Tsukikage stopped walking down the hallway and turned back to Saikyou.
“Is it really a coincidence, I wonder? Besides, this is my student’s hospital room. It’s only natural I’d want to see how he’s doing, isn’t it?”
“Come on, you’re still keeping up the act? All of Akatsuki’s students have lost already. You can stop pretending.”
Indeed, with Amane’s defeat, Akatsuki had been knocked out of the Seven Stars Battle Festival. Tsukikage’s plan to increase Japan’s national prestige by having Akatsuki win the tournament had gone up in smoke.
“It truly is a shame. I was hoping they could prove to the world that they have the strength to carry this nation’s future on their shoulders, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.”
Tsukikage shrugged his shoulders, sounding not at all disappointed. If anything, he seemed almost happy that things had ended up this way.
“I still have no idea what you’re really thinking.” Not even Saikyou could read her former teacher. So she gave up on probing him and changed the topic. “Well, I’m glad I ran into you. There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“What is it?”
Saikyou was curious about why he’d given Ikki the info he had before the semifinal match.
“It’d be normal to think you told Kuro-bou about Ama-chan so that he’d light a fire under him and stop him from forfeiting, but were you really trying to get Ama-chan to win that match?”
If Tsukikage had just wanted to motivate Amane to fight, there were plenty of other ways he could have gone about it. In fact, it had been a dangerous gamble to entrust the information to Ikki when Tsukikage couldn’t even have been sure he would use it. From Saikyou’s perspective, it was way too roundabout a method.
“You wanted Kuro-bou to save Ama-chan all along, didn’t you, Sensei?”
Tsukikage fell silent, but the corners of his mouth twitched up into a faint smile. He thought back to what Ikki had said after he’d told him about Amane’s past. “There’s one last thing I want to know. Is it really Amane-kun you’re trying to get fired up about the next match, or is it me?” Saikyou had come to the same conclusion as Ikki had. And so, Tsukikage chose to give her the same response he had to him.
“Who can say? This job means I have to wear many masks. After years as prime minister, even I don’t know where my true intentions lie.”
A response that was effectively a nonanswer.
“I see,” Saikyou said simply. If Tsukikage didn’t want to give straight answers, there was no point in pressing him any further on this topic. “Oh yeah, one more thing.”
“I thought you only had one question.”
“Don’t be such a cheapskate. You’re a man, aren’t you?” Saikyou took a step closer to Tsukikage. “I’m curious how you knew so much about Ama-chan’s past in the first place.”
Tsukikage didn’t respond, so Saikyou kept talking.
“Considering his attitude, I doubt he would have told anyone. And thanks to Nameless Glory, there’s no way information that could come back to bite him would easily leak out. The only thing I can think of that might work would be someone using a power that has an even stronger influence on fate to overcome it. You know, Tsukikage-sensei, I searched every database I could think of, and not a single one of them mentioned what your Noble Arts might be. But I’m guessing the reason you, the literal prime minister of Japan, teamed up with terrorists has something to do with that power of yours, doesn’t it?”
Though her tone was friendly, Saikyou was watching Tsukikage like a hawk. The look in her eyes made it clear that she wouldn’t allow him to get away with a nonanswer this time. And with Akatsuki Academy’s loss, he no longer had any reason to hide the truth. Even so, he was not yet willing to give up that information.
“Believe me when I say I’ll be announcing the answer to that soon.”
There was an appropriate place and time for that reveal, and it was neither here nor now.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ikki slowly opened his eyes to find himself staring at an unfamiliar, tiled ceiling.
“Mm... Where am I?”
He sat up, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and looked around. As far as he could tell, he was in a standard hospital room, sitting in bed. There wasn’t much else in the way of furniture or decoration.
But wait, that’s odd. I could have sworn I went back to the waiting room. And why does my body feel so heavy?
It wasn’t just his body. His mind felt sluggish too. He could tell from how dark it was outside the window that it must be night, but he didn’t know the exact time. He reached over for his student handbook and turned it on. The time displayed on it was 10:30 p.m. If he’d been sleeping all day, that explained why his body felt so sluggish.
“Wait...”
As Ikki read the date, his expression froze. It was August 10th—the day after the semifinals. In other words, the day he was supposed to have his duel with Stella.
“Ah!”
Suddenly, memories of what had happened before he’d lost consciousness came flooding back to him. When he’d made it back to the waiting room, he’d felt utterly drained. It had been a different kind of lethargy than what he felt after using Ittou Shura too. It had seemed far more sinister.
Very quickly, he realized that his entire being had been getting eroded away by the concept of death. The only time he could have possibly been hit by any of Amane’s arms was when he’d protected the referee. It had all happened so suddenly that he hadn’t paid attention to all of the arms that had appeared, but in retrospect, that was presumably when he’d been grazed. He’d known he was in trouble, but he’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t even been able to muster a cry for help before falling unconscious.
Thinking back on it now, it was clear that someone had healed him and brought him here. But that wasn’t important right now. If his handbook was showing the correct date, it meant he’d missed his duel. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Praying that it was some kind of mistake, he checked his student handbook again, and in doing so saw that he had a text notification. He quickly pulled up the new message and saw that it was from Stella. She’d sent him just a single sentence: “I’ll be waiting for you in the ring.”
Ikki immediately leaped out of bed and started running.