Enduring Embers
Darkness.
A darkness so deep you couldn’t see how far down it went.
Tsukasa Mikogami stood on the edge of that ebony abyss and peered in.
Why?
Not even he himself knew.
He couldn’t move.
It was like his whole body had turned to stone.
He didn’t know what to make of it.
Then, suddenly, it happened.
An arm extended up from the void.
The limb was flaming and burned to a crisp.
It grabbed Tsukasa by the throat.
Then it squeezed.
When Tsukasa glared downward, trying to see who it was—
“Such hubris—and from a common imposter. We cannot save anyone.”
—he saw a corpse wreathed in flames.
Did it belong to the man who’d made that ominous prophecy to him, Oslo el Gustav? …No.
The cadaver, with its bloodshot eyes full of malice, was Tsukasa’s father, Mitsuhide Mikogami.
With his hand still clasped around Tsukasa’s neck, Mitsuhide pulled his arm back and began dragging Tsukasa forward.
Tsukasa was powerless to fight back.
He didn’t resist as the limb dragged him over the edge and into the darkness.
When it did, Tsukasa realized something.
His father wasn’t the only one reaching out to grab him as he tumbled down toward the bottom of the pit.
Tsukasa’s mother was there, too, as was Oslo el Gustav, the terrorist who’d once pointed a Beretta at him, and everyone else he’d ever had to sacrifice. They all dug their nails into his flesh—
“Ah…!”
Then…Tsukasa Mikogami leaped up from his bed.
He looked around with ragged breath.
There was no abyss—he was in his office in Dulleskoff, the capital of what had formerly been the Buchwald domain.
Upon seeing that, Tsukasa finally realized he’d merely had his usual nightmare.
“That same dream again…?”
He pushed his bangs off his sweat-covered brow.
It was a recurring vision of his, one that he’d been having since long before he was whisked off to that other world.
However, it had been particularly bad over the past few days.
And Tsukasa knew the reason for that full well.
…It was those final words Oslo el Gustav had uttered moments before his death.
The Fastidious Duke hadn’t spoken them out of hatred or malice.
His grim prophecy had been given with an expression of pity.
…Of course, the words themselves had been nonsense.
The thought of bending a knee to Freyjagard’s empire, of submitting to the man who would allow such a despicable nation to exist, was unthinkable.
Tsukasa was entirely sure of that.
And yet…even so, he couldn’t get Gustav’s words out of his head.
The reason for that was, without a doubt…
Because he hit the nail on the head about what I genuinely am…
Out of the seven people collectively known as the High School Prodigies, Tsukasa was the bunch’s sole impostor.
One of them was a merchant whose ability to make out a hundred voices simultaneously allowed him to manage tens of thousands of people and whose keen intuition let him predict how the world would ebb and flow.
Another was an inventor possessed of an intellect that had advanced humanity by centuries.
There was even an illusionist among their ranks whose tricks befuddled other magicians the world over.
The other six all possessed unique talents that enabled them to achieve incredible feats.
They all were, without a doubt, geniuses.
Tsukasa alone was different, however.
All he did was orchestrate politics, utilizing tactics anyone could’ve used to arrive at the same results.
Before an election, politicians made campaign pledges to their people, promising to govern with a fair and even hand.
Tsukasa was merely rigorous about making good on any such oaths he issued.
As long as they didn’t give in to selfishness, in theory, that was something anyone could do.
I’m no Prodigy.
And that was why…he couldn’t save everyone.
That was why he failed the way he did.
Each time Tsukasa stood on the edge of that dark, bottomless abyss, a thought sprang unbidden to his mind.
If he was really a “political virtuoso,” then shouldn’t he have found another option, one far superior to the ones he’d actually devised?
Gustav… Was he the same way…?
Naturally, Tsukasa had studied up on his foe. During his research, though, he came to learn something wholly unexpected.
It was about the relationship between Blumheart, the Blue Brigade’s founder, and Gustav, the Blue Brigade’s sworn enemy.
Not only had they attended the Knight Academy at the same time, but the two of them had actually been exceedingly close friends. And that wasn’t all. There was also the matter of the tragedy that had befallen Jeanne Leblanc.
Back when Blumheart had stood up against the nobles’ tyranny, Gustav had been one of his allies in the fight.
It was hard to believe, but Gustav’s signature on the letter of protest Blumheart had presented to the aristocracy proved it. Once Gustav earned his dukedom after the war against Yamato, however, his relationship with Blumheart underwent a rapid shift.
Gustav began treating Blumheart with animosity. That was when Gustav drove the other man out to the sticks and started his fanatical worship of the emperor.
One had to ponder the reason for such an unexpected change of character. Unfortunately, the man himself was dead, so it was impossible to know for sure, but in all likelihood…
“In time, you, too, will learn that this world exists for one man alone. Not an impostor—a genius, chosen by the heavens to rule!”
…he’d seen something during the war.
Whatever it’d been, it was enough that Gustav threw away a lifetime of fighting back against the world and the evils of man.
In all likelihood, the thing he glimpsed was some quality of Emperor Lindworm von Freyjagard.
“A genius chosen by the heavens to rule, huh…” As Tsukasa murmured the words, he looked out the window toward the mountain range faintly visible to the far south.
That was where the Gustav domain lay, and beyond it, the Emperor domain.
As Tsukasa gazed off into the distance, there was some trepidation in his eyes. More than any hesitancy, however, the little heterochromatic orbs burned with resolve.
What will we learn there? And what will we witness?
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