novelThe Prologue of the Election Tournament (2)
| ← Ch.061 | Ch.063 → |
Just when the explanation meeting ended, Hoshikaze-senpai and Kazuha-senpai drew near Kazuki's position.
"Hayashizaki-kun, I have something to discuss, is it alright?"
"Hayashizaki Kazuki! Th, there is something I want to discuss!"
After the two were looking at each other,
"Please, feel free"
"N, no please you can go first"
They became polite and started pushing their turn to each other.
During that interval where Kazuki was gazing at the two vacantly, the cell phone inside his pocket was vibrating.
"Please, you can start first." Hoshikaze-senpai conceded her turn even further with pleasant behavior.
With how net communication and foreign trade with countries overseas came to an end, the development unique to Japangalapagosization was happening again with cell phones. Under the new domestic platform, various enterprises and workshops were manufacturing and selling a great variety of models as they pleased.
Kazuki's favorite model was not the so-called multi-purpose devicesmartphone, but the fixed button style devicegarakee that only stressed the telephone call and mailing function. A household account book application was installed in it, an item that was really housewife-like.
What he received on his cell phone was a mail from Liz Liza-sensei. So that students could accept the contact from the academy and quest counter anytime, all of the students contact addresses were known by the teachers.
{After this, come to the conference room at the academy's main building. Secretly. }
It looked like the message was also sent to Kaguya-senpai at the same time.
"Hoshikaze-senpai, Kazuha-senpai, I have a little errand to run."
"Understood. It's fine, it's fine. Then lend me your time around tonight at the Witch's Manor, 'ka―y!"
"Then, then I will come around tomorrow, please...!"
Hoshikaze-senpai with a clear smiling face, and Kazuha-senpai with a voice that seemed to vanish, both of them saw off Kazuki who exited the auditorium.
Kaguya-senpai came along at his side, she linked her hand with Kazuki's and grasped it tightly.
"Otouto-kun, you got the mail too didn't you? Let's go together-!"
Kazuki suddenly remembered the first time he met Kaguya-senpai, at that time she too suddenly linked her hand with his.
I wonder how much she saved the me who was just enrolling into this academy at that time with her kind and amiable personality. There was also the awkward situation where he fought Kaguya-senpai, but he felt really happy that he could get back his connection with her once more.
"What are you smiling about?" Kaguya-senpai came to ask with a gentle expression.
It's nothing, like that he waved his hand and went out of the auditorium.
―If it was Kaguya-senpai however, she would want to take a detour on the way here.
"You're late, you up-and-coming trash and top class trash!"
The moment they stepped into the conference room, Liz Liza-sensei's jeers were hurled.
The one she meant as up-and-coming was me, while the top class was referring to Kaguya-senpai, was that what she meant?
"I really missed getting insulted like this by Liz Liza-senseii-. Liz Liza-sensei was the one in charge of me last year you know? She was a teacher that behaved with frightening looks and treating everyone with contempt because of her concern over her tiny body, but the truth is that she is a kind, cute and reliable teacher and I love her?"
"Even I know Liz Liza-sensei is a kind teacher you know? I have received help from her on several occasions."
"...Stop saying such idiotic things and quickly sit."
Liz Liza-sensei raised her eyebrows and yelled; Kazuki and Kaguya took the seats at the table side-by-side.
"As a former knight, Westwood-sensei is the teacher with the best track record in this academy. Certainly she has an appearance that is easy to get on with, but don't forget to pay your respect to her."
Headmaster Amasaki was also inside the room. Both teachers were facing Kazuki and Kaguya right from the front.
"This has really become such a suspicious affair."
Headmaster Amasaki talked all of a sudden while leaning his body forward.
"What you meant as suspicious, is it about the battle election that will be held?"
"That's right. I mean in our position, we planned to decide the Chief Student Council President with a really commonplace general election. But the newly appointed Board Chairman that just came, was against it, and it became like that in the end..."
Headmaster Amasaki made his old wrinkled face even more wrinkled, then he hit the table with his ferocious rage plain to see....Scary!
"Until now there has been no interaction between the two divisions, so the Magic Division doesn't know anything about the Sword Division, the Sword Division doesn't know anything about the Magic Division. Because of that it is unproductive, even if we do something like a general election, so let's conduct a tournament so we could see the strength and leadership as a knight, that guy gave such an opinion!"
"Isn't that a really sound argument?"
"That's right isn't it, that's a sound argument isn't it?"
Kazuki and Kaguya-senpai unintentionally matched their voice.
"Because it's a sound argument it made me angry! Making such a sound argument grandly in front of the other teachers, I couldn't kill that proposal no matter how much I tried! How dare he throw mud in my face even though he is just a new appointee!"
Oi, oi, what in the world are you saying, this frightening influential person.
"You know in my position, if I spread propaganda about how you defeated Otonashi Kaguya while holding an election, there is no doubt that you will get elected, then I thought of an ideal outcome where Otonashi Kaguya would support you at your side. Despite all of that, now the possibility that others students, who could care less, would get elected suddenly came to the fore!"
"No, for a teacher to do something like backing a specific student is unbecoming you know..."
Though his remark about [other students who could care less], as expected it was really thoughtless wasn't it?
"Muu, so there was such an intention, to make me the foil..."
Kaguya-senpai furrowed her eyebrows as much as she could; she also pouted her cheeks to the limit. Her dissatisfaction was demonstrated a lot on her face. It was Kaguya-senpai who was greatly indignant and furious.
"Errr...Kaguya-senpai, please don't make an extremely strange face like that even though you have an extremely rare beauty."
Kazuki soothed her from the side, but "Otouto-kun-!" Kaguya-senpai turned that face to Kazuki's direction. She looked like a manju when seen right from the front. Her cheeks were soft after all so she could inflate her cheeks that much.
"I, I didn't lose to Otouto-kun after all! When I lost my senses and fought Otouto-kun, it looked like Otouto-kun won, however if I am in the state where my reasoning is recovered and overflowing with intelligence, then I am the stronger side! I am still the senpai and Otouto-kun is my pupil!"
"About how senpai said that you were not in your senses at that time, does senpai really not remember about that fight?"
"I don't remembeerr. I remember Otouto-kun with a cool face in a cute way, however you embraced me with the powerful arms of a boy and said [I love you] to me, other than that I don't remember anythi―ng."
"Senpai really remembered the important moment with pinpoint accuracy huh? Though I don't particularly plan to withdraw."
"That's why! It's no good for Otouto-kun to get carried away! I am the Onee-san still!"
"Ye, yes. Let's fight fair and square in the tournament."
Kazuki faced the teachers again while poking Kaguya-senpai's inflated cheeks repeatedly.
"...With that as the case, is there any problem by doing the tournament normally?"
"Fun, it might be okay for me to be the bad guy if you two said something like fair and square, but even for me, I don't particularly mind if Otonashi Kaguya or Hoshikaze Hikaru became the Chief Student Council President. But...the new board chairman that was dispatched here from the government let out this kind of opinion, and then in response to that a great number of students announced their candidacy. Those who announced their candidacy were every one of the delinquent students of the Magic Division. Do you think those guys have the will to lead the new academy if they really become the Chief Student Council President? Do you think it's not suspicious?"
Kazuki finally noticed what this shrewd new headmaster was apprehensive about.
It was wrong to have a prejudice against students because they were a delinquent, however...
When Kaguya-senpai too also reached the same thought as Kazuki, Headmaster Amasaki said.
"The newly appointed board chairman and, the students who suddenly announced their candidacy might be in collaboration with each other. For the purpose of backing a puppet student council president, that will move according to the new board chairman's intentions. Consequently he would take possession of this academy. So you are concerned of that kind of risk, right?"
"That's how it is." Headmaster Amasaki nodded.
The new board chairman might be bribing the delinquent students. If the new board chairman and the Chief Student Council President were in cahoots with each other, then Headmaster Amasaki's position would be in danger too. In short, the Knight Academy's hegemony was being targetted.
"Not only the delinquent students, but the Takasugi brothers of the Sword Division also announced their candidacy."
The content of what they were speaking was another matter, but those people had a strong will.
"The name of the new board chairman is Takasugi Takayoshi....The father of those brothers."
"...I see." Kazuki reflexively made a sour face.
"The new Board Chairman Takasugi at first made the proposal to just make the winner of the tournament as the Chief Student Council President. We were objecting against that point and in the end it was shaped so voting will also be held after the tournament. Surely it is a good thing for all the students to be granted a chance. However this Knight Academy is not a normal academy. A strange conspiracy must not be allowed behind the cover of sound arguments. It will be trouble if this important agency for the country is misappropriated like Headmaster Otonashi once did....Ah, sorry."
Kaguya-senpai felt completely despondent because her father was bad mouthed, Headmaster Amasaki glossed it over in a fluster.
Until now the Knight Academy under the guidance of former Headmaster Otonashi gave preferential treatment toward the Magica Stigma, that action made its influence even into current society and the setting up of the Knight Order.
The influence of the National Knight Academy couldn't be made light off just because at most they were only children of an academy. The students who graduated this academy would form the only national defense organization of this country, the Knight Order, the members of the student council and the Rank A students were also promised an elite course in that organization.
If someone controlled the Knight Academy, it could be said that they controlled the future of the Knight Order.
It was such an important national agency, and that was why...the Knight Academy headmaster and the board chairman were nominated by appropriate people. The former Headmaster Otonashi too, originally he was a high ranking government official that commanded a secret human experimentation project under the government.
Headmaster Amasaki too had a tune of trying to appropriate the Knight Academy, however...if the aim of Headmaster Takasugi was to ride the current's momentum of recent public opinion and stir it toward the direction of [Magica Stigma's human rights deprivation], it was a really terrible thing.
"Possibly...Hayashizaki Kazuki, a lot of people are still half in doubt regarding your power, but there is also the possibility that someone wants to weaken your power and position by raising other candidates as obstacles. For the purpose of making you fail to become the Chief Student Council President."
"You can't mean...to do something like that intentionally for someone like me..."
"It's not an exaggeration. Just like I, and Headmaster Otonashi in the past, people who are unable to stomach the existence of [the King of Magica Stigma] also exist. If I had to say more...to make an example from the old world, you are like a new weapon that is in the process of development. A nuclear weapon, something like that. The other Magic Advanced Countries that had sniffed around about you through their spies, there might be such an existence of foreign countries like that who supported Board Chairman Takasugi. What I mean by suspicious is including the matter until that far. You, is there nothing suspicious that happened around you?"
"If we talk about suspicious matters, before this, there is only that attack from a strange person that stopped my heart."
When Kazuki dropped that sentence so suddenly, the atmosphere of that place was freezing all of a sudden.
"Sorry but just now, what did you say? I don't really get it."
"Ah, no, before this, I was attacked by a suspicious woman wearing black completely from head to toe, my heart got stopped, then I got resuscitated by Mio."
"I, I never heard of that incident you know!? Did you report that case properly!?"
"...I completely forgot to report it. Because I strongly thought that the next time I encounter her again I will catch her completely and expose her true identity."
"Are you an idiot!? Do you not understand your own value!? Far from being an obstacle in the battle election, they have already tried to assassinate you!!"
Kazuki was rather surprised at Headmaster Amasaki's angry look.
...My own value. It was something that he himself didn't understand, yet this person gave his recognition over it.
"Otouto-kun...why are you being that calm after something like that?"
Kaguya-senpai too sent a reproaching gaze right from his side.
"But even if I reported it to the Knight Order in the neighborhood of the Knight Academy, they won't be able to come immediately anyway."
Because there was the case that the students of the Knight Academy had been acting as agents of the Knight Order through doing their job in the form of quests, the deployment of knights in the surrounding areas of the Knight Academy was thin. They were foisting the lack of manpower onto the academy.
"...It had really become very suspicious huh. Even these last few days there have been assault incidents against students in this Knight Academy. Both of these cases might have a connection."
...Kazuki was attacked on the rare day he was going out, that was why that assassin must be someone who was connected with the academy. Headmaster Amasaki had that kind of conjecture. Kazuki too also had some clue.
Even in the other cases where the students were assaulted, all of it happened outside of the range of the security cameras. The meticulous way the perpetrator worked with how they perfectly grasped the blind spots of the security cameras, it was impossible to achieve for someone unconnected with the academy, something like that.
Thereupon certainly these two cases might be connected.
However if that was the case, putting aside the objective of the assault on Kazuki, what seemed to be the objective in attacking other students? All of the student victims managed to escape safely. What kind of foul happenings might be lurking inside these performances? Was that assassin really so incompetent?
"The battle election proposal due to the newly coming board chairman, the students with unknown strength that suddenly show willingness and announced their candidacy, the assassin that assaulted Hayashizaki Kazuki, the assault incident of three students...there are too many strange things happening at once. All of these might be connected by a single thread."
Liz Liza-sensei compiled all of the suspiciousness and itemized them.
"Do we know anything of Board Chairman Takasugi's personal history?"
When Kazuki inquired about the character in the middle of this upheaval, Headmaster Amasaki let out a huffing breath.
"Obviously I know. He is a man with deep connections to a political organization called ~Will of the Sword PartyKensheetou~. This Kensheetou is opposed to the preferential treatment of the Magica Stigma, they extended their influence by riding the decline of the Stigmata Absolutism faction and are rapidly making their advocacy more extreme."
The advocacy that the Takasugi brothers spewed out before was also perfectly in line with Kensheetou's policy.
"We know what they are looking for in this battle election. But to go as far as attempting to assassinate Hayashizaki Kazuki...I doubt they are going that far for the battle election. The one that gained the most from killing Hayashizaki Kazuki are foreign countries. Kensheetou might have a black connection with another Magic Advanced Country. But it's not simple to understand something like this even if we investigate their background."
Board Chairman Takasugi was behind the students who were suddenly announcing their candidacy, then there was Kensheetou behind Board Chairman Takasugi, and then behind their back there might be another Magic Advanced Country...
This was not a problem with a shallow origin.
If that was the case, it was not like he wanted to vindicate himself however, when he played a trick on that assassin and obtained information, it unexpectedly turned out to have a big significance.
"The assassin that came aiming for me used Chinese Kenpo. That's why I think there is a high chance that she was originating from China."
Hearing Kazuki's words, the three people that were hanging their heads down spontaneously raised their heads with shocked faces.
"...~Chūkadou~ country huh?"
Chūkadou―the nearest of the Seven Magic Advanced Countries to Japan.
The country that was once called the People's Republic of China, due to the arrival of this age of magic they encountered the object of their faith in the ancient times, the immortal mountain sage of ~Taoism~, the structure of their government changed from ~communism~ to ~Taoism doctrine~, even the name of their country was replaced with Chūkadou.
However the teachings of Taoism became their political principle, even as a religious country their government was dyed with a powerful ~Sinocentrism~, that China was the center of the world and that all countries should be unified into China, such ideology was held as the religion that they were faithful to. They were said to be the most dangerous among the Magic Advanced Countries.
Beatrix said something about an unreasonable country, where it wouldn't be strange for that country to send an assassin for Kazuki.
Looking at it geographically and also the ideology, the foremost contender that was going to attempt something like this, there was nothing else other than Chūkadou.
"From the olden days Japan is said to be a [spy heaven], but... There are a lot of Kensheetou's politicians that have the personal support of China, are you telling me those guys are the ones that caused this chain of events?"
Kaguya-senpai knitted her eyebrows in worry.
To say that Kensheetou and China had an illicit connection, and that the assault on Kazuki and this uproar for the battle election were tied together, was nothing more than just speculation that rose to the surface.
But when a concrete figure like China became visible, the weirdness was immediately increasing.
"This present state of affairs probably can be said to have started with the defeat of Nyarlatoteph and how the political influence of former Headmaster Otonashi and his faction was falling. We might have opened Pandora's Box."
Liz Liza-sensei spoke with a complicated expression.
The former Headmaster Otonashi and his faction regarded the Stigmata as something absolute and even performed human experimentation for the sake of creating even stronger Magica Stigma, but...at the same time they might also have become a deterrent against China. They were also included among those who led diplomacy and the country's defense until now.
The ones who caused this political chaos completely were none other than Kazuki and the others.
"It would be great if all of this was just needless anxiety. There are also a lot of parts that are just speculation....However if the situation is really like what we are thinking, no matter what happens you three must win through anyone in your way. Preventing the assassination of Hayashizaki Kazuki, protecting the seat of the Chief Student Council President, those are the current absolute objectives."
Headmaster Amasaki talked with a grave tone of voice.
At this late hour, Kazuki finally felt that he was dragged into the middle of an affair so big that he couldn't even imagine it.
Which reminded him, even when he was enrolling into this academy, there was something that he asked to himself.
―Why, for what kind of purpose did he obtain this kind of power?
Right now, Kazuki's stigmata was starting to gain even greater power and meaning, from what it was before.
"Otouto-kun...for some reason you are looking very thoughtful?"
The time was already evening. While returning home to the Witch's Manor, Kaguya-senpai said with concern.
"Just because I have a special power, it's fine to not get worked up even if I do something unreasonable you know―That's the kind of face that you seem to make, as I thought, Otouto-kun is still too early to become something like a student council president. You still have some ways to go, so I will protect Otouto-kun."
Kaguya-senpai grasped Kazuki's hand tightly. A gentle warmth...if he depended on senpai like this, maybe everything would become more comfortable. However Kazuki had known already, that even senpai had been continuously carrying a heavy burden alone until now in hardships.
"No, I too want to protect senpai."
The answer he found at the fight from before. That was [the power in order to protect the important things].
Kazuki squeezed back Kaguya-senpai's hand strongly, Kaguya-senpai took a long hard look at Kazuki.
"...Geez! Again with that cool, cute appearance! Just because you had become a little stronger you overreached yourself once more!!"
Kaguya-senpai waved around her hand that was connected with Kazuki as if she was getting embarrassed.
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