Chapter - 19

After that, Ikki who had abruptly burst into tears, did not respond to any inquiry except with sobs. Because of that, Itsuki left the room saying that there was no helping it.

And as it was, he returned to his top floor office by elevator. There, a red-suited man with a barrel-like physique was waiting.

"Hello, hello, good afternoon Clan Head. Ah, I guess it became good evening a long time ago?"

"Akaza, is it?"

"So how did it go, I wonder? The situation with that boy?"

"The boy is as difficult to understand as ever. Though not as much as his brother Ouma, I suppose."

"Without speaking on personality, hasn't his physical condition been broken?"

"What do you mean?"

"He he he. Well, his food has been just sliiightly adjusted, and some drugs to ruin the health of his body and heart simultaneously has been added."

…Truth serum, inherited from the military police era? You've made your move extremely directly, haven't you?"

"Like how he knows us well, we also know his stubbornness veeery well. We didn't think from the start that something along the lines of this inquiry would break him. The inquiry was purely an excuse to isolate him. The present state of affairs has changed from what we hypothesized entirely. After this, he will meet with the king of Vermillion―"

"You don't have to explain it. I can imagine the main point."

Saying so, Itsuki silenced Akaza who was beginning his presentation.

"I am entrusting this matter to you. I don't care what methods you use. Do as you like."

However―

"I won't forgive failure. Banish Ikki without fail."

"Yes, I understand. He he he. Well, please watch it as it comes along."

Speaking thus, Akaza withdrew.

Becoming alone in the room, not thinking anything, Itsuki casually shifted his gaze to the portraits of successive directors hanging on the wall of his office. More than half of them were people who had the surname Kurogane. Just counting the number of portraits showed how many generations they had inherited the responsibility. Here right now, Itsuki was also one such person. For that reason, he was carrying out the responsibility without exception. Picturing the best for the majority himself….

The way of life within my means that doesn't expand my own territory. It is the way of life that brings happiness to the majority of mankind.

Because people like Ikki, powerless people who were pushed aside, were few. Useless aspirations or self-confidence received as gifts, they only brought loss to both the person himself and to the organization. In that case, such things weren't needed. Naturally, the managing organization would make sure they didn't exist.

Therefore, I will use any method to eliminate them.

For example, even if it was his own son, he would show no mercy.

That is my duty.

Everything was for the sake of the iron law. In the past or in the present, that was "Iron Blood" Itsuki Kurogane's sense of righteousness.

It was the tenth day after Ikki had been taken away by the Ethics Committee. Due to the League's Japanese branch, Ikki's eighteenth selection battle had passed. The opponent had been a nameless E-rank.

Following that was the homeroom teacher, Yuuri Oreki. Before the match, Shizuku, who had heard about it from Kagami, brought Arisuin to wait for Oreki in front of the main gate. At the time that the sun was beginning to slide under the horizon, Oreki came back alone. Shizuku and Arisuin immediately rushed over to her, and asked about the outcome of that day's match.

"Oreki-sensei, Onii-sama… how was he? Did he win?"

To that question,

"Eh? Ah… yes. He got his eighteenth victory safely."

Oreki replied with a somehow vague tone. Of course, Arisuin immediately pressed the questioning.

"Is there something worrying you, I wonder?"

For a brief while, Oreki brooded without speaking, but she was also conversing with Ikki's blood relative Shizuku, so she answered without hiding anything.

"…The truth is, Kurogane-kun's physical condition seemed to be bad."

"Onii-sama… was?"

"Yes. His complexion was bad, and he was constantly coughing in pain…."

Though Oreki also added that, nonetheless, it was amazing that he had taken the win smoothly.

Shizuku and Arisuin exchanged glances.

"I wonder if he got Stella-chan's cold."

"How could that be true?"

Even if it wasn't true, they had heard Ikki had become soaked while in Okutama. And if the inquiry had deepened his fatigue, it wouldn't be strange if his physical condition had been disturbed. Shizuku and Arisuin thought so. However―

"…No, it was probably…."

Oreki who was well-acquainted with illness had noticed it. Ikki's condition was probably not an ordinary poor physical health. However―

"Sensei?"

"No. It's nothing. Well, Sensei is going to Madam Chairman right now."

Oreki withdrew her words and departed. It wasn't something she'd speak to students like them about. In her judgment, making guesses would only agitate Shizuku's anxiety.

However, the two discerning people noticed it.

"…Oreki-sensei was about to say something."

"Sensei is very well-informed about disease, right? Perhaps she sensed something about Ikki's symptoms."

"Something like… it wasn't an ordinary cold, maybe?"

"Probably, I think. It may be that something was done to Ikki."

At those words, Shizuku felt a chill running down her spine. She knew that if it was those people, if it was her father, they were capable of anything.

"Onii-sama… please be safe…."

Everything was happening deep underground, out of her reach. She couldn't do anything about it.

Shizuku, who could do nothing but pray, was awfully vexed.

"Hey! What are you blanking out for!?"

Along with an angry voice and a face red from alcohol, the drinking water for use by inquiry members was thrown on his face, and Ikki opened his eyes.

"Sleeping during the inquiry, it shows lack of sincerity!"

It was a middle-aged man wearing thin round glasses in front of bangs, shouting close to Ikki's ears. His yelling voice was awfully loud, and it resounded in the small chamber. However, even that kind of voice was distant to Ikki now.

That's right. Am I still sleeping?

The inquiry had started two weeks ago. The fatigue of Ikki who had come here was reaching its peak. The confinement had extended over a long period of time. The questions and answers had repeated many tens of times. The assertions hadn't been accepted once. The spirit of any human would have been scraped off thoroughly.

In addition, a few days ago, Ikki had abruptly become feverish and started coughing painfully. His lungs weren't functioning normally. However much he inhaled the air, pain rushed through him, and he couldn't breathe properly. With chronic lack of oxygen, his consciousness had become hazy. It was at least pneumonia. It might be liable to worsen further. It was a symptom that logically would necessitate him being sent to a hospital immediately, but the Ethics Committee would not allow such a thing.

"Hmph. When things become inconvenient, you feign sickness? Something a brat would do."

Driving Ikki whose consciousness was already hazy into a corner. Not letting him rest even a hundredth of a second.

"Now, let's continue the discussion. Concerning the secret arrangement you reached with the board chairman Kurono Shinguuji. We believe that there is an ethical problem in that this secret agreement ignored the fact you were deemed insufficient in aptitude under the system of the previous board chairman such that you were to repeat a year―"

This dialogue had also happened many, many times. The standard created by previous board chairman's system that judged him to repeat the year, and forbade Ikki from participating in classwork, was unreasonable. That sort of thing… the Ethics Committee surely understood this without him saying it. They were the ones who originally induced the previous board chairman to make that standard in the first place.

But Akaza and the others did not heed it. They threw away the issue. They hammered on questions. But they didn't listen to the answers. Without listening to responses, they dwelt at great length on bad impressions and defiance. More than that feeling of wasted effort, Ikki had put up with a considerable lot by now. But despite that, he had given many refutations, and….

"…Ack, *cough cough*"

He crumpled while coughing violently.

"You bastard! Who gave you permission to sit!? Do you have no willpower, you weakling!?"

"Guh…!"

Curling up and ignoring it with all his strength, Ikki smashed his nose on the floor. With a *bam*, a metallic smell spread through his nose, and droplets of red fluid stained the floor.

…How miserable.

Thinking about his current state, Ikki could only laugh bitterly. Even he could slightly tell that his physical condition was unnatural. That perhaps his poor health was due to drugs. However, if Ikki was the way he was usually, even if his physical condition a little bad, he would probably not collapse all the way to this point.

As expected, the decisive blow was his meeting with his father, Itsuki Kurogane. Alas, Ikki believed that no matter how far apart his father was, how cold his father was, in some respect, just slightly, he and his father was connected. Somewhere in his heart, he always believed that. Alas, he believed that. It was something which betrayed him more than anything, and that truth had shattered the stability of his soul.

With his soul that had lost its balance, his body that was attacked by disease could not support him. And once it had collapsed once, the rest was bottomless. Ikki's heart and body had crumbled like he was rolling down a hill. Ikki was now just a shadow of himself.

"My my, please pardon him since he has gone to that extent."

Suddenly, Akaza left his seat, and waved back the men who were ignoring Ikki's face. Then he showed a smile of ill taste in his thin eyes, and came close beside Ikki.

"He he he. It must be extremely painful, no?"

Ikki was silent.

"Well, even if the inquiry is dragged this long, it isn't unreasonable. But I want to understand. We are pushing to verify a knight as splendid as yourself, you know? ...Buuut, after all this time, we haven't made any progress. So I've been thinking. Of a brilliant way to bring over my colleagues who haven't been convinced about the questions on your aptitude. Do you want me to tell you about iiit? You want me to tell you, riiight?"

At any rate, it could not be a decent thing. Because he knew that, he had no interest, but he had a feeling that if he didn't ask, the conversation wouldn't progress.

"…What… is it…*cough cough*!"

Ikki asked while coughing, and Akaza nodded and continued speaking in satisfaction.

"He he he. It's not as if it's anything special. Ikki-kun, you probably know already. To clear the path of one's destiny with his own sword is a knight's customary practice. In that case, why not act in accordance with the ancient tradition?"

"…Tradition?"

"In other words, entrust the matter of the disagreement between you and the people who have doubts about your aptitude to the final selection battle match tomorrow."

Leave the matter to the outcome of battle. With those words, Ikki understood what Akaza was saying.

"A wholehearted duel, against a designated fighter… is it?"

"Exactly. A decision reached by duel is absolute for us knights. It is an unwritten rule that can never be changed. No matter how far outside reason, how nonsensical or impossible, it is the custom of knights to abide by decisions made through dueling. That is equally true for the League. If you make a promise on this duel, and show everyone your strength with victory, then no one would be able to slip a word of doubt in to the matter of your qualities as a knight. For you, it would be an opportunity to turn everything around and recover from a hopeless situation. There's no other solution, don't you think? Am I wrong?"

"In other words, if I win tomorrow… you'll let me go with that, right?"

"Yes, yes. Of course we will. …It's just, the opponents you've had in your current condition were E-rank third year students. …Frankly, by facing such low-level knights, it would be difficult to verify your strength. In that case, not everyone would come to consensus. At this duel, there is a need to prepare a suitable partner."

Well, Ikki thought so too.

"*Cough*… Who, then? …This partner…?"

At the question, Akaza gave a deep smile greater than any before it―

"We, the Ethics Committee, intend to nominate―the student council president, 'Raikiri' Touka Toudou."