. “Well, you got a point there. If he weren’t around, no one would buy me a can of juice again.”

“Kagura-san, I’m more than willing to go buy—hmmpphhh!”

“Ouji-senpai, please shut up and read the mood a bit, okay~”

Sakuya blatantly ignored her two strongest fighters’ frolicking and stared straight at Takashi. Her fiery red eyes gleamed ominously as she took another step forward.

“Stop right there! Don’t get any closer!” Takashi yelled.

He was trying to look tough, but I could see his hand trembling faintly. I guessed despite all of his provocations, he was actually scared of Sakuya, who was standing a few steps away.

“So? What will it be?” Sakuya shrugged her shoulders. “You’re going to insist that I surrender to you, using the trump card known as the hostage to force my hand?”

“Y-Yeah!” Takashi flinched from Sakuya’s bullseye guess. “If you don’t surrender your Banchou position to me, I’ll hurt this guy!”

“I have a name, you know? Why is everyone so conveniently forgetting my name?” I protested silently.

“Do you really want this position that badly?” Sakuya asked.

“That’s right! I’ll do whatever it takes to get that position! If I become the Banchou, then even my older brother will have to acknowledge me!” Takashi replied fiercely.

“Then, you’ve already resolved yourself, right?” Sakuya’s smile darkened. “Resolved to be a murderer.”

“Wha…?!” Takashi was stunned by Sakuya’s extreme words.

“Why are you acting so surprised? Don’t you know that you’re only an inch away from killing him? Look, every human being has something called a carotid artery, right at the sides of their neck. If you press the knife a liiittle bit harder…” Sakuya took a step forward while smiling ominously. “…he’ll die, you know?”

“N-No…” Takashi shook his head, his hand’s trembling worsened. “I-I’m just going to hurt him a bit…I don’t…”

“But you’re pointing the knife at the right spot, you know?” Sakuya took another step forward, slowly but surely closing the gap between them. “If you put even a bit more strength into your hand, you can easily slice it apart. Go ahead and try it out.”

“No…! I-I’m not going to kill him…!” Takashi shouted with shaky voice.

“Huh? What are you saying? Didn’t you already resolve yourself to do whatever it takes to become the Banchou? Look, let me show you.” Sakuya took the final step and stopped right in front of Takashi, who was too distracted to notice this.

She gently, like a mother teaching her child, took hold of Takashi’s hand and started pressing the knife deeper. I winced at the searing pain on my neck, fully realizing that fresh blood had started to drip from the wound.

“See? It’s easy, right?” Sakuya peered at Takashi’s ashen face, all while smiling gleefully and ominously. “If you keep pushing like that, he will definitely die and you’ll become a murderer.”

“UWAAAAHH!!!” Takashi released the knife and fell to his bottom, gazing at Sakuya with fearful eyes.

“My, how clumsy of you. Here, I’ll return this to you.” Sakuya casually picked up the knife and pressed it into Takashi’s hand. “Ah, that’s right. I finally understand why you don’t want to kill him. It’s because it won’t make you the Banchou, right? Then, how about this?”

Sakuya slowly raised Takashi’s knife-holding hand and pressed it to her own neck.

“If you kill me, then you’ll become the new Banchou, right? How does that sound? You desperately want to be the Banchou, don’t you? Isn’t this the perfect chance?” Sakuya inched closer to Takashi and the knife cut into her skin.

A droplet of blood started trailing down Sakuya’s porcelain white skin, staining it scarlet.

“I…I…” Takashi’s body started trembling uncontrollably.

“Come on, you just have to press it a bit further. Or you can always swing it with all your strength. I’m sure even my head will go flying if you do that. Didn’t you say that you would do whatever it takes to become the Banchou?”

Sakuya’s lips were pulled into a ferocious grin.

“Even if it means being a murderer?”

“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Clink.

Takashi tore his hand away from Sakuya’s grip and threw the knife as far as possible from him.

“No! I don’t want to become a murderer! I just want to be the Banchou! But if that means I have to be a murderer, then I don’t want it! I quit! Stop all of this already!” Takashi kept ranting frantically.

“…I see.” Sakuya straightened her back. “I take it you accept defeat for this war?” She asked in a cold voice, all traces of her ominous look earlier vanished.

“Yeah! To hell with this! I don’t care anymore!” Takashi nodded strongly.

It seemed Sakuya’s incitement deeply traumatized him and completely crushed his fighting spirit.

“You heard him.” Sakuya turned at the rest of the rebels. “You guys lost, so from today onward, you’ll serve under me. Those who have any objections can line up before me—I’ll beat you up together.”

Hearing such a threat, none of the rebels dared to meet Sakuya’s eyes. She nodded in satisfaction.

“I thought so.” She smiled confidently. “Pochi, Tarou, take those who got injured to the infirmary. I’ll handle the rest here.” Sakuya ordered.

“Roger!”

“See you later then, Sakuya-chan!”

The two of them, along with a handful of Sakuya’s subordinates, carried away those who were injured.