Kaname shot the rubber rounds right into Sousuke.
“Impossible... Why would you— Urk!” Shocked by this unexpected betrayal, Sousuke slumped to the ground.
Even Kaname was surprised by how precisely and calmly she had shot him. But then, her combat abilities did tend to skyrocket when it came time to put down Sousuke’s absurd behavior.
“Ch-Chidori-senpai...”
“Hmm... interesting. That felt so much like the first time I used my fan...” Kaname whispered as she gazed at the smoke rising from the muzzle.
“As usual, Sagara-kun will be covering the costs of the damaged wall,” the student council president, Hayashimizu Atsunobu, told them both calmly in the student council room after the commotion had died down. Tall and pale, with an intellectual air about him, Hayashimizu closed his fan with a snap. His secretary, Mikihara Ren, stood quietly behind him.
“However... given that he was trying to protect the student council,” Hayashimizu mused, “perhaps we will pull half of the payment from the C-fund.”
“The C-fund?” said Kaname. This was a secret budget that the student council controlled, hidden from the teachers. Not even she had been told how much money was in there.
Kaname had once asked the treasurer, Okada Hayato, how much money was in the fund. He’d responded with an unusually grim expression, sweat rising on his face. “It’s better if you don’t know. Just back off,” he’d told her. Of course, that had only made her more curious. But when she’d kept on pressing him, asking for a ballpark figure for what sorts of things you could buy with it, Okada had looked off into the distance and said, with tears in his eyes, “Enough that the old man next door would sell off his daughter, I bet.” She’d asked him what the hell that was supposed to mean, but Okada had refused to say more. Kaname had never learned if that was a large or small amount.
But all that aside...
“I’m very grateful, Mr. President,” said Sousuke, standing at attention as he received Hayashimizu’s debriefing.
“Good. Incidentally, regarding Sasaki-kun and the other students with their model guns...”
“What is it, sir?”
“These... survival games of theirs,” Hayashimizu said with a meaningful pause. “They’ve been repeatedly petitioning the student council about them.”
“Petitioning?” Kaname frowned at him.
“They wish to open a survival game club. They are seeking permission for the appropriate funds, club building lockers, and the use of school facilities for ‘practice.’”
“I see...” Kaname responded unenthusiastically. She had to admit that, even if they were just model guns, they were pretty heavy, and running around with them had to qualify as some kind of a sport, but... “But I’ve never heard of a school club like that before,” Kaname said.
Hayashimizu nodded. “Agreed. Still, I don’t believe that to be sufficient reason to dismiss their request out of hand. This school has always been quite lenient as far as clubs go. Even this last year, we approved the karate society in addition to the existing karate club.”
“Right, Tsubaki-kun’s thing...”
“And they pointed out that Sagara-kun already carries model guns around in the school...”
In other words, how could he reject their club concept when there was already a member of the student council who went around with guns? It was certainly a difficult argument for even Hayashimizu to refute. As student council president, Hayashimizu’s baseline opinion on the Sousuke issue was that he wasn’t in violation of school rules, that the equipment was a necessary part of school security, and that he had used it numerous times to the school’s benefit. Still, a neutral third party would wonder how he’d gotten the teachers on board with tortured reasoning like that. Indeed, it was a reflection of Hayashimizu Atsunobu’s skill at the negotiating table—Kaname could imagine him pulling out some serious political techniques to get what he wanted.
“I believe in being as fair as possible. I’m not a dictator, merely a representative of the common interest,” Hayashimizu said. “However, we cannot pack in too many clubs. If I were to approve every single application, our school extracurriculars would number in the hundreds. For instance, within game-related interest groups alone, I have received applications for a console game society, an arcade game society, a retro game society, a Western game society, a TCG society, a TRPG society, a war game society, an online game society, and more... it’s enough to make one’s head spin. They sound indistinguishable to me, but if you were to ask the club members themselves, they would say they’re all different. And for some reason, none of them get along. I have difficulty understanding it. The other day, I even had a request for an ‘18 and over’ game club.”
“In a high school? Why?” Kaname asked.
“I don’t know. I’m sure it was a mistake of some kind,” Hayashimizu continued, dismissing her concern. “Regardless, that is why I cannot easily accept their request. Thus, I’ve given them a condition: if they wish to represent our school, even as a mere club, they must prove that they have some level of skill.”
“In survival games?”
“Yes. In other words...” Hayashimizu looked over at Sousuke, who was in an at-rest position. “We will hold a match at an appropriate location. If they can defeat the student council’s elite representative—in other words, Sagara-kun—then I will consider it.”
“Just Sousuke?” said Kaname.
“It doesn’t have to be just him. But don’t you think that would make it easier for him?”
“Hmmm... but...”
There had been five members of the unofficial ‘survival game enthusiasts’ in the chemistry lab. Given what Hiromi had said afterwards, their group actually numbered about twice that many. Even Sousuke would surely struggle to fight that many people all at once.
Kaname was about to voice her disagreement, when Sousuke interrupted. “It’s easily done, Mr. President. I will bring all of my training to bear and crush our enemy.” He puffed out his chest proudly.
“I guess he’s confident, at least...” Kaname said with a sigh.
“Are you sure it’ll be okay?” Kaname whispered to Sousuke as they left the student council room.
“Will what be okay?”
“Well... there are about ten people on Sasaki-kun’s team, aren’t there? I’m not sure even you can handle that many alone.”
“Not an issue. Considering the welcome they gave me when I burst into that laboratory, they are extremely ill-trained,” he told her. “I can employ mines and other such measures to easily reduce their forces to less than half. Then I can pick the rest off one at a time.”
Kaname sighed. “I should probably mention that you’re not allowed to use traps.”
Here, Sousuke frowned. “What?”
“I mean, duh. It’s basically a sport,” she pointed out. “Also, no knifing anyone in the throat, sleeper holds, or hand grenades.”
“Absurd,” he scoffed. “How do you expect me to fight, then?”
“You’re supposed to shoot at each other with airsoft guns! That’s it! No one’s allowed to hurt anyone!”
“Hmm...” Sousuke looked troubled as sweat rose on his forehead.
“What are you so worried about?” Kaname asked. “Don’t real soldiers do that kind of thing in training and stuff?”
“I suppose you have a point,” said Sousuke, clapping his hands together in understanding.
“Honestly...”
“But our squad trains frequently with live rounds. And we’re allowed to use grappling and traps. Once, when we were practicing CQB indoors, I ended up fighting with Mao... and ended up much the worse for the matchup. She is a first-rate martial artist.”
“But that kind of thing is against the rules here,” Kaname reminded him.
“I know. It will be difficult facing ten men with firearms alone... but not impossible. I will polish them all off cleanly.” Sousuke didn’t sound like he was bragging, but rather as though he was simply speaking the truth. After all, he was a professional. That hobbyists couldn’t beat him was a simple fact.
After thinking for a moment, Kaname made a suggestion. “Hey.”
“Yes?”
“This sounds kinda fun. You think I could get in on it? Hayashimizu-senpai said that it was okay for the student council team to have multiple people. So...”
“No.” Sousuke quickly shut her down.
“Huh? How come?”
“You’ll just hold me back,” he told her. “It’s easier if I fight alone.”
The bluntness of his statement left Kaname stunned. “Hold you back? Me?”