Chapter 5

Certainly, going behind our leader’s back and suddenly handing in a proposal isn’t very admirable.

…Did it irritate you that the Princess acted so selfishly?

To go directly against orders, no matter how heroic the deed… If I look at it objectively, he acted far too rash.

And as we are currently the embodiment of order, those who violate our commands should receive heavy punishment.

Rather than heroes, we judge them as criminals… Should we turn a blind eye to their reckless behavior, the whole system will collapse.

Otherwise, someone else will think to repeat such a heroic deed… and thus will have a negative impact on those who would obediently follow the orders given to them.

In the end, everything will fall into uncontrollable chaos.

However. The Princess has only ever been a good child, always desperately following at your heels…

And yet he came to you all of a sudden with a proposal in hand. Should you not have given him praise for his budding independence and initiative?

Why did you deny him? No, not just deny him… This was closer to kicking a newborn into the dirt.

This is not something I can so easily agree with!

How unusual. You’re angry, Wataru.

…There are several reasons why I rejected the proposal. Some of them are more due to my personal intuition, so I’m not sure if you could agree with them even if I told you.

But if you’re all right with that, I’d like to tell you. I’m second-guessing my decision, considering this outcome.

To start with, Tori doesn’t see the whole situation…the big picture.

That’s not his fault, though. I’ve been trying to keep him in the dark about the many underhanded dealings that fine used to be involved in.

He can’t possibly know about this, because I don’t want him to know.

To him, fine is probably still the same unit who once revolutionized Yumenosaki Academy…

A noble, beautiful, righteous, heroic existence. A symbol of justice—no, justice itself.

Because fine is justice, fine must come out on top. We did win. Adults will hand their young a lie of that sort, and the child will swallow it.

That’s all it is, though—a lie. Tokusatsu shows are nothing more than fantasy worlds that deceive children.

But anyway, even though we, the righteous, were supposed to win, we suffered a loss at the DDD.

That’s can’t be—It must be a mistake. There’s no way it can be true. …Is probably exactly how Tori has felt this whole time.

And yet, no one around him, me included, voiced an objection to that loss. In retrospect, it feels like a natural result, at least from where I stand.

Fufufu. You played the role of the villain during the DDD, as if you were following in the footsteps of the Five Oddballs of the past.

You chose to put yourself in a position within this story where you would suffer your fatal defeat.

Was that your means of atonement?

It was more of a whim. I don’t expect that I’ll be forgiven, even now that we’ve left the age of “eye for an eye” behind…

I suppose I wanted to actually feel the pain, the weight of what I’d done.

But getting back on topic. Something that Tori so innocently believed in and held dear was entirely shattered at that time.

He couldn’t just stand there and accept it… And so he’s been trying to regain that which he used to dream of.

Truly, I wish I could show you the proposal he wrote up. It made me laugh…

Like, “Ah, so this is what he thinks we look like.”

Even though we’ve been bathed in so much blood that you no longer see what color our costumes originally were.

In Tori’s mind, we are angels of justice with pure white, unstained wings.

That’s what he thinks of us, and so he wants everyone else to think that, as well. And so the proposal goes.

Holy apostles swoop down upon a pearly-white palace and pierce it with the light of justice… ♪

…For those who know our past, that kind of thing is just shameless and tacky.

It was all far too aristocratic and high-brow for how I think of idols.

And frankly, it would have been a poor move, too. It would destroy everything that fine has accumulated since the DDD.

We don’t have enough time or resources to realize the stage he came up with, either.

Star Fes is not just fine’s event; we need to take into consideration the big picture and strike a balance.

Star Fes is a prelude to SS at the end of the year…

It’s a send-off party for Trickstar, so that the whole of Yumenosaki Academy can support them and uplift them in the face of their recent downturn.

I understand how Tori feels, but we shouldn’t do anything that would overtake the protagonists.

Hm. And so for those reasons, you rejected the Princess’s proposal.

There are other more minute reasons, but yes. …I also had my own misgivings about fully supporting Tori’s proposal at this point.

So I rejected it and criticized it more harshly than I needed to.

But I don’t want him to get too comfortable here… I could also see the barest hints of Tori’s entitlement in his proposal.

Like an assurance that I would never deny him because I’m his “kind and gentle Eichi-sama.”

I needed to remind him that that’s not the case at all. Even if he hated me for it…

Exactly like what a certain vampire did to Anzu-chan during Summer Live.¹

Being spoiled leads to carelessness and negligence, which in turn leads directly to defeat and then death. Confidence and trust are important, yes, but there needs to be a distinction between pampering and familiarity.

I adore my cute Tori, but it’s my job to appraise his proposal fairly.

Nepotism will only cause us to devolve into the corrupted aristocracy of an era that should have long died out.

…Would it not be better to convey your thoughts to the Princess, himself?

He probably feels as though he were slapped in the face when he tried to snuggle up to the one he loves, don’t you think?

…If he can’t come to that conclusion himself, then I’ll have to give up on him, as sad as that is.

Is this the extent of his ability? Then he’s not an idol—he’s just a fan.

If he’s nothing more than a fan, I will pamper him beyond his wildest dreams.

But if he’s truly an idol, then surely he will have countless more days just like this one.

Oh, I hate this… Every time I crawl back into bed, I feel like the next day will only bring more melancholy.