Chapter 62 - The Warning of the Samurai

“With this…”

Rei breathed heavily and turned around to Yui.

“Yui, are you okay!?”

Yui was frowning as she nodded her head.

“Yeah… Since I shielded myself with the gun, the wound is shallow… but, it hurtss…”

“First off, we need to go to the school infirmary. Yamamoto, could you look after Yui?”

“Y-yeah.”

“! Brother, behind you!”

Rei looked over his shoulder and saw the man standing behind him.

His appearance of standing ready with his sword was just like a samurai.

“...You still want to continue?”

“I was ordered to kill you. Since I was taken a pledge of allegiance, I have to kill you.”

As Rei stood ready, the man squinted and thrust the sword into his own body.

Blood suddenly brimmed over.

“W-what!?”

“I… Rather than my mission, I wanted to protect my pride. The path of the victor… is not obstructed. For the samurai code, it’s a violation though…”

The man fell to his knees.

Flustered, Rei rushed over and grabbed the man’s hand.

“To think I’d lose to a woman. Hahaha… I would have never thought tha…t…”

The man collapsed to the side.

“Woman…? I’m a man though. Is it about Yui? Oh well, let’s go to the school infirmary first.”

Rei made a silent prayer to the man’s corpse for a few moments and was about to leave the classroom.

However.

“Senior Tsubasa…?”

Tsubasa’s corpse wasn’t by the entrance, only a pool of blood.

Hurriedly going out to the hallway, a trace of blood looking like something had been dragged to the other part of the hallway was there.

He thought back.

About the time when he met Tsubasa.

His childhood memories are vague and blurry, but he only remembered Tsubasa being by his side all the time.

No matter how much he hit him or kicked him, he was always there.

…Why?

Tsubasa had never once gotten angry, only continuing to show those eyes pitying him.

Why was Tsubasa always sticking to him?

And why couldn’t he refuse Tsubasa’s words?

Something was weird.

His orders were absolute like their position had been reversed a long time ago.

Was he the only one who seemed to be that way?

No, no, that couldn’t be right.

In the olden days, he had been under him.

In the olden days when he had been into baseball, it was always Tsubasa who went to pick up the ball after he had hit it with his bat.

Hitting the thrown ball, Tsubasa went to take it.

…Huh?

Tsubasa was supposed to be in the outfield.

Then, who the heck was pitching?

The guy who was with him even though he was violent…

“Ugh! …Ouch!”

His head hurt.

It was like his brain was painstakingly trying to prevent him from searching further than this.

There was something about it.

Remember.

What happened in his childhood?

What the heck…

At that time, the door opened.

“Who!?”

“I-it’s me, Seiji…”

“...What, so it was just Tsubasa, huh.”

“Are you alone right now…?

“And what about it?”

“I have something important, really important to say…”

His heart leaped in his chest.

What was Tsubasa going to say?

What was he going to tell him?

He knew. He knew what it was.

“We, played sports a lot in the olden days… right.”

That’s right.

“We played baseball, soccer…”

He remembered.

“Hehehe… We even shoplifted in a small candy store…”

Therefore, please.

“Stop already…”

“Right, Seiji, you fell over… even though you were crying, you said ‘I’m not crying’...”

“Please stop…”

“That was funny…”

“Just stop it already!”

He shouted.

It wasn’t like he remembered it.

He knew it from the beginning.

He was only trying to make it that it hadn’t happened all this time.

He had wanted to forget.

He made it so that nothing had happened.

He had only wanted to erase it.

“I’m begging you… stop it already.”

“You finally remembered…?”

“I knew… From the start, from the start! I knew everything!”

“...I’m glad, then with this.”

Tsubasa’s eyes pitied him.

It was pity for people looking away from the truth.

Resigned eyes of having no choice but to look after people who ran away.

“We…”

“We…”

“We had been three.”

Memories like a muddy stream overflew his brain.

He vividly remembered each one of them like he was reliving them.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

The memories overflew, turned soppy, and came pouring.

Sharp pain in his head and flickering vision.

As everything turned blurry, something broke inside of Seiji.

And then, only a certain scene appeared in his brand new mind.

Without hesitating, Seiji dove into that memory.