Chapter 87: Matching Blows

I was still unsatisfied, but the sun still rose. I went to school, attended my lessons, and returned home. They had found the culprit behind the newspaper incident immediately, and the adults dealt with him in a place that I didn’t know about.

I didn’t know what happened to the real culprit Kuwahara Katsura or to the newspaper. Everyone was whispering when I went to school every day, but I could bear it since my friends were with me.

“Kujou Sakuya!”

“Huh?”

It was Friday morning, so the day after this would be the weekend. On the morning before that weekend, I was attacked by a male student I hadn’t seen or heard of.

Was he trying to grab me? Was he trying to punch me? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that a horribly angry male student pushed his way towards me with his hand raised. Since he called my name, I knew that he was probably targeting me. I wasn’t good-natured enough to remain unresisting just because I might not be his target.

An extended hand, no, fist, was heading towards my face. I knew it, he was gonig to punch me. I handled his fist that was travelling so slowly that it could be in slow motion with my left hand and twisted the trajectory of his body a little. The male student’s fist cut through the air and flew by my right cheek.

The blow that was supposed to hit me cut through the air, so he lost his balance. As I dodged his right fist, the boy’s body twisted to the left. I tripped him while his body twisted and shoved him to send him flying. That was all.

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Jwv… R nswze xyjl bkx zspl nsdpnkswpdlpp cu fwpv ralppkdt zktbvzu sd bkp nyasvke yavlau. R eked’v dlle vs qsanlqwzzu pvaydtzl bkx sa pzknl bkp dlnj srld. Ju rwvvkdt y zkvvzl, fwpv~ y zkvvzl rsola kdvs xu qkdtlavkrp, R nswze xyjl vbkp xyzl pvweldv zspl nsdpnkswpdlpp kd y xyvvla sq plnsdep. Tsrlqwzzu R nswze jllr bkx kd nsdvasz wdvkz vbld.

“Zsw yal…”

“Fyjwuy! Eykv, obyv?”

Ebld R bye pwcewle vbl xyzl pvweldv, xu casvbla, obs R’e fwpv pyke tssecul vs yv vbl ldvaydnl zsccu, ayd cynj. Mbl xyzl pvweldv bye yvvynjle yqvla R zlqv xu casvbla, cwv vbl vyczlp vwadle sd bkx.

“Gtb! Nlv ts!”

“Kuwahara… Katsura…”

“What’re you trying to do by attacking my younger sister Sakuya!”

My brother… was really mad. I hadn’t seen this side of him. He was really, seriously mad. He was concerned about me… But he shouldn’t react so emotionally right now.

“Brother, calm down. Nothing was done to me. Rather, there is something else that you need to do.”

“——agh! …*sigh*~~~. Right… I lost my composure. Sorry.”

My brother sighed heavily, calmed down once again, and laughed bitterly. But he didn’t need to apologise. I was very happy right now.”

“No. You have gotten mad for my sake, brother. You do not need to apologise for anything. Sakuya feels very happy.”

“O-oh… ah… aah… Yep. I see.”

My brother, who turned a little red and was avoiding my gaze, laughed embarrassedly and scratched his head. That was somewhat cute. The fact that my brother was also like this relieved me. He was too intelligent. He couldn’t possibly be a sixth-grader.

But when I saw him like this… it made me think that he was still a kid. That was somewhat cute and somewhat reassuring.

“Let me go right now! You violent girl! Everyone, look! This is Kujou Sakuya’s true nature! She forced me, who’s innocent, to drop out of school! She wasn’t even satisfied with that and exercised this violence! Look! This is Kujou Sakuya’s true nature!”

“Uwah!”

“——agh!”

So noisy. Suddenly shouting so loudly… no, that volume wasn’t just his raw voice. Broadcast? Mic? Where? And… on the displays here and there… Kuwahara Katsura and I were depicted on the screens. Were they recording somewhere? Where…? Where the heck…

Then… the students going to school… softly… again… yet again… were softly whispering. It had calmed down a little recently, but… was this his aim…

“A first-grader pinning down a fifth-grader like that?”

“Uwah… looks like she’s used to being that violent.”

“Yeah, I saw, I saw. It was amazing; it looked like a movie scene. She does look pretty used to it.”

“As expected, the girl Kujou Sakuya is…”

“That kind of person.”

“——gh!”

Their whispers… and contempt-filled eyes pierced through me. Why? I was… Wasn’t I just protecting myself? Even so, why was I always the only one… always, always, always!

“Enough already!”

“——*gasp*!”

The harsh sound echoed. My voice had gone into Kuwahara Katsura’s mic. With that loud sound, my scream was broadcasted. The moment I spoke, I shut my mouth, but it was too late. I couldn’t unsay the words I’d shouted. And the mic was picked up. This was probably being recorded somewhere…

“Kuha! Kuhaha! This is your end. Kujou Sakuya~”

I shivered at Kuwahara Katsura, who had a disgusting smirk on his face.

Soon after that, we were separated by the teachers and other household members, and Kuwahara Katsura was taken away. But… I wouldn’t forget that horrible smile Kuwahara Katsura had on his face for the rest of my life.

　　～～～～～～～

Kuwahara Katsura was… aiming to match blows with me from the beginning…

He should’ve known that this incident happening would mean he’d get kicked out. Even so, he left proper evidence behind on purpose so that it’d be easy to understand that he did it.

Additionally, Kuwahara Katsura deliberately showed himself on the security camera almost as if he was trying to get caught as the culprit from the beginning.

And in this matter… Kuwahara was definitely mad that he’d gotten caught. But I hadn’t been wounded at all. To Kuwahara, who was already getting expelled, no punishment from the school would be effetive. I wasn’t injured, so it was pointless to call the police. Since I wasn’t injured, I wouldn’t be able to go to court.

On the other hand… my reputation was completely tainted.

It didn’t matter whether that was legitimate self-defence or not. I, as a lady, dragged down a man, threw him, held him down, vulgarly straddled him, tread on him, and in general used violence against him. That reputation of me had spread in an instant. You couldn’t think that it wasn’t planned from the beginning. It was executed too well.

Kuwahara Katsura was disposable from the beginning. Then, right before he was going to be expelled, when he had nothing to lose, he was used one last time.

The video recorded at that time had already been spread throughout the school. I knocked down Kuwahara Katsura, stepped on him, pinned him down, pulled up his hair, then laughed evilly with my brother. It was constructed like that. It had even recorded me yelling at the other students.

Kuwahara Katsura had made and spread this video, but he was being led by police at the moment. But was that really true? It was probably false. This was the work of another mastermind pulling the strings. The school shouldn’t have wanted anything troublesome to happen, so they were planning to shove all the blame onto Kuwahara Katsura and end the matter here.

Kuwahara was already leaving the school, so the school wouldn’t be related to any problems he caused. The culprit was just pushed to the police. That was it. On top of the fact that there was no concrete damage suffered, the police couldn’t react. They just had to drag him off, lecture him a little, and it’d be resolved. There was no meaning.

Kujou Sakuya’s image had fallen to the ground. I had lost everything. But the police wouldn’t acknowledge that as suffering damage. I hadn’t gotten injured. I didn’t even have my money stolen. That was why I hadn’t suffered any damage…

“…”

“Sakuya…”

It wasn’t the situation to attend class at all; the school and the police had an exchange, and the investigation had finally ended. I was walking with my brother, who’d waited outside, in the hallway, but… we were walking during break time, in the middle of a large amount of students… we were walking as they whispered.

Oh… this world was a cursed world… why was this world so harsh to Kujou Sakuya? What on earth did Kujou Sakuya do? Why did she have to receive this unreasonable treatment!

“Fuu… fuu…”

My heartbeat suddenly got faster and my breathing got ragged. At some point, I had curled my hand into a fist.

“Sakuya, I’ll walk you to your classroom.”

“No… I am fine alone.”

I rejected my brother’s offer to escort me and walked on my own.

Kujou Sakuya pushed people she didn’t like out of the academy.

Kujou Sakuya used violence against nonresisting opponents.

Kujou Sakuya pinned crimes on innocent people.

Kujou Sakuya was…

“*grind*!”

The sound of my teeth grinding against each other rang throughout the hallway. Why…

“Sakuya-sama!”

“Are you alright, Sakuya-chan?”

“Sakuya-chan!”

“Yeah…”

In no time at all, I seemed to have walked in front of my classroom. Azami-chan and the others jumped out, surrounded me, and called out to me. I felt saved just from that. The gloomy feeling I had earlier disappeared like it was all a lie.

I was still okay… if everyone was here… I could still move forward.

Losing my reputation wasn’t a big thing. If I lost it, I could build it up again. I hadn’t… I hadn’t lost anything truly important. That was why it was fine. I could still walk from here.

　　～～～～～～～

The Kuwahara Katsura incident had become a problem even to my family, but, as expected, they didn’t publicly respond and instead filed a criminal complaint and damages to the police. The police wouldn’t respond anyway. I had accepted that.

I didn’t really want to take revenge on the Kuwahara family or make them receive some punishment, but… I was completely dizzy at this reality. You’d be kicked out of the academy by just doing that…

This world was definitely outrageous. He probably couldn’t return to high society again. But… what if he had nothing to lose from the beginning?

I couldn’t quite grasp it, but what if the Kuwahara family had massive debt that they had to do something about? They’d be certainly kicked out of high society since they’d already fallen into debt, so they had no reason to hesitate. If the debt was paid or they received some sort of reward, they wouldn’t lose anything even if they performed this kind of farce.

Were the adults only vaguely aware of the background behind this incident? And because of that, they kept quiet… They knew that if they investigated the matter, they’d find a horrible bomb…

Of course, that was only my imagination, but… Judging how my father and the academy reacted, that wasn’t a mistake. But… even if the adults were hesitant to dig up the bomb… I wouldn’t forget. I would never forget these feelings… towards the mastermind…

　　～～～～～～～

On Monday at lunch break… we gathered without even having eaten.

“…huh?”

“Sakuya-chan, sorry!”

“Me too…”

“Sakuya-sama…”

I couldn’t understand what everyone was saying. I didn’t want to understand. Satsuki-chan, Akane-chan, Tsubaki-chan, Yuzuriha-chan, and Renge-chan… everyone was… everyone was leaving. They were all walking away.

It shouldn’t… have been that big a deal, but… Why… I was alone in the beginning, so… so I could bear this. I could endure this alone. That should’ve been true, but…

“…huh? …what?”

Droplets wet my uniform. Was it raining? That couldn’t have been true… since we were inside… my uniform couldn’t have gotten wet from the rain. But why was it… Everything was blurry, like my eyes were watery. What was… this…?