Episode 55 — Prepare for Battle
～ Part 2 ～
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“Utsurogi!”
“We made you wait!”
∗ZUSAaaa∗, raising a cloud of sand, the flying Kyousuke landed.
“You have learned how to make quite the cool entrant there…”
“No, well, yeah. It’s Akira’s training…”
Kyousuke glanced at Akira who was flying right beside him.
The islanders who remained in the village appeared to be stealing glances at Kyousuke. He thought it was not an atmosphere suitable for secret talks at all, and at that moment, «Attentio–n!», Nekomiya shouted and started performing tricks, thus, everyone gazes gathered onto her in the blink of an eyes. As expected, an aspiring actress was different.
“I don’t see Hanazono and the others.”
While looking around, Ryuzaki said. Kyousuke nodded.
“As the person themselves wish, I have asked them to wait there. For now, I have several things to report.”
Saying so, Kyousuke raised one finger.
“First is Inugami. Inugami has likely been kidnapped by a group of 2 men who seem to be vampires. Now, she is being confined in a wooden house outside a village.”
“Group of 2…?”
Ryuzaki knitted his brows quizzically. Not just Ryuzaki, everyone else was the same.
“Yes. It’s 2. If we assume that they are vampires, then there are a minimum of 2 vampires on this island.”
“This is dangerous.”
Goubayashi murmured.
“Even for me and Ryuzaki, it will be difficult to take on 2 or 3 Pawns by ourselves.”
That also applied to Harao. The ones who were left in charge of the heavy cruiser branch school’s protection were Harao and Kaoruko. Aside from them were members whose combat ability couldn’t be expected much. When it came to being attacked by 2 or more vampires, it would be doubtful whether or not they could protect Akai.
Sakuma suddenly started fidgeting. She was probably worrying about her close friend.
However, Kyousuke continued.
“It’s only one of those vampires, but his name is probably ‘Toki’.”
“Toki…?”
“Perhaps … not just Toki but names such as Tokino, Tokihara, etc…. According to the message Inugami left behind, it’s ‘Toki’.”
Toki. A name that sounded like Japanese.
“For now Utsurogi. We also have a few things that was made clear.”
Ryuzaki raised his face and revealed to Kyousuke group the information obtained from the conversation with the chieftain.
First, the chieftain was hiding something about Inugami disappearance.
The chieftain himself didn’t know about the vampires existence.
The chieftain had some suspicions regarding themselves.
Those suspicions were probably things someone had whispered in his ears.
Putting together these information, they speculated that there was a vampire who hid its true character and whispered convenient information to the chieftain. Kyousuke, Rin and Akira nodded then started ruminating the new information.
“It’s highly possible that the vampire who whisper strange information to chieftain-san is that Toki, isn’t it?”
∗Unyon∗, stretching out her body from Kyousuke’s, Rin said.
“For now, I will try to shake up the chieftain again in the conference this afternoon. I think I’ll bring out the name Toki as well.”
Ryuzaki’s words were answered by a silent nod of Satomi the satori.
Kyousuke group had discovered the vampires’ house, which meant it might devolve to a battle after this. If the vampire was in a position to whisper stuffs into the chieftain’s ears, then unskillfully hiding information would only bring disadvantage to themselves.
Naturally, if they felt like it, Ryuzaki and the others had enough power to forcefully silence every islanders of Albadanba. But it wasn’t as if they wanted to do that.
“Ne~, Utsurogi-kun…”
With an unusually grim expression, Sakuma said.
“What is it? Sakuma.”
“What are those vampires trying to do … you don’t know, do you?”
“Nn, I don’t…”
Kyousuke nodded. This time, Sakuma — still didn’t relax her expression — informed Ryuzaki:
“I will return to the branch school for a bit.”
“I don’t mind, but…”
“I’ll try consulting various things I heard here with Asuka-chan. That person called Toki as well, she may know something about him.”
So she said, but that was probably not everything.
Sakuma was worrying about the possibility of the heavy cruiser branch school being attacked by 2 vampires or even more than that. In such a case, only Harao and Kaoruko were naturally insufficient to defend against that. Not that anything would change even if Sakuma alone went there, but she was unable to suppress her feelings and thinking logically was already pointless.
“Then I’ll go too.”
The one who said that was Goubayashi. Sakuma looked at him with a surprised look.
“Goubayashi-kun will?”
“Yea. Combat ability-wise, it would’ve been better if Utsurogi goes, however, Utsurogi have to guide Nekomiya group after this. Conversely speaking, there’s no need for me to go, now that Utsurogi is here.”
Kyousuke also nodded. It was possible that several vampires had remained in the house where Inugami was confined, but if it was Kyousuke, he would be fine even in that case. It had already been proven that Extreme Cross possessed combat ability far surpassing others after all.
To sum it up, the members here would be newly divided like this:
Ryuzaki and Satomi.
They were going to participate in the meeting with the chieftains after this. The role of this group was to shake up the chieftain. The purpose had change from the stage of ‘extracting information’ to the next stage. Now, for the chieftain who harbor doubts about 2nd year class 4, they was going to slap all the ‘truth’ they got into his face and changed their image.
Originally, Sakuma was supposed to be added to this group. Even if she couldn’t use «Temptation» by her own will, Ryuzaki was expecting to lower the humans’ vigilance against them. However, he decided to respect the will of the person herself.
Kyousuke, Rin, Akira, Nekomiya, Saruwatari, Kagoi and Karasuma.
They were going to rescue Inugami who was probably being confined in the vampires’ house. The chances that the vampires were all out of the house was not zero, but this team was very likely going to have to fight. Depending on the circumstances, Kyousuke and Rin might need to clean things up quickly with Extreme Cross.
Sakuma and Goubayashi.
They were going to return to the heavy cruiser branch school and act as Akai’s guards as well as exchange the obtained information. If one was to assume the reason the chieftain was trying to detain Ryuzaki group was to make it easier for the vampires to move, then the first thing they was going to aim at would be Akai at the branch school. In case several vampires came to attack, it was difficult to think just Harao and Kaoruko would be able to fight against those, speaking frankly, they didn’t even know how much better the situation would be even with these two as reinforcement.
This was the most dangerous position.
“We will also go to the branch school once we manage to rescue Inugami.”
“Right, we should do that.”
Akira nodded to Kyousuke’s words.
“Saa-chan, don’t push yourself.”
Being told so by Rin, Sakuma floated a little bitter smile and nodded.
“Yeah…. Himemizu-san, Utsurogi-kun and everyone … please come as soon as possible.”
“Well, I think it’s possible to hold them back if there are about 3. Anymore than that and I don’t know what will happen.”
This remark was Goubayashi’s. It was as reliable as it could be, but he probably didn’t mean that he would challenge 3 vampires by himself. He meant that 3 was the limit after cooperating with Harao, Kaoruko and Sakuma. Moreover, limited to the case where there were only Pawn-class opponents. In case the opponent was Knight or Bishop class, it would probably take the four of them their all just to hold back one enemy.
“As I thought, the place in the most danger is the branch school…”
Kyousuke’s voice was filled with slight distress.
Because fighting ability couldn’t be divided, it couldn’t be helped that the arrangement would be biased. And the fact that the burden would be concentrated on Kyousuke group as well, that couldn’t be helped. Ryuzaki ground his teeth.
This was never something desirable. However, there was absolutely many situations where he couldn’t help but rely on their outstanding combat ability.
“I will be waiting.”
“Sure, leave it to me.”
In response to Sakuma’s words, Kyousuke strongly nodded.
“Apparently, the talk has finished while we’re not here.”
“Being left out and settle in the upper right corner of the group photo, that too is youth.”
“We’re not really being left out though…”
Finally, Nekomiya who was being jostled about by the children and Saruwatari had returned.
Everyone once again nodded to each other and started taking their respective actions.
In the Maritime United Nations Albadanba, the islanders of Delf Island still didn’t know that a battle was about to occur. However, the battle preparation was steadily being completed.
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