Chapter 45: Asuka Langley Soryu

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In an ordinary school, an incident involving bloodshed, violence, and a vicious fight would have all the students connected to the “case” in the teachers’ office by now, while their guardians would have been notified and would be rushing frantically to the school.

But this was Rinsen Academy.

Although Rinsen Academy had a complicated background, and Matsutani was not the only power controlling the school, in Sakuragi—a country where organized crime was legal—Rinsen Academy was an untouchable institution in the public eye. There was no reason for the school to oppose the heir of a gang over some penniless student from a remote mountain village with no connections whatsoever. Besides, this was hardly the first time Matsutani had caused a bloody incident here. As long as the academy’s own interests were not threatened, the administration generally chose to turn a blind eye.

If the homeroom teacher had been responsible, he would probably not have acted as though nothing had happened. He would not have simply watched his students clean the blood from the floor, picked up his books, and walked into the classroom without asking what had occurred or threatening to make trouble for Kuroba Itsuki. Nor would he have shown any sign of summoning Kuroba Itsuki to the office. Instead, while arranging the lectern, he merely stole several glances at him.

After all, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto had already issued his warning. If the teacher caused trouble for Kuroba Itsuki now, he might bring trouble upon himself. If he summoned Itsuki to the office, Matsutani and the others might take it as a sign that the school was protecting him by implication. They probably would not dare touch him while he remained on school grounds—the academy would protect him there—but once he left school, anything could happen. Who could say whether some “accident” might occur?

“Looks like Matsutani isn’t very popular. He’s injured badly enough to end up in the hospital, and the teacher doesn’t even ask about him.”

Kuroba Itsuki glanced at Matsutani’s empty seat on his right, then at the teacher on the podium, who had begun lecturing as soon as the bell rang, as though he had not even noticed that several students were missing. He could not help shaking his head.

Still, this was for the best. At least the teacher would not learn the reason and come looking for trouble. It was rather pleasant to be left alone.

After three classes, lunchtime arrived.

Kuroba Itsuki glanced at the seat to his left. Watanabe Reimu had probably gone to prepare for her performance. That was likely why she had been absent the previous day as well. He then looked toward the first seat nearest the door—the place occupied by the gloomy, frequently bullied girl from a poor family. She probably had not yet recovered from the trauma of the previous night.

A girl barely in her teens had endured something like that—and had then been seen by a male classmate…

“Could it be my fault?”

Kuroba Itsuki wondered whether Ryugu Asuka had been too embarrassed to come to school because he had seen her. He truly had no idea what he should do. After all, she was a girl, a schoolgirl. Even if nothing like that had happened, the work she had been doing in a place like that…

“All right. Looks like I’ll have to go talk some sense into her myself—and bring her the money while I’m at it.”

Kuroba Itsuki touched the three thousand yuan he had taken in advance from his pocket. He had originally planned to give it to her when he encountered her at school, hoping to persuade her never to do that kind of work again. He had not considered that the humiliation and harm a girl suffered after such an incident might be enough to keep her from attending class.

As usual, he took his three-star cafeteria card and went to the first floor of the dining hall. He greeted the men and women serving the food warmly, then filled two plates to the brim and carried them steadily to a table, where he began devouring them.

This meal had to sustain him for three.

He had to eat as much as possible. Fortunately, his physique was extraordinary, and he had undergone rigorous hunger training. Otherwise, eating this way would eventually land him in the hospital with overeating.

“See him? That’s the guy.”

A boy from Class Five and several students from other classes carried their meals past Kuroba Itsuki, secretly pointing at him.

“He’s the one who made Matsutani bleed?”

The others whispered in astonishment.

“Keep your voice down. Don’t let him hear you. He’s probably eating his last meal. Miyamoto has already issued his final ultimatum.”

The boy hurriedly led his companions to the other side of the dining hall, putting as much distance between them and Kuroba Itsuki as possible. From there, they watched him and whispered among themselves.

“He’s an idol. He actually put Matsutani in the hospital.”

“Look, that’s him. He crippled Matsutani.”

“Good. Matsutani always bullies people just because he’s with the underworld.”

“Shh! Keep it down. Let’s sit over there. Don’t let anyone think we’re on his side, or we might get targeted too.”

And so the whispers continued.

Kuroba Itsuki did not ignore the students’ gossip. Instead, he listened carefully, gathering every scrap of information about Matsutani from their words.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can win a hundred battles.

“The Rinsen Group? The largest criminal organization in Rinsen City. Looks like my guess was right. Matsutani…”

With the knife in his right hand, Kuroba Itsuki divided a piece of chicken cutlet into four sections: up, down, left, and right.

Before Itsuki had left the island, Matsutani had told him about the distribution of power in Sakuragi’s underworld. Rinsen and the surrounding cities, the economic heartland of Sakuragi, were controlled by the older and mysterious organization known as the Crystal Palace. West of the second-tier cities beneath the nation’s major economic centers was the Rinsen Group; the east was controlled by the Nine Snakes Association. The poorer southern cities were administered by the Youth Martial Arts Hall, an organization composed of peripheral members of the Koga and Iga factions.

“What does any of that have to do with me?”

Kuroba Itsuki shook his head helplessly. He had left the island merely to experience the school life and romance his seniors had spoken of. Everything else had nothing to do with him.

He picked up his silver fork with his left hand, speared all four pieces of chicken cutlet at once, and stuffed them into his mouth. His cheeks bulged as he chewed with deep satisfaction.

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After finishing his meal, Kuroba Itsuki pulled a napkin from the table and wiped the corner of his mouth. He glanced around and discovered that he had somehow become the focus of attention on the entire first floor of the dining hall. He raised his chin forty-five degrees and looked toward the second-floor corridor, where quite a few people were watching him as well.

Seeing this, he frowned.

One of the rules Inoue Izumi had taught him was never to attract too much attention. Otherwise, he would place himself in danger at all times.

“Whatever. Who can blame them? I am handsome.”

Kuroba Itsuki shrugged helplessly. If he really followed the assassin’s code and killed everyone who paid attention to him, the academy would become a bloody slaughterhouse.

Besides, he was not here to carry out a mission. It did not matter.

When he left the dining hall, Kuroba Itsuki found himself uncomfortable under the sidelong glances of the students passing by. The worst were the looks in some of the girls’ eyes—pity and sympathy, as if they were gazing at a small animal. Their stares made his entire body prickle.

He had attracted attention on the island as well, but that attention came from his being a genius, the rising star of the Iga faction, and the presumed successor to its leadership. Though he had never been accustomed to it, he had still felt a small measure of pride inside.

This kind of attention was different. It made him irritable. He hated it. For a moment, he even felt like confronting Matsutani directly and wiping out Matsutani’s influence within the academy—or even throughout Rinsen City.

After all, he was only seventeen, a boy who had lived on the island since childhood. His martial achievements were extraordinary, but his mind was not much more mature than that of his peers. He was young, inexperienced, and thin-skinned.

Inoue Izumi could teach him martial arts, but when it came to life experience and everything else, Izumi believed he had to experience those things for himself. That was also why she had agreed to let Kuroba Itsuki leave the island alone.

“I came here to live a normal school life. Everything else has nothing to do with me.”

Kuroba Itsuki shook his head. Through sheer self-control, he cast all other thoughts aside and looked at the classroom office door in front of him.

He knocked.

No one answered.

He placed his hand on the handle and gently pressed it down.

The handle moved a fraction of an inch before refusing to go any farther.

Kuroba Itsuki raised an eyebrow. No one was inside, and the door had been locked. He did not use force. Instead, he glanced at the security camera near the corner, slipped both hands into his pockets, and turned away as though nothing had happened.

As he passed beneath the camera, a small black object resembling a magnet appeared between his fingers. He flicked it with his index and middle fingers. The tiny magnet shot through the air and stuck beneath the camera.

Kuroba Itsuki glanced left and right. No one was around. At this hour, everyone should have been eating.

He turned back. Two wires slid into the keyhole.

Click.

The lock opened.

Kuroba Itsuki gently pressed down the handle, pushed open the door, and entered.

He looked over the arrangement of the office. He had expected to waste time figuring out which desk belonged to his homeroom teacher, but every desk had an identification plaque standing on it, indicating the class and its homeroom teacher.

He walked over and searched the desktop. There was nothing important, only ordinary items.

He crouched down and tugged at a drawer.

It was locked.

Two more wires slipped inside.

…

“Is this Ryugu Asuka’s file?”

Kuroba Itsuki stared at Ryugu Asuka’s photograph in surprise.

In the picture, she had long brown hair, with two delicate hairpins securing the bangs on either side of her head like a pair of tiny antlers. Her smooth forehead was exposed, beneath which rested faintly curved brows. Her single-lidded eyes carried a trace of languor, yet nothing could diminish their lively pride. She was smiling sweetly, twin dimples appearing in her slightly chubby cheeks.

Confident and beautiful, she looked like a little princess.

That was Kuroba Itsuki’s assessment of the girl in the photograph.

Father: Chairman of the Ryugu Catering Group.

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Mother: General Manager of the Ryugu Catering Group.

“What is going on? Her family seems to be quite wealthy.”

Kuroba Itsuki blinked when he read this. He found it difficult to believe. If he had not been certain that the person in the photograph was indeed Ryugu Asuka, he would have thought there were two people with the same name.

He turned on the computer resting on the desk and tapped at the keyboard for a while, breaking through the lock-screen password. Then he searched the internet for information about the Ryugu Catering Group.

“Was I deceived?”

Kuroba Itsuki grew irritated when the search results showed that the Ryugu Catering Group was worth more than a hundred million. If her family was so wealthy, why had she pretended to be poor?

Just as he was about to shut down the computer, he noticed a small headline at the bottom of the search page:

“Ryugu Yu injured in a car accident and left in a vegetative state; his wife dies at the scene. Ryugu Catering Group plunged into crisis.”

The date beneath it was six months earlier.

Kuroba Itsuki suddenly swallowed.

He left the office and gently closed the door behind him. When he reached the camera, he bent his knees and sprang upward. His body rose into the air, and he reached out to snatch away the small magnet. Then he quickly vanished into the camera’s blind spot.

He lay in a patch of grass concealed by thick plants, beside a sign that read, “Please Keep Off,” and watched the students passing by. Their faces were filled with happy smiles. They showed off the new “gifts” their parents had bought them and compared the latest luxury goods.

Kuroba Itsuki could not help thinking of his several encounters with Ryugu Asuka.

The first had been in the dean’s office. She had crawled out from beneath the desk, her clothes disheveled, and he had assumed that…

Now, recalling what the dean had said before she left, he realized he had misunderstood. He had indulged in wild fantasies, but now it seemed she had probably done it only for the scholarship…

The second time had been while cleaning.

The third time…

…

The previous day, she had been selling beer in a place like that to earn money. She had nearly been assaulted in front of all those people. If he had not happened to be there, the consequences…

“She truly went from heaven to hell in a single step. For a former young heiress to reach this point—to swallow her grievances, humble herself, and cast aside her pride—she really is remarkable.”

Perhaps because he had grown up without parents, Kuroba Itsuki felt a sudden sting in his nose. An intense desire to help Ryugu Asuka rose within him.

Not just once.

He wanted to help her for as long as necessary, until she had overcome her difficulties.

He did not look down on anything she had done. He did not despise her for sleeping with the dean to obtain a scholarship, even though the dean was a woman. He did not scorn her for abandoning her identity as a young heiress, giving up the dignity expected of a student, and working as a scantily clad beer hostess.

He had no right to judge her.

He would never forget how he had survived inside that cage where the weak were preyed upon by the strong.

What was pride?

What was dignity?

What was right, and what was wrong?

Only those who had managed to stay alive had the chance to discuss such things.