knights. Nobody tripped clumsily. Since Ikki had gotten enough sleep in the cavern, the fatigue from Ittou Shura didn't drag him down, and his walking while carrying Stella was easy. Consequently, the march progressed as smoothly as one would suppose, and all of them managed to reach the foot of the mountain where the lodge buildings were before sundown.

"Ah! Hey there, everyone! Welcome back!"

Their return was greeted by Renren and Saijou, who were waiting for them outside.

"Stella-chan, I heard you collapsed? How terrible, right?"

"Sorry to worry you. It was the first time I had a cold, so I didn't even know I had one."

"You could rest if you were just tired, but you're an extremely energetic person, right? You made holes in the ground with the badminton birdie. Thinking isn't something you can do with your body, right?"

"..Somehow, I feel like you're calling me an idiot."

..She's really not like what I think of as a sick person, after all.

Why was this girl hitting a badminton birdie as if she was playing tennis? Somehow, he had the sense that Stella would win through the selection battles as usual even with a cold.

"Having fought a giant while your partner was collapsed, you look like you've thoroughly suffered, huh?"

Suddenly, Ikki heard sympathetic words from Saijou.

"Ha ha ha.. well, I'm used to being unlucky, so I'll be fine."

"I heard you were injured, but is it serious?"

"I was only wounded a little, so no. I'm alright."

"I see."

Nodding, Saikou took out a small bottle from his pocket and handed it to Ikki.

"What's this?"

"My family is a lineage of doctors. This is an ointment made from a secret formula. It's effective on bruises, so you should go apply it."

"Is that so? Okay, thanks. I'll use it later."

Ikki stated his thanks for Saijou's kindness with a smile. Then from behind him, Utakata and the others...

"Homo."

"Is that why you don't attack me even when I'm only in my underwear in the student council room!?"

"W-W-What stupid things are you two saying!? That was camaraderie! Probably, surely!"

"Why does even Touka-san seem halfway unsure..?"

Ikki heard a conversation that gave him a headache somewhat as if he had been hit on the head.

"Sorry that my colleagues are so noisy. Well, that's how they always are, so don't mind them."

"Ha ha ha."

Saijou-san has a strong mind.

This person might also be wise in the ways of the world.

"Haa. I'm tired from walking the entire time today. And my stomach is empty. Hey, hey, Touka, let's all have barbeque before we go back."

"Ah, that would be great! I didn't eat much at noon, so I want to have some meat."

"I agree!"

Stella and Renren latched onto Utakata's suggestion, but Touka shook her head with full turns of her neck.

"No way. Stella-san is sick, you know. She has to go to a doctor first."

"Ehhhhh..."

"Stella-chan looks completely lively, so she's probably fine―"

"Yeah. I'm alright."

"See, she says she's fine. As an upperclassman and as the student council president, shouldn't you respect her independence!?"

"Even if you split hairs, no is no. If we don't take a cold seriously, it can be dreadful. In addition, Stella-san is in an important season, so if an unlikely emergency happened, it would be a disaster."

"Ooh..."

*grrrrr*

Stella's stomach, resting on Ikki's back, made a complaining noise. It seemed that her appetite really was coming back. In addition, the heat he felt from her body had also fallen considerably compared to the time they were in the mountain shack. Perhaps she had nearly completely recovered from the cold. It was a staggeringly superhuman recovery power, but if it was Stella, he couldn't say it was impossible.

"..Toudou-san. It's certainly true that we should go to a hospital, but not eating something when you're hungry is also bad for the body, you know. The body wants energy to fight the illness, after all."

"Ikki..!"

Renren shouted out.

"Ooh! That's right, that's right! Kurogane-kun said something good just now!"

"Hmm. That's true, I guess... ..I think she'll have the chance to eat meat while convalescing, but.. I understand. Then let's take Stella-san to the hospital and get her some medication, and after that we'll go to an all-you-can-eat yakiniku[8]?place. If we eat first, we won't be in time to get her treated before the hospital closes."

Utakata cheered.

"Thanks, Touka! Yahoo! Meat!"

"Misogi-senpai! Let's go to Jo●en![9]"

"Alright, leave making the reservation to me!"

"Stop! I said we'll go to an all-you-can-eat place!"

This bunch of people is as lively as ever.

But suddenly, Ikki noticed that someone was missing.

"By the way, where is Toutokubara-san?"

Renren blinked.

"Kanata-senpai? She went to receive a guest who just came."

Saijou also spoke up.

"Hmm, now that you mention it, I forgot that there was a message I had to deliver. Actually, just a while ago, someone came here to visit you, Kurogane."

"Me?"

"Yeah, it seems he came when he found out you were here after going to the academy."

Who could it be? Ikki tilted his head in confusion. Especially to pursue him all the way to Okutama. Honestly, he couldn't think of any acquaintance who would want to meet him that much.

"Saijou-san, what is the person's name?"

"I think it was―"

After thinking about it for a short while, Saijou seemed to recall.

"Ah, that's right. He gave his name as Azaka."

At the name that was announced, Ikki's expression stiffened. And at the same time―

"Oh, he's here, he's here. Finally, we meet."

A man's cloying voice came to Ikki's ears. Turning his gaze, he saw Kanata Toutokubara leading the person she had probably been receiving.

"It's been such a long time~ Ikki-kun. Ha ha ha."

An obese middle-aged man wrapped in a red suit, smiling with an Ebisu-like face.

Ikki knew him. He had met him several times during the period he lived in his parents' home.

"Ikki, who's this old man..?"

Perhaps Stella sensed something serious through his back as he carried her. She asked Ikki timidly. In response, Ikki lowered Stella from his back, and answered.

"This is.. Mamoru Azaka-san. The current head of the Kurogane house's branch family."

Just from knowing what kind of person this was, Stella received all she needed to understand the situation. Stirring up, Stella whose demeanor became like a menacing cat faced the visitor with her hackles raised.

Kanata, who had guided Azaka, expressed confusion at the mood that had grown dangerous as if the air had started to sting,

"Excuse me, is something wrong?"

But Azaka himself, who had been receiving hostility one-sidedly...

"Ha ha ha. Please don't make that scary face. I don't like it either, you know? After all, I went as far as to show up in Okutama for a good-for-nothing like yourself, right?"

Without feeling the timid situation at all, he pasted a smile on that uselessly grateful face, and spat out aggressive words. At those bluntly contemptuous words, even the people of the student council who didn't know what was going on felt the distinct animosity that the visitor was directing toward Ikki. This person was Ikki's enemy.

In that case, for Touka who considered the feelings of her colleagues, she had to fire back.

"You, what are you doing? That way of speaking, isn't it rude?"

She immediately turned an intimidating gaze toward the discourteous visitor.

"Well well, if it isn't the famous Raikiri-san. Good afternoon to you. Ah, or is it late enough for good evening? I heard your conversation, you know. It seems you went to save Ikki-kun, didn't you? No, I'm sorry, I should describe it as an upright adherence to your duty. As a representative of my family, I humbly apologize. Exactly as I said."

"Wh-Who would want an apology like that―"

"I'm truly very sorry~"

Watching Azaka speak with Touka this way, it seemed he wasn't listening to Touka's words at all. And it seemed he was one-sidedly showing his contempt for Ikki all over again. To that excessively conspicuous malice, Touka was so bewildered she became speechless. The other student council officers were the same.

And in the brief period of silence that fell, Akaza raised his face without a moment's delay.

"Well, let's please leave that aside for now, and get down to business immediately. I can't bear the many mosquitos here in the mountains. Ha ha ha. The reason I came here today, it's because the head of the ethics committee for the League's Japanese branch has something very important to communicate to Ikki-kun."

The point of the conversation appeared. Though Akaza's expression had a smile, his eyelids were narrowed into slits, and the light coming out of them was dim. That his important matter was worthless was evident even without listening to it.

But if it wasn't heard, the conversation wouldn't progress. Therefore Ikki prompted him to continue.

"I wonder what he has to say after all this time?"

"Ha ha ha. Well, it's still early for you to ask what he has to say beyond this. Here, here. Today's evening publications."

What Akaza handed over were several newspaper articles. What exactly was written there, and what did they have to do with Ikki? While feeling a strange apprehension, Ikki opened one of the newspapers up, and―

There, a photograph of Ikki and Stella exchanging a kiss against a background of many trees was published.

Overwhelmed by surprise, Stella glued her round eyes to the photo.

"Ikki, th-this is..!"

There was no mistake. In the school, in a spot in the forest that Ikki and Stella always used for training. It was a photograph of one of the times they exchanged a kiss.

That picture was published on a page of every one of the evening papers that Akaza had handed over.

Right―everything had been cleanly exposed. The relationship between the two of them. To everyone within the school.

"What a great picture, isn't it? It has your faces just right. Even though it was at night, cameras today are dreadful. Ha ha ha. Maybe you can't tell since we're in the mountains? That the public is in an uproar right now? Laying hands on a state guest, it's an unprecedented scandal."

"W-Wait a second!"

Stella snatched the newspaper and shouted angrily.

"W-What is this article!? What is this nonsense!?"

Screaming that, she pointed at the front-page stories with merry words that exacerbated the seriousness of the situation:

『The Man Who Stole a Princess's Purity』

『King of Vermillion Outraged』

『International Problem Brewing Between Japan and Vermillion?』

And there, criticisms of the person called Ikki Kurogane were published, supplied by the Kurogane family. That his behavior was bad in the old days, that he was a problem child who troubled the Kurogane house, that he was a person with a problematic personality, and so on. Furthermore, that his philandering was excessively bad, that he continued licentious associations with several girls besides Stella, going even that far.

What a bunch of utter lies. But in these articles, those lies were listed as if they were true.

「Ikki Kurogane was a boy with a notoriously problematic personality in the past.」

Stella, seeing such a statement, couldn't help but fall silent. However, to the enraged Stella, Azaka put on a grin that stretched across his entire face.

"No, no. All of that is true, you know. Even though you weren't aware, Princess. That's natural. I'm not such a good-for-nothing person that I'd spread rumors. However, we know what kind of person he was in the past. ..It truly pains me to speak ill of a relative, but this boy, he has been a scoundrel since the old days, even committing assault, theft, and blackmail. Look, there should even be comments from victims published there. Ha ha ha."

"Aren't all of those things fabrications!? That he's not the kind of person who'd do those things, anyone who knows him even a little bit would get that!"

"Ha ha ha. Well, however you think of it, Princess, the truth is this has become the news. How the general public will receive it is clear, no? The reality is, after receiving this information, the voices in the League objecting about Ikki-kun's qualities as a knight will become stronger. Therefore, the League's Japanese branch will hold an emergency inquiry regarding this matter. And there, Ikki-kun's qualities as a knight will be comprehensively inspected, and if he is judged unfit, the Japanese branch will send the League's headquarters a request for Ikki-kun's expulsion. ..Today, I'm here to take Ikki-kun in for that inquiry."

Stella's understanding solidified at Akaza's attitude. This wasn't an ordinary scandal―Ikki's family, the Kurogane house, had conceived a clearly spiteful attack on him. They were using this scandal for maximum effect, and attacking Ikki's status as a knight. By taking advantage of the scandal, they would revoke Ikki's status as a knight that was managed by League's headquarters, and impose expulsion on him. In order to suppress the failure who didn't act in accordance with the will of the Kurogane main house.

"This is is a formal hearing called by the ethics committee. If they find you unacceptable.. ha ha ha. Well, Ikki-kun's situation is growing very bad. ..Of course, you'll come along without a fight, right? Ikki-kun. Ha ha ha."

Akaza put both hands on Ikki's shoulders, and announced it with a syrupy tone.

In contrast, after Ikki was silent for a short while...

"I understand."

As if resolving himself, he answered that way. Standing upright, he returned Akaza's gaze with eyes ready to take the challenge.

Stella perceived it in Ikki's stare. A powerfully malicious ordeal like they had never encountered before was drawing near the person she loved.