Chapter 6

Anzu-san~ Over here, over here ♪

What’s up? Today’s the Dragon King Competition—Did you come to check it out?

Or maybe you came to supervise the area as the producer?

Yeah, looks like the proposal for the Dragon King Competition never got the okay in the end~

It makes sense though, it’s a pretty violent Dream Fes. It’d be bad if someone got hurt.

There’s barely even a point in holding an unauthorized battle like this right when everyone’s about to graduate.

If you think about the logic of it all, it’s pretty stupid actually~ ♪

But y’know, I wanna give my support. I don’t think our senpais will be able to sleep well at night if they leave behind unfinished business.

I want them to get all their scores settled before they leave the nest, so they don’t have any regrets.

Kiryu-senpai’s trying to leave something behind for us, even if it puts his own position in danger. Just like what Sakuma-senpai did during Setsubun Festival.

And if that’s the case, I wanna accept what he’s giving us. I mean, it’s not like I have much to do with it this time around—more like I’m a third party. I’ve got it easy here.

Yep, I’m acting as the emcee for this Dragon King Competition.

I’ll be keeping my distance so I don’t get caught up in the fighting, but I’ll still make sure it’s lots of fun~ ♪

It’s about time for Chocolat Fes, right?

It’s this big event that nearly every unit at Yumenosaki takes part in… So I don’t wanna get hurt fighting or anything right before it.

Yeah, I’ve got Yuuta-kun taking care of all of that.

Right now, the prep work for Chocolat Fes is in its final stages. We’re slammed figuring out the processes and procedures and stuff.

We’ve also been doing lessons separately. Or really, we’ve been doing everything separately.

But once we get home, we share what we’re doing with each other so we can fine-tune things to get back on the same page.

We tell each other what we did, about practice, all that stuff.

And obviously, since you asked us to, we tell each other things on our phones throughout the day, too. We always know where we are and what we’re doing.

It’s still a little awkward kinda… but I think the distance between us right now is just right, weirdly enough.

If we try sticking together all the time, we’ll end up wearing each other down.

Fufu, it’s like we’re a married couple or something, isn’t it~… ♪

H–hey, don’t pat my head~… You want me to talk to you if I have any problems?

Well yeah, I know. If it’s there, use it—even if it’s your parents. So I’ll make full use of you, Producer-san ♪

……

Hm? Oh, you look pretty out of it, Oogami-senpai! What’s wrong? Mm~ You’ve been training with my sifu up to now, haven’t you~?

You’re a pretty hard-working guy, so I bet you’ve been going hard at your gigs for UNDEAD too without taking breaks or cutting corners, huh.

But you’ve been training on top of all that, right? You must be dead tired.

Pretty sure it’s putting the cart before the horse to wear yourself out before you even get on stage, y’know~… Dear me, you’re still a total amateur, ohoho ♪

Shut the hell up… I wanna recover as much as I can before the show, so quit makin’ all that noise next to me.

I can’t rest when there’s shit goin’ on around me, makes my nerves go haywire.

Nn? Oh, wassup… Anzu. Yeah yeah, I get it. I’m not doin’ anything stupid, so don’t worry. I trained myself up so I won’t get hurt.

You better keep away from the stage during the competition. You don’t know what’ll happen, and it’s not like it’ll be too fun for a girl to watch anyway.

Yeah, just don’t get in my way, Anzu. We’re gonna go at each other with our adrenaline pumpin’. We can’t predict what’s gonna happen when that fire’s burnin’.

You don’t wanna get a face fulla foot again, right?¹

Huh? “It’s fine; I’ll dodge it next time,” eh? You’re gettin’ all tough on me now, ain’tcha… ♪

Ossu! Let’s do our best out there today!

Oh. Yo, Tetsu-kun, you finally showed up. You even got your gi on… That mean you’re fightin’ in the Dragon King Competition too?

Uh? Is he right, Tetsu-kun?

Ossu. Or at least, that’s the plan. I haven’t fully decided though—I guess I’m still a little confused about everything. I’m pretty useless when I’ve got stuff to worry about.

But I’m gonna pour every feeling I have into my fist and throw it at Taishou. And maybe I can grab hold of something… Is what I’m thinking.

Taishou’s totally gonna be pissed at me for being such a baby though.

Wait, isn’t the Dragon King Competition a solo battle?

I thought it was gonna be the same as the one in the spring, with Oogami-senpai and Kiryu-senpai duking it out one-on-one?

Haha, I’m fine if ya wanna tag team. It can be the karate club against me and Hinata.

From what I saw while I was training, this guy looks like he can fight.

Hello~? I’m the emcee?

Don’t tell me to tag-team with you at the last second, c’mon. We’ve already got things planned out here, Oogami-senpai.

Well, it is an unauthorized match, so rules are useless anyway. It’s really “anything goes,” but…

No, there’s no point in that. If I team up with Taishou, he’s just gonna baby me and keep me at a distance.

It’ll just end up with him protecting me without me getting even a little scratch.

If the Dragon King Competition has to be a 1V1…

Then before it starts, I’ll take Oogami-senpai down so I can get the right to participate.