Chapter 266 – 17.4 Mysterious Forum (2)
* * *
Rune Town, Nanami’s house.
Nanami was staring at a small TV with her twin sister.
“Ah, the game console brother says.”
Gaming brother.
That was what Nanami’s younger sister Shoko called Knives, meaning the older brother who bought her a game console.
“Haa~ It’s not funny.”
Kouta, the younger brother, reaches for the game console as if he is bored.
However, Nanami, her older sister, stopped it by swatting it on the back of her hand.
“Kouta. Didn’t you say you’ll let me do it after seeing the chisel?”
“Chi~. Because it’s no fun.”
Kouta grumbled, but turned her eyes to the TV.
Coincidentally, Knives was talking about Nanamine’s circumstances on the broadcast.
“In my class, I have a friend whose parents both participated in a major disaster, so his father was killed and his mother lost both legs.”
“Mom mom! We’re talking!”
“Huh? What are you talking about? Why are you talking about us?”
Kohaku, the mother of Nanami and her twins.
While watching the debate broadcast with her children, she stepped away from the TV for a while, saying that she was upset by the opinion of the opposing panel.
Then, when Nanami said that we would be talking about it, I pushed the wheelchair back and returned to the TV.
『──In the end, the last method my friend’s mother chose was to give birth to twins through artificial insemination. If you give birth to 3 or more rune holders, the tax will be reduced. Her disabled mother gave birth to twins alone and raised them! I can’t afford to pay my taxes!』
“Oh my god…”
Her old boss, no, her daughter’s boyfriend, shouting proudly into the camera.
“You remembered…”
Kohaku blushed as if she was thrilled.
“Mom. What is artificial insemination?”
Her mother silently stroked the head of her young daughter who asked innocently.
* * *
Meanwhile, Reika’s house.
Reika, who lives alone in her house, rolls over on her bed.
“Kyaaak! Awesome! Knives!”
On TV, Knives, shirtless, was talking to the camera.
“Hug me! Knives! Wow!”
-Thud.
Reika fell off the bed because she couldn’t roll over.
Even so, Reika was laughing and giggling as if she were happy.
* * *
This is Knives’ house.
Naiad and Akane were sitting side by side in front of the TV in the living room.
“──Even if both of my parents participated in the great disaster and were killed in action, the bereaved family’s pension is only 60,000 yen per month. 120,000 yen a month for two people. It was just enough for us two siblings to live without starving to death.”
“Nives…”
In fact, Knives had been on a colonel discharge pension, so he lived well. The words spoken on TV now were purely for emotional use.
However, Naiad, who does not know that it is a simple emotional arm, recalled the days when her parents died and only her brother and sister depended on each other to live a difficult life.
Naives was also calm on the outside, but on the inside, it was difficult. Naiad stole tears as he interpreted it at will.
“That fool! Why are you taking off your clothes all of a sudden!”
Akane, who was watching TV next to her, screamed in excitement.
“Just ignore that lady! Knives!”
Even though there was no way that her voice could be heard even on the TV, Akane raised her voice and cheered for Knives.
* * *
Hiyori Akatsuki. 29 years old. Celibacy.
His job is a PE teacher at Rune Academy.
Her Sunday lunch was ramen.
A thick pair of glasses in a tight sweatpants that she only wears at home, and her hair tied back in a clumsy ponytail.
An opponent who could never show the true face of Akatsuki like that was appearing on TV right now.
『When I, a foreigner, was defending Japan there, what did you do? Did she even eat a tangerine in the kotatsu?”
She was also a veteran of the catastrophe.
However, there was a part where her chest was stabbed.
“Ugh. I mean aunt…”
Slurp. Akatsuki-sensei is troubled while sucking her noodles.
For her, knowing that her students call her Auntie behind her back, it was no secret to her.
“Yet… It’s still okay. I’m still in my 20’s…”
Yes. She is different from the old woman Naives calls her.
Because the front seat is still 2. Even Naives would treat herself as her aunt…
“Kuh… !”
Hiyori Akatsuki made a quiet resolution to go out more aggressively from tomorrow.
* * *
“Knives! What are you listening to! Defeat such an ajumma!”
“Hina. You shouldn’t say things like that.”
Even the neighbors, the Kurosaki family, watched the TV discussions.
Knives’ best friend Yuuki, his sister Hina, and even Sana, the mother of two daughters.
The three mothers and daughters gathered in front of the TV side by side to focus on the broadcast.
“How. To think Knives was on TV all the time growing up so well.”
Tears welled up in Sana’s eyes.
To her, Knives was like another son. Although the relationship has changed a bit now, as a mother, her child’s growth has not changed.
“What is Knives really up to? To stand out like that…”
Yuuki was the only one worried about Knives’ future.
From the suppression of the academy terror until now, Knives has been drawing too much attention.
Knives was probably not the kind of person who liked to stand out so much. Yuuki, who knew that, was worried that something like ‘angular stones are right’ might happen to Knives.
『I had an older sister, and a friend who participated in the war with me had a younger sister. My friend and I were only 10 years old at the time. To us, from above, they made us stand on the front line, threatening, ‘If you are pushed back, your older sister and younger sister will be dragged in next!’. There, dozens or even hundreds of children my age died every day. But the reason we couldn’t back down was because we knew that after we were pushed back, my sister and her sister would be dragged away.”
“Sister…”
Hina couldn’t have known who the friend in Knives’ story was and who the sister was.
Hina held her sister’s hand, as if her emotions were moving, and she brought tears to her eyes.
“But since Unni is a woman, didn’t she have to go there?”
Yuuki couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
*
“You are doing better than I thought.”
President Ichiro Mizuki and his daughter, Kyoko.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the present country revolves around those two people.
The Mizukis were also watching a TV debate program starring Knives.
Ichiro nodded his head in satisfaction.
“I know how to move people’s hearts. Kyoko, your cutting edge was excellent.”
“Thank you, Father.”
Kyoko asked Knives to act as a substitute for the broadcast due to a different schedule.
But in fact, she had intended to send Knives there from the start.
The world is about to change.
Standing at the center of the changing world, there was a need for someone who would lead people.
It was Knives Windsor.
Mizuki Kyoko was not enough on her own. She could beg and beg and get her supporters to follow her, but she didn’t have the charisma to drag her opponents by the collar.
However, Knives Windsor had such ‘charisma’.
Kyoko Mizuki was determined to support her husband from her shadow and lead her husband to his brightest point, just as her mother Ryoko did.
『──We fought, were injured, and died. Many friends, colleagues, and family members have lost their lives.
To protect your family! To protect the people! To defend the country!
But the people turned their backs on us. The country has abandoned us.
The families we wanted to protect are still struggling in poverty. We are despised and discriminated against by the people we have protected.
How can we tell the next generation, who grew up watching such a scene, to risk our lives to defend our country? The next time the same disaster strikes, who will be willing to fight for their lives?”
A voice that touches the heart.
There was a figure of a hero who would lead a new era.
Kyoko quietly wiped away her tears.
“But… As a son-in-law, you should reconsider.”
Seeing Kyoko like that, her father, Ichiro Mizuki, frowns at her.
“The Mizuki family can’t have such a frivolous man who takes off his clothes anywhere. And besides Kyoko, don’t you have countless other lovers? I cannot give my daughter to such a man!”
As he spoke, Ichiro’s voice grew higher and higher, as if his anger had soared.
Kyoko opened her mouth with a calm expression in contrast to her father.
“Father. Are you going to tell her that her mother’s choice was wrong?”
“Kuh…”
From the beginning, Kyoko pulls out her father’s greatest weakness, her mother’s card.
There was no forgiveness between her father and daughter.
“My mother entrusted the future of me and Knives to her father. By the way, is your father going to pretend not to know her mother’s will now?”
“That, but…”
“If that’s the case, I will drop the surname Mizuki and become a simple Kyoko.”
“Kyo, Kyoko!”
A father stunned by his daughter’s bombshell remarks.
As if there was no room for negotiation on that issue, it was Kyoko who appeared as a nuclear bomb-class superstrong.
“I don’t even want to call a man a father who can’t even keep her mother’s will!”
I don’t even want to call him father.
To that remark that seemed to hit him on the head with a hammer, Ichiro Mizuki had no choice but to surrender unconditionally.
“Kyoko, I was wrong. Forgive me She’s just mad at the guy who took her beloved daughter away.”
“Joy. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Kyoko… !”
Mizuki Ichiro of the world was just a daughter’s stupid father in front of her daughter.
Meanwhile.
On TV, a certain ‘lady’ was being grabbed and dragged away by stalwart men.
Her aunt struggled as she was being dragged away, screaming loudly at her pig-necking, but no one was there to help her.
In the midst of confusion, the moderator received and read the message.
“Eh, sorry for the confusion in the broadcast. “Yuko Koike,” Who was participating in our debate, was arrested by the police on the spot after it turned out to be a powerful official of the Iltokyo, who is currently wanted. Our ‘Sunday Station’ will not stand by any crime that causes confusion in society, and will actively cooperate with police investigations. We are very sorry for the confusion caused by the broadcast. Well, then let’s continue the discussion.”
An unprecedented incident was taking place in which a panelist was arrested during a live broadcast.
