Oretachi no Kizuna - Chapter 15
Chapter 15 : Sacrificial Lamb
“Ryosuke!” shouted Yuri Chinen, panting as he tried to catch up to his class leader. “Ryosuke, wait up!” When he finally got at a suitable distance, Yuri reached out and grabbed Ryosuke by the arm. “Are you crazy? We can’t take on Showa Gakuen all by ourselves!”
“I’m not crazy!” spluttered Ryosuke, also panting from the exertion. He leaned over and put his hands on his bent knees. “We don’t need those older guys! We can take care of ourselves.”
Ryutaro joined them, looking quite put out. “You may think that, but I agree with Yuri. We can’t do this ourselves.”
Ryosuke said, his tone biting, “I thought you guys were my friends! I didn’t think you would betray me.” He looked away to avoid seeing Yuri and Ryutaro’s faces fall in dismay.
“This isn’t a question of friendship,” said Yuri, his voice shaking. “Like that Kei Inoo said, it’s a question of logic. We’re just kids!”
Ryosuke drew himself up to his full height. “Then, we’ve got to grow up.” Ryutaro stared at the ground silently, while Yuri looked like he was about to protest. “Besides," said Ryosuke, straightening his uniform’s suit jacket, “we’re here.”
Yuri looked up and paled when he realized where they were. “No way. You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking. This is Showa Gakuen!” He pointed at a shiny brass sign that clearly labeled the building in front of them.
“Let’s go.”
Yuri spun around, facing the person who had just spoken, the one named Ryutaro Morimoto. “What?” exclaimed Yuri, looking stunned.
“If Ryosuke wants to go challenge Showa Gakuen, we’d better listen to him. He’s our leader after all,” replied Ryutaro, his voice dull and his eyes still fixed on the ground in front of him.
Ryosuke put his arm about Ryutaro’s shoulders. “That’s what I’m talking about! I knew you’d come through for me! Come on, Yuri let’s go!”
With that, Ryosuke strode up to the metal gates of Showa Gakuen and rattled them, shouting, “Akihiro Kuroda of Showa Gakuen! We’ve got something to say to you! Show yourself!”
At first, there was no response, but as Ryosuke began to raise more of a ruckus, the doors of Showa Gakuen opened, and out strode the tall, muscular figure of Akihiro Kuroda. He walked right up to them, but didn’t open the gates.
“What do you squirts want?” Akihiro growled.
Ryosuke, to his credit, didn’t back down. Instead, he glared back at Akihiro and replied, “We want you to pay back what you did to our school.”
“Your school?” Akihiro’s eyes scrutinized each of them. “Ah, I see. Your uniforms are Heisei Gakuen uniforms. But, who are you?” He leaned in closer, and even though the bars of the gates still separated them, Ryosuke could feel the heat from Akihiro’s breath.
“I am Ryosuke Yamada,” announced Ryosuke proudly. “The leader of Class 1.”
“First years?” Akihiro chortled gleefully. “Seriously? It seems that Yuya Takaki enjoys sending young ones to take the fall for him. Last time, it was Yuto Nakajima of Class 2. I guess they just keep getting younger!”
Ryosuke pounded his fist into the gate, the bars barely missing Akihiro’s nose. “I wouldn’t go around jumping to conclusions if I were you, especially such wrong ones. We don’t have anything to do with Yuya Takaki. We came here ourselves.”
As Ryosuke Yamada and Akihiro Kuroda’s voices rose higher and higher in anger, Yuto Nakajima, Daiki Arioka, Kei Inoo, and Keito Okamoto crept closer and closer to the scene. Quickly, they ducked behind some of the hedges growing near the gates.
“Was following Ryosuke Yamada and his friends such a good idea?” asked Keito, peering out at the confrontation apprehensively.
Yuto replied tersely, “We’ve got to make sure that they don’t get too beat up. If we can’t make the situation clear to them, then Akihiro Kuroda will have to.”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Daiki, rubbing his hands together a bit too gleefully. “They’ve got it coming to them!”
Kei sighed dramatically. “Daiki, you’ve missed the point. Once again.”
Yuto held up a hand, catching their attention before the two of them could start arguing. “Wait, something is happening!” he whispered.
Ryosuke Yamada had stepped back from the gates, which had started swinging outward. Akihiro Kuroda strode through the gates, the expression on his face suggesting that everything happening to him was a joke.
As Akihiro cleared the gateway, Ryosuke said, “I challenge you to a fight. Us two leaders, one-on-one. If I win, you will leave Heisei Gakuen alone.”
Akihiro smirked. “And what if I win?”
“Then you win,” replied Ryosuke coolly.
“What kind of terms are those?” scoffed Akihiro.
Ryosuke’s expression suddenly became more contemptuous than usual. “Are you really going to admit that you, Akihiro Kuroda of almighty Showa Gakuen, refused a challenge by a first year? That you were too much of a coward?” Ryosuke emphasized the last word in his sentence, making Akihiro cringe.
“No, of course not,” the leader of Showa Gakuen snarled. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. Out from within the school came seven heavily built, maroon-clad Showa Gakuen students. Soon, they were standing on either side of Akihiro Kuroda.
“Hey! I said it was a one-on-one battle!” protested Ryosuke, looking from one big Showa boy to the next with an alarmed expression on his normally pompous face.
Akihiro’s smirk turned even more mocking. “Sorry, Ryosuke Yamada of Class 1, but I don’t fight one-on-one battles.”
Akihiro drew back a fist and punched Ryosuke hard in the face, propelling the leader of Class 1 backwards. Ryosuke flung himself back onto his feet and grabbed hold of one of the other Showa boys, head butting him and then shoving the boy away from him.
As he was doing this, Akihiro had made his way over to Yuri Chinen, laughing uproariously. “Hey, guys! I don’t remember being this small when I was a first year!”
When he said this, Yuri’s expression turned absolutely furious, yet somehow he still managed to remain cute. “What did you just say? Do you want to die?”
“Die? From a little shrimp like -”
Akihiro never finished his comment because it was at that time that Yuri decided to flip into the air, kicking the leader of Showa Gakuen so hard that Akihiro’s face had an unexpected meeting with the earth.
From behind the hedge, Keito let out a surprised, “Geez!” Thankfully, the other Showa Gakuen boys were too preoccupied with the sudden leveling of their leader to notice.
Yuri stuck out his finger toward the prostrate Akihiro, saying triumphantly, “And that’s why you don’t make fun of short people!”
While the Showa Gakuen boys tried to take on Ryosuke and Yuri, Ryutaro was slowly backing away, his eyes wide with fear. Unlike his friends, Ryutaro was not particularly strong or good at fighting. Hoping that his friends could take care of themselves against their eight opponents, Ryutaro hurried away and hid behind a nearby tree.
Daiki stared after him in disbelief. “What does that Ryutaro Morimoto think he is doing?” he asked incredulously. No one chose to answer him, their minds wondering the same thing.
As the fighting drew on, it became clear that Ryosuke and Yuri were not going to gain the upper hand. Eight against two were hardly fair odds. Even more disastrous, the Showa Gakuen boys had decided that Yuri Chinen was the bigger threat than Ryosuke Yamada and so had split themselves up so that Akihiro Kuroda faced Ryosuke alone, while the other seven had ganged up on Yuri.
With a deafening crash, Yuri’s body hit the earth. One of the Showa Gakuen boys had grabbed Yuri mid flip and had flung him to the ground. Yuri let out a cry of pain, his body shaking involuntarily. He tried to get up, but was only able to use his elbows to raise the upper half of his body a little before collapsing.
The seven Showa Gakuen boys left Yuri where he was and rejoined Akihiro. It was not much longer after that Ryosuke Yamada had joined his friend on the ground. Akihiro sat on Ryosuke, pinning him down. Using on hand to further secure Ryosuke, his other continually punched Ryosuke in the face.
Akihiro shouted, “Darn pretty boy! You’d better learn your lesson!”
Daiki poked Yuto in the side, asking urgently, “Yuto, should we do something? If this continues, I’m not sure how much of Ryosuke there will be left!”
Yuto stared at the scene, deeply conflicted. On the one hand, he wanted to help Ryosuke, whom he still saw as a classmate, even if Ryosuke refused to see it the same way. On the other, Yuto was not sure how much help they could give, considering that it was still eight people and they only had four. Whichever option it was, he had to make a decision fast.
Time was running out.
“Yuto!”
Just as Yuto was about to tell Daiki his decision, Ryutaro dashed out from behind the tree, pushing Akihiro off of Ryosuke.
“Don’t hurt my friends!” he shouted, his expression uncharacteristically defiant.
Akihiro looked at him in disbelief, while picking himself off of the ground. “Who are you? Where did you come from?
“That’s not important!” answered Ryutaro, sticking out his lower lip in an attempt to be brave. “What’s important is that you’re hurting my friends! I can’t let you do that!” He stood protectively over Ryosuke and Yuri and raised his fists.
From the ground, Ryosuke gave a feeble moan, “No, Ryutaro. What are you doing? Run while you still have the chance.”
“No,” said Ryutaro, shaking his head firmly while the rest of him quivered in barely suppressed terror. “I can’t leave you here! I’ll protect you like how you’ve always protected me!”
“Ryosuke’s right,” groaned Yuri. “We’ll be fine. Go, Ryutaro!”
Ryutaro ignored both of his friends. Instead, he charged toward Akihiro, ramming him with his shoulder. Akihiro grabbed Ryutaro and threw him to the ground, as the other Showa boys circled them. Through the gaps, Yuto could see the boys taking turns picking Ryutaro up from the ground and then shoving him into the arms of another boy, who would then deliver a punch or a kick.
After a while, Akihiro laughed cruelly, saying, “Okay, guys, I think he’s had enough!” The boys started to back away.
But then, Ryutaro slowly picked himself back up from the ground, his body swaying from side to side as he did so. “No, wait,” he said, his voice grating. “I’m not through with you yet.”
Akihiro laughed again. “Look at this little boy trying to act tough.” He pushed Ryutaro, and the youngest member of Class 1 crumpled like a paper doll. “You should learn to play with the big boys…when you’re ready.”
From behind the hedge, Yuto noticed the tell-tale signs of Ryutaro about to stagger to his feet once again. This time, the decision came fast to him.
“Guys, we’ve got to help! Ryutaro’s not going to last one more!”
Daiki grinned, his eyes glinting. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that!” With that, Daiki grabbed a large branch that had fallen off a tree nearby and ran towards the Showa Gakuen boys, yelling a battle roar.
When he reached the group, he flung the large branch around crazily, driving the unarmed Showa Gakuen boys away from the fallen Class 1 students.
As Daiki cleared the area, Yuto, Kei, and Keito rushed forward from behind the hedge. Each of them went to go help up one of the members of Class 1. When Yuto held out his hand to help Ryosuke, Ryosuke grunted and said, “So, you were here this whole time.”
“Yeah,” replied Yuto, smiling sadly. “We couldn’t let you just go off and do something stupid without any backup. You guys are our classmates too, you know.”
Smiling painfully from his split lip, Ryosuke said, “You really are something, Yuto Nakajima.” He grabbed Yuto’s hand, accepting it, and Yuto pulled him back up, wrapping his arm around his fellow leader to support him.
“Let’s get out of here,” muttered Yuto as he helped Ryosuke limp away.
After they had put some distance between them and Showa Gakuen, Yuto could have sworn that he heard Ryosuke faintly whisper a “thank you”.
Onwards to Chapter 16~
“Ryosuke!” shouted Yuri Chinen, panting as he tried to catch up to his class leader. “Ryosuke, wait up!” When he finally got at a suitable distance, Yuri reached out and grabbed Ryosuke by the arm. “Are you crazy? We can’t take on Showa Gakuen all by ourselves!”
“I’m not crazy!” spluttered Ryosuke, also panting from the exertion. He leaned over and put his hands on his bent knees. “We don’t need those older guys! We can take care of ourselves.”
Ryutaro joined them, looking quite put out. “You may think that, but I agree with Yuri. We can’t do this ourselves.”
Ryosuke said, his tone biting, “I thought you guys were my friends! I didn’t think you would betray me.” He looked away to avoid seeing Yuri and Ryutaro’s faces fall in dismay.
“This isn’t a question of friendship,” said Yuri, his voice shaking. “Like that Kei Inoo said, it’s a question of logic. We’re just kids!”
Ryosuke drew himself up to his full height. “Then, we’ve got to grow up.” Ryutaro stared at the ground silently, while Yuri looked like he was about to protest. “Besides," said Ryosuke, straightening his uniform’s suit jacket, “we’re here.”
Yuri looked up and paled when he realized where they were. “No way. You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking. This is Showa Gakuen!” He pointed at a shiny brass sign that clearly labeled the building in front of them.
“Let’s go.”
Yuri spun around, facing the person who had just spoken, the one named Ryutaro Morimoto. “What?” exclaimed Yuri, looking stunned.
“If Ryosuke wants to go challenge Showa Gakuen, we’d better listen to him. He’s our leader after all,” replied Ryutaro, his voice dull and his eyes still fixed on the ground in front of him.
Ryosuke put his arm about Ryutaro’s shoulders. “That’s what I’m talking about! I knew you’d come through for me! Come on, Yuri let’s go!”
With that, Ryosuke strode up to the metal gates of Showa Gakuen and rattled them, shouting, “Akihiro Kuroda of Showa Gakuen! We’ve got something to say to you! Show yourself!”
At first, there was no response, but as Ryosuke began to raise more of a ruckus, the doors of Showa Gakuen opened, and out strode the tall, muscular figure of Akihiro Kuroda. He walked right up to them, but didn’t open the gates.
“What do you squirts want?” Akihiro growled.
Ryosuke, to his credit, didn’t back down. Instead, he glared back at Akihiro and replied, “We want you to pay back what you did to our school.”
“Your school?” Akihiro’s eyes scrutinized each of them. “Ah, I see. Your uniforms are Heisei Gakuen uniforms. But, who are you?” He leaned in closer, and even though the bars of the gates still separated them, Ryosuke could feel the heat from Akihiro’s breath.
“I am Ryosuke Yamada,” announced Ryosuke proudly. “The leader of Class 1.”
“First years?” Akihiro chortled gleefully. “Seriously? It seems that Yuya Takaki enjoys sending young ones to take the fall for him. Last time, it was Yuto Nakajima of Class 2. I guess they just keep getting younger!”
Ryosuke pounded his fist into the gate, the bars barely missing Akihiro’s nose. “I wouldn’t go around jumping to conclusions if I were you, especially such wrong ones. We don’t have anything to do with Yuya Takaki. We came here ourselves.”
As Ryosuke Yamada and Akihiro Kuroda’s voices rose higher and higher in anger, Yuto Nakajima, Daiki Arioka, Kei Inoo, and Keito Okamoto crept closer and closer to the scene. Quickly, they ducked behind some of the hedges growing near the gates.
“Was following Ryosuke Yamada and his friends such a good idea?” asked Keito, peering out at the confrontation apprehensively.
Yuto replied tersely, “We’ve got to make sure that they don’t get too beat up. If we can’t make the situation clear to them, then Akihiro Kuroda will have to.”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Daiki, rubbing his hands together a bit too gleefully. “They’ve got it coming to them!”
Kei sighed dramatically. “Daiki, you’ve missed the point. Once again.”
Yuto held up a hand, catching their attention before the two of them could start arguing. “Wait, something is happening!” he whispered.
Ryosuke Yamada had stepped back from the gates, which had started swinging outward. Akihiro Kuroda strode through the gates, the expression on his face suggesting that everything happening to him was a joke.
As Akihiro cleared the gateway, Ryosuke said, “I challenge you to a fight. Us two leaders, one-on-one. If I win, you will leave Heisei Gakuen alone.”
Akihiro smirked. “And what if I win?”
“Then you win,” replied Ryosuke coolly.
“What kind of terms are those?” scoffed Akihiro.
Ryosuke’s expression suddenly became more contemptuous than usual. “Are you really going to admit that you, Akihiro Kuroda of almighty Showa Gakuen, refused a challenge by a first year? That you were too much of a coward?” Ryosuke emphasized the last word in his sentence, making Akihiro cringe.
“No, of course not,” the leader of Showa Gakuen snarled. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. Out from within the school came seven heavily built, maroon-clad Showa Gakuen students. Soon, they were standing on either side of Akihiro Kuroda.
“Hey! I said it was a one-on-one battle!” protested Ryosuke, looking from one big Showa boy to the next with an alarmed expression on his normally pompous face.
Akihiro’s smirk turned even more mocking. “Sorry, Ryosuke Yamada of Class 1, but I don’t fight one-on-one battles.”
Akihiro drew back a fist and punched Ryosuke hard in the face, propelling the leader of Class 1 backwards. Ryosuke flung himself back onto his feet and grabbed hold of one of the other Showa boys, head butting him and then shoving the boy away from him.
As he was doing this, Akihiro had made his way over to Yuri Chinen, laughing uproariously. “Hey, guys! I don’t remember being this small when I was a first year!”
When he said this, Yuri’s expression turned absolutely furious, yet somehow he still managed to remain cute. “What did you just say? Do you want to die?”
“Die? From a little shrimp like -”
Akihiro never finished his comment because it was at that time that Yuri decided to flip into the air, kicking the leader of Showa Gakuen so hard that Akihiro’s face had an unexpected meeting with the earth.
From behind the hedge, Keito let out a surprised, “Geez!” Thankfully, the other Showa Gakuen boys were too preoccupied with the sudden leveling of their leader to notice.
Yuri stuck out his finger toward the prostrate Akihiro, saying triumphantly, “And that’s why you don’t make fun of short people!”
While the Showa Gakuen boys tried to take on Ryosuke and Yuri, Ryutaro was slowly backing away, his eyes wide with fear. Unlike his friends, Ryutaro was not particularly strong or good at fighting. Hoping that his friends could take care of themselves against their eight opponents, Ryutaro hurried away and hid behind a nearby tree.
Daiki stared after him in disbelief. “What does that Ryutaro Morimoto think he is doing?” he asked incredulously. No one chose to answer him, their minds wondering the same thing.
As the fighting drew on, it became clear that Ryosuke and Yuri were not going to gain the upper hand. Eight against two were hardly fair odds. Even more disastrous, the Showa Gakuen boys had decided that Yuri Chinen was the bigger threat than Ryosuke Yamada and so had split themselves up so that Akihiro Kuroda faced Ryosuke alone, while the other seven had ganged up on Yuri.
With a deafening crash, Yuri’s body hit the earth. One of the Showa Gakuen boys had grabbed Yuri mid flip and had flung him to the ground. Yuri let out a cry of pain, his body shaking involuntarily. He tried to get up, but was only able to use his elbows to raise the upper half of his body a little before collapsing.
The seven Showa Gakuen boys left Yuri where he was and rejoined Akihiro. It was not much longer after that Ryosuke Yamada had joined his friend on the ground. Akihiro sat on Ryosuke, pinning him down. Using on hand to further secure Ryosuke, his other continually punched Ryosuke in the face.
Akihiro shouted, “Darn pretty boy! You’d better learn your lesson!”
Daiki poked Yuto in the side, asking urgently, “Yuto, should we do something? If this continues, I’m not sure how much of Ryosuke there will be left!”
Yuto stared at the scene, deeply conflicted. On the one hand, he wanted to help Ryosuke, whom he still saw as a classmate, even if Ryosuke refused to see it the same way. On the other, Yuto was not sure how much help they could give, considering that it was still eight people and they only had four. Whichever option it was, he had to make a decision fast.
Time was running out.
“Yuto!”
Just as Yuto was about to tell Daiki his decision, Ryutaro dashed out from behind the tree, pushing Akihiro off of Ryosuke.
“Don’t hurt my friends!” he shouted, his expression uncharacteristically defiant.
Akihiro looked at him in disbelief, while picking himself off of the ground. “Who are you? Where did you come from?
“That’s not important!” answered Ryutaro, sticking out his lower lip in an attempt to be brave. “What’s important is that you’re hurting my friends! I can’t let you do that!” He stood protectively over Ryosuke and Yuri and raised his fists.
From the ground, Ryosuke gave a feeble moan, “No, Ryutaro. What are you doing? Run while you still have the chance.”
“No,” said Ryutaro, shaking his head firmly while the rest of him quivered in barely suppressed terror. “I can’t leave you here! I’ll protect you like how you’ve always protected me!”
“Ryosuke’s right,” groaned Yuri. “We’ll be fine. Go, Ryutaro!”
Ryutaro ignored both of his friends. Instead, he charged toward Akihiro, ramming him with his shoulder. Akihiro grabbed Ryutaro and threw him to the ground, as the other Showa boys circled them. Through the gaps, Yuto could see the boys taking turns picking Ryutaro up from the ground and then shoving him into the arms of another boy, who would then deliver a punch or a kick.
After a while, Akihiro laughed cruelly, saying, “Okay, guys, I think he’s had enough!” The boys started to back away.
But then, Ryutaro slowly picked himself back up from the ground, his body swaying from side to side as he did so. “No, wait,” he said, his voice grating. “I’m not through with you yet.”
Akihiro laughed again. “Look at this little boy trying to act tough.” He pushed Ryutaro, and the youngest member of Class 1 crumpled like a paper doll. “You should learn to play with the big boys…when you’re ready.”
From behind the hedge, Yuto noticed the tell-tale signs of Ryutaro about to stagger to his feet once again. This time, the decision came fast to him.
“Guys, we’ve got to help! Ryutaro’s not going to last one more!”
Daiki grinned, his eyes glinting. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that!” With that, Daiki grabbed a large branch that had fallen off a tree nearby and ran towards the Showa Gakuen boys, yelling a battle roar.
When he reached the group, he flung the large branch around crazily, driving the unarmed Showa Gakuen boys away from the fallen Class 1 students.
As Daiki cleared the area, Yuto, Kei, and Keito rushed forward from behind the hedge. Each of them went to go help up one of the members of Class 1. When Yuto held out his hand to help Ryosuke, Ryosuke grunted and said, “So, you were here this whole time.”
“Yeah,” replied Yuto, smiling sadly. “We couldn’t let you just go off and do something stupid without any backup. You guys are our classmates too, you know.”
Smiling painfully from his split lip, Ryosuke said, “You really are something, Yuto Nakajima.” He grabbed Yuto’s hand, accepting it, and Yuto pulled him back up, wrapping his arm around his fellow leader to support him.
“Let’s get out of here,” muttered Yuto as he helped Ryosuke limp away.
After they had put some distance between them and Showa Gakuen, Yuto could have sworn that he heard Ryosuke faintly whisper a “thank you”.
Onwards to Chapter 16~