Katya Edition: Second Edition

Fifty First Corpse: What Was Iwo Jima's Pride? (2)

"Something isn't right."

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Fifty-First Corpse | What Was Iwo Jima's Pride? (2)

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[ISSM: Day 1 | October - Year 1, Term 2]

I sat beside Hisashi, staring unflinchingly at the matches as they went on, but nothing that happened actually truly entered my perception and I was silent the entire time, my arms folded.

A finger poked my cheek and my hand snapped up and gripped said finger roughly. There was a small, familiar yelp and my hand automatically loosened as I blinked away the combative haze which had settled around me, finally focusing on the other side. Hisashi gripped his finger as he stared at me with a perplexed, worried expression.

"Kassy, are you okay?" He asked gently, leaning closer so I could hear him. I blinked blankly for a moment before grinning and giving him a thumbs up, not wanting to yell. He gave me a skeptical look and my grin softened into a smile. I was glad. Really glad. He witnessed something of me that I was scared to even acknowledge, yet he could still look at me with such concerned eyes. I reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling it over to me before using my index finger to write on his palm, 'Thanks. I'm okay. Was attacked. I won. Gonna kick more ass later. Don't worry.'

I felt his palm stiffen under my touch when I wrote about being attacked and I looked up to see a rare, angry expression on his gentle features. I gripped his hand tighter and repeated, 'I won.'

He paused and gave me an unreadable look before sighing and smiling helplessly, taking his hand out of mine and patting my head with it. I didn't understand this sequence of events, so I tugged on his arm and tilted my head in question. Hisashi only chuckled and shook his head, nodding toward the final boxing match as if to say 'be good and watch the match'. And so, yet again, I was left bewildered by a not-conversation with my club Captain.

Since he didn't want to explain, I wouldn't push—not like this noisy crowd would let us have a proper conversation anyway.

So far, Fujimi had the upper hand with the Fencing portion. There were nine three-point matches and of those, we'd lost four and won five, two lost to Tennoko Boys', one to Kiku Girls' and one to Iwo Jima. The Boxing portion was a race between Iwo Jima and Fujimi—Tennoko and Kiku opted out of the Boxing and Mixed Martial Art portions, so they had zeroes for those two portions. Of the twenty seven rounds fought, three for each pair of participants, we were able to accumulate a total of 216 points, while they managed 234 points.

The way the total points were calculated was by adding together all the points for each bout. Those portions which used single-digit point systems were multiplied by ten before being added to the score. So, although there was a gap between us of almost 20 points during the boxing portion, our five points from Fencing had become fifty and sent us shooting past Iwo Jima for a total of 266 points, as opposed to their 244.

Next was the Kendo portion: nine three-point matches as a preliminary, then the two winning schools would face off in three three-point matches featuring the best of each year.

This time, the game was clearly rigged. Usually, at this point, Kiku and Tennoko would face off because they were of similar strengths and there was a tacit agreement among the schools to fix it as so. But Iwo Jima was clearly worried about our lead: Kiku was assigned to go against Iwo Jima and Fujimi against Tennoko. Noteworthy is that, despite a curriculum heavily focused on arts and etiquette, both Tennoko and Kiku held onto strict traditions of Bushido. But since Kiku was an academy for rearing proper ladies, their bushido teaching was on the passive side of things: guarding chastity and supporting the husband, that kind of thing. Which meant that they weren't trained strictly in the physical aspect, thus, they were the weakest opponent in the kendo portion. Tennoko were chivalrous by curriculum, so there was no problem with pitting them against Kiku. Putting those fair ladies against the beasts of Iwo Jima? It was like a one-sided slaughter. They easily earned all nine points, shooting past us once the resulting 90 points were added to their 244, for a total of 334.