So I said it wouldn't be long, but I took a break from this to write a somewhat darker fic, Life Hereafter, which is now complete so I'm resuming this one! Speaking of dark, this chapter is now probably my favorite.
This couldn't be happening.
Hunched over his cell phone by the sound equipment in the presidential foyer, Terushima rewound the panning shot in a YouTube upload of Bokuto's undoing. Amidst the crowd of protesters, behind the youth and culture minister Kiyoko, he recognized a woman.
It was his wife, Hana.
Yuji gulped. Maybe she hadn't seen his televised introduction of the incoming head of state, but that didn't matter. He'd joined Kageyama and Oikawa to protect his family from arrest, but by joining the protests, Hana just sabotaged those efforts. Yuji had only one hope now with the coup gradually falling apart: get out of the Presidential Estate and dissociate himself from the traitors ASAP.
"Whatcha lookin' at?" Toru chimed, peeping over Yuji's shoulder at the paused video. Terushima yelped and spun around, hiding his phone.
"N-n-n-nothing," he stammered.
"Really? That woman looked a lot like your wife."
Yuji giggled nervously. "That woman? Nooooo," he feigned theatrically. With a devious smile, Oikawa snapped a finger above his head. Iwaizumi promptly appeared at Toru's side with two soldiers.
"Iwa, I think Yuji needs a private room to meditate on his loyalties," Oikawa remarked. The soldiers immediately grappled Yuji's arms and proceeded to drag him from the room, Terushima pleading and flailing helplessly. Once in the hallway, Iwaizumi shut the foyer's double doors behind them, engulfing the room in silence. The AV crew had been shuffled into a separate room earlier as a precaution to prevent defection. That left Toru, Iwa, Yutaro, and Tobio in the foyer. Kageyama, still dressed up for his coming out to the nation, remained squatting in an armchair, Kindaichi invariably at his side keeping guard.
Oikawa pouted when his cell phone rang. With a deep breath, he answered it with feigned glee. "Tetsu!" he sang into the receiver. "What news you have for me?"
In Ukai's office at military headquarters, Gen. Kuroo snickered; he could tell Toru's jubilation was an act. "Besides the fact the police have defected to Suga?" he jabbed.
"Is Hinata dead?" Oikawa spat, his tone changing.
"So they say…," teased Kuroo.
Toru's eyebrows furled, a fact not unnoticed by Tobio. "What's that supposed to mean? I said I wanted a body!"
Kuroo twirled the phone cord in his fingers playfully. "Well, you see, he was in Ushiwaka's tunnels, and there was a cave-in—."
"We can't screw this up again! Unless there's a body, we can't tell the public anything!" screeched Oikawa.
Kuroo shook his head and sipped a bit more of the beer he probably shouldn't be drinking. He didn't feel like explaining that the other two divisions in the 3rd Army besides Yamamoto's 12th were marching on Tokonami, meaning Narita's 4th Army had convinced them Gen. Ennoshita had been unseated. Seriously outnumbered, Tora didn't have the manpower to spread his forces across the city. All of his regiments except Kyotani's had pulled back to the 3rd Army's HQ at Chidoriyama Airfield, while Kyotani's 26th Regiment at Wakunan would shortly have to do the same.
"Before you get too excited," Kuroo interceded, "Tora did capture the people who were helping Hinata: among them, Kitagawa's ambassador."
"Kitagawa?" Oikawa repeated.
"Mhm. Tsukishima and Kitagawa's whole delegation were at Wakunan. Tora plans to keep them all as hostages at Chidoriyama."
Toru sneered. Though few knew it to its fullest extent, the grand plan was always to eliminate the Karasuno Party, have Kageyama take the fall, betray Kageyama in a staged countercoup, blame their rival nation Kitagawa for fomenting the unrest, and go to war. Kitagawa's own interference in the discord could be the ammunition he needed—if the circumstances were different. Unfortunately, between Bokuto's failure and Sugawara, it wasn't the time to be drawing the ire of a foreign power. They would exploit this turn of events later—after Oikawa's control had been solidified.
"Tetsu, preserve the evidence of Kitagawa's involvement and keep Tsukishima prisoner but release Kitagawa's delegates. We can't afford to provoke our neighbors just yet."
"You sure about that?" quipped Tetsuro.
"Don't worry. We have our casus belli," Toru continued, the warmongering phrase "casus belli" piquing Tobio's interest. "First, we eliminate Suga, and that I leave to you." Toru smirked, knowing how thrilled his counterpart would be.
Sure enough, Kuroo beamed satisfactorily. Not only did he get the pleasure of annihilating his most potent foe, Toru proved he remembered the conditions of his cooperation with the coup: eventual conquest of Kitagawa in a war that would allow Kuroo even more battlefield glory.
"May I use Tsukishima and our other hostages in taking down Suga?" Kuroo inquired.
"Whatever you want," authorized Toru, and they finished their call. Oikawa smiled at a disgruntled Tobio.
"You're planning to attack Kitagawa?" he questioned.
"What I'm planning is not your business, Mr. President," goaded Toru.
"You're insane!" Kageyama leapt from his seat, ready to charge. Kindaichi desperately grabbed Tobio's arm as Iwaizumi across the room drew his handgun and aimed it at their ally/hostage/scapegoat. Seeing the situation, Kageyama gruffly relented and irksomely jerked his arm from Yutaro's grip.
"I'm not the president. Hinata is," he murmured. Even if Hinata were dead, after everything, Kageyama would still be unable to accept the job title in good conscience.
"Hinata's dead," flatly stated Toru.
Kageyama peered skeptically at Oikawa.
"Is he?"
The two glared for several moments.
"Yutaro, take Tobio into his office, and don't let him out of your sight," Oikawa commanded.
In expectation of transporting all the hostages to Chidoriyama, the various functionaries arrested at the Wakunan Convention Center were rounded up in a ballroom watched by several, semiautomatic-armed guards. They were lined up in a row, kneeling with wrists zip-tied behind their backs. The officer under whose auspices they were detained, Lt. "Mad Dog" Kyotani, stared daggers at each prisoner as he marched along the row of dissidents. He passed Tsukishima at the end of the row and then made an about-face, glaring down on Nakashima and Kawatabi next in line to Kei's right.
"You realize this is a violation of diplomatic immunity," Ambassador Nakashima docilely objected.
Without warning, Kentaro pointed his handgun at Nakashima's face.
"Wait!" interjected Tsukishima. "They have nothing to do with this." And he reluctantly added: "I'm the one you want."
Takeru silently mourned for Haikyu's foreign minister. They all knew that if Hinata had any hope of getting out of the tunnels—if he were even still alive—they had to tell friendly forces where he planned to exit the underground labyrinth. And for that to happen, they had to persuade their captors to release at least one of them who could relay the message.
It didn't seem very likely given the unbridled ferocity of their detainer, however. As it was, the feral lieutenant ferociously eyed Tsukishima for interrupting. In retaliation, he swung his steel-toed boot into the side of Kei's head. Kei thumped down, the temple band of his glasses snapping and the snapped frames bouncing across the floor. His right eye swelled from the impact as he futilely tried focusing without his specs. He could hardly make it out when an NCO appeared in the doorway at the back of the ballroom.
"Lieutenant," called the noncommissioned officer, "trucks are ready to return to Chidoriyama. We have new orders: release the Kitagawans and take only Tsukishima."
The reaction of the prisoners was immediate. Some, like Kawatabi, were incredulous, some gasped aloud. Nakashima bent forward and quivered, trying to process why this impromptu stroke of luck had taken place.
They were going to live, and more importantly, Hinata was going to live.
Only for Tsukishima was it a mixed blessing. Kei was pessimistically certain the only reason they wanted him alive was simply to kill him later.
He very much loathed being a martyr.
Kyotani grunted, not the least bit pleased with the new command. To him, the Kitagawans were rebels, saboteurs, and dissidents. It made no sense why they should receive any mercy. He proceeded to release his anger in one lung-shattering kick into Kei's chest, making him nearly gag.
"Move!" he barked at Tsukishima, aiming his gun at him.
His vision blurred, hands tied, and right ankle still seething from the sprain during the escape from the Black Crow Hotel, Kei couldn't raise himself. After a few moments, two guards lifted the helpless hostage and led him limping toward the door at the back of the ballroom. Kei could barely make out the splotch in the doorway indicative of the NCO whose directives had just saved the lives of the Kitagawan delegation and Hinata too.
"Soldiers," Kyotani's gruff voice to the other guards decreed, "kill the others."
The order didn't process in Tsukishima's mind at first. He only realized something was amiss when Nakashima, Kawatabi, and the other civilians collectively squeaked for mercy. And then gunshots. Dozens of them, harmonizing with and stifling bloodcurdling screams. It all happened before the NCO could object and repeat Lt.-Gen. Yamamoto's orders, but it almost certainly wouldn't have made a difference. After a few moments, the screaming and the shooting stopped. The half-dozen staffers and officials from Kitagawa were slumped on the floor, bleeding and covered in blood, Nakashima and Kawatabi included.
"We're moving out!" Kyotani projected, leading his troops towards the exit. Tsukishima and the guards supporting him held in place as the officer rightly known as the "Mad Dog" filed past with a gust of wind. The soldiers marched on after their commander, Kei now crying.
It was over, he thought at last. Even if Hinata were still alive, he and the even more innocent Yachi would die of suffocation, dehydration, or worse underground—lost, alone, and never to be found. Tsukishima limped on, abjectly ready to join Nishinoya, Nakashima, and the president on the other side when his own time came.
The best laid plans of mice and men, I suppose. Any guess on who the President of Kitagawa is? I wasn't going to feature him, but now I think I'll find a way to squeeze in a cameo.
Prepare for everything to go way south-for everyone.
