Chivalry of a Failed Knight Vol. 1

“Uh… E-Excuse me, Miss Kusakabe?” he said timidly.

“You don’t have to be so formal. Just call me Kagami, since we’re such good friends.”

Since when are we friends? Maybe I shouldn’t say that out loud.

“Kagami, could you let me go? I can feel your…”

“Oh? What can you feel?” She tilted her head. Apparently, she hadn’t noticed. Kagami finally grasped the situation when she noticed that Ikki was staring at her chest. Then, she grinned spitefully and squeezed his arm even tighter.

“Nnnope. I’m not letting go until you agree to an interview!”

“Whoooa!”

“I wanna know aaall about you, Kurogane♥” He could feel her warm breath as she whispered into his ear. She was clearly baiting him, and he knew as much.

Sh-She’s kinda cute, Ikki thought despite that. He was a growing boy. A cute younger girl being so aggressive toward him was one of the most exciting things that could happen. He knew he was taking the bait, but he relaxed against her nonetheless, faltering in the face of her nonstop assault.

“All right, Ikki, that’s enough!”

While Stella, whose patience had reached its limit, scolded him over his wretchedness—

“Hey, Kurogane! We wanna talk too!”

A pack of beasts growled at him, their malice plain to see.

◆◆◆

Five jealous boys pushed the girls aside, standing before Ikki. The largest among them spoke to him with an intimidating tone.

“You’re pretty popular, buddy. But maybe don’t get your head too far up your ass, all right? We don’t need you flirting in the classroom.”

Judging by the veins bulging out of his head, the boy glaring down at him from above didn’t seem to appreciate that he was taking all the girls for himself.

“What’s your problem, Manabe?! Jealous, much?”

“Don’t play the victim just because you’re a loser!”

“The hell you just say, broads?! Don’t you dare talk to Manna like that!”

“Okay, okay, let’s calm down.” Ikki tried to appease one of the muscular guys—Manabe’s follower—who threatened the girls. He knew they were just trying to pick a fight, but he also knew that all the noise was his fault. That said, he wasn’t looking for trouble, so he gently lowered his head and apologized. “I’m sorry if I annoyed everyone. Even if the school day was over, I shouldn’t have been causing such a ruckus in the classroom.”

“Hah! Look at you actin’ all nice, cheater.”

“‘Cheater’? When did I cheat?”

“You can trick these dumb broads, but I see you. A Rank F can’t beat a Rank A! You pulled some sort of cheap trick just so you could get some.”

“I did no such thing. Your accusation is an insult to Stella, too.”

“You still think you can go around tellin’ everyone you can beat a Rank A? You’ve got some nerve. If you’re so damn strong, Kurogane, why don’t you come practice with us?”

The five boys surrounded Ikki like hyenas encircling their prey, with Manabe’s four followers all materializing their Devices.

“Wait, are you serious?! If you guys use your Devices here, you’ll get suspended!” Kagami warned the four of them.

“Shut up, bitch! Back off if you don’t wanna get hurt!” Ignoring her warning, they readied their weapons. Judging by the fury in their expressions, they probably weren’t willing to use Phantom Form. But even as they threatened to attack, Ikki continued trying to placate them.

“We can’t fight in a classroom. Like Kusakabe said, it’s against school rules. The school has full control of when we student knights are allowed to use our powers, so we must only use them when and where the school allows. If you want to train with me so badly, I’d be willing to help you all evening at the training fields.”

That was Ikki’s brand of kindness: “If we do this, we do it at the training field.” He didn’t stand to gain anything from fighting Manabe, so there was little merit in doing so; he would have preferred to search for his sister instead. Someone had asked him to help with their training, however, and Ikki couldn’t help but be thoughtful.

“Prick…” Another vein popped out of Manabe’s temple.

Oh, of course. Ikki had made a slight mistake. What Manabe wanted wasn’t to train; it was to see a cowardly Rank F cheater begging for forgiveness after being surrounded by thugs who couldn’t “get some”. Ikki had agreed to the fight, so his condition of a change of scenery was nothing more than an insult.

“Don’t get too uppity, you stupid flunk! Get him, boys!”

Huh? Did I misunderstand his intentions?

It was too late for him to be confused; the underclassmen were unstoppable at this point. Brandishing their Devices, they began their assault.

The girls screamed as they watched the ensuing chaos that had little hope for a peaceful resolution. Things had progressed to the point where all Ikki could do was use force, so he sighed in resignation.

“Get ’em, Kurogane! I’ll testify that it was a hundred percent self-defense!” Kagami urged him to fight, promising to help him stay out of trouble. It was a welcome offer, but he wouldn’t be using his Device.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ikki replied confidently.

He immediately focused his consciousness into his eyes. First, forget colors. They’re not important right now. Thus, he blocked color from entering his vision. The world turned gray within his eyes, allowing him to focus more carefully on movement, all of which seemed to slow down.

Such a power wasn’t special at all; Ikki was merely accelerating his awareness and cognition through concentration. Any normal person could do the same. Under normal circumstances, it was a power that would only come into play in life-threatening situations. Ikki could control it at will, however—though that was only natural for someone who could use up all of his strength in one minute, as that too was a feat of pure concentration.

Ikki watched the world around him, analyzing the situation as the colorless world slowed to a crawl. There were four enemies, one coming from each direction.

The guy in front of me with the katana should reach me first. Ikki stuck out his right hand, placing the back of it firmly against the enemy’s blade. He then pushed it aside as if it was little more than a curtain.

“What the?” The boy with the katana was dumbfounded as his katana missed its mark, slicing nothing but the air. Ikki hooked his foot around the assailant’s leg—

“Aaaaaargh!”

With a sweep of his leg, Ikki tripped up his first attacker, who fell forward into another boy with a longsword-like Device, bringing them both down smack onto a desk.

That’s two down.

“Piece of traaash!”

“Diiiiie!”

Next up, the two boys at his sides attacked with a club and an axe, both aiming for his head. Countering was easy.

“Nope.”

Ikki bent his knees and brought his head down. There was a ringing noise as the steel of their weapons struck above his head.

“Gaaaaaah!”

The two of them screamed at the painful shockwaves spreading through their arms before fainting from the agony. Just one more remained.

“D-Damn you!”

All of Manabe’s bravado from earlier was nowhere to be found. Clearly flustered after seeing his four buddies taken down, he materialized his Device: a large-bore revolver, rare for East Asians. He pointed the barrel at Ikki and squeezed the trigger.

Ikki had already reacted, however. He grabbed an eraser from a nearby desk and flung it straight upward. The eraser bounced off the ceiling, wedging itself between the hammer and percussion cap, jamming the gun before it could fire one of its magic bullets.

Manabe opened his mouth to scream voicelessly, his eyes wide open as if he had seen a ghost in broad daylight.

After protecting himself from enemy fire in the most absurd way possible, Ikki stepped next to his defenseless foe. He brought his hands together with a loud clap! right in front of Manabe’s face. It was nothing more than an intimidation tactic with no offensive purpose.

“Hyah!”

It was clearly effective, though. Just from the clap in front of his face, Manabe fell weakly onto his rear and looked up at Ikki, his eyes trembling with fear and panic. That was no surprise; the unarmed Rank F before him had somehow dealt with five Blazers who were using their weapons.

Manabe didn’t have any fight left in him, so there was no need to kick him while he was down. Ikki avoided any hostile use of his Device, and the scuffle didn’t turn into an all-out brawl. With a vague smile that would tickle Kusakabe’s so-called “motherly instinct”, Ikki said, “Let’s be friends. We’ll be classmates for the rest of the year, after all.” Manabe could only nod as he continued to tremble, but he wasn’t the only one overwhelmed by Ikki’s moves. His other classmates were at a loss for words, still processing the sight of Ikki fighting off five Blazers without breaking a sweat.

“Huh. Stella, it feels different in here,” Ikki said, confused.

“Of course it does Everyone just saw how ridiculously strong you are.”

“‘Ridiculously strong’? I was trying to hold back as much as possible so I wouldn’t hurt them.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re so surprised, then.” Stella let out an annoyed sigh. “You held back as much as possible, and it still led to this.”

Clap, clap, clap. Someone started applauding from the entrance of the classroom. A small girl stood there, sunlight leaking through the hallway and onto her back. She had short silver hair and jade-green eyes. Her appearance could be summed up as “pale and frail”, but those qualities had a certain charm to them. Her tiny pink lips curled into a smile—

“Overpowering strength that wards off weaklings like nobody’s business. Just what I’d expect from you, Big Brother.” Her voice was incredibly refined, as if her words were rehearsed like a song.

“Big Brother”. Ikki’s eyes opened wide when she spoke those words.

“Are you…?” There was no point in finishing his question. Her tone, her face, and her hair were all so mature, but there was only one person in the world who would call him that. Among the vast Kurogane family tree, she was the one person who he could be comfortable around. His little sister, who ran after him wherever he went. “Shizuku?”

“Yes. It’s been a long time, Big Brother.”

◆◆◆

“Shizukuuu!” Ikki ran over and took her hand, unable to hold back his joy at seeing her after four long years. “It really is you, Shizuku! Yeah, it’s been so long! Look how much you’ve grown! I didn’t even realize it was you!”

“Of course not. We haven’t seen each other in four years. It would be stranger if I looked the same.”

“Ahaha, you got that right! Man, I’m so excited! I didn’t think you’d be the one to come find me here! I was gonna come find you as soon as I could, but as you can see, there was a bit of trouble in the classroom. But hey, that doesn’t matter now! Sorry, this is just so sudden that I can’t even think straight!”

There were so many things he wanted to say to Shizuku. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for running away, how much had happened since, and, of course, how happy he was to see her again. But his words fought their way out of his throat, leaving him unable to string together meaningful sentences.

“Hey, Ikki. Is this the little sister you were talking about?” Stella asked.

“Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah! Stella, I should introduce you two.”

Her question was like a life preserver, bringing Ikki’s mind back above water. First, he took a deep breath to calm down. From there, he tried to introduce Shizuku to everyone, but the moment he started speaking, Shizuku pulled at his sleeve until he was facing her.

“Big Brother, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you.” She put a hand on his cheek and brought their lips together.

“Ngh!!!”