The Hooligans’ Rule (Part 1)
One day after class, Chidori Kaname was on cleaning duty. She had just brought the trash to the dump site behind the northern school building and was on her way back, when she picked up on a series of sharp metallic clinks and clanks coming from the chemistry lab. The sounds of levers, cylinders, and springs snapping back and forth—all sounds she’d come to recognize by now.
“Hmm?” she said. The chemistry lab was on the ground floor, but the curtains were drawn. Kaname idly approached the window, attempting to peer through the gap in the curtains.
Inside the dimly lit room sat a small group of men, inspecting and treating a variety of firearms. They were curiously dressed in urban camouflage fatigues, with bandoliers wrapped around their chests and waists. On the tables around them sat rows of shining submachine guns, bulky shotguns, heavy-looking assault carbines, and automatic pistols. There were also spare magazines and grenades on hand.
They looked like a whole crowd of Sousukes.
“This MP5 is acting up, even though I just replaced the chamber...”
“It definitely seems to be lacking firepower.”
“Well, it might not work for fighting in the bush, but it should have more than enough power for a shoot-out in the school.”
“Plus, it’s light and easy to handle. In a setting like this, I think my M40’s at a bigger disadvantage.”
“Please, for killing our prey, even my Walthar will do. Heh heh heh...”
They spoke those sinister words while precisely and swiftly loading shotgun rounds, shifting rifle bolts, and carefully adjusting sights.
Kaname felt confused. Surely Sagara Sousuke is the only person in the whole world who’d be messing with dangerous weapons on school grounds, she speculated. And... shoot-outs? Prey? What in the world are they up to?
“This is...” she breathed.
“A coup d’état,” came Sousuke’s voice from behind her.
“Ghh—?!” Kaname almost screamed, but Sousuke quickly clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Hush,” he said. “They’ll hear you.”
“Ugh... Where the heck did you come from?” Kaname hissed back.
Wearing his usual sullen expression and tight frown, Sousuke said in a hush, “You assigned me to trash duty. It’s natural for the person on trash duty to monitor the removal of the trash.”
“How is that natural?” she wanted to know. “And who are those people? Friends of yours?”
“No, I have no association with dangerous people like that.”
Yeah, give me a break, Kaname thought to herself, but decided to hold her tongue about it.
“And did you see their arsenal? Heckler & Koch and Colt carbines, special forces P90s, Benelli shotguns... I also caught glimpses in the back of a few SAWs. With equipment like that, they could easily lock the entire school down. However... the caliber of the guns is curiously diverse,” Sousuke observed. “I felt certain that the channels through which one could acquire ammunition in Japan were limited... Chidori. I’d like to get your opinion on the matter.”
“How could I possibly have an opinion?”
“I believe they intend to mount a raid on the student council room,” he told her, “which means that we must strike first, with all speed.” Sousuke pulled a small shotgun seemingly out of nowhere and began changing out its ammunition. “I don’t have time to get my rifle from my locker. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to deal with them on my own with my current equipment. I will require your support.” Kaname began to panic as Sousuke pressed the shotgun into her hands, while he pulled out his usual trusty pistol.
“W-Wait a minute...” she tried to say.
“I’ll get around to the corridor side and burst in,” said Sousuke, cutting her off mid-protest. “You shoot from the window. You don’t need to aim at the enemy; it’s enough that you shoot at the ceiling. After firing one shot, hide immediately. That’s all I need you to do. I’ll handle the rest. Just don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. Understood?”
“But... it all seems a little sudden,” Kaname objected. “And also, are you serious? I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“It will be fine. I know you can do it.” Sousuke was adamant with her.
“N-No way! And what if I accidentally hit someone?!”
“No need to worry. That shotgun is loaded with rubber rounds,” he said reassuringly. “They’re non-lethal. I just need them to think that they’re surrounded.”
“But... I don’t...”
“They’re on the verge of overthrowing the student council,” Sousuke insisted. “You must be brave, Chidori.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about! I just think we should investigate a little more—”
“Trust me,” said Sousuke. Then he sprang into action, heading for the emergency exit door.
“And there he goes,” said Kaname. “What in the world am I going to do?”
Just then, a nearby window rattled open. They’d been talking so casually, after all, the people inside must have noticed their presence.
A man wearing a mask and goggles poked his head out of the window, causing Kaname to shout in alarm.
Then he said, “What are you doing, Chidori-senpai?”
Kaname, who’d been juggling the shotgun that Sousuke had forced on her, frowned as she recognized the voice. “Huh?”
“It’s me,” said the other person, removing their mask and goggles. “Me,” he said again. It was Sasaki Hiromi, the first-year student in charge of the student council’s equipment.
“Sasaki-kun?” said Kaname. “What are you doing? Why are you dressed like that?”
The short, baby-faced boy smiled innocently and tugged at the collar of his fatigues. “What, this? Pretty cool, right? We’re playing survival games.”
“Survival... what?”
“Survival games. You’ve never heard of it?”
“Er... that thing where you shoot at each other with toy guns?” asked Kaname, hazarding a guess.
Hiromi’s expression became a bit testy. “Hey! They’re not toys. I mean, they are toys, but... Well, we typically play in the fields outside, and we’ve been talking about taking it indoors. There aren’t many people in the north building after class, anyway. We’re hoping to get a proper club going! We’ve even asked Hayashimizu-senpai.”
“Hah...” Kaname said weakly. “But—”
Just then, a student who had been watching the conversation from behind Hiromi interjected. “Oh, Miss Vice President? We’re being very careful about safety. We take turns standing lookout to make sure that nobody enters the game space. And we pick up all the ammunition we shoot. We even brought a vacuum cleaner. I promise, okay?” It seemed they were being very conscientious gamers.
Kaname, who was finally grasping the situation, let out a sigh of relief. “Ah... so that’s what it’s all about. But you really need to get proper permission— Wait, what’s wrong?” She stopped as she realized that the gazes of the others watching her had fallen on the gun in her hands.
“Chidori-senpai, why are you carrying that thing?” one of the boys asked. “Is that one of Sagara-senpai’s airguns?”
“What? Oh, I almost forgot...” Kaname trailed off upon suddenly remembering her conversation with Sousuke. This is bad, she realized. He’ll be in the hallway right now, preparing to engage them in close-range combat. She began to say, “Guys, we’ve got trouble! You have to—”
But her attempt to warn them was interrupted by a crash. It was too late. The lab’s corridor-side door—or, rather, the wall right next to the door—fell inwards with a roar, opening up a huge hole. A hole that had been made by a directed explosive.
At almost the same instant, Sousuke came charging through the smoke with his pistol in hand. “Now, Chidori! Shoot!” he shouted, pointing his pistol at their nearest “enemy.”
“Sorry,” she told the other students, “Get out of the way for a sec.” Then she hefted up her shotgun.
Blam! Blam!
Kaname shot the rubber rounds right into Sousuke.
“Impossible... Why would you— Urk!” Shocked by this unexpected betrayal, Sousuke slumped to the ground.
Even Kaname was surprised by how precisely and calmly she had shot him. But then, her combat abilities did tend to skyrocket when it came time to put down Sousuke’s absurd behavior.
“Ch-Chidori-senpai...”
“Hmm... interesting. That felt so much like the first time I used my fan...” Kaname whispered as she gazed at the smoke rising from the muzzle.
“As usual, Sagara-kun will be covering the costs of the damaged wall,” the student council president, Hayashimizu Atsunobu, told them both calmly in the student council room after the commotion had died down. Tall and pale, with an intellectual air about him, Hayashimizu closed his fan with a snap. His secretary, Mikihara Ren, stood quietly behind him.
“However... given that he was trying to protect the student council,” Hayashimizu mused, “perhaps we will pull half of the payment from the C-fund.”
“The C-fund?” said Kaname. This was a secret budget that the student council controlled, hidden from the teachers. Not even she had been told how much money was in there.
Kaname had once asked the treasurer, Okada Hayato, how much money was in the fund. He’d responded with an unusually grim expression, sweat rising on his face. “It’s better if you don’t know. Just back off,” he’d told her. Of course, that had only made her more curious. But when she’d kept on pressing him, asking for a ballpark figure for what sorts of things you could buy with it, Okada had looked off into the distance and said, with tears in his eyes, “Enough that the old man next door would sell off his daughter, I bet.” She’d asked him what the hell that was supposed to mean, but Okada had refused to say more. Kaname had never learned if that was a large or small amount.
But all that aside...
“I’m very grateful, Mr. President,” said Sousuke, standing at attention as he received Hayashimizu’s debriefing.
“Good. Incidentally, regarding Sasaki-kun and the other students with their model guns...”
“What is it, sir?”
“These... survival games of theirs,” Hayashimizu said with a meaningful pause. “They’ve been repeatedly petitioning the student council about them.”
“Petitioning?” Kaname frowned at him.
“They wish to open a survival game club. They are seeking permission for the appropriate funds, club building lockers, and the use of school facilities for ‘practice.’”
“I see...” Kaname responded unenthusiastically. She had to admit that, even if they were just model guns, they were pretty heavy, and running around with them had to qualify as some kind of a sport, but... “But I’ve never heard of a school club like that before,” Kaname said.
Hayashimizu nodded. “Agreed. Still, I don’t believe that to be sufficient reason to dismiss their request out of hand. This school has always been quite lenient as far as clubs go. Even this last year, we approved the karate society in addition to the existing karate club.”
“Right, Tsubaki-kun’s thing...”
“And they pointed out that Sagara-kun already carries model guns around in the school...”
In other words, how could he reject their club concept when there was already a member of the student council who went around with guns? It was certainly a difficult argument for even Hayashimizu to refute. As student council president, Hayashimizu’s baseline opinion on the Sousuke issue was that he wasn’t in violation of school rules, that the equipment was a necessary part of school security, and that he had used it numerous times to the school’s benefit. Still, a neutral third party would wonder how he’d gotten the teachers on board with tortured reasoning like that. Indeed, it was a reflection of Hayashimizu Atsunobu’s skill at the negotiating table—Kaname could imagine him pulling out some serious political techniques to get what he wanted.
“I believe in being as fair as possible. I’m not a dictator, merely a representative of the common interest,” Hayashimizu said. “However, we cannot pack in too many clubs. If I were to approve every single application, our school extracurriculars would number in the hundreds. For instance, within game-related interest groups alone, I have received applications for a console game society, an arcade game society, a retro game society, a Western game society, a TCG society, a TRPG society, a war game society, an online game society, and more... it’s enough to make one’s head spin. They sound indistinguishable to me, but if you were to ask the club members themselves, they would say they’re all different. And for some reason, none of them get along. I have difficulty understanding it. The other day, I even had a request for an ‘18 and over’ game club.”
“In a high school? Why?” Kaname asked.
“I don’t know. I’m sure it was a mistake of some kind,” Hayashimizu continued, dismissing her concern. “Regardless, that is why I cannot easily accept their request. Thus, I’ve given them a condition: if they wish to represent our school, even as a mere club, they must prove that they have some level of skill.”
“In survival games?”
“Yes. In other words...” Hayashimizu looked over at Sousuke, who was in an at-rest position. “We will hold a match at an appropriate location. If they can defeat the student council’s elite representative—in other words, Sagara-kun—then I will consider it.”
“Just Sousuke?” said Kaname.
“It doesn’t have to be just him. But don’t you think that would make it easier for him?”
“Hmmm... but...”
There had been five members of the unofficial ‘survival game enthusiasts’ in the chemistry lab. Given what Hiromi had said afterwards, their group actually numbered about twice that many. Even Sousuke would surely struggle to fight that many people all at once.
Kaname was about to voice her disagreement, when Sousuke interrupted. “It’s easily done, Mr. President. I will bring all of my training to bear and crush our enemy.” He puffed out his chest proudly.
“I guess he’s confident, at least...” Kaname said with a sigh.
“Are you sure it’ll be okay?” Kaname whispered to Sousuke as they left the student council room.
“Will what be okay?”
“Well... there are about ten people on Sasaki-kun’s team, aren’t there? I’m not sure even you can handle that many alone.”
“Not an issue. Considering the welcome they gave me when I burst into that laboratory, they are extremely ill-trained,” he told her. “I can employ mines and other such measures to easily reduce their forces to less than half. Then I can pick the rest off one at a time.”
Kaname sighed. “I should probably mention that you’re not allowed to use traps.”
Here, Sousuke frowned. “What?”
“I mean, duh. It’s basically a sport,” she pointed out. “Also, no knifing anyone in the throat, sleeper holds, or hand grenades.”
“Absurd,” he scoffed. “How do you expect me to fight, then?”
“You’re supposed to shoot at each other with airsoft guns! That’s it! No one’s allowed to hurt anyone!”
“Hmm...” Sousuke looked troubled as sweat rose on his forehead.
“What are you so worried about?” Kaname asked. “Don’t real soldiers do that kind of thing in training and stuff?”
“I suppose you have a point,” said Sousuke, clapping his hands together in understanding.
“Honestly...”
“But our squad trains frequently with live rounds. And we’re allowed to use grappling and traps. Once, when we were practicing CQB indoors, I ended up fighting with Mao... and ended up much the worse for the matchup. She is a first-rate martial artist.”
“But that kind of thing is against the rules here,” Kaname reminded him.
“I know. It will be difficult facing ten men with firearms alone... but not impossible. I will polish them all off cleanly.” Sousuke didn’t sound like he was bragging, but rather as though he was simply speaking the truth. After all, he was a professional. That hobbyists couldn’t beat him was a simple fact.
After thinking for a moment, Kaname made a suggestion. “Hey.”
“Yes?”
“This sounds kinda fun. You think I could get in on it? Hayashimizu-senpai said that it was okay for the student council team to have multiple people. So...”
“No.” Sousuke quickly shut her down.
“Huh? How come?”
“You’ll just hold me back,” he told her. “It’s easier if I fight alone.”
The bluntness of his statement left Kaname stunned. “Hold you back? Me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I can’t work with you.”
“Wh-What the heck? It’s just a game! You don’t have to take it so—” Kaname was almost too confused to argue with him.
Sousuke peered seriously into her face. “Even if it is just a game, I cannot work with you.”
“Hey... are you mad at me? Because I shot you in the lab?” she whispered, looking at him with upturned eyes.
“I am not mad at you. I merely regret putting a gun into your hands. Regardless of the situation, anyone who would shoot an ally who has entrusted their life to them...” Sousuke trailed off briefly. “I simply cannot let you have my back.”
Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt like she’d been punched in the head. Uncertain of how to respond, Kaname found her voice cracking. “But... you were about to shoot Sasaki-kun and the others based on a misunderstanding! So—”
“Regretfully, that is also true. That is why I bear you no ill will. But still, I cannot work with you.”
Kaname fell silent.
Sousuke certainly didn’t seem angry, it was true. There was no real ice in his voice, either; he was simply speaking in his usual businesslike fashion, calm and professional. Kaname found herself unable to say anything more in her defense.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her again. “As I said before, I am not berating you. But I also don’t think it’s something you can understand. And I do not require your aid in this matter.” Then, as Kaname stood in place, Sousuke began walking down the hall, leaving her behind.
Even if he said he wasn’t berating her or angry with her, she definitely felt like he was. She felt like he was calling her a traitor. Like he was saying he could never trust her again...
What the heck? she thought. That’s ridiculous. After all, she was just doing the same thing she always did... This is so stupid! It was just a shotgun instead of a fan! So why does he... Feeling extremely flustered, Kaname went back to her classroom and began preparing her things to go home.
It was dusk. The light of the setting sun streamed in through the window. Kaname shoved her textbooks, notebooks, and empty lunch box into her bag and let out a sigh.
She heard a voice calling her from the door. “Hey, Chidori-senpai.”
“Hmm?” She turned and saw Sasaki Hiromi and Sousuke’s other upcoming opponents standing in a crowd there. They weren’t all first-years like Hiromi. There were second-years, too. Some were brawny or shifty-looking men, but they were probably all students at the school.
“The truth is, we wanted to talk to you about something.”
They timidly entered the classroom and explained their proposal to the skeptical Kaname.
“Serve as your leader? Me?!” Her eyes went wide when she heard their suggestion. “But why?”
Here, the survival game students folded their arms and nodded enthusiastically.
“Ms. Vice President. We’re ashamed to admit it... We’re pretty good at what we do, but...” said their second-year leader, Ihara. He was a 190-centimeter giant with a heavily muscled frame, wearing a beret. For some reason, he had a thick goatee.
“Yeah, yeah. We got pretty far in the survival game tournament sponsored by Combat Dragon magazine. Hee hee hee...” said Ebikawa, another second-year student. He was tall and lean and occasionally licked the blade of a knife.
“Heh heh heh. We really made a bloodbath of all of them. I remember some even weeping and begging for their lives...” laughed a second-year student named Inoue, a swarthy man with thick lips, a shaved head, and a large cross-shaped scar on his forehead.
“I... I see...” said Kaname, observing that the other members of the club were all similarly intimidating. They certainly seemed like the kind of people who could beat someone like Sousuke. “Um, so... if you’re that good, why do you need me?”
“Well, because...” Their leader, Ihara, looked down, trembling. Trembling violently. “Even with everyone we have, we really don’t think we can beat Sagara-kun!”
“What?”
Tears had begun flooding from the eyes of Ihara and the others, and they all ran to cling to Kaname.
“Eek!” she shouted.
“I mean, come on! You’ve seen what he does every day! The way he moves! That look in his eyes! He’s a total professional, while we’re out of shape! We can’t possibly beat him!” Ihara said, weeping.
“Hee hee... we’re going to die. We’re totally going to die!” Ebikawa laughed emptily.
“It’ll be a bloodbath! He’s going to kill us all!” Inoue cried to the heavens.
Suddenly they were a bunch of good-for-nothing weaklings, lamenting their own fates.
“Hang on, calm down! Even so, why me?! I can’t be your leader!” Kaname said, trying to soothe them.
But they emphatically refuted her. “But you can. We all know how you whipped our rugby club into shape, and you’re the only person who can kick Sagara-kun around like you do. You’re the scariest student at Jindai High School.”
“What the heck?!”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s a compliment.”
“It is not!” Kaname shouted, wanting to cry.
But Ihara and the others refused to back down. “Still, we talked it out and decided that if you helped us, we might just be able to work out a plan to take out Sagara-kun. So we’re really hoping you’ll help us. We’re begging you. Chidori-san. You’re our last hope for forming a survival game club.”
“But... I don’t...” Kaname didn’t know how to respond to a request like that out of the blue.
Ihara leaned forward immediately. “Of course, we’ll reward you. The moment we win... you know how so-and-so is coming to Japan on tour in a few days? We’ll give you luxury box tickets to his concert.”
“So-and-so? Wait. Do you mean...”
“Yes,” Ihara said immediately. “Supreme Soul Brother. Mr. Dynamo. The Godfather of Funk. Him.”
JB! It’s James Brown! Kaname found herself gulping. The fact that she lost her mind over an old man with a face you might see in Planet of the Apes rather than pretty boy idols around her own age suggested odd things about her, of course... but Kaname was a woman of taste. She knew what made a true entertainer.
“Urgh...” She wanted them. She really, really wanted them. She had, of course, been planning on going to the show already, but she wasn’t able to get luxury seats like those. How could Ihara have them?! Oh, she thought. But...
Even if it was a mock battle with airsoft guns, Sousuke was a fearsome opponent. She’d seen him use his true power several times by this point, and he’d dealt with highly trained terrorists time and again with ease. His techniques were highly refined, and he moved so swiftly that untrained eyes couldn’t follow him.
The power of a professional. Real power. There’s no way we can win. It’s completely pointless. If he gets serious against us, I’m not sure even I could lay a single finger on him...
Then Sousuke’s words played back in her mind: “I simply cannot let you have my back.”
In that instant, all thought of the tickets vanished. That’s right. It’s not just about that. Obviously, she wanted the tickets to the show... but that wasn’t all. Sousuke. What was that he’d said to me? He can’t trust me with his life? How dare he say something like that, to me, of all people? He was doing his usual stupid thing in the laboratory, and I was just stopping him in my usual way. What exactly is wrong with that? After all, he’s the one at fault! I understand he’d hold a little bit of a grudge, but he didn’t need to be that mean about it!
No. I just can’t accept it. Saying that he didn’t want to work with me... I can’t just let that go, she realized. After all, we have a special relationship, don’t we? Where did something like that come from? It’s really against the rules. Whatever. If he’s going to talk that way to me, I guess I’ll just have to teach him a lesson.
While all those thoughts ran through her mind, Kaname kept her eyes fixed on the ground and whispered, “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“I think you’re right. I think I’m the only person in this school who can beat him,” she said firmly.
The boys let out a murmur of appreciation. “I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for me to say this after we came to recruit you... but you’re really confident, Chidori-senpai.”
Hiromi’s words got on Kaname’s nerves. “But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“R-Right...”
“No need to worry. The point is, I’m taking the job.” Kaname took in a deep breath. She had to get it together and project an aura of confidence. “Okay,” she said again, “I’ll do it. Let’s get training! We’ll need a whole lot of it... yeah, we’ll work you out until two in the morning, to build up the stamina you need. Training starts at seven. Until the day of the match comes, I’m gonna run you ragged!”
“What?!” Hayami and the others looked less than enthused.
By comparison, Kaname felt power rising up out of her fists. “Shut up! If you’re gonna ask me for help, you’d better do what I say! I’m gonna whip you into shape like Manager Hoshino would! Anyone who can’t keep up is off the team! So you’d better get ready!” She stood tall and threw her fist into the air.
“Okay...”
“But let me make one thing clear... Whether it’s a sport or a battle, the fundamentals are all the same! In other words...” she pointed right in front of her. “No chickening out! Effort! Teamwork! That’s the only way to win this! We’re gonna work on those three fundamentals, and put Sousuke in his place! Got it?!”
“Right...” Ihara and the others responded, taken aback.
“All right! We’ll start with running! The road to a healthy spirit starts with a healthy body. Basic stamina training is the greatest investment of all! And so...” Kaname puffed up and pulled out her fan from wherever she always did.
As she did, she thought, Yes, this feels right in my hand! It really is the only way to go!
Kaname then flipped over the closest desk with all her might. “Training starts now!” she bellowed. “Get running!”
Fearing the unmitigated violence she seemed about to unleash, the group got running.
[To be continued]
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